Rottenest Exhibition

Sirs:

In your issue of April 6, you expressed the desire to learn "what disabled veterans think of the Peaceways 'Sucker' ad."

I am one disabled veteran. I left one of my limbs on a French battlefield.

Next to Vassar's "Future Gold Star Mothers," I think the above mentioned ad the rottenest exhibition of very bad taste that I have known in my entire lifetime. There is nothing in the drool (in smaller print) under the cartoon that can lessen the sting of the picture and its caption.

E. S. HAYES

Worcester, Mass.

Low-Down Insult

Sirs:

. . . Regardless of how or why war came in 1917 it was the duty of every American to serve. I was over there. I left my right leg on the battlefield.

No regrets. I'm still as good, if not a damn sight better, than a lot of men with both legs.

I resent being called a sucker. That's a low-down insult, a slap at all my buddies who went west, as well as those of us still carrying on. Would World Peaceways dare tell any Gold Star Mother her son was a sucker?

I hope no more of those rotten headings are permitted by FORTUNE in any future advertisements.

FRANK M. JACOB

47th Co., 5th Reg. Marines 2nd Division, A. E. F. New York City

"We Were Suckers"

[Because of the nature of the following communication, TIME herewith breaks its rule against printing anonymous letters.--ED.]

Sirs:

We cannot sign our names to this, but it is no crank letter. You want to know what the disabled veterans think about the World Peace-ways "Hello, Sucker" matter. Here is what two of us think, and we know there are many more who would say the same thing.

World Peaceways was not laughing at old soldiers. That picture was trying to show what more people ought to see--some of the remnants of the last war. There's a hospital for shell-shocked veterans up here that's not a very pretty place to visit. If the movies showed some of those cases instead of parades and medals and glory, people could see what really is war. We think if people in this country knew some of the terrible things that happened in the last war they wouldn't allow another one. We two volunteered. We were not drafted. We honestly believed that it was a just and right war. And now when we read the papers and see the rearming in Europe and right here that's going on it makes us think that all the things we went through were for nothing.

No, we do not think that picture was in "poor taste." We were suckers. We are not Reds, but we would not fight in the next war for oil concessions or loans or whatever it is, even if we could, and we give those college kids credit for saying they don't want to fight. We were suckers all right and if enough people know it may be they won't be suckers like we were. FORTUNE deserves all the credit in the world for publishing that picture. We think a man shows he loves his country if he wants peace, not if he wants war.

TWO VETERANS who are disabled but can still think.

Northampton, Mass.

Sirs:

. . . Personally, being a disabled veteran (my disability incurred in line of duty), I shall be very reluctant to object to the cognomen of "sucker." Why? Just look at the large and illustrious company we disabled veterans may enjoy--the millions of "sucker" citizens, who foot the bill for all this. . . .

FRANK ARADY

Denver, Colo.

Santa Monica's Bottles

Sirs:

About Irvin Cobb's finding Garbo's hot-water bottle in his bed [TIME, March 30]. My wife, being a Garbo fan, objects to this. She claims that the hot-water bottle, if any, must have leaked; and that TIME is all wet.

My wife knows for a fact that Miriam Hopkins, or some such gal, lived in that same house for a full year between the time Garbo sneaked out and Irvin arrived to hide behind the hedge.

In one thing TIME was right, however--that thing of mentioning Santa Monica and hot-water bottles in the same sentence. Perhaps no city in the U. S. is so hot-water bottle conscious. Truth is, the hot-water bottle is the city's central heating plant. Maiden ladies actually bring their hot-water bottles to table in the dining-rooms of Santa Monica's many fog-swept, chill hotels and rooming houses. And as for taking them to bed, no resident of Santa Monica is without at least two. Sedate maiden ladies in nice lodging places quit evening gatherings saying--"It's bedtime. Where's my Goodyear man?"

ANDREW A. CAFFREY

Los Angeles, Calif.

