Program

Sirs:

I have a program to offer the public with brains: and who, for that job, can be errand boy better than TIME? It relates to the 18th Amendment. Here's the idea:

Let both National Committees agree to recommend that the next Congress shall pass a law providing for a National Referendum to be held next spring, in which referendum each voter shall vote for one only of the following four alternatives:

(A) The 18th Amendment to remain as it is.

(B) The 18th Amendment to be absolutely repealed.

(C) The 18th Amendment to be so amended as to give the power of Prohibition and regulation to Congress.

(D) The 18th Amendment to be so amended as to give the power of Prohibition and regulation to the several States, with the further provision that the Federal Government will back up any and every State voting Prohibition or regulation, with all the Federal Government's powers.

If any one of the alternatives carries by a majority of all votes cast, then Congress shall enact it into law.

If there be no majority of all votes cast then, at a run-off referendum (held the following November), let the two measures securing the highest number of votes be voted for, the result of the second vote being promptly carried through into law.

If the two National Committees cannot agree on this program, whichever party next year adopts a platform carrying the plan should win with great ease.

The prompt adoption of this idea will immediately stop all wrangling; avoid party splits; and insure final settlement in the precise way the majority wants. Such a decision should please every loyal American.

NEWELL C. KNIGHT

Chicago, Ill.

Army Nurse Corps

Sirs:

In the cause of truth, I offer a comment on a sentence about Mrs. Whitelaw Reid in TIME, May 11, p. 14:

"Through her Red Cross work, she is credited with having instituted the U. S. Army Nursing [sic] Corps during the Spanish-American War." Were this "credit" justified, I should be quick to accord it, but facts were these:

When war with Spain was declared (April, 1898), Surgeon General Sternberg had already arranged to appoint women as army nurses serving under contract with the government. Selection of these nurses was put in my hands, and in August when about 1,000 women had entered the service, I was placed on duty directly under him as Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps, the organization of which began at once. Before the end of '98, members of the Corps had done the nursing at the several hospitals of each of our big camps--Montauk, Chickamauga and Jacksonville, at 31 other hospitals in U. S., on hospital ships and transports, in Honolulu and at several places in Cuba, in Porto Rico and the Philippines. Owing to the splendid work, efficiency and self-sacrifice of these women--13 of whom died at their posts in '98--it became a matter of course that the Army must have their help permanently; so when the War Department framed the "Reorganization Act," which became law Feb. 2, 1901, this Corps became legally a part of our army. When the World War came, the Corps was therefore ready and, expanding, its members did all the trained nursing for our army.

In none of this work did Mrs. Reid take any part. On the contrary, she and her associates had no conception of the aims developing in Washington and she used her influence with President McKinley to secure permission for a relatively very small number of nurses to work in certain army hospitals during the emergency. Fortunately for them, she was persuaded for a time to allow some to sign the army nurse contract, but the rest had no official status. Had all the trained nursing been done thus outside government control, there would certainly have been no Corps. Mrs. Reid later supported a bill for a nursing service under a Board to control it independent of the medical department, but such an impractical idea was naturally a complete failure and it had no effect on the organization above outlined.

In those days the government knew nothing of publicity methods and "Red Cross" was a popular term which the newspapers, especially in New York City, often loosely applied to the army nurses as well as to any woman who nursed soldiers. In fact, Clara Barton had no interest in army nursing or trained nurses in general and in the Spanish War period there existed no such general organization of the Red Cross as we have now. But that subject is too complicated to discuss here.

ANITA NEWCOMB McGEE, M.D.

Honorary President

Society of Spanish-American War Nurses

Southern Pines, N. C.

Bronch! Bronch! Bronch!

Sirs:

When reading the item "In the Bronx" (TIME, April 27, p. 41) it occurred to me that it would be no more than fair to the swamp neighbors if tenants and landlords were reminded that the frogs were there first.

In his Ballads of Old New York poet Arthur Guiterman tells the story thus:

THE LEGEND OF THE BRONX

With sword and Bible, brood and dame

Across the seas from Denmark came

Stout Jonas Bronch. He roved among

The wooded vales of Ah-qua-hung.

"Good sooth on every hand," quoth he,

"Are pleasant lands and fair to see;"

"But which were best to plow and till

And meetest both for manse and mill?"

"Bronch! Bronch! Bronch!"

Called the frogs from the reeds of the river,

"Bronch! Bronch! Bronch!"

From the marshes and pools of the stream,

"Here let your journeyings cease;

Blest of the Bounteous Giver,

Yours is the Valley of Peace,

Here is the home of your dream."

"Oho!" laughed Jonas Bronch; "I ween

These pop-eyed elves in bottle green

Do call my name to show the spot

Predestined!--Here I cast my lot!"

So there he reared his dwelling place

And built a mill with wheel and race.

And even now, beneath the hill

When summer nights are fair and still:

"Branch! Bronchi Bronch!"

Rise the cadence batrachian numbers,

"Bronch! Bronch! Bronch!"

