Fun to be Eaten ?

Sirs:

Surely the problem of unemployment must be acute indeed in the U. S. when paid officials can find nothing more useful to do than to rescue spiders, scorpions and snakes from the results of their natural attempts to prey upon each other (TIME, Sept. 3, p. 69).

I think all biologists would agree that, so far as we can know anything about such matters, pain, as human beings know pain, is wholly absent from the experience of invertebrate, or even reptilian, contestants in the struggle for existence. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-promulgator with Darwin of the theory of evolution, even suggested that among some of the lower forms of life the process of being eaten might be mildly pleasant!

But the inconsistency is surely obvious of granting licenses for the wounding and killing for mere amusement of such high forms as birds and mammals, which almost certainly do suffer pain comparable to that suffered by human beings . . . and then violating the rights of property and entering premises to interfere with the natural activities of quite low forms of life in which the owner of said premises had taken no part whatever. . . .

DELACOURT KELL

Claremont, Calif.

Montana's Wheeler

Sirs:

The undersigned readers of TIME and residents of Montana have enjoyed your fair and unbiased reviews of the records of various Congressmen, and will appreciate it if you will in due course of time give the record of our . . . Senator Burton K. Wheeler.

L. R. DAEMS JAMES D. LAW C. H. DICKMAN R. MULLER THAYER STEVENS

Harlowton, Mont.

The record of Senator Burton Kendall ("Burt") Wheeler of Montana is as follows:

Born: At Hudson, Middlesex County, Mass., Feb. 27, 1882.

Start in life: stenographer.

Career: Of 300-year-old native stock, he was youngest of ten children in a Quaker family. Graduated from the Hudson High School, he supported himself by stenography before going West to matriculate at the University of Michigan. There he waited table, sold books, got his law degree in 1905. The great copper-mining camp at Butte, Mont, appealed to him as a place where a young lawyer without influence might make a living. Arrived there, he was preparing to push on to Portland, Ore. when two sharpers bilked him of his bankroll. He managed to get part of his money back, decided to remain in Butte. A lawyer gave him a job collecting bills and in 1906 he hung out his own shingle. Next year he married Lulu M. White of Albany, Ill., whom he had met at college in Ann Arbor. He soon allied himself with the cause of the workingman and against Anaconda Copper by specializing in compensation cases. In 1910 he supported the late Thomas J. Walsh in his first U. S. Senatorial campaign. Walsh was defeated, but Wheeler was sent to the State Legislature. When Senator Walsh won his seat in 1912 he did not forget his young ally. In 1913 President Wilson appointed Wheeler U. S. District Attorney for Montana. His corporate enemies spent five futile years trying to get him out of office. He handed in his resignation in 1918, only to run unsuccessfully for Governor on the Democratic ticket two years later. In 1922 he was nominated for Senator. This time the personal machine he had been building for ten years gave him victory. He has been in the Senate since 1923.

In Congress: He lost no time identifying himself as an economic and political Leftist. His Senate seat was hardly warm before he began a spectacular career as an investigator. He introduced the resolution to dig into Department of Justice dirt, acted as special prosecutor for the investigation committee, discovered the bootlegging connections of the Ohio Gang, put the names of Jesse Smith, Roxie Stimson and Gaston B. Means in headlines, forced President Coolidge to accept Attorney General Daugherty's resignation. Further probing into the Alien Property Custodian's office, he sent Custodian Thomas Woodnut Miller to the penitentiary. In retaliation, Daugherty agents dug up a case in Montana in which Senator Wheeler was accused of accepting a fee to get an oil lease transferred. Tried in 1925, he was acquitted in Great Falls in ten minutes. Brought up again in the District of Columbia, the case was thrown out of court.

Meantime, he had run for Vice President on the late Senator Robert Marion La Follette's Progressive ticket in 1924. His liberal zeal undimmed by defeat, he set about leading a Senatorial investigation of conditions in Pennsylvania coal fields. No legislation resulted, but plenty of dust was raised.

