Travesty

Sirs : LIFE, in its issue of May 16, carries an advertisement of TIME, which tells of the editors, writers, researchers and correspondents of the new Radio Department, who have for three months been exploring the field. They are described as having gathered news "from London, where television has failed dismally." Some member of your team has surely betrayed you here. Any of the many thousands of people, who watched on the television screen Bois Roussel make his winning dash in the Derby, or Eddie Phillips knocking out Ben Foord in the ninth round, or Donald Budge playing at Wimbledon, could have told him better. Television in England has its own difficulties to overcome; but it is now providing a daily service of excellent quality to many thousands of viewers. It is a travesty of the facts to describe it as a dismal failure; and as a regular, if transatlantic, reader of TIME, I am jealous for its reputation for accuracy. STEPHEN TALLENTS British Broadcasting Corp. London

Sir Stephen is quite right. TIME'S advertising copywriter was off base. However, TIME'S Radio section has pointed out several times in recent weeks the technical excellence of British television.--ED.

Thumbology

Sirs: After our tourist bureaus spent oodles of money advertising that the map of Michigan is the Right Hand of Hospitality Extended you fellows call it the left hand palm-down, in TIME, July 4--5 article on "Electrified Thumb." Helpful, aren't you ? M. JORLING Saginaw, Mich.

In outline the backside of the left and the palmside of the right hand look the same to TIME.--ED.

Sirs: . . . No doubt, the REA is to be lauded for its Thumb child. However, TIME has overlooked another public-spirited organization. . . . Detroit Edison bought the interests of an ill-managed, holding-company-owned public utility company in The Thumb in 1935. . . . In November 1935, 11,000 Thumb farmers were in need of rural electric service: within two years D.E.C. had supplied the needs of approximately half of them. Coop, as a result of its first three years, has extended its services to some 1,500 farmers at current date. It hopes to serve 4,000 to 5,000 when and if effectively established. Co-op rate for 100 kilowatt-hours per month is $5.07; D.E.C. sells 100 kilowatt-hours per month for $3.39. Co-op borrowed $2,000,000 from the Federal Government. It is a fact of irrelevance that D.E.C. paid a little over $2,000,000 in taxes to the Federal Government in 1937. . . . ED MOYLE (A TIME reader and New Dealer) Ferndale, Mich.

Sirs: . . " You speak of the $1,000 a mile charge made by the Cooperative for stringing its lines. You say that "private utilities had been charging customers from $1,500 to $2,500 a mile for stringing lines to their doors." So far as Detroit Edison Co. is concerned, their rate book shows that they charge $500 per mile for stringing the lines to their customers. If the customers connect to the line at the time it is strung, each customer receives a rebate of $100. If, then, there are five customers in any mile, the line-stringing costs the customers nothing. If there were but one customer to a mile, it would cost but ($400. . . . J. A. GALLERY Tuscola County Advertiser Caro, Mich.

All credit to Readers Moyle and Gallery for going to bat for a public utility that has earned their friendship.--ED.

Two Papers

Sirs: . . . Although I have served as President of the Chamber of Commerce of the U. S., and on the boards of various banks, life insurance companies, etc., my fundamental interest is in agriculture. . . . TIME [July 4, p. 28] presents the most glowing picture of John J. Dillon, publisher of the Rural New-Yorker, and at the same time severely criticized certain of the activities of the farm paper, American Agriculturist. As it happens. I have followed both of these papers for years, although I largely stopped reading the Rural New-Yorker because of what seemed to me its reactionary policies. . . . However, your attack upon the American Agriculturist, a paper that I take and value, speaking of its Service Bureau as a "subscription racket," seems to me unjust and highly unfortunate. I know the editor and some of the owners of the American Agriculturist well and I believe in their integrity and sincere desire to serve the farm people of the State of New York and the Northeast. Moreover, I am fully aware that the American Agriculturist has the entire confidence of the authorities in the New York State College of Agriculture-- of which I am a trustee--and of practically all of the outstanding farm leaders in New York State. . . . HARPER SIBLEY Rochester, N. Y.

Reader Sibley has twice misread TIME'S article: 1) no one said that the Agriculturists Service Bureau was a subscription racket (the Agriculturist's Service Bureau was advised to investigate the Agriculturist's "subscription racket") ; 2) TIME did not say this but quoted it from the Rural New-Yorker as an example of its characteristic boldness. TIME was describing the latter paper and did not undertake in any way to pass on the merits of the Agriculturist.--ED.

Peaches & Presidents

Sirs : Please, before I decide that I'm insane, will you help me guess how a majority of people can like a man's personality and dislike either his objectives or his methods? [See FORTUNE poll reported in TIME, June 27.] It can't be that America has hopes of reforming the great reformer. It can't be that folks distinguish and relish a mask that he wears--or can it? In FORTUNE'S next poll I suppose it will herald the discovery that most people like to eat peaches but dislike their flavor. SIDNEY S. DONER Escondido, Calif.

The great American people, like a woman, may be fond of a man without wanting him for a husband or a President.--ED.

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