Prayers in Michigan
Sirs:
. . . We feel sorry to observe what seems a straining at an effort to be flippant, not to say smart-alecky, in referring to our good Governor as senile (TIME, Nov. 13). We Michigan folks who know Governor Dickinson think highly of him. His efforts to help a difficult labor problem in Detroit assuredly ought not to be considered senile. True he tried prayer. To be sure it was a Protestant prayer. And Mr. Murphy, now Attorney General and our former Governor, also tried prayer. His was a Catholic prayer. We Michigan folks would not think it senile or flippant if a Jewish prayer should be used in an honest effort to get the automobile workers back on the job. Many Michigan people regret your action.
HOMER GUCK Eagle Harbor, Mich.
> Shame on Reader Guck for suggesting that TIME regards prayer as a sign of senility.--ED.
Jury Not Guilty
Sirs:
Your issue of Nov. 13 (p. 18) carries an article regarding the first mixed jury in the Federal Court of Illinois.
You make the statement that "seven jurors favored setting the will aside. Five opposed." This is not true. The first ballot was nine to three in favor of setting the will aside, and it was never less than this majority.
Also, we were not told that we would be locked up till Monday if no verdict was reached. The time set was 10 a.m. Saturday.
As one of the jurors, and as a TIME subscriber, I hope you will correct these inaccuracies.
MRS. CHARLES E. MERRIAM
Chicago, Ill.
> To Reader Merriam (wife of University of Chicago's famed political science professor), TIME'S thanks for the inside story. She is not to be confused with her fellow juror, Mrs. Katherine Merrifield, wife of a Northwestern professor, whose change of mind caused a mistrial.--ED.
Or By Golly
Sirs:
"Moonfaced" am I? Because of that three minutes I did in Tobacco Road as a result of my run-in with John Barton, I've been resigned to being called "Jeeter" the rest of my days, but now you have to come along and call me "moonfaced" (TIME, Nov. 13).
For years I've set aside a section of my den for the display of trophies I've won because of my peculiar looks, but never a trophy for being "moon-faced."
It's a libel and a deep hurt to me, and to prove how mistaken you are, I'm enclosing a lovely, authentic portrait of me done in oils by Bill Scott, Minneapolis Times-Tribune artist.
Retract or--or by Golly and by Jiminy I won't let you write my next play for me.
Imagine, having dear little children shout "Hi, Moon-face" at you!
MERLE POTTER Drama Editor The Minneapolis Tribune Minneapolis, Minn.
Defiled
Sirs:
Your otherwise judicious article on Rumania published in the Nov. 13 issue, is terribly defiled by certain low remarks against that country's dynasty. In my opinion those insinuations are old lies invented by cunning foreign propagandists and used time and again to discredit a country that in spite of its precarious geographic position and much diplomatic pressure from abroad, has done more than any other small Central European state to further the cause of democracy and social justice.
By expropriating (with pay) the large estates in favor of the peasants, by creating a parliament in which every labor, professional and religious group is represented, and by openly defying the bloody plans of Hitler and Stalin, Rumania gained certain prestige in the minds of thinking men.
A respectable magazine like TIME should not become the dupe of foreign propagandists.
JOHN BORZA JR. Cleveland, Ohio
Sirs:
... Being of Rumanian origin, I appreciate the good words you had to say about the statesmanship of King Carol and of the improvements which he is accomplishing in Rumania.
However, I resent your prejudiced style of writing on that country.
M. T. ROMAN
Youngstown, Ohio
Sirs:
What useful purpose did you intend to serve with your article on Rumania?
In a few lines you recognized and praised the constructive work done by the King in the field of economic and moral regeneration of the country. Then, in the balance of the article, nearly nine columns, you went on and repeated old, used, rehashed and over publicized half-true stories.*
In the present situation the King and Rumania are doing their very best to hold their own against the forces of destruction that are menacing Europe. In the Polish drama which only recently unfolded itself the King, the Government and the people have won universal praise for the manner in which they have received and helped generously the refugees from the battle areas.
There is a bright side to Rumania and her people and this side should be brought into prominence before the American public. The King, too, under great stress and strain, is trying to do a good job. He should be encouraged, and should be aided. Let them who have never sinned throw the first stone. LEO WOLFSON
Honorary President United Roumanian Jews of America New York City
> TIME cannot alter the private lives of the Hohenzollerns of Rumania.--ED.
Trench Rumor
Sirs:
Recently you printed a letter re the U. S. Government's not paying rent for cemeteries in France where American World War dead are buried. I'm glad the matter was cleared up. Can you straighten out this rumor--did the U. S. pay rent for trenches occupied by American boys in France in 1918? Many people believe this is so. I'd like to know whether it is true.
EVE HELMSLEY New York City
> No.--ED.
