Maineiac

Sirs:

In regard to "Frisco's Frenchman" in TIME (April 3): we all liked the article very much indeed, but we must take exception to the statement that Mr. Monteux dyes his hair. We will be in New York in November when this French-American will conduct the New York Philharmonic, and we would like very much to invite the editors of TIME to assist at a thorough shampooing of the Maitre's black locks. If one bit of coloring is found in the water, we cordially invite said editors to the Stork Club for a champagne dinner.

As for my being a "rolypoly French wife": rolypoly I certainly am, due in part to the steady diet of oysters and champagne. This I cannot refute. But I definitely am not a Frenchwoman. I am a dyed-in-the-wool (and I do not mean Mr. Monteux's wool) Maineiac, and proud indeed of my old New England ancestry.

One fact remains: both French and American members of the family heartily approve of TIME.

DORIS HODGKINS MONTEUX

San Francisco

P: Grateful TIME salutes the Gallic-spirited wife of San Francisco's black-haired maestro, whose music is often as brilliant as a clear Maine morning.--ED.

Bailey the Great

Sirs:

In TIME (March 20) a serious injustice was done a great woman. According to your piece on Mildred Bailey . . . she "fell into obscurity" for eight years, until, in 1942, she "wandered into Manhattan's Cafe Society Downtown . . . and was recognized."

Nonsense ! Mildred Bailey . . . was a bigger name in those eight years than she ever had been before. With Husband Red Norvo she led one of the first great bands of the so-called swing era. She made many very successful recordings for the Vocalion, Columbia and Decca labels. She sang on such "obscure" radio shows as the Camel Caravan, with such "obscure" bands as Bob Crosby's. . . .

For according Mildred the kudos of "the greatest popular songbird in the U.S.," thanks. For describing her voice as "small," her large but not unattractive figure as shapeless, for sending eight, great, productive Bailey years into the limbo of obscurity, shame!

BARRY ULANOV Editor Metronome New York City

P:I Mildred Bailey's eight years were anything but obscure to connoisseurs of jazz singing. They were so to the popular musical public in general. Her remarkable voice is very small by traditional vocal standards.--ED.

Yankee Scientist

Sirs:

Congratulations on your article "Yankee Scientist." Surely the leaders of this country should realize the need for fostering the development of science as a weapon of war and a bulwark against chaos in the peace to come.

GEORGE ALVIN RICHTER JR. Wilmington

Sirs:

Your story (TiME, April 3) of Dr. Vannevar Bush and his 6,000 silent scientists is superb. Whether or not so intended, your record of these men, achieving magnificently yet anonymously and without personal credit or special compensation, is tongued with biting censure --for politicians who live and breathe for favorable headlines, businessmen who make profits prerequisite to patriotism, and every mother's son among us who thinks a ten-billion-dollar tax bill an excessive burden. The 6,000 give one a lift. Could they be bureaucrats?

WILLIAM L. KEENE

Richmond, Ky.

Long Struggle

Sirs:

After a long struggle, I have gotten most of our New England journals to realize that the classic remark, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it" (TIME, March 20) was not Mark Twain's. . . . Charles Dudley Warner, Associate Editor of the Hartford Courant, was the man. Mark Twain did say (or write), "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes."

ROBERT L. COOKE Springfield, Mass.

P: After a long struggle, TIME confesses that Reader Cooke is probably correct. But neither the New York Public Library, nor H. L. Mencken, nor the Hartford Courant can produce the editorial in which Editor Warner allegedly made the quip.--ED.

"Poor, Dumb People"

Sirs:

The opinions and attitudes insinuated into your news stories are often so sensible and so contrary to the baloney the rest of the press serves us, that I wonder at your little swipes at Congress. Why do you pick on them so? They are only poor, dumb people like us, trying to get along, and working under difficult conditions.

If we are going to have representative government, we have to have Congress. If all the Congressmen were brilliant, efficient and singleminded, they wouldn't represent the people. Not the people I know, anyway; maybe they would represent the people on Mars.

Naturally the Senator from North Carolina does not reflect the opinions of the people from Connecticut, and vice versa. He's not supposed to. But he does reflect the opinions of the people who sent him to Congress, or he wouldn't go back.

Certainly the brilliant specialists are good to have around, but let's not pretend that they represent the people, except some of the better educated, more "advanced" people of the Eastern seaboard and a few lonely aliens scattered throughout the country.

Nobody represents the whole people. There are several odd fish who think they do and try to speak as The Voice, but they never get elected to anything. They are mostly too busy writing books and making money to bother running for office, or else too afraid of failure to take a chance.

