Hoover Dam

Sirs:

My attention has been called to your issue of Oct. 27, p. 19, where, in a footnote, you state with reference to the dam to be built pursuant to the Boulder Canyon Project Act, at Black Canyon on the Colorado River, "its legal title remains fixed by the Boulder Canyon Project Act."

The statement is in error. That Act names the project the Boulder Canyon Project, but this project includes not only a dam in the Colorado River, but the all-American Canal, and incidental works, including a diversion dam, also in the Colorado, and power development structures. The only other title fixed by the Act is that of the "Colorado River Dam Fund," a fund into which Federal advances for the construction of the various parts of the Boulder Canyon Project, including.Hoover Dam, a diversion dam, and All-American Canal, etc., will be made.

The Boulder Canyon Project Act is expressly stipulated to be a "supplement to the Reclamation Law." Under the Reclamation Law the Secretary, pursuant to his authority "to do any and all acts as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act," has designated by his own order the name of the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, the Elephant Butte Dam in New Mexico, and the Shoshone Dam in Wyoming.

In the absence of any designation by law of the name of this specific feature of the Boulder Canyon Project the Secretary of the Interior had the authority to give it the name of Hoover Dam.

NORTHCUTT ELY

Executive Assistant

Department of the Interior

Washington, D. C.

Grey & Arizona

Sirs:

. . . It is true that Mr. Grey was refused a permit to hunt bears out of season (TIME, Nov. 3). And why not? Should he be granted special privilege because he is Zane Grey? The government of our country is not founded on such basis. Realizing this, Mr. Grey, true sportsman that he is, has reconsidered his decision to leave Arizona. . . .

JACK BRADLEY

Phoenix, Ariz.

Mighty Patriotic Force

Sirs:

The smug letter of Russell J. Marden (TIME, Nov. 10, heading "Inspiration & Contrast") gives me a pain in the neck. He compares the meeting of 60 veterans of one division with an American Legion convention of about twice 60,000, to the disparagement of the latter.

"Sixty were present. Many had been wounded in action. None had liquor. The spirit was remarkably matured thought, striking dignity and intense respectability," says Mr. Marden.

True . . . most legionaires saw no front line service, nor did about four-fifths of the American forces. Nevertheless, many thousands of men, now active legionaires, did see front line service, and thousands of them were wounded.

Wisely, the test of American Legion membership is honorable service. Few soldiers could choose the service they would perform. Had the choice been theirs, three million more would have found the front lines, and acquitted themselves well. As good and as brave soldiers never left American training camps as fought in France, and I take nothing from the American soldier, the greatest individual of any army.

It seems safe to conclude that Mr. Marden did not attend the business sessions, and the committee meetings of the Boston convention. There he could have found matured thought, dignity and respectability, but hardly intense respectability. When respectability becomes ''intense" it labors and creaks at the joints.

Let Mr. Marden and his non-legionaire friends join the Legion and lend it their matured thought, their striking dignity and their intense respectability. They cannot destroy entirely the sense of humor that is characteristic of legionaires, and they will learn, among other things, that the Legion has kept faith with the disabled veteran and his dependents, that in its more than 10,000 posts it is giving unselfish aid to communities, states and nation, and that it is a mighty patriotic force that has served and will continue to serve this country well.

R. MURPHY

Nat. Executive Committeeman A. L.

34th & 28th Divisions

Idagrove, Iowa

Democrat Bratton

Sirs:

In your issue of Nov. 10 on p. 19 you put New Mexico's red-headed senator and Democratic idol, Sam G. Bratton, among the list of re-elected Republican Senators. Please correct this before the entire Democracy of the Sunshine State begins firing criticisms at you. Although usually correct, your publication is far from right in this instance. Senator Bratton has been the recognized leader of the Democratic party in New Mexico for six years.

EDWARD L. MANSON

Clovis, N. Mex.

Smart to Be

Sirs:

Issue of Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 15, col. 1 ad on p. 116 declares:

"It is Smart to Be Comfortable" and col. 1 ad on p. 126 declares:

"It is Smart to Be Healthy."

JOHN M. HENRY

Council Bluffs, Iowa

Credit for the current "smart-to-be" idea in advertising goes to R. H. Macy & Co., Inc., Manhattan department store. The original: "It's smart to be thrifty."--ED.

Merger Era

Sirs:

You would be doing me a great favor if you would publish a list of the important mergers since the beginning of the year 1929. . . .

WILLIAM D. BRUCKMANN

Manayunk, Phila.

Some important items in the merger-consolidation era of 1929-30 were:

Gillette and Autostrop (razors), October 1930.

Parmelee Transportation and Checker Cab Manufacturing, September 1930.

Pan-American Airways and New York, Rio & Buenos Aires Lines, September 1930.

National Biscuit and Pacific Coast Biscuit, June 1930.

