"Yapping"

Sirs:

. . . I was shocked to read in the Sports department of the June 15 issue the phrase ''one Joe Kennedy, a yapping Negro janitor . . . twittering with prayer."

Nothing in the story justified the unkindness of the adjective "yapping." No other Derby winner was characterized in such an ungracious way.

I am a white man myself and some of my best friends are Negroes. Ordinarily I pay little attention to evidences of ignorant race prejudice, but when a magazine which boasts of accuracy and lack of bias publishes a statement like the above, I am surprised and shocked.

Incidentally I have purchased my last copy of TIME.

HARRY WARWICK New York City

Joe Kennedy's extensively superfluous comments on his winnings which constituted yapping might be quoted for pages. Short samples: "Love covers everything. . . . I shan't become one of the idle rich. . . . I'll have to go somewhere to get away. . . . I believe I won because of my faith in God. . . . Shucks, $145.000 isn't a fortune. . . . Money isn't everything. . . ." The Boston Daily Globe described him as "completely bewildered": the N. Y. Herald Tribune as "a trembling Negro . . . tears streaming down his cheeks."--ED.

Sorry to Say

Sirs:

I read with great interest your comments upon the i joth anniversary of Phillips Exeter Academy. However, I have discovered a few details which are not absolutely straight. And, as a member of the Lower Middle (2nd year) class, I would like to show you where you are wrong; for TIME is seldom wrong.

1) You state, referring to Thomas William Lamont, that ''he could see the modest basement offices of the school paper, The Exonian." As a member of the editorial board, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the offices of The Exonian are located next to the old Post Office, directly over the basement room of The Grill, far-famed Exeter eating place.

2) "Smoking is allowed in the rooms though not in the street." I am sorry to say that this will no longer be the case. With the construction of the new dormitories, and the remodeling of the old (Peabody, Hoyt, Soule), smoking will no longer be allowed in the dorms, but only in the smoking rooms provided. Thus will perish one of the most favored of undergraduate privileges, long the main attraction to the Yard dorms (Peabody, Hoyt, Soule).

3) "The School has its drink (the 'lead shot': a fearful mixture of the sweetest and heaviest syrups of the soda fountain)." I am sorry to say that this drink seems to have gone the way of all popular drinks: here today and gone tomorrow. I have been in Exeter for several years, and I have as yet to meet such a drink, though I have met many fearful ones. For example: Welch grape juice in a milk shake, thus making their advertised "Purple Cow." . . .

ROBERT B. HARRISON Exeter, N. H.

No Lead Shot

Sirs:

Your article entitled "Exeter's 150th" in the issue of June 15 was decidedly off-color (if you will pardon me for saying so) in many respects. For your own benefit Exeter won first place in the competition for the Phi Beta Kappa Trophy sponsored by Harvard University in which the outstanding preparatory schools in New England were entered. This would seem to prove that Exeter is more "potent scholastically" than other schools of its kind, despite your contention to the contrary.

What, if you please, is the drink commonly termed "the lead shot"? In my rather brief sojourn of two years here, I have yet to drink this "fearful mixture of the sweetest and heaviest syrups of the soda fountain." Yet I frequent the soda fountains of Exeter with much regularity. But, being rather sceptical by nature and decidedly curious and feeling that my reputation as a soda fountain connoisseur was at stake, I made rather extensive inquiries, but regret to say that my search was unrewarded, for every storekeeper and proprietor in Exeter answered my demand for Exeter's favorite drink with a blank stare of dismay not unmingled with surprise which showed clearly that they were questioning my perfect sanity, a fact which caused me no little embarrassment.

Outside of these two phases, I thought your article pretty nearly hit the nail on the head. So, while congratulating you on your article, I wish you at the same time would acknowledge these two grievous mistakes.

DAVIS P. HARDING

Managing Editor The Exonian Exeter, N. H.

Laugh

Sirs: IMMORAL AMERICANS MAY ELEVENTH ISSUE HERE STOP CAUSES WHY BIG DONT LAUGH YOU TRY AMONG AC US CURACY STOP THOUGHT BETTER OF YOU ELLERY

WALTER Moscow, U.S.S.R.

To Ellery ("Around the World on One Leg") Walter all praise for reaching Moscow. TIME quoted Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co.'s Engineer Clarence Warren who said, on returning from Russia with Mrs. Warren (TIME, May 11):

"Nearly every American woman that goes to Russia with her husband on business and stays any length of time returns to the United States an entirely different woman--and not a happier or better looking one either. They usually take to drink and a large percentage of those who have lived in Russia for more than a year are hopelessly addicted to liquor."

Said Mrs. Warren:

"Russia is the most immoral country I ever entered and I have been through most European countries. Even Americans are contaminated.

"They encounter the Russian interpreters who are usually girls, young, pretty, shrewd and without morals. There arc Americans in Russia now who are going to find it difficult to get out when their babies are born."

TIME presented Mr. and Mrs. Warren's observations as news, made no comment as to their accuracy.--ED.

Sirs:

I am writing to you to protest the interview with Mr. & Mrs. Clarence Warren. . . .

