Contentedest Cow
Sirs: On p. 63, Feb. 24 issue of TIME a great record by a great cow, Carnation Ormsby Butter King of 38,606.6 lb. milk and 1,420 lb. butter fat. But--The American Shorthorn Breeders Association, Chicago, Ill. claim for a Milking Shorthorn world's record for butter fat from the Australian Milking Shorthorn Melba 15th of Darhalara. Record 32,5221b. milk, 1,614 lb. butter fat. How about it? WEXTWORTH P. BLODGETT
Roaring Brook Farm Bradford, Vt.
Australian Melba, a Shorthorn, made her record in 1924. Carnation Co., owners of Holstem "Daisy," contend that Melba's record is "unofficial."--ED. Sirs:
I read with interest your account of the Contentedest Cow. I never realized before what a prize the milk from contented cows actually is If one were to operate the beast which you describe as a miniature dairy for one year the results would be approximately as follows. Assuming local conditions it would cost about $801 to feed her and pay 4% interest on the initial investment. In as much as this does not include labor of tending, taxes, etc. and the receipts obtained from the sale of her produce are only $469 it is perhaps as well to have a few discontented cows about to cut down the loss
I assumed that the cow is valued at $10,000.
LAURENCE D. LIBBY Camden, Me. Carnation Co. declines to set a value on Carnation Ormsby Butter King.--ED. Sirs: TIME-readers who are breeding pure bred dairy cattle--and there are many--were especially pleased to see the picture of the new champion milk and butter fat producer, Carnation Ormsby Butter King, and the story of her significant performance in your Business & Finance section of Feb. 24. Holstein-Friesian >reeders of course, were particularly jubilant. . . .
E.A. Stuart, founder of Carnation Co., established this herd of pure bred Holsteins over a quarter century ago, and has paid as high as $106,000 for a bull. Other leaders of the industry who get pleasure and relaxation as well as a sense of service to agriculture through their Hoistem breeding efforts are Colonel H. F du Pont of Delaware; Colonel Fred Pabst of Milwaukee-George Rasmussen of National Tea: E. H. Maytag of washing-machine fame: F. E. Murphy of the Minneapolis Tribune; Governor Lowden of Illinois; T.B. Macaulay of the Sun Life in Canada; Ogden Mills, Owen D. Young, Daniel Willard. . . . M. S. PRESCOTT
Editor
Holstein-Friesian World Lacona, N. Y.
Hopeless Back Number
Sirs:
Your reviewer calmly and dispassionately dissects plays which make my hair stand on end. Apparently the context are not to him bombshells.
The past five years I have been awakening. Having a little more time, due to the fruits of middle age, I have been attending more often the cinema, hearing many of the latest plays.
During the first three years I began to feel that, in order to have any sex appeal, I should manage to get at least one divorce. The fact that I had overlooked this in my twenties perhaps accounted for the fact that only my husband had never spoken to me about passionate love.
During the past two years, I have come to feel that, in addition, I should have had at least one illegitimate child.
The last play I saw was a clincher, a final convincing argument that I was a hopeless back number. It was not that all of the men in the case were cheaters, and all of the women but one. I am quite used to that now. It was the line which built up the entrance of the only maiden (in name only).
Said the one virtuous woman (you may be sure the author made her most undesirable) "I have stood for everything else, but this morning I find a naked woman in my husband's bed "
Then I knew I was indeed without hope. Were I in a strange man's bed, I should at least want to have on a pretty nightgown. '
BLANCHE BEATTY
Chicago, Ill.
Mitchell's Maiden
Sirs:
As a constant reader of TIME, I have often spoken of the accuracy with which matters are reported in this wonderful weekly. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the issue of March 2, and under the Congress, sub-topic "Green Pastures," read of my having made my maiden speech in the House, Friday Feb 21 during the debate on the Soil Erosion Bill This statement is most inaccurate. My maiden speech was made on the Floor of the House April 15, 1935, while the House was considering the Social Security measure. . . .
