Lindbergh on Banking

Sirs:

Thanks for recalling to the public the attitude of Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. (my father) upon banking law. He was opposed to the system which has fostered the present great concentration of wealth in the hands of a small per cent of the population. According to the figures of the Federal Trade Commission, 1% of the people own 59% of the wealth, 13% own 90% and 87% own 10%. Half the national income returns to capital.

During the last few years bank failures have become common, the number mounting into the hundreds in Minnesota alone. I am familiar with homes where after a lifetime of hard work, people are forced to live on the small allowance available from the poor fund. I know mothers who are supporting several children on a sum of $15 or $20 a month from the same fund. I know how they are housed and clothed and what rents they pay, but imagination balks when confronted with how they keep warm and what they eat.

We do need a revision of the banking laws and we also need a revision of what constitutes general prosperity.

EVA A. LINDBERGH CHRISTIE

Red Lake Falls, Minn.

No Speechmaker

Sirs:

The following account is of an incident which occurred ... on board the U.S.S. Texas, Flagship. It was reported from Balboa, Canal Zone on Feb. 9.

"Every week on the Texas is full of interesting activities and almost every week brings some unusually important visitor. During the past 12 months three Presidents, a large number of cabinet members and foreign diplomats have visited the Texas. Just about sunset last Wednesday, Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, the famous Flying Colonel, came aboard. The Colonel had dinner with Admiral Wiley, Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Fleet, and after dinner attended the movies. When the Colonel appeared at the movies 'All Hands' gave him a good hand. The Colonel waved his hand but begged off when asked to make a speech, saying 'I am not much of a speech maker.' We were all honored and pleased to have this splendid young man on board."

M. M. WlTHROW

Lexington, Va.

Noble Cyrano

Sirs:

In your issue for March 4, you say, "Walter Hampden, whose heart is on nobler things, offered Rostand's sentimental hero to the sentimental U. S. Public." Allow me to say that there is no nobler thing than Cyrano. WM. LYON PHELPS

Yale University New Haven, Conn.

TIME Advts.

Sirs:

Recently I made a bet with a friend of mine that TIME had made the greatest advertising progress of any magazine in the U. S. during the past year.

Will you tell me if I am mistaken in saying that TIME made the largest increase last year of any U. S. publication? I've got $100 or theatre and dinner for six on this. . . .

T. GREGORY MASON

Boston, Mass.

Subscriber Mason wins, if he shrewdly bet on pages, not lines of advertising. TIME'S increase in lineage for 1928 was a little better than 20%, in number of pages a larger increase than any other U. S. magazine. In number of lines, Colliers, having a larger page, beat TIME by a small margin. During January and February of 1929, TIME'S lineage increased about 75% over 1928.--ED.

What Smith Did Sirs: I am surprised and disgusted with TIME. You tell all about what Boris, the big Serb, did on March 4, but not one word do you give about the other man who if half a million votes had been ort the other side of the fence would have been the big show on March 4. . . .

What was Al Smith doing while Hoover was swearing in? You call yourself a News-Magazine! You had better get a new nose for news. If you keep on like this you can either cancel my subscription or take me on as an editor.

PARKER H. ROSE

Passaic, N. J.

On March 4, Alfred Emanuel Smith stayed in bed till 10 a.m. at West Palm Beach, Fla. Cornered by newsgatherers he said, "Well, I'd forgotten the date. It is really March 4 now, isn't it? No, I don't think I shall tune in. What I want to do is shoot some golf." Asked if he had sent a message to Mr. Hoover, he answered, "Why should I bother him to read a telegram from me? I called on him a while ago personally and gave him my good wishes." Out on the golf course while the inauguration was going on he ejaculated, "This is the life!"--ED.

Blue Butter, A'Stutter Sirs:

It's a nose, it's a Nose, it's a NOSE!

For long and long and longer than long or longer, three biscuits small not tall but small, I held and yelled and held the notion not nationally, but notionally that Gertrude Stein, the Stein of Steins, not a beer stein, perhaps a holstein, was not real, unreal, really.

Now you tell me, I tell you you tell me, this queen of literary loobies, lowns, hoddy-noddies and gowks, is actually, factually, crackedually a person alive, a doughty person alive, and her picture, structure, you publish.

