Kansas' McGill
Sirs:
The following signers, all of whom are Kansas voters, would appreciate the publishing in your columns of the political activities of "colorless" Senator George McGill of Kansas [TIME, Aug.1].
F. G. TRENTLE
T. L. FERRIER
H. B. DOWNING
R. S. HANSON
E. M. MULWANEY
Wichita, Kans.
The record of Kansas' Senator George ("Gloomy Gus") McGill is as follows: Born: Lucas County, Iowa, Feb. 12, 1879.
Career: Youngest of a farmer's brood of eight, George McGill was moved from Iowa to Kansas at the age of 4, hoed and harvested on his father's farm until he left to work his way through Central Normal College at Great Bend, Kans. and to study law.
Appointed deputy county attorney in Wichita in 1907, Lawyer McGill made an early reputation by winning every case he brought to trial, then spent two undistinguished decades in criminal law and local politics before he was elected to fill the Senate vacancy left by Hoover Vice President Charles Curtis in 1930. Two years later he won a practically foolproof campaign as a Roosevelt and Labor man against old Republican Senator Henry Allen.
In the Senate: Balddomed, small chinned, doleful and dull of mien, Senator McGill has only one conspicuous mannerism--a "haha" which he inexplicably tacks on the end of his infrequent speeches. His voting record is Yes to every Roosevelt proposal: so faithful is he that, along with New Mexico's Hatch, he tried to launch a substitute Supreme Court bill after the President himself had given up.
Since 1933 he has strayed off the reservation only once; as a Midwestern Isolationist, he voted against the World Court protocols in 1935.
A scrupulous legislator, Senator McGill always records his vote, regularly attends the meetings of his five committees--Agriculture, Judiciary, Immigration, Naval Affairs, and Pensions (of which he is chairman). In committee he has furthered his two legislative interests: more money for veterans and the cause of the wheat farmer. He wrote the wheat sections of the Pope-McGill Farm Bill (the second AAA), defended them in the longest speech he ever made in Congress (30 min.).
Despite his New Deal voting record and the fact that Kansas' other Senator is Republican Arthur Capper, George McGill is far from being Kansas' No. 1 Democrat in Washington. He ranks in Federal patronage matters below Commissioner of Internal Revenue Guy T. Helvering and Secretary of War Harry Woodring. In social Washington he cuts even less ice. An Elk, a 32nd degree Mason and a Shriner, he spends most of his time at home. His wife, who calls him "Senator," drives the family Buick. Regarded by his friends as a loyal New Dealer and by his enemies as a humdrum Main Street politician, George McGill is not so sleepy as he looks. On one occasion, barnstorming in a Kansas campaign, he was scoring opposition leaders by name.
Of one in particular he bellowed: "And there's that old scalawag. Where's he in this fight?" The chairman sharply yanked the McGill coattails, whispered that the man in question had switched to their side. Without lowering his voice or blinking, George McGill continued: "Again I say, where is good old Ed? Why, he's with us!"--ED.
Absence of Trunks
Sirs:
It's not the tail that gets the sunburn even if you don't wear trunks. The warning in your item on Nudism (Aug. 22, p. 44) should have been aimed at the beaches. That's where you find the rawhides and leatherbacks.
"Serious" may be the word for colonies derived directly from Germany, but hardly for the thriving American clubs. We even take the founders' arguments' with a grain of salt. The presence or absence of trunks has not much to do with the health or virtue or beauty of the race. Trunks are merely absurd and uncomfortable.
Yet if you could watch the flock of children growing up with us from year to year even TIME might experience a moment of enthusiasm.
ROBERT JOHNSON Fort Wayne, Ind.
Sirs:
Re Nudism (TIME, Aug. 22), scientists or others who would seriously investigate would,
I believe, be as agreed concerning its social merit as they are concerning the physically harmful effects of "prolonged exposure to sunlight." The nudist camp I visited--just one weekend it was I spent there--was the last place one would expect to hear a risque story, witness flirtatious goings-on among the young marrieds or unmarrieds, or even experience an illicit sexual emotion. It was the epitome of wholesomeness! When I drove away from that camp I kept thinking: for 30 years I have thought of nudity in the other sex as in itself sexual and exciting; now I know it isn't. How I wish I had realized this when I was a youngster.
The general practice of social nudism (on suitable occasions) would, I am convinced, through harmlessly satisfying natural sex curiosity, not only eliminate most juvenile sex delinquency but serve as a normalizing, emotionally relaxing influence of inestimable value to our turbulent growing-up generation.
HOWARD C. LAPE
New Orleans, La.
North Atlantic Flight
Sirs:
I am a consistent reader of your excellent magazine, TIME, and enjoy its articles very much. However, I should like to have a bit of information, if you will be so kind as to give it to me.
In the August 8 issue of TIME, on the bottom of p. 46, you say, "But until it [Pan American's new Boeing plane] or some other U. S. plane is ready to start a regular schedule, no mail, no passengers will be flown across the North Atlantic by anyone else."
Does this statement mean that Pan American is the only company that has Government permission to fly the Atlantic, to the exclusion of all other U. S. companies? If so, in what form is this Government permission and why cannot other companies compete? . . .
ANTHONY P. MENTIS
Baltimore, Md.
Gist of the situation is this: No U. S.
airline has yet received Governmental permission to operate a transatlantic service. But Pan-American, the only U. S. company prepared to make trans-atlantic test flights, is expected to get that permission whenever it is ready.
The U. S. and England have a 15-year agreement, signed in 1936, that neither will start transatlantic service before the other.--ED.