Futile Increase

Sirs:

Your article "Manger Birth" in TIME, April 6, should be kept in mind by Congressmen when compulsory or semi-compulsory birth control or sterilization legislation comes before them, which it surely must.

Here is a case on Congressional record where a destitute family whose breadwinner, through known mental and physical handicaps, God help him, made it impossible for even Representative Dunn to find him employment. Yet although there were already "four little pallid and rat-eaten, so to speak, babies looking out of iron bars begging Almighty God somehow to give them into the sunlight" another innocent victim was born. What can be gained by allowing suffering to increase like this?

Representative Stubbs made a magnanimous gesture by passing the hat among 100 colleagues but how many thousand limes will the hat be passed among the taxpayers for this one family alone? Not that we resent helping those in distress, but we feel that if the futile, unintelligent and rapid increase of this type of population does not decrease it will make a burden too heavy to bear.

A. W. PARTINGTON

Oakland. Calif.

Slight but Purposeful

Sirs:

Your article on the Parker Family is touching indeed. Touching because of the innocent children and not the mother, the father nor of the poppies in Flander's Fields etc. Had the Rev. Stubbs later taken another collection sufficient to pay for a slight but purposeful surgical operation upon him who sired those poor youngsters, I think I could be happier and a willing contributor. . . .

J. PEFFER

Cincinnati, Ohio

The Societe des 40 Hommes et 8 Chevaux (inner circle of the American Legion) has offered to provide the Parker family with the necessities of life.--ED.

Sub-Arctic Songsters

Sirs:

In TIME. March 30, under Music the article entitled "Klondike Baritone" brings memories of a strapping young lad who came to work as a back flagman in 1915 for the Alaskan Engineering Commission on a location survey party in the Fairbanks Division. I was lucky enough to have on my transit party young Bob Crawford, a hard and willing worker, a fine fellow, and giving indications even at that time of accomplishments to come.

The hard and exacting physical requirements of a survey party remote from civilization, in virgin country, do not leave much time or inclination lor the cultivation of any of the arts, but Bob, coming as a replacement, had no sooner hit camp than he cast around for material with which to form a quartet. His musical ear had to compromise with itself for I was impressed into service as the bass. The tenor was carried by Sam. the level rodman. who sang quite well, but the only one who could be induced to carry the lead was a hard-bitten oldtimer who held down the job of camp cook. The cook as a lead was not very dependable, for he went flat on some of the notes. However, this did not deter Bob very long and he changed the other parts so that we harmonized when the cook went flat. Theoretically the treatment as indicated was fine, but the cook sometimes changed his mind, or whatever happens in such a case, and occasionally surprised us by hitting the right note at the wrong time with its resultant discord. Another drawback was the fact that the Chief of Party, "Ole Man B--," an extremely capable locating engineer--although interested in various other kinds of interludes--did not have a warm spot in his heart for singers or at least for our quartet. He was a gentleman of the old school who did not believe in denning a spade as "an implement for digging." He could be bitingly sarcastic. Consequently, the end of a hard day's toil, carrying the proposed route of the Alaska Government Railroad through the niggerhead swamps and the timber, found the personnel of Bob's quartet a few hundred yards from camp in the forest primeval wearing head-nets and gauntletted gloves as a partial defense against the hordes of mosquitoes with which the interior of Alaska swarms in the summer. There in the tempered daylight of the subArctic night, we sang and were coached by Bob from his,' even at that time, no mean repertoire. If the bears and other denizens were annoyed they, at least, never bothered us.

Afterwards, in 1916 and 1917, when Bob was an assistant on a Residency party, the quartet, straightened by the substitution of new blood, went on to such noble heights that we were in some little demand at Red 'Cross and other benefits at Nenana, the construction base for the interior division of the railroad. Bob's guitar with his rich baritone voice in solo made up for whatever deficiencies existed in the quartet.

It was a rare pleasure to read in your valued magazine of Bob's accomplishments to date.

GEORGE B. RICHARDSON

President

Richardson Construction Co. (Onetime Resident Engineer, Alaskan Engineering Commission) Decatur, Ill.