I have lived for over a year in Russia so that I feel I can speak with some knowledge. . . . In our own group of 32 engineers and their wives, and in the group of over 200 American skilled workmen with their families living near us and working on the auto plant, there have been no cases of drinking among the women and few among the men. The Russians all remark upon the small amount of drinking indulged in by Americans, and certainly Mr. Warren's remark . . . is without foundation. There is not a woman here who could, under any stretch of the imagination, fit into that class. . . . The women here are busy making comfortable homes for their husbands and themselves, and lead normal lives.

Mrs. Warren may have been hissed by Russians when she went to buy in the stores, but my experience has made me wonder at the goodwill and tolerance shown by the Russians toward the many privileges we enjoy. We buy in our own store unlimited quantities of any available article, and such a privilege is so unusual that we have marvelled that none of the Russians -with whom we have come in contact have ever begrudged us a thing we got.

As for the immorality, shrewdness and beauty of the interpreters, one of our men remarked that Mr. Warren must have been unusually lucky, for while I would hesitate to speak for the morals of all the girl interpreters, they are distinctly lacking in shrewdness, and most of them have little beauty to the American eye.

I feel that the majority of the American women will probably return to the U. S. different women, but the difference is that we have had some experience in self-sacrifice, we have learned what it means not to be eternally protected as we are at home, and we have a better conception of the hardships that millions of people are undergoing in the world--hardships which they meet so cheerfully that we feel we dare not complain if the many concessions we receive do not equal the comforts we have had in the U. S.

MRS. ALLAN S. AUSTIN

Austin Clubhouse "Autostroy" Nijni-Novgorod, U.S.S.R.

Daughter-in-Law Margretta Stroop Austin has been in Russia for some 14 months with Son Allan Stewart Austin, 26, who is Supervising Engineer of City Construction at New Nijni-Novgorod ("Austingrad").

Father Wilbert J. Austin, President of Cleveland's famed Austin Co. (engineers and builders), has on his Cleveland desk a large, translucent, electrically-lighted earth globe on which New Nijni-Novgorod is spotted 270 miles east of Moscow.

The city Son Austin is now building will be the Detroit of Russia, her centre for straight line mass production of motor cars. The Austin Co.'s fee: $50,000,000.--ED.

Day-Coacher

Sirs:

In "Tornado v. Train" (TIME, June 8) you say that "in the string of eleven Pullmans there were 119 passengers," etc. The inference is that the one man killed was a Pullman passenger. Such is not the fact. The unfortunate traveler rode in a day coach. Fear-stricken, he jumped through a window; the car a moment later was blown over on him. The Pullman Co. is proud of the fact that last year (1930) we carried 30.800,000 passengers 12,814,000,000 passenger miles (1,183,669,000 vehicle miles) and only one of these passengers was killed.

JAMES KEELEY Vice President The Pullman Co. Chicago, Ill.

Fargo's Wind

Sirs:

In TIME, June 8, under "Tornado v. Train," you tell of the accident to the Great Northern's Empire Builder, where said Builder was dumped over on its side by the tornado, and you use the expression "a wreck unique in U. S. rail-roading."

I cannot permit my old boyhood home town of Fargo to be shorn of any of her glory, for she has performed this trick twice. Back somewhere in the go's the best my time-dimmed memory will do, the Northern Pacific's crack limited of that bygone period moved westward out of Fargo early one morning. A mile west from town was the Big Slough across which ran an earthen fill. As the train reached this causeway a tornado struck it and turned every Pullman of the train on its side. But in this case no one was hurt.

Probably the Northern Pacific's wreck record will confirm this, but I saw this peculiar accident within an hour after it happened, and my pride in Fargo's wind-power prevents my keeping silence.

C. E. FISHER Los Angeles, Calif.

Pajamas & Mortarboard

Sirs:

Fearing you of the East may still think this territory possibly "BACKWARD" a la Grundy, believe it TiMEly to report seeing Sweet Girl Graduate on the street in Moorhead, our twin town (see map), wearing bright crimson beach pajamas and her MORTARBOARD.

Incidentally, just outside Moorhead a playful twister tossed The Empire Builder, crack transcontinental flier, in a wheatfield recently.

VICTOR W. FLINT Sales Manager Dakota Breeders Hatchery Fargo, N. Dak.

Plug-Ugly's News

Sirs:

As a traveling man, I have heard many sad stories, in various parts of the country, as have my brethren "plug-uglies."

Last week, however, I heard a most refreshing bona fide report: the Arlington Mills, in Lawrence, Mass., a typical N. E. mill city, have added 2,200 help during the last two months. May was the biggest month since the War!

They are even working nights.

Other Lawrence mills are working full weeks. It is like old times to see the Washington Mills (American Woolen Co.) working all six floors and on Friday.

This is just an attempt to pass the good news along.

S. W. HUMPHREY Quincy, Mass.

Back-to-Front

Sirs:

I find that TIME, if read from the back page to the front is a lot more absorbing.

KENNETH GOGGIN Boston, Mass.

Cover-to-cover readers differ as to which cover they begin with. Some start in the middle and work crab-wise.--ED.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.