Monday, Dec. 02, 1935

Gad!

Sirs:

People! Nov. 18! Ethel Barrymore and a cargo of Bronx cheers for every performance! Of all the -- --* women she undoubtedly takes the highest honors. In truck drivers it is temper, in artists it is temperament. . . . A lady, gad!

REX R. SCHWENNEKER

Navy Yard

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Sirs:

. . . Wouldn't you say that Ethel Barrymore should report some place to play the leading part in a play entitled ''I Cease to be a Lady''? Certainly the language quoted convicts her of being not a lady and of lacking in common decency.

PAUL E. BOTTOME

Moundsville, W. Ya.

Red Face, White Conscience

Sirs:

In your insatiable quest for the cynical aspect on news, you have committed a couple of bobbles in the U. C. L. A.-Key story in TIME, Nov. 18. . . . I think we have real reason to resent the inferences in your article. . . .

You say "a California student manager sent U. C. L. A.'s Coach Bill Spaulding notification that it was time the great impersonation staged by 'Ted' Key be ended. Coach Spaulding took the hint. Key did not take the field against California. . . ."

Why don't you say that Dean Miller of U. C. L. A., carrying on an investigation of his own, reported to Provost Moore that he thought Key ineligible on the basis of new information developed since the time the Pacific Coast Conference okayed Key's eligibility? And that they, not a California student manager, advised Spaulding that Key could not play in the all-important game with University of California at Berkeley?

Then with your customary accuracy, why don't you say that California's Dean Putnam, confronted with Dean Miller's new evidence, was quoted in all Los Angeles newspapers as saying: "I don't see how you can disqualify Key on such evidence?" But disqualify they did --and where U. C. L. A.'s face may be slightly red, our conscience is still in good condition.

Nor did nearly everyone on the Bruin campus know for two years that Key was a ringer, as you say. If U. C. L. A., with full knowledge and malice aforethought had been playing a ringer all year, why would they suddenly bounce him out the day of the game they wanted most to win? They didn't have to: nobody had protested him, and in fact his own father sought to swear to Key's identity. I think you're wrong: credit us with being gullible--dumb-- but not malicious.

FRED MOVER JORDAN

U. C. L. A. 1925

Los Angeles, Calif.

TIME, well informed that Footballer Key's spurious status was long an open secret on U. C. L. A.'s campus, is impressed not with maliciousness or gullibility but with the current vogue of undergraduate cynicism toward amateur purity (see below).--ED.

Amateurs & Dollars

Sirs:

Admittedly no football fan I have been interested in the progress of professionalism in the intercollegiate game, as shown in TIME (Nov. 11, ct ante). This contrasts sharply with my own experience at Cornell University seven years ago. At that time Cornell would graduate a student after seven semesters residence instead of the usual eight if he had completed all the requirements with a certain high average. In February of '28 I was such a student, but I requested the University to withhold my degree since I had rowed every race with the varsity crew in my sophomore and junior years and hoped to repeat in my senior year. However, I was interested in doing advanced work in zoology, and repeated my registration in the graduate school. I was eligible for intercollegiate athletic competition by every rule of any association in the U. S., but the Faculty Committee on Student Affairs ruled I was ineligible to represent Cornell so long as I maintained my graduate school registration.

I have frequently told this tale when professionalism among college athletes has come up for discussion. Most listeners have appeared incredulous, while the few who have had confidence in my integrity have generally said, "That's carrying the thing too far."

At the time I could have agreed with them, but more recently I have come to see the committee's point. Cornell was trying to stem the already rising tide of '"professionalism," so it was necessary for them to avoid any appearance that would allow a rival to cry, "You're another." Recently, I believe, Cornell has abandoned that policy, and the present unsuccessful team is the last of the pure amateurs. While bowing to the inexorable power of the dollar, I still regret the passing of the amateur.

PAUL D. HARWOOD

College Park, Md.

"Slow" Green

Sirs:

I notice in your paper that a Mr. Sidney Smith certifies that he drove his Duesenberg roadster at 102 m. p. h. [TIME, Nov. 18]. No doubt this is quite possible, but forgive a Britisher if I say that the speedometer on the usual American car of even the best quality appears to be in general decidedly "fast." I have noticed this time and again. In one typical instance two friends of mine, one having an English and the other an American Rolls-Royce equipped respectively with speedometers of the same nationality as the cars, paced each other at various speeds all afternoon. If the American instrument was correct, the other was five miles ".slow" at 30 m. p. h. and progressively slower all the way up. When the American car was "hitting 70" the other was doing but 57. When paced against a Mercedes, I have seen a Duesenberg considerably disappoint and surprise its owner.

I never drive more than 30 m. p. h. myself but I like to know I am maintaining that speed and that everything is in order. Can you tell me why your admirably courteous motor police are under instructions never to oblige a motorist by pacing him? I have met with refusals in the States of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, although I merely asked to be paced at 30 m. p. h. The officers were polite and did not seem to know themselves the reason for their instructions. With all this talk of safety, I should think every assistance might be offered in enabling motorists to ascertain from time to time on the road whether their speedometers are accurate.

J. MONTGOMERY GREEN

New York City

Congressman on War

Sirs:

In your Nov. 11 issue you print an anxious inquiry from a Boston lady as to whether I am the same benighted person, who, duringthe early part of the World War, claimed that "this War is the greatest blessing that has ever fallen on mankind since the German Reformation." To which virtuous inquiry you reply--"The same."

