What Roosevelt Said

Sirs: P. 22, May 27 issue, you state -Mr. Roosevelt has many times said that only an almost inconceivable crisis would make him a Term III candidate.quot; When did he say it-and how did TIME alone come to find it out? It's what the whole country has been longing to hear but so far as I have ever heard previously has signally failed to hear.

R. S. BOARDMAN Bloomfield, N. J.

Franklin Roosevelt has told a lot of people privately-which means that he is free to deny it if he chooses (see TIME, June 10).-ED.

Not Chief Angel

Sirs:

Your review of the Museum of Modern Art's summer exhibition, "Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art," in the May 27 issue gives a full and interesting account of the show. But just to keep the record straight I wish to correct the Erroneous impressions given in the first paragraph of the article. It indicates that I was largely responsible for the Museum's exhibition of American Art held in 1937 at the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

Actually the show was under the personal direction of A. Conger Goodyear, the Museum's former president, who retired only last year. Since your article also makes reference to Museum "angels," I might add that it was Mr. Goodyear who was the "angel" for this important international exhibition. This Paris show, to which he devoted months of intensive work here and in Paris, is a typical example of the progressive leadership he gave the Museum during the ten years he was president.

As to the Mexican show, it's true that I went to Mexico City last fall and arranged for the current exhibition. But none of us at the Museum had ever contemplated holding it in Paris. However, representatives for the French Government had been negotiating for some time for an exhibition of Mexican Art to be held in Paris. They had to drop the idea on account of the war.

The part of your article which disturbs me most is your assumption that I am the Museum of Modern Art's "chief angel." No one person can be pointed to as the Museum's chief benefactor. As a matter of fact, only about 20% of its annual income is derived from the contributions of the 24 trustees and active friends of the Museum. Equally important is the revenue from the dues of our 7,500 members, which accounts for another 20% of our income. A third source which is also vital to the support of the Museum is the receipts from admissions. These three sources produce more than 60% of the Museum's revenue. Earnings, special foundation grants and the income from a small endowment fund make up the rest of the annual budget.

The Museum of Modern Art is by no means a one-man show. Its rapid growth and the effectiveness of its program are the results of the coordinated efforts of a large number of people. Chief among these are the Museum's 24 trustees and staff of 120 under the leadership of Stephen C. Clark, chairman of the board, and John Hay Whitney, vice chairman and president of its Film Library.

It is apparent that cultural and educational institutions can no longer depend primarily on large gifts from individuals or endowment funds for their support. They must rely more and more on public participation.

The Museum of Modern Art is making a vigorous effort to become increasingly a self-supporting institution-an effort which, I am glad to say, is meeting with mounting success.

NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER New York City

Flying Complaint Sirs:

Re: TIME, May 27, p. 20. A suggestion to Colonel Frank Knox, et al:

MAKE POSSIBLE THE ENTRANCE OF OTHER THAN TWO-YEAR COLLEGE MEN AND GENIUSES TO ARMY AND NAVY FLYING SCHOOLS.

At present, unless the prospect, providing he has not completed two full years of college work, can successfully pass rigid examinations on 1) U. S. History, 2) English Grammar and Composition, 3) General History, 4) Geography, 5) Arithmetic, 6) Algebra, higher, 7) Geometry, 8) Trigonometry, 9) Elementary Physics, he cannot qualify regardless of his physical fitness.

No doubt there are thousands of young men in this country who are as well qualified mentally, through experience and intercourse with humanity, as the two-year college man whom the Army selects without a like mental exam. I defy any "two-year" applicant, with a corresponding I. Q., to pass with the minimum [average] grade of 70%.

Flying takes a mind not full of American history, but one which is adaptable to American ingenuity. Granting that navigation requires a knowledge of trigonometry, does one have to be a physicist to comprehend the workings of an inline engine?

I have recently made application for an appointment as a flying cadet in this man's Army. I'll bet five years' hard labor against a college education that I flunk the mental exam in spite of a year of college, a mathematical mind, and an inherent mechanical ability which has been referred to as "uncanny" by several who are in a position to judge.

How many of TIME'S readers can recall enough trig, algebra, geography, etc., to pass an Army exam? All who can, please give me your notes for study. I'm going to have a hell of a time in case I'm fortunate enough to secure an appointment.

W. BENTLEY HITCHCOCK II

Portsmouth, Ohio

Breast-Beaters

Sirs:

What we need in this country are more, not fewer, "breast-beaters" (TIME, May 27) like Dorothy Thompson. ... To survive, our regime must have more than passive approval from its intellectuals and its people. We have daily evidence across the sea that democracy is worth getting excited about. Up to now, breast-beating has been confined within totalitarian boundaries, where, we will have to admit, it has not been without success in goading populations into action. Isn't it about time that we in America got excited, and started fighting fire with fire? . . .

L. C. JOHNSTON

Falmouth Foreside, Maine

Besides Prayer

Sirs:

You certainly do not want to expose me to the firing line of America's future peace forces and those of today. They could court-martial me for what you have ascribed to me in your story on p. 71 in your May 27 issue.

Your story makes me appear as calling hysterically for action on defense and nothing but. We at World Peaceways believe the determination of our defense program should be left to a dispassionate board of commission, and not be made dependent on any single man or any single speech or message.