Wide Open
Sirs:
A skeptical TIME of Oct. 23 reported that Antonio Longoria "... laid himself wide open . . . was a bit too specific. . . ."
Without equivocation, the supposedly reputable We the People radioviewed Doctor Longoria Tuesday, Nov. 7, as the discoverer of the "death ray."
Who's fooling who ?
E. S. ROCKETT Louisville, Ky.
-- We the People also laid itself wide open.--ED.
Worried
Sirs:
It is indeed ironic for a man to show women that men can be eliminated as a reproductive factor. Of course your article [reporting how Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus fertilized a rabbit ovum without the help of a male rabbit and brought the offspring successfully to birth] stated: "This work will in no way affect the manner of living or customs," but just let some women get their hands on his formula and develop it further and in another hundred years or so, men will be absent from this earth.
Advise Dr. Pincus to forget his formula and insure male survival on this earth.
EUGENE DREEBEN
Chicago, Ill.
"Harebrained"
Sirs:
On p. 74 of your Nov. 13 issue you quote the Eastern steel people as stating that the President's suggestion of establishing a steel plant on the Pacific Coast "harebrained."
Let us compare the facts in the case: in the protected waters of Alaska and British Columbia there are mountains of high grade iron ore and limestone, two of the essentials for making iron or steel, where the material can be quarried and placed on belts that take it directly to the vessel and then the limestone and iron ore can be taken by water to any point on Puget Sound, and at all times in protected water. Compare this with the conditions in Minnesota, for example, where they have to mine the ore, then take it by rail to the docks, load it into the ore carriers, then unload at the foot of the lakes, then ship by rail to Pittsburgh, the principal centre of processing, and then load the finished product on cars and either ship it to the Atlantic Coast for water shipment to the Pacific Coast markets, or ship by rail nearly 3,000 miles.
We have within 50 miles of either Seattle or Tacoma hundreds of millions of tons of coking coal with stronger coking properties than any coal in either Indiana, Ohio or Illinois, and just as good as the coking coal of Pennsylvania only a little higher in ash, but for the electrometallurgical process a little more ash does not interfere with the processing.
With cheap electric power here in this state and with the raw materials so close at hand, would our Eastern steel friends say that plants should be built in the East to supply the million or more tons of iron requirements on this Coast.
The last man one would go to for advice as to where to install a new drugstore would be the man with a successful drugstore on the opposite corner of the street from where you think you would like to build your drugstore.
President Roosevelt's suggestion is not only sound but very timely and an impartial survey of the subject will support his stand in the matter.
GEORGE WATKIN EVANS Seattle, Wash.
>As a Consulting Mining Engineer, West Coast Patriot Evans should know whereof he speaks. TIME merely reported 1) President Roosevelt's proposal, 2) East Coast Steelpatriots' understandable objections.--ED.
Sirs:
... We own, less than 50 miles from the border, the greatest iron deposit on the American continent, our ore running 60 to 68%, with millions of tons which can be picked up by steam shovel. This is not far from Presidio on the Texas border line. Our engineers predict that at some future time in world history, the western hemisphere will get all its ore from this section.
We have in Mexico considerable manganese ore and fluor spar, as well, two articles found in very small quantities in the United States.
We have been trying to find someone with broad enough vision and sufficient capital to become interested with us in developing these properties. There is no use bringing iron ore thousands of miles when there is a deposit 50 miles from the border. . . .
HARRY WRIGHT
La Consolidada, S. A. Mexico City
Wind Distillery
Sirs:
In re the French horn (vide TIME, Nov. 13, p. 42) permit a "cover to cover" reader a word or two. . . .
You speak of the unusual lady who had the honor to play the French horn with the Budapest string ensemble, as "snub-nosed." (I like her picture, myself.) And you deal with the instrument. The "horn" (the forest horn as the Germans call it), famed for the nobility of its tone, used chiefly to give an inner core of golden harmony to the music of the great orchestra, an instrument sonorous and yet almost incomparably romantic; for you it "beeps and purls." But that is not all. You go on to the "saliva" with which it becomes filled. Permit me, mister, just a word with you. In the course of perhaps two hours winding of the horn, the player will have to pour nearly a glass of water out of its coils and crooks. This is not spit. Shame on you! The horn acts as a still. The breath of the performer (and your breath) is a watery vapor. Remember the mist it makes when blown on a cold window pane? The coils of the horn distill out most of this water. . . . All wind instrument players (except organists and operators of the concertina) suffer from this horrible inconvenience but they do not drool while they play. Shame on you! or did I say this already?
A. C. WHITAKER Stanford University, Calif.
> Saliva is saliva, distilled or not.--ED.
What Every Soldier Should Know
Sirs:
I will be most grateful to you if you will remit me by return post your invaluable and instructive pamphlet "Background for War." No professional soldier should be without one. . . .
