Chaps, Hat, Cattle

Sirs:

It is difficult to express to you how intrigued we are to be dubbed "Mountaineers" in an article concerning the newly formed Montana Symphony Orchestra published in TIME, Feb. 28.

Doubtless you are that New Yorker who asked how far west of Buffalo one began to see the Indians. . . .

After reading your article, one gets a big picture of musician Joseph Adam, trembling, but courageous, facing an audience of long-bearded, rawboned (your own word), two-gunned, tobacco-spittin' individuals, booted and spurred and clad in chaps and ten-gallon hats, smelling unpleasantly of cattle. They have the noose ready and the tree all picked out in case Director Adam fails to please.

Adam, dauntless, surprises them ; they swallow their tobacco, are taught to like it, although still in stupendous puzzlement. Pardon me if I say you're all wet.

In Miles City Professor Adam and his orchestra were greeted not merely with politeness, but with pleasure. People here were in sympathy with the movement. The auditorium of the high school (by the way, did you know that our school buildings are listed among the best in the country?) was comfortably filled. Professor Adam's talk, explaining the organization and finances of the orchestra, was loudly applauded. Pledges to purchase tickets for the next concerts were circulated. Signing was brisk. ...

Professor Adam could hardly feel encouraged or complimented by your article, nor do we double up in excruciating joy to learn that we are musically a lummox.

DULANY TERRETT

Miles City, Mont.

Let Subscriber Terrett reread the article which has galled him. TIME did not mention spitting, noosing, chaps, hats, cattle. TIME noted Professor Adam's orchestra as something by which 1926-27 will be remembered musically. -- ED. Stigma

Sirs:

From the account of the play Stigma, (TIME, Feb. 28, p. 37) : "The maid begets a child." Was this a miracle play?

R. A. JOHNSON

Jackson Heights, N. Y.

No. Neither is an occasionally illiterate theatre-reviewer unusual -- ED. Last Christian

Sirs: Last week the anniversary of the death of "the greatest Jew of modern times"-- was recognized by many admiring people throughout the world (TiME, Mar. 7). Your tribute to the memory of this great, good man was to publish an article under the head EDUCATION, in which you pictured an attic recluse spending his leisure hours in demoniac glee watching spiders fight. The article reminds us of President Coolidge's Washington's Birthday address in which our worthy President took little cognizance of the truly great things that our First President embodied, and centred his attention on the incidental fact that Washington was a good businessman. Ask the writers of the article to clean the spiderwebs from their minds by reading a little about Benedict Spinoza, or, if they have not the leisure (or the intelligence) and if they have any faith in the judgment of the great contemporary philosophy slogan-maker, refer them to this sentence in The Story of Philosophy: "Nietzsche says somewhere that the last Christian died upon the cross. He had forgotten Spinoza."

VERNON VENABLB

Cincinnati, Ohio

No Quaker

Sirs: As a member of the Society of Friend-- may I make a small protest against calling anyone a "Quaker Devildog," or one who fought in 22 wars and is off to another fight "a sturdy Quaker" "We utterly deny all outward wars for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever," a testimony issued in 1660 has been followed consistently by an unbroken succession of such declarations through all wars since. It does not jibe somehow with your statement. Once I heard someone introduce Smedley Butler's father, the Congressman, as a Quaker, and he hastily denied it, saying, "No, no, no, I'm no Quaker I" In view of his recent action he was quite right. To be born in a Quaker county like Chester County, Pa., does not make one a Quaker any more than a mouse born in a stable is for that reason a horse. ... Smedley Butler might have been, may even become a sturdy Quaker. He is not one now. HELEN E. RHOADS

West Chester, Pa.

Ignorant China-Man

Sirs:

In this article on General Butler, TIME, March 7, p. 20, you speak of the War Department sending him to Shanghai and later on of the War Department's allowing him to withdraw his resignation. I thought you knew that the Marines were in the Navy Department and subject to the Secretary of the Navy.

H. C. FORCE

Seattle, Wash.

Sirs:

TIME, March 7, states, relative to General Butler, "The War Department ... allowed him to withdraw his resignation," (p. 20, col. 3, lines 6 to 10).

Obviously this is an error. The Marine Corps is under the Secretary of the Navy.

R. W. WILSON

Washington, D. C.

To TIME'S China-Man a thoroughgoing reprimand for his ignorance of U. S. bureaucracy.--ED.

Crusty, Wealthy

Sirs:

... I think I am an "original" subscriber. I hope so because I greatly admire the publication you are putting out.

Four years ago, for the first time, I met Colonel Guy Goff, now United States Senator from West Virginia, It was on a train, and we spent some time together. The talk turned to reading, and from my bag I produced a copy of TIME, then little known. On leaving the train I left the copy with Colonel Goff and commended it to his interest. Meeting him again a. year ago, for the first time since our introduction, he immediately recalled me, "because, he said, I had brought to his attention a publication which had consistently retained his interest and admiration. Senator Goff is cultured, crusty, wealthy. I thought it was a high compliment for TIME that he liked it, and I have had it in mind to tell you of the incidents.

H. A. STANSBURY

West Virginia University, Morgantown, W. Va.

Davises

Sirs:

In reference to your article in TIME, Feb. 28, "There is a John T. Davis, 9. potent lawyer of Elkins, W. Va., and Washington, D. C. . . ."

You are mistaken. My father may be potent in other lines but certainly not in the law. . . .

My father, John T. Davis, is president of the Davis Colliery Co. and Chairman of the Board of the Davis Trust Co., both of Elkins, W. Va. My grandfather, the late Henry Gassaway Davis, ran with Parker on the 1904 Presidential ticket. Before that he was Democratic Senator from! West Virginia. His life, by Pepper, would be instructive reading for Subscriber

Zweiger* who has apparently forgotten the late Senator Stephen B. Elkins, Secretary of War under Harrison and after that Republican Senator for 18 years, when he accuses West Virginia of being unproductive of great men.

