No Bet
Sirs:
Who gives a tinker's dam whether or not a pig in Shelby, N. C., slobbers on James Ledbetter ?
You say in your advertisements that TIME is written for "active persons of high intelligence and quick apperceptions . . . not for the masses."
Really, I just can't imagine a person of high intelligence enjoying reading about slobbering pigs and rams butting fat women as reported in your MISCELLANY Department (TIME, Dec. 26, 1927).
. . . Now I would like to make you a little bet, and I won't back down either if I lose.
Here it is. Ask your subscribers if they enjoy reading about rams butting fat women and pigs slobbering on people. If they like it, I will pay you double price for TIME for ten years. If they do not care for it, I get TIME ten years for nothing and you agree to cut out the silly, uncouth stuff.
F. T. MUDD
Falls City, Neb.
TIME finds it impossible to conduct polls among its 175,000 subscribers and newsstand buyers or take up every sporting offer made by speculative readers. When TIME omitted MISCELLANY for three issues, TIME found itself the target of indignant correspondence.--ED.
Feet
Sirs:
Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh is probably the only man alive today of whom it can be truly said: "Here is a hero whose feet are not of clay."
Yet what does TIME say of Lindy's feet? I quote from your story about him under "Heroes." Therein you sneer: "Lindbergh . . . feet: large. When he arrived at the Embassy in France no shoes big enough were handy."
Let me tell you, TIME, there will never be a man on your staff big enough to "stand in Lindy's shoes" !
GRACE GORDON Cox
Boston, Mass.
"Golden State"
Sirs:
I call your attention to item in TIME of Nov. 28 issue, p. 31, top, which refers to women's lounge and smoking room on trains operated by the Pennsylvania R. R., Lehigh Valley and also mentions name of the Santa Fe's crack train The Chief.
As you probably know, the Rock Island's Golden State Limited has carried a ladies' smoking room and lounge for several years and I am enclosing for your information, copy of booklet which describes this added convenience on our trains. . . .
H. H. ELLIS
Advertising Manager, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.
Hard on Managers
Sirs:
Why have such a crepe-hanger review your CINEMA? Or if this must be, why not change the heading to VINEGA(R)? The two words have letters only in common, and the result is not at all in keeping with your usual attitude. I have seen many of the "New Pictures" written up in your issue of Dec. 26, and from the reactions of the audiences on those occasions, who, after all, are the ones to be pleased, it would seem that your reviewer is entirely out of line with public opinion. Don't you think it rather hard on the theatre managers, who book their plays far in advance, to give the pictures negative advertising, which no doubt influences many to stay away from an evening's enjoyment for them. . . . Don't bother to look for my name on your list of subscribers as it isn't there, for I am continually on the move and find it much easier to pick one up somewhere each week, than to bother trying to have one trail me, but I haven't missed reading one in ages, and don't intend to.
ROBERT WILMER
Warrington, Fla.
Newsstand buyer Wilmer's criticism is sound, will be heeded.--ED.
Historic Debate
Sirs:
Having delayed sending you a correction of your error of Dec. 12 in stating that Senator Warren is called "the greatest shepherd since Abraham because as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee he guides whole flocks of bills," I find now that W. M. Ledbetter in your issue of Dec. 26 has given what I believe to be another erroneous explanation of this title by stating that it was conferred on Senator Warren "by the late Champ Clark because of the Senator's vast sheep interests in Wyoming." I feel sure that the designation was conferred on the venerable Senator from Wyoming by Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver of Iowa, on June 8, 1909, during the historic debate on Schedule K (the wool tariff) in the Senate, from which this extract is taken:
Mr. Dolliver: "I contemplate no attack on the sixth agricultural industry of America. It is the one point in tariff making on which all parties can naturally agree."
Mr. Warren: "Nobody, perhaps, knows better than I do the genuine Republicanism of the Senator from Iowa, or what feeling of interest he has for the farmer. He is a farmer, so am I. We are both farmers."
Mr. Dolliver: "You are the greatest shepherd since Abraham." (Laughter.)
The debate was historic because Dolliver's assault on Schedule K was the main factor during the next four years in discrediting the tariff revision of 1909 and with it President Taft's administration. This situation encouraged the Progressives' third ticket in 1912, which led to the election of Woodrow Wilson.
SAMUEL S. DALE
Brookline, Mass.
Experts
Sirs:
TIME, Dec. 26, p. 11: "The Smith plan would require . . . experts to make punishments fit crimes." Has not the trend of criminological thought for at least the past 50 years been toward emphasizing the offender rather than an isolated act, the crime, in determining punishment? All recent developments in the field of penology (i.e. the indeterminate sentence, probation, parole and the reformatory) have been in this direction. Is it possible that Governor Smith's proposal, which you hailed as "a departure almost as notable in criminology as was the substitution of vaccine for leeches in the treatment of smallpox"--is it possible that this proposal is based on the outworn and unsatisfactory principle of the Dark Ages ? I believe, and I hope not.
And in regard to the "experts," could such be found who would be willing to base their efforts on the criterion that punishment should be made commensurate with the crime? I list the following as representative specialists from which a board of correction might be chosen: Dean Roscoe Pound, Judge Julian W. Mack, Dr. George W. Kirchway, Hon. B. G. Lewis, Dr. Bernard Glueck, Dr. W. A. White, Dr. Herman M. Adler, Dr. William Healy. Do any of these believe in punishments to fit crimes? I believe not.
FRANK LOVELAND JR.
Cambridge, Mass.