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Chapin . . . sent young Joe to the Criminal Courts building where I was holding down the Evening World detail . . . with a message that I was to treat him as his father desired and not to let him loaf. Chapin told me: "If he is late mornings give him hell. He's no better than any other cub." The first day Joe was an hour late. I covered him that day telling Chapin when he inquired for him shortly after 8 a. m., that Joe was busy in the police court. The next morning Chapin, prompt at eight o'clock, wanted Joe. Joe was not on hand and Chapin told me to have him "give him a ring" when he arrived. Joe came along an hour or two later and when he got Chapin on the phone he was told to report to the office at once. There he got the call of his life, so he afterward told me. Chapin: "Young man there is one thing I won't stand for and that is being late. I have phoned your valet that he must have you out of bed earlier. I told him to buy an alarm clock to get you up. The next time you are late I'll fire you. That's all."
Joe returned to the Criminal Courts building and ever after during the months that he was with me never shirked his work or gave Chapin any further cause for a call down. That is why he is today a newspaper superman of St. Louis. BOB WILKES New York City
Navy Brains
Sirs:
The enemy battle line is sighted! The various problems connected with the production of accurate gunfire are upon us. To quote from the Article "Three-Ton Brain" in the Science section of TIME, March 18: "Naval engineers might wrestle with their ballistics equations for months to correlate these factors. The machine can do in five minutes what it takes five naval engineers four months to do on paper."
What a picture! What a play for the headlines! Four whole months to follow the computations of these lethargic naval "engineers" plying their logarithm tables and slide rules, searching for ballistic truths which will permit the firing of the guns. Can you imagine the sensation which would ensue when the headlines read, after three months of assiduous computations: "BOTH FLEETS DECLARE TWO WEEKS TRUCE FOR FUELING AND PROVISIONING. COMPUTATIONS WILL BE CONTINUED AT FEVER HEAT. NAVAL EXPERTS BELIEVE THE PROBLEM IS NEARLY SOLVED."
. . . May I take this opportunity to correct this implication of gross inefficiency on part of our Naval gunnery experts. Designer Travis little dreams of the factors which enter into our ballistic problem. Does he realize that if they were to use as much as five minutes in the solution of their problems, we would find our fleet subjected to a destructive fire from an opposing battle line? . . .
Let TIME-readers and the U. S. public rest assured that should occasion ever demand, our guns will speak in less than four months after our ships square off with an opposing force. . . . J. H. Dickins Lieutenant, U. S. N. Department of Naval Science Yale University New Haven, Conn.
Lieut. Dickins indulges in an absurd reductio ad absurdum. As he ought to know, the "three-ton brain" would be used not in battle but months before, to work out tables ready for instant use by gunnery officers when "ships square off with an opposing force."—ED.
Sirs: