Got 38,000
Sirs:
Charter subscriber. First complaint. You refer to Wayne B. Wheeler as "high salaried." Wasn't. Got $8,000 a year. All he'd take.
Even magazine article checks, he indorsed over to "the League." Honest--frugal--sincere. Damned good scout.
K. G. MERRILL
Chicago, Ill.
Stand corrected.--ED.
Bereft
Sirs:
All portions of TIME are profitable. The illustration on the back cover of TIME, Sept. 26 is particularly pleasing. The artist has wittingly caught the true feminine pose appropriate to the incident.
I would suggest that any husband in such circumstances could employ with wrath-averting dignity the self-effacing answer Bassanio made to Portia's magnificent devotion of herself: "Madam, you have bereft me of all words."--Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2.
G. H. McGRAW
Woodsville, N. H.
Said the wife in the above-mentioned advertisement, gesturing toward a bath of rust-colored water: "Just look at that water! It was bad enough to put up with red, rusty water at the cottage all summer--but to come back home to this!"
Said the husband: "....................... "
Said the advertisement: "What can he say? He knows that the only cure is to replace the old iron or steel water pipes with brass pipes that can't rust."
Brat & Kiddy
Sirs:
In a recent issue [TIME, Sept. 5] you referred to "children, insultingly called kiddies" and were commended in the LETTERS column of TIME, Sept. 19. In this same issue [Sept. 19] you inconsistently described a baby parade made up of "small-appearing brats." Which is preferable? I do not refer to my children in either way, but if someone should inquire about my "brats," I should consider it much more insulting to my children and me ^ than for them to be referred to as "kiddies."
Children are colloquially and good-humoredly called "kids," not from the undesirable characteristics of young goats, but rather from their unquenchable instinct to play and frolic; just as the eagle is accepted as an American emblem, not because of the fact that it is a bird of prey, but rather because of its admirable characteristics, such as strength, size, and keenness of vision.
"Brat," as a name for a child, is openly and admittedly insulting in the present day. Webster terms it "now usually contemptuous."
FAYTHE S. NUNEMAKER
(Mrs. J. Horace Nunemaker)
Madison, Wis.
Two Greys
You may be interested in the following quotation:
"We, ourselves, get our knowledge of the world's events from the Spectator, Punch, Time (the good little American weekly), Nature and a French periodical."
This is from South Sea Settlers, p. 261, by J. R. and B. B. by Grey, an English book republished here by Henry Holt & Co., New York. The authors are ranchers or farmers on the island Moorea near Tahiti in the Pacific, and as distance lends enchantments you might care to hear from your far-off readers through the above quotation. I am curious to know if the authors are really subscribers, and you might think proper to answer through TIME.
LUCIUS J. M. MALMIN
Chicago, Ill.
