Guts
Sirs:
In its story on the new Presbyterian Tribune, and Ed Chaffee, its editor, TIME, Sept. 24, said: "With theological controversy and petty driblets of church news as his stock-in-trade, the religious editor must cut his thoughts to a consistent pattern." To which my answer is, nertz. My objection is to the "must." There are religious journals of that sniveling type; too many of them. They are edited by superannuated ecclesiastics and dominated by boards of pink-minded parsons, whose conception of journalism is a carefully selected and limited set of rubber stamps. But the better religious journals, instead of being the timid house organs you suggest, cover the whole field of human interest . . . with intelligence, alertness, vigor, insight--in fact, with more journalistic guts and vision than scores of so-called secular journals. Let TIME conserve its tears for the press which takes its orders from the counting room.
GUY EMERY SHIPLER
Editor
Churchman New York City
Catholics
Sirs:
. . . The Protestant and Jewish papers may speak for themselves. As Managing Editor of the Baltimore Catholic Review I resent that statement in so far as it applies to many Catholic papers.
The Catholic papers of the country have their own world-wide news agency, the N. C. W. C. News Service. . . . Many of the Catholic papers have their own special correspondents in all parts of the world. They have brilliant editorial writers, who by no means confine themselves to theological discussions. . . . Catholic papers have an international pictorial service. . . . Of course there are some Catholic papers which do not measure up to their opportunities. . . .
VINCENT DE PAUL FITZPATRICK
Managing Editor
Baltimore Catholic Review
Baltimore, Md.
Shame!
Sirs:
. . . For shame, TIME! If you really believe that religious periodicals nowadays can be described in those terms, your paper should bear the title ANACHRONISM, not TIME. But you don't believe any such thing, or you wouldn't find the church press sufficiently TIMEworthy to justify the quotations from it that are so often to be found in your columns. You know the Churchman showed up the movies years before the Legion of Decency was thought of; you know the Commonweal, the Christian Century, and many another religious periodical has fought for social justice in season and out; you know the Living Church exposed the armaments racket months before your own FORTUNE went over the same grounds. Here is consistency, yes; but no thoughts cut to fit theological patterns. And as for opinionated readers, can the correspondence pages of any church paper rival those of TIME for sheer dogmatism? What about the man that pontificates on hole-less doughnuts in the same issue of your estimable publication (p. 14)? Or the one who propounds the doctrine that insects enjoy being eaten (p.4)? Let TIME, living in a journalistic glass house, refrain from throwing editorial stones at its contemporaries.
CLIFFORD P. MOREHOUSE
Editor
Living Church
Milwaukee, Wis.
Thanks
Sirs:
This is just a note to thank you for that snappy news story in regard to our new journalistic venture. We get repercussions of this from many quarters. Certainly TIME is read. Your story was so completely fair and so well caught the spirit of what we are after that I just wanted you to know it.
EDMUND B. CHAFFEE
Editor
Presbyterian Tribune New York City
"Wrong Side" Pastor
Sirs:
I greatly appreciate the notice that you have taken of my move from suburb to city [TIME, Sept. 24]. And I appreciate also the opportunity to share a column with my admired friend, Ed Chaffee. He and I have shared programs together but never expected to find ourselves in mutual company under such delightful auspices.
As a matter of fact it will be with considerable relief that I find myself on the "wrong side of the New York, New Haven & Hartford tracks." And I am grateful to you for so succinctly and perfectly describing the situation.
DWIGHT BRADLEY
Pastor The First Church in Newton, Mass.
Newton Center, Mass.
Lindbergh's License
Sirs:
TIME airwriter erred again.
In TIME, Sept. 24, under Aeronautics, Col. Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis was referred to as the first of a series of planes bearing the license number NR 211.
As every boy who has ever pasted the license on his model of the Spirit of St. Louis well knows, the magic numbers on that famous ship were not NR 211 but NX 211.
