Letters, Jan. 6, 1936

No Law Evasion

Sirs:

The article in TIME for Nov. 25, dealing with the impeachment of the Secretary of State of Colorado for irregularities in the collection of Colorado liquor stamp taxes unfortunately failed to contain a complete account of the events leading up to the impeachment proceedings and accordingly did not make clear the position of McKesson & Robbins, Inc.

Since the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment McKesson & Robbins, Inc. has been engaged in the distribution of wines and liquors on a nationwide scale. Since its earliest connection with this business, the policy of the Company has been to comply strictly with the spirit as well as the letter of every regulatory and taxing measure. In accordance with this policy, as soon as it became apparent to the executive officials of the company that there were irregularities in the collection of Colorado State liquor taxes, the Company communicated with the Governor of Colorado placing in his hands all of the facts at its command. He advised the Company to communicate with the State Attorney's Office, and as a result of this step State operators and McKesson officials arranged for a "trap" on McKesson property, as a result of which a "go-between," alleged to be working in the personal interest of the discredited State official, was arrested. Immediately upon the completion of a special audit of the affairs of the Colorado branch of McKesson & Robbins, Inc., the full amount of all taxes due to the State of Colorado was promptly paid.

The Company feels that the above facts were not clearly set forth in the article in TIME and that accordingly, there may have been some implication that McKesson & Robbins, Inc. was dishonorably involved in the affair. The management of the Company has not tolerated in the past evasiveness in regard to laws affecting the Company. It will not tolerate such evasiveness in the future.

F. D. COSTER President McKesson & Robbins, Inc. Bridgeport, Conn.

Potential Threat

Sirs:

One wonders if the Power of Trinity has considered the potential threat that exists should he be victorious in this Italian incident. If he has thought of the effect on the great colonial powers were his tribesmen, savage, and untutored in modern military strategy, to defeat the well equipped, tactically superior legions of Rome. Does he not know that the white nations most powerful in Africa will look with deep concern on this native triumph? That prominent Britons will look askance at this hitherto unconsidered puissance which commands the Lake Tana and which may, by example, menace the British hegemony in Africa? Can he not realize that maintaining a strong and independent native African state and at the same time showing the rest of Africa that the white man's shoes may sometimes encase clay feet is a blow to the prestige of the dominating races in Africa that will cause Downing Street and the Foreign Office to break out in a rash of "incidents"?