Red War Profits

Sirs:

I wish to take exception to a paragraph appearing on p. 20 of your issue of Sept. 16. Herein, under the heading '"The League" you allege that the U. S. S. R. is indirectly participating in the Italian rape of Ethiopia, by selling war materials to Mussolini. Flippantly Comrade Stalin is accused of accepting the bloody war profits of Capitalism.

The Internationalism of the Soviet Union since the days of Lenin gives me the right to call this statement a lie. ... A demand for proof of your statement would probably avail me nothing--and embarrass you a lot. Even the ''infallible" editors of TIME are human. So my purpose in writing you is merely to express the conviction that some researcher in Soviet America of tomorrow will uncover this letter in your expropriated establishment and experience a tiny glow of appreciation for my hopeless, but well-meaning effort to confuse the omniscient. . .

Next week, when Father TIME counts the newsstand circulation noses he will find at least one missing whose sense of smell was too acute to miss a bit of sloppy or dishonest reporting.

WILLIAM J. EDWARDS Los Angeles, Calif.

To Red bigwigs in Soviet America of tomorrow TIME gladly presents onetime Newsstand Buyer Edwards. Since July cargoes of Soviet wheat from Sebastopol, coal and coal tar from Nicolaiev, and oil from Batum have been regularly arriving at Massaua and Mogadishu, Italian war bases in Africa. Much Soviet oil is also being sold to Italy direct, as Communists paradoxically fuel the Fascist fleet.--ED.

Adams' Ancestry

Sirs:

On p. 5 of TIME. Sept. 2, under the heading "Disgusted Blue Bloods'' are two communications concerning Charles F. Adams; one from Chas. N. Morgan of St. Petersburg, Fla., and one from Winthrop C. Adams of Cohasset, Mass., together with a statement of yours, the first of which suggests that Mr. Adams is a Jew whose name was changed by Court decree, the second of which seeks proof of the fact that Mr. Adams is related to the other Charles Francis Adams, onetime Secretary of the Navy, and the third, your own statement, which contains a statement that Mr. Adams has frequently claimed that relationship.

Mr. Adams is not a Jew and his name has never been changed by Court decree or otherwise.

Mr. Adams, owner of the Boston Bruins and Treasurer of First National Stores was born in Newport. Vt., Oct. 19. 1876, the son of Frank W. Adams of that town. His grandfather Abail and his great-grandfather Deacon Martin Adams also lived in Xewport. Vt. Deacon Martin Adams was in the Revolutionary War. . . .

SAMUEL HOAR

Goodwin, Procter & Hoar Counsellors at Law Boston. Mass.

"March of TIME"

Sirs:

I have just returned home from viewing the sixth issue of "The March of TIME " . . The sequence concerning the bootlegging of coal in the rugged hills of Pennsylvania was good likewise the scenes concerning Ethiopia, the east branch of the Nile, and Italy's Il Duce were brilliant, but it is the story of the CCC camps which I wish to commend the editors of ''The March of TIME" on.

I was struck with the honest, sincere appraisal of these backwoods camps. I am 20 years old and have served 14 months in the Conservation Corps "somewhere in the wilderness of central Michigan." I was in a position to judge the truthfulness, the integrity, the faithfulness with which TIME presented the case of these camps. I found nothing lacking. . . . Certainly after my tour of duty I am not Fascist conscious, military minded, nor have I absorbed the so-called lazy qualities falsely attributed to the Army. What I have seen of the U. S. Army, they worked just a little too hard to suit me when I first entered the CCC.

The small town of Sanford where our camp was located was filled with such tongue-wagging gossips as TIME pictured who had nothing better to say about the CCC except that we most certainly would rape their entire female population under 25. After a two-months' sojourn there, we had the whole town on our side. Of course our camp contained the usual percentage of undesirables. What camp didn't? And our Commanding Officer, a jolly Captain, by knowing whom I feel a better person, weeded these characters out precisely as TIME showed, by the dishonorable discharge method due to A. W. O. L. for more than seven days.

