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.
"Contempt"
Sirs:
The press may breed content or contempt. At times your special brand seems to approach the latter.
The proof: Your Oct. 12 issue, FOREIGN NEWS, Moroccan affairs.
Why refer to all Madrid papers as "sheet-lets ?" Why produce the impression that a Madrid crowd can be but a gathering of "shirtless peons?" Why belittle the Spanish success in Morocco?
You not only minimize or emphasize news to fit your disdain, but distort it to give rise to the spectacular. These are the attributes of yellow papers, and I, who for months have been an ardent admirer of your publication, feel disappointed now.
It is right that American newspapers should often remember what Lafayette did for America, but should it not be well also to remember that Lafayette could come because the help of his Spanish allies made it possible to spare him at the time ?
The present generation has not gazed at a more gallant act than Cervera at Santiago. Compare it with Scapa Flow.
Have you ever stopped to think that the very day that your paper was using such disparaging language, the American Nation was celebrating a great Spanish achievement, the only National Holiday commemorating a "foreign" deed?
Should the people that discovered America and saved the world for Christianity (Lepanto), be spoken of with such detraction ? What purpose motivates it ?
PEDRO A. PIZA
San Juan, Porto Rico.
TIME in no wise produced the impression that the Madrid crowd "can be but a gathering of 'shirtless peons'." Let Subscriber Piza read more carefully. TIME courts no quarrel with the Spanish people. Let Subscriber Piza cease reading between the lines.--ED.
"Propaganda"
Sirs:
Seems to me you're taking considerable pains to present the Roman Catholic Church in the most favorable light to your readers: witness the reprint of the Catholic ads from The New York Times and the statement twice in one column that the late Cardinal Gibbons was Baltimore's most loved man. If this sort of thing is a policy of TIME, I will have to cancel my subscription. I get all the religious propaganda I want in The Churchman.
O. A. WILLIAMSON
Greenville, Miss.
"Twiddle-Twoddle"
Sirs:
The "Catholic" advertisements you reprinted from The New York Times on Page 24 of your Oct. 26 issue are not "news" and you ought to have known it and never printed them.
Just because some crank throws away "70 agate lines valued at about $1.20 each" for a few days, is no reason why you should print stuff that only an eccentric could have written and that is nearer blasphemy than "advertising for the Catholic Church."
This "advertising" utterly misrepresents the Catholic Church, and you know it. Why broadcast to your subscribers a lot of twiddle-twoddle about, "If a child has a dirty face you do not kill it, you wash its face." Catholicism never stood behind a "message" like that and you know it.
P.J. BOYLE
New York City.
In Brussels
Sirs:
... In saying that I have only lately known TIME I argue myself unknown, but I am an American forced to live on this side--or to be separated from her children.
One of my sons recently sent me here a copy of Dr. Fosdick's sermon in the Geneva Cathederal, and the same day another of my sons sent me the Sept. 21 number of TIME, telling me, in its graphic way, many of the things I wanted to know as to Dr. Fosdick's career. . . .
TIME covers space in a really wonderful way; and I find that, though I must make an effort to follow its meaning at times, that very effort is good for me and seems to stimulate my brain.
We grandparents feel the same way after a visit from our grandchildren--therefore send me TIME.
E. MARSHALL TUCK
Brussels, Belgium.
Blameless Infants
Sirs:
Permit me to draw your attention to what is manifestly an error in your issue of Oct. 26. On Page 24, Column 1, it is stated: "... it was decided to continue to refuse Christian burial to suicides, excommunicates and unbaptized infants."
The last two words of this sentence should read, "unbaptized adults," or "the unbaptized, excepting infants."
The Episcopal Church teaches the doctrine of "original sin," which means that all men share the weaknesses of mortal nature, which is prone to sin ; but it certainly does not teach that infants are living in a state of actual sin. The correction of this mistake may remove a widespread misconception as to the Christian charity of the Episcopal Church.
HENRY A. POST
Christ Church
Coudersport, Pa.
"Beautiful Saranac"
Sirs:
In your article under SPORT in the Oct. 19 issue of TIME, P. 30, Col. 1, concerning the disastrous end of Christy Mathewson's career, you refer to Saranac as composed of "little red cottages by a bleak northern lake."
May I inform the editor of the sport column that Saranac Lake is not composed of "little red cottages" ? I am aware that there is no universal resentment against red cottages individually, but Saranac Lake constructed entirely of them would have the ugly conformity of a little old lumber town. . . . There are many beautiful residential streets in Saranac Lake. Park Avenue, here as in New York City, is a street of which the citizens may be proud.
As for the latter part of your statement, may I add that in autumn Saranac Lake is surrounded by foliage of riotous color mingled with evergreen trees, which gives it anything but a bleak aspect. . . .
ELEANOR TALBOTT
Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Baedeker Flayed
Sirs:
In your issue of Aug. 31 you describe the arrival of the Prince of Wales in Argentina. Upon the occasion of the Prince's visit, the British press published some things about the Argentine Republic that were ridiculous in the extreme, and that displayed a tremendous ignorance of conditions in this Republic. Consequently when your article reached my desk, I swelled with pride to think that at least a portion of the U. S. press could not be accused of like ignorance.
