Up Down, Down Up
Sirs:
Five columns of your issue of May 6 devoted to the wretched Millis compilation in praise of the Huns and Boches of 1914-18.
Why do you cheer the writer (possibly subsidized) who disparages Woodrow Wilson, Walter Hines Page, Lord Bryce etc. etc. and who applauds the notorious People's Council, the Pacifist resolutions of 1917, Gum Shoe Bill Stone and all that ilk? This, your favorite writer for the week, also takes a sweep at Teddy Roosevelt, whom he calls treasonable! . . . Let all the patriots of any decade be dressed as punks and fools, let Judas Iscariot himself be painted with a halo. Let up be down and down up, and you have a Millis book and five columns. . . .
JOHN WELSTON
Raleigh, N. C.
Opposite Side
Sirs:
Praise to TIME for excellent and eminently fair-minded reporting of Mr. Walter Millis' extraordinary history of the War [TIME, May 6].
As one who fought on the opposite side of the trenches during those fatal and hellish years, I profoundly regret that the Road to War comes, alas, just one month and 18 years too late.
But not too late to help saving another 8,500,000 useless deaths if you could be induced to spread copies of your concise and convincing write-up, just as you have done with "Arms and the Men" which, as you know, produced phenomenal results on two continents. . . .
O. C. MUELLER
New York City
Mass Madness
Sirs:
Your note following my letter in TIME of May 13 on your and Senator Nye's thesis that munitions-makers cause wars asks me to consider that the French firm of Schneider-Crcusot secretly helped to finance Adolf Hitler and then propagandized at home for increased armament to defend La Patric. Don't you think that you are indulging in that fallacy in argumentation known as ignoration of the clench? You maintain--at least Senator Nye does (perhaps you only imply)--that munitions-makers cause wars: you prove only that they sell munitions.
Reprehensible as the sales methods of munitions-makers may be in many instances, they do not cause wars. Gertrude Stein (of all persons) in the most intelligent--and intelligible--words of hers that I have seen, injected some common sense into this discussion recently when she said, "Men fight because they want to fight." Selling revolvers, pitchforks or store teeth to farmers with a line fence row does not make the gunsmith, hardware dealer or town dentist the cause of the ensuing bloodshed and mayhem.
When mass madness seizes men they pay $68 for Cities Service. $399 for General Electric, elect Roosevelt or Hitler by overwhelming majorities, send chain letters--or go to war--and nothing can stop them.
H. W. GETZ
Moline, Ill.
Sheepherder
Sirs:
The writer has long been convinced that the real key to unemployment lies in encouragement of potential employers. The tactics of our legislative bodies, however, especially in the matter of additional depressing taxes which are being loaded on that group, remind me of a sheepherder I once saw trying to train a dog. He kept shouting "Come here, you so-and-so" while he threw rocks at the dog.
J. W. HOEFLING
Chico, Calif.
Langford's Eye
Sirs:
You say Sam Langford would have been world's Lightweight Champion in 1903 had he not been 8 ounces over the weight limit [TIME, May 6]. You also say that in a fixed fight with Fred Fulton the latter punched his eye so hard it had to be taken out.
The facts are that the Gans-Langford bout was at 136 lbs. weigh-in at 8 p. m. and Langford weighed in at 136 lbs. at the time specified.
As to the Fulton hard punch to Langford's eye: I would laugh if it were not so tragic. No hard punch. People are not injured that way in boxing or fighting professionally. No sir. They simply shoot the thumb of the glove in an opponent's eye when the referee isn't looking. That is what happened to Sam Langford, who never participated in a fixed fight in the sense that that term is known by the N. Y. racketeers controlling the fight game.
Sam Langford, of course, did have to eat and to eat he needed money. Rather than starve he often had to promise some promoter-manager, always a white man, not to knock out his opponent.
This is why he let Real Estate Owner Harry Wills escape the effect of his pile-driving punch in 20 odd times they met in the roped arena. . .
I. H. SALTONSTALL
Swampscott, Mass.
According to The Ring, the Gans-Langford bout was at 133 lb., the champion (Cans) then having the right to dictate the weight. Langford was overweight, and Gans's protest made it a non-championship bout.--ED.
