"Current & Choice"
Sirs:
We like your new feature "Current & Choice." We have so often in the past not been sure whether you thought a picture worth going to or not. We hope that this feature will be continued. We keep the Cinema section for reference and like your comment but we will appreciate it if you continue the rating of the best pictures. EARL D. IRICK
Lancaster, Ohio 1/32 Fencing Doped
Sirs:
In regard to the so-called "duel" at the Los Angeles Junior College [TIME, May 31], you must have been impressed with the fact that no faculty sanction would or could have been given, not to mention my own approval, to any exhibition which could have proved injurious or fatal to the participants. . . . For your elucidation we used regulation combat epees (as approved by the Amateur Fencers League of America) tipped with the regulation points d'arret (three small points 1/32 in. long) As an additional precaution, we covered these points with adhesive tape to further reduce their "biting power," and also instructed and trained each fencer not to strike his opponent on the body. With these weapons thus "doped" the fencers were far safer in this exhibition than in regulation epee bouts in which jagged wounds resulting from vicious close-in thrusts penetrate the protective fencing jackets on many occasions. . . .
But, fencing does need some stimulus. . . .
JOHN G. TATUM Fencing Coach Los Angeles Junior College Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
As a Los Angeles Junior College fencer, I would like to protest the miserable reporting of our "bloody Heidelberg duel." It is not altogether your fault, since all the newspapers in this city carried the erroneous story. . . .
The idea of a duel to the blood originated in the mind of that super-pressagent, Fred Schwankovsky, as a means of advertising the Fencing Club Dance. . . . The rehearsal of the routine was wonderful but both principals had stage fright, when the duel came off. ... It was mediocre fencing and poor acting. There was no "jet of blood." The wound from an epee is usually a superficial cut that takes a few seconds to stop bleeding. This was no exception. I have seen more excitement and more blood in a spontaneous duel, coming off during the class period. . . . FRANK DITURI
Los Angeles, Calif.
Jalopy from Gallop?
Sirs:
COME, COME MR. EDITOR DON'T BE SO ACADEMIC ABOUT JALOPY IN LETTERS (TIME, JUNE 7). ANYONE OUGHT TO KNOW THE REAL ARGUMENT LIES IN WHETHER IT IS AN EUPHEMISTIC CONTRACTION OF "DILAPIDATED" OR SPRINGS DIRECTLY FROM "GALLOP," MEANING TO MOVE BY SPRINGING LEAPS. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AZTEC PURGATIVE ROOTS AND SUGGEST PUNISHING ED FOR SUCH TRIPE BY MAKING HIM EAT HIS WORDS SEASONED WITH SOME JALAP AND A WELL TURNED JALOPY.
WEBSTER R. KENT
Memphis, Tenn.
Midgettes v. Offrecords
Sirs: The April 5 copy of TIME which is my private, priceless knothole in the news-arid fence which keeps most of us "furriners" ignorant . . . just came through. Thanks! . . .
Your reports relative to Chinese affairs have been surprisingly clear, true (except for a slight tendency to suspect hokum in most internal affairs) and many jumps ahead of native reports.
The newsitem under Miscellany re the Chicago search for ''hors d'oeuvres" synonyms interested me since every Chinese feast has a prefix of small variety dishes which one tries artfully to steer shy of. The only Chinese name for them that I can find would translate something like "Saucermites," "Midgettes,"--literally "tiny plates." Perhaps this nation's master chefs tried to find a name too, in former centuries, and finally showed the good judgment of giving the simple name they chose, letting the eater form his own opinion. . . .
REIDAR DAEHLIN
Loshan, Honan, China
Sirs:
In your Miscellany Column (TIME, April 5), you mention that . . . the Midwest Hotel Show could hit upon no proper expedient to substitute for the name "Hors d'oeuvres." I hereby submit . . . the name "Offrecords," a name which intrigues my customers very much.
The name "Offrecords" defines as neatly as Hors d'oeuvres does in French, the position these fancy bits take on any menu. . . . As far back as 30 years ago the Hors d'oeuvre was not even a part of kitchen curriculum. They were prepared by the butler in private homes and by the more experienced waiters in hotels and restaurants. The custom of serving tasty bits as preliminary to dinner started in Russia where they were called "Zakouski" and with the "Smorgasbord" of the Scandinavian countries, where the guests eat and drink them standing--and in a room apart from the dining room, later spreading to France, Italy and Spain. PETER BORRAS
Restaurant Madrillon Host Washington, D. C.
Diamond Horse
Sirs: Re TIME, May 31, Miscellany, on diamond ring. Here's one better.
