Letters

Dartmouth Facts

Sirs:

Regarding your article in Education beginning "College Costs" in the Aug. 20 edition of TIME you open with the sentence "A Dartmouth freshman who steps off the train at Hanover, N. H. . . ."

I wish to call your attention to the fact that there are no trains to Hanover, N. H. It is the only college town in America that does not have a railroad station.

MILTON THREADGILL

Atlanta, Ga.

Sirs:

Lest any intelligent, well-informed, TIME-reading, secondary-school graduate despair of living "like his other classmates at Dartmouth" on less than $1,700, I subscribe the following facts.

In the college year 1933-34 I attended Dartmouth as a sophomore. I joined a fraternity, attended with date all house parties. . . . The above pleasures and expenses are forbidden to freshmen. I went on peerades, lived like my other classmates, did not skimp, spent, including Christmas and Easter vacations, $1,050. The incoming freshman will pay $100 more for tuition. Corrected total, $1,150.

GORDON S. LEY

Dartmouth '36

Springfield, Mass.

To Reader Ley, congratulations on his economy. Reader Threadgill is right about train-less Dartmouth, wrong when he says it is the only college town in America without a railroad station. Let him not forget Amherst (reached by bus from Northampton); Colgate (bus from Utica); Mount Holyoke (trolley from Holyoke).--ED.

Minnesota's Kvale

Sirs:

We will appreciate having you publish a report on the career and legislative activity of Paul John Kvale, Representative-at-large from Minnesota.

GORDON G. MACNAB

V. VANCE

C. J. KALL

M. N. REISTROFFER

JAMES J. REED

Worthington, Minn.

The record of Representative Paul John Kvale (pronounced "qually") of Minnesota is as follows:

Born: at Orfordville, Wis., March 27, 1896.

Start in life: A. E. F. machine gunner.

Career: His father, Ole Juul Kvale. a Lutheran minister, moved to Benson, Minn, in 1917, turned to Farmer-Laborite politics, defeated Minnesota's Andrew J. Volstead for his Congressional seat in 1922 by campaigning as a Prohibitor dryer than the author of the Dry

Law, was returned successively to the House until his charred remains were found in his burned summer cottage in 1929 (TIME, Sept. 23, 1929). Son Paul John, eldest of seven children, attended local schools, went to the University of Chicago for one year, graduated from Luther College (Decorah, Iowa) in 1917. His A.B. in his pocket, he enlisted in the Army, served in France as a sergeant. His Wartime service was chiefly spent in showing rookies how to handle a bucking Browning. Back in the U. S. in 1919, he did one year of post-graduate work at the University of Minnesota, later edited a country newspaper. He gave up a good job reporting for the Minneapolis Tribune to go to Washington as his father's secretary. The day popular Ole Juul Kvale was buried, local firemen hosed off the newly paved streets to make Benson (pop.: 2,095) spick-&-span for the obsequies and 5,000 people followed the hearse to the graveyard. As an additional manifestation of its esteem for the Kvale family, the 7th Minnesota District elected Son Paul John to his father's seat. He was re-elected by a comfortable margin in 1930 and again in 1932, although the complexities of reapportionment compelled him to run at large.

In Congress: Paul John Kvale at first found himself the sole Farmer Laborite in the House. His experience as a Congressman's secretary had shown him the political ropes, but he leaned heavily on the tall shoulder of Minnesota's Farmer-Laborite Senator Shipstead for legislative guidance. At one time prior to the assemblage of the 72nd Congress (1931-32) he held a theoretical balance of power in the House, divided as it was between 217 Democrats and 217 Republicans. Actually, Democrats secured an organizing majority and no occasion ever occurred in which he could cast a deciding vote.

Now the senior of five Farmer-Laborites in the House, he is influential with the amorphous Progressive group. Under the New Deal, however, and due to the top-heavy Democratic majority, such leadership does not count for much.

He speaks enthusiastically, badly and often. During the last session he introduced no less than 37 bills and resolutions, had something to say on every piece of major legislation under debate. Among other proposals he energetically espoused abolition of child labor, abolition of capital punishment in the District of Columbia, curtailment of corrupt election practices.

