Narkotin, Oxygen

Sirs:

Dr. Ottar Rygh must have had a good time playing with his porpoises while he fed them with irradiated narkotin [to demonstrate the storage possibilities of Vitamin C]. They make charming pets. However, as Ellis Parker Butler once informed his readers "Pigs is Pigs.'' Your abstractor is guilty of too literal translation from the German (or Norwegian) and has derived porpoises from Meerschweinchen, probably by way of sea pigs. This error is not unheard of, but should make the little guinea pig smile.

Since you published my photograph (June 22) with the unkind legend "Give the nitwit oxygen'' I have been waiting for a chance at a comeback. Have a little oxygen yourself.

WALTER FREEMAN

Washington, D. C.

The legend, not unkind, was merely a paraphrase of able Dr. Walter Freeman's recommendation of oxygen to clear the wits of dementia praecox patients. In the present circumstances, TIME'S Medicine Editor will take the dose.

Dr. Freeman is a grandson of Dr. William Williams Keen, famed Philadelphia surgeon and wit. who fortnight ago celebrated his 95th birthday.-ED.

Sirs:

Just how can a porpoise suffer from scurvy, or did a translator, looking up "Meerschweinchen" (guinea pig) stop at "Meerschweinchen" (porpoise) and let it go at that? The error is so ancient (if this surmise is correct) that I am surprised TIME should have been caught.

DAVENPORT HOOKER

University of Pittsburgh The School of Medicine Pittsburgh. Pa.

Frank Jr.'s Death

Sirs:

I think the item should have been included in TIME that the boy who as a small child inspired the writing of "Mighty Lak a Rose," now a man of 38. was killed Sunday, Jan. 17 in an automobile crash near Macon, Ga.

Frank L. Stanton Jr. of Atlanta. Ga. was the "little fellow" spoken of in the song written by his father Frank L. Stanton. for many years a contributing editor to the Atlanta Constitution. Frank junior, an executive in a furniture concern, was driving to Jacksonville, Fla. with his wife and 5-year-old daughter. Dorothy. The car struck a bridge abutment and burst into flames. Mrs. Stanton was killed instantly, her husband died a few hours later. The child was uninjured.

HAROLD A. MCKELLAR

Lynchburg, Va.

For news TIMEworthy though tragic, thanks.--ED.

Homicide Causes

Sirs:

Not to criticize, but to ask for information. TIME, Jan. 11, p. 32, "33 Murders a Day."

I notice that, of the 30 "most murderous cities" 26 are in the Southern half of the U. S., 20 in the Southeast. The highest twelve are Southern cities. No large Eastern, Midwestern, Pacific Coast cities are in the first 30.

Does Professor Barnhart give any explanation of the high "involuntary suicide" rate in the South? Are racial difficulty, ''southern chivalry" or climate causes? Does TIME have an explanation? . . .

WERLEY E. WOODWARD

Denver, Col.

In the South the homicide rate among Negroes is higher than among whites. This may be explained by the facts that i) uneducated Negroes believe they cannot obtain justice in courts equally with whites; 2) the custom of carrying concealed weapons is more common among Negroes. Other factors contributing to Southern homicides: illiteracy, heat, loose firearms laws.--ED.

Sirs:

Being a native Memphian, though not a resident now, it is a privilege and pleasure to defend that good city's name.

TIME publishes the report of a Birmingham-Southern professor, which places Memphis at the head of the list of U. S. cities for greatest number of murders per 100,000 population. . . .

All familiar with the geography of the South know that Memphis is located in the southwest corner of Tennessee, with Mississippi's boundary line a few miles south, and Arkansas just across the broad Mississippi River. It is the largest city and "capital" of the triStates. Naturally when serious shooting, stabbing, beating are administered in neighboring parts, first thought is of Memphis. The city is more than glad to offer its well-equipped hospitals, skillful surgeons to dying men, but when time is a more potent factor than medical science, it is unfair to discredit Memphis with the murder. . .

. . . Memphis is the fastest-growing Southern city, with qualities too numerous to men Con. . . . FRANK M. REEVES

Hollywood. Calif. Maine's Hale

We, the undersigned subscribers to TIME, would appreciate your giving us the life history of Senator Frederick Hale of Maine.

Sirs:

DWIGHT H. SAYWARD KENNETH T. BURR M. A. DAVIS HAROLD J. EVERETT. M. D. G. W. MCCLUNG

Portland, Maine

The record of Senator Frederick ("Freddie") Hale of Maine is as follows:

Born: In Detroit. Mich. Oct. 7, 1874.

