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.

Target Practice

Fayette County Farm

Bureau Association

TIME Fayette, Iowa

New York, N.Y. May 3, 1925

Gentlemen:

I was hoping that at last I had found an Eastern magazine that would print .facts un biased in any way by editorial opinion, but I reckon that is asking too much from any one living in New York City.

Do you guys know there is a state of Iowa or don't you give a damn*? Personally, I believe that the country would be better off if we took your city, Chicago, Detroit and all the rest of 'em out in the Pacific Ocean and used them for target practice for that fleet that is burning up the "jack" by the thousands and hundreds of thousands each day.

Pretty rabid talk, isn't it ? You would see red, too, if you had seen all your savings melt away because you owned an equity in an Iowa farm when financiers saw fit to de press and deflate. The hell of it is that thousands of farmers in this state and others saw the same thing, and who got the money? Tell us who got the money.

No Iowa farm pays interest on the investment. The farmer himself and the whole family work at least 14 hours per day for less than one semiskilled laborer gets for eight hours, and he throws in the interest on his investment for nothing.

Anybody who says this country is now again approaching prosperity is a damphool and the truth is not in him.

And at that, I live in the best corner of the best township in the best county in the best state in the best country in the world.

RAY ANDERSON.

Secretary.

Crack for Crack

TIME Pittsburgh, Pa.

New York, N.Y. May 6, 1925

Gentlemen:

TIME to me was the greatest investment I ever made in my life. I enjoyed every line in each number I read for over two years, but when you are poor enough sport to take a dirty crack at my business, Outdoor Advertising, then I am through and every chance I get to return the dirty crack I am going to take it. Our business has 72 branches in the U.S.

G.G. O'BRIEN JR.

Exeter, 1913.

General Outdoor Advertising.

TIME, in an article (Mary 9, BUSINESS), told of the withdrawal of several firms from billboard advertising -- a withdrawal attributed 1) to a campaign for preservation of natural scenery and 2) to the alleged fact that billboard advertising was becoming unprofitable. -- ED.

Wordreich

TIME Woodhaven, N.Y.

New York, N.Y. May 7, 1925

Gentlemen:

In your issue of May 4, Page 8, third column, about Germany you say: "Hindenburg is the figurehead of the German Reich (the last word, still retained, means Empire). . . ."

This is not quite correct. In the German language, Reich means Realm, State. Only by attaching another word, it gets a specialized meaning.

For example: Kaiserreich--Empire.

Koenigreich--Kingdom.

Frankreich-Land of the Franks (Francs).

Oesterrcich -- Land to the East (Austria).

Deutsches Reich--Land of the Germans.

Tierreich--Animal Kingdom.

Himmelreich -- Celestial Region.

MORRIS SCHAYE.

Philologically, Mr. Schaye is correct, but the common translation given to the word Reich is Empire, and its current meaning is Empire to most Germans.--ED.

*Subscriber Anderson mistakes the etymology and hence the spelling of the expression: "don't give a dam." The dam, small Indian coin, was put into this expression by British Army officers, who made the phrase current when they returned home from India. In etymology, it is similar to the expression: "don't give a continental."--ED.