He voted for: Hoover moratorium (1931), Bonus (1932-34), 3.2 beer (1932-33), Repeal (1932-33), domestic allotment (1933), Philippine independence (1933), AAA (1933), abrogation of gold contracts (1934), Dies silver bill (1934), compulsory cotton reduction (1934), reciprocal tariff agreements (1934), 10% income supertax (1934), merit rule for HOLC employes (1934), stockmarket regulation (1934), overriding Roosevelt veto of increased veterans' compensation (1934).

He voted against: sales tax (1932-34), RFC (1932), Citizens Military Training Camps (1933), KRA (1933), Economy Act (1933).

Legislative hobbies: veterans, aviation, farm relief, Minnesota.

As a member of the potent Military Affairs Committee, he jumped into the recent Army Air Corps row, was one who urged dismissal of General Foulois, chiefly for the Army flyers' difficulties in carrying the mails. He is a leader of the House veterans bloc.

In appearance he is big, stocky, slick-haired. He dresses nattily and his face is stamped with the wide brow and broad nose of his Scandinavian ancestry. He is a Lutheran.

Outside Congress: He lives at the Cavalier Apartments with his wife, the onetime Russell Palmer Burcher of Newport News, Va. whom he married in 1925. Unlike his father, he has always voted and drunk Wet. Part of the drinking is done with newspapermen, with whom as a former colleague he is extremely popular. He spends a good deal of time at the National Press Club. Socially agreeable, he is no dour plainsman who does not know how to have a good time in Washington. Like his friend and mentor, Dentist-Senator Shipstead, he is a good duck shot, likes to bring home a bag of teal from the Virginia marshes every winter.

Impartial House observers rate him thus: An amiable Congressman but not a forceful or deep-thinking one, more gifted as a practical politician than as a mature legislator. He has the Farmer-Labor nomination to succeed himself when his term expires Jan. 3, 1935.--ED.

Murder by "Pranksters"

Sirs:

Under the caption of "Pranksters" in the Miscellany column, p. 30, issue of Aug. 13, you report the blowing up of one Jaspara Servia by employes of the Erie Railroad. In the first place, your caption is all wrong--"Assaulters" is the proper descriptive term. The inflation, per rectum, of persons employed in steel mills and railroad yards is not uncommon, as I have heard of many such assaults and have, on one occasion, treated such a case. Needless to say that my patient died--deliberately murdered by those you term "Pranksters," and from all the records I have at my command, not a single victim has survived. I am wondering if Jaspara Servia survived and I should like to get my report through the same source as I got the original information (Letters in TIME) so that other readers may realize the seriousness of this form of "assault" and lend a helping hand to its abandonment.

In my particular case of aggravated assault and battery (to which "with intent to kill" should be added), neither the victim nor his tormentors fared so well. The victim has been dead and buried quite a few years but the assaulters, to the best of my knowledge, are still serving time in the Western Penitentiary.

It is only conceivable that a pressure of 110 lb., or even much less, introduced per rectum, must rupture the bowels or cause such a compression on the diaphragm as to rupture even through that.

Unfortunately I could not get an autopsy on my case so I cannot say exactly the amount of internal damage that was done, and one of the reasons why I could not get an autopsy was because the whole affair was regarded as a "prank" rather than an "assault.". . .

HENRY W. SALUS M. D.

Johnstown, Pa.

Lucky Jaspara Servia recovered, after Dr. John S. Deyell of Ravenna sewed up two five-inch rips in the bowel. Pranksters Daniel Desko and Frank Pudaski, who admitted inflating Servia as "a practical joke," were arrested, held in $500 bond on charges of assault.--ED.

No Powwow

Sirs:

THANK YOUR STORY AUG. 27 ISSUE CONCERNING TUSCARORA COURIERS BUNYON DERBY OLD FORT NIAGARA TO WHITE HOUSE STOP MY PRESS AGENT HEARTBROKEN HOWEVER THAT YOU . . . STATED THAT THREE GRAINS OF CORN INVITATION FOR GREAT WHITE FATHER WAS TO INDIAN PEACE POW-WOW STOP INVITATION WAS TO FOUR NATION CELEBRATION AT NIAGARA SEPT. 3 TO 6 IN WHICH BRITAIN, FRANCE, CANADA. U. S. ARE OFFICIALLY TO COMMEMORATE TWO CENTURIES OF WAR MORE THAN CENTURY OF PEACE. . . .

