59
Sirs:
I am sorry to think that I may be the "old gentleman" referred to by Mrs. Charles Phipps (Mary Pastor Phipps) in her letter to you, which I have just read in TIME.
I rode down on the subway reading a copy of TIME and got off at Wall Street recently. Since my age is but 59, I resent the implication of "old," if I really am the man seen by Mrs. Phipps.
ROBERT J. HIBBS
New York, N. Y.
Newsstand-buyer Hibbs is not the "old gentleman." Let him read below. -- ED.
Unblushing Gentleman
Sirs : I believe I must have been the old gentleman" whom Mrs. Charles Phipps (TIME, Feb. 14) recently saw on the subway reading a copy of TIME. Perhaps, however, I may set her right in the mistaken impression that I turned and spoke to a stranger at my side about the excellence of an article in TIME. The gentleman, Charles Edgar Bowdoin, is my colleague of many years. That we should have been mistaken for strangers to each other is indeed curious. Perhaps it may interest your readers to know that I was perusing the article "Birthday Party" under WOMEN, NATIONAL AFFAIRS, when I slapped my thigh in appreciation, as described by Mrs. Phipps. It was Alice Roosevelt's use of a safety pin, so decorously described by your writer, which caused me to exclaim thus. I may own to you frankly my pleasure at being considered "a most distinguished looking old gentleman", epistola enim non erubescit.*
ALEXANDER WILBERFORCE
New York, N. Y. Brother
Sirs:
I simply know by intuition that the nice old man Mrs. Phipps saw on the subway reading TIME was my brother. He is most distinguished looking, and he sits up very straight when he reads TIME or any other magazine or newspaper, just as Mrs. Phipps described him. Won't she write and say what he was wearing ?
MRS. MARY ELLISON BLACK
Morristown, N. J.
Is the name of the brother of Subscriber Mary Ellison Black, Alexander Wilberforce?--ED.
Hired Help
Sirs:
You consider yourselves smart magaziners, and I guess maybe you are; but I can see through this "Old Gentleman" game you are pulling now.
The "Old Gentleman" that Mrs. Charles Phips* saw on the subway was some of your hired help. . . .
K. J. KANT
Boulder, Col.
Good Women
Sirs:
There are "good women who will do anything for a "good cause"--anything from stealing for the Church to vamping Senators for the Anti-Saloon League.
The best that I can say for Mrs. Charles Phipps who wants you to put "fake" readers of TIME on all subways [TIME, Feb. 14] is that she is a "very good woman !"
Her concluding sentence "I am sure that many people would be led to subscribe in this way--to their own great pleasure and profit," made me want to tear my hair when I read it.
You can do nothing with such women! (I know from experience--but that is another story.) I warn you that if I ever find a fake TIME reader on the elevated here, he will be in the subway of some cemetery when I am finished with him. ROLF MARTIN BRUSH
Chicago, Ill.
Central west Sirs:
... If one old gentleman can create interest in TIME by reading it to himself on the New York subway, think what could be done in the Central West by a few genuine go-getters not afraid to shout out what they like on a bus. . . .
JOHN GARBO
Detroit, Mich.
Budget
Sirs:
That Mrs. Phipps sure gave you a good idea. I budgeted it out for fun last night, and am certain you could get a lot of cheap advertising by putting TIME decoys on the subway.
Have your men (and why not women too?) take their lunch in a package, and they could ride back and forth reading TIME conspicuously between Bowling Green and Brooklyn Bridge all day for a nickel.
You can get old men for $18 a week that could be dressed up to look like "distinguished" TIME readers. Then I suggest "old ladies," too, because they would cost only $12 a week, and you wouldn't have the expense of dressing them up, because most old ladies have some nice clothes put away somewhere and are fairly clean.
Why not hire a few "able" flappers, too? They might set you back $25 a week, but they would be worth it on top of a Fifth Avenue bus in warm weather, and around hotel lobbies during the winter.
I would budget weekly as follows:
Six old men @ $18...................................................... $108.00
Four old ladies @ $12.....................................................48.00
Three flappers @ $25 ....................................................75.00
Subway fare: old men @ 5-c- daily .... 2.10 Subway fare: old women @ 5c daily 1.40 Expenses of flappers @ $2 daily.... 42.00
Total $276.50
I assume that you pay about 50-c- per subscription to subscription getters. Fifty cents divided into $276.50 gives 553 new subscriptions per week as the minimum number to be inspired by the "decoys" in order to pay. They would be working a total of 1,092 hours a week (from 8 a. m. to 8 p.m.) and I am sure they could inspire at least one subscription each per hour. That would be at a cost to you of only 25c cash.
