"Good Sport" MacArthur Sirs:

Reading the report of ''A General on Merry-Go-Round," (TiME, May 28) reminds me of a voyage I made some years ago on a U. S. Army transport. The ship had just returned from the Philippines bearing as passengers General Douglas MacArthur, Mrs. MacArthur (the present Mrs. Lionell Atwell) and her chil dren. . . . They had been aboard some four or five weeks, and how they stood the discomforts of that ship, the miserable accommodations, wretched food, and two bare, cramped staterooms assigned to them I do not know. Accustomed as I was to knocking about the world on tramps and tankers that voyage was hard on me. . . .

I was on that transport ten days, and every day of the ten I heard praise, admiration and respect expressed by the captain, the mate and the whole ship's crew for General MacArthur and his family. In their opinion the General was "a Prince," "a regular fellow," "the finest man who ever drew the breath of life," and Mrs. MacArthur was "a lovely woman." ''a good sport." "the real thing," and the children were "well-behaved youngsters." General MacArthur was not obliged to travel on that abominable boat. He could have taken leave and traveled home in comfort on a liner, but he is a first-class soldier and he preferred to travel in the same manner the less fortunate officers of the Army as to rank and money are obliged to travel under orders. . . . MAY WALKER BURLESON Fort Sam Houston, Tex. ClNCUS

Sirs: ... I must comment after reading an article of such surpassing and outstanding merit as that entitled "CiNcua" on p. 13 of the June 4 issue. Never has it been my pleasure to find such a peculiarly clear and understanding discussion of the Navy's war games, nor such sympathetic yet accurate treatment of members of its per sonnel as is contained in the article, mentioned. . . . R. S. PARR Lt. Comdr. U.S.N. (Retired) Cambridge, Md. Panhandle's Drought

Sirs: I am a clothing merchant, and therefore am the clearing house for all sorts of troubles, complaints and what-have-you from the surrounding trade territory of Amarillo, Tex. . . . It is with much interest that your article "Drought, Dust, Disaster" [TIME, May 21] struck me: not so much in sympathy for the good people of the trade area surrounding Chicago, Lincoln and others who have eaten dust for the past four months and suffered the loss of crops this season due to the severe winds and dry weather . . . but in contrast to what has been going on, not for four months but for over three long years, in the Panhandle of Texas and Oklahoma and hardly a notice of it has been published outside our immediate vicinity. . . . During the early days of our great drought people seemed happy enough and hardly mentioned their woes and losses. But imagine this, dear folks of Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Illinois: we had already lost most of the wheat crops of 1931 and 1932 due to drought, and in the spring of 1933 there were over 100 severe dust storms one after the other, any dozen of these storms more severe than yours. After two years of storms and no rains, people began to appear despondent and sad, knowing what suffering was befalling them. I have seen time & again these storms approach and our store loaded with customers who pronto empty out for a quick retreat to their homes, where they would find . . . dust and sand over i in. thick in places, all over the tables, floors, rugs, windowsills. . . . Imagine for three solid years driving along in your car into the country and witnessing mile after mile, acre after acre of the most desolate land you could imagine. . . . Sand piled up i ft. to 5 ft. deep hiding completely in places fences, small buildings, etc. . . . The cattle in trying to eat the stubs of vegetation left by the ravaging sand would get the sand in their bellies causing "mud balls" which has killed them by the hundreds. How the people up north from Amarillo have kept alive is our deepest mystery today. None have been able to pay their taxes or interest to the banks these past three years. They haven't even been able to make row crops come above the ground due to lack of moisture. . . . About a year ago President Roosevelt authorized relief money for this section to the amount of some $2,800,000-- which money has never reached these parts. This week the citizenship have aroused themselves to indignation meetings after reading how quickly Relief Director Hopkins is coming to the rescue with $50,000,000 for the four months' drought of Iowa, Illinois. Nebraska and Minnesota and still ignoring the miserable plight of thousands of Panhandle citizens who have courageously faced starvation, disease and ruin for nearly four long years. . . . SAM SCHIENBERG Amarillo, Tex. Cotton Carnival

Sirs:

After reading on p. 12 of your May 28 issue of TIME magazine titled "Good Abode," written by someone who wisely withholds his identity but who evidently was sore at someone or something, probably because (in spite of the fact that his progenitors on one side possibly included a long line of clowns) he was overlooked as jester to the cotton king: or maybe on the other side of his family there are a lot of silkworms; I take great pleasure in asking you to please mail me no more copies of your magazine.

