Doughty Ancestor Sirs:
Will you save a man from the wrath of his relatives? In your story under Business & Finance headed "Hart, Schaffner, Marx & Hillman" (TIME, April 19), you say regarding myself, "He is ashamed of one of his doughty ancestors who was tried for 'inhuman activities' in the form of scalping an Indian."
The ancestor referred to is Captain Michael Cresap. No one has an ancestor in whom he takes more pride than I take in Captain Michael. He was an Indian fighter of rare courage. He took part in Dunmore's War in 1774 and drove the Indians from the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania back into Ohio. At the treaty of peace, Cresap was accused of having murdered the family of a friendly Indian named Logan. He paid no attention to the charges and soon was summoned to raise a company of riflemen for the Revolutionary War. His company marched from Frederick, Maryland, to Boston in twenty-two days. In the fall of 1775, Captain Cresap died in New York City, was given a great funeral and buried in Trinity Churchyard.
Twenty-five years after Cresap's death, Thomas Jefferson published his Notes on Virginia. In them he criticized the white settlers for their inhuman treatment of Indians and he used as an illustration the alleged murder of a friendly Indian family by Captain Michael Cresap. That charge has been answered time and again. First by John Jacobs in 1820, second by Brantz Mayer, a Baltimore lawyer, in 1851, and finally by Professor James A. James, of Northwestern University, in his life of George Rogers Clark. Dr. James discovered that George Rogers Clark and Captain Cresap were together on the Ohio River many miles away from the scene of the tragedy on the day it occurred.
MARK W. CRESAP Chicago, Ill.
Essence of Woolfism
Sirs:
All credit to TIME's able book reviewer for writing the best statement on Virginia Woolf that this writer has ever seen (TIME, April 12). What many lecturers on the novel have endeavored to put across in a month's time, is set forth in TIME so concisely and yet so fully that the Woolf enthusiast is given at once the whole essence of Woolfism. And to crown the whole evaluation TIME takes the crux of Woolfism for its cover caption: "It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple Virginia Woolf has turned her back on the microscopic detail of Naturalism, and like the French painters of her own generation, turns to simplification and to the basic problems of Life. TIME expresses her ideas better than any other critic has done. Says TIME: "The lives of human beings are even less observable indications of the same pattern but serve to mark the wavelike motion of life's force." Doesn't this serve as the final and complete explanation of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith?
STANFORD M. MIRKIN New York City
Credit to Bazaar
Sirs:
I was horrified to see that the photograph of Virginia Woolf on the cover of TIME, April 12, credited the photographer, Man Ray, but did not credit Harper's Bazaar, who arranged to have Mrs. Woolf's picture taken and paid Man Ray a large sum for the exclusive rights to this beautiful picture.
CARMEL SNOW Editor Harper's Bazaar New York City
To Harper's Bazaar and its able Editor, Mrs. Carmel Snow, TIME's apology for an inadvertent slight.--ED.
Rugged Countenance Sirs:
Thanks a lot for the good notice of my book, Cruise of the Conrad [TIME, April 12]. But the callow lad in the photograph, mixed up with the piece of rope and no shirt on, was not I but
Cadet Peter Henley, from New Zealand. Here with my homely and rugged countenance for your files, if you want it: doggone it, I've got a shirt.
ALAN VILLIERS Brooklyn, N. Y.
No Taggers
Sirs: Being a "pure Chillicothean," I must rear my provincial head in protest at your comment on Clyde Beatty's Ross County accent (TIME, March 29, p. 46). All day I have been going around pronouncing "tiger" to all my friends; according to report, there hasn't been a "tagger" in the lot. Where COULD Beatty have gotten his? We admit that we put a "y" in "cyow," and say "up town" to the Easterner's "down town" but it takes the Mills Brothers from up Miami County way to flatten out "tiger," and they get paid for it. ...
