Taft to Attack

Sirs: Under Education in your issue of Sept. 28, appears an article on the new headmaster of the Taft School, and a brief statement on Horace D. Taft to the effect that Mr. Taft is devoting his vacation in California to his hobby--Civil Service Reform. While the article was not meant as a write-up of Mr. Taft, I do think the true facts of Mr. Taft's interest in the Merit System should be known.

After his retirement as headmaster of the Taft School in June of this year, he was elected president of the Connecticut Merit System Association. No figurehead, he gave up a planned trip to Murray Bay and worked through the heat of the summer months, developing this organization. He literally stumped the entire State, delivering talks before large audiences whom he described as follows: "Their lack of knowledge on this vital subject is appalling, but, once informed, their enthusiasm for our movement is equally encouraging." In the short space of three months, Mr. Taft has lifted an old but relatively obscure association to front-page limelight so forcibly that for the first time in the history of Connecticut all political parties have strong specific planks in their platforms on the Merit System. Membership in the organization has quadrupled, and the organization is being adequately financed by private contributions.

When the fact that Mr. Taft had sacrificed his first vacation in 46 years in the cause of good government, was mentioned by an introductory speaker, Mr. Taft characteristically stated: "This is no sacrifice on my part. I have been waiting 50 years to attack the spoils system and champion the Merit System in this fashion. Now my doctors have refused to let me go on!" While recuperating in California, Mr. Taft is actively directing the policy of this Association. . . .

LAURENCE CORTELYOU SMITH Executive Secretary

Connecticut Merit System Association New Haven, Conn.

Leaping West Virginia

Sirs:

As a reader of TIME for several years, I searched through your Oct. 12 issue for some report of President Roosevelt's visit to Elkins, W. Va., to speak and attend the Mountain State Forest Festival. He went from there to speak in Pittsburgh. I searched in vain, for it wasn't to be found. His special train was met by Governor Kump, Senator Neely and others. He was introduced to the crowd of at least 20,000 by Governor Kump and after his talk on reforestation he witnessed the beautiful coronation ceremony of Queen Sylvia VII. At least 100,000 people were in Elkins for the three day festival.

West Virginia doesn't fare so well in your paper, I guess. Not one of the largest States but one of the most beautiful; one of great historical background and one of many large industries. At Charleston we have as fine a Capitol Building as there is in the country. It is surpassed by none. We have as good a State Administration and as great an Executive as any of the larger States. In our Governor we have gone forward by leaps & bounds and have led most of the States with our school system, fair and just tax program, highway improvements, liquor handling, etc. We would be willing to put Governor H. G. Kump up for comparison with any Governor in these 48 States. He has had birthdays, marriages in his family and done many important things in his term of office, but I have never been able to find them recorded in your magazine as the doings of many of the Governors have. His term is up in January and in our State the Governors cannot succeed themselves. If you'll look in the vote tabulations by States in 1932, you'll find at least 25 States that had smaller number of votes than we had, so we're not such a little State after all. We should get some notice once in a while!

LYLE B. WATTERSON

Parkersburg, W. Va.

Bitter Secret

Sirs:

On p. 47 of your Sept. 28 issue you state that the recently deceased Mrs. Josephine W. Wuppermann as president of Angostura-Wuppermann Corp. did not know the secret formula for Angostura Bitters.

Who does? That's news we are waiting for.

GORDON X. RICHMOND

Orange, Calif.

Angostura-Wuppermann Corp. is the U. S. branch of 112-year-old J. G. B. Siegert & Hijos (Sons) Ltd. of Trinidad. Dr. Alfredo Siegert, the firm's present managing director is a grandson of Founder Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, a surgeon under Bluecher at Waterloo. After Napoleon's fall Johann Siegert went to Angostura in Venezuela, began making his "elixir." Only known ingredients are gentian, common bitters base, and rum. Dr. Alfredo Siegert, Albert Siegert and Krast Siegert are the only three living men who know Angostura Bitters' formula. In case something should happen to all three at once, copies of the formula are cached in two bank vaults, one in Trinidad, the other in London. The Wuppermanns (A. Edward and Francis-- Frank Morgan) are merely the U. S. distributors of the Bitters.--ED.