J. R. & B. B. Grey are not subscribers or newsstand buyers. Possibly TIME is forwarded to them by U. S. friends.--ED.
More About Spain
Sirs:
I was interested in the article on SPAIN in TIME, Sept. 26. It is certainly tragic that all King Alfonso's sons should be practically invalids. Of course the bad blood comes through Queen Victoria of Spain's father, Prince Henry of Battenberg, who was a Hesse-Darmstadt like Empress Alexandra of Russia, and her only son, Tsarevitch Alexis, had hemophilia as Crown Prince Alfonso has. Also Queen Victoria of Spain's two brothers were both delicate and died young, Prince Maurice and Prince Leopold of Battenberg, only her eldest brother Alexander (now Marquess of Carisbrooke in England) is alive. Gossip in Europe says that the healthy members of King Alfonso's family are his two daughters, and that the eldest one, the Infanta Beatriz, has inherited Alfonso's clever brains also. She has dark eyes and hair like her father. Her sister, Infanta Maria Christina, is fair like her mother, Queen Victoria. . . . It is said that King Alfonso is anxious to marry his favorite child, Infanta Beatriz, now 18, to her first cousin, Prince Alfonso of Bourbon-Sicily whose portrait you give in TIME. He is the son of King Alfonso's dead sister and is a fine, dashing young officer. If he should then be declared heir to the throne, King Alfonso's daughter Beatriz would eventually become Queen of Spain. You make a mistake in thinking that King Alfonso is a puppet in Primo de Rivera's hands. Far from that, it is Alfonso who tells Primo what to do and who uses Primo as his puppet. King Alfonso knew well that he would lose his throne in an upheaval in Spain if he allowed the outrageous abuses of the so-called "Parliamentary" Government in Spain to go on, one set of politicians simply filled their pockets and gave way to another set of politicians who did the same. Before the Great War, King Alfonso often said to his intimate friends : "These corrupt politicians in Spain will end by losing my throne for me." After the Great War, the clever Alfonso seized the opportunity, when it came, to save his throne and reform the Government by a dictatorship, which was the only possible way to do it. I am posting you a magazine in which you will find a good portrait of the Infanta Beatriz, Alfonso's eldest daughter and favorite child. She is very clever and has fine eyes, but she is not a beauty by any means. The King of Spain never signs Alfonso R. as you describe it; the Spanish custom is to sign Yo, El Rey (I, the King).
ANONYMOUS*
Boston, Mass.
Kahn's Band
Sirs:
Read about Roger Wolfe Kahn, amused, pleased [TIME, Sept. 19]. Kahn's Perroqueet [Manhattan night club] stopped flapping last Spring, a flop. His band has usually been a flop, lacking personality. He gets jobs at small figures, boosting the payroll out of his pocket. He hires big stars who get extraordinary salaries and really play but the public doesn't pay to hear music, rather to see personality. Kahn plays many instruments, but how? His arrangers and players make the music good. Will you ask a few musicians if this is not so--your New York office is near enough to 46th Street to hear tin pans rattle.
Personally I think Kahn's band is, or was, the best (I understand they break up to let Roger aviate) and he is fine personally, having entertained me, a stranger, at his club, and refused to allow me to pay, because I came to hear the band, but I doubt if his band makes money for him, and I doubt that his musical ability improves his band. Rather laud his ability to pick the best men, and pay them enough to keep them, as a hobby.
I enclose check for subscription, contented, expectant.
JOE GLOVER
Kansas City, Mo.
Epstein's Reply
Sirs:
. . . Who is this duck Blake [TIME, Oct. 3] ? Where does he get his stuff about me never having played golf. I played it. I played it twice, and Christmas I'm going to give in my clubs at the Old Ladies Home.
Listen, TIME, I write what I KNOW. I KNOW golf. Now I wish I didn't. I'd go out anywhere any Saturday and play every link in about five pokes; and make Blake's bowling score look like a sucker. Maybe I would. You say the thing would be on the square. How would I know ?
Where would Blake's ten bucks be then ?
You said you wouldn't print any more of my letters. But you lay down. You can't keep me out. . . .
MORRIS ("AL") EPSTEIN JR.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Last week Subscriber John M. Blake Jr., Nashville, Term., challenged Morris ("Al") Epstein Jr. to a unique contest. Golfer Blake has never bowled. He offered to bowl a regulation game and send his score, certified, to TIME. He asked Bowler Epstein to play a game of golf, if he had never played before, under responsible eyes and submit his score. Mr. Blake offered to bet Mr. Epstein $10 that he (Blake) would make the better relative score. Since Mr. Epstein can "play every link in about five pokes," the contest would, obviously, be unfair. There will be no contest.--ED.
Dight Set Right
Sirs:
In TIME, Sept. 26, p. 2, Jno. C. Dight of Harrisburg objects to TIME'S use of the language "State of Massachusetts," insists that Massachusetts is a Commonwealth instead, and says that the nation consists of 44 States and four Commonwealths.
If a Mothers' Club in Harrisburg were formed by 25 women, and two of them should also lose their husbands, would Mr. Dight insist that the club was then composed of 23 women and two widows ?
