Twerpish Sirs:

Your description of Yin Ju-keng (TIME, Dec. 30, p. 15) as "twerpish-looking" reminds me of Mark Twain's statement about the crocodile, which could not have another name because no other animal looks so much like a crocodile. . . .

What is the meaning of this appropriate descriptive term you apply to Yin Ju-keng? I am unable to find it in the dictionary.

WARREN C. PROPES

Berkeley, Calif.

A twerp, as Reader Propes should know without dictionary-thumbing, is a small, pretentious, ineffective and unpleasant person whose mode of self-expression falls between a twitter and a chirp.--ED.

Necessary New Faces

Sirs:

Your recent comment on the Anti-Saloon League Convention at St. Louis [TIME, Dec. 16] was curt, clear, but incomplete and incorrect.

Of course there are only two basic ideas about liquor, wet and dry. If anyone expected the Anti-Saloon League to change its fundamental idea" that intoxicating beverages are harmful, dangerous and habit-forming, and therefore the traffic therein should be suppressed, they were of course disappointed. As for new ideas about how to advocate the cause of sobriety TIME itself referred to the new songs introduced at St. Louis, and the press associations considered the plan of home talent dramas developed by the Anti-Saloon League sufficiently new to give the story nationwide circulation. Also there was the new idea of a $2,000,000 advertising campaign to counteract the high-pressure advertising and sales promotion activities of the liquor interests. Your implication that because former leaders in the anti-liquor fight like Cannon and McBride are still loyal to their convictions no new leaders are joining in the fight against intolerable conditions caused by alcohol is entirely incorrect. On our program this year we had noted men like Charles W. Bryan, Dr. John R. Sampey, Dr. P. M. Glasoe and numerous others who have not previously spoken at our national conventions. In a way TIME is right in suggesting that new ideas and new faces are necessary. The new ideas developed by the Anti-Saloon League and the new faces appearing in its councils, contrary to your curt report, will be effective in a new advance against alcohol. But, the greatest change will be brought about by the multitude of voters who will get new and correct ideas about the liquor traffic from personal observations with the result that new faces will appear in State and National Capitols.

O. G. CHRISTGAU

Convention Manager

The Anti-Saloon League of America

Austin, Minn.

Debatable Points

Sirs:

The playwright whose play is reviewed in TIME has an opportunity seldom afforded him elsewhere: he is able to come back fast and plenty if the review contains mistaken facts. In your review of Paradise Lost (TIME, Dec. 23) the following corrections are to be noted:

1) There is no blank verse in the play.

2) I have never attempted to bracket myself with Chekhov. He was mentioned only as historical background.

3) The furnace man in the play is not a Communist, unless John Brown, Garrison and a dozen other American rebels are so considered.

4) I attempted to explain nothing to the critics, before or after the opening, except the difficulties of finding theatre forms for a play which dealt with an entire class as hero.

5) A very debatable point--not a fact--is whether it is true that "Manhattan's reviewers habitually bend over backward to give radical drama the best possible marks."

6) The clear inference then follows that for this reason, "Odets was again declared to be the most promising playwright in the land." Because of being considered a radical writer? That is a very cute but unfactual sentiment, whimsey, mates, whimsey!

7) And nowhere did The Group make the statement that it "has faith in Paradise Lost." That's all. Otherwise TIME'S reviewer has most of his parts in place. It should, however, be pointed out that to isolate a play's demerits is not to critically evaluate.

CLIFFORD ODETS

New York City

1) TIME said the furnace man in Paradise Lost "goes around shouting questionable blank verse." To TIME'S reviewer, the following sample soliloquy certainly sounded more like "questionable blank verse" than common speech:

"Citizens! Let me talk out my heart! Don't stop me! Citizens, they have taken our sons and mangled them to death! They have left us lonely in our old age. The bellyrobbers have taken clothes from our backs. We slept in subway toilets here. In Arkansas we picked fruit. I followed the crops north and dreamed of a warmer sun. We lived on and hoped. . . . The American jitters! Idealism! There's for idealism! For those blue-gutted Yankee Doodle bastards are making wars while we sleep. . . ."

