"Fatty Pants"

Sirs: TIME'S characters are interesting even if they are not real. The portrayal of the G-men in TIME rings truer than any, I am sure. I went to school with Hoover. We men who received C's called Hoover, who received A's, "fatty pants." In my class was a lad named Clyde Tolson [special agent in charge of the Washington bureau], Hoover's right-hand man, and if TIME or FORTUNE ever really gets behind the scenes you'll have to find even a better word than "able" for Clyde Tolson. . . . Incidentally Hoover is two exceptions. First, he is the only person who graduated from George Washington University and then really amounted to something. Second, he is the only native of the District of Columbia--male native--who has ever amounted to anything. As a graduate of G.W. and an oldtime Columbian I find that the time for G.W. graduates and District natives is in the future, history being rather cruel to them. Maybe Hoover is the first one of us to become great. Helen Hayes showed the D. C. girls the way, now Hoover should be an example for the boys. C. H. COLLIER

Berkeley, Calif.

Reader Collier's information is interesting, even if not entirely accurate. Most George Washington classmates (1916) re-call J. Edgar Hoover's nickname as "Speedy," "Speed" or "Spee." Another District of Columbia and George Washington University boy who made good is U. S. Ambassador to China Nelson Trusler Johnson.--ED.

Vintage Automobile Sirs:

There appeared in TIME, March 30, p. 22, a photograph of Senator Borah standing before an automobile of early vintage.

To settle an argument, will you please let me know the make of this automobile? I hesitate to bother the Senator at this critical time and Mrs. Borah is not sure of the answer.

EUGENE H. PURDY Washington, D. C. The automobile photographed with Senator Borah was a 1921 Ford.--ED.

Artistic Triumph

Sirs:

TIME is my favorite magazine. It puts life and color into the dullest news topics. Its rapier thrusts puncture shams, deflate politicians; it illuminates the darkest corners of the world with its wit and wisdom. But that is not what I started out to say. In a review of the recent Kentucky Derby [TIME, May 11], which you generously and correctly described as "the nation's greatest horse race," you state that hundreds of celebrities and 70,000 other enthusiasts "made their way to shabby old Churchill Downs."

That Parthian arrow was as cruel as it was inaccurate. Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, is "old" to be sure, 63 fateful years in all. But it has never been "shabby." Under the masterful direction of Col. Matt J. Winn, Churchill Downs . . . struggling with small means, was never "shabby" even in the old days. Under Col. Winn's guidance, each year the Downs's seating capacity has been added to and its comfort and its beauty increased. This year, with an expenditure of over $200,000 the entire Churchill Downs plant has been transformed until it sets a high mark in race course architecture for spaciousness, charm and luxury. The new clubhouse itself has no equal even among the great New York hotels in point of originality, furnishings and decorations. Col. Winn himself outlined and designed the lounge room. Modernistic to the last touch, it is a triumph of the decorator's art. . . .

Please, dear TIME, never again apply the word "shabby" to Churchill Downs. It makes every true Kentuckian reach for his hip pocket. DANIEL E. O'SULLIVAN

Resident Manager Churchill Downs Louisville, Ky.

TIME would be loath to cause a Kentuckian to reach for his hip pocket, unless he were merely toting a pint of Kentucky's famed bourbon. Nevertheless, modernistic though its clubhouse may be, the industrial and low-rent residential neighborhood surrounding Louisville's Churchill Downs makes that celebrated race course seem shabby indeed.--ED.

Mares & Matriarchy

Sirs: In reporting Bold Venture's Kentucky Derby victory, TIME [May n] says that Bold Venture is a half-brother to a previous Derby winner --Twenty Grand. Geneticists notwithstanding, to thoroughbred horsemen Bold Venture and Twenty Grand are not half-brothers--they are "by the same sire." In layman's language, two horses with the same father and the same mother are full brothers or full sisters. Example: Omaha and Flares. Two horses with the same mother but different fathers are half-brothers or half-sisters. Example: Petee Wrack and Gallant Fox. Two horses with different mothers but the same father are "by the same sire." Example: Twenty Grand and Bold Venture. Because a brood mare is bred once a year, and a stallion many times, the thoroughbred strain is considered to be, by most thoughtful breeders, a matriarchy. Another popular misconception regarding the thoroughbred horse is that all thoroughbred horses are race horses. Today thoroughbred blood is being used everywhere by private and commercial breeders, including the United States Remount, to breed horses for hacking, hunting, cavalry, steeplechasing, polo.

