Letters Supplement

Sirs:

With the receipt of my second number of TIME'S Letters Supplement I must send you immediately my compliments and express my appreciation of being on its mailing list.

. . . The letters in the issue that reaches me each Friday are my first item of perusal and your Letters Supplement is, therefore, most welcome.

W. P. BARBA

Philadelphia, Pa.

Sirs:

I would be very pleased to have my name placed on the mailing list of TIME'S Letters Supplement. I have heard so many complimentary remarks in regard to this Supplement that I regret that I was not quick enough in my request to receive the first issues and if it is possible to make this request retroactive I would be more than obliged.

THOMAS CARROLL

Villanova, Pa.

A limited number of Nos. i and 2 of the Letters Supplement are available and will be sent to readers in the order that their requests are received.--ED.

Sirs:

I would like 20 copies of TIME'S Letters Supplement No. 2. Will you kindly refer the order to the proper authority with the request that they be sent to me with the bill.

Which brings up the thought that the Supplement ought to have a separate charge: let me suggest 5-c- per copy. I think there are great possibilities for useful circulation in the Supplement. It may have unique personality of its own, which would make advisable a definite reference for each letter to its source causation. And again I urge that it be permitted to be selfsupporting.

HERBERT JAXVRIN BROWNE

Long-Range Weather Forecast Service

Washington, D. C.

Until further notice, copies of the Letters Supplement (an overflow of comment, controversy, correction and information) will be sent free to all who ask. For extra copies the charge will be 5-c-each, plus postage. Address I. Van Meter, Editorial Secretary of TIME, 135 East 42nd St., New York City. The Letters Supplement mailing list to date: 2,687.--ED.

Sirs:

. . . Do I detect in your Letters Supplement a very, very sly move indeed? Having become one of the most influential publications in the U. S., are you now beginning to feel the need of an editorial page, and inventing an "overflow of comment, correction, controversy, and information" in which, by careful selection and arrangement of the letters printed, you can guide readers' thoughts? I had always valued TIME precisely because of its pristine lack of bias. Don't tell me that now, swelled with the sense of power which your more than 450,000 readers give you, you are planning to Arnold public opinion." . . .

Far better were it for you to continue the finer service of feeding to the public that clearly, cleanly assimilated store of fact from which the sinews of opinion are freely fashioned in free minds. ... I have seen but one copy of the Letters Supplement and that one, it seemed to me, inferentially "flayed'' the President for forbidding you to simulate his voice in ''The March of TIME.''

I shall watch subsequent issues with closest care and not hesitate to excoriate you if my sorry suspicion proves correct. . . .

J. Y. SANDERSON

Newport News, Va.

Let Reader Sanderson's sorry suspicion subside. TIME'S Letters Supplement is conceived quite simply as a larger rostrum for TIME'S readers, not as a megaphone for TIME'S editors.--ED.

Hollywood Swine

Sirs:

Hollywood, like a hotel baggage-label, leaves an imprint which the most arduous soap & water scrubbing cannot eliminate.

So it was with Blue Boy (TIME, Jan. 29) who died ''in Hollywood" (TIME obit). In other publications, victims of Hollywood publicitis, death notices of this only silver-screen porker read "near Hollywood," "in the vicinity of Hollywood," "at a stock farm close to Hollywood," etc., etc.

Quibbling over the death place of a dead hog, even as worthy a Porcine as Blue Boy, shows to what extent live mortals will go. It also shows to what lengths a Hollywood publicity man will go.

Blue Boy's contract terminated Jan. 1, 1933. Oddly, a veteran film actor can be turned into the street as his star fades--but not an 800-lb. blue-ribbon Hampshire boar. Hollywood cast about for a home for its animal star, finally presenting Blue Boy (with appropriate Hollywood glamour, Will Rogers' wisecracks and camera-clicking) to the high-school vocational agricultural students (Future Farmers) of California. Hizzoner was housed at the California Polytechnic School, the state vocational agriculture institution 209 miles from Hollywood where he lived and died. As an unemployed film actor, he was at least a "white-striped elephant," and Hollywood breathed a big sigh of relief to have him off its hands. Nevertheless, he continued to be good copy. When his first progeny appeared, (353 miles airline from Hollywood) the 15 piglets were also born "near Hollywood." His travels about the State to get acquainted with mamma pigs were "in the neighborhood of Hollywood." As a herd sire A. H. (After Hollywood), Blue Boy was a bust; as a publicity medium for the ag boys, he was a success, provided Hollywood did not get its licks in first. Blue Boy has gone to his reward. A post-mortem showed that he was suffering from more ailments than a surgeon could find in a millionaire's interior--the price Blue Boy paid for having been kept in show-ring condition for the months of filming. While Hollywood has its oddities, this is probably the first time it has ever taken to its bosom a dead hog it had given away with a sigh of relief. When Blue Boy's ethereal self projects itself into some spiritualist gathering (you can't keep a good hog down), you may be sure that he will bring a message "from Hollywood."

