Washington's Religion
Sirs:
Your reference to George Washington in TIME, Oct. 20, exhibits an ignorance of the subject, or a trustful credulity in the inspiration of the professional debunkers, either of which is unworthy of TIME. Washington was a life-long church member and for 20 years a vestryman. He lacked confirmation, as did practically all members of the Church of England in the American colonies, since no English Bishop ever came to them; and he was not disposed late in life to seek a rite without which he had always maintained full church membership. Attendance upon church-services was his established and regular habit, rather than an infrequent practice, as you imply. The statement that "he was never known to pray in church" is a gratuitous assumption and a slur upon his sincerity as a participant in public worship. What would you expect him to do--interrupt the preacher and offer to lead the congregation aloud in prayer ?
It was not Washington's habit to kneel in public prayer; but that was not because he did not believe in prayer or share in the prayers of the group, as you imply; it was because standing in prayer was the common practice of his day. He did not commune at Christ Church, Philadelphia, according to a statement of the rector, Bishop White. The possible reasons for Bishop White's statement, and its lack of evidential value as to Washington's general practice, were commented upon by Bishop Meade. There is quite as unimpeachable testimony that Washington did partake of the Communion, both before and after the period to which White referred.
The most inexcusable of your blunders is that which calls Washington a Deist, and likens him in this respect to Thomas Paine, then goes on to insinuate that Washington lent his influence to the perpetuation of religion in spite of this assumed fact, because he was an "able politician." This is to brand Washington a hypocrite. There are many pages in his public addresses and messages which no Deist could sincerely have written. Take, for example, the passage in his message to the governors of the States when disbanding the army, June 8, 1783, beginning "I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his Holy protection. . . ." To assert, however indirectly, that this and the multitude of similar references to God, to prayer, and to Divine Providence, together with his interest in the Church, were all mere matters of political policy, is to attribute to Washington a monumental insincerity which is unbelievable in the absence of any real evidence to support that view of his behavior.
LUTHER A. WEIGLE
Yale Divinity School,
New Haven, Conn.
Thomas Jefferson said: "Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his [Washington's] secrets, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system [Christianity] than he himself did." [Morris was an atheist.] Jefferson also said: "When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from Government it was observed, in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian Religion."-- Quoted in The True George Washington, by Paul Leicester Ford, no de-bunker.
William Roscoe Thayer, no de-bunker, in his George Washington, wrote: "Washington's religious beliefs have occasioned much controversy. If we accept his own statements, at their plain value, we must regard him as a Church of England man. I do not believe that he was in any sense an ardent believer. He preferred to say 'Providence' rather than 'God' probably because it was less definite. He attended divine service on Sundays. . . . But for a considerable period at one time of his life he did not attend communion. . . . While he had imbibed much of the deistic* spirit of the middle of the 18th century, it would be inaccurate to infer that he was not fundamentally a Christian."
Washington himself avoided publicly declaring his religious convictions.--ED.
Ships & Whistles
Sirs:
This is the second time that I have taken occasion to call your attention to the inaccurate and lubberly character of your ship news. In TIME, Oct. 24, under MISCELLANY, one reads of boats and boat horns where should appear ships and their whistles.
Ships are not boats; they carry boats.
Ships' whistles are not foghorns.
Otherwise you are always pleasing to your original subscriber
W. P. CRONAN,
Captain, U. S. Navy, Retired
San Diego, Calif.
Principal Rapped
Sirs:
I quote from p. 2, Oct. 24 issue of TIME:
"But for God's sake leave out the Fashion Sheet Page."
All this by V. M. Rogers, who signs himself "High School Principal."
Might I suggest two things?
1) For "goodness sake" TIME--leave out the "For God's sake" stuff--even if sent by a "High" School Principal.
2) For "goodness sake" V. M. Rogers, High School Principal, read more of Angelo Patri's writings, a real principal who will undoubtedly acquaint you with the first principle of being a good Principal, is not to be so crude. Your students undoubtedly read your criticism of the Fashion Sheet Page, but because of your method of extortion have less ground for favorable respect, which a "Principal" must, or should, always enjoy--but never gains, by dominating, as your phraseology suggests.
FRANK A. RAPP
Boston, Mass.
Davis Exhibit
Sirs:
Our attention has been called to your statement ( TIME, Oct. 17, p. 37) as follows:
"No longer at the shows, are Davis, Roamer and Rickenbacker."
We are very much surprised to note that you have taken the authority to make this statement without our authority to do so. Furthermore, we think you have done us a very great injustice. . . .
We will appreciate an explanation from you on this subject.
It is true that we have not as yet selected space at either the New York or Chicago shows. That is no indication, however, that we will not exhibit our new models both in New York and Chicago.
We will expect you to rectify this statement in your next issue of TIME, calling our attention to it accordingly.
