Peace-Loving Austrians
Sirs:
It is not by accident that "Wine, Women and Song" has come to be the motto that the world ascribes to the easygoing, peace-loving Austrian.
Quite consistent with his character was the bloodless revolution subsequent to the breakdown of the Central Powers in 1918, and the comparative peace which reigned up to 1933, despite the fact that Austria, unable to exist in economic independence, was in continuous financial and moral distress. . . .
Dollfuss, at the head of the regular army and his private Heimwehr, ruled by decree. But in the last year the Austrians have twice turned to revolution and murder in an effort to express opinions which they were not permitted to express by ballot. Their peaceful opposition outlawed, their active revolt was suppressed by machine guns and the gallows.
Just how many Austrians wanted their "independence" guaranteed by other nations, the Italians in particular, will never be known, but it is safe to assume that of the 500,000 people who filed past the Dollfuss bier, 300,000 were there to make certain he was dead--not, as you infer, to do him honor.
Regarding the murder of the little Chancellor, just what would be the sporting thing to do, should you want to rid your nation of a dictator who substitutes machine gun and noose for public support? ...
That this country which bled for democracy sheds tears for a dictator instead of for an unfortunate people, suppressed, torn by civil strife, and willing to fight to the bitter end for its liberty, is, I hope, due to the influence of the press. But that TIME, ordinarily fair and farsighted, falls in with this view, is a disappointment.
HANS OESTEREICHER
Asuza, Calif.
Putsch
Sirs:
As a subscriber and constant reader, may I ask you to define the frequently-used German word "Putsch," which I cannot find in the abridged German dictionaries accessible to me. . . .
LEON TROUSDALE
Montgomery, Ala.
Putsch, literally translated means riot, attempted insurrection. Unlike the French coup, which may or may not be accompanied by violence, a Putsch is always an armed political riot. Should it succeed, a Putsch becomes revolution.--ED.
Hopeless Hopewell
Sirs:
That the "hopelessness of Hopewell" (TIME, Aug. 6) was etched by a more searing acid than a labor controversy is obvious even to insignificant chemists like myself. Its name--technological obsolescence.
Overlooked by laymen is the fact that the Tubize plant at Hopewell made nitrocellulose rayon, not the more adaptable and durable acetate rayon upon which the present position of the industry (and that of Tubize Chattilon itself) is each day more firmly dependent. Many chemical engineers would have risked even money on the line that, even if labor had been willing to operate the plant at a collective wage of $0.00 a week, manufacture of nitrocellulose yarn at the plant would have ceased by August 1936. They would tell you, too, that it is probably as cheap to build a new acetate plant as to attempt a conversion.
Certainly, few more inspired alibis with which to explain to stockholders an eventually unavoidable write-off were ever compounded than this tale of Capital on strike. Sabotage may have sped the demise, but it was a slower poison which made the case of Hopewell hopeless. See if you can find a rayon chemist who will take his tongue out of his cheek and deny it!
E. SCOTT PATTISON
New York, N. Y.
The nitrocellulose process for making rayon was patented in 1884 by Count Hilaire de Chardonnet, who dissolved nitrocellulose in an organic solvent, forced the solution through fine holes, finally obtaining long fibres which were spun into threads (Tubize). The viscose process (treating cotton with caustic soda and carbon disulphide) was patented eight years later by two U. S. chemists. Later a third method (little used today) was found using copper hydroxide and ammonia, and still later came a fourth in which the final product is not cellulose but cellulose acetate. Viscose rayon leads in U. S. production; the costlier acetate rayon--of which Du Font's much publicized fabric "Acele" is an example--is second. Most industrial chemists feel that nitrocellulose rayon is technologically obsolescent if not quite obsolete. Tubize Chattilon was the only plant in the world making nitrocellulose when it ceased operations.--ED.
Nasty Word
Sirs:
"Scab" is a nasty word. In reading your article [p. 11, TIME. Aug. 6] which describes the Chicago Stock Yards strike where 75,000 starving and thirsty cattle from the drought areas were left to suffer without water by the striking livestock handlers, I was surprised, pained and grieved to find TIME describing as "scabs" these "boys from droughty farms."
Agitators and A. F. of L. officials do not hesitate to apply the term "scabs" to those working men who do not see fit to join their organization and contribute a portion of their wages to support these officials in the luxury they require.
I believe you will agree that TIME erred in hurling the nasty epithet "scabs" at these boys, American citizens from American farms, especially as they were "eager to earn an honest penny" rather than live on charity, more especially as they, ''at the risk of a broken pate," watered and fed these suffering cattle and drove them under "protection from the blazing sun," and most especially since less than 10% of our citizens belong to any A. F. of L. union, the 90% being outcasts, '"scabs" in the eyes of these union leaders, the same as the men who undertook to water this stock.
It is interesting to note in this same article that "the Government dared not hire men to care for its 50,000 head for fear of being accused of strike-breaking." This fear on the part of the Government, which caused it to allow this immense herd to suffer after being corralled by its officials, may explain in part why our Government is being defied and its Federal arbitrators made monkeys of by A. F. of L. unions in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Kohler and other cities. This noisy organization apparently has the present Administration on the run, casting aside in their ignominious retreat, judgment, good sense, economic considerations and humane requirements.
ORIN P. BAILEY
Washington, D. C.
Reader Bailey is right. TIME made an editorial slip in using, without quotation marks, a technical word at home only in the mouth of union labor on strike.--ED.
Civilizers
Sirs:
The letter from Bored Citizen (TIME, July 23) has just been called to my attention and while it is too late to make a timely reply, I want to register a mild protest as one who is NOT bored by Mrs. Roosevelt's activities.
Perhaps the writer of the letter belongs to the "vast number" who are bored by all the new ideas that are taking root about us. Not the least of these new attitudes is one which allows a woman to share her husband's job as well as his income.
Wasn't it Woodrow Wilson who said: "We have had civilizations built by women and we have had civilizations built by men; but we have never had a civilization built by men and women working together as equals. That is one of America's contributions to the race."
Personally, I'm ready to propose, not a second but a third term for the tradition-building Roosevelts.
(MRS.) MARGUERITE HAMLETT
San Antonio, Tex.
Pudding-Headed Brother
Sirs:
In your July 30 issue, p. 16, col. 1:
''The porcine British Press Tycoon Lord Rothermere, pudding-headed brother of the late great Northcliffe. . . ."
Is this an unbiased TIMEworthy description of Lord Rothermere's physical and mental equipment?
How does "puddingheaded Lord Rothermere" maintain his economic and social position as No. 1 British publisher, if he is as doltish and stupid as you would have us suppose? . . .
PAUL VONCK
Arlington, Mass.
Though a ranking British press tycoon, Lord Rothermere is not demonstrably No. 1 in either economic or social status. Famed in Fleet Street for abrupt, capricious shifts and reversals of editorial policy, Tycoon Rothermere appears to have a head crammed with economic and political notions as various and assorted as the nuts and fruits in a Christmas pudding.--ED.
Methodists' Defense
Sirs:
As a Methodist layman and businessman, I think you permitted your July 30 issue to be used to carry an unnecessary and unfair "squawk" regarding "Defaulting Methodists." Mr. Bitting overlooked several important factors:
1) The Woman's Home Missionary Society, which sponsored the Methodist Hospital in Los Angeles, has nothing whatever to do with foreign missions.
2) Cash receipts of Methodism and its various subdivisions are freewill offerings, in which the donors have the privilege of nominating the agency to which their contributions shall be paid. Hence, contributions to foreign missions could not be diverted by church officers to bond issues profitably underwritten by Mr. Bitting.
3) Investment by the Methodist Church in foreign missions and the value of foreign mission property is many times that of the Methodist Hospital in Los Angeles, and therefore, even though church officers did have the power of applying all receipts to the local enterprise, good business judgment would probably dictate otherwise.
4) Mr. Bitting's customers are in no worse condition than the investors in bonds in other projects where the primary asset consists of improved real estate. It is a well-known fact that there are many hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds on hotels, office buildings and apartment houses in the U. S. in default, in which investors' losses will be of as great or greater percentage of the amount invested as those who purchased Mr. Bitting's issues.
In conclusion, if Mr. Bitting believes he can conduct a hospital more successfully than have the Methodists, and his bonds are in default, he has a legal right to try his hand at it.
C. J. SHEPHERD
Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
. . . Mr. Bitting's last trip to Southern California was made at the request of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Southern California Conference, and at the expense of that society. The request for his visit was made with the hope that satisfactory and mutually beneficial arrangements to care for the bond issue might be made. The arbitrary attitude then assumed by Mr. Bitting, and which finally prompted his unprecedented tirade against the Methodist Church, prevented the making of any headway. . . .
ROLAND MAXWELL
President
Methodist Hospital of Southern California
Los Angeles, Calif.
Shirley Temple's Father
Sirs:
In your issue of July 23 and also in a previous issue I notice that you referred to George F. Temple, father of Movie Actress Shirley Temple, as being manager of this bank's Santa Monica office. This is incorrect. Mr. Temple lives at Santa Monica but is in charge of California Bank's office at Washington Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, a district in which all the major motion picture companies maintain distributing offices. California Bank is one of the large local metropolitan banks with 55 offices in Los Angeles city and county, the Santa Monica office being situated in the outlying beach community of the same name. . . .
ROD MACLEAN
Advertising Manager California Bank
Los Angeles, Calif.
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