The Department of Commerce in licensing airplanes uses the letter "X" to designate planes in the experimental stage which are not ready to be given a commercial license. Because of its huge gasoline tank which necessitated a periscope for forward vision, the Spirit of St. Louis fell in this class and hence got the designation NX 211 which is much more famous than the XR 211 born by the Tingmissartoq.
RICHARD L. STITES
Penn Valley, Pa.
Reader Stites and the 20-odd others who wrote correcting TIME are in error. Following its return to the U. S. the Spirit of St. Louis' license was changed in Department of Commerce records from the experimental NX 211 to NR 211. Since the ship was already out of service, hanging in the Smithsonian Institution, there was no need to repaint the symbol on the wing and tail.--ED.
Maryland Campaign
Sirs:
Knowing the ease with which errors may creep into publications which go to press rapidly (i.e., newspapers and news-magazines), I hesitate to criticize minor discrepancies. But. . . .
On p. 23, col. 3 of the Sept. 24 issue you say that Maryland's Governor Ritchie was opposed by the Baltimore city machine in his campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and that John Philip Hill won the Republican Senatorial nomination. Both statements are incorrect. The Democratic city machine is Ritchie's, so it would scarcely oppose him, while it did ardently support him. Republican Senatorial nomination went to Dr. Joseph Irwin France, not Colonel Hill. LOUIS J. O'DONNELL
The Baltimore Sun
Baltimore, Md.
Harvard to Ohio
Sirs:
On p. 11 of TIME, Sept. 17, in explaining the wide ranges from which Mr. Morgenthau's Brain Trust is chosen, you state that the geographic limits are Georgia and Minnesota and that the social extremes are Harvard and Ohio State. . . . I am curious to know why the two universities should be located at opposite ends of the social scale.
C. I. BRADFORD
Bloomfield, N. J.
Sirs:
. . . I'm not saying anything, mind you, but what the devil do you mean--socially?
ARTHUR M. SHAPIRO
Passaic, N. J.
Harvardman Franklin D. Roosevelt sets the social standard for college affiliations in Washington. TIME may have erred in placing Ohio State at the foot of a list which includes also Brookings Institution, Chicago, Columbia, Georgia, Lawrence, Minnesota, Princeton, Wesleyan. --ED.
Cohan's Gift Song
Sirs:
I was severely shocked to see in TIME. Sept. 24, a naive and entirely unnecessary attack upon George M. Cohan for the song "Night of Stars" which he wrote as his contribution to the show which was staged at Yankee Stadium to raise funds for German-Jewish refugees.
There was no thought in the mind of the United Jewish Appeal, and certainly none in that of George M. Cohan, to present a musical masterpiece. The words and music were the sincere expression of the emotions of a fine personality moved by the situation in Germany. It seems to me that TIME has displayed an unforgivable lack of good taste and sense of proportion in undertaking to evaluate this free- will offering to a philanthropic cause on the background of his long and successful professional record as a song composer. . . .
NATHAN BURKAN
Chairman
United Jewish Appeal
New York City
TIME made no "attack" on Songwriter Cohan. In reporting his "Night of Stars" as Music news, TIME viewed it squarely for its newsworth as the latest and least meritorious product of an eminent composer, a view unaffected by the fact that he wrote it for a cause and asked no pay. --ED.
Imitative Advts. (Cont'd)
Sirs: ... I heartily agree with Messrs. Gorov, Walker and Little [TIME, Oct. 1]. I think you make a great mistake and antagonize your readers by allowing your advertisers to use your distinctive style as a subterfuge to attract your readers' attention.
T. A. HULFISH, 2ND
Mt. Rainier, Rid.
Sirs: "Has reader sentiment changed?" For one, yes.
My first reaction to ads in TIME style: "That's clever."
My second reaction, after reading several such ads: "Not interested, skip that, no time for it."
And now: "Never read them of choice, but start one now and then by mistake and become mildly annoyed."
HOYT PALMER
Brookhaven, L. I.
