Jaywalking Molecules
Sirs:
From TIME (July 3): "Sound waves signal ahead to air molecules to get out of the way of a moving object; at supersonic speeds the object runs smack into groups of unwary molecules.
I am delighted to observe that the Artzybasheff influence has reached the SCIENCE department. When will he show us a jaywalking molecule?
P: Artist Artzybasheff was delighted to oblige (see above).--ED.
The Negro
Sirs:
Congratulations on your article on Negroes in the service (TIME, July 10). It gave a very clear picture of what kind of a problem we face. We Southerners must take our heads out of the sand and look about us and see that we are headed for that point where the Negro will fight for his just rights. May God grant we wake up before then.
[SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD] Chapel Hill, N.C.
Sirs:
Having served with Negro troops for slightly over two years, I read your article with a great deal of interest. May I offer a personal conclusion? When a people desire acceptance in a way of living they must meet the responsibilities and standards of that society and not merely want the rights and privileges afforded.
[SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD] Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
Sirs:
I am a Negro soldier stationed deep in the heart of Texas. ... We Negro soldiers have been told in plain English that we have no right to ask for the same privileges as the white soldiers. Yet why are we given the same right to fight . . . and die? ...
I believe that the Negro 20 years hence will be far more powerful and will get far more respect from the white man. There will be a change made. With the help of God and the liberal-minded Americans, the problem of. "Jim Crow" will be banished. . . .
[SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD] Camp Barkeley, Tex.
Sirs:
YOUR STATEMENT THAT IN TUCSON WELL-MEANING WEALTHY WHITE WOMEN TOOK NEGRO SOLDIERS TO THE OLD PUEBLO CLUB IS WHOLLY FALSE. . . .
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE OLD PUEBLO CLUB Tucson, Ariz.
P: TIME'S reporter was misinformed by, among others, an Old Pueblo Club member. A white women's organization asked Old Pueblo for permission to bring two Negro civilian women to an organization luncheon being held at the Club. Old Pueblo refused.--ED.
Sirs:
. . . Here's hoping that all your future articles on the race question will be written by the man who wrote "Morale." I am sure he will realize that the truth lies somewhere between the "red-eyed denunciation" of the Negro press and the ranting of Bilbo; that the deep-seated social forces involved cannot be quelled overnight; that the condition of the Negro in the South, though unhappy, is much improved, and steadily though slowly improving; that this improvement can best be accelerated by cooperation with the best elements among the Southern whites instead of by incrimination of Southern whites as a whole.
THOMAS T. TRAYWICK Cope, S.C.
"Just Like Us"
Sirs:
I am just an ordinary young housewife, mother of two young children, with a husband in the Army, and like many others had heard tales of dubious behavior by the American troops in this country. The few we had seen in a neighboring town seemed noisy, and either chewed Spearmint or oversize cigars, and rather resembled the film version of a "tough guy" in gangster films.
Other American troops have moved into our district, and we gave them a very cool reception, but it has gradually dawned on us that it's only the minority which behaves badly, and that all along we've been judging the whole by the actions of a few.
We've found the majority are sober, quiet, homely men, with wives, children and mothers they adore, youngsters with sweethearts back home to whom they're longing to return, men who to our astonishment don't boast or chew gum, don't get fresh and who genuinely appreciate a friendly smile, a chat, a cup of tea, are ridiculously generous.
We're all glad we've been able to judge for ourselves by having American soldiers here because now we know what a typical American is like. Perhaps the nicest way I can express what I mean without intending to appear smug is: the Yanks are just like us.
(MRS.) JOAN HOPPER Chandler's Ford, Hants., England
Thunder in the Catskills
Sirs:
The article by your youthful editor in TIME [July 10] entitled "The Face of the G.O.P.," referring to me as a "plump, little old man" who was symbolic of the fact that "the old men of the party no longer had the power," is in no sense resented by me.
Yes, I have grown old in these twelve long years, by being constantly harassed by Miss Democracy's termagant adopted daughter, Miss New Deal. Yes, I have grown fat too, for each day of these twelve long years, I have been fed an overabundance of baloney.
However, since the G.O.P. Convention I have shorn my long hoary beard, discarded my rationed tatters, lifted mine eyes unto the hills, for I hear thunder in the Catskills, and it "ain't" duck pins, either.
RIP VAN WINKLE DANIEL O. HASTINGS Wilmington
P: During his 40 years in Republican politics, eight of them (1929-37) as U.S. Senator from Delaware, Rip Van Winkle Hastings was widely known for his good humor.--ED.
Bum Steer?
I don't know how careful Inventor Volf's observations of stumbling babes and drunks may have been (TIME, July 10), but it would be a physical impossibility for equilibrium to be disturbed on an east-west line due to motion of the earth. In physics rotation is considered as an acceleration, but this fact would cause an infant to fall southward in the northern hemisphere, northward in the southern hemisphere, not at all on the equator. TIME'S SCIENCE section is highly informative, but this item looks like a bum steer to me.
JAMES EMLEN Germantown, Pa.
Sirs:
Christian Adolf Volf, acoustical physicist, who teaches that children and drunks totter east "because the earth's rotation in that direction makes it easier" will find interesting material in Henry David Thoreau's essay "Walking." Says Mr. Thoreau: "When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find . . . that I finally and inevitably settle southwest. . . . Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free."
No tot or sot, he.
P. BRACKEN SMITH Portland, Ore.
Sirs:
The article on directional staggering was nothing new to those of us who have been prospecting in the Northwest Territories. There the conventional methods of determining direction all fail. Great Bear Lake is so near the magnetic pole that the compass points about E. by N., and variably at that. It is so far North that the moss grows completely around the rocks, and there are no stars in the summertime.
Whenever a party got lost, one of the men would be chosen to tank up and be the walking-compass. This position was so greatly sought after that it had to be determined by lot. The average prospector can hold his liquor pretty well, but we figured one quart of Hudson's Bay 35 O.P. rum as good for about 50 miles.
I recall one time when the walking-compass job fell to the best-known hollow-leg in all the Northwest. He used up the entire rum supply in two days, and we couldn't break camp until the stars came out in the fall.
A. LIONEL Montreal, Quebec
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