Bombs on Duesseldorf
Sirs:
... I got in an indirect way a letter from my home town in Germany. ... I give you the letter, which was written on Dec. 28, 1940, in my own very textual translation:
"The nights were unquiet. Up to this moment we had 160 aviation alarms here in Duesseldorf. Realize how that spoils your nerves. The two alarms at the beginning of this month were especially hideous. The industries situated on the right side of the railroad have suffered especially, likewise the Graf Adolf Strasse. Part of this street [one of the main streets in Duesseldorf] looks really devastated. In the Altstadt [old part of the city centre] too you find sad corners. A few thousand fire bombs have come down. The most terrible thing is the shooting. Often it lasts for three hours without any interruption. Soldiers who have participated in the French offensive say that it was not so bad at the front. It is difficult to learn how much industry has suffered as this is kept in great secret. . . . "The frame of mind [Stimmung] was naturally sky-high during the summer. Everywhere one could hear the stereotype phrase: In three weeks the war is finished. In the meantime that has changed and the frame of mind is going downwards strongly. All people are more than nervous." -- -- --*
FBI Unscooped
Sirs:
In ... the Feb. 3 issue of TIME I noted the article "FBI Scooped," pertaining to the recent theft of official records from the offices of the United States Civil Service Commission in Washington, D. C.
As you have pointed out . . . the story in the Washington Times Herald was the first notice that the Civil Service Commission had of the theft of the records and, likewise, it was the first notice which the FBI had of this particular instance inasmuch as we have no jurisdiction whatsoever over the Civil Service Commission, nor is it the responsibility of the FBI to protect and safeguard the official records of that organization. . . .
As a matter of fact, the Civil Service Commission is an independent governmental agency. It employs its own guard force and has its own investigative unit. . . .
I have taken the liberty of writing you since I felt the article does tend to convey the impression that the FBI was derelict when it really had no responsibility whatsoever. . . .
J. EDGAR HOOVER Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation United States Department of Justice Washington, D. C.
Phillips' Lament
Sirs:
As a native of Bulgaria may I be allowed to voice a protest against "The Balkan Touch," TIME, Feb. 3 [describing the disappearance of Wild Bill Donovan's wallet in Sofia]?
Individually most of my countrymen are too honest and too inept to filch anything smaller than the moomoo's egg. Nationally Bulgaria has never shone in the badger game of territorial expansion.
The only petty larceny I ever committed was the theft of a pocketful of peaches in Aitos, Bulgaria, in 1903. I was ten years old and hungry. In 1932 when I visited Bulgaria I expiated this crime by buying a cartful of peaches and distributing them to a dozen youngsters.
As a personal friend of King Boris, I lament the loss of Wild Bill's wallet, but I resent the aspersion cast on the honor of my poor but honest countrymen.
Gus PHILLIPS
Engineer Missouri Pacific Falls City, Neb.
> Reader Phillips' friendship with Bulgaria's Boris dates from his 1932 visit, when he gave the King some fine points on locomotive driving. ED.
Past Performance
Sirs:
. . . Now that [Hitler] says straight out that he has no evil intentions or territorial ambitions on our side of the Atlantic, are we not justified, in view of past performance, in considering this a declaration of war?
ALFRED WILLOUGHBY New York City
Sirs:
The fomenters of hysteria seem to delight in picturing the invasion of America and their battle cry is always "Look at Norway . . . Holland . . . Belgium . . . France! We're next!"
Let us thank God that there are still Americans who haven't gone so completely mad with hysteria that they compare us to those weak and physically vulnerable foreign countries. Let's laugh up our sleeves at this silly invasion talk and disregard the "Men From Mars" that are being painted continually before our eyes.
ROBERT C. BYERLY West Chicago, III.
Sirs:
. . . The isolationists would have us pull the blanket of the Atlantic Ocean over our heads, go to sleep with a pistol under our pillow, meanwhile lulling ourselves to slumber by repeating over and over, "We're safe. We're safe. We're safe." Americans might well take even the most drastic action rather than spend the rest of their national life in a state of perpetual jitters.
ELI SCHWARTZ
Denver, Colo.
Sirs:
In the recent election, Senator Wheeler defeated his pro-Ally opponent by the largest majority ever given to any candidate for Congress in this State. Running on the same ticket as Roosevelt, Wheeler led the President by a huge number of votes.
That's the way Montanans feel about Wheeler. . . .
RANDLE CLARK
Missoula, Mont.
Sirs:
It looks to me and my shipmates that certain public officials, and men who are or were in the public eye, are putting this country in a dangerous position, by their opposition to every bill that is offered to further this country's defense, or to lend further help to England. ... On this and the last three ships I have been on there were only four Nazi sympathizers out of a total of 160 men. . . .