Marxist Misapprehensions

Sirs:

TIME'S reputation for cryptic impartiality suffers a severe shock among Milwaukee readers. Failure by your office to verify the facts and impressions set forth in the article on Marxist Mayor Hoan [TIME, April 6] is evident to any Milwaukee resident.

Corrections of your misapprehensions:

1.) Police Chief Laubenheimer and the police department in general are definitely antiSocialist; in fact, the target of vicious attacks by the administration. Personal assaults and indignities suffered by the police force in the recent strikes are condoned by the city legal department by refusal to prosecute. The efficiency of the police system exists in spite of the Socialists and not because of them.

2.) A non-partisan school board unimpeded by the city administration controls the school system. All credit to the school board.

3.) Deaths and property destruction resulted from recent strikes more violent than in the average U. S. city. Milwaukee people rightly ascribe this condition to the wilful inertia of the administration and its City Attorney, Russian Raskin.

4.) The report on low bonded indebtedness fails to consider the significant relation of tax rates with those of other cities.

5.) Your correspondent omits that the utility referendum proposes purchase of only electric current property and not of the unprofitable traction portion, with no damages allowed for severance; that present rates are below average; that price to be paid is not even estimated.

Tempering the gravity of the contest is the ludicrous picture of politically-minded Hoan attempting to shake off the clinging Communists who claim him as their own.

A. H. BRUNKOW

Milwaukee, Wis.

Sirs:

My compliments to TIME for your recognition of Mayor Daniel W. Hoan. It is not without reason that Milwaukeeans have re-elected Mayor Hoan so often that it seems he has been mayor ever since I can remember. .

WILLIAM Z. LIDICKER

Tucumcari, N. Mex.

Motive

Sirs:

It certainly is "tough" when you lose your faith in individuals. The same thing holds true in publications.

In the past I had thought that the articles in TIME were to be depended upon, but your story of our political situation in Milwaukee is so misrepresentative that hereafter I will question anything that TIME publishes. The strange part of it is, I can't figure out the motive back of this. . . .

EDWARD CORRIGAN

McClaren-Corrigan, Inc. Milwaukee, Wis.

For printing its description of the nation's senior Socialist Mayor on the eve of his greatest election fight, TIME'S motive, as always, was its news-sense.--ED.

Sirs:

While I do not count myself a Socialist. I found your article on Milwaukee's Hoan in the April 6 issue very interesting and apparently quite unbiased.

I. J. NICHOLS

Wausau, Wis.

Reasonably Accurate

Sirs:

. . . The statements you make in themselves are reasonably accurate and difficult to refute, but the background is entirely omitted, consequently giving Mayor Hoan credit for a great many things for which he is in no way responsible.

It must be remembered that the constructive actions of Mayor Hoan's administrations took place when the Mayor was not in control of the Council, and was consequently prevented from carrying out his more radical' ideas. Since he has had control of the Council, his administration has gone from bad to worse and caused many unfortunate developments in this city. His influence was directly responsible for much of the violence that occurred during the street railway strike, the strike at the Seaman Body plant, Lindemann & Hoverson etc., the passage of the famous Boncel Ordinance being one of the most vicious things in modern industrial history in any U. S. city. . . .

ALBERT HALSTEAD JR.

Claybourn Corp. Milwaukee, Wis.

Sirs:

As a longtime admirer of Mayor Daniel Webster Hoan of Milwaukee, I wish to congratulate TIME on the fine story "Marxist Mayor": but, as a loyal alumnus of the University, of Wisconsin, I protest against the statement that the professors at that institution had 'seemed never to have heard" of Socialism. Neither do I believe that it has been necessary for any Wisconsin student of the past 40 years to "stumble on the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels."

D. W. PHILLIPS

Hudson, Wis.

Milwaukee Decides

Sirs:

. . . I might suggest that you assign the biased writer of that article to the job of tabulating the election returns, at which time Milwaukee will decide whether to swing toward Marxism or return to American principles of government

K. F. ODE

Milwaukee, Wis.

