Antioch & "Trades"

Sirs:

May I express my appreciation of the article on Antioch in May 18 TIME? It will help.

May I suggest one misconception in the article that is very common. You say: "Antioch finds its alumni on the whole sticking to the trades they have chosen." People very commonly assume that because Antioch students work, they learn trades. However, not two percent of Antioch students learn trades. They prepare for business, engineering, education, journalism, scientific research and other such callings.

Inclosed is a statement concerning the scholastic standing of Antioch students as compared with those of Pennsylvania liberal colleges. The Antioch liberal college status is striking, especially as it is ranked in relation to other colleges in which liberal courses constitute the entire curriculum.

Again let me thank you for the article. Your friendship is appreciated.

ARTHUR E. MORGAN

President Antioch College Yellow Springs, Ohio

Case of Porter Smith

Sirs:

Permit me to bring to your attention an editorial entitled "In a Pullman," in your magazine issue of May 11 in which you say, after referring to the Pullman porter as the factotum of the car and his trustworthiness: "The necessity for this trustworthiness was evident last week when a Pullman porter went berserk on a Montreal-bound New York Central train."

This is rather one-sided and hardly fair to Porter Smith. If it may be said that he went berserk, it must, in justification, be added that a mob of six or eight white men went berserk fighting him, first.

The editorial continues: "Armed with a ventilator stick and an emergency axe, the Negro felled five passengers and three of the train crew."

This is not quite a half-truth. According to the story of Porter Smith whose testimony seems quite regular and reasonable, he did not strike a single passenger, but defended himself against passengers who sought to strike him. It is also important to note that, according to Smith, the emergency axe was only secured by him after the emergency box was broken open by some one of the passengers or the train crew, who took out the emergency sledge hammer, the same having been seen in the possession of one of the passengers.

"At Thendara 50 miles north of Utica. N. Y., State troopers had to board the train, quell Porter Smith by threatening to use tear gas bombs," the editorial adds.

Porter Smith says no threat of the use of tear gas bombs was made at all to quell him by the State troopers, but that he volunteered to go with the troopers when they boarded the train. . . .

Moreover, it is most significant that the woman Porter Smith was alleged to have been annoying has made no charge against him.

It seems obvious, after a disinterested examination of the facts involved that if Pullman Conductor Edward English had used a little tact and common sense and dealt with the porter as though he was a human being and not struck him in the face with his fist after questioning him which provoked the fight, the whole unhappy affair could have been avoided. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH

President & General Organizer Brotherhood Sleeping Car Porters New York City

TIME also reported: "Porter Smith protested that he had been arranging baggage for the woman, that Conductor English had started the fight." Last week, Pullman officials would make no comment on the above points by President Randolph, pending disposal of Porter Smith's case by the Utica grand jury.--ED. Optimist Sirs:

We understand that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has tuberculosis. Will you p'ease inform us when St. Gandhi contracted the disease and what his condition is at present, if those rumors are true? We should like to have this information immediately as we wish to use it in connection with an article to appear in the coming Optimist. We should also appreciate other details which you may have available concerning Mr. Gandhi's tuberculosis.

VICTOR A. GREULACH

Editor

The Optimist Mount Yernon, Ohio

In Manhattan at the India Freedom Foundation, President Sailendra Nath Ghose of the Indian National Congress of America affirms that St. Gandhi is not tuberculous, brands all such rumors as ridiculous.--ED. Hoover Dam Silt Sirs:

I have been a reader of your publication for some time and have a keen appreciation of your outlook on national problems. I have just been talking to a man who has been on the job at "Boulder [Hoover] Dam." His contention is as follows:

"The water that is coming down the Colorado River at the present time and which will come down all the time, has a mud content of from 5% to 8% and that the lake which will be formed back of the dam, to be built, will fill up with mud and silt and make same a mud lake within ten years."

I would appreciate being enlightened on this subject and feel sure that I will receive a real unbiased answer from your staff. I cannot believe that this problem has not been solved, but would like to know, inasmuch as I am a tax payer in Los Angeles, which city is contemplating a large bond issue to construct an aqueduct to bring some of the Boulder Dam water to Los Angeles. . . .

JOHN E. STEWART Los Angeles, Cali!.

