Partisans
Sirs:
In reading your magazine TIME recently I have grown to feel that your organization or your magazine is Democratic in its political viewpoint.
Your sarcastic references to President Hoover and other Republicans ... as well as other articles in TIME, cause me to raise this question.
H. M. ROY
Minneapolis, Minn.
Sirs:
In spreading the merits and entertaining quality of TIME, I have been opposed by people who maintain TIME is a Republican magazine. Is this true, or is TIME nonpolitical? I can't help adding to this letter that I think TIME is great! It is as entertaining as it is newsy.
Louis PAUL
New York City
Sirs:
Do you actually favor the candidacy of Herbert Hoover? If you say that you do, will you explain the inconsistency of your present advocacy and your very evident attitude of four years ago when you secretly opposed his nomination?. . . .
Finally, are you Wet like Senator Bingham, or Dry like Mr. Curtis, or both like Mr. Hoover?
LOUIS M. JlGGITTS Democratic National Committeeman from Mississippi Jackson, Miss.
Sirs:
Your animus against the President is becoming more evident and is displeasing to many people. I think that the continuance of the useful place that you have made for yourselves will depend very largely upon your ability to present the news without prejudice or bias. . . . R. H. CLARK
Cleveland, Ohio
Sirs: Please cancel the subscription of H. Glenn Lewis when it expires. We are disappointed in TIME, in that it is not the non-partisan periodical we had felt the need of, but one using its influence to lead our country into the jeopardy of leadership of a party pledged to the repeal of the 18th Amendment and whose hazardous policies might mean ruin at the present time. . . . MRS. HARRY T. LEWIS
Payette, Idaho
Sirs:
We certainly enjoy your clear and fool-proof accounts of the progress of the national election each week. I note that some people have accused you of being pro-Roosevelt, etc. What do they want you to do? Publish a garbled account of the trend of the times, and soft-pedal the fact that the country is on a great Democratic tidal wave? If you did that very thing you would destroy the very thing that makes TIME the one magazine that so many of us depend on for a real account of what has happened. A very common remark these days is, Let's wait and see what TIME has to say about it.. . . JAMES HIGGENBOTTOM
Fredricksburg, Va.
Sirs:
... In working one's way through college, the student has not much time for daily news items and must cast his lot with one periodical. I have chosen TIME.
It seems to be more important to be informed of all the truth than merely the presentation of "the highest type of statesmanship.''
In speaking of a Louisiana swamp, one might as well say "don't talk about mosquitoes, think of all the beautiful birds."
W. VOLK
New York City
Indiana's Watson
Sirs:
We, constituents of Senator James E. Watson of Indiana, would like you to publish a sketch of the career and achievements of the Honorable Jim. W. A. Bugher J. A. McCall G. H. Dove Edith Dove W. H. Ritter G. E. Osmon Frank Hastings Plainville, Ind.
The record of Senator James Eli ("Jim") Watson of Indiana is as follows:
Born: Winchester, Ind., Nov. 2, 1864. Career: Son of a country lawyer, he was educated at DePauw University where he played baseball, got his A.B. in 1886. Admitted to the Indiana bar next year, he began practice with his father. In 1892 he married Flora Miller who bore him three sons, one daughter. He removed to Rushville (pop. 5,709) in 1893 where he has made his home ever since. He joined the Elks, made lodge speeches and friends, drifted into politics. In 1894 he was first elected to the House of Representatives where with one interruption he served for a dozen years. He learned political strategy under Speaker Joseph Gurney (''Uncle Joe'') Cannon who made him a trusted henchman. In 1908 he stepped out of the House to be beaten for the Indiana governorship by Thomas Riley Marshall, later Democratic vice president. Politically jobless, he reverted to law, became a lobbyist for the American Manufacturers Association. In 1913 the House investigators of the A. M. A. lobby publicly flayed him for capitalizing on his personal Congressional contacts. Laughing off a scandal which would have buried a less brazen politician, he wriggled into the Senate in 1916 when Indiana's Benjamin Shively suddenly died. There as an Old Guardsman he has served continuously since. Twice he defeated the late Thomas Taggart, Indiana's Democratic boss, to hold his seat. For political support he has shrewdly ridden every popular wind, from the Anti-Saloon League to the Ku Klux Klan which has blown over the Indiana electorate. A fixture at most G. O. P. national conventions since 1912, he passively hoped for the presidential nomination in 1920 and again in 1924, was Indiana's favorite son against Herbert Hoover in 1928.
