Letters, Jun. 10, 1935 | TIME

Benét on Auslander

Sirs:

I am not in the habit of writing “letters to the editor,” but the whole tone of the review of Joseph Auslander’s latest book of poems, No Traveller Returns, on p. 80 of your May 27 issue, strikes me as so sneering and uncritical in the best sense, that I feel I must protest. After all, I have been following American poetry for years, and should know just a little of what I am talking about. In the first place, to single out any one poet to whom to apply the title “Poetaster,” is letting prejudice override fairness entirely. In the second place, to apply that term to such a poet as Joseph Auslander is the height of the ridiculous. . . . The great majority of us are minor poets, but “poetaster,” by definition, implies the accusation of “paltry,” which, in its turn, is a sneer.

I happen to admire Mr. Auslander’s work very much indeed. On that point opinions may differ, as they differ in regard to every writer. But certainly his work is head and shoulders above the rank and file of those writing verse in this country. Moreover, he has preserved both honesty of intention and vigorous independence as a craftsman. Yet to your many readers he is presented almost in the role of a charlatan. . .

Mr. Auslander’s chief claim to “newspaper fame,” may be that his wife has just won the Pulitzer Prize. That is, however, not by a league his chief claim to fame in the minds of those who have followed American poetry for years and have its best interests at heart. His chief claim to fame lies in his own work—and I say this as one who has just written a short prefatory note to the new edition of Miss Wurdemann’s Bright Ambush. . . . Such as that Mr. Auslander is “a lyric, not to say a complaining, poet” is to me an entirely uncalled-for, not to say an utterly unmeaning line. I could cite complaint, as your critic understands the term—or appears to understand it—in every fine poet since and including Shakespeare. Any adverse comment on existence might be so cited as a “complaint.” The “complaint” in Dante and in Milton must indeed be enormous! The whole thing is laughable, if it were not so unjust. . . . And why all this stuff about the Pulitzer Prize? It seems very petty in the face of Mr. Auslander’s own indifference. Plenty of poets have been writing for years, and writing well. Mr. Robinson Jeffers has been writing for years and writing well, and no Committee has ever given him the Pulitzer Prize. Do you suppose he cares?

The whole thing is to me distinctly shocking. You have a large circulation among plenty of people who only know of poetry what you tell them, and you have taken occasion to single out a particularly good poet for a casual, callous and uncritical pillorying. I happen to think that poetry is a higher form of writing than any other, and I honor any honest and able practitioner in the field.

WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT

Contributing Editor The Saturday Review of Literature New York City

Congratulations to Editor Benét for his spirited defense of a brother-poet.—ED.

Passenger’s Report

Sirs:

I read your account of Pacific Greyhound’s opening their “Nitecoach” service between this city and Kansas City with great interest because I have just completed a round trip on these buses (TIME, May 6). However, you are not entirely correct in every detail.

In the first place, the running time (which is so fast that it is hard to keep—we were late most of the way along the route, at one time as much as two hours and ten minutes which was later mostly made up) is not 52 hours but 51½. Secondly, their fare is not $24, but $29.50 plus $5 berth charge. Other minor points: there is no table in the compartments: there is no “hot”‘ water; the radio went out of commission within an hour of our start in our compartment but it wasn’t any good any way because of static due to the bus generator. . . .

Schedules and equipment and operating personnel have not yet gotten down to a satisfactory state. . . . Our Western trip was canceled a few hours before departure because of motor trouble on the eastbound bus. “somewhere in Kansas.” Had a passenger written your story he probably would have added that: the speed maintained to keep on time exceeds many trains, for we traveled over 60 m.p.h. for hours at a stretch . . . the motors are rather noisy in gear; on a smooth highway such as Kansas offers, travel even at high speed is considerably steadier than any extra-fare Pullman ever built; the natives of much of the route regard the bus as a creation of Mars, judging by the way they stare at the apparition as it roars along the boulevards or chugs through small-town streets; passengers have to trust to luck to find congenial traveling companions, inasmuch as they are put together in groups of five or less in a compartment which, on the inside, is arranged much after the fashion of European trains.

Despite the imperfections which are obviously due to the early stages of the business, these “sleeper buses” are far more comfortable both day and night than the conventional “parlor car bus,” or the day coach of the railroads; are cheaper than even “tourist sleepers;” offer the great middle class of travelers a novel, adventuresome medium for the long journey from the coast to the Middle West; will no doubt be in the near future greatly improved and extensively used.

