Red B.B.C.

Sirs:

I read with amusement your statement under Radio (TIME, May 22) that the news broadcasts of the B.B.C. are "straight and accurate." Actually, nothing could be further from the truth, as the B.B.C. is as Red as they make 'em, and its distorted, lying and slanderous statements are equalled only by the foreign-language broadcasts from Moscow and the nightly French, anti-Fascist "news" bulletins in Italian from Nice. . . .

It may be, as you say, that the English broadcasts from Hamburg cause amusement in England; that, however, would not be startling, as the English, with the possible exception of the Chinese, are the most hypocritical and misinformed people on earth.

Having recently returned from an extensive trip through Germany, I can testify to the fact that, contrariwise, the German and Italian broadcasts of the B.B.C. amuse the peoples of the Axis no end.

Incidentally, the "Giornale Radio" of the E.I.A.R., although censored, is the most accurate in Europe. If you don't believe it, just tune in on one (six times a day, 8 a.m., 1, 2, 5, 8 and 11 p.m.).

Naturally, I don't expect you'll dare to print this either, but I just had to get it off my chest.

CHARLES P. KIMBALL JR.

Cortina d' Ampezzo, Italy

Church Manners

Sirs:

In TIME, April 17, you published a review of a small pamphlet Church Manners, which we issued for the benefit of the people of this parish, whose manners, by the way, are perfect. Since that time we have been deluged with orders from all over the U. S. and Canada, Mexico, and the Hawaiian Islands, and the pamphlet has now run through four editions.

Our compliments to you.

THOMAS F. COAKLEY, D.D.

Sacred Heart Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Duke of Durham

Sirs:

Your great story of "Duke's Design" and good old "Buck" Duke (TIME, June 26, p. 55), brings up some of the Duke stories which cover the Carolinas like Buck Duke's Southern hydroelectric power lines and are almost as numerous throughout the South as 5-c- bags of Duke's Mixture and Bull Durham smoking tobacco.

There is one that Buck Duke used to tell on himself, of the time Mrs. Duke was dragging him through Europe into art galleries, cathedrals, etc., and while visiting Canterbury Cathedral, Buck felt tired. He seated himself in the nearest pew which happened to be the choir stalls. Quickly a sexton came up and asked if he would move for he was in a stall reserved for nobility. Buck Duke is reported to have asked the sexton, "Who in the hell do you think I am?" The sexton politely backed off and asked "Who, sir?" and Buck answered "Duke of Durham."

CHARLES EDWARD THOMAS

Indianapolis, Ind.

Canada's Empress

Sirs:

TIME, June 26, p. 2 --Canada's Atlantic pride, the Empress of Britain, is indeed roomy but emphatically not old. In her classification of express liner (the top classification), only four Atlantic liners are newer-built and two of them are newer by only one year. She is newer than the Bremen, Europa, Ile de France. The Empress of Britain has such ultra-new luxuries as snip-to-shore telephones in her roomy apartments, full-sized tennis and squash courts, private baths with 70% of cabin-class rooms. She holds the record for the fastest land-to-land crossing of the Atlantic. She is the largest and fastest ship ever to go round the world. She has more space per cabin passenger than any other ship. Empress of Britain still retains the title of the most economical steamship afloat for fuel consumption per shaft horsepower hour. She has conveyed across the Atlantic the most distinguished party since the days of Christopher Columbus. Be a good neighbor and check Canadian facts.

WM. BAIRD

Steamship Passenger Traffic Manager

Canadian Pacific Railway Co.

Montreal, Que.

> After such a boner TIME'S Foreign News Editor does not deserve it, but next time he goes to Europe let him travel on the Empress of Britain and be informed.--ED.

Latin Class

Sirs:

TIME'S reporter on People (TIME, July 3, p. 28) should go back to his Latin class. The point of the Oxford University orator's pun, in presenting Justice Frankfurter for the D.C.L., was that instead of quoting the poet correctly--Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas--he said reorum, changing the poet's "things" into the more appropriate "legal arguments."

HAROLD E. B. SPEIGHT

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore, Pa.

No blame attaches to TIME'S excellent translator; but to TIME'S printer, a ferule-rap for cold-bloodedly murdering the Emperor's Latin.--ED.

Inimitable Max

Sirs:

The following observations by the recently knighted Max Beerbohm [TIME, June 19] . . . although written at least a quarter of a century ago, are so surprisingly pertinent to the present moment that I am sure many of your readers would delight in them. The quotation is from an essay on the Republic of Switzerland in the volume Yet Again.

"A friend of mine, who was there lately, tells me that he asked one Swiss after another what was the name of the President, and that they all sought refuge in polite astonishment at such ignorance, and, when pressed for the name, could only screw up their eyes, snap their fingers, and solemnly declare that they had it on the tips of their tongues. This is just as it should be. ... In the Republics of France and of America the president is of an extrusive kind. His office has been fashioned on the monarchic model and his whole position is anomalous. He has to try to be ornamental as well as useful, a symbol as well as a pivot. Obviously, it is absurd to single out one man as a symbol of the equality of all men. ... In America, where no kings have been, they are able to make a pretense of enthusiasm for a president. But ... let some princeling of a foreign State set foot in America, and lo! all the inhabitants are tumbling over one another in their desire for a glimpse of him--a desire which is the natural and pathetic outcome of their unsatisfied inner craving for a dynasty of their own. . . . But, given a republic, let the thing be done thoroughly, let the appearance be well kept up, as in Switzerland. Let the president be, as there, a furtive creature and insignificant, not merely coming no man knows whence, nor merely passing no man knows whither, but existing no man knows where; and existing not even as a name--except on the tip of the tongue. . . ."

