Frank's Face

Sirs:

I have been a subscriber of TIME for four or five years. For some time past I have felt that your cover drawings have been caricatures. Since seeing the one of my cousin, Jerome Frank, I am convinced they are worse than that.

OTTO C. SOMMERICH New York City

Sirs:

. . . The picture of Jerome Frank which you ran on your front page this week is atrocious. You try to make him out as an ogre. I have met him and he is a very charming and handsome man. Your story on him is a mixture of reluctant fairness and failure to resist your general temptation to belittle big men who try to render a conscientious public service. . . .

ELLIN THERESA BROOKE New York City

> TIME'S cover drawings are intended to be character studies, not caricatures, not prettifications. Let readers judge for themselves (see cuts}.--ED.

Sock v. Buskin Sirs: Technically and in all other respects Readers Offer and Redmond are right [TIME, March 11]. Let TIME'S editors reconsider "Classicist John Milton's language in L'Allegro."

John Milton in L'Allegro is referring to Ben Jonson as a writer of comedy, Jonson's forte. Of Jonson's ten chief works eight are comedies (Every Man in his Humour, Every Man out .of his Humour, Cynthia's Revels, The Poetaster, Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fayre); only two are tragedies (Sejanus, Catiline).

L'Allegro pictures the cheerful man, who prefers comedy, "Jonson's sock." // Penseroso, on the other hand, pictures the thoughtful man, who prefers tragedy, the buskin. The analogous reference in // Penseroso may be found in lines 97-102: "Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine, Or what (though rare) of later age Ennobled hath the buskined stage." . . .

W. COVINGTON HARDEE Emory University, Ga.

> TIME concedes itself socked in the sock-&-buskin controversy.--ED.

Resettlement Plan Sirs:

. . . This writer suggests that the credits extended to the Finns be used to transport and establish in Alaska any and all Finnish refugees who are willing to settle there and become citizens of Alaska and the United States.

We as a so-called "Pioneering" Nation have failed, so far, to extensively colonize and develop Alaska. Certainly the Finns are best adapted to such a work. A flourishing Alaska may some day play the same part for this continent that Finland is now playing for Scandinavia.

JOHN M. MACKENZIE Fort Wayne, Ind.

Stately, Plump Sirs:

"Stately, plump Dr. Gogarty . . ." (TIME, March 4, Books).

What are you paying James Joyce for this unmitigated, unashamed plagiarism, of the first four words of Ulysses? . . .

JOSEPH NEASE GUELICH Los Angeles, Calif.

In using the first two, not the first four, words of Ulysses, TIME paid homage to James Joyce for a description that still applies to Dr. Gogarty, the Buck Mulligan of Ulysses.--ED.

Whimsical Sirs: Let TIME'S Science Editor explain how the Japanese carbonate wood to charcoal (TIME, Mar. 4, p. 27).

H. J. LEGRYS Chief Chemist Stackpole Carbon Co. St. Marys, Pa.

Sirs: Do you suppose that the wood which the Japanese carbonate for charcoal (TIME, Mar. 4, p. 27) acquires a tang (Ibid, p. 51) or sparkle? . . .

RICHARD W. PARSONS Mansfield, Ohio

Honorable TIME, Inc. Gentlemen and Ladies:

Thank you so much for Honorable article concerning so Honorable Mitsumasa Yonai [TIME, March 4].

In spite so complimentary article, in truth must refuse fame, for Land of Rising Sun, of great scientific discovery how to carbonate wood. Would like to know if this is new method to make cheaper edition of well known Coca-Cola.

R. A. DANSKIN Port Arthur, Tex.

> Let whimsical Readers LeGrys, Parsons and Danskin take a look at Webster's and Hackh's Chemical Dictionary for three meanings of "carbonate." The first means to convert into charcoal.--ED.

Flabby Sirs:

Of Night Music, Clifford Odets' play, TIME'S drama critic writes: ". . . It offers no weightier message than that Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves" (TIME, March 4).

Mr. Odets, former heavyweight champion of the so-called underdog, may be swinging to the Right a bit, even if not with the greatest of ease, so why offer discouragement?

TIME'S critic prefers the erstwhile "greasy, indignant, impoverished out-of-jointers," of the Odets plays, may even yearn nostalgically for them for all I know.

In these days of "reliefers," "leaners," quitters who are still blaming it "on the depression," what more important message could a play offer than the one mentioned?

Is the author showing signs of a "slackening rein," as TIME'S first nighter says, because he now feels that a fellow who owns but one pair of pants may put his best foot forward despite such a handicap? . . .

... If critics must have a "message," they might seek them at lectures rather than at the theatre. . . .

DOROTHY DAY WENDELL Chicago, Ill.

> The black mark against Night Music was not the nature but the flabbiness of its message. Said a wag, "Odets, where is thy sting?"--ED.

Shrapnel Sirs :

In TIME, March 11, under the heading "War and Peace," on page 17, there is a footnote which states:

"Last wide military use of shrapnel against troops was in the Boer War, 1899-1902; World War I's first year taught the unready British that Germany's high-powered explosive shells were more effective."

I studied Field Artillery firing in a military college in Virginia not so many years ago, and, as I remember, one of the cardinal principles was to use shrapnel on personnel, and H. E. shells on materiel.

THORNTON G. BERRY, JR. Welch, W. Va.

Sirs:

People who live in glass houses should not throw shrapnel. In your issue of March 11 you ricochet Mr. Dingell with a footnote for not knowing better and then, 29 pages later, ricochet Superman with the same tabooed shrapnel. . . .

BERNARD L. GOLDSTEIN Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

. . . Last wide military use of shrapnel against troops was not in the Boer War, 1899-1902, as many Canadian soldiers could testify who came under extensive and persistent shrapnel shelling at Ypres, 1915, 1916, 1917; on the Somme, 1916; at Vimy and in front of Lens, 1916, 1917; before Arras 1917, 1918; before Amiens, 1918; at Valenciennes and Mons, 1918.

NORMAN REILLY RAINE Warner Bros. Burbank, Calif.

> TIME should have known better. In World War I, as now, the rule is: against materiel, high-explosive shells; against personnel, shrapnel.--ED.

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