Cook's Case

Sirs:

I should like to correct your assumption that I am generally considered an impostor [TIME, March 16]. My polar attainment was recognized by such leading explorers and scientists as Roald Amundsen, discoverer of the South Pole, Otto Sverdrup, Director Lecointe of the Brussels Observatory, Captain Bernier of the Northwest Mounted Police, and Anthony Fiala. . . . The Danes have never withdrawn the medal and degree they conferred upon me for their belief in the fidelity of my work. Stielers Atlas, a work of such authority that it is found on the tables of all important mapmakers, recognizes my success. Recent writers on the subject--J. Gordon Hayes, Captain Thomas F. Hall and others--have expressed their belief in me.

Your reference about my conviction is apt to give an incorrect impression. It is a fact that I was for several years engaged as a geologist to find potential oil fields in Wyoming. The acreage thus acquired was placed into a developing company, which is today a highly successful corporation, bearing my name. It is a fact that I entered Texas in the boom days at the end of the war. It is a fact that I was tried and convicted for overstating potential values in prospective oil fields. It is a fact that I was sent to prison at Leavenworth, and spent five years there.

It is also a fact that the potential oil lands which I had acquired were not fully tested and were stamped as practically worthless by the prosecution. It is a fact, and this has not been repeated by those who have tried to defame me, that some of the lands under question have since produced wealth of millions, far beyond the wildest assertions which I had made in literature and letters of the company.

The court record of my trial gives the following evidence: In the Petroleum Producers' Association, of which I was president and with 22 other officers and assistants was on trial, the following facts were admitted by the Federal Bank Examiner:

1) Dr. Cook was the largest cash investor in the company and held no promotion stock.

2) Dr. Cook had drawn no salary or commissions or profits of any kind.

3) The books of the company balanced with no indication of embezzlement or missing funds.

I have never in my life taken a penny that did not belong to me, and I am convinced today, as I was in 1923, that my judgment in regard to every phase of my oil development was sound.

FREDERICK A. COOK Chicago, Ill.

On Sept. 1, 1909 Dr. Cook, after some two years in the Arctic, announced that he had reached the North Pole. Promptly the Crown Prince of Denmark bestowed on him the medal of the Danish Geographical Society. British Journalist Philip Gibbs at once doubted Cook's story. On Sept. 6, Explorer Robert Edwin Peary, who had raced Dr. Cook to the Pole, said of his competitor: "He has simply handed the public a gold brick." Subsequently examining Dr. Cook's polar observations, a University of Copenhagen commission pronounced: "The documents . . . do not contain observation and information which can be regarded as proof." The commission's chairman declared that Dr. Cook's claim was "shameless."--ED.

Diabolical Falsehood

Sirs:

As one of many whose hair has departed "hither, thither and yon" I emphatically protest your accepting, displaying advertisement on p. 8, current issue TIME.

[In TIME for March 9 appeared an advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic picturing an attractive girl stroking a man's head beneath the caption: No bald head ever invites a caress like this.--ED.]

It is a mendacious diabolical falsehood. A tour of our divorce courts daily highlights the fact no glossy, marcelled jackanapes, no thatched gigolo with vaseline in his hair can hold his woman simply because of hirsute adornment, is sole recipient of expiring calf looks, amateurish caresses.

FRANK NEIN

Scotia, Calif.

Newfoundland Slippers

Sirs:

TIME erred rather obviously in its March 2 issue in connection with the visit of His Majesty King Edward VIII to the British Industries Fair. Referring to the products of Dominions and Colonies which His Majesty praised, TIME stated ". . . and sealskin slippers from New Zealand, of which His Majesty said, accepting a pair, 'I think they will be very warm, comfortable and useful. All my brothers have gloves of sealskin.' " As will be seen from the enclosed clipping from the St. John's Evening Telegram the sealskin slippers referred to were from NEWFOUNDLAND and not as TIME stated from NEW ZEALAND.

I feel certain that in keeping with its policy TIME will make this correction, and it would rectify its error all the more readily had it been privileged to witness the annual departure of the sealing fleet from this port for the "Ice" which took place this morning.