I can still hear the first words spoken to us by the C. O. of the fort where we were first stationed. There we stood. An army of boys and young men. . . . An army of peace, an army of hundreds of different nationalities. Swedish Americans, English, Wops, Hunkies, Polocks,' Jews. Rich men's sons, poor men's sons, working side by side, digging, planting, grubbing. Fat boys, thin boys, tall boys, short boys, handsome boys with curly hair, ugly lads with straight and greasy locks. Boys with spectacles, men dressed in warm, snug clothes. Men dressed in torn and ragged sweaters and trousers. Ex-clerks, ex-newsboys, ex-factory workers, ex-jobbers. I quote from this C. O.'s speech. "Men . . . you are now making history. . . . You are part of a great army, an army of peace and labor. You are going to be sent out into the woods and the rivers and the valleys. . . . You are going to plant trees and build fire lines and dam rivers. . . . You're going to work hard--all of you. If you still think you don't want to go through with it, you've still got time to go home. However, once you've taken this oath of enrollment, you are a member of this organization, and bound to it as firmly as if it were the United States Army."

A year has passed since my CCC days, and I am back into the whirl of city life again a job . . . nights at the University . . . and I have nothing but extremely pleasant memories of the Civilian Conservation Corps. "The March of TIME" helped me to live those "dollar-a-day" days over again. ROBERT F. CASEMORE Dearborn, Mich.

Presbyterian & Pope

Sirs:

. . . Last week you published an article about how a New York newspaper woman [Rachel McDowell of the New York Times] knelt at the feet of the Pope and kissed his ring [TIME, Sept. 23]. She touched the Pope's hand, let the touch linger, and said she wished she would never have to wash her hand again (ugh!) And she had hysterics! And boasted about it all! You say she is a Presbyterian. I wonder what other Presbyterians think of that. She looks like a good Christian woman, too, that is how insidious the Papists are, worming their crafty way into the confidence of people wherever they can. I know whereof I speak, am a Protestant, Christian churchgoer of 42 years standing. . . .

(MRS.) HATTIE BARNETT

Seattle, Wash.

Sirs:

Rachel Kollock McDowell may be what TIME calls her, "The ablest religious editor of any U. S. newspaper," but certainly she is not devoutly Presbyterian. Of herself she says: "my Presbyterianism seems just as much a part of me as my arms or my eyes or my ears."

What about her real belief? Is that Presbyterian too? I think not--Presbyterians are not apists of the Papists! Nor do they bow down and worship any but the trinal God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Miss McDowell has licked Catholic boots so long that she has a holy zeal when she kisses the Pope's hand.

Then why proclaim her Presbyterianism? Why not go over lock, stock and barrel to our Romanish friends?

HELEN HART

Shelfar, Ya.

. . . You quote remarks made by Rachel Kollock McDowell, who, according to the statement made therein, is a member of the Presbyterian Church, which are an insult to the Protestant Faith and the Presbyterian Church in particular. J. H. CORWIN

Seattle, Wash.

Sirs:

The item "She Sees the Pope," concerning Rachel Kollock McDowell, is on the order of a current newsreel of the baptism of colored women who on being dipped go plumb crazy for the time being. This wave of emotionalism illustrated by Miss McDowell is now sweeping reason out of all countries and is unwholesome. Call it reason or emotion. Let us face facts and be reasonable.

DR. M. TYCHENHEIM

Chicago, Ill.

Religious Editor McDowell wrote her throbbing account of her audience with Pope Pius XI for the Catholic News, for Catholic consumption.--ED.

"Even More Blessed"

Sirs:

Rachel Kollock McDowell, who claims to be a cool, calm, even cold person, talks about her tension in the matter of her visit to the Vatican. I am not such a calm person but I did not have hysterics and the jitters, for the best of reasons, there was no reason for it ...

The memory of my visit is beautiful, and the countenance of the Pope and his beautiful speaking voice are something always to be remembered. Probably I was even more blessed than Miss McDowell, for when the Pope stopped before me he looked deeply into my eyes for many moments before passing on. . . .

LOUISE S. NIEMEYER

North Hollywood, Calif.

Suez Control

Sirs:

In the final analysis, what nation wields the greatest power in the control of the Suez Canal?

A. J. REYNOLDS

Toledo, Ohio

So obscured by legal uncertainties is Reader Reynolds' question, the answer may well depend on events of the next few weeks; perhaps on the monthly meeting of Suez Canal Co. directors this week in Paris. The British Government holds 44% of the Canal shares, French capitalists about 50%. Of the directorate, 21 are French, ten British, one Dutch; but no shareholder may control more than ten of the 32 votes.

