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Byrd is modest, Byrd is an officer, a gentleman, a sportsman in the best American sense. Byrd is not a personal friend of mine but I know the intimate, unwritten record of his two great flights. I know what messmates, shipmates, skymates think of Byrd. I have read the citations for his score of medals awarded for personal bravery.
E. G. Moore doesn't know. If he did he wouldn't flay.
As to writings of hardships and buying of phonographs, it takes money to organize scientifically an expedition. . . .
If Byrd doesn't come back broke I'll eat my hat and if his doesn't still fit him I'll eat it. CURRENT NEWS FEATURES, Inc. H. R. BAUKHAGE
Washington, D. C.
Alfalfa Dust
Sirs:
In reference to the controversy over Governor Hunt of Arizona going on in TIME, I want to say that Hunt is all right and your correspondent, Harry L. Davisson of Berkeley, Calif., is all "wet." He writes like he has a grouch against Arizona's Grand Old Man. Davisson is picayunish when he picks on the good governor complaining that Hunt picked his nose once. . . . Gov. Hunt is troubled with a slight nasal catarrh and it causes a tickling in his nasal passages. He has the habit of rubbing his nose once in a while slightly with his hand or grasping it between his thumb and forefinger and this action could easily be mistaken for picking by a careless observer. But even at that every great man has personal idiosyncracies. . . .
Ask the Arizona State Federation of Labor where Gov. Hunt stands in his dealings with Labor. Can Davisson state ONE instance of proved misuse of funds or dishonesty on the part of Hunt? It is true a number of the "rat" papers of the State owned by the big mining trusts tried to hamstring the governor because he made them obey the mining laws protecting the safety of the miners.
The trouble with Davisson is that his brain is full of alfalfa dust.
MALCOLM M. YOUNG
P. S. I was not on Hunt's election committee and I never asked the governor for a job. Did Davisson?
Washington, D. C.
Sugarloaf, Hunchback
Sirs: I didn't think that TIME ever took anything for granted but how else to explain the statement in your account (Dec. 31) of Hoover's recent visit to Rio that "Motors carried the visitors up to Hunchback and Sugarloaf Mountains." As you will see from the enclosed picture of Sugarloaf, none but a human fly could reach the top of that granite mass except he journey in the little cage-like box, also shown, which jerkily swings and sways across the chasm on steel cables—and the more I think of the risk involved, the more I am inclined to doubt that Hoover (superman though he be) went up Sugarloaf at all, in any fashion. As for the trip to Hunchback Mountain, that is equally impossible of accomplishment in a motor car, though it may have been made on the little cogwheel road which winds its tortuous way to the top. . . . JAMES L. TAYLOR
San Francisco, Calif.
Winnetka's Dawes
Sirs:
As one who is proud to subscribe himself as "A Constant Reader" of TIME I have noted that in your issue of Dec. 17 in the article regarding the new issue of stock of the Jenkins Television Corporation you list as one of the directors of this corporation the Vice President, Charles G. Dawes.