LIFE

Sirs:

It is felt that congratulations are due LIFE upon its performance in more than justifying the confidence placed in its creators by charter subscribers. The great interest exhibited by my friends in my copy brings me no little pride in its ownership.

F. N. CHILDS Yeoman, Third Class, U. S. N. U. S. Naval Training Station. Norfolk, Va.

Sirs: For the 18 months that I have been married I have been a Friday night TIME widow. Now it appears I'll be a widow for LIFE.

MRS. STEPHEN P. SHOEMAKER Washington, D. C.

Sirs: Received the initial issue of LIFE today. LIFE employs a new and improved style so characteristic of TIME's superb style of reporting. Long Live LIFE!

M. H. DIEHL

Mt. Morris, Ill.

Mt. Sirs: . . . I hope LlFE will not only amuse but record in pictures our history. I recall as a boy many times going over bound copies of Harper's recording (by drawings)the Civil War. It is still a valuable record. With the modern and Eastman (ad for Rochester) film you can excel that record. May you do so. The film is mightier than the pen. WILLIAM H. GORSLINE Rochester, N. Y.

Sublime Conceit Sirs: In the interest of the record, and in order to save future historians much time, trouble and travail, will TIME, "the ablest historian of our day," search out the facts and report, definitely and unequivocally if possible, on the question of who first uttered that sublime conceit, "As goes Maine, so goes Vermont." MORRIS FREEDMAN Hollywood, Calif.

The best wisecrack of the 1936 campaign is credited by most qualified newshawks to Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley, who made it at a press conference in Democratic National Headquarters, Manhattan, day after the election.-- ED.

Desert Discovery Sirs: This will probably give me the unenviable distinction of being the first Arizonian to refuse Arizona credit for something in favor of California. Nevertheless the sand visible in The Garden of Allah (TIME, Nov. 30, p 39) is not Arizona's but California's. The Selznick camp was in the California sand dunes about 18 mi. west of Yuma, though several of the notables connected with the making of the picture did put up at the San Carlos hotel in Yuma, the nearest town of any size.

I saw several of the scenes being shot, both in the sand dunes and in the Bard section of the irrigated valley along the west side of the Colorado. First I knew of the picture was when, out on work in connection with Indian allotments on the nearby Yuma reservation, I came upon one of the oasis scenes in the making in a large grove of date palms. Naturally I stopped to look and got close enough to see everything pretty well. I finally decided that I had seen the lady in the jodhpurs in movie but was not greatly impressed by her looks. Probably the bathtub scene you describe would have given a more favorable impression.

When I was told that she was Marlene Dietrich, my interest increased considerably and when she came over quite close to where I was sitting to speak to her daughter I could not help reflecting that it was consistant with my luck to come upon her in a scene in which she was not wearing jodhpurs. . . .

HERBERT D. CANNON Indian Field Service, Department of the Interior Parker, Ariz.

Man of the Year (Cont'd)

Sirs: In a year which saw man's greed, stupidity, inhumanity, soar to unprecedented heights, one must look to physical rather than intellectual qualifications to define the Man of the Year. Peak product of the youngest race an symbol of its ascendancy--inevitable Jesse Owens.

H. B. WEBB New York City

Sirs: Because his name is one to conjure with; Because his methodical irresistible onslaught has made him dictator of Spain; Because his acts may strike the spark for the next world-wide conflagration; Because his meteoric ride has occurred entirely within the space of this year, 1936; I nominate for the Man of the Year, General Francisco Franco.

PAUL W. PHENEGER

Pontiac, Mich.

Sirs: My nomination for the Man of the Year is the choice of all Americans. The one man who has shown the qualities of leadership, initiative, and progressiveness. My nomination and that which TIME should make is the Preisdent of the United States the Hon. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

HAROLD GRUESKIN Sioux City, Iowa

Sirs: I nominate Mickey Mouse as the Man of the Year. He entertains us--his gayety is spontaneous, and his courage and stamina as a secret service agent in the Foreign Legion, as well as his more recent sucess in rounding up those ghost-smugglers single handed entitle him to lead the parade of achievers for 1936!

IDA W. BATCHELDER Pittsburgh, Pa.

Sirs: I nominate Edward VIII Man of the Year.

His candidate made the front pages more consistently than Jim Farley's or John Hamilton's.

His critics are inconsistent. They are proud that he is a descendant of William the Conqueror and object when he proves to be an atavism more like his Norman ancestors than his more recent ones.

Most of the Normans were good rulers. They liked travel and other men's wives. Two examples are Robert the Devil, Duke of Normandy who returned from a journey, declared Arlette the daughter of the Innkeeper of Falaise divorced. She had been married almost twenty years. He moved her into the Castle to be his duchess and the mother of William the Conquerer. Henry Plantagenet who was on of England's great Kings. He was a traveler who spent barely half of the thirty-five years he was king in England. He helped Eleanor of Aquitaine to get a divorce from Louis VII of France to marry him. When all this has happened no one should be shocked when it happens again.

ALBERTA MAHLE

Sandy Lake, Pa.

