Justice for Chaco
Sirs:
In your issue of June 24 you publish an article under the caption "Peace without Victory." Many of the statements in this article are so grossly inaccurate that they cannot go unchallenged.
You say that "the Gran Chaco is rated as a 'green hell' by romantic Author-Explorer Julian Duguid." This popular conception of the Chaco undoubtedly has been created by Duguid's Green Hell. The truth, however, is that Duguid's Green Hell is not the Chaco. He has never been in the Chaco proper and consequently any conclusions derived from a reading of his book are very misleading if they are applied to the Chaco Boreal.
The Chaco, with an area of 297,938 square kilometers and possessing richness and illimitable possibilities, with a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants, is, today, little known. The most flourishing industrial establishments of the Republic: the great cattle ranches and agricultural colonies; the more than 500 kilometers of railroad bear witness to the civilizing capacity of Paraguay in the Chaco. That the Chaco is not the "green hell" of popular imagination may be easily realized by a consideration of the principal centres of civilization within its borders. Among these are:
1) Villa Hayes.* Centre of an agricultural population of more than 10,000. Here is established a sugar refinery with a capital of 300,000 gold pesos.
2) Puerto Emiliano, with 30,000 head of cattle.
3) Puerto Cooper, an estancia belonging to the English-Argentina Cattle Co., with a population of more than 7,000 and representing an investment of two million gold pesos.
4) Puerto Pinasco, Property of the International Products Co. (an American concern), with a capital of more than 4,000,000 gold pesos and employing 2,300 workers.
5) Puerto Casado. 3,000 inhabitants. A railroad connects the forest with the port. The estimated capital invested in Puerto Casado exceeds six million gold pesos. In the estancias there are 80,000 head of cattle. . . .
6) Puerto Sastre. Population 5,000, with an investment of 2,000,000 gold pesos in the tannin and cattle industries.
This list can be considerably extended. At the present time there are more than 2,000,000 head of cattle in the Chaco. Recent statistics indicate that approximately 200,000,000 gold pesos are invested in the Chaco of which about 17,000,000 represent foreign investments. It is affirmed that within the next ten years the Chaco will provide all the wheat necessary for Paraguay and leave a surplus for exportation. The Mennonite colony of 6,000 souls has been established for more than ten years in the Chaco and is one of the most prosperous in the world. The cotton of the Chaco has received the highest recognition for quality, and during six months of 1934 the Mennonite colony alone exported 300,000 kilograms of cotton. Do these facts bear out your statement that Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over a worthless pestilential land? So much for the "green hell."
But this is not all. "Dyspeptic, diarrehic, goitred and leprous, the Indians had multiplied to 800,000 by 1932." This statement displays not only crass ignorance but is an insult to a progressive people. As in all countries, there are in Paraguay cases of leprosy, but they are few. "Small-fry" Paraguay is as up to date in her treatment of this disease as the U. S. . . .
Your observation that the Chaco war was begun by a rousing pair of national inferiority complexes is as fantastic as your footnote which attributes to "most Latin-Americans" the belief that the U. S. was behind Bolivia and Great Britain behind Paraguay. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I apologize for the length of this letter, but, in the name of justice as well as of truth, I feel that it should receive publication in your columns in order that your numerous readers may be correctly informed.
ENRIQUE BORDENAVE
Minister of Paraguay Washington, D. C.
All thanks to Minister Bordenave for his readable description of the Paraguay River area of Gran Chaco. Explaining that romantic Author Duguid called the Gran Chaco a "green hell," TIME said: "Actually it is a great variegated basin extending from Northern Argentina to Eastern Bolivia. The disputed section is a liver-shaped area bounded by the Paraguay and Pilcomayo Rivers. At the Paraguayan edge it is grassy and open, the soil sandy and dry. Farther west the jungle swamps and lagoons begin, follow the sluggish, unnavigable Pilcomayo to the South, dot the drowned lands to the North. Still farther west, verging into Bolivia's Andean foothills, the land changes again to open woodland, broken by fertile plains."
Villa Hayes, Puerto Emiliano, Puerto Cooper, Puerto Pinasco, Puerto Casado and Puerto Sastre, listed by Minister Bordenave, are all on the "Paraguayan edge" of the Chaco Boreal, far from the scene of fighting at any stage of the Chaco War. All six are along the Paraguay River.--ED.
