Dentist Cram
Sirs: . . . To my mind your cover picture (TIME, Dec. 13) of our great architect Ralph Adams Cram is libelous. Mr. Cram is a handsome well-favored man. Your artist makes him look like a dentist! . . .
MRS. POWEL LOOMIS
Boston, Mass.
Double Breasted
Sirs:
Just how many "bosoms" did Elizabeth Barrett Browning's aunt have?
In TIME, Dec. 6, you say: ". . . this pure and lovely miss, standing with round arms pressed to round bosoms. . . ."
E. GANSON
Tucson, Ariz.
Equality
Sirs:
Do not care to help any magazine whose managers or editors put themselves down on an equality with Negroes and call them "Mr." and "Mrs." Do not send mine any longer than it is paid for.
W. C. POYNTER
De Witt, Ark.
Let Subscriber Poynter look on p. 10.--ED.
Suggestion
Sirs : . . . One little suggestion for a better TIME--Don't be so contemptuous of your contemporaries. "Gum-Chewers' Sheetlet," "Pinko Political Weekly," etc. I know nothing about the Gum-Chewers' papers but the New Republic which you call Pinko, I value even above TIME on my magazine list. As for Physical Culture, which you so lately maligned, it has done and is doing much good in the world and deserves better treatment than you have given it. . . .
HUGH SPENCER
"Briarpatch,"
Chester, Conn.
Mediocre Evans
Sirs: TIME, Dec. 6, re Hiram W. Evans reads: "Once in Dallas, Tex., there was a mediocre dentist."
Why be narrow-minded on the subject of the K.K.K. ? Would TIME say of Abe Lincoln, "once there was a mediocre storekeeper" ?
Why not listen with an open mind, to one of Mr. Evans' speeches, not on dentistry, but on politics. Draw your own conclusions after that.
TIME'S editors will probably never curb their Roman Catholic instincts enough to advertise, tritely "TIME--Kurt, Klear, Koncise."
FLOYD WEIMER
San Francisco, Calif.
TIME would indeed say of Abraham Lincoln, "Once there was a mediocre storekeeper." At keeping store Abraham Lincoln was sorely handicapped by his generosity, his fondness for books.
As to spelling, TIME, having no bias, relies upon standard dictionaries.--ED.
Dragon's Praise
Sirs:
As long as TIME plays fair, it will remain a pleasure for me to receive my weekly copy. I note that some subscribers take exception to things you say about their "pet" ideas. You have rapped my Organization several times but this has not changed my opinion of TIME. In such cases I smile at your mistakes and misunderstanding and wait for the time to arrive when you will know facts. You can rest assured that TIME has a great future before it and will continue to build up a first class list of subscribers.
ARTHUR H. BELL
Grand Dragon, K.K.K.
Realm of New Jersey
Lake Como, N.J.
Unwholesome, Infidel
Sirs:
. . . I really like the magazine very much but have been disappointed in the different articles appearing from time to time, especially the article about St. Francis of Assisi [TIME, Oct. 4] which is very disappointing to me and makes unwholesome reading for me a Catholic.
Your magazine is really too good to take up a prejudiced point of view on religious matters and from time to time there is sort of an infidel tone and I am wondering if the editor of this magazine is not an infidel?
I want to keep my obligations to the magazine and pay for all copies I have received and then discontinue same. . . .
JOHN A. DEHNER
Dehner Seed & Supply Co.
Burlington, Iowa.
Judgment, Proportion
Sirs:
Let me thank you muchly for devoting, in TIME, Dec. 20 more space to me and my writings than to any other individual or subject. The phenomenal success of TIME is to be attributed to its editors' admirable sense of judgment and proportion! . . .
BERTIE CHARLES FORBES
Forbes Magazine
New York, N.Y.
An error: more space was given to that first of U. S. popular economists, Benjamin Franklin. --Ed.
Advice
Sirs:
In a very readable sketch of the career and accomplishments of Bertie Charles Forbes in TIME for Dec. 20, you conclude with the following sentence:
"What puzzles many people ... is why Editor Forbes' magazine is not subscribed to by 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 U. S. wage-earners . . . instead of only 49,478?"
As a fellow Scotsman and a subscriber to Forbes' semimonthly during its first year's existence, let me say I think one reason why those 950,522 ought-to-be readers of Forbes do not subscribe is because of B.C.'s irritating way of everlastingly singing the praises of successful millionaires--because of the possession of their millions. Despite the logic of his Scottish sermonizing style he has not succeeded in educating us "U. S. wage earners," as you put it, to the viewpoint of the wage-payer, or vice versa.
