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You say—"Orations over, the dummies were (Continued on p. 8) lynched . . . while 1,000 businessmen cheered this notable method of doing away with depression." Crime, and especially that of lynching, is rapidly increasing in this Country, and is causing a great deal of thought and worry to patriotic citizens, and more directly to those whose duty it is to suppress it and to enforce the law. TIME goes into many homes and is read by many many people of all ages and classes. Who can measure the bad psychological effect this paragraph of yours will have on the young mind and upon the minds of the ignorant and unthinking masses—that portion of the population so much given to violating the law? I can hardly imagine 1,000 businessmen, good and true, and the Governor of Virginia, onetime law professor in one of the oldest universities in the country, participating in the lynching of even dummies, and thereby, in a way, approving the rapidly increasing crime of mob violence.
Old Man Depression, Old Lady Pessimism, and their daughter Miss Fortune are bad and undesirable characters, and my protest is not against the little business drama in which they were gotten rid of, and in which the Virginia governor played a stellar role, but against your calling the manner of their riddance a lynching.
Now as a matter of fact, were these dummies lynched? You report the Governor as saying to them. . . . "You have been found guilty of subterfuge and as undesirable aliens. . . ." This implies that they had had a fair trial and had been found guilty. Why call it a lynching? Perhaps I am a bit hypercritical in this matter; if so, it is because I hate to see my iavorite periodical publish anything that tends to have a bad psychological effect upon the ignorant, the moron, and the unthinking masses.
R. T. HAMILTON Dallas, Tex.
Subscriber-Dr. Hamilton need have no fear. TIME'S psychological effect upon the ignorant, the moron, the unthinking masses is practically nil.—ED.
Cold-blooded Fiends of Hell
Sirs: . . . One Warwick M. Tompkins tells of the wanton destruction of 17 whales in 17 shots from the bow of the boat Wander Bird of which he signs himself "Master." Whether or not this story of the wanton destruction of these 17 whales is romance or reality, I am not able to say, but it fully illustrates the wanton cold-blooded cowardly inhuman heartless and soulless manner in which man has ever destroyed without provocation the creatures God created for man's benefit.
The buffalo, the elk, the deer, the bear, the beautiful and harmless passenger pigeon have all been ruthlessly slaughtered by these cold-blooded fiends of hell who called themselves men and "sportsmen" like Mr. Boat-Master Thompson himself and his no less gusty companions. Shame on" such men and shame on a so-called civilization that produces them.*0. D. HILL
Kendalia, W. Va.
Per Troy Ounce
Sirs:
As a subscriber to your journal since its beginning, I wish for the first time to take exception to a statement made in the Oct. 6 issue on p. 51 under the caption, "Gold Report."