Mrs. Roosevelt and the D. A. R.

Sirs:

Does TIME not err in announcing over and over in several recent issues [TIME, March 6 et seq. ] that Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt has resigned from the D. A. R. because it did not allow Marian Anderson to appear at Constitution Hall?

I am not a D. A. R. but in the interest of fairness was Mrs. Roosevelt a member? I understood that she was not. That she was only an honorary member.

Also in the interest of fairness, is it not true that in Washington, as in all Southern cities there is a ruling . . . that no Negro may entertain in their first class halls? . . .

MARGARET GORDON La Grande, Ore.

> 1) Mrs. Roosevelt was a "life member at large" of the D. A. R.

2) District of Columbia officials deny that there is any such ruling. --Ed.

First Lady's Legs

Sirs:

I have been a subscriber to TIME for years, and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I am disgusted with this last issue, April 17. On p. 21 you speak of Mrs. Roosevelt, the First Lady of the land, whom we all respect and admire as "long-legged." I am ashamed of you.

JULIA M. PECK Pompton Plains, N. J. > TIME reported the facts.--ED.

Defenseless Feeling

Sirs:

I get the jitters every time I read in TIME, or the daily papers, the figures on the numerical strength of the U. S. Army. For example, the Detroit Free Press in a recent issue states that the U. S. has 185,000 men in its regular Army, and reserve forces of about 315,000 including the National Guard, whereas Germany, Italy and Japan have a combined active army of some 3,350,000 and reserves of about 16,000,000.

It is not the status of our regular Army and Navy that gives me that defenseless feeling, it's the lack of reserves, and this worry in turn raises the question of why cannot there be organized in the U. S. a voluntary reserve force?

My guess is that the U. S. could have within one year a semi-trained, citizens' voluntary reserve force of two or more million men at least, if official approval and public encouragement were given to such a movement. .

The social side of such a venture would not be unattractive as it would give married men an excuse for another night out a month, also enable all types of salesmen members to find new prospects and would probably increase the sales of the beer and pretzel businesses considerably. . .

W. A. SWINGLE Detroit, Mich. > When M (Mobilization) Day comes, the U. S. can throw 1,000,000 men into the field within 48 hours [TIME, Aug. 22]. Backbone of this force would be the much maligned National Guard. --ED.

Suggestive

Sirs:

Re your article, "Hold Barred," included in the Radio department of TIME, April 24, be it known to you, sirs, that song lyrics need not be guilty of lingual tergiversation with a Krafft-Ebing tinge in order to get themselves barred from the Great Chains.

I am co-author of a yearning song titled, You Set Me On Fire. It expresses the excruciating agonies of frustrated love. . . . Its lyrics are no more shocking than love is. ...

Well, sirs, Maestro Woody Herman proposed to broadcast You Set Me On Fire via NBC on the evening of Friday, April 14, 1939. NBC informed him that he must not do this thing . . . because NBC suddenly came to the conclusion that the title of the song was "suggestive." ... Is not this a vile injustice to our young people, who should be forewarned in every possible manner that they are going to writhe like St. Lawrence on his griddle unless they love wisely ?

Who is there of mature years who has not writhed? And which of these writhers emeritus, or writhers current, does not wish that he or she had been tipped off to the perils of the erotic passion by some such thing as my heartbreaking song? . . .

GEORGE C. MACKINNON Boston, Mass.

Great Neuro-Surgeon

Sirs:

I read with a great deal of interest the article on Dr. Harvey Gushing in TIME, April 17. In listing the well-known neurologists who were proteges of Dr. Gushing, I noted that one who supposedly is the ranking neurologist in the world today was omitted.

I have had occasion in the past five months to see the remarkable work of Dr. Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute and was surprised that his name was not mentioned in your list of so-called great neurosurgeons. Am I correct in assuming that this was an oversight or perhaps you may enlighten me as to Dr. Wilder Penfield's standing among the better neurosurgeons.

I shall look forward to your reply in one of your early issues.

L. SHERMAN Lynn, Mass. > An oversight it was. Great indeed is Dr. Wilder Graves Penfield.--ED.

Red Flag

Sirs:

Is Dr. Frederick Eugene Melder, "plays with toy trains" p. 20, TIME, April 17, the borderline idiot that your descriptive phrase implies? I doubt it, but I do think that TIME has slipped in not knowing of an interesting and diverting hobby, namely, Model Railroading. Your phrase "plays with toy trains," is a red flag to all serious followers of the hobby. It is a trivial matter I must admit; but would you refer to a philatelist as one who plays with bits of colored paper, to an antiquarian as a collector of junk, to a fisherman as one who floats bugs on a string, or to a hunter as one who goes into the woods to kill things? . . .

