Letters
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.
Sonnet
Sirs:
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO TIME Some have traveled in the realms of gold, Even "gum-chewers' sheetlets" have we seen; From newspapers we've tried the news to glean Amid the chaff that makes the paper sold; Until at length TIME'S pages we behold. Succinct, inclusive, accurate and clean. Artist -you clarify the passing scene In crispy English, vigorous and bold! Poet -your magic fire illuminates Th' event with connotations of old time! Serene, you parry while some fool berates. Shaking accusing finger at your crime - Printing one item that he deprecates -Swearing he will no more subscribe to TIME!
MR. AND MRS. HAROLD CHAPMAN BAILEY* Hartford, Conn.
No Florist
Sirs:
In TIME, March 8, p. 26, under the heading "Phrase," you state that Florist J. S. O'Keefe of Boston was the man responsible for the line: "Say it with Flowers." It happens that the gentleman is not a florist but the president of an advertising agency; that his initials are not J. S., but P. F. Patrick F. O'Keefe, president of the P. F. O'Keefe Advertising Agency, Inc., is the man. Am I right?
W. C. Bawden Boston, Mass.
Mr. Bawden is right. -ED.
At Ford's Theatre
Sirs:
In TIME, March 8, p. 39, you say that Robert Todd Lincoln was in the Ford Theatre box the evening his father was shot. Is that so? Please ask Mr. Lincoln himself. I was informed by a friend that Mr. Lincoln told him that he was in the White House the night of the tragedy; that his father had asked him to go, but he had refused,, being weary and wanting to go to bed; that he first knew of the affair when some one drove hastily up to the White House and informed him; that then he went immediately to his dying father; further, that, had he gone, the murder might possibly have been averted, since he, youngest of the party and entering the box last, naturally would have had a seat next the door and might have interfered when Booth rudely intruded. If you are in error, please correct in the interest of accurate history.
O. D. BRANDENBURG
Madison, Wis.
Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln states that Robert spent the evening at the White House gossiping with Major Hay. The party at Ford's included Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris and Major John R. Rathbone, daughter and stepson of Senator Ira Harris of New York. -ED.
Quiz
Sirs:
... I think your Quiz is a good stunt. I tried it and I am going to compliment myself, for I did much better than 20% ; I missed only one, and the Tiger Flowers question spoofed me.
The Robert Todd Lincoln mansion in Manchester, Vt., is only 18 miles from Bennington, and I have had the pleasure of having a number of interesting chats with this gentleman. Very nice character and interesting.
JAS. A. LEWIS
Bennington, Vt.
Sirs:
The new section, Quiz, in my opinion easily doubles the value of TIME as a magazine of information. Many of us humans are too prone when reading to drift at random through a congeries of facts without relating them to matter already assimilated. Hence we forget what we read. The anticipation of a question upon what is read evokes just enough effort to effect such a relation or coordination, and the fact sticks -we have learned it.
SPENCER W. PRENTISS
Cambridge, Mass.
Sirs:
Last night I had my wife read the Quiz questions, and I missed answering seven or eight of them.
I think my interest in this comes from an observation made some time ago. In hiring stenographers, I have found that the careless reader is invariably the careless speller. One of the tests I have used in hiring stenographers has been to have them read perhaps out of the editorials of the day's newspaper. I find careless reading connotes sloppy expression, indifferent spelling, indirect mental activities.
Your quiz promotes more careful reading. I am inclined to think most of us are sheer time wasters in our reading habit.
I am for it.
J. B. WINSTANLEY
Denver, Col.
Lazy
Sirs:
... I think the Quiz game can be improved by printing the page and column of the article in which the answer can be found. It's an awful lot of trouble looking them up at present. . . .
JOSEPH KASTNER
New York, N. Y.
Do hardy, mentally alert subscribers want this crutch? Does Subscriber Kastner shoot squirrels with a shotgun? Does he, hale and hearty, insist on eating only predigested foods? Does he wear water-wings when swimming? Does he use a bushel basket for a baseball glove? -ED.
Leverhulme's Books
Sirs:
As one of many who collect the works of the 19th Century English caricaturists, may I protest at the one of your articles in TIME, March 8, p. 19 regarding the Leverhulme books ?
.... May I call to your attention that the library sold was merely Lord Leverhulme's art reference library ?
