Surprised General

Sirs:

. . . I think your article was a very nice one [TIME, April 2]. The author surprised me by his familiarity with certain details of my early life. I hope that the present failures in aviation will result in a permanent improvement, both in our organization and equipment. We have everything in this country to do with, in aviation. All we need is proper organization and an intelligent and patriotic control. WILLIAM MITCHELL Middleburg, Va. Grateful Georgian Sirs: I wish to express my appreciation for your stand against the sportswriters as to the come back of Bobby Jones [TIME, April 2]. As all loyal Georgians, I am an ardent admirer of his superb quality as a golfer and a sportsman. May your broad-minded foresight in sports and other departments always prevail. PAUL McKENNEY JR. Columbus, Ga. Thrilled Engineer Sirs: Allow me to congratulate TIME on its marvelous treatment of the life, personality, and activities of Arturo Toscanini in your article "Birthday of a Conductor" under Music, TIME, April 2, 1934. I am a member of the engineering staff of the Chicago key station of a coast-to-coast broad casting network. I have saved another article appearing under Music. It is entitled "Engineers to the Fore" (TIME, March 27, 1933) and in it you pay your respects to men of my profession, broadcast engineers. You are most kind. Your most recent article about Maestro Toscanini is indeed a reading thrill and it is a great tribute to a great genius. It upholds TIME'S unprecedented standard of brief, newsy and cleverly-written articles. ROBERT M. BROCKWAY Chicago, Ill.

Negroes in Congress Sirs: TIME, April 2 : "Best known Negro in Congress is Representative Oscar De Priest of Illinois. Best-liked Negro at the Capitol is Harry Parker, messenger of the Ways & Means Committee since William McKinley was its chairman 45 years ago." The above statement is true. Harry Parker has been a good, honest and smiling servant for is 45 to years.

He should not be disliked. His duty is to laugh and bow while he works -- not to consider constitutional problems.

He belongs to a school most of whom have gone to their home beyond the Jordan. These poor souls could hide much misery beneath an aching heart. Suffering under a double handicap, color and lack of education, they were too tired to give much thought to advancement and constitutional rights. May they rest in peace!

Mr. De Priest's work is much harder. He must keep pace with time. I think that he should be commended for his courageous fight against overwhelming odds. He is asking for fairness and is backed by the U. S. Constitution. We feel grateful to the many liberal-minded men who have the nerve to aid him -- men with sympathetic understanding, men who are big enough mentally to know the difference between the trick phrases "Social Equality" and "Constitutional Rights." Congressman Blanton surely has the right to choose his friends. I hope everyone has. But public places do not belong to Mr. Blanton. We ask for no special concessions other than those due American Citizens. We were here before the Mayflower -- and belong here. EDWARD PORTER Chicago, Ill.

Socialistic Army Sirs: I happened to pick up a copy of TIME for Feb. 5, and note your statement that the Port of New York Authority is "unquestionably the most impressive example of successful Socialism in the U. S." I wonder if anyone has ever called your attention to the U. S. Army, the U. S. Navy, the U. S. Postoffice, and the U. S. Public School system? UPTON SINCLAIR Pasadena, Calif.

Like the Theatre Sirs: Mrs. John Lee Connable of this address has a wonderful radio. We look forward each week to your Friday evening dramatic rendering of the events of the week, which we both consider one of the finest renditions on the radio. It is like going to the theatre. Tonight we were both in tears as the rising of the river washed away home and drowned mother and daughters. The flood at Columbus, Ohio occurred when I was living in my own home, a very handsomely built house, but thank God far away from the flood and on the highest point of the city. For five days we were in total darkness except for candles. My son was on the last train coming in to Columbus and looking back saw the bridge break in two pieces and drift away. We saw plenty of misery and people went crazy in the streets. I could write a book of all the tragedies. I go to the R. C. A. Building to see many radio programs, so I am a judge of fine music, and have always seen only the best in dramatic art so I shall be very sorry not to hear TIME until the fall again. I subscribe to your magazine. MRS. JOHN LEE CONNABLE MRS. E. VAN H. CONDICT New York City