HERBERT O. WILLIAMS

Philadelphia, Pa.

Dramatic Find

Sirs:

What Tiberius looked like must still remain unknown despite the panels lately found under the Palazzo della Cancelleria, incidentally the most impressive artistic discovery made in Rome since the days of the Renaissance. In reporting that the main figure on the panels was the morose Emperor, TIME (June 12) was repeating an early opinion of their discoverer, Dr. Filippo Maggi. Yesterday, before the Pontifical Academy of Archeology, Dr. Maggi corrected himself, proved to many, but not all, the academicians' satisfaction that the emperor in question is Vespasian, that perhaps another figure in the marble pageant is Domitian. The Cancelleria discovery, made and handled by reticent Vatican scholars, was for long months kept a secret. This reticence has deprived your readers of the account of one of the most dramatic archeological finds to be made in our time.

In the bowels of Rome still run, or stagnate, the "lost waters" which F. Marion Crawford used so effectively in one of his novels. Workmen repairing, way down below Rome's present surface, the water-soaked Roman foundations of the Cancelleria Palace, casually mentioned to Dr. Maggi that they had noticed, under the water's level, some queer stone objects. Lying flat on a plank thrown across the water's muddy surface, Dr. Maggi plunged in his arm and shoulder and fingered what were apparently a series of plain slabs leaning against a wall. Lowering himself still further, his hand finally reached the inside of the slabs and felt the bold relief of sculpture! In the flare of acetylene lamps, pumps were set to work, pulleys rigged, and the giant panels--evidently stored away in this spot in Roman times--opened out like the pages of a monumental marble book. . . . Before Dr. Maggi's lucky eyes appeared a perfectly preserved array of gorgeous scenes and portraits of the golden age of Roman art: people of marble on whose fine, character-revealing faces eyes will linger when people of flesh, now making news for TIME, will have long been rotted by earth, blown away in dust.

UGUCCIONE RANIERI DI GORBELLO

Rome, Italy

Aristobrats, Kudosed

Sirs:

In TIME, July 3, p. 28 you refer to the five young reprobates who tarred and feathered Count Igor Cassini, as "aristobrats."

Was that "b" instead of "c" a slip of the operator or have you intentionally given me a new word to use in referring to local "would be's" and "wish they were's"?

Lower in the same column I read, "Kudosed last week," Benes, MacLeish, etc. etc.

Kudosed is not to be found in my vocabulary or dictionary.

Must I buy a new dictionary or discontinue TIME?

C. H. CHILDS

Meriden, Conn.

> No slip was "aristobrats." For "kudosed," let Reader Childs consult Webster's New International Dictionary.--ED.

Dead Soldier

Sirs: In perusing copies of your excellent, and generally most fair and impartial weekly, I have frequently come across extremely unsavory allusions to the moral character of the late Captain Ernst Roehm. You generally refer to this unhappy individual as "a notorious homosexualist" along with other, equally derogatory remarks.

Having served for four years as a combat officer in the Bolivian Army, both in war and peace, I naturally came in contact with many members of the Corps of Officers of the Bolivian Army of all ranks, who knew Captain Roehm under the most intimate conditions. All were unanimous in stating that at no time did he exhibit any evidence of alleged moral depravity of any nature. ... It is believed in the Bolivian Army that Hitler, apprehensive of his growing popularity and political power, had him foully murdered in the Great Purge and trumped up those outrageous charges against him in order to justify his act. Captain Roehm, who was attached to the Bolivian Army General Staff, had the reputation of being a keen and competent professional soldier, and was much admired and respected by all who came in contact with him.

I appeal to your customary fairness to publish these few words as a refutation to what is, I am sure, an outrageous and lying calumny against the memory of a dead soldier. While entertain the utmost abhorrence for his political activities, I am sure that he is innocent of such abominable charges.

MARSHALL DICKERSON (Captain)

Braden Copper Co.

Coya, Chile

Appealing Notice

Sirs:

I have not missed a copy of TIME since it started. I have read every word of every number. Always I have enjoyed and admired it.

Now I wish to announce the work I prize above all. It is your most clever and appealing notice of Walt Mason's death [TIME, July 3, p. 31]. He was my friend.

JOHN HANDLY. C. S. P

Old St. Mary's

Chicago, Ill.

TIME and Teeth

Sirs:

. . . Recently I introduced TIME Magazine to the natives of the Soela Island Group Spice Islands, Dutch East Indies. It ran my false teeth a close second for popularity. Dozens of natives came and asked to see me take out my lower partial plate. After three days of this I sprung my copy of TIME on them instead. . . .

EDNA MORRIS DEVIN

Missionary at large in the Moluccas Amboina, Ambon, N. E. I.

March King's Royalties

Sirs:

I note from your article "Der Vashington Pust" in TIME, June 26, that those Shylocks, the music publishers, have been at it again with the victim this time no less a personage than the late John Philip Sousa. .

It is true that Mr. Sousa originally sold Washington Post to a Philadelphia pub:lisher for $35. Later Carl Fischer purchased that publisher's catalogue including the Sousa music. Thereafter (still during the term of the first copyright period) Carl Fischer made a new agreement with Mr. Sousa in accordance with which Mr. Sousa and his estate were to receive a royalty on every copy sold in every arrangement published. . . .

I am happy to assure you that since 1914 when we made our agreement with the March King he, and later his estate, have received a royalty on every single copy printed and sold by us.

ERIC VON DER GOLTZ JR.

Carl Fischer, Inc.

New York City

> To Carl Fischer, Inc., apologies for an inadvertent omission.--ED.

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