Hoover's Mott Sirs:

I would set your column "National Affairs" of Jan. 14, right.

Column three, page nine, you state: ". . . Among other contestants were: Mrs. Hoover, Ambassador Fletcher, John R. Mott, of Montclair, N. J., Commander Augustin Beauregard and Captain C. R. Train of the Utah."

Mr. John G. Mott, of Los Angeles, California, a personal friend of President-elect Hoover's was one of the contestants. . . .

The name of John G. Mott on board the Utah, on our cruise with the President-elect, was almost a byword. . . .

JOHN J. CASSIDY

U. S. S. Utah Off Panama Roads, R. P.

Neville's Overcoat Sirs:

In commenting on Major General Neville's appointment as Commandant of the Marine Corps (TIME, Feb. 18, p. 12) you said:

"On his way into Germany, replacement doughboys stole his greenish Marine overcoat, stars and all, mistaking it for a German officer's. He later found it draped comfortably around an Army mule." ... I was General Neville's aide at the time and place and saw the overcoat before and after taking.

It was in September, 1918, during the St. Mihiel offensive that the historic error occurred. American troops half an hour before had occupied Thiaucourt; the cellars not yet mopped up for German stragglers. General Neville had hastily established headquarters in a basement where he was busy issuing orders for the disposition of troops. His orderly hung the General's field overcoat in front of the house to dry. Along came mule and caisson with two doughboys perched aloft. German booty was in their minds and in their itching fingers, and the forest-green overcoat looked to them like field-gray. They proceeded to hack the embroidered sleeves off the overcoat with trench knives; scalps for their sweethearts at home. A good story would be made out of an encounter with at least a Prussian Oberst! The job was just completed when they were struck dumb with terror by the appearance in the doorway of a herculean figure dressed in the same enemy color, voice and frown suggesting Ludendorff. The thieves fled in opposite directions leaving the mule to stop the Germans.

But the anger was only simulated; no one enjoyed the joke better than General Neville. That night he twitted doughboy General Ely on the front-line valor of his troops.

We all applaud the "horrors of war" story; it is, the fashion nowadays. But those who soldiered under General Neville have a secret conviction that it was worth the "horrors" to watch him in action. Every inch a man,--and quite a few inches.

WILLIAM A. EDDY Captain, USMC Ret. Department of English Dartmouth College, Hanover, X. H.

To Professor-Captain Eddy all thanks for an eye-witness correction. TIME'S correspondent got the story from Major-General John Archer Lejeune, retiring Commandant of Marines.--ED.

Penrose's Measure

Sirs:

TIME, Feb. 18, p. 9, col i, footnote--"great Boies Penrose.''

Ey what scale of measurement?

J. C. SLOANE Pasadena, Calif.

By the yardstick of political power. A Harvard graduate of good family, the late Boies Penrose (1860-1921) climbed the Republican ladder of Pennsylvania to serve 24 years in the U. S. Senate, where Death found him chairman of the potent Finance Committee. Long a Republican National Committeeman, from his sick bed in Philadelphia he helped dictate the Harding nomination in 1920 over the long-distance telephone to Chicago. He wrote a scholarly history of Philadelphia's city government. The Penrose sandwich (graham bread, tongue, lettuce, tomato) is still a classic item in the Senate restaurant.--ED.

Mrs. Moses

Sirs:

Does not lively Mrs. Moses (TIME, Feb. 18), by assuming the presidency of the Senate Ladies Luncheon Club, belong to all of us and are we not entitled to know if she is "Mrs. Senator Moses" or just Mrs. Moses, wife of the Senator from New Hampshire?

JESSIE SMITH LEACH Adel, Iowa

The Senate Ladies Luncheon Club is not an official part of the Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Mrs. Florence Abby Gordon Moses "belongs" to the people of her native New Hampshire.--ED.

Vernacular

Sirs:

May I correct the usage of a word in your review of Sassoon's remarkable book, "Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man" which you entitled "Huntsman"?

Your reviewer also says, "Author Sassoon is not only an able fox-huntsman. . . ." There is no such word as "fox-huntsman." Webster might consider that anyone who hunts is a huntsman, but if our contributors on equine matters used the word loosely in The Alain Liner, we should receive letters of friendly ridicule, if not scorn.

Countless generations of fox hunting folk have established a crystalized vernacular. "A huntsman" is a hunt servant who "hunts hounds"; "whippers-in" are servants who keep hounds in place; "the M. F. H." (Master of Fox Hounds) is social head of the hunt, and disciplinary leader of "the field"; other riders are "fox hunters" or "riders-to-hounds"; "hunter," used singly, refers to a jumping horse used for following hounds. . . .

FRANCIS M. STIFLER Editor "The Main Liner" Ardmore, Pa. Grand Junction, Co].

Sirs:

For the past many years there has been much talk of changing the name of our city. It seems that the Postoffice Department gave our first settlers a choice of two names; Ute and Grand Junction, there being no alternative. Grand Junction was naturally selected as the better of the two.

The discussion has finally reached a point where a determined effort is being made by many of our leading citizens for definite action. Since the announcement, letters by the hundreds have been submitted, opposing, favoring, many suggesting new names.

