Gracious Thing
Sirs:
Here is an idea suggested by Vice President Garner's agreement with the President not to make any speeches during his term of office:
Would it not be a gracious thing for the President to do--a beautiful custom to originate--that the President resign a few weeks or months before the end of his term of office (say, on Christmas or New Year's day or even on Thanksgiving) so as to permit the Vice President to become President of the United States for the interim until January 20--when the newly-elected President would take office under Amendment XX to the Constitution?
Before Roosevelt I (as you call him) became President, he told the story of a woman who had two sons one of whom went to sea and the other became Vice President, "and neither was ever heard of again."
ELMER G. STILL
Livermore, Calif.
Another Shera
Sirs:
In TIME Magazine March 27 my mother read me a letter by a little girl named Shera Anne Hardy. Whose great grandfather was named James Shera and he was my Grandfather's Godfather.
I am glad you like your name Shera Anne.
I think it is nice too.
My Grandfather is James Shera Montgomery. Chaplain of the House of Representatives and I am named Shera for him.
I like to go to Washington to visit my Grandfather. And see him when he opens the House with prayer. I have rolled Easter eggs on the White House lawn and I am just nine years old.
LOUISE SHERA MONTGOMERY
Winnetka, Ill.
Billy Patterson (Cont'd)
Sirs:
Let omniscient TIME consider itself good-naturedly rebuked for ignoring a widely known version of "Who hit Billy Patterson" [TIME, April 3].
English lore has it that Billy Patterson was an ingenuous boatman who earned his shillings in the vicinity of Oxford University. It is said that for years a feud had existed between the students and the river boatmen. A group of excitement craving sophomores managed to capture Patterson and bring him to "trial" before a jury of their peers. He was found "guilty" and "sentenced" to have his head amputated via the guillotine.
The "execution" was to take place forthwith, and so Billy's neck was forcibly put on the block; whereupon he was struck with a wet cord that had been chilled, very conveniently, to more or less the temperature of a steel blade. Billy's simpleminded brain reacted most realistically to this mock execution, and it telegraphed the rest of his body that he was "done for." . . .
Poor Billy Patterson had gone to his reward, whatever it was, without knowing, without anyone knowing to this day, who hit him. . . .
POMPILIO ROMERO
New Orleans, La.
Sirs:
. . . The Patterson story is told in Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline by Fred E. Pont (Will Wildwood).
". . . About the year 1848 the Medical Association convened at Richmond, Va., and [Dr. Alban S. Payne*] attended as was his custom. One night . . . the [25 or 30] members were returning from the late session. . . . Upon reaching the foot of Capital Hill, the door of a well-known restaurant flew open, as the redoubtable Bill Patterson emerged therefrom. . . . A very Hercules in size and strength, [he] appeared more formidable than usual, having indulged heavily . . . and being in one of his worst moods. . . .
"Pausing an instant to collect his energies, Billy Patterson dashed at the head of the column. . . . Patterson had utterly routed the front, when 'Spicer' who was bringing up the rear . . . prepared to meet the burly antagonist.
"As Patterson . . . found only one man . . . to confront him, he aimed a terrific blow at that individual; but to his great surprise this was readily parried, and the counter blow, `a la Yankee Sullivan, fell upon his left eye with such force, that, followed by a second, the desperado was thrown heavily into the street. . . .
"The next morning 'Nicholas Spicer' learned that two policemen were on the lookout for the man who struck Billy Patterson. . . . His distaste for legal proceedings caused him to lay the case before a friend at the hotel. . . . This gentleman engaged two newsboys to traverse the streets of the city, asking every person old or young, 'Who struck Billy Patterson?' The policemen soon retired, but the question was caught up by hundreds of lips, and the query soon found a place in the daily journals, whence it spread with electric rapidity through all parts of the Union. . . ."
JOHN D. CAPRON President Glamorgan Pipe & Foundry Co.
Lynchburg, Va.
Salaried Doctors
Sirs:
These doctors who say that doctors would not render good medical care if they were salaried (TIME, March 27) may speak for themselves, but there is one big professional group that would be shocked if its "patients" ever offered to pay individually for services. I refer to college professors (of which I am one) and other teachers.
