Stock's Sticks
Sirs:
Having come fresh from and pregnant with memories of the Ann Arbor May Festival, it was with no little satisfaction that upon reading your article on Frederick A. Stock [TIME, May 21] I realized that at last, after years of fruitless waiting, I had been present at the making of history--well, minor history.
In your columns you were careful to mention that ''Conductor Stock prides himself on his restraint. His men have never seen him lose his temper or break a baton." Until the Festival's fourth concert you may have been undisputed on this point, but at that performance, on Friday evening, May 11, the untainted record of the German bandmaster's son was spoiled. It was while Lucrczia Bori was singing Debussy's "Recitative and Aria of Lia," from L'Enfant Prodigitc, that Mr. Stock's hitherto intact baton went sailing in three pieces from his passionate grasp into the ranks of the scraping violinists, one fragment just barely missing a plunge down the low back of the diva's gown. Mr. Stock, unaccountably prepared for the emergency, picked up another stick from his desk and went on restrainedly as ever.
Next afternoon he broke two sticks. One, during the Beethoven Ninth, third movement, flew into the audience and was recovered after a mild scramble by a lady who put it in her handbag. The other splintered during the Strauss tone poem, Ein Heldenlebcn, the section labeled "The Hero's Battlefield." The butt-end of this was captured by Warren Mayo, president of U. of M.'s varsity glee club. Mayo took it to Stock's dressing room after the performance, and the master good-naturedly inscribed his initials upon it.
MILO S. RYAN Ann Arbor, Mich.
Compliments from Hell
Sirs:
Irate correspondent C. R. Myre, M. D. [who invited TIME'S editors to go to Hell where "there is no post office"] might be surprised some day to receive his warm compliments returned, from the editors of TIME, plainly postmarked HELL. In the unscorched letter the editor probably will enlighten Mr. Myre by telling him that there is a nice little postoffice in Hell, the name of a delightful village in Norway. Further, the doctor will perhaps read that this real Hell is not a hot spot, but well worth visiting.
T. W. SCHREIXER
Los Angeles, Calif.
An hour's train ride from Trondheim, Hell is a popular excursion spot for U. S. travelers who delight in sending home picture postcards of the railroad station (see cut). The Norwegian word for Hell is helvede. Hell means nothing.--ED.
Brown-Eyed Model
Sirs:
To many a reader of TIME, by far the most attractive item in the May 21 issue was an excellent photograph of the brown-eyed, attractive Lucky Strike girl which graced the back cover. In the minds of some such readers arose the question: "Did the Scot Tissue Towels ad on p. 53 employ the same model?"
JOHN SINN
Continuity Dept. The Crosley Radio Corporation Cincinnati, Ohio
Yes: Miss Babs Shanton of Manhattan's John Robert Powers model agency.--ED. Tennessee's Leas
Sirs:
Most of us Tennesseans sho' docs rend with avenged pride in TIME, May 21, that Leas to jail go. Yahsuh, good reason had the prison-bound Lea party to be guarded by machine guns and avoid our city where blasphemy and threats concerning the Leas are as spontaneous as Southern hospitality despite our characteristic calmness, gentlemaness, and recent blessful TV A prosperity.
It took more than the dramatic Dudley Field Malone or Clarence Darrow to keep creaking justice from recognizing that Leas' motto:
"We Bank on the South" truly deserved to be satirized:
"We Sank on the South."
MORRIS BART JR.
Knoxville, Tenn.
Leucemia Sensation
Sirs:
... Is it necessary for TIME to attract its readers through sensationalism or should this cheap instrument be left to those publications which have nothing else to justify their existence? I speak with reference to your recent article concerning the various publicized cases of leucemias [TIME, May 21].
Should a magazine consider the mental health of its readers? I wonder how many readers of TIME worried (needlessly and uselessly) about contracting leucemia and how many actually found "symptoms" of the disease in themselves. This is no reflection upon the intelligence or other mental qualities of the reader, for such phobias are found even among students of medicine themselves.