GEORGE W. DAVIS
President
George W. Davis Motor Car Co.
Richmond, Ind.
Members of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, which manages the New York and Chicago automobile shows, could get exhibition space there if they applied before Oct. 1. George W. Davis Motor Car Co. (at Richmond, Ind.), Roamer Motor Car Co. (at Kalamazoo, Mich.) and Rickenbacker Motor Co. (at Detroit) are members of the chamber.
Up to last week no application to exhibit or other word had reached the chamber from the Davis company. By Oct. 1 Rickenbacker had definitely refused to exhibit,* and President A. C. Barley had asked to display only a truck. Later he wanted to display a $7,500 passenger car. But he was too tardy.
If Davis decides that they want to exhibit at New York and Chicago, they must wait, as must Roamer, for some assigned automobile manufacturer to surrender space already allotted him. That eventuality is slight this year, said National Automobile Chamber of Commerce last week.--ED.
Medals
Sirs:
This Bureau has recently been in receipt of requests for presidential medals and with those requests we are receiving one dollar.
As your magazine has been quoted, it is apparent that an erroneous statement has inadvertently been published by you. [TIME, Oct. 10].
I am taking the liberty of calling your attention to this matter in the hope that you may overtake the misunderstanding created concerning the presidential medals. These medals are for sale at the United States Mint at Philadelphia, Pa., at $1 each plus postage. We cannot send these medals under frank. The medals are not issued from Washington. . . .
R. J. GRANT
Director of the Mint
Treasury Department
Washington, D.C.
For cash or money order (not personal checks) payable to "Superintendent of the Mint," citizens may obtain from the U. S. Mint at Philadelphia, besides presidential medals, many another bronze medal including the following, at the following prices (not counting postage):
ARMY MEDALS PRICES
Washington (before Boston) $2.00
Brig. Gen. Morgan (for Cowpens) 1.50
Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne (for Stony Point) 1.50
Maj. Gen. Macomb (Battle of Plattsburgh) 1.50
NAVY MEDALS
John Paul Jones (for Serapis) 1.50
Capt. Perry (Lake Erie) 1.50
Cornelius Vanderbilt 2.00
John Horn (life saving) 1.00
Departure of U. S. Fleet 1.00
MISCELLANEOUS MEDALS
Emancipation Proclamation 1.00
Wright Brothers 1.00
Lincoln & Grant .15
"Let Us Have Peace" (Grant) 1.00
GEORGE WASHINGTON MEDALS
"Time increases his fame" .25
Allegiance .25
Washington & Lincoln .15
Medals of eleven Secretaries of the Treasury from Alexander Hamilton to Andrew W. Mellon are also obtainable; and of 15 Directors of the Mint, from David Rittenhouse to Correspondent (see above) R. J. Grant.-- ED.
Sixteen Senators
Sirs:
It was with much satisfaction that I saw Senator Bingham's letter in TIME, Nov. 7, for this showed what I had long hoped was the case -- that I have chosen as my source of news information the periodical to which busy and important people are subscribing. I am old, retired, and unimportant. I have all the time in the world to read all the magazines and newspapers in the world. But I don't. I take my TIME and save my time. It is comforting to find that an old brain is not so cracked but what it still knows a really good thing when it sees one. What is good enough for the Senators is good enough for me.
HIRAM WINTERSLEB
New York, N. Y.
By no means all the 96 U. S. Senators subscribe to TIME. In fact, only 16 do. They are Senators: L. C. Phipps (Colorado), Hiram Bingham (Connecticut), Thomas F. Bayard (Delaware), T. Coleman du Pont (Delaware), Daniel F. Steck (Iowa), Arthur Capper (Kansas), Fred M. Sackett (Kentucky), William Cabell Bruce (Maryland), Harry B. Hawes (Missouri), Henry W. Keyes (New Hampshire), Walter E. Edge (New Jersey), Royal S. Copeland (New York), David A. Reed (Pennsylvania, Jesse H. Metcalf (Rhode Island), Peter Norbeck (South Dakota), Morris Sheppard (Texas).-- ED.
Christmas Gifts
Sirs:
I'm contemplating giving about six subscriptions of TIME for Christmas gifts and I am wondering just what discount you give on this many subscriptions.
I believe one year I sent in three and got the subscriptions for $4.
Will you let me have a line from you on this?
It may be that I shall completely confine my gift-giving to TIME. I am so well satisfied with it myself that I feel I want to pass it on to others.
MARY H. DERBYSHIRE
Chicago, Ill.
TIME's special Christmas gift rates: 2 subscriptions for $8, 3 for $12, 4 for $15, additional subscriptions $3.75.
