Beautiful Saying
Sirs:
In your issue of March 16 under the heading "Judiciary" I was struck with admiration at the quotation from the radio broadcast by Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The beauty of this expression should go down in American literature along with other famous sayings by our great men.
PAUL R. PINKHAM
Bridgeport, Conn.
Encore! Mr. Justice Holmes said in part: "The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to one's self: 'The work is done.'
"But just as one says that, the answer comes: 'The race is over, but the work never is done while the power to work remains.'
"The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest. It cannot be, while you still live. For to live is to function. That is all there is in living.
"And so I end with a line from a Latin poet who uttered the message more than fifteen hundred years ago:
" 'Death plucks my ear and says, 'Live--I am coming.' "*--ED.
The Times's Omission
Sirs:
Referring to the footnote on p. 23 of the issue of TIME of March 9, it is true that in the indirect summary of Herbert Pulitzer's testimony before Surrogate Foley, published in the Times Wednesday, Feb. 25, the name of the Herald Tribune was omitted.
This unfortunate oversight was corrected the following day as you will note by reading the enclosed clipping from the Times of a verbatim report of a portion of the testimony.
Louis WILEY
The New York Times
New York City
Radio Kneeling
Sirs:
On the subject of the Pope's radio broadcast, I think the editor of TIME was more nearly right in endeavoring to portray the awe and reverence shown by pious Catholics at hearing the voice of the Holy Father, than your correspondent, Mr. Conner (TIME, March 16).
I do not doubt that thousands of Catholics knelt as the Pope's voice came over the ether, especially when he extended his blessing at the end.
It seems to me that his voice can carry as much of a benediction to the far corners of the earth as it can in a room where he is present.
Pious Catholics have more than a mere "healthy" respect for the Holy Father. They look upon him as the vicar of Christ on earth.
THOMAS F. DALY
New York City
Bonus Credit
Sirs:
TIME: Curt, clear but incomplete. In TIME of March 9, p. 12, paragraph 7, "Late in entering the fight, Commander O'Neil made up for lost time by bringing the full political pressure of his huge organization to bear upon Congress." There is no mention whatsoever of any other veteran group in your entire story. It is time the public of the nation realized that Commander O'Neil and his huge organization do not represent all the World War veterans. In the 1930 national convention of the American Legion, a motion to participate in the fight with the Disabled American Veterans of the World War and the Veterans of Foreign Wars was tabled without the rank and file having an opportunity to vote on it. But the bass drum player who got on the D. A. V. and V. F. W. bandwagon late, is credited by you as having made possible a larger loan on the Government promissory notes held by all veterans.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U. S., formed in 1899, is composed of the veterans of all our wars who have seen foreign service. So you see at the present time we have a goodly number of World War veterans in our ranks.
Commander-in-Chief Paul C. Wolman has conveyed his appreciation of the assistance given by the American Legion and he has also stated that the fight will go on and the next session of Congress will find another bill for the immediate payment of the World War Adjusted Compensation Certificate. May we of the rank and file hope that our sister organization will get into harness with us. Also may we readers of TIME expect the newseditors to include ALL the participants in the next battle.
CHAS. D. BRAMELL
Deputy Chief of Staff V. F. W.
San Francisco, Calif.
Mr. Chesterton's Education
Sirs:
On March 3 Mr. G. K. Chesterton lectured here in San Francisco on "The Ignorance of the Educated."
Yesterday, replying to my query, Mr. Chesterton told me that he had never heard of TIME !!
W. H. BLACK
San Francisco, Calif.
Zion Trap
Sirs:
When a TIME report falls right into our midst on an item as intimately familiar as the one covering Wilbur Glenn ("The World is Flat") Voliva (TIME, March 16), it tempts us to read more critically. However, we have no fault to find.
TIME mentioned the restrictions on cursing and smoking and might have included chewing gum, bobbed hair and movie shows. But there is another newsworthy restriction, one which we, in this locality, associate with Zion City even more closely than the blatant overseer himself. Many people carry the association in their minds because they have paid dearly for a bit of experience. Let unknowing motorists beware of the speed trap which is one of Zion's most productive institutions.
EVAN W. OST
Kenosha, Wis.
"Newshawk"
Sirs:
TIME continually refers to reporters as "newshawks," an ugly, contemptuous word the use of which cannot be excused even on the ground of brevity. ''Reporters'' is just as short; "newsman" is shorter.
The attitude expressed by the coining and constant use of this word would be ungracious in any publication. It is particularly unbecoming to one which exists largely by virtue of the work of newspapermen and which could not survive a single week without their borrowed efforts. This former reporter, for one, frankly resents it. For him it spoils your otherwise interesting and sprightly pages.
