Sirs:
Apparently war, like nature, may sometimes imitate art. While browsing through British Admiralty files for historical background on the self-propelled two-man torpedo, I came across this 1912 cartoon. Alsop's Ale (the hero's fuel) was Britain's favorite brew in 1912--as well known as Bass is today. The resemblance between Cartoonist Quick's conception and the real two-man article of today (TIME, May 1) is uncanny.
DENNIS SCANLAN
London
The Thin Men
Sirs:
The sons of the New Jersey farmers who drove out the fine Japanese "Thin Men" (TiME, April 24) will feel very proud of their righteous, fairminded, liberty-loving, patriotic parents when they hear of the latest blow struck in the interest of America and a better world. They will feel very proud that, while they are fighting the Germans to free the people of Europe, and the Japs to free the peoples of China and the Pacific, the home folks are doing their bit to make the U.S. untenable for any but true "full-blooded Americans": tall men with white skin, blond hair and straight noses.
Under the same reasoning as that used by the people of New Jersey, why don't we get rid of the English-Americans, now living in our country, in retaliation for the tyranny of their forefathers, kick out the German-Americans in answer to the atrocities committed by the Nazis, deport the Italian-Americans . . . ?
Those "Americans" who are left can give the country back to the Indians, who, a nasty rumor has it, emigrated from that part of Asia which is now serving as Japan's base for fighting us "Americans."
DONALD OLSON
Evanston, Ill.
Sirs:
. . . For narrow, bigoted racial prejudice Americans of the type of those in Great Meadows take the prize. . . .
MARIE E. CASH
Lebanon,Ind.
Sirs:
. . . What are we fighting for? American Fascism? . . .
MARIETTA MILLER
Cincinnati
Sirs:
. . . My hat is off to the woman who tried to defend the five Japanese! Would that there were millions more like her! Americans are already breeding another war with the brand of intolerance shown by the people of
Great Meadows. I refuse to stand by and see it happen since it will be my sons who will be fighting and dying in "World War III."
LOIS N. PALMER
Mount Morris, Ill.
Why All the Bother?
Sirs:
I read in TIME that the Armed Forces of the U.S. don't know what they are fighting for. ... I can agree. . . . The members of the Armed Forces do not know what they are fighting for, altho many of them think they do. . . .
I am a crusty old sailor of 16 years' sea service and a veteran of the Battle of the Java Seas. . . .
No one in his right mind and with any sense of proportion expects the Millennium to emerge from this or any other war. But it can reasonably be expected that the Human Race will continue to strive for perfection always, and achieve it never. So why all the bother about what we are fighting for, or what the war is about? The real and true answer is not within the ken of human knowledge.
For myself, I am fighting because it is a job to be done, because my Government . . . has commanded me, because I am too cowardly in the face of public opinion to do otherwise. So I too might say that I am fighting to get back home to the bosom of my little family, and that the peace is already lost. . . .
And if it may be permitted for a lowly sailor to point a moral, I should like to say to all who are in doubt that reform commences in one's own back yard and perfection comes from within. . . . And to those who expect miracles out of the war, there is another old saying: those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword. Even my eight-year-old son knows that fighting settles nothing, but is sometimes necessary in order to preserve one's self-respect. . . .
F. J. BOURSCHEIDT
c/o Postmaster
San Francisco
"When the Sea . . ."
Sirs:
I haven't been a straw in our G.I. haystack long enough to have experienced the despair, nor am I qualified to express the sentiments of a veteran campaigner, but for my part portions of "When the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead . . ." (TIME, April 24) deserve prominence atop an imaginary marble pedestal in our nation's literary hall of fame. . .
I believe that our anonymous Navy surgeon framed concisely the words so very many of our less eloquent servicemen and citizenry would like to have attempted. Thanks to the on-the-beam logician and to TIME for bringing his masterpiece to light.
(PVT.) ALEXIS CASWELL III
Minneapolis
Sirs:
Were it not for the fact that there must be enough real Americans like the young Naval surgeon, it would seem that we are fighting a futile war. . . .
HARRY G. MILNER
Maiden, Mass.