In Congress: Because they liked him personally, Republican Senators in 1929 chose him as their floor leader when Charles Curtis vacated that difficult job for the easier vice presidency. But he led only a nominal party majority which insurgent bolters repeatedly turned into a voting minority. Officially the President's spokesman in the Senate, he has eaten many a breakfast at the White House but rarely rises to defend Herbert Hoover from partisan attack. Privately criticized for failing to back up his chief, he was once reported to have snorted: ''How can you stand behind a man with St. Vitus's dance? A G. O. Politician to the core, he is forever busy with local matters--jobs for the faithful, greater use of Indiana limestone in public buildings, retention of the post office name at Santa Claus, Ind.
He voted for: Tariff (1922, 1930). Restrictive Immigration (1924), 15-cruiser bill (1928), Equalization Fee (1928), Boulder Dam (1928), Jones (Five & Ten) Act (1929), Reapportionment (1929), London Naval Treaty (1930), Debt Moratorium (1931), R. F. C. (1932), Labor's Anti-injunction bill (1932), billion-dollar naval building bill (1932), Sales Tax (1932), Revenue Act (1932).
He voted against: Tax reduction (1924), World Court (1920), Farm Board (1929), Muscle Shoals (1931), Beer (1932), Garner relief bill (1932), Wartime income taxes (1932), Bonus (1932).
He has always voted Dry, now stands for Resubmission. He has never been a heavy drinker.
An anti-League isolationist, he opposes cooperation with Europe, insists on arms cuts before debt cuts.
Legislative Hobby: ''Pork for Indiana and tax & tariff measures. He learned Government finance on the House Ways & Means Committee, has continued his education on the Senate Finance Committee. No famed bill bears his name, though he squired the Home Loan Bank Act through the last session after it had been handed to him readymade. As Republican leader, his chief job has been to smother legislation unwanted by the White House. Always a partisan optimist, he declared about a year ago: "I don't think we need to worry about the Treasury as long as Uncle Andy is at the helm.'' As the Senate was passing the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in June 1930 he 'deliberately'' predicted: This nation will be on the upgrade, financially, economically and commercially within 30 clays and within a year we shall have regained the peak of prosperity.
He has long thin legs, a paunchy body, a massive head set tight on heavy shoulders, small beady eyes behind pince-nez. His clothes are correctly impressive. He keeps his shoes well shined. From his Connecticut Avenue home he generally taxies to his Capitol office. His income is far larger than his Senate salary. His political motto is: I always try to be good-natured' and he generally succeeds. Informal, affable, amusing, he is called Jim by friend & foe. He is the Senate's most inveterate handshaker and backslapper. To a constituent who awkwardly remarks that it's pretty warm, he jovially roars: Soon'll be hotter'n hell. His formal Senate speeches are blowsy spectacles of noise and buncombe in which he rotates his arms furiously, shakes his great head, bounces up & down on his spindly legs. In private conversation he is racy and realistic, profane and pointed. Woodrow Wilson used to guffaw at his trivial witticisms. Insensitive to any form of criticism, he was caught last year buying stock in a sugar company from a tariff lobbyist, payment being made by an unsecured, unendorsed, non-interest bearing note. He wisecracked: ''The stock's no good and my note's no good, so the score is 0-to-0, with no hits, no runs, two errors--my taking their stock, their taking my note.
Outside Congress: His only diversion aside from politics, is big league baseball games for which he has begged off going to the President's Rapidan camp. His sporting companion is usually Mississippi's Senator Harrison, his bitterest Democratic critic.
This year he is in the fight of his political life to keep his Senate seat. Indiana is deeply affected by anti-Republican sentiment. Frederick Van Nuys, his Democratic opponent, is harping on his long and unsavory record. He has campaigned strenuously, even to the point of collapsing on the stump (TIME, Sept. 26). His favorite laugh-getter: Talk about the Democrats running this country! Why, it's all we Republicans can handle. Too long a yes-man to friends, he is being plagued by broken promises. At Crawfordsville his henchmen backed him up against a brick wall and angrily shook their fists in his face over promised jobs they never got.
Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: A veteran legislator lacking the national outlook of statesmanship: a party leader without sufficient followers to make a party record: a stand-pat conservative typifying a passing era of economic thought: a consummate politician, tricky and at times treacherous who somehow has come unburnt through scandal after scandal; a lovable old humbug'' (in the words of the press gallery) who is threatened with political extinction Nov. 8.--Ed.
Simple Song
Sirs:
May I suggest that you give your readers and correspondents opportunity to cheer up by singing this simple song and voting Nov. 8:
DON'T ROCK THE BOAT
Don't rock the boat, voters, don't rock the boat, Slick to the Ship of State that keeps us afloat, Hoover is Captain, we are with him with our vote We shall win together and we Won't rock the boat.
(Sing this to the good old Tune "Pull for the Shore")
ANGUS HIBBARD
Chicago, Ill.
Old Sipsey Struts
Sirs:
As a reader of TIME and a listener to The March of Time, I have knowledge of the suggestion that the present need is a soul-stirring poem.
I think, though, that the enclosed poem, composed by the principal of our Negro school at Sipsey mine and which reflects improved wages with ability to eat higher up on the hog, will have a more direct appeal to the Forgotten Man
As every Southerner knows, white meat is the cheapest cut from the hog, without even a streak of lean, and otherwise variously scribed as ''salt pork,'' ''sow belly," etc.
Seriously, the eve of winter -- and perhaps the prospects of Democratic victory -- has greatly stimulated the demand for coal and our mines are now on full operating schedule for the first time in many months.
This poem is responsive to this situation. It is in a humorous vein but, at the same time, well expresses the philosophy of our Southern Negro, who is patient in adversity, buoyant in good times, and cheerful at all times.
A. W. YOGTLE
DeBardeleben Coal Corp.
Birmingham, Ala.
Principal R. W. Taylor's poem:
GOODBY, WHITE MEAT! HOWDY, HAM!
While waiting turn to trade the other day I overheard a colored brother say. 'Gimme two poun's of pork-chops an' er poun uy ham-- Dey'll sho go good wid my big yeller yams. '
Why what about white meat, I interposed. 'Dat's all right. Fess; but on dat bird da season's closed, I et what I could get when times was tight, 'Taint dat way now. Things sho is looking bright.
Worked twenty shifts last month: Why aint dat fine? I'll tell de world Old Sipsey's coming down de line; An' while she 'struts her stuff,' for Rose an' Sam, 'Twill be, goodby, White Meat, Howdy, Ham.
Doherty & Wardman
Sirs:
In your issue of Oct. 17 you reprint the statements made by Senator John J. Blaine in January 1931, regarding the alleged corrupt financing of some of the hotel properties at Washington, D. C., and in his remarks he dragged in my name and made a terrible and untrue assault on me.
The Sixth Section of Article 1 of the Constitution of the U. S. gives immunity for practically all forms of misconduct on the part of any Member of Congress and states that for any speech or debate in either House they shall not be questioned in any other place. This license has often been flagrantly abused and this is one of the glaring examples which every citizen of the U. S. should know about. I never had any part whatever in the financing of any of the Washington hotels, nor did I even know about any of this financing until a long time after it had been done.
In the early part of 1930, after it was known that Mr. Wardman was in financial distress, some of the real estate men of Washington tried to interest me in the purchase of some of the Wardman properties, but I did not even go into the details of the matter--I told them I had been greatly distressed to learn that Mr. Wardman was in difficulties and I had been told if he could raise a million dollars he could clear up his situation. I told them that I thought that Mr. Wardman had done more than any other man to build up the city of Washington. D. C., and, while I knew him only slightly, and did not know a great deal about the entire situation, nevertheless, I felt that he was a great asset to Washington and that the responsible people of Washington could afford to give him substantial financial assistance even at the risk of losing their money, if they could make it possible to continue his operations. I stated that while I had no property interest in Washington, I was willing to put up $50,000 towards the million dollars I was told that he needed and I was willing to accept the entire loss of my money before anybody else was called upon to lose a single penny. No effort was made to raise this fund.
I do not know that I ever before told about this happening but I tell it now simply to illustrate the gross inaccuracy of the statement made by Senator Blaine and to cite one example of perhaps many, where members of Congress take advantage of the immunity given them, to make false and reckless charges, either for the purpose of injuring their enemies or to glorify themselves --and perhaps as a cheap means to gain notoriety.
HENRY L. DOHERTY
Washington, D. C.
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