Not Wheat, But Men

Sirs: In your issue of Jan. 9 you give an illuminating review of the various farm relief plans. On most of them you offer brief and intelligent comment, but you present Farmer Campbell's plan without comment, which makes me half afraid that you favor it. The gist of his plan is to industrialize farming and conduct it on a Ford-factory basis. Under his plan, the agricultural land of America would be held by a comparatively few individuals and corporations, and it would be operated by hired labor, just as steel mills and automobile factories are operated. The laborers--the real dirt farmers--would thus be peasants, for they would own neither the land nor the tools of production. Is this to be the future of the American farmer? It may be, but some of us who recall the original purposes of this nation cannot receive the suggestion with any enthusiasm. To us, the chief crop of American farmers is not wheat or oats or corn, but men. The best of our leadership in church and state in the past has been produced upon farms owned by the men who tilled them. Just how much leadership, spiritual and intellectual, are we producing in factories? Are we willing to sacrifice the character-building qualities of our present system for a more commercial one which may make more money for the few, but will make less manhood for the many?

FRED EASTMAN The Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Ill.

Lindbergh, Sherwood

Sirs:

Says Grace Gordon Cox, of Boston, under LETTERS in the Jan. 9 issue of TIME:

". . . There will never be a man on your staff big enough to 'stand in Lindy's shoes.' "

Why not give Robert Emmet Sherwood a job?

JOHN H. O'HARA New York City

Robert Emmet Sherwood's feet fill size 13 shoes. He is editor and cinema critic of Life, and author of The Road to Rome, highly successful comedy.--ED.

Thugs?

Sirs:

Your announcement of new TIME advertisers for 1928 is obviously intended to attract still more advertisers to your sheet. Yet you have the insolence to illustrate this announcement with three thugs in the act of reading TIME. One of them wears an ill-fitting suit, a sloppy hat, and has a cigaret drooping from his mouth. Another has a dented derby pulled down over his face. The third, I must admit, seems to be a rather high-grade thug. Do you think national advertisers will come running to your office, if TIME readers are really as you depict them? I read TIME and am no thug.

R. J. SMITH Hartford, Conn.

Had Subscriber Smith eyed more carefully the illustration (TIME, Jan. 9), he would have noted that two of the three TIME readers wore spats.--ED.

Knowing As They Do

Sirs:

With pleasure we note your article on my appointment as Democratic Committeeman of the Second Ward, Chicago, Ill.

We deeply appreciate your very kind expressions and are glad to state that we are meeting with wonderful success. Members are coming in daily, glad for a chance to receive their long delayed, political justice.

Knowing as they do, the fair policy of Tammany Hall, they are throwing their loyal support to our organization, far beyond our most sanguine expectations.

I shall in the future as in the past do my full duty to my country and my race.

Again thanking you for your kind mention, I am

JACK JOHNSON/- Committeeman, Democratic Organization Second Ward Chicago, Ill.

In Swope Park

Sirs:

We are constant readers of your valuable magazine, and each week welcome it with greater delight. I beg, however, to correct a statement your issue of Jan. 2, under MILESTONES.

In Swope Park (a public park), this city, is a statue erected to Alfred Benjamin, a Jew.

(MRS. SAM) BERTHA E. FELDENHEIMER Kansas City, Mo.

Keep Tab

Sirs:

It may be of some interest to those who follow the sporting items in TIME to know that a remarkable long distance runner has recently arrived in London from South Africa and it will not be amiss to keep tab on English dailies and weeklies till the end of the present month. The name of the runner is Arthur F. Newton, who last July shattered the world's record for 100 miles by covering that distance in 14 hrs. and 43 minutes. . . . Newton was educated at Bedford and left England 21 years ago to farm in Rhodesia, South Africa when only a youth. He had passed his 44th year when he made mince meat of the world's 100 mile record. . . .

Unless too late here is compliments of the season to all the staff of TIME.

JOHN MORGAN Gary, Ind.

TIME (July 25), reported the 100-mile run.--ED.

Real and Rare

Sirs:

Thank you for the Liver Diet recipes which arrived this morning and were promptly passed on to the young lady who is "doing time" on liver. I believe this to be an instance of service, real and rare.

R. A. RAYMOND The Elgin A. Simonds Co. Syracuse, N. Y.

/- Onetime (1910-15) world's heavyweight champion.--ED.