Impersonation?

Sirs:

In your issue of Jan. 27 there appeared a letter under the heading of "Modern Sodom" bearing the signature, James C. Barton, Vancouver, B. C.

So far as can be ascertained I am the only person of that name in Vancouver and I did not write the letter in question, although I have been the recipient of a number of rather abusive letters in connection therewith. It would appear that the writer of the letter referred to above was too cowardly to sign his own name and used mine instead, therefore I would be glad if you would kindly publish this letter of explanation.

JAMES C. BARTON

309 Winch Building Vancouver, B. C.

No one named James C. Barton could be found at the street address in Vancouver given by TIME'S original letter writer. If, in his tirade against the U. S. he purposely impersonated James C. Barton, upright and honorable Canadian customs official, let him apologize.--ED. Thymol in Germany

Sirs:

TIME readers will perhaps be interested in facts pertaining to the ballyhooed "invention" of Columbia's Dr. Leroy Leo Hartman [TIME, Feb. 3].

For more than three decades solutions of thymol in equal parts of ethyl alcohol and sulphuric ether were and still are sold by enterprising druggists in Germany to the public in general.

The thymol solution will give temporary relief from dental pain if the tooth is hollow and permits the solution to penetrate deeply.

Medical men in Germany would of course not think of using thymol as a substitute for novocain, although the public is using it widely to obtain temporary relief, when the dentist cannot be reached, particularly in rural districts. Naturally the dentists know this, but frown upon the practise because people will not see the dentist as often, as long as they have a harmless and convenient "pain killer" in their medicine chests. . . .

GEORGE A. A. RUTHENBERG

Ruthenberg Color Photography Laboratories Hollywood, Calif.

Roland II

Sirs:

I read an article in the Jan. 13 issue of TIME magazine, that the last two sea elephants in captivity died. I would like to tell you that the day after Roland in the Berlin Zoo died, another one, Roland II, took his place. I wish you would ask the reporter that got the news where he got it, because I have heard that there is a place in Bremen where they raise these sea elephants.

JOSEPH LAUTNER JR. 11 years old Berlin Not-- to Bremen but to Hamburg's famed Hagenbeck Menagerie the Berlin Zoo telephoned its order, obtained a 17-ft. bull elephant seal (Mirunga patagonica) to be Roland II.--ED. Coed & Principles Sirs:

Re "Banks & Brakes," in your Feb. 10 issue: Please accept thanks from a non-business-minded coed for a very lucid explanation of inflation and credit matters. I suggest that every girl who has as much trouble as I do in grasping economic principles should keep this issue on her desk, to be read faithfully once a week till thoroughly absorbed. That will be my procedure, anyway.

MIRIAM DICKERSON

Granville, Ohio

Stalin's Laurels Sirs:

Never has TIME'S contumely been so curt, clear and concise, never have its prejudices been so transparent as in its report of the Soviet- Uruguay business at Geneva (TIME, Feb. 3, p. 16). . . . You make a point of observing that Litvinoff is a Jew, that he barely got by as a traveling salesman, that he acted as a "fence" for Stalin and "other terrorists" and that he is "prone to shout 'Forged!' " when confronted by an opponent's evidence. What about the Uruguayan Minister, who is as much a party to the incident as Litvinoff? What kind of parents was Guani born of and how did he earn a living before becoming Minister?

Consistent with your obvious bias against the U. S. S. R. is your reference to Stalin as a "terrorist" while withholding the same qualification from Hitler and Mussolini. . . . The labor movement, the proletariat as a whole can expect nothing but sniggering from a magazine whose heart bleeds over poor J. P. Morgan having to answer questions before a horrid munitions investigating committee. Your cut of a Morgan partner exposed to the "cold stare" of a committee clerk was a perfect illustration of your antipathy. . . .

ANTON OBER

Springfield, Mass.

Dull and superfluous are the facts of Dr. Alberto Guani's career. Born of middle-class Catholic parents, he graduated from the University of Montevideo to enter the Uruguayan Foreign Service. He was Minister to Austria from 1911 to 1913, Minister to Belgium until 1925 and since then Minister to France, with occasional trips to represent Uruguay before the League. TIME'S point was precisely that colorless Dr. Guani faced in Comrade Litvinoff a colorful Red.

