Remissward
Sirs:
REGARDING YOUR PIECE ON RUSSIA TIME, SEPT. 27: FAMED NEW YORK TIMES REQUIRES NO "WRITE UPS" TO SUPPORT THE NO. 1 U. S. NEWSPAPER'S REPUTATION. TIMES'S NEWSHAWKS DENNY AND DURANTY ARE ON EQUAL FOOTING. DENNY MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT SINCE 1934; DURANTY 1921 TO 1934, LATER PINCH-HITTING WHEN DENNY ABSENT, EYE-WITNESSING, VACATIONING, FRONT PAGING. TIME'S OPINION DENNY "CAREFUL, FRANK." COLUMNIST BROUN'S OPINION DURANTY "EDITORIALIGHT DISGUISED AS NEWS-HAWK." DURANTY OPINION DURANTY "FACTSEEKER BEHIND FACTS." DURANTY OPINION TIME "ACE PUNGENT NEWS-PEPPER, NOW ACCUSED RE-MISSWARD SALT OF TRUTH."
WALTER DURANTY
Moscow, Russia
TIME'S statement to which Mr. Duranty takes exception: "After all, Mr. Denny is the Times's, No. 2 [Moscow correspondent]. Its No. 1, famed Walter Duranty, consistently writes up Stalin and his State in terms such that a high Soviet official recently declared in Moscow: 'We consider the New York Times the best newspaper in the United States!" -ED.
Shame & Gratitude
Sirs:
Your TIMEly report of the disconcerting outcome of the notorious Tampa flogging trial (TIME, Oct. 25), will give progressive Tampans, who believe in civil liberties and who wish to believe in the integrity of Florida justice, cause for mingled shame and gratitude. Such searching scrutiny of the facts must eventuate in some progress. . . .
ADIEL J. MONCRIEF JR.
Pastor
First Baptist Church Tampa, Fla.
Blush
Sirs:
On p. 38 of TIME, Oct. 18, in your discussion of ceramics, you quote Roman Pliny --"Sanctiora auro, certe innocentiora." The citation is as apt and as moral as the quotation itself, but I must blush for your translation--"more sacred than gold, and a damn sight less harmful." Such a rendition assumes that Pliny wrote in the manner of a modern encyclopaedic general and columnist who is both ribald and biblical, and that the Latin word "certe" had assumed new meaning since the birth of Christ. . . . The Romans swore in a different way, invoking Hercules, Castor, or Pollux most frequently. . . . SYDNEY J. MEHLMAN Brooklyn, N. Y.
Sirs:
. . . Let me commend TIME for its translation of Pliny the Elder's remark about the Etruscan ceramic statues. We teachers of Latin are so used to hearing such a sentence woodenly rendered "More sacred than gold and certainly more innocent," that it brightens the day for us to meet a vigorous and idiomatic translation.
J. P. HEIRONIMUS
Department of Classics
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wis.
TIME denies any ribald intention in translating Pliny's phrase as it did, holds that idiomatic sense is more sacred than a literal translation, and a damn sight less harmful.--ED.
President's Pay
Sirs:
In your football article, "Frenzy in Atlanta," in TIME, Oct. 25, you state that the $15,000-a-year salary of the University of Texas' Coach Dana N. Bible is twice that of the university's president. While this was true at the time Coach Bible's contract was signed last winter, the Texas Legislature shortly authorized the Board of Regents for the University to increase the President's salary to a maximum of $17,500.
PAT M. HOLT
Texas '40
Austin, Tex.
The salary of Acting President John William Calhoun of the University of Texas is $10,000, $2,000 having been added since Coach Bible arrived. If & when a permanent president "of National educational distinction" is found for Texas, the Legislature will pay him $17,500.--ED.
"Old Hickory"
Sirs:
In your write-up of the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. (TIME, Oct. 11), it is said that " 'Salt' . . . makes no table salt" (p. 72). On my dining-room table is a bottle of indubitable, delicious, and much used salt, labelled "Old Hickory Smoked Salt--Manufactured by Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co.--Pure table salt smoked with genuine Hickory wood smoke." What's the answer? CHRISTOPHER L. WARD JR.
Greenville, Del. Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. does not consider its "Old Hickory'' product a table salt. Primarily for curing farm-killed pork, "Old Hickory'' has recently been discovered to possess a pleasing "hammy" flavor, especially good in soups; is sold only by a few swank grocers, such as Philadelphia's John Wagner & Sons, in 4-oz. bottles (25-c-).--ED.
