Definitely Confused
Sirs:
I note Mr. Andrews is scratching behind his ear. I have worn my finger down to a nub about this goddam Fair ? ? ? wages bill. I want to know ? Does it apply to my business. After reading volumes and listening to hundreds of opinions, I am still definitely confused. I manufacture upholstered chairs. I have ceased shipping interState. I get most of my raw materials from out of State, such as lumber, fabrics, springs, tacks, etc. Does the fact that getting my materials through interState Commerce make me subject to this act even if I don't ship interState?
I wrote Mr. Andrews several weeks ago, but so far, no answer. This is one of the things that disgusts me with the Administration. They pass a law and worry the hell out of a small businessman like myself because you don't know what to do and can't find out. If I am subject to this law, when are they going to have some local offices so a person can get some additional information ?
GEORGE FABER San Antonio, Tex.
Powder River
Sirs:
Reference is made to Struthers Burt's book Powder River in TIME, Nov. 28.
May I suggest that TIME's book reviewer, as well as Novelist Burt, acquaint himself with Montana geography. Pumpkin Creek, the correct name for which is Pumpkin Vine Creek, does not join Powder River! This creek flows into the Tongue River approximately ten miles south of the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone Rivers.
E. J. WOOLFOLK U. S. Forest Service Miles City, Mont.
>Let Reader Woolfolk acquaint himself with Wyoming geography: a Pumpkin Creek joins Powder River in Wyoming, at 44DEG1'51" N. Lat., 106DEG9'29" N. W. Long.--ED.
Hall of Fame
Sirs:
Having regard to the manner in which the busts of eminent Americans find their way into University Heights' Hall of Fame a group of twelve men meeting in this town submit the following eminent contemporaries for consideration after 1965. You will note that under the present three-fifths rule only the first four were elected:
Henry Ford 10
Albert Einstein 9
Louis D. Brandeis 9
Frank Lloyd Wright 8
Franklin D. Roosevelt 7
Helen Keller 6
John Dewey 5
Robert A. Millikan 5
Malvina Hoffman 4
George Santayana 4
Grant Wood 4
Walter Damrosch 4
L. J. PATTERSON
Summit, N. J.
Ironical
Sirs:
I own my own farm in central New Jersey and usually raise 1500-2500 laying hens.
These last several years I have attempted to obtain a Government loan for the better operation of my farm. . . .
The Federal Land Bank states I am not eligible because I am a "factory"--I cart in raw materials (feed) and cart out the finished produce (eggs). They loan to farms only.
The Production Credit Administration resists the impulse to assist, with the explanation that I am too devoid of lienable assets to offer as security for the loan. Real estate is not acceptable and I have no tractors, plows, horses, cows, etc. . . .
The Resettlement Administration protests that I am too affluent for their consideration! They will loan only when all other avenues are closed. Since I am in operation I haven't reached my dead end !
The Emergency Feed and Seed Administration loan is denied because I stated that I wished to plant corn for my hens. Thus, my seed loan becomes a poultry loan and "we don't make poultry loans."
The Farm Credit fieldman blithely informs me that my application for a loan is denied because I work too hard. I run a 2,500 hen plant all by myself while my neighbors run a 1000-1500 hen farm with the assistance of a wife and hired man! That makes me a big business man--a tycoon, perhaps--and "we don't loan business, only farmers."
The R. F. C. turns me down because "any loan that might be made would be of no constructive value."
All this I find ironical because although I have an equity of $6-8,000 in my farm, I am in operation by virtue of a loan from a local "business man" at the small charge of but 52% per year. You see, Tom Dewey's investigation of the loan shark practices does not include the town of Lakewood.
As a magazine of national circulation and great farmer interest, I wonder if you know if any of my fellow subscribers have encountered similar experiences with the Government and if so, how they solved their problems? . . .
STAN BROOKE
Lakewood, N. J.
