Letters, Mar. 27, 1939

Big Shots?

Sirs:

In regard to the “Fair Refugees” letter of E. P. Waterman (TIME, March 13), I should like to know if he and his friends are natives of New York City. If so, they can’t be afraid of the out-of-town friends who may call them up for they have probably never been farther from home than Philadelphia.

Perhaps they come from Iowa or Arkansas and are afraid their old acquaintances will look them up and discover they aren’t the big shots they have claimed to be. … I would suggest that E. P. Waterman & friends not only campaign for the San Francisco Exposition but go themselves. The trip across the U.S. would open their eyes to the grandeur of this country and they would be amazed at the friendly spirit existing in the West.

MARY ANN EDELEN Syracuse, N. Y.

Umpires Up

Sirs:

I notice in TIME, March 6 in the Miscellany column, that mention is given to the recent announcement that all semi-pro baseball umpires henceforth will wear striped uniforms to distinguish them from players’ suits. . . .

It is the contention of Ray Dumont, president of the National Semi-Pro Baseball Congress, that arbiters should demand and get respect from the fans. The best way to do this, Dumont contends, is to eliminate any duties that “lower” them in the eyes of fans.

Dumont says the action of stooping over to dust off the plate, which is nothing but a bit of janitorial work, should be eliminated forever. He’s taking steps to do just that in the U. S. semi-pro finals here next August. He is arranging to have a tube run out to home plate at the stadium here containing compressed air. A man in the press box will push a button and the air will dust off the plate automatically!

Don’t you agree that an umpire belittles himself by dusting off a plate? The semi-pro umpires will never have to lower themselves again. . . .

JACK TODD Assistant Manager K.A.N.S. Broadcasting Co. Wichita, Kans.

Teachers Indicted

Sirs:

In the Feb. 27 issue, p. 60, under “No. i Problem,” TIME left itself wide open for a K. O. and here it is.

TIME does not make clear whether it is expressing editorial opinion or quoting Harvard’s eminent Conant when it says, “teaching attracts a less able group than any other profession,” teachers know too little about their subject matter, too little about children, too little about social conditions, and teachers “don’t like children.” TIME views as “alarming” the state of ignorance of America’s million teachers, condescendingly admits that teaching “is an honorable profession” (as though anyone doubted it) and goes on to say that the 100,000 youngsters who begin preparation for teaching each year are “earnest if not top-notch.”

Pure Hokum! . . . How can one (even an editor) “generalize” about America’s million teachers? The range from top to bottom in the teaching profession runs the entire gamut of human ability from genius to moron (as it does in all professions). . . .

J. HARRY ADAMS Principal Central High School, Bay City, Mich.

>TIME’S summary of the shortcomings of U. S. schoolteachers as a group represented the conclusions of many a fact-finding survey. Let Reader Adams and like-minded skeptics consult the Carnegie Foundation’s Pennsylvania survey

(which showed that college students planning to teach knew less than their classmates), the recent Regents’ Inquiry in New York, studies by the American Council on Education, the U. S. Office of Education’s National Survey of the Education of Teachers.

—Ed.

Sirs:

Your “No. 1 Problem” in Education, excerpts of which I read to a class of experienced teachers and administrators at New York University, brought several degrees of responses—fidgetiness, skepticism, amazement, outright indignation.

But you have hit the nail on the head with the indictments which are traced back to the teacher-training institutions.

A. R. COHEN Englewood, N. J.

Tough San Francisco

Sirs:

May I say, in answer to your question on p. 9 of TIME, March 13, that the neighborhood of lower Ellis Street and vicinity, in San Francisco, is far from being the toughest in the city.

Generally speaking, that neighborhood is trashy. But one truthfully cannot say anything worse. Here are fifth-rate hotels; femmes de nuit; burlesque queens on their way to and from The Capitol; cheap, garish little cocktail bars. But for a tough neighborhood, one must go to the “skid row”—Third and Howard Streets and vicinity—or to that part of The Embarcadero (waterfront) between Market and Howard Streets. . . .

EDWIN H. (“LARRY”) WOOD Sausalito, Calif.

What a Duel!

Sirs:

. . . This matter of a “duel” between two freshmen at Blue Ridge College [TIME, March 6], deserves some sort of a protest from one interested in the sport of fencing. . . .

