Mass Hara-Kiri?

Sirs:

My answer to Robert Sherrod's Saipan question on the possible suicide of Japanese civilians when we reach Japan (TIME, Aug. 7):

Mass hara-kiri will be effected, in front of family and military shrines . . . and in front of the Palace in Tokyo. . . .

JAMES R. YOUNG*

Pawling, N.Y.

Inconclusive Normality

Sirs:

". . . Pablo Picasso, the melancholy, anarchic, 62-year-old Spaniard whom many consider the greatest living artist" (TiME, Aug. 7). This is inconclusive. Can you name five normal persons who consider Picasso the greatest living artist? . . .

HI SIBLEY

Nuevo, Calif.

P: "Normal" people discredited Rembrandt, misunderstood El Greco, reviled Blake, ignored Cezanne, drove Van Gogh to suicide and Gauguin into exile.--ED.

Ford's Food

Sirs:

Henry Ford, observing his 81st birthday, is quoted as saying, "The time is coming when man will be able to determine the length of his life span by controlling his diet. I think he will find everything he needs in wheat; wheat is the divine food."

On other occasions he has referred to the soybean as an indispensable food. . . .

I am sure it would be of great interest to your readers to print Mr. Ford's diet. . . .

GOLDING FAIRFIELD

Denver

P: Henry Ford's two basic ideas on eating are 1) never to satisfy his hunger completely at any one meal; 2) never to eat sugar (because he believes sugar crystals get in people's blood streams and cause infections). He takes a healthy, if restrained, interest in such substantial items as roast beef, lamb and pork chops, baked potatoes, butter, cream. His present enthusiasm for wheat is more industrial than dietary, like his onetime predictions that roads would some day be paved with coffee beans, and automobiles be made, in part at least, from cantaloupes.--ED.

Literary Light

Sirs:

Reference your review of A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake (TIME, Aug. 7) ... I suggest that the clue to this nightmare, as well as many other books that in view of the paper shortage should never have seen the light, can be found in the couplet of Pope: Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile. . . .

WALTER MANN

Philadelphia

Krueger's Sixth

Sirs:

How's about a little credit to one of our most capable and best-liked generals--Lieut. General Krueger? We read of "Bradley's Army," "Doolittle's Eighth," "Clark's Fifth," etc. which is well and good, but how about "Krueger's Sixth?" They're in this war too . . . ask the Japs who were in New Guinea.

R. C. NEWELL

1st Lieutenant

c/o Postmaster San Francisco

P: All credit to MacArthur's able Lieut. General Walter Krueger; his three stars have all too often been obscured by his boss's shining four.--ED.

1948 Slate (Cont'd.)

Sirs:

... I predict that the next Republican President of the U.S. will be the naval officer, Harold Stassen, former governor of Minnesota. . . .

H. E. BRADERMAN

Charlotte, N.C.

Covers: Fore & Aft

Sirs:

TIME should always use photographs for its covers [i.e., Guderian, Aug. 7], for photographs show the character of its subjects much better than any of your cover-artists has been able to do. . . .

ELLEN SMITH

Cranford, N.J.

Sirs:

Save the photographs for LIFE and put Mr. Artzybasheff to work.

CLYDE D. LAKE

Lieutenant

c/o Fleet P.O.

San Francisco

P: Artist Artzybasheff's contribution to Navy social life (see below) was, by way of argument, a far better characterization of since-sacked Shigetaro Shimada than any photograph could ever be.--ED.

Sirs:

The officers of this ship were much amused by the cover on your issue of July 3. Behind Admiral Shimada is a sinking Jap ship with a very original (and not very subtle) fantail.

. . . Many months ago, a number of the older officers (in point of service on this ship) organized a club the purpose of which is still in doubt in some minds. At any rate, we gave it a name, the idea of which I will convey to you by saying it is the ROGER ABLE CLUB. The club has flourished and given us much consolation in the wilds of the Pacific but until the appearance of your issue mentioned above, we have been at a loss for an appropriate symbol. . . .

(OFFICER'S NAME WITHHELD)

Working on the Payroll

Sirs:

. . . Mrs. Harry Truman for the past two years has been drawing a top Senate clerk's salary of $4,500 per year (TiME, Aug. 7). . . . How can I get my wife on the payroll?

FRED O. PARRISH

2nd Lieutenant

Sioux City, Iowa

Sirs:

... A good many old-fashioned people would be interested in knowing whether Mrs. John W. Bricker has been on the payroll of Ohio.

ABBOT W. SHERWOOD

Dover, N.H.

P: Mrs. Bricker, according to the New York World-Telegram, when asked whether she would work for her husband as a secretary at a good salary, replied: "I wouldn't have the inclination or the opportunity."--ED.

Mail far Morale

Sirs:

My brother, Lieut. Donald Duncan . . . died in the fighting before Caen on July 10. In his last letter home he wrote:

"Have now heard from you all and it is impossible to exaggerate the morale boosting effect of letters, no matter how inconsequential. Men will go without sleep for days on end, live on cold food and exist in slimy slit trenches not knowing whether the next shell has their name on it and they won't complain. But their morale goes down when they lose touch with their wives, families and sweethearts. . . ."

If you care to print this, it may do some good.

JAMES DUNCAN

Paymaster Lieut. Commander, R.C.N.V.R.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Robot Roll

Sirs:

... It offends all commonsensibilities to hear one of the most amazing products of human invention of all time, the mathematical robot (TIME, Aug. 14), complacently referred to as a "gadget." I think TIME's writers should roll such words on their tongues just a mite longer to see if they really intend the connotation that is there. . . .

D. H. PASTOR

Kings Park, N.Y.

P: Webster: gadget -- a contrivance, object, or device for doing something.--ED.

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