Letters, Feb. 3, 1936

Non-Shivering Hardshell

Sirs: I respectfully protest against the article published in your issue of Jan. 20 under the title of “New CINCUS,” by which you no doubt mean Commander-in-Chief, U. S. I do so because I think your dirty digs at Vice Admiral Hepburn are entirely uncalled for, misleading and spiteful. . . . Any fool can readily see the innuendo in the first paragraph of the article. Vice Admiral Hepburn does not owe his appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet in any degree to the fact that the President and the Secretary of the Navy are old acquaintances of his, as it appears to me you have clearly insinuated. Their knowledge of his absolute fitness for the job no doubt may have influenced them in approving recommendation made by Navy men to appoint him. And why not? Isn’t that correct procedure? And why this stuff you print that “in Navy ranks the news of their new CINCUS caused one cheer, two shivers?”. . . About the cheer you may be right when you say I “was for the new commander’s reputation as a thoroughly experienced, altogether first-class Navy man,” although you do not fully express it. The fact is Vice Admiral Hepburn is known as a first-rate seaman; an indefatigable worker; a profound thinker; a man of keen judgment and a master of his profession, who, by training, experience and professional attainments, is thoroughly fitted to be Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Fleet. May I ask why this stuff about “selling the navy out to the British?” I don’t know what his views are on the subject of mobile 6-in. v. 8-in. guns; nor do I know how far he was willing to compromise with the English or agree with their views at the London Naval Conference. I do know the man, however, and whatever his views, or whatever his actions they were his and not Admiral Pratt’s, nor influenced by Admiral Pratt’s. He does his own thinking and is not led by the nose by his superiors or inferiors in rank. . . . I suppose I may be classed by you as one of those “navy hardshells” you speak of. If Vice Admiral Hepburn’s ideas on the question of 6-in. v. 8-in. guns coincide with ideas I have heard Admiral Pratt express, I thoroughly disagree with him. But I certainly do not and have not shivered because I disagree with such views and I don’t believe that other “navy hardshells” have either. About the little dig in the last sentence of your article which reads, “A gourmet who would be a gourmand but for pride in his slim figure, he likes golf, fine wines, caviar.” What is the idea? … To ridicule our next Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet? Whatever the idea, I think what you have said in the quotation above, even if it were true, and it is not true, is in extremely bad taste. A gourmet he may be, and that is no discredit; a gourmand, by which you mean a greedy eater, a glutton, he could never be. I messed with him many months and I know. If he likes fine wines, caviar—whose business is it but his own? Does that make him less fitted to be Commander-in-Chief? . . . H. A. WILEY Rear Admiral (retired) Chairman Adjustment Board Navy Administration Building Camden, N. J.

Admiral Wiley is unduly sensitive about his friend Admiral Hepburn. As anyone but a sailor could see, TIME saluted the new Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Fleet as an able officer, a stern disciplinarian, a smart diplomat who knows how to make international progress by compromise.—ED.

Resentful Hens

Sirs: You describe Anne O’Hare McCormick as Mussolini’s “favorite newshen” (TIME, Jan. 20, p. 19) You coined an apt word in “newshawk.” Why spoil your record by inventing “newshen?”. . .

A female reporter worth her salt resents being called a hen, because she is as much a newshawk as any of her male colleagues; if anything, she has to be more newshawkish than men reporters in order to maintain an equal footing with them. Men do not welcome her into the journalistic fraternity, and she has to watch them like a hawk to keep them from relegating her to the woman’s page or the society columns. . . .

A hen could not hold a job on a small U. S. newspaper staff, much less forge her way to a job that includes interviews with Mussolini in Rome.

A woman who is a hen hates to be called one, but it is downright slanderous for you to officially adopt the word as a title for one and all women reporters just because they happen to wear skirts instead of trousers. EDITH SNYDER EVANS The Knoxville Ncws-Sentinel Knoxville, Tenn.

Let Newshawk Edith Snyder Evans rest assured that TIME has not adopted “newshen” to describe “one and all women reporters.”—ED.

Cincinnati’s Mayor

Sirs: . . . In view of the fact that at the time your article was being penned, a mayor for Cincinnati had not as yet been elected, was it not a trifle early to have this news item appear in that issue [TIME, Jan. 13]? . . .

