Levine, Trotsky & Stalin

Sirs:

What in the world possessed you to describe me in your issue of Feb. 1 as "an avowed, outspoken partisan of Trotsky?" Did the Moscow trial upset you so much? Your account shows that you handled the Moscow end of it much more authoritatively than the Manhattan end.

My article in the New York American, on the basis of which you characterized me as a violent Trotskyite, said:

"The frame-up system has been the cornerstone of Soviet 'justice' since the middle of 1918. Trotsky and Radek, Zinoviev and Bukharin helped build it."

My Stalin published in 1931 and republished in a new edition in England in 1936, says:

"The Bolshevist guillotine was built by Lenin. Trotsky as well as Stalin, Kamenev as well as Zinoviev, helped in its erection."

Does that sound like the statement of a Trotskyite?

Since you coupled me with Eugene Lyons, whom you characterize as "a thoroughly professional journalist," as against my being an unprofessional partisan, the following correction is in order:

... I never belonged to any political party or clique. For more than 20 years I have consistently and deliberately pursued the course of an independent journalist and author. In fact, there is nothing in my record which does not entitle me to be called "a thoroughly professional journalist." (See story by George Seldes in current Esquire.)

And now for the last correction. "The first quoting interview ever given by J. Stalin to a foreign journalist was obtained by Eugene Lyons," you pontifically announce. Wrong once more!

The first personal quoting interview ever given by J. Stalin was granted to Mr. Hearst's New York American. The interviewer was none other than the eminent Jerome Davis, lately of Yale. It was published in all the Hearst papers on Oct. 3, 1926. The then shy Stalin presented to the Hearst readers his first autographed picture ever given for publication.

But that is not all. Actually the first quoting interview with Stalin was obtained by yours truly in 1924 for the New York American. It was in the form of a series of questions submitted in writing and answered in writing by the mysterious Georgian in the Kremlin. I had the honor of seeing it published in full in the Soviet press simultaneously with its publication in America. . . .

ISAAC DON LEVINE

New York City

Thoroughly professional Journalist Isaac Don Levine, sharp biographer of Joseph Stalin, has for years delivered such pungent judgments as, "No Government in the world is corroded by such internal abject fear as the Stalin Dictatorship." TIME repeats that his dynamic fact-marshaling has consistently been antiStalinist, which in official Moscow's view is always the chief evidence of "Trotskyism." (See Red Smoke by Isaac Don Levine--McBride, 1932, $2.) As to who first interviewed Joseph Stalin, the technically prior claims of able, Russian-speaking Yale Professor Jerome Davis and an earlier Japanese as well as a German correspondent have been noted (TIME, Jan. 8, 1934), but Nikolai Lenin did not die until 1924, Leon Trotsky was not fully mastered and exiled until 1929, and the first correspondent to interview the No. 1 Bolshevik after he reached the plenitude of J. STALIN, DICTATOR, was Eugene Lyons in 1930, followed by Walter Duranty a few days afterward.

Brotsky & Trotsky

Sirs:

Your account of Leon Trotsky recalled to me a record of his New York life that has been in our family for years. During the War Joe Brotsky, my mother's cousin by marriage, ran a tailoring shop on Canal Street on the Bowery.

One day a man calling himself Bronstein entered the shop and asked for a job. My uncle immediately put him to work pressing pants. However, Bronstein, or Trotsky, seemed less interested in pants pressing than in the Communist literature which he read in his spare time. He had been working only a few days when my uncle returned to the shop after a brief absence to find the room in smoke, the pants burning, and Trotsky in the corner reading his literature.

After several similar incidents my uncle fired Trotsky. Some time later when Trotsky had risen from pants pressing to dictatorship, my uncle recognized him, both by the name and by his pictures. The story may be verified by Mr. Brotsky, who is now in the oil business in New York. Although we are now disappointed that my uncle had to fire Trotsky, we were glad to see that in his picture on the cover of TIME he looked as though he would make a good tailor.

JACK MATTHEWS

Heidelberg College Tiffin, Ohio

Duplicate Hats

Sirs: If the picture of President & Secretaries Mclntyre, Early, Roosevelt on p. 13 (TIME, Jan. 18) is not identical with that of four silk hats, President Roosevelt, Mr. Mclntyre, Mr. Early and James, appearing on p. 21 (LIFE, Jan. 18), then the two are from two cameramen huddled together so closely that the difference is barely noticeable.

Pardon a subscriber for mentioning it, but isn't it possible never to duplicate such ordinary pictures in LIFE and TIME, even if one has to show the President in the background, just to be different--for which TIME is notorious?

J. PAUL GLEASON

Enid Chamber of Commerce Enid, Okla.

