Too Late
Sirs:
Your comment on "Rogers' Reaper" in TIME, Sept. 27, recalls a gruesome but effective window which we recently installed in our headquarters office at Charlotte. We were launching our "Mobilization For Highway Safety" program, which carries no dues nor obligations other than to pledge to drive carefully and walk safely.
We secured a skull from the hospital, got some wrecked portions of automobiles and filled the window with pictures of wrecked vehicles in this vicinity. Note the dummy in the wreck. Mercurochrome spread over the clothes and floor gave it a ghastly bloody appearance. Above the shrouded skull was the caption "Too Late To Enroll."
During the fortnight the display was in our headquarters window many thousands of people stopped and studied the gruesome scene. It was significant to note the tremendous number of Negroes who were interested in the display and we are certain that it carried a message to drive safely to many persons that other means never reached. J. H. MONTE Secretary
Carolina Motor Club
Charlotte, N. C. Man of the Year
Sirs:
FOR MAN OF THE YEAR 1937 I NOMINATE SECRETARY OF STATE CORDELL HULL. A STEADFAST STATESMAN SURROUNDED BY NEW DEALERS
HE IS AMERICA'S MOST SUBSTANTIAL HOPE FOR PEACE.
THOMAS RANKIN Chester, Ill.
Sirs:
For Man of the Year I nominate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.
He is a liberal statesman, not a liberal politician; a liberal and progressive in the very best sense of the word.
A man who dared oppose President Roosevelt and beat him in a battle that was not secondary in importance to any now raging between Communists and Fascists, to the welfare of democracy all over the world. He will be a power in government when Mr. Roosevelt will merely be another ex-President. R. A. HJELMVOLL Anaconda, Mont. Sirs:
TIME's self-appointed task of choosing a Man of the Year promises most interesting speculation this year, much more than in previous years. Believe me, I am not envious of TIME's editor and his staff in making 1937's selection. . . .
BERNARD SCHNEIDER, M.D.
Louisville, Ky.
Nominations for TIME's Man of the Year opened Oct. 1, as stated July 19. --ED.
Poth Poohed
Sirs:
In your issue of Sept. 27 the American Genetic Association was correctly quoted as refusing even to guess at the frequency of sextuplet births in cattle. After looking at your photograph of Pieter Poth's calves we still are very doubtful about how frequently sextuplet calves occur. Our skepticism has the following basis: It is well known to experts in human and animal obstetrics that multuplets always tend to weigh less than single births, and that the larger the number born the smaller the individual infant. In cattle, while no extensive statistics are available, the few cases of birth weights I have been able to obtain indicate that twins weigh about two-thirds as much as the average calf born at a single birth. The average Holstein baby weighs about 80 lb., and Pieter Poth's calves of your Sept. 27 article look about of normal size. Twins in this breed weigh somewhere between 50 and 65 lb., and triplets proportionately less. Births of more than three are invariably quite small, as is obviously necessary considering the mechanics of the situation.
Thus the photograph above cited seems to bear on the face of it evidence proving it to be a biological impossibility. Assuming that the six calves depicted there weigh somewhat less than the Holstein average, say only 65 lb. instead of 80, this gives us a total for the six calves of 390 lb. The cow certainly does not weigh much over 1,000 lb. Thus the babies figure out to weigh over a third as much as their mother! Under those circumstances, when Pieter Poth "patted Clover's sleek sides" he must have encountered a tympanic tightness that would have startled his experienced palm almost as much as Pieter's experienced eyes were astonished to discover six calves in the paddock the following morning.
We have long been interested in records of fecundity, and have found them peculiarly difficult to verify after the accepted limits are reached. If Mother Dionne had claimed to have presented the world with five 8-lb. babies her record would never have been accepted. Let's demand the same kind of reasonableness in assigning this world's record. Very likely Alta Clover did have twins after all on that night early in September. Is it beyond possibility that some of the other hundred-odd cows in Pieter Poth's herd did likewise? Six calves in one night in a herd of that size is of itself a rather remarkable coincidence without rolling it into a miracle by blaming all of this maternity on Alta Clover. If this is in fact the real explanation, Pieter Poth should have poohed loud and long that surprising morning, instead of taking things too much at their face value. ROBERT C. COOK Editor
Journal of Heredity American Genetic Association Washington, D. C.
Sirs: Here are the facts about "Pieter Poth's Calves." Alta Clover and many of her stable mates gave birth to calves during the course of one week. She produced enough milk to nurse six calves and I got the impression when I saw her, that she is not what is known as an "easy milker" to milk by hand. Poth let six calves worry about that rather than his daughters, who milk the cows. A salesman of dairy farm equipment, ignorant of bovine prolificacy, when he saw Alta and six calves in one pen, inquired if she were the mother of all. Poth, seeing an opportunity to fool a "city slicker," did not discourage the idea. The salesman told a news reporter.
G. HEEBINK Extension Dairy Husbandman
West Virginia University
Morgantown, W. Va.
