Letters: TIME to Legion

Sirs:

It will interest you to know that TIME has been instrumental in introducing the new anti-gonorrheal treatment by Dr. Colston of Johns Hopkins into the French Foreign Legion.

The medication was so clearly described in TIME, May 17 that we could employ the method immediately without waiting for more medical details.

Blennorrhagie being one of the most frequent infections amongst our men, we immediately proceeded to use the French drug “Rubiozol” instead of the American “Pronty-lin” and an investigation by the chief medical officer here is under way and will be reported upon to Dr. Colston, who has been communicated with.

The great value of TIME as a disseminator of really important news, reported clearly and precisely has again been demonstrated. . . .C. A. POLLOCK

Infirmerie de Garnison

ler Regiment Etranger

Sidi-bel-Abbes, Algeria

Quite a Story

Sirs:

I think I am able to furnish you with an explanation for the statement in TIME, Sept. 6— wherein you erroneously published the recognition of the Franco regime by the Swiss Government. It is quite a story by itself and I think worth while publishing.

One day Generalissimo Francisco Franco sent his representative, a Mr. Toca, to Berne in order to solicit recognition by the Swiss Governmentfor his regime.

Even if Senor Toca didn’t succeed in the said recognition, as a protection for the approximate 2,000 Swiss citizens residing in Rebel territory, he was allowed to open an office in Berne to conduct his business. But he managed to obtain a tag with the letters “C.D.” from the Department of Interieur, the branch of vehicles & traffic of the canton of Berne, for his car, distinguishing it from other people’s cars. (“C.D.” means Corps Diplomatique.)

How Mr. Toca has got in possession of this tag has not been ascertained; it was a fact.

The Socialist Party of Berne called a demonstration in order to get this fact, disturbing public opinion, cleared.

Without the interference of the Swiss Federal Government, the Bernese Interieur Department branch of vehicles & traffic, which office issued it, was asked consequently to reclaim Mr. Boca’s tag.

But the facts remain that the accredited Swiss Minister to Spain, Dr. Egger, is still in

Madrid and that the official Spanish representative in Berne is a Loyalist. Even though the Spanish Government has left Madrid, Dr. Egger remains to protect Swiss citizens still in that city.

JOHN J. HUBER

New York City

Gratefully Received

Sirs:

The cover and Southern football write-up in TIME, Oct. 25 were most gratefully received.

Our patience and self-restraint has been rewarded, for many times during past football seasons we have wanted to tell you just how good these teams are down here. We’re glad we didn’t!

You picked a good year for your write-up —Alabama will be in Pasadena on Jan. 1.

R. A. CHILDERS

Southern States Iron Roofing Co.

Savannah, Ga.

Sirs:

… I think it was fine of you to say the nice things you did about me personally. Judged by our record so far, I think most anything that is said would be a little overkind, but we are trying to have a program that all groups will be in accord with and rally to the support of. I am just hoping that all friends and followers of the University of Texas will get into a very close huddle and go out with the same signal and, if so, progress can be made. I am very enthusiastic about the opportunities for the future.

D. X. BIBLE

Director of Athletics

University of Texas

Austin, Tex.

Sirs:

COMPLIMENTS TO TIME ON ITS FRONT PIECE OF DUKE’S WADE AND THE MOST EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON THE COACH OF THE YEAR, WILLIAM WALLACE WADE. AS ALL DUKE MEN WE ARE VERY PROUD OF OUR UNIVERSITY, OUR FOOTBALL TEAM AND OUR WADE.

JOHN R. PEACOCK

J. WELCH HARRIS

T. V. ROCHELLE

AMOS R. KEARNS

J. EVERETT MARSH JR.

CHAS. L. KEARNS

Highpoint, N. C.

Wade at Knoxville

Sirs:

Southern football fans wish to thank you for your recognition of sports in this section.

Your write-up of the Duke-Georgia Tech game was very fair and interesting. With two or three slight inaccuracies in your article regarding Wallace Wade, the facts in general are according to the football “dope” in this section.

While the writer was not an official representative at the meeting of the Southern Conference when it was split [into the South Eastern Conference—deep Southern schools —and the Southern Conference—Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina schools],I do not remember a so-called controversy between Virginia and Tulane as participating in such a rupture. Talk had been brewing for several years before the so-called breaking up of the Conference and it came to a head at this particular meeting held in Knoxville, Tenn.