EDWARD S. NOBLE
S.S. Swiftsure Baytown, Tex.
Sirs:
What has happened to American morale? When I was a boy, we celebrated the Fourth of July like he-men and were sure that we could whip twice our weight in wildcats.
But now we are trembling in fear of half our weight in Nazis 3,000 miles away. We imagine that it is going to stretch out a paw and scratch us.
Let's call the mayor of Warsaw over here.
GILBERT S. WALKER
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Richmond Invaded
Sirs:
Your story of Chrysler's modern art in Richmond [TIME, Jan. 27] gives an excellent picture of Richmond's reaction to this million-dollar show.
In Richmond last week I heard the best comment of all: "It's just like being invaded again, but this time we can't shoot."
WILLIAM STONE HONNEUS St. Davids, Pa.
"Fancy My Embarrassment"
Sirs:
Your story in TIME, Jan. 27, about Professor Lloyd James's loss of reason and its horrid result [wife-murder] recalled the several kindly letters which I have received from this tsar of English speech.
From him I learned that the English take their speech so seriously that one full year in the aggregate would not be an adequate measure of the time an adolescent of the upper classes spends in perfecting his spoken words. . . .
The Englishman of breeding is opposed to teaching correct or "standard" speech to the masses, as we try to do here.
"Fancy my embarrassment," said one of this type to me, "if my valet spoke as well as I do." . . .
JOSEPH K. VAN DENBURG Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Peculiar Phrasing
Sirs:
I don't like TIME. I've tried to like it and can't.
I don't like the peculiar phrasing of the sentences which are used to convey the meanings.
I don't like the few words taken at random under the photos, which to me don't mean anything. . . .
W. J. HOLROYD, D.D.S.
Los Angeles, Calif.
Thorough, Delicate
Sirs:
My congratulations to TIME for its splendid, superb "Slaughter on Fifth Avenue" (Jan. 27). Thoroughly complete, delicately descriptive of a terrible tragedy, "tops" in word phrasing, it is a perfect portrayal of a singular sorrow in a warped world.
GILBERT CROSS
Washington University St. Louis, Mo.
Always Conservative
Sirs:
I suppose you get more knocks than b'oosts, so here goes:
In 1935 I wrote that your labor reporting was lousy. This was a conservative estimate.
You are now doing the fairest and most intelligent labor reporting ever done in the United States. This, too, is a conservative estimate. . . .
NORMAN J. WARE
Department of Economics and Social Science Wesleyan University Middletown, Conn.
"Alive"
> The following letter, from a Polish noblewoman deported by the Russians to Turkestan, was received by a friend in the U.S. By request TIME omits the names of both sender and recipient. --ED.
. . . Please tell all our acquaintances that we are alive. In the word "alive," everything is said. After 22 days of an infernal journey, they brought us to the depths of Asia, the Kirghiz Steppes. There is no tree in view, nor even any grass anywhere. They have changed our station three times already, and we have now arrived here after two days' travel by ox cart. . . .
In the end we were given a mud hut to live in. The humidity is great. . . . There is not a vegetable in the place, not a potato. A few eggs can be bought by barter. . . .
My husbands legs have given away. [Since this letter, he has died. He was 79 years old.] I have to do everything for him--dress him, wash him, feed him. . . . There is no doctor of pharmacy anywhere around. . . . There are only Kalmucks and Kirghiz people here. Some receive packages of food. If possible, send us some. . . . The most important things for us are some flour, sugar, tea and some sort of fats. We would be waiting for these packages as children wait for Father Christmas. Of course, we don't know whether they would ever reach us.
The hut in which we live is on the Steppe. When it rains the water stands on the floor. We sleep on the ground which, in fact, is mud, there being no floor. Nor have we a bed, or even straw. We are not allowed to go to the town, which, by the way, is very far off. We have no money.
We work all day. When at last we can go to sleep, we are assailed by millions of fleas and bedbugs which do not let us sleep.
Mme. Z-- has been ordered to work in the manure. This is the chief occupation of our people. For eight hours a day, she has to mix the liquid manure and dry grass with her bare hands. After that it is dried and used for fuel.
For ten days, we receive one kilogram of very dark flour. I use this for myself and husband. I cook for five people, wash their clothes, clean the hut, and am constantly attending my husband. Our underwear is gone. . . . Since we have been here, we have not seen either bread, sugar, tea, soap, candles, or any fats, I beg you to send me something.
-Signature, deleted by request, is that of a historian on the faculty of a U. S. university.
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