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.
Gall
Sirs:
A. Blaustein's gall deserves recognition, and we favor a mimeographed supplement to contain his neighborhood news.
WILL C. MATTHEWS Omaha, Neb.
Subscriber Blaustein wished a special column of New York news.-- ED.
"Forgotten Things"
Sirs:
I just want old to say that you ought to have listed old Rutgers with her Cap to and Skull among the colleges with senior honor societies in [TIME, May 31, EDUCATION]. I'm not a Rutgers man myself, having schooled where lots of others did in the university of hard knocks. So of course I'm not intimate with Cap and Skull. But that lets me write you what those modest boys wouldn't be able to--that right here in New Brunswick is one of the dandiest old colleges in the country and in that college is one of the finest societies going. It had its Tap Day on the 25th and elected, among others, "Les" Hanf, next year's football captain, and George Schutzendorf, one of the best track athletes in the East . Perhaps you've forgotten about things since you moved way out west there to Cleveland.. . . .
GEORGE BREITHART New Brunswick, N. J.
TIME made no effort to list all senior honor societies in U. S. colleges, has not "forgotten" Rutgers College ,nor any other. --ED.
Insult, Disloyalty
Sirs:
I have regularly read TIME ever since its first number and have always found it able and interesting and wholly free from the vulgarity and scandal and bad taste which is so common in the daily papers. I have influenced two of my clubs and many of my friends to become subscribers so I trust you will bear with me if I venture quite strongly to criticize the disloyalty and bad taste which led you to so grossly insult the President of the United States by publishing in your issue of May 31st a scurrilous article doubtless untruthful respecting his domestic relations, which you reprinted from the New Yorker under the title of "Les Majeste. I feel as many others of your readers do, to my knowledge, that such discreditable rubbish is a distinct reflection upon the good taste of your subscribers as well as yourself and is an act of disloyalty which it is our duty to resent. The article seems to me to be the quality of the stuff which is characteristic of a yellow journal but entirely out of character for your magazine and its editors.
Some of your subscribers as well as myself feel greatly that our respect for you would be greatly increased if you were to promptly and conspicuously publish a suitable apology for this breach of propriety on your part. Your failure to do so would I am confident injure TIME far more than TIME or its editors have by this article injured our great President whose personal and recent bereavement certainly should have called for sympathy rather than abuse.
Many of your friends will watch your next issue of TIME for the apology which we believe you will realize is fairly due not only to your subscribers but as well to the President himself.
F. P. BELLAMY Brooklyn, N. Y.
TIME'S great regret is that the performance of its sole function of universal reporter occasionally brings pain to a subscriber. The article, essence of which was reported, was for many reasons (its effrontery not least) news-- ED.
Heroes
A misinterpretation of the subject of dueling in Germany has crept into your extract in TIME of May 10 ["Heroes Vexed," p. 13]. The scar-bedecked men travelers see in Germany are not of the army, but university students and graduates. These, as members of rival fraternities, challenge each other to duels just as here a football team of one university plays against another. It is a test of nerve. Skill is of course also essential; the unskillful carries his mark for life. But he is proud of having gone through the ordeal, and ordeal it is.
Bismarck, on being entertained by a reception committee of students, turned to one particularly badly scarred representative and asked whether he used his face for a guard instead of a sword.
Dueling in military circles, on the other hand, is a genuine duel, fought to redress an insult, with either sword, rapier or pistol. These naturally often end fatally. Times change and therefore such duels have been relegated to the past as mentioned in your article.
CHARLES F. BODECKER, D.D.S., F.A.C.D. Columbia University New York, N. Y.
The new restrictions apply particularly to military men. -- ED.
Vented Spleen
Sirs:
Permit me to express to the Editorial Department my keen delight in every number of TIME, its admirable condensed style, pithy news and incisive comments, at times caustic but never ill-natured, and also my admiration for the patience and toleration it shows to the microcephalic morons who so frequently vent their spleen and exhibit their ignorance in the puerile letters of complaint or protest over negligible trifles, which TIME fearlessly prints from week to week. May your circulation ever increase.
FRANK V. WADDY Los Angeles, Calif.
Pro-Union, Cancels
Sirs:
Your answer to the query of F. O. Wyse in your LETTERS column of the May 24 issue of TIME states: "TIME happens to be printed by open shop labor."
Perhaps you cannot agree with my viewpoint, but I think those printers who are not members of the union are unfair to themselves in not taking advantage of the benefits, such as the old age pension and eligibility to enter the Printers Home, which that organization has to offer. It is certain that a member of the International Typographical Union will not have to go to a judge in a criminal court and ask to be confined in prison so he will have a place to eat and sleep, as one printer recently did in Brooklyn, N. Y.
It also seems to me that your non-union workers are not fair to the union, for I do not think it can be denied that the union is largely responsible for the living wage which printers are earning at the present time; yet the non-union men are enjoying the higher standard of living without contributing to the organization which has made it possible.
And as for publishers, I do not think they lose anything by employing all union labor. . .
It is likely that your open shop is responsible for a few of the typographical errors which appear in your publication, and I must say, for a high-class weekly, TIME has plenty of them.
Much as I would like to see TIME produced by organized labor, I do not expect you to change your policy because of the criticism of one or of a thousand subscribers. . . . In view of the circumstances, however, I am asking you to cancel my subscription to TIME. Please submit a bill for the amount due you, and I will send a check by return mail.
LLOYD KIRKEBY San Francisco, Calif.
From Chicago Heights
Sirs:
I inclose an interesting clipping from the Chicago Heights Star, Chicago Hts., Ill.
MARJORIE A. RUFF Hammond, Ind.
To Subscriber Ruff, $3. See MEDICINE for item based on this clipping. -- ED.
Paderewska
Sirs:
For the second time within a few months you refer to the esteemed wife of Ignace Jan Paderewski as Mme. Paderewski" (TIME, May 24, MUSIC). Permit me to suggest that "Mme. Paderewska" is the correct form-- a title, by the way, which Dame Nellie Melba declared, in her autobiography, Melodies and Memories (TIME, April 26, BOOKS) would have been acceptable to herself, had it ever been offered.
H. MCK. ROTHERMEL Reading, Pa.
For such an learned correction, TIME is deeply grateful. -- ED.