DON SQUIRES

Los Angeles, Calif.

Reader Squires errs in his second major point. As TIME reported, the Los Angeles-Kansas City fare is $24 plus $5 for a berth. The rate is not to be confused with the Los Angeles-Chicago fare of $29.50 plus berth.—ED.

Younger President

Sirs:

In speaking of President-elect H. W. Caldwell of the University of Georgia on p. 28 of the May 20 issue of TIME you state that he “will be the youngest president of any State university,” at the age of 36.

A younger president of a State university is I. D. Weeks, who was recently (May 2, 1935) appointed by the State Regents of Education to the presidency of the University of South Dakota. President-elect Weeks was born on Sept. 5, 1901, and hence is at present 33. . . .

President-elect Weeks, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, was chosen following the resignation of Dr. Herman G. James, who had previously accepted the presidency of Ohio University at Athens. . . .

CARL Q. CHRISTOL JR.

Permanent Secretary

Class of 1934

Minneapolis, Minn.

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Trujillo Footnotes

Sirs:

. . . Your article relative to the Dominican Republic in the issue of May 13 carries the sting of personalities which casts a doubt as to the knowledge and sincerity of the author. . . .

President Trujillo is an experienced statesman and politician as evidenced by his election to a second term. He is therefore accustomed and immune to criticism of his official life. But the slurring reference to his ”dubious beginnings,” “beige color” and “bastard child” must carry the barbs of insult and embarrassment straight to the hearts of his mother, wife and children.

This writer is a native-born and white citizen of the U. S. and sincerely appreciates the honor of President Trujillo’s acquaintance and friendship. I therefore feel obligated to him, his mother, his beautiful and accomplished wife and daughters, his little boy and his six brothers, to assure my fellow Americans that Señor Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and his brothers are obviously of pure Castilian blood and are instantly recognized as gentlemen of education, culture and refinement. . . .

ARTHUR R. MILES

Miami, Fla.

Sirs:

. . . Having visited Santo Domingo in January and February of this year, I have had some experience with the strict censorship enforced there. . . . Judging from the contacts I had and from the general talk I should say your article was quite accurate concerning Trujillo and his super-dictatorship.

Further instances of his power I noted were: prominent private citizens in the employ of American concerns in S. D. are obliged to entertain at least twice annually for Trujillo, his bodyguards, his Cabinet, all their bodyguards, and a goodly portion of his over-sized army, and on supercharged peace visits of the Haitian President and his entourage with cocktail parties costing from $700 to $1,600—the host’s house and grounds patrolled by Trujillo’s machine-gunners. Since the General Electric Co. has so far escaped Trujillo’s control, he is now employing prominent Dominican “ladies” as spies in his efforts to obtain the monopoly of the only paying American concern, and the one that has benefited the natives more than any other.

J. D. AIKEN

Wellesley Hills, Mass.

Diplomacy’s Lack

Sirs:

Your article on Josef Pilsudski’s death (TIME, May 20) confirms’ once more the lack of diplomacy of your leading editors.

However, one should not wonder!

… It would take too much time to point out the many mistakes and misleading statements.

ANTHONY H. MILKOWSKI

Buffalo, N. Y.

Sirs:

. . . No one could object to your calling attention to a walrus mustache several times in one article, if it seems important to you to do so. But when you refer to a great man, newly dead, as “Walrus Pilsudski,” you are going beyond the limits of good taste and decency. . . .

M. C. WILLIAMS

Bronxville, N. Y.

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Alcohol-Gasoline

Sirs:

Your excellent review of Dearborn Conference of Agriculture, Industry and Science [TIME, May 20]—which I attended—in ascribing political intentions to it, missed the point. . . .

The broad idea was that all new wealth comes from the soil which is the foundation of all prosperity, and that the farmers have to be prosperous before others may prosper. It was shown that there has been a perpetual permanent ratio between agricultural income and wages paid by industry—both being constantly about equal.

Hence, with foreign markets largely evaporated for U. S. agricultural products, with a normal surplus annually produced, it is necessary to find a new domestic market for that surplus. . . .

Slash pine for paper, Tung oil for varnishes, soy beans for oils and plastics were all mentioned; but the big new proposed market—which might pull us out of the Depression, as did the automobile in 1920—21—is power alcohol.

One billion, six hundred million gallons of 199 proof anhydrous alcohol would be needed to make a 10% blend with the approximate 16,000,000,000 annual U. S. gasoline consumption. That this would relieve the problem of the agricultural surplus is indicated by the fact that to make it would consume all of the wheat raised in the U. S.; or on the other hand all of the oats, barley, rye and white potatoes; or on the other hand from one-third to one-half of the corn.

