A Kind of Accolade

Sirs:

"The U.S. State Department does not entirely approve of Dr. Benes" (TIME, May 17).

This phrase is gradually becoming a kind of accolade, a guarantee of firm democratic principles, liberal views and the highest personal integrity and distinction. Were I a world statesman, I should sigh: "If I should die, think only this of me: 'The U.S. State Department did not entirely approve of him.' "

K. G. STERNE

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Presidential Generals

Sirs:

Let Senator Vandenberg continue his reading of lives of past military heroes [TIME, May 17]! All those who became Presidents ran for the office after the war was won.

During the Civil War a popular general, George B. McClellan, ran for President without having first subdued the foe, and was defeated.

K. A. MARVIN

Rochester, N.Y.

Sweet and Honeyed News

Sirs:

Funnyman Brown's report, in May 10 TIME, that soldiers in the South Pacific prefer BBC radio news did not surprise us Americans in Trinidad.

Our preference for BBC news is comparatively recent. Actually, I would say that it dates from the time the U.S. Government took over the control of short-wave news in November 1942. Meanwhile, British news broadcasting has improved and is hitting from the shoulder--the way we like to get it. Ours is being presented in a typical "American advertising agency" manner, full of optimism, sweetness and honey, seemingly addressed to morons. . . .

ROBERT P. BORNCAMP

Trinidad, B.W.I.

Happy Soldier

Sirs: . . . Today I am a very happy person. . . . I just got back from a movie where I saw your latest MARCH OF TIME, Inside Fascist Spain (TIME, May 10). It meant a great deal to me, because you see I've been in Spain from 1932 to 1939. I fought with the Republic in 1936 in the north of Spain, at San Sebastian, Bilbao, Santander, and Gijon. Then I was captured and spent 17 months in 13 concentration camps. And your film brings out the true issue of Spain so that it makes me feel that, even though I was only 18 at that time, I was on the right side, just as I am now. . . . _____________*

Camp Carson, Colo.

How About the Universities?

Sirs:

Are the universities the sole hope and repository of civilization, as President Hutchins contends in TIME (March 1)? . . . Somehow or another civilization seems to limp along, painfully and haltingly to be sure, and will probably continue to do so.

We optimists have hoped that the great thinkers of our universities would show us how to achieve this progress so that the suffering and waste of war would no longer be inevitable. In this they have failed. Civilization will go on, but how about the universities? They too shall probably continue, but such muddled thinking as that expressed by President Hutchins does not help to bolster their falling prestige.

LIEUT. COMMANDER J. M. McKINNEY

U.S.N.R.

San Francisco

Fathers and the Draft

Sirs:

If we fathers, who are about to be drafted (TIME, May 17) are needed to fight, then it all makes sense. If, however, we are being called as replacements on the home front to do the work that might well be done by the unmarried, unfit (by present standards) or the WAACs and the WAVES who have gladly volunteered for such service, then it will not make sense. . . .

Is the birth rate a nonessential item to be suspended for the duration? While our wives and children shift for themselves in a maze of insecurity and anxiety, what happens to their morale?

. . . Are they nonessential?

RODERICK HAGENBUCKLE

West Newton, Mass.

Mining for Soldiers

Sirs:

I have read what Hillary of Florida, Gladney of Oklahoma, Taylor of Indiana and the four soldiers of Kansas have to say about John L. Lewis and his coal miners (TIME, May 24). I note that none of these men have overseas addresses.

May I suggest that these same people get themselves jobs down deep in dark, dangerous coal mines and work for a number of years, as the writer of this letter did many years ago, and then tell the good people of this nation how wrong the coal miners are in demanding a living wage. . . .

GEORGE WATKINS EVANS

Consulting Mining Engineer

Seattle

Elegant Mr. Sheean

Sirs:

. . . Now we come to that elegant, if conscience-stricken, practitioner of letters, Vincent Sheean, in TIME, May 3. . . . Certainly no one alive does the "Says I to Churchill, and says Winnie to me" stuff any better. As to the swimming pool you so thoughtfully reproduce. . . . If he believes that nudity is a prerogative of the idle rich, I would urge his attendance at the mass rites at Coney Island any summer Sunday. But Mr. Sheean, lush hedonist, has his inevitable moment of compunction when he changes to his near-Marxist line, like the man who doesn't kiss, but tells. Perhaps he is best described by your quotation from this book, which he innocently applies to others--"The seriousness of their interest in the question could not be doubted, and yet it was confounded with an incurable frivolity owing to their astronomical remoteness from the conditions of life of which they spoke." I realize that good book reviewers are also hard come by in these days. With your strange self-imposed code of anonymity, one never knows whether we are getting the words of your department head, or some visiting fireman. Perhaps this particular review is the work of some assistant fire-manette. . . .

HAROLD W. DORN

South Miami, Fla.

