L'Oeuf's Tabouche
Sirs:
Your story on the general wrongness of Genevieve Tabouis was very fine (TIME, Dec. 11). However you say that this remarkable wrong-way prophet is taken more seriously in England and the U. S. A. than in her native France. In London Mme Tabouis is not taken seriously by "Beachcomber" (J. B. Morton), Beaverbrook's amusing columnist for his two-million-circulation Daily Express. To "Beachcomber," Tabouis is Mme Tabouche (of L'Oeuf) who is continually seeking fulfillment of her prophecy that Iceland will march on Bessarabia.
Recently "Beachcomber" punned thus: "SMALL PROPHETS AND QUICK RETURNS. There is a rumor that a whale mistook Mme Tabouche of L'Oeuf for a prophet and swallowed her. On finding out its mistake, it released her."
R. A. CHILDRESS
Philadelphia, Pa.
Dies & Hart
Sirs:
Does Mr. Martin Dies, of Texas, who spoke in Madison Square Garden on "The Insidious Wiles of Foreign Influence," realize that the chairman of the meeting, Mr. Merwin K. Hart, has been a conspicuous exponent of such foreign points of view as that of General Franco's Fascism?
Mr. Hart wrote scornfully a few months ago that the Spanish Republican parties "had been hypnotized by the ideas of the French and American revolutions." Since when have the principles of the American Revolution become unAmerican?
Mr. Hart, president of the New York State Economic Council, further showed his political bias in a news letter issued by the Council, April 3, 1939, which declared that "New Dealism is nothing but the American form of Communism." When Mr. Dies appears under such auspices, he gives us cause to wonder where his own loyalties lie.
VINCENT SHEEAN
Bronxville, N. Y.
Silly Joke
Sirs:
. . . Your alleged wonderful news organization for the war in Europe might impress a few "Innocents" abroad and at home, whilst to those who can compare what is actually happening with what your "war-correspondents" report it is but a silly joke if you pretend to supply reliable information.
I have recently had occasion to advise you to check your turbid sources and I do so again in your interest because your readers are bound to discover sooner or later that your so-called war reports are mostly the product of complete ignorance or unhealthy imagination.
Those reports are either fabricated in your own office as a sorry mixture of stupidity and partiality or have been composed by your correspondents in a more or less intoxicated state with the assistance of European bar-keepers and their doubtful train but certainly not at the front.
It is positively disgraceful to pose as you do, as the purveyor of reliable news and to feed your readers with entirely onesided and generally false information. It is in fact a dirty trick.
If you really wish to keep what you promise, your job would be to let your readers know as well, what official Germany says and what the neutral countries think about British piratical methods ruining their trade and directed as usual against women and children.
If it is compatible with American "neutrality" to supply arms to one of the belligerents only you at least should try to be impartial and strive after truth.
Otherwise you will equally be classified as a follower of purely mercenary instincts or to put it more plainly as a filthy liar.
OTTO SCHMIDT
Adolf Hitlerstrasse 129
Stuttgart-Feuerbach, Germany
Third Terminology
Sirs:
In your issue of Dec. 4 you reported the Warm Springs Women's Club serenading Franklin D. Roosevelt. You quoted their chorus thus: "Our nation needs a leader just like you, you, you." We would not be surprised if you have heard from Walter Lippmann about this. He has probably seen a third term implication in those three "you's."
WORTHEN BRADLEY
San Francisco, Calif.
Acquainted
Sirs:
Ambassadors Kennedy and Davies forget that one man in the United States will not need two years to become acquainted with the duties of the Presidency--Herbert Hoover.
CAROLINE BENGTSON
Hastings, Neb.
Hoover's Joke
Sirs:
You do Mr. Hoover an injustice when you say he cannot tell a joke (TIME, Dec. 18). To prove that you're wrong, simply let me refer you to a remark he made a year or two ago, concerning the famous initialed institutions of the New Deal. He said that all but five letters were used in these, and that all we needed was a Quick Loans Corporation for Xylophones, Yachts, and Zithers to exhaust the alphabet. . . . Regardless of whether or not you think this one is funny, it unquestionably comes under the heading of a joke.
JAMES F. SELIGMANN
New York City
Bouquet into Hat
Sirs:
I am only one of millions of Americans who, beyond all doubt, are delighted to learn that Vice President Garner's hat is in the ring. I want to be one of the first to toss a bouquet into that hat. I have long been impressed by Mr. Garner, not only by his close cooperation with the Democratic Administration but by his striking physiognomy. Like many other practical people I am a student of physiognomy, which is the 'art of discovering temperament and character from outward appearance, especially from facial features.' I find as years go on that my first impressions of people, based on physiognomy, stand the test of time better than more reasoned and intellectual analyses. Consequently I have been impressed from the first by that general nobility of character and godlike quality that shines from Mr. Garner's countenance. The eyes are large, candid and idealistic; the mouth generous and honest to a fault; the nose shows strength and yet fair-mindedness; the brow is high and intellectual; the chin full of courage and loyalty to his leaders. All in all, this face of Mr. Garner's symbolizes all the nobility of the American eagle, that gentle unpredatory bird. I think it is most fitting that after 1940 that countenance should stand forth to the world as representative of the spiritual face of the entire American people.
DUDLEY NICHOLS
Hollywood, Calif.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.