Idaho's Clark
Sirs:
TIME is not "Curt, Clear, Complete" when it uses the word "pretty" in describing Senator D. Worth Clark, the junior Senator from Idaho. There is nothing in the reference to Senator Clark in your March 13 issue that called for any such adjective. . . .
A pretty woman is one thing, a pretty man is the opposite. . . .
I've known Senator Clark for nearly 20 years and lived with him a year at Notre Dame. I still regard him as having the best mind, memory and fund of general knowledge of anyone I've ever known. He turned down a chance to take the exams for a Rhodes Scholarship in order to go to Harvard Law School. He was a much better scholar than the man who won. . . .
FRANCIS NEITZEL Boise, Idaho
> Let readers judge the features of Idaho's junior Senator for themselves (see cut). TIME disparages neither his looks nor his ability.--ED.
Crimeless San Francisco
Sirs:
. . . In studying the map of San Francisco which accompanied your article (TIME, Feb. 27), I was shocked to note the district bounded by Larkin, Mason, Turk and Ellis Streets described as the "toughest part of town," and I am roused to protest. . . . The word "tough" conjures gangsters and gunmen--a district where decent citizens would hesitate to find themselves after dark and where unescorted women would be unsafe.
No one knows better than I that this impression of that particular district is entirely in error and I can say in all truth that there is no district in San Francisco which can be described as being "tough." The San Francisco Police Department has worked hard and takes great pride in the fact that ours is one of the most crimeless cities among metropolitan cities of the world. We have never had racketeers or gangsters here; we have not had a kidnaping for ransom since the turn of the century; sex crimes of violence are lower per capita of population than any city of comparable size in the U. S.; bunco-men and pickpockets fight shy of San Francisco; robberies and burglaries are constantly decreasing; in short, no less an authority than Director J. Edgar Hoover has described San Francisco as the "white spot of the nation," so far as crime is concerned. . . .
Since the opening of the Golden Gate International Exposition there has been . . . [a] noticeable absence of the type of crimes one might reasonably expect. This record can be attributed only to police vigilance and efficiency, plus the fact that San Francisco has no district where abound people who can be described as "tough" and who would protect law-violators in their operations. . . .
WM. J. QUINN Chief of Police San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs:
Perhaps you are right in considering the area bounded by Larkin, Ellis, Mason and Turk Streets as the "toughest" section of San Francisco. Some might consider North Beach or the South of Market area bounded by Ninth, Market, Second, and Harrison Streets as tougher, but, as a professional social worker who has carried a case load in both areas, I do not think so.
From the standpoint of the greatest number of arrests--both felony and misdemeanor--hopheads, gambling joints, "hook-shops" (mostly girls on "call" or working out of their own apartments), TIME'S area is probably San Francisco's toughest. It is an area that seems to sleep in the daytime in order to teem with activity at night. . . .
DEXTER H. DEAN San Francisco, Calif.
Mother's Story
Sirs:
. . . You have sent my son, H. J. Heeb, much correspondence. I wish to say before he sailed for Spain in 1937. . . . He was working in Cincy, first job he had since graduating in 1931. He visited me on a Mother's Day in May, he sailed the following Wednesday from New York. But what I am trying to say is, of course he got odd jobs like in spring of the year, he would get what he could do here in Springfield cleaning wallpaper, washing down kitchens and porches. Whenever he could obtain work of that sort no matter how badly he needed clothes he would first always subscribe to two or three years of TIME Magazine. And he kept every copy since 1931. He also had a loose-leaf notebook he had indexed as to reference he could refer to back any year. There were so many copies I had to keep them in the garage, some in the attic. But this May 1937 Sunday, he was home here in Springfield from Cincy, the last thing he said was, "Mother please don't ever destroy any of my TIME magazines if you should move?" So I didn't. I had to move Nov. 12, as this move was unsatisfactory, moved again Jan. 12 but each time I moved boxes of TIME magazines, even the move men complained, says "what on earth are in these boxes?" But I am keeping them hoping someday he will return. Now my 18-year-old son, a student in chemistry at Wittenberg College, takes it and keeps his copies. . . .
MRS. BESS HEEB Springfield, Ohio
> TIME prints Mrs. Heeb's letter in the hope that it will help her get word of her son, Harry Jack, from whom she heard last on April 16, 1938.--ED.
Blatt to Schwab
Sirs:
May I have the pleasure of replying to the letter from a person named Schwab in the March 20 issue? Perhaps he is justified in his objection to Washington being typed "provincial." My only reaction as a onetime visitor was: "disappointing." His letter proves that all bigots do not live in small towns. . . .
I could say "thank God I am a Northerner." Instead, I merely state that it is indeed fortunate the educated Southern-American is not as narrow and intolerant as one Schwab. Apparently Washington has not buried all its intellectually dead--it lets them write letters!