LEE TRENHOLM

Publicity Director Four Nation Celebration

Niagara Falls, N. Y.

Peter, Paul & Power

Sirs:

On p. 10 in your issue of Aug. 20 in a footnote appears the following sentence: "Two days after the President's speech, Associated Gas & Electric System ran an advertisement headlined 'Taking from Peter to Pay Paul.' "

It might easily be inferred from this footnote that the President's speech was the occasion for the publication of the Associated advertisement. This was not the fact, and any such impression on the part of your readers should be corrected.

The fact is that the Associated Gas & Electric System's advertisement, "Taking from Peter to Pay Paul," was prepared long before the date of the President's speech, was first published in the New York Times on Aug. 7, two days before the President's speech, and instructions for the publication in other newspapers had been previously given. The appearance of the advertisement in some papers after the President's speech was a mere coincidence.

GILBERT GOOLD

Daniel Starch & Staff New York, N. Y.

Real Fishing

Sirs:

. . . Will the newshawk who questions Howell

[Thomas Montgomery Howell who landed a record-breaking 936-lb. tuna off Nova Scotia--TIME, Aug. 27] please invite him to meet me next month at Chief Nestucca, Neel's Place, 90 miles west of Portland for some real fishing? Angling for the Royal Chinook Salmon.

The technique is as follows: Salmon feed in the ocean. They come into fresh water to spawn. They do not feed in fresh water. The Indians found that they did not like red and so we tie a red feather on a quarter inch hook which is attached to light tackle. The fish strikes at the red feather, catches the barb in its lip and with a reasonable amount of skill in preventing any slack line, the fish is finally landed. Unlike tuna fishing where bait is used and the fish is permitted to swallow the bait, in salmon fishing, the salmon merely strikes at the feather and the fisherman must set his hook on the strike.

If Howell is still unimpressed, have him read Zane Grey's Tales of the Angler's Eldorado.

We have a species of salmon which "take" a dry fly. Mr. Grey is an annual guest. He "takes" the fish.

GEORGE E. BRONAUGH

Portland, Ore.

Duryea History

Sirs: Your issue of Aug. 27 connects me with "Stevens-Duryea." My thanks for your generosity but I have no desire to steal my brother's thunder. I had no direct part in S-D cars but consider myself their grandfather. I took my brother J. Frank from the farm twice and pushed him from shop to shop until he was drawing toolmaker wages. Then hired him for more pay, to assemble my first horseless buggy. He worked for me or my company--the first incorporated in America to build gasoline motor vehicles--for five years. Their successes were due largely to his superior work. The 1896--97 model was mostly his design and the first SDs were close copies. Failing health caused him to retire in 1915.

There is yet another brother, Otho C., whom I sent to California on my auto work and who there connected with capital to build gasoline engines. He followed them with rock drills, presses giving unheard-of high powers, improved wood distilling and now an underframe for railway cars that is revolutionary. I still remain the dub who thought people desired cheap transportation only to see them adopt "traveling houses" finished and upholstered better than their homes and furniture.

CHARLES E. DURYEA

Consulting Engineer

(For many years in many lines. Many pleased clients.)

Philadelphia, Pa.

Squeezed Music Hall

Sirs:

... In the issue of Aug. 20 I notice the face of Lucien Warner of corset fame--a colleague of mine on the Oberlin College Trustee Board. His father was a trustee before him and in 1882 he offered the College $75,000 for a music hall. A member of the faculty with a conscience of abnormal development questioned whether it was ethical to accept such a donation from a man whose money "had been squeezed out of the girls." However the College took the gift and built what is now known on the campus as Warner Hall.

DAN F. BRADLEY

Pastor

Pilgrim Church Cleveland, Ohio

Braley's Peak

Sirs:

My one and only objection to your review (TIME, Aug. 27) of my book, Pegasus Pulls a Hack, is a commercial one.

Your reviewer says: "His peak year was 1913. . . ."

A statement which gives the reader the general idea that since 1913 I've been slipping back from that "peak." An idea that is damaging to my financial standing as well as my pride. . . . And the 21 years since have been--except for the depression years--increasingly busy and active. . . .

BERTON BRALEY

Bridgeport, Conn.

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