International Relations Firsthand
Sirs:
. . . Having been in the Air Corps for almost three years, and overseas (Southwest Pacific) for twelve months, I can corroborate the statement made by one of your readers when he said that this is a "thinking" army (TIME, Aug. 9). ... Our men are scattered throughout the world, and are learning what is meant by "international relations" firsthand. . . .
As for the Russians, our men seem to look upon them as supersoldiers, and men striving for what they consider an ideal form of government for their particular domestic situation. They also realize that Russia will be a leader in economic and technical progress in the postwar world. Their attitude is not that we should fear Russia (as advocated by some), but that we should improve our relations and cooperate with them . . . and Britain for a war-free world of the future.
The average American boy was unusually naive concerning politics--before he crouched in a slit trench and began to think a little. The noise of H.E. shells exploding a few yards from him has awakened him from political lethargy. After we have won this war, nine million American boys are going to crawl out of their last slit trench and cast nine million intelligent votes . . . [for] strong fearless statesmanship. . . .
-------- *
Rantoul, Ill.
Holmes Apocryph
Sirs:
Admirers of Sherlock Holmes in general and his devotees in the Baker Street Irregulars in particular will resent the caption under the head of "Politics" (TIME, Aug. 9).
Never, in all of the years of their relationship, did the Master use those profane words ["Quick, Watson, the needle!"] to his Boswell. His addiction to drugs was an early and passing phenomenon, inspired by boredom and abandoned in the maturity of his years. . . . But even in the days when the needle lay beside the gasogene and tantalus, Holmes did not stoop to call for it in such undignified terms.
It is important to the sanctity of the canons that this apocryph be expurgated.
EDGAR W. SMITH
New York City
> For this heinous offense to the shades of Holmes/- the writer (who turned out to be Professor Moriarty) was fired. He made a successful escape from the office, jumped in a passing hansom cab, and rumbled off over the wet cobblestones into the fog.--ED.
Terry Allen Tale
Sirs:
Having served as a captain in the 358th Infantry goth Division, World War I with Major General (then Major) Terry Allen, I was deeply interested and very proud of your splendid article about him (TIME, Aug. 9). I have noted, however, that . . . [you failed to] mention the very interesting fact that when General Allen (then in command of the 2nd Battalion of the 358th Infantry) got the machine-gun bullet through his jaws and mouth at Aincreville during the St. Mihiel offensive, he was more infuriated than hurt and, in his very characteristic style, insisted that he wanted to get to a German soldier with his bare hands. It was not surprising, therefore, that Terry charged a machine-gun nest (something that he properly should have left to his men to do and which they were doing all around him) and after shooting one gunner, jumped into the emplacement and hit another one with his fist, knocking out the Boche by hand and splintering his own hand or wrist, incapacitating himself more thereby than the machine-gun bullet previously had. . . .
Yes, Terry Allen was a fighter . . . and best of all, he was a leader, organizer and inspirer who will honor his ist Division and I am sure his Army Corps later, as they will in turn honor him.
Many are the tales we who served with him in 1918 could tell you but you have told his story as a whole magnificently.
H. PAYNE BREAZALE
Baton Rouge, La.
Tassel Girls
Sirs:
War has mixed the sexes a good deal in industry and the armed services; but don't you go a little far when you extend the confusion to the crop plants? Tassel girls (TIME, Aug. 9) remove the tassels all right--those sprangly structures at the tops of corn stalks--but if these bore the female flowers, then the grains would have to grow up there, and there would be nothing left for the cobs to do.
A. FRANKLIN SHULL
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Sirs:
. . . I'd been thinking all along that even in hybrid corn the babes were wrapped in silk.
WALLACE E. HOWELL
Captain, Air Corps
Asheville, N.C.
Sirs:
. . . The tassels are the male flowers which produce the pollen, which drops on the silks, which are the stigmas of the female flowers, and thus pollinate and fertilize the female flowers inside the seed of corn on the cob inside the husks. Is this clear now?
MARJORIE MECKSTROTH
Orlando, Fla.
> To TIME'S Corn Editor, a six-month sentence to study sex--in corn.--ED.
Pie in the Sky
Sirs:
Ted Friend, the B'way editor who bought a country weekly and twelve hammocks (TIME, Aug. 9), must be a B'way sucker for the greatest of journalistic myths--that publishing a country weekly is like eating pie in the sky when you die.
Take it from us, Friend, it ain't.
To publish a worthwhile weekly today, a man must be an all-around reporter (no wire services to rely on, you've got to dig for all your news), an editor, an ad legman, a linotype relief man, a hand compositor, a subscription solicitor, a head-writer, a typographical specialist, and a little crazy upstairs.
We work an 80-hour week.
We have no hammocks.
Louis STARR
MARY BELLE BANCROFT
The Gallatin Examiner
Gallatin, Tenn.
"Jack Knife"
Sirs:
Your article on Detroit's famed William Bushnell Stout (TIME, Aug. 9) takes me back some 30 years to the days when he was a struggling young inventor writing handicraft articles for the St. Paul Pioneer Press under the name of "Jack Knife." Every boy in town made a dive for the paper each Sunday morning to see what new gadgets "Jack" had thought up for us to make, and many a Sabbath was desecrated by the sound of hammer, saw and chisel. . . .
The enclosed snapshot, taken with my first Brownie in 1911, shows Inventor Stout with the first device he ever tried to market. It was a trick motorcycle known as the "Stout Bi-Car," and it was a dismal flop. But he clicked when he designed the world's first successful all-metal transport plane, and he has been clicking ever since.
Your article failed to mention one of Bill Stout's outstanding accomplishments. Although he may not be the world's greatest inventor, he is certainly the world's best teller of Swedish dialect stories.
RALPH RICHARDS
Clearwater, Fla.
Boner Bet
Sirs:
My son-in-law . . . has just bet me ten dollars that before three days TIME will have received 100 letters calling attention to TIME'S mistake Aug. 9, regarding the number of square miles in Sicily. The correct area of Sicily is 9,936 sq. mi. [not 99,000]. . . .
Who wins the $10?
NELSON D. BRAYTON, M.D.
Miami, Ariz.
> Father-in-law wins the $10 (there have been only six letters).--ED.
Planes Pilots Prefer
Sirs:
The Truman Committee is doing a thorough and necessary task . . . investigating concerns fulfilling contracts for the Army Air Force. . .
As I see it, this committee's primary purpose lies in discovering faults in mismanagement and production and not . . . in ascertaining types of aircraft with which the Air Force should be furnished.
Admittedly the Curtiss P-40 is a second-rate fighter. Among fighter pilots who have flown this second-rater over 300 hours you'll find they think a hellofalot of that beat-up old crate. They've found the P-40 will take you out and bring you back--a nice habit.
The Republic Thunderbolt, known as the "Repulsive '47" among a surprising number of peashooters, is basically a good ship. If Republic will continue to work on it, they're bound to have one of the best high-altitude ships in the world some day.
The P-38's two engines are well liked, and will do the same job better.
Now the P-51, my dear sirs, is an airman's dream. If the good citizens of these United States would furnish us with more & more & more North American Mustangs you'd soon have difficulty locating an enemy foolhardy enough to risk his neck in aerial combat against us. . . .
The Allison engine is a damn good engine. It'll take a beating and keep right on pouring out military r.p.m. The Merlin engine gives pilots and crew chiefs sleepless nights. Pratt & Whitney makes the best air-cooled power plants, but I like the slickness and visibility afforded by the liquid-cooled types. Got it off my chest. Thanks. . . .
WILLIAM S. BORDERS
1st Lieutenant
Dyersburg, Tenn.
Art and Impulse
Sirs:
A little late, I've just struck your story on Norman Rockwell (TiME, June 21), and I'm puzzled by the remark, "it is questionable whether any of his work could be seriously described as art."
Now, why isn't Norman's stuff art--and who says so? Me, I happen to think Rockwell's best work is as good as Rembrandt's--and I think Rembrandt was terrific. Is it because Rockwell is commercial? ... If so, would you say that the work of Michelangelo, Franz Hals and Velasquez is also not art? They did their stuff to order for the Popes, Medicis, burghers and princes. ... Is it because Rockwell enjoys detail? If so, where does that put Vermeer, Duerer and Holbein? Is it because he puts the light of beauty ("sweetness," if you like) into the tired and commonplace? And if so, where does that leave Raphael, Correggio, Botticelli & Co.? . . . My impulse is to say "Nuts to you." . . .
ERNEST F. HUBBARD
New York City
> Let Reader Hubbard consider Artist Rockwell's own opinion that painting and illustrating are "two separate fields, like writing opera and popular music."--ED.
Belden Verbatim
Sirs:
Congratulations on your publication of Jack Belden's piece on "The Taking Of White House Hill" (TIME, Aug 2). It comes as a welcome relief from the usual military correspondent's report, so thickly studded with task forces, combat teams, objectives, bridgeheads, zones of advance and other military terminology as to make the average reader come to view battlefield operations as a combination of chess and football. . .
Milk-fed citizens will view with alarm your rashness in reporting the actual manner in which a soldier speaks when he is working. Don't let them scare you off. . . . Soldiers [don't] act and talk the way they do in the movies. . . . Continue to give us Belden, verbatim.
HENRY I. TRAGLE
Lieutenant
N. Camp Polk, La.
Scrambled Popes
Sirs:
Surely the identifying names below the pictures of Leo X and Alexander VI (TIME, Aug. 16) have been scrambled! ... I am reasonably certain that the end illustration labeled Leo X is really lecherous, worldly old Alexander VI, father of Cesare, Lucrezia, et al. He looks it. Moreover, it is a genuine injustice to the cultured and able Leo X.
AUGUST DERLETH
Sauk City, Wis.
Sirs:
. . . That Borgia profile ill becomes a Medici.
HUBERT R. CATCHPOLE
Ph.M. 3/c USNR
Bethesda, Md.
> TIME'S apologies to the Medici.--ED.
*Name withheld by request.
/- As E. W. Hornung punned: "Though he might be more humble, there's no police like Holmes."
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