HALLIE-ELKINS DAVIS PERCY

Washington, D. C.

100 H. P.

Sirs: Some time ago TIME stated in a footnote that the New Safety Stutz car was reputed to have the most powerful stock car motor (92 H. P.) in the United States. Some time afterward Mr. W. M. Baldwin wrote you taking exception to the statement, since, as he stated, the Fierce-Arrow Dual Valve Six will develop "more than 100 H. P."

This note to you is not to start a contention as to the horse power of various motors, but to give the information that the New Safety Stutz motor in actual test also develops more than 100 H. P.--92 H. P. was the conservative figure mentioned in advertising when the car was announced more than one year ago. Your footnote would have been entirely correct had it stated that the Stutz motor is the most powerful stock car motor "per cubic inch of piston displacement" in the United States. Its displacement is 298.64.

STUTZ MOTOR CAR Co. OF AMERICA, INC.

by P. V. FITZGIBBON

Indianapolis, Ind. Fatal

Sirs:

. . . Judging from some of the communications you receive and publish, it would seem that if some folks ever catch cold in their sense of humor (or lack of it), O Boy, won't the undertakers be kept busy!

JAS. A. LARCOMBB

Perth Amboy, N. J.

Queer

Sirs:

Some time ago you had a Slogan contest. Now, I am going to give your magazine a boost in the following words: TIME is queer, But it has no peer.

As far as I know it is original. Will you kindly verify my statement?

I find your footnotes an interesting feature. They contain choice bits of news.

HENRY CATONK

Glens Falls, N. Y.

Epitaph

Sirs: You state in TIME, March 7, that John A. Brashear, former distinguished astronomer of Pittsburgh was unknown to you./- We who knew him feel that you missed much. When his wife preceded him in death he wrote this timely epitaph: "Too often we've studied the stars together, to have any fear of the night." I've wondered whether anything was so poetically and appropriately written of him. when he went away from his beloved Pittsburgh--"into the night." MRS. JAMES A. HUSTON

Granville, Ohio

Absolute

Sirs:

I am renewing my subscription for two more years to TIME. I was one of the original subscribers and have taken it since.

Recently I noticed the disposition to give the Wets all the best publicity magnifying their falsehoods and laying great stress upon what their leading propagandists say. Slight attention is given to the other side.

If this continues, I shall feel called upon to withdraw my subscription for patriotic reasons. I hope, however, it will not be repeated. All we want is absolute fairness on this issue. . . .

J. W. JONES

Columbus, Ohio

If TIME has been a tool for propagandists, it has been indeed stupid.--ED.

Erratum

Sirs:

May I ask you to correct an error which occurred in your Feb. 7 issue? The item reads: "Mrs. Coolidge received the graduating class of Public School No. 47 of New York City. They were deaf. She talked to them in sign-language which she had learned when she taught in a school for deaf-mutes at Northampton, Mass."

This is absolutely wrong. Not a sign was used by our children, nor did Mrs. Coolidge use a sign. Our school is a purely oral school. Every child is taught to speak and to watch the mouths of speakers and so read the lips. . . .

Because these pupils can talk we never use the word "mute." They are deaf, but not mute.

CARRIE W. KEARNS

Principal--P. S. 47 School for the Deaf New York, N. Y. Scandinavian "Smith"

Sirs:

I have recently been buying and admiring TIME and on reading the March 7 issue, I was amazed to see that you had made the stupid error of treating the name of Berg as a Jewish name.

The name Berg is of Germanic and not of Jewish origin, and although there are some Jews named Berg, many of these have acquired the name by dropping the prefix Blum, Green and Rosen, but even with these included, they form only a small minority compared to the Christian Bergs.

Berg is a very common name in the Scandinavian countries, where there are few Jews, and is in fact the "Smith" of Norway and Sweden.

In this city in Church circles we have the Rev. Irving Berg, Pastor of the Fort Washington (Congregational) ; the Rev J. Frederic Berg, Pastor of the Flatbush Dutch Reform Church; and for almost half a century, Albert Wilhelm Berg (now deceased) was the organist of the famous Little Church Around the Corner (Episcopal).

DONALD F. BERGH

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Eternal

Sirs:

Upon returning from a rather lengthy sojourn abroad in the South Seas, I find one of the brightest little papers it has been my pleasure to read, and I hasten to congratulate you and your colleagues upon the production of TIME. . . .

Someone, in the long ago, said "Time is Eternal." I sincerely hope your publication will at least outlive my span of life.

PERCY A. McCoRD

Business Manager The Argonaut,

San Francisco, Calif.

Rag

Reading in TIME, March 7, under EDUCATION the account of that Oxford "Rag" which was the most successful and which resulted in the rather unassailable installation of a common porcelain toilet article upon the topmost pinnacle of a memorial spire, I was immediately struck with the thought that this article in porcelain would be most brittle, and a righteous and easy target for the authorities as well as a tempting one for anybody else, and therefore most certainly not out of reach as your narrative would have it.

Seeking further information from an Oxonian, a friend, my concern for the permanency of the accomplishment was quickly put at rest, since, as he explained, the contingency had already been anticipated by the undergraduate steeplejack and the article provided was one of tin.

I submit this as a correction of your facts and an embellishment of your story.

MELVIN H. NICHOLLS, M. D.

Melrose, Mass.

* Spinoza as rated by Renan.

*An error. Newsstand-buyer Zweiger is no subscriber.

/- An error. It was John Brashares who was unknown to TIME.--ED.