Sirs: For Man of the Year I nominate the forgotten man--Ernest Aldrich Simpson.

ALFRED H. SWEET

Washington, Pa.

Sirs: For the Man of the Year, and this year only; who was practically unknown before, and. tradition says, he will be Iittle known hereafter-- Alfred Mossman Landon.

LOUIS POLLOCK

Cleveland, Ohio

Sirs : Since the time approaches to select TIME's Man of the Year, why not also select a Lady of the Year? The fair sex can supply some worth-while candidates for this honor each year so why not start this for 1936? For this year I nominate Mrs. Wallis Simpson as Lady of the Year.

A. H. SMULLIAN

Atlanta, Ga.

Sirs: Yes sir, J. J. Connolly of Brooklyn in the issue of Nov. 23 is quite right. The idea of any "chink" or "Polack" being given the honor of your cover! For that matter who ever heard of anyone of foreign extraction or nationality being of any moment at all? The idea, sir, No foreigner ever was worth a ----anyway-- that is except those who came over on the Mayflower and remember they were Anglo-Saxon. Civilization started and ended with them. I hereby nominate J. J. Connolly for your next front--printed as narrowly as possible.

J. PEFFER

Cincinnati, Ohio

To date the four leaders in TIME'S Man of the Year poll are Roosevelt, Mrs. Simpson, Edward VIII, Landon, in that order.

--ED.

Non-Laundryman

Sirs:

On p. 24 in last week's TIME (Nov. 23) you spoke of the sense of humor the Chinese are supposed to possess. Well, I'm Chinese, American-born, but there was one remark that I couldn't laugh off; maybe it was the American in me. Anyway, it was your superfluous reference to the Chinese laundrymen, which was, moreover, cast in a delicately derogatory manner. You said in part: ". . . Actual news from this remote region was scant but . . . dispatches made world-headlines thrilling to thousands of Chinese laundrymen and other expatriate Celestials. . . ." It was really unnecessary to drag the laundrymen into your sentence. I know that often you have to add color to your articles, but gosh, why do it at the expense of others?

LINCOLN LEUNG

University of California Los Angeles, Calif.

To non-laundrymen Chinese, apologies for a reference both unjust and trite.--ED.

Family's Feet Sirs:

Your reporting of political events in Germany during the last months has worked up in me a distinct feeling of animosity toward that nation. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to maintain that objective point of view that America saw a few years ago to be the only reasonable attitude to assume toward European squabbles.

As a moulder of this country's responsible opinion I believe it is your obligation to remember in writing of the treaty scrapping of Germany, that France and England are merely reaping the rewards of their 1918 greed. After all, the Treaty of Versailles was a shameful document, one which the drafters should be ashamed of.

If the TIME family cannot keep their feet on the ground and remember that there are extenuating circumstances, who can?

J. OTIS LAWS

Washington, D. C.

TIME deplores any emotional unbalance caused in its family by its reports on Germany, but must continue to make those reports full, frank and factual.--ED.

Throw-board, Bang-board

Sirs: There was a heart-rending mistake in your issue of Nov. 23. In describing the corn-husking contest you called it a "bang-board." I'm an old corn-hand from the corn land--have husked corn many a day--and we always call it the "throw-board" as it is in southern Missouri and in the South. We have a sideboard, a scoop-board, and the throw-board. Never that fancy city-made word. Please be careful next time.

We corn-shuckers (that's what we call ourselves) are a proud lot.

HOMER CROY

New York City

Where Reader Croy came from the ear-stopping board of a bang-wagon may have been called a throw-board, but officials and contestants in the national husking contests have always called the same thing a bang-board.--ED.

Big Red Band

Sirs:

In your Nov. 23 TIME, the "Cornhuskers Band" you have pictured on p. 51 is the Big Red Band of Denison University at Granville, Ohio. Led by three drum majors, it donated its services in leading the Cornhuskers parade at the Contest.

As TIME, the Denison University Band marches on! REID ANDERSON

Drum Major

The Big Red Band Association Denison University Granville, Ohio

Abnormal Lawrence

Sirs: I refer to the article "Lawrence to Thurtle" under Foreign News in your Nov. 23 issue.

The reference to the late Arabian campaigner, T. E. Lawrence's "abnormality" will surely lead to misunderstanding and an inaccurate belief that this may refer to Lawrence's lack of interest in the opposite sex. This is certainly not the case.

I purchased and now have in my possession the group of letters and have before me as I write the letter which you partially quote and which careless readers may believe to mean something entirely different than that which Lawrence meant.

The paragraph which follows references to the British elections in the spring of 1929, and his meeting with Lady Astor is actually as follows, "I must put in a last word about my abnormality. Anyone who had gone up so fast as I went (remember that I was almost entirely self-made: my father had five sons, and only three hundred pounds a year) and had seen so much of the inside of the top of the world might well lose his aspirations, and get weary of the ordinary motives of action, which had moved him till he reached the top. I wasn't a King or Prime Minister, but I made 'em, or played with them, and after that there wasn't much more, in that direction, for me to do. So abnormal an experience ought to have queered me for good--unless my skin was as thick as a doormat. What feels abnormal is my retirement from the active life at 35--instead of 75. So much the luckier surely." In these letters, which incidently were not "extracted from him by ingenious Mr. Thurtle" but were written voluntarily, and enthusiastically by Lawrence, he refers to his book, The Mint (see p. 91) and that he is very grateful to Mr.