Wage-earners both in these United States and elsewhere believe Mr. Forbes will have to widen the scope of his magazine and enlarge his economic philosophy before he can secure their subscriptions in any large number. . . .
JAMES CUNNINGHAME
Louisville, Ky.
Aiken Praised
Sirs:
As a subscriber to your publication for two or three years past, I feel entitled to offer some criticism. Your repeated references to an unfortunate lynching which occurred here during the early hours of Oct. 8 has given this community quite as much unfavorable and unsought publicity as necessary. Why not review some past racial affair in East St. Louis, Chicago, Washington and an Ohio city? They are all closer to your office than Aiken. That we are civilized is best attested by the considerable number of America's best families who for more than 50 years have been spending their winter vacation in Aiken, stepping from the train and realizing how far removed from gunmen and gangsters, machine and sawed-off shotguns they are, they are glad.
FRANK P. HENDERSON
Mayor, The City of Aiken
Aiken, S.C.
Street War
Sirs:
I am a Subscriber to TIME. I am a high school teacher and often require my pupils to commit some piece of National or Foreign News to bring to the history class.
The pupils saw the piece about the "Street War" [TIME, Nov. 8] and were disgusted. Such words as "tribe" for companions, "Negresses" for colored girls, "Pickaninnies" for children, did not "take" well. A common reference to the affair with correct names would be better. They like to read of colored people when anything of note is given.
UNSIGNED
Atlanta, Ga.
Navy Doctors
Sirs:
. . . May I invite your attention, please, to an apparent error on p. 21 (TIME, Nov. 29), under the heading MEDICINE, subhead "At Sea." The caption "USS" means "United States Ship" and is applied ONLY to ships of the Navy. The caption "SS" means "Steamship" and is used when referring to merchant vessels. Neither the Eastern Glade nor the West Calumb is a vessel of the United States Navy. The fact that the health of the crew sort of depended upon the Captain's knowledge of medicine, might create the wrong impression among civilians--fathers, mothers or other relatives of officers and enlisted men --as to the medical care the personnel of the Navy are given. Practically every ship of our Navy has one or more medical officers attached thereto, or is at all times supplied with hospital corpsmen. . . .
R. HATHAWAY
Chief Pay Clerk, U. S. Navy
The Receiving Ship
San Francisco, Calif.
Downward Step
Sirs:
Not being personally interested in the Theatre to any great extent I have paid little attention to that section, but in TIME, Nov. 15, I was attracted by something in the heading of some of the plays reviewed, and sketched through hastily till I came to Gentle Grafters when I must say I was horrified with these lines: "The poor girl has but one asset. She surrenders her virtuous distinction. A little moth, a little flame, a little singe--it is nothing to bring a lump to the throat."
"A little moth, a little singe" and it is nothing to bring a lump to the throat when a young girl surrenders her virtue? To be sure it is only a picture, but is it teaching the young and innocent girl, even though she may be called a "flapper" that it is "only a little singe" to do this? Is your reporter lending himself to the support of such a false theory? Is is possible that it is not known what the first downward step means to a girl, and that in life where such a thing happens one of two things is bound to follow, either she will madly plunge deeper till in a few years (10 to 15) she will go down in disgrace to a grave where such fallen women find a place, usually the pauper field; or, if in horror she recoils from what she has done she will live her life as best she may always feeling the "scarlet letter" on her breast even though it cannot be seen by others.
Such plays should not be allowed, and such reviewing in any magazine is certainly worthy of the deepest scorn of all Mothers and Fathers, indeed the entire populace who believe in and practice virtuous living.
The review of The Play's the Thing which follows the one criticized above is even more disgusting and suggestive than that of Gentle Grafters.
ALICE H. SPENCER
Joliet, Ill.
Dose
Sirs:
Permit me at this opportune time to say, you are Captains Courageous of Journalism. . . .
You don't cringe and smirk, and when you have an apology to offer you do it like a man. You have the attitude my father held, that of standing square on your heels and looking anyone in the eye.
I have always since early youth been an inveterate newspaper and magazine reader, but on attaining the age of understanding definite needs and capacities, dropped all such reading matter, and now depend on TIME to keep me a citizen of the world. I also read the Literary Digest (skipping current events and foreign news), for a more detailed account of the drama and certain personal notes which are very often the choice selection of the American, which magazine (the American) I do not wish to disparage, nevertheless, it is an awful dose to digest as a whole, for grownups. . . .
FRANCES A. WESTON
Portland, Ore.
Ten Biggest
Sirs: Your conceited puffing of TIME on its own letter page nauseates me. Because one* Robert A. Gardner has sent you $6 to send TIME for a year to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is that any reason why you should print his letter [TIME, Dec. 20] to boast about it?
