California's Open Door

Sirs:

On p. 14 of the April 2 number of TIME, under Foreign News, on the subject of Japanese-U. S. relations, where you quote United Press Correspondent Frederick Kuh, announcing that he had learned from a most reliable source, "it was believed Japan would offer to make no move to increase its present naval ratio and would officially recognize the neutrality of the Philippines if and when freed by the U. S. in return for: 1) Revision of the U. S. ban on Japanese immigration. (Such revision would kindle California into political flame hotter than any which burned last week at Hakodate.) . . ."

Your reference in parenthesis should be corrected. The attitude of California, in fact, of the entire Pacific Coast towards the Japanese has changed completely, and while there are still certain groups opposed to any revision of the U. S. ban on Japanese immigration, there is a very widespread recognition of the fact that such a revision would be desirable and should be made, and the initiative to bring about that end originates in California. There would be some opposition, of course, but not such as would kindle California into any hot political flame.

FREDERICK J. KOSTER

San Francisco, Calif.

Vorovsky Before Kim

Sirs:

In your issue of April 16, p. 13, under the title: "The Cabinet," Kim and Congress, appears the following:

"Seldom does an ambassador so far lower his pomposity as to descend to a water front and greet one of his country's freighters. But last week Comrade Alexander Troyanovsky, knowing well there was no better way he could cater to his country's pride, descended to Brooklyn's grimy docks, greeted the first Russian ship to put into a U. S. port in 17 years."

The statement contained in the last sentence above quoted is incorrect. The Kim is not the first Russian ship to visit a U. S. port in 17 years. The Russian ship Vazlaz Vorovsky entered this port on March 23, 1925. There were women in the crew of the Vazlaz Vorovsky as there were in the crew of the Kim. The cargo of the Vazlaz Vorovsky consisted of bulk sylvinite and bulk manure salt.

JOSEPH H. LYONS

Collector of Customs

Mobile, Ala.

Soviet-owned was the Vazlaz Vorovsky, but she was under charter by a British shipper when she called at the U. S. with cargo from Antwerp.--ED.

President's Pun

Sirs:

Since TIME is delivered to me, at my desk, at the beginning of the work day, Fridays, I take snatches at it, between rewriting reporters, wire copy and whatnot. But this snatch, the penultimate paragraph, col. 1, p. 13, April 23, in which you state that his audience didn't laugh at Roosevelt's pun, indicates a fall from your customary accurate grace.

I popped in at a newsreel theatre a few days ago. Heard the entire Roosevelt speech (some of which you misquoted) and distinctly heard loud, lusty, prolonged laughter, when Roosevelt said, "from Wirt to work."

Laughter, I said, not studio sound effects.

GORDON KAHN

New York Mirror

New York City

White House correspondents thought the President said: ". . . You good people [of Congress] have been going from work to Wirt." The NBC radio transcript read likewise. But the official White House transcript had it "Wirt to Wirt," as TIME reported. A few listeners laughed.--ED.

Counterfeiting Boom

Sirs:

Do you suppose Congressman McLeod of Michigan is more ferocious than a wild horse? I wonder, because of your discussion of the U. S. Secret Service in TIME, April 16. You say: "The number of Secret Service operatives and detailed budgets under which they work is never made public. . . . It is estimated that the service has working for it between 150 and 300 agents. Wild horses could not draw the correct number from Chief William Herman Moran. . . ." Well, Mr. McLeod could; and did, with the greatest of ease.

In last December's hearings on the Treasury Appropriation Bill, Mr. Moran was called to testify.

Mr. McLeod: I was wondering how many field agents come under your supervision.

Mr. Moran: We have 171 men in the field.

Mr. McLeod: What percentage of them are investigating agents?

Mr. Moran: One hundred and forty-two of them are operatives.

The same hearings brought out an interesting fact which I have not seen in the public prints. Mr. Moran testified that the approach of Repeal had turned many a bootlegger toward the counterfeiting racket, of which the bootlegger had already gained a fair working knowledge through his general underworld dealings. Consequently, the amount of counterfeit money seized by the Secret Service rose from $590,000 in 1932 to more than $900,000 last year. There was a particularly notable boom in the counterfeiting of coins, some of them impossible of detection by the ordinary shopkeeper because they contained a finer grade of silver than the genuine U. S. coins. When the price was lowest in 1933, enough silver to make an elegant 50-c--piece would have cost the counterfeiter only 10 1/2-c-.

RICHARD MCGRATH

Pittsburgh, Pa.

"Let's Get Ours League"

Sirs:

Anent Robert L. Greene's pout over veterans compensation (TIME, April 16), wish to suggest uniform colors for his proposed ''Let's Get Ours League": solid baby blue with yellow stripe straight down middle back, from top of collar to center of crotch. . . .

ETHAN CONRAD GRANT

Detroit, Mich.

Sirs:

In the event that your columns are sufficiently cluttered with the particular type of letters that are relative to the discussion of veterans and their activities, problems, etc. will you kindly forward this letter to Mr. Robert L. Greene of Detroit, Mich. who seems to have a desire to be the proud parent of a "Let's Get Ours League." . . .

For some time I have listened to, and read the rantings of several persons of his same general type that, in their utter ignorance, persist in condemning the American Legion as a whole as a "lot of Treasury robbers" and many other choice names not unlike that.

These same "nitwits" seem to have entirely lost sight of the fact that the ones standing to gain far more than any veteran with the passing of this particular bit of legislation known as the Independent Offices Bill are the politicians who passed it, and who, incidentally, are not making the favorable impression on all veterans that they imagine. So far as veterans are concerned, the Spanish War Veterans, the veterans' organization known as the "U. & W. V." (very few, if any of whom are Legionnaires), are far more interested in the passing of this bill than any Legionnaire. Then there is the "V. F. W." or Veterans of Foreign Wars, a group who are really (so far as the late war is concerned), . . . boasting about the fact that they were sent overseas. . . .

Have you ever heard of the organization known as the "D. A. V's?" This, Mr. Greene, is the body known as The Disabled American Veterans of the World War, which for the greater part is made up of men who really deserve any compensation that a gracious government might bestow on them. Of course, in that group, also, one can find veterans who are not deserving, or even in need of, compensation of any nature.

. . . Please do your utmost to understand this. There are just as many members of the American Legion who are firmly against any pension, compensation or any kind of payment for doing what they, as Americans, considered their duty--excepting the care of the men who were disabled in service, or as a direct result of that same service, and unable to care for themselves as there are those in favor of any method of, or excuse for robbing the Treasury. Please make an honest effort, Mr. Greene, to know what you are talking about before you try to condemn an entire organization, of which the writer, as a member with several thousand others, has consistently gone on record against the subsidizing of compensation of any able-bodied man who is capable, or at least should be, of standing on his own feet. . . .

JACKSON HOWARD CROWLEY

Berkeley, Calif.

No Angel

Sirs:

Purely as a matter of record and wholly in the spirit of the game, The Literary Digest guaranteed the American expenses of the Cambridge Rugby Team during its visit to the United States [TIME, April 16]. Marshall Field was a generous contributor in as much as he entertained the team and others at dinner. Fortunately there was no "angel" as the receipts from the games and the courtesy of the various hosts not only met the American expenses but paid the advances Cambridge made. In a word it was a successful sporting adventure.

ARTHUR S. DRAPER

Editor

The Literary Digest

New York City

Rugby Convert

Sirs:

In TIME, April 16, under Sport, I read an exceedingly interesting story on rugby football and the recent visit of the Cambridge team to this country. A small criticism would be that you did not explain the game sufficiently. Your few simple definitions of rugby terms were mostly definitions in ununderstandable terms of ununderstandable terms.

However, as a result of your story, I wanted to see a game. And I did. Two hours at Baker Field. Cambridge v. All-East (U.S.). Unremitting torrential rain. I now have a beautiful cold, so have my wife and child. A game I was not sure I grasped. But I loved it. It was fast, hard, rough, exciting, interesting, sporting, human.

