Letters, Dec. 17, 1934

Long Time Ago

Sirs:

I was greatly interested in the leading paragraph in the Press Department of TIME [Dec. 3] because I was born in Geneseo, N. Y., my father was editor of the Livingston Republican for many years, and so was I for a year or so, and it was in the Republican my first writings got into print.

That was a long time ago, but it saddens me to think that the opposition paper got this beat, and this great publicity, instead of the paper where I began.

SAMUEL G. BLYTHE

Washington, D. C.

Man of the Year ( Cont’d)

Sirs: . . . Harry Hopkins, U. S. Relief Administrator, by all means. For 19 months, he has had the most difficult, thankless, and yet the most important job in the U. S.—barring no one—that of feeding about 20 million U. S. men, women, children—and he’s done a damn swell job of it. …

Ross D. ROGERS

Amarillo, Tex.

Sirs:

I nominate William Randolph Hearst as the 1934 “Man of the Year.” for the express reason that he has done more for the public in a literary way through his newspapers and magazines than any man in the world has ever done or ever will do. . . .

NONNIE HARBEN CRAWFORD

Louisville, Ky.

Sirs: . . . My choice falls on Robert Marion La Follette who has the courage and good sense to follow the middle road, the happy medium, the only honest and intelligent goal on the U. S. political horizon. . . .

A. SCHNEEBERGER

Turtle Creek, Pa.

Sirs:

To prevent any miscarriage of justice in awarding the “Hand Painted” to the “Superman of 1934″—don’t fail to first confer with one Dizzy (but not dizzard) Dean!

JAMES B. EMERSON

Omaha, Neb.

Sirs:

I give you, gentlemen, as “Man of the Year,” Gertrude Stein.

THOMAS LENNON

Los Angeles, Calif.

Sirs:

The “Man of the Year” is undoubtedly Father Charles E. Coughlin, Royal Oak, Mich. . . .

PAUL R. HEIM

Springfield, Ohio

TIME, having decided on a “Man of the Year,” hereby closes nominations. The five leaders in the reader-poll: Benito Mussolini, Harry L. Hopkins, Huey Long, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair.— ED.

Farley’s Figures

Sirs:

Under Letters in your issue of Dec. 3. one Maurice S. Sheehy, Ph. D., Director, Survey Council, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., nominates for “Man of the Year” our eminent Postmaster General, the Honorable James A. Farley.

One of the reasons given, “the first Postmaster General since Burleson to balance the budget and with a $12,000,000 surplus at that.”

Mr. Sheehy certainly never earned his Ph. D. by such an utter lack of investigation into the facts of the case as he has displayed in this instance. . . .

WILLIAM C. WILLIAMSON

Philadelphia, Pa.

Sirs:

I declare, I suspect you of desiring “to stir up the monkeys. . . .”

PATRICK STEPHENS

Prospect Harbor, Me.

Sirs:

. . . Does Maurice S. Sheehy wish to insult us? Or does he think we are fools? SHAME SHAME. . . .

FLORENCE PAYNE

Inlet, N. Y.

Black Widow Serum

Sirs:

I wish to correct a very serious error in your article in this week’s TIME [Dec. 3] concerning antiserum against black widow spider venom. The serum has not been used on any human cases, nor would I sanction its use as so far developed. It is highly potent in the rat, 1/10cubic centimeter (about two drops) will completely protect rats against eight average lethal doses when given immediately, and 1 cubic centimeter given three and one-half hours later will give prompt recovery against the same dose.

I feel confident that antivenin suitable for the treatment of human cases will be developed and will prove equally as effective. This, however, has not yet been proved.

FRED E. D’AMOUR

Denver, Colo.

TIME congratulates Professor D’Amour on the progress he has made with his antiserum for black widow venom, hopes his future experiments on human beings will be as effective as he expects.—ED.

Juvenile Pedant

Sirs:

… In reviewing Peck’s Bad Boy, current cinema, TIME correctly describes Cousin Horace (Jackie Searl) as “a juvenile sneak & pedant” (TIME, Oct. 15). Cousin Horace, arriving at the Peck household, is carrying a magazine. At several moments a familiar cover is plainly visible. TIME! A symbol of pedantry, no doubt.