2) Whatever Playwright Odets' intention was in mentioning Playwright Chekhov in the letter he sent Manhattan reviewers on the eve of the premiere of Paradise Lost, his words were: "Our confused middle-class today, which dares little, is dangerously similar to Chekhov's people. Which is why the people in Awake and Sing [also by Odets] and Paradise Lost (particularly the latter) have what is called a 'Chekhovian quality.' "

3) The eloquent furnace man suggested "maybe we ought to take the government over in our own hands," was labeled "Communist" by two Manhattan newspaper reviewers, was considered a "Red" by at least two characters in the play. If the furnace man was not a Communist, Playwright Odets certainly made him out a likely candidate for the Party.

4) TIME will not volley opinions with Playwright Odets as to why he sent his pre-premiere explanatory letter to the reviewers.

5) TIME points to the record of respectful criticism which many an unsuccessful proletarian drama has received in the "capitalist press."

6) For TIME'S estimate of Playwright Odets, stripped of all his inferences, see page 13, TIME, Jan. 6.

7) TIME regrets its careless misquotation of the Group Theatre's advertisement. The Group Theatre was "proud to present" Paradise Lost. "That's all."--ED.

Bird

Sirs:

Quoting from your interesting article on Helen Hayes (TIME, Dec. 30): "The piece was Sir James Barrie's Dear Brutus. The leading man was William Gillette. And there was not a dry eye in the house when Helen Hayes got through wringing the last teardrop out of the scene in the wood where Gillette, the childless artist, meets the daughter he might have had." Right. But one particular night the eyes were wet with tears of laughter. Dear Brutus was playing, I believe, at the Empire in New York City. It was some months after the Armistice. Theatre-goers approaching that block in Broadway where the Empire faces the Metropolitan found silent crowds pressing police lines, were asked to display theatre tickets before proceeding, remembered that President Wilson, having landed at Boston that day from his second futile European trip was to make his first impassioned League speech that night at the Met, was at the moment Hearing New York. Within the Empire Dear Brutus proceeded to the scene in the wood and to the exact point where an unseen property robin trills a high, clear note. And at that instant, outside the theatre, bedlam broke loose. Horns honked, the waiting Democrats cheered. William Gillette, shouting his line above the din, said: "What was that?" To everyone in the theatre came a vision of the scene outside--the open car, the erect figure, silk hat, gleaming glasses, lantern jaw. And little Helen, taking her cue, gave the line which for several minutes stopped the play while the audience rocked with laughter and the two characters, turning their back?, leaned against the canvas trees and joined in. Helen said, plaintively: "Oh--it's just that old bird come back again." JOHN J. FINLAY

Chicago, Ill.

"Gentlemen"

Sirs:

Not, I venture, because Edward Riley Stettinius Jr. is "long on organization, strong on public relations . . ." (TIME, Dec. 30) does he habitually use the salutation "Gentlemen."

At the University of Virginia, where ''Ed" Stettinius was student president of the Academic Department (1923-24) that salutation amounts to no less than a ritual performed scores of times each day by students meeting at the corner or on the campus.

HOWARD ALDEN HENSCHEL

Northport, L. I.

Labor's Thanks

Sirs:

The ways of Government never cease to amaze. The latest--a Season's Greeting card from the Department of Labor--seems a bit of extravagance with the taxpayers' money. And, perhaps, may account for at least a part of continuing postal deficits. Wonder if figures are available as to number sent out.

WILLIAM T. STROM

Dayton, Ohio

According to the Department of Labor's Commissioner of Labor Statistics Isador Lubin, his bureau "did not send out any Christmas cards. We sent out expressions of appreciation for co-operation and help rendered us during the past year by private industry. All firms that helped the Bureau during the past year by furnishing information and statistics received a card of thanks. Private industry has rendered the Bureau hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free service entirely on its own volition."--ED.

