After Ten Days

"Christ, I'm glad to see you" [TIME, May 4]. I do not believe that the most profane man in the world after having been ten days in the Moose River Mine would be profane in saluting his rescuers. As a matter of fact there was no profanity used by the three men who were entombed.

I would be indebted to you if you would correct this impression that you have given.

D. E. ROBERTSON Toronto, Ont.

To gallant Dr. Robertson, TIME'S profound apologies for attributing to him a remark supposed to have been overheard by Joseph Nearing, one of the first men to reach the entombed physician and his living and dead companions. Last week Overseer Scadding, the other survivor, was in danger of having ten gangrenous toes amputated as a result of the accident.--ED.

Harper to Wilson

Sirs:

I am not the first winner of the Harper Novel Prize ($7,500) to cash in on a Pulitzer award ($1,000) as well [TIME, May n]. Both prizes were won some years back by a novel called The Able McLaughlins. I don't recall exactly the author's name, and such is fame.

H. L. DAVIS

Nashville. Tenn.

Margaret Wilson's The Able McLaughlins, concerning a Scottish community in the Midwest during the Civil War. won the first Harper Prize as well as the Pulitzer Prize for 1923. It was Author Wilson's first book. Since then the 54-year-old novelist, once a missionary to India, has written eight other books, married an Englishman, settled in England, switched publishers. This autumn from Doubleday, Doran she will try a literary comeback with a sequel to her first, and still most noteworthy, work.--ED.

Shallotte

Sirs:

Charlotte, N. C. is known as the "Queen City." no doubt correctly so for it is the largest and" most cosmopolitan city of the two Carolinas. Roasts of a population of more than 80,000, 95% of whom are pure Anglo Saxon.

On p. 17 of TIME, May 11, you refer to the arrest of Representative Marion A. Zioncheck in Shallotte, N. C.

I am not surprised that you too should become confused, considering the subject with which you arc dealing, but knowing the pride of the Charlotte people I am certain they will wax quite indignant over this lack of familiarity with their prize city.

CARNEY W. MIMMS, M. D. Ocala, Fla.

Reader Mimms. not TIME, is confused. As reported, junketing Representative Zioncheck was apprehended, released in Shallotte, Brunswick County, N. C.--ED.

Bowdoin's Coffin

Sirs:

While browsing through your issue of May ii, 1 ran across the Pulitzer Prize award announcements, learning to my more or less great dismay that the news had not yet seeped into New York, or at least the TIME offices, that Robert Peter Tristram Coffin was no longer a member of the Wells College faculty. 1 am prompted by utterly selfish motives to hasten to lay claim to Mr. Coffin for his alma mater, Bowdoin College.

Though mine will undoubtedly be only one of many slightly admonitory responses to your article, it occurred to me that you might be interested to hear of a delightful, homely incident pertaining to the addition of one of the wittiest, simplest, most lovable of men to our mildly insane faculty.

Mr. Coffin came to Bowdoin in the fall of 19,54. The preceding spring, the faculty committees, governing boards, and whatnot were dickering by 'phone and telegram for his services. When he was informed that it had been decided his first class would be at 8:30, back came the wire: ''The deal's off." At this, the college fathers tottered frantically across campus to a council of war. and after jiggling the schedules around, hastily decided upon 11:30.

So Poet Coffin returned to his native Maine.

R. V. McCANN, '37 Bowdoin College Brunswick, Maine

Sirs:

. . . I understand that Dr. Coffin, a native of Maine, was while a student at Oxford selected as the most typical Englishman there.

ROBERT C. ROUNDS Attorney at Law-Boston, Mass.

Honest Minister

Sirs:

"Drearily dishonest is the average U. S. Protestant minister" (TIME, May 11).

The "eccentric syntax" indicates that this statement is yours. The fact that it is a generalization unwarranted by the statistics referred to, or by any other, indicates that it is not Mr. Babson's. But whether it is yours or Mr. Babson's I want to protest that it is an unjust and untrue characterization. In doing so, let me make it clear that I understand that you mean to say that he is drearily dishonest only in the matter referred to immediately after in the same paragraph.

The Congregational and Christian churches represent a smaller group of U. S. Protestants than the various Presbyterian churches. Neither would be representative because each has its peculiarities. Hut if I Were making a generalization from Presbyterian practice, I might say that rolls are plucked rather than padded. My own church is average. There are 175 communicants and seven baptized children on the roll. All are alive and of known residence. But only 93 are reported to the General Assembly. Reason: presbyterial tax. The practice is not irregular. And Scotsmen do not wait for a depression to practice any honest economy.

With regard to the footnote, the 14,000,000 must be attendance figures, for Methodists and Baptists alone account for more than that many Protestant church members. But why the inference that Catholics are ioof/, in 'their attendance? And what of our Jewish brethren? I know many Jews who go to church regularly, and I have many Catholic friends who are no more regular in their attendance than the avera.se Protestant, who does not exert himself by any means.

Let me assure you that we are not dreary (subjectively at least) nor dishonest, and that we enjoy TIME in spite of its dirt)1 digs and "arty" pictures.

ALEXANDER HENRY Pastor First Presbyterian Church Newport, Ark.

Sirs:

I was "tickled pink" with your article on p. 30, TIME, May n, under the caption --'Running Downhill." It is time that more attention was being given to such subjects and that the people, especially the churchgoers, began to wake up to a realization of conditions as they exist in the churches of today. This is not the first time that public attention has been called to the subject and to the reasons for this seeming apathy.

If the people of today can be convinced of the truth of a doctrine or creed, the churches will soon fill up again. It would seem to me that if they could stand together under one banner and unify their beliefs and cease their bickerings, and tearing at each other's throals, that a start in the right direction could be made. . . .

