Letters, Dec. 11, 1933

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Furthermore you are in error about me writing propaganda from Germany during the War. I was an accredited war correspondent with the German armies and their military allies for American newspapers, which by no means favored the cause of the Central Powers. . . .

Whatever I had dispatched as a war correspondent passed through the inevitable mill of military or naval censorship, telegraph transmission, copy desk, headline writing, proof reading and final approval or disapproval by some responsible editor at home. Therefore the responsibility for whatever was published as coming from me was divided among several persons.

... A book about my War experiences, which I wrote in English in 1915, was translated into German in 1916 and was published at Munich. Copies of my book may have circulated among English speaking troops, but I never have heard it described as a work of propaganda. None of its many reviewers raised so unkind a point. Many loyal Americans and Englishmen among my readers praised my book as fair and truthful.

After I was interned in Germany as a prisoner of war in 1917-18 I edited a prison camp paper, English-American Notes, which was supported exclusively by British and American war prisoners. This newspaper, of which complete files are extant, contained no war propaganda. The only items in it that could be called propaganda, in a stretched sense of that word, were its paid advertisements of Tauchnitz books, sporting articles, wearing apparel, souvenirs and the like. Of such paid advertisements (the proceeds from which went to my publisher, a neutral Switzer) there were all too few, alas, for the counting room. . . .

EDWIN EMERSON

New York City

Giraffe Sounds

Sirs:

Does the admonition not to take seriously O. Soglow's Sanka coffee cartoon in your Nov. 6 issue include the giraffe represented as adding to the din created by the elephant and tiger with sounds of his own?

My school teachers and school books always said giraffes were without vocal cords and could make no sounds.

Who's right? Me or O. Soglow?

ALDEN SONNIER

Crowley, La.

Giraffes have vocal cords and. when startled, emit staccato grunts, rousing snorts.—ED.

Cover Players

Sirs:

Your front cover, issue of Nov. 13, showing several football players, representing two teams in action, has started a discussion as to who the players are, and what teams they represent. . . .

Yes, I've made a bet, and my bet is that Northwestern is represented by the men in white jerseys. Am I right?

WARREN C. HYDE

Minneapolis, Minn.

Reader Hyde loses. The white-jerseyed men are Chicago's Halfback Jay Berwanger (with noseguard) and Captain Pete Zimmer. The dark-jerseyed players diving for the fumble are Michigan's Guard Carl Savage (who recovered) and Tackle Tom Austin.—ED.

All-American Corbus

Sirs:

Suggest your getting out the little used, long neck oil can and greasing the old, rusty cogs, for again smug, red-faced TIME is wrong. Your muchly touted Bill Corbus TIME entitled "Stanford's All-American guard" never was named for any position on Grantland Rice's All-American, much less for the position of right guard.