Now, I have played American football. I go to every game I can attend. It was my favorite sport. But the scales are fallen now.

Compared to the simple audacity and youth of rugby, the ponderousness of American football as played and presented today reminds me of a weight)' clash between the Boards of Directors of General Motors and U. S. Steel. There they think deeply of mighty matters of sales impact, where the next onslaught should be directed. Their legal advisor-coaches sum up the opportunities and dangers, decide to put the vice-president-in-charge-of-forward-passes on the Board for some critical moments. One of the Directors feels faint from having been at it for too long. He is ordered to take a brief rest so that he will not be too fagged for next week's meeting. Another vice president takes his place, knowing that his position on the Board is only temporary. And so on through all the mighty, corporate machinery.

Compare rugby. For speed it is far ahead of American football. The play can sway from one end of the field to the other without interruption with breathtaking speed. It does not depend on intercepted forward passes or recovered fumbles or referees' whistles. Its agility depends upon a combination of foot, hand and head work and the changes are so rapid as to furnish intense excitement at all times. As for the quality of guts. I know you will agree that the rugby fullback, all by himself in front of his goal, who must fall on the ball at the very feet of the advancing line of forwards who are dribbling it down the field with their feet, displays all alone quite as much if not more courage than the line which holds four successive downs on the one-yard line and then takes time out to pull itself together. Rugby has no substitutions, and if a player is so badly hurt that he cannot continue the play his team goes on without him. Rugby is a game--American football is by now a mechanized system.

I would like to predict a great growing rugby enthusiasm in this country over the next few years. The spectators will see a fast, human, sporting game without the unnecessary trappings.

WILLIAM BUCKLER

New York City

Griped Alumnus

Sirs:

As a loyal Pennsylvania alumnus, it gripes me to think that the Library must accept a subscription from any non-alumnus no matter how prominent he may be [TIME. April 23 et ante]. My pride, therefore, forces me to enclose my check for five bucks to be used either 1) as an extension for one year of the present subscription, or 2) for the purchase of an additional subscription for the current period--thus giving the Library two copies a week instead of one.

Please let me know which course you elect. Personally, I prefer #1. Although your publication has "damned us with faint praise" only too often, I am, and hope to remain, one of your boosters. I believe I have subscribed to TIME for at least ten years, if not longer.

I am only sorry that Pennsylvania (not U. of P., or U. of Penn.) cannot, somehow, seem to deserve better at your hands. Of course, we are just a little fresh-water school and we don't know many of the answers, but those of us who graduated from Pennsylvania feel that to know Pennsylvania is to love Pennsylvania.

RONALD O. SHRIGLEY

Philadelphia, Pa.

Pennsylvania Alumnus Shrigley's $5 will extend the Pennsylvania Library subscription one year. To him, thanks.--ED.

Dall "Suicide"

Sirs:

In your recent edition (TIME, April 23) I read under the title of France an account of the suicide of Curtis Dall, the son-in-law of President Roosevelt.

I have discussed this with several of your readers, and we are all of a different opinion. Is this fiction or fact?

CHAS. L. BARSOTTI

San Francisco, Calif.

. . . If the tragedy occurred, your reference to it was utterly cruel. If it was just one of your funny little byplays, then I can say only that my disgust defies expression. . . .

J. H. NIENDORFF

Los Angeles, Calif.

. . . If I were President or a member of his official family, I would prosecute TIME and certainly forbid its circulation by some measure. . . .

DORA S. SOMMERS

St. Paul, Minn.

. . . Two gentlemen at different times mentioned that they had read in your magazine that Curtis B. Dall had shot himself and that the news was being suppressed. Another time a gentleman said his brother-in-law had read such an item in TIME, and that it is such a coincidence that a similar tragedy had happened in France about the same time. . . .

ESTELLE L. YALMAN

Benley, Ohio

Yesterday my wife was a member of a sewing group composed of educated and intelligent women and one of them was heard to remark how terrible it was that Curtis B. Dall, President Roosevelt's son-in-law, had committed suicide. . . .