A State, let Mr. Dight take notice, is a State, by whatever special name it may be called--whether Commonwealth or Republic or State or what not. In the constitutions of all the four States which style themselves Commonwealths there are passages in which the word State is used instead. For example, "the State" or "this State" is used many times in the constitution of Pennsylvania to mean just the same as "this Commonwealth."
So, too, in regard to the other "error" which Mr. Dight mentions: calling the Province of Pennsylvania a colony. It was a colony of the same proprietary kind as the province of Maryland. It was also a colony in the general sense used in the expression "the 13 colonies," just as the royal province of New York, the chartered province or colony or territory of Massachusetts Bay (all three terms are used in the charter of 1691), and all the rest were colonies. A colony is a colony, by whatever special name it may be called.
S. A. TORRANCE
Yonkers, N. Y.
Dolts-in-the-Mountains
Sirs:
Please refer to your paragraph on p. 7, TIME, Sept. 5, 1927 under THE PRESIDENCY which deals with "dolts posturing on high mountains."
It is quite evident that the pseudo-sophisticate who wrote this item has never felt the thrill of the high places, has never stood on the peaks and envied the hawks and eagles soaring higher still in the clear, clean air.
Many people, no dolts, in exubriance [sic] exclaim in the only way open to their responsive feelings at such times: "Wonderful . . . Isn't it glorious?" Others stand in silent awe or, as Mr. Coolidge, "wisely" turn glasses on other points. Does your editorial writer presume to judge which is most reverent, most natural?
SLATON M. MILLER
Honolulu, T. H.
Said TIME: "Nature produces her best efforts without regard to the audience. That explains the curious comedy sensitive people feel when dolts posturing on high mountains, or above deep chasms breathe: 'Wonderful . . . Isn't it glorious?' Somehow such compliments seem a trifle impudent as well as totally irrelevant." TIME went on to show how President Coolidge had viewed the Grand Canyon with dignity and without exclamation.--ED.
San Juan Hill
Sirs:
TIME, Sept. 12, p. 9 under caption SAN JUAN HILL, you refer to "500 men on horseback standing in their stirrups and galloping along, shouting curses or encouragement to one another like polo players. They called themselves the ROUGH RIDERS" etc.
Just where did you get that rot ? The ROUGH RIDERS was officially the FIRST UNITED STATES VOLUNTEER CAVALRY and two squadrons of that regiment went to Cuba DISMOUNTED and history records quite a different version of their conduct than does your periodical.
Why do you continue to print such false statements when you could easily get the truth with a little HONEST effort?
R. H. BRUCE
Formerly a Captain in "Roosevelt's Rough Riders."
New Orleans, La.
Most people know that Washington had a little hatchet, that toads cause warts, that Jonah slept inside a whale, that the "Rough Riders" stood in their stirrups, galloped, shouted. Not so TIME, which, knowing well that the Rough Riders were dismounted in Cuba, intending to indicate that most people cling to bright legend rather than bald fact, clearly stated; "What most people know about the story is this: '. . . 500 men on horseback', " etc.--ED.
Florida Too
Sirs:
Your note in TIME, Sept. 19 that "no other U. S. state has such a law" as Michigan's new statute permitting speed at any velocity, is not entirely correct.
Chapter 10186 of the Acts of 1925 of Florida, for all practical purposes, permits travel outside of towns at any velocity. . . .
You will see that Florida two years ago in effect abolished speed limits prohibiting only driving recklessly or at a speed greater than is reasonable and proper. . . .
Although the Act provides that driving on a country road at a speed exceeding 45 miles shall be deemed prima facie evidence of reckless driving, yet it is not conclusive and even a greater speed under our law may not be reckless.
Therefore you will see that at least one other state has a similar law.
WM. T. STOCKTON
Jacksonville, Fla.
* TIME, as a general rule, does not print anonymous letters. This one seemed well worth while.--ED.