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. . . There is no more reason for public officials allowing a presentation of Waiting for Lefty than there is a reason for allowing a madman to distribute deadly bacilli into a public reservoir. . . . The Boston police served the public and championed the higher idealism of true Americanism by closing the play and arresting some of the actors. . . .
ROYAL K. HAYES
Past National Chaplain Yankee (26 A.E.F.) Division Veterans Association Boston, Mass.
Communistic Gestures Sirs:
... I, as a U. S. citizen, am in favor of barring such plays from the American stage.
... I believe the spirit and force of Communism is behind it all. The theme of the play as your critic explains it and the gestures of the actors in the accompanying picture are certainly Communistic. . . .
L. Q. STETSON
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Reviewer & Poets
Sirs:
I was glad that William Rose Benét came to Mr. Auslander's defense [TIME, June 10] but your book reviews usually do knock poets and their work. I took it for granted that whoever writes them was not developed up to the point of appreciating poetry. You published a review of Ogden Nash's last book with a picture of John Chamberlain and his wife, and the story of Mr. Chamberlain's literary rise. You even said that Edna Millay wasn't so good! Ho, hum. Does your reviewer like Mother Goose?
EDITH McKAY
Boston, Mass.
Yes.—ED.
Sirs:
. . . Whatever Auslander is, Benet is a criticaster! . . . One of those responsible for the low tone of American criticism—the substitution of praise or blame for analysis and actual taste. . . . Get right about that Benet, Van Doren crew! . . . Professional backslappers and boosters of their own kind! Look at the record and give that boy who wrote the Auslander review a big hearty kiss from
MARY L. HACKBERRY
Baltimore, Mel.
Monument
Sirs:
In the public library of Dayton, Ohio is a tablet which reads:
John Charles Reeve, M. D. LL. D.
1526 1920
94 years
Student—Writer—Thinker—Scholar
"Doctor Of The Old School"
Abreast With The Times.
The First in America To Use
The Clinical Thermometer
The American Pioneer In
Anaesthesia By The Use Of
A.C.E.
TO HIS MEMORY
This Tablet Is Erected By
The Montgomery County Medical Society.
Dr. Reeve was my father and many a time I have heard him say: "There is one woman of the U. S. to whom a monument ought to be erected and I hope that it will be done some day." And then he would tell me the story of the first ovariotomy [performed by Dr. Ephraim McDowell on Mrs. Jane Todd Crawford in 1809 (TIME, June 10)]. If he knew the name of the patient I do not recall that he said it, but I remember well his admiration of Dr. McDowell.
It is more than 50 years since I first heard that piece of medical history but I recall that father, when speaking of the amazing bravery and endurance of the patient, always emphasized the fact that she rode on horseback for 60 miles with that tumor resting on the pommel of the saddle.
I do thank TIME for letting me know that my father's wish has been fulfilled after all these years.
MARY REEVE DEXTER Pacific Grove, Calif.