Letters: General in Control

I notice on p. 22 of the Sept. 24 issue of TIME the following quotation was attributed to me, referring to the riots in the State of Rhode Island: “I think I can control the situation but for God’s sake tell the Legislature to do something. We need Federal troops!”

I made no such statement to any person at any time and at no time during the entire emergency did I consider the situation out of control or that any outside assistance was needed. This fact can be verified from my Operations Journal. . . .

HERBERT R. DEAN

Brigadier General

Headquarters Provisional Brigade R.I.N.G. Armory of Mounted Commands Providence, R. I.

Brilliant Gem

Sirs:

No mere “vocal wind” but apt, powerful and profound is “goldplated anarchy,” synonym for rugged individualism” [TIME, Sept 10]. Can this be a new rallying cry, a new “Battle Cry of Freedom?” Is this the plain name for that camouflaged something which the diehards fight so tenaciously to hold?

Withal possibly the most pregnant phrase since Vol. 1, No. 1. “Goldplated Anarchy!” To whom is credit due for this brilliant gem?

H. ADDISON

Boston, Mass.

To Donald Richberg, former NRA counsel, the credit. He first referred to “goldplated anarchy” in a speech to the Merchants Association of New York, July 6, 1933.—ED.

Prince’s Lady Friend

Sirs:

What a pleasure to a former Marylander to catch TIME in an error. Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson not Mrs. Wallace Wakefield Simpson [TIME, Sept. 24].

MRS. MARK SULLIVAN Washington, D. C.

To Mrs. Sullivan, wife of the arch-Republican pundit-journalist, thanks for correctly identifying Edward of Wales’ s good friend. Baltimore-born, Mrs. Simpson was named for her father, Wallis Warfield whose brother Solomon Davies was long president of Seaboard Air Line. Her mother, the late Alice Montague Warfield was famed for her beauty and charm. In 1916 Daughter Wallis married Lieut, (now Commander) E. Winfield Spencer Jr., U.S.N., divorced him nine years later. She went abroad with her mother, renewed friendship with Ernest A. Simpson, an Englishman who graduated from Harvard in 1919. They were married in 1926 in London, where Mrs. Simpson has resided ever since. Last spring Mrs. Simpson visited the U. S.. attended the races at Pimlico with her aunt, Mrs. Buchanan Merryman. Another aunt is Mrs. George Barnett of Washington, widow of the War-time Commandant of the U. S. Marine Corps. With Aunt Merryman, Mrs. Simpson is now traveling on the Continent, closely attended by H.R.H.—ED.

Lloyd’s Portion

Sirs:

In your description of the Morro Castle catastrophe, Sept. 17, you state: “As usual in all great marine catastrophes, Lloyd’s of London will have to pay the Ward Line some $3,000,000 in insurance while smaller underwriters who share the loss make up the balance.” . . .

Insurance trade journals state it as follows: “About one-half of the insurance covering hull and disbursements was underwritten in the domestic market and the balance in the Lone market, with a portion being carried by London Lloyd’s, it was reported.”

All this might seem unimportant to you but not to the hundreds of thousands of bonafide resident agents of stock casualty and surety companies scattered over the U. S. The underwriters at Lloyd’s have entered the U. S. with a vengeance; escaping all taxes, most expenses of U. S. operation. Only Illinois, of all States, has protected its citizens with a deposit and collection of tax. Others would have to chase some hundreds of “limeys” the signing underwriters, all over Europe if Lloyds declined to pay a loss.

Lloyd’s has profited long on free publicity, entirely favorable heretofore, and frequently exaggerated or entirely without basis Reputable American companies suffer.

B. F. ADCOCK JR.

Cumberland Insurance Agency, Inc. Pikeville, Ky.

Ship’s Fire Apparatus

Sirs: …Statements concerning the fire protecting apparatus [on the T. E. L. Morro Castle—TIME, Sept. 17] have been made which are not correct….