Although published by the same corporation, LIFE and TIME are independent and to some extent competing magazines which draw their photographs from the same sources, the picture agencies. Some duplications are inevitable, unpreventable, unimportant.--ED.

Between Haystacks

Sirs:

I am a subscriber, reader, and admirer of TIME. I am also a subscriber, "looker," and admirer of LIFE. There are, I am certain, many more throughout the world. I want to register one complaint, however. The two magazines come too close together, sometimes by the same mail. In such cases I am like the proverbial ass standing between two haystacks of equal attractiveness. Wouldn't it be possible to have LIFE come earlier in the week? I believe many subscribers would appreciate this.

ROLAND MONCURE Salem, Va.

Well aware are the managements of TIME and LIFE of their common readers' Friday indecision, equally undesirable to each magazine. Plans are being studied to avoid a mutual distribution day.--ED.

Bamboo Mistake

Sirs:

With reference to the letter written to you by Hon. D. C. Marshall of Forty Fort, Pa. (TIME, Feb. 1) in regard to the bamboo shoots required for the diet of Su-lin, the giant panda, I noticed that he states the northernmost point he has seen the plant growing is just outside Jacksonville, Fla.

All of which reminds me that some few years ago my brother Clem got ahold of a small piece of bamboo root and made the tragic mistake of planting it in the back yard of our home in Tifton, Ga.

Which is to advise that the bamboo shoots not only started coming up. but that within a year or so the whole neighborhood was endangered by this very prolific plant. So bad did it begin to spread that we had to devise a very elaborate system of trenches around the area to keep it in bounds. Even that is not 100% efficient, and it just struck me if we could get ahold of that panda thing our problem might be solved.

JAMES M. CARSON Dalton, Ga.

Sirs:

There has probably been too much said all ready about the panda and I do not know anything more about them, but I do know about bamboo growing in America and thought you might be interested to know that I am growing three kinds here and one of them is over 30 ft. high. They are, Bambusa aurca, yellow canes; Bambusa argenteostriata grows 30 ft.; Bambusa Metake, hardiest bamboo.

OSMOND L. BARRINGER

Charlotte, N. C.

Montague at Del Monte

Sirs:

The "Mysterious Montague" whom you mention under Sport in the Jan. 25 issue is not as mysterious as your Los Angeles sleuth makes him out to be. ...

When he played Del Monte's seaside Pebble Beach links, the caddie kept a score for himself and maintains Montague never shot under 74. Par is 72. ...

HERBERT CERWIN

Promotion Manager Hotel Del Monte Del Monte, Calif.

Pressagent Cerwin's employer, President Samuel F. B. Morse of Del Monte Properties Co., believes the statement that Golfer Montague, with a simple putt left at the 17th and a par on the 18th for a record 66 on Pebble Beach, picked up his ball and walked off. The 18th hole at Pebble Beach is 550 yd. Golfer Montague is reliably recorded as having been on this green in two shots.--ED.

Lucky's Reynolds

Sirs: . . . The Feb. 15 issue of TIME carries an article with regard to my endorsement of Lucky Strike cigarets that sets a new high in newsgarbling. Whether TIME erred or was misinformed is of no consequence. The facts are these: I smoke Luckies, and have smoked them for years. I have seen them made at the Lucky Strike factory at Durham, N. C. Occasionally I do smoke other cigarets, but the big majority of my smokes are Lucky Strikes and I prefer them--a fact which is well known to my friends.

When the Lucky Strike people, knowing the above facts, asked me for a statement, and offered me compensation for permission to use that statement in their advertising, I was glad to give it to them. I see no indignity in being connected with truthful advertising.

I will thank you to publish this letter in the interest of "truth-in-advertising" and "truth-in- editorial-writing."

ROBERT R. REYNOLDS, U. S. S.

Washington, D. C.

When TIME'S correspondent interviewed Senator Reynolds for the express purpose of confirming the story that he smokes Camels, the Senator's first act was to produce a handful of Camels (which he carried loose in his pocket), give one to the correspondent, light one himself. TIME is glad to record Senator Reynolds' assurance that he majors in Luckies.--ED.

Decency Insulted

Sirs:

Please stop mailing the TIME to me at once. Your rotten fascist propaganda is an insult to all human decency. Your classification of Al Smith as a Communist is an insult to human intelligence.

I repeat: stop your filthy sheet at once.

Yours for Democracy and human decency.

HARRY COLLINS

Everett, Wash.

Let Harry Collins mend his talk. TIME did not call conservative Alfred Emanuel Smith a Communist. On the contrary, for illustrative purposes TIME drew the parallel between Mr. Smith, prime representative of the Old Deal in the U. S. Democracy, and Leon Trotsky, prime representative of the Old Deal in Bolshevism, the one superseded by Franklin Roosevelt, the other by Josef Stalin.--ED.

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