Britain Flayed

Sirs:

When England negotiated the secret naval deal with Hitler, approved his violation of the Versailles treaty, thereby breaking the "Siresa common front" and encouraging the Nazis' defiance, she did not consider the security or feelings of France and the small block of nations in Europe striving so hard to keep peace.

Notwithstanding the fact that since 1922: England has closed her eyes to Mussolini's outspoken desire for war and expansion, thereby encouraging him, sided with him against Ethiopia and on other occasions when she wished to thwart France, now that her own interests are at stake, she expects France to forget everything and ardently woos her in the hope that she can spellbind her to her side. . . .

As to the Suez Canal, has she forgotten how many objections and obstacles she put up to de Lesseps from 1854 to 1869 when it was completed, due to his perseverance, and that of the money that built it, not a cent was English? And that in 1875 when she realized the canal's use to her Eastern route, she tried to gain control of it by buying 176.602 shares? And that today French directors of the Suez Canal Co.. which controls it, are 21 to the 10 British, while the French-owned stock is 56% to Britain's 44%? And that France caused the treaty of 1888 to be made allowing passage of all ships at all times, to prevent British control of the canal?

No wonder she wants France's help.

ANITA MCCARTHY

San Francisco. Calif.

Maestri's Wages

Sirs:

The American public as a whole labors under the delusion that entertainers and show folk are wealthy groups. This is far from true and it is about time that someone with first hand information rectified this impression.

As an example let us take the case of the radio maestri. When a top-notch orchestra leader is engaged for a series of commercial broadcasts he may receive a salary in the neighborhood of $2,000 per broadcast. The newspaper radio columns and gossip columns immediately exaggerate this and say that he has been signed for $4,000 or $5,000. However, of the actual $2,000 at least $1,000 goes as commissions, and a good part of the residue goes for arrangements and orchestrations. Next, money must be deducted for office expenses, photograph and publicity service, entertaining, electrical transcriptions and recordings of all programs, union dues and fees, Federal, State and municipal taxes.

If the average band leader retains 20% of his salary he's doing very well. With other entertainers the figures may vary slightly, but none of them makes nearly as much money as he's supposed to.

LORING "RED" NICHOLS

New York City

Trumpet-playing, band-leading "Red" Nichols should know the wages of maestri. One of the great white jazzmen of the middle 1920's he recorded with his bands variously under the names of The Ramblers, The Little Ramblers, Red Nichols & His Five Hot Pennies, the Louisiana Rhythm Kings and Goofus Five. Great Nichols numbers: Riverboat Shuffle, Plenty Off Centre, Get With, Eccentric.--ED.

Potent Paracelsus

Sirs:

Even though not a medico, my heart warms at mention of Renaissance medical reformer Paracelsus (1493-1541), TIME, Sept. 2. Yes, Paracelsus learned surgery from "executioners, bathkeepers, gypsies, midwives and fortune tellers. . . ." for there was no other way. Surgery was not recognized as a branch of medical art. Combining medicine and surgery was in itself enough to merit a crackpot's brand, but Paracelsus went much further.

When invited to leach at the University in Basle, he began class lecturing in native German instead of traditional Latin. Alongside stood a stack of works by the old medical masters, whom he abusively abhorred. His first act of instruction was setting fire to this classical pile.

Instead of dying in a tavern scrap, he would have sooner died at the hands of intolerance had his religious views received sufficient notice. He said the Pope, Arian, Zwingli and Luther were just ". . . four pair of breeches from one cloth."

"Each fool praises his own motley. He who depends on the Pope rests on sand, he who depends on Zwingli depends on hollow ground, he who depends upon Luther depends on a reed. They all deem themselves each above the other and denounce one another as Antichrists, heathens, and heretics. . . ."

He was a mecca for the diseased and torn. In the presence of patients his erratic personality became one of sympathetic zeal to cure, which prompted his statement "If God will not help me, so help me the Devil!"

I often think that the following example of his medical wisdom should be also transcribed into all pedagogical literature: "In Nature's battle against disease the physician is but the helper, who furnishes Nature with weapons, the apothecary is but the smith who forges them. The business of the physician is therefore to give to Nature what she needs for her battle. Nature is the physician. . . .''

KENNETH E. PARR

Becker, Minn.

Dim Blacklist

Sirs:

TIME, Sept. 9. drops University of Georgia's medical school from A. M. A.'s list of approved medical schools in 1934 and blacklists it again in 1935. On the surface TIME is correct but in effect Georgia's medical school is still operating as a Class A institution.