RAY O. HAMILTON

President

California Polytechnic Chapter

Future Farmers of America

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Farthest South

Sirs:

Your excellent review of Katherine Mayo's Soldiers What Next? in the Feb. 12 issue of TIME harks back to Isles of Fear and the annoyance it caused Filipinos. Did you ever hear of the annoyance it caused Philadelphians?

The Public Ledger was running Isles of Fear serially. F. W. Welty, a prominent Catholic layman, was Managing Editor and the undersigned was reading Mayo's stuff on the night copy desk. Well, you know how it is Christmas Eve. The piece for the next day came over the desk when the undersigned was feeling as a person working on Christmas Eve does feel, and it got only a cursory reading, a few paragraph marks and a head. Well, so Christmas Day, the Ledger published a gratuitous insult to the Virgin Mary, it being Miss Mayo's opinion of most Filipinos' opinion of the Christian Madonna.

With many Catholic readers (and a Catholic M. E.) you can imagine that things got pretty hot for the Ledger in the ensuing weeks. In some churches parishioners were told not to read the paper henceforth. The Cardinal wrote a letter to Mr. Curtis. My landlady made me move. The Ledger accumulated what is perhaps the most remarkable "Don't" list in the history of American journalism (and there have been some swell "don't" lists), in an effort to avoid any further annoyance to the Catholic Church. One of these "don'ts" represents to my mind the farthest South in newspaper rules. That summer, when the St. Louis National Team was playing in the World Series, we were not permitted to refer to them as the Cardinals.

C. S. MORGAN JR.

New York City

Fearful Night

Sirs:

Having recently returned to America, my attention has been drawn to an account in your issue of Dec. 18 headed "Premier Duke & Jackson'' describing the tragic fire which took place at my house the "Heronry," England.

In so much as many people have been led to place confidence in the accuracy of reports in TIME I think it is only proper that I should point out that there are no less than eight mistakes in the article. It would seem that your correspondent in order to get a good title to the article altered the facts, or at any rate, made use of various incorrect reports in the London papers.

Further, by the implication of omission, the article gives the impression that Mrs. McCormick and I made no attempt to save our guests, while our chauffeur, Jackson, called the fire department, took full charge of all rescue work, and was the first to discover that the Duke de La Tremoille was still in the burning house. The only reference to Mrs. McCormick and myself states that ''we walked safely out of the front door."

As regards Jackson, it is true that he did, acting on Mrs. McCormick's orders, fetch a ladder with the help of Farmer Gay and subsequently entered the Duke de La Tremoille's room through the window. Long previously by shouting and throwing stones at the window I had sought to rouse the Duke if he were there. Behind the window curtains Jackson found little smoke, no fire. The room was empty, the lights lit and the door to the corridor closed. The Duke had unfortunately left his room without attempting to escape by the window, and tried instead to traverse the suffocating fumes of the corridor. Here he died, having missed the right direction in seeking the staircase.

Captain Rodney [another guest] gashed no arteries, he died some hours later at the hospital following an anaesthetic given to enable him to bear the pain of dressing superficial hand wounds. The coroner attributed his death to heart failure.

Mrs. McCormick escaped through her bedroom window, descending by a low roof over the dining room bay. Her first act was to try and rouse our guests. I got down by the front staircase and tried also and probably succeeded in waking the Duke. Subsequently I tried to extinguish the flames with fire equipment and tried to call the fire department, but the telephone was fused. It was the chauffeur's wife who finally put in the alarm. With the exception of the maid, I was the last person to escape from the house and it was I who helped her to safety. There was no roll call held. It was of course evident that the Duke was missing. Thinking over the events of that fearful night a thousand times, my wife and I still cannot see how we could have saved our guests as the circumstances occurred.

