Holmes at 91

Sirs:

Beside my desk on the wall there has hung since last March a clipping from TIME quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes as saying upon the occasion of his 90th birthday: "Death plucks my ear and says 'Live--I am coming!' " Tonight's newspapers give an all too abbreviated report of his remarks upon his 91st birthday. I trust TIME will not cut his remarks severely, for they are usually so beautiful and mellow.

May time be kind enough to him and to us to preserve his active mind for many years. Nothing could add more to our precious heritage of literature than for him to write (or merely compile) The Philosophy of Life and Thought.

FRANK G. DICKINSON

Urbana, Ill.

Mr. Justice Holmes, venerable in retirement, is still sharp and mellow of mind. He has lately been less troubled by the lumbago which was an immediate cause of his leaving the High Bench. Leaving his motor to call on his former colleagues or to borrow or return books from the Supreme Court Library, his step seems more lively, his bearing more erect, than two months ago. This year he has given no press interviews, made no public statements, but.to a banquet held by the Federal Bar Association in his honor on his 91st birthday (March 8) he wrote:

"... I cannot say farewell to life and you in formal words. Life seems to me like a Japanese picture which our imagination does not allow to end with the margin. We aim at the infinite, and when our arrow falls to earth it is in flames.

"At times the ambitious ends of life have made it seem to me lonely, but it has not been. You have given me the companionship of dear friends who have helped to keep alive the fire in my heart. If I could think that I had sent a spark to those who come after, I should be ready to say good-bye."--ED.

Minnesota's Shipstead

Sirs:

The undersigned subscribers would like to have your resume of the life and political activity of Henrik Shipstead and your rating of him as a Senator.

WALTER NOLD STEWART G. COLLINS H. W. MATTISON C. C. PINGRY H. S. ROCK

Minneapolis, Minn.

The record of Senator Henrik Shipstead of Minnesota is as follows:

Born: On a farm in Burbank, Minn., Jan. 8, 1881.

Start-in-Iife: A small-town dentist.

Career: Son of an intelligent Norwegian father, he was an early and precocious reader. From the State Normal School, he went to Northwestern University, worked his waythrough the dental school, opened a professional office at Glenwood, Minn, in 1904. After serving as the town's mayor, he was elected to the State House of Representatives for one term. Removing to Minneapolis he continued his dental practice until 1922 when he was nominated by the Farmer-Labor party, then on the rise, for the U. S. Senate, subsequently defeating Senator Frank Billings Kellogg, later Secretary of State. In 1928 he was re-elected for a second Senate term by a majority that exceeded Herbert Hoover's in Minnesota by 100,000 votes.

In Congress: Distinguished as the Senate's lone Farmer-Laborite,*he is no radical ranter. The Republican majority has taken him unofficially under its wing. Thanks to the G. O. P., he has good committee assignments (especially Foreign Relations, Agriculture). He is even chairman of one minor committee (Printing). Theoretically the most independent man in the Senate, he can generally be found lining up with the Insurgent Republicans on economic questions. As a Senator he represents a bookish type who carries no flaming banner of Liberalism pellmell into the midst of a political fight. His largest single legislative accomplishment was getting through a bill providing for a 9-ft. channel in the upper Mississippi with an appropriation of $7,500,000.

He voted for: the Bonus (1924), restrictive immigration (1924), Boulder Dam (1928), Muscle Shoals (1931), farm relief.

He voted against: World Court (1926), 15-cruiser building bill (1928), tariff (1930).

On foreign affairs he is a stern nationalist who opposed the London Naval Treaty and the Debt Moratorium. To international questions he gives profound study. Unlike most isolationists, he likes to travel abroad, form his opinion by direct observation.

He votes Dry, drinks Dry, is thought to favor a Prohibition referendum.

Legislative lobbies: 1 all manner of farm relief; 2) inland waterways; 3) protection of organized labor. For years he sponsored a bill to curb Federal injunctions in labor disputes but not until he turned the legislation over to Nebraska's Norris did the Senate finally pass it last fortnight.

In appearance he is tall (6 ft.), well-built (190 lb.). He wears his grey-blond hair in a pompadour. His hands are white, delicate, almost feminine. His clothes run to quiet greys. Off the Senate floor, he is bashful, almost silent. On the floor he makes an impressive figure when he rises to speak. His speeches, however, delivered in a slow deliberate voice faintly touched with a foreign accent, are usually heavy, pedantic, unexciting.

