Letters, Aug. 3, 1936

Date

Sirs:

In TIME (July 13) you stated that Peggy Anne Landon had never had any dates till she entered the University two years ago. I wonder if you haven’t been mistaken in this statement. When I was a senior in Topeka High School, one of my best friends dated Peggy Anne.

DICK BROWN

The Lake Hubert Minnesota Camps Lake Hubert, Minn.

Co-Ops

Sirs:

Your article on “CoOps” [TIME, July 13] … is a splendid example of able and accurate reporting as well as showing quite an able understanding of what it is all about.

The convention and celebration at Glenwood, Minn. . . . was a huge success. There were about 3,000 people in attendance. Had the country press in Minnesota given this any publicity there would have been fully 10,000 people there for this gathering. Ninety percent of the country editors in Minnesota are living back in 1880 (mentally) and should be plowed under along with Secretary Wallace’s surplus cotton.

The reporting of this gathering in TIME also shows that your organization is wide-awake and has a nose for news. None of the northwest metropolitan newspapers that came to my attention gave this convention and celebration any notice whatever, either before, during or after the gathering. Practically all of the northwest newspapers are reactionary and, like Lot’s wife, are looking backward. The Hoover era to them means happy days never to be forgotten and they sigh for their return.

Some excuse might be given the Twin City papers for taking no notice of this gathering as they have many things on their minds. Mr. Jones of the Minneapolis Journal is up against stiff competition from the revitalized Minneapolis Star which seems to be running away with the northwest’s newspaper show. . . . Mr. Murphy of the Minneapolis Tribune is interested in many things and . . . appears to be too busy to notice a changing social order. … St. Paul papers exert little influence in Minnesota and are not a factor. . . .

F. B. GRIFFITH

Alexandria, Minn.

Sirs:

… I want to express our keen appreciation of the very fair and informative article in your July 13 issue on the subject of consumers cooperation.

There was more concise, accurate information on the subject in a comparatively short article than I have seen in any other popular publication.

L. C. RAVLIN

Secretary

Evanston Consumers Cooperative

Evanston, Ill.

Sirs, A red letter to TIME for an accurate, authoritative of the co-operative movement in the U. S., and for recognition of the movement’s newsworthiness. But TIME overlooked what is already one of the most significant phases of cooperatives, a phase that will one day be the dominating factor in helping the rural population retain a larger portion of its income.

I refer to co-operative cold storage lockers. They were first introduced on the Pacific Coast some five years ago when a group of alert farmers decided to preserve their own meat, fruit and vegetables the year round on a budget they could afford even in depression times.

Since then the movement has spread rapidly. In Iowa, for example, the first installation was made three years ago. It attracted visitors for miles, and operated its first year successfully. Now there are 50 locker plants in operation in that State.

While the installation of one of these locker plants represents a community investment of approximately $25,000, there is a saving of over $50,000 per year in the community’s food bill.

For example: John Smith has a 700-lb. heifer ready for market. If shipped to the stockyards, it would net John about $30. Instead, he takes it into the co-op and has it butchered at a cost of $7. It provides him with about 330 lb. of prime beef which the butcher cuts into convenient-sized steaks, chops and roasts. These are frozen quickly and put for storage in John’s locker. The same meat, bought over the counter, would cost him $90; his total cost now is $40, including locker rent. If John Smith is expecting a threshing crew in hot weather, when he could not otherwise serve fresh meat from his own stock, he may well save from $100 to $200 during that one work period.

Economically, the locker system is a sound co-operative enterprise. Lockers, large enough to store 325 lb. of meat (or equivalent in fruit and vegetables), rent for $10 per year. There is no labor cost—the butcher more than pays for his time by butchering fees. Power and maintenance costs average about $900 per year. Depreciation at $500 per year is a liberal estimate. Locker rents give a gross income of $5,000. Net result is operating profit of $3,500 per year: enough to amortize entire investment in less than ten years.

Properly frozen foods will keep indefinitely. Meats are “tenderized” amazingly. Strawberries, cherries and other seasonal fruits retain all of their freshness and important food qualities. Delicious roasting ears for Christmas dinner are commonplace to locker owners. And every meal eaten from locker-stored food represents a saving of from 50% to 75% to the locker owner.

WARD E. GUEST

Chicago, Ill.

TIME’S thanks to Engineer Guest for an interesting and little-known sidelight on U. S. consumer co-operation.—ED.

Sirs:

. . . You mention that co-operatives are “even bigger business in Britain. … It has a $700,000,000 bank.”

Would you mind telling me the name of this bank?

H. CARLETON WHITE

Buffalo, N. Y.

Co-operative Wholesale Society, No. 1 Balloon Street, Manchester, England.—ED.

Heights

Sirs:

Every so often TIME reaches great journalistic heights in articles on exceedingly complex subjects that are made crystal-clear under TIME’S adroit pen. The article “Goal Behind Steel” (TIME, July 20) was one such!

A. L. BUCKMAN

Los Angeles, Calif.