TIME in Pennsylvania Sirs: My sympathy, also a proposition, to U. of Penn. student Pollack, who heads Letters column in the March 6 issue. When I graduated from highschool, my father offered to write in advance a check for four years college education, stating I could select the institution. I have since often thought, in declining, I was foolish. Perhaps I was wise--I might have chosen U. of Penn. Thanks to TIME I have endeavored to make up for this lack of college education by assiduously reading your educational weekly since its birth. Similar to "Philosopher'' (not Funnyman) Rogers, about all I know is what I read in TIME and the papers. A telephonic check-up this morning on Georgia Tech., Oglethorpe University and Agnes Scott College reveals that these "narrow-minded'' southern institutions of learning all have TIME on their library lists and have no idea of ''striking" it off at expiration of present subscription? They have the welfare of their students at heart. Proposition: If within 50 days no ''liberal-minded" alumnus comes to rescue of student Pollack and others at U. of Penn. who want to know what's going on in this world of ours each week, then start their subscription again and bill me for the first year. I'm not opulent, but I, at least, try to be human. There's no Ballyhoo about this proposition,-- I'll come across if Penn. has no "liberal'' alumni. There you are TIME--God bless yer, old Alma Mater. LEW FOSTER

Atlanta, Ga.

Sirs:

Although I am neither an alumnus of University of Pennsylvania nor opulent, I would like to solve the problem which Mr. Pollack brings up in his letter which you publish in TIME.

If this situation is worth $220 worth of space (see TIME advertising rate card), then it ought to be worth another 85 to me to see the matter settled amicably for all parties.

I have nothing but the friendliest feeling for the U. of P. since at the time of a recent visit they treated me particularly courteously.

With all good wishes, check enclosed.

M. ZENN KAUFMAN

New York City

As the Univcrsity of Pennsylvania library has expressed its willingness to accept, and as no U. of P. alumnus has asked the privilege, TIME is entering non-U.-of-P.-Alumnus Kaufman's gift subscription forthwith. To him, thanks.--ED.

One-Hole Eggs Sirs: Now, sir, will you have your mysteries--with eggs or without them? That Switz spying affair seems to be hard enough for those French gendarmes to unravel, but now--well, let us see what TIME has brought. ". . . Scotland Yard carefully examined the Chelsea, London flat in which the Switzes lived for many months. There they found a new touch of mystery--dozens & dozens of eggshells, carefully blown, with a neat hole in end of each." (TIME, April 2, p. 16.) Now there is a mystery that will make those French Johnnies sit back, take their hats off and scratch their heads. I'll bet those foreign crime-crackers never knew a small pinhole could make such a difference. Of course, if there had been another small neat hole at the other end, but -- well, more power to them in their dilemma. Please, Mr. Editor, do not let the unraveling of this mystery in a mystery escape unnoted by your alert London correspondent. And may I suggest that he be severely reprimanded for almost omitting, let alone giving only six and one-half lines to what might turn out to be the greatest mystery since "somebody hit Billy Patterson!" Here's "egg" in your eye for bigger and better mysteries! WILLIAM G. TARRANT JR. Richmond, Va. About one-hole eggs there is no mystery. All expert ooelogists blow their eggs with a fine silver tube inserted through one hole drilled in the shell. Pressure of air blown in forces the egg's contents out of the hole. If incubation has begun, fine scissors are used to hash the embryo so it will pass out. -- ED. Guggenheims & Robber Barons Sirs: In the issue of TIME for March 5 . . . there appears a review of my book, The Robber Barons, and in the closing paragraph thereof the following statement about me: ". . . He wrote The Robber Barons on a fellowship made possible by money from the Guggenheim family -- plutocrats not included in his book.