He speaks often, to the point but without eloquence.

He voted for: Power Trust investigation (1928), Government operation of Muscle Shoals (1929, 1930, 1933), Hoover Moratorium (1931), Bonus (1932, 1933, 1934), Relief (1932), 2.75% Beer (1932), Copper Tariff (1932), 3.2% Beer (1933), Repeal (1933), Roosevelt Gold Bills (1933, 1934), St. Lawrence Waterway (1934), Cotton Control (1934). Stock Exchange Control (1934), 16-to-1 Silver Amendment (1934)., Overriding Philippine Independence Veto (1933).

He voted against: Mellon Tax Reduction Bill (1924), Tax Cut (1926), Private Operation of Muscle Shoals (1926, 1927), RFC (1932), Sales Tax (1932), AAA (1933), NIRA (1933).

He is Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, sits on the Agriculture & Forestry, Interstate Commerce, Manufactures, Pensions Committees.

Legislative hobbies: silver, farmers, railways. A Senator of so many liberal interests champions many a lost cause. One pet cause backed by Senator Wheeler which won: recognition of Soviet Russia ("We're suckers if we don't"). An expert on railway affairs, he has long favored lower valuations, lower rates. Two years ago he was out for a "Farmers' RFC" capitalized at $500,000,000 authorized to issue thrice that amount in debentures. His big campaign of late has been 16-to-1 silver. He is leader of the Western Silver bloc which has crowded President Roosevelt month by month closer and closer toward bimetallism. His record of votes against the Administration's Recovery legislation gives a distorted view of his relations with the President. He was one of the ambitious little group that tried to abolish the two-thirds rule at the Democratic convention in Chicago, steamroller Governor Roosevelt's Presidential nomination. He is still a Roosevelt man, but votes his convictions on the Senate floor.

In appearance he is tall, tending toward fleshiness in recent years. He has a broad mouth, which smiles easily, the sharp, inquisitive nose of the born prosecutor. A little fuzz is left atop his long head. He dresses neatly, quietly. He is a Methodist, Mason and Elk.

Outside Congress: He lives in Washington with his wife and six children at 3757 Jocelyn Street. His youngest daughter, born just after the La Follette campaign, is named after his old running mate and his adopted State--Marion Montana. He also has a home in Butte, a summer place in Glacier National Park. In Washington he drives an Auburn, is not socially ambitious. Cigars are his smoke. Like most Westerners, he hunts and fishes.

Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: a consistent, uncompromising radical who, if he were in the White House, would make the New Deal look reactionary; one of the best fighters in the Senate and a muckraking investigator of rare talent. He has been nominated to succeed himself when his term expires Jan. 3, 1935.--ED.

Tee-Totaling Taft

Sirs:

In the issue of Sept. 3, p. 21, you state: "Under President Taft, who was fond of Sazerac cocktails containing absinthe. . . ."

After my father went through a very serious operation in 1902, during which he almost died, he drank no alcoholic beverages of any kind. Your informant was somewhat enthusiastic.

CHARLES P. TAFT 2ND

Cincinnati, Ohio

Evil's Root

Sirs:

In your issue of Sept. 10 on p. 10 under the heading Money, referring to a shipment of gold bullion from San Francisco to Denver mint, appears the statement, "each mail truck carried one ton of the root of all evil. . . ."

The original phrase referring to money and the root of all evil reads slightly differently and may be found in I Timothy 6:10 as follows: "The love of money is the root of all evil." . . .

W. LAURENCE DICKEY

Editor

Kansas City Journal-Post

Kansas City, Mo.

Sirs:

Unbounded, dizzy admiration for your success in weighing imponderables. . . .

How I wish your bright young men had given us a photo of a ton of the love of money being transported to the Townsend Street depot! . . .

LEWIS THURBER GUILD

Los Angeles, Calif.

