Anti-Birth Race
Sirs:
I have just read with indignation your account of the will of a Canadian millionaire (TIME, Dec. 20) under which about $1,500,000 will go to the parents of the largest number of children born in Ontario between now and Oct. 81, 1935.
Something must be done to stop the terrible suffering to women in the "birth race" which is sure to ensue for this money. I can think of only one way to stop it, but please print my idea. It is not "highfalutin," but is based on the fact that men will act only from the most sordid self interest.
Let a man with $50,000 to invest select ten young men and women from families known to be prolific, and let him set them up as five married couples in Ontario, on the promise that if any couple wins the prize they will turn it over to their benefactor. The sum of $50,000 would easily cover the support of these people, and a doctor and nurse to advise and care i them in a scientific way. Let it be announced that this scientific attempt to win the prize was being made, and other contestants would soon drop out.
Thus five young couples would be tided over their period of early struggle, and the five women should not suffer much if chosen from "easy bearing" families and given "twilight sleep." One of the couples would be "scientifically sure" to win the prize, and from his $50,000 the investor (whatever his motives) would have made the enormous profit of $1,450,000 in nine years!
Will not some rich man think over my plan and act?
MRS. WILLIAM MILLER
Chicago, Ill.
Bull, Fold
Please correct your error regarding Smith Wildman Brookhart in TIME, Dec. 13 You say "The wild bull of the Senate will be back again in the 70th session, having made peace with the Iowa Republicans." A state paper expressed the facts more correctly as follows : "Smith Wildman Brookhart is home again in the Republican fold--it was done by moving the fold over to him." ERNEST WYKES
"The Progressive Plumber"
This is NOT: Ye Old Tyme Plumbynge ShoppeI
Humboldt, Iowa
Crutches, Apes
Sirs -- Having observed in TIME, Nov. 8, your desire for a really good slogan, I submit the following: " From Shakespeare: "TIME goes on crutches. From Browning: "TIME is for dogs and apes." EBENEXEER FRY
Deep Springs, Calif.
Bad.--ED.
-Butter & Eggs
Errors in the article "Last Dollar" under Business in the issue of Dec. 13, simply must be corrected. Referring to lake ships you say long round-topped whalebacks for the most part--carry coal" etc., but there are only about four of this type in inter-lake traffic while there are about 400 United States boats of the new flat-deck, straight-side type. Again, "they haul--iron ore from Lake Superior's southern shores." Escanaba, "Marquette and Ashland are the south shore ports. This year Ashland's tonnage was 7,140,203 and the tonnage of Marquette and Escanaba was estimated at 10,000,000. Duluth-Superior and Two Harbors tonnage 41,380,931. Incidentally, did you know that Duluth-Superior port is the second largest in tonnage in the United States, exceeded only by New York? See recent Government Report, "Insurance lapsed with the first week of the month." A half truth for while policies expired at midnight on Nov. 30, they were extended for five days, then four days, then three days so it does not lapse until midnight of Dec. 12. All ships leaving port prior to the end of the insurable period are covered to the end of the trip, hence even if locked in ice all winter, they are insured.
Let me be the first to wish TIME and its editors unbounded success during the coming year and that the subscription list will at least treble.
GALEN E. BUSH
Dulutk, Minn.
Sirs:
"Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.'
If you cannot, either in provincial Manhattan or cosmopolitan Cleveland, find accurate printed information about Great Lakes shipping, surely some ex-deckhand could be hired to fill in the apparently considerable gaps of your knowledge of the most important of all fresh water highways. . . .
The chief iron-ore-producing region of the United States, moreover, is north and west of Lake Superior; and shipment is made from the northern shore in much greater volume than "from the lake's southern shores."
The annual flow of tonnage through the "Soo" canals is several times that through the Panama, and includes, besides iron, coal and wheat, a miscellany containing among other things thousands of automobiles and a large percentage of the butter and eggs with which the East is fed. . .
Duluth, Minn. JULIUS M. NOLTE
Tide
Sirs: Did you know that we have in England -- magazine called Time and Tide? Many of your readers, I am sure, would be interested in a description of this paper which I would be glad to write and send you for a modest compensation. John Oscarson
Manchester, England.