LAWRENCE D. CLARK

Ithaca, N. Y.

Music to the Ear

Sirs:

. . . ”The March of TIME” . . . tonight was a special delight due to a voice such as one seldom, if ever, hears over the air. I refer to the gentleman who delivered Winston Churchill’s speech and later announced the engagement & wedding of the Duke of Kent and Princess Marina. I trust it will please you to let us hear more & more from one whose diction & voice are music to the ear.

FRED STANLEY

San Diego. Calif.

Reader Stanley’s ears deceived him. Two able “March of TIME” actors, not one, earned his comment.—ED.

Crazy Woodcock

Sirs:

In your account (TIME, Nov. 26) of the award to Dr. Urey of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry you mention “a woodcock captured on a windowsill of the chemistry building” (of Columbia University). Are you sure it was a woodcock? That bird has some amazing traits, but the craziest among them would not, I believe, have been seen (much less captured) in such a foreign locality, even though the sill were old and wormy. . . .

F. NASH DE ROSSIT

Brookline, Mass.

Not crazy, but tired and stunned, was the woodcock which flew against a window of the Columbia chemical laboratory. It was rescued by Professor Arthur Warren Hixson, who identified it, took it home, let it tamp for worms in his garden until it had recovered strength to fly on. Professor Hixson has seen many another migratory bird at Columbia (hawk, merganser, sandpiper), believes they are attracted by the green of the campus, get lost among the buildings.—ED.

First Woman

Sirs:

As a subscriber, for the past five years to your most worthy and accurate periodical, I am taking the liberty of requesting you to correct a misstatement on p. 11 of the Nov. 26 issue, wherein you state Mabel Walker Willebrandt was the first woman to be appointed to a sub-Cabinetposition. The fact is, Annette Abbott Adams was appointed Assistant Attorney General on June 26, 1920, resigning on Aug. 15, 1921. I am asking you to make this correction in fairness not only to Annette Abbott Adams but to Woodrow Wilson who, rather than Warren Harding, was the first President to appoint a woman to a sub-Cabinet position.

EUGENE J. KERRIGAN

San Francisco, Calif.

Reader Kerrigan is correct. Annette Abbott Adams also has the distinction of being the first woman U. S. District Attorney, served in the Northern California District (July 25, 1918-June 26, 1920). —ED.

Immortal Sons

Sirs:

“In the U. S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, one of Florida’s two immortal sons is Dr. John Gorrie . . .” [TIME, Dec. 3]—wrong again. He is her only son there. Surprised recently at the sight of a gentleman roped to a plank being dragged head first down the Capitol steps, I found him to be the bronze edition of Florida’s other son, General E. Kirby Smith, C. S. A., who now stands with several other sons in the Hall of Columns one floor below. Under a Congressional resolution,mainly because the great weight of almost 100 statues was considered unsafe, the Hall of Statuary now contains only one immortal son from each State. Many factors influenced the choice of which to move—size and weight of statue, suitability to new locations, etc. Many curious protests were made; but the change is nearly complete, the Hall looks far better, and each immortal son is still to be found close by, somewhere within the Capitol, visible to all who care to see.

HAROLD B. WHITMORE

Washington, D. C.

Of the 67 Immortal Sons in Statuary Hall, 30 have been removed since October because, as Reader Whitmore states, their total weight made the floor unsafe. There is no Congressional resolution limiting the number of statues in Statuary Hall, but Congress did authorize the relocation of statues. Many a famous pair was separated: Illinois’ Frances Willard stays without James Shields; Indiana’s Lew Wallace without Oliver P. Morton; Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis without James Z. George; New York’s Robert Livingston without George Clinton; Wisconsin’s Robert M. La Follette without Jacques Marquette. Particularly delicate was the problem in the case of Rhode Island and Virginia. Eventually Nathanael Greene and George Washington were moved out of Statuary Hall; Roger Williams and Robert E. Lee remained behind. California has not made up its mind which son to keep there. Still unrepresented are Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Montana, Washington, North and South Dakota, New Mexico, Louisiana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska.—ED.

