Suggestions

Sirs:

A national non-partisan news magazine partakes of many of the characteristics of a public service corporation. Many successful public utilities have found a wide distribution of stock among customers most beneficial to the success of the utility.

Permit the suggestion that TIME recast its capital structure and offer to its readers an opportunity to purchase its stock; letting them have an opportunity to purchase common as well as preferred.

Think of the delightful outraged remonstrances that will be received from subscriber-stockholders when you fall into one of your seldom occurring errors; the charming indignation when you appear, through colored glasses, to be partisan; the boiling uproar when you punch a particularly tender spot.

Think of the eagerness with which stockholder-readers will pass by news, no matter how interesting, to read all advertisements, mentally balancing the columns of advertising with the columns of news; clipping every coupon, patronizing every advertiser, creating by their actions added value to their property.

There is, perhaps, no precedent for such a stock sale, but you have gloried in trodding unchartered paths.

GEORGE B. BARRETT

Augusta, Ga.

Admirable idea. But the price of any TIME, INC. stock issued might appear so fantastic as to vex prospective purchasers.--ED.

Sirs:

I suggest that you have the courage to confine your advertisements to the last pages and keep the reading matter entirely separate. . . .

THEODORE W. STERLING

Lookaway Farm

Buckingham Valley

Bucks County, Pa.

Advertisements, too, are news. Even if they were not, TIME lacks courage to adopt so archaic a policy.--ED.

Sirs:

Why not a section for current tid-bits of humor? . . .

OTIS FULLER

Princeton, N.J.

There are tidbit magazines aplenty.--ED.

Sirs:

My suggestion is this: That in addition to your saying "See National Affairs" that you add page so and so and that as you have three columns, you divide this up into six pieces and designate A, B, C, D, E, F. A simple explanation of this division would soon become familiar to your readers and would greatly assist in tying in photographs to the proper subject matter, which I think now is quite annoying. . . .

WALTER C. HILL

Saginaw, Mich.

Sirs:

I wish you would not be so bluntly sensual in Theatre notes. . . .

A SUBSCRIBER*

Sirs:

Why does not TIME, whose motto is terseness, compactness, adopt phonetic spelling?

EDMUND L. EBERLING

San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs:

TIME is more than a chronicle. Therefore this letter. The style and diction of TIME conclusively proves that on its staff there are word wizards. The ordinary reader, without an unabridged dictionary and a fair knowledge of latin roots, is very apt to feel some uncertainty as to your meaning when he runs into typically TIME words, such as these:

Azimuth

Bravura

Brouhaha

Chatelaine

Castigation

Cliches

Expurgating

Ebullient

Lacunae

Largess

Lout

Lachrymose

Milieu

Prosodist

Prolation

Penates

Recondite

Regicides

Rococo

Susurrated

Ululates

Verve

Whilom

Xylol

Tuckets

Fuliginous

Masochist

All the above are from issues of TIME. They are unusual words. In a sense TIME is an educational magazine. Why not, therefore, designate one of your word wizards as a chief of the tribe whose duty it shall be to note in each issue and place in a part column near the back a list of the unusual words employed by TIME in that issue together with the definition of each word. Let us understand while we read.

G. E. HOFFMAN

Pensacola, Fla.

Sirs:

. . . I have never until now, cared to write to a magazine to extend it either praise or criticism--perhaps because I am so young that I felt my opinions could carry no weight. But after reading an article in a recent number of your magazine, I am moved to forget my shyness. . . .

In this letter, I refer to an article in the Dec. 10 issue on the South American countries--and to the splendid map, which accompanies the article. Never have I read such an interesting bit of history--written, as it was, in a concise way, which yet tells so much. To me South America has never meant more than a name--but now I feel as though I have a worthwhile knowledge of the country.