In the first place, freshmen know little or nothing about fencing; they can lunge, but they can’t parry for a darn. According to your report, it—the duel—consisted of a double lunge, in which both men were hit. Shades of d’Artagnan! What a duel! A bout between two good épée men can gofive or ten minutes of fast action without a touch—these two fools would have done better to pitch pennies or see who could spit farther—they would have looked less foolish. . . .

Fencing is an ancient, honorable, and interesting sport, and silly, adolescent fools who think they are men because they’ve edged into the college classification can cause it a lot of harm. It has nothing to do with “the code duello” that List mentions with what he thought was the air of a cavalier. I’d Hke to catch him in the attitude of one looking for a dropped nickel at a time when I had a good limber blade in my hand. . . .

CHARLES J. COLGAN Notre Dame, Ind.

Doctor Wanted Sirs:

Your article “Refugee Physicians” under Medicine, TIME, Feb. 13. “About 600 German doctors are practicing in the Manhattan area, struggling hopelessly to compete with established American practitioners.” Also you state that “American doctors are usually not attracted to small towns or agricultural communities because they offer only a bare living and meagre hospital facilities.”

Tolley, N. Dak. (population 225) is in need of a doctor and to judge what former doctors have done he can make more than a “bare living” if he is the right man. The last doctor we had came to us from McGill University, Montreal, three years ago and has moved to a better location, the county seat only 17 miles away. He has made good and in his new location has more than he can do and would be glad to see a good doctor locate in Tolley. His income while here was $3,500 to $5,000 a year. This was during the Drouth and low prices for grain. . . .Tolley is in northwestern North Dakota, 20 miles from the Canadian boundary and 54 miles northwest of Minot (population 16,000) in a wheat and flax growing community. The nearest hospital is at Kenmare 16 miles west. This hospital is owned by the Methodist Church.

There are several good hospitals in Minot.

There are a great many things about this country and Tolley that a doctor from the city or thickly populated country would not like. One thing is long winters that can be, but are not always, very cold and windy. In Tolley we have electric power and lights but no plumbing. Therefore no modern houses. Of course most of the business of a doctor here comes from the country surrounding. We have four churches in Tolley and several in the country.

If there is a doctor among the 600 who has the courage to locate here we would like to be placed in communication with him and will be glad to give him any further information he may want.

W. J. FAFF Tolley Grain Growers Association Tolley, N. Dak.

> Mr. Paff’s letter has been forwarded to the Central Committee for the Resettlement of Foreign Physicians, No. 165 West 46th Street, New York City. To practice in Tolley or any other community in North Dakota, however, a foreign doctor must have served one year’s interneship in a U. S. hospital.

Since U. S. hospitals are reluctant to take as internes trained physicians or men over 35, many an able foreign doctor cannot meet State medical board requirements.—ED.

Movie Criticisms (Cont’d) Sirs:

In TIME, March 6 a reader comments that your “movie”criticisms are rank. I agree with him.

I haven’t missed an issue of TIME for years, and in line of duty (as a theatre manager) I see about five new feature pictures weekly the year around. I enjoy practically every department in your magazine except Cinema — which invariably strikes me as being dull, flatulent, jejune, and occasionally downright stupid. . . .

WILLIAM W. JOHNSON Millinocket, Me.

Sirs:

. . . Let Sydney Apfelbaum take heed that movies will be improved only by constant applauding of good pictures, constant deriding of poor ones. Toward that end TIME’S critic is moving in a 90% straight line.

H. WILSON Minneapolis, Minn.

Sirs:

If any one of your editorial sections is deserving of praise, doubtless it should be the Cinema department. I always enjoy reading in TIME what I think about motion pictures. Soon or late, the public will weary of paying admission prices to prove its Hollywood-predicted moronity. . . Keep TIME hammering the celluvoids. Movies, it seems to me, could be our best entertainment.

GEORGE KERLER Frankfort, Ky.

Sirs:

TIME’s movie criticisms are indeed rank. . . . We can’t even count on your being consistently wrong.

B. F. SKINNER Department of Psychology University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minn.

Sirs:

No matter how “rank” your movie reviews may be, they rank one step ahead of the movies they rank.

