Bodyguard

Sirs:

As you arc doubtless aware, much was made in the papers of the elaborate preparations for the protection of President Roosevelt during his recent visit to the Fly Club at Harvard [TIME, March 4 ]. It would seem that my experience on that evening would tend to disillusion those who would take this protection too literally. On the evening of the President's visit, I, in a slightly intoxicated, though by no means drunken, condition, waited with the small group outside of the Club to see the President leave. As he drove along Mt. Auburn .Street I slipped by two or three cops and was beside his car--so near in fact that I could easily have grabbed his hat which he waved out of the window of his car. Without the slightest bit of trouble I could have jumped on the running board of the auto and assassinated Mr. Roosevelt. It was not until we reached the corner of Boylston Street, a distance of several hundred yards, that I was apprehended.

Of course J thought this was great fun at the time, and so it was. But may it not also be an evidence of carelessness on the part of the President's bodyguard?

I am well aware of the possible answer that these men saw that I was just another student and that there was no serious danger of assassination. But supposing that I had been merely disguised as a student and that I had had evil intentions. I saw the situation clearly and it would have been impossible for anyone to have stopped me before it was too late. Of course I would have been captured, maybe mobbed: but what does that matter to anyone who sincerely feels that the President of the United States has lived long enough? . . . *

Harvard College Cambridge, Mass.

Mudd Drama

Sirs:

Please accept the thanks of 20th Century Pictures, Inc. for bringing to our attention, through the columns of TIME [Feb. 4] the story of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd. We are at present preparing a scenario based on the career of Dr. Mudd, which will be produced this summer.

DARRYL ZANUCK

Vice President 20th Century Pictures, Inc. Hollywood, Calif.

TIME wishes Producer Darryl Zanuck well.--ED.

Where Mr. Iversen Sat

Sirs:

In your March 4 issue of TIME, p. 53, cut under heading ''Gold & Machines," you have erroneously placed Mr. Iversen as the centre of the party of friends.

As his daughter I recognize my father as the gentleman at the extreme right of the picture with his arm across the young lady's shoulder.

I am not qualified to comment on any points in your article except to say he speaks with but a slight accent.

HELEN IVERSEN DIXON

New Haven, Conn.

All thanks to Daughter Helen Iversen Dixon for identifying her father in one of his rare photographs and for supplying an authentic description of his speech. The man at the centre of the Pittsburgh University Club party, whom TIME erroneously labeled as the president of Mesta Machine Co., was Jerzy Matusinski, then Polish Consul at Pittsburgh, now Consul General in Manhattan. Last week President Iversen reported that his company earned $1,517,250 last year from making steel machines, promised stockholders a full capacity year in 1935.--ED.

Docile Greyhounds Sirs:

Wish to thank you for the mention of our sport [greyhound racing] in TIME, Feb. 25. This game is on the verge of a great boom and within the next two or three years will rival, if not exceed, horse racing in public interest. . . . Although originating here, the sport did not get a chance to develop until introduced in England in 1926. In that country responsible sportsmen took an interest in it and made it one of the leading amusements. Men and women of the highest social standing are identified with greyhound racing in England and something like 120 tracks are in operation there, some of them attracting crowds of over 100,000 on special occasions, and a few averaging 50,000 a night during the height of their season. . . .

The one feature that makes dog racing popular, even under most unfavorable conditions, is its unusual fairness. There is no jockey to hold back a favorite, or boot in a longshot. The dogs race strictly on their own, and that the animals enjoy racing and have a highly competitive spirit is evident to anyone who has ever seen a race. In addition, under State control, there are ten rules to protect the dog fan for every one in protection of the horse player. . . .

You make one or two statements that give an erroneous impression of the sport. . . . You state: ". . . Savage as wolves, greyhounds wear muzzles ... to prevent them from biting each other to death." While this is literally true, it gives a wrong idea of the greyhound's nature. He is extremely docile and gentle except when racing, when he becomes so intensely interested in catching his quarry that he loses his traditional dignity and is willing to fight anything that interferes with him. It is only on the tracks, where the lure is taken out of sight at the end of a race, that the greyhound needs a muzzle. In coursing, where the live hare is captured, there is never any fighting among the dogs. It is customary for the two contestants, after the kill, to both pick up the hare in their mouths and carry it back to their owners. Incidentally, greyhounds are not bloodthirsty and many of them refuse to kill the hare. A majority of the dogs will not touch the meat of a rabbit they have caught. Some trainers compel their dogs to eat the hares taken, in the belief that it will increase their interest in running, but it is not the animal's instinct to do so.

You may say what you please about the operators of dog tracks, or owners of greyhounds (nothing you could say would be too bad for some of them), but lay off the dogs themselves. . J. KELLY Editor

American Greyhound Miami, Fla.

