Dutch
Sirs:
The utterly unjustifiable advertisement on pages 23 and 24 of your Nov. 8 issue gets my Dutch up right . . . .
I pay five dollars per year for TIME. I want news for my five dollars, not prying questions. What difference does it make to you whether I am 14 or 40, ditchdigger or druggist ? What business of yours is it if I own a Ford or a Lincoln or no car at all? My subscription is paid up. . . .
I'm for TIME as long as it does what it is supposed to do. I welcome ads, even, as long as they interest me. But I don't welcome your high-handed use of space I pay for.
CHARLES S. ESTEY
Duluth, Minn.
Let Subscriber Estey look on pages 21 and 22 of this issue.--ED.
Will Bet
Sirs:
Original Subscriber Cadwallader Evans [p. 23, Nov. 8] is too enthusiastic. His guess of 50% is all wet. I'll bet your returns do not amount to 1%, much less 50%. When direct mail advertisers regard 2% as a good return when they are giving good value, even TIME will do well to get even 1,000 people to "fill it in, encase it in an en- velope, address it, stamp it, mail it," when the "it" is a list of questions which can do the answerer no good.
I have been fascinated by your conceit, your self-certain cockiness. But now you are riding to a fall. You showed overconfidence in your hold on your readers by printing the questionnaire.
THOMAS ELBERT LYNCH
New York. N. Y.
Myers Family
Sirs:
My wife and I have come to a conclusion that you who run this TIME must be either too fresh or awfully crazy, to waste all that space asking useless questions about who reads a magazine, as if you really cared. You ask questions in absurd ways we think too. Who ever called his children "Males from 10 to 20" or "Females" ? What do you care how many automobiles I got ? I bought your magazine, didn't I and that should be enough for any one.
JACOB MYERS
New Haven, Conn.
Book Planned
Sirs:
In returning your coupon, allow me to say that, as a student of my fellow countrymen, I should greatly like to see a compilation of the statistics resulting from your study. It has been my plan to write a book some day, classifying the citizens of our country according to their sense of humor. Do not misunderstand me when I declare that TIME'S sense of humor is utterly unique in my experience. Your coupon was a prize example of it. I should never suggest that your readers are primarily attracted by your sense of humor, for of course your intent and achievements are primarily sober and serious. None the less, some line of witty perception should be discernible in a group of, how many is it now, 85,000? . . . My filled-in coupon misrepresents a situation to this extent: there is "in my family" a "female TIME reader aged 50 to 60"--my wife. But as you probably know, she receives her own subscription at the house; I, mine at my office.
C. V. S.
Chicago, Ill.
TIME'S circulation now exceeds 127,000.--ED.
Cover-to-Cover ?
Sirs:
"How are we supposed to answer question No. 71 Do we have to read the ads, too, to qualify as a cover-to-cover reader ? I read those that look interesting to me, but I recognize some of them right away as not meant particularly for a housewife. Can I still be called a cover-to-cover reader ?
I want to know because I have boasted that I read TIME from one end to the other and claim to be the original TIMEkeeper in our Reading Club.
MRS. MABEL MCALLISTER
Buffalo, N. Y.
It is not necessary that each reader read each word in each advertisement. But let no reader count himself a cover-to-cover man unless he at least casts his eye upon the main headline of each and every advertisement.--ED.
Why Puff?
Sirs:
I like TIME very much and am proud of being a charter subscriber, but why do you puff yourselves so constantly in your pages ? The place for your advertisements is in other magazines, not in your own. If I pay my money and subscribe to a periodical because I like it, I don't have to be told in every number that it is the greatest thing going.
MARGARET G. WRIGHT
College Flayed
Sirs:
I don't mind answering the questions on the other side of this sheet, but I do object to the one question on college graduates. Is TIME trying to herd its readers into college people and non-college people ?
This rah-rah stuff is the bunk. I drive a car, as you will see, and it cost more than $1,000 and not second hand. But I never went to college. I can read, all right, so I guess I'm just as good a prospect for your advertisers as if I had spent four years loafing in school some place.
When your advertisers ask you how many went to college tell them you don't give a darn as long as they read TIME every week. We didn't have to go to a college to learn how to make money and that is what counts in this day and age.