I pointed out to your inquirer that World Peaceways wanted our citizens not to stop at praying but to use their God-given faculties to remedy domestic issues, the problems of Inter-American relations, our grave position in the Far East, and our inadequate role in the cause of a better world order.

You can't solve our nation's problems and make the U. S. a contributor to world peace simply by giving every citizen a military training, a gun, and an increased share in the mounting national debt.

J. MAX WEIS Director of Research World Peaceways, Inc. New York City

TIME hopes Peaceways Director Weis's supplementary statement will save him from the firing line-ED.

Sage or Joy-Killer?

Sirs:

... I highly respect the work of Editor William Allen White, but after reading about his opinion on swing music and jitterbugging I must admit that he now takes his place among the group known as fogies and joy-killers.

... I don't know how the kids in the North and West feel about this thing but I'm sure they will agree with me when I say that there isn't a damn thing wrong with the modern dance music.

Editor White may have felt important with a "buxom armful" or enjoyed the "pressure of a warm, sticky hand," but that was 55 years ago and this is 1940. The way we dance today is doing no more than keeping pace with the times. . . .

And another thing: since when is our dance music not tuneful, and not whistleable? . . .

Ask Editor White to listen to the music of some of the other dance bands such as popular Glenn Miller, Eddie Duchin, Artie Shaw, T. Dorsey, Paul Whiteman, Dick Jurgens, Orrin Tucker, and many more. Then may he tell us what he thinks of the music that is "squawked and shrieked and roared and bellowed."

BOB McGuiRE

St. Augustine, Fla.

Sirs:

A fanfare for TIME'S Music Editor who wisely dedicated a column and a half of his department in the May 20 issue to excerpts from a characteristically sage editorial by our beloved Kansas editor, William Allen White. It definitely puts one heretofore lively controversy in the category of finished business. The Sage of Emporia has hit the proverbial nail so well on the head that there remains no nail to work on. . . .

DELMAR H. CHITWOOD

Wichita, Kan".

Advantage Lost

Sirs:

Having been a faithful reader of your swell magazine since its inception, it pains me no little to have to make my first complaint. In past years my cover-to-cover reading of TIME has given me a decided advantage over other, less enlightened parlor tacticians and politicians.

Now in these times of great national and international flux and stress, two or more persons cannot meet for 30 seconds on bus or corner without a heated debate ensuing on "the Third Term" or "the Battle of the Bulge."

My advantage has ceased to exist as daily more people are discovering TIME as a source of up-to-the-minute, accurate news.

In this turbulent, reportorial world TIME stands alone in writing news as history.

However, if increasingly more Americans through reading TIME are basing their thinking on facts instead of propaganda, I can be altruistic enough to withdraw my complaint.

ARTHUR W. BROMFIELD

Syracuse, N. Y.

Plastics Sirs:

JUST REACHED P. 50 MAY 20 TIME. ALL WORLD INCLUDING NATIONAL PLASTICS AUTHORITY DR. G. KLINE. NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS. KNOWS THAT JOHN WESLEY HYATT FOUNDED PLASTICS INDUSTRY WHEN HE ESTABLISHED CELLULOID CORP.. COMPANY WHICH WAS FIRST TO PERFECT CELLULOSE ACETATE PLASTIC WHICH THEY CALLED LUMAR-ITH. REFER YOU TO DR. KLINE'S REVIEW OF PLASTICS IN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY, P. 198, MAY 1940, SOCIETY OF AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERS JOURNAL.

HARRIET E. RAYMOND Celluloid Corp. New York City ; True, John Hyatt pioneered plastics with the invention of Celluloid in 1868 (he was after a $10,000 prize for a synthetic billiard ball). But not until Dr. Baekeland invented non-inflammable synthetic resin did the modern plastics industry come into its own.-ED.

Unvanquished

Sirs:

TIME, May 20, "Death of a Correspondent," p. 62: "He saw the Alcazar fall in the Spanish Civil War."

The one heroic thing about Franco's men is that the Alcazar did not fall. Or am I wrong?

NICOLAS DORANTES, LL.D.

Mexico City -Reader Dorantes is right on two counts: 1) The Alcazar did not fall; the late Webb Miller witnessed the end of the siege. 2) Its ten-week defense must be acknowledged one of the most heroic in modern history.-ED.

Laudatory Critic

Sirs:

TIME'S article (May 27) on Partisan Review contained an erroneous implication in regard to my approach as a critic which I should like to correct. You wrote that "at the peak of Partisan Review sophistication stands Art Critic Morris, whom practically nothing pleases." Had you examined my articles in the magazine you would have seen that I have expressed pleasure in a great many types of art, from Picasso, Hartung, Demuth, and American abstract painters to certain operas of Strauss and the dancing of Shankar. I should judge that perhaps 80% of my articles have been laudatory (favorable criticisms upon my own work certainly add up to much less than 80%).

I might suggest that to you I may appear to be pleased by nothing because I am not pleased by the vulgar and superficially picturesque illustrations of the American Scene to which TIME and LIFE have been giving continuous support for several years; and because my article upon which you based your deduction attacked the Museum of Modern Art for exhibiting this school to the exclusion of the opposing tendencies, which it ignores as consistently as you do.

GEORGE L. K. MORRIS New York City TIME is glad that Critic Morris is more often pleased than he gives the impression of being. -ED.

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