J. H. BRAMBLE Farrell, Pa.

"Dutch" Kalbfus

Sirs:

TIME (April 24) in referring to the commander of the Battle Force as Admiral Edward C. ("Old Man") Kalbfus commits a lubberish error. Just as all sailors are "gobs," masters-at-arms "jimmy legs"--all commanding officers and admirals are called "the old man" by the personnel under them.

Most any U. S. Navyman could have told you that Admiral Kalbfus had two long-established nicknames: 1) "Dutch," 2) "Ned." Far from being "old"--he is today at 61 the U. S. Navy's second youngest four-star admiral and as spry as they make them.

FRANCIS S. GIBSON U. S. N. A. 1918 Bronxville, N. Y.

> "Old Man" (distinct from "The Old Man," applied to all admirals) is a term of endearment sometimes applied to Admiral Kalbfus around the Navy Department. Admiral Kalbfus' nickname as applied by himself to himself (in radiograms to his wife) : "Durable Ned."--ED.

Still Potential

Sirs:

Mary Johnson, perhaps taking cognizance of recent figures re shortage of men on her West Coast, makes a plea (TIME, April 24) that older men be sent to war and the younger men stay home because "the country cannot afford further sacrifice of potential fathers." Not to avoid putting on the uniform again, but simply to defend the reputations of those of us who are 40 and over, I protest we are still potential. The late Arthur Brisbane argued and the still kicking Dr. Richard T. Ely (80 plus) is demonstrating that older sires tend to produce intellectually superior offspring.

Surely the older men are willing to be fathers. It is such belittling propaganda as Miss Johnson's which hampers us. Perhaps we ought to have an organization.

ALFRED WILLOUGHBY New York City

Sirs:

If life begins at 40 (Walter Pitkin) and ends at 40 in the trenches (Mary Johnson), it sure will be one hell of a nonsweet short life for us 40 '39ers.

If a man of 40 is too old to work (537 corporations won't hire him) then he is too old to fight.

But that's okay, says Miss Johnson, as brain and brawn are out, in the next slaughterfest.

Adolescence is abortive . . . diabolical cleverness begins at 40! (When is a brain not a brain?)

Wonder if we could sell that slogan to the anti-40 corporations?

Anyway Johnny Bull and Papa Daladier will hire(?) us but at what a price. . . .

FRANK ARNALD Boston, Mass.

Paris Herald Sirs:

In defense of old friends and co-workers on the New York Herald Tribune, Paris Edition, I should like to annotate your interesting article on Laurence Hills in TIME, April 17.

I worked off and on for the Herald from 1926 to 1929, and I have since watched with great interest and some pride the fortunes of those who worked with me on that spineless sheet. . . .

In those days we had on the big and busy staff Lee Stowe, now one of the Herald Tribune's ace men in Europe; Elliot Paul, whose latest novel you favorably review in the same issue; Whit Burnett and Martha Foley who left the Herald to start Story, a fine magazine still flourishing despite trans-plantings from Vienna to Majorca to New York; Will Barber, posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work in Abyssinia [etc., etc.] . . .

We worked with our tongues in our cheeks often--clipping the home papers and altering date lines, coining the expression that "it never rains on the Riviera and there's always snow in Switzerland" as we headed the press releases sent in by our advertisers, and damning the sheet for the gutless wonder it always has been--but there were times when I think our work refuted your claim the paper was run by "smalltown newspapermen." . . .

We left, almost all of us, when the Herald quit the drafty but colorful old rooms overlooking Les Halles and moved into splendor and near bankruptcy near the Etoile. We are scattered all over the world, now, but I think our records in our chosen fields indicate that the Herald was staffed, at one time, anyway, by an able, imaginative and productive crew.

WARWICK M. TOMPKINS Aboard Wander Bird Berkeley Yacht Harbor Berkeley, Calif.

"Gravy Bowls"

Sirs:

In your issue of TIME, Dec. 12, on p. 58, under the heading of "Gravy Bowls," you make this statement: "This year Notre Dame alone will have a football income of almost a million dollars."

. . . I must inform you that this statement is entirely misleading and untrue, as the attached figures taken from the books of the University will prove. You will observe the gross football receipts from all sources aggregate $501,000, against which expenses of $186,000 have been paid, with net receipts of $315,000. These proceeds are used principally to provide facilities and pay expenses for a program of interhall and intercollegiate athletics . . . none of which produces net revenue, but on the contrary is highly expensive to maintain.

Your statement implies that Notre Dame profits from football activities to the net amount of $1, 000,000, whereas the facts show the income to be much less than one-third of this amount. You apparently overlooked the fact that each participant receives but a proportion of the gross receipts, from which it must pay expenses incident to the games, such as rent for neutral stadia, printing and distribution of tickets, cost of ushers, traveling expense, cost of equipment, and maintenance of plant. . . .

G. A. FARABAUGH South Bend, Ind.

> To TIME'S Sports writer, a sound reproof for not knowing the earning capacity of Notre Dame's famed footballers.--Ep.

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