Letters
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.
Blunder
Sirs:
It is a trifling matter, but to those who regard TIME as authoritative it should be none the less important. On p. 18 of your issue of Dec. 14 you speak of the Lusitania as having been sunk on "May 17, 1915." Just a printer's slip, no doubt, for the date should be May 7. . . .
DUANE SQUIRES
Dickinson, N. D.
Life Extension
Sirs:
As a subscriber to TIME, a Yale man and one of the founders of the Life Extension Institute, I was distressed when a friend called my attention to your item on pp. 24 and 26 of your Dec. 14 number.
As I feel sure that you did not mean to be malignant or mendacious but have been simply and naturally misled, I am writing to you in a friendly spirit in the hope that you will see your way clear to make due corrections.
I inclose "A Correction of Misstatements about the Life Extension Institute," which was got out for such a purpose after the misrepresentations, the echo of which you have caught, were first circulated.
Although I think I could satisfy you as to the question of the motive behind this attack, as I could not prove it in court and wish to confine myself to facts, I shall pass over the question of motives.
The Life Extension Institute was established in 1913 as a self-supporting philanthropy, the chief founders being Mr. Harold A. Ley of Springfield, then President of the Ley Construction Co. and now President of the Life Extension Institute, myself, ex-President Taft and General Gorgas, whose sanitary work made possible the Panama Canal.
President Taft was Chairman of the Board from the start and remained such until he became Chief Justice and resigned from all organizations. General Gorgas remained connected with the work until his death.
The inclosed circular will show that the Hygiene Reference Board includes the chief hygienists of the United States. If you wish to go into the matter thoroughly 1 suggest that you see or communicate with Haven Emerson (formerly Health Officer of New York City), George Blumer (formerly Dean of the Yale Medical school), Professor C. E. A. Winslow, Robert W. De Forest, Mr. Taft or any officer, director or member of the Hygiene Reference Board. The best way of all is to visit the Institute and to see the Medical Director, Dr. Fisk. Or you can see some of our customers, such as the Metropolitan Life (Dr. Knight or Lee Frankel or Louis Dublin) or any of the other 40 insurance companies who patronize us, of the hundreds of thousands who have taken the examinations, or of our 8,000 medical examiners throughout the country. The Institute has no secrets and Dr. Fisk or Mr. Ley or the Secretary can tell you the answer to any question.
Mr. Taft never received a cent from the Institute. Nor have I. On the contrary I have put several thousand dollars into its work, besides donating all the royalties of How to Live, of which I am co-author with Dr. Fisk, which has had nearly two hundred thousand copies sold.
Two-thirds of the common stock has been trusteed to Robert De Forest, Haven Emereon, and myself to be used for philanthropic purposes when dividends are available, which is not yet the case. The President, Mr. Harold A. Ley, acts without salary and has given up a position with a high salary in order to do this constructive work.
There is nothing which I have helped start in which I take greater pride than the Life Extension Institute, and I would gladly spend several thousand dollars out of my own pocket if thereby I could put in jail the man who is back of these misrepresentations.
I am sure that you will feel a similar resentment as soon as you get the facts, and will be willing and eager to put your influence on the right side.
IRVING FISHER
New Haven, Conn.
TIME is a newsmagazine and as such has been unable to "take sides" in the periodic encounters of the Life Extension Institute and the Journal of the American Medical Association. In its issue of Dec. 14, TIME quoted Dr. Morris Fishbein, Editor of the Journal, as follows:
"The Life Extension Institute is a middleman, which deals with the patient, collects the fee, and then doles out to the physician what is conceived to be an adequate share. . . .
"It is time that the medical profession opposed vigorously the commercialization of medical practice. . . .
"Experience has shown that the patient is best served by a competent physician who is intimately acquainted with his problem, who has served his family for many years and who will be able to conduct such an examination according to a systematic plan."
