On October 29, 1934, Elliott White Springs wrote a letter to Time, politely correcting some inaccuracies in a story they had printed about him.

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“I found your report [TIME, Sept. 24] interesting. I am sure you want to keep your files accurate and suggest that they be changed slightly.
When I wish to dress up around the mills and wear a coat it is not of 1917 vintage, as you report, but was made in 1921. The straw-woven shoes are now no more, as at least a dozen old friends read your report and have supplied me with new pairs. The $20,000,000 with which I am credited is entirely a myth but since your article appeared I have received wires and letters from acquaintances of years gone by requesting immediate loans. I believe I am also safe in stating that I have been given the opportunity to finance at least half of the new inventions which have patents now pending.

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To offset that, however, my social popularity has increased as much as if I had learned to play the piano, gotten rid of halitosis, used Lifebuoy, or spoken to the waiter in French. . . .
Upon my recent visit to the marts of trade and the fleshpots of Egypt, your assurances as to my financial stability caused such interest that I feel my days as a wallflower are over.
The fact that my wife read the article also and spent several days shopping upon the strength of it will have to be charged to the debit side.
Every tailor in the country now feels it is time for me to buy a new coat and I think it only fair that when I do so they should give TIME a commission on the business.”
On Monday October 8, 1934, they printed an article about Diamond Jim Brady and his collection of precious gems.
Besides such curios as a diamond-tipped cane, he owned 30 complete sets of jeweled cuff links, studs, tie pins, fobs, watch chains, etc. A railroad man, he enjoyed blazoning the fact by wearing what became one of his most famed diamond arrangements— the Transportation Set.

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Most amusing to today’s public was a design of a Pullman car which Mr. Brady liked to pin on his underwear. Almost two inches long were his freight and passenger car cuff links. A bicycle-shaped stud was reminiscent of the goldplated, diamond-studded bicycle he gave to Lillian Russell, who kept it in a plush case when she was not riding it.

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But according to another letter to the editor penned by Lillian Russell’s daughter, Dorothy Russell Solomon de Castiglione Einstein O’Reilly Calvit, this fact was disputed.
My mother, Lillian Russell, was not even acquainted with Mr. Brady during the bicycle era. As for the vehicle itself, it had a goldplated handlebar with mother-of-pearl grips, no diamonds. The pedals were also goldplated. The bicycle was a gift from the Columbia Bicycle manufacturers in appreciation of the vast amount of publicity they derived from her using their product and because she had purchased so many of them, one for each member of the family. . . .
To Dorothy Russell Solomon de Castiglione Einstein O’Reilly Calvit, who won fame of her own by upsetting the will of her stepfather, the late Alexander Pollock Moore (TIME, May 4, 1931), thanks for a description of her mother’s bicycle. Confronted with it, Author Morell sticks to his story.

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