The Man Bilbo

Sirs:

. . . Like most "Yankee publications" you can't resist the temptation to have your dirty, untruthful dig at Southerners, but this time you are not content to censure and abuse the living, you must take a dirty crack at the dead. The sentences to which I refer [TIME, Oct. 1] read in this manner: ''As unique as its cooking is the South's propensity for sending strange characters as its ambassadors to the U. S. Senate. Because of the political degeneracy of the one-party system, the incompetence of the Deep South's voters or the type of man who there goes out for public life, the Senate has in late years suffered such people, as Alabama's Heflin, South Carolina's Blease, Georgia's Watson, Louisiana's Long, Mississippi's Vardaman. Mississippi, where Jefferson Davis lived, where the illiteracy rate is the fourth highest in the U. S., where poverty is said to have driven 'all the good niggers' over into Alabama, last week fairly outdid itself in the matter of picking a U. S. Senator."

I know nothing of Mr. Bilbo, the subject of your editorial, neither do I know anything of Mr. Blease, or Senator Long, but I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Heflin, and found him to be, personally, a most pleasing gentleman, certainly a great deal more than I can say for the Editor of TIME from having met him through the columns of the magazine. . . .

A. D. WATSON Louisville, Ga.

Sirs: . . . Senator Bilbo, is well educated, has a brilliant mind, a strong physical body, a lively imagination, and a nervous energy, and for more than 20 years has spent practically his entire time and energy in constructing, energising, and consumating remedial and beneficial legislation in an effort to amelerate the unfortunate condition of the sick, the blind, the insane, the feebleminded, and the Veterans of the Civil, and World's War. . . .

Since the early Spring of 1934, he has campaigned up and down this state driving his own flivver, speaking two and three hours at a time then hurrying to some other locality for another speech, and he has charmed and thrilled the masses with his scintillating intellect, his wit, and humor, his Irish pathos, and his dauntless determination to serve his fellow countrymen. He has had arrayed against him nearly every newspaper, practically all the wealth, and influential politicians of the state. ... I dare say, his victory in this campaign will go clown in American history as the very greatest that any officeholder has ever achieved.

Another thing, the state of Mississippi has always been traditionally a dry state, but when the whiskey trust of America, decided to convert the U. S. into a vast barroom, and brothel to drag down the masses to a state of degeneracy, the wets of Mississippi, conceived and tried to pass the most eniquitous piece of whiskey legislation ever offered as an insult to the intelligence of a moral and spiritual-minded people.

Then it was, when thousands of intellectually able men and women of every shades of political thought refused to commit themselves, Bilbo, the coorageous champion of right, truth, honesty and morality, fought the battle of his life to keep Mississippi dry, and I challenge the world to disprove the fact, that it was due more to his efforts than to any other factor, that the victory was won, and Mississippi was kept dry. & Saved from this debauchery. . . .

J. M. HARWELL

Meridian, Miss.

Many a literate Mississippian has leaped to the defense of The victorious Man Bilbo. TIME regrets that it is unable to give satisfaction to the defenders because none of them has caused TIME to doubt the accuracy of its Bilbo facts. That The Man is liked in Mississippi, TIME never doubted.--ED. Sirs:

No doubt you are receiving many letters from indignant Mississippians concerning your account of Bilbo in the issue of Oct. 1. I am not indignant; I am simply humiliated by the circumstances that make it possible for you to print such an article. I feel that you have been kinder to Bilbo than you usually are to the South and no one should become angry at mere facts. If the supporters of Bilbo are incensed at what you printed, they should have surveyed it before supporting him, for it is common knowledge in this State. Forgetfulness of Bilbo's past is one of the strongest attributes of his constituents; and they are not able to complain that you used the enormous clouds of gossip that float about the State coloring his reputation.

. . . This is my last defense of the State of which I am ashamed. Let the North, West, and East remember that in the South, as well as their own regions, intelligence is in the minority, and that, by a sometimes faulty axiom, the minority is right. Foreseeing a possible run of cancelled subscriptions, the redress of trodden toes, I say such a move is the mark of the subscribers' grade of intelligence. They do not deserve to read TIME. . . .

