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Just because Sidney Henderson [TIME, April 9] is all up in the air about aviation is no reason President Coolidge should go up in the air, too. If I read vox populus aright, Mr. Coolidge would not make himself popular by flying, with Lindbergh or anyone else. He would have to put on a flying suit, you know, and just remember how people talked when he tried to be friendly to the West and wore a cowboy suit. Those brown overalls that aviators wear are the most humiliating clothes in the world, unless you happen to be an airman yourself. Imagine having to dress up as a sailor to ride on a steamship or as an engineer to ride in a railroad train. When aviation gets to the point where we can step into planes the way we do into trolley cars and subways, then it will be time enough for the President of the United States of America to go flying. Then he can leave on his frock coat, silk hat and walking stick, in case he is really going somewhere which the President should be doing in an airplane rather than just performing a "stunt."
J. F. BASSETT
Boston, Mass.
Bromide & Bromidiom
Sirs:
May I suggest that TIME is in error on p. 40 of the issue of April 2. That page carries a footnote which opines "A bromide is any expression that has been used enough to become nauseating," following with examples. This is too important a matter for TIME to bungle. The bromide is the person using expressions of this nature. The expression itself is known as a bromidiom. The authority for this is Mr. G. Burgess, author of the brochure "Are You A Bromide?" wherein both expressions originally saw the light.
L. E. FIRTH
New York, N. Y.
Lobbyist
Sirs:
TIME published, in its issue of March 26, a very readable review of the circumstances affecting the resignation of Commissioner Costigan. No comment that I have read has been more intelligent or interesting.
There is one paragraph, however, that fails to show the discrimination revealed in the article as a whole. You say:
"Mr. Costigan began calling Mr. Marvin a 'lobbyist' when the latter was first appointed by President Harding. And Mr. Marvin was a lobbyist in Washington, for the wool trade. That is why President Harding appointed him."
It is quite well known that at the time of my appointment by President Harding I was secretary of the Home Market Club* and that I had advocated, for years, protection as the policy best suited to diversified industrial development in the United States. The advocacy of a national policy in The Protectionist, a magazine of which I was the editor, in the press, and in remarks before the Committee on Ways and Means in 1913, does not necessarily entitle a man to the designation of "lobbyist."