GORDON F. PUSHIE

St. John's, Newfoundland

Quintuplet Rights

Sirs:

In TIME, March 16, p. 57, you state Twentieth Century-Fox now has "exclusive screen rights to the Quintuplets."

This is an error as Pathe News has the exclusive rights to the newsreel and short subject pictures, under a contract continuing for many years.

COURTLAND SMITH President

Pathe News, Inc.

New York City

Rheinische Maedchen

Sirs:

Your vivid style of writing your news is mostly very interesting, sometimes nauseating as seen in TIME, March 16, under Foreign News. ... To call the "Rheinische Maedchen" wenches is certainly out of place and uncalled for if I understand the meaning of the word correctly.

A kind word about their joy in seeing perhaps their own brothers march to the Heimatland again would certainly have been much more appropriate after the insults they had to endure when the ''Grand Nation" went so far as to have black troops in the Rhineland.

As far as I know, many an A. E. F. soldier enjoyed by a glass or even bottle of flower-scented golden wine the company of German girls, and I should not wonder if many a decent-minded man will object to your calling them wenches.

I suggest to square yourself, to write an article about the conditions prevailing today in Hitler-Germany and the reasons for the rash acts of a nation half the size of our own population trying to wrench a living from a land about two-thirds the size of our own State of Texas, and hemmed in on all sides.

O. A. BELGER

Watertown, Mass.

Indeed Subscriber Belger does not understand the meaning of the word "wench." Webster's New International Dictionary defines "wench": "A girl or maiden; young woman; damsel. A girl of the peasant class; also a female servant." Archaic is meaning No. 4: "A lewd woman; a strumpet."--ED.

Far Eastern Sidelight

Sirs:

. . . Generalissimo Chiang is reported to be up-country "fighting Chinese Communists" against whom ''his victories have been many" (TIME, Feb. 24). My father is living in this up-country section--his residence for thirty years --in its most Communist-infested area. He has escaped from the Communists twice within the last twelve months, once in one of Chiang Kai-shek's military planes--piloted by a young Iowan--and once afoot, mere yards ahead of the Red vanguard. His latest letter, dated in January, warns me that despite all I may read, "no Communist army has yet been defeated in Kweichow:" the Reds countermarch where they please, occasionally withdrawing before the National army, never embarrassed by it. In short, the whole story of Chiang's victories is balderdash.

. . . No English-speaking correspondent is covering the civil war there: my father occasionally sends dispatches of general interest to the North China Daily News, but reports no "victories" for the Central Government. The Communists have, of course, no press; most of them are probably too illiterate to discover that they have been defeated. Chiang, with a monopoly on the war bulletins, naturally gives himself the best of the fighting. I do not assert that TIME is hoodwinked by his propaganda, but I trust that the editors will accept in good faith this sidelight upon the Far Eastern situation.

ALFRED CROFTS

Alamosa, Colo.

"See Brown County!"

Sirs:

Just reading the second line of the first paragraph of the article "Indiana-Purdue Deadlock" [TIME, March 16]. Quoting "To that state, flat as a huge gymnasium floor"--where do you think Indiana is? Out on the Texas Panhandle? True, we do have level areas but some of our best players come from down in them thar hills. Whoever wrote the article must have been too young to have read Abe Martin and have seen the pictures that went with it. Why, the New Deal says one-third of Indiana is so rough and hilly it should be made a National Forest. True, the north is flat; the central part rolling, but go see Brown County!

SADIE BACON HATCHER

Fort Wayne, Ind.

Sirs:

. . . You share the common misconception of the Midwest of those who seldom venture beyond the Hudson. Draw a horizontal line across Indiana about 20 miles south of Indianapolis. South of that line you will have more than one-third the State's area. And in that one-third plus area there are more hills than plains.

The hills of Brown, Monroe, Morgan, Orange and many other counties compare quite favorably with the Berkshires and Litchfields and each autumn are visited by thousands who come from Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville and even more distant points to enjoy their color and beauty. We are rapidly developing a State park system that may be second to none. You'd enjoy Clifty Falls, Dunes, Brown County and Spring Mill parks.

Come on out and see us sometime.

