Hoover Drinks? Sirs:

I appreciate the information relative "Mellon and Distillery" . . . etc.

I have read that noted lawyer, Clarence Darrow, stated that Mr. Hoover drinks that he (Darrow) had taken a drink with him. Since you have gone into detail relative Nominee Smith, I request you inform your readers in detail concerning Nominee Hoover--Does Mr. Hoover drink? And what? And How?

MAX FLEISCHER

Inglewood Farm

Gordonsville, Va.

TIME is satisfied that Nominee Hoover ceased drinking alcoholics in the U. S. when and after Prohibition became effective.&$151;ED.

Two Questions

Sirs:

TIME errs in the Sept. 17 issue in stating "The A. S. L. announced last winter that it would raise and spend $2,000,000 in this autumn's elections."

No announcement was made of any amount to be spent on elections. The League did announce that it could use $2,000,000 in educational non-political work.

ERNEST H. CHERRINGTON Director, Anti-Saloon League of America, Washington, D. C.

TIME regrets the error. TIME also asks two questions:

1) Will $2,000,000 have been raised on or before Nov. 1, 1928?

2) To what uses, which are without political effect, has or will the money be devoted?--ED.

Vigorously Impartial

Sirs:

In each issue you advertise your magazine as "vigorously impartial."

Yet your publication is our leading apologist for Al Smith.

Any one who reads TIME knows it.

I would suggest that you eliminate the words "vigorously impartial" from your advertising.

WILLIAM C. HAMMEREL Minneapolis, Minn.

Let Subscriber Hammerel point to three sentences in TIME in support of his theory that TIME is not impartial. TIME, nailer of facts, will gladly nail on the head any charge of dishonest advertising.--ED. Hoover's Bacon

Sirs:

Robert C. Bacon, Vice Pres. E. R. Bacon Grain Co. of Chicago, Boston, Portland, shippers of domestic and export grain since 1852-- member Republican Town Committee of Wellesley, Mass.

Member Boston Grain & Flour Exchange " Chicago Board of Trade

Buffalo Corn Exchge " Grain Dealers Nat'l Assoc. today advised the Republican Natl. Committee why--Hoover.

"His unlimited power of efficient administration and of consistent appointment of unbiased practical experts was proven conclusively to all branches of our industry from farmer to consumer. . . . No man better fitted to improve the agricultural situation or to deal intelligently with the real problems of agriculture has ever run for public office."

ROBERT C. BACON

Buffalo, N. Y.

Newscasting

Sirs:

We wish to congratulate you upon inaugurating this service which has proven beyond a doubt, to be the greatest service to listeners. . . .

EDWIN L. CASHMAN Assistant Director, WEAN Providence, R. I.

Sirs:

Very good. Concise, easy to read, and no partiality shown.

J. J. MAY

Director, KFUM Colorado Springs, Col.

Sirs:

Splendid listener response.

CARL E. RAYMOND Director, WMC Tacoma, Wash.

Sirs:

The unusual in news appeals to us. With our Examiner connection, we get the daily routine items. We are very well pleased with Newscasting.

CLAIR E. MORRISON Manager, KYA San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs:

Excellent!

FRANCIS S. CHAMBERLIN Director, WMC

Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Stefansson's Stock

Sirs:

... If you wish to find out whether or not you are right in your contention that Mr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson is "of Danish stock," you might ask him personally, and I hereby make the offer to donate one hundred dollars ($100) to any charity designated by you if Mr. Stefansson will say that he is "of Danish stock.". . .

BIRGER Osland

(Formerly U. S. Military

Attache in Norway 1917-19)

Birger Osland & Co.,

Investment Bankers,

Chicago, Ill.

TIME based the assertion that famed Explorer Stefansson is "of Danish stock" upon the fact that his forebears, who came from Iceland, were indisputably of Danish nationality. They were indisputably Danes because Iceland accepted the rule of Danish kings in 1381 and did not until 1918 become a separate kingdom whose King is, today, also the King of Denmark. Iceland had been, for over 500 years, as Danish as

Texas (once Mexican) is U. S. Explorer Stefansson's reply follows.--ED.

Sirs: [See Above]

. . . Iceland was discovered by the Irish sometime after 800 A.D. A generation or so later when the Norsemen (from Norway, not from Denmark) overran Ireland, they learned from the Irish about the colony which they had already established in Iceland. . . .

Between 860 and 930, 50,000 "Norsemen" colonized Iceland. They swamped the original Irish. ... If you had said that I was of Icelandic descent, you would have been right, certainly. Had you said I was of Norse descent, it would have passed. Had you said I was of Irish descent, there could have been a stout argument for as well as against. You might even make a stand on the allegation that I am of British descent, since my father was a British subject when I was born. But I fear it is hopeless to make me out "of Danish stock.". . .

... I was born in Canada under conditions which made me a British subject. Later on, I became automatically Americanized when my father became an American citizen. This made me a citizen of two countries simultaneously. According to British law, I was British. According to American law, I was American. Lawyers differ even now as to which nationality I belong to technically. I travel under a British passport and always mean the Americans when I say "we"--not such a wholly illogical position for one of the earliest members of the English Speaking Union.

Is a Bermuda negro of English descent? Even if he were, I might still not be Danish in view of the above complicated history.

V. STEFANSSON

Croton, N. Y.

TIME deplores comparison of Nordic Stefansson with a Bermuda Negro, even by himself.--ED.

Great Reformer

Sirs:

As an admirer of TIME and a follower of Luther, I take exception to having friend A smack friend B on the nose by calling him a "peasant" (TIME, Sept. 17, p. 9) for no reason which is obvious to the reader. The term is extremely misleading and smells too much of the rustic and ignorant as aptly to apply to a brilliant historic character.

As everyone knows, Luther at one time occupied the chair of philosophy of the University of Wittenberg; he was a master and a doctor; he was a writer and thinker of great political and religious consequence.

Neither were his parents "peasants." His father was a miner.

If TIME sees a "peasant" in Luther in some very remote or distorted sense of the word, let TIME be sufficiently explicit lest it belittle the Great Reformer and brand his followers as dupes. Remember, you said there are two million readers of Lutheran literature. Many of these may also be TIME readers.

For several reasons, give the devil his dues. DAVID CHARLES SCHILKE

(One of the two million)

Merrill, Wis.

Martin Luther's father, Hans Luther (Lyder, Luder, Ludher) was a peasant from Moehra Township, Thuringia. After his marriage he settled in Mansfeld, like many another peasant, attracted by the prospect of work in the mines there. Thrifty, he leased first one, then three small furnaces for smelting iron ore. He prospered. His son, Martin, went to the Mansfeld village school, later to St. George's School at Eisenach and the University of Erfurt, then Germany's most famed. To suggest that Martin Luther was ignorant would be absurd, but to deny that he was born of and raised by and among simple peasants in lowly surroundings would be as absurd as denying that Jesus was the son of a village carpenter, that Saints Peter and Andrew were fishermen in a small way. TIME implied that there was much of the rustic though nothing of the ignorant about the saintly Great Reformer.--ED.