Governor's Grass

Sirs:

Again TIME errs. I, George Cleve Bullette, erstwhile employe of the Oklahoma Tax Commission and newspaperman by profession, many times have passed Ernie Marland's house in Oklahoma City, which he occupies rent free from the State of Oklahoma, and never have I seen the turf disturbed by the moleboard or shear of a plow. Alfalfa Bill Murray let his cow eat the grass on the lawn, thereby saving the State the expense of operating a gasoline mower, but he most certainly did not plow up the grass. . . .

I wonder if Haile Selassie really has a beard? . . .

GEORGE CLEVE BULLETTE

Muskogee, Okla.

It was the block-long, iron-fenced plot between Capitol and Mansion grounds which was ploughed up last spring and planted to Sudan grass, was being ploughed again last week to be planted to rye.--ED.

Well-Read

Sirs: .

TIME (Dec. 30) carried an announcement under Education of the Lewis Baker Warren scholarship fund recently bequeathed to Yale. In three days 20 inquiries came to my desk from 15 States.

Due to several life interests and annuities, the fund will not be available for award for some time. In acknowledging inquiries we have so advised interested school officers, parents and boys.

The States heard from thus far, if you are interested, are Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland,

Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vermont.

TIME and the ambitious but impecunious American youth are apparently well-read.

OGDEN D. MILLER

Scholarships and Loans

Yale University

New Haven, Conn.

Well-Born Californian

Sirs:

Mr. A. Anderson of Minneapolis who took you to task for using the term "wellborn" displays ignorance of the term and his statements are libelous [TIME, Dec. 30]. . . .

Wealth has nothing to do with being ''well-born" and neither does it imply) that all '"well-born" people are necessarily prominent or honest.

For his benefit and an answer to his sarcastic comments I will for the first time stale that from proven records, such as deeds and wills, records and other authentic sources, I can trace my lineage on my maternal side to two kings of Italy, one of France, Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, the three Henrys of England as well as Wittoon the 1st, King Robert Bruce of Scotland.

My emigrant ancestor was a member of a Company of Gentlemen Adventurers who found Virginia to his liking and settled there in 1650. . . .

None of these men was of great wealth, in fact both my grandfathers were Methodist ministers (not of the modern variety).

Yet birth means nothing if the heir does not live up to his family traditions.

Mr. Anderson had better stick to his Poland Chinas.

FAIRFAX SPENCER

San Rafael, Calif.

Victoria like Edward

Sirs:

I am posting you a Sphere (London) with some pictures of the late Princess Victoria in it. You will notice the illustrated London newspaper weekly remarks, in two places, that Princess Victoria had had delicate health for years, as I wrote you last week. It has always been rumored in England that Princess Victoria was subject to fits, at long intervals.

As the youngest child of her brother (George V), Prince John, suffered from fits from his birth and died in one when 13 years of age, in 1919, it seems quite probable that both the aunt (Victoria) and nephew (Prince John) inherited this physical weakness from some remote ancestor, either on the Danish side (Queen Alexandra) or the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Prince Consort) side. It is not true, as the Sphere says, that Victoria was very like her mother, Queen Alexandra. Princess Victoria (I have seen her close several times at charity bazaars in London) was very like her father, Edward VII, not in the least like her beautiful mother, Alexandra. Princess Victoria had the prominent, rather staring blue eyes of her father, Edward VII, and his curved nose, while her mother, Queen Alexandra, had delicate features and soft, dark blue eyes. . . .

ANN ELIZABETH ROBBIN

Boston, Mass.

All-Important Ciphers

Sirs:

Does TIME [Jan. 6] err on p. 11: "... the Frazier-Lemke bill for paying off farm mortgages with $3,000,000 in greenbacks"? If so, can we accuse our favorite newsorgan of falling into the New Deal habit of treating lightly those all-important ciphers which turn millions into billions?

ROBERT G. KERLER

New York City

Billions it is.--ED.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.