If you are against government of the people, by the people and for the people, why don't you come out and say so? Maybe we would agree with you. But stop taking those shots from behind bushes. It only confuses us, and it adds to the already overpowering quantity of hot air that arises daily from the American scene.

They're our representatives; we elected them. We know they're not angels or geniuses, but we'd feel kind of funny if they were--like impostors. Maybe they're not as smart as their detractors, or as good, or as nearly right. But those same detractors have some awfully queer ideas, and the Congressmen have our ideas. As long as our representatives have a little power, we count on them to save us from, those queer ideas.

ELIZABETH MCMENAMIN Scranton, Pa.

Anton Bruckner

Sirs

Occasionally I am lucky enough to get hold of a copy of your TIME magazine. I thoroughly enjoy reading it as it gives you a complete survey of the news with a distinguished understanding of European affairs.

With extreme pleasure I was reading your article concerning Anton Bruckner (March 27). On the other side, Bruckner is considered as Beethoven's only equal in the symphonic field. Born in Vienna and a musician myself (in civilian life, of course), I fought for Anton Bruckner all my life and I was surprised to find, when I came to this country, that almost nobody had ever heard of him. In Austria and Germany Bruckner's name appeared on concert programs as often as Beethoven's and is familiar to everyone who appreciates good music. Bruno Walter made it his foremost task to bring Bruckner to the understanding of the American audience and I am positive Bruckner's symphonies will finally conquer their right place in the hearts of the American public. . . .

(M/SGT.) FELIX POPPER Camp Gordon, Ga.

Smearcast

Sirs:

That word "smearcast" (Martin Dies v. Walter Winchell, TIME, April 3) is the best word to come out of 1944. My admiration for the person who coined it is unbounded. If you think that attitude is extravagant, please note that words have influenced history.

JEROME SCHEUER Brookline, Mass.

James Boyd

Sirs:

The last week of February and the first [two weeks] of March [were] a peculiarly lethal time for American authors; five of them died. James Boyd, John Thomason, Joseph Lincoln, Irvin Cobb, Hendrik van Loon -- that is the list. In the opinion of a good many competent critics, James Boyd was by far the most solidly important of them all. . . .

In company with a great many other readers of TIME, I was amazed and dismayed that there was not even a mention of the sudden and dramatic death of James Boyd in the service of his country. . . .

STRUTHERS BURT Southern Pines, N.C.

P: Fifty-five-year-old Author Boyd (Drums, Roll River, Bitter Creek, etc.) died last Feb. 25, of a heart attack, at Princeton, N.J., where he was pursuing his war work. The Free Company (TIME, Feb. 24, 1941), which he founded, strove to counter the enemy's propaganda.--ED.

Doggo

Sirs:

CONCERNING REFERENCE TO DOG FOOD IN

TIME (APRIL 3), OUR EXPERIENCE IS CONTRARY

TO STATEMENT THAT "DOGS DO NOT LIKE THE DEHYDRATED PRODUCTS." DOGS IN OUR RESEARCH KENNELS EAT OUR DEHYDRATED PRODUCT WITH SAME GUSTO AS PREVIOUS CANNED FOOD. . . . ALSO THERE IS ERROR IN STATEMENT THAT DOG FOOD SALES IN U.S. OFF 50% AS COMPARED TO FORMER CANNED DOG FOOD. ONE REASON FOR ERROR IS THAT TOTAL NUMBER OF POUNDS CURRENTLY SOLD IS OF COURSE LESS BECAUSE PRESENT PRODUCT IS DEHYDRATED. . . .

C. M. OLSON

Dog Food Department Swift & Co. Chicago

P: TIME interviewed no dogs, suggests that Dog Food Department Head Olson get in touch with the Independent Grocers Alliance of America, which disputes his statement.--ED.

Why Watford City?

Sirs:

Why, of all the whistle stops in North Dakota, pick Watford City (TIME, April 3) ? This is not outraged civic pride speaking --just curiosity and amusement. We in North Dakota are grateful for a little favorable publicity. . . . However, you make North Dakota sound like the last frontier. I'll grant that Watford City, along with the rest of northwestern North Dakota, has had its disasters and prosperity on a more epic scale than other parts of the state, but you don't have to be supermen to survive out here.

I would like to point out that the farmers of North Dakota have learned by hard experience that we need another hedge against disaster besides money in the bank. . . . North Dakota has turned to diversified farming. More and better grasses & pastures, more cattle, sheep, hogs, dairy products, turkeys, eggs and chickens. Maybe the farmers of McKenzie County can manage it, but the rest of us find it leaves us considerably less time to loaf, drink beer, play poker and have gold fillings put in our teeth than we would like!

LOIS E. TRAPP

Enderlin, N.Dak.

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