Dairyman Poth's original story of his cow Alta Clover's bearing six calves at once was a good one and he is still sticking to it, but he has no witnesses to the multiple birth.--ED.
Roosevelt & Radio
Sirs:
In your issue of Sept. 20, you had occasion under Business & Finance to mention the purchase of Radio Stations KABC and KFJZ, and at that time made certain remarks regarding my connections with Hearst Radio, Inc.
Permit me to say that these purchases were made purely as an investment, and are in no way financed, or connected with Mr. Hearst, or any of his corporations.
If the transfer of the control of these stations should be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, they will represent purely an investment upon Mrs. Roosevelt's and my part.
You are correct in stating that I am employed as regional director of the four southwest stations of Hearst Radio. I have occupied this position ever since the stations were bought by Hearst Radio, and before that occupied the position of vice president in charge of sales of the Southwest Broadcasting Co., former owner of these stations.
At no time during my employment with Hearst Radio have I ever been asked to utilize my name or connections for the betterment of Hearst Radio. My connection has been solely of a strictly business character, and I am very proud of the record that I have made with this company. Contrary to the belief expressed in your article that I might try to sever my connection at some future date with the Hearst organization, I am most proud of this connection and have been treated with the utmost consideration by my superiors and at the same time. I hope that I have done my job here in the Southwest in such fashion as to insure my continued employment by this organization.
The fact that I have been permitted by my employers to make outside investments in the same industry may be some indication that they do have confidence in my ability. ELLIOTT ROOSEVELT
Fort Worth, Tex.
Sorrow
Sirs:
Sorry you devote so much space in TIME, Sept. 27 to Walter Lippmann when there are such interesting subjects that have not as yet been exhausted, such as bees, birds, ants, et cetera. F. L. JOHNSON
Charlotte, N. C.
Vital . . . Indispensable
Sirs:
Shall I tell you the truth ? I have had no time, these last few years, to read any periodicals except the New York Times, daily and TIME, weekly; you see how vital time is to me. I passed by LIFE--perhaps life, too--in my hurry. Now that I have looked through one complete issue I marvel how you can offer the public so much for so little. LIFE and TIME and FORTUNE have surely had much to do with the improvement of the photographer's art in this decade.
Secretly and privately, I like TIME so much that I can't spare much affection even for its sisters. I have stopped reading FORTUNE because it is too interesting, and lures me away from my work into fields that are none of my business. But TIME is indispensable to me; I find every page of it vital, and I often learn from it important aspects of the news that my daily paper neglected. I was afraid you would be spoiled by praise, but all your publications seem to be as strong as ever, and as carefully prepared. I wish you more life, more time and more fortune.
WILL DURANT
Great Neck, N. Y.
Matto Grosso Dentist
Sirs:
Speaking of itinerant dentists [TIME, Sept. 27], I ran into a choice specimen in the heart of Brazil's Matto Grosso. Traveling with Heath Bowman, I was marooned for three days in a shack some 40 mi. from another habitation, waiting for a truck or oxcart on which to thumb my way south toward Paraguay and the Parana River. Aside from ourselves there was only the owner of the shack and a traveling dentist--plus the dentist's revolving swivel chair and instruments. At nights I had the dubious pleasure of sleeping on the floor underneath the chair while the dentist occupied the only bed and snored violently. Apparently he toured the western half of Brazil with his chair and tools, using trucks, river barges, and oxcarts to reach the infrequent cattle ranches and mate plantations scattered through some of the world's wildest country. He was tremendously impressed by my teeth--which are quite ordinary--since no one in Brazil seems to have less than three gold cuspids. With his mouth constantly half open like an imbecile, he spent the three days of our stay by leering in fascination at Bowman and myself, and by repeatedly asking us in Portuguese if he could have the honor of working over our respective teeth. After we declined, he got the patron of the shack to beg us for him. Luckily a northbound oxcart came along, and the last we saw of the itinerant dentist he was sitting in his swivel chair, bouncing north toward the Amazon jungle.
STIRLING DICKINSON
Chicago, Ill.
All thanks to Reader Dickinson (coauthor with Heath Bowman of Mexican Odyssey, Death Is Incidental, etc.) for his account of dentistry, as it is practiced in Matto Grosso.--ED.
Bells for Mrs. Davis
Sirs:
The Carillon Committee of small (but mighty) Alfred University appreciates TIME's adequate account of carillon music (Sept. 27) in relation to "Alfred's Bells"; but the carillon is a memorial not alone for President
Emeritus Boothe Colwell Davis but equally for his equally loved and honored wife, Estelle Hoffmann Davis.
FORMAN J. WHITNEY
(For the Committee) Syracuse University Syracuse, N. Y.
Hulbert's Hills
Sirs:
At one time the writer was manager of a credit investigating firm whose reporters oftentimes, particularly on rainy days and after bad nights, would investigate their cases in the lobby of some convenient hotel where their vivid imaginations would have free play.
