Build-Up
Sirs:
Through the murk of screaming headlines last week TIME readers thought they could see the facts of the German crisis a little more clearly than could most of their bewildered neighbors. Well known to the first group were the depravity of Roehm, the jittery excitableness of Little Man Hitler and Dope Addict Goring, the iconoclastic records of Conservative von Papen and Reactionary von Schleicher, the anomalous position perforce occupied by Grand Old Man Oom Paul von Hindenburg. Many thanks for the two-year build-up which made last week's "purging'' seem logical, the action of its protagonists entirely in character.
CHARLES CASSIL REYNARD
Columbus, Ohio
... I would be the last person to uphold the majority of the activities of Adolf Hitler. But I do not feel that TIME'S unwavering and at times monotonous criticism of his policies and person enables me to understand his present position, power and popularity in Germany. I presume terrorism will now be the explanation. . . .
WALTER R. VOLCKHAUSEN
New York City
. . . Your obituary on Ernst Roehm exhibits the sophisticated intelligence of a Sunday-school teacher addressing a Revival meeting.
AMOS McCoy
New York Citv
Arizona's Ashurst
Sirs:
We, the undersigned residents of Arizona . . . respectfully request that you . . . publish the political record of Henry F. Ashurst, senior Senator from Arizona, giving your estimate of his legislative accomplishments and present worth as a Senator of the United States of America.
ARTHUR T. LAPRADE, CHAS. A. CARSON JR., LIN H. ORME, F. K. MCBRIDE
Phoenix, Ariz.
Sirs:
We, the undersigned readers of TIME, would appreciate a report on the life and activities of our Senator Ashurst of Arizona.
JACK BRADLEY, ALEXANDER A. RAISIN, L. D. ROGERS, J. W. EDGAR, FRED D. STUTT
Phoenix, Ariz.
The record of Senator Henry Fountain Ashurst of Arizona is as follows:
Born: at Winnemucca, Humboldt County, Nev., Sept. 13. 1874. Start in life: cowboy. Career: in 1875 his parents settled near Flagstaff. Ariz. When he was 12. his father's cattle business ceased to prosper. Henry helped out at home, hired out as a range rider, attending the Flagstaff schools in the winter. At 18 he got the job of turnkey at the Flagstaff County Jail, subsequently becoming a deputy sheriff. A spell at the Stockton (Calif.) Business College fitted him for the law. Aged 21, he was elected to the Arizona Territorial Legislature. Two years later he became Speaker, and in the same year was admitted to the bar and hung out his shingle at Williams. In 1902 he went to the Territorial Senate. After a year at the University of Michigan (1903--04) studying law and political economy, he returned to Williams where he married Elizabeth McEvoy Renoe and was made district attorney of Coconino County in 1904. Five years later he moved to Prescott to pursue private practice. In 1912, when Arizona was admitted to the Union, the Legislature picked him as the State's first U. S. Senator. A thoroughgoing Democrat, he has served in the Senate ever since.
In Congress: he is rivaled only by Illinois' Lewis for high-flown eloquence and bookish wit. He chairmans the potent Judiciary Committee, belongs to the Indian Affairs, Irrigation & Reclamation, Public Lands & Surveys Committees, all important to the political welfare of Arizona. He is not famed for elaborate addresses to his colleagues, but Congressional Records of the past 22 years have been enriched by pungent "remarks" from "the War Eagle of the San Francisco Crags," "the Silver-Tongued Sunbeam of the Painted Desert."
He never chooses a monosyllable when a polysyllable will do. To him lobbyists are "obscene harpies." Fellow-Senators settle back for a quarter-hour's solid amusement when he strikes such a forensic vein as inspired his essay on the Democratic Donkey: "He is a braying compendium of stately dignity, stanch endurance, fortitude and patience. ... In our quadrennial Presidential campaigns there is more music in his raucous hee-haw than in the midnight minstrelsy of a nightingale. The donkey is a serio-comic philosopher, whose stamina and stoicism conquered the wilderness . . . a sure-footed creature of epicurean taste and gargantuan appetite, but whose appetite and taste, happily enough, may be assuaged and satisfied by a nibble at a desert cactus, and he then is ready for another long and arid journey."
