California's McAdoo
Sirs:
We, the undersigned, five or more California voters, hereby request you to publish the legislative record of U. S. Senator from California, William Gibbs McAdoo. . . .
CHARLES G. HEMMER IMJORT GERALD H. TRAUTMAN ROBERT C. KIRKWOOD OWEN JAMESON STARR THOMAS WARREN A. ROUSE San Francisco, Calif.
The record of Senator William Gibbs McAdoo is as follows: Born: At Marietta, Ga., Oct. 31, 1863.
Career: Son of a lawyer and officer in the Confederate Army who was disfranchised and impoverished after the Civil War, William G. McAdoo was a messenger, clerk, handyman, worked his way during his three years at the University of Tennessee. While he was reading law in Chattanooga, he got into politics as an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1884. He cast his first vote for Grover Cleveland, was admitted to the bar just after his 21st birthday. More businessman than lawyer, he lost his shirt trying to electrify the Knoxville Street Railroad system, mortgaged his wife's Chattanooga house for $5,000 and moved to New York. There he prospered mightily as organizer and president of Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Co., which opened the first tunnels under the Hudson River in 1908 and 1909 at a cost of $72,000,000. What he made from the tunnels has been much discussed (his own estimate: an average $50,000 a year for eleven years) but he has been a rich man ever since.
McAdoo's real political career began when he met Woodrow Wilson in the Princeton, N. J. railroad station in 1910, was so impressed that he helped elect Wilson Governor of New Jersey. Two years later he helped elect him President. He was the New Freedom's Secretary of the Treasury until after the Armistice. "To make it a people's Treasury rather than a bankers' Treasury," McAdoo made national banks pay 2 % interest on Government deposits, helped Carter Glass push through the Federal Reserve Act. The War saw McAdoo's zenith as a public servant: he issued $370,000,000 in emergency currency in three months, ran the spy-hunting Secret Service, floated four Liberty Loans, the Fourth being the biggest of all bond issues (23,000,000 subscriptions totaling $6,989,047,000), served as Director General of all U. S. railroads after Wilson took them over by proclamation Dec. 26, 1917.
As a great Wilsonian (he had cemented the relationship by marrying Daughter Eleanor Wilson in 1914), McAdoo came near the Democratic Presidential nominations in 1920 and 1924. Sidetracked by New York's Al Smith, McAdoo repaid that score and formed a second political alliance eight years later by helping to sidetrack Al Smith for Franklin Roosevelt at Chicago in 1932. At the same time he ran for the Senate with Hearst and Roosevelt backing, won his first big elective job at 69.
In the Senate, McAdoo rarely makes a speech (his voice is high, squeaky) except on behalf of his pet project: no Panama Canal tolls for intercoastal shipping. In Washington, he is considered a greatly diminished public figure, but still a shrewd political opportunist. Popularly supposed to telephone the White House before casting a vote, he has voted for: Emergency banking legislation, legalizing 3.2 beer (he was a Dry favorite in 1924), 25-c- limitation on veterans' pension cuts (1933): Gold Restriction Act, Bankhead Cotton Act (1934); Wagner Act (1935); Wagner Housing Act, Neutrality Act, taxation of Federal tax exempt securities, Naval expansion, recommitting the President's Court Bill (1937); Relief Bill, Reorganization, more Federal judges (1938).
He has voted against: pay cuts for Congress (1934); shelving the anti-lynching bill, barring Relief workers from political activity, the Byrnes sit-down strike amendment, increased income surtaxes, new processing taxes (1937); the second AAA (1938).
He recorded no vote on: Stock Exchange control, reciprocal tariff program (1934).
Outside Congress: Still lean as an Indian brave, Senator McAdoo at 74 dances, rides, fishes, but less than he did three years ago. At 71 he married his third wife, Doris Cross, aged 24. Because his enemies point out that he will be 81 before he finishes another six-year term, he is at present abnormally sensitive about his age, offers to beat any of his critics at tennis. His present status in Roosevelt strategy is precarious, more that of an old pensioner than a valuable lieutenant. When the President finally got around to endorsing him from the platform of his special train in California last month, Senator McAdoo, at his side, mopped his brow with obvious relief.
