Hot Airs

Sirs:

I find it once more my duty to correct your news and warn you about your editorial hot-airs. A year and a half ago you published some mistaken news or rather a rotten material about His Imperial Majesty, Reza Shah Pahlavi of Persia, the leader of our youth and a genius of his age. As a warning to you, I corrected your news and warned you to be careful with regard to the news concerning world figures, such as our most beloved leader is.

Now again in the Foreign News of Sept. 16 issue of your weekly trash on p. 25, under the news of "The League," I find an account of His Excellency Ali Khan Foroughi. Mr. Editor, I have the pleasure to notify your most mistaken honor (!) that Mr. Foroughi is not a prince; he is a world figure today, but he is not a prince. As a leader of the Persian nationalists, we glorify in him. much more so because, he has risen to an international figure, not with a royal ancestry but rather with ancestors who were commoners and he is a commoner today; but with national and international positions that are too exalted to be reached by mere Kings and Princes.

Secondly, Mr. Editor, I do not see any reason for a sound-minded editor to play with the personalities and looks of other people. If Mr. Foroughi has a bushy black beard, it is none of your confounded business. Did I or any other Persian ever tell you that you look like a monkey; no, because we do not care how you look. Did we ever say that your ex-president has a hooklike nose, or that your ambassador to Great Britain is usually conspicuous by his nose? No, that is none of our business; these matters though small, yet they create an international ill-feeling.

I glorify in American Government's endeavor to bring about world-peace and International brotherhood. You as an American intelligent, well-informed newspaper editor should follow the leadership of your national leaders, or else consider yourself unfit as an editor and keep your mouth shut.

A. K. DASHTI

New York City.

"The Arab Is a Man"

Sirs:

Eleven years ago today I was riding at the head of a squadron of Indian Cavalry past the ruins of an old Crusaders' fortress at Latron. The regiment was on its way to participate in what was probably the greatest mounted action in history, to drive the Turks out of Palestine.

For months, since leaving the battlefields of France, ten regiments of Silidar cavalry had sweated and suffered the tortures of the damned in the valley of the Dead Sea. Now we were moving by forced marches at night to be on time for Zero Hour, to have the honor of storming an entrenched position, to relieve the Jews of the onus of crusading on their own account.

Not far to the east of us was Lawrence with his Arabs. In the ditches as we marched past lay hundreds of Londoners and Indians of the 60th Division, some with their legs in the road and their heads in the ditch, twisted into ghastly contortions, utterly exhausted, racked with malaria and dysentery. With us marched our comrades of Allenby's Desert Mounted Corps, the many regiments of Australian Light Horse, regiments of lean gaunt men from whose lives pestilence had exacted more than wounds and trench warfare.

Through Nablus, Nazareth, Dera, Homs, Damascus, Aleppo, and north into what is now Turkey we stormed, cursing. Waterless and ridden to a standstill, our brave horses dropped dead one after another. Hundreds of wounded men were left on the field, without hope of being picked up, to starve, die of thirst, left to be tormented by clouds of mosquitoes and flies.

North into Aintab, "The City of a Million Graves," into Marasch we marched, to suppress the Armenian massacres. By now we were only one brigade strong, the rest had been left behind. The days of fighting were over at last, except for us. Finally even the Armenian situation was in hand, and for two years I, like so many others, found my way to hospital where I spent two more years of my life.

And now as I look back it seems strange to me that, in all those years and along all that awful trail, I should have served side by side with Arabs, British, Australians, French, Italians and Indians, but never with a Jew. Once in Cairo I met a Jew decorated with the Victoria Cross, and I shall never forget him; that man was a MAN. But where were the rest of his race? I expected to find at least a few of the many millions.

Gentlemen, the Arab is a Man. Let the Jew, if he must conquer Palestine, show the Arab his mettle. It is not enough for him to be a businessman and money maker-a colonizer must demonstrate his ability to outclass the native where the effect is most likely to be felt. The Arab is a warrior, and those of us who know him admire him for it. We are ready to take off our hats to the Jew, many of them are my friends already, but first let him prove his capacity to command the respect of the Arab at his own game. JAMES C. CRITCHELL-BULLOCK

P. S. I wonder if there are any white officers of the Indian Cavalry regiments who served in the D. M. C., in this country. . . . Could you find out?

Seattle, Wash.

Fascinating Character

Sirs:

In your section on Foreign news, Sept. 9 issue, you go into the Arabian-Hebrew situation in some detail. Have you, who are ordinarily more "ferrety" than the average newsmagazine, failed to wonder where one T. E. Lawrence is at this time?