Browniana

Sirs:

Concerning your article on Pledge Brown (TIME, July 20), may I add my bit to this collection of Browniana.

In my desk I have two letters to editors of New York papers which he wrote for me to use in approaching them for a job. At the time he went to great trouble to impress me with the fact that hundreds upon hundreds of reporters throughout the length and breadth of the countryside would give their eyeteeth to possess them. . . . And here was I, Destiny’s tot, getting them for absolutely nothing. Before that evening was over they cost me $19.

The entire story of my meeting with that estimable gentleman at a cafeteria on Broadway some two months ago, our riotous evening together, and his subsequent disappearance with every cent I had, would be too long to go into here. … I may say, though, that in the course of the evening we bought a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer of May 17 in which there was published an article on the Matanuska Valley colony by this eminent authority on the subject. Too, he showed me numerous articles of the same nature which he had written, and which he had planned to peddle about to different papers. As he so originally expressed it, “they were going like hot cakes’. I can’t write them fast enough!” All in all, it was an enlightening evening. . . .

But the two letters he wrote for me have languished in my desk this while, as well as one I wrote to him to Ketchikan which was returned forthwith marked simply, “not here.” I had about decided to put the episode away and to think no more about it, but your piece has stirred me and I felt I wanted to write you of it. …

Is Brown still in jail in New York City and would there be any chance of recovering any of my loss? . . .

ROBERT C. COLSON

New York City

Convicted of stealing a hotel stenographer’s typewriter. Pledge Brown was this week sentenced to six months’-to-three years’ imprisonment.—ED.

Sirs:

When a young man who said he was Pledge Brown from the Ketchikan (Alaska) Chronicle some months ago offered us a yarn on New Deal’s Matanuska Valley as “new stuff . . . I’m full of it … great for a Republican sheet,” the Daily Courier’s wise, white-haired Managing Editor E. R. Moore politely declined, later explained it didn’t ring true.

Wondering why the office didn’t can me and hire the recommendation-bristling Brown, I accepted his invitation to join him at a beer, paid for the three he drank (10¢ each), marveled at his tales of working with big-time newsmen on the old N. Y. World, pleaded insolvency when he wanted to borrow a dollar with a fine-looking gold watch as security.

Said he sold his Alaska stories to all wide-awake dailies, sent money to wife and baby in Alaska. Got two bits from Managing Editor Moore for a sandwich but nothing for his promised revelations about Matanuska Valley potatoes, so big and shiny, but “really just like mush.”

VIRGIL L. LEWIS

Waterloo Dally Courier

Waterloo, Iowa

Sirs:

. . . Pledge (“Just call me Brownie”) Brown had a lot of fun in Michigan too. Lasted nearly three weeks here in Jackson. Finally left because people objected to his use of their names on checks.

What I want to know is—where is that big bear skin he promised to send me when he returned to the Northland?

Everyone here loaned him money and bought him smokes. Great character—loquacious liar—good egg.

WM. A. CIZEK

Program Director

Station W.I.B.M.

Jackson, Mich.

Sirs:

. . . Long before I reached Delegate Dimond’s identification of Wilbur Pledge Brown, I had identified the gentleman as Wilbur Pledge, phoney-check artist and alleged newspaper man.

Just 15 years before while I was city editor of the Nashville Banner, on June 2, 1921, I asked the press services to carry the following item, for the ‘protection of newspapers elsewhere:

EDRS—Not for Publication

NASHVILLE TENN: The Nashville Banner today issued a warning against a man claiming to be a newspaper man who recently victimized that paper through bad checks. The man gave the name of Wilbur Pledge, it was said, and sometimes used the alias of Read. He claimed to have had experience with the Milwaukee Journal and to have seen service with the Canadian Army. The Banner asked that it be notified in case the man is found and described him as about 5 ft. 8 in. tall, weighing 140 lb.; ruddy complexion, short stubby hair.

… I have a phoney check drawn on the Globe National Bank of Denver, Colo, and passed by this notorious crook.

There is also an indictment standing against Wilbur Pledge (Brown) in the criminal courts of Davidson County, Tenn., and if he ever presents himself within the jurisdiction of these courts, I shall take great pleasure in doing my best to put him where he won’t be able to further victimize other saps such as I.

JAMES G. STAHLMAN

President

Nashville Banner

Nashville, Tenn.

Sirs:

In your publication … it is stated that “the Philadelphia Public Ledger had recommended Brown’s work.”

Pledge Brown was never employed by either the morning or the evening Public Ledger. So far as I know, he never did any work of any kind for either of these newspapers. He did, however, some years ago, work for another Philadelphia newspaper, and early this summer an article carrying his by-line did appear in still another Philadelphia newspaper . .

No recommendation was ever given him by either of the Ledgers at any time. . . .

C. M. MORRISON

Editor

Evening Public Ledger

Philadelphia, Pa.

TIME erred. It was the Philadelphia Inquirer that recommended Pledge Brown.—ED.