Hats
Sirs:
Do men in USA, on entering a house, or a room in a house whether there are ladies present or not, retain their hats on their heads? For many years past all American films have shewn men, and particularly police men and detectives, entering houses rather unceremoniously wearing their hats and smoking cigars or cigarettes. Mostly the former.
We here have always accepted that as the usual USA custom until last night when we saw a film in which the detectives removed their hats when a lady came in the room ! We didn't believe that it was an American film then, thinking that it must be English, but were assured by an American present that gentlemen in America do remove their hats.
A. P. IMLAY, Major
Peshawar, India
Pickaback
Sirs:
Anent the British transatlantic plane Mercury [TIME, Aug. 8], is '"piggy-back," or "pic-a-back," or "pickaback" correct?
I am candidate for the State Senate and my probable opponent in the finals rode into office with Roosevelt. I wish to be able to describe him correctly.
FRANK D. JAMES JR.
Seattle, Wash.
It would be simpler to call him Mercury.--ED.
Esperantistaro
Sirs:
Appreciated indeed by the Amerika Esperantistaro (Aro: suffix meaning group of) was your article in the Aug. 15 issue of TIME. Such a sympathetic and accurate account of the origin and progress of Esperanto and its aims is a welcome change from the usually cynical, often hostile, stories and articles in the press of the U. S.
You might be interested to know that Lidia Zamenhof, daughter of L. L. Zamenhof, a native Pole, is in the U. S. at present, continuing the work of spreading and popularizing Esperanto as she has done for many years in Europe. . . .
Again, many thanks for your excellent article.
WILLIAM W. GLENNY
President
Esperanto Association of Cleveland East Cleveland, Ohio
Nickel
Sirs:
Again and again, when organized majority begins to meddle in the work of an artist, the inevitable result is mediocrity.
I am speaking of the inspired original design of the Jefferson nickel (TIME, Aug. 1, p. 9) butchered by the Federal Fine Arts Commission. Their variant is 25 years behind the Buffalo nickel.
A. PETROFF
Stemmers Run, Md.
Sirs:
I hope enough people squawk about that nickel so that the Federal Fine Arts Commission will reconsider and leave it the way it was.
DONALD BURKE
San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs: What a pity that a Fine Arts Commission had the power--and the bad taste--to change the beautiful design for a new nickel of Sculptor Schlag. The original design looks like pressed metal and reminds one of the beautiful coins of Ancient Greece. The Commission's design looks like stale cheese, cracked and contracted unevenly. No Greek sculptor --and not Schlag either, if left alone --would have designed a coin which produces the illusion of being an oval. For a century the U. S. was known all over the world for its inartistic-looking coins. During the 20th Century some betterment appeared. Now we shall have for another 25 years a sample of the old style which makes a person of esthetic sensibilities shudder. A fingerprint could not look flatter.
MAX F. MEYER
Coconut Grove, Fla.
TIME gladly prints Readers Petroff, Burke and Meyer's criticisms. But the person to write to is Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who has not yet given his final approval to the design.--ED.
Next Step
Sirs:
It is encouraging to note in Mr. Forsee's letter (TIME, July 25), that he is making progress in his religious outlook. He mentions in order pain, boredom, and bewilderment caused by his reading of Religion. The next step is understanding. With his irresistible compulsion to read Religion, there is a strong probability that TIME might be instrumental in saving a soul.
M. S. GRIFFITH JR.
Baltimore, Md.
Hog on Ice
Sirs:
TIME'S explanation of the phrase "as independent as a hog on ice" is to my mind about as sensible as the phrase [TIME, July 25]. I should like to give Elsie Smith Parker my slant on "Like a hog going to war" [TIME, Aug. 81. I recall first hearing this as part of the phrase "Sideways, like a hog goes to war." To illustrate, I clearly remember an old Civil War veteran who used to tell how he had eaten miles of side meat and never in his years as a soldier came to a ham. "They sure had long hogs down in that country," he used to say.
ROBERT R. McBRiDE
Warren, Ohio
Sirs:
Sympathy of practicality for Readers Hooper and Page who are worrying with hogs on ice and barn rats. Let Readers Hooper and Page try to catch a "hog on ice" and they will have no need of book-lore to explain the expression. Deferentially and apologetically to Reader Hooper; the expression in the hinterlands is not "pert as a barn rat," but applies to sundry persons who are described as having "the cheek of a privy rat." The bucolic rhythm beats only in the backwoods.
