Escapes from Reality

Sirs:

In TIME, Sept. 1, you reported Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk, Vice President of the Life Extension Institute, as follows:

"Alan has three outlets, intoxication, love and work. The chief American outlet is work. Through love man may gain leisure. It is a good check on both intoxication and work. It's not a bad idea to mix the three about even."

Because of my personal association with Dr. Fisk I queried him by wireless to the French Liner Lafayette, on which he had set sail, asking whether he had been correctly quoted. Dr. Fisk has replied to me by wireless.

"Deny interview as stated. I quoted a French philosopher on three escapes from reality, but said it is better to love intensely than lead a sterile narrow life. I did not say mix the three, but said work is the best outlet. Do what you can to correct. I said man employs three escapes, but I had abiding faith that he would find constructive rather than destructive escapes." . . .

IRVING FISHER

New Haven, Conn.

TIME regrets the misquotation, asks Subscribers to make correction should they encounter it in conversation.--ED.

Cinema & Harakiri

Sirs:

I likewise read the American Mercury article by Oland D. Russell, whom Carl E. Milliken, secretary of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, quotes as saying: ''Missionaries and movies are two of the most considerable American exports to Japan but . . . the Hollywood product has more to do with the decline of harakiri there . . ." (TIME, Letters, Aug. 25).

Mr. Milliken's well-written advertisement quoted correctly, but wisely abstained from drawing certain distinctions. "Harakiri" is only one form of suicide, at which the Japanese are peculiarly adept. Newsman Russell admits the Western screen is encouraging Japs to restrain from their heroic belly-cutting, BUT (here Mr. Milliken forgot to quote) AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER FORMS OF SUICIDE. "A Japanese authority who has studied suicide in his country." says Mr. Russell . . . "blames the movies for the increase of other forms of self-despatch."

GEORGE N. SCHEID

Tarentum, Pa.

Alabama's Heflin

Sirs:

The undersigned readers of TIME have read several of your reviews of public men. We now join in asking that you print a review of Senator J. Thomas Heflin, of Alabama.

J. P. MITCHELL T. B. WOODS JACK BRIDGES J. J. ESPY

Headland, Ala.

The record of Senator James Thomas ("Tom-Tom") Heflin of Alabama is as follows:

Born: at Louina, Ala., April 9, 1869.

Start in Life: Mayor of Lafayette, Ala.

Career: Never in pecuniary need, he was forced by his Spartan father, richest Randolph County landowner, to plow & pick in the paternal cotton plantation, weed gardens, milk cows with his six brothers, one sister. Aged 10, he declaimed "Give me liberty or give me death" at the nearby schoolhouse; aged 12, he had read all available tomes on the American Revolution, much Shakespeare, in preparation for an oratorical career. At Southern University (Greensboro, Ala.) and at the A. & M. College (Auburn, Ala.), he debated, orated, played school politics. Graduating, he moved to Lafayette, Ala., there studied law, was admitted to the bar in January 1893. Two months later he was elected Mayor of Lafayette, youngest (23) in the town's history. In 1895 he married Minnie Kate Schuessler, now deceased, who bore him one son, James Thomas Jr. He has held public office continuously, as Register in Chancery, State Legis ator, State Constitutional Delegate (1901), Alabama Secretary of State (1902-04), U. S. Representative from the 5th Alabama District (1904-20), U. S. Senator (since 1920). His term expires March 3, 1931.

In Congress: He is one of the most voluble speakers, best raconteurs, in either House. Entering the Senate, he became a violent critic of the Federal Reserve System and its 1920-21 deflation policy. He claimed to have driven Reserve Board Governor William P. Gould Harding single-handed out of office. Allied with the Ku Klux Klan he next turned savagely upon the Knights of Columbus, charged the Roman Catholic Church with political plots against the U. S. Weekly he bellowed his hates and fears against the Roman Pope, made himself notorious throughout the land. He suspected papal plots against his life, became wary of where he went, what he ate.

He voted for: Immigration Restriction (1923), the Soldier Bonus (1924), Tax Reduction (1924, 1926, 1928, 1929), Farm Relief (1927, 1928, 1929), The Boulder Dam (1928), The Jones (Five & Ten) Law (1929), The Navy 15-Cruiser bill (1929).

He voted against Reapportionment (1929).

He votes, drinks, and speaks Dry.

His attitude on foreign affairs is Wilsonian.

Chief legislation bearing his name (as coauthor) : the bill creating a national "Mothers' Day."

Tall (6 ft.), massive (215 lb.), he affects the appearance of the old-school Southern colonel. His eyes, in a broad face that flushes crimson in the heat of debate, are steely grey. His hair, parted near the middle, is a thin, sandy grey. He dresses in a black frock coat, grey trousers, cream vest, pince-nez on a large black ribbon, wide-brimmed black felt hat. His voice is an orator's mighty organ, strident in attack, soft and tender in appeal. Artful is his use of language. His manner is violently emotional, demagogic, with heaven-splitting gestures and flying coat tails. His repetitious tirades which make him perspire freely drive most of his fellow Senators from the chamber.

