Herewith are excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain either supplementary to, or corrective of, news previously published in TIME.
Seaplanes
TIME
New York, N. Y.
Ministerio de Marina, Lima, Peru. May 27, 1925.
Being one of the charter subscribers to TIME and one of its most ardent admirers, I feel justified in writing to correct a misstatement appearing on Page 20 of the issue of( May 11, just arrived.
I have, at various times before, felt moved to write you, but usually in protest to some of the letters from readers, rather than to the paper. I did, once, protest against an unjust portrayal of the President of this country evidently written by a person on the staff who had never "been here and much less known Mr. Leguia.*
This time, however, it strikes nearer home. Under AERONAUTICS, appears the following: "Hitherto, no seaplane has flown for more than 15 hours at a time, etc. I, personally happened to have been the Commanding Officer and First Pilot of Navy Seaplane No. 3589 F-S-L type, which left the water at 11 00 a. m. on Apr. 21, 1919, at Hampton Roads Va., and flew continuously until 8:12 a. m. the following dav, having remained in the air 20 hours and 12 minutes, establishing a world's record for seaplanes which I believe has not since been exceeded. I was accompanied on this flight by three other pilots and we took turns during, the flight One of these officers, Lieut. Irvine, is still in the service; another, Ensign Thomas, is dead, and the third, Ensign Souther is in civil life. This flight is on record in the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department
I call your attention to this error, not because I feel slighted, but to assure that due credit is given the Naval Air Service of our country for their accomplishments.
H. B. GROW, Lieut. Commander, U. S. Navy, Naval Mission to Peru, Foreign Station Annex, N. Y. Post Office.
Gets Proof
TIME Rochester, Minn. New York, N. Y. June 22, 1925.
Sirs: I would be very glad to have a proof of your excellent sketch of Dr. Charlie on today's cover. MINOR BLACKFORD.
A press proof of the drawing of Dr. Charles H. Mayo that appeared on cover of TIME for June 22 was mailed gratis to Subscriber Blackford.-- ED.
Wonder-City
TIME Jacksonville, New York, N. Y. June 23, 1925.
Sirs: As one of the Original Subscribers to TIME one and who a has had constant the reader privilege thereof, as well as one who has had the priviege of being a pupil of William Lyon Phelps during my college career at Yale, of course I noted the comment on Page 14 of June 15 number of the offer to Prof. Phelps of the presidency of the new university at Miami, Fla., and cannot refrain from writing this note. . . .
Had the writer of the article known just a little more about Miami and what a delightful, wonderful city it is and how many thousands of people of the highest type of American citizenship make it their year-round, permanent home he would not have written as he did. . . .
I have never lived in Miami and hold no brief for it except that it is a part of Florida. The 100,000 people who live there are more than able to take care of themselves and their city, which is now of sufficient importance to need no defenders. Such articles as the one mentioned do no one any good and surely do TIME no good; on the other hand, such efffusions of ignorance and attempted wit only calculated to put TIME in the same category, in the minds of people who know, as that occupied by another magazine called Liberty, on account of its recent occasion of a publication of a libelous article by one Frank Condon, of California, who confessed that he had never seen Florida, and then proceeded to tell everything he didn't know about it. Briefly, the attitude referred to is one of contempt.
TIME is too good a publication to permit of such in its pages.
W. R. LETCHER.
P. S. I have taken the trouble to write this leter in longhand, that you may know that it is absolutely personal.
TIME had referred to Miami as the hotel town, the real-estate-boom town, the Nassau bootleggers' town, the rich Northerners' villa town."--ED.
From Texas TIME New York, N. Y.Austin, Texas. June 22, 1925.
Sirs: Every now and then in the history of my acquaintance of TIME I have had in mind, after the fashion of Stephen Leacock, to write you a simple and dignified letter of remonstrance.
One of these occasions was when I read an account of Shelley's cremation at a Washington breakfast table on a hot June morning. Obviously my request there would have been the elimination of overmuch grewsomeness.
Another was the occasion of your chronicling the last stages of the World Flyers' journey according to the original program, instead of the revised itinerary, thereby entailing the omission of their several days' passage and rest in Texas.
Another was the occasion of your stating in a footnote the myth of Thomas Jefferson's riding to his inauguration and tying his horse at Capitol gate.
Fortunately or unfortunately, my good intentions on all these occasions were forgotten before I found a stenographer handy to take the letter. Today, however, being more fortunate I am writing to comment briefly upon the first paragraph under the heading "College-To-Be in the number for June 15, page 14.
My comment is simply that, in the first place the people who would contemplate going to the University of Texas or Baylor University or Austin College, would not contemplate goint to Samuel Houston College or Wiley University, the latter two being exclusively for colored youth. In the second place, I suspect it would take nearer 24 hours than one-half day for the college student, white or black, to get to any of these places from Lubbock.
The chief moral of this is that it is not well to dip into a college list at random or to guess at railway schedules in the Panhandle-Plains country. The railway mileage of Texas is very impressive, but it spreads very think over the Staked Plains. ELIZABETH HOWARD WEST.
Reads "Arrowsmith"
New TIME York, N. Y. June 16, 1925. Sirs: TIME, at least, ought to endeavor to lift inself above the usual careless inaccuracy of the daily newspaper. Among other things in your issue of June 8, 1925, Vol. V., No. 23, p. 15, last paragraph, you announce a new discovery and misspell the author's name, i.e., Peterson instead of Peterman, the error being the greater since the daily papers as well as the authentic program of the meeting--which was available--spelled the name correctly. MAX GOTTLIEB*
Winter Wheat
TIME Moores Hill, Ind. June 23, 1925. New York, N. Y.
TIME, June 22, page 2, FARMERS, first food note: "Winter wheat is planted in the late fall and allowed to lie in the ground through winter." Winter wheat is planted in the fall, late enough to escape being "stung" by the Hessian Fly, but early enough to grow a plant that will live through winter. Grain does not ' lie in the ground" till spring. I give my hearty indorsement to TIME. CLAUDE B. THOMAS.
Miracle
TIME Little Rock, Ark.
New York, N. Y. June 22, 1925.
Sirs:
In the June 15 issue of your publication, under the head of "Crude Oil," on page 26, you have performed something in the nature of a miracle by placing the Smackover oil field in Oklahoma. You no doubt will, and should receive, from the gratified citizens of that state a vote of thanks for this kind action on your part. As a matter of fact, the Smackover district is in the heart of the Arkansas oil field. . . . A. W. PARKE .
'Fram" vs. "Farm"
TIME Belvidere, X. J.
New York, N. Y. June 20, 1925.
Sirs:
It will probably interest you to know that the name of Roald Amundsen's base ship is Farm (Norwegian term for "Able" or "wide awake") and not, as you have it in your articles about Amundsen, Fram. Fram was the name of Fridtjof Nansen's good ship, and is the Norwegian term for "Forward."
OSWALD G. SCHAN.
Holyoke Girls
TIME Boston, Mass.
New York, N. Y. June 24, 1925.
Sirs:
I notice on the first page of your magazine in the copy dated June 22, 1925, you say in a footnote about Mount Holyoke College that "Its pupils are said by malicious college boys to be noted 1) for having watches pinned to their shirtwaists, 2) for having a 'mission' in life."
This is slander, which is unworthy of you to publish. I know the type of girls who attend Holyoke today and they are the best kind of modern American girls. They do not wear watches on their shirtwaists. That custom wore out years ago. I cannot say that any more of them have a mission in life than the girls of any other college, but even if so, that is nothing to reproach them with, but shows a sincere inclination to face the serious problems of the world today. ALUMNA.