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Why do you so frequently use an offensive adjective in writing about a person as you do? ... It seemed amusing to me until you stepped on my toes, as you have done on p. 41, 2nd column where you say "Died. Jay Cooke . . . grandson of the famed post-Civil War freebooting banker."
The original Jay Cooke was my father-in-law, we were both born in the city of Sandusky, Ohio and I know all about his career even before he achieved his deserved title of "Patriotic Financier of the Civil War" and I resent his being called a "freebooting banker. . . ."
CHARLES D. BARNEY
Philadelphia, Pa.
Ill-advised was TIME'S epithet "freebooting" for Philadelphia Banker Jay Cooke. A high-pressure floater of U. S. Government bond issues, he was called by friends "the man who won the Civil War." by foes an upstart monopolist, grown rich "by drippings from the Treasury." In 1865 he sold $700,000.000 of bonds in 140 working days. After Richmond fell he stopped a panic in New York City by buying in $20,000,000 of Governments which he later sold to the Government at a profit. Biographers rate him honest, clever, once too optimistic. After the War his ambition pyramided him into development of Northern Pacific Railway. His optimism held but railroad bonds did not. In 1873 Jay Cooke & Co. crashed, banks followed suit. The New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days. Widows & orphans whimpered, Cooke's foes excoriated the "reckless speculation . . . vaulting ambition that looks like gambling . . . [of] trusted agents of the Government." No freebooter, he caused "no single whisper of dishonor."—ED. Cyanide Credit
Sirs:
TIME, always accurate, will wish to know that the discoverer of the methylene blue treatment for cyanide poisoning (TIME, Dec. 19, p. 20) was not Messrs. Hanzlik and Leake, but Dr. Matilda M. Brooks, research biologist and wife of Dr. Sunnier C. Brooks of the zoology department of the University of California. Methylene blue is also used for carbon monoxide poisoning with equally startling results. It has been used several times to revive would-be suicides in San Francisco since the Reiveley case.
MIRIAM ALLEN DE FORD (MRS. HOWARD MAYNARD SHIPLEY)
Sausalito, Calif.
Mrs. Brooks suggested, Professors Paul John Hanzlik & Chauncey Depew Leake recommended. Health Director Jacob Casson Geiger ordered, Dr. Raymond Joseph Millzner dared use methylene blue as a specific antidote for cyanide poisoning.— ED.
Prosperity Plant
Sirs:
I wish that TIME might contribute an item about a current fad ... something known as a "Depression Garden," or "Prosperity Plant," depending on which one of the -isms you happen to believe in. ...
H. B. WHITMORE
Oteen, X. C.
About a year ago, Andrew M. Vollmer, traffic manager of Cortright Coal Co. of Philadelphia, talking about old tricks with oldtimers, revived the saline crystallization principle, applied it in connection with Cortright Coal Co.'s "Beaver" bituminous coal. In October 1932 Cortright Coal Co.'s house organ Hot Stuff printed the following note:
GIRLS—HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO GROW A "BEAVER" BUD