Letters, Feb. 18, 1946

Craig Rice Shower

Sirs:

All of us in the mystery business thoroughly enjoyed your splurge on Craig Rice [TIME, Jan. 28]. However, I would like to point out to you one serious mistake. . . .

You state that Craig Rice never writes short stories for magazines and that no popular magazine would touch them if she did, because of the amount of liquor involved. In our March 1943 issue we ran a story by Craig Rice . . . which featured that hard-drinking little criminal lawyer, John J. Malone, whom readers of Craig Rice’s books will remember as Jake Justus’ boon and bar companion. In other words, he is no teetotaler at any time. . . .

MILDRED FALK

Managing Editor

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

New York City

Sirs:

Miss Craig Rice (Mrs. Lawrence Lipton) has authorized me by long-distance telephone from her home in Santa Monica to deny the statement in your issue of Jan. 28 that she receives $6,750 if a Craig Rice book sells 500,000 copies in a 25¢ reprint edition on the newsstands.

“I receive exactly half of that amount, $3,375,” Miss Rice informed me. “The other half goes to my publisher, who, like all first-edition publishers today, takes 50% of all authors’ reprint royalties. And, of course, I pay 10% to my agent, thereby netting 40% for myself.” Miss Lee Wright, editor of Simon & Schuster’s Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Miss Rice’s first-edition publishers, confirmed this emphatically over the telephone tonight. “Craig has just the same sort of contract as any other writer,” said Miss Wright. “We take 50% of her reprint royalties. . . .”

BAYNARD KENDRICK

President

Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

New York City

Sirs:

. . . Who is Craig’ Rice, and who cares who Craig Rice is? I have never read anything quite so boring, uninteresting, and so strictly beside the point in any copy of TIME. . . .

HAROLD G. LAMBERT

Baltimore

SEC’s Role—a Clarification

Sirs:

Your Jan. 21 edition, under Business and Finance, discusses a case involving the registration of securities with this Commission, and estimates what the company will receive for its securities “if SEC approves the new issue.”

It could reasonably be inferred from this that the Commission passes upon the investment merit of securities registered with it—that registration in itself may be taken as some assurance if not a guarantee against loss to those who purchase registered securities. General acceptance of such a misconception of the Commission’s function under the Securities Act of 1933 would defeat the very purpose of the Act, to wit:

To provide investors with accurate and adequate information upon which they may judge of the merits of the securities registered for sale to them. It cannot be overemphasized that the Commission is not empowered to pass upon the merits of securities registered with it; its function (aside from enforcing sanctions against violators) is to assure, within the limits of its ability, that the investor is in possession of sufficient facts upon which to exercise an informed judgment whether to purchase the security being offered. In fact, the Act contains a specific prohibition against any representation to the effect that the Commission has made a finding that the information disclosed in registration statements is true and accurate, or that the Commission “has in any way passed upon the merits of, or given approval to,” securities registered with it. …

GANSON PURCELL

SEC Chairman

Philadelphia

¶To Reader Purcell, thanks for 1) an able exposition of SEC’s function; 2) a much needed warning to investors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that new shares may be put on public sale only “if SEC approves the new issue.”—ED.

Hiccups

Sirs:

About your article on hiccups [TIME, Jan. 28], the [remedy] is not so complex. Cracked ice eaten at intervals will stop the peristaltic action by temporary paralysis.

CLARENCE E. EDSON

Lakewood, Ohio

Sirs:

. . . There is a simple remedy for the ordinary case of hiccups that will cause them to stop immediately! . . .

Place an index finger in one of your ears, at the same time sipping water. A couple of swallows is usually sufficient. . . .

MRS. WILLIAM I. LYMAN

Youngstown, Ohio

Sirs:

. . . You fail to mention the most successful and pleasant home remedy—eat damson jam—prescribed by doctors too.

MARVYN WHARTON

Richmond, Va.

Sirs:

. . . You omitted . . . the only remedy that I know about which really works in ordinary cases. . . . Here it is:

Fill an ordinary glass with water to the top. Then place a handkerchief over the glass. Then drink the water in the usual manner through the handkerchief, say about one-quarter or one-third of the contents. Your hiccups are gone. . . .

ALEX BAIRD

Detroit

Unitarian Goal

Sirs:

In TIME, Jan. 21, you state that “Unitarians see man as innately good.” This is not necessarily true. Unitarians are so divergent in their beliefs that it is almost impossible to set down any one thing upon which the group does agree. I think, however, that Robert Raible, Minister of the Dallas Unitarian Church, has come closest. He says: “Most churches try to get men into heaven. We try to get heaven into men.”

D. M. ZINN

Lieutenant (j.g.), U.S.N.

Dallas

Going Whose Way?