Beaver Yarn

Sirs:

Is TIME really gullible or does it, too, enjoy printing human interest stories?

The Herman Strutter beaver story [TIME, Feb. 25] first appeared in the Perry, N. Y., Herald ... as one of a series of "Week's Best Yarns''; was then sent to the Buffalo Evening News which paper boxed it on the front page with heading: "Gnaw, We Wooden Believe This." Going on Associated Press wires, it was printed in daily papers throughout the U. S., winding up in Miscellany column of TIME under heading: "Leg."

The yarn as first printed in the Herald gave Wethersfield, about 20 miles from Perry where there is a beaver dam, as the residence of Herman Strutter, but as the story was relayed Wethersfield was deleted and the Perry date line stuck.

Out-of-town and out-of-State subscribers to the Herald, mostly former residents of this village, have been sending in clippings of the story from daily papers wanting to know who Herman Strutter is. Postal cards addressed to Herman Strutter from clipping bureaus, stating that for 10 or 25-c- they will send him an item of interest have been received. Wise Perry post-office employes place Strutter's mail in the Herald box. Climax was the receipt of advertising from artificial limb companies.

"Week's Best Yarns" are written by Editor Guy Comfort and Associate Editor W. Gordon McGuire of the Herald, the beaver story coming from the imagination of the latter. Instituted as a weekly feature, they have boosted circulation, have the town talking. Every week after the Herald is printed skeptical subscribers want to know if the story is true, who the principal is.

Other yarns: Oscar Cowlie found that he could milk his cows quicker if he took his. radio to the barn, tuned in on fast tempo music; Charles Nestor noticed the backs of his sheep were getting bare, investigation showed that swallows had picked wool therefrom to line their nests; Elmer Sweetdcw tapped his sugar bush, found a pail with whiskey in it next morning, reached into a knothole in the tree and pulled out a whiskey bottle placed there by a hired man years ago. He had drilled directly into the cork in tapping the tree. . . . HOWARD E. HAGGSTROM

Perry, N. Y.

P. S. Your correspondent: Linotype operator for the Herald.

"Puerile, Asinine, Ridiculous"

Sirs:

As an ardent pro-Soviet I am glad to see you adopt the Russian editorial policy you have since in your ridiculous, asinine over-criticism you expose nothing but your lack of real knowledge of Soviet conditions. Anyone who reads your "Russias" and "Religions" and "Transports'' and "Miscellanies" for the past few months knows that such things and conditions don't actually exist. They know that although you pretend to be impartial you are really being governed by a moneyed class of pseudo-Fascists. Harknesses and Hearstlings, I'll mention no specific proof of this lousy editorial policy, it's spread throughout your entire publication--from cover to cover. . . .

If you print this at all you'll probably caption it: "puerile"--"asinine"--"ridiculous" or with some such invective. Then your editor will add a note: "Let Reader Salzman mind his tongue or his manners or something equally foolish." . . .

MILTON B. SALZMAN

New Haven, Conn.

P. S. I have just returned from the U. S. S. R. and know what I'm talking about.

Let Reader Salzman mind his tongue, or his manners, or something equally foolish.--ED.

Marines in Films Sirs: Feb. 18, Cinema, under Devil Dogs of the Air --"perhaps the only branch of the U. S. flying service that has hitherto escaped the attention of the cinema. . . ."

Is TIME able to recall and name a production with Ralph Graves and Jack Holt as flying marines in Nicaragua? RALPH H. VAN METER Salem, N. J.

Right. The picture was Flight, produced in 1929 by Columbia, directed by Frank Capra.--ED.

Schumann's Sextuplets

Sirs:

For years students at the University of Pennsylvania have heard of the African sextuplets when Dr. Schumann lectured on multiple pregnancies (TIME, March 4). Hence one can easily imagine their surprise on finding the story on the front pages of their morning papers. However their mental state was probably much more settled than Dr. Schumann's for he returned from his Southern trip weary' and worn, complaining to his class about pestering reporters and the fact that he had even been offered $100,000 to display the sextuplets at a nearby shore resort during the next summer season.

Under the circumstances wouldn't that annoy you too? T. A. HEMPILL Philadelphia, Pa.

It would.--ED.

Masterpiece Sirs: Your account of The Green Pastures in your March 4 issue is indeed a masterpiece. . . .

One point, however, 1 would like cleared up. Is Richard B. Harrison the first Negro ever to . . . appear on the cover of TIME? . . . WILLIAM A. CLEM West Mansfield, Mass.

Yes.--ED.

Sirs: Hats off to TIME for reproducing the very excellent photo of "De Lawd'' and on the cover page at that!

It was not, of course, unusual for TIME to carry a photo of a Negro, for hardly a week passes without such a picture being found in your pages. In the March 4 number alone, I counted at least four photos of Negroes, which I wager will raise the ire of many a good Texan, some of whom have not fully recovered from the shock given them when TIME referred to Hon. Arthur W. Mitchell as "gentleman.". . . THOMAS C. JERVAY Managing Editor The Cape Fear Journal Wilmington, N. C.

