"Crass Blasphemy"

Sirs:

If the Republicans have Onward Christian Soldiers for their campaign song, as Mr. Fort says [TIME, July 9], I shall lose my last vestige of hesitancy and vote against Herbert Hoover the Quaker and for Governor Smith the Roman Catholic. Perhaps in the Quaker Church, with its lack of ritual, there is inculcated a disdain for the ritual of others. Brought up in the worship of silence, Mr. Hoover will not mind making a fine old hymn of our fathers into a catch-tune of the hustings. I have been a Republican, if that is what it is to vote for Taft, Hughes, Harding and Coolidge, but I am observant and, I hope reverent. Politics is a trade and a business nowadays. There is no place in it now for holy hymns. My promise to vote for Smith should reassure you that I am not fanatical about the separation of church and state. My protest is simply against what seems to me a particularly crass bit of blasphemy from men who should know better. "Christian Soldiers" indeed! Faugh!

MEREDITH WIGTON

Chicago, Ill.

Hoover Wedding

Sirs:

Because I want accurate, authoritative information I am referring my query to you...

Some time ago (perhaps in TIME) I read that Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry were married in California by a Catholic priest. This ordinarily means that one or both of the contracting parties profess the Catholic faith. Is it possible to obtain exact information as to the time, place, name of Church and name of priest performing the ceremony?

MRS. WILLIAM G. BARRY

Subscriber

Chicago, Ill.

Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry were married in January, 1899, in the Henry house at Monterey, Calif., by Father Ramon Mestrec, a Roman Catholic missionary priest with a dispensation permitting him to perform a civil wedding ceremony for non-Catholics.--ED.

Hoover Drinks ? Sirs:

Now that you have told us just how wet Al Smith is, let us hear just how dry Herbert Hoover is. In Hoover's answer to Borah's questionnaire there seems to be a groping for vagueness. I wonder if Hoover has always held to the teachings of his Quaker fathers' during all these years with the British.

J. M. BENSON

Jefferson, Ohio.

Following Secretary Hoover's answer to the Borah questionnaire, Lawyer Clarence Darrow said: "I don't think Hoover is any drier than I am. I ought to know. I have had a drink with him" (TIME, March 5). Last week, questions were submitted asking Nominee Hoover to confirm or deny the Darrow statement and also to record: 1) whether Mr. Hoover has taken a drink since Prohibition; 2) whether Mr. Hoover would take a drink now if assured the liquor was legally possessed. Nominee Hoover's secretary, chubby George Akerson, refused to transmit the questions to his chief. Vexed, he cried: "A lot of foolish nonsense! Mr. Hoover is a Constitutional executive officer and as such he hasn't taken anything to drink since he's been in office. ... I don't think Mr. Hoover ever was with Clarence Darrow." --Ed.

Gypsies Smith

Sirs:

In your issue of July 2 on p. 25, you have unintentionally confused the internationally known evangelist "Gypsy" Smith who, as you say, "for 50 years has preached and sung God all over the world," with a much younger man, Captain "Gypsy Pat" Smith, who was divorced by his wife in Bridgeport, Conn. This younger man of Gypsy origin after the War became an itinerant preacher, and, to the regret of "Gypsy" Smith, took that word as part of his public name. There is no kinship whatever between the two men. It is bad enough that his unhappy marital affairs should bring into disrepute this younger man's rather crude religious efforts; but let not his collapse reflect upon a Christian preacher who for years has rendered blameless service to churches in many lands.

HENRY S. COFFIN

Union Theological Seminary

New York, N. Y.

TIME deeply regrets its error, proffers herewith apology to famed original Gypsy Smith, whose real name is Rodney Smith and who said: "Jesus Christ was the greatest gentleman the world ever knew."--ED.

Old Madames

Sirs:

Of course I may be wrong but I think it shows a lacking of respectfulness for one of the world's greatest women when you said the following: "Among singers who will appear is old Ernestine Schumann-Heink, in her 'positive farewell to the Pacific Coast.' "

Madam Heink may be elderly but it is entirely unnecessary to use the word old, and very, very disrespectful to her (Madam Heink).

Trusting that you publish an apology in your next issue of TIME to Madam Heink and that you will be more careful in the future, I remain

H. P. McKALIP

Tulsa, Okla.