Sirs:
Reader Walker is right. No advertiser has the privilege to ape TIME's "rugged individualism" without added recompense to TIME's subscribers. I, mercenary, unabashed, suggest that Brothers Milshire, Heinz, Parker House, et al--if they must employ this subtle means of deception--send free to each and every TIME subscriber, weekly, a trade sample of their product.
JOHN R. CLARK
Hartford, Conn.
Sirs:
. . . TIME is a success because its style is distinctive. TIME advertisers should not be permitted to trade on this editorial individuality to the extent that readers are hoaxed.
JOHN H. MILLER
New York City
Sirs:
STUDENTS OF GERAGHTY CLASS IN ADVERTISING VOTE APPROVAL OF TIME'S NEWS ADS. CLASS IN JOURNALISM SEES NO CONFUSION WITH TIME SPRIGHTLY SAUCY NEWS. WE ARE HAPPY TO SETTLE THIS AND ANY OTHER BOTHERSOME QUARREL. LEMONS ENROUTE TO READERS GOROV WALKER AND LITTLE.
JOHN B. GERAGHTY
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
Anybody who can't distinguish between the ads and the editorial text! Why even the ink smells differently.
ELDON HALDANE
Atlanta, Ga.
Sirs: . . .
Although I have never been confused, I agree with Mr. Walker that the advertiser does not rate the added stimulation. . . .
I would be happy to see its discontinuance.
ALBERT C. DUERR JR.
South Charleston, W. Ya.
To the first hundred readers who registered their reactions to TIMEstyle advertisements, sincere thanks. After study of the letters, many of which make able suggestions. TIME will adopt a precise policy. --ED.
Huntley Haberdashery
Sirs:
The article appearing on p. 16 of your issue of Oct. 8, in which my name and picture appear, is inaccurate, untrue, grossly misleading, per- sonally abusive and professionally damaging. As you hide your Washington correspondent under a cloak of anonymity, the responsibility becomes wholly . . . TIME'S. I regard it as distinctly and inexcusably libelous.
T. A. HUNTLEY
United States Senate
Washington, D. C.
Reader Huntley was reputed to have made a bet with No. 2 Democratic Boss Emil Hurja: a hat, shoes, shirts, neckties that Senator David Reed (whose secretary Reader Huntley is) would beat Democrat Guffey in Pennsylvania. Since current odds at 7-to-5 favor his boss to win, TIME congratulates Reader Huntley on his highly moral abstinence from collecting a wardrobe in the manner indicated.--ED.
Peaceful Irenee
Sirs:
How does it happen Vice Chairman of the Board du Pont's name is so generally spelled with two "E's," thus, Irenee? Isn't that the feminine? . . .
CAMERON M. PLUMMER
Bolivar, Tenn.
In 1801, shortly after emigrating from France to the U. S., Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours wrote to his friend Thomas Jefferson: "The son of my youth is named Victor. I have called that of my cold reason Eleuthere Irenee. . . . This 'peaceful friend of liberty.' although he manufactures gunpowder, hopes that it will not be used for war but for those functions which prevent war. . . ." Source of that name was the Greek eleutherus (free) and irene (peace). The present Irenee du Pont is Eleuthere Irenee's great-grandson. His wife is named Irene. They have a daughter Irene, a son Irenee.--ED.
Harelips & Hairlips
Sirs:
In the Sept. 24 issue of TIME you refer to "hairlip" as a deformity. Harelip is a congenital deformity and can be corrected by an oral surgeon. "Hairlip" on the other hand merely requires a shave, providing, of course, a mustache is not desired. . .
S. L. SILVERMAN, M. D.
Atlanta, Ga.
Clean-Eared Afghan
Sirs:
As an Afghan of the old school I take exception to what I regard as rather disparaging comment upon my noble race in your issue of Oct. 1, p. 18.
Violent I must admit I am, but my ears, Sir, are as clean as yours.
R. L. TRACY
Cambridge, Mass.
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