Any point system of determining who today is the world's No. I Terrorist must credit Joseph Stalin with having set (Continued on p. 8) bombs which killed Tsarist officials; dynamited safes and robbed trains to get funds for the Communist Party (valuables thus obtained being disposed of in part through Fence Litvinoff); and later as Dictator occasioning the deaths of thousands of Russians by his drastically obeyed order to "liquidate the kulak as a class." Let not Reader Ober rob the Dictator of terroristic laurels sweet to an Old Bolshevik whose proudest boasts are always about the number of years he spent in jail for crimes committed in Tsar Nicholas' reign.--ED. Sovereigns to Left Sirs: I note in your issue of Feb. 3, under the article "Make a Big V!" the statement: "In successive reigns the head of the Sovereign on coins and stamps faces alternately left & right. Thus Queen Victoria faces left, King Edward VII right, King George V left." Not being familiar with British coins, I am unable to challenge your statement regarding them. However, I have examined British and British Colonial postage stamps for a good many years, as has every philatelist of any experience. Therefore. I must ask you to correct your statement regarding Sovereigns' faces on British stamps. All of the faces of British Sovereigns on British stamps since the first one was issued, in 1840, face to the left--that is, the reader's left. . . . The same rule holds true on the stamps of most of the British colonies. Some of the colonies have issued stamps showing King George V in a full face view. . . . JAMES A. DECKER

President

The Philatelic Journalists of America Prairie City, Ill.

TIME was wrong about British stamps, right about British coins, on which the heads of Sovereigns do face alternately left & right.--ED. Sanity Compensation Sirs:

As a newsstand purchaser of TIME allow me to bring out one A. E. F. veteran's point of view on your article (TIME, Feb. 3, p. 12).

You cite the six benefits that the Government bestowed on the ex-service man but the one point you leave out is this. No man who Vent to France or any other of the battle fronts came back the same, he left some of his sanity on the battlefield after the first engagement. The U. S. Government cannot pay in money for what it took from the young men that entered the Army about the time I did; BUT, as money is the only medium that can in any way repay the ex-service man it is fit and proper that the last cent should be paid. . . .

I belong to two veterans' organizations that were in favor of the miscalled "bonus" and I have yet to hear the view expressed that you bring out: that we should be paid a bonus as we did not share in the high wages of the War. . . . GEORGE W. REYNOLDS

Lewisburg, Pa.

Let Veteran Reynolds brush up on his U. S. history. It was on the basis of a wage differential that the original Veterans' Adjusted Service Compensation legislation was debated, enacted in 1924.

--ED. Sirs: Time may be just, but TIME is not. Under Heroes TIME [Feb. 3] invariably-lists activities of veterans in a way which depicts them as anything but heroic. "They already had" (from the Treasury): 1) "Pay of $1 per day or more." Swell! 2) "$60 discharge bonus." Would TIME have had them go naked? 3) "Transportation allowance home." TIME forgets transportation allowance to the trenches. 4) "Cheap Government life insurance." Over 3,000,000 veterans had to drop it. 5) "Free hospitalization." Correct. 6) "Pensions for . . . ailments 'presumed' to have been caused by the War." "Presumed" in the sense that after exhaustive research, and medical evidence, the veteran is given the benefit of a reasonable doubt. . . . Approximately 600,000 volunteered. The rest were drafted into a war not of their seeking. Many suffered economic loss. Other losses: broken homes; mental anguish through concern over loved ones; the inestimable privilege of being with dear ones dying of "flu" and other causes. The draftees have a right to recompense for economic loss sustained in any war not waged in defense of our own soil. The Senate investigation merely affirms what all knew--that the war was fought in defense of commerce and war profits, not of our lives and liberties. . . . A. BROOKS

San Diego, Calif.

