Letters, Jun. 15, 1936 | TIME

Tone, Not Nourishment

Sirs: TIME exaggerates the digestive ability of hogs. On April 6 you state that “pigs eat coal with relish, digest it with ease.” This idea was rooted in a statement in my Next Hundred Years— ”Hogs eat coal and enjoy it” (TIME, June 1). Hogs undoubtedly eat coal. Many a mid-western porker sees the black lumps of bituminous coal constantly before him supplied by his indulgent master. If munching effectively and with gusto is a mark of enjoyment, then the pigs actually enjoy this unusual foodstuff, apparently considerably more than the average American enjoys his daily slabs of charred bread at breakfast. I wish to point out, however, that enjoyment and digestion are not synonymous. In the case of the hog the coal passes through well pulverized, but it is doubtful if he digests it, for probably no noteworthy chemical changes take place in the process. He is given coal to “tone him up” and aid his alimentary wellbeing. The exact function of this carbonaceous material is not known. It probably has the same effect as charcoal which is put into prepared dog foods— whatever that may be.

C. C. FURNAS Associate Professor Department of Chemical Engineering Yale University New Haven, Conn.

Sirs: Esteemed William Esty Mydans, Ph.D., in TIME, June 1, cynically asks your authority for the statement that “pigs eat coal with relish, digest it with ease.” I am able to supply the information on the highest authority, namely, Fred Fletcher, tenant on my farm here. On the return of myself and wife from a winter’s cruise in Illinois, I proceeded to empty the ashes in my furnace which Fred had attended to during our absence. I was puzzled to see no fresh ashes on the dump or any evidence of ashes except that the coal (anthracite) bin was nearly empty. “Can’t I have those ashes?” asked Fred. “Sure, but what do you want them for?” I countered. “I want to feed them to my hogs,” quoth Fred. “Go way back and sit down,” I remarked testily. “Come and see,” said Fred. He took a basketful of ashes and cinders and gave them to the porkers who ate them ravenously. That galoot Fred had been wintering his hogs with my ashes, and they appeared to thrive on them. WILLIAM E. JOHNSON McDonough, N. Y.

Minnesota Traditions

Sirs:

In TIME, May 25, I noticed a full-page announcement featuring a Yale man (“Yale,’36”) who says that wearing an Elgin watch is one of the traditions of his family. As a University of Minnesota man I would like to report on the regrettable lack of family traditions out here in the Middle West. Traditions are much undervalued: even opposed. Not long ago I heard another University of Minnesota man remark, “Can you imagine it—my whole family religiously eats Wheaties every morning!” I considered the remark interesting in that itillustrates the blind resistance of Minnesota men to the growth of tradition. In this case I strongly suspected that a few traditions would do the young man’s family no harm whatever. (He is a mere acquaintance: I hardly know the fellow, really.) My own family, I am happy to report, resembles the socially prominent families of the East in its loyalty to family traditions. As an instance, we wear nothing but Munsingwear garments next to the skin. Nothing else will do, you understand. Moreover, of late a new tradition has taken hold: we are becoming quite athletically inclined, and as a result have now used six bottles of Absorbine Jr. I have wondered, now and then, whether this is sufficient to constitute a full-fledged family tradition. By Minnesota standards? Perhaps. But by Yale standards? It is doubtful. Eight or nine bottles would be another matter, but I’minclined to think six bottles would not be quite enough. A. ANDERSON I Minneapolis, Minn.

Chase to Chase

Sirs: My name is Chase. I am more than 60 years of age and have five children and nine grandchildren. In your May 25 issue, I read that S. A. Chase comments unfavorably concerning your art section in the May 11 issue where there was displayed the figure of a slightly less than nude woman—Sunday Morning. To me this print was alluring and certainly proper from all viewpoints. Our young people in our private and public schools are taken to the art museums where there is more or less nudity displayed. Our public buildings many times have statuary of more or less nudity. I invite the attention of Mr. S. A. Chase to the May 1936 bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This is the first time I have known of a Chase who did not admire the nudity of a woman in the flesh or otherwise. W. W. CHASE President The Cleveland Real Estate Investment Co. Cleveland, Ohio

Sirs:

Do Readers Chase, Henry, Edwin, Trimble (TIME, May 25) and the countless others who disapprove but do not write think it is possible to keep children from seeing the human body unclothed? Must children and adults wear blinders when they visit the traveling Van Gogh Exhibit? Must we as parents and teachers strive to keep children innocent and at the same time expect them to find their way in the world when they leave the protection of the home? My six-year-old son looks at TIME pictures (news and advertising) regularly and of course sees the nude pictures along with the others. Sunday Morning (TIME, May 11) aroused mild curiosity on his part which gave me the opportunity to answer some very pertinent questions. I welcome this opportunity and sincerely hope that TIME, the all-family magazine, will continue to print newsworthy pictures. MRS. WILLIAM E. KNUTH San Francisco State Teachers College San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs: The criticisms you received were certainly not written by juveniles, and I am definitely opposed to the general idea that all things should be done so that the youngest and most stupid among us should not be hurt. TIME is written by adults for adult minds—by all means keep it that way and permit those who see evil in all things to cancel their subscriptions. You are better off without them. BARNETT DAVIS Pittsburgh, Pa.

Borah’s Overland

Sirs:

TIME has probably started an argument rather than settled one for Reader Eugene H. Purdy [TIME, June 1]. The automobile photographed with Senator Borah in TIME, March 30, is not a 1921 Ford but an Overland manufactured about 1920 or 1921.

R. J. WACKER Toledo, Ohio

Sirs:

Your answer to the question regarding the name of the 1921 car Senator Borah is standing beside in the March 30 issue of TIME is absolutely wrong.

The car is not a Ford but an Overland and any oldtime automobile man will tell you the same at one glance at the picture.

Your answer caused me to lose $15 so that is the reason I am asking for a correction. LEE A. PURDY Washington, D. C.

Because the automobile in the picture did not belong to him, Senator Borah does not now remember its make. The Ford agency in Washington claims it, by identifying hood&body. But Overland also identifies it as a 1920 model 4. Twelve TiME-readers have decided it is an Overland. Under the circumstances, all bets should be off.—ED.

Modest Teacher Sirs: Below is a translation of a letter which Constantin N. Cotolan has addressed to you c/o my humble person together with a portrait photograph of himself for TiME-readers’ edification. ALEXANDRA IRINA DIMANCESCO San Francisco, Calif.

[Constantin Cotolan marched among the chief mourners in the funeral procession of George V. From his unusual costume (see cut), gossips spread the tale that he was a masseur accompanying queasy Carol of Rumania (TIME, Feb. 10). It was later announced (TIME, March 9) that Constantin Cotolan’s Sovereign had included him among the dignitaries to represent Rumanian War heroes.—ED.]

Esteemed editor: I was greatly surprised to see myself the hero of a preposterous story, published by the English and American press. I am just a modest school teacher and a World War Veteran. For my record on the battle fields I was distinguished with the order of Michael the Brave and the

French Croix de Guerre. As a member of that Rumanian order I was sent to the funeral of King George. I was never a masseur as stated by that radical London paper, but I regret that I am not one as I would have loved to rub the bones of the reporter who invented that stupid story. Thank you for your correction and I wish to assure you of my gratitude. CONST. N. COTOLAN School teacher and Grammar school supervisor Dragoslavele, Muscel, Rumania

TIME’S thanks to Alexandra Irina Dimancesco, the wife of the Rumanian consul in San Francisco, daughter of General Radulesco, chief of the Rumanian Army’s Veterinary Service.—ED.

Record MetSirs: TIME, MAY 25, P. 38 SAYS: “IN LYING-IN-HOSPITAL . . . 2,881 BABIES WERE BORN LAST YEAR. . . . DEATH CAME TO ONLY 15 MOTHERS AT LYING-IN. NO OTHER BUSY MATERNITY HOSPITAL ON EARTH CAN MEET THAT RECORD FOR LOW MORTALITY.” IN 1935 MARGARET HAGUE MATERNITY HOSPITAL, JERSEY CITY, DELIVERED 5,170 LIVING BABIES, LOST ONLY 15 MOTHERS FROM ALL CAUSES. MORTALITY RATES, CHICAGO HALF ONE PERCENT, JERSEY CITY SLIGHTLY OVER QUARTER OF ONE PERCENT.

S. A. COSGROVE Medical Director Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital Jersey City, N. J.

Sirs: TIME, May 25, exaggerates slightly in stating that no other busy maternity hospital on earth can meet the record of the Chicago Lying-in Hospital for low mortality in 1935.

At Chicago Lying-in in 1935, 2,881 births, 15 maternal deaths, mortality rate 5.2 per 1,000 births. At Boston Lying-in Hospital in 1934 and 1935. 4,961 live births, 18 maternal deaths, mortality rate 3.6 per 1,000 live births. TIME’S report of Chicago Lying-in Hospital’s baby mortality is not complete enough to permit comparison with that of the Boston Lying-in Hospital.

Maternal mortality rates in hospitals vary considerably according to the proportion of neglected, mismanaged, gravely sick, emergency cases admitted: therefore, cannot be justly compared without analysis. Readers of TIME may get a better idea of the real risk of child-birth under the care of a modern maternity hospital from the following figures.

In two years, 1934 and 1935, Boston Lying-in Hospital delivered 6,928 women, for whose care throughout pregnancy and confinement it alone was responsible. About 2,000 of these were delivered in their homes by internes or externes of the hospital. The others were delivered in the hospital because they preferred it or because the staff thought it advisable. Eight of these women died, a mortality rate of 1.15 per 1,000 women delivered.

At the Boston Lying-in Hospital, it may be added, analgesic drugs are routinely and successfully used to alleviate the pain of childbirth, rithout harmful effects on mothers or babies. JUDSON A. SMITH, M. D.

Obstetrician to Out-Patients, Boston Lying-in Hospital Instructor in Obstetrics, Harvard Medical School Boston, Mass.

Pleasure from Orpheus Sirs: Though in an unhappy mood of revolt against the press, I think I know a good job of disapprobation when I see one. TIME is to be complimented upon its brisk descriptive damning of Balanchine’sOrpheus and Eurydicc [TIME, June 1. Critics of the daily papers indulged in obscure epithets and bigotted defence of what they term tradition, in the ferocious die-hard manner. TIME’S policy, I believe, is to report the response of the public to such a performance in the spirit in which it reports the performance, as news: not to give individual opinion of its writers. In this case it failed to note the existence of two camps, two mutually exclusive views of the future of opera in New York. I submit what follows as information rather than resentful protest.

The present Orpheus, the only original undertaking of the opera association this season, gave as much pleasure to a certain public as offense to the critics. . . . Attentive to the American Ballet’s young reputation, and admiring Balanchine and Tchelitchev, we crowded the Metropolitan. By virtue of the strange new scenes and 20th-century dances. I was more deeply moved by the old myth and music than ever before. I know that some 30 or 40 persons of my acquaintance also were not disappointed. . . . Balanchine is a very great man, I think. If I were to make a list of the dozen most exciting and inspiring things I have seen in the theatre, three of his choreographic works would be on it: Apollon Musagcte (Stravinsky) and The Prodigal Son (Prokoviev) and Errante, revived at the Metropolitan this season. But I am not at all disposed by general admiration to admire all that he does: quite the contrary. The Bat, for example, bores me. Need I add that I am not in anyone’s pay? I did not receive complimentary tickets for Orpheus, nor do I know anyone who did. Now may I repeat that it gave me greater satisfaction and interested me more than any other art-event of the past season? I saw it both times it was given. I hope it will be given again. And I should like to see developed at the Metropolitan a new type of operatic art, uninhibited, unconventional, as suggested by it. I know that many people are of my opinion. Nothing has been done, and there has not even been time for the curiosity of a great many more, who never set foot in the opera house at present, to be aroused. And I understand that it needs new patronage.

