Early Shocker

Sirs:

In your review of the picture, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in the Sept. 1 issue, you say there have been two previous cinema versions of this famous shocker, one by John Barrymore in 1920 and the second one by Fredric March in 1931. Please permit me to correct you; there was still another version, which as a small boy I saw in 1912 or 1913. The picture made such an impression on me, resulting in several nightmares, that I still have vivid recollections of it; the name of the actor who portrayed the dual role was King Baggot, who I believe in those days was quite a "big name" in movies. . . .

LEE F. BRACE Houston, Tex.

> TIME cited only the "notable" cine-versions of the Old Horrifier. There have been others, among them the King Baggot version which left its mark on Reader Brace's moppethood. A crawly two-reeler made in 1913, it used the camera dissolve process to meld blue-eyed Mr. Baggot into horrendous Mr. Hyde. Critics, as well as small boys, were scared. Actor Baggot survived his ordeal to make more than 300 pictures, eventually became a director. When last seen on celluloid, he was playing the part of a perfectly normal doorman this year in Come Live With Me.

Somebody's Sweetheart

Sirs:

Correction please on the Ickes article (TIME, Sept. 15) where you say: "The most careful search of the records fails to show any major occasion . . . where any substantial group of citizens . . . ever paid him any great tribute . . . sent him flowers or just told him they loved him."

Last winter the Protestant Associates of America gathering in New York (over 600 present) . . . cited Mr. Ickes as follows: "An honest and faithful servant of the people of the United States, you will be remembered by our children as the one who administered fearlessly and without favor those measures which have preserved for them their heritage of soil. . .

"You have with the caustic wit of your public utterance stripped the coverings from the stupid pretensions and the cunning treason of both domestic and foreign enemies of the people.

"We the people have a friend in you, Harold Ickes."

KENNETH LESLIE Editor

Protestant Digest New York City

Sirs:

Your account of Harold Ickes' friendless state ... is touching. However, you do not have to look further than Who's Who to discover that he has at least eight LL.Ds, perhaps more by this time. This is the approved academic method of saying "I love you."

FRANK E. ROBBINS Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sirs:

... As I read about just how "arbitrary" Secretary Ickes is ... I am reminded of a joke he played on me when he first became Secretary.

I happened to know that he was a dahlia enthusiast and grew many show blooms. Being only an amateur dahlia grower . . . and having learned how ... to beg of those more fortunate a few of their dahlia roots that they are sure not to plant, I wrote the Secretary, admitting my poor financial standing and profoundly and sincerely begged for some.

He answered immediately, very kindly promising to send some. . . .

One morning . . . the express man came with a very large box--$1.35 express. ... I opened it and began to remove some of the shavings in which the roots were packed. . . . Finally I did succeed in finding THREE little ORNERY roots ... of such varieties that I had already given as many as five bushels away to the neighbors. . . .

WM. J. NEAL, M.D. Drumright, Okla.

Sirs:

Please be informed that I think Harold Ickes is just swell, and listen to him every time he speaks on the radio. I like men who speak in plain, unvarnished words. . . .

More power to Harold L. Ickes!

MRS. J. H. WARD Detroit, Mich.

Sirs:

I very much enjoyed your article on Mr. Ickes and hope that whoever wrote it had as much fun in the preparation as I did in the consumption.

RICHARD W. PARSONS Mansfield, Ohio

Sirs:

You seem to have made a grave mistake on the cover of your magazine for Sept. 15. Picture not Ickes on cover. Mouth too small for all the bombast and hot air that comes from him. Please advise whose picture this is.

H. B. LIVINGSTONE Tampa, Fla.

> There was no mistake about the picture. Sometimes high velocity lets large amounts of air pass through a relatively small orifice.--ED.

With & Without Propaganda

Sirs:

There was a time when TIME was a useful means of aiding instructors. Several years ago you did disseminate information but today your pro-war efforts ... are no longer adjuncts to instructors. TIME is now largely propaganda for an imperialistic war against the will of 80% of our countrymen. . . .

HENRY A. ADAMS JR.

New York City

Sirs:

I wish to express my appreciation to you for your unbiased reporting of the news. There are probably a larger number of intelligent citizens in the belligerent South than you think who are still against American participation in this war. . . . We also have no illusions about establishing the "American way of life" in Europe, or any American Freedom Crusade in the world today. What we need is more Lindberghs and fewer Himmlers in the U.S. at this time. I respect TIME as a magazine that gives us the facts and leaves the propaganda for the other guys.

BARRY SHEFFIELD Pine Hill, Ala.

Photogenic Mayor

Sirs:

Surely by this time every TIME reader knows well that Fiorello LaGuardia waddles like a duck and cackles like a hen, among other things. No further purpose can be served by tiresome repetitions of these epithets. And now, since we are enlightened in TIME, Sept. 8, that the "Little Flower" became "bustle-bottomed," let us pray for a letup of spitball throwing. . . .

P. S. BROWN

Berkeley, Calif.

> New York City's bustling, photogenic Mayor LaGuardia, whose face and figure are part of his fortune, never objects to thumbnail descriptions of his person.--ED.

Radio Coverage

Sirs:

The radio section of TIME, Sept. 8, contains an article titled "No Blossoming," which purports to analyze a recent report by the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting. . . . This article contains figures and presents conclusions which are wholly unsupported by the C.A.B. Report and leave an unfair and erroneous impression. . . .

TIME'S article gives the impression that the radio audience is falling off. The fact is that all indications point to an increase in both the number of radio listeners and in the amount of time they spend at their sets. Moreover, reliable trade estimates made in January of this year revealed that there were 50,100,000 radio sets in operation in this country in an alltime peak of receiver ownership. . . .

NEVILLE MILLER President

National Association of Broadcasters Washington, D.C.

> Reader Miller is quite right. TIME misinterpreted the figures it used. On the basis of two samplings made in July, C.A.B. got a "median rating" for evening half-hour programs of 6.2%--that is, the average program in that category reached between six and seven radio homes out of 100. This was not, as TIME said, a low point since 1930 but simply a summer low for 1941. High for 1941: 12.4%, in February.--ED.

No Ex

Sirs:

In your Radio department (TIME, Sept. 15) you refer to the president of Mutual Broadcasting System as "ex-Chicago Tribune-man William E. Macfarlane." Mr. Macfarlane's first name is Wilbert, not William, and he is very far from an ex-Tribune man. He is the Chicago Tribune's Business Manager.

LESTER GOTTLIEB Mutual Broadcasting System New York City

> To Wilbert E. Macfarlane, TIME'S apologies for unwarrantedly retiring him from his important job with the Tribune, a post which he has held since 1928 and continues to hold.--ED.

Spectrum

Sirs:

May I add to your growing dialect the complete color scheme of the 2,378 negroes of Rowanty township, Dinwiddie County, Virginia, as used by the heads of their families [and noted by me] in earning my master's degree in 1878? . . . Here they are:

White as you is

Very bright

Very bright gingercake

Bright gingercake

Just gingercake

Dark gingercake

Very dark gingercake

Black

Black as dat backwall. . . .

JOHN JUDSON HAMILTON Pasadena, Calif.

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