Less Nifty
Sirs:
National Affairs (TIME, April 15, p. 20) concerning Oldster Hull--"Mr. Hull represents probably the last chance for U. S.citizens who want to vote for a man born in a log cabin."
The Beards, America In Midpassage, p. 137, satirically etch from Democratic campaign fodder--"Mr. Garner, in the revered American tradition, was born in a log cabin." Does TIME, Beards, or Democratic Campaign Book err?
STAN KING Boise, Idaho
> John Garner's avowed birthplace was a log cabin no longer existing on Blossoms Prairie in East Texas, though it was not the nifty Log Cabin Maple Syrup-like cabin of 1932 campaign posters (see cut).--ED.
Flesh & Blood
Sirs:
TIME, APRIL 15, P. 67 STATES THIS YEAR WAS FIRST TIME DEMARET PLAYED IN MASTERS GOLF TOURNAMENT AT AUGUSTA. PLEASE TELL ME WHO I FOLLOWED FOR 18 HOLES AT AUGUSTA IN 1939 PLAYING UNDER NAME OF JAMES DEMARET.
JAMES A. COOK
Chicago, Ill.
> None other than the flesh-&-blood Jimmy Demaret. TIME erred. He played his first Augusta Masters Tournament last year, finished out of the money, tying for 33rd place with Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Light Horse Harry Cooper, with a score of 304.--ED.
Henry and His Church
Sirs:
In col. 1, p. 30, TIME, April 15, is the sentence "Concurrently, with the opening of Easter Law Sittings, began the greatest flood of British divorces since Henry VIII started a church of his own so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn."
. . . There is no historical justification whatever for the remark, nor is there any need to flout the convictions of some 40,000,000 Anglicans.
Louis O'V. THOMAS
Rector
All Saints' Protestant Episcopal Church Birmingham (Homewood), Ala.
Sirs:
TIME, April 15, p. 30--To add to the number of those who correct you--
1. Henry VIII did not divorce Catherine of Aragon. The marriage was annulled.
2. Henry, a strict Roman Catholic all his days, started no new church. . . .
3. No religious change of consequence took place in England during Henry's time, except the closing of monasteries, and many of these had been suppressed before the break with Rome.
4. Religious change did come in the reign of Edward VI, was destroyed by Mary, re-established by Elizabeth, uprooted by Oliver Cromwell, and "restored" by Charles II. So if the Church of England must have a royal founder, it was Charles II. And he was a Roman Catholic. . . .
THE REV. Louis B. KEITER
All Saints' Episcopal Church
Portland, Ore.
Sirs:
Is it not about time that such a reputable journal as TIME stopped reiterating that old gag about Henry VIII being the founder of the Anglican Church? . . . For example, in "Bureau oi Information" published in the Roman paper known as Our Sunday Visitor (issue of April 1940), the question "Who founded the Episcopal Church?" is answered in this way: "The Episcopal Church is a branch of the Anglican Church. . . . This Church was not actually founded by Henry VIII . . . but under Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth the present Church was formed." At last someone in Rome has discovered that Henry did not found the Church; he simply found it.
THOMAS JENKINS
Bishop of Nevada
Bishop's House
Reno, Nev.
> On Henry VIII's divorce, TIME was in accord with standard histories (The Cambridge History, The New Larned History, etc.). Because it regards itself as a part of the universal Catholic Church (the final break taking place after Henry's time), the Anglican Church claims succession from the Apostles. Actually the Methodist Church, founded by John Wesley, might make a similar claim, since it in turn split from the Anglican Church.--ED.
Improved Patent
Sirs:
In connection with the story "Patent Sesquicentennial" p. 50 (TIME, April 15), you will be interested in the following paragraph which is also quoted in an editorial on p. 447 of the April 1940 Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.
"There is a story going the rounds that a long time ago a Commissioner of Patents of the U. S. advised closing the Patent Office because everything worthwhile had already been discovered. Being curious as to the basis of this story I appealed to my friend, E. W. Chapin, librarian of the Patent Office, and am indebted to him for giving me the actual facts upon which the story is based. As is so often the case, there was little fire, although a great deal of smoke, and this story illustrates very well how stories grow.
... It appears that in the year 1843 the Commissioner of Patents said in his report: 'The advancement of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.'
--'The Broadening Horizons of Medicine,' Overholser, Science, 90, No. 2338, 362 (1939)." ....
HUGH N. DYER JR.
Troy, N. Y.
> To Reader Dyer, TIME'S thanks for calling attention to an improved story patent.--ED.
Craftsmen
Sirs:
When a world's speed record for airplanes is established, the pilot is an important factor but the airplane builder shares at least equally in the achievement.
Was it an oversight or bad reporting that TIME failed to note that Miss Jacqueline Cochran flew an experimental military pursuit airplane, owned and designed by Republic Aviation Corp., when she flew three weeks ago, under rigid test conditions, faster than man (or woman) ever has done before on a 2,000 kilometer course?