Mrs. C. F. Pettit of Framingham, Mass.
recently, while feeding her horse a lump of sugar, lost a $5,000 solitaire from her finger, which the horse swallowed. Scrapings from the manure pile for several weeks failed to reveal the ring. X-rays were taken which also failed to locate it. Full value has been paid by an insurance company which claims the horse at death since it is illegal to kill the animal without the owner's permission.
The horse was bought for $200. Present value $5,200.
THOMAS S. BAKER
Manchester, Mass.
Dispute Ended
Sirs:
In the Letters section of TIME, Nov. 16, Mr. Dawson P. Adams claimed that John Reed, Harvard alumnus and one of the first American Communists, is buried in the Red Square at Moscow "in a grassy terrace on one side of Lenin's tomb." According to you, Mr. William C. Bullitt, first U. S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and now Ambassador to France, denied this and said that Reed's ashes were interred behind a plaque in the Kremlin wall.
When I was in the U.S.S.R. in 1932 I personally visited Reed's grave near Lenin's tomb and saw the headstone on it. I have carefully checked up to find out if there has been any change since that time. I can now state with certainty that there has not been; and that therefore Mr. Adams is right and Mr. Bullitt wrong.
CORLISS LAMONT
Secretary
Harvard Alumni John Reed Committee New York City
To Mr. Lamont, thanks! TIME now considers the question of where Martyr Reed was buried authoritatively settled once & for all.--ED. Bridges Corrected
Sirs: Correction TIME, May 17, p. 24, col. 2: Denmark plans to open this summer the Storstro/m bridge, even longer than that across the Little Belt, which will link Sjaelland (not Zealand) to the east coast of Fyen (not Fuenen), viz.: the Storstro/m bridge connects Sjaelland to the north with a small island lying north of Falster on the direct line to Berlin over Gedser-Warnemuende.
The other bridges named as planned.
Most things are in the air in Denmark for many years before they become realities.
Regarding the Carlsberg Breweries, it might interest you to know that they have up to recently used since 1886 as a trademark the Swastika, later adopted by Hitler, and hence doing the Danish beer so much harm that the brewery had to discontinue using it.
That also reminds me of the many times your magazine and also The March of Time have spoken and written about the old German gods Wodin and Thor, etc. These are essentially Danish, from away back into the dark 400 A.D. and were known as Odin and Thor, hence the weekdays, Onsdag (Wednesday) & Torsdag (Thursday) ; and Fredag (Friday) from Freja (j pronounced as y), Goddess of Beauty and Intelligence.
Keep up the good work, TIME, but believe me, it is a hell of a thing to have to pay Kr. 1, 25 per issue for TIME (Kr. 1, 35 for the Saturday Evening Post) when I got it for 15-c- at home in California.
BIRGER DE BUeLOW STRUENSEE VAN DAMM Copenhagen, Denmark
In Alabama
Sirs:
I deem TIME a splendid medium to "let the outside world know," as Attorney General Albert A. Carmichael of Alabama is anxious for it to know, that Alabama State officials are vigorously prosecuting the sheriff and others because of a lynching in Henry County (Alabama's only one for several years) on Feb. 1 of this year.
Attorney General Carmichael's statement to the press in Alabama is fine reading. I quote:
"I want to take this occasion to say that the Governor of Alabama and the attorney general of Alabama feel very keenly about this matter; that we are most anxious that the outside world know that the Alabama State officials who are responsible in law for prosecuting cases of this character are doing their duty and will continue to do it.
"To say that lynching has anything to do with protecting womanhood in Alabama is pure poppycock. The answer to this is that a petit jury would require about 30 seconds to reach an electrocution verdict for the perpetrator of such a crime as this. Those unlawful hoodlums who imagine themselves heroes when taking part in lynchings have a distorted idea of patriotism. Only lawless hoodlums and the enemies of government take part in mob law. As the chief law enforcement officer of this State I condemn it and make known that as long as I am the attorney general of this State, those persons who think they are more important and powerful than the law and who take the law in their own hands, will be prosecuted promptly and most vigorously, and in this I want to say that I will have the entire resources of this great State at my command."
Some years ago while I was serving as Sheriff of Mobile County, Ala. a Mobile policeman was shot down and killed by a criminal Negro who was apprehended and lodged in jail. Feeling ran high and word was brought to me that types described by the Attorney General were organizing to take and lynch the prisoner. I had several of them brought to the sheriff's office and said to them: "I want to make you a proposition.
If you will get the president of the Protestant Ministers' Union, the Catholic Bishop and the Jewish Rabbi, together with the President of the Chamber of Commerce, to join with you in leading a mob on the jail, I will turn the prisoner over to you--otherwise you will never get him, for I now have the jail packed with National Guardsmen." No mob came and the prisoner was legally executed about 90 days later.
