A Letter From The Publisher, Nov. 3, 1952

Many of you have written to tell me how much you have enjoyed TIME’S art pages in color, but few of you have gone as far as Reader William E. Farr of Vancouver, Wash. When TIME ran a color reproduction of a Navajo sand-painting (Oct. 8, 1951), Farr decided he wanted to copy the pattern—on a hooked rug. About a year later he sent us the finished product, a 4-by-5-ft. rug. He had spent 320 working hours making enlarged drawings of the painting, transferring them to the monk’s cloth used as a base for the rug, selecting colors and hooking the rug. Farr explains he has been hooking rugs as a hobby for 18 years. It all began, he says, when his wife was taking lessons in the craft. “I’ll bet I could make one of those,” he said. “Why don’t you get a frame and try it?” she challenged. He did, has been at it ever since.

A TIME footnote brought an unexpected endorsement for Congressman John Kennedy, running for the Senate in Massachusetts. The footnote described one of Kennedy’s wartime experiences as a Navy lieutenant, when his PT boat was split in two by a Japanese destroyer. Since then, Kennedy has heard from Kohei Hanami, who wrote: “When I read the TIME magazine of Aug. 18, which mentioned the battle in question, my memory being refreshed, I can vividly recall what happened . . .

“In one of the night battles in early August 1943, I sighted a bold enemy boat of small size heading directly toward my destroyer of a larger type. Having no time to exchange de gunfires . . . my destroyer had to directly hit the enemy boat, slicing it in two. This boat happened to be the PT boat which was under your command.

“I take this opportunity to pay my profound respect to your daring and courageous action in this battle, and also to congratulate you upon your miraculous escape under such circumstances. “I come to know from TIME that you are going to run for the next election of Senators. I am firmly convinced that a person who practices tolerance to the former enemy, like you, if elected to the high office in your country, would no doubt contribute … to the promotion of genuine friendship between Japan and the U.S.”

When I wrote you last spring about TIME’S book, They Went To College, I may have indicated that it was the last word on the U.S. college graduate. Now it appears that the book is, in one respect at least, only the second-last word. The book (and TIME’S review of it as well) called Brown University one of “20 famous Eastern colleges,” failed to include it as a member of the Ivy League. Brown is in the Ivy League, and the editors of the Brown Daily Herald have now had the last word. In an almost-forgotten TIME style which no ordinary college student would be old enough to remember, they wrote : “From Providence, R.I. last week came disgruntled sounds as upperclassmen and beaniebearing freshmen arrived on College Hill. Strange to say, the clamor arose not from students remembering a short summer, but from those remembering a long, hard winter at the hands of redcovered TIME. Said one senior: ‘Where does young (1923) up-startish TIME get off snubbing old (1764) historic Brown University?’ . . . Diagnosis: Timenmity . . .” TIME was wrong. So was the Herald’s diagnosis.

Cordially yours,

P.S. TIME has lost its lists of early subscribers. When TIME was new, I suppose, the circulation department didn’t see much point in keeping lists of subscribers from previous years. But now TIME is approaching its 30th birthday. And we’d like to find out who were on the list of original subscribers to TIME —and how many of them still subscribe. If you are — or know of anyone who was — a charter subscriber, will you write and let me know? I would also be interested in those who subscribed to TIME during its first three or four years of publication.