Letters: New Orleans Crisis

Referring to your article Historic Saturday in TIME, February 13, in which reference is made to President R. S. Hecht of Hibernia Bank & Trust Company, I cannot refrain from lodging my protest regarding at least one unfair reflection. . . . That John J. Gannon, whom he (Mr. Hecht) displaced, spent the brief balance of his life cursing Rudolf Hecht in all public places as a double crosser. No more thoroughly incorrect insinuation could you possibly have published, for the facts are that when, 15 years ago, the board of directors decided to retire Mr. Gannon without pay and informed Mr. Hecht that they wanted to elect him president of the bank, he absolutely refused to accept the honor under the circumstances, saying that he didn’t propose to personally benefit by the summary dismissal of Mr. Gannon. And so after considerable discussion between Mr. Hecht on one side and the board on the other Mr. Hecht’s loyalty to his predecessor won out and the board voted a substantial pension which Mr. Gannon received up to the day of his death. . . .

FRED W. ELLSWORTH

New Orleans, La.

In reporting the New Orleans bank crisis (TIME, Jan. 16), TIME also erred in stating that Standard Fruit & Steamship stock “was issued at $100 a share, promptly slumped to $10.” Standard Fruit stock was issued in 1926 in $1,000 units consisting of ten shares of preferred, 20 of common. Last preferred dividend was paid in 1927. Although the units later rallied, they had touched $355 before 1929.

In Congress, New York’s Hamilton Fish Jr. has dropped his demand that President Hecht resign as chairman of the New Orleans R. F. C. advisory committee.—ED.

Sirs:

Perhaps you will be amused at the real facts surrounding the selection of A. G. Newmyer, general manager of the New Orleans Item-Tribune, of the excuse for Louisiana’s “Historic Saturday” (TIME, Feb. 13). Here’s what happened:

As per his custom, Mr. Newmyer had been reading TIME up to the point of turning out the lights Friday evening. In the Feb. 6 issue was a column advertisement of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Philadelphia, listing a February almanac.

When he received the 2 a. m. Saturday morning message to join the banking group, Senator Long, Governor Allen and others, he telephoned Mrs. Newmyer to read him the hotel advertisement from TIME beside his bed. From that he got the date and data on which the now famous proclamation was founded. . . .

MAURICE E. STICK

New Orleans, La.

TIME marvels that Senator Long, Governor Allen, General Manager Newmyer, the New Orleans public library and the other Louisianans involved were unaware that Feb. 4, the date on which they thought “nothing in this world” ever happened, was the date of the first convention of the Confederate States of America (1861).—ED.

Chitina Editor

Sirs:

We are writing to tell you of the fact that we are discontinuing the Herald. We are sorry to leave the Fourth Estate, and not be able to make more interesting friends like you are. We think it was that first article you published that set us on our feet, and we are very grateful. . . .

Fraternally,

ADRIAN C. NELSON

Editor

The Weekly Herald Chitina, Alaska

TIME deplores the discontinuance of the Chitina Weekly Herald, as able a newspaper as was ever mimeographed by three boys just entering their ‘teens. Founded in 1931 “as a game, and admiration of Edison and the Herald he had as a boy,” its ambition was to achieve a circulation of 400 (Edison’s high). It “turned out to be quite a big proposition,” reaching 357 circulation and a grand two-year total of 576 paid subscribers in 16 countries besides the U. S. and Alaska. Tragedy visited its staff last year when Circulation Manager Billy Moore was drowned in the Copper River (TIME, June 20). Editor Nelson and his brother, Business Manager Philip Clough Nelson, last week telegraphed as their reason for discontinuing publication:

TOO LITTLE OUTDOOR PLAYTIME. RECENTLY SKIPPED SEVENTH GRADE. GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL SOON. DIFFICULT TO KEEP UP WITH INCREASED CIRCULATION AND MAIL. JUST AS WE PUBLISHED LAST EDITION NORWAY AND MISSISSIPPI SUBSCRIBED MAKING EVERY STATE SEVENTEEN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. MISS BILLY MOORE AND HIS HELP.

Another newspaper to suspend publication last week was the two-year-old weekly Thornapple Street News of Chevy Chase. Md., edited by Larry Williams Jr., 15. Explained Editor Williams:

“We have a new baby at our house. Babies are a lot of trouble, especially girl babies. Mother says the electric mimeograph machine makes too much noise, so we will have to stop publishing our newspaper. We hope every one has enjoyed our paper and that those who owe us anything will pay up so we can come out even.”—ED.

For Seasickness

Sirs:

In the issue of Jan. 16, in the Medicine Department I read, apropos of the late ex-President Coolidge and seasickness that his physician “would pluck two pledgets of cotton from a case and on them pour a few drops of a liquid. Mr. Coolidge would plug the medicated cotton in his ears. Soon his face would relax. . . .”