Statistical Skulduggery

Sirs:

The American Business Men's Research Foundation graph (TIME, Oct. 12, p. 62-63) referred to by TIME as indicative of a major relationship between auto fatalities and consumption of alcohol leads me to wonder if you have swallowed that particular piece of statistical skulduggery. The inference drawn by the above mentioned foundation is, of course, unwarranted on the basis of the evidence they present.

These would-be statisticians have committed the most common but nevertheless the most heinous of statistical sins, that of assuming causality when concomitant variability is found. A causal relationship may be present, but it is equally probable that one or more variables included in the data are the true causal Actors. By using reasoning similar to that foundation, it should be possible to prove that eating of ice cream causes drowning, for the curves of deaths by drowning and amount of ice cream consumed would probably vary concomitanly, even though it is conceivable that a third variable, temperature, might have some causal relationship to death by drowning, Incidentally these would-be statisticians should try to plot auto deaths against gasoline consumption. They would find the results very illuminating.

Let all except the truly competent approach statistical analysis with fear and trembling, for no analytical technique is trickier or more often misused. I enjoy TIME all the time.

S. E. TORSTEN LUND

College of Education University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tenn.

Sirs:

P. 63, TIME, Oct. 12: "One line represented liquor consumption, the other automobile deaths." ,

Treasury reports on the tax payment whiskey for any one month have no bearing on the consumption of whiskey for that particular month. The tax is collected when the stamps are bought that are affixed to the barrels upon withdrawal from Bonded Warehouses. The whiskey is then frequently shipped to a rectifier or bottler where it is blended or bottled straight. It is then stored in free warehouses until sold to a wholesaler who in turn stores this same whiskey until it is sold to the ultimate Consumer who may or may not drink it immediately.

Therefore, any chart, which shows whiskey tax payments and deaths from drunken driving following the same course for corresponding months positively proves that they are two unrelated subjects because the bulk of any whiskey consumed in any one month was tax paid some previous month. . . .

SAM E. BLACKBURN

Versailles, Ky.

Need

Sirs:

TIME is brief, accurate, impartial, and everything else you say it is. As a reader for several years, I ought to know.

But is TIME fleeting? Yes! Last week's TIME is as dead as yesterday's newspaper. I say this despite your index and despite your extensive reference system. Will anyone pick up TIME of six months ago, and read it cover-to-cover? No.

But in these dead issues, in these volumes of last week's TIME is written, in lively and readable fashion, the contemporary history of the world.

The facts are available . . . if one wishes to find a specific item, or series of items. But the complete picture and story of our time is buried in 52 issues that would take days to read.

But consider how enlightening those 52 issues would be (the issues for 1933, for instance) to my nephew a half-dozen years from now. He would know that year better-- not only the facts, but the color, the texture, the all-important revealing little details-- than I could know it, better than any extended history text-book could tell him, better perhaps than the busy but no doubt human editors of TIME.

In my opinion there is great need for, and there does not exist, a well-written, factual, entertaining and impartial contemporary history --a history which takes up one year after another in volume after volume--each beginning with Jan. 1 and ending with Dec. 31, each written from the fresh viewpoint of the given year.

JULES Z. WILLING

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Henry Holt & Co., not TIME, has already decided to issue a compact annual world history to be written by Alvin C. Eurich & Elmo C. Wilson, compilers of TIME'S semi-annual current events test. First volume, 1936, will be available in February 1937.--ED.

Very Special

Sirs:

Am in receipt of a prospectus from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Celebration Committee advising of the sale of 100,000 one-half dollar coins specially coined to commemorate the opening of the new bridge. I am to be permitted to purchase a limited number of these coins at the very special price of $1.65 each, the premiums on the coins to be used to defray part of the expenses of the celebration.

