The People v. John Lewis

Sirs:

I first enlisted in the Army at the age of 16 for the hell of it. I am now in aerial gunnery for the hell of it. Like most soldiers, I think very little about the war, and let Public Relations and the politicians do my flag waving. But for the first time since Pearl Harbor I am up in the air about something--and the "something" is John L. Lewis and his strike.

The men who fly over Europe through a blanket of flak would be greatly amazed if they returned to the U.S. and found that it had been forced into totalitarianism as a last resort against men of the Lewis ilk. . .

STAFF SERGEANT F. M. HILLARY

Orlando, Fla.

Sirs:

. . . My honest opinion is that as a public service and a part of the war effort, somebody should shoot John L. Lewis.

ESSA GLADNEY

Tahlequah, Okla.

Sirs:

. . . Let us arrange with the Germans, Italians and especially with the Japanese to exchange prisoners of war for striking production workers. At the present "rate of exchange," we should offer at least two for one, and should benefit greatly by the exchange of Major Putnam of Wake Island for John L. Lewis of the U.M.W.

DAVE TAYLOR

Muncie, Ind.

Sirs:

We the undersigned request that you use your influence to obtain John L. Lewis for our bayonet practice.

PRIVATE JOHN BOULET

PRIVATE CLINTON A. DRAPER

PRIVATE STANLEY W. URBA

PRIVATE ORLAN J. WALLIN

Camp Phillips, Kans.

Sirs:

. . . I do not believe that Lewis' right to condone a nationwide coal strike, which will undoubtedly hinder our war effort, falls into one of the categories of the Four Freedoms for which we are fighting.

RAYMOND W. WELLS

Fort F. E. Warren, Wyo.

Sirs:

The present outcry against John L. Lewis is unfortunate for the country as well as for labor. No real effort has been made properly to present the case of the miners to the public, but every statement that could possibly lead to bitterness, hate, and postwar strife has been fostered by the press. In fairness to all, by what kind of reasoning can portal to portal work pay be granted to one group of miners and then denied to another group? By what name can you call the words and thoughts of the people who for two years offered little protest or complaint against an Administration's handling of the other strikes besides which the recent stoppage is insignificant, and then suddenly are willing to shoot and destroy a group of men who are acting within their legal rights? . . . Your write-up [TIME, May 10] places the blame squarely where it belongs--on the Administration, but omits mention of the group in whose hands regulation rests and who also has failed to provide adequate legislation, namely Congress In fairness to the future for which all soldiers are fighting . . . help to place the responsibility where it belongs so that the postwar period may not be one of bitterness here at home. . .

MAJOR RUTLEDGE GISH

U.S.M.C.

Springfield, Mo.

Josephine Is Giving

Sirs:

In a recent [Dec. 7] issue of TIME (at least recent over here) you reported Josephine Baker dead, dead broke in North Africa.* Enclosed are two pictures (see sample) to prove that she is very much alive, and giving her best, without bananas, for the boys in Africa.

ENSIGN BENJAMIN BALDWIN

U.S.N.R.

North Africa

Ask the Axis

Sirs:

(TIME, May 10) in re: Mission to Moscow, you state "It takes the flat view that Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt are just about 100% all right."

If anyone thinks they have been washouts, ask the Axis.

LIEUT. (J.G.) GEORGE L. STITH

Hutchinson, Kans.

Mayhem Wanted

Sirs:

Call me a coldblooded, un-American monster; a soulless Frankenstein. Truss me, naked, to a whipping post. Boil me in oil, and pour hot lead in my veins, but for God's sake, spare me the overdramatized type of Hollywood corn with which TIME (May 3) and newspapers the country over treated the execution of American flyers in Tokyo.

One hundred million Americans no longer need reportorial hypodermics to inflame the passions. We know the Axis is not playing bean-porridge-hot.

For heaven's sake, stop preaching "cricket," and practice mayhem.

ALFRED M. MERRITT

Herlong, Calif.

Taxes or Inflation?

Sirs:

Having criticized the Ruml plan (TIME, April 5) largely for its handouts to large taxpayers, may I now comment on . . . financially irresponsible democracy? . . .

As a taxpayer group, we have no use for our inflated, surplus incomes ($120 billions after taxes). We can use them only to bid up prices on inexorably limited quantities of consumer goods ($70 billions) and/or to acquire interest in a public debt which, if irresponsibly accumulated, must be irresponsibly managed and largely repudiated by inflation.

If Congress will not levy taxes when supported by wartime morale, and when taxpayers have as a group no other legitimate use for the income, what are the chances of responsible fiscal policy after the war--or of effective price and wage control for the duration? Are there no statesmen of democracy anywhere to challenge an irresponsible Administration, and a more irresponsible opposition, which would, in cut-throat competition for votes, spare the taxpayer and spoil the currency ?

HENRY C. SIMONS

Associate Professor of Economics

The University of Chicago

Chicago

Grenade Incident

Sirs:

. . . Of all the things the President saw, and he saw what you saw and a whole lot more, TIME elects to mention only that a grenade hit his car (TIME, May 3).

TIME marched one step further forward than usual in this case, inasmuch as the incident reported did not occur. No grenade nor anything else hit the President's car while at Fort Banning. Actually, the President saw these grenades in use and asked to see one. One was shown to him, then taken away and set off at a safe distance.

From reading the account in TIME one would infer that we were guilty of gross carelessness. As far as Fort Benning is concerned, this is exactly the opposite of the true facts.

MAJOR GENERAL LEVEN C. ALLEN

U.S.A.

Fort Benning, Ga.

>TIME, reviewing the President's busy trip in a few words, was taken in by an over-colored version of the grenade incident, gladly sets the record straight.--ED.

Loose Talk

Sirs:

. . . I am probably very lucky, but until last night I had not actually encountered any of the loose talk of a third war against Russia. But last night I was given a hard jolt. When one hears a good and intelligent friend, who happens to be in the service of our country, say that it is no secret that the American Army is facing the probability of a war with Russia when the "present" war is over, it makes one wonder. . . . Surely this is just one soldier's opinion, and not the opinion of our whole Army. . . .

M. D. GALLAWAY

Lexington, Ky.

TIME Marches On

Sirs:

Things certainly have slowed up down your way!

You ought to visit this end of the state, where light and radio waves still travel 186,000 miles a second.*

However, you have the right idea. There's no sense in all this speed anyway. . .

HAROLD C. DESBECKER

Buffalo

>Light waves were inordinately slow in New York that week.--ED.

*TIME later reported that Josephine Baker was in North Africa, but this issue evidently failed to reach Reader Baldwin's sector. *TIME, May 3: "186,000 miles an hour."

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