It seems to me that I recall a recent issue of TIME stating that he was in North India; or thereabouts in Afghanistan, Hindustan, or Persia. A private in the Royal Flying Corps; at least so they say. It seems that he is in a very appropriate corner just now, to serve the British Empire. I wonder though, is he not a bit disappointed toward Feisal and Ibn Saud?

Can TIME really tell us where this fascinating character is, and what he is doing?

WALDO CHAMBERLIN Seattle, Wash.

Colonel T. E. Lawrence-now Aircraftsman A. C. Shaw with rank of private-legally changed his name, quixotically demanded and secured the demotion, suspected of having helped to topple King Amanullah of Afghanistan from his throne, was recalled from the Indo-Afghan border last January and publicly displayed in the House of Commons to prove that he was not somewhere else (TIME, Feb. n). The British Air Ministry declared that Private Shaw is still at Cattewater Air Station, near Southampton. There he is routed out at 6:30 a. m. daily, makes his bed, works till sundown as a mechanic on Royal Air Force planes, and at night either keeps up his Greek and archaeology or goes out for his favorite sport--- a roaring moonlight ride on his special Army racing motor cycle. Hero Shaw's mother has remarked: "I never could fathom Ned. He's always led a topsy-turvy life." -ED.

Houston's Hutcheson

Sirs:

In your current issue you note the appointment of August Vollmer of Chicago as adviser to the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. You failed to record the appointment at the same time of Hon. J. C. Hutcheson Jr. of Houston as adviser on Court Reform, a subject fully as important as police reform. . . . D. A. SIMMONS

Houston, Tex.

Golden Georgia

Sirs:

... I read with interest your prospectus of the coming magazine FORTUNE. I think that it will prove a success and am glad that such forces that send TIME to thousands of readers will back this new venture. . . .

As a native of North Georgia I am, of course, very interested in this section of the state, and really believe that there is untold possibility for wealth lying in the Blue Ridge mountains 15 miles north of Gainesville. Before the Civil War gold was mined in these mountains, especially around Dahlonega, in such quantities that the U. S. established a mint there (Dahlo-nega). All of the gold, it is assumed, was not mined, or even half of it. If outside wealth would place mines and miners with scientific means of extracting this valuable ore, I believe that the returns would warrant such a venture.

Besides gold other valuable minerals abound in North Georgia, such as clay for ceramic works, asbestos, etc.

I mention this in the hopes that FORTUNE will not overlook Georgia or North Georgia. . . .

CHARLES SANDERS, JR. The Gainesville Eagle Gainesville, Ga.

FORTUNE will not neglect Golden Georgia.-Ed.

Not for Prisoners

Sirs:

Several copies of your magazine are received at this office regularly. We have considered it a clean, readable magazine. We clip, however, from the Sept. 16 edition the inclosed ad. Not very good reading for prisoners. If it is to be your policy to accept advertising matter of that kind, it will be necessary for us to discontinue subscription to the magazine.

OSCAR LEE Warden

Wisconsin State Prison,

Waupun.Wis.

The "ad" was a report on You Can Escape, criminological book by Edward H. Smith (Macmillan, $2.50). Said TIME: "Presumably few convicts will be allowed to read the book."&-ED.

Charred Edges

Sirs:

Perhaps it would be of interest to you and your Newscasting service to know that a TIME special delivery and airmail envelope was one of three that arrived in St. Petersburg with the edges of the envelope charred from a fire which followed the crash of a Pitcairn airmail plane yesterday (Friday, Sept. 13) in Atlanta. The pilot was killed. However the Newscasting service came through on time, a tribute to the boys who fly the mail. . . .

R. H. ARMSTRONG

Station WSUN St. Petersburg, Fla.

Waiting Porto Ricans

Sirs:

In your issue of June 3 appeared an article entitled To Porto Rico, Roosevelt. You said:

"Porto Ricans, elated at getting a Presidents son to govern them, waited anxiously for him to get through hunting, help them obtain the full measure of cash (six millions) voted, etc." I do not think it is fair to say that of Porto Ricans. It would be fairer to say "Porto Ricans, elated at getting a President's son to govern them, waited anxiously for him to get through hunting and help them obtain a full self government and a better understanding from our northern cousins."

DR. E. LASSISE

Sabaa Grande, P. R.

The better to understand his southern cousins, Governor Roosevelt, now in the U. S., has been studying Spanish. But he says he will not try to make his inaugural speech in Spanish.-ED. M. K. T. Too

Sirs:

We note your comments regarding smoking in dining car, p. 12, your Sept. 9 issue and wish to state that if you have occasion to publish another article along this line that you are at liberty to include the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Lines as one of the railroads who now permit smoking in dining cars.

THOS. T. TURNER

Superintendent Dining Service Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. R. Co. Kansas City, Mo.