Industrious Cook

Sirs:

Of all the adjectives available to TIME industrious is the most inept in describing Alton Cook, radio editor of the New York World-Telegram. I know because he shared my apartment for many years and he is the laziest man who ever left a bed unmade and dishes in the sink from Friday to Friday, the day of the slavey's weekly visitation.

I survived the advent of his charming wife, but Alton, junior, finally eased me out. The only way they are getting the Alton Cooks out of the building (opposite Morgan's on Murray Hill) is by pulling it down. . .

He is imaginative, intelligent and iconoclastic, but NOT industrious.

ALAN WILLIAMS

Los Angeles, Calif.

>-Says Alton Cook in rebuttal: "TIME files have thousands of letters attesting TIME's accuracy. Can Williams produce the same evidence?"--ED.

No Objection

Sirs:

My thanks to you . . . for a story [TIME, Jan. 22] to which no possible objection could be offered, except that it gives me more credit than I deserve.

ELMER DAVIS New York City

Rock-a-Bye Royalties

Sirs:

. . . You state that Erne Canning Carlton, writer of Rock-a-Bye Baby, "turned many a penny from its royalties."

She did not. ... I hope her spirit haunts you for that crack.

LYDIA HARRIS San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs:

. . . The local press has led us to believe that the poor old lady earned nary a penny from that song, escaped burial in a potter's grave only at the last minute when some local society or club stepped in and contributed to a more fitting burial.

JAMES A. MACK Boston, Mass.

> Composer Erne Canning Carlton earned an estimated $20,000 from Rock-a-Bye Baby. During her last seven years she was saved from destitution by a $50-a-month gift from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (of which she was never a member). ASCAP also paid her hospital and funeral expenses; its president, Gene Buck, sent the largest floral piece to her funeral. Second largest was from the Hoboes of America. Its inscription: "To Our Beloved Friend."--ED.

Morgan and Carbines

Sirs:

In your notice of my book J. Pierpont Morgan, an Intimate Portrait (Dec. 18) your reviewer takes exception to my clarification of the old Civil War Hall's carbine legend, and says:

"One flaw in Lawyer Satterlee's case seems to be his statement that 'Pierpont . . . did not lend any money on [a] second shipment of carbines.' Lewis Corey, in The House of Morgan (1930) quotes the Reports of the House of Representatives to show that Morgan filed a bill with the Government for 58,175 for a second batch of carbines, a claim on which an investigating committee later allowed him $11,008." Mr. Corey misled your reviewer. Morgan never filed any bill with anyone, or made any claim against the Government. No committee, commission or court ever said that he did. In the ordinary course of business Morgan advanced to Simon Stevens money enough to make a payment to Arthur M. Eastman for the 5,000 Hall carbines (smoothbore) which Stevens had bought from Eastman and sold to General John C. Fremont under contract to have them changed from smoothbores to rifles before delivery. On August 7, 1861, Morgan loaned him $20,000. Stevens, in accordance with usual banking practice, assigned to Morgan (as collateral for the loan) the whole lot of 5,000 carbines and agreed that the check from the Government should be made out in Morgan's favor so that he could deduct from it his advances and turn over the balance to Stevens. Thirty-eight days after making the loan Morgan received the Government's payment for 2,500 rifled Hall carbines at $22 apiece. He repaid himself the $20,000 with interest, commission, costs of rifling, packing, insurance, etc., and after that day he never had any further interest in the sale of the carbines directly or indirectly. Stevens went to Morris Ketchum and borrowed a considerable sum of money from him. When Ketchum's loan was not repaid he pressed his claim for it and brought suit and collected it.

As Ketchum stood in Morgan's shoes as far as the collateral was concerned, he brought his claim in Morgan's name and the files in Washington are so labelled, but anyone who wants to get at the facts and read the two reports of the Congressional Investigating Committee and the War Department Commission's report and the records of the Stevens suit in the Court of Claims will find that Morgan had no profit, interest or commission whatever in the transaction after his loan had been paid off. . . .

HERBERT L. SATTERLEE

New York City

>TIME showed Author Satterlee's letter to Author Corey. His reply follows.

