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TIME erred. Of the American Baptist Publication Society's chapel cars, four are currently in use—"Grace" in Wyoming, "Messenger of Peace" in Oregon, "Emmanuel" in Colorado, "Good-Will" in California. Reader Reilly also errs. Notre Dame's chapel car is not maintained by the university, but chartered from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which owns two for Catholic services. These are fitted with altar and rail at one end, with collapsible chairs seating 60 or 70. Nearly every year (but not this year) a wealthy Philadelphia contractor named Joseph Mack assembles about 75 friends, including several priests, hires one of the B. & O. chapel cars and rolls to the Kentucky Derby.—ED.
Death Advertisement
Sirs:
Referring to your article, "Advertisement of Death," in the June 11 issue.
The first paragraph of the advertisement in question was quoted only last Friday, June 15, in one of the London newspapers (either the Daily Express or the Evening Standard; sorry I can't recall which one), with the shocked editorial comment and facetious reference to the way they do things in pacifistic (?) United States that might be expected. No date was given, of course, and the same false impression was conveyed to readers. . . .
GALE THOMAS
Paris, France
Decency's Boycott
Sirs:
A scenario-writer who during the past 17 years has not written a censored scene or word would like TIME to inform its readers whether the Legion of Decency (whose creation, necessary or needless, he deplores) proposes to extend its boycott of all motion pictures as a punishment for the few admittedly objectionable ones to further fields in which decency is involved, e.g.:
The boycott of all theatres for similar reasons; the boycott of all daily newspapers, weeklies and monthly magazines for like causes; the boycott of all drugstores because of the frank display of contraceptives in the windows of a few; the boycott of all picture galleries and museums because of the nudes in some; and of all department stores on account of exciting underwear and wax models. If the statement of the producers is true that salacious motion pictures do attract the public, isn't it the fault of the churches in not stiffening the adolescent minds to automatically reject such stuff in boredom in the same way that we automatically ignore the excreta canis in our walks down the street?
CHAS. E. WHITTAKER
Hollywood, Calif.
Thaw Protest
Sirs:
It seems beside the point and decidedly counter to TIME'S aims and standing ... to repeat and enlarge on a thing like this—"Thaw Perennial" [TIME, June 18]—when so many more interesting and profitable incidents are passed over or forgotten entirely. Why—oh why—should decent people be reminded continually of this shameful affair? . . .
As a granddaughter of William Thaw—the child of his eldest daughter by his first wife— I protest. There are able and conscientious members of this family whose lives have been frustrated if not blighted by this affair and its continual notoriety.