It seems that the same practice goes on in your reportorial staff because for two years now, your tennis reporter has described Forest Hills first as "flat and singularly unarboreal" [TIME, Sept. 14, 1936], and this year as "the otherwise undistinguished New York suburb of Forest Hills" [TIME, Sept. 13].
Of course, it is obvious to those who keep their eyes open when walking in Forest Hills that your reporter described the tennis matches on both occasions while reclining in his bathtub or sipping a mint julep in the cloistered halls of some Manhattan bar. The trees which were planted here 20 years ago are doing nicely, thank you, and can be seen readily with the naked eye.
Some people, particularly your tennis reporter, might not agree that the presence of such well-known leaders in their respective professions as the late Will Rogers, Fred Stone, Homer Croy, Don Marquis, Helen Keller and Dale Carnegie, to mention a few, make our community a distinguished one, but after all, the presence of such notables in our midst secures for Forest Hills more publicity throughout the entire year, than do the tennis matches.
Therefore, without attempting to appear too smug, may I suggest that you trail your reporters once in a while to see that they actually visit the places they so vividly describe? . . .
FRED HULBERT
Secretary Forest Hills-Kew Garden Apartment
Owners Association, Inc. Forest Hills, N. Y.
TIME's Sports reporter, who attended the U. S. Singles Championships, willingly returns to Forest Hills its trees, but still maintains that Secretary Hulbert's home town is no more distinguished than other moderately well-to-do Metropolitan suburbs.--ED.
Shops
Sirs:
San Diego's two newest food shopping centres have been named TIME and LIFE markets (no connection in ownership). Next steps on your road to fame will probably be having cigars and babies named for you.
JAMES E. PARSONS
San Diego, Calif.
Guilty
Sirs:
An interesting sequel to your Old Gold article [TIME, Sept. 6; Oct. 4] was witnessed by 1,600 gobs aboard the U. S. S. Ranger on her cruise to attend the Peruvian airmeet.
During the crossing of the line ceremonies Cadet Staggs was hailed before the bar of justice of His Royal Majesty Neptunus Rex and accused of winning the $100,000 Old Gold Prize, to which he pleaded guilty. He was then given the blindfold test of popular brands to see whether he knew an Old Gold when he smoked one. He failed most miserably, picking a Camel.
Evidence was then submitted to the court to prove that Birdman Staggs inveterately smoked Camels. He was found guilty & Camel-smoking Staggs was ordered to furnish each member of the court with a pack of Old Golds. C. BRINE
U. S. S. Ranger
Callao, Peru
Barnes's Repudiation
Sirs:
I noted in your issue of Sept. 27, an article implying that a number of American authors, including myself, have approved and sponsored the scientific writings and dogmas of Charles Fort.
I can speak only for myself, but certainly I have never approved any of the late Mr. Fort's quaint scientific notions. . . .
Some years ago personal friends of Charles Fort wrote me and apparently the other so-called "sponsors," stating that Mr. Fort was in straitened circumstances, that he needed to market his works, and that he could get no fair hearing for them. I was asked to subscribe to the opinion that they were interesting and worth reading, which I gladly did then and would do now. I have never regarded them as other than a contribution to curious literature and chaste levity. They are amusing and edifying and will certainly not mislead anybody worth misleading.
Later an attempt was made to represent those who had approved Mr. Fort's writings as esoteric literature as being followers of his ideas. I promptly and publicly repudiated any such implication ... in my column in the Scripps-Howard newspapers. Indeed, so far as I know, Benjamin DeCasseres is the only writer, aside from Mr. [Tiffany] Thayer, who has ever taken Fort seriously as a scientist. It is not likely that such persons as the late Justice Holmes, Lincoln Steffens and myself would entertain any such views as those implicit in Mr. Fort's writings. . . .
HARRY ELMER BARNES
Auburn, N. Y.
Invitation
Sirs:
Re your apple butter amateurs, their correspondence, and their butter perpetuation societies, beg to advise that these fellows are 19 years late getting started. Back in 1918 in St. Joseph, Mo., then and now, apple butter capital of America, a group of Jackson Grammar School boys formed an organization known as the Apple Butter Club, membership being confined exclusively to boys and girls who liked apple butter and who helped their mothers make it. Meetings were held twice monthly and refreshments consisted of apple butter, crackers and apples. Activities consisted of refreshments mostly and voting in new members whose initiation fee was the apple butter supply for the day's meeting.
Considering that Governor Lloyd Stark of Missouri is part owner of one of the world's greatest apple orchards, located, of course, in Missouri; considering that Missouri is the nation's foremost producer of apple butter; and considering that all true . . . collectors of apple butter memorabilia genuflect to Missouri apple butter's superior flavor; I herewith extend to the latter an invitation to join the newly-formed Apple Butter Devotees of America (Missouri charter). Governor Stark is to be invited to be honorary life president of the society, which organization will take precedence over all lesser groups. . . .
Louis E. WESTHEIMER
Former President Apple Butter Club of St. Joseph St. Joseph, Mo.
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