K. C. B. on Bryan
Sirs: Your ad in the program of the Notre Dame v. Army game at Soldier Field [TIME'S historic episodes series: William Jennings Bryan making the Cross of Gold Speech]. . . . Bryan didn't look as you picture him. You show him flabby as he was in his later years. In '96 there wasn't an ounce, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, that didn't belong to a physically perfect man. He had no double chin--though, if my memory serves me right, he did have the black bow tie. From a window of the Penny Press, of Minneapolis--dead these many years-- I mean the Penny Press--I read, through a megaphone, his famous speech as it came over the telegraph from the convention hall in Chicago. I read it to a great crowd of citizens who stood on the street below--on Newspaper Row--Fourth Street between Nicollet and First. When he grew grass in the streets of the cities and bore down upon the brow of labor his Cross of Gold I was more excited than I ever have been at a football game. I nearly fell into the street from the window sill. Later I traveled with him while he campaigned through some of the western states and you can take it from me that when he stood on the back platform of Pullman and looked down upon the crowd gathered about him. he never looked like you picture him. He looked like Tom Mix. If you ever use that ad again, put him in the thirties instead of the fifties. And, incidently, if there were some one with the forensic ability of Bryan who should arise at the present moment when there isn't enough gold to go around, and preach the free and unlimited coinage of silver I would vote for him as I did for Bryan. I wouldn't know what it was all about but that's no matter. Not many of us do. KENNETH C. BEATON (K. C. B.)
Hollywood, Calif.
To Colyumist K. C. B. thanks for a contemporary account of the Great Commoner's hypnotic power.--ED.
Ponzi from Prison
Sirs:
I have read your article on "Ponzi Payment in TIME, Jan. 5. Found it interesting, but none too accurate. My hair is neither chestnut nor grey. It's gone. Have never worn lavender pajamas nor pink ribbons on my night shirt. Fur coat and overshoes on extremely cold nights have been my limit.
The police description looks rather spiteful. Perhaps the product of some minor minion. Almost invites retaliation. What ingratitude! . . . O tempora, o mores! . . . Back in 1920, the most befitting legend over headauarters would have been "POLICE HEADQUARTERS, a branch of the Securities Exchange Co." Witness, the police detail assigned by the 'department to help me handle the crowd of investors.
(TIME told of how Charles Ponzi promised investors a 50% profit in 45 days through his scheme of buying postal reply coupons in countries with depreciated exchange and redeeming them at face value for U. S. stamps. In 1920 he was convicted of using the mails to defraud and sent to Federal penitentiary. In 1924 his term was over but he was then convicted on a State charge, sentenced for seven to nine years. In October he will be eligible for parole. TIME also said that the Ponzi collapse brought down several Boston trust companies. Biggest of the closing institutions was Hanover Trust Co., closed Aug. 11, 1920. Shortly before its suspension Ponzi ran up an overdraft of $441,000 in his checking account, although he had a large time deposit. His interest in the bank was more than, that of a customer: he owned 1,575 shares in the bank.--ED.)
Thank you for your reference to the 37 1/2% dividend paid to my creditors. Not a bad snowing for a "fraudulent" bankruptcy. Much better in fact than the usual returns from honest (?!) bankrupts. In dollars and cents, 37 1/2% is equal to about $1,500,000. If you add to it the $1,750,000 absorbed by referees, receivers, trustees, auditors, experts, court fees, lawyer fees, plus the $1,500,000 of "depreciation" of assets (great alibi that!), plus $2,000,000 of so-called "unearned" profits paid by me to investors before bankruptcy, and never recovered, the staggering figure will more than puzzle you when you compare it with the liabilities of about $4,000,000. Amazing, but true. If you desire certified copies of auditors' reports, I have them. You may peruse them and weep. Your statement that the destruction of my wrecked "web" brought down several Boston trust companies is perfidious. Under any other form of government, it would call for a challenge to a duel. For this time, I shall refrain from perforating your hide on condition that you make public amend by printing this letter verbatim.
