Regular
Sirs:
Your circular is here, asking me to subscribe. I am a regular subscriber and would like to have you change my mailing address from my Washington residence 2300 S Street, to my home, Norfolk, Connecticut, until the first week in December, where the Senate convenes and I shall be back in Washington.
I enjoy your magazine enormously. It is ably edited. your selection of what is worth reading during the week seems to me both intelligent and in good taste, and your own comments on various large issues are original, entertaining and instructive. The reading of TIME saves hours of newspaper time each week for one can trust TIME to do the culling and lose practically nothing that is worth while.
FREDERICK C. WALCOTT Norfolk, Conn.
Bill Cunningham's Explanation
Sirs:
If the intent of the letter written by F. E. Stanton Jr. of Paterson, N. J. and printed in your issue, is to imply that I larcenously appropriated Mr. E. E. Slocum's highly entertaining contribution about The Fighting Fish of Bangkok and deliberately used it as my own in a story written for the Boston Post, Mr. Stanton is (can you hear me now?) a liar and you are another unless you withdraw that Copycat caption.
The truth is that a mutilated portion of the clipping came to me through two or three pairs of hands the last pair being horny with toil and a trifle shy on literary appreciation. Whoever had extracted it originally had been concerned apparently only with its central subject matter and had sheared away (I have since discovered by examining the files of TIME) the opening paragraphs in which TIME was mentioned and the closing lines, including the author's name.
It was therefore nude of any identification and the bewilderment of the local Fish Pier employe who brought it into my office was so genuine and so humorous that I decided to work it into a space-filler.
I merely stated exactly what had happened, to wit that a stray clipping about a fish had been brought in for explanation by a puzzled fish expert, and then I proceeded to quote from it, carefully placing every portion of it in quotation marks. . .
The statement of the sniffing Mr.Stanton that the letter was "copied verbatim without credit" is absolutely untrue.
BILL CUNNINGHAM Boston Post Boston, Mass.
Badgers
Sirs:
Apropos of the footnote re "Badgered Doctors " p. 51, TIME for Aug. 25, animadverting the fair name of Wisconsin and the progenitors of her citizens be informed that your definition is unusually mendacious. TIME quotes Webster substantiating its statement. To refute Webster I also quote Webster's New International Dictionary (India Paper Edition), p. 169.
"Badger Game. The method of blackmailing by decoying a person into a compromising situation and extorting money by threats of exposure."
Citizens of Wisconsin first became known as Badgers when the lead mining operations were instituted in the Minreal Point vicinity at the close of the Winnebago War, 1827. Conditions of living were crude. Illinois mining teams flitted with the seasons and were called "Suckers", colloquial name for the small migratory fish of the streams. Swiss and Cornish immigrant miners, too busy to build houses, moved into abandoned shafts on the hillsides and thus were known as Badgers. Hence Wisconsin attained the name of Badger State.
The courageous litle animal did not appear on the State coat of arms until 1851. . .
JAMES MAXWELL MURPHY Milwaukee, Wis.
James Maxwell Murphy is correct. To the State of Wisconsin, apologies. But the adjacent connotation "badger v. t." which Webster does say derives from Wisconsin is as follows: "To beat down; cheat; barter; bargain."--ED
Autobiography
Sirs:
TIME prides itself on being brief, concise. If some of your writers become careless let the Editor give them this illustration of brevity. It appeared in the daily press several weeks ago.
Autobiography of a woman in four words: Dolls. Boys. Rings. Bridge.
TED F. HIGGINS Newcastle, Pa.
Bibles in China
Sirs: . . . Let me say that the statements concerning five million Bibles distributed in China referred to in two letters on p. 4 of your issue of July 21, 1930, contain two errors unnoticed by the the correspondents.
The distribution by our Society alone in China, in 1929 was more than 10,000 Bibles 32,000 Testaments and 5,282,000 Portions.* A similar quantity was distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. By far, the larger part of this total circulation is distributed by sale to individuals, through colporteurs, pastors, mission workers and others. These Scriptures are all printed in China.
ERIC M. NORTH General Secretary
American Bible Society New York City
Chicago Tribune v. Baptist Racket
Sirs:
Pease accept a statement in reference to TIME'S story under the head "Negro Baptists," on p. 34 of issue of Aug. 25. The story states that Chicago newspapers, according to the colored churchmen, failed to report on the Nations (colored) Baptist convention in retaliation for the colored boycott on "loop" merchants who refuse to employ colored help.
My decision for giving little space on the convention activities rests on the following reason:
Several days prior to the convention a convention press agent sent me a story demanding space rates for its publication. On two occasions I attended the convention seeking story material. On each occasion I was directed to an individual selling mimeographed reports of convention doings at 30-c- a copy. After attending quite a number of church conventions where every co-operation is given to the press, I decided that the colored brethren were not anxious for publicity and that I did not want to foster what seemed to be a petty publicity racket.
I have every admiration and respect for Dr. L. K. Williams, president of the convention.
(REV.) JOHN EVANS Religious Editor
Chicago Tribune Chicago, Ill.