Independent's Mainstays
Sirs:
Happily surprised and equally appreciative am I that TIME has stepped from the limelight of great publishing to find that something worthy of its prized commendation can be produced far from the centres of crowded circulations and contentious rivalries [TIME, May 5, Press, "Success Story"]. To me your gallant bow was as amazing as is TIME'S own ability to remain the finest of all news media while at the same time remaining both accurate and enjoyable.
May I say that when the Sunday Independent came out of the mire and began to need additions to its publication management, it found available ripened wisdom and business intelligence in an elder brother, Thomas Francis Heffernan, at present general manager and vice president; experience and talent in a younger brother, George Paul Heffernan, graduated from Cornell Law School and the A. E. F. to the staff of John Price Jones Corp., and our advertising manager today; and initiative in a still more youthful nephew Thomas Easen Heffernan, also a member of today's executive staff.
When the Sunday Independent gave evidence of expanding success, in their separate abilities it found the formula of steady and sustained progress. An immigrant, Joseph Peter Rusnock, rose through 21 years from typesetter to mechanical superintendent, proved a veritable Gibraltar of dependence. A news staff of 25 today, three editors, two secretaries, mechanical crews and many boys and men under efficient Circulation Chiefs Peter Aloysius Golden and Owen Durkin are sturdy pillars of support. Our payroll 21 years ago was $310 a week. The weekly payroll today is nearly $2,000.
JOHN V. HEFFERNAN
President & Editor Wilkes-Barre Independent Co.
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
To Editor Heffernan's able staff, all credit.--ED.
Courtesy
Sirs:
This is to assure you that your courtesy in mailing to me a text of the article, "Patent No. 2,000,000," published in your issue of May 13, is greatly appreciated. This article has served, I am certain, to gratify the interest and increase the information of many thousands of your readers.
CONWAY P. COE
Commissioner of Patents
Washington, D. C.
Joke
Sirs:
I read with interest your article on "Patent No. 2,000,000." . . . I was most interested as I had just received a letter from the Department of Commerce regarding Patent No. 354934, and I believe that I have discovered a minor business racket.
It happened in this manner: I purchased a number of "Auto Jokers" from a salesman. These are a gadget attached to the spark plugs on a car. When someone steps on the starter a small dynamite cap explodes, which sets fire to a quantity of powder. This burns in a constricted place and gives a high whistling noise like a fire in the gas line. Great quantities of smoke pour out, the victim decides the car is going to blow up and makes his preparation to leave just as the final explosion lets go.
You can understand there is a ready sale of these ''jokers" to garages, gas stations etc. For this reason I wished to buy them direct and sent in the patent number, which was the only clue. The letter in reply stated that the patent (# 354934) had been issued in 1886 to Francis V. Raymond of Buffalo for a Beating and Mixing Machine.
Is it possible that manufacturers sometimes print any patent number on an article which they do not believe worth a patent, just to discourage imitators?
PHILIP H. STURGE
Waverly Auto Store
Waverly, N. Y.
Patent attorneys are unaware of any widespread false number racket. Anyone can sue the manufacturer who falsifies a patent number. Penalty: $100 and costs, half of which goes to the Government. Much simpler, and far more common, is the practice of applying for a patent and marking the product "Patent Pending," even when the maker has neither hope nor intention of getting a patent.--ED.
Artists & Fishermen
Sirs:
War is plumb going to be declared if the artists and the advertisers don't get together with the fly fisherman.
Those of us who think fly fishing is the only sport worth mentioning have reached the limit of endurance.
Item 1--A whiskey ad in TIME, showing two old gents, one with a nice string of brook trout and his hat neatly adorned with a bunch of bass bugs and bass flies which no self-respecting trout would even flip his tail at.
Item 2--The cover of This Week showing a bird in the middle of presumably a mountain stream, with a fly rod well-bent and reeling in his fish. Ask any fly fisherman if he ever tried to reel in a fish.
Item 3--A cigaret ad with a gal fishing, for the camera, with a fly rod, also reeling in a fish.
Item 4--Another ad in TIME, damfino what it was advertising, a fisherman with a fly rod equipped with a two-handled casting reel and the reel seated above the hand grip.
If these fatheads don't know any more about fly fishing than the above, let them stick to polo, football, steel workers etc. . . .
D. H. EDWARDS
Chicago, Ill.
Beaumont's Babe
Sirs:
Since Babe Didrikson is a member of the Beaumont Club, a graduate of the Beaumont High School, her parents and all other Beaumonters jealously dislike to see such an influential journal as TIME always referring to her as a Dallas girl. Instead of writing to TIME direct they phone their protests to this office.
