Upset
Sirs:
SINCE YOU PUT HARMON ON THE COVER NOV. 6 IT IS ONLY LOGICAL YOU PUT THERE THIS WEEK THE COACH WHO BROUGHT AN UNDERDOG TEAM UP TO STOP HARMON AND BEAT MICHIGAN IN THE GREATEST UPSET OF SEASON. I REFER OF COURSE TO BOB ZUPPKE.
AN ILLINOIS FAN
Champaign, III.
Sirs:
"Also Rans. Illinois, etc."--and say just what was that score? Looks like the "Little Five" took the "Big Five" or something.
Raspberries to TIME and Michigan.
An old (1930) Illini.
H. H. HOTTES Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
Let's see you laugh off your classing Illinois with the "Also Rans."
LLOYD MICHELS Urbana, 111.
> To TIME, which contributed to Michigan's overconfidence, Illinois owes thanks. Most sports figures who appear on TIME'S covers promptly lose their form:
Col. Edward Riley Bradley (May 7, 1934). Col. Bradley had won four Derbies up to 1934. His Bazaar was one of the 1934 favorites, finished'out of the money. Col. Bradley has not won a Derby since.
Cavalcade (Aug. 20, 1934). Cavalcade won the Kentucky Derby of 1934. By Aug. i (opening of the Saratoga season) he had won almost every important race for three-year-olds, had been defeated only once and was touted as another Man o'War. Week after Cavalcade posed for TIME'S cameraman, he tripped and bruised his foot. By the time the cover appeared on the newsstands, Cavalcade had been scratched from the Travers, didn't even run. He never won another race.
Joe Di Maggio (July 13, 1936). On July 7, the highly-publicized Di Maggio played with the American League in the annual All-Star game. His record: no hits in five times up; fumbled one ground ball, allowed another to go between his legs. Score: National League 4; American League 3.
Helen Hull Jacobs (Sept. 14, 1936) had won the U. S. Singles Championship four times in a row (a record). That week she was defeated by Alice Marble, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Bob Feller (April 19, 1937). On April 24 Cleveland's 18-year-old ace pitcher injured his arm, pitched a few innings on May 18, was idle until the first week in July.
Baron von Cramm (Sept. 13, 1937) was defeated by Donald Budge the next week at Forest Hills (TIME, Sept. 20,
1937).
Wallace Wade (Oct. 25, 1937). Undefeated but tied when Duke's Wade appeared on TIME'S cover, the Blue Devils three weeks later lost to North Carolina, 14-to-6, losing the Southern championship.
Johnny Goodman (June 6, 1938). Goodman was an 8-to-1 favorite to win the British Amateur Golf Championship in June 1938. He never reached the quarterfinals. In the Walker Cup matches played fortnight later, Goodman lost both his matches and the U. S. lost the Walker Cup for the first time since the cup was put up in 1922.
Michigan's Harmon (Nov. 6, 1939) --see col. 1.--ED.
No Sir
Sirs:
Just what was "Sir" Neville Chamberlain doing in the British House of Commons as reported in TIME for Nov. 6, p. 20? The last I heard he was still just plain Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain. Did TIME knight him or did TIME slip?
JAMES A. MEACHAM Logan, Utah
-- TIME knighted him; King George has yet to do so.--ED.
Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Sirs:
Your article on hearing (TIME, Nov. 6) was very interesting and the accompanying diagram was excellent. However, I would like to know the source of your information when you say, "the 20,000,000 U. S. citizens who are grouchy, timid or asocial because their ears are dull." If you mean that 20,000,000 people, about one in every six, in this country have sufficient hearing loss to constitute a problem in their daily affairs, the statement is absurd on the face of it. Look about you at your acquaintances. How many are bothered by a hearing loss? If there were 20,000,-ooo you would see them everywhere.
There are no exact figures on the number of hard of hearing people in the U. S. but this does not deter many people from quoting any figures that seem to suit their fancies. I have seen figures ranging all the way from 200,000 to your 20,000,000 which seems a new high. My own estimate would be somewhat less than a tenth of your figure. The American Society for the Hard of Hearing is certainly doing good work but nothing is gained by making out their job to be astronomical in extent.
Your reference to "50,000 hopeless U. S. deaf-mutes" is unfortunately worded. I suppose you mean they are hopelessly deaf. But, you may be sure they are not hopeless and few are mute. The "deaf," meaning those who have been profoundly deaf from an early age, constitute the most admirable group I know of. They ask no favors, earn their own way, and probably live happier and more useful lives than most of their hearing brothers. E. B. BOATNER Superintendent
American School for the Deaf West Hartford, Conn.
> The American Society for the Hard of Hearing estimates a total of 20,000,000 dull-eared U. S. citizens (3,000,000 school children, 15 to 17,000,000 adults), 50,000 who are "stone" deaf, i.e., those born totally deaf or who became so before learning to talk. Inhibitions caused by faulty hearing are a commonplace with psychologists. No more than TIME calls Helen Keller useless did it imply that U. S. deaf-mutes were "hopeless."--ED.