E. C. MITCHELL
Paducah, Ky.
Sirs:
Your Lincoln, Neb. correspondent is right about the hog on ice and wrong about the hog going to war. He approaches his opponent slowly and obliquely so as to make best use of his tusks.
"Come here at once, and don't sidle up to me like a hog going to war." my mother used to say to me, soap in one hand, a wet cloth in the other.
H. S. BARTHOLOMEW
Lansing, Mich.
Suicide
Sirs:
Regarding the suicide plunge of John William Warde from the ledge of a hotel window [TIME, Aug. 8], may I suggest how to handle such cases in the future? Call out the fire department; deluge the waiting, watching mob with high-pressure streams of water. This would have three salutary effects: 1) wash away the morbidity of the mob; 2) clear the streets for traffic; 3) divert the would-be suicide's attention from his own real or fancied woes. Turn about is fair play.
GRAPH WALDEYER
San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs:
Psychologists call it Schizoidmaniacism, but John William Warde, standing at the brink of death was just a peeved little boy. And like any severely spanked little boy, wanting sympathy, he took the colossal modern manner of calling attention to his troubles. That he should carry out his grand gesture, is the fault of the City Fathers who turned this little-boy prank into a three-ring circus, by roping off the streets and permitting photographers to lie untrampled on their backs, instead of keeping lanes open and business functioning as usual. Newspapers and national broadcasters screamed invitations to all and sundry to come to the Big Show, instead of pleading with the public to ignore the boy and permit sanity to overcome hysteria. John Warde was offered a baseball game, instead of a job. Whatever his last thoughts may have been, it is certain he received the thrill of his unimportant lifetime to find himself in the spotlight, which is all he started out to do in the first place. Whether he jumped or fell, is immaterial now. The fact remains that he was murdered by a sensation-hungry pack of human wolves.
MAY B. BURNS
Shreveport, La.
First Love
Sirs:
The statistical critic who reported on the cinema Love Finds Andy Hardy [TIME, Aug. 8] must have been an insurance agent, surely is a sourpuss.
Was TIME'S critic never in love a first time? Actor Rooney didn't overemphasize a youth's first love one bit. Take it from me, I know.
D. F. B. II
Dayton, Ohio
Biggest Flag
Sirs:
"As the King's car reached the Place de la Concorde, there broke out from the Eiffel Tower an enormous Union Jack, said to be the largest flag ever made. . . ." (TIME, Aug. 1).
Contra this hearsay assertion, unsupported by facts, that France possesses the Paul Bunyan of banners, I advance the claim of Michigan to that distinction. . . .
On suitable occasions, the J. L. Hudson Co., biggest department store in Detroit, displays on its Woodward Avenue facade a gigantic Stars and Stripes, publicized by them as the largest flag in the world.
This enormous ensign, first unfurled on their building on Armistice Day, November 11, 1923 is 90 ft. by 230 ft. . . .
ROBERT H. STRUTHERS
Detroit, Mich.
Strike
Sirs:
You may enjoy a Gilbert & Sullivan touch to reports from Jamaica.
In June, on Blue Mountain and Morant Estates in the Parish of St. Thomas, the coconut pickers were on strike for a week, then went back to work at their old rate. The week before the strike they did twice their usual work so that they would lose nothing by a week of rest.
R. J. HOPKINS
Los Gatos, Calif.
Floy Floy
Sirs:
. . . I know I am asking a great deal of you but your position will warrant it. In deciding this, lay aside position and loyalty to your party and tell me from the fullness of your heart: What the deuce is a floy-floy?
PAUL E. LAMALE
Wabash, Ind.
Authors of The Flat Foot Floogie with the Floy Floy, Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart, do not know themselves what the words mean. Said Slim: "We were sort of talking a new language." The dance they had vaguely in mind was to be done flatfoot. "When we put the floy floy on it, that was extra business. You got the whole dance right there; you're swinging. See what I mean?"--ED.
Traveling Salesmen
TIME [Aug. 8] has grossly misrepresented both my personal attitude toward the hundreds of thousands of U. S. traveling salesmen whose patronage make our own businesses possible and also has misrepresented the objectives of a very useful new public service which our Hertz dealers and the New Haven Railroad together have successfully launched.
