Herewith are excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain either supplementary to, or corrective of, news previously published in TIME.
Affront
TIME
The News-Magazine
Sirs:
Aiken, S. C. Sept. 9, 1925
Is the glorification of the Negro now an accepted policy of your magazine? I had hoped that after the protest of one Southerner you might show some consideration for the sensibilities of our people by the discontinuance of your practice of referring to the colored man as "mister." I was deeply grieved, therefore, to find two new instances of this kind in your Sept. 7 issue. I refer to your entitlement of Robert Taylor on Page 6 and Walter Cohen on Page 8.
This practice, it seems to me, is wholly unnecessary, from your standpoint, and from that of the Southerner, assumes almost nauseating proportions. Furthermore, its protraction, in the face of previous protest, impresses me as a flagrant affront to the feelings of our people. If it be, as it appears, your desire to alienate and force from your ranks such readers of TIME as hail from the South, you are pursuing a most effectual course.
BARLOW HENDERSON
It is not TIME'S desire to lose the good will of its Southern friends. TIME will, however, continue to employ the "Mr." in referring to men who lack other titles. Would Mr. Henderson himself care to be styled plain "Henderson"?-- ED.
They All Grab
TIME Short Hills, N. J.
The News-Magazine Sept. 17, 1925
Sirs:
. . .Your paper is delightful. We all grab for it, but you put such ugly men on the covers! Can't we have a good looking woman for a change? I subscribed through one of those "boys working their way through college" at the door and hope my time isn't up ; if so keep going and send a bill please.
J. L. TERRY
TIME will print the faces of "good looking women" on its covers at such time as good looking women become directly significant in world affairs.--ED.
Dirty Thoughts
Philadelphia, Pa. The News-Magazine Sept. 12, 1925
Sirs :
Having access to TIME'S inimitable columns every week, though not a subscriber, I have watched its growth with interest. Particularly interesting are EDUCATION, RELIGION critique. And LETTERS.
Under RELIGION in TIME, Sept. 7, comes John Roach Straton, with a tirade against the dance. Question: Are Preacher Straton's thoughts fit for print? Question: Why should a professed follower of Christ, cleanest thinker and liver, hunt for "dirt, present it, exaggerated and made dirtier, obviously by his own interpretation, to a Christian congregation? . . .to whom, by his own admission, such an interpretation had never occurred!
Someone should present Preacher Straton with Havelock Ellis' Dance of Life, call to his attention that author's reference to God as Divine Ironist. D. C. HEATH
Again, Tabernacle
TIME New York, N. Y.
The News-Magazine Sept. 15, 1925
Sirs:
I have just read the excerpt from my letter in your issue of Aug. 31. It may interest you to know that when I wrote the Editor of the Christian Century, he excused his publication of the error by the fact that TIME had printed it, and that no denial had appeared.
I also have in this mail a letter from Heflin, Alabama, congratulating me on the correction which I sent to your periodical.
CHRISTIAN F. REISNER
On July 13 last, TIME printed a story which stressed the prominent part played by a donkey, a lemonade stand, an ice cream booth, at the ground-breaking ceremonies of Dr. Reisner's Broadway Tabernacle, Manhattan. The Christian Century "rewrote" this story, without mentioning the fact that it had rewritten it from TIME. When Dr. Reisner wrote a letter to TIME denying that the ground-breaking ceremonies had been unChristlike, undignified, TIME printed his letter (TIME, Aug. 31) but made public note of the fact that the Christian Century had also misrepresented Dr. Reisner--as much as to imply that Dr. Reisner had been loud and undignified, despite his protest. Now all is clear, and TIME begs Dr. Reisner's pardon, this time in all sincerity.--ED.
At Cooperstown
TIME Albany, N. Y. The News-Magazine Sept. 8, 1925 Sirs:
. . . You will be interested to know that while at the Otesaga Hotel at Cooperstown, N. Y., last week-end I noticed two persons in the lobby reading TIME . . .
JOHN H. GRIFFIN
Reviewer Flayed
TIME Ann Arbor, Mich.
The News-Magazine Aug. 28, 1925
Sirs:
Your literary editor must be a "native New Yorker," born in Bohunk, Iowa, and "never been outside of New York in his life." He exhibits the provincial intolerance and superiority so often seen in the uncultured New York business man.
In your Aug. 24 issue, Forbes-Robertson's autobiography, Page 14, "is a snapshot album." Miss Harrington's Glorious Apollo, " a florid woman's Byron, contrived by a rather superior Elinor Glyn," and "only a patient reader will . . . win through, to the central piece of work that recommends" Miss Wilson's The Kenworthys. No other books are reviewed. . . .
Supercilious, sneering book reviews will soon be discounted by your readers unless accompanied at times by enthusiastic, laudatory reviews.
I am writing this note in the hope that it may add to the bulk of similar protests, so that in tha end your readers may learn of some good books recently published. CARL E. GUTHE
No protests similar to that of Subscriber Guthe have come to hand. Possibly because the reviewer spoke of the Chicken-Wagon Family (TIME, Sept. 21) as "an unforgetable book"; of Five Oriental Tales (TIME, Sept. 14) as ". . . keen-edged. . . glinting fine irony"; of The Perennial Bachelor (TIME, Sept. 7) as "... ripe fruit juicy pulp, rigid pit, tart kernel."-ED.
Likes the Poetry
TIME Niagara Falls, N. Y.
The News-Magazine Sept. 16, 1925
Sirs:
... On Page 14, issue of Sept. 14, "Fond Memories," I like that poetry Those Lovely Girls. What is the name of it? Where can I get it?
WESLEY TENNANT
The poetry that Reader Tennant liked was: Those lovely girls! They have eyes like diamonds, teeth
like pearls, I love 'em one and all,
Stout, short and tall-- O those beautiful, beautiful girls.
The stanza was quoted by Will Thorne, British Laborite M. P.r in his book My Life's Battles. Further verses can doubtless be supplied by Mr. Thorne. His London address: No. '28 Tavistock Square, W. C. I.--ED.
Annoyed
TIME Sacramento, Calif. The News-Magazine Sept. 8, 1925 Sirs:
Two words annoy me greatly in your issue of Sept. 7, Page 10, centre column: "Incarnadined" is too long and fancy a word for such a plain paragraph. On the same page "grooved only with the austere colophon." You are reading the dictionary too much. Page 30 -- last two lines : "shoveled into the ground at Potter's field." Very inaccurate ; a corpse is too big to shovel handily. WM. E. CLARK.
Wrong Section
TIME Philadelphia, Pa.
The News-Magazine Aug. 31, 1925
Sirs:
I have read and greatly appreciated the treatises on the 14th Zionist Congress, now held in Vienna (TIME, Aug. 24-31). Your correspondents certainly deserve praise for presenting news so correctly and in so concise and vivid a manner; only one thing was to be viewed with alarm--the fact that this news was under the RELIGION section. As stated, the Congress was to discuss such problems as "Should the colonization of the Jews in Palestine be based on socialistic or capitalistic methods?", "Should the policies of Great Britain, as pursued under the commissionership of Sir Herbert Samuel, be approved or a firmer stand taken, thus investing the power of leadership in a new executive?" It is clear that these as well as the many other issues brought up are of a purely social character, and as such they were rather to be classed under your FOREIGN NEWS columns.
GEORGE SILVER