Speed & Color
Sirs:
For the past several months I have noticed that TIME'S front-cover pictures have been in color—continuously, week after week. . . . Color pictures seem so much more alive than flat black-&-white subjects.
If I remember correctly, your former policy was to print a color picture about every fourth week. . . .
Since your new color-picture policy, I note no lack of "newsworthiness" in your weekly subjects so I should like to ask if a new improved color process has made for speedier use of color plates. . . .
OLIVER WILEY Troy, Ala.
With the Oct. 18 issue, TIME began running weekly four-color covers as an experiment, has since adopted them as a continuing policy. No new color process, but a speeding up of engraving and printing schedules has made this possible. The deadline for color photographs or paintings to reach TIME'S engravers in Chicago is two weeks and four days before publication, which is probably the fastest four-color magazine cover schedule in the world.—ED.
Appreciative Whites
Sirs:
Your mention of John Claybrook and comments on his accomplishments in TIME, Jan. 17 is appreciated by his white neighbors. There is no man, white or black, in Crittenden County, across the river from Memphis, more highly thought of than John. What he has done any other Negro sharecropper can do if he has the energy and the ability. Few have either of these. ... In his case, as in most cases, the white neighbors down here are always willing to help a good Negro get ahead. . . .
J. T. MORGAN Memphis, Tenn.
For further news about the relations between Southern blacks and whites see p. 8.—ED.
Overtones & Innuendoes
Sirs:
What a lot of fun TIME'S critics would miss if artists did not entertain them with their serious work. With what penetrating wit these specialists observe that Martha Graham's Frontier (TIME, Jan. 10) is, after all, but a fence-act; that modern dance numbers when repeated become hash; that drums that accompany the modern dance are thumped and oboes tootle.
Gesture has ever been more expressive than words, has ever been able to present an idea with more of its overtones & innuendoes. May the modern dance sometime turn its biting satire upon obtuse TIME critics and their kind. . . .
HARRIET MASON Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.
Polite General Franco
Sirs:
TIME quotes Mrs. Edithe Dahl (Jan. 17) as claiming to have received a letter from General Franco in which he used the words, "Your obedient servant kisses your foot." Then TIME adds: "To General Franco, who is a married man, this may have proved embarrassing." Error. It is an ancient and courtly Spanish custom to terminate a formal letter to a lady thus:
"Su S. S., Q. B. S. P.," which is a conventional abbreviation for "Your obedient servant who kisses your feet." It is rarely written out. The general was being coldly and stiffly polite, and his wife could not have taken the slightest offense.
SCOTT MCREYNOLDS Los Angeles, Calif.
The termination Su seguro servidor que besa sus pies is currently used only in Insurgent Spain.—ED.
Hungry
Sirs: