• U.S.

Letters: Feb. 3, 1930

9 minute read
TIME

Fortune

PLEASE ACCEPT MY HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS ON FORTUNE STOP IT IS A BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF WORK AND I AM PROUD THAT I AM A CHARTER SUBSCRIBER.

K. A. BlCKEL

President

United Press Ass’n

New York City

Sirs:

From cover to cover, it is consistently beautiful in typography, illustrations, and color printing. I particularly like the TIME flavor of the well-chosen, well-written articles. I compliment you upon your discriminating selection of subjects. They lack nothing in variety, freshness of viewpoint and general treatment.

I believe FORTUNE will find a ready, waiting market. Its originality, attractiveness and value to the intelligent reader demand for FORTUNE a high, distinctive place in our national life.

Allow me to congratulate you and your colleagues on this remarkable achievement. May it reward you richly for your brilliant efforts.

ARTHUR CAPPER

Capper’s Weekly

Topeka, Kan.

CONGRATULATIONS STOP THE FIRST NUMBER OF FORTUNE IS EVEN BETTER THAN I HAD ANTICIPATED STOP FORTUNE PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF A NEED FOR JUST SUCH A NEW MAGAZINE AS IT IS AND THEN PROCEEDS TO FILL THAT NEED COMPLETELY STOP FORTUNE’S SUCCESS OUGHT TO BE AS OUTSTANDING AS THAT OF TIME.

JOHN COWLES

Associate Publisher

Des Moines Register & Tribune

Des Moines, Iowa

Sirs:

I am so overwhelmed by the first number of FORTUNE that I scarcely know what to say. So far as I know, only art and sports have heretofore developed a magazine of such beauty and distinction. Such “books-in-parts,” as Alkens,* and various art publications about that time and later, were supported by a small percentage of the population in England, known as the aristocracy, lifted on the shoulders of the rest.

Now FORTUNE appears to give its fascinating picture of the beauty and power of business. What does that mean? Perhaps it means that the all-embracing term “business” may be drawing to itself the fine spirit of sportmanship and the beauty of the arts. Then too, the magazine will not be the spokesman of the few lifted on the shoulders of the many, but will reflect this great cooperative effort known as business which is every day learning that its highest success can only be attained by making everybody healthy, wealthy and wise.

I congratulate you on the initial number of this great adventure.

OWEN D. YOUNG

New York City

MAY FORTUNE FOLLOW FORTUNE THE MOST INTERESTING AND OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN PRINTING AND PUBLICATION OF TODAY AS I READ THE FIRST ISSUE FROM COVER TO COVER I

AM AMAZED ALMOST BEWILDERED MY WARMEST CONGRATULATIONS.

MRS. ANDREW SQUIRE

Cleveland, Ohio

Instantaneous Cancellation

Sirs:

Cancel my subscription instantly! I will not have in my house nor in sight of my eyes a magazine that will print the sort of thing which appears on p. 13, col. 1 of this week’s issue (TIME, Jan. 20). Are you editors crazy? Do you think you can stay out of prison five minutes if you give currency to such words as these? I’m almost too astounded and shocked to hold my pen and you can see how my hand is shaking. . . .

EMILY B. FRANCHON

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Onetime Subscriber Franchon’s is the most forceful of many letters received anent TIME’S report of language repeated, in the name of Reform, upon the floor of the U. S. Senate by Senator Cole Livingston Blease of South Carolina. This language was printed without change in, and reprinted by TIME from, that most public of journals, The Congressional Record *—ED.

Smoot’s Smut

Sirs:

Permit a gentleman of the old school to congratulate you for calling public attention to Senator Blease’s speech in the Senate on blasphemy. I wonder if you are going to have the courage to report Senator Smoot’s threatened speech about “smut,” if and when he makes it? Reformers we shall always have with us but I did hope I could live to see the day when naughty-minded old men would no longer be allowed to sit in the Senate. . . . To excuse themselves they attack the objects of their attention in the name of Righteousness. When this time comes to a Senator, it is my opinion that he should no longer sit in his country’s councils to waste public time mouthing about matters that are not Federal business but best left to parental judgment and good taste. If either Senators Blease or Smoot have any idea that the Government can well or wisely stop booklegging any more than it has stopped bootlegging, the time has come for both old gentlemen—and I am older than either of them—to return to their verandahs, get into their rocking chairs and take up knitting.

D’ARCY BRANDER

St. Louis, Mo.

Let Reader Brander rest assured: TIME will explicitly report Senator Smoot’s attack, if and when made, upon Senator Cutting’s amendment to the Tariff Bill (to take literary censorship out of the hands of customs agents).&#151ED.

Marine Hymn

Sirs:

If there were nothing in TIME but the Letters, it would still be worth the money.

Sitting on the side lines, I like to watch the various battles. I only wish that Mark Twain were still alive, so that he could enjoy the spectacle, too. And what a wonderful book he could have written in his slyly satirical manner!

To my subject: I eagerly await letters from various Marines, saying that they have heard parodies on “The Halls of Montezuma.” I have never been a Marine, nor have I ever heard the song referred to, either with or without parodies. But TIME is usually right, and I doubt not that there are many versions. . . .