… In respect to art, when there is real difference of taste and a new division of opinion, it is not easy to be impartial. TIME’S reporter, for instance, says that the dance of the three principals together at the end of the opera suggests “a Japanese tumbling act.” No doubt this comparison was scornfully intended. Yet it might be read as a. compliment. For to those of us who find classic operatic pantomime ludicrous and of waning significance, the acts of acrobats often seem very fine. No doubt inadvertently, TIME has taken sides with the powerful old guard as against a merely potent young generation. GLENWAY WESCOTT New York City

With all respect to Novelist Glenway Wescott (The Grandmothers, Goodbye Wisconsin} & friends, most Manhattan ballet critics and balletomanes found Balanchine’s Orpheus and Eurydice inept, bogus.—ED.

Mixed Feelings Sirs: I have read with mixed feelings the column in TIME, May 25, in which you choose to make some comments relative to me.

It would have been at least a courtesy had you endeavored to learn somewhat of what really happened instead of distorting further an already garbled report.

In the first place, I was not at the meeting of the New York Neurological Society and hence could not say the things incorrectly attributed to me.

I resent and repudiate the phrase that I “gained fame & fortune as an alienist.” I gained neither. I received not one single penny for the work done on the trial of H. K. Thaw when he was acquitted. As for the “fame” that is to laugh.

Furthermore, I am not pugnacious, nor a pundit. Just look at the photograph you published of me. And I made no remarks, as already stated, about fees or anything else.

I am a duly licensed practitioner of medicine in the State of New York. I am a student of disease processes with the desire and interest of trying to help sick people and I do not like to see distorted and untrue accounts of myself in public print.

I desire that you publish this in TIME.

SMITH ELY JELLIFFE, M. D.

New York City

In reporting Dr. Jelliffe’s published rejoinder to Columbia’s Neurological Professor Sachs, who had criticized psychoanalysis as “a disruptive . . . mechanism,” TIME neither stated nor implied that Dr. Jelliffe spoke from the floor of the New York Neurological Society’s meeting. Let Dr. Jelliffe be the final judge as to his fame & fortune.—ED. Hoffman’s 10%

Sirs:

TIME, June 1. . . . Rainbow Room incident. I was seated at dais, talking to lady. Wedemar came to table and saluted me with, “Hello, you yellow .” Familiar with crude Wedemar humor, I attempted to pass off remark with ”Hello, Lou!” He repeated salutation and I stood up, drew him aside and said, “Lou, do you mean that, or are you kidding?” He assured me, with another offensive remark, that he meant it. I led him outside, asked for apology, received none, and struck. There was one blow, no word of either Hauptmann case or next day’s election. Verify by Rainbow Room attendants who picked up Wedemar and put him in elevator. I returned to table, made brief speech, no diner knew of unfortunate happening. Disparity in weights, yes. My suggestion to Wedemar that next time he feels urge to call a Governor name he called me to pick out a 130-lb. Governor. Am I wrong in believing that vaunted Freedom of Press does not include unbridled freedom of its agents? . . .

After year and a half of vicious newspaper opposition, sales tax resentment, Lindbergh-Hauptmann-Wendel-Schwarzkopfmisrepresentations, disappointed job seekers and politicalmonkey-wrench-throwing of Everett Colby et al., my total vote was well within 10% of the total vote I polled in the Gubernatorial primary of 1934. Believe it or not, I consider the results of May 19 primary, 1936, as most satisfying of 15 successive political victories.

HAROLD G. HOFFMAN Governor State of New Jersey Trenton, N. J.

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