As editor of the official publication of the American Medical Association, Dr. Fishbein is the authorized representative and spokesman of 90,000 orthodox practicing physicians of the U. S. His honesty of purpose cannot be questioned. But neither can that of Professor Fisher, Mr. Chief Justice Taft, Dr. Fisk, Mr. De Forest, Mr. Ley, et al.
TIME has printed Professor Fisher's letter in full. Unfortunately there does not remain sufficient space to reproduce in full the pamphlet inclosed in Professor Fisher's letter. The primary paragraphs of this pamphlet:
A CORRECTION OF MISSTATEMENTS ABOUT THE LIFE EXTENSION INSTITUTE
Reports have been circulated in medical circles to the effect that the Life Extension Institute buys examination reports from physicians and then sells the information received to insurance companies for higher fees.
The facts are these: The Life Extension Institute contracts with insurance companies for service to policy holders. This service includes a medical examination for which a fee is paid to the physician. The remainder of the fee received from the insurance company is used to pay for the other phases of health-education service rendered to policyholders.
It has been further stated that the information obtained from examinations is communicated to insurance companies. This is untrue. In the contracts which the Institute has with forty-five insurance companies it is expressly understood that the Institute's examination shall be held as strictly confidential by the Institute and shall not be reported to the insurance companies. This understanding has been faithfully carried out by the Life Extension Institute.
The Life Extension Institute began examinations of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company policyholders in 1914. The Metropolitan was the first company to contract with the Institute for periodic examinations. As the entire matter was experimental, in the beginning the reports of examinations were sent to the Metropolitan to enable it to determine the character and kind of examinations which the Institute was making. As soon as the Metropolitan was convinced that the examinations were satisfactory, the forwarding of reports by the Institute to the company was abandoned.
Subscribers and newsstand readers who wish further details can get them by writing to the Life Extension Institute, 25 W. 43rd St., New York City, or to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 535 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. --ED.
Oysters, Snares
Sirs:
I have noted several proofs that TIME is a little weak on subjects agricultural. Perhaps that is why you do not have a department devoted to the nation's basic industry. But your first item under MISCELLANY, p. 34, Dec. 14, contains something new and strange in zoology. Since when did oysters learn to eat fish ? What fish small enough to live in an oyster shell ever ate an oyster ? What fish ever lived and grew large enough to eat an oyster while confined to so small a space? It seems to me that this item is especially rich in impossibilities. "Rabbit," your next item in the same column, uses the word "snare" for trap. A rabbit may "cower" in a trap, a box trap, but never in a snare. The snare is a slipnoose of cord held down by pegs and a trigger on which is a bait. The end of the cord is attached to a sapling bent over and ready to fly up when the trigger is released. The bird or rabbit which is snared is suspended in the air, usually by the neck, and almost inevitably dead when found.
Evidently TIME has no country boy on its editorial staff, so pardon this from a farmer.
WELLS A. SHERMAN
Vienna, Va.
The writer of "Rabbit," himself a country boy, is familiar with two kinds of snares. One kind is the baited spring-up snare so graphically described by Original Subscriber Sherman. The other kind is a noose of very thin wire or horsehair strung on a frame between two bent saplings over a rabbit run. No bait is used. The rabbit, hopping down his underbrush alley, twitches the wire, whereupon both saplings spring back, tightening the noose between them. If caught by the neck, the creature, though not suspended in air, is strangled; if caught by the foot, he may well cower.
Subscriber Sherman is quite right in noting that the incident of the fish-eating oyster and the oyster-eating fish is a zoological improbability. Had it been a zoological platitude, TIME would have printed no account of it.--ED.
Substantiated
Sirs:
In the Dec. 14 issue of TIME you have an article entitled "Friendly Enemies" in which Captain T. J. C. Martyn denies the recent report that Baron Manfred von Richthofen, celebrated German aviator, was killed by infantry after landing his machine safely in our lines.
I wish to substantiate Captain Martyn's denial of this rumor and to say he is quite right.