He voted for: 18th Amendment (1917), Volstead Act (1919), Soldier Bonus (1924), Reapportionment (1929), Hoover moratorium (1931), Muscle Shoals (1931-33), RFC (1952), Bonus (1932), Repeal (1933), Economy Act (1933;), 16-to-1 silver (1933), AAA (1933), NIRA (1933), abrogating gold contracts (1933), St. Lawrence Waterway (1934), Cotton Control (1934), stock exchange regulation (1934).
He voted against: Boulder Dam (1928), Hawley-Smoot tariff (1930), Sales Tax (1932), Bonus (1933-34)
Legislative hobbies: silver, copper, veterans, Indians, irrigation.
In the closing days of the 1928 first Congressional session he filibustered mightily against passage of the bill to construct Boulder Dam on the theory that populous California would not pay arid and thinly settled Arizona a fair share for water diverted from the Colorado River. He was bitterly disappointed when the bill passed at the next session. Like many another frontier politician, he dreams of U. S. territorial expansion: three years ago he lustily campaigned for U. S. acquisition of Lower California and a slice of Sonora to straighten out Arizona's southern boundary.
In appearance he is a tall, sleek theatrical figure with black hair, a tail coat, and glasses on a broad black ribbon. He is a Roman Catholic.
Outside Congress: he lives with his wife in a small house on K Street. He owns no car, rides taxis, streetcars or walks. He does not hobnob with his western colleagues in Congress, prefers to circulate in Washington's more socialite set.
Senator Ashurst fancies himself a literary man. He is not over-generous with newspaper interviewers. If a reporter brings up an interesting subject for discussion, the Senator is likely to reserve comment on the topic for a paid article in the Saturday Evening Post. He keeps under lock & key a voluminous diary, the posthumous publication of which he expects to immortalize him as the great recorder of the Washington scene.
For years the first name on the Senate's alphabetical roll-call, he always responds with vigor, starting off proceedings with a flourish. Aside from his career on the Judiciary Committee and in spite of his long service, he is neither a Grade A Senator like Borah or Wagner or a Grade A Democrat like Robinson of Arkansas or Byrnes. Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: a loyal, picturesque party politician of average intelligence, who sounds better than he really is. His term expires March 3, 1935.--ED.
Readers' Intelligence
Sirs:
Your article re Camel cigarets [TIME, July 2] splendidly timed. A pity you did not give Mr. Esty both barrels if only for underestimating the intelligence of the readers of his silly advertising copy for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
R. D. MILLER, M. D. Palo Alto, Calif.
College-Bred "Flops"
Sirs:
If TIME never said another thing from now on, the remarks in the July 2 issue regarding the average college-bred woman being a "flop" as a wife, ought to cause the renewal of a lot of subscriptions. Keep it up. Maybe some of us chaps who have been stung will get a break. Anyhow, we are fed up on a college-bred wife whose remaining asset of her college days consists of a taste for punk cigarets plus a tarnished complexion and an insistence to short-circuit any and all opinions contrary to her own by espousing a look of pseudo-intelligence that rates alongside some of the funny cartoons.
E. P. STANFORD
Shreveport, La.
"Pore Ignorant People"
Sirs:
I jest wanta say a word to thank that there northern feller Carmer for the fine book he has wrote about us pore ignorant people down here in Alabama [TIME, July 2]. They shore do discover things about us and we do like for the rest of the world to know how we live down here.
Guess mr. Carmers next book will be entitled Sudden Departure or why I left Alabama so quickly, I won't say anymore becus I no Mr. carmer will want to reveal all in his next book, that oughta be hot too.
G. A. PETITT JR.
Class '30, U. of A. Birmingham, Ala.
. . . Such works, and those of Faulkner and T. S. Stribling, while they may not be libel, betray a morbid mental state on the part of the authors: The South has no monopoly of insanity, race conflict, incest.