1) P. 15: “In a special fire-control room was a switchboard, supposed to be manned day & night with tubes which permitted the operator to pipe fire-extinguishing gas to any threatened part of the ship.” …Fire control rooms exist on some of the very large liners but on the Morro Castle and like boats, fire apparatus is installed on the bridge…. It is possible to pipe fire-extinguishing gas to the inaccessible cargo and like spaces. It is not permitted by law, at the present time, to pipe any fire-extinguishing gas into passenger quarters….The only method of fighting the fire in the superstructure and cabin is through the use of portable extinguishers and water at hoses.

2) P. 16: “Captain Warms told Assistant Director Dickerson N. Hoover that the Morro Castle’s automatic fire alarm system had failed to work. ” This statement was not made. During the testimony of Captain Warms on Monday, Sept 10, Mr. Crone asked Captain Warms if the automatic alarm registered. Captain Warms answered that it registered when flames existed on A deck. Mr. Crone asked whether fire was in the staterooms at that time and Captain Warms replied: “Yes, in staterooms on A deck, port side”

A. M. DAXSEY Manager, Marine Division Walter Kidde & Co. Fire Detecting & Fire Extinguishing New York City

Coast Guard Heroes

Sirs:

You are not aware of the fact that the Morro Castle tragedy made heroes of a handful of Coast Guardsmen down the Jersey shore because it has not reached the newspapers. I visited the Shark River Coast Guard Station and had the honor ot meeting Chief Boatswain’s Mate M. M. Hymer who, with his crew of four men, picked up 96 living persons from the sea and towed 70 more in other boats, to safety. Their 26-ft. self-bailing surfboat was the first on the scene. They plucked 14 from the sea and rushed them beachward; they returned immediately to find the City of Savannah and Monarch of Bermuda in the vicinity and later the Andrea F. Luckenbach and from then on they picked up the survivors and turned them over to the liner by the boat load. The surfboats cannot hold more than 20 persons without foundering.

William Burton, Hymer’s assistant, says it was the bottle of whiskey the skipper of the City of Suzannah sent down to them that gave them strength to complete their rescue job in such masterly fashion. . . .

A man from the patrol boat Cahoone was first to shinny up the line dangling from the Morro Castle’s stern (the same young Phelphs clang to so tenaciously) and rig the breeches buoy to carry persons out of the wreck for inspection. He says walking on her deck was like stepping upon the galley range. . . .

It’s amusing to note that the Coast Guradsman who answered the phone at Deal Station told the man on the other end to “make it snappy” as he was getting three or four calls a minute. The man on the other end as the transoceanic operator had advised, was the editor of the London Evening Standard and he said “Righto, I’ll call you later,” which he and other London agencies did.

DAVID SPRATLING Office of the Commander, Eastern Area U. S. Coast Guard New York City

Interesting Part

Sirs: Your account in TIME, Aug. 27, re Dr. William N. Lacey of California Institute of Technology “neutralizing” an inadvertently made quantity of nitroglycerine is erroneous. I wrote Dr. Lacey, thanking him for saving a section of my home town. He replies: “The interesting part was that no nitroglycerine was produced and the net danger was nil! I hope that all my problems will be as easily solved, but hope that in the future credit can be better controlled.”

ARCH E. EKDALE

San Pedro, Calif.

Dr. Lacey, who was understood by reporters to say, “Any mixture might have set the stuff off,” now says he was misquoted, that the incident was “vastly distorted and unfortunate.”—ED.

Pleased Scientist Sirs: I wish to express my appreciation of the articles that have appeared under the caption Science. I was particularly pleased with the excellent discussion of the work of Sir Arthur Eddington at the time of his visit here last spring [TIME, April 16]. The discussions of Sir James Jeans and Sir Josiah Stamp were also very cleverly and interestingly written [TIME, Sept. 17].

It is a splendid thing to have Science popularized as you are doing and often with so much sound thought behind the articles.

G. CANBY ROBINSON, M. D.

Director New York Hospital-Cornell Medical College Association New YorkCity

Feather Sirs: I thought you would be interested in knowing that in the Sept. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (p. 751) Yandell Henderson in his article on Resuscitation includes TIME in his bibliography [“Cornish, R.E., cited in Lazarus, Dead and Alive, Time 23:49 (March 26) 1934”] It is rather rare for a lay magazine to be mentioned as a reference in such a scientific medical publication. Add a feather to the cap the editor of your usually interesting and fairly accurate department, Medicine.