The Hoover Dam reservoir's capacity will be 30,500,000 acre-feet, of which between 5,000,000 and 8,000,000 acre-feet will be a silt pocket. Estimates of what the annual silt deposit will be vary from 80,000 to 250,000 acre-feet, but Government engineers opine that the total deposit in 50 years will not exceed 3.000.000 acre-feet. Reader Stewart's friend's figures for the silt content of the Colorado River look high. Government observations at Yuma, Ariz, noted .48% silt in 1928, .8% in 1929.--ED.

Cat-Rat

Sirs:

I am enclosing strip of film of a cat-rat [sec cut].

This was obtained at a wharf in one of the small creeks which flow into Delaware Bay, being the last village (one store and house at the wharf) on this creek beyond and all around are vast meadows (salt meadows) where many muskrats live and a great many are trapped up in this section.

This cat is evidently the outcome of breeding between a cat and a muskrat as the tail of the cat is a true muskrat tail.

The name of the creek is Cohausie and the wharf Greenwich Pier. HARRY M. ARMSTRONG

Fish & Game Commissioner Jersey City, N. J.

New Game

Sirs: . . . Since your notable broadcast--"The March of Time"--I haven't missed a single number. I find it amusing and instructive to formulate my own "March of Time"--and see how close I can come to your own selections. . . . NORRIS WEST

Philadelphia, Pa. Sirs: We have a new game at our house. Three of us read TIME. Regularly on Friday, each of us is permitted a few minutes to look over the freshly delivered current issue. Then, each attempts to determine which of the news features are to be dramatized on the evening program. The one picking the largest number of stories (limited to ten) that are broadcast later is entitled to undisputed possession of TIME for the remainder of the evening. It has solved quite a weekend problem--no foolin'. . . . ALLEN G. MILLER

Grand Rapids, Mich. Sirs: I am not asking much-- only that . . . you get one of the high power short wave stations such as the Westinghouse, General Electric, or the N. B. C. station at Boundbrook, N. J., to broadcast it. Long wave does not come through very well down here during the summer. . . . E. F. RICE

Guayama, Porto Rico

"The March of Time'' is presented over the Columbia Broadcasting System's two short-wave stations: W2NE, 49.02 meters, 6120 kilocycles, 500 watts; and W3NAU, 49.5 meters, 6060 kilocycles, 500 watts.

The last spring performance of "The March of Time" will be June 19. Do subscriber-listeners vote for continuance of "The March of Time" in the autumn?

--ED.

Salesman Oldneld

Sirs: Your Joplin correspondent (TIME, May 4) appears to think that I am undignified--or worse --in having the make, price and my name and endorsement painted on the side of my car. To him I am a "motorized sandwichman." I am a stockholder in the Hudson Motor Car Co., makers of my $595 Essex, and as a stockholder I am playing my part in endeavoring to sell their product, which is also, as a stockholder, mine. Maybe that's undignified--but if all stockholders of all companies were salesmen for their products, maybe we would have less unemployment, more money and better times. We're all too dignified, which is what the Prince of Wales told the British captains of industry was the matter with them. Less dignity, harder work, better sales. Let TIME advocate that all directors of companies and all stockholders work to sell goods. Increase sales activity; kill depression. So far as my parking ability is concerned, I challenge Mr. Hutchinson to a parking duel, an acceleration duel, a braking test, a speed test or any other kind of a test known to motoring. And if Mr. Hutchinson thinks the public is no longer interested in old idols, well I can give him the figures on how many people write for my autograph yearly. More do than ask for many of the autographs of film stars, not that I deserve it--but it is an indication that the American public does not desert its sport idols altogether. And another, thing! Nearly every speed cop when he catches up with a speeder asks "Hey, d'ya think yer Barney Oldneld?" That is, of course, when they're not askin': "Whezdafire, huh?" and "Wher' th'lya goin'?" You know me, BARNEY OLDFIELD

Indianapolis, Ind.

Sourdoughs Hailed

Sirs:

Hats off to TIME! In your issue of May 25, there appeared a most interesting article on "Sourdough Editors." Young talent like this should receive every possible encouragement and I am happy to know that TIME does show a real interest in enterprising youth.

I for one am subscribing for their paper [Alaska Weekly Herald, Chitina, Alaska], and I think that Editor-Publisher Nelson and associates will hear from more of your readers. . . .

CHARLES F. UHL Chicago, Ill.

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