Thurtle for what he had done in taking the sleuths off his (Lawrence's) tracks. . . .

PHILIP C. DUSCHNES

Rare Books & First Editions New York City

Low & Batchelor (Cont'd)

Sirs:

The figure "Old Deal" which I originated during the campaign was arrived at independently of the figure by Low referred to by Mr. J. P. Deringer in TIME of Nov. 23. TIME itself may assume some responsibility for my use of the figure for it really grew out of the half-nude banker figure published on Sept. 12, 1935 and in the following issue flatteringly mentioned by TIME. If ridiculous half-dressed, I assumed that wholly nude excepting for a hat and cane he would be a very good symbol for the "Old Deal," those who, in both parties, were generally regarded as stand pat and conservative and for whom the donkey and elephant were useless as symbols. Nude indeed he was at first but several letters apprized me of the fact that the figure offended the sensibilities of too many. Without lessening his usefulness for my purpose, I gave him shorts and the ability to turn around. I dare say that he is not the first time the nude has been used in the political cartoon and probably it will not be the last. The cartoonist takes materials and symbols and makes them perform for the expression of his ideas if he has any. I've found this figure useful to express what is both the policy of my paper and my own ideas and such as he is he is my own. Would that he were worthier of the very flattering tribute he received at the hands of TIME. My thanks to TIME and to Mr. Deringer for pointing out a similarity that I had not been aware of. Indeed there is nothing new under the sun.

C. D. BATCHELOR

The News New York City

Dispute

Sirs:

This is to inform you of an erroneous statement made in the Nov. 30 issue of TIME.

The Earl of Shrewsbury and not the Duke of Norfolk is Premier Earl of England. The Duke of Norfolk is Hereditary Earl Marshal from which TIME's mistake doubtless arose.

CATHERINE DuBOISS Washington, D. C.

Would Anglophile DuBois dispute Burkes or Debrett's Peerages? Both list Bernard Marmaduke Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk, as "Earl Marshal and Hereditary Marshal of England, Premier Duke and Premier Earl."-- ED.

Ohio's T. K. E.

Sirs: In the Nov. 30 issue of TlME, under the division called People you have reported an amusing incident of "How the Governor of Ohio lost his pants."

Perhaps he lost his pants to a Tau Kappa Epsilon neophyte, but never to a Delta Kappa Epsilon pledge. That type of activity in an initiation was never tolerated by the members of D.K.E. We felt that the "boys" might be tired that sort of thing when they graduated from high school.

DAVID L. TEMPLE

Columbus, Ohio

Sirs: TIME being a progressive mag, you'll be interested in this splendid shot for publicity. You report under "People" in your last issue that a Delta Kappa Epsilon neophyte secured Governor Davey's sig on his own shorts. How so? Delta Kappa Epsilon has no Ohio State chapter.

It was Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity that ordered its neophyte to get the lordly sig--not Delta Kappa Epsilon. It was arranged solely for publicity.

The gag was suggested by Phil A. Sinclair, a 1936 Ohio State University graduate, a "Teke"' who rated the Journalism School's blessing as an A-1 promoter.

Only because the situation was bungled by an undergraduate did the stunt fail to gain State-wide fraternity publicity.

So, Sirs, please be careful of spelling in the future.

KENNETH W. DEVYN

The Fraternity of Tau Kappa Epsilon Omicron Chapter Columbus, Ohio

Sirs: The correspondent who reported your lead article under People in TIME, Nov. 30 certainly has won himself a life sentence to the "booty hatch." It was Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity that ordered its neophyte to get Governor Davey's signature on his own shorts--not Delta Kappa Epsilon. There is no "Deke" chapter at the Ohio State University and Charles A. Fernald is junior. Gosh! Maybe the journalism schools are wrong. I was taught that correct identification and facts were prime requisites.

More power to the ''Dekes," but there is a fine difference between the "Tau" and the 'Delta." PHIL A. SINCLAIR

(1936 Ohio State University Grad and Tau Kappa Epsilon Alumnus) Lakewood, Ohio

P.S. I know the fellows would appreciate a correction.

To Associated Press, which reported the story and supplied TIME with its facts, a rebuke.--ED.

Goalie Zamora

Sirs:

Kindly permit me to be a bit captious. In your Nov. 30 issue, Foreign News, Spain, you mention Ricardo Zamora as "Spain's No. 1 football forward." Zamora, soccer football hero of my youth, never in his life played forward, he was world's Goalkeeper No. 1. Therefore he would not be "throwing" hand grenades, he would be "catching" them. And I sincerely hope that he catches them for the team opposite Prize-fighter Paulino Uzcudun, who, having been punch-drunk for the last ten years, doesn't know better than to root for the Fascist cause.

BILLY WILDER

Hollywood, Calif.

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