Crock of Mold

Sirs:

At last a break in the ranks of your uniformed covers to let the world have a glimpse of a truly great and timely hero. Such recognition of men of science or art ought to be increased. What they contribute is immeasurable and yet they have all too often remained in oblivion while every schoolboy is taught history in terms of battles and their leaders, regarding their exploits as the ultimate in human achievement. A surer road to peace for the future would be the encouragement of youth's devotion to the more constructive leadership of the healers, the builders and the artists who benefit all humanity lastingly. HARRIETT WATTS PODBOY York, Pa.

Sirs:

Thanks and congratulations for that terrifically inspiring, interesting and extremely well-written story of Drs. Fleming, Florey and Chain. It restores my hope in humanity to know that in these times when the world's mass-mind is bent on hate and slaughter there can emerge this man-made miracle which will alleviate human suffering.

M. U. BRUCE New Haven, Conn.

Sirs:

In your splendid article on Dr. Alexander Fleming and penicillin you neglected to mention the grandmothers who used that remedy constantly in the early days when doctors were not an everyday luxury. I remember, when I was a very little girl and grandmother stayed at our house, how she would sort of guiltily and secretly sneak away a piece of bread when no one was looking, add it to her crock of penicillin (it was not known by that name then). She kept up her laboratory in that crock, so there was a remedy for every emergency. Grandmas were wonderful doctors in those days.

MRS. I. M. NOTLEDGE Custer, Mont.

P:TIME yields to nobody in its admiration for such crocks of gold, in whatever pantry.--ED.

Backyard Dictators

Sirs: It pleases us, as Central Americans, to convey to you our heartfelt gratitude for your true evidence of constructive Americanism by showing the real facts about the abominable dictatorships that we have in our own American backyard. Your recent attitude (TIME, May 15) toward the ferocious methods of the Salvadorean tyrant, Martinez, helped immensely to awaken the patriotic spirit of the Salvadorean people enabling them to regain their freedom and the sacred right to decent living. The downfall of Dictator Martinez represents the first democratic victory of the United Nations in American territory.

The small Latin American republics are al ways looking to this great country of yours for guidance because we fully realize that without the assistance of the American good will we cannot advance any further in our efforts for spiritual and material progress.

It is, therefore, enormously disappointing when we observe that such assistance and good will is denied to us. But it increases our enthusiasm when we see that builders of public opinion, like TIME, consider it advisable to help the oppressed peoples of the earth to re-establish in their respective latitudes a government of liberty and justice to which they are entitled. . . .

COMITE DEMOCRATICO NICARAGUENSE Riverdale, N.Y.

Minus Six

Sirs:

Upon reading your article on my exhibition (TIME, May 15), I noticed that you stated my age as 42. Knowing how particular your publication always is about the accuracy of its statements, I thought I would draw your attention to the fact that I was born Nov. 15, 1907, which makes me 36 years of age. . . .

TILLY LOSCH

New York City

P:Shame on Dancer-Painter Losch's prankish first husband (British Socialite Edward F. W. James), who, Miss Losch swears, aged her six years for the benefit of Who's Who in the Theatre and his own husbandly humor.--ED.

Negative Statesmanship

Sirs:

. . . Out here where the papers are always three months old, every copy of TIME'S Pony Edition is read from cover to cover by 70% of the men. The ancient papers are read only for local news. Not a soul pays a bit of attention to their news or editorials. We know what they call news is mostly exaggeration, ballyhoo or propaganda written under the direction of the publisher. This is especially true in the political field where all events are presented in such a way as to discredit the President and the Administration. I am referring to perhaps 70% of the press. . . .

Our radio is under the influence of Hollywood's empty-headed blatant noise, passing as substance. I'm not sure about the domestic programs, but the short-wave stuff from Frisco gives us the sound basis for this opinion. . . .

But if our Congressional enemies and the reptile press believe we are not thinking of the postwar world they are much mistaken. The whole thing boils down to this: we don't want a postwar world full of misery and unemployment, culminating 20 or 25 years from now in a third World War. And my friends and I definitely do not believe that the kind of negative statesmanship displayed by Spangler and C. Budington Kelland and almost the whole Republican Party is a guarantee of their ability to try and provide the kind of good world we feel entitled to after what we have gone through in two campaigns so far, and this thing isn't over yet by a damn sight. . . .

(SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD) New Guinea

Unoccupied Iceland

Sirs:

In TIME (May 15) you say that Iceland is occupied. This is a confusion of terms. Iceland is not occupied, and never has been. Iceland asked for and received military protection against Germany. The difference: an occupying force always handles some internal affairs of an occupied nation. The American forces in Iceland have scrupulously avoided mixing in any internal affairs of Iceland. The Icelanders have carried on their Government as before. . . . My personal hope is that soon the U.S. will be able to give military protection against Germany to more European nations and free them from occupation.

