Letters, Jul. 24, 1933

Embellish Sirs: I have had your July 10 issue in my hands for about one hour and Lord knows how I can have waited that long to write you what is in my mind and in my heart. Your front page picture [German Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment Paul Joseph Goebbels] and the caption under it is an affront to to not only every Jew in the world but to every individual who loves decency and respects his fellow man. Does TIME find it necessary to go down into the gutters and slime of the world to embellish its covers? Is there not enough intolerance and racial hatred in this world of ours without TIME playing it up? It might just as well be news for TIME to tell in its pages and picture on its covers the sayings and doings of Sexual and moral perverts. I am ashamed of you and of a policy such as this shows yours to be. . . . SAM H. SIEGEL Haines City, Fla.

Sirs: Shocked at first that you should run the degenerate face of Trumpet Blower Goebbels on your cover, which I regard as a place of honor, I was going to raise a bit of hell with you. But recalling that you ran Al Capone inthe same space some time ago I saw the fitness of things and congratulate you. After all Germany is in the hands of gangsters right now and Goebbels is their blaring brass. OSCAR LEONARD Ridgefield, Conn. To Subscriber Leonard, praise for able association of ideas.—ED.

Explanation Sirs: . . . The use you make of Goebbels’ statement, printing it under his picture on the front page, is one of the most subtle forms of anti-Semitism that has ever come to my notice. . . . In a country such as ours, with its ideals, which should be constantly held before all of our people by such publications as yours, you undertake to break down the ideals by lending the front page of your publication to such men. . . . You have done more to stir the feelings of extreme bitterness with this one gesture of yours than has been accomplished in this country by any publication since the Civil War. I am still anxious to have your explanation, as I have no desire to do you an injustice. EDMUND WATERMAN New York City

In connection with the news of the most active week since Hitler took power in the most news-active foreign country of recent months, TIME put on its cover the face in which is Germany’s most active mouth.—ED.

Influence Sirs: For some months I have noticed your slurring remarks relative to the Jews, aspersions cast, etc., but the cover to your last issue has prompted me to send this message to you. You evidently harbor Hitlerites within your organization. Have been a subscriber to TIME and FORTUNE for many years in my son’s name, Julien M. Saks. You have many Jewish readers—ardent ones. Should the Jewish people (I happen to be President of this section of Council of Jewish Women) seriously consider boycotting your magazines you probably would awaken to the realization that the Jews in this country are quite a factor and wield a wide influence. Am writing this as a friendly protest. Your future consideration of the subject will guide my actions. MRS. LOUIS SAKS Birmingham, Ala.

For friendliness, all thanks.—ED.

Draft Sirs: It is neither TIME nor TIME-worthy to take credit from the dead. See the last sentence in the carried-over paragraph on p. 15, July 3 issue: “It was he [General Johnson] who conceived and directed the Wartime draft.” To Enoch Crowder belongs this credit—if credit it is: and not to General Johnson. It irks me to find errors in TIME. MRS. P. M. RUCLEAU Santa Barbara, Calif.

The draft was a Wilson-to-Crowder-to-Johnson assignment.—ED.

Sex Preference Sirs: I note with interest in your July 10 issue that I made the statement that children of a given sex invariably prefer the parent of the opposite sex, etc. etc. This is of particular interest because I made no such statement. . . . The statement I actually made, in response to a question asked by the chairman of the meeting, was that my data seemed to bear out the Freudian hypothesis [that a child invariably prefers the parent of opposite sex] but that there were many exceptions. ROSS STAGNER University of Wisconsin Madison, Wis.

To Psychologist Stagner, apology.—ED.

Cow Speed Sirs: Your account of Professor Bohr’s application of Professor Werner Heisenberg’s concept of uncertainty to “everyday existence, where an inch is an inch, and a gallon is a gallon” (TIME, July 3, p. 40) recalled to mind an entertaining bit og testimony given in a lawsuit in which my father was counsel for one of the litigants. The case involved an automobile collision. Immediately before the collision, one of the automobiles had struck a cow; and during the trial it became important for the plaintiff to bring out the speed with which this cow was moving. It has been several years since I read the transcript of the testimony, but as I now remember it, this part of the testimony was, in effect, as follows:

Q. How fast was the cow moving?

A. Well sir, I don’t rightly know.

Q. Was she running?

A. No, sir, she wasn’t a-running.

Q. Was she walking? A. No sir, she wasn’t a-walking.

Q. Well, was she going fast or slowly?

A. Well sir, I just don’t know. She wasn’t a-running and she wasn’t a-walking. She was just a-making the ordinary speed of a cow. She was a-coming. The witness, a Vernon Parish farmer, was then excused. C. E. HARDIN JR. Baton Rouge, La.

