Roosevelt's Moley Sirs:
I note in TIME, Sept. 19, an account of next-President Roosevelt's junket to the West and the remark that "Columbia's Professor Raymond Moley, head of the 'brain trust' which supplies the Governor with economic data," was on the campaign train. I studied political science under Professor Moley at Columbia some eight years ago and thought him shrewd, honest, fearless. His work as head of the Cleveland crime commission (about 1923) brought him wide fame and the attention of a number of Cleveland thugs who waylaid him one night, fortunately without too serious results, because of his unwelcome interest in some of the more putrid corners of that great city. (No criticism of Cleveland—it does not differ from other places of comparable population in respect to the criminal element.) What Mr. Moley and his associates found was incorporated in a famous report that proved to be one of the most complete and accurate reports of metropolitan criminal conditions ever compiled. . . . D. W. KAUFMAN
North Hollywood, Calif.
Wales at the Lido
Sirs:
After reading the account of the Prince of Wales's cruise, which appeared under Italy in your Aug. 22 number 1 begin to be a little doubtful. . . .
In the first place, Principessa Jane di San Faustino (born Miss Jane Campbell) never stays in a palace in Venice, but has had an apartment in the Excelsior-Palace Hotel. Lido, for many years, holding court in front of her capanna on the beach daily, where (even during the era of knee-length frocks) she has been a well-marked figure with her white hair and her long simple white gowns.
In the second place, the Princess, far from being an "old friend.'' had never met the Prince of Wales. She was ill on the day of Their Royal Highnesses' arrival, but, on being invited to dine at the Grand Hotel by Captain and Mrs. Alistair Mackintosh (Mrs. Mackintosh is another American, having been Miss Lela Emery of New York), she pulled herself together and went. The dinner was quite small, only eight covers. and took place informally on the terrace of the Grand Hotel, no one dressing, and none of the guests in the hotel apparently being aware of the presence of royalty.
After dinner the Prince went for a gondola ride with the younger members of the party and, later, returned to the Lido to the "ornate pink brick Excelsior Palace" where he was staying. He and his party rejoined the Princess Jane who presented a Signora Cecile Kraus with whom she was talking with a special word for her ability as a dancer. The Prince took the young widow from Milan out on the floor of Chez Vous. an open-air cabaret at the Excelsior and danced several times. It is quite true that he danced only with her. but this may be explained by the fact that it was after one o'clock when he arrived, and that the music at Chez Vous was fairly continuous so that, stopping king before two. his devotion was probably more accidental than anything else. That they went down to the beach later was not remarkable, as many people do so after dancing, for the cooling breezes, and the beach is patrolled all night long.