Free Air

Sirs:

Re footnote, col. 2, p. 11, your issue of July 6, wherein you state that radio time was secured (but not used) over two big broadcasting chains for an explanation of the moratorium by Secretary of State Stimson.

As a matter of information, please advise as to the source of funds for the payment of such broadcasts. . . .

W. T. CONWAY

Indianapolis, Ind.

Time for important Government broadcasts is contributed free by the broadcasting companies as a matter of courtesy and public service.--ED.

B & O in N. Y.

Sirs: I have read with interest in your issue of June 22, 1931, an article deploring the fact that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had no rail connection with New York City, and for that reason it was intimated it could not carry Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld's 70 "glorified" girls to Pittsburgh to have a try out in that city before the Follies opened their show in New York. It is perfectly proper and within Mr. Ziegfeld's rights for him to use any means of transportation for his company he may select. However, I would like to make clear to those who read your article that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad has as ample means in New York City to care for Mr. Ziegfeld's company of players with facility, ease and comfort and to land them in Pittsburgh, or at any other destination, as any railroad entering New York City.

I do not imply the movement could have been made better by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, or that Mr. Ziegfeld would have been more pleased in using it. I am asserting it could have been made just as well.

Some may consider it would be more desirable for the Baltimore & Ohio to have a rail entrance into New York City. In lieu of this disability, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, at great expense has provided excellent station facilities in New York and by an automobile coach service transports its patrons from these various stations direct to its train side in Jersey City in a satisfactory and pleasing way. This arrangement has been approved many times by written and oral commendations of satisfied patrons. . . .

Mr. Willard's career as a railroad executive manager is no more drawing to a close at his present age, than that of Mr. Chauncey Depew of the New York Central, Mr. E. P. Ripley of the Atchison, Mr. J. R. Kenly of the Atlantic Coast Line, Mr. Milton Smith of the Louisville and Nashville, and many other eminent illustrations, who reached an unusually ripe old age before relinquishing management of their great interests. Mr. Willard is not only in sound and virile health, but he is more than favorably comparable in that respect with troops of other men who have not reached 40. . . .

JAMES S. MURRAY Assistant to President The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company Baltimore, Md.

White S. C.

Sirs: In a recent article (June 22) you credited South Carolina with 55% colored population, which is rather untimely, when for the first time in the state's history the majority of the population, as shown by the 1930 census, is 54% white. . . .

FRANK H. GIBBES Columbia, S. C.

TIME'S figure for South Carolina's black population was wrong, but so is Reader Gibbes's. The Census Bureau reports 996,856 whites, 1,009,718 Negroes, 3,247 other races, or 49.6%, 50.2% and .2%.-- ED.

Br'er Sirs: Quite often, in TIME, I see Foreign Minister Briand referred to as "BR'ER."

Some of my French friends in Paris have asked me why. I wonder if you would be willing to let us know the origin of this name.

RALPH F. GOW Paris, France

Because Aristide Briand is quite as foxy, perhaps foxier than famed Br'er Fox in the Uncle Remus tales (Author Joel Chandler Harris), TIME terms him "Br'er Briand." French readers may not know that "Br'er" is the negro dialect contraction of "Brother," that its playful application to a foxy statesman is not extinct in U. S. political usage. --ED.

Public Enemy Fay

Sirs: On p. 9 of TIME for June 29, are pictures of six prominent New Yorkers.

Can you tell me if Larry Fay is now or was during last summer a fugitive from New York? I am positive that I saw him on July second and third at McCall, Idaho and again at Payette during the early part of October. I conversed with him at McCall without knowing who he was except that he was a stranger there.

KARL H. SMITH Miami, Fla.

Public Enemy Fay may well have been in Idaho last autumn. He was at large, though under indictment for milk racketeering, of which he was acquitted in January. Last month Fay married Evelyn Crowell, actress; is now living at Carnegie Plaza apartments, Manhattan.--ED.

Chinese Masons

Sirs: In your issue of July 13 your correspondent refers to Chinese General Cohen being the only Chinese white Mason he knew of. The late Dr. Russell H. Conwell, former pastor of Temple Baptist Church, Philadelphia was also made a Mason in China. As a young man he was sent to China as a correspondent for a New York newspaper. He became very friendly with the captain of the vessel he sailed on and among other things discussed Masonry, with the result that when they reached China Dr. Conwell expressed the desire to become a Free Mason. So the captain hunted up a lodge and entered, passed and raised Dr. Conwell in Free Masonry.

The Chinese are very loyal Masons. I heard of an American Mason that was found dead in China. There were no papers on him by which he could be identified but on his body was tattooed the name and number of his lodge in New York City. The Chinese Masons not only sent the body to New York City, but also sent a bodyguard of two Chinese Masons all the way to New York City with it. That is Fraternalism in its purest form. EDWARD M. TAGGART East Orange, N. J.

Reasoning v. Memory

Sirs: In your issue of July 6 under the caption of "Simple Arithmetic" you opened up a matter which in our judgment is of vital importance.

The failure of potential teachers to pass an examination in the fundamentals of arithmetic in which the problems as given required absolutely no memory, i. e., they depended entirely for their solution upon reasoning, is serious enough.

Add to this the fact that these young people doubtless will ultimately pass some other examination and some of them become teachers of the very subject under discussion and the matter looks still more serious.

Of even greater importance, however, is the fact that we cannot blame this group of young people for not having passed the examination. The blame properly belongs and should be placed on that scheme of presentation of a fundamental and important subject which permits such a lamentable condition to exist.

This type of thing becomes even more serious as students progress into the so-called higher mathematics which is the fundamental tool through which an engineering manurance is wrought. The same abstract treatment with enormously increasing demand upon memory rather than a procedure which would develop a true physical concept of the matters handled is continued and, indeed, the algebraic complication, the rapidity with which the subject is presented and the enormous amount of matter covered make it virtually impossible for men without excellent memories to pass their mathematics examination.

All of this is diametrically opposed to the mental processes through which much of our higher mathematics were developed.

Descartes and Newton to a large extent laid the foundation of our so-called higher mathematics. So revolutionary were the mathematical achievements that their contemporaries in trying to follow their mathematics quite overlooked the philosophical and physical approach which their work permitted and, indeed, invited and handed down their abstractions rather than their practicalities.

It is for this reason that we in our work have mechanized and visualized the higher mathematics not with any thought of displacing the conventional treatment but rather to free it from that smoke screen of detailed processes which obscure the prodigious ability of its machinery. . . .

JOHN MARTIN BARR President The Integraph Co. Cleveland, Ohio

Japanese Silkies

Sirs: In reference to your "Queer Drugs" on p. 24 of July 6 issue in regard to a Japanese Silky fowl. This bird has a normal tail, and is not to be confused with the Yokohama or Phoenix chicken of which there is a specimen in the Tokyo museum with a tail covert length of 17 ft. 3 in.

Also the Silky fowl is not particularly rare in this country. Prize-winning specimens of the very best blood seldom run over $25.

While on this subject I might say that the bluish meat of this bird, tho not attractive to the eyes is very attractive to the palate, resembling partridge flesh.

HENRY SILVERTHORNE Riverside, Ill. P.S. Another very curious quality of this bird is its feathers which are webless and resemble the down on a baby chick--thus Silky Fowl.

Gang's Violins

Sirs: In your review of the Ziegfeld Follies, July 13 issue, you refer to the Britton Gang Orchestra as "breaking peanut brittle violins."

Well sir, we'd like to invite you, or anyone designated by you, to take one of these so-called "peanut brittle" violins and do the things we do with them. That would prove to you, more than anything we could say here that the instruments we use are regulation violins and the only reason they smash with such apparent ease is because we've had a lot of practice doing it.

And because we think you'll be interested in this information, the type of violins that we break are generally used by beginners in violin instruction and cost from $10 to $15 each in retail stores. We purchase them by the gross and at greatly reduced prices.

When bigger and better violins are made the Brittons will smash them!

FRANK & MILT BRITTON New York City

It Flies

Sirs: Just an actual story to show how popular TIME is here. I bought my TIME Saturday at noon. I began reading and walking to my restaurant. A gentleman stopped me and said he was in a hurry and wanted his TIME and wondered if I'd sell out. I did, and knowing I would have to wait for dinner, I decided to go back and buy another TIME. I did and while I was eating a gentleman picked it up and began reading it. All at once he said: "Say, this isn't a half bad magazine. I never saw it before. Why don't they advertise? How much do you want for it?" With the money of TIME No. 2 I bought still another. I went back to work at the newsstand (newspapers only) and read over to Foreign Affairs (I read TIME Chinesewise, vous savez) and then had to wait on a lady. After doing that I sat down and grabbed for my TIME but instead I found still another gentleman with 15-c- in his outstretched hand. "Here" he said, "for TIME," and walked away. I hurried over to the magazine dealer to buy another TIME but he was out and only Saturday--two days before publication date. I am now TIMEless and don't feel right without having done TIME the once over. Will you please send me my TIME No. 4 dated July 6, 1931, in order to put me into good spirits again.

HENRY G. STONER, JR. Chautauqua, N. Y.

P.S. The newsstand where TIME is sold here is the "Chautauqua Bookstore, Chautauqua. N. Y." I know they can sell more TIMES. Please look into the matter. Certainly TIME flies!

To Hospitals

Sirs: After enjoying TIME and FORTUNE myself, I file FORTUNE for reference, and find its mailing container extremely handy for sending old copies of TIME and other magazines to local hospitals for convalescents. Any of your readers who adopt this suggestion should mail them as second-class matter (2 oz. for 1-c-) and not try to parcel post them as I did, necessitating two trips to the Post Office, to correct my carelessness.

W. E. COX New York City

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