If the other articles are as pernicious and plainly biased, I don't want to read them.

C. H. NASH Memphis, Tenn. Sirs: FOR YOUR INFORMATION WE THE SHELBI LEADING SECRET ORGANIZATION OF THE MEMPHIS COTTON CARNIVAL RESENT YOUR BIASED ARTICLE IN TIME NEXT YEAR PLEASE KEEP YOUR WHITE TRASH IN CHICAGO AND SEND US A GENTLEMAN REPORTER THE SHELBI Memphis, Tenn. Budd's Face Sirs: Very few of the newshawks, including TIME'S own experts, noticed a most interesting episode of the Burlington Zephyr's wonderful record-breaking trip from Denver to Chicago [TIME, June 4]: at almost the last minute and as the train was poised to make its eastbound leap from Denver, one of the essential armature bearings burned put. There was no spare part. President Ralph Budd who was out in Colorado with the train and a group of photographers, and newspaper men were nearly crazy. Budd's hottest competitor, the Union Pacific, -- also in has fact a it was handsome the first in streamline the train field of its with own it. In his perplexity, Budd telegraphed Union Pacific for help. Carl Gray, president of Union Pacific, did the generous and courteous thing. He had the necessary spare part in his shops in Omaha. It was rushed out to Denver by airplane over night and so the Zephyr was able to make its record breaking run and Ralph Budd's face was saved. . . . EDWARD HUNGERFORD New York City Pastor's Fast Sirs: My friends have been having a jolly time about the little reference you made to our experiment on the relief diet [TIME, May 21]. . . . We were simply trying out the regular FERA allowance for food. The Rev. Charles C. Noble of this city went on the City Store, and the results of his experiment will be of very great value to the authorities broadening the diet which has been allowed to those on relief. I would not bother you with this detail except for the tragic urgency of the situation around here. . . . My only concern is to get it clearly before people that we lost on $12.80 a week instead of the $2.24 which was the figure quoted ... in your review. . . . (REV.) FLETCHER D. PARKER Immanuel Congregational Church Hartford, Conn. Sirs: WHAT? PRUNES BUT NO FRUIT? SEE DIET DERBY LAST PARAGRAPH PAGE 52 TIME MAY 21 PRUNES AMONG THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS OF MAN TO CONSERVE THE NUTRITIVE VALUES OF FRESH FRUIT BEYOND THE HARVEST TIME SUPPLIED PARKER FAMILY WITH ENERGY BUT NO FAT MUCH IRON AND OTHER ESSENTIAL MINERALS VITAMINS A B AND G NATURAL LAXATIVE AND HELPED MAINTAIN NORMAL ALKALINE RESERVE

L. B. WILLIAMS California Dried Fruit Research Institute Berkeley, Calif. To TIME'S Medicine department a double-barreled rebuke for 1) atrocious arithmetic, 2) differentiating between prunes and fruit.

Other diet news of last fortnight: The 30-day test by three women of a basic diet of bananas and skimmed milk, supervised by Chicago's publicity-wise Health Commissioner Bundesen (TIME, May 21) ended with these results: Alice Joy lost 9 1/2 lb., Felicia Terry lost 14 lb., Deon Craddock lost 8 1/2 lb.-- ED.

Hickory Stick. "Sheep-Nanny Tea" Sirs: Apropos your "Folk remedies," p. 43 [TIME], June 4], one does not have to harken back to the Near East where the "evil eye" and the amu let are still indulged in, nor yet to the hillbillies of West Virginia, for evidence of superstition. They are in our midst, and openly or secretly practiced today by a larger number of people than might be suspected.

The use of a container of water under the bed is still extensively indulged in to prevent night sweats; likewise in rural districts to pre vent hemorrhage in childbirth. Many other indulgences mentioned in your column are conidently depended upon in our own time.

