Millionaire Hoover
Sirs:
... Is President Hoover rated as a millionaire and was he such before he entered the White House? . . .
D. T. MUIR, M.D.
Alden, Kan.
When Herbert Hoover became President, his private income was in excess of $60,000 per year. Were his money invested at 6%, his capital would be in excess of $1,000,000. Therefore he is rated a millionaire.--ED.
Geo. Washington Abroad
Sirs:
. . . You say: "George Washington's insularity may have been due to the fact that he never left the U. S." Washington visited Bridgeport [Bridgetown], Barbados. See Hughes' Washington, p. 59.
OTTO HERBST
Erie, Pa.
George Washington's trip to Barbados, West Indies, was his first and only foreign one. Aged 19, he accompanied his consumptive half-brother Lawrence there; had an attack of smallpox on the island; returned to native soil within four months.
Of his trip, Washington kept a conscientious and matter-of-fact diary. Observed he of the Governor of Barbados: "He seems to keep a proper State ... is a Gentleman of good Sence . . . gives no handle for complaint but ... is not over-zealously beloved."--ED.
Mrs. Freeman-Thomas' Party
Sirs:
Near the top of col. 2, p. 13, TIME, Dec. 29, we are told that "Mrs. Freeman-Thomas, as she then was, gave a large dinner party in the saloon of the P & O liner, Clima." Should it not be China? Six years ago I crossed from London to Bombay on the P & O 7,000-ton China, and it was understood that it was in the saloon of this boat that the noted, or notorious, dinner took place. The point where it went on the rocks, and stayed for some time, was pointed out as we passed.
(The then Mrs. Freeman-Thomas, now wife of India's new viceroy, Lord Willing-don, was a noted beauty. Returning from a trip to Australia on the P & O liner China, she gave a large party in the ship's saloon. The Captain and most of the ship's staff attended; whereupon the China ran on the rocks.--ED.)
You fail to give one important, and tragic to those directly concerned, result of this historic meal, where champagne flowed freely, and everybody became gloriously happy. The Directors
--A new and narrower meaning of "millionaire" is one with an income of $1,000,000 per year of which there were 511 in U. S. in 1928. not only dismissed the Captain and Chief Officer in disgrace, but ordered that thereafter Captains and other Navigation Officers should not take part in any such invitation dinners on P & O steamers under penalty of dismissal, or words to this effect.
GEORGE H. SIMMONS
Hollywood, Fla.
Hutton Champagne
Sirs:
I've sipped champagne with them that was and them that was to be; with Belgian royalty and hours French and Alsation refugees; with Red Cross girls o'er chevaux-de-frise in Coblenze and in Metz; with frauleins surreptitiously I guzzled Piper Heidsick. . . .
Aboard French cruisers I've had my fill, in the Vosges, in Nice and ocean liners; in hospital beds in Neuchateau to New York night clubs, Florida, Cuba.
I've ridden to hounds with champagne legs and cavalry mounts with hiccups. As a mouth wash, hair tonic or improvised spray I've used this precious fluid. . . .
Now, please, Miss Hutton!
"Most spectacular Manhattan function was given ... by Mr. & Mrs. Franklyn L. Hutton for their daughter Barbara. . . . Guests: 1000. Cost: $100,000. Item: 2,000 cases of champagne. Setting designed by Joseph Urban; a moonlit garden with eucalyptus sprays, silver birches, potted roses, a gauze canopy speckled with stars." (TIME, Jan. 5.)
2,000 cases: 12 bottles per case equal 24,000 bottles. 1000 guests: 24 bottles per guest.
If this be true, I feel sure that Mr. Urban's stars glistened on eucalyptical roses whilst potted canopied moonlit sprays birched on every garden of gauze.
LUCULLUS N. D. MITCHELL
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
. . . Would 2,000 cases of champagne cost less than $100,000 or $50 per case at present bootleg prices? If so, how much would be left out of the total you give as "cost" for food, decoration, music etc. etc.?
Possibly a typographical error? I would like to believe what I read in TIME.
C. H. GLAIZE
Alligerville, N. Y.
Sirs:
. . . No doubt Mr. Hutton has among his friends a thousand first-class drinkers willing to do their conscientious best on two cases; i. e., 24 quarts, each. I happen, however, to have direct corroborated evidence that one young debutante present at the party has an absolute limit for a given evening of twelve quarts of champagne. Can you tell me what happened to her other twelve quarts?
JAMES A. DEVELIN JR.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
I am mightily surprised at the capacity of the guests at the party given by Mr. & Mrs. Hutton (TIME, Jan. 5): 1,000 guests, 2,000 cases of champagne. Wow, what a party!
A. M. HOWE
North Andover, Mass.
Sirs:
Refer to p. 11, third col., issue of Jan. 5.
If Mr. & Mrs. Franklyn Hutton give any more parties, I would be glad to come.
Reason: Party for Barbara, 1,000 guests, 2 cases champagne per guest.
Query: Do you have to drink it on the premises or can you take some home?
J. W. ORR
Glens Falls, N. Y.