When you can claim the ten biggest men in the United States for your subscribers that will be news. Until then please stop your puffing. I have listed below what I consider the ten biggest men in the country, and I'll bet not one of them subscribes to TIME. Look below and take yourselves down a peg. Here are my Big Ten:
Calvin Coolidge Elbert H. Gary
Henry Ford Andrew W. Mellon
Thomas A. Edison Julius Rosenwald
J.D. Rockefeller Sr. Owen D. Young
William H. Taft Frank O. Lowden
JAMES CHESTER POPE
Chicago, Ill.
News-stand-buyer Pope is right in believing that the President of the U. S. does not subscribe to TIME. He receives a complimentary copy.
Of the others named, Messrs. Rosenwald, Gary, Lowden and Young are subscribers. Messrs. Ford, Edison, Rockefeller, Mellon and Taft are not.
But Edsel Ford subscribes.
And so does Mrs. Ford.
And so does Mrs. Edison.
And so does John D. Rockefeller III./-
And so does Charles P. Taft II.**
As for Andrew W. Mellon, his subscription expired on Oct. 11, 1926, and has not been renewed. --ED.
Out of Joint
Sirs:
In reply to your request in TIME for appropriate slogans, . . . we wish to submit the following: . . .
"TIME is out of joint: Oh cursed spite. That ever I was borne to set it right."
Although not necessarily suggesting ourselves for the task of the "setting right," we feel that someone could be used to great advantage in this position.
SCARLETT & STUTZ, INC.
PER S. H. SWARTHMORE
SECRETARY
The quotation is inaccurately given by Scarlett & Stutz, Inc. See any copy of Hamlet, Act I, Scene V, Line 189.--ED.
Franklin's Fertilizer
Sirs:
May we direct your attention to the last paragraph on the last page of TIME, Dec. 20, wherein your review of the new Franklin biography quotes: . . . "for encouraging farmers to fertilize with lime," etc.
It seems unlikely that the author quoted could have been guilty of careless scholarship and likely that he had authority for his statement. But unless such authorities as the United States Department 'of the Interior and the Iowa Geological Survey are worthless, it was gypsum which Franklin advocated as a fertilizer, and the gypsum was sown over the clover of the Philadelphia hillside to form the words: "Land Plaster Used Here--Ben Franklin." . . .
UNITED STATES GYPSUM Co.
E. M. Oren
Publicity Manager
Chicago, Ill.
Page 166 of Benjamin Franklin: The First Civilized American by Phillips Russell, reads: ". . . To show his fellow farmers how their soil would benefit from the application of lime, he sowed a field and then inscribed upon it in large white plaster letters: 'THIS FIELD HAS BEEN PLASTERED.'"--ED.
Honeywell Children
Sirs:
. . . In TIME, Dec. 20 . . . your Book Editor in his review of The Romantic Comedians based much of his interpretation of the character of Judge Honeywell on the assertion that the Judge had no children. May I refer him to p. 5 of that book? . . . The Judge and Cordelia had two children. . . .
LEAH ROBINS MATHER
South Williamsport, Pa.
To Susbcriber Mather all praise for remembering Honeywell children who never appear and are seldom mentioned in Miss Glasgow's book.--ED.
Plugger
Sirs:
On p. 8, TIME, Dec. 13, you call Secretary Jardine a "plugger" and give your reasons. I claim to be somewhat of a plugger myself as I read TIME from cover to cover and that means at least 2,000 pages a year, which is just as creditable as writing 120 pages once a year.
But I hope that Secretary Jardine's report didn't contain any errors as misleading as your statement on the same page under the heading, "Indians Sick." You state there that trachoma is a "highly contagious eye disease." I am of the opinion it is not at all contagious and is a question of nutrition. My authority for this is the Houston (Tex.) Post-Dispatch. I read an article today just before getting on the train in which trachoma was discussed. It pointed out that at Ellis Island there is no spread of this disease; that they treat upwards of 100 cases a year and that immigrants found with this ailment have not communicated it to others during the voyage, although conditions are exceptionally favorable for its communication in the steerage of the ocean liners. . . .
As the New York Tribune would say, "truth lies also in a frank confession of error." What have you to say?
L. H. WELLING
Sunshine Special
En route to St. Louis
Let Plugger-Subscriber Welling consult his physician or a medical text and thereby learn that trachoma is "a chronic, contagious disease of the conjunctiva. . . . It occurs in poorly nourished persons who are subjects of improper hygiene."--ED.
*An error. Subscriber Gardner is no "one," but the famed Captain of the 1926 U. S. Walker Cup Golf Team. --ED.
/-Grandson.
**Son.