Tenant Farmer
Sirs:
Some time ago you published an article on the economic condition of many of the Southern tenant farmers, especially the Negroes. You told how one Negro had obtained a judgment against his landlord for unlawful interest charges, and how the latter stood to pay considerable damages [TIME, June 13]. You also pointed out the possible widespread significance of this judgment.
I have noticed no follow-up story on this matter, and wonder if this unjust condition is being duly righted, or whether the powers that be have managed to squash the upstart and his fearless judge.
J. H. VAN DOREN
Detroit, Mich.
When Negro Tenant Farmer Less Taylor won a judgment against his landlord, J. W. Copeland, the case was appealed, is still pending. No other such suits in Mississippi have been reported.--ED. Clock
Sirs: M. Zimmer's clock (TIME, Aug. 29) is indeed a wonder, if, as appears from the cut on p. 26, it will run for 26,000 years upside down. Perhaps this is an example of American showmanship--perhaps TIME is trying to test the credulity of its readers.
CLINTON GARDNER Weld, Me.
For adding one more upside-down item to an already topsy-turvy world, a waggled finger at TIME'S printer.-- ED.
Floy Floy
Sirs:
I am grateful to Mr. Lamale of Wabash, Ind. for clearing up the Floy Floy business. Imagine trying to sleep in an overnight cabin with a community house 20 ft. in back of you where dancing went on from seven to twelve with music from a victrola and 15 records, one of them Flat Foot Floogie. The words from that distance sounded as if somebody were trying to put Flat Foot Susie on the Sidewalk or Coffee Pot or something!;. Spending most of the night wondering if they'd get her there, imagine my confusion in the morning to learn the real words! Utter exhaustion kept me from further investigation ! My relief knew no bounds when I read the lucid (?) explanation in TIME last week.
My life long thanks !
West Medford, Mass.
World's Fair
Sirs:
To Reader Robert Douglas, worried about comfort stations (TIME, Aug. 29), at "the 1939 World's Fair," a slap on the wrist from the West. By the 1939 World's Fair did he mean the San Francisco Fair or the New York Fair? (TIME, in parentheses, assumes he meant the latter.)
Whichever he meant, San Francisco Bay people wish it known that "the 1939 World's Fair" is ambiguous, and, further, that the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair will have plenty of free toilets. There also will be pay toilets enough for the fastidious.
The Board of Management of the western World's Fair long ago determined that there would be no T.T. (Toilet Trouble) at this Exposition. No concessionaires will be in the comfort station business to the discomfort of the visitors.
PAUL CONANT
Golden Gate International Exposition San Francisco, Calif.
Steel Scarecrow
Sirs:
I am sorry that Westbrook Pegler let it be known before starting work on his Mrs. George Spelvin that he was just trying to be funny. Who knows but the type of mental case that can see anything beautiful in the Thing pictured in the Aug. 29 issue of TIME might have taken him seriously. It is even possible that his offering might have been chosen in preference to Bufano's Santa Claus Stuck in a Chimney to scare evil spirits away from San Francisco. Although I haven't seen
Mr. Pegler's gear, mouse etc., I am sure that it must be the lesser of two evils.
If some of our would-be sculptors like to amuse themselves by making things that look like a slightly backward 4-year-old's first attempt at a snowman, I suppose it is all right to humor them in their illusions as long as they don't get violent. They might just as well be doing that as to be cutting out paper dolls or dressing up like Napoleon Bonaparte, and their antics are mildly amusing in a pathetic sort of way, but, when it comes to allowing the skyline of an otherwise beautiful city to be cluttered up with a 180-ft. stainless steel scarecrow that will stand for centuries for future and--I hope-- saner generations to laugh at--that seems to me like carrying a joke just a little bit too far.
WILBUR J. Down
Madison, Conn.
Insincere Monstrosity
Sirs: On bended knees I beseech thee: Please do NOT fall into the stupid and ridiculous habit practiced by a former so-called news weekly --that of printing the opinions of newspapers regarding events, such as you did [TIME, Aug. 22 ]when reporting the President's Georgia episode. . . .
Give us the facts, good or bad, in favor of or in disfavor of anyone making news, but spare us the inanities of those who have made the American Press the babbling, insincere monstrosity it has turned out to be.
G. E. GLENN
Los Angeles, Calif.
Let Reader Glenn have no fear; TIME will continue to report news rather than comment. Sometimes, however, comment is news. In this instance it was TIME worthy news that Georgia papers resented a Democratic President's speech.--ED.
Spirit of 76DEG
Sirs:
TIME'S readers in Puerto Rico are grateful for its acutely accurate adjectives, make it their news Bible. Distressed and disillusioned when your issue of Aug. 29 labeled Puerto Rico "hot," they indignantly revert to the record of winters averaging 73DEG,summers averaging 76DEG. Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico is cooled by constant trade winds. Apt is Steve Hannagan's slogan, the Spirit of 76 degrees. . . . Puerto Rico is not hot. Having sweltered in the States for several months this summer, I sit with relief in my non-air-conditioned but nevertheless cool office, warm with wrath, not hot from humidity.
A. CECIL SNYDER United States Attorney
District of Puerto Rico
San Juan, P. R.
Hillbilly
Sirs:
Just what does the term "hillbilly" mean? In the Aug. 22 issue of TIME, former Governor Eugene Talmadge was referred to as former ''hillbilly Governor" of Georgia.
Since I was living in Georgia during his Governorship and never heard him referred to as hillbilly, I am wondering if he has been confused with Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee W. Lee O'Daniel of Texas?
AVERY GARRETT
Sublimity, Ore.
On second thought, TIME thinks Governor Talmadge would be better characterized as a shock-headed gallus-snapper.--ED.
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