First
Sirs:
In TIME, July 19, mention was made that the late Amelia Earhart was the first person to fly an autogiro across the continent (U.S.). Please permit me to correct you on this, as I was the first one to do so. My flight started at Willow Grove, a suburb of Philadelphia, on May 14, 1931 and ended at San Diego (North Island Naval Air Station) on May 28, 1931, after a leisurely flight stopping at several cities for demonstrations, etc. My autogiro (a Pitcairn 330 h. p. model) was the first ever seen west of the Mississippi River.
JOHN M. MILLER
Kellett Autogiro Corp. Philadelphia, Pa.
"Calms" v. "Games"
Sirs:
Literally you are correct in your article "Laborers Together" (TIME, Oct. 11, p. 45) referring to "calms" in the stained glass industry-- Yea verily--"calms" have been distressingly all too numerous during the last seven long years.
But from the standpoint of correctness in either spelling or proof reading, the word is "cames" meaning H-shaped lead strips, serving much the same purpose in stained glass fabrication as do muntins in ordinary wood or steel windows.
Yours for more "cames" and less "calms." WYATT MACGAFFEY President
Rockford Plate & Window Glass Co.
Rockford, Ill.
According to The Oxford English Dictionary, "calms" and "cames" have the same meaning. Since U. S. glassmakers prefer "cames," TIME herewith adopts it.--ED.
Biased
Sirs:
In the article on double-header movies, p. 28 of TIME, Oct. 18, you fail to mention one all-important detail of Fanchon & Marco's St. Louis poll. Were the audiences polled attending doubleheaders? If so, the fact that there was a 7-to-3 preference for double-features is of little significance--beyond indicating how much the 3-group will take to see the movie it wants.
The point is, one does not take a wet-dry poll in a saloon. Asking double-header patrons if they like doubleheaders amounts to the same thing. In both cases, the sample is biased.
As you might guess, the A. M. D.F. L. of A. has my best wishes.
GARRETT HARDIN
Chicago, Ill.
Reader Hardin's conclusion indeed has merit; the Fanchon & Marco poll was taken only at double-feature theatres.--ED.
Hoag's Feet
Sirs:
With all due regard to your reputation for accurate reporting, I cannot accept without a certain amount of skepticism your statement, in TIME, Oct. 18, to the effect that Yankee Outfielder Myril Hoag performs his baseball chores on feet that would do credit to any 5-ft., 100-lb. toe dancer in Hollywood.
Size 3 1/2 shoes on a husky professional baseballer! It would have been worth the price of a World Series ticket just to see the gentleman mince daintily around the bases. . . .
C. SESSIONS FANT
Macon, Miss.
TIME erred, but the size of Outfielder Hoag's feet is still probably worth the price of at least a League game ticket to Reader Fant. Myril Hoag wears, not size 3 1/2shoes as TIME reported, but size 4 on his right foot, size 4 1/2 on his left. Hoag is 5 ft. 10 1/2in. tall, weighs 175 lb., is famed for his feet, tiniest in the major leagues.--ED.
Gratifying
Sirs:
On p. 69 of LIFE for Oct. 18, I find the following statement: "For the classical learning which has made him a sonorous orator and suave companion of the rich and great, the boss of C. I. O. can thank the course of reading laid out for him by the Iowa school-teacher whom he married at 27."
On p. 19 of TIME for Oct. 18, I find the following quotation from a speech by Mr. Lewis. Speaking of William Green he says, "He becomes inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity."
It is gratifying indeed to note that under the able tutelage of his wife, Mr. Lewis' education has progressed to the point where he is familiar with Messrs Gladstone and Disraeli. I am also sure that he would certainly have given proper credit to the originator of the phrase, instead of palming it off as his own, except for the fact that like myself he cannot remember whether Gladstone said this of Disraeli or vice versa. . . .
THOMAS H. AVERY
Le Roy, N. Y.
During a dinner given on July 27, in celebration of the Anglo-Turkish treaty at Berlin, Benjamin Disraeli characterized William Gladstone, Liberal opponent of the Prime Minister's Eastern policy, as "a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and glorify himself."--ED. Details
Sirs:
... I am writing to you to correct some details in your report of the end of the Al Brady gang [TIME, Oct. 25]. . . .
In the first place only two young men came in first and only one at the second time. I never saw the third man until I saw him dead in the Street. On his second call James Dalhover left orders as you have reported. After showing me several pictures I was only able to identify James Dalhover. No one was able to identify Shaffer or Brady but it was assumed that these two were the ones with Dalhover.
When James Dalhover walked into our store the third time, not the second time, he addressed his question to me but before I could answer, Walter Walsh told him to "Stick 'em up." Dalhover never fired although I believe it was his first intention to do so and slowly put his hands up. He was marched to the rear of the store where Inspector Hayes put the cuffs on him.
At that moment Shaffer, who was on the outside, saw that things were not going right, bumped into the front door to open it, the latch would not release and thinking that the door was locked Shaffer started to fire through the glass. Walsh and another G-man returned Shaffer's fire and drove him into the street where he was killed from various shots.
Simultaneous with Shaffer shooting, G-men had jumped Brady who was sitting in the back seat of his car. He was told to come but with his hands up. On getting out he suddenly pulled a gun and started firing. . . . He was trying to take his stand in the middle of the road when several bursts from machine guns lifted him off his feet and threw him to the pavement, dead. . . .
Again thanking you for the magazine which was very interesting because it carried the picture of a Goldsmith X5L football* for which we are State distributors.
E. S. HURD Manager
Dakin Sporting Goods Co.
Bangor, Me.
"Nasty Little Boy"
Sirs: You have recently given a great deal of space to Ernest Hemingway [TIME, Oct. 18].
Have you anyone that can give a sane reason as to why this man gets so much publicity and such a build-up for his very mediocre stories? I read your article about him and immediately read his new book.
I have never put down a book with more disgust and incredulity than I have that one.
For the first 175 pages he has written a good man's story, a story that many a pulp mag zine carries every month. Not, however, one that a high-class magazine, such as the Post or Scribner's would touch with a ten-foot pole. After that, with the exception of a few lines about the hero's death and his wife, the rest has no more relation to the first than day has to night.
Like in his first book, he seems like a nasty little boy that goes around telling all the dirty words he has learned and a few facts of life, as if no one ever had known them before. Wherein lies the goodness of this book; why waste good paper and ink on such silly stuff?
W. R. KIMBALL Ogden, Utah "A high-class magazine" like Scribner's would be tickled to death to publish a Hemingway story. (Let disgusted Reader Kimball note well who published the book.)--ED.
"Good, Gutty Stuff"
Sirs:
You fakes who're suposed to know so much make me laugh. Your review of Hemenway's latest book, To Have and Have Not, which sounded so good don't stick in one particular. Why, he wrote the first part of that book three, four years ago. I read it as a short novel fore I come in the Navy two year ago tenth of next month--in Cosmo, seems like I remember. The Spanish dident even know they was going to have a war then.
What the hell? I read everything Hemenway ever wrote. Its good gutty stuff, the like that he-men want to read. . . .
SLOPSHOOT BARCLAY
U.S.S. Houston
One Trip Across, a Hemingway short story, appeared in Cosmopolitan Magazine April, 1934, with minor changes formed one of the episodes in To Have and Have Not.--ED.
Ordinary Guys
Sirs:
If the body of Andrew Carnegie were disinterred it would be found to have turned after that award to the creator of The Yellow Cloth. The dead steelmaster's fortune has scattered libraries throughout the land, has endowed Carnegie Tech and founded the Institute which judged this painting. Oh hail! to the libraries and Tech and "oh Hell!" to the Institute.
For the past 15 years we have been looking at these crazy quilt paintings and wondering what you have to do to appreciate them. Does International Correspondence School have a course in interpretation? And just how did your reporter arrive at the conclusion that Leonardo da Vinci would have smacked his chops at the selection? The great Italian gave us paintings which could be appreciated by the carriage trade and the stevedores alike.
Help us ordinary guys, the sort who read and enjoyed Gone With the Wind and Jurgen and who can take all of Victor Herbert and only some of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. We are the kind of Americans who are not going to feign seeing something that we don't see. . . . How come Braque's wine bottle with ears, containing light colored fluid on one side of the bottle, dark on the other? Why the screwy perspective? Go ahead TIME, get hot, get arty as Hell, educate us ordinary birds who have our hair cut every two weeks. There are ever so many of us.
GEO. I. SULLIVAN
Philadelphia, Pa.
Neither hot, arty nor unshorn, TIME holds no brief for crazy quilt paintings but stands by its estimate of Carnegie Prizewinner Georges Braque's The Yellow Cloth as a successful abstraction, for reasons given in its report on the Carnegie show (TIME, Oct. 25). Chances are that Leonardo da Vinci would shrug, smile, disagree with Reader Sullivan.--ED.
*Held by Duke's Coach Wallace Wade.-- ED.
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