NATHAN RALPH, M. D.

Eagleville, Pa.

Boy at Breakfast

Sirs:

I thought that you might be interested in the following clipping taken from Tom Daley’s column in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin “He [the President] told me he had only one grudge against me. That was that when he was a small boy his mother had read The Jungle to him at the breakfast table.

“Mr. Sinclair specializes in fiction, but truth is stranger: Mr. Roosevelt was a small boy of 24 when Sinclair’s The Jungle was first published in 1906.”

… Either our genial President stretched the truth in order to be jovial with his new-found comrade, or Sinclair wished to keep the minds of the reporters off embarrassing ground.

Robert W.Loder Philadelphia, PA.

Artist’s Mother

Sirs:

Once I was sure Albert Richard Johnson (TIME, Sept. 10) would come to a bad end, because his mother was so unfailingly kind to him.

She was away from home one day when the youngster decided to surprise her with a startling new scene for his toy theatre. When she returned, her appreciation of his efforts was so great she spared the rod and did not even scold the boy when she discovered that much of its beauty was due to the fact that he’d cut up her lovely silver evening gown. She is a talented musician and many an hour was spent at the piano playing for him while he worked away at his scenes.

During my three years as Farmette with the Johnsons, I never once heard her refuse anything for the lad for his theatre, however fantastic or expensive.

Since reading your article about him, I now, 18 years later, feel that Allene Johnson must have played a remarkable part in her son’s development.

ROWENA STONE

State Institute of Applied Agriculture* Farmingdale, L. I.

No Portia

Sirs:

For the informativeness and accuracy of the account of my father’s work, congratulations to TIME (Sept. 24, pp. 32-33).

For the family roll, a correction. One daughter has he, not “two.” No modern Portia, but a son is the senior at Yale Law School.

GERHARD ALDEN GESELL

New Haven, Conn.

Sirs:

… I have to chuckle at big, handsome, healthy and husky Gerhard’s chagrin, finding he has been mistaken for one of the weaker sex.

JAMES E. CONNOR

Flushing, L. I.

To big, handsome, husky Gerhard Gesell, apologies.—ED.

Good But True Sirs:

As regards your review of Belle of the Nineties (TIME, Sept. 24, Cinema), you fail to mention body-padding on the parts of anyone else in the cast other than Miss West. How about Miss Katherine DeMille, whose upper torso throughout the entire film is something incredible, certainly too good to be true? Are these portions of the young woman’s figure actually as wonderful as depicted or are they, for the most part, just a physiological hoax? Even a hoax of such proportions ought to be TIME-worthy.

POLLARD GARRISON

West Hartford, Conn.

Says Paramount’s pressagent: “Miss DeMille was not padded. She’s a big buxom girl and needs to be laced in rather than padded out.”—ED.

George & Bride

Sirs:

In TIME (Sept. 10) in your Letters column Messrs. Cole and Ottinger pointed out about how Harold Lloyd came back to “find himself a wife.” At first I didn’t see anything funny, but soon I was laughing. I continued to read until something on p. 15 caught my attention. To my surprise, I saw that Prince George had found “himself a bride.”

GRACE B. WEIGLE

Age 12 Chicago, Ill.

Let keen-eyed Reader Weigle enjoy her well-deserved laugh on TIME.—ED. Ann Arbor for Lansing

Sirs:

So far as I know Lansing is still the capital of Michigan though TIME states, Sept. 24, p. 24: “Defeated for renomination was Governor Comstock, sent to Ann Arbor two years ago. . . .”

LUCY H. SHAW

Bay City, Mich.

Sirs:

Tut, tut, TIME. . . . I recall that furriners at the University of Michigan used to be told the school was run from the State House at Lansing, but I never had heard it the other way around. . . .

CHARLES CASSIL REYNARD Girard, Ohio

Sirs:

. . . Ann Arbor is … Governor Comstock’s alma mater, Class of 1899.

Since his election he made Ann Arbor his home, commuting to Lansing.

C. B. DUCHARME

Grosse Pointe, Mich.

For an inexcusable slip, TIME accepts rebuke.—ED.

*Started by Albert Johnson Sr.