Time and Tide is a feminist weekly review, is waited for by no man.--ED.
, Sparrow
The Bible says, Not a sparrow falls without God knowing about it;* but really it seems to me that TIME does nearly as well. When that Mr. Snook wrote in (TIME, Dec. 6) I had never heard such a name; but I see today in your answer to a letter from a Mr. Box (TIME, Dec. 20) that you have already had two stories about Snooks. I shouldn't think a Snook was much more important than a sparrow myself. I suggest the slogan : 'Not a snook falls without TIME knowing about it." AMELIA SIMPSON
Akron, Ohio
Sirs:
Just where subscriber Montague Snook got his information about John Wilson Snook I do not know but I do know that out here in Idaho we know lots more about him.
He has the big cattle ranch all right but to say he is a prison warden at Salmon, Idaho, is rather amusing because it is a little town far into the mountains and the only penal institution of which it might boast is a little two-by-four jail. Salmon is a county seat.
The facts are that he was warden of the Idaho state penitentiary at Boise, several hundred miles from Salmon, four consecutive two-year terms from 1900 to 1909. Again, in 1924, he was called to the wardenship of the institution but had served only a year when he accepted a call to the wardenship of the federal prison at Atlanta, Ga., where he is now.
In addition, he has served his state in a legislative capacity having been a member of the lower house of the Idaho legislature several times.
We think quite a lot of John Wilson Snook out here in Idaho.
WILLIAM BATES PRATT
Editor The Idaho Statesman Boise, Idaho
Also
Sirs:
Please cancel my subscription to your magazine as I haven't time to read such trashy criticisms as I have seen in your paper, especially on religion. Also, your article on the imperial conference. I am a Roman Catholic and a Canadian and a believer in international unity.
M. L. HANLAN
Espanola, Ontario
Spotlight
Sirs:
Please discontinue the subscription to TIME now addressed to Mr. & Mrs. C. F. Clark, 1935 Burlingame Ave., Detroit, Mich, upon its expiration this month. Although I am nominally at least a Republican, your waste of two or three pages in each issue discussing the favorite colors of Mrs. Coolidge, President Coolidge's colds and indisposition, and such drivel is sickening. Also many of your brilliant ( ?) descriptions of world personages, governmental actions, scientific observations, and the like are evidently written by somebodies or nobodies who are anxious to get in the spotlight by using belittling descriptions, large and unfamiliar words, and other such silly devices. There are some good points in the magazine, also some excellent pieces of writing in spots, but the trivial and inconsequential are dwelt upon at such great length that they leave a bad taste. I do not have a great deal of time for reading and prefer to devote that time to magazines on the order of World's Work, Golden Book and the National Geographic, in which one receives full value for time spent on them. C. F. CLARK
Detroit, Mich.
Surprise
Sirs:
Mr. John N. Browning of Maysville, Ky. (TIME, Dec. 13) seems to be more favorably impressed with your speed of getting news to the readers of your publication than I. I will admit that for a weekly devoting its columns to current news, TIME does wonders in getting its news out in the shortest possible time. But seven days, in this age, means much to news. There is always embarrassment for me when I am informed by friends that topics that I introduce for discussion often prove a week or two weeks old. This, I blame to TIME.
GEORGE R. KOEBEL
Chicago, Ill.
(You surprise me by publishing some letters very much out of TIME'S favor. You will surprise me more if you publish this.)
Nothing in TIME is two weeks old unless so stated. To Subscriber Koebel's keen friends, all praise. --ED.
Genteel Subscribee
Sirs I am not an original subscriber to TIME. However, I became a subscribee about a year ago, when a wealthy friend celebrated the Christmas season by sending you my name plus five dollars. I have never before heard of a subscribee--so far as I know, therefore, I am THE Original Subscribee. I am not writing either to praise or blame TIME, but merely to ask your aid. I examine the wrapper of my copy carefully each week, and I am distressed to note that the expiration date thereon has not yet been advanced to include 1927. This embarrasses me. I am given to understand that I have been brought up genteel, and somehow I can't persuade myself that it would be quite genteel to call the situation baldly to my friend's attention. Here you can help me. If you will print this letter in TIME--anywhere in TIME--he will see it. ... This method of communication would actually be surer, as well as more genteel, than a direct message, for I am by no means as sure that he reads all my letters as that he reads all of TIME. . . . I'm going to be wholly frank with you, in full confidence that you will not take advantage of a fellow's straightforwardness. I intend, if all else fails, to send you five dollars before Jan. 1. That's how desperate I am. ROSCOE MACY
Cashier First State Bank Lynnville, Iowa
No Spoof
Sirs:
"As everyone knows," I've been in the coffee business 40 years and always believed the par value of Brazilian milreis to be about 27d. English, or 54c U. S. Webster's New International confirms (p. 434).
