Letters, Apr. 17, 1933

Principal Victim

Sirs:

Your article on illicit traffic in narcotics in the Near East, appearing in TIME of April 3 (p. 14), would give one the impression that the Government of Bulgaria is winking at a big illicit production of opium.

When Kernel Pasha drove the illicit manufacturers out of Turkey some of them began secret operations in Bulgaria. At first the Bulgarian police, inexperienced in such things, were none too quick in detecting and suppressing the traffic. Recently, however, the Bulgarian authorities have proved themselves alert and effective in suppressing the traffic, as is indicated by the bulletin issued by the U. S. Department of State, issued Feb. 23, 1933 which says in part: “The prompt action of the Bulgarian authorities in this matter, evidence as it is of their desire to cooperate in the international effort to suppress the abuse of narcotic drugs, is particularly pleasing to the United States, for as is well known, this country is one of the principal victims of the illicit traffic.”

In justice to the Government of Bulgaria I should be grateful if you will be so good as to publish this letter.

NEAL Dow BECKER

Consul General New York City

President’s Cigaret

Sirs:

This is not a matter of national importance but for the past three months the family has been arguing as to what brand of cigaret our President smokes. Could you give us the information? . . .

MARK KLAUSLER

Hankinson, N. Dak.

President Roosevelt smokes Camels.—ED.

Pope & Peter

Sirs:

Many thanks to you for your remarkably fine cover picture for April 3 issue of TIME. It is one of the most amazingly true, fine and real likenesses of Pope Pius XI which has ever been made. I am having this framed for my desk because this picture of the Holy Father expresses that essentially military aspect of the Catholic Church characteristic of the Church Militant. It seems to best express the basic idea underlying Catholic Action.

Your write-up of the Holy Year is unusually good and readable. There is only one error, if I understand the thing correctly. You refer to St. Peter as the “founder of the Church.” Not correct. Christ founded the Catholic Church; He built it on Peter; Peter was the rock on which the Church was established. Your error is not a rare one. . . .

FRANCIS GRILL St. Paul, Minn.

Sirs:

Long a maker of news in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome, last week Simon Bar-Jena (might have) made news in New York:

Into busy TIME office last week stamped baldpated, hooknosed, bewhiskered Ghost Peter. No wearer of rings, there hung from his gird loins the Fisherman’s Keys. Crashing through to the

Editor’s office he smashed his Douay down upon the desk and produced from a fold of his garment—TIME, April 3.

Whisking it open to p. 19 he poked his pudgy finger to a spot that reads: “In a crypt beneath St. Peter’s is the reported tomb of the very founder of the Church.” No writer of gospels himself, Peter thumbed his way to St. Matthew 16:18, where he read: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

No mincer of words, though without his once reported “cursing & swearing,” Peter stormed and threatened—threatened to close the Pearly Gates to the perpetrator of TIME’S misstatement. Ghost, Pontifex Maximus; follower, disciple, and first-commander under Founder Jesus Christ, but no founder of Church, Peter.

BROTHER PETER, F. S. C.

West Philadelphia Catholic High School for

Boys Philadelphia, Pa.

Reads the Roman Catholic catechism: Question No. 500. Why are Catholics called ‘Roman’?

“Answer. Catholics are called Roman to show that they are in union with the true Church founded by Christ and governed by the Apostles under the direction of St. Peter, by divine appointment the Chief of the Apostles, who founded the Church of Rome and was its first bishop.”—ED.

Rabbis’ Program

Sirs:

You mention in your issue of April 3 that the Catholic Church is the only one which has what may be called an economic philosophy among religious groups. I am enclosing a copy of the Social Justice Program of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. I would also like to call your attention to the social program of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, representing the Protestants. These programs are not of recent origin, but are the result of many years of statements.

EDWARD L. ISRAEL

Chairman

Central Conference of American Rabbis Baltimore, Md.

The Central Conference of American Rabbis has come out for: broader distribution of wealth; the principle of labor unionism; “the right to a living wage”; old-age pensions and health insurance for laborers; a five-day work week.—ED.

Credit: Aristophanes Sirs:

On p. 2 of your issue of April 3, one of your correspondents tells a story about a lovely long word invented by a scientist to represent “the complete sound caused by the sudden entry from above of a large stone into a deep pool.” As a matter of fact the word pompholygopaplilasma (for that is the correct transliteration) was invented by the comic poet Aristophanes, and may be found at 1. 249 of his play The Frogs. It is made up of pompholyx which means a bubble, and paphlisma which means a frothing or foaming up. Hence the Aristophanic compound represents the sound made by bubbles rising. Onomatopoetic compounds of this type are common in the comic writers. Inasmuch as The Frogs was produced in 405 B.C., the word antedates by some centuries the imaginary piece of research described by your correspondent.

HARRISON C. COFFIN

Union College Schenectady, N. Y.

