Immortal Wilson
SIRS:
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL JUDGE CORRECTLY BETWEEN FRIENDLY PITKINS CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE INFORMATION TIME OCT 7 AND THAT OF MR TUMULTY IN A POSITION TO KNOW MOST INTIMATELY REGARDING THE IMMORTAL WILSON WHO CREATED MOST OF HIS ENEMIES BY HIS ABILITY TO JUDGE BETWEEN FORWARD LOOKING MEN AND THOSE OF THE OPPOSITE TYPE IT IS SURPRISING THAT MANY WONDER IF COLLEGE PROFESSORS ARE REALLY UNDER PAID STOP
J. E. O'BRIEN
WHEELING, W. VA.
Resolution
Sirs:
When I read about your new advertisement policy in a recent issue, I was cheered to learn that TIME'S management, more courageous than most publishers, had decided to limit the amount of advertising matter. As I recall it, you said you would in the future restrict the newsmagazine to 80 pages. You can imagine what I thought of your courage when I opened the Oct. 7 issue and found the last page numbered 84. Have you . . . "weaseled"?
B. F. SODERBERG
St. Louis, Mo.
On p. 57 of the Sept. 16 issue, TIME published the following: "Until the end of 1930, no issue of TIME will exceed 80 pages plus cover and color inserts." The Oct. 7 issue, numbering 84 pages, included a four-page color insert.--ED.
Storey on Air
Sirs: . . . [In reference] to the picture of myself and my opinion of air transportation (TIME, Sept. 23).
The article does not reflect exactly the thought I had in mind . . . but in the main it is accurate. I believe there will be considerable travel by airplane by those who are curious and those who wish to have the experience of the trip. In the end, however, the travel by this means will settle down to those who have urgent business and are willing to pay the extra price for speed. Last year the Santa Fe handled an average of 12,400 passengers per day on its trains. It might lose several hundred of these to airplanes and not be affected seriously. The increased travel by rail due to the growth of the country would probably make up for any loss such as this. The airplane certainly will not affect us in the same degree that the automobile has done. In 1920 we handled approximately 15,000,000 passengers--in 1928 approximately 4,500,000-- the decrease being due entirely to automobile and bus. In the case of the automobile its greater flexibility and convenience is responsible for its vogue--in the case of the bus the cheaper fares. Neither reason will apply to the airplane.
W. B. STOREY
President
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway System
Chicago, Ill.
Lanny-yap
Sirs:
TIME'S use of "lagniappe'' (Sept. 23, p. 13), easily a dollar's worth of word and unfortunately not included in many abridged dictionaries, recalls Mark Twain who, in Life on the Mississippi reported pickling up an excellent word, worth traveling to New Orleans to get--"a nice, limber, impressive, handy word--'Lagniappe.' They pronounce it lanny-yap.
"It is Spanish--so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune the first day (in New Orleans); heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth.
"It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's dozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant buys something in a shop--or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I know-- he finishes the operation by saying:
" 'Give me something for lagniappe.'
"The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the governor--I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.
"When you are invited to drink--and this does occur now and then in New Orleans--and you say, 'What again? No, I've had enough,' the other party says, 'But just this one more--this is for lagniappe.' When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the lady's countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg pardon, no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for lagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill of coffee down the back of your neck, he says, 'F'r lagniappe, sah,' and gets you another cup without extra charge."
GEORGE L. MOORE
Wellesley Hills, Mass.
Scripps-Howard's Barnes
Sirs:
Last May you were good enough to make special inquiry as to whether I contemplated entering journalism. I told you that as soon as I could make any statement I would give you the information. I am to be associated with the Scripps-Howard Syndicate as editorial writer and investigator. . . .
This will be an experimental connection for a year. If I make good I shall leave the teaching profession for a field of wider usefulness. I may say that this has nothing to do with my connections with Smith College. I am on permanent appointment there and am this year on regular sabbatical leave. If I enter journalism permanently it will be because I find it more interesting than teaching.
HARRY ELMER BARNES
New York, N. Y.
Architect Wright
Sirs:
Your article Genius, Inc. in TIME, Oct. 7th, gives, I believe, an impression of my father's present position in architecture which is incorrect. The caption "Who's Who dropped him" together with the last sentence on the page "Twenty years ago his reputation in architecture was world wide'' and your failure tn mention any of his more recent achievements would indicate that he is something of a has-been.
His present international reputation is too secure to require defending by me or anyone else and you will find it very .largely based on buildings which he has created within the past 20 years, among them the Imperial Hotel, which may be famed among tourists for octagonal copper bathtubs and skyscraper furniture'' but is famed among architects and engineers as the building which withstood the Tokyo earthquake more successfully than any other.
His being dropped from Who's Who is unimportant except as proof of the unimportance of being dropped from Who's Who.
Your omission of his invention of the unit cement block system of construction, a development of the past five or six years largely confined to California, was conspicuous. . . .