"The Alabama Attorney General's statement is representative of the best thought in Alabama," said the Montgomery Advertiser, editorially--and it is. The types of gentlemen that I suggested to the would-be mob leaders be included in the mob were just as outraged as any others over the crime committed, but they were not enemies of law and government. LEON SCHWARZ Mobile, Ala.
Krenkel's Experience
Sirs: Your statement in the May 31 issue, under "Russians to the Pole," that North Pole party member Ernest Krenkel was radio officer with the Byrd Antarctic Expedition in 1930, geographically is completely in error, inasmuch as he at the time occupied the very northernmost human habitation, almost at exact antipodes from Little America. The erroneous press reports probably arise from misinterpretation of Krenkel's remarks that his present radio equipment is based on his (communication) experience with the Byrd Expedition in 1930. Occasional two-way radio communication with station RPX of the Russian Polar Expedition on Fridtjof Nansen (Franz Joseph) Land constituted one of the most interesting outside connections to us at Little America during 1929--30; when we reported sitting down to supper during the Antarctic summer of continuous daylight, the Russians remarked they were just eating their breakfast in the middle of their Polar night winter season. The purpose of their expedition was to establish an advance meteorological and communication base for the projected North Pole flight of the Graf Zeppelin, which was subsequently canceled. Krenkel himself told us he was German, after our attempts to converse (telegraphically) in other languages had failed; Krenkel was further handicapped by having to start and stop, at the beginning and end of each transmission, a remotely located gas engine power supply, as he could not receive the faint Antarctic signals through its interfering noise.
MALCOLM P. HANSON
Radio Engineer U. S. Naval Air Station Anacostia, D. C.
To Malcolm Hanson, radio engineer of the 1928-30 Byrd Antarctic Expedition (stowaway on the 1926 Expedition), thanks for clarifying Radioman Krenkel's career.--ED.
Fairly Decent
Sirs:
As the Communist reporter for the Communist Daily Worker who covered the story of the attack by Ford service men on Frankensteen, Reuther and others, let me congratulate you on the fairly decent account of the affair in the June 7 issue of TIME.
Allow me, however, to correct one statement in your story which mars its generally fair tone.
TIME states: "Frankensteen's own account of the battle, as given in detail to the Communist Daily Worker. . . ."
As far as I know TIME is the only publication besides the Daily Worker which carried Frankensteen's statement. The Daily Worker, of course, carried it in full. But the impression given in your story that Frankensteen gave his detailed account exclusively to the Daily Worker is not true. The statement was mimeographed and given as a handout to all papers and wire services.
I am sure it was not your intention to hint, however indirectly, that Frankensteen is a Communist and thus be guilty of a gross inaccuracy.
Frankensteen has convinced me, through personal observation, that he surely has courage aplenty to make him a good communist, but does not see eye-to-eye with the Communist Daily Worker. LAWRENCE EMERY
Detroit Correspondent Daily Worker Detroit, Mich.
States' Rights
Sirs:
I wish to call attention to a mistake in TIME, May 31. On your centre page ads concerning Caterpillar Tractors it says that Crater Lake is in California.
Californians have always tried to swipe some scenic beauty of ours and place it in their own State "where it never rains but dense fogs sometimes wash out two or three bridges."
OTHO E. SMITH
Portland, Ore.
Sirs:
In TIME, May 24, p. 74: ". . . one who declaimed; 'If they gave me hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell.' "
Above declaimer may well have read Carl Sandburg's The People, Yes where on p. 114:
"If I owned Texas and hell I would rent Texas and move to hell," said a famous general.
"That's right," wrote a Texas editor. "Every man for his own country'."
WALTER A. STEWART Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Md.
Flesh & Meat
Sirs:
In TIME, June 7 under the heading of "Theatre," you reported at great length the proceedings of the recent convention of the American Theatre Council. Several times in the course of this article, reference is made to "meat shows." I have been interested in the theatre for many years as a performer, manager and attorney and, for the first time, saw this expression used with reference to entertainment on the stage. In order to check my doubts as to the validity of this expression, I spoke with several people including a theatrical press agent, a reporter on Variety, the theatrical trade paper, a theatrical manager and several theatrical agents. None of these people had ever heard this expression used. We are all acquainted with the expression "flesh entertainment" which applies to entertainment provided by living performers. . . .
I. ROBERT BRODER Counselor at Law New York City
"Flesh entertainment" is a "meat show" to the less elegant rank & file of the theatrical profession.--ED.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.