MICHEL MOK
New York City
"Reporters" is trite. The British "pressmen" is confusing. TIME was once asked to discontinue "newsmen" on the ground it sounded like grownup "newsboys.'' Do other "newshawks"--alert, keen-eyed, swift to swoop on news, swift to carry it to their readers--consider the word degrading? How would "news folk" be?--ED.
Moody's & the Moon
Sirs:
In your March 2 issue you have quoted Moody's Investors Service on 1930 earnings of 744 companies, as the work of "a statistician." TIME, always interested in statistical facts, will be glad to know that the days required by a single statistician to compile this regular record kept by Moody's would, if laid end to end, encircle the moon three and one-half times. A considerable staff accomplishes this task more rapidly.
RUSSELL LEAVITT
Vice President
Moody's Investors Service
New York City
Chinese Bet
Sirs:
Your item concerning Aimee Semple McPherson ("Aimee, Aimee Semple McPherson") TIME, March 2, People, brings to mind a friend's experience. He, understanding the Chinese language well, stood with a large number of embryo converts within hearing distance of a missionary who was reading from her Chinese Bible with a loud, New England accent--utterly ununderstandable to the devout assembly! Beside the friend were two Chinese betting on whether or not she had hair on her legs. . . .
WM. WERNER BRADFORD
New York City
Tweed's Tricks
Sirs:
In the issue of Feb. 16, p. 34, bottom of the page, you state that William Marcy Tweed was hidden in Brooklyn in 1875 in the House of Mrs. Lucy Steward Knox.
The fact is that Tweed was hidden in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Conn. He was making daily trips to and from New York by a baggage car of the New Haven Railroad. At Cos Cob there is a drawbridge. Tweed had an arrangement by which trains would slow down as if held by an open draw signal and, as an express came to slow down, invariably early in the morning or late at night, Tweed left or entered the baggage car in the darkness. There was invariably a carriage in waiting in an open field. The agent of Cos Cob wondered why express trains were slowing down when the draw was not open. So, one night he went up the track with his lantern darkened. The train came to a slowdown, and, as the young man turned on his light at the door of the baggage car, out came the burly form of Tweed.
One naturally asks "How did Tweed enter the baggage car in New York?" That is very simple. He was driven to the yard of the New York Central and entered the baggage car from the yard and not from the station. . .
That night Tweed left Greenwich--for he knew better than to remain there longer--by way of the Mianus Valley. He was driven across country to Tarrytown, N. Y. where a tug was in waiting. This tug took Tweed to the steamer in lower New York Bay. . . .
ANDREW S. TAYLOR
Stamford, Conn.
Hot Peanuts
Sirs:
Perhaps I can round out part of your item on the Cuban Musical Invasion (TIME, Feb. 23).
How hot the rhythm of "The Peanut Vendor" is best grasped by spectators at the Carnival of the blacks in Santiago de Cuba. On this annual occasion the town is turned over to the dark of skin, who dominate locally. Everything goes, without police interference, and no opportunities are wasted.
Viewed from the roof of the Casa Granda, the winter of 1923 or 1924, an endless procession, all moving to this rhythm, the snaking of parties of gayly costumed boys and girls, single or double file. All on foot--and stepping. Roustabouts from the docks, cane cutters from the fields, women from the tenderloin, ragamuffins from everywhere, all swinging to the beat of that endless tune, to me then nameless. Groups of gleeful boy volunteers furnish the music. Home-made instruments--bongos of nail kegs or other kegs with ends knocked out or of hollowed log chunks, manacas, claves of all descriptions, some attached to frying pans. Swinging hilarity and frenzy, all having a glorious time, with rum and without. All to the rhythm you aptly classify as 'hot.' These boys can make it so hot it melts and sears into one's memory.
Where it comes from I do not know. Perhaps old in Cuba, perhaps from nearby Haiti whence cane cutters come annually. Lie awake in the towns of Haiti in the still of night and drum beats of similar rhythm float down to you from the hills. . . .
M. H. SCHROEDER
Rockville Center, N. Y.
Atkins' & Howells' Stones
Sirs:
Anent the use of grave stones for imposing stones in the March 2 issue of TIME, the reverse of this practice occurred in 1913, when the headstone of the grave of General Smith D. Atkins, for nearly half a century editor of the Freeport, Ill. Journal, was an imposing stone upon which the first forms composed by the General as an apprentice printer were imposed. At the request of the Editor and Publisher, I furnished a photograph of this head stone, showing the inscription, which was published in that magazine. In the comment, it was stated that the only other similar use was in the case of a brother of William Dean Howells, who, like General Atkins, was a printer and publisher.
N. T. COBB
Orlando, Fla.
*Last line of "The Syrian Dancing Girl," a poem attributed to Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil).
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