Since when has the issuance of a U. S. coin been placed in the hands of a private committee or enterprise for disposition? How long has it been possible to charge a premium of $1.15 per coin on a new issue? Is such disposal at the discretion of the Treasury Department or could there be political significance?

F. L. GREENLEE

Piedmont, Calif.

There is nothing new about private committees distributing U. S. commemorative coins at a price above face value. Congress authorized the first such issue in 1892 for the Columbian Exposition, provided for 100,000 coins to be minted for the 1937 San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Celebration. The commemorative half dollar displays on one side a bear (Monarch II. Golden Gate Park grizzly), on the reverse side the bridge. Designer: Jacques Schnier.--ED.

Goodnews Platinum

Sirs:

Having been a regular reader of your publication for many years I am quite certain that you will be interested in the following:

During the late fall of 1927 an Eskimo youth found a piece of heavy, bright metal in an unnamed creek (later called Fox Gulch) about nine miles south from the southerly side of Goodnews Bay, on lower Kuskokwim Bay, and gave this nugget to Chas. Thorsen, a gold minor of that section. Thorsen sent some to the Alaska School of Mines, Fairbanks for analyzing and was informed that the sample was a very good grade of crude platinum. Of course this information leaked out another stampede was under way. During the next year a number of other "strikes" were made and for the next six years almost 2,000 oz. of placer platinum were mined each year.

In the spring of 1933 I went to the Goodnews section of and succeeded in securing options and leases on some 85 20-acre placer platinum-bearing claims and turned this deal to a group of placer miners from Flat, Alaska, who formed a company known as the Goodnew Mining Co. This company placed a dragline scraper mining outfit on this ground in 1934 and although they were held up by the marine strike of that year they succeeded in recovering some 3,000 oz. The hand miners took out about 2,000 oz. that season also. Last summer, 1935, the Goodnews Mining Co. mined out nearly 8,000 oz. and the hand miners recovered 1,500 oz. This spring a group of men purchased a few claims we had not been able to strike a deal on and, under the name of the Clara Creek Mining Co. placed a dragline scraper outfit on Clara Creek and have been doing very well. Their recovery will be something like 5,000 oz. for this season. No hand miners are now operating in this platinum section.

The Goodnews Mining Co. should do as well this year as last and with what's recovered by the Clara Creek Co., the total crude platminum recovery for the Goodnews section alone should be close to 12,000 oz.

TIME, Sept. 7, p. 48: "The U. S. piddles along with a couple of thousand ounces." Should I be as careless in investigating prospects a your mining "newshawk" I wouldn't be in this game very long. . . .

WALTER G. CULVER

Anchorage, Alaska

Utter Wrongness

Sirs:

In his letter in your issue of Oct. 5, regarding milk industry economic problems, Wilfred C. Dunn states some facts, much fiction. Between fact and fiction he interposes opinions and interpretations, all open to questions.

Correspondent Dunn's easy assurance in waving away pasteurization and presuming it possible to control raw-milk-borne disease simply by increased public health department supervision and stricter standards of production should be sufficient warning for discriminating persons. Fact is, many medical men strongly favor pasteurizing even certified milk, a nearly sterile product costing double the price of well supervised family grades. Nearly 70% of certified is now sold pasteurized simply as an extra safeguard. As regards the merits and demerits of pasteurization, therefore, let correspondent Dunn give medical men and public health officials some credit for intelligence after their 40 years of comparing experience with raw and pasteurized supplies.

Let him also check with city Boards of Health in his own State of Massachusetts to assure himself of the utter wrongness of his charge that "the average city supply [is] five days old." That charge and the insinuation that pasteurized milk "may be marketed as fresh milk up to ten days from the cow" provide a key to the believability of certain of his other statements. . . .

E. L. BELISLE

Boston, Mass.

Foot

Sirs:

Whatever may be the "March of Time's" "best compliment" to TIME'S newsreporting (TIME, Oct. 12, p. 89), let the adwriter's face be red as he "goes foot" for once.

FREDERICK HARD

New Orleans, La.

Sirs:

I sincerely hope you won't strain too many muscles patting yourselves on the back in the new half-hour-a-week "March of Time" program.