Von Richthofen was shot down by Captain A. Ray Browne, a Canadian attached to No. 209 Squadron, Royal Air Force, on April 21, 1918. Captain Browne was awarded the D. S. O. by the King for his gallantry. . . .
After the fight the Baron's body and his machine were brought into the aerodrome. The machine was smashed to pieces by the fall, which disproves the report that he had made a safe landing, and the Baron had been hit in the back of the neck by a bullet which came out through his heart--it would have been almost impossible to inflict a wound like this if he had been on the ground.
I saw both the body and the machine, and I cut a small bit off one of the wings which I keep as a souvenir of a very gallant man. I would also like to add that German aviators were not shot after they had effected a safe landing in our lines; they were well treated and I have never heard of a case in which a captured German airman was treated other than as a gentleman.
Von Richthofen was killed in fair fight in the air and was given a funeral with full military honors, and I can well remember seeing his grave piled high with flowers which were sent by Royal Air Force units from all over France.
CARL F. FALKENBERG
Ex-Flight Commander 84 Squadron,
R. A. F.
P. S. As a subscriber allow me to congratulate you on your excellent paper. Quebec, Canada
Governess
Sirs:
Why "Governess" Ferguson, "Governess" Ross?
I will admit "empress," "actress," but these relate to spheres which women first occupied in the days when sex rather than ability controlled one's place in life, hence the formerly important feminine suffix still holds.
But "judgess" is unheard of, and "doctress" never obtained much currency; women came into these fields in a more enlightened age. So likewise their entry into elective and political office is modern--why not give them modern titles?
Not to disparage the important work of child training, "governess" suggests a much more limited field of action than "governor." The latter is more in keeping with the dignity of the larger position.
Another point: Ask Santa Claus to bring you a thesaurus. When you get it look up some synonyms for "famed," and use them once in a while.
ROBERT W. WILSON
Washington, D. C.
Anti-Shaw
Sirs:
Kindly terminate my subscription when it expires one month from this date. Hitherto I have been a great admirer of TIME and have read almost every issue for a year from cover to cover.
When the New York Daily News printed the headline "Rum Ends Her Dance of Life" over a picture of the funeral of the late Queen Alexandra, you called it "flagrant," and so it was (issue of Dec. 7, p. 33). But the inclosed laudation of the performance of the play of that Satanic mouthpiece, George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion (TIME, Dec. 7. p. 16), is just as "flagrant" in the eyes of a Christian public.
You admit that the play "is a satire on martyrdom." You admit "it is probably one of the most impudent documents ever composed about Christianity." And you add, "It is not for churchgoers without a sense of humor." All we can say is God pity the church whose "goers" can look upon the martyrdom of the early Christians by lions in the Roman Colosseum as a cause for humor and amusement. Such a church is a "going" church, if not already "gone."
But to TIME, "Androcles ... is a genuine triumph. Henry Travers . . . plays the lead amazingly, amusingly. Miss Eames and Mr. Powers redeem themselves with excellent performances, and an actor named G. Robinson is immensely satisfactory as Caesar." I know not whether your theatrical critic is a churchgoer or not, but Heaven pity his sense of humor. The production is doubtless "immensely satisfactory" to Hell itself and to Playwright Shaw. If you take the "S" or hiss of the serpent from the front of his name, all that is left is the "haw" or command for the donkey to turn to the left and join the company of "the goats," the fate of whom is described in St. Matthew 25: 41-46.
MELVILLE B. GURLEY
Mount Berry, Ga.
At Cornell
Sirs:
Your latest allusion to the chimes of the Park Avenue Baptist Church prompts me to offer a correction to a statement you made some time back to the effect that Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" had there been played on bells for the first time in America.
Of course you could hardly be expects to keep tab on all the tunes played on all the bells in all the U. S. A., so your self-assurance in making such sweeping assertions commands admiration; however, you might as well know that at Cornell there is a fine carillon, situated in a high tower that gives a view for miles down Cayuga Lake or southward over the valley and distant hills. Besides the thrice-daily program and hymns on Sunday, these bells have for many years pealed forth wedding music to announce that a new bride and groom were about to leave Sage Chapel.
The program is usually something like this:
Mendelssohn's "Wedding March"
"O Sole Mio"
"Annie Laurie"
"O Promise Me"
"Wedding March" (Lohengrin)
And if the groom happens to be a prominent alumnus (as yesterday, for Foster Coffin) the "Alma Mater" is rung in his honor.
In undergraduate days, as Chimesmaster, I have played such programs, and many others have done so before and since, but when the tune in question was first pealed forth in America I do not believe that even TIME will tell.
H. G. BULL
Ithaca, N. Y.
The A. P.
Sirs:
In the issue of TIME, Dec. 14, you state that the Associated Press took upon itself the task of tabulating collegiate championships in all branches of sport for 1925, and imply that the tabulation is misleading in that it ignored performances in the Middle West and Far West.
If you had read more carefully our story you would have found that we did nothing of the sort. This matter was prepared by Mr. Alan J. Gould, our sports editor, and covered, as was specifically stated in our story, only events taking place in the East. Possibly you were confused by the fact that several individuals and teams from other parts of the country won championships in eastern competition.
At any rate you have given a wrong impression concerning us to your readers, and while the matter is not of particular importance to us, you may wish to set right both the Associated Press and TIME.
EDWARD MCKERNON
Superintendent, Eastern Division, Associated Press
New York, N. Y.
Superintendent McKernon does well to complain. TIME wronged the Associated Press. The original A. P. despatch said "Eastern Intercollegiate battle front" clearly enough. But one of the member newspapers of the Associated Press (the New York Times) abbreviated the despatch to such an extent that TIME was misled. In future TIME will not quote the A. P. until the despatch in question has been "checked" in two or more member newspapers.--ED.
Praise
Sirs:
When one reads some of the letters which you publish, it is evident that some people expect a piece of letter-perfect literature for fifteen cents. Take, for example, the masterpiece which Mr. H. R. Travers offered for publication in your issue of Dec. 21. Exactly what difference does it make to Mr. Travers what the color of the rat was which fell into a certain lady's bath? It seems to me that a grey rat would be just as disagreeable as a black one. However, if it is of such vital importance to Mr. Travers, why does he not write Miss Galpern and obtain the exact details of the case?
Other examples are equally stupid. F. R. Ohl [Dec. 21, p. 30] considers the words "famed poet" in front of Shakespeare's name superfluous. Such weighing of words as he seems to think is necessary may be suitable for a volume written as a permanent contribution to literature, but it is hardly necessary or possible in a "Weekly News-Magazine."
Do not these people who send in whole lists of misused words realize the difficulties of publishing a weekly of this type, and the many chances of error? Don't they realize that TIME employs a staff of journalists and not a bunch of lexicographers? It is evident that these small-time critics have missed the whole point of TIME'S aims, to get the news across in a brief snappy way. Obviously a magazine of this type can not be gone over with a magnifying glass.
Accept my congratulations, Gentlemen, for your sincere efforts to give your readers the service they desire, and for the rapid growth of TIME.
JAMES B. WHITLER
New Haven, Conn.
TIME thanks Subscriber Whitler for his kindness, his courtesy. But the editors hope that his vigorous defense of their shortcomings will not discourage the honest critics who locate errata and write letters that speak out so eloquently. TIME must not tolerate misstatements. Writers and lexicographers who commit them merit thoroughgoing rebukes. If a grey rat falls into the hot soap-bath of Miss Rachael Galpern, then "grey rat" (not black rat) must be the phrase used in TIME. If a newsmagazine is not scrupulously accurate even in little things, what faith will its subscribers have in any of its reportings?
--ED.