MacDonald's Birthplace

Sirs:

... I read that Ramsay MacDonald was born in a Scottish hut. I'm sure TIME's readers who have never been in Scotland will get an entirely wrong conception of this.

You mean I am sure "cottage." There arc no huts in Scotland, sirs, unless in the extremely remote sections of the Western Highlands. . . .

J. LEE CAMPBELL

New Orleans, La.

The MacDonald birthplace was a-but-and-a-ben, a two-room structure with a thatched roof, one door.--ED. Judge Lynch Sirs: I have just read Negro White's "Judge Lynch." What a dirty lot of lies. I have read a number of articles by both white and black, but never has my blood boiled before. I think if anyone ever needed a coat of tar and feathers its the author of "Judge Lynch." Yes, we do lynch the Negro in the South. Some day the North will be sorry they didn't try the same cure for certain things that the Negro knows will cost him his life--the white man is subject to the same law. I would love to meet the author of this article and show him that Southern people are not "crackers," but a Negro is a nigger and always will be one regardless of the Hoovers. No doubt the present President will have more to do with the killing of Negroes in the South, who arc trying to climb the social ladder, than all the crimes that the Negro has committed for years past. ROBERT E. LEE

Greenville, N. C.

PLEASE CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION AND DROP ME FROM YOUR MAILING LIST ISSUE JUNE 24 PAGE 43 STOP SUCH POOR TASTE IN SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR REVIEW UNPARDONABLE DESTROYS WORK AND UNDERSTANDING ACCOMPLISHED TO DATE BETWEEN RACES AND CAN ONLY BE CONDEMNED BY EARNEST LEADERS ON BOTH SIDES. . . .

Atlanta, Ga.

Congratulations are due you for a Time-worthy report headed Judge Lynch, page 43, TIME, June 24 issue.

You print a picture of "Negro White," the author. It might have well been "white Negro" because you say he safely passes for white. . . .

The well-balanced Southerner hopes that lynchings of Negroes will increase rather than decrease, that Cracker fiendishness and cruelty (N.A.A.C.P. terms) will never diminish, that persecution, prosecution of and fury against the Negro will prevail until their numbers are eliminated or substantially reduced, and preferably exterminated.

With a congress of men of the type of Senator W. F. George of Georgia, the Constitution will be amended so as to cure the 65-year old wrong done the Southern people. The way should be opened to State legislation against the Negro. There is no longer excuse for evasion.

Down here we don't care if all the Negroes are lynched, or even burned or slit open with knives. The outrageous, damnable, unbearable spectacle of lawlessness of the Negro is infinitely greater than would be the entire extermination of the cursed race by the white man. The Northern "nigger-lovers" are going to be forced to see our position some day. ELDON O. HALDANE Atlanta, Ga.

Sirs: Impressed by your description of the last lynching at Alamo, Tenn., I beg to suggest the following: Wanted--A Roosevelt . . . Whatever The Place That the wild Beasts race The Roosevelts, too Will play. (In Porto Rico Beasts are tame.) So, why not go To Tennessee Where lynching Is a game? JOSEFINA M. DE ACOSTA San Vincente, P. R. Lansbury's Gaolings

Sirs:

In your Foreign News of last week "Origins Analyzed" of the members of the new Labor Cabinet in England, referring to George Lansbury, First Commissioner of Works you make the bald statement amongst other brief details, "was twice imprisoned."

Knowing something of Mr. Lansbury's life and work, I feel it is due to him and to your reading public to state that the two imprisonments endured by him were the penalty for purely political offenses. It was during the militant struggle for Women's Suffrage in that country that he became involved with the authorities and those two episodes are regarded by enlightened people as very honourable scars today when millions of women are voters as a consequence of the sufferings of such pioneers. . . .

HENRY NEWHOUSE

Detroit, Mich.

Toes of Clement

Sirs:

In TIME, May 27 under the heading Hats and Hatters, comes the information that the discovery of felt hats resulted from the action of a footsore Chinese hunter who having skinned two of the rabbits he had caught put their fur in his shoes and quickly eased his throbs and burnings. Just what particular bearing this had on the discovery of felt hats the article did not state.

However this does not agree with the legend handed down in the hat trade which is to the effect that Saint Clement of blessed memory on one of his many journeys on foot found the flesh between his toes getting sore and chafed. Unlike the Chinese hunter, who, your story says wore shoes, Saint Clement wore sandals which were held in place by a thong with a loop through which the great toe passed. It was this thong rubbing against the sides of the toes that caused the soreness. As the good Saint traveled on footsore and weary he came to clumps of thorny bushes through which sheep had passed and so doing some of their wool was caught and held by the thorns where it was observed by the Saint. As the touch of it was soft and silky he decided to put some of it between his toes to act as a cushion against the soreness. The next morning before resuming his journey he examined the wool and was amazed to find the wool by the action of his toes and aided by the moisture or sweat generated by his walking had resolved itself into a compact solid mass or in other words the tufts of raw wool had become pieces of felt.

