Letters: Feb. 1, 1926

Herewith are excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain either supplementary to or corrective of news previously published in TIME.

Sade Assailed

Sirs: In your efforts to be impartial you occasionally become weak. There are certain scoundrels who should never be mentioned without branding them as such! One of them is or was the Count Sade whom you let off with a “notorious” in your Jan. 18 issue! (See FRANCE.) He was the greatest scoundrel who ever lived! I cannot refer you to such of his works as Justine or Juliette for confirmation of my assertion—because they have been completely suppressed! If you think I am a milksop-prude, however, I call your attention to the following facts, which are to be found in any authoritative work upon the man. In 1766 Count Sade married a young and beautiful commoner, a Mlle. Montreuil. (Incidentally she remained faithful to him and got him out of most of his scrapes!) In 1768 (less than two years later!) he “attempted for his pleasure partially to dissect while still alive” an English woman, Rose Keller, whose French husband had “sold” her to Count Sade. In 1770 he seduced his sister-in-law and took her to Italy, where she died—in no one knows what circumstances! In 1772 he and his valet were convicted of having given the files de joie of Marseilles—then as now the most disreputable in Western Europe—certain pastilles containing cantharides which roused them to superhuman excesses, during which one of them died. From then on he was in and out of custody all his life. Knowing Napoleon I’s lascivious nature, he tried to curry favor by getting out a special combined edition of Justine and Juliette, in ten volumes, with 100 illustrations, which he dedicated to the Emperor. Napoleon had them burned! Yet you let this man off as merely “notorious !” I suppose you have read those sentimental descriptions which sadists have written of him in his old age. . . “with pure white hair tres beaux. . . with an air le plus aimable . . . with une admirable politesse . . . un vieillard robuste et sans infirmities!” Without infirmities indeed! He had them all! PAXTON BROCK

New York, N. Y.

From a Free Thinker

Sirs: Although it is beyond my means to subscribe to TIME, it always gives me great pleasure to read it. As a freethinker I am glad to see at least one magazine not afraid to attack religious intolerance—so prevalent today. Your one-word title “Intolerance” for the article regarding the statue of Buddha in New York City was a fine choice in my estimation. Noticed your ad about Thomas Paine. Why not feature an edition containing information about that Great American—such a stranger to many so-called “good Americans”? Good luck and Happy New Year. VOLTAIRE H. ZIZKA

Cleveland, Ohio

TIME made no “attack” upon religious intolerance. TIME prints facts, makes no “attacks.”—ED.

Young Bismarck

Sirs: On p. 12 of your issue of Nov. 9 you quoted certain rather vacuous remarks attributed to the young Prince von Bismarck, grandson of the great “Iron Chancellor,” now in this country as the guest of his cousin, Baron Leopold Piessen of the German Embassy at Washington. In your article you imply that Prince Bismarck is “commonplace,” “Babbitt-tailored,” a “fop,” a “milksop.” Will you not give publicity to the following estimate of Prince Bismarck recently penned by a gentleman whom I believe you have styled “famed Washington correspondent, Clinton W. Gilbert.” His opinion is probably at least as good as yours. Here it is: “Prince Otto von Bismarck at 28 years of age is the leader of the Nationalist Party in the German Parliament, or Reichstag, one of the leading parties in point of numbers in Germany. . . . What strikes an American is the singular maturity of the young leader of the Nationalists. At 28 he would be two years short of eligibility for the United States Senate, but he has a riper knowledge of the world than four-fifths of our Senators. They grow up sooner in Europe than we do here. And, of course, Bismarck grew up in a family that had the tradition of ruling. . . . Any party which has the Prince as its leader is bound to be moderate and practical, for he it a most temperate and level-headed young man. In the course of a long conversation he never gave expression to an extreme opinion. He was as calm, balanced and judicial as if his country had been a neutral in the great War and had not suffered from a harsh and difficult peace.” OSCAR VON DUHN

Hoboken, N. J.

Suggestion

Sirs: TIME has the happy faculty of out-guessing all other publications, so perhaps just a hint of an improvement may be given : There are subscribers such as I who take pleasure in remailing their copies to friends in different parts of the world who might be interested in some feature of a week’s issue— Therefore, why not in each issue carry this information: “Domestic postage on this issue of TIME . . . . Foreign postage . . . cents.” ORTON E. GOODWIN

Tampa, Florida

TIME thanks Subscriber Goodwin for his courteous suggestion. But is there a genuine demand for this service? The editors doubt it.—ED.

Credit Where Due Sirs:

. . . In your Jan. 11 issue, on p. 27, in a footnote, you refer to Clarence Dillon as the builder of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. This is not correct. A few years ago the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. purchased the assets of the Steel & Tube Co. of America, in which a syndicate managed by Dillon, Read & Co. owned a controlling common stock interest. That is all. The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. was founded in 1901 and owes its present preeminence to its President, James A. Campbell and his associates.

JOHN W. FORD

Youngstown, Ohio.

A Real Christian

Sirs:

TIME is so enjoyable that one hesitates to criticise, unless by so doing one can better your output. Please forgive me if I call attention to the continuance of the word “socalled” in reference to General Feng (TIME, Dec. 21, p. 16). Considering the fact that Feng has been a professing Christian for nearly a score of years, it ought to be about time to discontinue the “so-called.” In fact the North China Herald has given up the battle in that respect and you might follow suit.

E. W. PERRY

Kahului, Maui, T. H.

Never again will Christian General Feng be referred to as “so-called.”—ED.

“Sympathetic”

Sirs:

I am deaf and was mute. So I read with pleasure your sympathetic, understanding article on the “Deaf Mute Ordination” in the Jan. 25 issue of TIME, that is until I realize what harm you were doing to us afflicted people by focusing attention on us. For years I have painstakingly learned to read lips and to modulate my voice so as not to attract attention. I have purposely avoided other deaf persons. I had succeeded in overcoming my early shyness. Now all I see are people, who think they are full of pity, mowing at me and wiggling their lips. Such attention hurts.

MIRIAM TUTTLE

Boston, Mass.

Critique

Sirs: TIME apparently attempts to cover an international field, . . . but why permit its columns to be saturated with the archaic methods of English (British) publications? To a reader it would appear that you have an Englishman as an editor, who insists on using terms used in British newspapers. “Down under,” in the antipodes, they call a newspaperman a “pressman.” American newspapermen use that term only with reference to the employes in the press, or printing room. Let’s be American. I agree with Chas. F. Westman, Franklin, Mass., that you are greatly in error in your use of words referring to Episcopal churches and services. In too many ways TIME is very provincial. Your writers, or rewrite men use language that would make the average editor of an American paper give them the “blue envelope” the following Saturday. . . . The choice of adjectives usually results in “freak” and “stunt” expressions and why? The use of the word “famed” is ridiculous. In one issue I counted a score of expressions in which “famed” is used, and this occurs particularly in the column devoted to marriages, engagements, deaths, etc. Also, when you tell of the marriage of a couple, why refer to the man as, for instance, “one William Abernathy”? The word “one” is absolutely unnecessary. Why use “Sirs” in your letter column instead of “Editors”? Lastly, why do your columns require so much correction as to facts and grammar, and your readers have to write you constantly about them ? Don’t your editors get galley-proofs and edit them, or does the “makeup” man merely get the type from the typesetter and than slap the galleys into the chases and lock them up? Your increasing number of readers certainly deserve more careful consideration. . . . Page 5 (TIME, Dec. 21)— “master’s bedroom.” Why master’s? Another English class phrase. A. P. TAYLOR

Archives of Hawaii. Honolulu