Career: His father was Eugene Hale, longtime (1881-1911) Senator from Maine, and smart G. O. Politician. His mother was Mary, daughter of Michigan's great Zachariah Chandler who helped form the Republican Party in 1854. served as U. S. Senator (1857-75) and was

Grant's Secretary of the Interior (1875-77). Chandler's dour effigy now stands in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The Hales inherited a large slice of the Chandler fortune, made in dry goods in Detroit. Scion of two such potent and distinguished families, young "Freddie" Hale was carefully schooled (Lawrenceville, Groton. Harvard) and steered into the Law as a stepping stone to politics. His father's name and fame helped him to get elected to the Maine House of Representatives for one term (1904). In 1916 he was elected to the U. S. Senate where, by dint of carefully distributed patronage, he has served continuously ever since.

In Congress: Ultra-conservative in his economic views, he is unflinchingly regular in his Republican votes. Seniority of service has advanced him to the chairmanship of the Naval Affairs Committee. Sincerely believing in the largest fighting fleet possible, he is the legislative spokesman of the Navy's General Board. When President Hoover called for an investigation of Big-Navy lobbying by William B. Shearer, he went all in a fidget to his old friend and Harvard classmate, the late Undersecretary of State, Joseph Potter Cotton, who advised him: "Freddie, you've been here 13 years and haven't done a thing. Maine hasn't had a statesman since James G. Elaine. Couldn't you try to be a statesman?" So halting and lame was his management of the 1928 bill authorizing the

Navy to build 15 cruisers that he was referred to in debate as "a mighty light cruiser" by Missouri's caustic Senator Reed who added that "a rowboat appeared to be in charge of the fleet." When the London Treaty limiting auxiliary naval craft arrived in the Senate, he mischievously used his committee, which had nothing to do with the treaty, to bring out the Navy's dissent with the Hoover policy. He later voted against the treaty's ratification as a bad bargain for U. S. defense.

He voted for: War (1917), the 18th Amendment (1917), the Volstead Act (1919), the tariff (1922, 1930), tax reduction (1924, 1929), the Transportation Act (1920), the Soldiers' Bonus (1924), Reapportionment (1929), Restrictive Immigration (1924).

He voted against: the Federal Farm Board (1929), Boulder Dam (1928).

This year he is promoting, without much prospect of success, legislation to push the fleet quickly up to full treaty strength (estimated cost: $775,000,000).

In appearance he is small, lean and wiry. His thin face is tanned a reddish brown. His stubbly brown hair he wears cut short and upright. His clothes are expensively conservative. On the floor he usually sits erect and silent, hands folded attentively in his lap. On the rare occasions when he does speak, he asks in advance not to be interrupted and then begins to read: "The Navy is the first line of defense. . . .'' No orator, his voice lacks resonance and pitch. When drawn into rough-&-tumble debate on the Navy, he becomes fussed and nervous.

Outside Congress: A rich bachelor, he lives in his ancestral home, a big brownstone house on fashionable 16th Street. He drives himself to & from the Capitol in a Ford, keeps a big limousine and chauffeur for social purposes. The Senate's most inveterate sportsman, he bowls and boxes daily at a gymnasium, plays golf in the 70's at Burning Tree Club, shoots ducks, goes to Alaska to hunt Kodiak bear, and bring their cubs back to the Washington zoo. Socially he moves in the best Washington circles but prefers admirals to most of his Senate colleagues who privately consider him unnecessarily standoffish.

Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: An aristocrat without the spirit of his more rugged forbears, he has become a single-minded specialist on Naval legislation, shunning the larger fields of political leadership. His term expires March 4, 1935.--ED.

Inspiring Story

Sirs:

If one of your men will read and digest the enclosed, he can make an inspiring story from it which might be of use to many communities finding themselves in trouble of this kind. Such a story might also be useful to persons whose faith in humankind is not well grounded.

ROBERT F. THOMPSON

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, Canandaigua, N. Y.

The story:

When Ontario County Trust Co. of Canandaigua, N. Y. closed last autumn it owed depositors $4,000,000, had only some $500,000 cash on hand. Depositors were then asked to contribute 25% of their deposits toward the bank's reorganization. Out of more than 3,800 only eight refused. Stockholders & directors were likewise assessed. Result: the bank reopened with $2,237,835 in cash and its assets 85% liquid. Contributing depositors will be repaid in full out of the bank's future dividends which will be paid into the Lincoln-Alliance Bank & Trust Co. of Rochester as trustee.--ED.

War Scheme

Sirs:

There has recently coma to our school library a quite remarkable pamphlet, issued by the World Peace Movement, 108 Park Row, New York City, purporting to be a memorial addressed by Premier Tanaka of Japan to the Emperor on July 25, 1927. The so-called memorial outlines a very comprehensive scheme for Japanese seizure of Manchuria and Mongolia, the later conquest of China, and wars with Russia and the U. S. . . . I should like to ask if there is any reason to suppose the alleged memorial to be genuine and authentic.

LYNN H. HARRIS

President

Howard Seminary, West Bridgewater, Mass.

The alleged Tanaka memorial is a well-known forgery.--ED.

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