Honest Lincoln

Sirs: . . .

In TIME, Dec. 10 you tell a very interesting story of the attempt to loot the Abraham Lincoln Life Insurance Co., of Springfield, Ill. You mention the name of the company once but do not name the city of its location; viz., Springfield, Ill. You refer to it later as “Lincoln Life” and several times as “Lincoln.” The Lincoln National Life Insurance Co., of Fort Wayne, Ind., which I organized and of which I have always been the head, has been in business 29 years, and now is 18th in the entire U. S. for volume of insurance in force. . . . Strong and well managed, it is a company which came through the terrible depression with “colors living.” … I am quite certain most of your readers had never heard of the Abraham Lincoln Life, a company practically unknown in comparison to the Lincoln National Life, as we transact business in 32 States and the Abraham Lincoln Life transacts business in but seven States. Due to the very careless way in which the story has been written it is but natural to suppose that many of your readers will think that ours is the company involved in this scandal. It is just too bad that you did not follow your usual plan of placing an asterisk after the name of the company you were writing about calling attention to a footnote, “not to be confused with, etc.” . . .

ARTHUR F. HALL

President

The Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. Fort Wayne, Ind.

TIME gladly prints President Hall’s letter, trusts no reader confused sound Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. with troubled Abraham Lincoln Life.—ED.

“Greaser” Protest

Sirs: … [I wish] to support the implied protest of Mr. Gutierrez concerning the use of the term “greaser” in your magazine [TIME, Nov. 12], The majority of Spanish American people in New Mexico are farmers and herders, and therefore are in general poor. By applying the term “greaser” to them you apply it to a large minority, if not to a majority of the population of the State. To these people the term is obnoxious as is “nigger” to a Negro, and with equal reason, since it is an expression of ignorant racial contempt on the part of the self-styled superior Anglo-Americans. . . . The term “greaser” is very seldom used out here. . . . Spanish American people of the Southwest . . . are as friendly and pleasant a people as one could ask for and being mostly very lean, they are far less greasy in appearance than some of the so-called Nordics. . . .

OLIVER LAFARGE

Santa Fe, N. Mex.

Simple Arithmetic

Sirs:

The interest you have shown in regard to the Townsend Plan for old-age pensions [TIME, Oct. 15] leads me to suppose you might possibly be interested by another organization newly formed, The Universal Association for the Aggrandisement of Individuals between 20 and 30.

This plan, to be known as the Florida Help Your Self First Revolving Multilateral Plan, will have the Federal Government pay to every man or woman between 20 and 30 who has never told a lie the sum of $10,000 a month. All the money must be spent, of course; during the month for which it is granted.

The money will go to young people because the sponsors and originators of the plan are mostly between 20 and 30. Also, young people are able to spend money more rapidly than old people.

We expect to gain support from people who will not receive the pension by telling them that it will bring back prosperity and a full dinner pail. Whether it will or will not is problematical, but the only way to find out is to try it. Certainly, if $200 a month to octogenarians will bring back prosperity, $10,000 a month to more people will bring it back 50 times as fast. That is simple arithmetic.

We are not sure whether the plan will be adopted or not, so, in order that the promoters will not suffer financial deprivation while fighting tooth & nailfor this unselfish plan, the association will publish a newspaper devoted to associational news and will also accept with pleasure all contributions offered by disinterested parties.

MAX BUCK

Apopka, Fla.

No Toe Prints

Sirs: . . .

My copy of TIME would have revealed a multitude of finger prints, no toe prints, to delight TIME’S smart circulation sleuths (TIME, Oct. 22, pp. 36—37). . . . (Carried into a crowded, companionable Moscow tram, bright TIME starts more discussions than a tourist in kilts). Zipping through to Moscow with letter speed (record: 11 days), TIME tempts local scribes to translate its pungent Americana days before exchange editors digest slow-moving newspapers. . . . ROBERT S. CARR

Moscow