But, my, what a letdown I had the following week when I read your article on the Opera season in Buenos Aires recently ended! I didn't know whether to swear (altho I'm a preacher) or laugh or cry. Finally, however, I thought I would consider it a huge joke, and then decided to send you a little vote of thanks for the diversion I had had. You may best get an idea of the impression your article has made on the American colony here when I tell you the American Weekly published it in full under the significant title "Rot." I suppose you wonder why. Well, among other things, you mixed up the gender of a theatre and of a horse, both of which might be excused 7,000 miles away, but which isn't too good reading when your magazine arrives. And when I read how "the senoritas cooed" and the "generous caballeros throated," I groaned. And as for the theatre being closed to those not in evening dress, I'll give myself away by telling one on myself. I had that idea too, and one night I went to hear Alda, de Luca, Gigli and others in Marta. I went dressed as you state is necessary. I felt like a fish out of water, for all the men around me had on sack suits. And I had a good seat too. Enough of this.
I don't want you to get the idea I'm sore. I won't quit my subscription to what I consider the most valuable and liveliest secular magazine that I receive. I just thought I'd drop my little word of advice, not to write about anything until you get all your dope from the best possible authority.
JOHN M. ARMBRUSTER
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The latest issue of Baedeker warns its readers that "evening dress is obligatory" at the opera in Buenos Aires.--ED.
Prof. Sheffer Praised
Sirs:
It is not the fault of your excellent periodical when a news item of wide interest which it publishes, does an injustice. Neither is it a fault in Harvard undergraduates that they honestly appraise in The Crimson a course in first-year logic. Yet it is to be regretted that a man who is doing creative work of the highest calibre should get only such mention before the larger public as appears in TIME, Oct. 19, p. 20. Those of us who have taken Dr. H. M. Sheffer's advanced courses know how little knowledge gained from him depends on mere memory.
BRUCE W. BROTHERSTON
Canton, N. Y.
TIME had printed an item from The Harvard Crimson's "Confidential Guide to the Curriculum" which said:
Philosophy 1: This course in elementary logic probably does as much good for the brain as swinging Indian clubs in Hemenway Gymnasium does for the body. . . . At the beginning of the year. Dr. Sheffer supplied his students with a multigraphed outline, by memorizing which the more receptive of his students received passing grades in the final examination, which was highly logical of them and showed that they had not taken his course in vain.
--ED.
Critique
Sirs: Because TIME records all the news each week and at the same time manages to do usual so in a crisp, lucid manner without the usual dry-as-dust solemnity, I enthusiastically recommend it to everyone as the best magazine on the stands today. . .
Your reviews of all kinds are splendid. Theatrical comment is frank and keen. Book reviews seem to catch the spirit of the author in a remarkable way. Occasionally your musical section provides a masterpiece of writing (e. g., "Bayreuth" in TIME of Aug. 3). The uncommon words you frequently use are invariably well chosen. . . .
Most of the adverse criticism I might have had to offer six months ago can no longer be applied. I, along with many other readers of my acquaintance, offer thanks that you have dropped the POINT WITH PRIDE and VIEW with ALARM columns. Also you are becoming more non-partisan than ever in dealing with political parties. For a time I thought you inclined a little too much towards favoring Democrats and "showing up" the Republicans. As to religious views, these too seem to have lately become fairer. . . .
One thing I still dislike about TIME is your attitude towards Bernarr Macfadden. I know that his physical culture ideas have done much good in countless cases. They are essentially sound. What if he does make money from such magazines as True Stories, True Romances, etc. ? Why attack his doctrines of physical fitness on that account? You will say: Because he is intolerant of materia medico, and bacteriology. After all he could not be more intolerant of these than is Morris Fishbein of everything outside the province of the M. D. And yet you continually glorify Fishbein!
That's all.
THOMAS D. STORIE
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Wrong Again
Sirs:
United States Senator William Cabell Bruce, in a letter to The New York Times, writes, on the subject of the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court: "Two Catholics have filled that exalted position; one, Roger B. Taney, the greatest jurist who ever filled it except John Marshall, and the other, Edward D. White."
If what Senator Bruce says is true, you were not only wrong in every possible way, when you said in your issue of Oct. 19 that Chief Justice Fuller was the "only Roman Catholic" Chief Justice, but you were wrong again in your issue of Oct. 26, when you say that "the attributes erroneously attached to the name of Chief Justice Fuller were really those of his eminent successor, the late Chief Justice White."
The compound attribute expressed by the term "only Roman Catholic Chief Justice" is, if Senator Bruce is right, correctly attached to the name of nobody.
I have always liked you, TIME.
W. WOEBER SMITH
Providence, R. I.
Once and for all:
Roger B. Taney, born 1777, died 1864, Chief Justice 1836 to 1864, was a Catholic.
Edward D. White, born 1845, died 1921, Chief Justice, 1910 to 1921, was a Catholic.
No other U. S. Chief Justice was a Catholic.--ED.
Wornout Subject
Sirs:
I have noticed from time to time (and it bids fair to keep hanging on) little polite "digs" written to TIME using as a subject the title of "Mr." when mentioning the name of a Negro. Then come right back other little polite "digs" written by some one whose comments are contingent on the same wornout subject. . . .
I, a subscriber of TIME, am thoroughly fed up on this "Mr." rot and would request that TIME omit these letters from their next and succeeding issues; I would encourage the discontinuance of the use of "Mr." only in cases where the Editor of TIME considers the wearer of this title as his own social and intellectual equal, or better. . . .
Incidentally, the Southerner knows of what he is writing. . . .
E. L. CHEZEM
Key West, Fla.
No further letters on this wornout subject will be printed.--ED.