Miss Derbyshire's 6 gifts will cost $22.50. Each of her six friends will receive on Christmas day a greeting card announcing her gift. Christmas gift subscriptions start with the Dec. 26 issue (published Dec. 23) unless contrary instructions are given.
If a gift subscription duplicates a present subscription, subscribers will be notified. Orders for gift subscriptions for friends in foreign countries should be mailed early to TIME's Circulation Department, Penton Bldg., Cleveland, Ohio.--ED.
Carrier Menjou
Sirs:
I see this in Ralph Wilk's colyum, "A Little from 'Lots' " in the Film Daily: "Our Passing Show: Adolphe Menjou carrying a copy of TIME. . . ."
EDWARD F. STEVENSON
New York, N. Y.
Dolts Flayed
Sirs:
A word on "dolts-in-the-mountains." Your paragraph (TIME, Sept. 5) was excellent. (Mr. Miller [TIME, Oct. 10] to the contrary.) I am a mountaineer, also a life pupil in Luther Burbank's "University of Nature"; know the Grand Canyon, too. Have had opportunity to observe thousands of people as They drank in, individually, some of Nature's great spectacles.
While quite natural to exclaim "wonderful," etc., these words are almost always uttered in such a matter-of-course tone that they ring shallow in one's ears. The true Nature lover often worships effectively without exclaiming. If he does use "wonderful," etc., he puts his soul into the words so that he is instantly recognized above the dolts.
I'm glad to pass on to you the enclosures, by John Muir and James Russell Lowell.
G. H. KNOWLES
North Woodstock, N. H.
The summer idlers take their yearly stare,
Dress to see Nature in a well bred way,
As 't were Italian opera or play.
Encore the sunrise (if they're out of bed)
And pat the Mighty Mother on the head:
These I have seen--all things are good to see--
And wondered much at their complacency.
This world's great show, that took in getting up
Millions of years--they finish ere they sup;
Sights that God gleams through with soul tingling force
They glance approvingly as things of course,
Say, "that's a grand rock," "this a pretty fall,"
Not thinking, "are we worthy?" What if all
The scornful landscape should turn 'round and say,
"This is a fool, and that a popin jay?"
I often wonder what the mountain thinks
Of French boots creaking o'er his breathless brinks.
Or how the sun would scare the chattering crowd
If some fine day he chanced to think aloud.
--JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL
"All sorts of human stuff is being poured into our Valley (Yosemite) this year, and the blank, fleshly apathy with which most of it comes in contact with the rock and water spirits of the place, is most amazing. . . ."
--JOHN MUIR
Mrs. McQueen
Sirs:
I have been reading your magazine for some time now and continue to be delighted with it. It is the finest of its kind. Your paragraphs are pithy, artfully selected, and delightfully interesting. I enjoy glancing over the comments and criticisms contained in your Forum* Dept. May TIME continue so Timely.
One little correction: under "Scouts" of the Oct. 24 Issue, Mrs. J. J. McQueen was reported as being rescued by Ross Smith at Mendota, Va. Her initials are Mrs. V E McQueen. She lives here in Damascus and is a personal friend. The above may appear rather petty but furnishes an excuse for an expression that I have been wanting to make for some time.
Assured of your continued success, I am
M.S. KINCHELOE (Pastor)
Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
Damascus, Va,
To Reader Kincheloe all thanks No detail, least of all detail of initials, by which one person, is distinguished from another, is consid- ered by TIME as "too petty" to try to print correctly.--ED.
"Nation" Flayed
Sirs:
Will you be so good as to explain to me what earthly value as news the article concerning Mr. John Coolidge on p. 9 of your Oct. 17 issue has?
Has your editorial staff no higher news source than that mudslinging, fire-eating, ranting-red* Nation? A magazine no true American would allow inside its door, no, not even as a help to start the kitchen fire a cold winter morning.
If you are going to copy that magazine's malicious gossip in your TIME you may take my name from your lists.
For some time I have not liked your attitude toward President Coolidge and his family a sort of thinly veiled satire which has been neither interesting nor amusing to patriots, but perhaps you were seeking to please the readers of such backstairs gossip sheets as you quote.
I have recommended TIME to my friends far and wide and today I am ashamed to have done so.
REBECCA S. H. PENNOCK
Syracuse, N. Y.
TIME reports facts, eschews satire. When John Coolidge was assigned a private detective at Amherst again this autumn, TIME considered the event insignificant and so omitted it. When the Nation flayed John Coolidge & detective, TIME considered that event sufficiently extraordinary to bear reporting. The Nation said: ... Are we to wind up by charging the American people for a nurse for Calvin Coolidge's fourth cousin's baby girl Gwendolyn or a veterinary for his wife's great aunt's pet poodle Trixie?"--ED.