You are decidedly "dripping" on this matter. The Boston trust companies were closed by the then Bank Commissioner Joseph C. Allen because of their "unsound" (?!) management. Their combined assets, of from 50 to 75 million dollars, were deposited with the First National Bank of Boston, where they remained, and some of them still are, pending liquidation, without drawing any interest. Conservatively, those assets earned in ten years not less than 30 million dollars for the First National Bank of Boston and allied interests. Joseph C. Allen later resigned from office and became vice president of the American Trust Co. at $15,000 per annum. Honest to God, I didn't have a darn thing to do with the closing of those banks. I only knew the facts. Knowledge is not always profitable. For that reason, I don't tell all I know. Not just now, at any rate. Later? Perhaps. You said in your article that I will be eligible for parole in October 1931 (you must have been reading my mail), but that I am not prepared to fight. Man, you don't know parole boards or you would know that a "con" has no fighting chance. Fight? Well . . . hardly. Besides, you never heard of a prisoner fighting his parole. I believe I would actually welcome mine. Wouldn't you? I know it will feel funny as h-- to be free after ten years or more of tossing around, but I hope I will get used to it. You know, I like you in spite of your jabs because you have given me an, opportunity of spending an hour writing this letter. If you come over to Boston after I am out, I have a good mind to buy you a drink. Two, if you can stand the gait. Will you libate with me? Will you honor me by your acceptance? That is, unless you are a fanatic upholder of the "noble experiment" or unless Wickersham goes and spoils it all.
CHARLES PONZI
Massachusetts State Prison Charlestown, Mass.
Encouraged
Sirs:
I want to tell you how much your criticism of my acting in Min and Bill (TIME, Dec. 5 ) has meant to me. Numbers of clippings have been sent me by friends who knew how much I would appreciate it. It has encouraged me greatly and I only hope that I please you as well in other parts.
DOROTHY JORDAN
Playa Del Rey, Calif.
No Grand Gesture
Sirs:
We are the attorneys for Miss Ruth Roland of Hollywood, Calif.
Miss Roland has called to our attention a review of the motion picture entitled Reno which appeared in TIME for Nov. 17 on pp. 52 and 53 and in which certain statements are made which seriously reflect upon Miss Roland and which she is insistent that you retract.
On p. 52 there is a photograph of Miss Roland and her husband under which appears the caption "She said she would give him a million." Miss Roland informs us not only that she did not make a settlement upon her husband but that she made no announcement whatever to that effect.
A statement to the same effect, accompanied by the comment that the alleged settlement was "a grand gesture rare in life but common to the rich heroines in the tradition she knows," appears in the body of the article.
It is also stated that Miss Roland "was a headliner on the Keith circuit when she was five, nearly forty years ago," and that "she went to [high] school for two years between road-shows." Both statements are, in our opinion, libelous.
Miss Roland demands that the retraction to be made by you shall be given at least as much prominence as the original article and that her photograph shall accompany such retraction no less prominently than in the issue of Nov. 17.
We shall be pleased to have you submit to us any retraction which you may prepare, for approval by us prior to its publication, and will furnish a new photograph of Miss Roland upon request therefor. GRAHAM AND REYNOLDS
Counselors at Law
New York City
Admitting no libel, and submitting nothing for the approval of Lawyers Graham & Reynolds, TIME gladly prints their letter and retracts its statement that Miss Roland planned to give her husband one of the millions which she made in Los Angeles real estate. Content with its picture of Miss Roland & Husband, TIME reprints it.--ED. Dr. Luke's St. John Sirs:
Prof. Bergen Evans, of Oxford, England, writing in your first number of the new year, says: "The palm must be awarded to St. John the Evangelist whose pre-natal obeisance to Christ is a commonplace of medieval legendry."
Here we have a typical example of the crass ignorance of biblical content on the part of those who regard the Bible narratives as legends. It was not St. John the Evangelist, but John the Baptist who leaped in his mother's womb for joy, when the mother of the still unborn Christ drew near. And, by the way, it is Dr. Luke, a man of science, who gives us this narrative in the first chapter of his beautiful gospel.
The great need of the day is more study of the Bible.
J. W. SCHILLINGER, Pastor
Evangelical Lutheran Emanuel Church
Marion, Ohio
Cancer Merit Sirs:
We have been cover-to-cover TIME readers for several years, but never has any article in TIME or any other magazine impressed us so well as your article on the Cancer Crusade (TIME, Jan. 12). This article sets forth, in your inimitable way, and in a manner which will make them long remembered, facts which will prove of tremendous value to the American youth of today. Its frankness and complete survey of the question are undoubtedly TIMEworthy and merit heartiest congratulations.
JAMES K. PRINTZ '33 SAMUEL W. BLOCK '33
Yale University New Haven, Conn.
Synecdoche
Sirs:
. . . Page 18, top of col. 2, Jan. 5 issue, you say: "Three special trains conveyed the body to Bucharest."
Well, what in the world did the Rumanians do to the poor remains of Vintila? Did they butcher the body into tiny bits and scatter them through the trains?
It seems to me, TIME, that the synecdoche was poorly chosen and decidedly unTiMEly to the accuracy and clarity you profess to be your chief claim to eminence.
JOE T. LOVETT
Murray, Ky.
Synecdoche is a rhetorical figure of speech whereby a part is used to signify the whole, the whole a part.--ED.
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