JOHN A. GRANT
Akron, Ohio
No Information
Sirs:
TIME earned first place among the five magazines we receive because it never wasted a word. Now you seriously threaten your own position in this home at least by devoting five whole columns to an advertisement (?) of your own. You are still favored, but we must warn you that further wastes of good space such as this will lower your rating.
Even my son, who is only a High School kid, objects to your wasting editorial space in this furthering your own business. So does my wife, who with me brings the more mature judgment of 40 into her condemnation of your idea.
Furthermore, I for one am quite sure your effort is all in vain. Here is one company head who could never be convinced by such figures as you will secure that we could sell our product through your columns. Just because I own a Buick does not make me a better prospect for furniture. Neither does the fact that I went to college, while my wife did not, make her less interested in good furniture or me more so. So why bother to compile such figures?
We have all enjoyed your publication from one end to the other, even to those gruesome little miscellanies. But we don't like to see you waste editorial space and all three of us have voted against sending in the questions. That is why you will get no information from us.
A. P. VOEGEL
Detroit, Mich.
Prebles Flayed
Sirs:
. . . A letter such as Mr. Nathan Prebles' (TIME, Nov. 1) regarding THE CREAM cannot pass my attention without comment.
This "smart" innovation, as he calls it, is one of the most delightful sections of TIME. A host of other subscribers join me in feeling that it has proved itself a valuable guide in our reading and gift buying in the short term of its existence. I have perfect confidence in your book editor's selections, and have read almost every book recommended, reaping both benefit and pleasure.
I cannot see how Mr. Prebles can say what he did say about Her Son's Wife, Jesus: A Myth? and A Manifest Destiny. I am sure everyone will agree that it was his, and not the fault of THE CREAM. It is a novel idea and I sincerely hope it continues.
JOHN GILCHRIST
Ithaca, N. Y.
"Pines of Rome"
Sirs:
In TIME, Nov. 1, (Music) page 21, it is stated that in San Francisco "the orchestra under Hertz direction played Respighi's 'Pines of Rome,' introducing in a symphony orchestra for the first time, so far as is known, a phonographic record of a nightingale's song."
I wish to call attention to the fact that this composition was conducted by the composer in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Orchestra at several concerts in January, 1926, introducing the use of the phonographic record of the nightingale's song in the above composition.
I might add also that we enjoy TIME immensely, especially the quibbles by your correspondents as they appear in the section under LETTERS.
N. S. FINK
Philadelphia, Pa.
'Conestoga"
Sirs:
In your interesting obituary of the late John G. Shedd (TIME, Nov. 1, p. 36) you speak of the immigrants in their "Ticonderoga" wagons.
The "prairie schooner" was usually referred to as the "Conestoga" wagon. It took its name from the vehicle--the predecessor of the modern freight car--which carried freight in the 1790's from Philadelphia to Lancaster and the Conestoga country over the Old Lancaster Pike. When this road, the pioneer turnpike of the continent, was extended westward over the Alleghenies into Steubenville and the Ohio Lands, the Conestoga Wagon went with it and so became a symbol of the westward march of the pioneer.
WILLIAM MORGAN CARPENTER
Upper Montclair, N. J.
No Granddaughter
Sirs:
In your issue of Nov. 1, under the heading MILESTONES appeared the following: "Married; Louise Rhees, granddaughter of President Rush Rhees of the University of Rochester, to-- etc." I beg to call to your attention the fact that Dr. Rhees has no granddaughter, nor has he any immediate relative by the name of Louise, although the former Miss Louise Rhees is no doubt a distant connection.
(DR.) MORGAN JOHN RHEES
(son of Dr. Rush Rhees) Boston, Mass.
Stampede
Sirs:
. . . I notice you quote our President [TIME, Oct. 4], as saying "that he feels confident that he could support himself and family on a farm in Vermont." This statement of the President interests me greatly and I am sure would be very interesting to the millions of farmers in our country. Perhaps you could induce the President to amplify his statements by showing in a practical way how he would work on a farm so as to make the income exceed the cost. Authoritative words of the President in that regard might abruptly stop the movement from the farm to the city and cause a stampede back to the farm.
SAMUEL SILBIGER
Brooklyn, N. Y.