Royal Visit (Finis)

Sirs:

When it comes to making fools of themselves, Americans take the cake. I was pleased to find that you had scraped the veneer from the recent Royal Visit [TIME, June 19] and had seen it for what it obviously was an invitation to the next chestnut pulling Three cheers for TIME.

FREDERICK B. HILL JR.

University, Va.

Sirs:

Congratulations to TIME on its clear and complete account of the U. S. Visit of the two rulers of a defaulting debtor nation.

M. H. WILSON

Seattle, Wash.

Sirs:

As one of your Canadian subscribers I want to add my disapproval, along with so many other Canadians, to the recent articles on our King and Queen's Visit to this continent [TIME, May 15 et seq.].

However, my purpose in writing you is to congratulate TIME and also your sister publication LIFE on printing both sides of the story. There are too many magazines (mostly American) which are afraid to publish the letters that are sent in to them condemning their policies and editorials. But not TIME. . . .

So TIME, here is a boost from Canada. Keep printing both sides and you'll always have lots of friends. It is only the small magazine that is afraid to print the truth.

All I ask of you is: don't underestimate your neighbors to the North. We are fine people. Visit our great country and you will soon agree with me.

JOHN ROULSTON

Toronto, Ont.

Sirs:

In regards to the letters you received from Canada about your reports on the Royal Visit [TIME, June 5, et seq.] might I add--I have read TIME for many years. Your style has never changed. In addition to your curt, clear and complete style of reporting news, I must add the words fair and honest.

As to the authors of all those loyal letters from Canada, I must say I'm an American, I have as much respect for the King and Queen as any such loyal subject of Canada has for them. Little do the authors of those letters to TIME know (or do they?) that the real purpose of the Royal Visit to Canada was to visit the U. S. and its President. The Royal Visit to the U. S. was the all-important phase of the trip--and we Americans are very proud of the outcome of the Royal Visit.

I'm sure we won't mind TIME's report of soldiers stationed but four feet apart along the route to the White House, nor the tanks id corps of S. S. and F. B. I. men surrounding the cars carrying its most valuable cargoes. They came, they saw, they conquered--God bless 'em.

H. W. PIER

Richland Center, Wis.

Nice, Sour Lemons

Sirs:

This is indeed the bargain for which I have been seeking! Mr. W. B. Harper of Montreal TIME, Letters, June 5) has nearly a year : raw, fresh" TIME to his credit and wants no more of it. My own subscription, according to your notice, expires shortly. Perhaps you can just change over the mailing address--or has someone already beat me to it?

Even down here in the heart of the Sugar Bowl we know that you've just got to have nice, sour lemons to make good lemonade. Give Mr. Harper his lump sugar, but continue making the rest a little on the tart side for us good-natured fellows.

FREDERICK ALLEN STEINER

New Orleans, La.

> Sorry, but another TIME reader beat Mr. Steiner to the draw. At Mr. Edward G. MacGlashan's (Hartford, Conn.) suggestion, Former Subscriber Harper's TIME will go to Rev. Theodoric Kernel, O.F.M. (TIME, June 5, ). 8) and the 18 other missionaries in the Vicariate of the Catholic Mission at Chowtsun, Shantung, China.--ED.

St. George and the Dragon

Sirs:

Regarding your story, "Press v. Lindbergh" [TIME, June 19], I would like to add my own epitaph to a hero.

Being endowed with sufficient imagination to appreciate the courage and dignity with which Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh have attempted to conduct their lives, I cannot qualify as one of your mystified public in the "twelve long dark years of war between the U. S. people and their hero."

But now, I submit my private epitaph to my admiration for the Lindberghs. It is contained in a cool line of your week's story "Ideologies in international politics are not his meat."

Either you get it, or you don't. Either you see what acceptance of a decoration by a government of outlaws means, or you don't want to see.

In Western (Christian) Civilization we still have left the conception of heroism based on the Arthurian Cycle. Mothers still tell their children tales of the strong and the brave who conquer the wicked, cruel giant or dragon or witch. It seems a little too much to swallow when St. George deliberately goes up to the Dragon to be decorated.

ANNE NATHAN

Houston, Tex.

Calculable

Sirs:

Referring to your statement [p. 15, TIME, June 19] that "incalculable tons of water has cascaded over Niagara Falls between 1776 and a summery night last week when the great-great-great-grandson of England's George in was trundled across Niagara River to set foot in the U. S. A.," may I take the liberty of suggesting that the amount of said water is calculable.

The mean average flow of the Niagara Kiver is approximately 212,000 cubic feet per second, which is equivalent to 572,400,000 tons of water a day, which in the 163 years from 1776 to 1939 is 34,054,938,000,000 tons.

in the interest of accuracy, it should be mentioned that in recent years about one-tourth of this water has passed through the penstocks and turbines of the power plants on the American and Canadian shores and consequently did not "cascade over Niagara Falls."

EDWARD H. SARGENT

Albany, N. Y.

Another reader works out the total tonnage at 26,750,000,000,000. TIME still thinks "incalculable" the right word.--ED.

Unfair, Unkind

Sirs :

Your article in TIME, June 12 under the heading Power--"Poet, Project, Pork, Progress"--has been called to my attention.

I think it is unfair and unkind to make such charges against the people of South Carolina who were kind enough to vote for me.

For your information, the people of the upper section of South Carolina whom you refer to as being "lowborn upstate farmers and mill hands" are descendants of those great patriots who gathered at Kings Mountain to defeat the British Army. This victory led to Cornwallis' ultimate defeat. South Carolina has had no immigrants to speak of and we can boast that the people of our State are all of pioneer American stock that has made America what it is.