--ED.

Sirs: Mr. Satterlee gives the essential facts of the carbine transaction, but with emphases and qualifications that tend to obscure it. ...

Mr. Satterlee . . . says that Eastman sold the carbines to Stevens and that Stevens gave them as collateral for a $20.000 loan from Morgan. But Eastman could not sell the carbines and Stevens could not give them as collateral because the carbines were still Government property. In making the "sale" to General Fremont, Stevens "sold" to the Government its own property at $22 per carbine which he afterward bought from the Government at $3.50. Only after the "sale" was the purchase made, Morgan buying the carbines in Eastman's name with a payment of $17,486 (Senate Executive Documents No. 72, 37th Congress, 1861-62, 2nd Session, Vol. VI, p. 487). . . .

It is true that Morgan's loan had been repaid--I make no statement to the contrary in my book--when the claim was made upon the Government for further payment. But the claim was made in Morgan's name, with Morgan, according to Ketchum, "acting as a sort of trustee in the premises" (House Reports, 37th Congress, 1861-62, 2nd Session, Vol.1, p. 657). . . .

There is no significance to Mr. Satterlee's stress on two shipments and to his statement that Morgan "did not lend any money on [a] second shipment of carbines" (I make no statement to the contrary in my book). For the two shipments involved one transaction --Morgan paid for the whole 5,000 carbines, while the claim on the Government was not for payment on the second shipment but for balance due on the whole 5,000 carbines [when all had been delivered]. Ketchum testified that Morgan "refused to allow the others to go until he received the money for the first shipment" (House Reports, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 512). . . .

LEWIS COREY

New York City

Marine Bombardment

Sirs: There appears to be a general belief that a heavy bombardment of English seaports is to be expected. We have a right to expect that this will be the last concentration of explosions in a restricted sea area during our lifetime.

Since I cannot stop it, I should like to gather such data as I may. I should like to learn what effect explosions have on marine life and how the balance of nature is affected.

I should like very much to learn whether any particular species of fish or other animals are made extinct and whether any species increase ; also whether scavengers -- sharks, gulls, or any species not now considered to be common scavengers--become more numerous in waters about the British Isles.

Will you be so kind, therefore, as to publish this letter in the hope that others nearer the scene will cooperate with me in collecting such data? For my part I promise to save all such papers and photographs as may be sent to me and turn them over, after the hostilities, to competent zoologists for study and preservation.

GEORGE A. ERNST

York Beach, Me.

Bindle, Bundle

Sirs:

You use "bindle stiff" (TIME, Jan. 15).

How come? Not a typographical error, as you use same term again in same article.

Proper term is bundle stiff, something unknown to your staff?

HOWARD F. CLARK

Boise, Idaho

> Folks who carry a bundle of bedding call it a bindle. So does Webster.--ED.

Crab and Cramp

Sirs:

We hate to be picayunish in our criticism of your estimable magazine but we can't let pass unnoticed an incidental item which appeared in your issue, Jan. 15.

In describing F. D. R.'s greeting of "Hello, Grouch," to Secretary Ickes, TIME said ". . . Secretary of Interior Ickes, who had eaten some crab meat for lunch and was wishing he hadn't."

Secretary Ickes' crab meat MIGHT have left him "wishing he hadn't eaten it," but for TIME to plump down the definite statement that it did is the cause for our comment. . . .

Never accused of superstition or of adhering to age-old antipathies, TIME should know that there is no medical proof condemning the crab for the recurring complaints through the years anent the indigestibility of crab meat. . . .

There is still, in this enlightened age, the superstition which prevents many people from eating crab and ice cream or milk at the same meal. This is entirely a superstition, not based on one iota of fact; yet, we dined at a famed Philadelphia club as late as last year and had to forego ice cream for dessert because we had eaten crab meat for luncheon! Many of Maryland's finest recipes for cooking the crab call for milk, and we, after the Philadelphia incident, have made a point of conspicuousness outside of the "Free State," and always couple crab meat and ice cream for our luncheons. We have yet to feel any discomfort. . . .