ARTHUR W. MITCHELL
House of Representatives Washington, D. C. TIME erred. In addition to his 5-min. social Security Speech on the Floor last April, Illinois' Representative Mitchell, only Negro in Congress, also had, in the Congressional Record for Aug. 13 extended remarks on TVA, the New Deal and the Negro.--ED. Wisconsin's Unpleasantness Sirs: Unworthy of TIME was the statement under Wisconsin Dismissals" (TIME, Feb. 24) that ''local dailies" were "strongly pro-Spears, because, Meanwell protagonists claim, Spears had previously promised their two sport columnists university employment if he obtained the 1934 appointment as athletic director."
So far as The Wisconsin State Journal is concerned, the libel was not softened by attributing the claim to "Meanwell protagonists." In presenting news reports of Wisconsin's great unpleasantness, the State Journal hewed to the line, was neither pro nor con anything or anybody. After both doctors had been dismissed, it did editorially crack down on the athletic board for painting Spears dark black, Meanwell lily white, upholding the board of regents' contention that the aspersions cast on Spears were unfair and unjustified.
Since rumors floated through Madison with the greatest of ease during the athletic investigation, it is possible that somebody may have accused the sports writers of favoring Spears because of job promises, but if so, it is just one of thousands of unsupported assertions.
Personally, I do not believe Madison's comfortably situated sports editors could be persuaded by any amount of eloquence to accept jobs in Wisconsin's athletic department, where even professorial rank is no guarantee of security.
D. D. MICH
Managing Editor The Wisconsin State Journal Madison, Wisc.
Editor Mich need not take offense. Charges of an "influenced" press were as much a part of the Wisconsin unpleasantness as the "thousands of unsupported assertions" regarding whiskey bottles, petitions, promises. But TIME willingly records the State Journal's claim to journalistic integrity.--ED. Color Reproductions
Sirs: Of course you can't please all of the people all of the time, but twice in the last year you have pleased me so much that 30 minutes after receiving the March 2 copy I am letting you know how much I like the color-reproductions of modern art which you inserted between pages 42 & 43. On the other occasion that I was more than pleased with your "Art" section, you ran interpretations of modern American life by Thomas Benton and others of the realistic school [TIME, Dec. 24, 1934]. I think that in both cases the pictures chosen for reproduction were intelligently selected-- 'tho my opinion does not amount to anything, since I am a mere dabbler in this field--yet the few chances that I have to come in contact with work like this are so rare that I hope you will think it worth while to give me, and others like me, more of these interesting pages. ELSIE HOLLOMAN
Florence, Mont.
Sirs:
You certainly did a swell job in color reproduction in the issue of TIME for March 2. It was so good, in fact so superior to the customary job of color reproduction, that the Director of the Cleveland School of Art wondered whether TIME would be willing to lend, rent, or sell the color plates of my "Emancipation" panel for use in their school catalog for 1936-7. . . .DANIEL BOZA
Cleveland, Ohio
For Muralist Boza, painter of The Emancipation of the American Negro, TIME makes exception to its rule of never lending, renting or selling plates.--ED. Sirs: TIME'S excellent color supplement in the March 2 issue not only stopped a back-to-cover reader midway but makes my first letter to any publication a necessity. Granted that making this U. S. art conscious, giving destitute artists a chance and enhancing public buildings is highly commendable, cannot someone with more taste and understanding supervise the process? Too much bad painting is as unfortunate as no painting at all. Good murals come high and Washington feels that Mechau's Dangers of the Mail ''has justified the entire PWA program." While it is merely a sketch and some detail is nice, it does not hold together, the centre is a confusing mass, it has no mural quality and is devoid of any feeling. I would suggest Mr. Mechau make less trips to the garbage can. As to Kenneth Adams' Rural Free Delivery 'twould do for the Ladies' Home Journal; John Steuart Curry's panels might both be called "comedy" -- so silly and trite they are; the Winold Reiss murals would pass as fair advertisement and Gerald Foster's Molly Pitcher as a thriller illustration. However Daniel Boza's The Emancipation of the American Negro is quite beautiful. If good pictures are not essential to Washington, why not give every poor devil a chance? If they are I suggest that someone with an under standing and a feeling for fineness pass judgment. MARY HUNTINGTON
New York City
Sirs:
. . . How in hell account for the naked females in Dangers of the Mail? With white men still putting up a good fight, evidently there has yet been no rape. Knowledge of the Indians' stoicism precludes thoughts of rape after the battle, unquestionably so in this instance when scalping is already in progress. Curiosity? Even about the feet? . . .