G. C.'s Genius
Sirs, HIGHLY COMPLIMENTED TO HAVE NAME OF GARDNER COWLES COUPLED WITH ADVANCE BUT ADVANCE NOT STARTED TILL 16 YEARS AFTER G. C. SOLD INTEREST IN ALGONA REPUBLICAN BACK TO PARTNER IN 1884 AFTER ONE YEAR. YOUR STORY EXCELLENT BUT MAKES TOO MUCH OF BOYS, WHO HAD ONLY TO CARRY ON; NOT ENOUGH OF TRULY GREAT BUSINESS GENIUS OF G. C.; SHAMEFULLY LITTLE OF EQUALLY BRILLIANT CONTRIBUTION OF VETERAN EDITOR HARVEY INGHAM. BOYS WOULD DOUBTLESS BE FIRST TO ENDORSE THIS. WHEN IOWANS BOAST OF REGISTER & TRIBUNE THE NAMES OF G. C. AND INGHAM ARE ALWAYS COUPLED.
W. C. DEWELL
Editor
Kossuth County Advance Algona, Iowa
Masterpiece
Sirs:
To the author of "Iowa Formula" (under "Press" July 1) heartiest commendations for the composition of a literary and journalistic masterpiece.
WM. MAIDMENT JR.
Westfield, N. J.
"Coles"
Sirs:
You devoted seven columns and a front cover to glorifying the Cowles family of Des Moines, but you failed to clear up one point: Do they pronounce their name Coles or Cowles?
JOHX DAWSON
Denver, Colo.
Coles.--ED.
Sic Gloria
Sirs:
Re the No. 1 Iowa Sheet, newsworthy sure, but "Sic Gloria Celebritatis Emptae." Are Parker House Hotelmen next?
H. O. GAVIN
Seattle, Wash.
Poor Hound
Sirs:
May I in one breath praise and rebuke Mr. Peter Vischer, of Polo, for his comment in your magazine on the errors of the advertising gentry (TIME, July 1).
In the late full page, advertising whiskey, in which the fine old sportsman "knew good whiskey because he knew good hunters and hounds" . . . the poor hound, may I remind Mr. Vischer, was not an Irish setter, as he stoutly insists. That would have been sad . . . but bearable. The dog, alas, was a poor, unfortunate English setter, so badly drawn by the artist that every point of this noble animal was overlooked.
Please ask Mr. Edwards to go back to his fishing quietly, and Mr. Vischer to stick to the horse, which he knows so well. But do let the "dawg folks" do the ribald laughing at that unfortunate advertisement. For we know the English setter, Laverack strain, even in caricature.
GRETCHEN LEE
Bennett, Neb.
Raised Eyebrows
Sirs:
In TIME, July 1 under "The Congress" you state: "This news raised Committee eyebrows to about the same extent as would have occurred if Mr. Mitchell had revealed that the Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776 at Philadelphia. It had all been hashed out by Comptroller General McCarl, was an old story." You imply that the fact that the Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776 is an old story. It seems to me a poor example to use, for your writer surely knows that the Declaration was not signed on July 4, 1776, but about a month later. Or am I wrong? . . .
HENRY S. JOHNSON
New Haven, Conn.
Reader Johnson is right. Although the Continental Congress adopted the resolution of Independence on July 2, 1776 and passed the Declaration two days later, it was not actually signed until August 2.
--ED.
$150 Chance
Sirs:
Reading your item "One Way Ticket" (TIME, July 1) referring to "100% Nichols," of the 1st National Bank of Englewood, Chicago . . . his Bank Statement appeared on the financial page of Sunday's Chicago [June 30] Tribune.
In this statement he lists among items under heading ''non-Liquid Assets" the following:
Loaned to a customer $150.00
Bank building, land, furniture & fixtures 10.00
Stock in Federal Reserve Bank .10
With total assets over 7 million, he took a chance and loaned $150 to somebody!
R. G. ROBERTS
Chicago, Ill.
Banker John M. ("100%") Nichols is now 102% liquid: his statement also showed liquid assets of $6,426,836 against deposits of $6,277,587.--ED.
Longest Ride
Sirs:
Under Transport in your issue of June 17, headed "Skinflints' Slugs" you boost New York subways, 25 mi. for 5-c-, as the world's biggest rail-travel bargain. For the past ten years Glasgow, Scotland has had a 26 1/2 mi. street car ride for 4-c-. And fixed, near the exit, on every car of the Glasgow system, than which there is none better in Scotland, is a little red box where passengers may deposit their fares for the shorter 10 rides should they wish to alight before the conductor has had time to collect. . . .
