Jesse James
Sirs:
This is to say that I for one am in sympathy with the protests against the senseless cruelty to horses in the picture Jesse James [TIME, Feb. 6 & 20].
Apropos of the James family the following incident might be of interest:
Back in the '70s my mother was going through Missouri when the train stopped at a little town. A small, countrified looking woman got on and took the seat in front of her. The conductor, taking tickets, stopped at her seat but she looked straight ahead. "Your ticket, madam," he said. She replied, "I have no ticket." He asked, "Your pass, then?" She looked him in the eyes as she held up the stump of an arm and answered, "This is my pass." The conductor took another look and kept on going. It was Jesse James's mother. It was the same conductor and the train that had brought the Pinkertons who dynamited the James house and blew Mrs. James's hand off.
CAROLINE LOCKHART L Slash Heart Ranch Dryhead, Mont.
Only Decent Manner
Sirs:
In TIME, March 6 there appeared an article dealing with the refusal of the Daughters of the American Revolution to permit the Negress Anderson to sing in Constitution Hall in Washington. In this article, Washington was referred to as "provincial." This was spiteful and entirely unjustified. Remarks of that nature show that all small people do not live in small towns. . . .
You mention a "mass" meeting of 1,500 (probably all Northerners) who protested the D. A. R.'s action, but no mention is made of the four hundred-odd thousands of white citizens of Washington who do not want the theatres which they patronize contaminated by colored entertainers. . . .
I am not sympathetic toward the D. A. R. in most matters, but I feel that in this case they have acted in the only decent manner possible. After all, it is better to pique Mrs. Roosevelt than to insult the entire white population of a big city.
ALVIN R. SCHWAB Washington, D. C.
P.S. As a matter of fact, there is a colored theatre, the Howard, which could have been used without arousing any protest as it is a fit place for a Negress to sing.
Democracies
Sirs:
Your continual editorial reference to "the democracies" impels me to rise and inquire, "Who are the democracies?"
Is the established plutocracy of England a democracy? Is the red republic of France a democracy? Is the tight little military despotism of Czecho-Slovakia a democracy ? Is the oligarchy of Russia a democracy? Is the United States of America, so carefully set up as a republic to guard against either democracy or autocracy, a democracy2?
Did that prince of word-mongers, Woodrow Wilson, sell you that word "democracy"? It was a poor buy, wherever you bought it. LAMBERT FAIRCHILD Secretary
Committee for Republican Integrity New York City
>Let Manhattan's ex-Alderman Fairchild let go his red herring. "Democracy," as he is well aware, is that ideal government defined by Lincoln as "of the people, by the people, for the people." By "the democracies" TIME, in common with the rest of the world's press, refers to the U. S., England and France -- the democratic countries which are of No. 1 military importance. --ED.
Feather
Sirs:
... A question: Since "Senator Bob Reynolds . . . wears a feather in his hat to show that he is against all isms but Americanism" (TIME, Feb. 27, p. 20), could TIME'S persuasive editors induce the Senator to tell through its columns what Americanism is?
H. L. WHITE
Glenville State Teachers College Glenville, West Va.
> Says phrase-coining Senator Reynolds: "Americanism is revering the faiths of our founders, cherishing freedom of press, speech and religion, equal justice and opportunity under the law for all citizens."--ED.
Catholics & Legislation
Sirs:
TIME of Feb. 20, discussing National Affairs, makes several misleading statements concerning Catholics in the U. S.
To cite only one example, I would remind you that the Catholic position was stated before the Committee on Interstate Commerce on May 20, 1937, not "against" but in support of Child Labor legislation then before the Committee.
Catholics have given long and consistent support to sound social legislation on fundamental questions like the minimum wage, the right of labor to organize and to bargain collectively, relief of the aged, housing and many others. The insinuation that Catholics have not been "for" anything, is obviously untrue and unfair.
As a matter of fact, the Bishops' Program on Social Reconstruction issued some 20 years ago entitled the Church in this country to a position of advanced leadership in the field of sane social legislation.
Apart from these glaring inaccuracies the reference to "Catholic lobbies maintained in Washington" is gratuitous and highly offensive.
HOWARD J. CARROLL
Assistant General Secretary National Catholic Welfare Conference Washington, D. C.