Let it suffice to say that we just don't believe the crab meat caused whatever discomfort the Secretary felt. He can't prove it did and TIME fell into a groove worn too deep by repetition and blamed an old grief-catcher, the crab. . . .

Come on down to Maryland and see a growing industry. . . .

WILLIAM B. USILTON III

Executive Secretary Maryland Publicity Commission Annapolis, Md.

>-To Maryland's wide-awake publicity commission all honor for its defense of crustacean citizens.--ED.

Ohio Pause

Sirs:

In TIME, Jan. 29 ... you are reminded that every President who came to office at the end of 20 years died in office . . . that seven of the past 14 Presidents have been from Ohio.

May I ... call to your attention the fact that four of the five Presidents who have thus died in office were from Ohio, a coincidence that should give pause to less stouthearted Ohioans than Robert Taft. . . .

RUTH H. HARRIS

Beechhurst, L. I.

Flyer Grey

Sirs:

Under Transport, headed Kiwi (TIME, July 31) you wrote a story about British Subject Charles Grey Grey, editor for 28 years of the British aviation magazine The Aeroplane. Isn't the accompanying photograph (captioned "Charles Grey Grey .

'What's the good of ... facts . . . ?'") that of U. S. Citizen Charles G. Grey, former member of the Lafayette Flying Corps and holder of the Distinguished Service Cross?

SHERRY MANGAN Paris, France

> For a picture mixup, TIME's apologies to 45-year-old U. S. Citizen Charles G.-Grey, now living in France, who in World War I flew for the French, then for the U. S. as a member of 213th pursuit squadron, won the Distinguished Service Cross. Sympathetic with the international policies of the British and French Governments as opposed to the Nazi regime, Businessman Charles G. Grey), who still flies his own plane, is not to be confused with 64-year-old onetime British Editor (he resigned last year) Charles Grey Grey. TIME wrote about Editor Grey, ran a picture of Businessman Grey.--ED.

Cambronne

Sirs:

James Norman Hall's story of General Cambronne and his reply to the British (TIME, Jan. 22) was told first by Herodotus about an Egyptian general, 2,250 years before General Cambronne thought of it. And I'm not right sure Herodotus didn't get it from an Old Testament incident. The funniest reference to the same recherche subject is found in Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday, if I remember rightly, only that time it was a housemaid.

FRANK GRIMES

Abilene, Texas

Unemployment Research

Sirs:

I thought you might be interested to know that as a result of the story TIME carried in its Dec. 25 issue about the work of our group, we have already received something over a thousand letters requesting help or further information about our work. These have ranged all the way from proud mothers wanting us to get their three-year-old daughters movie contracts in Hollywood to Yale professors desiring leads on better jobs. Also as a result of the story, we have received three offers to syndicate our materials, besides a great many requests from magazines for individual articles. . . .

LYLE M. SPENCER

Science Research Associates Chicago, Ill.

'30s (Cont'd)

Sirs:

My name for the '30s is:

The treacherous-trembling-tricky-turbulent-turgid-twaddling -twitchy - twirling -tyrannical-twinging-tit-for-tatting -tittle -tat -tling-topsy-turvy-tired -torn -toiling - toppled-tortured-tragical-touchy-tormented-teetered-tattered - tarnished -tenacious -tense -terrible -thankless -thieving - thoughtless -tangling -threadbare-throbbing-timorous-tipsy -terrify -ing-tedious-tantalizing-cantankerous-terrific-t.n.t.-torpedoed-THIRTIE S.

GLENN E. FANT Thomaston, Ga.

Sirs:

Boom (1930), Crash (1931, 32, 33, 34), Boom (1935), Slump (1936-37), Boom (1938-39), War (1930-39). ... I suggest the Tempestuous Thirties.

CLARKSON HILL

Burlington, Vt.

Sirs:

When the market crashed in 1929, it blitzkrieged me with the rest. I would call the ten years following, the Threadbare '305.

GROUCHO MARX Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Culver City, Calif.

-- To Reader Marx the threadbare dis tinction of pinning the aptest adjective yet on the '303. -- ED.

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