At Lubbock Sirs: . . . In commenting upon the road trip of The Green Pastures, you say ''Only one town, Lubbock, Tex., banned the show because its actors were colored." That is not true.

The Lubbock Morning Avalanche and Lubbock Evening Journal were approached by promoters of The Green Pastures to sponsor the show as they have many other entertainment features. Avalanche-Journal papers turned the proposition down simply because the city's only auditorium of any size is in the $650,000 Senior High school building and we did not "cotton" to the idea of Negroes using the school's dressing rooms and then expecting the sons and daughters of our white citizens to use them thereafter.

Like many another Southerner [the undersigned] cannot overlook TIME'S studied efforts to place the Negro on the same mental and social plane with the white, nor TIME'S never-passed-up policy of printing Negro pictures and praising Negro effort to the skies. CHAS. A. GUY Editor and Publisher Lubbock Morning Avalanche Lubbock Evening Journal Lubbock, Tex.

A thoroughgoing rebuke to Editor Guy for slipshod reporting, in neglecting to mention that The Green Pastures company had offered to erect its own dressing-room tent outside the school.-- ED.

At Miami Sirs: . . . Miami, Fla., joined Lubbock, Tex. in not allowing The Green Pastures to be given. Reason: intolerance. . . GEORGE GREEN Miami, Fla.

Miami has an ordinance barring colored performers from stages where the audience is composed exclusively of whites. No ordinance is needed to keep Miami audiences unmixed in color.--ED.

At Madison Sirs: The statement has appeared in a number of newspapers to the effect that on its recent visit to Madison, Wis. the company playing Green Pastures was everywhere refused lodgings and the players were accordingly compelled to sit up all night in the railroad station.

In reply to this statement the Directors of the University Club of Madison desire me to state that the University Club supplied lodging to twelve members of the company. As citizens of the city of Madison they wish to state further that the City Y. M. C. A. accommodated twelve other members; and that while at least one local hotel refused all accommodations, another hotel (not a "Negro hotel") accommodated six others; and that the Y. W. C. A. and the University Union offered their vacant rooms to women and men, respectively, of which offers the company did not avail themselves. Furthermore, Mr. Harry Marsh, General Agent of the Northwestern Railway Company at Madison, authorizes us to say that "there is absolutely no foundation for the report that any of the cast of Green Pastures stayed all night at the station." W. F. LORENZ President The University Club, Madison, Wis.

The Green Pastures visited Madison twice. In February 1934 the company encountered such trouble in finding lodgings, that it would not have returned last December but for the necessity of breaking a long jump between La Crosse, Wis. and Peoria, Ill. The railway station episode was associated with the December visit when again there was housing trouble, but not serious enough to cause the entire cast to spend the night in the station. Says the company's pressagent: "It is entirely possible that a few individuals did pass the night--in lieu of better quarters--in the station. While without rancor, this is said despite sworn statements from any Madison railway official."--ED.

Coughlin v. Hitler

Sirs: Congratulations to TIME on its answer to Robert G. Douglas (March 4). ... It is a little rough, however, to blame the Catholic Church for Hitler's knowledge of God. In all faiths there are those morons who attend without knowing what it is all about.

But let Reader W. E. Hamilton of Evanston not become unduly worried. The Father Coughlins and others will pass and when the smoke has cleared away we'll start looking around for that mountain of good common sense --Al Smith-- who learned about God in the Catholic Church. A. M. A. HANNON Rockville Center, N. Y.

Sirs: . . . Although I am not a Catholic, I resented the publication of the factless, insane drivel from the Evanston rascal. . . .

For Hamilton's benefit, and also his refutation, I suggest: 1) That the majority of Father Coughlin's statements are backed by very credible evidence. For example, Government reports establish facts, especially when they are read from photostatic copies, and when they are labeled "Do not Publish"; consequently, such revelations should be Hamiltonized by better designations than merely "blowing off."

2) Neither Western Union nor Postal Telegraph was accepting telegrams only from Coughlinites.

3) Votes from "ignorant people" might establish election majorities for Senators; but it is "idiotic" to assume that any Senators would let 60,000 telegrams "neutralize the judgment of the entire legislative body," since 41,040,000 intelligent people were so actively following the dictates of free radio broadcasts by those in favor of the World Court. . . . EDSON E. WEISS Minneapolis, Minn.

Sirs: . . . Whatever one's view or opinion of Father Coughlin one cannot with impunity question his mental fitness. . . . PHILIP A. SAVAGE Detroit, Mich.

*At the writer's request, and for obvious reasons, TIME breaks precedent by withholding his name.--ED.

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