You say "he deserted his wife and six children" but as the youngest of the desertees I should like to add that as far as the children were concerned the desertion was more or less technical as he provided all of us with educational advantages and has always maintained contact with us, my sister Frances, my brother David and myself having visited him at Taliesin within the past month.
R. LLEWELLYN WRIGHT
Chicago, Ill.
Bright Robinson
Sirs:
That was a dirty dig you gave Senator Joe T. Robinson in your issue of Sept. 23. It was certainly uncalled for in a magazine of your standing. Senator Robinson has one of the best minds in the senate and your remark "not too bright" was certainly a "blow under the belt." I realize that the Senate is below the average of what it should be, but Senator Robinson is far above the average of the membership.
M. C. HUTTON
Little Rock, Ark.
Bets a Stein
I read with much amusement Wisconsin Penitentiary Warden Oscar Lee's letter to TIME in which he intimates that unless it shifts its editorial ways it will not be allowed to enter his penitentiary.
I don't know Lee. But I do know and have known quite a few wardens of jails. I found them, without exception, as illiterate as sea gulls and less graceful. I have read You Can Escape. It can no more help a convict get out of jail than it could teach me to write a novel with the fourth dimension as a hero.
In some far day wardens will not be appointed by politicians who are as ignorant of the vast wells of human nature as themselves. They will then approach Warden Lawes, of New York, in stature. They will realize that compassion and understanding are not merely words in a dictionary. Perhaps I am not one to romance about the future. Lee should not worry about books like You Can Escape, excellent as it is. He should be studying sociology from first sources. Any of the boys in his keeping will tell him about the wrongs of humanity. I'll bet him an old fashioned stein of Milwaukee lager that they can also tell him yarns about escapes that equal those in the book, the "ad" of which shocked his artistic sensibilities.
JIM TULLY
Hollywood, Calif.
One-Sided Hate Party
Sirs:
In your issue of Sept. 30, under "Music" and "Pacific Opera," you state that ". . . San Francisco's lusty rival, Los Angeles. . . ."
To the best of my knowledge, in this year of 1929, Los Angeles is not a rival of San Francisco nor is San Francisco a rival of Los Angeles any more than the State of California is a rival of the State of Illinois.
Of course, San Francisco was for many years rather jealous of the growth of Los Angeles, and the census of 1920 caused considerable pain. It is probable that the census of 1930 will also cause San Francisco some pain because even now it is apparent that Los Angeles has at least twice the population that San Francisco possesses.
However, San Francisco has its own problems, and so has Los Angeles. Within the past two or three years, though, the jealousy of San Francisco has abated greatly, and residents of that city have undoubtedly found it more profitable to tend to their own knitting than to carry on a one-sided hate party.
Anyway. San Francisco can console herself with the fact that she isn't a nigger heaven like Los Angeles is turning out to be. ...
I am, and have been, a staunch Republican, but I certainly deplore this black republicanism with which the Nation is being afflicted.
R. L. LARSON
Los Angeles, Calif.
No Horseradish
Sirs:
Find enclosed clipping from the McLaughlin Messenger received today. Fort Yates is just across the line from South Dakota and is the old Indian Post where Custer was located at one time and from which the soldiers went out at the time they attempted to capture Sitting Bull and killed him near Bullhead, South Dakota.
H. E. BEEBE
Ipswich, S. Dak.
The clipping:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
If that cantankerous female who stole 40 quarts of good jelly from my home after I had given her permission to pick wild grapes in my coulee will only return the jars nothing more will be said in the papers about this. But if she doesn't I will surely tell the world all of the dirty mean scandalous things I know about her and her low-lived tribe. There is no horseradish about this either. Mrs. M. E. Sandjin, Fort Yates, N. D.
Brisbanality
Sirs:
Writes Arthur Brisbane:
"One word, repeated, aptly, 10 times, might be more effective than 1000 words."
Given this example to prove his contention:
"An impetuous female, about to transfer her affections, finds comfort and force in repetition, I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU.' Use of any other verb would spoil it."
Would not the following have been as effective?
"I hate you, I detest you, I LOATHE YOU.''
Seven column inches in many papers totaling millions in circulation are given to this subject.
Thanks for TIME, one magazine at least that does not grind out shallow stuff just to fill space.
FRANK S. TOWER
West Newton, Mass.
Dam-Building
Sirs:
In your issue of Sept. 30 under National Affairs heading you made a very misleading statement when you give Brig.-Gen. Lytle Brown credit for being the builder of Wilson Dam. It is true General Brown was for a time in charge of the project but I consider it grossly unfair to give him credit for being the builder when as a matter of fact Lieut. Col. George R. Spaldings should be given credit for the major part of the building. There were also several other officers in charge from time to time and in behalf of these men you have failed to give due credit. . .
H. L. BROADFOOT
Eldon, Mo.