Canal directors receive $17,000 a year--almost twice the salary of the U. S. director of the Panama Canal. In France the post of Canal Director is a political reward for faithful service. Most French Presidents become directors. General Max Weygand was chosen to succeed the late Louis Barthou. British directors, all of whom planned to attend this week's meeting, include such bigwigs as the Earl of Cromer, Sir Thomas Royden. Sir Ian Malcolm, Sir J. T. Davies.

The Canal Convention of 1888 provided that the Canal remain open to all, in peace and war. But Great Britain then stipulated that so long as she occupied Egypt, she might disregard the Convention if it conflicted with British and Egyptian interests. Thus, during the World War, Great Britain practically seized the Canal, made it a British waterway. The British protectorate over Egypt expired in 1922, but Egyptian defense remains a British responsibility.--ED.

Nichols' Dirge Sirs:

... I can't refrain from a little perfectly good-humored comment on "Red" Nichols' letter to you (TIME, Sept. 23) entitled "Master's Wages."

He says that the public as a whole labors under the delusion that entertainers and show folk are wealthy groups. . . . However, Mr. Nichols (whose beginning in the field of hot bands I remember quite clearly) sings his dirge by saying:

". He [a top-notch orchestra leader] may receive a salary of $2,000 per broadcast. . . . If the average band leader retains 20% of his salary, he's doing very well."

I don't want to be captious but arithmetic is arithmetic. Twenty percent of $2,000 is $400. One broadcast a week for a year, at that miserably low figure, is $20,000 per year, and that is only from one radio engagement. If he is really a top-notch band leader, and he must be, to command that salary, he is doubling in a large hotel or night club at God knows what figure; he will undoubtedly play in picture houses: make a movie short or appear in a full-length picture; and his his value as a cigaret or camera endorser will probably not be overlooked.

Even if his radio contract is not for a full year (they are generally signed with 13-week cancellation clauses) teh arithmetic is still pretty obvious. Mr Nichols may not know that an income of 1,500 per year is considered pretty fancy stuff by most of what he calls "the American public" and the fact that they consider him and his associates "a wealthy group" can scarcely be called laboring under a delusion.

If he'll teach me to play the trumpet and give me his old associate, Miff Mole, as trombonist, I'll be very pleased to swap jobs, income and worries about taxes and expenses with him. And in addition I'll throw in a fine assortment of rejected manuscripts.

EDWARD PRICE EHRICH New York City

Dormie Little Sirs: Your account of the final match of the American Amateur in TIME, Sept. 23, p.50, contains the following: "At the 10th, with Emery dormie. Little hit two prodigious wood shots to a green 512 yd. away, sank his putt for an eagle, and walked over to shake hands." Rules of Golf of U. S. G. A. for 1935 under "Definitions" (21) reads as follows: "A side is said to be 'dormie' when it is as many holes up as there are holes remaining to be played." Little was dormie, not Emery.

GEORGE H. ENGLISH Jefferson City, Mo.

Editors of Annual Golf Review believe that 90% of golfers misuse most golfing terms. Dormie is no exception. Often a player is heard to say, "You've got me dormie" (as many holes down as holes to play) when in fact his opponent is dormie. But he may say, "I am dormie down" (vulgarism). Origin of the word is obscure, but some authorities think it may spring from teh French dormir (to sleep, to be stagnant)..

GEORGE H. ENGLISH Jefferson City, Mo.

Kentucky Dynamite

Sirs:

Your article entitled "Restful Run-Off" in the Sept. 23 issue contains [an] outstanding error in the following paragraph:

"On the eve of the run-off fortnight ago the Kentucky tradition still held good in bloody Harlan County. County Attorney Elmon C. Middleton, a RePublican with apparent Laffoon affiliations, climbed into his coupe in front of his house, stepped on the starter. Instantly the machine exploded with a thunderclap went to pieces like a paper bag. Attorney Middleton died almost instantly. Experts estimated that had the other 17 sticks of dynamite under the cars hood gone off, the whole neighborhood might have been wrecked. But not one life was lost in the voting three days later."

This paragraph attempts to connect the death of Mr. Middleton with the election. This is clearly erroneous as the cause of the murder has been determined and was found to be due to an investigation by Mr. Middleton of slot-machine activities in his county, all of which is completely divorced from the primary election.

SAMUEL M. ROSENSTEIN

Attorney at Law Frankfort, Ky.

While the real cause of the murder of County Attorney Middleton probably will never be known, most Kentucky officials agree with Reader Rosenstein that slot-machine racketeers were back of it. Six men are in Harlan County jail, under indictment for first degree murder.--ED.

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