LEANDER J. MCCORMICK

New York City

TIME sincerely regrets that its account of the "Heronry" tragedy, based on early reports, was unjust to Mr. & Mrs. McCormick. At the close of the inquest the coroner said: "This terrible fire occurred apparently without any cause within the control of Mr. & Mrs. McCormick whatever, and one feels for them very much."

--ED.

Water War

Sirs:

U. G. BAKER'S CAMPAIGN IN SUSQUEHANNA PENNSYLVANIA IS A SUCCESS TO THE EXTENT THAT A PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPER THEN BAKER CARTER AND FINALLY TIME HAVE FALLEN FOR HIS LINE AND GIVEN HIM THE NOTORIETY HE SET OUT TO ATTAIN [TIME, Feb. 19]. THE WATER COMPANY INSTALLED A FILTER PLANT AND OTHER EQUIPMENT TO IMPROVE SERVICE AND RAISED RATES TO COVER ADDITIONAL COSTS.

THE RATES ARE BASED ON A VALUE LESS THAN THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION'S ENGINEERS DETERMINED WAS FAIR. THE COMPANY'S PAPER EARNINGS WOULD BE LESS THAN SIX PERCENT ON THE VALUE OF ITS PLANT BUT ITS CASH COLLECTIONS ARE ONLY A FRACTION OF THAT. THE OCTOPUS SO-CALLED THE OWNER COMPANY IS ADVANCING CASH TO KEEP THE WATER FLOWING TO THOSE WHO HAVE PAID AND TO THOSE WHO HAVE REFUSED TO PAY OTHERWISE THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY WOULD HAVE BEEN WITHOUT WATER SERVICE BEFORE THIS THANKS TO THE EFFORTS OF BAKER. TIME DIGNIFIES ACTIONS BY RECOUNTING THEM AND IT WOULD DO WELL THEREFORE TO GET ALL THE FACTS BEFORE LENDING ITS UNWITTING AID TO DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY AND THE FANNING OF FLAMES OF OPPOSITION TO LAW AND ORDER ESPECIALLY IN THESE TROUBLESOME TIMES.

REEVES J. NEWSOM

President

Canawacta Water Supply Co.

Washington, Pa.

Holman, Goldman, Winograd et al.

Sirs: I think that your article in TIME of Feb. 19, concerning the basketball situation in the Metropolitan district was very clear and concise, but you have made a few errors in it that I cannot pass. In the first place Nat Holman did not attend C. C. N. Y. but the Savage Institute of Physical Education. . . . During the stay at C. C. N. Y., he has coached the baseball and soccer teams besides the basketball team.

Your second error was in regard to Moe Goldman. He was not knocked unconscious in the Temple game, but got a bad crack on the nose which caused an external bleeding; in fact he could hardly breathe all through the second half. Since that game, he has been playing with a cumbersome noseguard, which although everybody would expect it to, did not detract from his playing, as one can see by his performances against Providence, against whom he scored twelve points and against Rutgers . . . (City won 31-21).

The success of the City College team is not only due to the coaching of Nat Holman and to the playing of Moe Goldman, but also to the performance of such capable players as Sam Winograd, one of the hardest cutting forwards that I have ever seen, Pete Berenson and Artie Kaufman, two stellar guards, Meyer Pincus. Abe Weisslgodt and a squad of very capable reserves. . . .

JEROME SOBOLOS

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Deep Sea Mail

Sirs:

1) I note some of your provincianos in the U. S. bragging in your Letters column about receiving TIME while on vacation. They have nothing on me.

2) Before I left here for the U. S. in 1932 I sent you my itinerary and told you I wanted TIME to read en route.

3) When I arrived in Los Angeles all copies of TIME which had been printed since you received my itinerary were waiting for me at the Dollar Steamship office. I read them at the Grand Canyon and en route to Chicago.

4) When I arrived at Chicago the next copy was waiting for me at 6916 Clyde Avenue.

5) I continued my trip, sailing from Seattle. There were no copies at Seattle as none had been printed while I was en route from Chicago to Seattle.

6) When the S.S. President Cleveland slowed up at the International Date Line to take on the deep sea mail, lo and behold there were two copies of TIME which had passed the Cleveland waiting for me there to read en route to Manila.

7) And the next copy of TIME was in the Cleveland mail which I opened in my Manila office

8) I never missed a copy.

9) Can any of your smart subscribers beat my record?

J. A. STIVER

Manila, P. I.

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