I dislike to deprive this heavenly minded Boston lady of the pleasure she seems to take in contemplating my supposed depravity, and especially do I hesitate to delete even this tiny morsel of drivel from the gurgling pacifism of the Millis book; but, I never made the statement. I never even heard of it until the author of the Road to War used it to support his delusion that the World War was caused by bad businessmen and bankers, and still more blood-thirsty preachers.

CHARLES A. EATON

Congress of the U. S.

House of Representatives

Washington, D. C.

If Representative Eaton says he did not make the utterance about war, TIME willingly records his denial. Author Millis was not the first commentator to print the quotation. It appeared two years ago in Preachers Present Arms, by Dr. Ray H. Abrams of Princeton's Department of Sociology and in the Oct. 4, 1915 issue of the defunct weekly The Independent. The Independent attributed the statement to the Rev. Charles A. Eaton but with no indication of time, place or circumstances. --ED.

Forearmed

Sirs:

On p. 47, TIME, Nov.18; re my book on the Vatican:

The reviewer of the New York Sun correctly pointed out that the spelling "liqueris" was wrong: it should have been "loqueris." It was, of course, a typographical error, as my Mss. had the "o." I corrected it in a later edition.

I thought it funny, however, to find in the Sun critic's item the same word misspelled two or three lines down. That was a typographical error of the Sun.

I am sending you this note in case the thousands of captious critics who love to point out small errors in TIME mention this one. Forewarned is, etc.

GEORGE SELDES New York City

Care Domine:

Nee infallibilis nee impeccabilis Latina Temporis est. Non liqueris aut liqui sed loqueris et loqui, (Non liquor fluidus sed lingua fluens.) O temporal O mores I O Papa Tempus! Tu certe non es papabilis.

Vale!

ELDOR PAUL SCHULZE

Albany, N. Y.

Vide ut supra.--ED.

To Sanity with Macfadden

Sirs:

If the mention Publisher Macfadden received in TIME, Nov. 11, p. 61, is an impromptu nomination, I want to second the motion. . . . His election would mark a return to sanity.

LUDVIK KRECMER

Newark, N. J.

Turkish Trouncings

Sirs:

I read in TIME, Oct. 28, under "International" the evidence gathered from the Italian white paper, about the Ethiopian customs, betraying Ethiopian atrocities. . . . It was added, "In nearly all parts of Africa the lash remains the usual punishment for natives. . . ."

I wish to add . . . that the lash used to reign in the Near East, until the end of the World War.

As a captain of the Surgical Corps, I was in the service of the Turkish Army, from the middle of August 1914 to the end of October 1918.

Flagellation was the routine official punishment for small offenses and neglect of duties by the privates and non-commissioned officers. The guilty soldier was formally subjected to a medical examination about his heart and lungs to find how many strokes he could stand. Then, before the sunset a regimental parade was held in the drilling yard of the barracks or on the main square of the camp, the guilty soldier lay prone at the centre on a piece of rush mat or burlap, surrounded by the commanding officers and the rows of the armed units. The regimental band of music begins to play. Two corporals press the shoulders of the victim and two the thighs.

On the signal of the highest officer, two sergeants, one on each side, armed with sticks of sound wood of oak or cherry over one inch thick, start to beat him on the hips.

At the end of this legal torturing, the victim was raised by the help of the sergeants, had to salute his commanders thanking them for the punishment.

I have seen this ceremony performed hundreds of times. I have not witnessed a single case in which the victim uttered a word of resistance or complaint. This punishment was legal and considered a part of army discipline.

On one occasion I have seen a military officer, in full uniform and commission, a second lieutenant, beaten in the same fashion but without music and formality in the main corridor of the infantry gate of the great historic barracks of army headquarters of Aleppo', Northern Syria, by the direct order and in the personal presence of the Brigadier General, Ahmed Shevkey Pasha. . . .

This cruel custom of regimental discipline did not hinder but rather helped the Turks to make the best and the most rugged soldiers of their uncivilized and primitive populace.

CAPTAIN N. M. BAGHDOYAN, M. D.

Boston, Mass.

Issue

Sirs:

Footnote to Kentucky Repeal vote: One Negro woman to another in front of a Middlesboro polling place--"Heah's how 'tis, honey:

Ef'n you wants red likkah, vote yes, but ef'n you wants white likkah, vote no."

If that's not the whole much-discussed question in a nutshell, then I'm Haile Selassie.

MRS. JAMES R. SAMPSON

Harlan, Ky.

Kentucky's Gentleman

Sirs:

Your comment in TIME, Nov. 18 on p. 15 " 'Happy' For Governor" is very irritating to me and possibly the other one-half million people in Kentucky that voted for him.

You have ridiculed and belittled a gentleman who has risen from poverty and obscurity to the highest office in Kentucky and into the hearts and minds of the people by his honesty and integrity.

I am surprised that a magazine that has a circulation of over 500,000 and is expected to publish the news of the day, would use such coarse and common language in describing one of Kentucky's best beloved sons.

A Chandler Supporter in Kentucky,

A. SCOTT ROBERTSON

Bethel, Ky.

Plaudit

Sirs:

I wish to commend you on your unbiased, complete and interesting biographical article on "Average American" Mark Sullivan (TIME, Nov. 18).