English Answer

Sirs: Permit me, as an Englishman, to reply to the letters regarding War Debts, in your issue of Aug. 22. My remarks have no application to the debts due other than by England to America. I know of only two methods of paying debts: viz. by gold or by goods (including services). The latter method has been extended by some of your correspondents to include land. England cannot pay in gold, because her gold supplies are negligible. Mr. Andrews accuses TIME, of saying that in 1931 Great Britain produced five-sevenths of the world's gold. TIME "said the British Empire." The debts are Britain's and she cannot pay them with someone else's gold. Nor can England pay in kind--America won't let her. Your tariff walls prevent such a course. In any case, according to the American theory, every yard of cloth or ton of steel imported means a lowering of the standard of living. This refusal would also apply to services--which could presumably be rendered only in the form of manufacturing operations, transport and the like. Mr. Andrews refers to the British navy. This was built by British labour, in British time --neither of which commodities are acceptable to America as debt payment. Further, all decent bankruptcy laws provide that the debtor may retain the means of self-preservation. With regard to Mr. Andrews' second point, surely a country which has taxed itself far beyond what any American can comprehend, in an attempt to pay, in a currency which has been at a premium, money which it borrowed to lend to countries which it has forgiven their debts, could not be regarded as undeserving of confidence whatever happens. Even in the unlikely event of British national credit being impaired by cancellation, it is improbable that private credit would be affected. Mr. Barrett must have, imbibed some of the "acid" of his "considerations." The Ottawa conference is not an attempt to affect American trade. If such trade is affected it will be incidental to, and not the aim of, a conference whose objective is a revival of British trade. The conference resulted more from American efforts at supporting national industries than from any other single cause. Nor is America spending a half-billion to let the British mercantile fleet into the Great Lakes. If that were to be the only outcome or even the principal consideration in view, there would be no waterway. . . . WILFRED GODFREY

New York City Debts Like Dividends

Sirs:

... I tail to sec the object of getting particularly excited at this time about foreign political debts. Because the dollar is tremendously dear in terms of commodities is no reason, except to hardheaded foreign financiers and governments, and U. S. owners of foreign second mortgages which they hope to make first mortgages, at this time to cancel or readjust these debts to the tune of Depression prices and bankrupt business. So far as prices are concerned, it would seem that in a 62-year swing, foreign countries would have an opportunity to pay their debts at an average price dollar, and no doubt, when things take a different turn and the dollar is again cheap, there might be no objection from this country to larger payments than were currently due, should the debtors wish to make them.

We have given them a moratorium when they couldn't pay, and no doubt will have to suit our collections to conditions, without going over there and selling off their furniture. Many a stockholder in these times has had his dividend passed, but does not see fit to cancel his stock and send it in to the company, that it may show a profit. They have our money. We are stockholders in the European company. If we have to forego dividends for many years, that doesn't mean that the stock may not again pay. . . . BRUCE R. McNAMER

Shelby, Mont.

R F. C. Loans

Sirs:

It is difficult for me to believe that TIME would go along with its brother publications and be afraid to fully discuss the real reasons why electric power companies were not included among those eligible to borrow from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

Thousands of investors are asking this question every day and not a word from any publication that really enjoys a reputation. I hope TIME will be the first to bring out the facts regarding this all important situation.

GEORGE H. WEBB Evanston, Ill.

R. F. C. loans are specifically limited to banks, insurance companies, railroads, building & loan societies, agricultural cooperatives. No private industry such as steel, motors, chemicals, power or pickles, is eligible to borrow. Power companies made no serious attempt to be included in R. F. C. loans when the bill was before Congress presumably because: 1) they were in no dire distress: 2 ) they were unwilling to expose their financial methods, already unpopular, to the critical eye of the R. F. C.; 3) hostile to Federal regulation, they wanted none of the supervision implicit in a Government loan.--ED.

Miss Bankhead Denies Sirs:

I repudiate word for word the statements attributed to me by Gladys Hall in the September issue of Motion Picture Magazine and reprinted in TIME. The story is filled with vicious misquotations and distortions and for that reason I demand an immediate retraction. Practically all of the conversation with Miss Hall related to motion pictures. I made none of the many damaging utterances credited to me.

TALLULAH BANKHEAD

Hollywood, Calif.

Countess Nogi's Ji-Gai Sirs: In the June 6 issue of TIME (without whose weekly appearance one wonders how he ever used to get along) in its most interesting article on Japan, it is stated that General Count Maresuke Nogi and his wife did harakiri. Hara-kiri is the abdomen-stab (hara--belly: kiri --cut) and is by proper custom the privilege only of the man. I have always understood that Countess Nogi committed suicide in the orthodox woman's method, by the throat-stab (gi-gai). POST WHEELER

Legation of the United States of America Asuncion, Paraguay

TIME erred. The junshi ("following in death") suicides of Count & Countess Nogi, immediately following the funeral of Emperor Meiji, were accomplished in the orthodox manner prescribed for Japanese men & women. Count Nogi committed hara-kiri ("belly-cut"); Countess Nogi committed ji-gai ("throat-stab"), piercing her throat with a dagger so as to sever the arteries at a single thrust. Junshi is always by mutual consent as is shinju ("double love") suicide. Desperate young Japanese have committed shinju increasingly in recent years, not so much by traditional hara-kiri and ji-gai as by the quicker and surer way of leaping from one of Japan's many high waterfalls.--ED.