One of the people most upset by this split was Wallace Wade, who felt as if the split was brought about by the more Southern schools, such as Alabama, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. . . . In fact, at the Conference banquet that night when official announcement of the split was made, my seat being near Wade, I heard him remark to the man on his left something to this effect—”They have put us with the damn amateurs. If I ever get the chance I will show them a few things.” The first chance came in 1933, when he was offered a game by Georgia Tech. . . .

Arriving in Atlanta with undefeated team and the Rose Bowl practically in his grasp he met a much inferior but inspired team which defeated Duke 6-to-0. Again in 1935, he arrived in Atlanta with a so-called Rose Bowl team and again he went home defeated by the same score, 6-to-0. Both Georgia Tech scores were made on exactly the same play from almost the exact spot and at the same goal. In fact, the boys of the 1935 team telegraphed the captain of the 1933 team to this effect: “Pappy Jack Phillips, same score, same play, same spot.” . . .

G. C. GRIFFIN

Atlanta, Ga.

Pioneer

No pioneer in “internship” training for Seminary graduates is the United Lutheran Church (TIME, Nov. 1. Religion).

Small, progressive Evangelical Mission Covenant Church of America has required since June 1935 that all of its ministerial candidates serve either a home mission station or as assistant to a busy city pastor for one year.

JOHN E. KULLBERG

Student Pastor

Swedish Mission Covenant Church

Pilot Mound, Iowa

Man of the Year

Sirs:

If TIME’S editor will call a halt on this apple butter stirring business and stop publishing letters in the vernacular from former stirrers I’ll make him my nominee for Man of the Year. . . .

D. A. STROMSOE

San Gabriel, Calif.

The butter stirrers, who now have their own proselytizing organization, need no further agitation in TIME.—ED.

Sirs:

For Man of the Year I nominate the King of the Belgians, for his proposal to call an economic parley of nations [TIME, Aug. 2] to find a peaceful solution to national differences.

URSULA DE WELLS

Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

Your only choice for Man of the Year, bitter though it may be, is certainlyJohn L. Lewis. . . .

HARRY C. DEMUTH

DeMuth Steel Products Co.

Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

. . . To several million Americans, the year 1937 and John L. Lewis are synonymous. Against the broader background of world events, he stands out as the only figure who achieved a clean-cut, personal triumph in a major movement within the limits of the year. .

H. V. ERWIN

St. Augustine, Fla.

Sirs:

. . . Yes in John L. Lewis Labor has a man so powerful that what he has achieved this past year is almost beyond comprehension. . . .

G. H. McWlLLIAMS

Wilmington, Ohio

Sirs:

I’d like to know why not Thomas E. Dewey for Man of the Year? . . .

G. A. PALLAY

Hollywood, Calif.

Sirs:

For Man of the Year I nominate that captivating personality CHARLIE McCARTHY.

M. B. THOMPSON

Bridgeport Township High School

Bridgeport, Ill.

Sirs:

It seems that you have … a Man of the Year movement. That’s what the country needs—a good movement.

The Editors of TIME and lots of readers will pop up every once in a while with Senator So-and-So as their nomination (if it isn’t DiMaggio)—let ’em pop, I say. . . .

There is a Man, a very capable Man, slinking in the background of the present Administration. He is “slinking” only because he is a gentleman and not a politician. and does not know that if he would make a big noise along with his very fine work that he would be heralded with much hue and cry as the next savior of this gathering of people, obstinately called a “country.”

This gentleman’s name is Joseph P. Kennedy. . . .

DAVID HALE

San Bernardino, Calif.

Sirs:

I wish to second the nomination of Surgeon General Thomas Parran as Man of the Year [TIME, Nov. 1].

May his great work “carry on” and everyone come to know, through frank discussion, of this unmentionable and not to be talked in public subject. . . .

EDWIN H. PHELPS

Windsor, Vt.

So far leading nominations for Man of the Year, running in order listed, are: Senator Burton K. Wheeler, John L. Lewis, Charlie McCarthy, Chiang Kaishek, Justice Hugo L. Black, Surgeon General Thomas Parran.—ED.