Can any possible benefit accrue to the reader who learns that there is such a malignant, treatment-defying disease as leucemia? Medicine has made so many brilliant advances in the past and promises even more brilliant ones in the future. Surely [TIME] ought to serve more honorably than as a mere source of morbid sensationalism.
ALBERT T. GOLDBERG
School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pa.
TIME wishes its readers mental health, coddles no hypochondriac, deplores Reader Goldberg's professional attitude that medicine's facts are a mumbo-jumbo mystery unsuited to lay newsreporting. The only reader-benefit that concerns TIME is to give him news, good or bad. Medicine's failures, struggles, progress against disease are just as newsworthy as medicine's triumphs.--ED.
Critic of Critic
Sirs:
I have been a subscriber to TIME for a number of years and ... I have found no reason to criticize it adversely until the article on Thomas Craven's book Modern Art appeared [TIME, May 14].
The fact that you published the notice of it was perfectly in order,, excepting that it certainly does not warrant the prominence that you gave it. ... Modern art will live long a Her Craven and his books have disappeared and been forgotten. . . .
Such a book as Craven's does a certain amount of harm among the readers who have as little true conception of art as himself, but your approval of such a book with your larger circulation does more harm. . . .
SAMUEL S. WHITE 3RD
S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Co. Philadelphia, Pa.
Subscriber White, who in his youth posed for Rodin's Athlete, owns a notable collection of modern art at his Ardmore, Pa. home, has often expressed his disapproval of Author Craven as a critic. But let Subscriber White reflect that while Critic Craven flayed Picasso and Matisse, he praised Van Gogh, Cezanne, Thomas Benton, George Grosz, Jacob Epstein-- moderns all.--ED.
Fosdick Flayed
Sirs:
The confession of Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick that he lied to the Unknown Soldier, in TIME, May 21, is sending a wave of horrified shock across the country. Dr. Fosdick doesn't lack the ability to express himself clearly, so we must take him at his word: that he made untrue statements with the intent to deceive. If this is true, hasn't Dr. Fosdick forfeited his right to come before the world as a great teacher? Even if he should elucidate to the extent that he has changed his views since the War, doesn't this convict him of such loose talk and superficial opinions either then, or now, or both, that we may feel that in a few years he may tell us that he was lying to us now? . . . He stands for Christianity and a Christian civilization and then says in effect that we cannot have it and defend it. No person in his right mind wants war, but to thousands of young people to whom Dr. Fosdick is almost an oracle, his statements serve only to befog and bewilder and discourage. . . .
C. C. ENGEL
East Stanwood, Wash.
More letters on Dr. Fosdick and the Unknown Soldier in Letters Supplement No. 10, available this week. Also letters on Socialist clergymen, Cab Galloway in London, Negro violinists, Matto Grosso missionaries, U. S. aviators in Colombia, dry-ice in the mouth, etc. etc. Address requests to TIME'S Circulation Department, 350 East 22nd Street, Chicago, Ill..--ED.
"Remember Smahl!"
Sirs:
TIME is to be congratulated for its heroism for publishing on p. 13 of the April 30 issue the article concerning Hero Alton Smahl, who, after a seven-year battle drew victorious blood from the hide of the New York Telephone Co. for charging him for phone calls he proved in court he did not make.
Hero Smahl and editors of TIME should be happy to learn that others have profited by Dr. Smahl's battle and TIME'S publicity of the case of Dr. Smahl v. the New York Telephone Co. Last month a friend noted an overcharge on his bill for his business phone. He paid what he believed he owed. This month he again was charged for the amount he refused to pay last month. I informed him about the article in TIME relative to Dr. Smahl. Across his bill he wrote "TIME, April 30th issue, page 13," and sent in what he felt was the just charge, omitting; payment for the charge he claimed unjust. The bill hasn't come back. . . .
No longer need subscribers wage long, futile arguments in the business offices of the telephone company. They need only write across unfair bills--"TIME, April 30th issue, page 13, Remember Smahl!"
K. A. NELSON
Pasadina, Calif.
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