As within a few weeks I am leaving for France to take service in the French Foreign Legion on the Western Front I would deeply appreciate a prompt remittal. I certainly hope that TIME will reach the fire trenches "Somewhere in France." Is TIME on the "approved" list of French imported magazines? I sincerely hope so.
Please accept, gentlemen, every assurance of my most profound respect and consideration.
CAPT. MARSHALL DICKERSON Coya, Chile
>TIME still goes to France.--ED.
Snowed Under
Sirs:
Now that the Matanuska colonists have had their spuds and fodder snowed under (TIME, Oct. 23, p. 19), we look forward to another epidemic of new sob stories drooling over the hardships for which this region is celebrated.
We have long become accustomed to such inane handling of things pertaining to this country by schoolma'am writers and Hollywood movie producers, but had thought TIME dry behind the ears. Now that you are off to a good start, dish up something worthy of record. As for the yarn in question, there are plenty of other farmers in Alaska who have taken the same rap without bothering to shift their quid to discuss it. And 35 below is practically corn-growing weather.
T. R. LAMBERT
Fairbanks, Alaska
Purely Philological
Sirs:
Topping the assorted items in TIME'S People department of Nov. 13 there is one concerning a certain Cornelia Otis Skinner, described as a "monologuist," who says: "Hollywood is cheap, it's tawdry, it's wicked. The people in power are so horrible that my friends, men and women who speak my language, are miserably unhappy there."
Never having been to Hollywood, I don't know what the place is like and don't care. But from a purely philological interest I'd like to know what language the quoted lady speaks.
MAURICE WINOGRAD New York City
>Monologuist Skinner speaks English, French, German, Italian, Russian, innumerable dialects, sign language.--ED.
Lambert Plan
Sirs:
I have just mailed a copy of the Lambert Plan for Abolishing the National Debt to President Roosevelt.
The U. S. Government makes a profit of 50% on each one-cent piece coined. The Lambert Plan calls for the coining of 90 billion dollars worth of one-cent pieces. The profit, 45 billion dollars, will be used to wipe out the national debt.
You can see that the Townsend plan and Ham & Eggs are entirely feasible if financed by the Lambert Plan.
TOM LAMBERT
St. Petersburg Junior College St. Petersburg, Fla.
Durant Demurrers
Sirs:
TIME, Nov. 20 -- "Will Durant [belongs] with the modern breed of synthesizers whose aim is to get knowledge into the heads of semi-educated people."
Why do you and your sister publication, LIFE, continually poke fun at us poor "semi-educated people" who are doing the best we can toward "self-improvement"?
"Professional scholars" aren't worth their salt as long as they keep everything they learn to themselves. They need somebody to "put the stuff over."
We can't all qualify as scholars, but we can be interested and benefited. Personally, I think "popularizers" such as Will Durant, H. G. Wells, TIME and LIFE are justified. Don't you?
CHARLES BOWES Oklahoma City, Okla.
Sirs:
Your review of Will Durant's The Life of Greece smacks of pedantry.
Far more unpardonable than Dr. Durant's synthesizing are the manners of your Books reviewer. Something which also has to do with "breeds."
Would you deny a man simple arithmetic because he could not reach higher mathematics?
Dr. Durant has again served the people. Why not be fair?
H. BOLAN Chicago, Ill.
Sirs:
Thank you for reviewing my Life of Greece. Your critic stuck some pins into my sensitive ego, but they should help me to do better the next time. There is only one item that I would demur to, and that is the term "popularizer." I really have had no thought of "popularizing" history in the sense of oversimplifying it for simple minds ; I have merely applied to the writing of a history of civilization that moral obligation to be intelligible which is part of the French tradition in all fields of literature, even in philosophy. It is the curse of my life that minds accustomed to German obscurity have come to take it for granted that anything that is clearly expressed must be superficial. In my judgment obscurity is not depth, but sloth, and clarity is the result of hard work.
WILL DURANT Great Neck, N. Y.
-- TIME acknowledged the clarity and essential value of Durant's Life of Greece. TIME admires simple understandable language. But all Author Durant's clarity did not make his book a perfect glass through which to see the meaning of Greek civilization. -- ED.
Every Penny
Sirs:
MAY I CORRECT A MISTAKE IN YOUR ARTICLE ABOUT MY FILM THE LION HAS WINGS? (TIME, NOV. 20) . YOU ARE RIGHT IN SAYING THAT I HAVE MADE THE FILM WITH THE MONEY OF MY COMPANY. YOU ARE WRONG SAYING THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS BOUGHT IT, EVERY PENNY IN THE FILM IS PRIVATE MONEY, THE INVESTMENT OF THE A. K. FILM PRODUCTIONS LTD.
ALEXANDER KORDA
Los Angeles, Calif.
* Not true. Of TIME'S story on King Carol considerably less than half was devoted to his private life, an extraordinarily small amount considering how much private life he has had.--ED
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