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.
Newspaper Usage
TlME Cincinnati, Ohio
New York, N. Y. May 20, 1925.
Gentlemen:
Back in the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, we were taught that it is not good newspaper style to make a title of an occupation. Yet in TIME, May 18, Page 16, column 3, I read: "Teacher Scopes," "Evolutionist Scopes." Were Professor Silas Bent, now on the staff of The New York Times Sunday magazine section, and Professor Charles G. Ross, now chief Washington correspondent for The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, wrong when they gave us fledgling journalists such advice?
TIME is rapidly usurping the place of The New York Sun as a newspaper man's newspaper. All the more reason, then, to avoid expressions that grate on a newspaper man's nerves.
LYNDON PHIFER Brevity, accuracy, significance moved TIME to the adoption of such titles as Teacher, Evolutionist, Philosopher, Publisher, Ditchdigger, Bootlegger, Undertaker, Politician, etc., before last names. The teaching of Messrs. Bent and Ross is standard in the newspaper world. TIME, to be concise and to the point, breaks this and other canons of journalism.--ED. Fears Ridicule
TIME New York, N. Y.
New York, N. Y. May 21, 1925.
Gentlemen:
I am a college graduate who has never yet learned to read the newspapers in the proper way so as to get very much that is worth while out of them. I would like to be conversant on current happenings, political and otherwise, and TIME has helped me considerably.
My request is that you add another department to your remarkable weekly in the form of a question and answer column. Students ami others puzzled over some question would write TIME for information on the subject. For instance, we read daily of the Fascist! and Mussolini in Italy, but a great deal of it is utterly incomprehensible to me because I do not know what Fascism means or stands for, how and when it originated, etc. Kindly give me some information regarding this movement in your next issue, if possible, and oblige,
"MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE"
P. S.--I am sending this anonymously because if you are kind enough to answer my request, I intend to send questions in fairly regular. If I gave my own name, my friends might be amazed at such ignorance in a college graduate and might be tempted to ridicule me for the simplicity of some of my questions and I fear ridicule far worse than severe bodily punishment. "MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE" TIME has no room for a Question and Answer Column. TIME has never encouraged question-asking, but has customarily made cheerful and courteous answer by mail. Nor is it necessary that the questioner enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.--ED. Radio Range
U. S. Naval Radio Balboa Station TIME Canal Zone New York, N. Y. May 7, 1925. Gentlemen : TIME, "Beebe." Apr. _20, Evidently Page an 18, error, as column the 2, greatest heading range the Arcturus can work under good conditions is 500 miles. Being the operator on the station working her, I have found that reliable communication cannot be established over 500 miles with her present equipment.
As for the unnamed ships, the S.S Ionic, a British ship, relayed some 400 words of press for her through this station.
Not a kicker, but like to see things right. Thanks to you, and your paper is a dandy.
A. B. BAIRD Subscriber Baird refers to an article in which TIME, following press despatches, referred to an alleged wireless report by the Arcturus "direct to Washington."--ED. Nish
TIME Princeton, N. J.
New York, N. Y. May 21, 1925.
Gentlemen:
In your issue of May 18, Page 4, you have confused Naissus, birthplace of Constantine the Great, with Nicaea in Asia Minor close by the Sea of Marmora, seat of the famous Council. The famous old walls of Nicaea remain, and it is now Isnik, a "wretched little town." But Nish, in Jugo-Slavia, merits neither the fame of the Council nor your appellation. As cities go in the Balkans, it is an important place, junction point on the railway, and neither "wretched" nor "little."
HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS The Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicaea, 325. It was reported that a special anniversary celebration of this event is shortly to be held at Nish, where he was born. That is the only excuse for the "howler" which Subscriber Gibbons has detected. But it is insisted that most denizens of U. S. cities would regard Nish today as both "wretched" and "little," in spite of the fact that it is a junction through which several trains pass daily.--ED. Well-informed
TIME Ashland, Ohio
New York, N. Y. May 19, 1925.
