From San Quentin
Sirs: ... It might not be amiss here to enlighten you as to who you were dealing with and possibly you will get a smile out of the affair as well as I. San Quentin happens to be in itself a very small little town but whenever anyone ever refers to San Quentin everyone else knows that they mean the State Prison and we are a little city by ourselves of some 3,500 inhabitants at the present time find growing right along. Personally I came here in 1922 to serve a sentence of 25 years but due to the humanity of one or two of our State Board of Prison Directors, I have been able to get paroled when I get in five calendar years. We are permitted to subscribe to newspapers and magazines, buy books that will pass the prison censor and are also allowed to write one letter each day, those of us of course, that care to take the advantage of those privileges and are financially able to do so. I am sending to you herewith, an express office money-order for the $5 due on my subscription and hope that you will not take my failure to comply with your wishes sooner in the light that I was just one of a lot more d-- fools that caused you inconvenience or annoyance. E. R. BARTLETT
San Quentin, Calif.
"My Hero"
null not a subscriber to TIME, but I am going to be one as soon as I am released, or before. A friend of mine since I have been in jail, kept me regularly supplied with your wonderful newsmagazine. After reading TIME, June 14, and seeing what you had to say concerning the reception of the Crown Prince of Sweden at Washington, D. C., I hoped .that you would say something about Louis Borno, the so-called and self-styled president of Haiti and the reception tendered him by President Coolidge.* But I have received your issue of June 21 and not a single word have I found concerning my hero! I presume that you kept silent for lack of precise information as to what the man really is and to what extent is true the charge made against him that he was not eligible to the presidency. Therefore I am sending to you the material proof and evidence in one single sheet of paper, that some one of your staff can translate from the French. (The enclosure quotes from Article 11 of the Haitian Constitution: "To be elected President of the Republic one must be born of a Haitian father"; and calls attention to the famed "Letter to Chancy" m which President Borno wrote: "I was born on Sept 20 1865 of a Haitian woman married to a foreigner." [Mr. Borno's father became a naturalized Haitian m 1874.]-- E.D.) Take care not to mix up as so many Americans do: the charge is not that he is not a Haitian--for he is: but his father was a Frenchman who took his Haitian papers nine years after the President's birth. Why I am in jail? I was arrested on the 17th of June-- under the charge of vilification of the President of Haiti in an article in my paper, issue of the 16th of June, wherein I gave vent to my indignation. Please excuse paper, ink and handwriting: I am in jail and this letter is to be smuggled out. I am not going to be tried, newspapermen arrested under that regime are never tried: they are kept in jail months or years according to the pleasure of the powers that be and then released--but never tried! The fact that I am in jail must not prevent you from quoting my letter and naming me: it will not make my situation any worse. CHARLES MORAVIA
Formerly Haitian Minister
at Washington, D. C. Editor of the newspaper Le
Temps.
Penitentiary of Port-au-Prince Haiti, West Indies
Maps?
Sirs:
TIME for me. As I have become dependent upon you for about 90% of my national and international news, I take the liberty of suggesting to you the occasional use of a small map, similar to those used in London Weekly Times.
For instance, in TIME, Aug. 9, p. 6, Carmi Thompson journeyed, and on p. 14 Ethiopia is "ringed about." Such a map would have helped me with both these articles. I wonder if others of your readers do not feel the same about it? W. A. WOOD
East Cleveland, Ohio
Do other subscribers desire maps?--ED.
Laddie Boy
Sirs:
You inquire as to present whereabouts of "Laddie Boy." Mrs. Harding gave "Laddie Boy" to Mr. Harry Barker, her Secret Service man. Mr. Barker is now connected with the Boston office of the U. S. S. Service and lives in Newton Center, Mass. The dog is at his home and is alive. This information was given me by the late President Harding's Aide confirming a conversation with present management of the Harding Memorial at Marion, Ohio.
G. W. SMITH
Cleveland, Ohio
Hi-Toned
Sirs:
Please discontinue my subscription at once. TIME is too hi-toned for me, a one-gallused, terbacker-chewin' Arkansawer. I did not anticipate it being for the noble, so discontinue me pronto, and let me fish in peace. How's all the kids?
FREDERICK JONES
Antoine, Ark.
Red-Hot
Sirs:
Aimee Semple McPherson . . . even when perfumed like a Cairo dancing girl stinks to high Heaven like a councilman's socks. And that's that!"
The attached little paper, from which this quotation is taken, the San Diego Herald, was received in Los Angeles through the mails from quiet San Diego. . . . It's a lead-pipe cinch that there can be found a few chuckels in its red-hot American language.
WM. C. JONES JR.
Los Angeles, Calif.
Apropos of Mrs. McPherson's disappearance, reappearance, the Herald quoted : "The morning after the night before The cat came back at the hour of four; The innocent look in her eyes had went, But the smile on her face was a smile of content."--ED.
Patron
Sirs :
I am curious as a cuttlefish to know whether or not you made use of the clipping I sent you in preparing the little item labeled, "Credulous" (TIME, Aug. 2, MISCELLANY). Not that I am at all solicitous regarding the dollar or two that might accrue to me, but it would more than tickle my pride to know that I had a hand in mixing the delectable porridge that you serve your patrons each week. Tell me.
EUGENE P. BERTIN
Muncy Normal School Muncy, Pa.
TIME made use of Subscriber Bertin's clipping, despatched to him $2.-- ED.
* See TIME, June 28.