Luther's Answer
Sirs:
Regarding the answer to Mr. Howard T. Archibald's letter in TIME, Aug. 4; Mr. B. P. Schulberg is not satisfied with an answer which has failed to explain the size of Comrade Stalin's pitcher [TIME, Sept. 1]. This reminds me of Martin Luther, the great German reformer, to whom the question was put by a curious interrogator, "How did God spend his time before he created the world?" Luther's answer:-- "He was somewhere in the woods chipping a rod which was to serve him in flogging such an interrogator as you."
JOHN GUYAS
Akron, Ohio
Appreciative Fidler Sirs:
I realize that editors do not expect letters of appreciation, any more than columnists do. Nevertheless, thanks for the Fidler article in TIME [Sept. 1].
[The man] who authored it is correct, even to slight details. He takes a few punches at me, to be sure, for which all the more power to him. I rate them, no doubt.
I do not know how other columnists feel about TIME, but I read the magazine religiously and relish it thoroughly. . . .
JIMMIE FIDLER
Hollywood, Calif.
Monroe's Utopia Sirs: You've been talking about the Army. . . .
I want you to talk of the U.S.O. in Monroe, La. Here's a town of 25,000 people, with the best damn setup in the country. Let me tell you.
The place apparently was an unused garage building, with a big display room up front, and the service shop in back. The front room has the usual U.S.O. equipment--magazines, ping-pong, piano, writing tables, card tables.
. . . But the back room is the room. About 75 beds take up most of the floor space. ... Off in the back corner is a walled-off room with free showers, about a dozen of them. Free towels, free soap, free razor, razor blades, shaving cream, after shave lotion, tooth paste.
In the wall separating the front and back rooms a 1/4 h.p. electric motor runs a fan that cools off the front room. And off the other end of the motor, someone installed a shoe brush with brown polish on it. ...
This place is practical. This is what the U.S.O. should be. Most men don't go in for chaperoned dancing, or matronly entertainment. But they do go in for a chance to clean up, a bed on a Saturday night rip.
And that isn't all. I'd be willing to bet that more men get invitations to home meals, rides to the pool, dances, free ball games here, than in any other U.S.O. in the country--comparatively speaking or not.
And what makes it run? 25,000 people in Monroe, La.; 25,000 people who smile at a uniform as it goes down the street; 25,000 people who think that we're nice boys, a long way from home. These people actually smile like neighbors. They're tops. . . .
PRIVATE J. K. STARK
Co. C 21st Engineers (Avn)
Langley Field, Va.
Tearful Longstreet
Sirs:
To be fair to your readers and to keep the records in order, I would like to correct the impression your grand review of my book Last Man Around The World left with many people. You call it "the most enjoyable travelogue of the season" and while that will please my publisher, it doesn't please my friends.
Will you please mark off a corner of your magazine and say that what I started out to do was to see the world as it once was and will never be again, and what I tried to say in my book was: here are a lot of fine people, having a fine time and all around them the world is going to hell in a hack and they don't seem to care.
You also say "it jerked a tear from Longstreet." Yes it did. . . .
STEPHEN LONGSTREET
Hollywood, Calif.
Formula
Sirs:
Other lands have adopted V for Victory, but we should adopt VV for Vicarious Victory. The following formula may bring it, if the traditional luck of fools is granted also to the timid:
1. Promise much to any people who will fight our enemies, but do not let deliveries interfere with our eight-hour day, our 40-hour week, or any other of our "social gains."
2. If ships must sail in dangerous waters, make sure they are foreign ships. . . .
3. Where fighting must be done, leave it to the Australians, British Tommies, or best of all, the despicable Russians. . . .
4. When the Vicarious Victory comes, barge into the Peace Conference with many experts (our first contingent to be sent overseas). . . .
GLENN E. HOOVER
Mills College, Calif.
Quotation
Sirs:
In TIME, Sept. 1, you report President Roosevelt reading a certain quotation from Lincoln to newspapermen [about the need of the U.S. to wake up to the fact that it was in a fighting war].
