Duce's Pants

Sirs:

TIME, Nov. 5 said "Starting a new slum clearance drive in Rome, Benito Mussolini bounded to the roof of a moldering hovel, swung a housewrecker's pick with spectacular results. As Il Duce's suspenders snapped and he grabbed for his trousers. . . ."

The news photographs from Rome this week picturing Il Duce striking the blow with his pick, also plainly show him wearing a belt out-side a sweater.

One surmises that:

a) either the photograph was taken after the suspenders snapped, and II Duce had borrowed a belt.

b) or that TIME is in error.

c) or that Il Duce is more cautious than one takes him to be.

SALLY TIBBETTS

Duluth, Minn.

Presumably cautious, Benito Mussolini wears suspenders, a belt.--ED.

Ink & Air

Sirs:

TIME'S otherwise meritorious "Ink & Air" (TIME, Oct. 29) contains one absurdity, which becomes apparent when the unequivocal "If Radio also broadcast complete news, many a listener would not bother with newspapers" is paraphrased to read, "If TIME broadcast complete March of TIME, many a listener would not bother with TIME."

"Complete" news broadcast, including the customary newspaper filler, would be as thoroughly annoying to radio listeners as a broadcast of the "complete" contents of TIME. No thinking radio news agency wants to broadcast "complete" news any more than TIME wants a "cover-to-cover" broadcast. . . .

The writer knows many a radio owner who listens regularly to news broadcasts, but only one who has foregone newspapers for radio news. That one is 82 years old, and nearly blind--but into his home come no fewer than three daily newspapers, two Sunday newspapers, and two weekly newsmagazine-digests. . . .

FRANK L. RAND

Director of Publicity

The Yankee Network

Boston, Mass.

Sirs:

... I got myself a special small portable radio set that goes with me everywhere I have to be busy in the house. In the kitchen where I spend most of my time, doggone it, with a big family to cook for, down in the basement when I do my washing, just because I don't want to miss news reports or occasional flashes. And then like a dunce I just have to get the Detroit paper to get more complete details of the news reports, although we have a very excellent small-town paper that comes regularly to the house.

If the papers are honest I think they will have to admit that the radio helped them to increase their circulation.

EMMA J. FARVER Pontiac, Mich.

SIRS: Your article on the press-radio controversy was very welcome. . .

. . . . Just as the automobile drove the less convenient horse and buggy off the street, as the steamship out-sailed the sailing ship, as the printed book displaced the handwritten manu script, so will radio outdo the slower, more expensive and cumbersome newspaper, as a distributor of news.

... If newspapers are smart they will not fight radio but accept the inexorable law of survival of the fittest and find ways of proving their output -- a popular defensive business move of which newspaper publishers are innocent.

B. A. JONES

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

U. P.'s Tracks

Sirs:

. . . AIR CONDITIONING HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH PASSENGERS ON U. P. STREAMLINE TRAIN NOT FEELING IMPERIAL VALLEY HEAT [TIME, Nov. 5] AS THE TRAIN NEVER WAS WITHIN 100 MILES OF IMPERIAL VALLEY NOR WILL IT EVER BE AS LONG AS IT STAYS ON PRESENT UNION PACIFIC TRACKS. . . .

JACK C. DEAGAN

Riverside, Calif.

A. M. A. Flayed

Sirs:

Four years ago my mother died of cancer of the bone. Earlier I wrote to several prominent physicians renowned for their work in cancer cases, asking if any treatment, however experimental, was being used to combat this particular form of the disease. The answer in all cases was the same: nothing is being done.

Now I learn from your article under Medicine in the Oct. 22 issue, that a toxin was invented 40 years ago which has "proved effective in a large percentage of inoperable bone cancers," that it was reported 24 years ago as a nonofficial remedy by the American Medical Association, that "last week ... the A. M. A. reaffirmed its approval."

I cannot understand why such a treatment was not urged upon every doctor 24 years ago, instead of being hesitantly presented as "non-official." If every doctor in this country had tried it then on his more than willing patients, in a year or two enough data would have been gathered to show its value. Instead, I suppose Dr. Coley alone used it on the comparatively few patients who came his way, until after 40 years he amassed enough evidence to break down the skepticism of the A. M. A.

I feel that the Association is criminally negligent in not waging more aggressive war against this horrible disease. Everyone who has helplessly watched a loved one lie in pain waiting for death will feel the same.

JUDITH EWELL

Rochester, N. Y.

Sirs:

Thank you sweetly for the little knock on p. 45 of TIME, Oct. 22. As the old saying goes, every knock is a boost.

It took me four years to land my first check as a free-lancer in the writing field, but only two months to gain the national eye as a cancer specialist.

More power to Dr. Coley. I am glad he can cure certain cancers. God knows we need more Coleys. The wonder is that that hardheaded, harder-brained, all-self-sufficient, ultra-pharisaical, self-appointed lord of human helplessness, the A. M. A., should recognize him. His work must not interfere much with their operation incomes, as does Dr. Koch's, or like Dr. Koch he, too, would be "discredited." . . .

Discredited? . . . Were not Semmelweiss, Pasteur, Lister and Morgan all discredited in America? Was not Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, discredited? Well, if Jesus Christ were here today, in New York, the A. M. A. would send out a man and have him jailed for practicing medicine without a license. . . .

DR. EMERSON B. HARTMAN

Naturopathic Physician San Bernardino, Calif.

White House Pipeline

Sirs:

TIME (Nov. 5) refers to a story about Banker Francis M. Law borrowing a quarter from Gus Tarry of the Wall Street Journal staff. TIME says the President got his information from the Dow-Jones ticker. Just in order to get the story straight, let me tell you just what happened:

Law came up to the White House in a taxi and, finding himself out of funds, borrowed two bits from Gus, to the great glee of the assembled reporters. Fred Storm (United Press) immediately shot the story into the U.P. and within a couple of minutes it was back in the White House over the Washington City News Service printer. It was torn off and handed to the President, who had it in his hand when Law, Hecht, and Robert Fleming of the Riggs Bank came into his office, only a few minutes after the borrowing incident.

There is no Dow-Jones printer in the White House. But WCNS has one there, and the President gets most of his spot information from it.

ALFRED F. HARRISON

Manager

Washington City News Service

Washington, D. C.

All thanks to Manager Harrison for a TIMEworthy report of how the President gets his spot news.--ED. Degrading, Disgusting, Diabolical

Sirs:

. . . Many heinous things are done in the name of sport, but nothing is more so than rating rodeos as Sport [TIME, Oct. 22]. They are, in the main, the most degrading, disgusting, diabolical display of cruelty that in modern times has been staged. . . .

Bucking is not natural to horses; the poor wretches that are made to do so for the gratification of morons are so goaded and tortured that they hate the sight of man and become frenzied to the point of killing themselves, in their efforts to get rid of their abusers. . . .

. . . The originator of wrestling with cattle, whose disgusting act was holding the poor beast by the nose with his teeth, was on his death eulogized by a gaseous columnist, saying his like would not be seen again. A humane animal lover retorted: "It is sincerely hoped there never would be.". . .

. . . The present acts of abuse at rodeos will later pall, and more (there are lots of them) vicious displays will have to be introduced. Even after the laudable failure of a gang of American rodeoists in England last summer, the nation was so incensed that legislation was promptly enacted to prevent further invasions of shows that depended on cruelty and abuse. . . .

W. H. B. MEDD, V. S.

Alpine, Calif.

More on rodeos will appear in the Nov. 26 issue of the fortnightly LETTERS, a copy of which will be sent to any TIME reader on request. Yearly subscription: 50-c-.--ED.

Man of the Year

Sirs:

Will TIME, as has been its custom, pick a "Man of the Year" for 1934?

If so, I am willing to wager with any one TIME reader that this year's selection will be France's late great Louis Barthou. Terms of the wager: a one year's subscription to TIME; in the case of a subscriber, a one year's renewal thereof.

JOSEPH H. SPEAR

Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.

Yes, TIME will pick a Man of the Year, print his picture on the cover of the issue of Jan. 7, 1935. Meanwhile, TIME'S editors are more interested in nominations than in wagers. Let readers state their choices, documented with clear, curt, concise reasons.--ED.

Billboard Blight

Sirs:

TIME, Oct. 29, "Billboards are a blight upon the Nation."

Is TIME quoting or is TIME making this statement?

One of my good prospects read your article and is of the opinion that the nation is decaying quickly enough without additional impetus from him.

JOHN EDWARD GROSS

Oliver Langan Outdoor Adv. Co.

St. Louis, Mo.

TIME was quoting the generalized opinion of garden clubs, civic improvement leagues, organized nature lovers, many & many an esthetic motorist.--ED.

Swiftest Trains

Sirs:

In regard to a statement in your issue of Nov. 5 regarding the run of the M-10001, I sadly fear that you are coming close to touching off a tinderbox.

. . . "Never before had a passenger train hit 120 m.p.h.". . .

It is my belief that the highest speed ever attained by a passenger train was made by the Pennsylvania Special (now known as the Broadway Limited) on its [westbound] run, June 12, 1905. Near Ada, Ohio three miles were covered in 85 seconds. That is 127.2 m.p.h. . . .

LEWIS E. HOFFMANN

U. S. Coast & Geodetic Survey

New Castle, Ind.

To Reader Hoffmann, thanks for a chapter of railroad history borne out by yellowing newspaper clippings. On the day the Pennsylvania Special made its record, its eastbound sister train hit 97.3 m.p.h.-- ED.

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