The foremost experts, such as Major Timmis, freely admit that under the saddle the thoroughbred has no peer.

VAUGHN FLANNERY

Cockade Farms

Darlington, Md.

Freak

Sirs:

In reference to article in TIME, May 4, under Science, regarding Dr. Dove's unicorn bull.

Enclosed herein is a snapshot of a freak sheep that may be termed a "Unicorn." You will note that it has a horn on the end of its nose. This is a three-year-old ewe (female sheep), raised on the range in this district, Ely, Nev. The picture was taken in April 1936 and shows the animal after shearing. It's a freak and not a transplanted horn. Presumed the picture would be of interest to you. D. A. HUGHES

Manager

The Adams-McGill Co. Ely, Nev.

Hogs & Coal Sirs:

In TIME, April 6, under Science appeared an article entitled "Rats" which opened with the statement, "Pigs eat coal with relish, digest it with ease." I am much interested in your authority for that assertion. I presume you are referring to swine pigs rather than guinea pigs. WILLIAM ESTY MYDANS, PH. D.

Research, Development, Manufacturing Chemist Medford, Mass.

Says Yale's Chemical Engineer Clifford Cook Furnas in his recent The Next Hundred, Years: "The energy requirements of the average person's body could be fulfilled by the daily consumption of less than a pound of soft coal. . . . My own advice, however, is: do not attempt a coal diet . . . hogs eat coal and enjoy it, but they also eat rattlesnakes and enjoy those, too."--ED. Planes & Weather

Sirs:

The recent airplane accident, in which twelve lives were extinguished [TIME, April 20], caused much conjecture among laymen as to its cause. . . .

With advanced modern developments, is it not possible, by scientific instruments, to foretell weather conditions sufficiently in advance to determine whether a passenger flight can be made safely?

And is it not better to abandon or postpone a part of a flight rather than endanger, if not sacrifice, human life?

I am credibly informed that some lines, operating without Government mail subsidies, refuse to carry passengers under unfavorable weather conditions.

Is this not so?

HARRY LEE KING

New York City

Before each flight, all commercial airlines presumably avail themselves of the best meteorological information their own or the Department of Commerce's air weather bureaus can provide. Whether a plane takes off usually depends on a unanimous decision by the line's dispatcher, meteorologist and the pilot, who in any case cannot be sent up against his will. The Department of Commerce controls plane movements to this extent: According to its size and surrounding terrain, every U. S. airport has an arbitrary ceiling, below which no outbound plane may take off, no inbound plane land.--ED.

Right Paper, Wrong Date Sirs:

You have the right paper but the wrong date: the first printed reference to the likelihood of Governor Landon's becoming the Republican nominee [for the Presidency] was not published in the Kansas City Journal-Post in November 1934 (TIME, May 18), but in the Journal-Post of Sept. 7, 1934, two months before election, while Landon was seeking reelection as Governor of Kansas. Written under the by-line of the undersigned, Washington correspondent of that journal, it appeared on p. 1, col. 1. . . . Excerpts "The belief prevails in GOP circles here that Landon will win in Kansas. . . . Landon measures up from a distance as the answer to the party's prayer. He is young, energetic, one of the world's best mixers and hasn't delved too deeply into Republican factional squabbles. There'll be a lot of talk about getting Landon into the race if he wins his governorship in November. . . . He is--or would be--a newcomer in national politics; and only heaven knows how badly the party wants a newcomer." So far as I have been able to learn, that was the first published piece suggesting Governor Landon's availability--a belief buttressed by receipt of a letter from Governor Landon a few days thereafter so indicating. WILLIAM P. HELM

Washington Bureau Kansas City Journal-Post Washington, D. C.

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