Your announcement in TIME, Oct. 12, p. 89 (". . . The half hour weekly radio period will best compliment and parallel TIME'S news reporting.") sounds ominous.

Anyway, I am glad you are going back to the weekly program. It was too easy to miss the show when it went on every night. I found myself saying, "What the hell, I'll hear it tomorrow"#151;with the result that I missed most of the programs. By coming on once a week the program becomes more rare, hence more to be valued, and several million of us will make more of a point of tuning it in.

A. D. CORNE

New York City

Orchids to TIME for returning "March of Time" to the air. Raspberries to TIME'S editors for not knowing correct usage. . . . To avoid future embarrassment, I suggest careful study of its and it's, two other pitfalls for unwary secondary school students.

THEODORE S. ABBOT

Wyoming Seminary Kingston, Pa.

Acid Trick

Sirs:

My copies of TIME have piled up, as I have been traveling, and am at the moment in Sydney, Australia. Hence the delay in taking up the letters in TIME, July 13, regarding the Yogi's trick.

There is no question that levitation and other tricks can be performed on the stage, provided arrangements can be made for the necessary apparatus. In India, all the "tricks" are done in the open air with the audience all round the performer. In the case of the holy man referred to what your readers will not realize is that such a man is not out to do stunts. His chief business is with God, and night and day he lives practically in the open with his disciples. The idea that he should have had the apparatus described by your correspondents is preposterous to us in India who know these holy men. Were I in India now (I happen to live in Madras) I could take the matter up and arrange for a physical examination by doctors and see that special corsets etc. are not concealed.

As a boy I have seen things in our own back garden (nothing so sensational as levitation) which were most fascinating and inexplicable. But the best of these "tricks" was one which was done before a group of us in Madras a few years ago. The particular performer was not fully of the holy man type of the person concerned in the levitation. However, he did something which was fairly a test of his capacity, for he drank a teaspoonful of undiluted nitric acid. It was not his nitric acid, but some supplied from our college laboratory. He drank first about a wineglassful of water and then poured down his throat the nitric acid (our own students on all sides of him) and then washed it down with another wineglassful of water. This was pure nitric acid, and anyone who knows what that is will understand what that means. I wonder whether any of the various gentlemen who have written to you would like to repeat this nitric acid "trick" in the science laboratory of any university before the professors?

C. JlNARAJADASA

Sydney, Australia.

Resentful Sioux

Sirs:

In your review of the film Ramona (TIME, Oct. 5), you use the word "squaw" in describing the mother of the heroine. I believe that this word means "woman" in the Algonquin language, but in most other tribes it was unknown, until introduced by whites. Among the Teton Sioux, of whom I am one, the word is a term of reproach applied to loose women. It was acquired from whites who used it freely in speaking slightingly of Indian women.

Although your reviewer probably used the word because it was spoken by Senora Moreno (Pauline Frederick) in the film, I believe it cannot rightly be applied to a California Indian woman. Certainly its use is resented and regarded as an insult by Indians of many tribes.

ALTINE ROGERS

Phoenix, Ariz.

For Curious Readers

Sirs:

President Roosevelt is a big man physically, as well as mentally. Would TIME please publish his height and weight for curious readers?

PHILIP F. BERKOWITZ

Terre Haute, Ind.

President Roosevelt is 6 ft. 2 in. tall, weighs 183 Ib.--ED.

Photoplay's Facts

Sirs:

In your issue of Sept. 21 in an article regarding Macfadden Publications you made the statement, "Since going under the Macfadden banner, Photoplay has lost circulation, but continues to make money." . . .

Here are the true facts in the case. The total net paid circulation of Photoplay has increased under the Macfadden management. . . . From the January 1936 issue through the October 1936 issue Photoplay's single copy sales amounted to 1,517,320 against 1,398,873 for the same period in 1935. This gives Photoplay an average monthly increase for this period of 11,844 in newsstand sales. . . .

CURTIS J. HARRISON Advertising Manager

Photoplay New York City

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