A pious Methodist, he believes God guides his actions: he gives generously to charities. He does not smoke or chew, use coffee or tea.

Outside Congress: He lives with his son at the non-fashionable Continental Hotel when in Washington: when in Lafayette in a colonial- type tree-shaded mansion. He owns no automobile. His one diversion: watching baseball games. He is outside Washington's smart society. Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: an oratorical genius, an eccentric, no great legislator. An oldtime politician whose personal magnetism has overridden his legislative deficiencies, brought him, colorful, to a drab modern Congress. He bolted, bated Democratic supporters of Roman Catholic Alfred Emanuel Smith in 1928, stumped for President Hoover, but did not vote for him. This year regular Alabama Democrats barred him from their primary. "Jeffersonian (anti-Smith) Democrats" nomi- nated him to succeed himself on an independent ticket in the November elections.--ED.

Texas Governor

Sirs:

Your magazine dated Sept. 1, on pp. 19 and 20, under heading "Finish of Fergusonism" states that Mr. Sterling [Ross Shaw Sterling, Governor-presumptive of Texas] could not read or write until he was 21.

In justice to Mr. Sterling and also in justice to the Rural Schools of Texas we believe that you should correct this statement. A copy of 'The story of his life" is enclosed. . . .

ALVIN A. KLEIN

Corsicana, Tex.

Many a reliable correspondent in Texas reported that Governor-presumptive Sterling was illiterate until 21. His campaign handbook states: "Educational opportunities in Chambers County were none too good, especially for the biggest boy of a poor family of 14. Ross gained the readin', writin' and 'rithmetic fundamentals at the village one-teacher school."-- ED.

Radio's Ormiston

Sirs:

In the article on Aimee Semple McPherson and "Ma" in your Sept. 1 issue there are two misstatements.

Referring to Kenneth G. Ormiston your writer says: "Ormiston has never reappeared in California." This is not true. Ormiston returned to California soon after the various investigations of Aimee's absence. He became technical editor of a weekly radio magazine called Radio Doings. He is still technical editor of this same magazine, which was recently much enlarged and improved. . . .

Your writer also says: ". . . she (Aimee) was identified as the woman seen at Carmel during the interim with Kenneth G. Ormiston.

. ." There were numerous rumors, testimonies, statements and allegations, but there was no identification. Ormiston admitted being at Carmel at the time with a lady friend (not Aimee, he says), but declined to reveal the lady's name. . . .

DAVID P. GIBBONS Alhambra, Calif.

Japan's First White Boy

Sirs:

Under Milestones, p. 34, TIME, Sept. 1, I note with sadness the passing of my school's president, General Verbeck [head of Manlius, previously called St. John's School, Manlius, N. Y.]. "Bill" as he was to us, or "The General" was a man's man, and he surely lived to fulfill the phrase "Manners Maketh Man" and the three virtues, Honor, Love and Duty with which our school shield is emblazoned.

The General was the first white boy born in Japan--was a past master in the art of jujutsu, wrote and spoke Japanese, was a collector of objects of art of that land, and the sword tricks learned in boyhood from Japanese warriors yearly edified we johnnies at school. Only this spring, General Verbeck was entertained by three of us in this city, as he was on his way to the West Coast, and just before boarding his train, he chanced upon a lone Japanese gentlemen waiting for a train also. Imagine this man's delight (he turned out to be a shipping line owner returning to Japan) in conversing in his own tongue, and the obvious pleasure it afforded the General. . . .

So he is gone. And upon able shoulders fall the responsibilities--the shoulder of his soldier son, Col. Guido F. Verbeck.

ALEXANDER L. H. DARRAGH

Chicago, Ill.

Snake on the Star

Sirs:

Apropos your story on Snakes and the Star (TIME, Aug. 18) and Star Editor Longan's explanatory letter (TIME, Aug. 25), did Longan think that any bars could be high enough, or low enough, to exclude snakes?

Curious to gaze at the Kansas City Star, the writer purchased a copy of the Sunday edition, of Aug. 25th at the out-of-town newsstand-- not, of course, for the purpose of searching for snakes, since Longan avers in his letter that the Bungle snake was the first episode in ten years. With good intentions therefore, I opened up my Star, and immediately a spectacle of horror (inwardly glee) greeted my eyes. There, on page 1 of the Sport section, believe it or not, was the handlettered word SNAKE in a Ripley cartoon. It told of an 18 in. snake found in a 16 in. pickerel.

Why was this (the second in ten years) allowed to pass? Why didn't they stretch a point and say a TOAD was found in the pickerel's stomach? Being for a Ripley cartoon it would have served the purpose just as well.

I do not mean to treat Editor Longan's ten-year-old noble experiment with irreverence-- only the incident preaches a moral, the difficulty of effective prohibition when the thing concerned either creeps or hops.

And since the writer lives in a city plagued with snakes in the grass, he can not help but envy Kansas City whose chief worry seems to be snakes in the Star.

EUGENE FARRIS

Detroit, Mich.

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