Struck Sirs: I am sorry not to have anything serious to write about your fine magazine, but I read in TIME, June 12, under Miscellany and “Slapper” what struck me as a funny story. I translated it to my parents and a few relatives. They did not find it funny. Finally my uncle said that he knew of a similar story so I listened carefully: “Ahmet Agha was slapped by a friend and instead of retaliating he appealed to the village judge. After a weighty consideration the judge ordered the guilty party to pay a fine (considerably less than $5) to his friend. Ahmet Agha received the money from his friend, doubled it, placed it on the judge’s bench, slapped the judge twice and left the court room whistling a tune.” You must print this in your Letters section; don’t you think so too? OMIROS KALCOGLU Istanbul, Turkey

Flabella Sirs: TIME was correct in stating “ostrich-plumed flabella” in its account of the procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi as opposed to accuracy- loving Fraser Nairn who insists that they were peacock fans. Recent newsreels of the event prove that. Perhaps Mrs. Drexel’s peacock-feathered flabella have been retired. However, her gift to the pontiffs was conspicuously absent on this occasion. JOHN E. P. MclLVAINE Minneapolis, Minn.

Tongue Sirs: Although a trifle less than 100 years old, I am an ardent reader of TIME, the most fascinating and informative of any of the magazines to which I subscribe, and if this characterizes me as a freak, I feel deeply complimented. For over 50 years I have bred, fed and sold thousands of spotted pigs from coast to coast. In the live stock world there is a slogan: “Mrs. Conrad has spotted the United States,” and I have been the only president of a live stock record in this country. This misguided man Abbott, who, on my birth day, June 5, maligned my sex must not be very busy; therefore in these times of lowered prices, I feel most sympathetic, also charitably inclined towards men of this class. So if Abbott will come over to my ranch I will make him a gift of a bunch of pigs that he can show at the coming autumn fairs, or even the Century of Progress, and this will produce in him a mental shift and give him so much care he will never allow that unruly tongue of his to betray ignorance. This may be freakish, but it goes. JENNIE MINERVA MILLS CONRAD Conrad Ranch Conrad, Ind.

Challenge Sirs: A feeling of mental asphyxiation engulfed me when I had analyzed the communication published at the head of TIME’S “Letters” column, issue May 22. As the signer is a close kin of mine I am overcome with a sense of responsibility. How such an undiplomatic note crept by the family censor I cannot comprehend, but it is not for me to offer excuses. To Secretary of Treasury Woodin, Colonel Louis McHenry Howe and TIME’S artist, who were mentioned in the same passage with “Australian Bushman” and “Bloodhound,” humblest apologies. The distinguished Treasury head, Colonel Howe and the muse who instills magnetism in TIME’S front covers are performing their respective tasks to my unlimited satisfaction and I am confident Bushman and Bloodhound are doing the best they know, each according to his light. As to the writer of the letter, John Limond Hart, it is merely that I challenge his judgment, and, then, in sorrow. I do not contest his qualifications to present any of the refinements, the mysteries of life—art, archaeology, technocracy, zoology, psychology, thyroid condition, longevity—because he has reached that age when, to the normal American male youth, adolescence goes definitely over the top with a bang, when all knowledge either has been acquired or completely surrounded. He is 12. CHARLES C. HART Teheran, Persia

John Limond Hart’s letter from the U. S. Legation at Teheran, was: If people committed suicide because the cover pictures on TIME did not look, anything like the people they chose to represent, I would have abundant cause to put a long, shiny poniard in my heart after seeing what was supposed to be a picture of Secretary Woodin on the front of the issue of March 20. It is my opinion that the man who made that picture began it as a picture of L. M. Howe, changed it to an Australian Bushman and ended up with a Bloodhound. Let not able parents censor alert, pre-teen TIME critics, even should their strictures grow stronger than bloodhounds and bushmen. — ED.

Democrats & Trade Sirs: Will Rogers was wrong in stating that “the silliest thing” any administration ever did was to change the name of Hoover Dam. May I point out “an even sillier thing”? I believe the silliest thing that any government, priding itself on business administration, has ever done is the recent closing of the American Trade Commissioners’ Offices throughout Canada. Even on the surface this appears ridiculous, as every Trade Commissioners’ Office in Canada has paid for itself, and moreover Canada is the best customer the U. S. has. For any ordinary business to close down its branch agencies and call in all its salesmen would be regarded as a suicidal manoeuvre, and especially so when the territory in which such salesmen or agencies were operated was the firm’s best customers. It is rumored in Canada that a recent trade survey made among exporting manufacturers in the States discloses that over 66% of these manufacturers regard the Foreign Trade Commissioners’ Offices as absolutely essential, and less than 20 % regard them as serving no useful purpose. The Article entitled “Plum Trees” in your recent issue (TIME, June 26) is most enlightening not only in the statement of facts made, but also as furnishing a possible reason to an otherwise incomprehensible action. Is it possible that the offices of the Trade Commissioners have been closed only temporarily with the idea that public demand by the U. S. manufacturers will force their reopening within a very short period? If this is so it is probable that at such time all new Trade Commissionerships could usefully be filled by deserving Democrats. . . . GORDON M. WEBSTER Montreal, Canada