A LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a postscript to this letter a few weeks ago, I mentioned that TIME is approaching its 30th birthday, and asked you to help us make up a roster of charter and early subscribers, because many of our original records are no longer in existence.

Hundreds of you wrote in response to that request, and TIME extends its sincerest thanks to all who did. Reprinted below are excerpts from some of the letters recalling incidents from TIME'S early days.

From L. F. Young, Camden, S.C., retired Army major: "In 1923 I had just graduated from the University of California and . . . was preparing myself for a military career. General "Hap" Arnold, deep in the official doghouse for his support of General Billy Mitchell, was my first commanding officer as a major.

"I realized then that TIME offered the type of news coverage most essential to the unpredictable and varied life and duties of the professional Army officer, among others. Now, almost 30 years later, I can look back on the vindication of that judgment, both from my own actual experience and from the letter recently received from my son at West Point suggesting that I need not send him a TIME subscription, as the authorities saw to it that the magazine was available."

A batch of old bills and correspondence accompanied a note from Stephen E. Comstock, retired president of Comstock Canneries, Inc. of Newark, N.Y. One letter, dated Dec. i, 1925, said: "Sometimes, just now and then, you make me fearfully tired. It has to do largely with your accounting and record-keeping department." Another was part of an argument over whether a bill had been paid (it had been), in which he wrote on June 23, 1926: "I hesitate to send you the original voucher, because your methods to date persuade me that you are not to be trusted with important documents." (Italics his.)

But in his latest letter, 26 years later, Comstock appears to have had a change of heart about TIME. He writes: "I am an original subscriber to TIME, LIFE and FORTUNE. Believing / can trust you to return them intact, I am sending you herewith ... a few old letters which you may find of interest." (Italics mine.)

A pleasant tribute came from Eugene L. Jalbert, associate justice of the superior court of Rhode Island, who states, "without fear of error," that he has been a TIME subscriber for 28 years. Writes the judge: "I can hardly believe that TIME is about to hit the 30-year milepost. Time flies because TIME is so companionable and so frequently engrossing. World events whirl so fast that the human eye would not be able to see them in their proper perspective or the human mind to analyze them accurately were it not that TIME, with its world-covering service, brings them to one's home weekly in such enjoyable and understandable form."

TIME is a family matter with Charter Subscriber Lester Mendell, a vice president of the Bankers Trust Co. in New York City, who writes: "It has been coming to our home and to my children from the time they were able to use a magazine like TIME intelligently ... If we have one fault to find with magazines in our home it is that we subscribe to too many, and . . . some are not always read.

"TIME always is."

Perhaps the most unusual method of recalling the date of a subscription came from a woman in Manhattan, who was looking over some copies of TIME many years ago. She writes: "I came across an item about . . . Sculptor Pietro Montana. I cut out the article and gave it to Pietro Montana, whom I had recently met. He had not seen the account when it was published, and he was amazed at TIME'S definite information and its exact way of stating facts . . .

"This morning I looked through my husband's earliest scrapbook, and I found the clipping with its date, Jan. 18, 1926. This indicates that I placed my first subscription during the year 1925, under my maiden name of Alfrida T. Kramer."

The subscription is now carried under her married name: Mrs. Pietro Montana.

Cordially yours,

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