The more than 21,000 friends who support Mr. Bigelow were amply grieved by that last paragraph. . . . MRS. A. H. THOMAS Cincinnati, Ohio

By refusing to cast his vote with either the four Charterite or four Republican City Councilmen. lone Independent Herbert Seeley Bigelow kept Cincinnati without a mayor for a week. Russell Wilson, Charterite candidate for a fourth term as mayor, said it was because Councilman Bigelow wanted the promise of three important city jobs for his friends. Councilman Bigelow said it was because he wanted the city to get its power from TVA. Last fortnight the deadlock was broken when Candidate Wilson got Councilman Bigelow’s vote and Councilman Bigelow got the chairmanship of the Council’s Public Utilities Committee. Said Republicans: “Deal!”‘—ED.

Index

Sirs: . . . Is there available, for public consumption, an index to TIME? An index of any kind would be of the greatest value at quite frequent intervals. I have considered making my own, but thought you might have one available to readers. BRADFORD K. MACGAW Mt. Vernon, Iowa

Let no subscriber waste work on indexing; the job is already being done by experts. For public consumption, a complete index is issued quarterly, sent gratis to all who ask it of TIME’S Circulation Department, 350 East 22nd Street, Chicago.—ED.

Violet’s Blossom

Sirs: A blossom to TIME’S copywriters (Jan. 13, p. 13) for their crisp, 75-word, four-sentence summary of illegal and defunct AAA—so simple even a Democrat should understand. VIOLET G. OWENS St. Louis, Mo.

Morgan & War

Sirs: Hearty congratulations on your fair-minded and unprejudiced article on Mr. J. P. Morgan [TIME, Jan. 20J. In this day when it seems to be so fashionable to editorially damn and assume as “crooks” all bankers, your current article brings a gratifying ray of hope for a cleaner deal from the press to a class that has been outrageously slandered for the last several years. TIME is the last place I would ever look for such an equanimous attitude, but having found it there I offer you sincere felicitations and a hope to find more often between your pages a like example of level-headed impartiality. CRAIG MITCHELL Princeton University Princeton, N. J.

Sirs:

In my day I have said many harsh things about banks and big bankers I suppose, like many others. But the frankness and candor of Mr. J. P. Morgan and his associates before the Nye-Clark committee won my ungrudging respect. It has become quite fashionable amongst politicians, at least too many of them, and young writers to ascribe our entry in the War to any reason but the true one—the U. S. could not afford, did not dare, see Germany win. . . . FRED G. HUNTINGTON Attorney at Law Billings, Mont.

Sirs: Since when does TIME stoop to mudslinging? Any belittling of the Nye inquiry forces the average citizen to conclude: They can’t buy— Gerald Nye. WOLFRAM HILL St. Paul, Minn.

Sirs: You have done a great service to the public, to a revered ex-President and to the reputation of a banking house. . . .

Let the general public see the true implications of a “Senate investigation.” The power of such an investigation is unquestioned and rightly so, but the higher a power, the greater the tendency to abuse it. The body of the Senate and the Press, but especially TIME’S account of Nye v. Morgan, both editorially & pictorially shows how a person or group may be pilloried on the rack of Senatorial aggrandizement.

I do not condemn all such investigations. Far from it! But, let the Press and the public recall how many Senators have conducted as honest, fair, searching inquiries into the truth as, for example, the late Senator Walsh in the famous Teapot Dome scandal! . . . JOHN B. LUCRE Atlanta, Ga.

Sirs: . . . I was mildly disappointed at what to me seems to be editorializing in the story of the Senate Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, entitled “New History & Old.” . . .

Certainly Morgan and his partners are not solely to blame for our entry into the War, but with his commissions on three billion dollars worth of purchases for the Allies in mind, he surely was not exerting the powerful influences of his banking house to anything but our entry on the side of his customers.

What I am trying to say is that I believe TIME slipped in drawing a conclusion which would be better drawn by the people of this country. . . . GEORGE H. HOLSTEN JR. Highland Park, N. J.

TIME drew no conclusions, let readers do that for themselves.—ED.

Shriners’ Game

Sirs: Your publication of Jan. 13 carries this item with regard to the East-West Football Game:

“In San Francisco’s annual Braggadocian gesture toward the Rose Bowl, . . .”

The East-West Football Game was inaugurated about ten years ago by the Shrine organization in San Francisco for the purpose of building up a children’s hospital for crippled children. . . .

The game is held on New Year’s Day each year and preceding it and during the intermission the uniformed bodies of the Shrines in and around San Francisco and Northern California produce a pageant which is one of the most outstandingly beautiful creations that is produced in the West or in the entire U. S. The football game and the pageant have earned a place in the past ten years that is very enviable. We have no need then for braggadocio or to feel that it is necessary in any way to reflect on the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena. . . . C. E. BAEN Chairman, Citizens’ Committee Shrine East-West Football Game San Francisco, Calif.