LLOYD E. H. VOGLER Syracuse, N. Y.

>To TIME’s readers, thanks for these and other candid criticisms. All are hereby remanded to TIME’s Cinema Editor for serious study.—ED.

Boyo

Sirs:

You have the right of it when you call our taoiseach [Eamon de Valera] “teacherish” [TIME, Oct. 31]. Tis a true word surely. But where are your wits at all that you have been looking at pictures of him these 20 years and more and never saw that “turkey-necked” would be a truer one? And without codding doesn’t the face of him look like a turkey too ?

And there are those who think that if he goes on with his Coercion Acts and his persecution of real Republicans that this same turkey-faced boyo will end the same way that all good turkeys do.

MARY MULLIGAN Bade Athá Cliath [Dublin, Ireland]

> Is that the thing to be saying, and this the week after St. Patrick’s Day?—ED.

Smink

Sirs:

Re: “Mergers,” under Education (TIME, March 13) : we can, and should, combine two choice words and get:

SMINK as in: “It sminks to high heaven.”

SYDNEY A. ALLEN Philadelphia, Pa.

> TIME thinks “smink” is a rude word

—ED.

Nice Name

Sirs:

Recalling your issue of March 13, under “Capitol Prayers,” on p. 40, you hinted that Shera was a funny name, which I resent, for while Shera is not an ordinary name, it is unusal, and different. My greatgrandfather was named James Shera and I have a freind named Mrs. Montgomery, and I think they are both nice names. I am 11 yrs. old I am in junior high school, and I like to read TIME because I like it very much.

SHERA ANNE HARDY Houston, Tex.

> TIME is happy to introduce Shera Anne Hardy to the Reverend James Shera Montgomery. Although neither of them knew it, her great-grandfather, James Wills Shera, was godfather to House Chaplain Montgomery. Great-grandfather Shera was a parishioner of Father Montgomery in Frankfort County, Ind. in the 1860s.

—ED.

Hats Off Sirs:

Hats off to TIME for its splendid article on Poland and her Foreign Minister Colonel Josef Beck [TIME, March 6]. It is certainly the best I have read in any recent publication. . . .

JULIA KOZENEWSKA Portland, Me.

Hearst Sirs:

Your article on Hearst [TIME, March 13], plus Baker’s sketch, make the best feature that TIME has published in many a long day.

It is difficult to say whether the psychological insight of the writer or the dramatic revelation of the artist constitute the greater triumph. In any event each throws a revealing searchlight upon the other. . . .

B. H. KIZER Spokane, Wash.

Sirs:

After ten years’ reading I am losing interest in your magazine. There is too much padding.

As an example, the article in the March 13 issue on William Randolph Hearst. All that detail may be important to those connected with the publishing business, but for persons like myself it is enough to know that: Hearst steps down. . . .

HILDA KEMPTON Glendale, Calif.

Sirs:

TIME should be complimented for its exposé of the maltreatment Mr. William Randolph Hearst has been forced to undergo in the last two years.

… To show we are willing to do our part in the present crisis of unemployment, we offer to Mr. Hearst, through you, a room here at Franklin & Marshall College’s oldest eating club. . . .

FRANKLIN O’TOOLE President The Steeple Club Lancaster, Pa.

Sirs:

… I worked for the Hearst papers for 8 years and never got a squarer deal. … I was a sap for leaving him. He may never have given a leg man a decent wage, but when it came to hiring advertising men, he had the knack of getting some real producers and he paid them well. …. I only wish I were working for him now.

You omitted to mention along with the fact that Hearst dragged his readers through depravity, jingoism, and sex murder, that he was the first to campaign for good roads, woman’s suffrage, that through his mother he established the Parent-Teachers’ Association, and that in the horse-&-buggy days this was yellow journalism. Today, it is accepted progress. . . .

HOWARD M. DODGE Winnetka, Ill.

Picket

Sirs:

In the March 13 issue, on p. 44, TIME said that a man in Stratford-on-Avon died at “83 ; of old age.”

Many thousands of us, your readers, are over 83 and resent the suggestion that we are dead or better dead. . . . Beginning tomorrow, I intend to picket TIME with a board saying “TIME is Unfair to Octogenarians.”

NEWELL MARTIN (I am 84) Huntington, L. I., N. Y.