Letters, Jul. 5, 1937

Court in Session

Sirs:

Referring to TIME’S picture of the Supreme Court of the United States (June 7), in our library here we have framed photographs of, I think, every group of the Supreme Court that has been taken in the last 50 or 60 years, including the drawing of the Court in session back in Chief Justice Fuller’s time.

JOHN H. WIGMORE Northwestern University Law School Chicago, Ill.

TIME asked Dean Emeritus Wigmore for a reproduction of H. Thayer Campbell’s pen & ink drawing of the

Supreme Court in session, prints it herewith. The drawing shows James J. Hill’s lawyer, John G. Johnson (left), arguing the famed Northern Securities case before Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller and the Court, January 1904. (Justices from left to right are: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, Henry Billings Brown, John Marshall Harlan, Chief Justice Fuller, David Josiah Brewer, Edward Douglass White, Joseph McKenna, William Rufus Day.) Northern Securities Co. had been organized to control the securities of Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways. By a 5-to-4 decision, the holding company was found in restraint of trade, its control of the two railroads was disestablished. Last week, with 23,063 shares of Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and 28,557 shares of Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Co. Ltd. in its portfolio, Northern Securities board of directors proposed that the oldest railroad holding company be dissolved.—ED.

Sirs:

In TIME of June 7, p. 13, you state, “It is 2:52 p. m.” In the picture of the Supreme ourt of the United States the time on the clock seems to be 5:15. Had the clock perhaps stopped in the Chamber, or has TIME the incorrect time?

ADRIANA VAN COEVERING Grand Haven, Mich.

Maximum view of the clock in TIME’S Supreme Court photograph indicates the picture was taken at 2:52, as stated.— ED.

Remember the Raisin

Sirs:

In a situation involving as many factors— civil rights, union propaganda, legal picketing. emergency police powers, actual violence and armed citizenry—as Monroe’s picket line battle the reporter who can tell a connected story with proper emphasis is to be congratulated, and I want to extend those congratulations to TIME. Its account of the “Second battle of the River Raisin” I TIME, June 21 ] is in keeping with TIME’S record. In only one particular I would like to add a codicil for accuracy: Mayor Knagg’s motley army carried no guns when it broke the picket line, save half a dozen who toted their own side arms. Shotguns and deer rifles appeared on the scene later Thursday when the vanguard of Pontiac’s threatened invasion straggled into town. American Legion members, who were patrolling the streets while the mayor’s special officers were still guarding the road to the mill, ran home for their guns when an Associated Press bulletin brought the word of the Pontiac mobilization. Several hundred armed .citizens collected about-midnight downtown to repel the invasion, but fortunately the guns were put away at dawn without being used. The reception those first Pontiac unionists received from the ”shotgun brigade” probably had as much to do with the abandonment of the march to Monroe as Homer Martin’s honeyed words, for they returned to UAW headquarters with information that Monroe citizens were waiting for them. . . .

KARL F. ZEISLER Managing Editor Monroe Evening News Monroe, Mich.

P.S. The first battle of the River Raisin was fought Jan. 22, 1813, not more than three blocks from where tear gas routed the CIO picket line June 10, 1937. It was an engagement between 800 Kentucky militiamen sent by General William Henry Harrison for the relief of General Hull at Detroit and about 1,500 British and Indians. The Americans arrived at the River Raisin Jan. 18 and dispersed a small British force. Three days later the British returned, found the Americans asleep, with no sentries posted, and fell upon them, killing some 150 and taking the rest prisoners. “Remember the Raisin” became a battle cry for the remainder of the War of 1812. Michigan Melee

Sirs:

TIME’S reporting of the river ducking given rampant unionists by Michigan State College students (TiME, June 14) is too chary. Permit me to elaborate on such an unparalleled incident as the clashing of striking workers and college students:

The sympathy strike in Lansing had gone on all day with the United Auto Workers and sympathizers augmented by some 5,000 members from nearby Flint and Pontiac. But while downtown was literally mad, East Lansing, three miles distant, was minding its own affairs, college students were attending classes as usual. At 4:10 p. m. an unauthorized “flying squadron” made up of the prime downtown hell-raisers entered East Lansing with an eye to closing business establishments and the restaurants. These first 60-odd men closed all stores along the main street with the exception of one—a pocket in the wall known as Jim Brakeman’s Bootery, “smallest shoe store in the world.” Jim. a 250-lb. former State footballer, does not close under just any order. And the student body likes Jim pretty well.

The fast-gathering students were mindful of two things. Their eating houses were closed up and Jim was in trouble. So they forced the merchants to open up again, sized up the visitors and forthwith picked up a half-dozen and carried them to the shallow, convenient, cold Red Cedar. Downtown strikers heard and came fast but students came faster. More than eight strikers went in—around 20, I believe, for I saw and counted ten in at once.

The height of the melee involved about 3,000 students and some 200 strikers, and was witnessed by the Governor of Michigan, who rides daily on the campus. He dissuaded a group of R O. T. C. cavalrymen from mounting horses, riding down the invaders.

Unionists went home chastened and students went home happy. Followed the next few days a stream of mail congratulating the college on its aggressive student body; among these was a letter from the State Legislature with 74 approving signers. Governor Murphy’s comment: “students as well as workers are entitled to their grievances.”

ROBERT D. BURHANS Editorial Director Michigan State News Michigan State College East Lansing, Mich.

Pastor’s Picture

Sirs:

Lynd in his Middletown in Transition [TIME, April 19] may think that the Balls are an economic royalistic octopus squeezing the life out of us poor devils in Muncie, but it is hard to convince Muncieites of this fact.

Truth is that it is so hard that over 10,000 different Muncie people voluntarily have just contributed some $31,000, an oversubscription of around $3,500, to erect a memorial entitled “Beneficience” in honor of the Balls. This is an expression of love and respect that we have for the Ball family, than which there is no finer in the nation. They are just plain folks, unostentatious, friendly, democratic to the core, representative of the best in American life. In an unusual degree they consider their wealth as a public trust.

The intelligent people of Muncie (and we have a few) are still amazed at how Lynd could be accurate when dealing with statistics such as the percent of high school graduates today as compared with 30 years ago and so utterly unscientific and biased when dealing with personalities and economic philosophy. From the latter standpoint there is a general consensus of opinion that he found what he expected to find, that we have a cross section of Lynd’s mind rather than a true picture of the people of this community.

HILLYER H. STRATON Pastor First Baptist Church Muncie, Ind.

P.S. The Balls are NOT members of my church.