Direct Light

Sirs:

In your issue of Oct. 25, on p. 41, col. 3, a clear implication, if not a direct statement, is made to the effect that indirect lighting was invented in Germany by Bauhaus workmen.

This is doubtless an error. I believe it has been generally conceded that the discovery and introduction of indirect lighting was attributable to the work of the late Mr. Augustus D. Curtis. . . .

DARWIN CURTIS

President

Curtis Lighting, Inc.

Chicago, Ill.

TIME erred. As early as 1908 Mr. Curtis gave a demonstration in his Chicago home of “directing light to the ceiling by powerful silvered reflectors.” The Bauhaus does not claim the invention of indirect lighting, but is credited with its outstanding modern development. One invention the Bauhaus does claim, is the “bleeding off” of photographs in books and magazines (running them across margins and off the edge of the pages).—ED.

Average Bumper

Sirs:

On p. 20 of TIME, Nov. 1, I read of the corn crop, “Last year’s abnormally short crop of 1,500,000,000 bu. was nearly a billion bushels below average,” from which statement I judge that the average yield is approximately 2,500,000,000 bushels. Right? I read on, “This year the estimated crop is a bumper 2,500,000,000 bu. . . .” and I am perplexed. Is this year’s crop an average crop or a bumper crop? It can’t be both at the same time.

ANNE M. ALTMAN

Livermore, Iowa

The average corn crop 1900-1936 was approximately 2,500,000,000 bu. Under the restricted acreage of AAA and its successor, the Soil Conservation Act, 2,500,000,000 bu. is also a bumper crop.—ED.

Epicure

Sirs:

In TIME, Oct. 25, 1937, under “Miscellany” you have an article entitled “Gourmet” and you tell of a Harvard freshman who ate prodigiously. A gourmet is an epicure. The term you wanted is gourmand.

MORTON N. BRODSKY

Lancaster, Pa.

TIME knows the words. Let Reader Brodsky remember: the incident took place at Harvard.—ED.

Fed Up

Sirs:

I resent intensely the necessity of hunting among the many advertisements for the news items I subscribed to get. I must admit that along with many others I’m completely fed up on this advertising business. . . .

It must be that advertisers & publishers are unaware of this growing disgust—and it may not prove wise—in the long run—to judge solely by cash register records. . . .

HELEN E. HEWES

Lakewood, Ohio

Let Subscriber Hewes not look down too long a nose at advertising matter. The cash register works as hard for readers as for publishers because few and far between are the periodicals where the price readers pay covers the cost of the editorial matter they buy. The reason U. S. magazines and newspapers are by-and-large the best in the world is that U. S. businessmen spend enough money on advertising to pay a good part of the expense of publishing the quality of magazine to which the U. S. public is accustomed. —ED.

Concisely

Sirs:

TIME’S one and one-half column article (Nov. 1, p. 22) on the current political controversy in Tennessee clearly, correctly, concisely digests reams of newsprint.

W. A. WlLKERSON

Chattanooga, Tenn.

Sauce for Roosevelt

Sirs:

Considering the state that this nation and the world is in today and the fact that Mr. Landon was discussing national and international problems in his speech of Oct. 19, it seemed very petty and inconsequential to refer to his pronunciation in the reporting of that speech (TIME, Nov. 1). But since General Johnson and TIME have begun it: Does it sound any worse for Mr. Landon to mispronounce the word “Roosevelt” than for Mr. Roosevelt to mispronounce the word “government,” a word which he uses continually in his “fireside chats” and invariably pronounces “govermunt;” for Mr. Landon to say “attackted” than for Mr. Roosevelt to pronounce the word “again” with a long “a” (Webster: a-gen)? . . .

MABLE F. STRONG

Owego, N. Y.

Franklin Roosevelt’s mispronunciations sound just as bad as Alfred Landon’s. However, there is good authority for pronouncing “again” with a long aa” and TIME is not prepared to say whether the President or Reader Strong’s radio elides the first “n” in “government.” One clear case of Rooseveltian mispronunciation, TIME has called attention to: he and his son James both pronounce the “t” in “often” (TIME, March 1).—ED.

—TiME stated: “To the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Albania, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala it [Rightist Spain’s territory has been for almost a year an autonomous state.”