> TIME erred in describing as "Washington lobbies" the numerous Catholic organizations which let U. S. lawmakers know how Catholics feel about public issues. TIME is satisfied, however, that it has in general given the Church its due for its official stand on social welfare matters. As for Child Labor, the N. C. W. C. favors its limitation by act of Congress. Most U. S. Catholic bishops are against the Child Labor Amendment, whose language they believe would permit Congress to invade the home and the school. --ED.
"Why?"
Sirs:
Why don't you ever say anything positive about Hitler? Is it not great enough a deed to have united, without bloodshed, all the Germans (since Charlemagne thousands of great Germans have fought for the idea in vain), to have saved us from another inflation, to have given work to all our workless ?
Why do you kick about our censored press and only print onesided news yourself? . . .
Why do you Americans boycott German goods only because she tries to get rid of the Jews? Even if a few were killed or got put in a concentration camp last November, it is like one to a thousand compared to the killing of nuns and priests in Soviet Spain, like one to a million compared to Russia. . . .
Why do you make fun of us because we try to step up production of eggs per hen or milk per cow? We have to, unless we want to make debts--and is it not more honorable for a poor man to work hard and to be saving, rather than borrow from his neighbors ?
Why don't you try to be just?
I am disgusted at your onesided reports about underground outcroppings, rebellious laborers, etc., and never about the 98% of men and women that are for Hitler! He did more for us than Washington did for America and we love him for it.
E. SCHOTTLE Brannenburg am Inn, Germany
-- No one denies that Hitler has bought many fine things for Germany. But at what a price!--ED.
Careless Joshing
Sirs:
As I am the colleague who made the remark to Graham Patterson referred to in an item in the Feb. 27 issue of TIME entitled "God Pity the Farmers" I feel constrained to correct the impression contained in that comment. ... I cannot ignore the implied reflection on the character of Mr. Patterson. Your editors, without permission, have seen fit to broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people, entirely out of its setting, a purely joking remark made among close friends. Your editors in their typical flippant manner have elevated a bit of careless joshing into an appraisal of character, which has no basis in truth whatsoever and was never intended so.
For those of us who are proud to be numbered among the friends of Graham Patterson his Christian character needs no defense, but I sincerely hope you will find a way to correct the impression your item must have made on his many unknown friends among Christian Herald and Farm Journal readers.
J. PAUL MAYNARD Vice President Christian Herald New York City
> TIME took Mr. Maynard's purely joking remark as it was meant, intended no slight to Mr. Patterson.--ED.
Craps
Sirs:
Historian Frank G. Menke is centuries out of the way when he claims (TIME, Feb. 27, p. 28) that "the U. S. game of craps was named after a French rake, Count Bernard Mandeville Marigny, who introduced the parent European game of hazard to New Orleans a century ago. He was so disliked by the natives that he was nicknamed 'Johnny Crapaud' (French for toad). The pastime became known as 'Crapaud's Game,' then 'Crap's Game,' finally . . . craps." . . .
Crabs is a word of antiquity. In 1761 Lord Carlisle is quoted: "If you . . . will play, the best thing I can wish you is, that you may win and never throw crabs." In 1801, when young Marigny was sowing his wild oats in London Town, The Sporting Magazine printed: "Dreamt that I had thrown crabs all night and couldn't nick a seven." . . .
The Creoles, especially Creole Negroes (who loved the game) could not easily pronounce the term "crabs"--when they did yell it, it sounded like "craps." . . .
Such is the true ancestry of L'il Joe, Big Dick, and Ada from Decatur.
STANLEY C. ARTHUR
New Orleans, La.
Current Events Test (Cont'd)
Sirs:
You may be interested in knowing how the current test (Feb. 27) cut a Gordian knot. Weighing the qualifications of several applicants for an editorial job of preparing news broadcasts we found them fairly equally matched in background, experience and ability. An essential qualification for news commentary writing, however, is a ready knowledge of current affairs. TIME arrived as the applicants cooled their heels; five minutes later they were taking the test. A half-hour later the new editorial writer was chosen--a man who can get 92 in a TIME Current Events Test is up with the news!
PETE PRINGLE
Managing Editor KNX News Bureau Columbia Broadcasting System Hollywood, Calif.
Abed With An Egg (Cont'd)
Sirs:
Concerning your short article of Mr. Harold Ryder who sat or lay or something on an egg in a New Zealand hospital and thus produced a chicken [TIME, Feb. 13]:
1) Is Mr. Ryder the father or the mother of the chick?