Louis Philippe, Neet and Hopper-Kissproof (cosmetics), June 1930.

Sinclair Consolidated Oil and Pierce Petroleum, June 1930.

Drug Inc. and Vick Chemical (household medicines), May 1930.

American Radiator and Standard Sanitary, May 1929.

Chase National Bank and Equitable Trust, April 1930.

Eaton Axle & Spring and Wilcox-Rich (automobile parts), April 1930.

United Fruit and Cuyamel Fruit Co., January 1930.

U. S. Steel and Columbia Steel Corp., October 1929.

Atlanta & Lowry National Bank and 4th National Bank, November 1929.

First National Bank of Boston and Old Colony Trust, December 1929.

Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor and Wright Aeronautical, August 1929.

Fleischmann Yeast Co., Royal Baking Powder and E. W. Gillett, Ltd. (Standard Brands, Inc.), August 1929.

Chase National Bank and American Express Co., July 1929.

Guaranty Trust Co. and National Bank of Commerce, May 1929.--ED.

What Engineers Do

Sirs:

Contrary to paragraph seven in Miscellany column of TIME, Nov. 3, in which we speak of an engineerman driving a train, he doesn't. Not in America.

I ought to know, as some time ago I wrote a railroad story which appeared in Collier's, and made the mistake of having an engineerman drive his train.

All engineermen in the U. S., their wives, sweethearts, cousins and cousins-by-marriage, promptly called my attention to the error in a stack of letters as high as the cost of living,

According to them, engineermen pull trains. . . .

EUGENE JONES

Orlando, Fla.

What Massachusetts Did

Sirs:

On p. 19 of your Nov. 10 issue is the statement "Massachusetts' referendum meant most because it carried the automatic repeal of the State's enforcement act." This statement is inaccurate. Massachusetts has taken the curious course of repealing her law forbidding the manufacture, transportation or importation of liquor, while leaving unattacked her law forbidding the sale of liquor. It is not strange that people outside this state find it difficult to realize just what has been done and what has not been done by this Massachusetts action.

EDWIN H. HALL

Cambridge, Mass.

It is true that the Massachusetts enforcement law ("baby Volstead Act") contained no clause forbidding the sale of liquor. But it is not true that Massachusetts has, or ever had, a law forbidding the sale of liquor.--ED.

Up a Sycamore

Sirs:

Your sketch of Mr. J. J. Tunney's earnings 1926-27, and Mr. Mara's idea of the amount due him (TIME, Nov. 17), reminds me of the days when kings offered half their kingdoms-- and now Mr. Hoff and his claim, if granted, would make Mr. Tunney's victories as expensive as the horse Richard III called for.

These demands for services rendered and of promises to pay have a similitude to a Detroit hold-up or kidnapping rather than the result of Mr. Tunney's "facility of forgetting those who have been useful in the past."

Dear TIME, nevertheless--though one now and then is moved to differ with your estimates made or implied--you are great reading. . . . One would not be without you, for so a little one way up in the top of a sycamore tree can see the world.

S. G. HAYDEN

Detroit, Mich.

Fort Warren

Sirs:

May I commend the consistent excellence of your magazine, and especially the interesting item on the Northern Transcontinental Air Line on p. 42 of your Nov. 3 issue.

". . . Chasing the setting sun to the red roofs of Fort Russell which mark Cheyenne" presents an accurate mental picture, but literally there is error. The name of Fort D. A. Russell was officially changed on Jan. 1, 1930 to Fort F. E. Warren, in honor of the late Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming, who died in November 1929 and was buried at Cheyenne, after having sat in the U. S. Senate for a longer term than any other senator has ever sat.

N. A. MILLER

Cheyenne, Wyo.

Mrs. Robbins Outdone

Sirs:

It was with a great deal of interest that I read under People on p. 28 of the Oct. 27 issue of TIME the account of Mrs. Helen Robbins' experience with her twelve bottles of liquor and the customs officer, as my experience was just the opposite. On July 5, 1929 I arrived on a liner from France with some trepidation and three full-sized and ten small-sized bottles of liquor. My method of attack was the same as that of Mrs. Robbins, but the outcome was entirely dissimilar. After regaining his breath after my declaration (oral, by the way) of the 13 bottles contained in my luggage, the customs official merely said: "Tell me which suitcase they are in so that I can miss them." I still have the bottles (empty now) to back up my story.

Needless to say I shall have to make this an anonymous letter.

R. A. S.

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sneezing Suffix

Sirs:

Reporting on "Carol & Things" (TIME, Oct. 20), the following names appear:

Lupescu

Titulescu

Mironescu

Castachescu

Manoilescu

Condeescu

Usually exhibiting "microphilic" symptoms, TIME editors left me harassed by the question: 'Why the sneezing, suffix escu attached to Rumanian names?"

ERIC LEV AALESUND

Phoenix, Ariz.

"Escu" = "son of"--ED.

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