Hereafter, when I am in the North or East, and the name of Mississippi is mentioned, I can only keep my mouth shut and blush. The dignity of the State, as well as the national Congress, is something that ought to be considered by voters. But you, who can see us from an objective point of view, do be kind to us when you can.

HUBERT CREEKMORE

Jackson, Miss.

New Mexico's Cutting

Sirs:

We the undersigned readers of TIME would like to have you publish one of your short sketches of the life and work of U. S. Senator Bronson Cutting of New Mexico.

R. E. LEVERS W. E. BONDURANT FOREST E. LEVERS LANGFORD KEITH H. H. DAVIDSON Roswell, N. Mex.

The record of Senator Bronson Cutting of New Mexico is as follows:

Born: At Oakdale, Long Island, N. Y., June 23, 1888.

Start in Life: Invalid. Career: A descendant of Inventor Robert Fulton, he comes from one of New England's oldest and wealthiest families. From fashionable Groton he went to Harvard where he was a Phi Beta Kappa. He contracted tuberculosis in his last year (1910), had to be shipped to New Mexico on a stretcher. There he began a study of local archaeology which was to make him better acquainted with the State than most of its natives. His lungs mended rapidly. In 1912 he bought the capital's only newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, and promptly tacked on a Spanish edition. At the same time he jumped into politics as a Bull Mooser against Albert B. Fall's machine, which he later broke. When the U. S. entered the War, he was sent by the Intelligence Department to London. He got the British Military Cross, came out a Captain. Back in New Mexico he helped organize the American Legion, served two years as department adjutant, and began spending money from his large fortune on a new political machine largely recruited from the Spanish-American population. Later accused of buying the vote, he muffled his critics by inviting investigation, then remarked: "The purchasable vote in New Mexico is not nearly as large as most people think." Nominally Republican, he helped elect a Democrat to the Senate in 1924. This move so blurred the State's party lines that when in 1927 the Governor appointed Mr. Cutting to an unexpired term in the Senate, local politicians resolved themselves into pro and ante Cutting factions. In 1928 he was elected for the full term as a Republican; but two years later he turned around and backed Democrats in State and national elections and in 1932 he plumped for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Together with such Western mavericks as California's Johnson and Wisconsin's La Follette he felt at home in the New Deal when fellow-Harvardman Roosevelt came to Washington. But to his bitter disappointment, Democratic Boss Farley failed to put his blessing on Senator Cutting's aspiration for the Democratic nomination this year. Hence Mr. Cutting traded in his personal Progressive following for the Old Guard Republican nomination. In Congress: In the Senate Bronson Cutting promptly identified himself with the Progressives. His first windmill was the ''dirty book" provision tacked onto the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Bill. In one of the gaudiest shows ever staged on Capitol Hill he attacked the provision with such guile and learning that even Mormon Reed Smoot was finally reduced to apoplectic silence. Result: an amendment giving suspected foreign books the benefit of court trial. In the same year he led the fight which passed, over President Hoover's veto, the Cutting-Hawes Bill for Philippine Independence. In the 1930-31 session he labored mightily to knit the disorganized Progressives into a bloc. Never sympathetic to the Hoover administration, he became its increasingly vehement critic as the Depression deepened. Early in the Depression he introduced a bill for a $5,000,000,000 bond issue to pay for a public works program. Following its defeat he continued to bark unceasingly at the Presidential heels for a positive relief program. Having lined up behind President Roosevelt, he sponsored but one notable piece of New Deal legislation: Senate Bill No. 3744, to set up a "Federal Monetary Authority" under which the Treasury would take over all Federal Banks. Says he: "Our private banking system has broken down." He speaks with a broad Harvard accent, has a slight impediment. No orator, he makes his point by persistence and directness. In New Mexico he campaigns in Spanish as well as English. He voted for: Equalization Fee Farm Relief (1928), Reapportionment (1929), Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930), Government operation of Muscle Shoals (1930, 1933), Hoover Moratorium (1931), Federal Relief (1932), Repeal (1933), Bonus (1932, 1933), Copper Tariff (1932), AAA (1933), Roosevelt Gold Bill (1934), St. Lawrence Waterway (1934), Stock Exchange Control (1934), Overriding Roosevelt veto of increased veterans' compensation (1934). He voted against: Parker for Supreme Court (1930), Sales Tax (1932), Federal pay cut (1932), NIRA (1933). He is a member of the Agriculture & Forestry, Irrigation & Reclamation, Manufactures, Military Affairs, Public Lands & Surveys, Territories & Insular Affairs Committees. Legislative hobbies: civil liberties, veterans, electoral reform. A neophyte in a turbulent term, he has had but little time to ride his hobbies. He is most vociferous when defending what he considers to be infringements on liberty. He does much quiet spadework for his home State, in which he is the faithful friend of the lowly "greaser." He votes consistently for the Bonus. In appearance he is tall and husky, with a full, unlined face suggestive of a well-fed Englishman. He dresses well, but causes his colleagues to gawk by wearing his trousers unfashionably short. Reserved in manner, he unbends only to his intimates. He belongs to the Harvard, Union, Century and National (London) Clubs. Outside Congress: A bachelor, he lives with his mother. In Washington he has a Norman villa at 2500 3Oth Street N. W. On Long Island he stays at the Cutting home. In Santa Fe he occupies a sumptuous Spanish house on the edge of town to entertain Americans and Spaniards alike. In Washington he has no automobile, drives his mother's 1929 Cadillac. He neither drinks, smokes nor chews. For diversion he reads and walks. Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: possessor of one of the best intellects in the Capitol, he votes as he thinks on all national questions, usually winding up on the left wing of the Progressives; a good statesman, a better politician, he promises to be important in future Congresses.--ED.