2) Does the chick feel any devotion to Mr. Ryder?
3) In time to come would Mr. Ryder kill and eat the chicken?
This case really starts a very serious social problem. . . .
STEPHEN ROSE Balboa, C. Z.
Sirs:
Again anent the New Zealand egg story: Ewell Shields wishes to know what manner of man can be quiet enough, long enough, to hatch an egg by body warmth (TIME, Feb. 27).
Should Mr. Shields be so unfortunate as to fracture his hip, lie in a hospital eight weeks, flat on his back in a Bradford frame, leg being stretched by ropes and pulleys and weights, said leg being held immobile by a yard-long sandbag on either side, an alert physician and a bevy of nurses standing by like eagle-eyed engineers, he will learn that one may be kept from "tossing about in the throes of sleep" until he may hatch out a whole dozen eggs "scrambling" nary a one, and no "marvel" at all. "This astonishing muscular control" will be completely and expertly accomplished by said means. . . .
MYRA EASTMAN Seattle, Wash.
Poe & Goc/ey's
Sirs:
In Books (TIME, March 6) you reviewed a mystery novel entitled The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, with these words: "Detective Marlowe is plunged into a mess of murderers, thugs, and psychopaths who make the characters of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain look like something out of Godey's Lady's Book."
Did not Edgar Allan Poe, the father as well as acknowledged master of the detective story and murder mystery, have several of his horror tales published in Godey's Lady's Book? Please correct me if I am wrong.
FRANK C. STOCKMAN Jamaica, L. I., N. Y.
-- Reader Stockman is right. Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, The Oblong Box, Thou Art the Man, first appeared in Godey's Lady's Book.--ED.
Undisgruntled
Sirs:
YOUR STATEMENT IN TIME, FEB. 27 "DISGRUNTLED DING RESIGNED" SHOULD BE CORRECTED. NEITHER AM I DISGRUNTLED NOR DID I RESIGN FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF THE NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION. ... IN PASSING ALONG THE PRESIDENCY WE HOPED TO ESTABLISH A TWO-TERM PRESIDENT AND AVOID STIGMA OF A ONE-MAN SHOW. . . .
J. N. DARLING Sanibel, Fla.
> J. N. ("Ding") Darling's second term as president of the National Wildlife Federation expires on May 1. At the meeting in Detroit last month, David A. Aylward, first vice president, was elected to succeed him.--ED.
U. S. Coinage
Sirs:
Re: letter of Lecturer Artran (TIME, March 13), suggesting more convenient name for our country, how about USOA? We, the people would then be Usoans and such things as jitterbugs and gum-chewing would be typically Usoanic, while other useful words would be Usoanian, Usoaese, Usoaesque.
PAUL BAILEY Publisher
Long Island Forum Bay Shore, L. I., N. Y.
Sirs:
Stick to your reptiles, Friend A. Pierce Artran. "The United States of America" is a grand name regardless of adjectives. "Misonian" indeed! Why not Rocksierrasmokies, or Champeriemohunks? . . .
THOMAS A. ELWOOD Director of Public Relations Automobile Club of Philadelphia Philadelphia
Sirs :
. . . Frank Lloyd Wright has suggested the handle of "Usonian." I think that's a decided improvement if a new adjective is to be sought, as I believe it should be. "Misonian" is likely to be confused with "Minnesotan" or "Smithsonian." ... I advance "Usamian" from United States of America, pronounced with a short a. . . .
I only hope that if I call a friend a "Usamian" he won't think I said, "You simian." HARRY H. PIERSON Washington
President's Vacations
Sirs:
Re TIME'S statement (Feb. 27) under The Presidency, ". . . Franklin Roosevelt . . . headed south for his first vacation since Thanksgiving. . . . Lest citizens suppose he was a frivolous President. ..." I would like to know just how many vacations Franklin Roosevelt has had since he has been in office.
WALTER G. ARADER JR. Philadelphia
-- Unlike other jobholders, the President of the U. S. never gets a vacation completely free of official business. President Roosevelt, according to the official log book, has been absent from the White House, for two days or more, 64 times in six years. Majority of Presidential trips have been to Hyde Park and Warm Springs. Next to the Warm Springs baths, sea voyages, of which he has had 14, are his most relaxing respites.--ED.
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