Covers, Cont.

Sirs:

Probably the voice of one subscriber raised in protest will do very little good. But at least it will be a satisfaction to me to say to you that the covers you put out on your magazine are not only disgusting but nauseating. These pictures are so distasteful that they must offend the finer sensibilities of hundreds of your readers. Is it good advertising, may I ask, to put out a magazine that one is ashamed to have uncovered on one's table? I for one always keep TIME well hidden. This cover I return to you [March 31, Saint Gandhi]. I don't even want it in my house. If you continue to offend I for one shall not renew my subscription.

E. T. BROWN

Newburyport, Mass.

Sirs:

The portrait decorations on TIME covers are a splendid asset to the publication. They give . . . subscribers an almost complete collection of distinguished present day celebrities.

Your selections provide an interesting cross cut of humanity. For instance, No. 11, March 17, is graced by the stately form of Queen Mary, arrayed in jewels and characteristically erect. The next, No. 12, March 24, displays the crouched figure of Al ("Scarface") Capone. It would be hard to conceive a wider range of the human species.

We like TIME. We have a good time every time the TIME arrives.

WILLIAM L. GASTON

Community Baptist Church Glenn, Calif.

Foster Son

Sirs:

In a recent number of TIME you published a report to the effect that the son of Mr. Frank White, former Treasurer of the U. S., had been convicted of larceny and sentenced to Leavenworth.

The Richard White to whom you refer is not Mr. White's own son, but a foster son on whom Mr. White and his wife (deceased) showered all kindness and affection. Mr. and Mrs. White have one own son, Mr. Edwin Lee White, who does his family great credit.

GENEVIEVE HEXDRICKS

Washington, D. C.

TIME sincerely regrets any embarrassment caused to Mr. Frank White and his real son by an error which TIME shared with the general press.--ED.

Minnesota's Schall

Sirs:

Of such great interest are your reports on the records of Senators that the following TIME subscribers would appreciate your publishing the record of Thomas Schall of Minnesota.

W. A. FISHER H. C. KELSEY E. A. HANE A. REID G. H. SCHMIDT

Virginia, Minn.

The record of Senator Thomas David Schall of Minnesota is as follows:

Born: Reed City, Mich., June 4, 1877.

Start in life: blacking boots, hawking newspapers.

Career: Born in a log cabin, he lost his father at the age of three. His mother, an illiterate woman, carried him to Campbell, Minn, at the age of six. At nine he went to work on the streets. At twelve he could neither read nor write. A corner brawl caught the attention of a passing schoolteacher who was impressed by the lad's ferocity and ignorance, advised education. He entered school, moving from town to town with his toiling mother, gathered and sold junk to make ends meet. He put himself through the University of Minnesota (1902), St. Paul College of Law (1904), became a practising attorney.

In 1907 he stepped into a tobacco store to buy and light a cigar. The store's owner had ignorantly connected a small 6-volt electric cigar-lighter to a high-powered city current. Schall put his face down to the lighter, gave it a flick. A terrific flash followed which permanently blinded both his eyes. With his wife's assistance he continued his law practise. She read him the cases; he argued them in court. In 1914 the backwash of the 1912 Bull Moose movement carried him to the House of Representatives as a Progressive.

In Congress: For ten years he was a House member. In that time his politics changed from Progressivism through Independence to regular Republicanism. A frequent and violent speechmaker, in the House, he was not influential in legislative matters, made no great record. His usual seat was in the front row of the House where he sat with his cane between his knees and a large brass spittoon at his feet, into which he would spittoo with blind but unfailing accuracy. He did not mind when guides pointed him out to tourists as "the only blind Congressman."

In the Coolidge landslide of 1924 he defeated Senator Magnus Johnson, stentorian Farmer-Laborite for a Senate seat. Johnson lifted his enormous voice to charge that Schall had been elected by fraud, that 'leggers had financed his campaign. The Senate investigated, found Schall elected. He proclaimed: ''Enemies referred to me as a damned blind bastard, not because I am blind but because my conscience sees. . . . Since I was a little boy I have earned my own living. I am a self-made man. It may be a poor job, but it is my own."

In the Senate he has done little beyond support farm legislation. He is no great liberal, especially when compared with his Farmer-Labor colleague, Senator Henrik Shipstead. He voted for Tax Reduction (1926, 1928, 1930), Reapportionment (1929), Farm Relief (1927, 1928, 1929), Flood Control (1928), the Jones (heavier Prohibition penalties) Law (1929), the Navy's 15-cruiser bill (1929), Radio Control (1928), Boulder Dam (1928).

He votes Dry, drinks Dry, would raise the alcoholic content of beer to 2%.

He ardently supported the seating of Pennsylvania's William Scott Vare, Senator-reject, threw his arms about Vare in dramatic consolation as the latter left the Senate floor.

Legislative hobbies: farm relief, a protective tariff for Agriculture.

No famed legislation bears his name. His distinction, if any, is that he is blind and also a Senator. He publicizes his affliction, makes a great display of his police dog, Lux, which guides him about the streets. He tells everybody: ''I see more with my soul than other men do with their eyes."

Short and stocky, he has dark features like an Indian's. This resemblance is heightened by his straight black hair, now greying on the edges, which, parted in the middle, falls heavily over each temple. His face is lined, his mouth heavy. His bright unseeing eyes look normal. His clothes are dark and rustic; he wears white wash ties.

With an alert memory he prepares his speeches with his wife, delivers them on the Senate floor with slashing vigor. His oratory is spoiled by a crudity of voice and diction. He does not often enter rough-&-tumble Senate debate. Unlike blind Georges Scapini of the French Chamber of Deputies (TIME, April 7) he has never been known to sway his colleagues at any critical time or on a matter of great moment.

He is one of the Senate's most profane members. No churchman, he proclaims an abounding faith in the efficacy of prayer. He insists he prays for divine guidance before each important Senate vote. Last year he appealed to Minnesota voters to pray for the recovery of Senator Shipstead, then ill on a secluded island in northern Minnesota, "although he is not a Republican.''

Outside Congress, he lives with his wife on an old five-acre farm in the suburb of Berwyn, Md. He is not socially inclined. For amusement he walks, goes to concerts, listens to his wife read aloud. One son is an Annapolis midshipman; another is in a preparatory military school. His nine-year-old daughter Peggy he used to carry with him on the House floor when he was a Congressman. Children are barred from the Senate chamber.

Smoking, chewing, swearing, he boasts of his "100% love for the common folks of America.''

In the June primaries he will face Minnesota's Governor Theodore Christiansen for the Republican Senatorial nomination. He alienated a large part of the Minnesota rural press by charging in the Senate that its editors were controlled by "big Eastern influences," because they disagreed with him on the tariff.

Impartial observers rate him thus: a self-made man, he is below the Senate average in legislative ability and leadership. He is chiefly remarkable because he, a blind man, has come as far as he has in politics. He would be given more credit for this success if he did not overpublicize his affliction. His support of farm measures has been routine and unoriginal. The persistence with which he tries to personify "common folks," his loud and unreasoned advocacy of their cause, make him dull and unattractive to his better-bred, more intelligent colleagues. His term expires March 3, 1931.--ED.

Melville's Whale Phrase

Sirs:

If you must continue your investigation into the love-making of whales (TIME, March 24) it is unlikely that you will find anything more delicate nor more adequate than the language of Herman Melville in that greatest of all whale stories, Moby Dick: "When overflowing with mutual esteem; they salute one another more hominum."

KEMP D. BATTLE

Rocky Mount, N. C.

Safe Dynamite

Sirs:

In the March 24 issue of TIME on p. 76 under the heading "Explosion," you state that ''In Pottsville, Pa., John Wincavage, miner was blown to pieces when the warmth of his body exploded a charge of dynamite in his pocket."

We wish to call your attention to the fact that it is impossible to cause the explosion of a charge of dynamite by the warmth of a human body. One hundred and eight degrees Fahrenheit is higher than any body temperature that medical science has ever recorded in an adult. As against this, millions of pounds of dynamite are transported and stored annually at much higher temperatures without any record of explosion, due to temperatures considerably higher than that possible in a human body.

We are calling this matter to your attention, because we think it wrong to give the impression that the usual handling of dynamite is unduly hazardous.

J. BARAB

Hercules Powder Co. Wilmington, Del.

Sirs:

Body warmths do not explode dynamite (TIME, March 24, p. 76) nor do much greater warmths. Dynamite, in which the glycerine has been permitted to "settle" is detonated by comparatively slight shock, the fresh or well cared for material, only by intense concussion; i.e., a detonator. However, these detonators are dangerous at body temperatures. J. L. McILVAINE

Toronto, Ont.

Butler Flayed

Sirs:

. . . "Again Butler." That is just the way the entire Marine Corps feels--again Butler.

. . . As a person who was on duty in Nicaragua during the past presidential election I consider Butler's asinine speech (TIME, Dec. 23) as an insult to the integrity and honesty of each and every Marine on duty in Nicaragua at that time.

Why can't Butler be muzzled? General Mitchell was and he had something worth while to say.

And last but not least please inform the public that Butler isn't a hero in the eyes of the Marines. Ask any Marine who has served under Butler. Seems to me I hear some "boos" coming from Brest, France and Quantico, Va. (Ask some oldtimer Marine for an explanation of the last sentence.)

Would to God that Butler would go into politics and leave the U. S. M. C. forever.

MARINE*

Managua, Nicaragua

Do all Marines agree?--ED.

*Name suppressed by request for obvious reasons.

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