Paralysis of Diaphragm

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.

TIME Scranton, Pa.

New York, N. Y. Aug. 4, 1925

Sirs:

May I correct an inaccuracy in your otherwise letter-perfect issue of Aug. 3?

In your description of the supposed death of Prince Abdul Kadir, Page 13, under "Turkey," you aver that "too much water in the lungs was the cause of his demise."

As a member of the American Red Cross Life Saving Corps, and one of its Examiners, I hasten to set your writer on the right path. We teach that the true cause of death by drowning, asphyxiation (smoke or gas), or electric shock is paralysis of the diaphragm. A man requires oxygen, of which the air contains 20%, and he must eliminate carbon dioxide gas, the reaction of which itself will paralyze or inhibit his diaphragm. . . .

J. A. TANNENBAUM

Not Done

TIME New York, N. Y.

New York, N. Y. Aug. 9, 1925

Sirs:

I have purchased your periodical regularly for a long time now, and notice from your last issue that you are transferring your activities to Cleveland, Ohio. While it is your business exclusively, of course, if you desire to locate in the "sticks," the writer believes that you should give an address other than Penton Building, Cleveland, Ohio.

I have been going to that burg occasionally for many years, and have a fairly good knowledge of the streets and avenues, and I assure you that I don't know where the Penton Building is, and 1 presume there are many more in the same fix.

Have been informed by a lawyer friend of mine that the Court of Appeals of the State of New York has decided that an address such as this is not legal, that address must show street and number.

Somehow or other I have the impression, which I believe you will find to be correct, that the Post Office Department is endeavoring to eliminate this practice of having letters addressed to buildings instead of to street and number.

A building address is small-town stuff, and here it is simply not done. WILLIAM MURRAY

The address of the Penton Building is Lakeside Avenue and West Third Street.--ED.

Opposes Bunk

TIME Adrian, Mich.

New York, N. Y. Aug. 7, 1925

Sirs:

In your issue of July 27, Page 18, referring to the body of Cardinal Begin lying in state (so to speak), were these words: ". . . while thousands of those .whose souls had been in his custody," etc.

As this purported to be a news item of actual occurrence, please state in your next issue how any human being could be the custodian of other people's souls.

Also, if he had been so in life, what became of those souls after he died?

The writer is not especially interested in theo!ogy, but merely opposed to the public being fed on BUNK.

E. W. CORNELL,

Author.

A bishop, according to an almost universal Christian conception, is a shepherd; those who recognize his voice are his sheep. A shepherd takes care of his sheep. A bishop takes care of the faithful in his diocese. He guards particularly their spiritual welfare. Their souls may be said to be in his custody.

The bishop dies and his place is taken by another. But in no case are the faithful shepherdless, for always, in Christian parlance, there remains the Great Shepherd.

Thus TIME related the death and burial of Cardinal Begin as that of a Christian, of a Catholic. Would Mr. Cornell have done otherwise?--ED.

No Atheist

TIME Memphis, Tenn.

New York, N. Y. Aug. 8, 1925

Sirs:

Through the goodness of Mrs. Clark, I have had the pleasure of reading the TIME weekly magazine when my duties would permit.

She took advantage of a short-time offer a few weeks ago, and sent you a dollar for a short period. Partly to please her, I was on the point of renewing the subscription when I ran across a misstatement of fact in your issue of Aug. 3, Page 3, which has caused me temporarily to decide against renewing the subscription.

On Page 3, under a picture of Walt Whitman, you make the statement THE LATE WHITMAN, and under that, Poet-Atheist."

As that statement is untrue, the thought naturally arises in my mind, can I depend upon other statements in your publication ? I know of newspapers where editors deliberately publish things that are not true because they think they ought to do it in order to stand well with their subscribers. Such people, in my judgment, are not only unfair to the newspaper profession, but they are doing a decided injury to their fellowmen by perpetuating untruths among them. Being very fond of Walt Whitman, I am, of course, sufficiently familiar with his poetry to know that he was not an atheist, and I am also familiar with his history, and know that he was not ousted from the Treasury Department because of atheistic tendencies. . . .

The following quotation from Whitman is characteristic and anyone familiar with his writings will, I think, like myself, resent the statement on Page 3 that he was an atheist:

Why should I wish to see God better than today?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then;

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;

I find letters from God drop't in the street --and every one is signed by God's name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

I am going to read the next issue of your magazine and may decide to renew the subscription anyway, for two sentimental reasons: that of letting my wife know I appreciate her interest in me, and also because your magazine does contain information in a condensed form that is not to be found in any other publication.

Hoping you will receive this letter in the spirit with which it is written, I am, with best wishes,

WILLIAM E. CLARK. TIME called Mr. Whitman "Poet-Atheist" in contradistinction to the "true-Atheist" compared with him in the article referred to. Of course, the charge of atheism cannot be seriously leveled against him today, but the charge of godlessness ("defiance of the Deity," etc.) was leveled with others against Leaves of Grass. He was dismissed from his government post because he had written the book.--ED.

In Defense of Lancaster

Wisconsin Journal of Education TIME Madison, Wis.

New York, N. Y. Aug. 4, 1925

Sirs:

In one of your recent numbers you reported a resolution of the School Board in

Lancaster, Ohio, supposedly passed in 1828 and calling such things as discussions of railroads and telegraphs, rank infidelity. The internal evidence of the clipping, which you made from the Tulare (Calif.) Register, would indicate that the resolution was an impossible one, since the telegraph was certainly not being debated in 1828.

I wrote to the Superintendent of Schools of Lancaster, Ohio, and have a letter from him in which he says that no record of such a resolution can be found. I notice that the Chicago Evening American published practically the same resolution and attributed it to Cappers Weekly, but used 1826 as the date. There is so much of this sort of thing going around derogatory to schools and the management of them that it seems to me one should investigate a little bit before he becomes a party to a further spreading of rumors. The Dayton episode is bad enough without adding anything else.

E. G. DOUD|NA

Editor

Stupid Reporter

Flagstaff, Ariz. Aug. 3, 1925

TIME New York, N. Y. Sirs: My enjoyment and appreciation of TIME, its splendidly condensed and yet clear reports of current events, its delightful book and dramatic reviews (the language of which occasionally transcends anything else to which I have access), is now and then roughly bumped into by an occurrence such as that in the first line of the last paragraph of the second column, Page 15, issue of July 27, where you say:

"Noisome applause greeted this oration. ..."

I can understand ordinary, half-educated reporters making such a blunder, but how men trained in the way that some of TIME'S editors were, who studied with Max Farrand at Yale, a man who is so exceedingly careful in choosing the right word for the right place, can let a slip of this sort go through, is beyond my comprehension. Unless, of course, it was intended as irony!

The Standard Dictionary defines "noisome" as "very offensive, particularly to the sense of smell." But perhaps that was what your reporter meant!

HELEN E. WILLIAMS

Oklahoma

TIME Oklahoma City, Okla.

New York, N. Y. Aug. 4, 1923

Sirs:

Please admit me to the small and select company of those who have detected TIME in error.

In your issue of Aug. 3, Page 1, you say: 'Tennessee was the only state carried by Harding in 1920 which Coolidge did not carry in 1924."

You'll find, I believe, that Harding carried Oklahoma, but that Coolidge did not. Of course, Coolidge didn't exactly need Oklahoma. Knowing, as I do, the difficulty of keeping mistakes out of a daily paper, your high percentage of accuracy even in a weekly causes me to wonder and to admire.

EDWARD EVANS

Editor, The Oklahoma News