Gentlemen:
In your issue of May 11, you state that the winner of the national elimination balloon race received the right to represent the United States in the James Gordon Bennett Cup race to be held in Brussels, Belgium, this year. This is not true, however, as Belgium won the race for the third time in succession and thus got permanent possession of the cup. Then King Albert of Belgium provided a cup to race for this year. I am eleven years old and enjoy reading TIME.
RAYMOND B. LEITER. Raymond is right. Belgium took the cup in 1922, '23, '24.--Ed. "Original Purchaser"
TIME Knoxville, Tenn. New York, N. Y. May 19, 1925. Gentlemen: Just a little personal note which I have resolved each week since June, 1923--, to write but, because, perhaps having the "Legal mind," I have procrastinated. Not an original subscriber to TIME, in fact no subscriber at all, but was "original purchaser" in this city, having been sold the first issue ever received on the newsstands by D. Beiler and out of gratitude to him for his urgent suggestion, I have continued to purchase my TIME through him and he will tell you that 1 have never missed a single issue since Vol. 1, No. 1. He sends my copy to me wherever I may be. So much for that. There are so many excellent things to be said for your paper I shall not attempt to list. You are fair, concise, pointed and complete. Your letter department interests me greatly. Pay no attention to those peewit minds which are inclined to quibble over the minutiae. You have the right idea of what a weekly should be and you have certainly "hit the spot with me." But one admonition, and that for the future only, since I have never seen a trace of the fault in TIME in the past. That is: BEWARE OF OPINIONATED NEWS! Only facts, presented as you present them, are all that is necessary to keep TIME the unimpeachable criterion of all publications.
You men have the vision, the correct idea, the working knowledge of what it's all about. Keep it up.
CHAS. L. MYNATT
P. S.--Why not a book with all those excellent portraits you use on covers, with a cryptic biographical sketch in TIME's style? You have the finest charcoal portraitists in America in Gordon Stevenson and S. J. Woolf. You have already many biographical sketches of notable subjects. Such a book is necessary to every library. Get the idea? Send me, C. O. D., the first one. MYNATT
TIME's directorate has taken Purchaser Mynatt's plan for portrait book under advisement. Should the book be published, Mr. Mynatt will receive gratis a copy--as will also Vendor Beiler.--ED. Teacher
TIME Wilmington, Del. New York, N. Y. May 22, 1925. Gentlemen: A year ago, your paper solicited subscriptions from teachers because TIME would be so useful in Enclosed-- the is the classroom! reason for discontinuing my subscription. If you cater to the cheap class of thinkers, you should not presume to advertise for classroom teachers' approbation. F. W. CROWELL Rainbow-Hued
New York, N. Y. May 16, 1925. Gentlemen: To TIME San R. K. Francisco, Calif. WOOD Color-printing is, as any publisher knows, a tedious process. Were TIME to follow Subscriber Wood's suggestion, the magazine would arrive ten days late. --ED. Babes and Adults
TIME Ann Arbor, Mich.
New York, N. Y. May 14, 1925. Gentlemen:
Tn your issue of May 11, under EDUCATION, you attribute this statement to Dr. Kennedy of Cornell University: "Remember your child is an adult in miniature." If this is an accurate quotation, then I want to take sides against Dr. Kennedy. After an advanced study of the child at the University of Michigan, it seemed that the weight of opinion was that the child is not a miniature adult. The child may be a rudimentary adult but, from the standpoint of the psychologist, the child undergoes a decided change before it becomes an adult. The adult is not an enlargement of the child, but a development from it, in which new traits may appear and old traits disappear. If the child is merely a miniature, you could predetermine what the adult will be in all respects. This is hardly possible.
LEONARD BLAUNER ^
*Vol. 1, No. 1 of TIME was dated Mar. 3, 1923.