LOUISE S. BERGMAN Cincinnati, Ohio
Pure Chillicothe
Sirs:
In your issue of March 29 (p. 46) I note that Clyde speaks pure Raymond Chillicothe Beatty (a "was tiger is born a in Ohio 'tagger')." and My man, calls husband, a also tiger a a native of "tagger" Ohio, and and has a other college--what seem to me-- speech idiosyncrasies. These are the occasion of much good-natured family, vowels banter. (e.g. They "begen" consist for chiefly begin, in "min" for substitutions of men, "limon"for lemon and "ind" for end). Is this "pure Chillicothe" or just sloppy enunciation? ; What are the general characteristics of this provincial parlance? My husband hopes he has found a defense against my raillery.
HELEN E. BENNER Mrs. Rol Benner Occidental College Los Angeles, Calif.
TIME did not intend "pure Chillicothe" to be taken as a formal linguistic classification. However, Reader Benner's ear has caught the chief characteristics of Chillicothe and Ohio River Valley speech.
Further light on sectional pronunciations in the U. S. will be shed next winter when Brown University's Hans Kurath publishes the first volume of his comprehensive Linguistic Atlas.-- ED.
President's Tax Sirs: In a footnote on p. 13 of TIME, March 22, it is stated that the President's income tax on his $75,000 salary is $18,779.
However, in Article III, Section I of the Constitution there is a clause to the effect that "Judges . . . shall . . . receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." Under this clause a Federal Judge, Evans, sought exemption from income tax payments, and in Evans v.
Gore he was supported by the Supreme Court, which held that this same exemption applied to the President. In Article II, Section I, there is a similar clause which states that the "President shall . . . receive ... a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected." Will you please explain the grounds for your item on the President's income tax?
EUGENE SHELLEY Collegeville, Pa.
Section 22 of the Revenue Act of 1932 taxes the Federal salaries of Presidents and judges. As a result of Evans v. Gore, however, Federal judges appointed before 1932 are not taxed on salaries received from the Government.--ED.
No Jimplecute
Sirs:
No Jimplecute, please [TIME, April 12].
The "cute" would be fatal to a serious word and "jimple" is simply senseless.
The strength and virility of the American language comes quite as much from the aptness of its native words as from the readiness with which we adopt them. Our best Americanisms, i.e. those most vivid and descriptive, indicate their meaning without definition. Roughneck, for instance, or cloudburst or talented (the English tore their hair over that one, but they use it now) or spellbinder. . . .
ELIZABETH HUGHES Tulsa, Okla.
Sirs:
I'hooey to "the American genius for making his language" with such a word as "Jimplecute."
JOHN S. R. JAMES Dallas, Tex.
"Jimplecute?"--NO!
Emphatically, A. PARKS New Haven, Conn.
Magazines to Sea
Sirs:
Lucky are the people ashore who, when their work is done, can seek recreation in a restful change. Lucky are they who have the movies, the theater, the fights, the hockey games and other amusements to take their minds off the troubles of the business day. I speak not of them. I do, however, raise a meek voice for my shipmates and myself, who, when eight bells go and our long watches are over have nothing but a monotonous view of sky and water to greet our eyes. Day after day and night after night we come below to our rooms or to fo'c'sles bare and uninviting. Were it not for the books and magazines placed aboard by the American Merchant Marine Library Association we would indeed be in a bad way.
Many times the writer has stood in the wing of the bridge with his oilskins drawn tightly about him, held securely by a "body and soul" lashing, his so'wester pulled down over his eyes while the rain beat an incessant tattoo upon his face patiently waiting for eight bells to strike so that in the quiet seclusion of his room, he could have a pleasant social visit with Mark Twain, Kenneth Roberts or a glance at TIME or FORTUNE before he turned over to sleep. All this, of course, while the gale raged and howled outside his comfortable quarters.
TIME keeps many a seaman from being left in the lurch about what the world is doing, and FORTUNE is so damned fascinating that the educational articles are fed to us with the sugar coated pill of entertainment. An easy pill for all hands to swallow.