JACK SCHNEIDER

Buechel, Ky.

Sirs:

Your comment ”Do all Marines agree?” which followed letters from Col. R. B. Putnam, U. S. M. C., and First Sergeant Newgarde, U. S. M. C., challenging your statement that the Marine Hymn contains many unprintable verses, has prompted the below-signed men to advise you that they absolutely concur in the views as expressed in both Col. Putnam’s and Sergeant Newgarde’s letters.

CLINTON M. MOQ, Pfc. U. S. M. C.

FRANK J. ZAGLIN, Cpl. U. S. M C.

HAROLD H. LANGSDORF, Sgt. U. S. M. C.

JAMES C. RYAN, Cpl. U. S. M. C. C. C. MARTIN, Sgt. U. S. M. C.

Marine Barracks

Quantico, Va.

TIME’S authority for mentioning unprintable versions of the Marine Hymn was an officer of the Marine Corps whose duties included issuing Marine information. For obvious reasons TIME withholds his name but will henceforth apply elsewhere for Marine information. The letter last above is one of hundreds to the same effect received by TIME. Not one Marine has answered the question. “Do all Marines agree?” in the negative. To the U. S. Marine Corps an apology for reporting that its members ever sang its Hymn unprintably.—ED.

Tennis v. Jai Alai

Sirs:

I crave controversy. TIME, Jan. 13 boosts the old myth that jai alai is the fastest game.

Two winters ago I saw top-notch exhibition tennis played in the Miami Biscayne Fronton, Suzanne Lenglen, Mary K. Browne, Vincent Richards, Paul Feret, and two mighty good Californians, Kinsey and Snodgrass. It completely satisfied a curiosity aroused when I had seen splendid jai alai played thereto compare the speed of jai alai and modern tennis. There it was, in the identical setting.

The tennis of Browne and Lenglen was far and away snappier and speedier than jai alai and the men played a harder, faster game than the women, jai alai is plenty fast, a splendid exhibition game; but modern tennis runs rings around it both in speed and in beauty of action.

BRENT S. DRANE

Charlotte, N. C.

First Rose Tournament

Sirs:

On p. 62 of your current issue the statement is made (TIME, Jan. 13): “Southern California 47, Pittsburgh 14 was the most decisive beating ever taken by a loser in the Tournament of Roses.” For the information of your readers this should be corrected. The first Tournament of Roses football game was played at Tournament Park, Pasadena on Jan. 1, 1902. The score was Michigan 49, Stanford 0. There was a lapse of 14 years before the second game was staged in the same park. But as The Two Black Crows have it: “Why bring that up?”

WILLIAM A. SPILL

University of Michigan Club

Pasadena, Calif.

Metcalf Misquoted

Sirs:

. . . Regarding a telegram which you stated, in TIME, Jan. 13, was sent by Senator Metcalf to the meeting of The Liberty Civic League, on Jan. 2.

There has been much adverse criticism of our Senator due to this statement which you will see by the correspondence and exact copy of the telegram which he did send, was absolutely false. . . .

EDWARD SHAW, 2nd

Providence, R. I.

TIME said: “Senator Jesse Houghton Metcalf, of Rhode Island, sent the meeting a telegram to the effect that the dead rum-runners had been robbed of their money and jewelry.”

Senator Metcalf’s telegram said: “. . . It should be carefully investigated as well as the charge that money and jewels have been taken from the dead. . .”—ED.

Peerlesses Three

Sirs:

. . . we look for TIME’S crackling reportorial sparks to shoot unerringly. Thus your brisk highlight captioned: “Automotive Year” in the January 13th issue was doubly surprising to us for its sins of omission and commission.

So that all may know, Peerless, at this Show, presented three entirely new cars—the Standard Eight at $1500; the Master Eight at $2000; the Custom Eight at $3000. Quite a vast difference from the model which you list at $995. . . .

J. A. BOHANNON

President

Peerless Motor Car Corporation

Cleveland, Ohio

Marquette, $990

Sirs:

Your Jan. 13 issue in listing the cars exhibiting at the New York Auto Show omitted the newest member of the General Motors line. Marquette (lowest priced model $990 F. O. B. Flint, Mich.) was introduced June 1, 1929 by the Buick Motor Co. Since that time approximately $23,000,000 have been invested by motorists in new Marquette cars.

MACGREGOR FLANDERS

Buick Motor Co. Pittsburgh, Pa.

Studebaker, $1,085

Sirs:

On p. 43 of your issue of Jan. 13 you class Studebaker with cars selling under $1,000, stating that our lowest priced Studebaker sells for $995.

The lowest priced Studebaker car is the Dictator Six Club Sedan, which lists at $1,085 at the factory. The average price of the Studebaker car is in excess of $1,500.

J. M. CLEARY

Sales Manager

The Studebaker Corp. of America.

South Bend, Ind.

*The Alkens were 19th century masters of sporting engraving. Most famed: Henry Thomas Alken (1784-1851).

*Of the Jan. 7 issue of The Congressional Record, 35,000 copies were printed, distributed to subscribers, franked to friends by members of the Congress.

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