P. F. LAWSON
Publicity Director Beaumont Chamber of Commerce
Beaumont, Tex.
Fort Lauderdale's Shame
Sirs:
Irksome in extreme to Floridians outside Miami. Miami Beach, particularly those in her home town of Fort Lauderdale is phrase "brought up in Miami" in paragraph devoted to Katherine Rawls, TIME, April 22.
Press associations, news bureaus, picture services, radio announcers, even accurate TIME, refer to her as Rawls of Miami, or Miami Beach. Each such reference causes twinges of sharp, agonizing pain. The reason: While Fort Lauderdale asleep at the switch, debated advisability of furnishing funds to send her to Olympic tryouts several years ago, alert Miami Beach, keen to publicity possibilities of new swim queen stepped in with necessary finances. With small outlay necessary to send her to tryouts, Miami Beach has reaped millions worth of national, international publicity. And is still reaping. . .
Chagrined Fort Lauderdale . . . humbly submits following true facts reversatile swim star and her bringing up:
Name: Katherine Louise Rawls
Birthplace: Nashville, Tenn.
Date of birth: June 28, 1917
Parents: Mr. and Mrs. William Jennings Bryan Rawls
Home Address: 920 S. E. Fifth Court, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
. . . She brings prizes, trophies, trinkets, novelties galore from each new trip. . . . She has dozens of compacts, enough wrist watches for a centipede, a fine picture gallery of great and near great of passing scene. One prized picture from Will Rogers is autographed "To My Little Jumper In From Miami." (Ouch!) . . .
AUGUST BURGHARD
Editor
Fort Lauderdale Daily News
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Like Swimmer Rawls, Athlete Didrikson made all her important records as a protegee of the city that adopted her (Dallas). To Boosters Burghard & Lawson, sympathy.--ED.
Brother Ilo's Share Sirs:
We refer to the article under the heading "Soviet Smell" on p. 24 of TIME, May 13. . . .
. . . Approximately 13% of the outstanding common shares of this company will descend to our late president's brother, Ilo Matchabelli, resident in Leningrad, under the New York intestacy laws. We know of no reason to believe that any part of these shares will be seized by the Soviet Cosmetic Trust inasmuch as the estate will be distributed in New York City. . . . In the unlikely event of such seizure no substantial or controlling interest in this company would be obtained by the Soviet Government or its agencies. . . .
E. MARRES STONE
General Manager
Prince Matchabelli Perfumery, Inc. New York City To Matchabelli's Stone all thanks for clarifying the status of Brother Ilo's share.--ED.
Veteran Van Zandt Sirs:
PREPARE FOR FLOOD OF PROTESTS FROM OVERSEAS VETERANS WHO WILL RESENT USE OF TITLE "LEGIONARY" WITH NAME OF JAMES E. VAN ZANDT UNDER CUT P. 14 MAY 20 ISSUE TIME. AS NATIONAL COMMANDER VETERANS FOREIGN WARS, VAN ZANDT REPRESENTS NATION'S OVERSEAS VETERANS. TITLE "LEGIONARY" APPROPRIATE FOR BELGRANO BUT EXTREMELY MISLEADING AND ERRONEOUS FOR PROPER IDENTIFICATION OF VAN ZANDT.
BARNEY YANOFSKY
Director of Publicity National Headquarters Veterans of Foreign Wars of U. S.
Kansas City, Mo.
For a garbled line, apologies.--ED.
Fitzgerald Flub
Sirs:
Page 79, TIME, May 20, "Are TIME-readers better informed than their neighbors?" constitutes an interesting study.
As TIME'S readers' flub, other readers flubs become proportionately greater. The low identification for Cornell, Lewis, Stavisky and Wolman seems surprising--I readily identify all except F. Scott Fitzgerald.
J. FREDERICK ROSSELL
Worcester, Mass.
Readership Record Sirs:
. . . Our copy of TIME has 32 readers, while LETTERS has 18 readers. All are adults in this and the neighboring township. A list is prepared every week for both publications and when each has finished, he or she trots around with it to the next on the list. Does this constitute a world's record for number of readers of one copy of your publications?
F. C. O'CONNOR
Granite, Md.
Unless and until another community certifies a greater number of per-copy readers, let Granite, Md. be considered record-holder.--ED.
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