If only history books were written in a like manner, what a delightful study it would become! For the benefit of all the schoolchildren, I wish that it would be possible for new history books to be written, patterned in the style of TIME. What an alive and interesting subject history would become.*

If, TIME, your task of editing of your magazine is lightened by these letters of praise, then I am glad I have written you this sincere bit of praise.

JULIA ANN BARDENS

Monmouth, Ill.

TYCOON PLAYED OUT IMPERATIVE DROP IT

SEAN OGAHAN

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

To Suggesting Subscribers many thanks. Their ideas will be pondered well.--ED.

Childlike

Sirs:

TIME's constant use of the term "Tycoon" and persistent repetition of phrases such as "Who mortally fears and hates the Pope," etc., etc., reminds me of a child with a new toy.

Children are sometimes a bit tiresome, but still we love them and we wouldn't miss TIME for anything.

IRVING J. THOMAS

Thomas-Pierce Holding Co.,

Coconut Grove, Miami, Fla.

TIME thanks Subscriber Thomas for a comparison which no Christian can resent.*--ED.

Tycoon or Tycobb ?

Sirs:

. . . I am not a Tycoon. . . .

Incidentally I should like to suggest a substitute for that word. It is of Japanese origin, I believe, and not "potent" to American readers. Now if you were to say that a man was a TYCOBB of Shoes or Ships or Sealing Wax, all of us would know exactly what you meant.

BASIL DICKEY

Los Angeles, Calif.

Popular Vote

Sirs:

I may have missed the point, but I am still waiting to learn whether or not Governor Smith received a larger popular vote than any other candidate for President, either successful or unsuccessful, except Mr. Hoover.

May I trouble you to let me know the answer to the above question, and if Governor Smith did not receive the largest popular vote, except for Mr. Hoover, will you please state who did and what the figures as to the votes were. . . .

THOMAS AMORY LEE

Topeka, Kan.

Prior to 1928, the greatest popular vote polled by a U.S. Presidential candidate was Harding's 16,152,200 in 1920. Next highest was Coolidge's 15,725,016 in 1924. The 1928 results have not yet been officially rechecked and published. The latest count compiled by Current History shows Hoover 21,409,215, Smith 15,042,366. When a final count of the 1928 popular vote is available, TIME will print it, State by State.--ED.

Wichita--Air Centre

We are enthusiastic readers of TIME and because of its efforts to present full facts in all cases, we are courteously inviting your attention to the list of "Important United States Manufacturers of Airplanes" on page 60 in the Dec. 3, issue of your magazine.

Swallow, the only Wichita plant listed, is the first commercial plant and is the mother of no less than fifteen other plants throughout the United States that have sprung from it. The other plants we feel should be listed are Travel Air Mfg. Co., Inc., Stearman Aircraft Co., and the Cessna Aircraft Company.

The Travel Air is second, if not first, in the number of planes produced by commercial factories in the United States. The Travel Air was recently recapitalized and is now rated at $1,875,000, the heaviest capitalized company limited to the production of commercial aircraft. Construction now under way will make it the unchallenged, greatest commercial airplane factory in the nation. . . . Various models ot Travel Air sell from $3,000 to $25,000.

The Stearman Company is now capitalized at $600,000 and is producing one of the most refined commercial biplanes on the market. This ship is flown by the air lines, by the government and is very popular with people of wealth who take up aviation as a sport. . . .

The Cessna Aircraft Company is headed by Clyde V. Cessna, a pioneer who began flying in 1910. The Cessna is one of the speediest ships made. . . . The ships are cabin monoplanes with a cantilever wing and sell from $5,000 to $15,000. . . . The Cessna Company is capitalized at $500,000.

Wichita this year produced nearly one-third of the nation's crop of commercial aircraft.

GEORGE H. SAWALLESH

Assistant Secretary

The Wichita Chamber of Commerce,

Wichita, Kan.

* TIME rarely prints an anonymous or unsigned letter.--ED.

* Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter Into the kingdom of Heaven.--Matt. 18, 3.