For results of last week's city elections in Milwaukee, see p. 19.--ED.

Sirs:

When I saw the picture on the front page of your April 6 issue and read the article describing Milwaukee and its Mayor, I actually became dumfounded. I could not understand how it "happened" to be published, as it was, just before election--although the fact that it was made it easier to understand why the article was published at all. . . .

Your article pictured Mr. Hoan as the highly educated savior of our city; whereas Mr. Shinners is a rough-and-tumble uneducated person who has nothing to recommend him except his hulk. Apparently some seventy or eighty thousand residents of Milwaukee think otherwise It must be a great source of satisfaction to you and to Mayor Hoan that after 20 years of service he was only able to be elected by the skin of his teeth.

E. H. BORGEN

Whitefish Bay, Wis.

Unsatisfied with Daniel Hoan's victory at the polls last week was many a Milwaukee Socialist, who thought that the Mayor had spent too much time campaigning for himself, too little for the rest of his badly beaten Socialist ticket.--ED.

Cultured Cincinnati

WHY MENTION HARVARD'S ASTRONOMER HARLOW SHAPLEY'S LECTURE AT DETROIT [TIME, APRIL 13] AND NOT THE ONE AT CINCINNATI? AS AGAINST DETROIT'S 200 SKY-LOVERS' ATTENDANCE WE HAD OVERFLOW ATTENDANCE OF 2,200. DR. SHAPLEY DID NOT LOSE HIS SLIDES IN CINCINNATI AND DID NOT HAVE TO FILL IN HIS STAR LECTURE WITH LECTURE ON ANTS BUT GAVE HIS ANT LECTURE TO SPECIAL AUDIENCE AT QUEEN CITY CLUB LUNCHEON. AT WORLD FAMOUS ROOK-WOOD POTTERY DR. SHAPLEY DESIGNED AND SIGNED ASTRONOMICAL ASH TRAY FOR HIMSELF AND MEMBERS. CINCINNATI OBSERVATORY SAW, ACCORDING TO SIZE, AMERICA'S OLDEST TELESCOPE. IN SHORT, CINCINNATI WITH HALF OF DETROIT'S POPULATION HAD ELEVEN TIMES THE ATTENDANCE AT SHAPLEY LECTURE, BUT OF COURSE CINCINNATI HAS MORE CULTURE THAN DETROIT.

WM. E. STILWELL JR. Secretary

Cincinnati Harvard Club Cincinnati, Ohio

Beeg Kees

Sirs:

After reading your account of Lucrezia Bori's farewell in the issue of April 6, I was interested to learn that she still has the habit of bestowing kisses on her friends and admirers.

During the summers of 1923--24, while still a high school student, I worked for the North Shore Railroad at Ravinia Grand Opera. One evening near the middle of the second summer there was unusual excitement in the air, for Madam Bori was leaving for Europe after the evening's opera.

Our gang at the front gate--which included a student railroad ticket salesman from Wabash College, the opera salesmen and two students from Northwestern University who took the opera tickets at the gate--was talking things over when a small Italian boy came running up to us almost out of breath. He was so excited that for a minute he could say nothing, but after a rest he told us what had happened.

After having delivered some telegrams to Bori in her dressing room she offered to give him a dollar bill. He told her that he could not think of accepting it--that he was more than repaid at having the opportunity of being so near to her. She then smiled and gave him a "great beeg kees."

Then one of the cocky Northwestern students completely crushed the little fellow by saying, "You darn fool, you should have taken the dollar."

FOSTER KEAGLE

Harrisburg, Ill.

Splendid Manner

Sirs:

I would like to congratulate TIME on the splendid manner in which it handled the story of the execution of Bruno Hauptmann [TIME, April 13]. It was refreshing to see that at least one periodical had the good taste to give the mere facts and leave out the superfluous details which cater to the sordid imagination of a morbid public.

RUSSELL LOFTUS

Olivet, Mich.

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