All of which goes to prove how careless intelligent Americans (men included) sometimes are even when reading about serious events.

C. M. HORN

Cleveland, Ohio

As all TiME-readers were expected to see with half an eye, TIME'S imaginary and subjunctive report of a White House "suicide" was intended only to bring home to U. S. readers the manner in which a real suicide in Premier Doumergue's residence had been played down by the French Press.--ED.

Sarret's Trial

Sirs:

Having lived in Aix-en-Provence all last year, I was naturally interested in your account of the execution of Georges Sarret in the April 23 number of TIME.

. . . The picture you draw is substantially correct. One statement which you make, however, is so contrary to actuality that I think it should be corrected. You say that "Thanks to Georges Sarret's legal knowledge, the trial dragged on month after month." Nothing could be farther from the facts. It is true that over a year elapsed from the commission of the crime to the confession which lead to Sarret's arrest, and that some time elapsed before the trial actually began, during which the state prepared its case. The trial itself, in marked contrast to some of our own famous trials, was very short indeed. Court opened on a Saturday morning, and in spite of the sensational nature of the case and the employment of some of the most famous criminal lawyers in France, including the renowned de Moro Giaferri, the jury had been picked before court was adjourned at noon.

One week from the following Tuesday the trial was finished, and sentence had been pronounced, a total of eight actual court days after the start. That was last October. Since that time, appeals have been heard and denied. There were no jail deliveries, no reprieves, no vaudeville offers. . . .

W. M. TAYLOR

Bound Brook, N. J.

Disappearing Cords

Sirs:

. . . This morning I borrowed the Commandant's of Cadets copy of TIME and neglected to return it at the stipulated time. Believe me, should I ever borrow another from him, I'll return that one on the dot. I just missed the "Guard Path'' by a narrow margin for my negligence and believe it was because he was so glad to get his magazine that he showed any leniency at all. . . .

However, I, like a few of the older people, have at last found an error in one of your articles. Just a matter of tenses, but an error nevertheless. In the article "Farley's Deal" (Aeronautics. TIME, April 23) the Cord boys are mentioned on p. 26 as follows:

"With their baby Nancy (the two boys are at a military school in the East) the Cords live" etc.

The boys returned on the 4th of April, but only to remain a few hours. This time was spent in making arrangements prior to leaving the Academy. Undoubtedly the boys will return in the fall, but at present their whereabouts is unknown to their cadet friends.

EDWIN J. COLLINS JR.

1st Sergeant Co. "A"

St. John's Military Academy Delafield, Wis.

Sbicca V. Maccarone

Sirs:

Your issue of Feb. 19 contains an article entitled "Outside Out" which appears to lend your editorial approval to a one-sided and inaccurate version of litigation which is now pending and in which we are counsel. For example, the article gives the impression that women's shoes were generally made inside out ("turned shoes") until the collaboration of Maccarone and Delman a few months ago supposedly accomplished for the first time the feat of building them up right side out. On the contrary, it is a matter of common knowledge in the trade that many million shoes have been made right side out in the last five years (chiefly under the sponsorship of Compo Shoe Machinery Corp.) and that in the past year probably the majority of shoes were so made.

To correct the entire article would require us to argue our case in the press. We prefer instead to await the decision of the court upon the suit which Sbicca-Method Shoes. Inc. has brought against Delman for the infringement of its Sbicca patents, as well as upon the later suit brought by Maccarone upon his patent against Miller.

In the meantime we think that TIME should inform its readers that the article in question presented only one version of the situation involved in this pending litigation, and was not intended to express any opinion upon its merits. It should also be added that Sbicca-Method Shoes. Inc., and others interested with it deny that either Maccarone or Delman is responsible for the achievement mentioned in your article, and instead attribute the ultimate improvements to the inventions of Frank Sbicca.

WATSON. BRISTOL. JOHNSON & LEAVENWORTH

Attorneys

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