Letters: Oct. 11, 1926

Blow, Blew, Blown

Sirs:

I am enclosing a clipping from the Gainesville (Fla.) Evening News which relates an incident in connection with the hurricane. . . . The distance that the paper in the story traveled was more than 600 miles.

C. T. PARSONS

University of Florida Gainesville, Fla.

To Subscriber Parsons $2. Extract from the clipping: “During the blow a man in Pensacola opened his bedroom window and in blew a Miami Herald, printed only two hours previously, giving an account of the storm.”—ED. Dead Wrong

Sirs:

. . . Your paragraph [TIME, Sept. 27], “Last week, as everyone knows, the rain and wind gods conspired with Neptune, wiped the ‘Magic City’ off the map,” is dead wrong. Miami was not wiped off the map by any means, and is coming to the fore now with its rebuilding operations. . .

Another paragraph, “Over in rich, idle, Hollywood, one lone building, the Masonic Temple, stood drunkenly. As if enraged by such impertinence, the hurricane struck again.” While the storm did come again with renewed force, it certainly left more than a lone building. Many buildings of sound construction, including the Hollywood Hotel, Hollywood Hills Hotel and many others suffered only minor injury, such as roofs blown off, glass broken, and ornamentations damaged.

On the whole, I think the writer was misinformed. I have been in charge of relief work in Delray and we have cared for about 200 refugees from Hollywood, and have been brought in close contact with the situation. Conditions generally are not nearly so bad as your article would lead one to believe.

LE ROY E. DIGGANS

President

Delray Chamber of Commerce Delray, Fla.

December 1

Sirs: … In a publication usually so reliable and authentic as TIME, the misstatements and inaccuracies you made must have been the result of confusion and conflicting reports caused by the loss of wire and radio communications following the storm. In justice to your readers and the afflicted community we know that your generous publication will open its columns to correct erroneous impressions [TIME, Sept. 27]. … It will interest your readers to know that Miami, Magic City, referred to—is far from being “‘wiped from the map.” The city’s skyline stands without a gap and business proceeds. All-the-year-round hotels are in operation and of the strictly season-hotels, 75% of them had slight damages, all of which will be repaired within 60 days. So that by December 1, Miami will be able to take care of a large number of winter visitors with her usual comfort and convenience. The stores are open, the gas supply is normal, there is plenty of pure fresh water and electric lights shine at night. Normal shipping activities have been resumed. . . .

The Flamingo Hotel was not wrecked and the death list for all of Dade County is placed at 109 and as a result of the storm the property loss will exceed $100,000,000, yet there is no interruption of business in Miami, and we are very sure that TIME would not consciously add to our difficulties by the publication of exaggerated or untruthful stories emanating from sources that are not reliable. . . .L. W. CROW

President.

Miami Chamber of Commerce Miami, Fla.

Telegram .Sirs:

LIKE MARK TWAIN’S “FIRST” DEATH THE PREMATURE ARMISTICE AND THE DEATH OF THE POPE YOUR REPORT THE DAMAGE FOLLOWING THEHURRICANE IN FLORIDA CARRIED ON PAGE SEVEN SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH ISSUE WAS GREATLY EXAGGERATED STOP DANDIESMAY NEVER STRUT NOR WOMEN PREEN BUT THE FLAMINGO HOTEL WILLOPEN ON DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD THE SAME AS USUAL STOP THE FOUROTHER FISHER HOTELS WILL BE OPENED AS USUAL AND DAMAGE WAS IN SINGER MIDGETS COMPARED TO YOUR GIANT AND ERRONEOUS REPORTS

THANKS AND THIRTY

STEVE HANNAGAN PUBLICITY DIRECTOR

CARL FISHER PROP.

New York, N. Y.

For a compilation of final reports about the hurricane in Florida, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

At Annapolis

Sirs:

On page twenty-four of the Sept. 27 issue of TIME, under the head of SPORT is an item on “Self Denial” that the Navy cannot allow to pass unchallenged as it is an unwarranted imputation of unfair sports-manship at the U. S. Naval Academy.

The facts have been misrepresented as the so-called Freshman Rule has been in force at this institution for three years, it having been adopted in 1923.

While the Naval Academy has scrupulously observed this rule since its adoption, in contests with all other institutions observing the rule, it has felt free, and is free, if it so desires to use any of its students in contests with any institutions which do not observe the rule. As there is no agreement between West Point and Annapolis and as West Point does not make the rule effective until 1927 naturally each institution in games between them is free to use its own judgment in contests before 1927.

The Navy feels that West Point has

(Continued on p. 4) shown good sportsmanship in coming to this rule as it will quiet all criticisms by outside institutions and will prove conclusively to the country at large that the two National Academies stand for the highest and cleanest type of American Sportsmanship.

It is hoped that you will take steps to correct the erroneous impression that you have created regarding Navy athletics, as your paper is undoubtedly good and carries great weight with millions of intelligent American citizens, and I feel it is an injustice to both of us to allow anevident error of this character to pass without correction?

