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.
"Chuff"
Sirs:
My commendation on your use of the word "chuff" (TIME, April 5, "In Little Rock," p. 18).
As a noun descriptive of the sound of a milk-train engine, it fits and therefore is good. Is this a new word?
JOHN THURSTON
Rochester, N. Y.
Such onomatopoetic creations should be judged by their success rather than by the dictionaries. In this particular case credit is due to a typesetter who set "chuff" for "chug." An able proofreader, quick to sense the merit of the "new word," let it stand. --ED.
Profanity
Sirs:
Three times in about a year you have printed profanity, and it is a great shock to me to find myself repeating such language.
The first time it was in connection with two soldiers who were being court-martialed for making derogatory statements about the U.S. Government. You told enough that they said without repeating their cuss words.
Then, after boosting TIME as a good paper for boys and girls to read, you dig up an old ditty that Bismark's sister used to sing in which Satan swears (TIME, Feb. 22, p. 11) and now (TIME, March 29, p. 38) you allow an "adder" to leave a shot of poison in the form of a witty, unforgettable coined word where youth will ran into it head-on.
My little girl often reads aloud to me and it just happens that I have kept her from seeing these three breaches of decency, but I hope that I shall not be obliged in the future to read TIME before she sees it. Your publication is the cleanest, most wholesome I have ever read, but I am suggesting this improvement.
R. G. LEONARD
Los Angeles, Calif.
Gumption
Sirs: When a man criticizes a married woman who has gumption enough to earn a living for any reason at all, and usually she does so to support her orphaned children or to complement her husband's earnings while she at the same time competently conducts her household--then such a woman (as I am) can discuss the economic needs of her work.
But when some--* like your Mrs. Helen Hoffman (TIME, April 12, LETTERS) accuses us married workers of lack of respectability, I'd like to commit mayhem on her. Poor, coddled hausfrau! Perhaps a man stupid enough to marry such a nixnox has been superseded over his rut by an alert married woman worker. Yet his "missus" need not squall.
(Mrs.) HELEN WUENSCH (Worker)
New York, N. Y.
*Word omitted to avoid libel.--Ed.
Aleck
Sirs:
Some days ago the New York Herald Tribune characterized H. L. Mencken as a "Professional Smart Aleck," a phrase which aptly describes those who write such stuff as "Came an eagle" and "a rival musnud of learning" in TIME, April 12, pp. 33, 34... Let me remind you that this sort of thing has been going on for two* years, and...ceases to be funny.
I shall not ask you to cancel my subscription, as others have done, because TIME gives me a rapid and useful survey of world news each week, but, by Jove! you do make it hard to read.
FREDERICK L. GATES
New York, N. Y.
"Go West!"
Sirs:
In TIME, April 19, p. 21, col. 2:
"As it moved through the world last week. Death came to a flowering spot in Southern California where an old man lay who had kept gardens for many years."
Luther Burbank's home and gardens are at Santa Rosa, about 40 miles north of San Francisco Bay.
TIME should move its publication office farther west. Lincoln, Nebraska, a centre of intelligence and safe information, would be a good place.
A. E. SHELDON
Lincoln, Neb.
Kaiser's Feelings
Sirs:
Are you afraid to hurt the ex-Kaiser's feelings? No other reason available for your suppression of the news re his attempt to trick the Germans out of 300 million marks per year. . . .
N. W. FISHER
Orlando, Fla.
Princeton Unique
Sirs :
I note in TIME of April 12, p.18, the statement that Princeton and Bates are the only colleges, according to the records of the Modern Language Association, which do not give courses in American Literature. I desire to correct that error so far as Bates is concerned.
At the present time, Bates is offering a semester course in American Literature. In this course, which I am conducting, are 110 students. We began with John Smith as the earliest writer of note and are proceeding in our consideration, chronologically, to the modern writers. . . .
The mistake doubtless arose because of the fact that there was no course in American Literature offered at Bates last year. . . .
WARD BROWNING
Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Argumentation
Bates College
Lewiston, Me.
Loathes World
Sirs:
I have read with interest Mr. Withrow Morse's criticism of your paper appearing in the current issue. It would seem that Mr. Morse and I are kindred spirits in regard to the modern world; for apparently he loathes it as ardently as I do.
My impressions of the paper are, however, in many respects the direct opposite of his. It seems to me that it is the great things in the current news that you bring out with unrivaled clearness; and you not only do this but you give a concise background of current situations--a thing which other news magazines do only rarely ; or, in the cases where you do not do this, you give references to past numbers of the magazine, where the elements of the background can be readily collected. It is only by understanding the earlier stages of a situation that the situation Itself can be well understood; and to have in mind all these settings, ready to apply to each item of current news, requires a power of memory which few possess.
His strictures on your English style, however, I think are amply justified. . . .
JOHN ALLEN SWEET JR.
Farmington, Me.
Undeserved
Sirs:
. . . In reading TlME for April 5, I found on p. 10, col. 2, a certain statement concerning the education of Raymond T. Maker. In that statement it reads: "and the slightly more sophisticated Leland Stanford University," comparing it with the University of Nevada. I realize that there are colleges and universities in California which overestimate themselves, but I think that Stanford does not deserve that adjective applied to it.
FLORENCE STANTON
South Pasadena, Calif.
Mother Fitch
Sirs:
Under the heading Music in your issue of April 5 I read with eye-protruding astonishment the article "In Little Rock," in which you grossly misstate the true manner of our Mary Lewis' departure from the City of Roses. True it was seven years ago she heard the voice calling, but Mary was no abused Annie washing pots and pans for the good parson and his wife--for she was a matron of some odd years, and hadn't been living with Rev. and Mrs. Fitch for some time before her marriage. True the stairs still creak at the Fitches' but only because the aged apple-cheeked widow lives there with only her memories of the frolicsome child she loved so well--and the parson sleeps under the elms.
Mrs. Fitch is a neighbor of mine and a wonderful character. Even Mary agrees with that, and on her visit here they had two reunions. No mother could have been prouder of her child than this dear soul of the girl she adores. Visitors to her home are shown countless pictures and clippings of Mary.
I do not know who sent you the report of Mary's homecoming. No mere words could do justice to the glory of her, but a little homage is due my friend and neighbor who "bent the twig" and all the world knows how successfully. No one insists or presumes to think that Mary is common clay; but all the rock-bound faith and convictions of our Puritan ancestors speak from the shining eyes of Mother Fitch, and while she may have firmly believed in sparing the rod and spoiling the child, she at least stamped her wonderful character on the plastic clay.
I wish editors had time to investigate before they print these seemingly innocent articles, or that someone had got Mary's opinion and not written as if Mrs. Fitch were the cruel godmother, when she is the kind of grandmother one dreams about--memory boxes, cookie jars--not lavender and old lace in the least, but just herself in printed calico, tending her lilac bushes and baby chickens and her business. Please do not print any more articles making her a feminine Simon Legree.
MRS. WALTER TERRY
Little Rock, Ark.
If TIME has been unfair to Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, then the wrong must be righted. But Mary Lewis herself has said: "When I did not practice [music] enough to suit him [Mr. Fitch], he spanked me . . . I would dance by myself in my own room without music. My foster mother punished me every time she caught me and I was continually at it. . . . I think it was because our ideas were so different that I ran away and joined the chorus of Reckless Eve when it came to town."--ED.
*Three years --Ed.