TIME, Nov. 29, p. 17, col. 2 says par value 32.45c. Now I read TIME a lot and depend on you fellows for facts, not fiction, and I don't want you to be spoofing. . . .
F. T. NUTT JR.
Hamilton Club Brooklyn, N. Y.
TIME never spoofs. Let Original Subscriber Nutt consult The United States Department of Commerce Yearbook for 1925, p. 607; and read under Brazil, "Currency and Exchange Monetary unit, milreis; par $0.3244." TIME referred to the only Brazilian monetary unit in common circulation, or quoted in international exchange, or mentioned in the Department of Commerce Yearbook: the paper milreis.
There exist, however, chiefly in museums, a few examples of the metallic milreis, doubtless referred to by Original Subscriber Nutt. --ED.
Apology Requested
Sirs: . . . Being of Western birth, I cannot allow the wonders of the far West to go unheralded. Was it too much of an effort on your part to make mention, and include in the list of the world's tallest structures, the L. O. Smith Building in Seattle, Wash., a 42-story structure? . . . L. E. Null Springfield, Mass.
Sirs: Please note that the American Insurance Union Citadel of 38 stories attained the height of 360 feet, May, 1926, at Columbus, Ohio, is the highest building in the world outside New York City, and could also be included in list of skyscrapers in TIME, Dec. 13. WENDELL KOCH
Columbus, Ohio
Sirs:
In TIME, Dec. 13, (p. 20, ART), you gave a list of the largest buildings in the United States. I would like to say that here, right here in Cincinnati, is a building, namely the Union Central Life Insurance Building, which is 34 stories and 495 feet above street level. It belongs in the list more than the Straus, Tribune or Wrigley Buildings as it tops the tallest by at least 20 feet. Please apologize for this omission. You know how one roots for his home town.
Louis Arnold Feder
Cincinnati, Ohio
The Chicago Tribune is published in a building 462 feet in height. --ED.
Should Be Told
In TIME. Dec. 13, you refer to Atlanta as "The Gateway to the South." Caps quoted and everything.
As everyone should know, Louisville carries that line as its slogan. Roosevelt gave it that title in 1905 and it has since been used extensively in our advertising.
Might as well say Hell Gate is entrance to your famed Manhattan as to say Atlanta was a southern gateway.
TIME'S 154,000 of that issue should be told!
HARRY R. KETTIG, M. D.
Louisville, Ky.
Onnounce
Sirs: Under THE PRESS (TIME, Dec. 13) the article on Musa-Shiya the Shirtmaker caused us to smile again--and to chuckle too, for a second time. . . Your news item is three years late, as we know it. ... TIME is usually ahead of that record--so we'll not deliver unto you--such as you deliver, or send to your staff, one of your "thoroughgoing rebukes. . . ." Here is the copy of one of the Musa-Shiya advertisements referred to above: This very nice advertisement Onnounce Out of Musa Shiya the Shirtmaker (Also Many Dry Good Selling) Foulard This croth are favorable of ladies because hot wether now and erectric wind machine. Because hot wether Musa-shiya Shop selling in reduced of price all next week. Come before and obtain service until exhausted. HOW FINDING:--Do not find Musa-shiya Shop until pass away in front Famous Fish Market where makai side King Street. After pass away from Fish Market kinely observe for River but not going there. This shop between this place. Sign say so. This very nice advertisement. J. H. FRIEDMAN
New York, N. Y.
*A misquotation. Doubtless Subscriber Simpson refers to Luke XII: 6, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God," or Matthew X: 29, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father."--ED.