Oh, for a true novel of the South, neither morbid nor sentimental!
CAMERON McR. PLUMMER
Bolivan, Tenn.
Champion v. Cow
Sirs:
. . . Just what would be the result if Max Baer would smash a bull, or even a cow, in the middle of the forehead with his bare fist, using every ounce of strength he possessed? Did Dempsey ever engage in similar fisticuffs with any similar animal, and what was the outcome? And the same for John L. Sullivan. I have one friend who says the animal would die, whether from the blow or old age I do not know. Another says the animal would be rendered unconscious. Still another insists that the animal would be bowled over, at least knocked to its knees. Personally, I would as soon hit a brick wall with my fist as the cow's forehead, and it is my opinion the affair would all in all be a very sorry one for the fist engaging in said fisticuffs, with no effect besides possibly a slight headache for the other side.
HARWOOD ALLEN
Cameron, Wis.
Best authorities agree that Max Baer or any other hard-hitter might knock out a cow or bull by punching it between the eyes, but it would certainly not kill the beast, certainly would break the puncher's hand. There is no record of a prizefighter's trying it. However Max Baer, while helping his father in the butchering business in California, sometimes slugged cattle unconscious by punching them in the short ribs. Jack Dempsey, the late James J. Corbett and other pugilists have tried their hand at steer-knocking in the Chicago stockyards. The knocker wields a 3-lb. hammer, swings it down on the steer's skull, just above and between the eyes. The object is not to kill but to stun the animal to facilitate shackling for slaughter. It is a feat of skill rather than of strength. Neither Dempsey nor Corbett could match the practiced steer-knocker's formula of one knock per steer.--ED.
BCG in Louisville
Sirs:
I noticed in your issue of TIME, June 25, on p. 53, an article stating that 7,000 children had been vaccinated against tuberculosis with BCG in Louisville, Ky.
To my knowledge not a dose of BCG has been given to any child in Louisville, and I wish you would correct this statement.
OSCAR O. MILLER, M.D.
Medical Director
Waverley Hills Tuberculosis Dispensary Louisville, Ky.
For a tongue-slip on the part of a high authority on tuberculosis control, who said "Louisville" when he meant "Nashville," TIME'S apologies.--ED.
Equitable's Coal
Sirs:
I was interested in your item on the Equitable Bldg. changing from oil to coal (TIME, July 2, p. 49). . . .
Further details: This building generates all its own electricity for lighting, elevator power, ventilating power, and makes all its own ice as well as steam for heating purposes. The Combustion Engineering Co. are now installing the latest model Coxe Traveling Grate Stoker and the Jeffrey Mfg. Co. are installing special ash-handling equipment. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coal Co. ("blue coal"), tenants of the building, were a factor in bringing about this change, and their engineers assisted in planning this coal-burning installation.
Other "dangerous precedents": The Lamp, organ of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, urged in a recent number that "fuel oil should not displace coal for ordinary purposes." A serious shortage of fuel oil, they indicate, is in prospect.
Standard Oil's Bayway (N. J.) refinery is equipped to use either oil or coal for power. In June the company contracted for 100,000 tons of coal. . . .
Coal production, not only because of cold weather, but because of the prices of competing fuels, has run 60% ahead of last year during the first five months of 1934. . . .
Real significance: Especially in the domestic field, the gains made by oil have been due to its convenience--no shoveling, no ashes, automatically regulated temperatures. Fully perfected equipment for burning coal with similar convenience, greater comfort and less expense is now on the market. . . .
HAROLD A. HOLBROOK
The Coal Herald
Boston, Mass.
Speculator Relief
Sirs:
I am a speculator. My account is under-margined.
As a subscriber to TIME, I would ask if there is not some government agency willing to help the speculator. Might Jesse Jones be my benefactor, or can you designate some other philanthropic organization sponsored by the present Administration?
An urgent answer is requested.
MELVILLE PHILLIPS
Los Angeles, Calif.
To Subscriber Phillips' question the National Emergency Council replied, solemnly and emphatically: "Absolutely No!"--ED.
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