Sinclair & Reo Sirs:

Might an indignant Reo enthusiast point out that, judging from the picture on p. 27, TIME, Aug. 8, energetic Harry Ford Sinclair was misplacing his energies by pouring oil into the left hand side of the car there illustrated? It is a model T 6 Reo and the oil is supplied at the rear right hand side of the motor down near the motor support just in front of the fly wheel.

JOHN A. REYNOLDS

Madison, Wis.

Sharp-eyed Reoist Reynolds is right. Oilman Sinclair was on the wrong side of the hood to be putting oil into a 1925 Reo T 6 taxicab. But what service station man has not made the same mistake?'--ED.

Poland's Score

Sirs:

On p. 19 of your Aug. 22 issue, you have the final score of the Xth Olympiad, with the final score of the Polish team very conspicuous --by its absence. Admitting that TIME is trying to be impartial and correct--yet I feel you should explain the absence of the final score of Janusz Kusocinski and Stella Walasiewicz. JOSEPH JANAS

Providence, R. I.

Omission of Poland's score was inadvertent. On TIME'S 3, 2, 1 point system for first, second and third places, Poland stood 12th among the nations at the Games' close, with the following record:

100-metre dash (Stella Walsh, first place) . . . . 3

10,000-metre (Janusz Kusocinski, first place) . . . . 3

Four-oared crew (third place) . . . . 1

Pair-oared crew without coxswain (third place) . . . . 1

Pair-oared crew with coxswain (second place) . . . . 2

Team sabre (third place) . . . . 1

Women's discus (Jadwiga Wajsowna, third place) . . . . 1 Total 12 --ED. Judge Lindsey & Denver Virgins

Sirs: This morning for the first time my attention was called to an article in TIME for Aug. 15, p. 28 entitled "Denver's Coronet"--wherein occurs this sentence: "When Judge Benjamin Barr Lindsey, after brilliant service in the Juvenile Court, declared that scarcely 10% of Denver's high-school girls were virgins and campaigned nationally for Companionate Marriage, Denver cast him out, has all but forgotten him.''

I not only never declared anything of the kind as to Denver High School girls but any declarations of mine as to such girls or youth generally have been quite the contrary. I have said over and over again that "the youth of today are the wisest, the most hopeful and the most moral that the world ever saw." . . . My difficulties in Denver, as is well known (see The Dangerous Life, published by Horace Liveright-- 1931, for all details) were due to my rights against the bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan when it rose to power there in 1924 and our battles with the privileged interests and corrupt corporate powers that I wrote about in the Beast and the Jungle stories. These powers have circulated many lying stories about me and viciously misrepresented my views on what is popularly known (with much misunderstanding) as the Companionate Marriage. This is not any new kind of marriage but merely a label or title for a program to legalize and scientifically or socially direct the HABITS and CUSTOMS of modern LEGAL marriage, namely, 1 ) to legalize birth control, so as to make the "companionate'' relationship in lawful marriage just as legal and moral as the "procreative" relationship, especially since the great majority of all married couples practice the "companionate" relationship in a bootleg manner even though it is forbidden by the rules and laws of church and state. 2) To legalize certain sex education, so necessary for successful marriage, but which is now also quite generally forbidden by law. 3) To abolish the present divorce courts with all of their illegality, hypocrisy and bootlegging that is becoming a scandal and disgrace. And in place of the present divorce courts to establish an Institute of Human Relations composed of a commission of three experts, two from the medical or scientific professions and only one from the legal profession to give it legality. Discordant couples would come here instead of lawyers' offices. If an effort to reconcile them failed they should have an honest divorce by mutual consent because of incompatibility. This would apply to about 90% of all such cases, many of whom would be reconciled. . . . 4) Alimony and support with reference to economic status of the woman and the facts in each case (instead of being an arbitrary right, as in so many States) with the State compelling the husband or father (in proper cases) to support the young children and if he can't be made to do it in proper cases then that the state should do it, with the children in the custody of the mother.

BEN B. LINDSEY

Los Angeles, Calif.

TIME regrets misquoting Judge Lindsey. What he did say about Denver high school girls was that 90% of them hug & kiss, 50% of the 90% go further, 15% to 25% of the 90% "go the limit. This does not imply or mean promiscuity or frequency, but it happens." -- ED.

Finger Boy

Sirs:

In TIME, July 25, in the article of "Finger" in Miscellany there are four untrue statements: 1) I did not have any playmates. 2) The post was already uprooted. 3) I took myself and post to my mother. 4) Police pulled my finger out. You never can believe everything that is written and here is a proof.

JOE MCHALE

Washington, D. C.

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