Orchid for Bilbo & "Ole Miss"
Sirs: Here's an orchid for Rankin, Bilbo, Governor Bailey and "Ole Miss" too. Just passed in review about two hours ago for His Excellency the Governor and his 140 (no kidding) Honorary Colonels.
These birds wore the uniform of our country, some with gold eagles, some with just one, and they arrived in a cavalcade of motor cars. When the band played the national anthem we were at attention facing them. Some of them just kept on smoking, one sat on the fender of his car, a dozen or more took their caps off civilian style.
A fine orientation lesson for many of the kids who still wonder why they were yanked out of the pleasant life of youth and what the hell they're fighting for. . . .
(ARMY ARTILLERY SERGEANT)
Camp McCain, Miss.
Inhomogeneous Coal
Sirs:
Maxwell's Demon could explain the peculiar antics of the coal and grant that hot coals flying about the room might ignite the window shades and the books in the bookcase ["Witchery in North Dakota," TIME, April 24], but really, isn't it a bit preposterous to assume that the dictionary's molecules would coincidentally happen to go in the same di rection at the same time? Has Dr. Gamow figured the odds on such a double accident?
A more plausible explanation: perhaps a dead soldier from the Richardton neighbor hood resented the war that caused his death, felt that there had been something dishonest in his own education and that he had not been taught the whole truth about wars. Visiting his old schoolroom, a "low-planned" ghost of limited education and perspective but inclined to direct action might under standably light small fires and scatter coal. . . .
RAY MARSH FOX
Laguna Beach, Calif.
Sirs:
No doubt the editors of TIME will wait for a story to fully develop from now on before offering scientific explanations for it. . . .
PETER MAAS Redding, Conn.
P: Correct. But Reader Maas must admit that TIME gave big odds ("trillions of trillions to one") in the jumping-coal sweepstakes.--ED.
Love Is a Hit
Sirs: It was very nice to read your "Love and Goo" article about El Colegio del Amor de Glostora, in TIME (April 17). Will you please add to your list of countries having the program on the air, Honduras? We started this program on April 14 through HRN, Tegucigalpa's station. . . .
HRN has special loudspeakers in the public parks of Tegucigalpa. During the program a girl came up to declare herself to a fellow, and she started her declaration by saying: "I know that you are in the park, I hope that you will listen to me. . . ." At that moment a man's voice came from the gallery: "I am here, you dope."
Yes, Honduras has its College of Love and, like in other countries, it is a hit.
CARLOS H. MULVANY
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
P.M. Curtin
Sirs:
The sketch of John Curtin in TIME (April 24) is a most disappointing performance altogether. . . . Mr. Curtin is a complex individual ... a dual personality. But the dualism is of a kind comparable to that many people detect in FDR; the contradiction between the private man and the public politician. . . .
I don't think the point about Curtin is that he stayed at home. The point is what he did at home. In essence it is this: after many years of day labor in the service of labor, chiefly as editor of a labor weekly, he turned to federal politics and after considerable experience as a private member of the House of Representatives ... he was eventually chosen to lead the Party. He won this position when no one but a truly devoted Labor Party man would have taken it or wanted it, for the Party was torn by internal dissension, somewhat discredited, and quite obviously unlikely to win office for years to come. But Curtin took hold, slowly rebuilt the Party prestige, and eventually carried the Party to office, as united as it ever manages to be, and with stronger backing both in the House and the country than any previous Labor Government save that of Andrew Fisher, which held office before World War I. ... This . . . explains his prestige in Australia in considerable measure, for he earned it the hard way. . . .
I also feel that no good has been done Curtin or understanding of him by alleging that he once advocated atheism. The truth is that he was, like many socialists, a rationalist, a horse of quite a different color.
Curtin may well dream of a socialized Australia in the future. But the fact is that in the last general election Labor specifically stated that it was not asking for a mandate to socialize industry, feeling that so contentious an issue had no place in a wartime campaign. If it ever comes around to advocating socialization as an immediate program it will only be possible to carry it out after a mandate has been obtained from the electorate. That mandate it does not have today. . .
C. HARTLEY GRATTAN
Tuckahoe, N.Y.
P: TIME'S thanks to Reader Grattan, No. 1 U.S. authority on John Curtin's Australia (Introducing Australia, Australia's Foreign Policy, etc.).--ED.
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