But we would not get these books and magazines were it not for the American Merchant Marine Library. Certainly if people ashore who are interested in ships knew of the need for books they would help the cause along and send their books and magazines to sea.
A ship's library is accessible to everyone from the Master down to the firemen's mess boy. It is usually kept in the saloon in the custody of that Jack of all trades, the Second Mate. Many a young officer who is on the first rung of the ladder to command owes his push upward to the books sent aboard.
WILSON STARBUCK
Lieutenant, USNR New York City
Confederate Stars Sirs:
In a footnote on p. 16, TIME, April 5 states: "In the Confederate Army . . . there were no grades among general officers."
This is misleading, and. taken literally, untrue. The Confederate Army had, of course, all the usual grades among general officers. Full General, Lieutenant-General, Major-General, and Brigadier-General. It was in the collar insignia that there was no difference, all grades wearing (when uniformed according to regulations) simply three gold stars enclosed by a gold wreath on the lapel or standing collar. According to regulation, the center star was larger than the outer two. A Colonel wore three stars without the wreaths, and a Lieutenant-Colonel two. Thus on the current 4-c- stamp. General Lee is uniformed as a Lieutenant-Colonel, and in your picture on p. 16, as a Colonel. I think, but am not sure, that the difference in grade became apparent from the number of rows of braid on the sleeve of the coat.
CHARLES W. ELLIOTT Major, U. S. Army, Ret. Minneapolis, Minn.
Confederate generals of all grades wore the same collar insignia, the same four rows of sleeve braid.--ED.
Amana Amendments
Sirs:
We wish to thank you for your thoughtfulness to send us a clipping of the article on Amana [TIME, April 12. We certainly appreciate it. We wish, however, to correct certain statements. We take them in the order they are given in the article.
1 ) There was a time when all the houses were unpainted. This has gradually changed and at present the villages are becoming more and more colorful, especially since the reorganization in 1932.
2 ) The statement is made that electricity was postponed until after Christmas in order to use up the large supply of candles poured in the community. The fact is that we do not think that the present generation comprising the Amana Society has poured any candles. Kerosene was chiefly used for illumination before this, and when candles were used for Christmas trees they were purchased outside. It had been the wish of the Society to have electricity in by Christmas but this did not materialize on account of delay of construction work caused by the severe winter weather and the thick covering of ice.
3) The Amana Society reorganized in 1932 and incorporated under the laws of the State of Iowa. There was some talk at first to incorporate in Delaware, but this plan was dropped, and the Amana Society today is an Iowa corporation.
4) A 66 2/3% discount at drug stores is not correct. The fact is that members are furnished prescription medicine at cost, whatever that may be. It is evident that a drug store could not exist any length of time by selling medicine at a 66 2/3% ( discount. . . .
PETER STUCK Secretary Amana Society Amana, Iowa
Tea Seed Test
Sirs:
We write on behalf of our client, Agash Refining Corporation, of Brooklyn, N. Y., packers of Agash Brand Pure Olive Oil and packers and distributors of other edible oils.
Your issue of March 22 contained an article entitled "Seeded Oil" (p. 18). That article referred to a trial then pending in the United States District Court in Philadelphia. The article contained a number of serious inaccuracies. Since, however, it constituted a comment on a pending judicial proceeding, we were unwilling to engage in a discussion of the matter until the termination of the trial. The trial is now concluded and we are free to call your attention to the most important of those inaccuracies.
The article described the efforts of the Department of Agriculture to detect the adulteration of olive oil with tea seed oil. It described the operation of the so-called Fitelson test. The serious vice of this article is that it is so constructed as to lead the average reader to conclude that measured by this test our client's product was not pure olive oil.
The fact of the matter is that upon the conclusion of the trial Judge Oliver B. Dickinson dismissed the charges made by the Department ot Agriculture. The court held that the olive oil in question was neither adulterated nor misbranded. The court held the olive oil pure in accordance with all the standards set forth in the Pharmacopoeia of the United States. . . .
WEGMAN & CLIMENKO New York City
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