The impelling motive of this letter is simply to keep us both square with the world and I trust you will regard it accordingly. JONAS H. INGRAM

Commander, U. S. Navy Director of Athletics Navy Athletic Association United States Naval Academy Annapolis, Md.

To the U. S. Naval Academy an apology. To TIME’S sport editor a thoroughgoing reprimand.—ED. Eli, John, Leland

Sirs:

Informative, not admonitory:

TIME, Sept. 27, “In a pitch dark laboratory at Leland Stanford University,” etc.

‘Tis true the title of the charter is, “The Leland Stanford, Jr., University.” It appears on the university’s seal and diplomas, but nowhere else with the sanction of usage. To Western ears, “Leland Stanford” is almost as much of a solecism as if you were to say “Eli Yale University” or “John Harvard University” or “Miss Columbia College.” The university founded by Leland and Jane Lathrop Stanford in memory of their only child is just “Stanford.”

THOREAU CRONYN

Barton, Durstine & Osborn, Inc. New York, N. Y.

Indispensable

Sirs:

TIME was recommended by an instructor in College Extension Course. I find it indispensable as teacher in upper grades and in High School. The style is most refreshing and stimulating. It is never an effort to read TIME.

(MRS. JAMES L.) LOUISE BRYDIE

Teacher in New York City Public Schools New York, N. Y.

Bulk

Sirs:

I admire your terse, imagination-stirring, Thomas Carlyle style, and generally hand each week’s finished copy to some friend telling him I am complimenting his intelligence by giving him the sample. Please do not let success expand TIME’S pocketable size to unwieldy bulk as success did for the Saturday Evening Post. . . .

W. D. BAKER

Ault Wooden Ware Co. Cincinnati, Ohio

Poisoned

Sirs:

I enjoy reading many of the news items, but you are becoming poisoned by un-christian and unamerican and undemocratic principles. I care no more for your paper.

S. T. COOK

Denton, Tex.

Bad Manners

Sirs:

…. I enjoy TIME. I read every word, including the illuminating footnotes. It takes about two hours and I am not a moron. . . .

But your manners are bad. You are flippant and you have no compunction in saying things which you know are offensive to a large and intelligent group of your readers. You take advantage of the attractiveness of your paper in other respects to exhibit an unfair and contemptuous spirit toward Catholics. . . .

It seems to me that a paper so intimate as yours, speaking to its guests in general society, should restrain itself from giving offense to any one present. It is no answer to say; “Let the injured person retire.” You do not profess to be an organ of any particular faith or creed and in truth you do not wish any of your subscribers to retire. . . . HOMER MOONEY

Secretary to the Governor Carson City, Nev.

100 H. P.

Sirs: If TIME’S own analysis of its circulation is accurate, the roster of Fierce-Arrow owners must be largely represented among TIME’S subscribers. I wonder how many of them, taking pride in their ownership, feel slighted because in a footnote TIME (Sept. 27) stated that a certain motor car— was reputed to be the most powerful stock car built in the United States, and gave its horsepower output as 92. Owners of Fierce-Arrow’s larger car, the Dual-Valve Six, know that the Fierce-Arrow engine develops more than 100 horsepower. These owners must also have noticed that although Fierce-Arrow has been recognized as one of the finest automobiles .since the early days of the industry, no mention was made of it in the comparison of prices given in the footnote, although these prices range from $2,895 to $8,000.

W. M. BALDWIN

Advertising Manager

The Fierce-Arrow Motor Car Company Buffalo, N. Y.

Ingenious Mosaic

Sirs: For the enlightenment of TIME’S countless minutiae-loving correspondents, among them Subscriber ( ?) Craig, the pleasing re-versibility of whose surname in script affords that self-avowed Scot so much seeming satisfaction (TIME, Sept. 27) I have regretfully to assert that, despite its many other undoubted virtues, the name is not, from the standpoint of Mr. Craig’s challenge, truly unique. Since the completion of the Wells Building more than twenty years ago, a large proportion of Milwaukee’s substantial citizenry, whose business prompts them daily to enter, and eventually to leave, that imposing downtown edifice, may possibly have admired — now from the south, again from the north — the following inscription intriguingly set in the mosaic of the lobby floor : In view of the last paragraph of Mr. Craig’s letter, it is conceivable that the gentleman would have shared my feelings of distress today at the spectacle of an obviously genuine and otherwise sturdy Scot completely reversing himself while in the act of passing through that very lobby.

A banana peel seemed to have turned the trick.

JOHN E. BURKE,

Editor-in-chief

American Legion Broadside & Barrage Milwaukee, Wis.

Learns More

Sirs:

You may be interested in the following paragraph from a letter recently received by me from the London Manager of one of the largest manufacturers of English silver.

“I should like to take this opportunity in thanking you for the further copies of TIME. This is a paper that I always enjoy reading. In fact, I think I can learn more from this in some things than I can from our own papers, and I often wonder where it gets its inside information from.”

I am a consistent reader of TIME. Every issue is of such genuine interest that I can safely recommend it to my friends.

RALPH C. PUTNAM

J. E. Caldwell & Company Philadelphia, Pa.

—The Stutz—ED.