C. R. BERRY Rochester, N. Y.
Sirs:
Any one as allergic to Negro entertainment as Alvin R. Schwab [TIME, March 20] should move from Washington to the North Bay country. He must break out in hives when he hears Al Jolson sing Mammy. . . .
MORTON F. McKINNEY Clarion, Pa.
Sirs:
Because the Daughters of the American Revolution recently denied the use of their Washington hall to Negro Singer Marian Anderson, and because of their consistently illiberal stand on political, economic and constitutional questions, we recommend that their name be changed to the Defenders of the American Reaction.
BILL SLAYTON JOHN MILLER University of Omaha, Omaha, Neb.
> Marian Anderson still hopes to present a concert in Washington, D. C. If Central High School auditorium, only other suitable hall, remains unavailable, plans are to hold a free open-air concert on Easter Sunday in front of the Lincoln Memorial.--ED.
Austin, Willys
Sirs:
I quote from your article in the March 20 issue of TIME, under the heading Manufacturing, referring to the Studebaker Champion, in which you say:
"They decided the public would not buy any car smaller or less powerful than Ford, Chevrolet or Plymouth (vide the Austin and Willys)."
In the first place, please let me tell you that our Willys-Overland car, insofar as passenger roominess is concerned, is as big as the new Studebaker and yet you compare it with the Austin, which is a very much smaller car.
J. W. FRAZER President Willys-Overland Motors, Inc. Toledo, Ohio
>To roomy Willys-Overland, TIME'S apologies.--ED.
Ides of March
Sirs:
As a most pleasant and amusing conclusion of this beautiful early spring Sunday, March 5, I happened to read your article entitled "Ides of March" [TIME, Feb. 27].
On the above dangerous date I drove to Potsdam. The sun was shining and thousands of "civil transport vehicles" (private cars, trucks and busses) were on the road, filled not with soldiers on their way to the frontier but with peaceful civilians of all ages including those between 25 and 30, enjoying themselves. The only soldiers to be seen were walking with their girls and their families on regular Sunday leave.
It is especially interesting to read TIME in Europe, for as it arrives about twelve days after having been published, one is in an excellent position to judge how often its prophecies fail to come true. . . .
HERBERT UHL Berlin Dahlem, Germany
Sirs:
Really during the last few months the Foreign News Department of TIME has become almost laughable. Receiving TIME on the 9th of March we were mildly astonished to find that the last European crisis should have started on the 6th. So far there has been no mention of this in our newspapers. American newspapers and writers seem to take particular pleasure in picking out the most sensational and hair-raising items of news about the unfortunate Europeans, all suggestive of their imminent violent destruction, whilst in the next column one reads smug American comments on the jitteriness now supposedly prevalent in London, Paris, etc. I go to London daily and judging by what I see there and what I read of America there must be far more nervousness in New York, 3,000 miles away from dear Goering's terrible bombers. . . .
Try to keep calm over there.
(MRS.) KATHLEEN SPOONER Amersham, England
> TIME prophesied nothing, merely reported the widespread rumors which set March 6 as der tag. And where were Readers Uhl and Spooner on the night of March 14?--ED.
Billy Patterson
Sirs:
Answering Mr. Stephen Rose (TIME, March 20) [who asked: 1) Is Mr. Ryder (who sat on an egg and hatched it) the father or the mother of the chick? 2) Does the chick feel any devotion to Mr. Ryder? 3) In time to come would Mr. Ryder kill and eat the chicken?]:
1) Mr. Ryder is the mother of the bird. (See mother-bird.)
2) No. Chicken has no brain, therefore no feeling.
3) No. Only one animal known which eats its young, and it isn't man.
Now that this egg matter has been disposed of. I wish information on another line which perhaps some of your readers can give: When I was a kid a long time since, "Who struck Billy Patterson?" was a moot question then much discussed. I think there was a Congressional investigation, but as I was out of the U. S. A. for a number of years I never heard how it was settled. Now I do not care to know why he was struck or where he was struck. BUT WHO STRUCK HIM. It's important to me.
S. K. WELLER Flint, Mich.
> There are various accounts of the origin of this "Where's Elmer?" of the 1880s. One account: Billy Patterson was a rich Baltimorean who was struck by an unknown party in a border-town free-for-all in Georgia, in 1783. He "inquired so hotly as to who struck him that a national saying therefrom crept into existence . . . he left $1,000 to whoever should name the man." Just 100 years later Mrs. Jenny G. Covely of Athol, N. Y. applied for the legacy, said her father (one Tillerton) had done the deed.
Another account: Billy Patterson was a beloved Manhattan barkeep of the 1880s, who was felled one night as he left the Star and Garter's side door, by an unknown dastard with a blackjack.-- ED.
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