Now as the underlying principle of the production of Fur or Wool felt is the application of either hand or mechanical pressure or friction aided by hot water it is easy to see the connection between the Saint's discovery and the art of the production of Fur and Wool felt. . . . In the early days of the felt hat industry there existed a very exclusive organization of skilled journeymen known as the Knights of Saint Clement. FRANCIS J. FAY

Danbury, Conn.

S. A. F. E.

Sirs: I am forced to rise in protest because or a statement in TIME (June 24), Page 46 " . . [Mrs. Willebrandt] was a passenger on the first transcontinental rail-air-rail service. . . . Universal. . . ." Our company, the S. A. F. E. Airlines, began transcontinental air-rail service the same day Universal Air Lines began their cross-U. S. operations. Passengers leaving New York on June 14 by train and Los Angeles by plane, boarded our ships the morning of June 15 at St. Louis and Sweetwater, Tex., respectively, and completed their transcontinental journeys the following day. . . . This ends the protest. The letter will be ended with a compliment regarding the splendid way TIME is handling aviation news generally. . . . WM. VOIGT JR.

Southwest Air Fast Express Tulsa, Okla.

Blind Baggage

Sirs :

I am not a hobo but I have had sufficient contacts with hobos to be surprised at the definition given by you in the footnote page 54, TIME, June 24, for blind baggage. I have always understood the blind baggage to be the narrow forward platform of the foremost baggage or mail car, immediately behind the tender. This is one of the three points at which hobos may attempt a free ride on a passenger or express train, the other two being the roof of a car and the rods.

LLOYD C. GIBSON

Engineer, U. S. Treasury Department Washington, D. C.

Engineer Gibson is correct. TIME's definition was loose.--ED. Tags Sirs:

The letter of Thomas T. Gill in the issue of June 24 and your footnotes appended, concerning license tags on cars, was interesting. He named three States (your footnote adding another) designating their tags as front and rear, and likewise the three States had laws banning the teaching of the theory of evolution in state-aided schools. I wish to add that Kentucky also has the front tag designated as front and the rear designated as, "Kentucky for Progress." The last motto is a standing joke among Kentuckians and many motorists have been fined for mutilating their tags to obliterate this sentiment. Likewise, the evolution law almost passed a few years ago. However, the motto is a criterion of an ignorance-ridden state. It is the 47th state in illiteracy--only one state being lower in the scales. ...* WARREN WHEELER

Midway, Ky.

Sirs:

. . The idea was to prevent dishonest motorists from using one set of tags for two cars. Previously a motorist would explain he had lost one tag. . . .

HARVEY M. CAMPBELL Dallas, Tex.

Tinkham's Amendment

Sirs: Your comment on Congress with reference to passage through the House of Representatives of the census-apportionment bill (June 17) contained the statement: "The Tinkham amendment was probably as illegal as the Hoch." I am astonished to find such a palpable misstatement in your impartial and usually well-informed and ably edited columns. Whatever else my amendment might be and whatever else might be said about it--and plenty has been said--surely there is no basis for characterizing it as illegal. In fact, without my amendment the apportionment bill is not constitutional. Section 1 of the 14th amendment of the Constitution extended citizenship to the colored race. Section 2 of the same amendment provided for the apportionment of representatives among the several States according to their respective numbers and also provided that the basis of representation "shall" be reduced in proportion to the number of citizens denied the right to vote. No one so far as I am aware seriously contends that the right to vote has not been denied to citizens in a certain number of States. . . . GEORGE HOLDEN TINKHAM

Washington, D. C.

TIME, elliptic, meant that there is as yet no basis in law for the application of the Tinkham Amendment, which aimed to exclude from the Reapportionment count inhabitants of states whose franchise has been denied or abridged (i. e., Negroes in Southern states). No Southern state yet stands legally convicted of such denial or abridgement.

Barebones Brothers

Sirs:

Mr. Harrison Dale would seem to be more ingenious than accurate in his explanation of the titles of the "Rump" and "Barebones" parliaments of England.

"Rump," declares Mr. Dale, "doesn't mean 'a portion of the original whole.'" Turn to Funk and Wagnalls "Standard Dictionary": "rump ... 3) Figuratively, the last or poor end of anything; an inferior remnant, spec (R) the Rump Parliament."

That the Barebones Parliament was so called "with due regard to the original metaphor" is almost too delightful and original a theory to be spoiled by the prosaic recital of fact. Still, as everyone even slightly acquainted with English history should know, it was named after a member for the city of London, a puritan with the puritanical name of Praise-God Barebones. His brother, by the way, bore the still more astounding name of "If-Christ-had-not-come- thou-wouldst-have-been-damned Barebones."

REV. CLAUDE J. PERNIN, S. J.

Loyola University, Chicago.

*Subscriber Wheeler is wrong. Kentucky is 13th in illiteracy. Louisiana is most illiterate (21.9%). Alabama and Mississippi, fourth and third most illiterate States, also require only one tag.