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I always give your magazine credit for knowing actual facts, but in your issue of May 16 under "Locust" active and successful lobbies which pay their legislative agents $10,000 or so per year, to secure Congressional favor . . . you list Dr. Clarence True Wilson of the Methodist Board of Temperance.
Do you mean here that Dr. Wilson receives $10,000 and if so, who is paying this money?
L. NORTHROP CASTOR
Philadelphia, Pa.
Lobbyist Wilson is paid $6,000 per annum by the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals.—ED.
Sirs:
TIME of May 16 had a very interesting column under the caption "Locusts." However it would have been more interesting if its details had been free from error. Luther Steward, not Stewart, is President of the National Federation of Federal Employees and as its spokesman represents more than 65,000 organized "Federal Employees." . . . Again in the same "Locusts" column John not Joseph Simpson is president of that very fine Farmers Union.
EARL R. HOAGG
Denver, Colo.
Sirs:
. . . May I call your attention to the fact that Miss Detzer (not Detzler) does not represent the League of Women Voters, but the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom: does not work for legislation for women, but for Peace measures; and unfortunately does not receive $10,000 a year.
M. MILES
Office Secretary
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Washington, D. C.
Sirs:
Startling indeed is TIME'S list of the "locust swarm of lobbyists," appearing in your May 16 issue.
But why has TIME failed to include the powerful shipping lobby that has obtained for its members millions upon millions of dollars under the guise of "mail contracts." Huge amounts are so paid in many cases for the alleged carriage of mails over steamship routes which could not possibly be utilized in the dispatch of anything but the bulkiest freight.
As revealed by Writer William P. Helm in his recent syndicated articles, over $40,000,000 has been paid by the Post Office Department to shipping companies under these contracts for the carriage of mails that actually brought to the Government a total postal revenue of only $3,600.000.
While a tolerant American public might permit the expenditure of millions of Government funds for the maintenance of regular express and passenger liners, it is inconceivable that, once in possession of the facts, the public would tolerate application of the system to slow freight lines, particularly where such lines are engaged chiefly in the delivery of cargo sold by their owners.