. . . Now the facts in this case are that I finished the writing of my book in November, 1933, a month before the first Guggenheim Foundation stipends were paid to me. The award of a Traveling Fellowship had been announced in the spring of 1933, but being in the midst of my work on The Robber Barons, I requested and obtained a delay of six months. I completed my book through my own means and my own earnings. Only when it was done and in the the hands of the printer did I accept the terms of the Fellowship -- which involved work upon a new, a totally different project, a biography -- and sail for Europe, Dec. 2, 1933. . . . Incidentally, your reviewer was too ignorant of our history to know that the activities of the Guggenheim family did not become a matter of much historical importance or original pattern until a good many years after 1901; or he was too careless to notice that my book, as stated on the title page, confined itself to the period 1861--1901. MATTHEW JOSEPHSON Marseilles, France Juan Leguia's School Sirs: In your April 9 issue, you say that Juan Leguia wag "prepared for his inheritance in the chaste corridors of St. Mark's School, Southborough, Mass." Not wishing to let so un accountable an error slip by, I take this opportunity of informing you that this is not so. You might also be interested in knowing that "chaste" is a peculiarly inappropriate epithet for the School's corridors. HENRY H. CHATFIELD St. Mark's School Southborough, Mass. Juan Leguia, son of Peru's late president, calls the St. Mark's story a popular misconception not furthered by himself. He supposes it arose from the fact that his first headmaster in the U. S., Edwin B. King of Stuyvesant School (Warrenton, Va.), was an alumnus of and longtime master at St. Mark's. Juan Leguia at tended Stuyvesant about 20 years ago. -- ED.

College Girls v. Normalites (Cont'd)* Sirs: . . . In reading the letters in your April 9 number I read a letter from Margaret P. Moore on a subject that makes me rabid every time I hear of it. I will tell you of an incident which will explain my feelings concerning State educational laws.

My roommate in a middlewest university was about 30 years of age, all 30 of which were spent in a home where music had been meat, drink, and sleep for the whole family. He was an excellent pianist and a thorough student of music. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in three years with almost perfect grades. He substituted in practically all the theory classes given. He was student director of the symphony orchestra, the university chorus, the men's glee club, accompanist and arranger for the male quartet, wrote the music for two musical productions and played several of his own compositions in concert. His list of activities in the yearbook his final year looked like a page out of the school of music catalog.

One morning, a few days before graduation, the above-described young man and I were eating breakfast in a restaurant across the street from the campus. An acquaintance came in and sat down with us. He explained to us that he was taking a course in public-school music and was just facing his final examinations. He requested my roommate to give him some help as he was almost sure that one of the questions in his examination was going to be the placing of the eight notes of an octave correctly on the bars and spaces of the staff, and this particular problem had always given him considerable trouble. I checked up and he passed the course. Within a few days this man was qualified by State law to teach music in the public schools. My roommate could not. . . .

P. A. MEAD Fanwood, N. J.

Sirs: The question of the respective merits of college-trained men and women as opposed those who have received their training in normal schools or teachers colleges (TIME, April 9, as stated by Mrs. Moore, may sound natural at first sight, but, on closer observation, it proves to be obviously at fault in several ways. The use of normal schools as training for public school teachers has provided no dearth of competent instructors. Actually, the average normal school product is a moral, high-minded, capable person, worthy of full responsibility in the training of children: and not a common pay-envelope worker. Moraly and mentaly, few college graduating classes are noticebly superior to those produced in modern normal schools. By being trained in a slate-owned institution, the future teacher becomes familiar with the ruitine of the schools in that particular vicinity and has less trouble in adapting herself upon her appointment to her first position.. The "brilliant and versatile" college girls are often very well versed in what it takes to ''make'' a prom, but most sadly lacking in the traits necessary to an accomplished high or grade school teacher. And surely, a school which pro duces teachers only should graduate better examples of that profession than a college in which teaching is only one of several arts in the curriculum. ROBERT LOGAN Providence, R. I. Stubborn Papa Sirs: I read with considerable interest and greater amusement in TIME, April 2, p. 50. the account of the squabble between daughter Mary Astor and papa Otto Langhanke. I wonder how many graduates of Quincy, Ill. High School remember the day when German Professor Langhanke and his arch-enemy Professor Stoneking, driving two of the earliest automobiles in Quincy, met at a narrow spot on 12th St. where the paving had been torn up. There was room for only one car to pass through and while Professor Stoneking, with exaggerated courtesy, waited at one end for Professor Langhanke to go first. Professor Langhanke, with the same stubborn politeness, waited at the other end for Professor Stoneking. A crowd gathered, a long line of traffic waited, but neither professor would budge. They would be still sitting there if the police hadn't come to unsnarl things. BERNARD M. STEERS Maywood N. J.

* More letters on this subject in Letters Supplement No. 7, available on request. -- ED.

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