Chant a myriad chorister gnomes;

"High in the shadowy crest

Under the hemlock he slumbers

Here is the region of rest;

Come to our Valley of Homes!"

CHARLOTTE B. PAGE

Syracuse, N. Y.

Wanted: Josh Billingsiana

Sirs:

I am writing a biography of Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw 1818-85). If any of the readers of TIME have letters written by, or information about the humorist, will they please communicate with me? Credit will be given for any help rendered.

CYRIL CLEMENS

President

International Mark Twain Society

Webster Groves, Mo.

Second in Detroit

Sirs:

I have believed for some time that TIME was building considerable circulation, not only for the interesting manner in which it is edited but particularly for the authenticity of the statements contained therein.

I was somewhat surprised to read in your issue of May 18 on p. 26 in the article regarding the Detroit Free Press, that "today the Free Press is Michigan's dominant morning paper (second to the Scripps-owned evening News in circulation)."

I know that this misstatement was not intentional and I hope that you may feel inclined to run an acknowledgment of this error under Letters. The Detroit Times has been second in circulation in Detroit since March, 1923, on the daily paper, and second in the Sunday field since March, 1925, and this paper is only ten years old under the ownership of William Randolph Hearst.

H. A. STRETCH

Detroit Times

Detroit, Mich.

Misleading Description

Sirs:

In your issue of May 11 you printed a picture of Mrs. Newberry, Mrs. Preston and Mrs. Roosevelt, together with a brief article which was not only news but helpful to the Needlework Guild of America comprising approximately one million women.

In this article you refer to me as a recent "Senator-suspect" and I am wondering why you used this misleading description. . . .

The writer of the article probably knows that I was only charged with the expenditure of about $197,000 for primary contest, the amount and details of which were filed with the Senate before I was elected. I was never charged with bribery or personal wrong-doing of any kind. The U. S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the political persecution I endured and the Senate, by a majority of several votes, declared me fully entitled to my seat.

TRUMAN H. NEWBERRY

Detroit, Mich.

Republican Truman Handy Newberry, onetime Secretary of the Navy under President Roosevelt, defeated Democrat Henry Ford for the U. S. Senate in Michigan in 1918. His right to his seat was challenged and became a large political issue. In view of the fact that Senator Newberry was finally declared duly elected, and in view of the fact that he was never charged with personal wrongdoing. TIME regrets having designated him Senator-suspect.--ED.

Glenn Frank's Job

Sirs:

In the May 11 issue of TIME, I notice an article in the Education Section, entitled "Smoke at Madison," from which I quote:

"Fortnight ago it was rumored that Dr. Frank had asked his potent friend, Silas Hardy Strawn of Chicago, for a job."

I beg to advise you that there is no basis whatever for this rumor.

While I am pleased to number Dr. Frank among my friends, he has never at any time mentioned a job to me. My understanding always has been that he is most capably and satisfactorily filling his present position as President of the University of Wisconsin. Furthermore, Dr. Frank is a man of such recognized ability and versatility that I am convinced he would never have to look for a job. Many jobs would be looking for him.

In justice to Dr. Frank, will you be good enough to correct the misstatement in the article mentioned?

SILAS H. STRAWN

Chicago, Ill.

Having reported the rumor as an example of the incoherencies which emerged from the Madison "Smoke," and having printed President Frank's denial at the same time, TIME nevertheless is glad to acknowledge further denial from Lawyer Strawn. TIME regrets any reflection upon President Frank's administration. None was intended.--ED.

U. S. Women in Russia

Sirs:

Page 21 of your issue of May 11, under the heading "Immoral Americans," quotes certain statements made by Mr. Clarence Warren regarding the conduct of American women in Russia.

Since 1926 my home has been in Moscow, where I spend the greater part of each year, my husband representing an American firm in Russia. My acquaintance, I believe, now includes about all of the women in the American colonies of both Moscow and Kharkov.

Mr. Warren is reported as stating that nearly every woman who goes to Russia with her husband on business usually takes to drink and a large percentage of us who have lived there for more than a year are hopelessly addicted to liquor. I can state very clearly, and I wish to do so, that neither I nor any of my friends and acquaintances among the American women in Russia are addicted to liquor, and I am wondering just where in Russia Mr. Warren could have met American women such as he describes: I have heard of none in either Moscow or Kharkov.

MRS. NORMAN CAMPBELL CHAMBERS

New York City

Blah for Niagara!

Sirs:

At long last, thanks to TIME, it has really come out in print!

Issue May 18, p. 24, col. 3.

Of all the dreary disappointments to a sightseer, Niagara Falls wins out. Placid waters dripping over a little ledge become New York State's ro-oaring cataract, awfully famous--true to hick upState New York's idea of what is famous. And true to the same hick place's sense of the artistic, they turn on the colored lights--as monotonous as a dime store.

You're supposed to be impressed. Blah for New York State's Niagara Falls!

SAM PETRIE

New York City

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