Letters
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.
Apology
Sirs:
Permit me to humbly beg your pardon for my tirade against you when, by mistake, I read "Applesauce" at the bottom of a column in TIME, [Feb. 22, RELIGION], when it really was "Applause." Probably the reason for my misreading, other than my old eyes, was that I am so used to reading fault-finding letters that I naturally look for faults. Hereafter I shall bear in mind that I can make mistakes ; and I shall not hunt for yours and be so wroth when I find one.
SILAS R. CLINTON
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Again, Anagram
Sirs:
Worse and more of it. Because with a MITE of TIME IMET
many an ITEM of news, I therefore EMIT this anagram.
CHAS. H. KILBOURNE
Bridgton, Me.
Grapes
Sirs:
I and many of my contemporaries in the advertising business read with amazement and shame the advertisement of the George Batten Co. published in Printers' Ink (Feb. 11), and quoted in TIME [March 8, BUSINESS].
Thanks to the splendid leadership of such men as Ernest Elmo Calkins, the advertising agency business has been characterized by the highest ideals of professional practice. The Batten advertisement will be condemned by the great majority as an egregious breach of professional practice. To say the least, the advertisement is in extremely bad taste. It smacks of "sour grapes."
No one expects the Jury of Awards to be infallible. It probably is not even divinely guided. Yet there is a certain interest and value in its decisions. Advertising men generally will approve the jury's choice of prize winners.
Perhaps the method of arraigning material for the jury's deliberation can be improved, and certainly the committee is open to suggestions. But buying space in the public prints to belittle the awards and impugn the motives of the donor will be of very little help to anyone.
HARRY B. PEEBLES
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Apples, Oranges
Sirs:
Would that my boy showed as much initiative in mathematics as your juvenile correspondent, Richard Wilson, of Davenport, Iowa [TIME, Mar. 15, LETTERS]. But I think Richard is comparing oranges with apples. The rate he quotes from Davenport to Charleston, S. C., is the so-called evening rate. The Union (City?), N. J., man who talked 41 minutes to Charleston evidently used the day rates on a person-to- person call. It makes a difference.
T. T. COOK
Assistant to Director, American Telephone and Telegraph Co. New York, N. Y.
Remingtons
Sirs:
In the interesting article on cash registers which appears in TIME, March 8, page 29, we notice in the footnote the statement that:
"The Remington Typewriter Company has long been an independent company, although sponsored by the Remington Arms Company."
The first statement in this sentence is correct, but the second one is hardly accurate. There is no connection whatever today between the Remington Arms Company and the Remington Typewriter Company, except possibly a sentimental one due to a common ancestry. It was exactly 40 years ago in March, 1886, that the interests now controlling the Remington Typewriter purchased same from the old house of E. Remington & Sons, and it was not until somewhat later, on the failure of the old house that the Remington Arms business was acquired by its present owners.
Remington Typewriter Co.
A. C. REILEY
Advertising Department
New York, N. Y.
Quiz Flayed
Sirs:
Has TIME entered the market with a new sophistication process? I refer to the recent Quiz section. Or have the Editors carried over collegiate quiz-taking habits and now wish to paternalize their helpless readers? There are too many vital and pertinent items of news interest for your able but caustic causerie to permit a column and more for the self-improvement guild. Most of us are delighted and edified by the rest of your scintillating columns. We deplore such an unnecessary attempt to dictate a more careful reading. Has not TIME an audience sufficiently alert and curious and discriminating to select their own reading without question hints and chiding?
WILBUR S. FURLOW
New Haven, Conn.
Upshaw Praised
Sirs:
You give in the prohibition article in TIME [March 15, p. 5], the number of Mr. Upshaw's constituents, also reporting Mr. Upshaw's own statement that he was "the trusted representative of millions of God-fearing Americans." He is just exactly that! Not accredited perhaps, but none the less so. I, for one, would gladly let him represent me, were I an American, but I'm not even after 35 years residence here. (This is not my fault but my misfortune. I took out first papers, but when I wanted the second I was deterred by certain red tape methods. I have since found out, however, that my information had been given wrongly at a naturalization bureau.)
Mr. Upshaw will surely represent me when I am an American. If only to cast a vote against Representative Celler (if I can) I would became one. He is such a smart Alec! Wasn't it he who didn't hesitate to refer to the Prince of Wales as "chasing but not chaste" ? What a cowardly attack on a man who couldn't (or wouldn't) defend himself.
E. A. CAMPBELL
Chisolm Flayed
Sirs:
In TIME, March 15, there appears a protest [from D. C. Chisolm] against the use of the term "Negress" to denote a woman of my race.
I am of pure African descent. The blood of the white or yellow race does not flow in my veins. I am a Negro, a word derived appropriately from the Latin niger, meaning black, and used by the ancient Romans to indicate my ancestors who lived south of the Sahara Desert. . . . I, a veteran of the War against the Germans, am visiting America in the interest of commercial affairs. I have been north and south, closely and privately observing with an open mind. I believe that I can see the points of view of both races, and appreciate the inevitable conditions that exist. Thanks to the continued assistance of the whites, the Negroes in this country are far better off here than in any other political state in the world. With the maxims and example of Booker Taliaferro Washington ever before them, they will continue to advance. Circumstance has imposed limitations which cannot be bridged in six decades. I believe that the objections of some misguided souls to the time-honored word "Negress" is extremely ill advised. As for the vague term "colored" -- thanks be to God I am a Negro.
SOULOUQUE MANDI-MANSA
Washington, D. C.
Coca-Cola
Sirs:
... I have a little quarrel with your magazine, although it is not very serious. In TIME, Feb. 1, p. 36, a facetious and timely article appeared announcing the published earnings of the Coca-Cola Co. under the title "Coc'." The spirit of this article we enjoyed ; the news value we appreciated.
It so happens that almost simultaneously with your published article we sent out the statement of the Company for 1925 in which we showed sales of $28,553,425.48, whereas your news item indicated that our gross sales would approximate the 1920 record, which reached $32,341,429.00. As a matter of fact, while our 1925 sales did not approximate in dollars our 1920 sales, they far exceeded our 1920 volume in gallons, and this difference in dollars was, therefore, accounted for by the fact that we have had approximately a 25% less price in 1925 than in 1920, which we think is a very important fact in the minds of the public and the trade generally. . . .
HARRISON JONES
Executive Vice President, Coca-Cola Co.
Atlanta, Ga.