GEO. HAINING
Glendale, Calif.
Below Average
Sirs:
... In referring [TIME, June 24], to the annual recurrence of infantile paralysis your statement regarding North Carolina would permit of a literal interpretation that the disease was State-wide in its coverage. To citizens of western North Carolina this statement, as well as like items in the daily press, is the subject of much concern. Were it true--we'd take it and like it. But, since it so happens that the number of cases of infantile paralysis in this area is below the average, and there are absolutely no indications of a spread, it would appear only right that you follow up your last story with a statement showing the true state of affairs, and thus relieve us of an appearance of epidemic which cannot but harm us as we enter what should be our best tourist season in many years. . . .
G. O. SHEPHERD
Asheville, N. C.
Asheville is many miles away from Wake, Harnett and Johnston Counties where North Carolina's epidemic of infantile paralysis is most concentrated. But let not North Carolinians deceive themselves concerning the seriousness of the epidemic, which has affected 61 of the State's 100 Counties and spread into Virginia. Since May 1, 297 cases have been reported in North Carolina, of whom 18 died. To combat the epidemic North Carolina's State epidemiologist. Dr. Joseph Clyde Knox, has advised against children attending summer schools. President Roosevelt's good friend. Dr. Leroy Watkins Hubbard of the Warm Springs Infantile Paralysis Sanatorium, has gone from Georgia to help Epidemiologist Knox. as have Drs. Warren Palmer Dearing and Alexander Gordon Gilliam, infantile paralysis experts of the U. S. Public Health Service. Dr. James Payton Leake. best U. S. P. H. S. expert, was to be there this week.--ED.
Heartwarming
Sirs:
To you & your critic who reviewed Deep Dark River (TIME, July 1) my hearty thanks. It was an inspiriting and heartwarming experience to find the book handled with generosity and a sympathetic understanding both of the story itself and the meaning of the story. You pointed out the very things I had hoped would be noticed. I deeply appreciate your kindness.
ROBERT RYLEE
Stevens Point, Wis.
Westernmost
Sirs:
... In TIME, June 17 some distant places in the far North are mentioned where TIME finds its way to remote subscribers. TIME also finds its way to isolated subscribers in the far West.
Four times a year out in the Pacific Ocean, near the 180th Meridian, TIME goes regularly to Midway Island, when the little cable ship Dickinson journeys there with supplies for the cable station.
Mr. Perry, the cable superintendent at Midway Island, is a consistent reader of TIME. Regularly once a week he takes out one of the accumulated issues of TIME and reads it through--a ritual from which he never deviates.
When 43 navy seaplanes recently flew from Pearl Harbor to Midway Island, a late copy of TIME was handed to Mr. Perry. He declined to read it because he would not break into his regular order of reading TIME. Incidentally, that particular copy of TIME went back to Pearl Harbor in one of the seaplanes that made the first non-stop flight over this lonely section of the Pacific Ocean.
A. W. JOHNSON
Washington, D. C.
Devil's Helper
Sirs:
I am in receipt of an appeal that I renew my subscription which will expire in September. I am instead writing to cancel it, and wish to tell you how glad I am that the time is so near when your whiskey-soaked, cigaret-smoked, sensuous and so often sensual magazine will be no longer polluting my mailbox.
TIME is in many ways an exceedingly able and clever magazine, but so also is the devil exceedingly able and clever, and he must be very grateful for the exceedingly efficient service which you gratuitously give him. I shall miss many features of your magazine, but can readily forego them for the sake of avoiding the stench of debasing animalism which so mars your otherwise beautiful journal.
EARLE V. PIERCE
Pastor
Lake Harriet Baptist Church Minneapolis, Minn.
Sirs:
... I blush with shame when I find your editors appealing to the cheap and shoddy, to the sensational. I would not expect any more from a cheap vulgar magazine than to run nude pictures . . . but from a paper that you expect ministers and decent clubs and high-school teachers and Sunday-school teachers to read, you should be more careful, for we cannot endorse vulgarity under the name of art or nudist colonies. . . . My prayers are for you, that you may be guided always by the hand of the Unseen in producing the worthwhile, the clean, the helpful and the kind of magazine that Jesus would read if he were among us.
ROBERT M. HARDEE Pastor
Methodist Episcopal Church, South
Cullowhee, N. C.
* Named for Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 19th (1877-81) President of the U. S.--ED.
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