Letters: Letters, Aug. 21, 1939

Conniving, Self-Aggrandizing

Sirs:

I have just read your biased account of political events under the head of The Presidency, in TIME, July 31, and I want you to know how your account of the defeat of the Neutrality Bill appears to one who has got more respect for honor than he has for conniving, self-aggrandizing politicians. . . .

Christ had his Judas, Washington his Benedict Arnold and Roosevelt his John Garner.

E. J. COWARD

Aitkin, Minn.

Presidential Masons

Sirs:

In your otherwise complete article on Paul McNutt, you failed to mention whether he was a Mason. I have recently heard from both Masons and non-Masons that no man will ever go to the White House who is not a 32nd Degree Mason. If true, here is a political factor far more important than the Legion. How many of our Presidents have been Masons, and how do the prospective 1940 candidates stand in this respect?

ROBERT M. DODDS

Omaha, Neb.

≫Of the 31 U. S. Presidents, twelve have been known Masons: George Washington (Past Master), James Monroe, Andrew Jackson (Grand Master), James K. Polk (Royal Arch), James Buchanan (Past Master), Andrew Johnson (32nd Degree), James A. Garfield (14th Degree), William McKinley (Knight Templar), Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Warren G. Harding (33rd Degree), Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd Degree). (Whether Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were Masons is a moot question.)

Of the 1940 Presidential possibilities, Masons are Thomas Edmund Dewey, Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg (32nd Degree), Paul Vories McNutt (32nd Degree). No Masons are Robert Alphonso Taft, James Aloysius Farley, John Nance Garner, Cordell Hull, Harry Lloyd Hopkins.—ED.

"Care and Feeding"

Sirs:

This is written so that you may know I am not oblivious to the generous fashion in which you dealt with me in TIME, August 7.

The only reward I may offer you (probably the only reward you would accept) is a copy of my address on the "Care and Feeding of Politicians."

HENRY F. ASHURST

U. S. Senate

Washington, D. C.

≫ TIME's thanks to non-oblivious Senator Ashurst for his gift, excerpts from which are printed below.—ED.

". . . As to diet: the politician just before an election should be allowed, at public expense, all the pork he wishes, and he should use plenty of applesauce, as that is the only commodity of which the supply can never equal the demand. . . .

"The politician who expects to survive every storm that blows should simulate a flurried, harried demeanor, and a nervous—yes, I shall say irritable—nature, as such persons are generally regarded as sincere. . . .

"Above all things, he should not forget that voters never grow weary of illusory promises. . . .

"It is possible that the politician may be afflicted with that devastating malady known as 'presidentitis,' which is a burning, itching desire to become President. . . .