DWIGHT BRAILEY Eureka Springs, Ark.

Raw, Insulting, Unappreciated

Sirs:

No Hearst, Macfadden. or Police Gazette ever printed anything more raw than your nude cut in department misnamed Art. Even if without shame, have you no pride?

S. A. CHA Pittsburgh, Pa.

Nude exhibit under Art (TIME, May n), entitled Sunday Morning, is very unappreciated by readers of decent ilk. You have defended your publication of nudes before, and probably will have to again, but I agree with previous censors. You may categorize nudism as Art, as prostitution is called a profession, but you can't justify it in the name of decency. Leave such printing to French postcard vendors. TIME doesn't have to resort to sensationalism for an increase in subscriptions.

I'm a two-year subscriptionist and probably a life-TIMER; so chalk up this kick under constructive criticism. My plea is earnest. I've traveled at home and abroad and am interested in art, but I do not want nakedness in my news weekly. It stabs my ethics.

WAIGHTS G. HENRY JR. Waterbury, Conn.

Sirs:

As a new subscriber to your magazine I must say it has many good points, but there is an exception. In TIME, May 11, under Art, you printed a picture, Sunday Morning, by Audrey Parsons, which is a disgrace to a magazine which has a solicitation for subscribers among decent people, and above all their innocent children. Certainly teachers do not feel like recommending TIME to their pupils if such pictures are printed therein. There are many decent works of art you could print without insulting innocent children. Believing you to be fair I am sure you get the idea. TIME can be of use in school libraries and in the hands of the young provided it is morally decent.

BROTHER EDWIN St. Louis, Mo.

Sirs:

In recent issues of your magazine I have noted a growing tendency to publish cuts of nude or semi-nude individuals. I, who have been a reader of yours since your first birthday, am sorry to see this step down from the realm of first-rate periodicals.

Is this a newly inaugurated policy, are your editors degenerating or are you attempting to capture the allegiance of the degenerate who revel in reading the cheaper, the tawdry magazine?

(REV.) DAVID CHURCHMAN TRIMBLE Oakland, Md.

Sirs:

If Sunday Morning (TIME, May n, p. 46) is a typical U. S. Sunday morning, it's small wonder so few get to church (TIME, May 11, P-30).

HARRY DOLE Detroit, Mich.

Blazoned & Blossomed

Sirs:

You will find my name in your list of subscribers and as such I was pained to read in the issue of May 4, "This week the New York Times blossomed with a full-page advertisement featuring a cablegram from Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine."

Blazoned on the ad was the word RADIOGRAM 3 3/8 in. long by 3/4 of an inch high, also R.C.A. Communications, Inc. blossomed pretty well.

A. A. ISBELL Manager Commercial Dept. R.C.A. Communications, Inc. New York City

Fires in the Iron

Sirs:

For TIME, an airship engine overhaul. Hindenburg's Diesels (TIME, May 11), not quite the first installed in an airship. Britain's R-101 had Diesels, ran well, saw little service before she crashed at Beauvais, France. Also, Hindenburg's engines are 4-16s, not 4-83; for concentrated power, like TIME, more fires in the iron.

P. E. BIGGAR Toronto, Ont.

Designer Duerr

Sirs:

The name of Dr. Duerr, world's foremost Zeppelin authority, is apparently unknown to the Editors of TIME.

With the aid of numerous experts Dr. Duerr designed and constructed LZ 126 (Los Angeles] LZ 127 (Graf Zeppelin], LZ 129 (Hindenburg), and is now building LZ 130, LZ 131.

GEORG RUTHENBERG Ruthenberg Color Photography Co. Hollywood, Calif.

Ludwig Duerr, like Hugo Eckener, has been connected with dirigible construction since the turn of the century. Unknown to the worldwide public which is thoroughly familiar with the navigating exploits of Dr. Eckener, Dr. Duerr is nevertheless to aeronautical engineers a famed groundling. Joining the society for construction and promotion of airships at Stuttgart in 1899, he helped Count von Zeppelin build his first ship the following year, has designed or helped design every subsequent Zeppelin, has headed the Zeppelin works since the Count's death in 1917. A director of Luftschiffbau. his Friedrichshafen address is Zeppelinstrasse 19.--ED.

Publicity Seekers'? NO!

Sirs:

The recent dedication of our 100,000th privy, with the resultant, not-too-complimentary publicity and cob-pitching by self-styled "humorous" Salem Collegians [TIME, April 27; May 11] leads me to believe that a statement by one of the builders would be welcome.

Two and one-half years ago, when community sanitation was started on a state-wide scale in West Virginia, it was a joke to almost everyone. Imperceptibly the attitude of both workers and public changed as they saw the filthy stench-pots, that characterized so many of the old outside toilets, replaced by neat, almost odorless, sanitary privies. Time passed and the bottom dropped from our typhoid and enteritis death rates. This was solely due to sanitary privies and the good work of our Health Department. Community Sanitation in our State today is a subject of jest by only the ignorant and by those who consider any project sponsored by the New Deal unworthy of serious consideration.

The relief allotment has covered only the labor involved. The people have spent a million and a half dollars in lumber yards and hardware stores for the necessary materials. Doctors, the greatest class affected financially by virtue of less disease, are loudest in their praise of our work. Many hundreds of parents know the joy of happy, healthy children, rather than the sad memories that would have been theirs, had it not been for our program. Could any relief project accomplish more?

Publicity seekers? NO! Our record of lives saved and misery averted makes its own publicity. Afraid of ridicule? NO! I doubt if you can find anywhere a group of men with more pride in their work. Our jobs are more than just jobs to us. We are fulfilling a responsibility to our families, our communities and our State. . . .

MILFORD HARDESTY Preston County Sanitary Supervisor Kingwood, W. Va.

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