Madame Heink is 67; Madame Melba, 62; both old for singers.--ED.

Wild, Fantastic

Sirs:

During the past week many American newspapers have printed lurid tales of the strike of the tobacco workers in Greece. These stories which emanated from Vienna and Belgrade told of scores being killed and hundreds wounded in riots in various Macedonian cities; of the mutiny of a portion of the fleet; of a Communist revolution which was declared to be in progress; of fighting behind barricades in the streets of Piraeus, and of other dire happenings.

These wild and fantastic rumors were sent out by a reputable news gathering association, acting, of course, in perfect good faith, but ignoring the fact that it is never safe to accept, as true, stories from one Balkan country about the internal affairs of another, and that all Balkan news coming out of Vienna should be regarded with great suspicion. The same agency that sent out the Vienna-Belgrade stories had its own correspondent in Greece who could have readily verified or disproved them, and who would have undoubtedly sent them in himself if they had been founded on fact. . . .

Some of the tobacco workers, for the most part employed by American concerns, have been on strike and the police have taken the same steps to preserve order that the police of any other country would have taken. There has been no serious street fighting, no long casualty list, no mutiny in the fleet and no Communist revolt.

We are authorized by the Greek Government to categorically deny the truth of the Vienna-Belgrade despatches and to state that they are utterly false.

B. P. SALMON

Director

Hellenic Information Bureau

Washington, D. C.

TIME ignored the Greco-Balkan rumors. --ED.

Blood Boiled

Sirs:

Roald Amundsen is dead, he must be dead--as dead as heroic Nungesser and Coli.

May I ask TIME with a Christian curb upon one's righteous anger, how much the World has lost in losing Amundsen and how much gained by the rescue of Nobile?

Norway has lost her greatest citizen, the discoverer of the South Pole. Italy has got back a "hero" who became such when he, Nobile, was employed by an American financier to act, under the guidance of Amundsen, as captain of the Norge. [(TIME, May 17, 1926).--ED.]

The employe, Nobile, said afterward of his employer: "All Ellsworth did was to give money for the flight. It was I, Nobile, who was responsible for the Norge's success."

Benito Mussolini also said in Rome: "In vain did others try to steal the glory! I say in a voce of thunder that you, Nobile, you an Italian, wisely guided the Norge to the end of her extraordinary voyage."

As a Norwegian, my blood boiled at these words which I have kept. But perhaps we are a patient people. Our newspapers continued not unfriendly to Nobile; and when he set out in the Italia, a dirigible of his own design, to prove that he, he, HE could circle the Pole, we wished him well. It was only when the faulty design of the Italia caused her to crumple, that my own heart became troubled. Too well I knew, as did all Norwegians, that Amundsen would feel compelled to rescue Nobile, because the Italian had wronged him.

I say nothing of the crew whom Captain Nobile has abandoned on the Polar ice. As the years pass General Nobile will grow so weary of explaining why he was the first to leave his ship. Those explanations will be sufficient punishment.

OLE OFTEDAL

Milwaukee, Wis.

Axe

Sirs:

Please delete me from your list.

TIME took advantage of a great national need. TIME could have monopolized its field. But it has not. Nor will it, unless it cleans house.

TIME'S method of axe-grinding is the most subtle in journalistic history: It is therefore the most powerful and unimpeachable. One does not mind that in so excellent a news-medium. What one does mind is such far-fetched pretensions to the opposite.

The average citizen of normal intelligence deplores such spectacles as Heflin, Volstead, the K. K. K., the drab monotony of Mr. Coolidge, and like tendencies; he maintains a respectful and open-minded attitude toward Al Smith and wife, "humble example(s) of transmogrification," and kindred influences; therefore he resents being so subtly harangued by a paper that makes an issue of nonpartisanship. TIME grinds axes and shouts "News!" from cover to cover.

TIME'S distinguished list of subscribers no doubt find that it provides them with an excellent service. I discriminate against it as a member of the masses whom it seeks to reach.

J. V. JONES

U. S. S. Cincinnati.

"To keep intelligent men and women well informed--that is the only axe TIME has to grind."--From the original announcement of TIME, The Weekly Newsmagazine.--ED.