Blue butter, a'stutter, a'flutter, no mutter, no matter, no clatter, that picture, that stricture gives rise, not wisely but unwisely, to the crack, to the smack, fee-fi-io-flack, It's a nose, it's a Nose, it's a NOSE!

For which, hitch, ditch, bitch, snitch and kitch, kitchy-koo, cranks will give thanks, thankfully thanks will be given by cranks, to you, toodle-oo, pooh.

Post-Enquirer TOM LENNON

Oakland, Calif. Town Admirers

Sirs: In TIME, Feb. 25, I read Henry J. Weeks' letter, headed "Admires own Form." Later in a newspaper I read the following: 1st Flapper--I believe my vanity is getting the best of me. 2nd Flapper--Why? 1st Flapper--Because I'm always standing before a mirror. 2nd Flapper--That is not vanity, that's imagination. You might call this a coincident. A.M. OMDAHL

Jamestown, N. Dak.

Ticket for Weeks?

Sirs:

Henry J. Weeks, Feb. 25, admires own form, calls France, Germany, Great Britain "real nations" and us "culls."

But he is not all wet. I actually am a "meddling Methodist." For instance, I would like to call his attention to the healthy growth of Christianity and compare it with the present condition of the erstwhile bloody amphitheatres of the Old Romans and the rotten civilization (?) which supported them.

The sunset over the hills of Valley Forge this afternoon was by far more beautiful than the combined charms of. "Zig's" gallery or perhaps even Hank himself.

Personally I'd like to head a subscription list of us culls to buy a ticket to Europe, permitting Mr. Weeks to enjoy the rest of his life in a real nation.

V. M. MlTTLEFEHLDT

Syracuse, N. Y.

Do other "culls" wish to subscribe with Cull Mittlefehldt to deport Henry J. Weeks? Would Henry J. Weeks accept a ticket?--ED. Ex-Buck Sirs: If the ex-Y-Tycoons; real, semi and pseudo, say they gave away 26 million francs and won the war, that's that. All you ex-bucks who believe it, stand on your head. I neither recollect nor have I ever heard of any buck who ever received, gratis, anything from the Y except -- --. He got lots of that. In fact he has heard this brand of F. S. Edmonds and F. H. Jamison overseas and ever since. Same old songs of self-pity and sacrifice, patting their selves on the back because they have records to show they spent two dollars on a soldier. Compiling the records was clever and their other stories are as interesting as Hans C. Andersen's but, like the latter's, was meant for children. Why study mass-psychology to find out why --Obscenity deleted. the Y charged six francs for cigarettes when the army canteen across the street charged five? At Montfalcon they even charged a wounded man (stretcher case) for cigarettes and by God he had to pay before he got them--correction, a shavetail did the paying; the buck didn't have any pants. F. Palmer and the Inspector-General know which side their bread is buttered on and the A. E. F. buck private knows his Y. And to those of you who know neither I'll leave the final verdict. BARNEY HOLLIS

An ex-3rd Div. buck private Detroit, Mich.

Let the Buck v. Y controversy now cease. TIME will publish no more letters thereanent. The score of letters thus far published is: anti-Y, 2; pro-Y, 2. No "final verdict" will ever satisfy both Ys and Bucks.--ED.

Blameless Elaine Sirs:

In the issue of TIME of Jan. 28, there is this with reference to the ratification by the U.S. Senate of the Kellogg Treaty:

"The Senate passed the treaty with but one opposing vote, that of Senator John J. Elaine, Progressive Republican of Wisconsin. Two days later he was soundly rebuked by the Wisconsin legislature." This last statement is false. The Wisconsin Legislature did nothing of the kind. True, a resolution was introduced in the Wisconsin Senate to that effect. But reference to pages 193-194 of the Senate journal, herewith enclosed, will show that when the resolution came up for consideration, it was killed by a unanimous vote, including the vote of the Senator who introduced the resolution. . . .

JOHN E. CASHMAN

Senator ist Wisconsin District Washington, D.C.

Moses, Noah & Wilson

Sirs:

You were unduly prejudiced during the campaign. I hope you say something favorable about Hoover next week. Like Paul, the Happy Warrior perhaps fought a good fight, kept his faith, but he surely finished his course. Let's hope there is laid up for him a crown of righteousness.

When St. Peter introduced Moses and Noah to the late arrival "who made the world safe for democracy," Wilson said: "When I look down upon the world I see hosts of Hooverites and Critics everywhere vigorously voicing their loss of faith in democracy and the democratic party in particular."

Moses, who saved the Chosen People, said: "Woodrow, when you are as old as I you will not worry about democrats any more than I do about the Klu Klux Klan."

"But look what they are doing to my fourteen points."

"Yes, but think what they have done to my ten commandments."

Noah stroked his patriarchal beard thoughtfully: "Woodrow, if you were to live on earth again and there was another big flood what five democrats would you take into the Ark?"

Wilson replied: "I would not save Al Smith or Raskob; in fact I think I would let them all drown."

0. C. SELL

Niles, Mich. ("No mean city")

Let Raconteur Sell, or any person, state wherein TIME was "prejudiced during the campaign."--ED. Ives, Luboschez, Sheppard Sirs:

The statement on p. 56 of TIME for Feb. 25 that the Progress Medal of the Royal Photographic Society has been awarded to only two U.S. citizens is not correct.

In 1903 the Progress Medal was awarded to F. E. Ives of Philadelphia for his work in three-color photography; and in 1923, to N. E. Luboschez, who, although he was living in England at the time, was an American citizen. If these names are added to those of Alfred Stieglitz and George Eastman, it has thus been awarded to four American citizens. In addition to these, in 1928 the medal was awarded to Dr. S. E. Sheppard, who, although a British subject, has carried on the greater part of the researches for which the medal was awarded in Rochester, N. Y. C. E. K. MEES

Director, Research Laboratory Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, N.Y.

And another Progress Medalist is Director Charles Edward Kenneth Mees of the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratory; in 1913, for work done in his native England. Medalist Sheppard is the man who discovered that "if the cows didn't eat mustard plant, we could have no movies" --a trace of sulphur compound in gelatine being essential to the speed of silver halide reactions in photography.--ED. Harding's Portrait

Sirs:

"All the Presidents except Harding hang somewhere in the White House" (TIME, March 4).

It may be that I am very much "uninformed," but I'd like to know why no portrait of Harding hangs in the White House. Has such a portrait ever hung there? Is there any reason why one should not hang there? Has his picture been baned from the White House just as, according to some reports, it was banned from Republican Headquarters throughout the country, during the recent presidential campaign? Does TIME know? Will TIME tell?

D. A. LANE, JR. Institute, W. Va. President Harding's portrait is not "banned" legally or officially. Why it does not hang, TIME cannot tell.--ED. Deserts Sirs:

I am pleased to see TIME getting its deserts in an article by Mark Sullivan. He said, speaking of estimates of Calvin Coolidge, "One of the best of the current summaries was printed last week in the periodical TIME." He also spoke of your epigram "In a great day of yes-men, Calvin Coolidge was great no-man."

In the interests of giving Calvin Coolidge his deserts you should have left the hyphen out of that last word.

E. B. H. WILTS

Washington, D. C.

Democrat Wilts is disrespectful.--ED. Road to Mt. Weather

Sirs:

Under The Presidency, TIME, Feb. 25, you mention the proposal to convert Mount Weather, Va., into a weekend retreat for future presidents. You state that this property is 55 miles from Washington "over fair dirt roads." This is news to your readers who live on the main road between these points and who travel daily over the paved State highway which covers the greater part of the distance. Between Leesburg, county seat of Loudoun County, and Bluemont at the foot of the mountain, there remain a few short stretches of "fair dirt roads" broken by stretches of paving through the villages. We venture the prophecy that by the time Mount Weather is fitted for Presidential occupancy the White House chauffeur will have to go out of his way to find a mudpuddle even after a summer thunder shower. TIME'S road map is out of date. WELLS A. SHERMAN

Original Subscriber Who lives by the side of the road McLean, Va.

What God?

Sirs:

Have just read Mr. John C. Wright's NEW HYMN in Feb. 18 TIME (p.6).

A most extraordinary hymn: blood, armies, fame, and glory: with the Creator omitted. May I ask to what god this hymn is dedicated?