Sirs:
Must compliment TIME and TIME'S Richard Harrison for the most excellent diagram of the ear. Through four years of Medicine have been looking for just such a drawing so clear and so concise. To my knowledge none appears in any textbook. . . .
MORRIS P. WEARING
University of Western Ontario Medical School London, Ont.
Thrip
Sirs:
"Not worth a thrip." Your footnote (TIME, Nov. 6) on Mr. Glass's rating of Hitler's promises explains thrip as being British slang for the threepenny piece.
I doubt if this is correct. I have never heard it so named. It is generally referred to as "thrippence" or "thrippenny bit" and in somewhat vulgar circles as a "tizzy."
On the other hand the thrip is a pestiferous insect much disliked by orchardists in California and elsewhere. The Encyclopedia describes it as of the order of Hexapoda, has firmly chitinized cuticle, and can be recognized by the combination of imperfectly suctorial jaws. It is also habitually parthenogenetic.
It seems to me more likely this was the valuation set by the learned Senator.
E. O. CORNISH Vancouver, B. C.
>The pestiferous, parthenogenetic thrip may well seem comparable to Hitler's promises. But Carter Glass meant a threepenny piece. ("Tizzy" is British slang for sixpence.)--ED.
Also British
Sirs:
A mild protest from a French Canadian. Your excellent account of the election in Quebec (TIME, Nov. 6) is marred by two obvious mistakes. You suggest that the fact that France as well as Britain is in the present war played a part. You are wrong. French Canadians voted to go with the rest of the country, and the rest of the country, as well as the French Canadians, are in this war, not for Britain, nor for France, but for freedom. . . .
Your second mistake is much the same. You say that the Right Hon. E. A. Lapointe might be Prime Minister of Canada "if he were British." As a Canadian, and therefore a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, Mr. Lapointe would be the first to tell you that he was British. The people of English-speaking Canada do not doubt that he is British--in that sense. The fact that he has a French name, is of French race, and speaks the French language as his mother tongue, are not barriers in Canada. . . .
JEAN-CHARLES HARVEY Le Jour Montreal, Que.
Sirs:
... All French Canadians are, ipso facto, whether they like it or not, British, and I assure you that the vast majority of them not only like it but are inordinately proud of it. ...
Probably the greatest Prime Minister in our history was Sir Wilfrid Laurier, than whom no finer example of British-French-Canadianism is extant.
GEORGE STEPHEN JARVIS Westmount, Que.
> Of Canadian Prime Ministers since 1867 only French Canadian was Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1896 to 1911). British to the core, he spoke French with an English accent, English with a French accent.--ED.
Just Wait
Sirs:
I wish to register disgust at your puerile article on "Musical Antiques" in TIME,
Oct. 30. To say. that the music of Bach and Mozart is "pluck-a-pluck" when played on the instruments for which it was written is as pointless as to say that of Liszt is "crash-a-crash." The whole article betrays your lack of acquaintance with harpsichord music: otherwise you would not speak of its performance as a novelty. The best boner is "Most early harpsichord music is now played on modern instruments like the piano"; to, that one should add: with indefensible violence to its texture and style. . . .
And if you think Bach and Mozart are antique, just wait: they will be as new and fresh as ever, when Franck and Tschaikowsky and Sibelius are forgotten by all save musicologists.
RICHARD T. GORE Ithaca, N. Y. Just as falcons will be new and fresh when hunting rifles are forgotten by all save arms collectors.--ED
Winkles
Sirs:
Anent Sir Philip Gibbs and "Winkles on Pins" (TiME, Nov. 6, p. 28), does not British tank officer's "dark saying" burst into klieg-light clarity when quoted as ". . . he was the winkle in [not on] the pin if war should ever begin in earnest. . . ."?
In Maine the small saltwater gastropod that abounds on the rocky coast is known as a piniwinkle (all three i's short as in pin), although referred to as a periwinkle in other sections of the country. The winkle is the fleshy snail-like occupant that conceals itself in the protective shell.
Both apt and arch is the tank officer's metaphor.
J. E. McDONOUGH Washington, D. C.
-- The winkle to which the tank officer joco-grimly alluded is a snail served at English pubs. It is extracted with a pin.--ED.
Neon
Sirs:
TIME, Oct. 23, p. 14, ". . . [John Nance Garner's] Neon-blue eyes. . . ." If you will check the spectrum of Neon you will find it emits mostly orange and red wavelengths of light. Mercury or argon are the usual sources of blue light used in signs etc.
JOHN S. ALLEN
Dept. of Astronomy Colgate University Hamilton, N. Y.
^ For hair-splitting an effective adjective, let Astronomer Allen blush Neon. --ED.
Great Georgian
Sirs :
TIME of Nov. 6 quotes New York Times Correspondent Tolischus' anecdote quoting Stalin as having reassured a Baltic foreign minister with the words, "Never mind, I'll protect you from these great Russians"--meaningful words turned meaningless because of a slight error. The reference is, of course, to imperialist traditions of Tsarist days, when the Great-Russians (Velikorussy) dominated the White-Russians (Belorussy), the Little-Russians (Malorussy) or Ukrainians and countless non-Russians, including the Baltic nationalities and Stalin's own native Georgians. Thus, Stalin spoke as one member of an oppressed nationality to another--as crude a piece of cynicism as any of Hitler's. . . . The so-called "Great-Russian chauvinism" was excoriated by all revolutionary parties prior to the Revolution of 1917. . . . This is the revolutionary past that Stalin betrays, and this is the betrayal he gloats over, by present-day Soviet policy in the Baltic, in Finland, in Poland, in Bessarabia, in the Balkans. . . .