The House of Gurney, of Yankton, operating 500 filling stations over five western States, has pioneered with a. 2 ½% alcohol, 97 % gasoline blend, selling at the same price as the ordinary gas. . . . I have used it entirely since February, without any carburetor adjustments. It gives a sweet running motor. The alcohol has splendid antiknock properties. By keeping the engine carbon free it permits the use of third run gasoline, hence giving greater mileage.

The South Dakota legislature, lately adjourned, enacted a law permitting the blend to be sold in the State as legal gas; the Nebraska legislature has relieved the alcohol content of a blend from payment of the State gasoline tax. . . .

HARRY A. ROBINSON Lawyer

Yankton, S. Dak.

Sirs:

As the solitary speaker at the Dearborn Conference of Industry, Science and Agriculture who did not see the practicality of alcohol-gasoline blending as a panacea for farmers’ ills, let me congratulate you on your discerning report on the general proceedings there. A joint impartial study of the project, proposed through me by the American Petroleum Institute, if accepted by the Chemical Foundation, will reveal the fallacy of the project on the basis of present conditions and costs and the hopelessness of future manufacture of alcohol at prices of 7¢ per gallon, such as are predicted by enthusiastic protagonists of the scheme. Note that Mr. Henry Ford made no commitment on this scheme, that the prominent representatives of the automobile industry who were officially announced as speakers actually neither spoke nor attended and that Mr. Irénée du Pont described alcohol blending with gasoline as an economic waste.

G. G. BROWN

Professor of Chemical Engineering University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Mich.

Lindbergh’s Eight

Sirs:

Two air-minded brothers cannot sit back and let pass unnoticed your error in referring to Gerard Barnes Lambert as ”angel for the Lindbergh flight” (TIME, May 27).

Of the original eight backers of Col. Lindbergh — apparently now to become as numerous as Mayflowerites — my brother Albert, together with the writer, constituted the only representatives of the family.

We love our seafaring brother, Gerard, but believe in each man to his own medium. For ourselves, Albert and I insist in this instance on being “given the air.”

WOOSTER LAMBERT

New York City

TIME gladly straightens the record of the Original Eight who back Col. Lindbergh. Besides Brothers Wooster & Albert Bond Lambert (Listerine), they were: Banker Harold McMillan Bixby, credited with naming the Lindbergh plane Spirit of St. Louis; the late Banker Harry F. Knight, his son & partner Harry Hall Knight; Publisher E. Lansing Ray of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Major William Bryan Robertson, vice president of Curtiss-Wright Airplane Co.. Earl C. Thompson, then operator of a one-plane sightseeing service at St. Louis Airport, now selling stocks, bonds & insurance at Kennett, Mo. — ED.

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Sour Note

Sirs:

I read the letters in TIME, April 29, sent by boosters of Anchorage, Alaska.

Even though Anchorage ranks third in population, it is a town of ill-constructed wooden buildings and shacks with a large percentage of its people unemployed and poverty-stricken.

In its four business blocks it has 37 saloons. brothels and gambling houses. Some of these are run by the town’s leading boosters. . . .

E. H. LAVAN

Anchorage, Alaska

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Brand Habit

Sirs:

Add to diseases discovered by the medico-advertising departments of U. S. business (TIME, May 27) — Brand Habit, the insidiousness of which is explained by those good souls who torture the air waves on behalf of Kentucky Winners cigarets.

We gather that sufferers from this ailment neglect to buy Winners simply because they are used to asking for a particular brand, and therefore miss all the pleasures that Winners have to offer.

R. D. FIELDING Boston, Mass.

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Shock

Sirs:

I am shocked at your magazine. Many people told me it was a good magazine, so I thought I would buy one. I bought a May 27 issue, and the first thing that hit my eyes was the terrible picture of a movie star [Miriam Hopkins ] scantily dressed.

After that shock, I looked through the magazine and what should I see but a naked woman in a terrible pose. You can take my word for it, I will never buy TIME again as long as I live.

Hoping you go broke. . . .

MRS. ALBERT E. PRESTON

San Diego, Calif.

At San Diego last week Exposition-goers paid 25¢ to enter Zoro Gardens “nudist colony.” Scores of gawpers saved the admission price by pressing their eyes to knotholes in the fence (see p. 16). — ED.

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