Is the liquid poured on the pledgets of cotton a state secret or can a laywoman like myself have the information as to what it is? . . . My reasons for asking are excellent. I am married to a sailor (i. e., my husband has a sailboat which he enjoys tremendously alone, as I always get seasick, and anyone who says it’s imagination doesn’t know). No one ever wanted to be a good sailor more than I. We live on an island, and in order to go places one must use the ocean. . . . BARBARA HARDY Mallorca, Spain

President Coolidge’s pledgets were soaked with tutocaine or psicaine or other non-habit-forming substitute for cocaine absorbable through the mucous membranes. Tutocaine is procurable at Winthrop Chemical Co., No. 170 Varick St., Manhattan. Psicaine may be had through H. R. Napp Ltd., Clement’s Inn, Kingsway. London, WC-2. — ED.

Miss Hale & Mrs. Broun

Sirs:

Your piece about Ruth Hale on your subtitled “Names make people” contained three inaccuracies. Ruth Hale wrote no letter to The Nation, she wrote no letter to anybody for or against atheism, and she never signed “Mrs. Heywood Broun” to anything (TIME, Feb. 6).

If you think “names make people” isn’t it just a little prodigal of you to unmake two women with one blunder? Mrs. Heywood Broun is Heywood Broun’s mother. Ruth Hale is as devout a Lucy Stone Leaguer as she ever was.

M. L. ERNST

New York City

Drake Racket

Sirs:

On p. 13 of the issue of TIME dated Jan. 23, an article appeared under the heading “Heritage Racket” referring in particular to the alleged estate of Sir Francis Drake.

This Consulate General has received hundreds of inquiries regarding this so-called estate and has, for sometime past, used a form letter in replying to inquirers in the U. S. The article in TIME describes the “racket” so well that I should like to quote it, in whole or in part, in a revised form letter, provided, of course, that you have no objection. Your article and the replies sent by this office to persons in the U. S. have a common aim in discouraging would-be heirs in the U. S. from contributing funds for the prosecution of claims to estates which do not exist.

NATHANIEL P. DAVIS

American Consul American Consular Service London, England

Consul Davis is welcome to TIME’S story. Last week plump Oscar Merrill Hartzell, self-appointed “executor” of the mythical Drake estate, arrived in Manhattan from England, whence he had been deported. Federal agents promptly took him in custody on charges of using the mails to defraud. — ED.

Two Big Pigs

Sirs:

You will find enclosed with this letter a money order for $4.87 (first payment on my husband’s Christmas present — TIME). Now that calls for an explanation. . . .

It’s like this: My husband and I live on a small ranch in Colo, (we had a nice big one before the Depression). We know the intrinsic value of good things through inheritance and past prosperity. However we have forfeited most of the good material things of life.

Last summer I started wondering where the next $5 for TIME was coming from. That is the one good thing in life that we can’t afford to forfeit, I thought. Then I profited by my neighbors’ loss. One of their sows farrowed, died and left three orphans. They said I could have the orphans if I wanted them. Did I want them? Yes!

I had visions of three little pigs going to market to buy TIME. I fed my three little pigs from a bottle and watched them grow into two big pigs and one small pig—and then I started studying the hog market.

Well, I figured that the two big pigs would buy TIME and th« small one would buy a pair of overalls for my husband, and a gingham dress for me by Jan. 1, 1933, but their weight and the market didn’t total that way so I waited until Feb. 1 to sell the two big pigs. Yes, $4.87 is the answer! The third pig I’m going to feed two weeks longer, then we can have a new dress, overalls and you can have 13¢ more. So don’t rush me, big boys, don’t rush me.

MRS. L. R. BRODERICK

Ft. Collins, Colo.

Grand Rapids Furniture Sirs:

In your brilliant review of Noel Coward’s equally brilliant play, Design for Living (TIME, Jan. 30), are two glaring errors—one due to reviewer’s lack of judgment, the other to his lack of facts. Description of the second act places Gilda in a ”gaudy penthouse full of Grand Rapids ‘moderne’ furniture which she is selling to people with more money than taste.”

The association of Grand Rapids furniture with gaudiness and lack of taste reflects wrongfully upon the standing of the product in industry and indicts the judgment of the thousands of American people who regard their Grand Rapids furniture as a cultural enrichment of their homes. Grand Rapids, for more than a half century, has set the furniture styles of this country. . . .

Your “error in fact” lies in your designation of Gilda’s furniture as moderne. This particular species (if we may be allowed to use the term) has long been classed with forgotten disasters. It appeared and disappeared in New York shortly after the Paris exposition in 1925. No one makes it now and no one buys it. Only New York thought it found in the erotic delirium of “moderne” a salvation of American home furnishing artistry. Grand Rapids did not participate in this fiasco.

The designs of Gilda’s furniture may best be classed with your critic’s apt designation as, “rolling in the hay.”

A. P. JOHNSON

Education Director Grand Rapids Furniture Exposition Grand Rapids, Mich.

Sirs:

. . . You refer to the furniture made in Grand Rapids, and couple it with people who have more money than taste. We who have made the furnishings of homes a life work are not unaccustomed to hear some such comments from half-baked decorators who have “arrived” by reading a book and doing a friend’s apartment. It is surprising, however, to get it from TIME.

Since the early days of the Dutch cabinet makers settling in Grand Rapids, the thought of fine furniture, fine in design and quality, has been linked with that community. Through generations this tradition has been carried on and some of the very finest of creations, both in “moderne” and traditional styles have emanated from the institutions in Grand Rapids. . . .

G. A. LENOIR The Emporium San Francisco, Calif.