Air Into Transport

Sirs:

One of the principal reasons for my subscription to your magazine was because of the aviation news which you had been publishing.

Since my last subscription has been entered, there have been a number of issues that did not have a word of aviation news.

I would appreciate being advised if the aviation news is to be discontinued.

J. H. CLEMSON

Philadelphia, Pa.

Let Subscriber Clemson turn to Transport, wherein newsworthy air-facts will be reported as fully as ever.--ED.

Sirs: . . . Finally TIME has performed the neatest bit of magic to date--it has converted gliding and soaring into Transport, of all things [TIME, Oct. 8]. Poor impractical me, I had always had the benighted notion that motorless flying was just pure useless sport. I'm glad TIME put me right, though. Now I won't have to wait any longer for the $700 airplane; I'll just get myself a sailplane and soar out to see the world. . . . ROBERT B. RENFRO

Editor

The Sportsman Pilot New York City

Henceforth, sport will be SPORT.--ED.

Sirs:

For a long time I have felt that TIME'S admirable coverage (editorially) should include a department on transportation, bringing us the news of all transport developments--in railroad, steamship and bus fields as well as in aeronautics. . . . Therefore, I am doubly pleased to see the new Transport column, and want to congratulate you on adding a feature which I am sure will interest all your readers. LUCIA LEWIS

Travel Editor Chicago Daily News Chicago, Ill.

"Drab" Holyoke

Sirs: If any article could rouse an alumna, that article would be the one published in TIME, Oct. 1, on Mount Holyoke. . . . If it were possible, I would like to run an excursion for all those interested in viewing the poor "always studious," "always hard up," "drably" dressed students who eke out "drab" lives under the "stern"--pardon me--"the large, stern" shadow of Mary E. Woolley. It is a pitiful case. I never realized what the four years in which cramming for quizzes was offset by weekends in New York and Boston, dances, dates, athletics, horse shows, class entertainments, concerts, lectures, movies, dramatics, pageants, sleigh rides, carnivals (must I continue?) really meant. . . . E. VIRGINIA GRIMES

Oak Lane, Philadelphia, Pa.

Sirs:

As a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, a member of its teaching staff, and as a subscriber of long standing to TIME, I am writing to ask you to cancel my two-year subscription immediately, refunding, at least, one year's subscription. . . .

CHRISTIANNA SMITH

Mt. Holyoke College South Hadley, Mass.

To Subscriber Smith, the unexpired balance of her subscription, and TIME'S regrets.--ED.