Roudybush Pleased

Sirs:

. . . I have seen the splendid write-up which was given my school in the Education section of TIME, Sept. 10. Please allow me to express my great appreciation for this kind favor. Judging from the number of telephone calls I received . . . I imagine it has been very well received by the public. . . .

FRANKLIN ROUDYBUSH Director

Roudybush Foreign Service School

Washington, D. C.

Roudybush Flayed

Sirs:

TIME, Sept. 10, was evidently caught napping by that astute gentleman, Mr. Franklin Roudybush. . . . Mr. Angus MacDonald Crawford did not start to prepare candidates for the Foreign Service in 1907. Mr. Roudybush was never associated with him as a teacher, and it is very doubtful that "nearly 75 % of U. S. career diplomats" were students of Crawford, much less of Roudybush, as, up to 1919, the former had prepared only 20 candidates. . . .

Mr. Roudybush, to my personal knowledge, has taken the Foreign Service examinations at least twice and failed both times. It might be news to have a man set himself up to prepare others for an examination in which he has twice failed himself. . . .

. . . Our Institute was founded in 1931 by Mr. William Franklin Sands, A. B., LL. B., Mr. S. A. Dulany Hunter, M.S. and myself. Mr. Sands was in the Diplomatic Service for many years, finally retiring as Minister Plenipotentiary and is now Professor of International Relations in a local university. Mr. Hunter is an Associate Professor of International Law and History in a local university and was formerly on the staff of the Library of Congress. I was a Secretary in the Diplomatic Service for a number of years and am a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Mr. Roudybush's sole distinction, academic or otherwise, is a Bachelor of Foreign Service degree without honors from the Georgetown Foreign Service School and his school is a one man show. . . .

CAMPBELL TURNER

Washington Diplomatic and Consular Institute

Washington, D. C.

Inasmuch as the State Department has held no Foreign Service examinations since 1932, the year Mr. Roudybush opened his school and the year after Turner & Co. opened theirs, there is small basis for com paring results.--ED.

Sneezers at Soo

Sirs:

Sault Ste. Marie readers of lively TIME were glad to see the reference on p. 26 of the Sept. 10 issue regarding the Ca-Choo Club election. . . . We want you to know that the officers were elected on the Michigan side of the boundary, where the club was organized in 1928. . . . Every year increasing . . . the membership of this international club was 167, registered from as far east as New York and as far west as California. They stay from four to six weeks in this haven where there is no ragwreed within one hundred miles.

GEORGE A. OSBORN

Editor & Publisher

The News

Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

Last week Ca-Choo Club's Supreme Sneezer L. E. Harris heard of a rival, George R. Pilant of Tacoma, Wash., whose wife reported: "He sneezed in Kansas and caused a team of horses to run away. He sneezed in Washington and caused the driver of the auto to disjoint his neck. He sneezed during a rummy game, causing a fellow who was just about to rummy to jump off his chair and throw his cards away. On that sneeze Mr. Pilant tore out both his tonsils."--ED.

College Stations

Sirs:

In your reply to Reader Ley printed in the Sept. 3 issue, you remind him that Amherst is one of the U. S. college towns without a railroad station. For many years Amherst has had two railroads serving the town. One the Central Vermont's line to New London and the other the Boston & Maine's "Central Massachusetts Division." The latter line I am informed has been abandoned, but the Central Vermont still carries on.

A. M. BARTLETT

Duxbury, Mass.

Better Class Fish

Sirs: ... If you insist upon likening Warren William's profile to a fish, why pick out a carp [TIME, Sept. 3]? A pickerel, which has been glorified by the automobile manufacturers in the last two years, would have served much better. Or a trout! Or a bass! Warren, born and reared in the game fish region of Northern Minnesota, could hardly look like a carp . . . as there are few of this undesirable species in Northern Minnesota's sky-blue waters. . . . Warren is acquainted only with the better class of fish-- real finny beauties.