Sterne & Dodge

Sirs:

My attention has just been called to a review of my exhibition which was held at the Museum of Modern Art of New York which appeared in the columns of your magazine of Feb. 27.

It was evidently written by one who is ignorant of matters connected with art or my private life.

It would be futile to enumerate the misstatements of facts in the review in question, but I must point out one error which, since it involves another person, should be corrected.

I did not divorce Mabel Dodge. Mabel Dodge divorced me.

MAURICE STERNE

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Big Leaves

Sirs:

The leaves of Mr. Kottmiller’s Cocoloba tree receive somewhat more mention than they really deserve (TIME, April 3). Certainly they are large when compared with most plants of temperate regions, but Cocoloba does not have the “world’s biggest plant leaves” even though they may be “24 in. long.”

Larger leaves are grown by Victoria cruziana, tropical water-lily with flower buds the size of a head of lettuce, up to 4 ft. in diameter not counting upturned edge. Taking due precautions a light (100 Ib.) person may sit upon them.

The banana, whose stalks hang upsidedown in the grocers, has leaves with blade 6 ft. to 8 ft. tall, 12 in. to 15 in. wide, petiole (stalk) up to 6 ft. long. (Stalk in cocoloba not over i in.)

The Elephant’s Ear (Caladium), commonly planted in the summer to decorate lawns, has leaves 2 1/2 ft. to 4 ft. long, may be 2 ft. wide.

Coconut Palm leaves grow 12 ft. to 18 ft. long.

Wclwitschia mirabilis, a curious turnip-like southwest African gymnosperm, has two strap-shaped leaves, i ft. wide or more, 10 ft. long before they begin to fray at the ends.

JOHN ADAM MOORE

Botany Department Cornell University Ithaca, N. Y.

Mad Robins

Sirs:

It may interest you to know that two summers ago in Auburn, N. Y., I watched a robin attack a windowpane for over a period of two months. His efforts so exhausted him that he would lie on the ground for hours without moving and his beak was bloody from continually striking it against the pane. We tried pulling the shade clown and soaping the window to no effect; a mirror placed against the pane, so that he got a good full view of himself, excited him neither more nor less. Unlike the Kansas City robin (TIME, March 27) he had no mate in evidence. On the roof just over the window was a half-finished nest with a pile of unused material beside it. We had a theory that in the spring when the house was building, the mate had been caught and died inside, and that the cock robin was obsessed with the thought of getting inside to look for her, but when we opened the window he shifted his attack to the upper panes. We were forced to the unhappy conclusion that the robin was cuckoo. . . .

MARGUERITE HUGHES

New York City

It is not uncommon for birds to do this, and they will weaken and eventually kill themselves by it. We have had a cedar waxwing and a California towhee beat against our windows in this way, and in each case stopped it promptly by placing a piece of cardboard over the part of the pane where the bird saw its image Otherwise the bird will keep the struggle up until it drops. My brother-in-law tells me he sometimes finds blood on the sill at his country home in Los Gatos where towhees have beaten themselves insensible during his absence. It is cruelty to animals to permit this to go on, and the Humane Society of Kansas City should see that it is ended.

MIRIAM ALLEN DE FORD

San Francisco, Calif.

Last week the Kansas City cock robin was still pecking at his reflection, had been at it a month.—ED.

Non-Convert

Sirs:

Please correct the statement that was published in your magazine (Jan. 23) concerning my connection with the Buchman Group. I am enclosing the correction that was published in the New York Sun.

WARREN B. STRATON

New York City

Rev. Warren Badenock Straton, son of the late Fundamentalist John Roach Straton, attended the Briarcliffe house-party, “gave a short testimony, never joined the Group.”—ED.

Handsome Adolph

Sirs:

In your April 3 issue p. 4, the protests by Tessa H. Fluhr and comments by Lillian and Walter Mendes concerning handsome Adolf bring to my mind the fact that the German expression “der scho’ne Adolph” was one formerly used for the second oldest profession (pimp). Present-day usage seems to have mollified this harsh meaning but it is still used oftener in a derisive sense than otherwise.

LEONARD L. HOHL

Berkeley, Calif. French Tracks Squirted

Sirs:

Under “Business & Finance” in your issue of Feb. 20, you state “In France the problem is to keep the trains on the track as well as to keep them from wrecking the French budget.”

Last year, two important French railways the Etat and the Nord, took the initiative of introducing from America to Europe, via their own networks, a Sperry Detector Car, a squat self-perambulating device, on which live comfortably its crew of American engineers.

It chugs along the railway tracks at a speed of seven miles an hour, automatically squirting a splash of paint on all invisible defects in the rails that it passes over.

In these times of ultranationalism, apart from the question of the heavy expense involved, you must credit the much maligned French with a certain amount of initiative and international-mindedness (infrequently met with in Europe) in their efforts “to keep the trains on the track.”

H. H. MUNRO

Paris