March of Ickes
Sirs:
Thanks for the credit line in your report, "Blimp Fleet" (TIME, Jan. 19). Next to having Hitler say that he hates me for it, I get the biggest bang out of your admission that I have been right, even if only once. Ickes Marches On!
HAROLD L. ICKES
Secretary of the Interior
Washington, D.C.
P:To Secretary Ickes--let him march with a will!--TIME gave credit for killing a proposed sale of U.S. helium to Germans in 1938. The U.S. has the world's only available supply.--ED.
Bribes v. Pensions
Sirs:
. . . Since when does Democracy depend for its life blood on bribery ?
Since when does Democracy depend on pensioning a Congressman to keep him from doing harm to the country which he had sworn to protect and guide to the best of his ability ?
If, as you say in your article, too often Congressmen yield to their desire for reelection instead of to their knowledge of what is right or wrong for the whole country, then I fail to see where Democracy has anything to recommend it above Fascism or Naziism. If we must be bribed to perform a simple duty, then the quality of the duty must be largely determined by the size of the bribe. And if our Congressmen feel that with the assurance of a lifetime income . . . they can render better service, then God help us and all the peoples who are wholeheartedly fighting for the dignity and preservation of a way of life whose first tenet is that a man is as good as his word. . . .
Men have been given medals for bravery. Have you ever heard of a man being given a medal for honesty? No, and the reason is that our way of life, our whole system is based on the fact that a man is presumed to be as good as his word. And that goes for Government, too!
If the above isn't true, then we are fighting for something that in the last analysis isn't worth saving. When an elected person feels that his election is a way of assuring himself of an income for life, I doubt that he will be any more ready to serve the people than the man who goes to the electorate and asks them to reelect him on the things he has accomplished, albeit small.
R. L. CHAMBERS
New York City
Spontaneity
Sirs:
The Pearl Harbor Navy Chaplain (TIME, Feb. 2) who cracked, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, I just got one of the" so and sos, was infused with the same spirit of the Christ (Matthew XXI: 12, 13) as He overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and also cracked, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
W. A. SUTHERLAND
Las Cruces, N.Mex.
Sirs:
The pressagents in Washington appear to have been working overtime to coin a catchy victory slogan for America's war effort. They can relax now. . . .
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" is a fitting war cry for Americans. It has the spontaneity that "Keep them flying" and "Remember Pearl Harbor" and "Time is short" seem to lack. . . .
CHARLES STROTZ
Advertising Manager
Southern States Iron Roofing Co.
Savannah, Ga.
Sirs:
. . . The old myth of the tough cursing soldier is as obsolete as the flintlock, especially when fighting an enemy as silent and deadly as a cobra, and perhaps too much bad language was one of the faults in Hawaii. . . . While we are saving free speech why not keep it decent? . . .
THOS. G. MURNANE
Dallas, Tex.
Atrocious Panels
Sirs:
In your Jan. 26 issue you publicized two illustrations of the very interesting new chancels which, I understand from your article, are to be offered for the use of chaplains in the Army and are to be placed above altars. The panel which you illustrate as being suggested for Christian services is, in our opinion, most utterly objectionable and has nothing whatever symbolic or Christian, and in so far as we know no authorized church board or Christian agency has been consulted in the preparation of these panels. I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw the others displayed and for the most part they are simply atrocious from the standpoint of Christian usage. This is in our humble opinion. . . .
E. M. CONOVER
Director
The Interdenominational
Bureau of Architecture,
New York City
War & All-Benny
Sirs:
. . . "War Comes to All-Benny" [TIME, Feb. 2] not only tends to infer that the town of Albany, Ga. is overinflated with an immoral citizenry, but with flamboyant disregard of taste or refinement brings disgrace upon the Air Corps.
With no authority whatsoever to reply to the article--and without the permission of a superior--I feel it a duty as part of the American Army to retaliate with justifiable pride and a fair degree of indignation to the implications of your totally unwarranted attack.
. . . We recognize the truth of the fact that the town has increased in size as well as in immorality, but this is true of all Army-infested towns since the beginning of time. In the second place we know that the Southern girl submits and is subject to a greater temptation than the girl of the North--due, we assume, to the climate and to the fact that the sophistications of Northern girls are more manifest than those of the South. . . .
The people of Albany are gracious and kind . . . and seem to be resentful of indelicacies. . . . You might have splattered your filth over any other town with the same charge and been right--why did you pick on Albany and the men who "Keep 'em Flying" for the glory of America?
PRIVATE GEORGE E. SPATZ
Turner Field
Albany, Ga.
Sirs:
. . . "All-Benny" has always been renowned for its friendliness and hospitality, as well as for its reluctance to attempt to enforce morality through legislation. We are neither better nor worse than we were before the Army came to town. And we have found that our guests, both in the American Air Force and in the R.A.F., are at least as fine and upstanding as any young men we have known. The impression which your article gives that they are trying to seduce every girl in town is slanderous and unfair. . . .
We do have roadhouses, bars, gambling, and a red-light district. Lots of "All-Bennians," as well as a lot of soldiers, patronize them. We try to let each person be regulated by his own conscience, and so we are slow to cast the stones of hypocritical condemnation. We have fine churches, fine schools and places for wholesome recreation, and lots of "All-Bennians" and lots of soldiers frequent them also. . . .
LEE STERNE
Albany, Ga.
P:TIME'S report on Albany, Ga. was a case history of what may happen to a quiet Southern town in wartime. As TIME'S mail from Albany testified, the facts were as reported. Albany's Sheriff O. Fort Tarver, at the request of the War Department, has since ordered the red-light district closed.--ED.
Timoshenko & Welshmen
P:TIME, Jan. 5 and Feb. 2, reported claims that: 1) Marshal Timoshenko is the son of a Welsh technician named Charles Jenkins; 2) the Marshal was born in Youzovka, allegedly named after a Welshman, one Hughes.--ED.
Sirs:
In regard to Marshal Timoshenko's ancestry, I can personally endorse Professor Frederiksen's statement (in your Feb. 2 issue), since my wife is the granddaughter of the late engineer Hughes.
As for the Welsh schoolteacher's statement, I don't recall any mention of "Uncle Timo."
JOHN D. MUNROE
Vancouver, B.C.
Sirs:
If my letter should be printed let us hope that it will be the last one in a ridiculous controversy.
All Timoshenkos (including the Marshal) are as Ukrainian-Russian as vodka. The name is as common in the Ukraine as Smith is in this country and is derived from Timosha which is the diminutive of Timofei (Timotheus). O. J. Frederiksen's "Hughes-ovka" (TIME, Feb. 2) is a tour de force. There are a number of hamlets scattered all over the Kuban country and the North Caucasus with the prefix "Youz" or "Yuz" which is Turco-Tartar for "hundred" and denotes the original post of a Sotnja or a troop of one hundred Cossacks. The language of the Cossacks is full of words of Tartar origin and so are the names of their villages. Any bets?
GEORGE G. JOHANSEN
New York City
P:No.--ED.
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