. . .The Aitkin folks by and large very much like the successful actor whose grandfather was one of the founders of the town, whose parents were highly esteemed residents for many years, whose aunt, Marcia Potter Ross, is carrying on the pioneer department store business the grandfather founded here back in '71. . . .

ADELE F. GETTING

Aitkin, Minn.

Hole-less Doughnuts

Sirs;

In TIME, Sept. 3, you show a striking ad of the Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., headed ''Rubber Doughnuts."

What's the matter with the advertising manager of Socony, and also what's the matter with your advertising manager . . . who should know from frequent trips to New England . . . the difference between a doughnut and a cruller. Don't you all know that doughnuts do not have holes?

C. R. RlLEY

Bristol, Conn.

Against Reader Riley's undocumented challenge, TIME pits the word of Uneeda Bakers, Ward Baking Co., Cushman Bakers, Doughnut Machine Corp. and the Salvation Army that doughnuts have holes. Doughnuts made by Ward for the New England trade have smaller holes, but distinctly holes. In some communities, e.g. Cleveland, cakes-with-hole may be called either doughnuts or crullers. Practically everywhere the twisted, sausage-like cake is called a cruller, is never called a doughnut.--ED.

Acting

Sirs:

TIME is inaccurate, as well as instrumental in aiding malicious belittlers, when it refers to California's Governor as Acting Governor Merriam. Merriam is Governor in the full, complete, and accurate sense of the word. He is no more Acting Governor during this interim prior to his actual election to the gubernatorial chair than President Coolidge was Acting President subsequent to President Harding's death and prior to his actual election in 1924. Since a Lieutenant-Governor's becoming Governor upon the death of his chief is exactly analogous to a Vice President's becoming President under similar circumstances, I HEREBY CHALLENGE TIME TO CITE A SINGLE INSTANCE WHERE A FAIR-MINDED PERIODICAL REFERRED TO EITHER PRESIDENT COOLIDGE OR PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT (1) AS ACTING PRESIDENT.

DAN W. GILBERT

San Diego, Calif.

Let Reader Gilbert refer to the opinion of his own State's Attorney General Ulysses Sigel Webb who, when asked by Mr. Merriam's executive secretary how to sign official papers, held that Mr. Merriam technically was Acting Governor from the moment of Governor Rolph's death to the end of his term. However, the law does not prescribe the form of signature.--ED.

Caucasians & Aryans

Sirs:

Has TIME joined the Nazi school of anthropology? Under Races in the issue of Sept. 3, you classify the three dozen Hindus at Tempe, Ariz, with the Japanese as non-Aryan people. "Let every Japanese and Hindu quit the valley . . . or the Aryans would run them out!"

Properly speaking, Aryan is synonymous with Indo-European and signifies not a race but a great family of languages to which belong both our own English and the Hindu Sanskrit. When speaking of people who belong to the white race, let TIME use the word Caucasian. But the Hindus also are largely Caucasian with an admixture of other races. Therefore, TIME errs in grouping them with the Japanese either as non-Aryan or non-Caucasian people.

ELLIOTT S. RUDEN

Bryant, S. Dak.

Not TIME, but the irate Arizona farmers whom TIME paraphrased, drew the arbitrary line of Aryanism between themselves and the brown men on the land.--ED.

World's Biggest

Sirs:

TIME (Aug. 27) "Deterding on Oil," states on p. 55 ''he rules the world's biggest producer of crude petroleum."

Wall Street Journal (Aug. 11), article by Thomas Sutton on p. 1, headed "S. O. N. J. World Oil Unit," states in first paragraph "so that today it stands as the world's leading producer and refiner of petroleum."

. . . Just who is the largest crude producer?

H. A. SMITH

Black Mountain, N. C.

Royal Dutch produces approximately 11.6% of the world's supply of crude petroleum. Standard Oil of New Jersey produces 11%. Source of TIME'S figures: Standard Statistics.--ED.

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