EMANUEL ("MANNY") COHN
New York, N. Y.
Newsstand-buyer Conn's suggestion is at variance with the public good and therefore will not be considered by TIME. If each and every one of the 25,000 periodicals in the U. S. should hire six old men, four old ladies and three "able" flappers to ride perpetually between Bowling Green and Brooklyn Bridge "reading conspicuously," the New York subway would become congested.--ED.
Now Red, Now Green
Sirs:
TIME in colors is a great improvement. It certainly looks good. (And, no doubt, it increases its advertising value.) Why not try alternating colors, making the cover margin now red, now green, now yellow, now blue, now other colors ?
E. KREUTZWEISER
Saskatoon, Sask. Canada
For the same reason that U. S. bank notes are not Issued "now red, now green, now yellow, now blue, now other colors." Dignity, stability are desired.--ED. No Business
Sirs:
On matters about which you can know nothing you have a way of jumping at conclusions which occasionally becomes intolerant.
"In New Haven, Conn, on Jan. 26, Richard Starr Untermeyer, 20, Yale sophomore, son of Poet-Critic Louis Untermeyer, read a letter from his mother (Poetess Jean Starr Untermeyer) deploring the repeated overdraft of his bank balance and telling him he must improve or leave college--and hanged himself."--TIME, Feb. 7.
One might ask with what divine insight TIME believes itself to be endowed that it can read the motives in the mind of a boy who takes his own life. Is it not enough for a mother to lose her son without being universally held up to light as the cause for the deed ? Her letter, written in the performance of motherly duty, in all probability had nothing to do with the case. At any rate, it does not fall upon you to judge. . . .
R. G. SHERMAN
New Hayen, Conn.
Subscriber Sherman is right. TIME had no business to "read the motives" of the Untermeyer case. --ED.
Fun in W. Va.
Sirs :
Your L. A. Sperling from Ohio in TIME, Feb. 14 thinks he's pretty funny making out West Virginia's a "slow" state. But all a gentleman can think after living his lifetime in West Virginia and hearing him talk is that Ohio must be just as bad as they say it is, full of depraved creatures, no account presidents, unjust laws, terrible climate and the Ohio "gang" (Forbes, Daugherty and worse). If he couldn't have fun on Sunday in West Virginia he couldn't have fun in Heaven, and he will never get there either.
GEORGE W. SANDS
Wheeling, W. Va.
FROM WGY
From WGY, Schenectady, N. Y., at 10:30 p. m. Eastern Standard Time, each Thursday night are broadcast eleven questions based on news of the week and specially prepared for WGY by TIME. Also are broadcast the eleven answers. The U. S. public is invited to "play the game"--i. e. to shout out the correct answers before the broadcaster does. There follow comments from members of the U. S. public.
"Know Your Onions"
Sirs:
Here's best regards to WGY staff. You certainly know your onions--enjoy your stuff very much. Will you send me copy of TIME ? Interested in that new game Mr. Kolin Hager is putting on the air. . . .
F, L. TAYLOR
Schaghticoke, N. Y.
Dumb about Judith
Sirs:
TIME'S current events is great. Score a win for us, 9% to 1%. ... We were dumb about Judith's* method of murder. . . .
Would appreciate a copy of TIME.
MR. & MRS. A. WICKE JR.
Albany, N. Y.
Nighthawks, Thugs
Sirs:
Was in on your questions last night and was on to all but two (2). The one on Judith I lost entirely, probably because I never made much of a study of that portion of the Book. The other was on why do the people object to the carillon* and I still think I was some way right on it. My answer was, "because they are not spiritual enough to desire the kind of music we usually get from that class of instrument." And don't you think if they were in harmony with those things they would be glad to have them ? . . . I would like to have more of things of the Kingdom and Jesus from your, and, my station, good old WGY. B. M. STEEL, P. M.
Pierrepont Manor, N. Y.
Were Having a Party
Sirs:
We were having a party in another part of the house last evening but when it was 10:30, nine of us listened to your questions. We were correct on 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7. ...
MRS. F. L. DARLING
South Londonderry, Vt.
*"For a letter does not blush."--ED. *An error, the name is "Phipps."--ED. "The question was: "How did Judith, the Biblical character, murder General Holofernes ?" And the answer: "Judith murdered General Holofernes by cutting off his head."--ED. *The question was: "Why do nighthawks, thugs, rich idlers and cabaret girls object strenuously to the Rockefeller carillon in New York and to the proposed Crane carillon in Chicago ?" And the correct answer: "Nighthawks, thugs, rich idlers, cabaret girls, etc., object to carillons because the carillons disturb their hard-earned Sunday morning slumbers."--ED.