A list of benefits-already-received was necessary to put current Bonus news in proper perspective.--ED. State Heroes Sirs: In your Feb. 3 issue you had a very illuminating article on the battle that has been going on for the last 15 years by our "Heroes" who saw more or less service in the World War in their efforts to get cash from the U. S. Government.

Seems to me you have overlooked a very important part of their campaign, which consisted in their no less strenuous combats to get cash from their various and sundry State governments. In these engagements they were uniformly successful all along the line. I know that some twelve years ago my State of Illinois, after a hot campaign in which the opponents of the bonus were branded as being unpatriotic and slackers, voted them a State bonus, and $55,000,000 worth of bonds were sold in order to pay it. ...

... I am only one of the inarticulate host who are opposed to granting the "Veterans" their never-ending and exorbitant demands for more money.

RILEY P. MARTIN

Rockford, Ill.

"Screeno"

Sirs:

In TIME, Feb. 3, there appeared an article under the heading of "Bank Night" in which the game of "Screeno" was listed as an "imitation."

In view of TIME'S recognized policy in publishing accurate reports on every subject, we respectfully call your attention to the fact that "Screeno" was the first innovation of its kind. Under the name of "Wheel O' Fortune" it was patented on Sept. 4, 1924 and the trade-mark name of "Screeno" was duly registered in Washington in 1926. . . .

J. S. MARKSTEIN

Screeno Amusement Co. Chicago, Ill.

For "Screeno" each theatregoer is given a different card. As numbers are called out each theatregoer marks off such as are on his card. The person who first exhibits a card on which five of the numbers thus called compose a row, wins a prize. In "Screeno" the numbers are determined by a dial and spinning pointer which is projected on the screen.--ED. "Finance" v. "Monopoly" Sirs:

If the game of Monopoly is sufficiently newsworthy for your article under Business & Finance in TIME, Feb. 3, it also deserves a correct review of its conglomerate history. . . .

A game surprisingly similar to Darrow's and known as Monopoly was played on home-made boards in the D.K.E. house at Williams College in 1927 et seq. It developed in Reading, Pa. much earlier than that.

Almost exactly this same game as played at Williams was put on the market in Indianapolis early in 1932 through L. S. Ayres & Co. The name was changed to Finance for trademark reasons. . . .

I wrote the entire rulebook for the game of Finance in 1931 (copyrighted 1932) and simplified the old game of Monopoly for manufacturing purposes. . . .

DANIEL W. LAYMAN JR.

Los Angeles, Calif.

TIME said: "The basic patent on Monopoly was obtained by Mrs. Elizabeth M. Phillips who . . . developed the idea years ago. . . ." Her patent was granted in 1924.--ED. Snips Sirs: Let the chronic savers of TIME throw their hands on high at such blasphemy as snipping the pages of TIME, but we announce a new game. We snip out the pictures of such notables as we feel everyone should know and present them to our guests to identify. Such red faces and stuttering! We now have about 75 pictures and we are still going strong. It's pleasant pastime for those who don't hold the pages of TIME as too sacred to cut.

RICHARD G. REDELL

Guernsey, Wyo.

For years many TIME subscribers have played such a game, reported it fun. Some elaborate it by pasting up two sets of cards, one with pictures, the other with captions, having players try to match them correctly.--ED. Joe Jones's Farmer Sirs:

I would suggest that your Art editor or critic spend some time with Artist Joe Jones on his next sojourn to the Middle-Western harvest fields. In TIME, Feb. 3, ''Workers & Wheatfields," last paragraph, you say, "Threshing No. 1, showing a straw-hatted farmer hoisting an explosive forkful of wheat from a wagon. . . ." Unless the procedure has been drastically changed since I last loaded a bundle wagon, Joe Jones's farmer, wearing the "technical masterpiece" of a straw hat, is loading a bundle wagon with the bundles which are being pitched on the wagon by the two gentlemen on the ground preparatory to hauling the load to the separator in the background. . . .

JAMES T. KLEPPER

Attorney at Law Wichita, Kans.

Right is Reader Klepper. Artist Joe Jones says that the hatted man is putting a bundle of wheat into the wagon.--ED.

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