Sirs:

I was about to send in the enclosed [subscription] card when the article about Mount Holyoke College . . . was called to my attention. Under the circumstances, of course, I have no further interest in a magazine which garbles facts so unfortunately. . . .

HELEN MacM. VOORHEES

Director

The Appointment Bureau Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, Mass.

Were Director Voorhees to risk $1 on a trial subscription she might find that TIME, a publication which states more facts more sharply than any other, is also self-correcting.--ED.

Sirs, Last Saturday night it was my privilege to be present at one of the student dances at Mt. Holyoke. These dances, commonly known as "studes," are given by the college for the girls and as many boys as they care to invite. The girls take the boys, inviting them and paying for them. At the dance the girls are stags, cutting in on the boys, who soon learn what a girl has to go through at an ordinary dance. Far from drab, most of the girls that I saw were most comely. Not too serious, most of them seemed capable of carrying on that kind of a conversation known as a line. Most Amherst men admit that the girls at Smith are smoother but it is also true that we have a saying here that "fellers marry Holyoke wimmen" and I believe that it holds true in a remarkable amount of cases. . . . WILLIAM FITZ

Amherst, Mass.

Sirs:

If the wearing of lurid skiing costumes to classes and gay froufrou for evening callers is called dressing drably, then Mount Holyoke daughters are very colorless indeed.

If enjoying two mountain ranges, two lakes, an outing club cabin and golf course is considered a pitiful substitute for a cinema mansion, then weep for old South Hadley. . . . HELEN M. FRANCIS

Hartford, Conn.

Sirs:

... In conclusion, I should like to thank the author of your article for providing this means of uniting Mount Holyoke's students and alumnae even more firmly in support of their president and their "retiring" alma mater.

Lois M. SMEDLEY ('35)

Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, Mass.

To loyal Mount Holyokians congratulations on display of a spirit anything but drab. TIME is now well aware of Mount Holyoke's sleigh rides & carnivals, her women that men marry, her mountain ranges, her energetic President and also of many another asset loyally described in the Oct. 29 issue of LETTERS. Last week Mount Holyoke researchers proudly announced that nearly one-fourth of this year's 200 freshmen are kin of devoted alumnae or undergraduates.--ED.

Masters of Nursing

Sirs:

This week 47 budding Florence Nightingales entered the distinguished portals of one of the most outstanding schools of nursing in the world. That very week they read (in the Oct. 1 issue of TIME under the heading Medicine) a graphic and appreciative account of the progressive strides of this school and of its forward-looking Dean, Miss Effie J. Taylor. They justly resent one incorrect statement, however, and hasten to enlighten you. . . .

Beginning this fall, each entering student must hold at least a Bachelor's degree from an approved college. . . . They are full-fledged graduate students of Yale University of equal standing with graduate students in any other graduate school of this institution. When they march up the aisle in cap, gown and hood at a Yale University Commencement in June, 1937 they will be the first to receive a Master of Nursing.

ELEANOR T. FISHER

Yale School of Nursing '37 New Haven, Conn.

Play in Reverse

Sirs:

In your review of Merrily We Roll Along your critic makes the assertion that the method of telling a story backward which is the distinct novelty of this particular production is "not new, either in fiction or on the stage" [TIME, Oct. 8].

We specifically and categorically deny this assertion in so far as the stage is concerned and hereby offer a substantial prize to your critic if he will name us one play produced in America in which the action moves progressively backward without deviation. There have been dozens of plays, of course, which start in the present and then go back to a prior date, but they have always moved forward again up to the present.

JOHN PETER TOOHEY

General Press Representative Sam H. Harris New York City

To TIME'S Theatre critic, no prize.--ED.

Flash !

Sirs: Flash--Tuesday, Oct. 9, 4 p. m., newspaper headlines read: "King Alexander of Jugoslavia assassinated." Thursday, Oct. 11, 4:30 p. m., TIME reports the story in the usual well-written style. Someone must have stayed up late to get the story to press. Remembering well the speed in which you got TIME out at the time of the AKRON crash, I said to myself Tuesday: "TIME will have it." I was not disappointed. . . . THEODORE R. OETTING

Dormont, Pa.

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