Would classroom work be improved if the teacher charged his students $2.50 per visit? Or if some students, unable to pay the bills, were too embarrassed to attend class and face the teacher, much as they needed his services? I suspect that even doctors are not so money-mad as some of their spokesmen appear to believe, and that most of them would render honest service in spite of a dependable stable income. Some of the most important contributions to medical science have been and are being made by salaried men and women.
PEVERIL MEIGS III
Baton Rouge, La.
Alimony Deductible?
Sirs:
In TIME, Feb. 20, you quote Simon & Schuster's Your Income Tax [by Tax Consultant J. K. Lasser].
I want to inform you that one of the quotations regarding deductions I learned from a Federal man is wrong.
The article claims you can deduct alimony monies that you pay from your gross earnings.
I wish you would set me straight on this.
JACK BURKE Phoenix, Ariz.
> Said TIME (darkly): From gross income you may exclude alimony. . . . TIME meant: if you are paid alimony--not if you pay it.--ED.
Lambeth Walking
Sirs:
So the German army can't "Lambeth Walk." Perhaps if Germany did a little more "Lambeth Walking" it would do less "goose stepping." I should think Goering and Hitler would welcome anything to make them appear less like geese. Yours for Lambeth Walking.
CALDER B. VAUGHAN Springfield, Ill.
Answer
Sirs:
Have you heard the German saying: "Hitler is God's answer to Versailles--now we wait for God's answer to Hitler"? . . .
PHILIP JANSSEN Paris, France
Go Fish
Sirs:
. . . If we go back to the good old antebellum days grandpa used to hark back to so often, we find they had very little of the political and economical ailments with which we are so sorely afflicted. We will find, also, that they had no telephones, telegraph, airplanes, radios, television, automobiles, and such trains as they had would not run faster than 25 miles per hour. . . .
Look at the picture today! We are more familiar with Hitler's latest edict (made at 10 a. m. today) than we are with what our 14-year-old daughter, Jane, was doing out until 3 o'clock this morning. If we want to communicate with Neville Chamberlain concerning the Munich disagreement, we have a cablegram on the way before we have had time to think what we should say. . . .
You know a fellow can get into an awful lot of messes when he starts helping the other fellow with his troubles instead of minding his own business. If he has nothing else to do, he ought to go fishing. . . . So, instead of building faster airplanes, bigger battleships and a bigger army, lets build bigger and better lakes to fish in, and stock 'em with fish with bigger and better appetites. However, before we do all this, I think we should team up with England, France, Belgium and China and put Europe back on a status quo basis of about 1890.
J. J. JACKSON
Tulsa, Okla.
Creston
Sirs:
For some time I have considered myself southwest Iowa's strongest booster for TIME but I fear my boostings will be unfavorably received now by other Crestonians who noted TIME'S reference to "tiny Creston" in the otherwise splendid article on Crestonman Lewis H. Brown of Johns-Manville [TIME, April 3].
Creston's nearly 9,000 residents do not consider it "tiny." It's the second largest town in the entire southwestern quarter of Iowa (Council Bluffs the exception) and Crestonians are proud of its up-and-comingness. Crestonman Elmo Roper of FORTUNE Survey needs take no poll to know that. And you'll hear more about Creston if Crestonman Frank Phillips is successful in his present quest for a rich oil pool beneath the famous bluegrass (and corn) fields of this area. Creston even had three daily newspapers when Crestonman Gerald P. Nye was behind this very desk.
This the civic pride of a native lowan, you think; but no, I'm from Missouri.
LEWIS C. DEBO News Editor Creston News Advertiser
Creston, Iowa
Miler
Sirs:
In the issue of March 20, TIME refers to Glenn Cunningham as "the world's greatest miler." In view of the fact that Wooderson of England holds the record which is recognized by the International Amateur Athletic Federation, how can this statement be considered correct?
J. L. JOHNSON
Ninette, Man.
> In the seven years in which he has consistently outrun other milers, Glenn Cunningham has run a mile under 4:10 at least eleven times, has once (on Dartmouth's board track, year ago) unofficially beaten the world's record of 4:06.4 by 2 seconds. This consistent excellence makes him, in most sportswriters' opinions, "world's greatest miler." Announced last week was a meeting between Cunningham and Britisher Sydney Wooderson (holder of the world's record) next June 17 in Princeton's Palmer Stadium.--ED.
Norwegian Elkhound
Sirs:
I noted with interest your reference to Norwegian elkhounds in your Cinema column reviewing The Hound of the Baskervilles--TIME, April 3, p. 40.
Have you ever seen a Norwegian elkhound? You might drop in at the State Armory at Hartford, Conn., on April 15, where the Norwegian Elkhound Association of America is holding a specialty show, and see the finest group of elkhounds ever exhibited!
Norwegian elkhounds, even with "fright wig and false fangs" could never be as fiendish as you suggest. And, as for size--you bring the calf--I'll have the elkhounds:--the average dog weighs 55 Ibs., and the average bitch 43 Ibs. . . .
You may also tell your cinema friends that Norwegian elkhounds are distinctly photogenic, and really superintelligent dogs.
JOSEPH W. BEATMAN
West Hartford, Conn.
Sirs:
I have never seen a "calf-size" Norwegian elkhound.
Perhaps the cinema editor meant Irish wolfhound.
H. V. HENDERSON
Cincinnati, Ohio
> TIME'S cinema editor, no dog-fancier, meant Irish wolfhound. For a Norwegian elkhound, see cut.--ED.
Gdynia
Sirs:
How do you pronounce the name of the Polish seaport which I for lack of a better pronunciation have been calling "Gardenia" (TIME, April 3).
HARVEY DAWSON
Washington, D. C.
> It is the ill fortune of Poland's Gdynia to be pronounced Ga-din-ya, almost to rhyme with Abyssinia.--ED.
Safe in San Francisco
Sirs:
Being the grandson of a '49er, and a Native Son I feel impelled to go to the aid of that local lady who fears her Eastern kin may fear to visit Frisco because she is living in the "toughest part of town" (TIME, March 13). I'll calm her fears right off the reel. Neither she nor her relatives need fear any toughness in this city. There ain't no such thing any more. This town is as tame now as a long tailed lamb. All its toughness was rubbed out long ago along with all its romance and color by the Scizzorbills and Carpetbaggers who scrambled in here after the big Quake and Fire. . . . No, the little lady can assure her relatives back East that they'll be perfectly safe in S. F. especially in the neighborhood where she lives since the Pastor of that church, she refers to, is one of the leaders in the League of Decency organized to send this town to the "cleaners" for fair. No sir, her fears are groundless. Her folks will be just as safe here as they would be in Oshkosh, Wis., Waukegan, Ill.,* or Erie, Pa.
JOHN G. LAWLOR
San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs:
I have been following with a great deal of interest the recent series of letters written to you by irate readers on what part or parts of San Francisco might possibly be called "tough."
I have been moved to have my say, however, by the letter written by Chief Quinn, of the San Francisco police [TIME, April 3]. One gathers that he is holding the town up as a model for others to follow by inferring that it is a crimeless city--a "white-spot" as he quotes.
It seems odd to me to see those statements expressed by a man in position to avail himself of the facts more than his letter indicates that he has. Perhaps Chief Quinn has forgotten the clean-up that San Francisco was scheduled to have a year or so ago, when most of the prostitutes, etc. were arrested . . . a . . . number of Quinn's own policemen were discovered to have . . . bank accounts which they found anywhere ranging from "woodpiles" to being lucky in the stock-market-- while the rest of the country was at the same time going broke in the same place. Nothing has ever been done about these and many similar cases which occurred during the same investigation (made by a former G-man). What this Coast needs is a man like New York's Dewey, with about just as much intestinal fortitude.
HOWARD P. RELFE
Oakland, Calif.
Family Disagreement
Sirs:
James Roosevelt en route to London for the premiere of "Uncle Sam's" latest flickie/- --Wuthering Heights--consented to an exclusive interview over KOB, the 10,000 watt NBC outlet in Albuquerque.
When asked point blank about the Elliott Roosevelt-Boettiger argument relative to 1940 candidates (TIME, April 3), Jimmy cleared his throat, gulped and said: "On a family disagreement of this kind--'Two's company, three's a crowd.' "
WM. S. FOULIS
Albuquerque, N. Mex.
* Dr. Payne was a Virginian, who became famous under the nom de plume of "Nicholas Spicer," writing on fishing and hunting.--J. D. C.
* For news of Waukegan see p. 20.
/- See p. 49.
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