You state that the purchasers of the books were, like the late Lord Leverhulme, merely on the lookout for pictures with which to nourish their childish minds and that they cared little for literature, basing your assertion on the sale of a Thackeray first edition for $6. Has it occurred to you that the Thackeray might be worth only $6 ? And certainly you can have no objection to printing correctly the names of Messrs. Thomas Rowlandson and Henry Alken, two of the greatest caricaturists of all times ?
I presume that you consider that the advertisements on pp. 2, 37 and 41 appeal to a higher class of intelligence than George Cruikshank and John Leech.
RICHARD S. WORMSER
New York, N. Y.
The French Tennis Players
Sirs: I am absolutely disgusted with your March 1 issue. Have just finished SPORTS and dread going on. Have not read your paper in the past six week -and wonder whether previous to those six weeks I formed a bad habit and having gotten away from it (TIME) for a while. I now ap preciate its cheapness, mostly on this article. You are on a par with the Graphic** (I read it once and honestly believe it a vile paper).
"The Brandy drinking Frenchwoman"-"the dissipated Frenchmen" vs. "the clean living American." You are brazen. Suzanne has a sharp tongue and personally I do not like her ways. However her whole career was at stake in meeting Helen -small wonder that the temperamental Frenchwoman required a stimulant for her nerves. I am convinced that the French stars could not have reached their heights had they dissipated nor be more at home at a cafe table. If so, our examples of fine American manhood are not so clever, for the French beat them with a great handicap. Don't be a poor loser -give credit where credit is due (and between you and me what do you honestly think of our "clean" living Americans? Youth is the same the world over).
Keep your eyes open and observe! Stop such insinuations-they are not worthy of space in TIME. I really believe you owe those French tennis stars an apology. How about it?
MARIE V. GUNSON
New York. N. Y.
P. S. You know I have recommended TIME to so many of my friends, sent my old copies to those I thought were looking for such a paper. Now, I am not so proud of being one of your readers -and it shall be quite a while (taking for granted that such articles will cease) before I recommend it again.
Sirs:
Your tennis reports on the French-American matches in New York and Cannes, in your issue of March 1, are not worthy of your publication. They smack distinctly of the very "yellow-journalism" of which you accuse Hearst and the "gum-chewers' sheetlets." Some of your readers may appreciate your efforts at irony in these reports, but American as well as French tennis players will resent your discourteous and wholly unfair reference to our French guests and competitors.
I was not present at the Lenglen-Wills match at Cannes, but was close to the players in all of the New York matches referred to and know whereof I speak. I am reliably informed that Miss Wills was never within a point of winning the second set, nor did I see any of the American papers claiming that she "had been cheated out of the match by the stupidity of an Englishman." Cyril Tolley was close to the line, in the best position to judge the ball in the disputed incident which occurred in the eighth game with the score 4-3. . . .
Your slur at Mlle. Lenglen as a "brandy-drinking Frenchwoman" with a "purple face peering like a ribald Nero" is vulgarly offensive***, just as your libelous reference to Lacoste as a dissipated Frenchman" whose "face showed all too clearly his partiality for the vices that infect his country." We have known the French players for years and there is nothing to justify these insults. They are the cleanest of sportsmen and clearly outplayed our best experts in the recent matches at the Seventh Regiment Armory. . . .
You have given three solid columns to verbosely tell in the most offensive manner what might have been well told in one. Instead of "Sport" it should have been headed "Slander". Can you defend it?
J. PARMLY PARET
New York. N. Y.
TIME has the highest respect for the tennis players Lacoste, Borotra and Brugnon and also for Mile. Lenglen. TIME'S sport writer, desiring to avoid the commonplace, endeavored to portray the Lenglen-Wills and the Tilden-Lacoste, Richards-Borotra and Hunter-Brugnon matches as seen through the eyes of a slow-witted Franco-maniac. The writer's subtlety proved to be too fine for Subscribers Paret and Gunson and doubtless for many another honest reader. To the writer a thoroughgoing reprimand; and to the able French people an apology. TIME must avoid not only evil but also the appearance of evil. -ED.
* As all will recognize, the author's model for this sonnet is "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," by Poet John Keats. In 1815 when Chapman's "Homer" was first published, Keats and Charles Cowden Clarke spent all night reading and discussing it. In the morning when Clarke came down to breakfast he found the sonnet -"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" at his place at table. -ED.
**Sex daily published by Bernarr Macfadden in Manhattan. Its enemies term it the Pornographic. -ED.
***These phrases and the ones that follow are of course offensive when taken out of their context. -ED.