Sirs:

TIME [Jan. 21], in reprinting the Christian Register gripe regarding pictures with religious backgrounds and adding the “protesting Protestant” slant, added to the harm done. Herewith is the truth on the situation, as we wrote the Register editor:

“We agree with your suggestion for pictures embracing any creditable religious background. But you are wrong when you hint at conspiracy or suggest bigotry.

“It so happened the pictures to date were the first to prove merit in such backgrounds, and they have paved the way for such as you suggest. We hope they will be forthcoming—but if you stir things up by such editorials as the copy sent us, you may mess up the possibilities by splitting reception. . . .”

We are in receipt of thousands of letters from clergymen of all denominations praising the good-will effect of Going My Way and Bells of St. Mary’s. As one rabbi wrote: “We note a different attitude from the public. People now have friendly smiles as we pass on the street.”

Those were not Catholic pictures. They did good for all religions—and religious morals are the only cure for the evils of today.

LARRY CROSBY

Hollywood

Future of Documentaries

Sirs:

If the future of documentary films has reverted to its prewar prospects [TIME, Jan. 28]; Hollywood, an ordinarily shrewd prognosticator, will be surprised to get the facts tardily. Not only the inception of television film-producing units here, with their immense potentialities for factual and instructional production on film (much of which will become available for those 35,000 nontheatrical projectors which you mention), but the huge backlogs of orders on the books of the manufacturers of 16-millimeter projectors, indicate bigger and happier minnie-movie audiences in the home, church, club group, recreation hall and other 16-millimeter stands, not by any means overlooking the classroom.

. . . The major producers have catalogued nontheatrical requirements and are organizing to meet them. . . .

Look confidently for some beautiful documentaries, privately sponsored, during the next two years. They’ll set pace and pattern for a new and active and interesting branch of the film family.

BROOK HOLT

Cecil B. DeMille Pictures Corp.

Hollywood

Denied

Sirs:

In your issue of Jan. 21 you attribute the following statement to me: “I would rather never have an office than indulge in some of the place-seeking that is going on.”

I wish to inform you that I have never uttered either the words or the substance of this alleged quotation. I should be glad if, with your usual courtesy, you will print this denial in your next issue.

MAURICE EDELMAN, M.P.

London

¶ TIME sympathizes with Laborite Edelman’s embarrassment.—ED.

Negro v. White Pay

Sirs:

. . . You assert [TIME, Jan. 28]: “Boiling at the idea of giving a Negro a white man’s wage, Southern Senators planned a filibuster. . . .” I respectfully point out that what you state as a fact is obviously a mere assumption on your part, since you have no evidence of the fact. You can find nothing in S. 101 that says anything about wages. . . .

W. H. MACKELLAR

Sewanee, Tenn.

¶ TIME respectfully points out S. 101, Sec. 3 (a) (3).—ED.

Crime & Punishment

Sirs:

The Lichfield case [TIME, Dec. 31] is only the beginning. Keep probing, TIME. If the men accused are guilty let us look to the war crimes trial for our precedent. Who is the more guilty: the soldier who tortures his comrades or the soldier who starves his enemies? . . .

(Pvt.) ROBERT SUBLETTE

Camp Lee, Va.

Batum Bounces

Sirs:

TIME, Jan. 28, describes a “staggeringly complex” and “technically audacious” scheme of the Russians, the Greater Volga Project, to raise the level of ancient seas and reverse the flow of rivers.

But not a part of the G.V.P. is TIME Mapmaker Chapin’s technical audacity (same issue, same page) in moving the city of Batum (pop. 70,807) a full 600 miles across Soviet Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan from its customary place on the Black Sea, to the low-level Caspian Sea.

BERNARD S. REDMONT

Washington

> Mapmaker Chapin has always had a hard time distinguishing between Batum and Baku.—ED.

Nelson & the Neckerchief

Sirs:

In your issue of Jan. 14 you state, concerning the dress reform in the U.S. Navy, that the black neckerchief is worn to mourn the death of Nelson.

In his book, The Origins of Some Naval Terms and Customs, Lieut. Commander R. G. Lowry, R.N., writes as follows: A neckerchief usually of black silk was worn around the neck, and was sometimes used so as to protect the coat from the pigtail, but its real use was as a sweat rag worn around the neck or forehead; it was generally black in colour because this showed the dirt least. The black silk was in general use some years before Nelson’s death; it may have been worn as mourning for him following the precedent of the ship’s company of the Berwick who, in 1794, went into mourning for their Captain by cutting the silk in half and wearing half round their hat and the other half on their arm.”

CHRISTOPHER ELLIS

Ex-Lieutenant Commander R.C.N.V.R.

Westmount, Quebec