Letters: Ghandi's Watch Pocket

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I would not refer to this item, were it not that my entirely unselfish desire to help a most worthy international good-will cause was indirectly responsible for the insertion of the original advertisement, the exact wording of which I did not see until after it was printed. The philanthropic Honorary Secretary of that worthy cause had suggested to me that much help for its needed funds could be obtained if I would deliver some public addresses in its favor. I replied that, while I could not appropriately do that, I would gladly contribute the proceeds of honorariums which might be received for speaking engagements which he would secure to discuss international topics. He then asked if he could endeavor to secure such engagements through special notices in the newspapers. I agreed with the provision that my name must not be used and left to him the proper wording. When I saw the advertisement, I remonstrated as he can confirm and I insisted that in all correspondence he point out that the announcement was made on his own initiative. He meant well and in his enthusiasm made the quite pardonable technical error of describing a former "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary" as an "Ambassador," and such earnestness caught the attention of the meticulous stylemaster of TIME!

Incidentally, in his defense may I state that he was aware that the President of the U. S. had offered me a real Ambassadorship when I voluntarily retired from 26 years' international service as U. S. Envoy and Minister and Director General of the Pan American Union, and that I had declined because I did not have the financial resources to accept.

JOHN BARRETT New York City

$1.01 Quarts

Sirs:

Apropos of remarks of Dr. Logan Clendening in regard to the need for a five-cent drink of whiskey (TIME, Oct. 19), Dr. Clendening, of course, like other ethical medical men, abhors the thought of publicity. It is, however, possible that since he began writing articles for the lay press intended to disseminate the rudiments of medical knowledge among the common people, he has become somewhat inured to it, and probably was speaking more or less confidentially to one or more newspaper men without at all realizing, as indeed who but a publicity man would, that the remarks might be quotable and have some news value.

That such a blissful state, as he mentions, of affairs is not entirely impossible even though, as your historical comment indicates, it may be quite unlikely, is borne out by the fact that a few years ago a Louisville drug store used to offer, on the occasion of what were called 1¢ sales, two quarts of excellent, 100 proof, five-year-old Bourbon for $1.01 which on the old time bartender's calculation of 20 drinks to a quart would figure somewhere in the neighborhood of 2½¢ a drink.

There may have been depressions in those days but at least no one who had $1.01 had to worry about them.

C. D. ENFIELD, M.D. Louisville, Ky.

German Peewits

Sirs: