Hoover in Louisville

Sirs:

"More policemen than citizens witnessed the Louisville parade. The hall where the President spoke was only half-filled with curious spectators who did not grasp the significance of his speech on inland waterway development" reads your description of President Hoover's visit to Louisville in TIME for Nov. 4. ... A gross exaggeration and untruth and one for which TIME should be ashamed. . . . True the weather was inclement when the President honored Louisville with his visit--so inclement that plans formulated many days in advance were changed at the last moment. Admiring throngs lined the streets over which it was announced the President was to pass on his automobile trip to Southern Indiana across Louisville's new $5,000,000 municipal bridge (then unopened to the public--but since thrown open to traffic, Oct. 31) and likewise throngs waited in the rain for the President on his scheduled route to the Brown Hotel. Plans were changed so that these routes were but partly used, the bridge was not crossed and thousands of those who made it possible for Kentucky to give Mr. Hoover a 170,000 majority last November, stood in the rain and were greatly disappointed when they learned of the change, but many witnessed the parade when it passed scheduled points. As for the hall being half-filled, this is another untruth. It was well filled but not packed and that I feel due to another last minute change in plans. The President was to have spoken in the open from the deck of The Greenbrier and amplifiers had been placed at a cost of $750 at the Ohio River waterfront for the purpose of enabling the crowds to hear him. Then the President did not speak at the waterfront due to the heavy rain and comparatively few people learned in time that he was to speak at Memorial Auditorium where his speech was to be radiocast, so again thousands who wanted to see him, were disappointed. . . .

WILLIAM A. STOLL

Member Presidential Reception Committee

Louisville, Ky.

Cohen No Martyr

Sirs:

A subscriber who usually enjoys TIME from cover to cover, I was rudely jarred by a letter referring to me in your issue of Nov. 4.

Shorn of its gratuitously insulting irrelevant superfluities, the letter states in effect that I sought the role of a martyr. Mr. Francis has often read my contributions to the Harvard Crimson in which I have emphasized that I seek no early martyrdom and that the Socialist Party is not "idealistic" but very much a bread and butter movement of workers who seek better working and living conditions.

It is true that I violated an old Cambridge ordinance forbidding free distribution of printed matter on the streets. I wanted to know whether the law was a dead letter or a threat over the heads of radicals. If the former, I thought it should be repealed; if the latter, I wanted the public to know it.

With that rare burst of intelligence which comes now and then even to non-Socialists, Mr. Francis adds, "had . . . this . . . man been distributing Salvation Army propaganda ... he would have been just as liable to arrest, though whether he would have been arrested or not is another question."

I'll say so. I subsequently published a signed sworn statement of violations of this and similar ordinances by other persons but the police simply denied the truth of my charges and refused to act. Your correspondent states with a grieved air that the pamphlets I distributed contained no radical phraseology. True enough. What they did state was that as long as American workers continued to elect to office the nominees of the Capitalist owners of the Republican and Democratic parties, laws would be passed inimical to the working class and that in the administration of existing laws the working class would be discriminated against; that my allegations were true the local police department proved to everyone's satisfaction.

LAWRENCE B. COHEN JR.

The Harvard Socialist Club Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

Massachusetts' Walsh

Sirs:

The undersigned readers of TIME are interested in the record of Senator David I. Walsh of Massachusetts. Your reviews of various Senators and Congressmen have been most interesting and we will appreciate it if you will treat Mr. Walsh's record and past history in a similar manner.

CHARLES J. O'BRIEN

RAYMOND A. FITZGERALD

ROSALIE H. O'CONNELL

ROSE F. HEALY

NELLIE D. KENT

Boston, Mass.

The record of Senator David Ignatius

Walsh of Massachusetts is as follows: Born: Leominster, Worcester Co., Mass., Nov. 11, 1872. Start in life: Picking and peddling blueberries. Career: He was the ninth of ten children in a poor Irish Catholic family. His father was a factory hand pressing cattle horns into combs. The factory closed. The father died. Spindly-legged David Ignatius, aged 7, trudged over the hills around Worcester to gather wild berries and sell them. He picked enough, and did enough odd jobs, newspaper-selling, errand-running, to put himself through school. He was president of his class. From Holy Cross he was graduated in 1893, from the Boston University Law School four years later. At 24 he began to practise law at Fitchburg. At 27, as a "common people's" Democrat, he was sent by a hidebound Republican district in Worcester to represent it at the State House in Boston. He was Massachusetts' Lieutenant-Governor-- the first Democratic one in 70 years--in 1913 and its Governor in 1914 & 1915. In 1918 he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

In Congress: He served one complete term (1919--1925) in the Senate. Seeking re-election in 1924 he was defeated by a narrow margin (20,000 votes) by onetime House Speaker Frederick Gillett in the Coolidge landslide. His revenge came in 1926 when he ousted from a Senate seat William Morgan Butler, chairman of the Republican National Committee, strongly-endorsed Coolidge friend. Last year he was again reelected, helping materially to carry Massachusetts for Nominee Smith. He voted for Tax Reduction (1928), Flood Control (1928), Boulder Dam (1928), the Cruiser Construction Bill (1929), Radio Control (1928) and Reapportionment (1929). He voted against Farm Relief (1927, 1928, 1929) and the Jones (increased Prohibition penalties) Law (1929). He votes Wet, drinks Wet. Legislative Hobbies: War veteran aid, protective labor measures, U. S. merchant marine, a high tariff for Massachusetts industries (shoes, textiles, manufactures). A bachelor, he is tall and stout. A double chin tends to get out over his tight-fitting collar. His stomach bulges over his belt. He weighs 200 Ibs. or more. Setting-up exercises every other day at a Washington health centre have failed to reduce his girth. He is troubled about it. His dress is dandified. He wears silk shirts in bright colors and stripes and, often, stiff collars to match. His feet are small and well-shod. Beneath his habitual derby hat his hair is turning thin and grey. Society is his prime diversion. Of secondary interest are motoring, sporting events, the theatre. In Washington he occupies an expensive suite of rooms at the luxurious Carlton Hotel on 16th Street. A good and frequent host himself, he accepts all invitations out, is one of the most lionized Senators in Washington. Ironic comments are sometimes heard on the contrast between his political representation and his social activities. In Senate debate which he enters frequently he is gruff and bull-voiced. Earnestness rather than humor flavors his remarks. He gesticulates freely and, when thoroughly aroused, rubs his hands together vigorously and tugs his right ear. He takes an active, if not leading, part in many movements (unemployment relief, fuel famine, Veterans' Bureau investigation, Merchant Marine development). A great political letter-writer, he keeps three special clerks to handle his mail, works at his office Sunday afternoons. His grammar is good, his pronunciation Bostonian. In private conversation his voice is soft and controlled. Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: A good practical politician ("The best Irish vote-getter in the U. S."), a legislator above the average. His political philosophy is liberal and humane, except on economic matters (the tariff) which affect the New England industry, when he turns conservative. His floor attendance is regular, his powers of persuasion, fair. His term expires March 4, 1935.--ED.

"City of Dreadful Night"

Sirs:

Well, now that General Jake Wolters has, as he states, "Cleaned up Borger" (TIME, Nov. 4) it might be pertinent to ask that being so experienced he try his hand on his own home town, Houston, with a public record of more automobile accidents than any town in the United

States; Houston, which during the preceding month issued 12,000 tickets against automobile traffic violation, over 9,000 of which were disregarded by her law-abiding citizens; Houston, with a divorce record higher than any in the nation; Houston, so wide open a babe in arms has no trouble getting its toddy; Houston, where no night passes without a large quota of robberies, banditry and housebreaking; Houston, rapidly becoming, for women, a city of Dreadful Night. . . .

(ANOTHER) J. WALTERS

Houston, Tex.

"Nisi Prius! Harvard Law!"

Sirs: Your recent mention (Nov. 4, p. 42) of our "Sammy" Williston as "the outstanding authority on the law of contracts and sales" prompts a recital of this parody on tintinnabulous "Vo-do-dee-oh-do" et al. in which another of the grand old gentleman's affectionate names appears. It probably owes its origin to several of the Lehigh delegation of the 1929 LL.B.'s, for on occasional maltous and vinous celebrations they bellowed lustily: Roscoe Pound from Puget Sound Leaves indictments all around. Vo-do-dee-oh-do etc. Says Francis Sayre, "Do you agree? Wherein lies the criminality?" Vo-do-etc. A fortiori, don't fool with the Bull, Just sit, listen when Uncle Sam begins to yell, "Offeree! Offeror! Nisi Prius! Harvard Law!" Vo-do-dee-oh-do-do-de--oh-do. (cum gusto.) Permit me to explain that the reference to Puget Sound in line one is mere poetic license. In line seven we find Austin Wakeman ("A fortiori") Scott's favorite expression; and the next causation was significant to us who knew Edward H. ("Bull") Warren (retired January 1929). The final phonetic spelling is of course enjoyable to us of the midwest who, though we err on our "a" sounds, are not New Englanders, who "r" in the wrong places.

FREQUENT READER LAWRENCE V. FOX

Milwaukee, Wis.

Tears for Lillie B.

Sirs:

. . . How any one can think of man as other than an animal, when they note the football game, the Halloween pranks, the wrestling match, the prizefight, and the Monday morning bargain counter, to say nothing of the crowded street car, is a bit more than some of us can understand. My little "Lillie B.," an Eskimo-Spitz, died several years ago. Her passing gave me as keen misery, and as scalding tears, as if she had been some human being whom I loved. The scientist recognizes this emotion as evidence of kinship, and as proof that all living things are the result of one universal law. Indeed, this is true of all cognizable things.

L. V. LA TASTE

Texas School Guild

Dallas, Tex.