J. M. JEWELL

Columbus, Ind.

Loyal Indiana Subscribers Hatcher and Jewell take TIME'S simile too literally. Even so, rolling Indiana's highest point (1,240 ft., in Randolph County) is 2,265 ft. below Mt. Greylock in the Berkshires. --ED.

Human Interest

Sirs:

The persons responsible for Administration publicity must have been delighted at the way the story of the President's vest buttons went over. . . .

I suppose that, from now until Election Day, we will be well supplied with "human interest" items concerning the President and his family, judiciously handed out by the publicity staff. Their very obviousness makes them tiresome. But I guess there isn't very much that we readers can do about it.

M. A. STEPHENS

New York City

While first-rate "human interest" items continue to pour from the White House, TIME will report them. Example: Sequel to the vest-stud affair is the well-authenticated report that the President's embarrassment was caused by one of his sons making off with the studs, neglecting to replace them in the Presidential bureau drawer.--ED.

Pillage of Telegrams

Sirs:

I have just been reading in TIME [March 16] of disclosures of wholesale "pillage" of telegrams by the Black Committee of the Senate. This committee seems to be just a bunch of Paul Prys and Peeping Toms, and not hesitating at any illegality to accomplish its snooping ends, which seem to be just political blackmail of those who dare criticize the new deal. I am writing North Carolina Senators suggesting expulsion from the Senate of Senator Black for his outrageous violation of the Constitution he was sworn to uphold. I am also writing my Representative in Congress suggesting investigation of the Federal Communications Commission for its complicity in "pillage" of telegrams. If the facts as shown in TIME are officially proved, no further appropriation should be allowed such a law-breaking body. If President Roosevelt is found responsible for instructing this Commission to abuse its functions to aid and abet blackmail and political revenge against critics, he should be impeached.

HENRY D. BAKER

Durham, N. C.

Women v. Females

Sirs:

Although I am, like I guess millions of others, a devoted reader of TIME--budgeting my leisure to read it first on Friday each week--I object definitely to your language in TIME, March 16. On p. 34 you refer to the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War as "a coalition of female societies." Your editors should certainly know that it is no such thing. It is a committee made up of eleven national women's organizations . . . functioning energetically throughout these U. S. . . .

ALYS P. GRISWOLD

East Cleveland, Ohio

Whitehouse Citation

Sirs:

I wish to correct a misstatement made in the review of my book on ''Spontaneous and Induced Abortion." You say (TIME, March 16): "Dr. Taussig assured doctors that their colleagues have performed therapeutic abortions without professional risk for any one of the following legitimate reasons." You then cite twelve such reasons. These twelve reasons are correctly quoted from p. 279, but they are preceded by the following sentence: "The minor indications for therapeutic abortion give rise to the greatest differences of opinion, according to Whitehouse, who enumerates a wide range of conditions that have been claimed as justifying interruption."

In the first place, therefore, the statement was made by Dr. Whitehouse, an English gynecologist, and not by me.

Secondly, the reasons were not stated as ''legitimate" indications for abortion. Certainly in only a few of these twelve reasons would I consider an interruption of pregnancy justified.

A less hurried reading of this volume should have led to emphasis of the fact that it deals primarily with a study of the cause and prevention of abortion, the treatment of its serious complications, and the control of criminal abortion by correcting the underlying social economic factors and the hopelessly confused and unjust laws now on our statute books.

FRED J. TAUSSIG, M. D.

Saint Louis, Mo.

Admired Hiker Sears

Sirs:

That is a fine portrait of Sportswoman Eleonora Sears which appears in TIME, March 16. It will interest many readers. Long before the World War, Miss Sears was known as a pedestrian champion when visiting friends in California. You did not mention in your article that the aristocratic Miss Sears once hiked alone from the Burlingame Country Club to Hotel Del Monte--over 100 miles--escorted by a motorcade of sport-loving friends. It was a record-breaking hike. During the same season (about 1911) Miss Sears kept up a stable of polo ponies and rode on the polo fields around Burlingame--greatly admired in athletic circles of the Pacific Coast country clubs.

ANN C. HART

San Francisco, Calif.

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