HELGI P. BRIEM Consul General New York City

P:For the hospitality of Iceland and the political politeness of U.S. troops quartered there, TIME'S admiration.--ED.

Confidence Placed

Sirs:

It is with a sense of comfort even religion cannot afford that I read in TIME (May 15) the fine article on "handsome, patrician Joseph Clark Grew." For so long you have described and accented the personal defects of politicians, statesmen, actors & actresses, and other persons of prominence as "bowlegged or knock-kneed, or hair-lipped or cross-eyed, or bald or paunchy" that it is a real and solid pleasure to know that Ambassador Grew is "handsome and patrician," and . . . makes me feel that my belief and faith in TIME as a pleasure-giving, information-gathering publication has not been misplaced. . . .

PAULINE FROST IVES New Haven, Conn.

Cook County Crime

Sirs:

As a member of the Cook County grand jury serving during the April term, and a citizen of a community which is overadvertised as a crime center, I feel compelled to write you in protest and to question the accuracy of the reporting in "Crime" (TiME, May 1).

After observing the vigilance of the state's attorney and his assistants, and after having an opportunity to observe the determination of the grand jury and the Chicago Crime Commission, I believe that it is unfair and misleading to register, as you did, a complacent attitude toward crime, either by this community or by its law-enforcement agencies.

JULIEN H. COLLINS Chicago

P:Protest noted; overadvertisement questioned.--ED.

That's Telling Us

Sirs:

In your cut line under the picture of the advance-zone barbershop with its witty price list (TIME, May 8) you attempt to interpret G.I. humor, with I wonder what results. The barber probably thought his manicure "for officers only" was just as funny as the one about awarding the Purple Heart for his razor nicks. . . .

We cracked continuously and often brutally about the wound chevron in the last war, and of course every Croix de Guerre was "found in a case of French monkey meat," etc., etc. But we meant no disrespect for the chevron or the Croix, and no editors attempted to interpret our gags for the home folks, who were far more interested in what we did than in what we said or thought.

Did you, for instance, think of the thousands of mothers and fathers, wives and sweethearts, and children to whom the Purple Heart which came through the mail is the only consolation they got for the lad they lost? It is their tangible assurance that he was up there swinging when he went out.

The guys in the foxholes gag about everything, but they do it for G.I. ears. . . . After all, you don't get fang marks in a rabbit warren.

VINSON LACKEY Tulsa

The Bases Sirs: Surely you are not in error, but it is my studied belief that your statement (TIME, May 8) "Bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, Trinidad, British Guiana, etc. . . . were leased to the U.S. . . ." is wrong. The bases in New foundland and Bermuda were given to the U.S., those in the other W.I. islands were leased! Right or wrong?

G. K. PARRIS Norfolk

P:Wrong. They were all leased.--ED.

Our Son Was a Marine

Sirs:

For those three women and the man, speaking in defense of the rights of Japanese in America (TIME, May 15), I have nothing but contempt. Let them be tolerant of fellow Americans who have given their all in this war, as my wife and I have done, before they speak of intolerance toward Japanese!

Our son was a Marine captain, flying his lonely Wildcat in the forbidding and ugly Solomons when he was shot down by Japs. He's been "missing in action" since a year ago last Jan. 2. Let those four self-righteous souls sit at home night after night with a son missing as ours has been missing, knowing not what might have been his gruesome fate, before they condemn us who would outlaw every Jap, no matter what his nativity. . . .

For all the years that are left to me, I shall loathe every Jap. And with Halsey and Patton and all the rest, including the farmers of New Jersey, who have the courage to speak out and act, I shall want them scourged from this our blessed America, which is my native land, too. Only a dead Jap can be trusted. . . .

H. FREDERICK PETERSEN Chicago

Unenviable Position?

Sirs:

Ever since reading your issue (May 8) referring to General Wainwright, I have felt a deep sense of humiliation and shame. It seems inexpressibly tragic that we should have let down the army that was stationed in the Philippines.

What I cannot understand is why you, with information at your disposal, failed to advise your readers of the desperate plight of our garrison stationed in Manila. If the powers at Washington did not see fit to send them reinforcements, we, the citizens of these United States, should have been advised the reason why. I cannot give utterance to my feelings of shame and degradation in realizing that we did so little to save these desperate and brave men.

My purpose in writing you is to ask why, with TIME magazine having correspondents and reporters on every war front, so little was told us. And now, after all these years, you tell us the truth. It is much too late, and you should have done more previously. I don't envy your position of compromising with revealing the truth when, and as, it should have been told.

JOHN F. WALTHER New York City

P:TIME said the situation was hopeless, long before Bataan. For the rest, TIME --like all of the press since Pearl Harbor--was limited by incomplete information and military security.--ED.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.