Roosevelt's Legs
Sirs: Your justification of yourself for your taste less references to Mr. Roosevelt is goosefood. I would like to be recorded among your readers who "command otherwise."; JOHN W. FARQUHAR Easton, Pa. Sirs: Your explanation of the several references in TIME to Mr. Roosevelt's physical infirmities only makes a bad matter worse. There is no excuse for such writing. TIME, frankly, needs some lessons in good manners. It lacks the fundamental virtue of reverence. . DAVID P. GAINES Minister First Baptist Church Waterbury, Conn. Sirs: . . . Don't let TIME descend to the stilted, prudish, uninteresting style of so many news publications. It makes the readers' picture more accurate to know whether a man struts, or gallops, or limps or hobbles. What's the difference? RALPH P. STODDARD Cleveland, Ohio Please continue your use of truthfully descriptive words about those whom you present in TIME. . . . I respect President-elect Roosevelt the more because he has not allowed physical difficulties to daunt him. . . . ELEANOR MARE Chicago, Ill. Sirs: Suppose a few of the 400,000 do wish you to be more orthodox — orthodox—i.e, colorless — in your write ups. Don't do it. In the case of the President-elect your out spoken frankness is less pointed than the prevailing skeleton-in -the -cupboard attitude. Achievement is enhanced by physical handicap. Along with your range and terseness your great asset is your lifelike picturing of humans and happenings. Carry on, TIME. A. S. MACGREGOR East Aurora, X. Y. No clear majority of readers "commands otherwise." Scores of letters through last week: 238 con, 252 pro. This TIME construes as a firm mandate to continue mirroring Nature with respect to President-elect Roosevelt, since objectors far more prone to write than approvers. Managers Praised . . . Congratulations on Jan. 9 issue, which shows TIME'S managerial staff as wide awake as its editorial half! JOHN DAVIS HATCH JR. Washington, D. C. Mrs. von Hindenburg at Luncheon
Sirs:
As a regular reader of TIME I have noted its unusual accuracy in reporting news. It is thus with hesitancy that I wish you to explain the statement in Jan. 2 issue of TIME, ". . . Lieut.-Col. Oscar von Hindenburg, whose brunette wife, about to bear a daughter. . . ."
It hardly seems possible that you should have learned of the sex of the child in time for this issue since the luncheon described took place only two days before Christmas in Germany. . . .
If TIME were not such a noteworthy disciple of authenticity in detail the questioned statement would have probably passed unnoticed. . . .
LIBERT CHANDLER
Bethlehem, Pa.
Frau von Hindenburg's babe was born day after the Christmas party at her father-in-law's, shortly before TIME, Jan. 2, went to press. Alert editing made it possible to include the Milestone in the news story.—ED.
Colored Roosevelt
Sirs: