Monday, Jun. 13, 1938

Foul Tip Sirs: After gazing raptly from various angles, positions and distances at some of your reproductions of modern "Art" [TIME, May 23], am satisfied somebody is being kidded, and suspect I am it.

"Lower Manhattan, by John Marin, painted in 1920," may have met the 20th Century squarely, as you caption, but from here it looks like an awfully foul tip. Alice, on same page, might just as appropriately be rendered "Alice, Where Art Thou?" Does your Art Editor have his tongue in his cheek, or is he privately the plaything of similar inspirations

Hope you will continue to give us the titles along with the masterpieces, as otherwise some of the hidden beauties might elude us. F. BUCKLEY Hobbs, N. M.

Reproduction does injustice to Lower Manhattan and Alice and so does Reader Buckley.--ED.

Sirs: Has John Marin continued his art work since he has grown up? His Lower Manhattan of the 19205 shows only too well how hidden talent within a child can be discovered by giving him a paint brush and a box of water colors. JACK GAMBLE Pullman, Wash.

Artist Marin, now 67, retains a youthful spirit.--ED.

Soviet Machine

Sirs: In your story on Spain in TIME, April 18, you declare that ''however, it was now the fast growing Soviet Machine against the German-Italian Machine. . . ."

We know, according to official figures made public by Ambassador Fernando de los Rios, that between January i and March 19 of this year, the rebels received 84,672 Italian and German troops, making a total of more than 100,000 Italian troops and 50.000 German fighting against the Spanish people. Germany and Italy, moreover, frankly admit and even boast of their aid to Franco. But can you say that there are any Soviet soldiers fighting in Spain? None of the news correspondents with the Loyalists has ever reported that there is a single Soviet soldier fighting in the Loyalist ranks. The Loyalist air force, which enlisted Russian flyers in the early days of the war. is now practically 100% Spanish. There are several hundred Russian technicians in Spain, chiefly to service and repair equipment purchased from the Soviet Union. . . .

Thus TIME'S parallel does not exist. There is no ''Soviet Machine" in Spain comparable in any sense to the German-Italian machine. . .

ROBERTO RENDUELES Spanish Information Bureau New York City

By "Soviet Machine" TIME meant not men but materiel. Latest good guess about the number of Italians and Germans with Franco came last month from Foreign Policy Association's Charles A. Thomson in War in Spain. His estimate: 8,000-10,000 Germans; 40,000-80,000 or more Italians.--ED.

Why Scientists Remarry

Sirs: May 23 Letters inexcusably maligns scientists, apropos their ready remarriage and hypothetical helplessness. Myself and scientist friends have built our own houses. We can do plumbing, carpentry, electric wiring and painting. We have sold merchandise, bought stock, and written copy. We raise vegetables and live stock as well as children; can cook, keep house and nurse the sick. Perhaps a few professors of now-scientific subjects are inept, but as for scientists, they look like hardware dealers, work like millwrights and catch on like columnists. We can prove this by cases at Berkeley and Stanford as well as here and back East. We are, like all strongly sexed males, vulnerable to feminine loveliness. Scientists are remarried promptly by smart women who recognize good catches.

M. W. DE LAUBENFELS Pasadena. Calif.

Taking TIME

Sirs: I "took" the Literary Digest for 48 years, including every issue; now I am .going to "take" TIME for all the balance of my life; I like it, especially its courage.

CHAS. L. HYDE SR. Pierre, S. Dak.

Flat Glass

Sirs: TIME, May 30 said, "Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co. has contributed to Ohio's relief troubles by discharging 4,000 of its 5.000 Toledo workers." This statement creates a wrong impression. The flat glass industry has felt the full force of this depression and operations every where have, of necessity, been sharply reduced. Our company was compelled to lay off a considerable number of its workers -- most of them temporarily -- but there is quite a difference between such a layoff and a "discharge."

We feel strongly on this subject because we have been working for years to iron out seasonal peaks and valleys and insure steady employment at good wages. As proof--our factory wage workers were paid an average of $1,581 per year during 1936 and 1937

JOHN D. BIGGERS President Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co. Toledo, Ohio

All thanks to able President Biggers for setting TIME'S record straight. Last month President Biggers wound up his job as Administrator of the Government's Unemployment Census, was happy to report to President Roosevelt that he had spent only $1,986,595.46 of the $5,000,000 authorized.--ED.

Dark Angel

Sirs: TIME, you slay me, not for giving Charlie Ward and Brown & Bigelow to Minneapolis, but for calling Mr. Ward an angel--even a dark one [TIME, May 23].

Louis M. HAN SEN St. Paul, Minn.

TIME hastens to return Mr. Ward, Brown & Bigelow to St. Paul, where they belong, apologizes to all concerned.--ED.

Soaring Flight

Sirs: I wish to thank you for the excellently written account of my soaring flight from Wichita Falls, Tex. to Tulsa, Okla., setting a new American distance record [TIME, May 2]. I am bound, however, to point out one error.

