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.

Not a Barber

Sirs:

In announcing Chaliapin's forthcoming operatic venture (TIME, Dec. 28, p. 24), you mention the dear basso as the Barber in Rossini's musical comedy. Chaliapin plays Don Basilio, the Music-master, not the Barber.

E. P. GOODNOW Boston, Mass.

Blame

Sirs:

Your comments on "Questions & Answers" (RUSSIA, p. 13, Dec. 28 issue) are so disingenuous as to make one wonder if sometimes you may not distort the news to suit your purposes. Making a headline that utterly belies the contents of a news-item is an old trick in dishonest journalism. Who, outside of an editor of TIME, could consider the answers that Tchitcherin gave to the questions put before him anything but the essence of frankness, openness and the very opposite of "Machiavellian?" What could be less diplomatic than the answer to the second question, which says in effect: "If you invest your money abroad and a revolution comes along, take your loss like a sport and don't bellyache about it"; or the answer to the fourth: "France recognizes debts but does not pay them, while Russia doesn't recognize debts but seeks, nevertheless, to see if they cannot be arranged"?

I can forgive you for making important front page announcements about a waiter lighting Coolidge's cigar or on just how that distinguished gentleman eats, but when you begin to tamper with news and twist meanings it's time to prick that bubble about TIME'S "plucking that needle of fact out of a haystack of news." If your comments cannot be more intelligent I suggest you borrow a leaf from the Nation's book and give us your foreign news in the manner of that journal's "International Relations Section." (But if you did I suppose you'd never reach the point you strive for when you too shall be able to say: "One out of every three yokels reads this magazine, yet it is not, etc. . . . ")

JACOB B. SHOHAN Cambridge, Mass.

Idle Postman

Sirs:

. . . TIME is very much appreciated in my home. We look forward to each issue with an interest unequalled by other publications. The other day we found the Postman paused on the doorstep deeply engrossed in a copy. It is understood to be a weekly occurrence. He is now charged with being an enthusiast.

J. D. BURWELL Dayton, Ohio.

Wrong Feng

Sirs: As a subscriber and admirer of the TIME I like to remind you of a trifle mistake which you made on p. 16 in the Jan. 4 issue of your magazine (Vol. VII, No. 1). The slim figure in the picture printed on that page, entitled "Feng adroit," does not represent the stalwart person of the so-called Christian General Feng Yu-Hsiang. In fact, it is the picture of the late General Feng Kou-Chang, once the Vice President of the Republic of China. Perhaps it will not be far amiss for me to add here that, although bearing the same name, the "Christian" General is by no means a family relative of the late Vice President.

CH'AO-TING CHI

Chicago, Ill.

A true picture of Christian General Feng appears below. -- ED.

Coward Rebuked

Sirs:

TIME is all right. It gives all the important news of the world in a compact form. With it a busy man can keep abreast of the times. What I especially like about the policy of TIME is that when it makes an erroneous statement and a correspondent calls attention to it, TIME comes out like a man and admits its mistake.

That is something another national weekly (the -- --*) will not do. Some time since, in answer to a correspondent somewhere in Iowa, this periodical stated: "Tenderfeet is wrong; the proper plural of Tenderfoot is Tenderfoots!"

I immediately wrote to the editor stating that I had lived in the West for 38 years and had heard the expression hundreds of times, and that the proper plural is "Tenderfeet." To be sure I submitted the matter to a dinner club of 25 gentlemen-- lawyers, doctors, professors, bankers and businessmen--who had all lived in the West ten to twenty years or more. They were all familiar with the use of the word "tenderfoot" to designate some one newly arrived and green to the ways of the West, and they were all agreed that "tenderfeet" was the only plural ever used. No one had ever heard of "tenderfoots."

Do you suppose the -- -- would make the correction? Not on your life. Therefore I have a perfect contempt for that periodical. Will you please publish this letter in order to convey to the gentleman from Iowa and thousands of other readers the information that the has misinformed them; furthermore that it is a coward in not correcting its mistake.

WEST HUGHES Los Angeles, Calif.

The latest Standard Dictionary gives "tenderfeet" only for the plural of "tenderfoot." However, Webster's International is the authority by which TIME goes, and this dictionary prefers "tenderfoots."--ED.

Oysters, Snares

Sirs:

I saw an oyster in Grimsby, England (my native city), with two ordinary mice trapped by the neck and killed. The custom is to feed oysters with barley water in a dish. The oyster one day with shell open was attacked by mice and closed his shell. Thousands of picture cards were sold by Lowthian Bros., photographers. I would not have believed it if I had not seen the animals in the photographer's window. Live oysters are sure mousetraps.

REV. V. J. HUFTON Wakefield, Mich.

Life Subscriber

Sirs:

President Emeritus Eliot of Harvard University is said to have said of Princeton's song, "Old Nassau": "The music is meretricious and the words are tawdry, but the fit of the thing is excellent"; and so I would say of TIME: It is wretchedly written and its music, theatre and book reviews are ridiculous, but the "fit" of the thing is super-excellent. I will be a life-subscriber.

I am, Gentlemen,

JOHN HARRISON GRAY

Secretary of Legation Legation of the United States of America, Panama City, R. P.

At Lehigh

Sirs:

TIME is indispensable. Its style is entertaining; its accuracy most remarkable, considering that much material in it comes from newspapers; and its comments on letters from readers magnanimous to a fault. I marvel at your comments on the letter of Henry R. Travers [issue of Dec. 21].

In col. 1, p. 20, of TIME for Dec. 21, 1925, you state that where courses in military science and tactics are obligatory they are detested; and where they are optional they are eagerly chosen by students because they are easy.

You may be correct so far as some colleges are concerned, but the accuracy of your statement is in question when all colleges are considered. In 1919 I organized the military department at Lehigh University, on a voluntary basis. The University, after one year of optional courses, made the courses for freshmen and sophomores requisites for a degree. This was done without any action on my part; in fact I was surprised when I was informed of it. After four years as head of the military department at Lehigh, I can say that the courses were not "easy," were not detested, nor were they eagerly sought. They appealed to some students and were disliked by others. This is true of any subject or any course.

Since leaving Lehigh University I have been lecturing to the students at the Infantry School on the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. I mention this to show that I have given the matter serious thought for seven years, and that I know something more of the subject than one can learn through reading articles in the newspapers--articles inspired by the pacifistic element in our colleges and such persons as Senators Borah, LaFollette, and Shipstead, Jane Addams, Zona Gale, and the Presidents of Vassar, Beloit and a few colleges for women, or articles which may be designated as bits of special pleading.

JOHN W. LANG

Major, Infantry Fort Benning, Ga.

*Name omitted by editors.