Soldiers' Songs

Sirs:

It was with interest that I read of Colonel Householder's ban on certain of the songs the boys in Atlantic City sing (TIME, May 10).

Down here in Miami Beach, where all this singing began, Colonel Ralph M. Parker has no narrow-minded, old-fashioned ideas about what the boys should and should not sing. The jeeps (rookies, trainees) here sing all the songs Colonel Householder considers offensive, plus a few more such as:

THE G. I. BLUES

I like G.I. coffee, like it mighty fine,

Good for cuts and bruises just like iodine.

Chorus

I don't want any more of this Army life

Gee, Ma, I want to go, gee, Ma I want to go

Gee, Ma, I want to go home.

I like G.I. biscuits, like them mighty fine

One rolled off the table and killed a pal of mine.

Chorus

I like G.I. payday, it is mighty fine

Pay you 50 dollars and dock you 49.

Chorus

etc. etc. etc. . . .

________*

Miami Beach, Fla.

Faces to Study

Sirs:

. . . The inside of TIME goes without question for me, but the cover series, with their fine portrayal of interesting world characters, have been a much appreciated addition. I don't know anything about the method of making these pictures, but evidently someone does who wants to show more than mere charm or good looks. The pictures in themselves help to tell the story of this period, and a study of these faces would surely result in some interesting conclusions. . . .

EDNA L. MCFARLAND

Greensburg, Pa.

The Game of War

Sirs:

The Japanese execution of the American flyers [TIME, May 3] has recalled to my mind a fact that I've been pondering, on and off, ever since the war started--the fact that one may, with propriety, use any means of killing an enemy airman as long as he is still in his plane, but if he is forced to land, as soon as he touches the ground it's not cricket to shoot him even though he may just have bombed to eternity a few hundred men, women and children.

This attitude indicates that we still unconsciously regard war as a sort of game. We do a lot of talking about total war, but are shocked when the Japanese take that conception somewhat more seriously than we do. People become righteously indignant at some new horror of war, but will tolerate with comparative complacency any of the horrors to which they have become accustomed.

Will we have to go all the way to real total war--the killing of all prisoners . . . before war becomes terrible enough for men to submerge their selfish interests and really determine, whatever the cost, to organize a world in which war no longer has a place?

H. K. HOWARD

Oakland, Calif.

1,500,000Rx and No Soda

Sirs:

Anent "Drugs Without Soda" (TIME, May 17) TIME ought to know that, in New Orleans, the business of the late Max Samson continues for 70 unbroken years at the same location, with prescriptions filled totaling 1,500,000. No soda fountain or tobacco stand mars the expanse of the 100-year-old hand-carved mahogany fixtures.

Leeches are always available, and in considerable demand. Rare drugs, herbs, roots and ancient remedies, as well as modern pharmaceuticals, biologicals and proprietary medicines, fill the four-story Samson Building, a few steps off famous Canal Street. . . . The Samson Drugstore, too, has its library of old and modern works on pharmacy. . . .

Just now, one of the chief activities of the business is the complete outfitting of ship medicine chests for many vessels clearing through the port of New Orleans, and producing hard-to-obtain items, such as French patent medicines, for people who say that they were told to try Max Samson's.

IRMA SAMSON BARNETT

New Orleans, La.

Softheaded

Sirs:

. . . American men are "notoriously softheaded about their women" (TIME, May 10).

. . . The year 1946 may find this comment in TIME . . . "Returning American soldiers perturbed at reluctance American women have toward stepping back into kitchen from high-paying positions."

Year 1948, quote: "Prominent young matron carries election by landslide vote."

Year 1958, quote: "American Amazons have become notoriously softheaded about their men joining the MAAC (Men's Army Auxiliary Corps)."

REG. DURAN

Van Horn, Tex.

Fitas Are Not Marines

Sirs:

Regarding the picture entitled "Marines in Kilts" (TIME, May 10), your informant neglected to make a distinction between the two native military organizations in American Samoa. The natives in the picture are "Samoan Marines," not "Fitas." The Fita-Fita Guard and Band is a part of the U.S. Navy and was organized at the naval station in 1904. . . . The First Samoan Battalion, Marine Corps Reserve, as the name implies, is a part of the Marine Corps and was organized in the summer of 1941. . . .

The uniforms of the two organizations are similar in style except for the headgear; the Fitas wear a stiff red cloth band about three inches wide on the head, leaving the hair on top exposed. Also, the Fitas wear a white "lavalava" for general duty, and one of dark blue color for dress. They wear a red sash around the waist with both the white and blue lavalavas.

Incidentally, you might also have told your readers that "fitafita" is the Samoan word for soldier, and "lavalava," besides being the native word for the skirt, means clothing in Samoan.

Both the Fitas and the Samoan Marines were of inestimable value during the months immediately following Pearl Harbor.

MAJOR GEORGE W. KILLEN, U.S.M.C.

New River, N.C.

* Name withheld.

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