You said that I was towed into the sky by an airplane, which was not true. I was launched by an engine-driven winch mounted on a truck (designed and built by E. Paul du Pont Jr.) winding in 4,000 ft. of 3/8in. manila rope spread across the airport. This enabled me to climb to 800 ft. above the ground before dropping the rope. . . .

What I consider more important than the new record is the significant fact that this was the first distance soaring flight in America made from winch tow in level country. . . .

LEWIN B. BARRINGER Wichita Falls, Tex.

Freud

Sirs: The comments on Sigmund Freud (TIME, May 23) could hardly have been made by an ordinary book reviewer, because a tricky and greatly misquoted theory was handled quite truthfully. I usually expect to hear some crackpot sound off with the squirrel cage statement that all Freud's dream translations and all Freud's theories are sex.

Tell me--does one man write all the reviews, or does TIME "farm out" such technical subjects as Freud?

Since you seem to know the answer: What has happened to Freud the great Jew--his family ? . . .

M. M. MCTEER JR. St. Louis, Mo.

1) TIME has two book reviewers, who sometimes get expert advice, never farm out reviews.

2) Eighty-two -year -old Sigmund Freud and his family last week were allowed to leave Vienna, went to London. He was permitted to take his library with him, had to abandon his other properties including his publishing house. According to the London Daily Herald, Sigmund Freud was held in Vienna until wealthy friends paid a ransom for his release. In London, in the furnished house in Chelsea his son Ernst has rented for him, Freud will pick up his interrupted labors--at present a psychoanalysis of the Bible.--ED.

Dictated History?

Sirs: Having spent some time in studying American history, I am enclosing a few statements on a current situation which has caused some comment.

My conclusion after making my study is that since 1860 American history has been written at the dictation of a victorious sectional Republican party, which as Mr. Denis W. Brogan says in his Government of the People, has never been a National party, either in theory or fact.

Not only has this party dictated the writing of this history, but it has dictated the rewriting of American history prior to 1860 so as to make a grandstand entrance for Abraham Lincoln as first President. . .

M. D. BOLAND

Tacoma, Wash.

Colored Montague

Sirs: In TIME, May 9, under Science I note that you state that with a new streamlined driver ... "A golfer like Jimmy Thomson using the streamlined club should attain a carry of 275 yards."

We agree that this is an unusual feat. However, it is not necessary to wait for a new club to be designed to see this feat accomplished. We have in our employ at the present time, a colored boy from Bradenton, Fla. We, and all others who have seen him play consider him to be the colored Montague.

At the Norwich Country Club Hast month], before a gallery including Mr. Gun-shanon, the pro, this boy drove a 327 yard hole entirely in the air to land on the green five feet past the pin. This feat he accomplished two out of three trys. The longest drive I have seen him make is 375 yards of which 340 was in the air. . . .

His name is J. C. (for nothing) Hamilton. We predict that much more will be heard of him in the very near future.

LOUIS LAVITT The Rockville Grain & Coal Co. Rockville, Conn.

Full-Blooded Americans

Sirs: Before me I have a copy of TIME, May 30, on the front of which you have blazoned the picture of Earl Browder, one of the most detested personalities that ever fattened on the grief and hatreds of the American classes.

As a subscriber to TIME magazine and as an American citizen I resent this free and cordial advertising of Communistic disturbers. . . .

You have given to two Communist leaders, within the last year (Browder and Bridges) 1/25 of your valuable front-page space which is greatly needed for the exploitation of full-blooded Americans. . . . BURTON H. PUGH

Kansas City, Mo.

Sirs: ... I realize of course that TIME is interested in reporting all news of interest rather than acting as a censor, rejecting this, reporting that, etc., But why encourage the Communists by displaying a picture of a leader in such a manner as this? Obscurity is one of the best means of stamping out such a movement.

G. W. THAIN Welton S: Co. Los Angeles, Calif.

Sirs:

Last week I was delighted to receive TIME by reason of my subscription to Literary Digest which had not yet expired. I enjoyed the first number very much. . . .

This week's issue has just arrived and I cannot help writing to ask if you can not find a better subject for your front cover than the picture of one who is openly advocating the overthrow of our form of government and who is admittedly connected with the "Internationale" at Moscow, Russia. . . .

On Monday, May 30, we pause to pay tribute to those who fought and died that this Government might live. Your magazine for the occasion glorifies one who is the recognized head of a party which advocates the substitution of "Communism" for everything that we as Americans hold dear.

Think this over.

J. WM. CUMMINS Attorney at Law Wheeling, W. Ya.

Sirs: . . . Comrade Browder wants peace and security--so do we all--but we can't have peace and security without job providers that are creating new wealth while they are putting men to work.

The value of a man's service to society is measured by the number of jobs that he has provided for his fellow men.

R. C. BARNETT Missouri State Highway Dept. Jefferson City, Mo.

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