A local superstition in the prairies of Illinois where I began the practice of medicine: one Uncle Asa Rauh (Rowe) could burn hickory sticks, indulge in a palaver, and cure erysipelas; the explanation being that it is a self-limited malady, running its course in three to five days as a rule. ... A Mr. Seaman could stop hemorrhage; he lived in the country, usually some miles distant from the accident. A rider on horse would hasten to inform Mr. Seaman, and pronto! the hemorrhage ceased; the explanation being that blood tends to clot in the presence 'of air, with loss of blood the vascular tension falls, and nature stops the hemorrhage. What mothers' days child has in not the heard of country the in use our of grand "sheep-nanny tea," made by an infusion of sheep dung, to make measles break out? And of poultices from freshly-dropped cow manure (heat and moisture)? ... In many instances the superstition has been a boon to the doctor because after all it was as effective as anything known to medical science, and the effect of allaying anxiety or soothing a perturbed mind saved the situation from helplessness. Some have been harmful; for instance cob webs for hemorrhage introduce infection directly into what otherwise might remain a clean wound, surgically speaking. . . . C. R. BIRD, M. D. Indianapolis, Ind. Most interesting is Dr. Joseph L. Miller's compilation of West Virginia hillbilly remedies. Omitted but worthy of mention, if only for its originality, is a cure I encountered in Cabin Creek three years ago. Although not strictly a medical cure, "Evil Root" is purported to over come a male's bashfulness and increase to the utmost his persuasive powers over the opposite ?ex. A small portion of this "Evil Root" (some sort of root --/& in. in diameter and jointed every l/4 in. or so) is slyly chewed by the desirous male in the presence of a previously selected female, and some of it then spat on his hand. When this hand touches the woman, fhe immediately succumbs to his requests what ever they be. I never tried the sample I had given me so cannot vouch for its efficacy. The donor, however, had sold it to his friends at various times and said they had met with suc cess. TOHX G. MILLER Chicago, Ill. Lyman & Strikers

Sirs:

Congressman Shoemaker, Farmer-Labor Candi date for U. S. Senator against Senator Henrik Shipstead, stood on a soap-box in our market place encouraging rioting strikers, while some of the cream of our youth (called to help pre serve order . . .), were being beaten to a pulp and murdered. One of the victims who lost his life in this patriotic endeavor was Arthur Lyman. . . .

When Shoemaker refused to move on when the bluecoat said to him: "Come on now, Congressman, be a good fellow and move on" (he wasn't offered any sandwiches and tea as an conduct." . . inducement), . he was arrested for "disorderly That "parade," night at attended a labor partly by mass other meeting thugs on from our Cleveland, ''organize" the Chicago town, and Shoemaker elsewhere said sent this: here to "I have sent a telegram to hell and informed the devil to put on an extra plate for supper for we are sending him a new boarder [referring to Mr. Lyman] and we are going to send him a lot don't more stop of these interfering damned with us. . special . ." police, if they JOHN C. SWEET Minneapolis, Minn. Under the caption "Lyman & Striker" you published a picture taken of the rioting at the truckmen's strike in Minneapolis [TIME, June 4]. That picture does not represent Mr. Lyman, the unfortunate victim of the war, at all. The fact is that Mr. Lyman was killed in a fight and not in any such manner as is indicated in the picture. . . . ARTHUR LESUEUR Attorney-at-law Minneapolis, Minn. Like many another publication, TIME was misled by an incorrect caption on the striker-slugging-special-policeman news picture sent from Minneapolis. -- ED. TIME to Universities Sirs: In the issue of TIME for May 28, p. 63, I have noticed the offer of Mr. I. Ferguson, of St. Louis, to donate a subscription of TIME to any university so pressed for funds as to be unable to afford the subscription. Surely this institution, which is the downtown college of Western Reserve University, comes within that class. Because of the greatly de creased budget, our subscription list has had to be cut the past few years, and we have been unable to add desirable new subscriptions. . . . BLANCHE V. WATTS Librarian Cleveland College of Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio West Virginia University library has no subscription to TIME. Would Mr. Ferguson be so kind. . . . CAROLYN LA RUE Morgantown, W1. Va. CHECK IN MAIL COVERING SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY AND WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY STOP MY STATE OF OPULENCE BEING IN FRIEND KAUFMAN'S CLASS SHALL HAVE TO RULE OUT COLLEGES AND . . . CALL A HALT IN HOPES OF OTHER BENEFACTORS SUGGEST YOUR PUB LISHING OTHER REQUESTS RECEIVED. I. FERGUSON St. Louis, Mo. Just too late for Benefactor Ferguson's deadline came requests on behalf of Uni versity of Akron (Ohio), University of Utah. Other unfulfilled requests on be half of TiMEless libraries: St. John's Col lege, Annapolis, Md. ; Williams College; Commonwealth (Labor) College, Mena. Ark.; North Park (Swedish) College; Campbell (junior coed) College. Buics Creek. N. C.-- ED.

--FERA last year authorized this sum to Texas and Oklahoma not for drought relief but specifically for road-building by their ablebodied unemployed. For this purpose it has been available.--ED.

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