Sinclairiana
Sirs:
Your issue of Oct. 22, p. 16, referring to the burning of Helicon Hall: "An arson charge was brought against Sinclair, but subsequently dropped."
What a lovely campaign gift to hand to Candidate-for-Governor Merriam! It sounds almost as if Upton Sinclair had been indicted. . . .
Referring to Upton Sinclair, why don't you state who brought the charge and who subsequently dropped it? Why do you fail to mention that you got the story out of Upton Sinclair's autobiography, and that you could not have got it anywhere if Upton Sinclair had not told it? I really think that 1 shall have to insist that you shall publish the paragraphs from which you took that story. . . .
"Two or three days later I was driven back to Englewood to attend, on crutches, the sessions of the coroner's jury. So I learned what the outside world had been thinking about our little Utopia. They not only thought it a 'free love nest,' but the village horse-doctor on the jury thought we had set fire to it ourselves, to get the insurance. Also, and worse yet, they thought we had arranged our affairs in such a way that we could beat the local tradesmen out of the money we owed them. It was a matter for suspicion that we had got ropes, to serve as fire-escapes, shortly before the fire: they blamed us for this, and at the same time they blamed us because we had made insufficient preparations. . . . In short, we did not please them in any way, and everything they said or insinuated went onto the front pages of the yellow newspapers of the country. . . ."
You also write of my "inordinate vanity." That is a matter of opinion: you have yours and I have mine. My opinion is that you live in a world so depraved that the conceptions of sincerity, integrity, and self-sacrifice are wholly lacking from your mentality.
UPTON SINCLAIR
Pasadena, Calif.
TIME's opinion is that its world would be duller without Upton Sinclair.--ED.
Sirs:
I have been called a raving Red, an insipid idiot, and an awful ass of late--many times-- all because of my publicly avowed intention of voting for Upton Sinclair. . . .
What pleases me and doubtless hundreds of other not-so-die-hard Republicans was the remarkable way TIME analyzed our political hotbox out here into one of the most clean-cut, informative, and impartial . . . news stories it has ever been my privilege to read in your columns. . . .
DON SQUIRES
Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
Your article about the three main candidates for Governor of California is a praiseworthy contribution to political news. . . .
STANLEY SIEGFUS
Bakersfield, Calif.
Sirs:
ARTICLE TITLED CALIFORNIA CLIMAX IN TIME, OCT. 22 CONTAINS MISINFORMATION ON GOVERNOR MERRIAM IN CALIFORNIA . . . AND DOES NOT JIBE WITH FACTS GIVEN YOUR REPRESENTATIVE. . . . SEEMS UNDUE ADVANTAGE HAS BEEN TAKEN OF GOVERNOR MERRIAM. . . .
RICHARD W. BARRETT
Manager
Northern California
Governor Merriam Campaign
San Francisco, Calif.
West Virginia's Hatfield
Sirs:
The undersigned residents and voters of the State of West Virginia and subscribers of TIME would greatly appreciate you publishing a review of the personal and Congressional career of the Hon. Henry D. Hatfield, Senior U. S. Senator from West Virginia.
WILLIAM P. LEHMAN
LOUIS D. MEISEL
ROBERT M. HENRY
J. G. PRICHARD
RUSSELL L. FURBEE
VICTOR H. SHAW
Fairmont, W. Va.
The record of Senator Henry Drury Hatfield of West Virginia is as follows:
Born: Logan County, W. Va., Sept. 15, 1875.
Start in Life: Physician.
Career: Bom into a well-to-do family, he is a cousin of the late William Anderson ("Cap") Hatfield. last fighting participant in Kentucky's famed Hatfield-McCoy feuds. He graduated at 14 from Franklin College, New Athens, Ohio, received his M. D. from the University of Louisville at 18. He continued his medical training at New York University, New York Post Graduate School & Hospital, New York Polyclinic School & Hospital, Cornell Medical College. He shouldered into West Virginia Republican politics on a health platform, became Mingo County health commissioner in 1895. At the same time he began an 18-year stretch as surgeon to the Norfolk & Western R. R. In 1898 he led a successful fight to make the Legislature create three State hospitals for industrial cases, was made chief surgeon of the first. A talented bonesetter, he performed 18,000 operations in 14 years, mostly on feudists, miners, railroad men. Meanwhile he stepped from State Senator (1908-11) to Governor (1913-17). As governor his record was marked by such legislation as a State health code, a medical department for the State University, reorganization of State insane asylums, an industrial compensation law. His term as governor ended when the War began, and he served the next two years as a Major in the Army Medical Corps. In 1928, with the support of Business, Railroads, Mine Owners, and the Republican National Committee, he was elected to the U. S. Senate.
In Congress: In the Senate he found political companionship among the deepest dyed of the Old Guard. Under the Hoover regime he was remarkable only for his uncompromising party regularity, and the energy which he devoted to his job. He took a conspicuous but uninspired part in G. O. Politics, chairmanned the 1930 Senatorial Campaign committee. Of the New Deal he has been an unhappy but virulent critic. His favorite targets are Braintruster Rexford Tugwell and NRAdministrator Richberg. Typical is his characterization of the Tugwell policies as "the Soviet-like machinations of Tugwellianism."
He speaks earnestly in a sing-song voice, reads prepared speeches, which he mounts on a pile of books to bring near his bespectacled eyes.
He voted for: Tax Reduction (1929), Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930), Parker for Supreme Court (1930), London Naval Treaty (1930), Overriding Hoover veto of Government operation of Muscle Shoals (1931), Hoover Moratorium (1931), Overriding Hoover veto of Philippine Independence (1932), Bonus (1933, 1934), Increasing veterans' compensation (1933, 1934), National Housing Act (1934), Frazier-Lemke Bankruptcy Act (1934).
He voted against: Democratic Tariff bills (1932, 1934), Wartime Income Tax rates (1932), 2.75% Beer (1932), 3.2% Beer (1933), Sales Tax (1932), Bonus (1932), Repeal (1932), 30-Hour Week (1933), Government operation of Muscle Shoals (1933), Roosevelt Gold Bills (1933, 1934), NIRA (1933), AAA (1933), St. Lawrence Waterway (1934), Cotton Control (1934), Stock Exchange Control (1934), Silver Amendment (1954), Confirming Dr. Tugwell (1934).
He is a member of the Agriculture & Forestry, Immigration, Interstate Commerce, Mines & Mining Committees.
Legislative hobbies: high tariff, railroad employe pension, child labor.
As representative of a manufacturing State he has labored mightily for a place on the Senate Finance Committee which handles tariff legislation, will probably never get one.
In appearance he is tall and broad, walks with head slightly bowed. He wears dark, conservative clothes, carries a Bible in his hip pocket.
Outside Congress: He is married, has a daughter. In Washington he stays at the unpretentious Hotel Continental, is socially inactive. Nearly every weekend he commutes to his home in Huntington, W. Va. During these visits he performs free operations for the poor. He has a comfortable income from half interest in two hospitals.
Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: a sincere but uninspired party drudge, generally below the average of his colleagues.
This week he will be opposed for re-election by Democratic Nominee Rush Dew Holt, 29, in a New Deal test.--ED.
Imitative Advts. (Cont'd)
Sirs:
. . . TIME-imitating ad writers use a hook baited with a fly, a pretty, colorful fly. You think it is TIME news so you go after it as a trout goes for a fly, then zowie! you feel something hooking itself into your throat.
HARRISON MCCLELLAND
New York City
Sirs:
. . . If readers do not mistake these advertisements for editorial material what is their advantage? If readers do mistake them their disadvantage is obvious.
T. LUDLOW BICKERING
Detroit, Mich.
Sirs:
. . . By all means let TIME make its advertisements as interesting as its editorial content. I would much rather read an item such as Milshire Gin's facetious blurb for "Grandma's Old-Fashioned Gin Sponge-Cake" [TIME, July 16] than one of TIME's own recorded facts to the effect that one Dr. Morgan used "Drosophila melanogaster" [TIME, Oct. 1] in his laboratory experiments. . . .
FRED W. PEDERSON
Los Angeles, Calif.
For knowledge of how Subscriber Pederson began life as four dozen chromosomes-full of genes, Science owes most to Caltech's Dr. Morgan & flies.--ED.
Sir:
. . . The writer resents the trickery used to let his attention when he is in a "news" mood.
F. J. WlEDEMANN
Danville, Va.
Sirs:
. . . I wish to vote against the ads that tend to look like news. I haven't distinguished them "at a glance." It takes two or three glances. And I, too, develop resentment and sales resistance. So long as it was only the Des Moines Register and Tribune and Parker House (which became pleasant fixtures readily identified), it was all right. The recent additions are too much. . . .
L. L. HANAWALT
Detroit, Mich.
Sirs:
WE URGENTLY REQUEST CONSIDERATION OF FACT THAT PARKER HOUSE COPY HAS LEGITIMATE CLAIM TO EDITORIAL STYLE BECAUSE ADS HAYE DEFINITE STORY ANGLE AND SELLING IS SUBORDINATED. WE CAN SUBMIT MANY A LETTER FROM TIME READERS EXPRESSING ENJOYMENT OF OUR ADVERTISEMENTS AND INDICATING THAT OUR MONTHLY COLUMNS HAVE DEFINITE FOLLOWING. NO NEED TO ABANDON OUR TYPE OF COPY UNTIL TIME BEGINS TO IMITATE OUR STYLE.
GLENWOOD J. SHERRARD
Parker House
Boston, Mass.
Sirs:
Hell, no! Don't penalize your advertisers who are clever enough to copy your style!
Here's hoping Gorov, Walker and Little are in the minority.
JAMES SINNOTT
El Dorado, Ark.
They are not. They and their majority voted 4 1/2 to 1 against the existing order of imitative advertisements. Since a considerable number of objectors specifically stated that they objected not to the text of TIMEstyle ads but only to deceptive typography, TIME propounds the following rules, effective Jan. 1, 1935. Since any three of the four rules achieve the desired effect, compliance with any three will be accepted as satisfactory.
1) No advertisement may use TIME's typography, either in text or headlines.
2) No advertisement may use the TIME double rule above or below headings.
3) No imitative advertisement may be printed without an enclosing black line.
4) Every advertisement written in TIMEstyle shall be plainly labeled "Advertisement" at the top.
To the readers who helped TIME untangle a knotty problem, hearty thanks. --ED.
Infernal Machine
Sirs:
Medicine has dropped to a new low when any individual can enter a Men's Room and diagnose himself for ''two bits" [TIME, Oct. 15].
If TIME reports the new urinalysis machine as a benefit to humanity . . . TIME is mistaken.
The two tests which this machine performs are not diagnoses in themselves. Albumin may be found in the urine in over 20 different diseases and in itself is not diagnostic of kidney disease. The second test, presumably the Benedict's, is not diagnostic of diabetes mellitus. . . .
It seems impossible that two physicians could have possibly put such an infernal machine before the public. . . .
EMIL Z. OSSEN, M. D.
South Braintree, Mass.
Sirs:
We greatly appreciate your notice of the invention of our urinalysis machine. TIME has concisely stated its mode of operation and purpose. We sincerely hope that it will serve to warn those in the first stages of kidney trouble or diabetes that they should seek medical aid before irreparable damage has been done. . . .
JOHN B. RUSHING, M. D.
Hemphill, Tex.
Sirs:
. . . Incidentally, the slot machine is now plugged with card reading "Out of Order."
ERNEST BLOCK
Houston, Tex.
U. S. C.'s Coogan
Sirs:
Jackie Coogan still a freshman?
STEPHEN GREENE Cambridge, Mass.
TIME, Oct. 15, erred in keeping Jackie Coogan in the freshman class. He is a special law student with sophomore rank at University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Last month he tried out for assistant yell leader, was defeated by Freshman Phil Daniel--ED.
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