A reportorial error. But the reporter, now unable to remember whether the exact figure was 2,000 bottles or 200 cases, weakly insists, there were two of something for each.--ED.
Schoolboy Capone
Sirs:
Unable to find the information elsewhere, I am writing to inquire about Al Capone's schooling, where he went to school or college; time spent in each, and his progress.
H. L. WHITE
Fairmont, W. Va.
Racketeer-in-chief Capone spent eight years in public grammar school in Brooklyn, N. Y. His progress was normal.--ED.
Kid Rig
Sirs:
Anent the origin of the term "racket," I quote verbatim from Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (London, 1823), a definition which antedates the origin described by you (TIME, Dec. 29).
"Racket: Some particular kinds of fraud and robbery are so termed, when called by their flask titles, and others, Rig; as, the Letter-racket; the Order-racket, the Kid rig, the Cat and Kitten rig; etc., but all these terms depend on the fancy of the speaker. In fact, any game may be termed a rig, racket, suit, slum, etc. by prefixing thereto the particular branch of depredation or fraud in question. ..."
Incidently, this "Kid rig" was a confidence game. Children carrying parcels were accosted by petty thieves acting as messengers, who told the child that they were to relieve him of the burden while he returned to his employer for more urgent business. From this we get the expression "to kid out of." When we kid a person out of some possession, we work the "Kid rig" on him.
R. P. ANDREWS
Klamath Falls, Ore.
41-Year-Old Wheat
Sirs:
The following may be of interest to Henry Pertle and TIME on "Wheat's Life Span" (TIME, Dec. 29).
In December 1885 a friend gave me a sample of a special variety of wheat, then six years old, to experiment with as to its life span. I sealed the wheat in paper and sealed container. It lay in my house away from light for 35 years and ten years ago was planted. It had been 41 years since harvested. Every grain seemed to grow. The next year I had quite a patch of measured ground and thrashed out the grain at the rate of 45 bu. per acre.
If wheat can live for 41 years and when planted produce such results, I would like to have the "experts" of New York Botanical Garden show one good reason why it should not live 100 years, 1,000 or 3,000 years under same conditions. . . .
J. R. PARKER Philomath, Ore.
Special varieties of wheat may do special things.--ED.
Appendectomy
Sirs:
Joe Stickler from Boston has a surly comment on "appendectomy" (TIME, Dec. 15). The dictionary does admit to usage appendicectomy, but-- The surgeon who did one this morning said: "My first case is an appendectomy." The junior interne who assisted said: "I wish they would let me do something besides hold retractors for an appendectomy."
The operating room supervisor who directed the hospital machinery said:
"The first case boarded is an appendectomy." The little nurse who handed the gleaming hardware said:
''It was only an appendectomy, but they let me scrub alone."
The maid who washed up the instruments after use said:
''Them appendectomies don't take long." The Record Librarian who filed away the data recorded.
''Case Xo. 1967856--Appendectomy." The clerk who made out the bill entered: 'John Smith--appendectomy.' The patient who was the subject moaned: "They told me an appendectomy wasn't serious, but OH!'"
A. I. SLOANE
Glendale Sanitarium & Hospital Glendale, Calif.
Chicago Horse Cars
Sirs:
. . . Can you tell me when the last horse cars were taken from the streets of Chicago, 111.? If you have the answer handy, you will settle a controversy of five years' standing. . . .
EARLE R. ALCOTT
Seattle, Wash.
Chicago's last horse car, which ran on Dearborn between Polk & Randolph Sts., was removed Oct. 21, 1906.--ED.
Damyankee Donations
Sirs:
Being a damyank (born and reared in New York City) with several years' residence in Alabama to my credit, I feel prompted, after reading TIME'S report of the H. G. Woodward bequest for technical and trades training, to bear witness that the good people hereabouts are well aware that --damyankees are little different from themselves." (TIME, Jan. 5.)
It is unfortunately true that no liberal donor to education, properly so called, has yet arisen in Alabama--a condition which is undoubtedly due to the hard times that followed the Civil War and Reconstruction. Mr. Erskine Ramsay of Birmingham (damyank from Pennsylvania) has on several occasions made generous gifts to certain of the state's colleges. But the wealthier "native sons" are still pretty canny. . . . Some of them go to the Eastern universities, but as a rule they come back as socialites rather than as amateur scholars or notable lovers of learning. It may be another generation or two before those who can afford to endow education will see any use in doing so.
Disappointing as is the Woodward bequest in many ways, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction. Mr. Woodward was evidently a man of good impulses with wealth enough to realize them. Some of us feel that in mistaken zeal he has left Alabama a rather hard, indigestible, material stone in place of wholesome spiritual bread: that among the needs of this section, a first-rate preparatory school or college is facile princeps. Yet, it must be said that Mr. Woodward broke some ice that was in sore need of being broken. For this, he is to be greatly honored. Not impossibly his example will be followed, in time, by others who have a clearer notion of what education is all about.
P. K. BENRIMO
Marion Institute
Marion, Ala.
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