CHARLES MALAMUTH New York City
TIME Flies
Sirs:
Clubs and news-thirsty individuals in Buenos Aires wanted TIME on time, or as near it as possible. Air Express was the answer. So we organized the TIME on Time Club of Argentina and now Panairliners flash the red TIME signal of hot world news down to Miami, over the Caribbean, along the Pacific coast and over the Andes to us in four and a half days. . .
The Club's growing fast.
C. E. MOORE
Pan American Airways, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Hills Restored
Sirs:
Even seemingly infallible TIME must err occasionally. This time it appears to have gone fancy free in its issue of Nov. 6, as regards the topography of this section of America. . . .
We will never be able to thank Nature enough for the scenic setting it has given to our beautiful city. It nestles in the grandeur of the stately hills which line the lazy Mississippi River along its upper reaches and is distinctly not on the "sweetgrass prairie," where TIME wishes to place it.
H. V. PETERSON Managing Editor The Red Wing Daily Republican Red Wing, Minn.
-- To Red Wing, TIME returns its picturesque hills.--ED.
Cactus Jack
Sirs:
Front page errors on front page issues deserve duncecaps.
TIME of Nov. 6 jumbled when it jingled of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
"He's riding high and he's riding straight, He's heading right for the White House gate."
The unpoetic minstrel of the Texas plains, who belabored the lines into being, jingled not of President of the White House Franklin Roosevelt, but of President of the Senate John Garner. . . .
ALLAN L. FLETCHER Washington, D. C.
>Right. The jumbled doggerel is from the Garner campaign song, Cactus Jack, sounds like the work of a political dude rancher.--ED.
Equal Credit
Sirs:
In TIME'S review (Nov. 20) of CBS' The Pursuit of Happiness, you told only half the story of Ballad for Americans which Paul Robeson sang so magnificently. The ballad, evidently through some oversight, was credited to me as creator. Actually, while I wrote the music, the entire text including the beautiful selections you reprinted, was the work of the young poet, John Latouche.
... I am sure TIME feels as I do that the writer of such exciting poetry should certainly receive at least equal credit with the composer.
EARL ROBINSON Long Island City, N. Y.
Unhappier
Sirs:
On p. 14 of your issue of Nov. 6 you make reference to the work of the Dies Committee and my work in connection with it. You state among other things-- "Unhappy Mr Voorhis, knowing not what he had done, had already voted to publish the names, addresses titles and salaries of 528 Federal employes' 30 District of Columbia schoolteachers, nurses' social workers, etc."
The only correction I would like to make is that I did not at any time vote to publish those names and, on the contrary, argued against their publication from the beginning.
JERRY VOORHIS House of Representatives Washington, D. C.
The Committee voted in secret session. TIME was misinformed about Committeeman Voorhis' vote. -- ED.
Man of the Year
Sirs:
Please permit a reader to submit a nomination for not one but two Men of the Year. They are Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier. . . .
Neither of these statesmen can with reason be rated above the other. ... It is the merger of their separate qualities, as well as the alliance of their peoples, which produces the force which in the end may purge civilization of Naziism and preserve some semblance of Democracy to the World'.
. . For 1939, the Daladier-Chamberlain combination, in point of direct effect upon Europe and the World, cannot be matched.
WILLIAM L. SHAW Sacramento, Calif.
Sirs:
I nominate the Mayor of Warsaw for your Man of the Year, even if the award must be made posthumously. His radio appeals rank second only to Colonel Travis' letters from the Alamo in 1836, and his fate, no doubt, will be the same.*
GORDAN KELLAM Kerrville, Tex.
Sirs:
. .-. Colonel Lindbergh, for his brave andl unselfish efforts to assure peace for our country, certainly is the Man of the Year.
HUGH SCHADDELEE Grand Rapids, Mich.
Sirs:
For Man of the Year: Joseph Stalin, for "he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus." War was an anticlimax after the shock of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The Russian. Bear is after two decades again astir . . . andl 1939 the year of its awakening.
W. D. HUMPHREY Sherbrooke, Que.
Sirs:
. . . May I submit "The Unknown Soldier" -- who has risen from the dust to become a;. most significant figure during 1939.
ROBERT J. ALLMAN Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
. . . Walter Winchell.
PHILIP R. DAVIS
Chicago, 111.
Sirs:
. . . Tony (Two Ton) Galento.
ARTURO ROSALES MORGAN
Puerto Cortes, Honduras
>Nominations for Man of the Year
are now open. -- ED.
*ED. -Latest unofficial reports say that Mayor Starzjinski is still alive, a Nazi prisoner in the Warsaw town hall. -- ED.
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