Letters: May 10, 1926

Herewith are excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain either supplementary to or corrective of news previously published in TIME.

28,000,000 Cu. Ft.

Sirs: In TIME [April 12, under BUSINESS, p. 28] you have an item ‘Big Buildings.’; In this item you list eight of the “world’s hugest buildings,” with the Equitable, Manhattan, 24,000,000 cubic feet first, and General Motors, Detroit, 20,411,000 cubic feet second. You make no mention in this article of the American Furniture Mart in Chicago. This building at present contains approximately 21,000,000 cubic feet, and with the addition which is now under construction will contain approximately 28,000,000 cubic feet.

VICTOR HUGO SCHULZE

New Haven, Conn.

“Grammar School Stuff”

Sirs:

Your April 26 number [TIME, April 26, p. 9] razzes me amiably for attributed idiotic remarks about the U. S. Government. The misquotation started in the properly esteemed Baltimore Sun, and was the first paragraph of a modest and orthodox exhortation to civic duties, which as actually spoken ran thus: “Democratic representative government, such as we have in the U. S., is the most inefficient type of government in the world”; (re executive) “our forefathers, dreading Star Chamber methods, created an executive with too little power and too short a term of office to oppress the people”—100% grammar school stuff. All reporters are not of TIME’S accuracy; discrimination befits editors in culling such items. My admiration for your magazine survives unruffled.

RICHARD F. CLEVELAND

Baltimore, Md.

New Governors

Sirs:

TIME, April 19, under the caption CABINET, “Guam,” p. 5, should read: “Its present governor is Captain Lloyd Shapley, U. S. N.. retired.”

H. O. MARTIN

U. S. Marine Corps

Quantico, Va.

Sirs:

That must have been an ancient Naval Register which you consulted before telling your readers that Captain E. S. Kellogg was Governor of American Samoa

(TIME, April 19, NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Captain Kellogg has been gone from Pago Pago for lo, these many days. Captain H. F. Bryan (ret.) is now Commandant and Governor.

Allow me to join the ranks of those who supply your amusing letters. We enjoy those letters at my house, as well as all the rest of TIME.

NORMAN J. GOELTZ, U. S. N.

San Diego, Calif.

Noun

Sirs:

Permit me again to call your attention to the misuse of the word “Jew,” in TIME which in the main is so carefully edited that such an error repeated is hard to understand.

In TIME of April 19, p. 38, col. 3, your book reviewer mentions “Jew manufacturers.” I take it that he did not mean manufacturers of Jews but rather Jewish manufacturers. Is it so hard for men who understand English to realize that the word “Jew” is a noun and that “Jewish” is the adjective?

AARON RICHE

Los Angeles, Calif.

Subscriber Riche speaks well.—ED.

Narrow-Head Quitters

Sirs:

I am one of your most enthusiastic subscribers, a cover-to-cover reader. The only time I become incensed is when I read a letter of criticism, and just because one single article you publish does not coincide with some readers’ bigoted ideas and intolerant mind, they immediately say they never want to see TIME again.

Were I financially able, I would take a new subscription every time a narrow-head quit.

H. EVERETT SACHS

Denver, Col.

Fine Man

Sirs:

In TIME, April 26, p. 6, you have a picture of Candidate for Senator Smith of Illinois.

You say “Elk, Moose, Woodman.” Please add 33rd Degree Mason. Hiswife is a strong Catholic. Smith is a fine man.

E. D. T.

Livingstone Co., 111.

North Dakota

Sirs:

In the issue of TIME for April 26, p. 6, Oklahoma is described as “the state which was born dry.” Although you in no sense imply that it was unique in this matter, it is worth mentioning perhaps that North Dakota was “born” under similar conditions 18 years earlier.

On p. 16 of the same issue, you speak of “Pilot Ben Bielson” in connection with the Wilkins Polar expedition. Ben is a native of the little Red River Valley town of Hatton, N. Dak. During the War he served in the air forces of the A. E. F. Coming home, he was graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1921, and has since been in the flying business in Alaska. He is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

DUANE SQUIRES

Dickinson, N. D.

Proud Northmen

Sirs:

In your issue for April 19, 1926, you say that “Death came to a flowering spot in southern California” to Luther Burbank.

If Death had gone to southern California, it would not have found Mr. Burbank, for he lived and died in Santa Rosa, which is 54 miles north of San Francisco, and more than 300 miles north of the Tehachapi Mountains, which form the barrier between northern and southern California.

You will doubtless receive numerous corrections of this mistake, for we of northern California are proud of its many natural advantages, including that quality of soil and climate which made possible the many experiments of Luther Burbank.

WALTER B. HENRATTY

Sacramento, Calif.

Sirs:

After reading the article beginning at the bottom of col. 2, p. 21 of TIME for April 19, I am led to wonder whether the writer of that article has ever been in California.

I really mean “in California,” not Los Angeles or Pasadena, but up and down this state, which is over 1,000 miles long and the greater portion of which is north of the Tehachapi Mountains. . . .

If you have never been in California come out here and spend the summer driving up and down the state over paved roads, seeing more natural wonders than can be found in any other one section of the U. S.

C. F. HAMSHER

President of the First National Bank Los Gatos, Calif.

To date 38 letters admonishing TIME for placing Santa Rosa in Southern California have been received, noted.—ED.

Old Chuff

Sirs:

Anent your note on “chuff” in TIME, April 26. p. 2, I am moved to say that 70 years ago I was a growing lad in suburban Sheffield, England. In the dialect of that neighborhood “chuff” was common. It signified a self-complacent swagger. “Side” occupies a similar place today. One who was manifestly dressed for display and carried himself arrestingly was “chuff”; one who was self-opinionated and pert was “chuff”: a toper, half-seas-over and merry, was “chuff.” Hence the word is not quite new.

THOMAS SIMS

Parsonage, First Congregational Church Millbury, Mass.

Sirs:

In TIME, April 26, p. 2, you explain that the word “chuff,” descriptive of the sound of a train engine, was originated by a typesetter in your plant.

The word “chuff” was used in the same onomatopoetic connection three years ago at the beginning of chapter seven of Kangaroo by D. H. Lawrence. “. . .engine would chuff,” wrote Mr. Lawrence.

J. PAUL STOAKES

Detroit, Mich.