A. M. A.'s Council on Medical Education and Hospitals, February 1934, struck the school from the list. City, State, county and school officials with citizens protested the Council's action at the June 1934 meeting, promised improvements in facilities and faculty recommended by the Council and the Council voted to recognize another incoming class, in effect, but not in fact, restoring the school's rating.

In the summer and fall of '34, winter and spring of '35 many changes were made in the faculty, new teaching equipment was procured, a new $75,000 out-patient and contagious-disease ward was added to University Hospital, the municipally-owned teaching adjunct to the college, and the dean of the school was given more administrative authority over the Hospital to meet requirements of the Council.

In June '35 the Council sent commendations to the college for the advancement made in meeting requirements and voted to recognize another incoming class, still giving the college in effect a recognized rating.

Since Georgia is on so many blacklists . . . we feel the above facts concerning the University's medical school at Augusta should cause your inscription of the State's name on A. M. A.'s blacklist in very dim letters. . . .

WILLIAM S. MORRIS

General Manager Augusta Chronicle Augusta, Ga.

Female Circumcision

Sirs:

Issue of Sept. 2, "Black Monophysites," p. 54.

"Ethiopia also nurtured some non-Coptic customs, among them being the circumcision of children of both sexes by their mothers at two weeks."

Having attended in my day many a ritual of circumcision, the ceremony was always over a male child. Have I lived all these 53 years in ignorance and missed the circumcision of a female child? . . .

ARNOLD J. FRIEDMAN

Wheeling, W. Va.

Sirs:

. . . Either I'm dumb or my education has been slightly neglected. . .

B. M. HOLLANDER

Somerset, Pa.

Subscribers Friedman and Hollander may never witness a female circumcision unless they visit certain tribes in Africa or Australia. There the operation (clitoridotomy) is performed as a ceremonial with no purpose other than to match the male ritual of circumcision.--ED.

Herring's Hot Water

Sirs:

Thanks to TIME for giving liberal mention to Iowa, lowans and Iowa's State Fair in a recent issue [TiME, Sept. 9]. But why the face of Democratic, Republican-appointing, flabby, conscientious Governor Herring on TIME'S cover this week? Iowa Democrats "in the know" freely predict he will not be renominated for a second term, freely concede a Republican (State ticket) avalanche in 1936. Proddings of grand jury investigations at Sioux City are keeping Herring and cohorts in scandalously hot water; steam arising therefrom obscures many com- mendable deeds of his administration. . . .

HAL R. BOLES

Davenport, Iowa

Iowa ! Ad Nuts !

Sirs:

Iowa! Ad Nauseam! Ad Infinitum! Ad Nuts!

Newsworthy TIME should not allow child psychology to act on its feature writers, as evidenced by the stimulation given them by Phil Stong's novels in relation to the grossly inaccurate State Fair feature (TIME, Sept. 9).

Wherein lies the TIME-Iowa connection? From whence springs this "Ames, Des Moines, and I" complex?--ordinarily the trademark only of the native Iowan ego? . . .

Grant Wood cannot expectorate but TIME calls it a design worthy of a Rembrandt.

Governor Herring has but to keep silent at his Fair--TIME sees in him a Coolidge of perspicacity.

The publishers Cowles buy a third-rate daily in Minneapolis and keep it, so TIME proclaims a coup worthy of a Hearst or a Howard. The only emphasis TIME ever gives to Minnesota is on the Governor's middle name.* Oh well! Who the ____ wants corn?

L. W. HIGBIE

Minneapolis, Minn.

Sirs:

. . . Bad enough to have our esteemed neighbor get the publicity of a fair novel made into an excellent movie without having TIME, who does such things rather too frequently, neglect us so shamefully. . . . You thought of virtually every other State Fair worth mentioning and forgot us. ...

MARVIN WILLIAMS

St. Paul, Minn.

Sirs:

. . . One of your editors should visit a State Fair some time and find out what they are. You might even try the Minnesota State Fair, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it is worth four pages in TIME, although, if you would send the man who wrote the Iowa article, I am tempted to believe you might get out a "Minnesota State Fair Extra," and that would be news. . . .

DEBS T. LAKE

Chatfield, Minn.