Republic Aviation is proud of its share in this and regrets that TIME, while curt and clear, was incomplete in reporting the record.
WILLIAM L. WILSON
Director of Public Relations
Republic Aviation Corp.
Farmingdale, N. Y.
> To Republic Aviation Corp. (formerly Seversky Aircraft Corp.), TIME'S compliments on a brilliant piece of plane craftsmanship.--ED.
Sugar
Sirs:
RE YOUR ARTICLE SUGAR APRIL FOOL EDITION NINETEEN FORTY. YOU STATE ONLY ARGUMENT FOR HUGE SUBSIDIES WAS FUZZY. IN THIS CASE, IT IS TIME THAT IS FUZZY. IN SIMPLE ENGLISH, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUGAR PROGRAM AND THE PROGRAMS FOR CORN, COTTON, WHEAT, RICE, TOBACCO, ETC. IS THAT THE SUGAR PROGRAM IS PAID FOR BY THE PRODUCERS THEREOF. A TAX OF FIFTY-THREE AND ONE-HALF CENTS PER HUNDRED POUNDS IS PAID ON EVERY POUND OF SUGAR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS MONEY IS COLLECTED BY THE TREASURY, AND AFTER VARIOUS DEDUCTIONS, INCLUDING ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES AND SCALEDOWNS ACCORDING TO THE SIZE OF THE PRODUCER, SOME OF IT IS PAID TO THE PRODUCER IN THE FORM OF ALLEGED BENEFIT PAYMENTS. IN A GREAT MANY CASES, THE TAX PAID ON THE SUGAR BY THE PRODUCER EXCEEDS THE AMOUNT RECEIVED BACK BY THE SAME PRODUCER. AFTER ALL OF THESE DEDUCTS, THE SUGAR PROGRAM WILL RETURN TO THE TREASURY IN EXCESS OF THIRTEEN MILLION DOLLARS THIS YEAR.
CHAS. A. FARWELL
Chairman Educational Committee
American Sugar Cane
League New Orleans, La.
Sirs:
To say that Hawaii producers get "fat subsidies," "benefit" payments or any largess, bonus or handouts from the Treasury is a gross canard. . .
Under the present law, Hawaiian producers, in the aggregate, in order to get back $8,500,000 of the $9,500,000 of annual taxes on their own sugar have, among other things, in compliance with the law,
a) taken out of production 20,000 acres of sugar land that would otherwise return to them over $4,000,000 gross annually;
b) paid increased wages, over and above previously high standards, amounting to about $4,000,000 annually.
The conditional compliance payment under the sugar program is not a burden on either consumers or taxpayers. It is, as has been explained, merely a practical device for inducing producers to carry out certain practices deemed by Congress to be essential and desirable from the standpoint of the general welfare.
Squeezed between the upper millstone of reduced returns, due in part to restricted production and in part to low prices, and the nether millstone of increased costs, the $150,000,000 Hawaiian sugar industry showed aggregate losses during the past two years amounting to $1,500,000 after including returns of conditional compliance payments to producers.
ERNEST W. GREENE
Vice President
Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Assn.
Washington, D. C.
Sirs :
... In the April 1 issue, p. 16, on the subject of sugar you state "i.e., that benefits must be paid to foreign producers to persuade them to let United States producers exist." . . . You and your staff know neither Hawaii nor Puerto Rico are foreign countries. . . .
P. E. SPALDING
Honolulu, Hawaii
> To the Editor who failed to include Hawaii and Puerto Rico in the U. S., a sharp rebuke. It is quite true that the U.S.collects some $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 more in sugar taxes than it pays out in benefits; true also that the tax of about 1/2-c- a lb. is originally paid by processors. But after deducting about $47,000,000 net revenue to the Government from sugar taxes and duty, U. S. consumers pay, according to Secretary of Agriculture Wallace, between $215,000,000 and $250,000,000 extra each year for their sugar (at current prices) in order to support the system which makes profits possible for sugar producers--equivalent to an annual tax of $1.50 to $1.80 per capita.--ED.
Big Time Part Time
Sirs:
As a student of accounting in the School of Commerce at New York University, I wish to protest a statement which appeared in the Jan. 22 issue of your magazine.
You stated that New York U. is the sixth largest university in the country, having an enrollment of 12,745. New York University, in its July 30, 1938 bulletin, claims to have a net enrollment, for the entire university, of 47,771. The 1940 World Almanac claims that it is the largest university in the U. S., with a total enrollment of 38,163.
Obviously someone should be blushing. . . .
HAROLD JOHANSON '43
Brooklyn, N. Y.
> Counting only full-time students, New York University ranks sixth largest. Including part-time students, it ranks first, with 36,880 students. (First five: University of California, 26,004; University of Minnesota, 15,301; Columbia University, 14,211; University of Illinois, 13,510; Ohio State, 13,231.) --ED.
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