The city acquired its name from its location at the junction of the Grand and Gunnison Rivers. The Grand has since been changed to the Colorado. Years ago, when the name Grand Junction was mentioned, particularly in the east, our people thus sojourning, were looked upon as having come from a railroad junction with perhaps a water tank as its leading asset. Also, in the early days, much difficulty was experienced by our jobbers in establishing relations with eastern manufacturers; the impression being that a railroad junction could not possibly be a jobbing center. . . .

It was my hope that through the medium of your publication, discussion might be forthcoming as to the advisability of a change. That former residents, having scattered to the four corners as is customary with the American people, might become acquainted with the project and thus have opportunity to submit their views.

W. M. WOOD Secretary Chamber of Commerce, Grand Junction, Col. The present population of Grand Junction, Col., is 13,864.--ED.

Mussolini Capped Sirs:

From the point of vantage I occupy--looking at your country from a country where the sale of liquor is permitted and where there are no lynchings--what I see sometimes makes me sad.

The particular incident which has distressed me to the point of writing this letter is the sentencing of Mrs. Etta Mae Miller to life imprisonment in Michigan for a fourth offense against the liquor law.

It does no good to say with George Borrow's servant, "Quel pays barbare" (correct me if my French is wrong--it is rusty) for we in the British Empire have still much barbarism to cope with. But it does seem barbaric. . . .

You have had one or more contests for solutions of the liquor problem and it is still unsolved. It is unsolved here for that matter--the sale of liquor does not stop the debauchery that the attempted prevention of the sale seeks to thwart.

A solution which has not been offered in any prize competition occurs to me.

The premise upon which this suggestion is based is: a criminal (inclusive of every type, murder, robbery, debauchery, bootlegging) is a sick person. He is sick physically, mentally or spiritually. Lots of people who are not criminals are also sick but as they do not become social menaces they are outside of this essay.

If this were assumed, the procedure would be to send them all to hospitals. This would be impossible. So all jails, prisons or penitentiaries should be turned into hospitals with emphasis placed on medical or psychological treatment, with more doctors than guards on the job--and no fewer guards than at present. . . .

As well, the psychological effect would be great. Imagine a budding Chicago gunman, suspected but not convicted of enough to justify electrotherapy, being disgraced by sentence to hospital. No bravado about that--nothing for youngsters to enjoy--no vainglory in the eyes of the gang and its janes--just a deadly insult to the pride of any self-respecting and ambitious thug.

This would cap Mussolini's immortal joke--castor oil for counterrevolutionaries.

J. N. BROWN City Editor The Vancouver Sun ("The People's Paper") Vancouver, Canada

La Belle

Sirs:

In TIME'S issue of Feb. 18, page 55, under ART, discussing the painting sometimes referred to as La Belle Ferroniere this expression was translated as "The Blacksmith's Daughter."

The writer of this excellent column will observe by turning to a French dictionary that ferroniere may mean 1) an ironmonger female, or 2) a frontlet (defined in Webster's dictionary as ''a fillet or band worn on the forehead").

May it not be that since the subject of the portrait wears a frontlet, the term ferroniere relates to this frontlet rather than to the supposition that the lady's father was a hardware dealer --or even a blacksmith? EDWARD G. CURTIS

New York City

"La Belle Ferroniere" probably means "Blacksmith's Wife." Named actually from a picture which hung near it in the Louvre at one time, it is the portrait of one of King Louis XII's mistresses--Lucrezia Cribelli.--ED.

At Napoleon's Feet

Sirs:

Can you make room for more discussion of help for the farming population of this country?

I think that the legislators are approaching the "HELP" from a wrong standpoint.

Napoleon had a better foresight of "rural help" by making TAXATION easy on the farmers. I have lived in France for six years since the War, not to speak of four years' service for the French during the War, and so, not having lived in the cities, have a good idea of the help that the rural population actually drives from Napoleon's WISE LEGISLATION.

I owned a small property in the South of France, and I was surprised at the low Taxation of the "NAPOLEONIC CADASTRE" still existing . . . all helping to make the rural life practical and safe, and easy, and this is the reason that the country sides of France are so well filled with a CONTENTED RACE.

I have bought a place here, and a renter, whom I inherited with the place, had to sell his wheat for $1.25, and the moment that wheat got into the four walls of the grain merchant, it was worth, and could not be bought for less, than TWO DOLLARS. . . . How is the farmer to fight that sort of combination? And how can the farming community live under these conditions? This is but one small instance of the handicap of the SOIL over here. . . .

The very fact of handling farm produce raises the price 30% to 40% to the consumer. If the farmers are pushed too far, it will be the city dwellers who will suffer, because the farmers will not raise food at a loss, and why the devil should they? The farmers can always live well, but unwise taxation can ruin the farmers by making them bankrupt, and so less food will find its way into the cities, when the bulk of the population will hunger.

Let our legislators learn of Napoleon, while it is not too late. . . . Urge the lawmakers to study at Napoleon's feet.

E. PETRIE HOYLE Chester Springs, Pa.