Sirs:

To maintain your reputation for integrity, accuracy and fair play, you should print the accurate figures of both the Iowa and Minnesota Fairs covering the last four years. . . .

HERBERT B. STONE

Park Rapids, Minn.

Let jealous Minnesotans mind their manners. Independent of State rivalries, TIME depicted the Iowa State Fair in extenso, not on the basis of size or merit but on the basis of typicalness. While 342,000 persons were attending the Iowa Fair in ten days, 521,000 were attending the Minnesota Fair in eight days.--ED.

Sirs:

Enclosed is a braggadocian article from the Minneapolis Journal. . . . Their figures may be valid but at least there is no reason for their taking offense at your splendid article concerning the Iowa State Fair found in TIME, Sept. 9. ....

GEORGE F. WINGERT JOE E. LE HEUNEPE Baldwin, Wis.

War Baby

Sirs:

Last night at the Denver Orpheum I saw my first "March of TIME" program -- the August sequence depicting the speed with which troops could be mobilized throughout the U. S. in case of war. The four basic action cities -- New York, San Francisco, San Antonio, and Chicago--were picked out by white circles and immediately there crawled from each circle an appalling radius of arrows. So rapidly, declared the announcer brightly, could the men of America be up and in arms.

As I watched this and the following scenes, flashes of uniformed boys smoking, eating, laughing, driving tanks, coveying in airplanes, swaying along in trains, and all to the most toe-twitching of war tunes, my eyes bulged in the proverbial way to see TIME--efficient, catty, reliable TIME--going propagandistic!

As a magazine that makes history you should be interested in a bit already made. On July 13, 1914 one of the chief things the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found to be excited about was a painting called September Morn--a young lady whose most obvious charm was her complete nudity. Quite as shockingly bare were the several thousand war babies, myself included, who were born that day. I call us "war babies" because before we were two weeks old a war was well commenced in Europe and before we were five years old had involved our own fathers and uncles and thrust square flags with one gold star in our memories alongside of kindergarten parties.

Not that the stars and the balls of tinfoil we delightedly rolled up would have impressed us much if other leftovers hadn't followed us all through our school days. Cannon on the courthouse lawn; a mail-order catalog soldier-with-bayonet in every public park; red paper poppies for sale in the streets; yearly "Conventions" with men in uniforms bowling down Main Street, slapping each other on the back, singing rowdy songs, drunk at the intersection trying to direct traffic with a cardboard whistle. Later, war movies, R. O. T. C. parades, University Gothic towers with memorial plaques, billboards plastered with legless, headless portraits labeled "The Horror of It." June 1935 at last and graduation, and even then commencement speakers shouting "Stand up for peace!" while newspapers bellowed "Be prepared for war!"

You see what I mean by "leftovers?" It's like having spinach on Monday, spinach salad on Tuesday, and spinach soup on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We're sick of spinach. . . .

ALLEAN LEMMON Columbia, Mo.

Pilgrims and Typhoid

Sirs:

In TIME, Aug. 26, under Medicine, it is stated that typhoid fever had broken out among a pilgrimage at Lourdes, France. Would you kindly print in your valuable newsmagazine the statement of Dr. Peter Maguire, chief medical officer with the Scots national pilgrimage, concerning the outbreak?

. . . Dr. Maguire declared: "There is no history of enteric at Lourdes, and no blame whatever attaches to the ship, which was given a clean bill of health before leaving Glasgow and before leaving Le Yerdon on the homeward journey. The whole thing boils down to the train journey from Lourdes to Le Yerdon. The germ may have been in the food or water taken on the way back at the wayside stations. ... I have no doubt about it that the cause of the infection is to be found on the train journey back from Lourdes."

In this way there will be removed an implied discredit (unintentional, I am sure) to that famous Shrine, where the real miracle consists in the fact that in spite of the various maladies of many of the pilgrims, neither epidemic nor contagion has ever occurred there.

CHARLES A. WARD

Bradford, Pa.

Kansas City Customs

Sirs:

I have been to Kansas City three times and here's the record:

1) Got mixed up with some card sharks and was taken for more than I'd like to admit.

2) Car stolen from parking lot and stripped inside and out.

3) This time I was careful. Thought I had removed everything of value from car but garage attendants found some items in the dashboard cubbyhole which they lifted.

Should I ever be seen walking down the: streets in the nude, the reason will be obvious.

0. M. HULLINGER JR.

Milwaukee. Wis.

*Bjorstjerne -- ED.

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