Errand of Mercy Sirs:
A friend has just given me your version of the Prison Episode. I am quite surprised at your unfairness. The terms you use, and the angle you viewed, agree with a certain anonymous threat from Springfield, Mo. My friend demanded that I write you, though, for he claims that your magazine endeavors to be fair and play the game square.
"Burly" is an opprobrious term. To view my purpose as one of ''death," rather than one of mercy to the other 160 men in Cellhouse No. 3 is rank unfairness. Women and children and men too, were scared that night. Action had to be taken; and, since I had no dependants, why I volunteered. This "hero" stuff is also distasteful to me. But I don't care for your readers to have the impression of a Priest wishing death in preference to life.
I am not the Chaplain at the Pen. In fact, I was never in it before, having come to Colorado in September of this year. I am Chaplain at Holy Cross Abbey, and teach Psychology and English. I have been criticised for not going in this Cellhouse and persuading them to give up. Under the circumstances, that was quite impossible. I was also dressed for golf, and was on my way to the Club, when a young lady told me her Daddy was trapped by the convicts within the Pen. "Greater love hath no man, than a readiness to lay down his life for them." That, and that alone was my purpose.
Relying on your American honesty and integrity I beg to remain,
FATHER PATRICK O'NEILL, O. S. B. Canon City, Colo.
1) Reporting fact, not passing judgment, was TIME when it told how courageous Father O'Neill carried Death (50 Ib. of dynamite) to blow a hole in Cellhouse No. 3 so that militia might enter and suppress the rioting convicts.
2) "Burly" has no opprobrious connotation for TIME. Webster's New International Dictionary defines it: "Large or stout of body." TIME has applied "burly" to such strapping-strong persons as Molla Bjurstedt Mallory, Diego Rivera, Christopher Morley, Herbert Clark Hoover.
—ED.
Remarkable Discovery
Sirs:
Smith v. Wellesley v. Vassar in Anthropology!
I know your editorial staff is very busy, but has your attention been called to the July-September 1929 number of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology? Here, in a paper of 77 pages, is set forth the physical measurements of 100 or more young ladies of Smith College. I don't suppose that so heavy a journal finds its way to your editorial table. I don't feel competent to write a paragraph for TIME, but if you will permit me I shall be very glad indeed to mail you the journal, and one of your editors might handle this interesting subject. It is intimated that later the girls of Vassar, Wellesley, etc., are to be measured. It seems the cephalic index (head) varies from 71 to 71.00 mm. Also, in Table 73 is set forth the leg lengths of these young ladies, which vary from 680 to 780 mm.
The authors—expert anthropologists—after laboriously measuring and tabulating the legs and calves of Smith girls, solemnly announce that the calves are "considerably larger than those of Jamaican women!" This is due, they claim, to athletic exercises. Remarkable scientific discovery !