Inadvertent Brrp?

Sirs:

Unless Correspondent Anderson's "defense program"* (TIME, Oct., 10) was a tongue-in-cheek stunt it is high time he was taught that all Cornellians worthy of the name are accustomed to follow an inadvertent brrp with apologies, not an announcement of the Alma Mater.

JOHN S. LIVERMORE

Cornell '26

Rochester, N.Y.

Sirs:

May I suggest that you adopt the letter, "Defense Program," by Howard R. Anderson...as your motto for this country and print it in every one of your issues hereafter?

MAURICE M. UDWIN

Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

Shades of William Walker! Who is the budding Cortez at Cornell? Howard R. Anderson who writes so winningly...of big armies, big navies and bigger air forces to conquer North America, must be very young for college. I had ideas like his when I was about twelve but got over them about the time I stopped reading G.A. Henty. The past few weeks most of us have been thankful to live in country where the military machine is subordinate to the government and now this adolescent Alexander shrilly pipes for worlds to conquer.

RIKER RAMSBOTHAM

Lynbrook, N.Y.

Sirs:

Oh me! Oh my! Just listen to the little Fascist sing! Have we a budding Hitler in our midst, or is Howard R. Anderson of Cornell University spoofing TIME?

Not that we object to Mr. Anderson expressing his opinions--such as they are. But we do fear that under a regime such as he proposes, he'd have no TIME Magazine in which he could so fearlessly express his opinions....

(MRS.) VIRGINIA KIPPER

Indianapolis, Ind.

LIFETIME

Sirs:

Don't you TIME & LIFE guys get on together? TIME, Oct. 3 reports the official burial of Westinghouse's Time Capsule to be opened in 5,000 years, which includes a copy of TIME on microfilm. LIFE, Oct. 10 reports LIFE on microfilm in the Westinghouse Time Capsule. Neither story mentions the sister publication. Or are they illegitimate sisters?

WILLIAM A. SHROEDER

Lyndhurst, N.J.

Shame on self-centered LIFE.--ED.

Old Dispute

Sirs:

Anyhow the old dispute among the Allies as to who won the World War is settled.

Also Englad can quit debating about Jutland, for it and perhaps Trafalgar and Blenheim were lost at Munich.

E.W. BOWERS

Clarksvlle, Tex.

Texas' Kleberg

Sirs:

We, the undersigned Texas voters, hereby respectfully request you to publish the legislative record of the Honorable Richard M. Kleberg, Congressman from the 14th District of Texas.

H. ALSTON TERRY

LEO N. DURAN

THOMAS J. NEWTON

ROBERT C. VAN NESS

J. MARVIN ERICSON

L.R. JOHNSON

Corpus Christi, Tex.

The record of Representative Richard Mifflin Kleberg is as follows:

Bom: Corpus Christi, Tex.; Nov. 18, 1887.

Career: If the U. S. were England, Richard Mifflin Kleberg would never have had to do any political campaigning. He would have grown up to inherit a seat in the House of Lords. For he is the elder son of Robert Justus Kleberg, who married Alice Gertrudis King, whose father, Captain Richard King, began in the 1850s to assemble what became not only the biggest ranch in the U. S. but one of the world's most impressive landholdings. Today, dominated by Klebergs, the King Ranch of 1,250,000 acres is twice as big as Rhode Island, nearly as big as Delaware, stretches into seven counties.

Little Richard Kleberg was brought to King Ranch at a tender age and grew up there, rough-riding over its vastnesses, clanking his spurs through the palatial ranch house, "Santa Gertrudis," which would put most Newport mansions to shame. His father sent him to law school at the University of Texas, after which he took up his duties as a King-Kleberg, helped manage the ranch from 1911 to 1924. Since then he has been the Kleberg front man. His younger brother Robert Justus Jr. sees to the King's 125,000 head of livestock, including the Klebergs' own hardy "Santa Gertrudis" breed, its 1,500 miles of fences and the development of its newest treasure: oil.

Being the front man for a U. S. feudal barony is a job that gives Dick Kleberg plenty of work. For despite certain indications of independence, King is very much a part of the U. S. Its stake in politics may be judged by the fact that a if decline in beef prices shaves $200,000 from the King profits that year, that taxes have more than once exceeded the King payroll.

Until 1931 Dick Kleberg handled his job from his office in Corpus Christi, with occasional visits to the legislature. But in that year the 14th District's Republican Congressman died and Dick Kleberg, a Democrat, decided to take the job. Since Mexicans liked his fluent Spanish and to solid citizens a Kleberg was a Kleberg, he had little trouble. This year he won his fifth nomination with practiced ease over a Townsend Planner and a crusading newspaperman who criticized him as a scion of autocracy. He did not deign to mention either of them.

In Congress: Dick Kleberg is three distinct things. He is a Personality--a leathery, lean-hipped, aloof, still faintly fabulous character who since he first drove up to the Wardman Park Hotel in one of the King Ranch's stripped hunting Fords, has spent his free time with his family, playing golf (in the low 70s), and avoiding newspapermen. He is a conscientious worker for himself and other farmers, who listens patiently to Congressional oratory, does his bit against oleomargarine and other bug bears of the range, never misses a meeting of his sole committee, Agriculture. Finally, he is a good John Nance Garner Democrat.

This last, with some individual quirks, is reflected in his voting record. For: 3.2% beer, NRA, reciprocal tariffs, stock exchange control, work relief, Social Security, overriding the President's bonus veto, Naval Expansion, Supreme Court retirement, repealing publicity for corporate salaries.

Against: TVA amendments, holding company "health sentence," Frazier-Lemke Farm Mortgage Moratorium, munitions embargo, Anti-Lynching, Reorganization, the $1,500,000,000 relief fund for 1938, AAA II conference report, Wages-&-Hours.

Although Dick Kleberg was nominated for the Roosevelt Purge list this year he did not make it, partly because in the 14th District it would be hard to purge a King-Kleberg, partly be cause in Washington Rancher Kleberg has not sought to assert his birthright of leadership. Consensus: a conscientious, well-intentioned Congressman less unusual and less frigid than he looks, more independent than some of his colleagues because he is less ambitious and his interests are more special.--ED.

*Chief points $3,000,000,000 annually for defense world's biggest air force; compulsury military service; the U.S. to take over Canada and Mexico.--ED.

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