Cold View
Sirs:
Open our doors to Europe's unwanted! Certain Americans' pronounced interest in the refugees of oppressed nations abroad should be likened to a father of considerable brood many of whom he has neglected to provide for in essential material and spiritual needs. This father sees a distant group of children being miserably treated at the hands of another; he decides to become magnanimous and rescue them unto himself. . . .
It is shabby drama of America's isolation program and "leave-others-alone" policy. Are we to take the brunt of something which we could have avoided by using other measures that would have proved more worthwhile on an international scale? Pretty cold view! Why, why get our emotions mixed up with our scientific objectivity now ? Get out unemployment statistics, take newspaper, magazine, radio reports of crimes, suicides, starvations, ad infinitum--and ad nauseum--in these United States. Why not retain the isolationism we started? Why not get our house in order before we start accepting guests? Why not be humanitarian on a large scale here before becoming so on the proposed gigantic scale? . . .
DANA FLETCHER Niagara Falls, N. Y.
Y Am Jew
Sirs:
. . . Here Y am representing an american firm, ... in a considerable large district of Northern Yougoslavia . . . and so my life is, what you would call it: "middle-to-do." This country is rich in agrarian products as in minerals, and there is some richness also in this crisisful time; also we had never a famine or relief. But Y am Jew, and so Y have to live in growing difficulties, although officially there would be declared, here in You-goslavia there is no Jewish question. Unfortunately we have to buy all the machineries, chemical and other products we need, in Germany, because this country is our best buyer, so is the german influence growing day after day, and understandable is, that very few Jews feel them happy in this situation.
And in this situation, your articles have brought me a real picture from that, what you are thinking about us and the Central-european Question. Not all of these have been exact, but may be that was not always possible. In some regards, everyone must keep some things unpublished, but TIME was speaking in many cases sincerely for us. Y thank you.
Y.J.
Stari Becej. Yugoslavia
United States of Africa
Sirs:
Of course I'm dumb, diplomatically and politically! Who isn't? But with all the talk about giving the African colonies back to Germany -- or what not -- why does no one suggest the obvious solution? Why not give them all back to the Africans? Not necessarily to the Negroes, though that might be proper, too; but to the Africans? Because that's what will ultimately have to be done. Neither England, Germany, Italy, nor Belgium can indefinitely hold any part of Africa as colonial exploitation material.
Sooner or later there will be either one United States of Africa -- as the American Colonies grew to become the United States of America; or there will be several African states, all independent of Europe, as now in South America. . . .
GRACE VERNE SILVER Los Angeles, Calif.
Zionists, Americans, Saxons
Sirs:
TIME is gullible enough to state ... in its Nov. 21 issue that it finds in publisher William B. Ziff the most persuasive propagandist. . . .
In item 1) Mr. Ziff states that the British policy has been that of divide and rule. I for one agree with him on that point but to go on further and say that the English have carefully nursed Arab anti-Semitism is a shocking blunder. Since when have the Arabs become Aryans and since when have the Jews acquired the monopoly over Semitism? . . .
We have been living with the Jews in Iraq and other Arabic countries for hundreds of years peacefully and amicably. The element that we are fighting now is not the minorities we have with us but that new foreign element Zionism which has been encroaching into Palestine for the last 15 years. . . .
If the measure of civilization is streamlined cars and buildings, offices decked with convenient chairs where dyed blonde secretaries can sit, I can safely say that the Arabs do not care for such civilization. The Jews claim that Palestine is their home because they lived there about 2,000 years ago, I would like to see some Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent go back to England and claim it as their own or, further back, the Saxons going to Germany to claim Saxony which surely was their home.
EDMUND J. NOURI Washington, D. C.
"2,000,000 Hours"
Sirs:
On p. 43 of TIME, Dec. 12, in your story ["Long Skip"] about United Air Lines' recent accident, you describe the pilot as having "2,000,000 hours of flying behind him."
2,000,000 hours = 83,333 days
83,333 days = 228.3 years.
Has TIME unwittingly discovered aviation's Father Time?
MAX KARANT Chicago, Ill.
> For 2,000,000 hours of flying, "long skip" was an understatement. TIME meant miles. -- ED.
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