Lincoln also said:
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow ? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. ... As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
I cannot see that the quotation read by Mr. Roosevelt has any more relation to the present than the one quoted above.
THOMAS L. McQUAID
Seattle, Wash.
Aroused Peruvians
Sirs:
. . . Following are the most salient of the erroneous facts reported by TIME [Sept. i--Peru Continues to Fight Ecuador]:
1) The map which appears with the article has the Province of Tumbes as in the "disputed area." This is misleading, since the boundary line has always run along the Zarumilla River, in the northern part of the Province. . . .
2) The Gulf of Guayaquil commences geographically at Cabo Blanco, on the Peruvian coast, so there is nothing unusual in that "the Peruvians entered the Gulf of Guayaquil with several ships and planes." . . .
3) It is equally false that Peruvian troops "burned farms, confiscated crops, looted houses even of radio sets and bric-a-brac." . The Peruvian Army behaved with such discipline and sense of honor that the President of the Republic, in a speech he made on the 16th of August, has been able to say:
"As President of Peru I can state that I am proud not only of the valor of our soldiers but of the humanity and noblesse which they have shown in the occupied towns, awakening the gratitude and admiration.
4) It is slanderous to charge that Peru "had been improving the truce." The truth is that Peru accepted the armistice under the double condition that guarantees be offered to Peruvian residents of Ecuador, and that a decree of the Quito Government referring to mobilization be revoked. This last condition was only fulfilled on the 31st of July at twelve noon, and at 6 p.m. of the same day the Peruvian troops ceased firing.
5) That the Peruvians "headed for Portovelo where the Ecuadorian Government runs a gold mine" is simply a fantastic tale. Peru has done nothing except repel an aggression and take possession of the places where it started. ...
6) There is not the slightest danger that Peru "might solve the boundary dispute by swallowing the smaller fellow next door." Peru has been more than patient before the repeated advances and offenses of Ecuador, and has declared in every possible way that it has no design of conquest. . . .
Luis M. ALZAMORA
Director
Peruvian Information Bureau
New York City
> TIME made no errors, supposed no events.
1) In declaring that "the boundary line has always run along the Zarumilla River" Senor Alzamora takes the stand always taken by Peru on the boundary question, a stand never accepted by Ecuador. Tumbes is the smallest section of the disputed area, but it is definitely disputed.
2) The Peruvians entered the Gulf of Guayaquil to seize Puerto Bolivar.
3) TIME'S description of the Peruvian attack was based on a U.S. citizen's eyewitness account.
4) According to this same eyewitness account, Peruvian troops occupied the towns of Pasaje, El Guabo and Piedras after the armistice began at 6 p.m. on July 31, and the Peruvians did head for Portovelo.
5) TIME is delighted to hear that Peru does not want to swallow the little fellow next door.--ED.
Sirs:
REFERENCE "PERU CONTINUES TO FIGHT ECUADOR" TIME, SEPT.1, ALLOW ME TO CONVEY YOU MY APPRECIATION FOR IMPARTIAL UNABRIDGED ACCOUNT DEPLORABLE EVENTS AGAINST CONTINENTAL SOLIDARITY GOOD NEIGHBORLINESS WHICH HAS JUSTLY ALARMED OUR CONTINENT. ECUADOR CONTINUED BEING SUBJECT UNPROVOKED AGGRESSIONS BY PERU'S ARMED FORCES ALONG WHOLE 600-MILE FRONTIER NOTWITHSTANDING TRUCES JULY 26 AND 31 THROUGH GOOD OFFICES UNISTATES, ARGENTINA, BRAZIL. TIME'S TRUTHFUL STORY VIVIDLY PAINTS PERU'S INVASION AND BLITZ METHODS USED FOR OCCUPATION WHOLE PROVINCE OF PEACEFUL DEMOCRATIC ECUADOR. . . .
DR. JOSE CHIRIBOGA V.
Secretary to President of Ecuador
Quito, Ecuador
-- According to William Hazlitt's translation of Luther's Table Talk the answer was: "He was building Hell for such idle, presumptuous, fluttering and inquisitive spirits as you!"
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.