Outside Congress: With his wife he lives in an old house on East Capitol Street. He entertains little, shuns society, keeps no car. Once he was taken up and lionized by Washington hostesses as a strange political specimen but when they found he did not roar loud enough for a third-party man they cooled toward him. One of his closest personal friends is Editor Eleanor ("Cissie") Patterson of the Washington Herald. Indulging in none of the usual amusements of Senators he leads a solitary intellectual life befitting his unique political status.

Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: a respected, serious-minded legislator of average ability who realizes that polite co-operation and not rude independence is the secret of Senate progress; a tame, well-mannered critic of the existing order who is also a politician smart enough to give rural Minnesota the kind of representation it wants. A prolonged illness several years ago seriously curtailed his Senate activities. His term expires March 3, 1935.--ED.

-From 1923 to 1925 he had one political follower in the person of Senator Magnus ("Magnavox") Johnson of Minnesota.

Fletcher's, Not Gibson's Sirs:

In your article on Mr. Hugh Gibson (TIME, Feb. 8), you reprint Mr. Dawes' remark on the diplomatic service, i.e. that it is "easy on the head but hell on the feet." The witty and unanswerable rejoinder, "it depends which you use most," which TIME attributes to Mr. Gibson, was not made by him, but by Mr. Henry Prather Fletcher, long in our diplomatic service and former ambassador to Belgium and Italy, who is noted for his exceedingly quick wit and keen sense of humor. . . .

BEATRICE DE MENOCAL Boston, Mass.

New Member No. 11,590

Sirs:

You state that Governor Roosevelt belongs to the Society of Philatelic Americans. The Governor's application for membership was announced erroneously in Mekeei's Weekly Stamp News in the Aug. 10, 1931 number. This announcement was due to a mistake. The fact is that the application was received by the American Philatelic Society.

Mr. Max Ohlman of 116 Nassau St., New York, proposed the Governor to membership in the American Philatelic Society. See the American Philatelist, September 1931 issue, p. 582:

"Roosevelt, Franklin D., Hyde Park, Dutchess Co., N. Y. 49; Governor: Percy G. Doane, New York. By M. Ohlman."

Percy G. Doane is given as reference and Mr. Ohlman is the proposer.

Governor Roosevelt is listed in the American Philatelist, November 1931 issue, as a New Member No. 11,590. . . .

EUGENE KLEIN

Philadelphia, Pa.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, active joiner, has also joined the following (47 in all ):

American Legion (Poughkeepsie and Albany Posts) Manhattan Club Eagle Engine Company (Hyde Park, N. Y.) Dutchess County Historical Society Adirondack Mountain Club Netherland American Foundation New York Yacht Club Knickerbocker Club Jefferson Islands Club National Democratic Club Holland Lodge No. 8 Club of Odd Volumes Dutchess Golf & Country Club Newspaper Club (Manhattan) Marine Research Society Amrita Club (Poughkeepsie) National Institute of Social Sciences New York State Forestry Association Collectors Club National Economical League Dutchess County Farm Bureau Association National Grange Holland Society of New York Odd Fellows (Hyde Park Lodge) Casualty & Surety Club (Manhattan) Harvard Club of New York Fly Club (Manhattan) N. Y. State Agricultural Society Century Club The Century Association Down Town Association Elks Red Men Chapel Corner Grange (Hyde Park) Dutchess County Society New York State Historical Society American Ornithologists Union Ship Model Makers Club New York County Lawyers Assn. Harvard Graduates Club City Club of New York Volunteer Fire Company United States Naval Institute National Geographic Society The Archaeological Society Ahepa--ED.

Something to Show Teacher

Sirs:

Although I have eagerly read every word in every issue of your magazine this year (including advertisements), I am starting this letter "Gentlemen" instead of "Sirs." My reason is this: I am curious to see (if I have the good fortune to have this published) whether you change it to "Sirs" for want of space. This whim was encouraged by my noticing that every letter was started "Sirs."

I have just left off reading the protests of some of your subscribers concerning your abolishment of "The March of Time." As I am compelled to study in my room at this hour, I never have had the good fortune to hear this program. However, if it is as good as your magazine, I heartily join with these protesters.

TELFORD FRAZIER

Tabor Academy

Marion, Mass.

P.S. I would also like to know if you publish many letters from schoolboys like me. It would give me something to show my English teacher if you published this.

The salutation of letters printed in TIME is standardized as "Sirs," not for lack of space, but because "Sirs" is curt, clear, complete.--ED.

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