BURNET R. MAYBANK

Governor

State of South Carolina Columbia, S. C.

-- TIME made no "charges," is at a loss to understand Governor Maybank's. TIME said: "Mayor of Charleston then (1935), and ambitious head of the State Public Service Authority, was Burnet Rhett Maybank, 40, first Charleston aristocrat since the Civil War with the energy and ability to win over enough low-born upstate farmers and mill hands to get himself elected Governor, which he did last year."--ED.

Banana Fish

Sirs:

The superlatives used by Reader Lawrence Griswold [TIME, June 26] in describing a bonefish (i.e., "world's greatest gamefish," "most elusive speedster") called to mind a tropical piscatory phenomenon known as the ''banana fish." . . .

The usual elaborate fish-catching methods all fail with the banana fish.

This is the way it is done. A banana is submerged half its length, vertically, by hand, from either beach or boat in any tropical waters. . . .

The bright yellow of the banana and the almost metaphysical taste or smell it imparts to the water in its vicinity lures the banana fish, which strikes with lightning rapidity. As the fish flashes at the submerged half of the banana, the fisherman instantly pulls the fruit from the water. Now comes the time when the sportsman must outsmart this denizen of the sea.

The momentum of the fish hurtles it out of the water through the hole left by the banana. Quick as a note coming due, the fisherman plunges the banana back into the hole through which the fish has come, cutting off the only possible opening through which it could return to its native habitat.

My friend told me the trapping of banana fish on the surface of the water in this fashion is one of the most highly regarded skills in the South Seas.

MARTIN R. MILLER

Fairport Harbor, Ohio

Monday Holidays

Sirs:

Very definitely would I like to second Norman VV. Geare's plea for Monday holidays [TIME, June 26]. I will accept Mr. Geare's arguments to the industrialist, for in them I am only secondarily interested. I speak for the average man, many of whom, I know will agree with me when I say that more often than not midweek holidays are a nuisance rather than a help. There is little one can do with one day to get a rest other than to go to bed for the day. With a three-day weekend all sorts of possibilities offer themselves: trips to the shore, mountains, etc.

JOSEPH C. DUVAL

Belleville, N. J.

Matter of Indifference

Sirs:

YOUR SOPHOMORIC RIDICULE OF ME IN YOUR CURRENT ISSUE [TIME, JUNE 19], ALTHOUGH UNTRUE, IS A MATTER OF ABSOLUTE INDIFFERENCE TO ME. BUT YOU IMPLY THAT I REFERRED TO MISS ELSA MAXWELL, WHOM I HAVE NEVER MET, AS A PHONY. THAT IS WHOLLY UNTRUE. I AM SENDING THIS COLLECT. IF YOU MAKE THE RETRACTION I SHALL BE DELIGHTED TO REIMBURSE YOU.

MICHAEL ROMANOFF

Beverly Hills, Calif.

> TIME prefers to pay for "Michael Romanoff's" (Harry Gerguson's) collect wire, warns Mr. Gerguson that the next collect telegram from him will be answered by a bill for a year's subscription.--ED.

"Philadelphia Story"

Sirs:

An article entitled "Philadelphia Story" (p. 36) of your issue of June 26, contains many erroneous statements concerning the Philadelphia Inquirer, and its publisher M. L. Annenberg.

1. You stated that the Philadelphia Inquirer "loses over $500,000 a year." The fact is, that the Inquirer has always operated at a profit, after all charges, even through the Depression years.

2. You stated that the Inquirer had cost Mr. Annenberg "an estimated $2,000,000" since he became the publisher. The amounts spent by Mr. Annenberg since August 1936 have been invested in the improvement oi.the plant so that today it is as fine a newspaper plant as there is in the country.

3. You stated that the Inquirer is spending $25,000 weekly for promotion. For the past year, expenses for promotion have been less than 6% of gross revenues, and are not one-half the figure mentioned.

4. The Inquirer has no inflated circulation. The fact that its daily circulation has increased from 279,000 to 376,000, and its Sunday circulation from 669,000 to 1,000,000 since August 1936 is due to the improved quality of the paper in every department.

5. You stated that nearly one-half of the circulation of the Sunday edition is made up of a predate edition. The predate makes up less than one-quarter of the Inquirer's total Sunday circulation, and this predate is distributed only through the regular circulation media. Furthermore, your statement that our predate sells 5,000 copies in Peoria, Ill., is a gross inaccuracy, as only 300 copies are sold in that city.

6. You stated that the Philadelphia Record's editorial employes are the best paid in Philadelphia. The Inquirer has what the Newspaper Guild considers a model contract and pays the highest editorial salaries in the city.

I think that a review of the article will convince you not only that it was unfair to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but also to Mr. Annenberg who has done so much in the past three years to make it an outstanding newspaper.

CHAS. A. TYLER

President The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia, Pa.

>To TIME's Press reporter a thoroughgoing rebuke; to the Inquirer TIME's regrets and all thanks for setting the record straight.--ED.

If Winter Comes

Sirs:

Under the Daladier cover [TIME, June 5] you filled three "curt" columns telling us that Spring had arrived in Europe. Two weeks later, under the Lindbergh cover [TIME, June 19]) you devoted one "curt" column to the even more spectacular news that it was Hot in Europe. When Winter Comes, let us know, will you? I like to keep in touch.

ROBERT L. COOPER

Portland, Ore.

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