Habit & Fried Egg

Sirs:

Neither Father Sill (TIME, March 23) nor any other members of the Protestant Episcopal monastic Order of the Holy Cross wear a "white cassock."

What the members of this Order wear is a modified Dominican habit. This consists of a tunic, fastened with a black girdle (having three knots at the ends, signifying the three-fold vows of poverty, chastity and obedience), a scapulary, and over all a mantle and hood. The indoor habit (with the exception of the girdle) is white. When a monk leaves the monastery he wears the outdoor habit, which is the same, save that its color is black. In cool weather he wears also a black cloak, and a black "fried-egg" hat, more common amongst English clergymen than in this country. . . .

FRANCIS DOVER

New York City

"Damn" & "Hell"

Sirs:

Your paper is a welcome weekly visitor in my home; it contains an excellent summary of the events of the day. But there is one respect in which it might be improved: that is by the elimination of the vulgarity which is so frequently quoted; e. g., in the last issue on p. 14, one article is headed "Damn Big Dam," and on p. 16, the words of Senator Norris are quoted: "Take a bundle of straw and go across the river and start a little hell of his own." Such quotations are the fly in the ointment. They have a bad influence on the minds of the children in a family by a paper which otherwise is an excellent journal for the home.

(REV.) GEORGE M. CUMMINGS

Washington, D. C.

TIME doubts that the omission of "damn" and "hell" from its pages, where they never appear wantonly and almost always in quotation, would greatly ameliorate the moral condition of a U. S. child in A. D. 1931. Mr. Cummings' request must be denied in the interest of realistic reporting. But TIME will continue to delete obscenities.--ED.

Water Poloist, Old-Style

Sirs:

Your comment on water polo appearing under the head of Sport, in the March 16 issue was of considerable interest to me. Sometime or other, TIME seems to touch the present or past interest or hobby of everyone of its readers. The story of taking men out of a pool in an unconscious condition takes me back to the time of 1910 to 1914 where old-style water polo at Northwestern University and the Chicago Athletic Association was still a game for real waterdogs.

While an ardent defender of the old American game, I will admit that I still bear a slight scar on my face from finger nails used under water and unseen by the referee, and I also admit to having sinus trouble ten years after the old game fell into disrepute.

It is interesting to recall that the now deceased but well-beloved Professor Wilson of the mathematics department, and Astronomer Philip Fox, now director of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, were two faculty members who enjoyed the old-style game and were almost as regular in practice as members of the Varsity team. . . .

R. H. EXNIS

San Francisco, Calif.

English Echo

Sirs:

It may interest you to know that several members of the editorial staff of The Sunderlaiid Echo (on which I am employed as a reporter) have been keenly interested in TIME.

I enclose an application for a specimen copy, and I intend later to become a regular subscriber.

It may also interest you to know that TIME has resulted in a change in the captions beneath photographs appearing in the Echo. . . . TIME is always amusing, instructive and extremely interesting to us in the wide field it covers. Its freedom of expression often makes us feel envious. . . .

THOMAS S. PHILLIPS

Sunderland, Co. Durham England

''The March of Time"

Sirs:

It was with a good deal of surprise and chagrin that I noted, on scanning the list of stations that were to be hooked up with your presentation of "The March of Time' (TIME, March 9, p. 63) that the great open spaces of the West (not to say interested readers of your great weekly out here) had been left entirely out of the picture. How come? And to complete my wail may I further say that the commendatory and congratulatory comments by subscribers and others in Letters (TIME, March 23) on the first of these broadcasts served only to add to my anguish? Both San Francisco and Los Angeles (also Portland, Ore.) are full-page advertisers in your periodical, and I believe I am correct in assuming that you also have countless readers and subscribers out on this Pacific slope; and yet it seems that we are not deemed worthy of a listenin on your advertised broadcast. I for one would be willing to forego Amos & Andy or any other popular radio entertainment, to listen to "The March of Time" in event of the programs clashing. . . .

JAMES W. BLYTH

Burlingame, Calif.

Pacific coast stations are to be added to "The March of Time" hookup as soon as possible. New Orleans (WDSU) and Charlotte, N. C. (WBT) were added last week--Minneapolis (WCCO) will join shortly, also Saint Louis (KMOX).--ED.

Sirs:

Your broadcast March 20--superb. Courtroom audioscenes perfect. Introduction of military in ambush well done . . . but can it be you had to borrow Collier Hour Girl for ambush play? . . . Present hour too late. . . . Great compliment to Columbia--your selecting them.

HARRIS T. FULTON

Toledo, Ohio

TIME was glad to "borrow" able Lucille Wall, famed "Love Story Girl" of Collier's hour, for the telephone girl's part in the Spanish revolution scene. TIME will continue to "borrow" (i.e. employ) the best radio dramatic talent available. Another of Collier's actors is William ("Bill" ) Adams who does "Uncle Henry." In "The March of Time" he has played Mayor William Hale Thompson, Speaker Longworth, and the resurrected soldier of Miracle at Verdun.--ED.

Sirs:

Please accept many thanks for your wonderful program you send us through the air every Friday night. We all enjoy it very much, and I sincerely hope you keep it up. It is so much more interesting than when we get it just as news. The acting is splendid, I mean of course the voices. I will buy your TIME magazine today. Thanking you again.

MRS. N. LEVIXE

New York City

Sirs:

Re: "The March of Time." My radio fan-age began 'way back in 1911-- when only the staccato chirp of the code could be transmitted. I remember building my first "coherer" set, using filings from the milled edges of a nickel and a quarter. . . .

My present set is a Grebe Synchrophase--as good a set as I have ever tested--or heard.

But--set perfect, program has been invariably imperfect.

Yet, I sought. Tonight I have been rewarded! I have heard, for the first time (though I am an old, if not "charter" subscriber to TIME) "The March of Time." This is the perfected Radio Program, even as TIME is the perfected Newsmagazine, the indispensable weekly. . . . My unqualified felicitations.

"The March of Time" is worthy of TIME, and surely no more could be said.

ESTEN BOLLING Consulting Engineer

Mountain Lakes, N. J.

Sirs:

. . . This is my second attack of radio-induced "cacocthes scribendi"; Christmas Day the glorious music of Philco made me realize that there may be a Heaven after all! I'm reconciled if Saint Peter will allow Leopold Stokowski to direct the harps--with a few wind instruments added as a concession to modernity!

But it is TIME'S broadcast that now moves me to take my pen in hand.

Talk about a prize fight!

When that unnamed Gallery listener socked Terrible Tory Churchill one on the jaw (so to say), I actually cheered!

I felt the inexorable march of Time: progress; evolution; Einstein's fourth dimension a living reality. . . .

Radio is a wonderful medium for drama. The color and quality of the soul shows in the voice. Your "little brown man" speaks in correct, slow, oddly-accented English. I visualize an unassuming dreamer; a man possessed of an incorruptible logic and a driving will of iron. . . .

True art is simple and spontaneous. Your broadcast was a real, dramatic work of art! . . .

LEILA Z. JEFFRIES

New Brunswick, Canada

Arizona Farmer

Sirs:

... If Arkansas is in such a condition as Senator Robinson says and the people have to wait for rain for relief, why wouldn't the best plan be to ask the Red Cross for enough money to transplant the whole crowd out here to Arizona and California where we have irrigation water (the dams are sure filling up); have Congress speed up Boulder Dam and maybe build another one or two. Here in this country they can farm twelve months a year 365 days to the year with the extra one leap year.

Oh, I don't mean cotton farming, I mean real farming. As one of our most successful farmers in Casa Grande said at a Chamber of Commerce banquet, "A really successful farmer is one who raises everything he possibly can that he needs for his own family. Of course it meant work but he never knew a successful man yet who didn't work!"

In my travels around the U. S. and Canada the thing that has attracted my attention most is the fact that these cotton, wheat and other one-crop farmers do not own a single hen, cow ) or pig. Neither do they raise a single vegetable.

I used to stay with a very successful farmer in Vermont. They raised cows, hogs, hens and Turkeys, hay and buckwheat; had a fine apple orchard and a sugar bush . . . fruits and vegetables. Yet a grown son, a hired man with one extra hand during haying did all the work. They did not rise at any 3 a.m. and go to bed at 8 p.m. Ten o'clock except nights we drove to the city to some amusement or went to a neighbor's to enjoy a card party. I never saw a happier, healthier family.

I have visited others not many miles distant where everything was different. No system, no comforts, no success!

Let the Red Cross keep on with its good work. Secretary of Agriculture Hyde is absolutely right about the ''Dole." Live on the through Highway to California and you'll get a darned good idea of what the Dole would mean. Families in cars of all makes and conditions will stop on the outskirts of the town. If the pickings are good they'll stay until sent away, if not they'll move on. One night around 9 p.m. I answered a rap at my door, found two children 12 and 14, boy and girl at the door.

"We are down there in the field with our car and none of us have anything to eat. We've got a baby and other children."

Well you can imagine how quickly I filled a pail with stew, gave them bread, butter, bottle of milk and sent them on. We need not go into details but they were sent out of town after a couple of weeks of this, the man refusing any job offered. Another came through and stopped at a large fruit ranch where they were pruning trees. The man, "Can you give us a dollar, we haven't any money?"

On being told that they could have work for a week or so pruning, the spokesman drawled, he didn't believe he could do such hard work and drove off.

M. WHITE

Casa Grande, Ariz.

Cement, Not Concrete

Sirs:

As an ardent reader of TIME and one who appreciates its attempt at accuracy in all matters, we regret to see a grave error under "Conservation," p. 14, March 23 issue, in which you state: "The U. S. is to supply concrete--20,000 freight cars of it." This is indeed a very trite error; too trite for TIME. You mean the U. S. is to supply cement. Concrete is a mixture of cement, coarse and fine aggregate, and water. The U. S. will supply cement for Boulder Dam-- Six Companies Inc. will make and supply the concrete.

FREDERICK C. RAY Civil Engineer

West Point, Ga.

Mats under Cuspidors

Sirs:

Brace yourself for a shock when loyal Norfolky learn that you have located Arthur Morris's first Morris Plan Bank at Richmond, Va. They will rise in great numbers to tell you that the first bank, which is still doing a fine business, is located at Norfolk, and was founded by Mr. Morris in 1910. The home of the Morris Plan Bank of Virginia, parent company, is located at Richmond.

We all make mistakes, that is why they place rubber mats under cuspidors. . . .

W. B. FULLY

Norfolk, Va.

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