Perhaps Mr. Mechau will assist this provincial in the appreciation of "true art?"
GEORGE A. BARRETT
Elmhurst, N. Y.
Explains Muralist Mechau: "The use of nudes in my painting Dangers of the Mail is justified by historical facts, human nature and formal necessity."--ED. Sirs:
The mural by Douglass Crockwell, First Steamboat on Western Waters, represents an old stern paddle-wheeler which could never leave its dock on its own power. The connecting rod would smash into the support on the first stroke. A center-hung crank, or an inboard bearing would solve the difficulty. Of course TIME is not responsible for the error, but the artist should know more about mechanism if he chooses subjects such as this.
WM. G. SMITH
School of Engineering Northwestern University Evanston, Ill.
Professor Smith's practical criticism is the kind that most modern muralists dismiss with a contemptuous "what of it?''--ED. Sirs: Your color reproductions of U. S. murals are superb! As with your other color supplement, you have done something which needed doing, and have done it with judgment and skill.
Are you also repeating your generosity with regard to separate, frameable prints of these pictures? If so, please put me down for a set of them.
EDWARD OLIVER
Louisville Ky.
To the first 10,000 who ask, will be sent reprints of the mural reproductions, without charge. Requests should go to TIME'S Production Office, 350 East 22nd St., Chicago, Ill.--ED. Politics & Prayers
Sirs:
Will you please qualify the statement printed on p. 13, TIME, Mar. 2, anent President Roosevelt's religious training! Inasmuch as most educated persons are acquainted with the Book of Common Prayer, in which all collects and prayers are invocatory, it is rather surprising to find a writer of your staff composing such a piece of sheer absurdity.
Further, your news account of the President's arrival in Cambridge is quite at variance with other press statements, in that it (quite innocently?) mentions only the discourtesies which greeted the Chief Executive and deleted the fact of the attendant cheers.
REV. LYNNLY WILSON JR.
Rector
St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Marietta, Ohio
Most Episcopalians consider it in dubious taste to invoke God directly except on strictly religious occasions. Cheers for President Roosevelt have come to be taken for granted, the Cambridge booing was news.--ED. Supplied, Not Designed
Sirs:
We hasten to correct a statement in your article entitled "Memorials" in TIME, Feb. 24. The Rockefeller mausoleum was designed by Welles Bosworth, Architect. We supplied the material, carved the stone and erected the building in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery for William Crawford, who was the general contractor.
C. H. PRESBREY
President
Presbrey-Leland Studios New York City
Lacking Louis
Sirs:
Why the appellation ''late, great" to Louis XVI of France, TIME, Feb. 24? History credits him with being lazy, dull, bumbling, and weak-kneed, lacking in intelligence and will power, more interested in his hobby of locksmithing than reigning France. About all he had was good intentions.
Lavisse in his great Histoire de France says that "the principal cause of the ruin of royalty in France was the lack of a King."
L. OTTO JR.
Cleveland, Ohio
Quibble
Sirs:
I quibble with your indiscriminate use of the word "late" in titling pictures of deceased persons, viz., Father Damien in your Feb. 3 issue, Edith Cavell, Feb. 17, and Josiah Royce, Feb. 24. "Late" means existing recently but not now. "Recent" is relative, to be sure, as is time itself, but would not be applied by our up-to-the-minute newsmagazine in referring to the death of Father Damien in 1889 or of Professor Boyce and Nurse Cavell in World War days. A resolution, please.
E. LEWIS HOWE
Los Angeles, Calif.
TIME will continue to use "late" as it sees fit.--ED.
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