"Shoulders to the Helm"
Sirs:
. . . In the early summer you published an article (TIME, May 16) about professionalism at Hamilton Holt's (graduate of Yale) Rollin's College, Fla., and ... referring to Miami University as a product of the real estate development, at present occupying a building covering a regular sized city block, that had been planned for a hotel. . . .
As President of the Miami Harvard Club and vice president of the Miami Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club, I could not help but feel a little resentful, as our two clubs have tried to act as "big brothers" to the student body.
In discussing your article with President Bow man Ashe at a recent meeting of the Lion's Club, he admitted that last year, being the first year of the University and having only a Freshman Class of about 500, (total students nearly 1,000) the University was not recognized as having the standing he hoped to have it-- and is getting this year. The Lion's club here has established a loan fund to help worthy students through, and have two student speakers at every meeting, each week.
The regents of the University, such as Ruth Bryan Owen, Thomas Pancoast, George Merrick, August Geiger, etc., have met so many discouragements-- first the collapse of the boom with the subsequent broken promises of contributions, and last year the hurricane which temporarily broke the morale of many people who left the state discouraged.
But I am glad to inform you that those sturdy ones left behind, put their shoulders to the helm, and by dint of hard and honest effort, now have the satisfaction of seeing a larger student body enrolled than ever-- both a good sized freshman and a good sized sophomore class, with the various departments of the University, outside off the academic-- being in charge of splendid professors from various Northern Colleges.
The University football team was not defeated last year at all, neither here nor in Havana; and promises this year to be of even higher standards than last.
I believe I can honestly promise you that the future of Miami University is assured as they are going ahead with the building program as originally planned.
WM. McKiBBEN, M. D.
Miami, Fla.
Red Hot Poker
Sirs:
In TIME, Oct. 24, under the heading "Aeronautics," subheading "Wingless Victory," you gave a most engaging account of Ruth Elder's attempted trans-Atlantic flight. I was, however, a bit surprised to note the following statement concerning the rescue:
"Captain Goos tried to haul up the 'American Girl,' too, but gasoline ran over the hot engine, took fire. . . ."
One is led to believe that the high temperature of the engine ignited the gasoline. Please be advised that a red-hot poker may be quenched in an open pan of gasoline without causing the gasoline to ignite. It seems to me that the real cause of the unfortunate destruction of the "American Girl" has not been truthfully revealed.
I have admired your publication for its unusual accuracy in publishing facts. Why not try and get the facts in the foregoing case?
JACK B. SILVERMAN.
Cincinnati, Ohio
No Dormitories
Sirs:
Let TIME give a reporter a dime, bid him take the Broadway subway from Times Square to W. 135 street, walk northeast and east to 139 street and Amsterdam Ave. There he will find the College of the City of New York. There he will learn that the college offers tuition free (with certain exceptions) to all qualified students, residents of New York City. Thither from their homes in all quarters of the city by street car, subway, "L," or "shanks mare" students come. They live in no dormitories. Their fraternity houses are chiefly gathering places, club rooms. No janitors, but loving, self-sacrificing mothers, tidy up their bedrooms. Michael Bonney (TIME, Oct. 31, p. 30) probably never entered a college dormitory.
To most City College students, Michael Bonney as caught by a wideawake Wide World photographer, was the keeper of the keys. To him came student officers, fraternity committeemen seeking admission to rooms and halls where lectures, banquets, dances, initiations were to be held. Most prized of all privileges he dispensed was the use of the elevator that saved proud cavaliers the embarrassment of leading their ladies up many, slippery steps to the Webb Room on the fifth floor.
W.R. MACLEOD.
C.C.N.Y. '20
Washington & Jefferson College
Washington, Pa.
TIME erred, then, in saying that Janitor Michael Bonney of the College of the City of New York ". . . spent his time tidying bedrooms, . . . etc." Said Janitor Bonney last week: "We have no dormitories, but had there been any, I suppose they would have come under my jurisdiction. . . . It's the home influence that has made the boys behave and I'm glad of that because it's a good thing for them. . . . I've never been bothered by all this drinking in the colleges you hear about. . . . I've had lots of difficulties since I've been here and ups and downs but since the other night* I know how I'd like to do it all over again ... if only I could have my youth back again."--ED.
*Deism. Belief in existence of a personal God, with disbelief in Christian revelation, or with a purely rationalistic interpretation of Scripture; a form of theism." -- Webster.
*The company has been in receivership
*An error. TIME has no "Forum Dept.", only a section headed "Letters" ED.
*An error. Let Subscriber Pennock reread the political spectrum in TIME, Oct. 31, p. 10. Editor Oswald Garrison Villard of ' the Nation is classified as "Flesh" color, not "Red."-- ED.
*This was the night of a banquet tendered to Janitor Bonney (just resigned) by members of the faculty of the College of the City of New York.