Letters, Apr. 17, 1939

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Gracious Thing

Sirs:

Here is an idea suggested by Vice President Garner's agreement with the President not to make any speeches during his term of office:

Would it not be a gracious thing for the President to do—a beautiful custom to originate—that the President resign a few weeks or months before the end of his term of office (say, on Christmas or New Year's day or even on Thanksgiving) so as to permit the Vice President to become President of the United States for the interim until January 20—when the newly-elected President would take office under Amendment XX to the Constitution?

Before Roosevelt I (as you call him) became President, he told the story of a woman who had two sons one of whom went to sea and the other became Vice President, "and neither was ever heard of again."

ELMER G. STILL

Livermore, Calif.

Another Shera

Sirs:

In TIME Magazine March 27 my mother read me a letter by a little girl named Shera Anne Hardy. Whose great grandfather was named James Shera and he was my Grandfather's Godfather.

I am glad you like your name Shera Anne.

I think it is nice too.

My Grandfather is James Shera Montgomery. Chaplain of the House of Representatives and I am named Shera for him.

I like to go to Washington to visit my Grandfather. And see him when he opens the House with prayer. I have rolled Easter eggs on the White House lawn and I am just nine years old.

LOUISE SHERA MONTGOMERY

Winnetka, Ill.

Billy Patterson (Cont'd)

Sirs:

Let omniscient TIME consider itself good-naturedly rebuked for ignoring a widely known version of "Who hit Billy Patterson" [TIME, April 3].

English lore has it that Billy Patterson was an ingenuous boatman who earned his shillings in the vicinity of Oxford University. It is said that for years a feud had existed between the students and the river boatmen. A group of excitement craving sophomores managed to capture Patterson and bring him to "trial" before a jury of their peers. He was found "guilty" and "sentenced" to have his head amputated via the guillotine.

The "execution" was to take place forthwith, and so Billy's neck was forcibly put on the block; whereupon he was struck with a wet cord that had been chilled, very conveniently, to more or less the temperature of a steel blade. Billy's simpleminded brain reacted most realistically to this mock execution, and it telegraphed the rest of his body that he was "done for." . . .

Poor Billy Patterson had gone to his reward, whatever it was, without knowing, without anyone knowing to this day, who hit him. . . .

POMPILIO ROMERO

New Orleans, La.

Sirs:

. . . The Patterson story is told in Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline by Fred E. Pont (Will Wildwood).