Parson's Arrow
Sirs:
Many archer-readers of TIME must have been disappointed by TIME'S failing to report on the fiftieth jubilee tournament of the National Archery Association held in Chicago Aug. 12 to 15. Archery though not so popular as golf or its kitchen sink (a la Will Rogers) variant, peewee golf, is older than golf, makes the same demands for coolheadedness and skill, yields the same exercise, is just as captivating of interest and enthusiasm. At the tournament several records were broken, notably the world's long-distance flight record with a yew bow. The Rev. L. L. Dailey, of Monmouth, Ore. shot an arrow 14 yards short of a quarter mile. Present U. S. Target Champion is Russell Hoogerhyde, 24, who set a tournament record score in the American Round--30 arrows each at 60, 50 and 40 yards.
P. E. KLOPSTEG
Chicago, Ill.
NYRBA's Glory
Sirs: TIME, ever hazy about geography in the Southern half of the Western hemisphere, and often and usually garbling conditions which exist in Latin America, has on all occasions with reference to Pan American Airways versus NYRBA deliberately or ignorantly misstated. . . . The most recent--and one of the most flagrant-- examples was last week's TIME report of the consolidation and the purchase of NYRBA Lines by Pan American, entitled "Exit NYRBA."
TIME falsely states NYRBA was encountering financial difficulties in its Argentine mail business as a factor in premerger talk. . . .
Though TIME was cautioned, it nevertheless published information contained in a random and unofficial news report from South America to the effect that NYRBA had petitioned for cancelation of Argentine Government contract for service of Buenos Aires to New York, Santiago and to Montevideo, giving as the reason for the petition: losses of 4,000,000 pesos. This reason was never given the Argentine Government and was officially refuted by NYRBA officials. Petition for cancelation of contract was made in order to simplify readjustment of routes and mail dispatch between the two American companies which will now fly out of Argentina and Uruguay--Pan American Grace Airways over the Andes and northward via the West Coast, and Pan American Airways northward directly up the East Coast, over the NYRBA route.
There was no "unhappy position of NYRBA in South America." South American good-will has been one of NYRBA's chiefest supports. . . .
Regarding NYRBA's finances. . . . Something more than $4,000,000 was poured into an operating airway, 8,903 miles in length, spanning the West Indies, extending down the East Coast of South America, then westward over the Andes to Chile and northward to the Bolivian border: the largest fleet of the largest flying boats in the world were built especially for this service and backed up by a squadron of 22 auxiliary flying ships; a careful organization was developed and scattered through 17 countries to carry the work of the air line forward; most of this $4,000,000 is represented in actual physical assets; considerably less than a million was spent in development work whose actual expenditure could perhaps not be shown in flying equipment, airport radio stations, or other physical details.
TIME should know that this expenditure put into operation the fastest long distance air line in the world--Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Miami, 7,300 miles, 6 1/2 days.
Within its year of actual operation (Aug. 19, 1929-Aug. 20, 1930) the route grew from 125 miles of airways to a system which with its operating affiliations in South America aggregated well over 10,000 miles of airways in 18 countries; that more than 8,000 passengers were carried in NYRBA planes without a single injury to anyone and four days prior to the consolidation agreement NYRBA completed its first million miles of scheduled flying with one of the highest rated efficiencies of any air line in the world.
To NYRBA is due much pioneering glory NYRBA's President, Ralph A. O'Neill, piloted the first commercial plane between the United States and Buenos Aires blazing the virgin aerial trail from New York to Miami to Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires; NYRBA planes were the first to cross the perilous Andes between Santiago and Buenos Aires many weeks before they were followed by Pan American Grace Airways; NYRBA's pilots explored the lower West Indies and the East Coast of South America to the Guianas many weeks before Lindbergh "blazed the trail" to Paramaribo; explored thousands of miles of unknown country along the river mouths of the Orinoco and the Great Amazon, long coastal stretches of the Guianas, Venezuela, and Northern Brazil, and successfully established three sections of their international route over territory where foreign lines had tried to entrench themselves and failed in spite of heavy state subsidies.
NYRBA, expounding economics to the industries of two continents rather than aerodynamics, placed the foundation for a great international commercial transport service. With all else in their favor, they lacked support of the Post Office Department contracts; privileged to carry South American air mail north, they could not offer American business men the reciprocal advantage of air mail service South, Absorption of NYRBA's assets by Pan American Airways provides a unified system. . . .
Pan American's magnificent achievement, under the far-sighted direction of Juan T. Trippe who has brought into being the world's greatest international air transportation system, all assembled and put into working order within a matter of two years, should never be slighted. Nor should the great job that NYRBA has done within the past year, undertaking and putting through the biggest single air transport project any company has ever undertaken, be passed off without proper understanding. The factors behind the Pan American system are important and should be truthfully portrayed in the interests of the greater Pan American Airways system which, if air transportation is destined to obtain a fraction of the importance we attribute to it, will be one of the most important influences in the future of the new world.
There is no need now for TIME to take sides.
ED USHER JR. Commercial Traffic Manager
New York, Rio & Buenos Aires Line Inc. New York City
* Chiefly single Gospels.
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