Instead of this new business being designed to catch an occasional bit of expense account chiseling by an individual salesman, it is designed to benefit thousands of honest salesmen, many of whom have already found it much more convenient to ride in a comfortable air-conditioned train to the city in which they are to make their calls and there find an excellently conditioned car for their convenience, rather than bucking pounding traffic over long city to city jumps.
TIME says that, "no traveling salesman will ever get to heaven." Maybe so, but if TIME'S editors do not watch the honesty of their reporting more carefully than they have in this story about me, they will never be able to make their heaven observations at first hand.
TIME credits me with the origin of the Rail Auto Travel Plan. Fact is, various ideas of coordinating automobile and railroad transportation have been suggested for many years but the New Haven Railroad is the first transportation company to devise a plan of this character. Credit should go to the New Haven and to all Hertz operators in its territory under the able leadership of R. S. Robie, Hertz man of Boston.
EDWIN J. CAREY
Grand Central Motor Car Renting Corp.
New York City
TIME did not say that no traveling salesman would ever get to Heaven--but gave that as a public impression.
And TIME did say Messrs. Carey & Murphy thought the salesmen would like their plan. Not willing to set, itself up as a judge of traveling salesmen's morals, TIME is willing to leave such judgments to what they say about themselves.--ED.
Crum Elbow
Sirs:
OVER 3,200 LETTERS, POST CARDS AND TELEGRAMS HAVE JUST BEEN FORWARDED HERE FROM CRUM ELBOW. OVER A THOUSAND WERE RECEIVED BEFORE I LEFT. OUT OF ALL THESE, ONLY FOUR COMMUNICATIONS--TWO LETTERS AND TWO POST CARDS ALL ANONYMOUS, CONTAIN ADVERSE CRITICISM AND ABUSE IN THE RECENT EFFORT TO TEST THE ECONOMIC THEORIES OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND FATHER DIVINE.
NEVER MADE ANY SUCH STATEMENTS AS YOU QUOTE IN YOUR ISSUE AUG. 8. AT NO TIME DID I THINK, MUCH LESS "CHATTERED," ABOUT A SALE OF CRUM ELBOW AS AN ACT WHICH WOULD "ANNOY FRANKLIN A GREAT DEAL." HONEST, HARDWORKING, DEBT-FREE PEOPLE COULD NOT ANNOY OTHER HARD-WORKING DIRT FARMERS AND WOULD DIMINISH RELIEF. THAT THE TRANSFER TO FATHER DIVINE WAS CONCEIVED IN SPITE IS NOT TRUE AND IS TYPICAL OF NEW DEAL DEFENSE PROPAGANDA SENT OUT BY SMUT AGENTS DREW PEARSON, WALTER WINCHELL AND ROBERT ALLEN UNDER THE DIRECTION OF SMEAR MASTER MICHELSON. WHEN AGAIN THEIR CONCEITS ARE SERVED UP AS AUTHENTIC QUOTATION GET OUT YOUR FLIT GUN. ROWLAND SPENCER
Palm Beach, Fla.
Thimbleriggery
Sirs:
TIME'S answer to observant TIME-&-Chronicle Reader Olsen (TIME, Aug. 1) that book stores do not commonly include juveniles on their best-seller lists to newspapers, explained precisely why Ferdinand has not appeared on the Chronicle's, list. The Emporium, unlike many of its customers, considers Ferdinand a juvenile.
But Mr. Olsen has put his finger squarely on one of the tender spots in book-publishing, bookselling and book-page-editing. With its sales-figures reports from bookstores, TIME can manage the cold truth, though not weekly. Newspaper book-pages must rely on impressions served up as facts by worried booksellers who, only human, may sometimes let the wish father the thought. Might not TIME at its convenience poll a) book-publishers, b) booksellers, c) book-editors to ascertain whether they do not, like Pearl Buck, regard this best-seller business as half nuisance and half outright thimbleriggery?
JOSEPH HENRY JACKSON
Literary Editor
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco, Calif.
TIME is happy to inform able Book-reviewer Jackson that its researches into best-seller lists have already shown that booksellers, at least, agree with Pearl Buck and him.--ED.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.