Man of the Year

Sirs:

I wanted a change, but I now nominate Franklin Roosevelt Man of the Year.

ERNEST DUDLEY CHASE

Boston

Sirs:

Donald Nelson, the man who put the prod in production.

H. S. FLEISHMAN

Pittsburgh

Sirs:

I nominate Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., U.S. Navy.

KAVANAUGH C. DOWNEY

Milwaukee

Sirs:

For Man of the Year I nominate the late Lieut. General Lesley J. McNair.

EARL W. HUNTTING

Lieutenant Colonel

Camp Hood, Tex.

Sirs:

. . . Think Ernie Pyle should win your award and all that goes with it. ...

DANIEL W. BOWSER

> Nominations for Man of the Year will close Dec. 7.--ED.

Merchant Marine Casualties

Sirs:

Re: "U.S. War Casualties" (TIME, Oct. 2). TIME, obviously, does not see fit to regard Merchant Marine losses as part of U.S. war casualties.

GERALD A. COHEN

Ensign, U.S.M.S.

> For security reasons, Merchant Marine casualty figures have not been released as regularly as the armed forces'. Up to Oct. 1, total Merchant Marine losses since the beginning of the war were 5,855, of which 560 were prisoners of war.--ED.

Pistol Packin' Yaleman

Sirs:

Your article on the hazing of Quentin F. Soik at the University of Wisconsin (TIME, Nov. 6) brought to mind the story of Professor Beers, Yale '69, about one Heaton, I believe to be the name, who had served with conspicuous gallantry in the Confederate Army.

He went to Yale after the war and was so infuriated by the childish hazing then in vogue at New Haven that he studied with his revolver on the desk before him, and fired through the door at any hazers who appeared.

HOWARD SWIGGETT

British Ministry of Supply Mission

Washington

Calamity Allayed

Sirs:

To one accustomed as I have been in civilian life to reading at least two papers daily, to be stuck in the South Pacific with no news other than the sketchy headline flashes of the radio is a minor calamity.

At least it was so, until I met up with your pony edition of TIME. To be able to get a complete review of the happenings of the world is highly gratifying.

Your postwar circulation should show the effects of this good will you are engendering.

(PFC.) EDWARD R. HELFONT, U.S.M.C.

c/o Fleet P.O.

San Francisco

Third Parallel

Sirs:

TIME (Nov. 6), referring to possible delay in knowledge of election results, said: "The drama of such a situation would have only two parallels in the last 75 years," and recites them--the second Wilson election in 1916 and the Hayes-Tilden contest of 1876.

Some of us whose memories go back to 1884 have very distinct recollection of the days of uncertainty following the Cleveland-Blaine election. In the final decision the electoral vote of New York State was the determining factor, and that state was given the Democrats by a majority of about 1,200, hinging in Tammany-controlled New York City.

R. T. WILEY

Elizabeth, Pa.

> Not until ten days after election did Republicans concede Cleveland's victory. The decisive New York plurality was 1,149 votes.--ED.

De Profundis

Sirs:

Here's one on TIME (Oct. 23). You say the contrabassoon plays lower than the piano, while the reverse is true. The lowest note on the contrabassoon is BBB flat; the lowest note on every piano is AAA, a half step lower.

BURNET C. TUTHILL

Conductor

Memphis Symphony Orchestra

Memphis

> Reader Tuthill should listen to a more resourceful contrabassoonist. The lowest note on the standard contrabassoon is BBB flat (the fourth B flat below middle C) but a length or two of extra tubing will take it down to AAA, or even AAA flat.--ED.

Dissent

Sirs:

In TIME, Oct 16 you say: "Natives of the jungle learned through the centuries that the best clothing was no clothing ; the best shoes no shoes; the best rations, whatever grows in the jungles. But the white man, with his civilized stomach, his vulnerability to ringworm, malaria and leeches, is far from being acclimated."

I have been in a jungle area for almost a year. . . . Compared to our "unacclimated" American boys, the natives have proportionally much more malaria for lack of clothing after sundown; more ringworm and other foot diseases because they go barefoot; and are more susceptible to tuberculosis, pneumonia, and other diseases because of improper nutrition. . . .

MORTON M. SCHMIDT

Lieutenant, U.S.N.R.

c/o Fleet P.O.

San Francisco

Rewriteman Wanted

Sirs:

The two short paragraphs in TIME (Oct. 30) on the British War Office action against long-winded and stilted writing are important. One of the great stumbling blocks in our society is the archaic, devious and unnatural way we use language in expressing our laws, our insurance policies, our leases, mortgages and government directives. . . .

TIME writers could find better, clearer ways to express our laws. Better because they would be more widely understood, briefer, better obeyed and fewer. A large number of laws would not be on the books today if the average man knew what they said.

Suggestion: A "rewriteman" for the administrative and lawmaking bodies to remove this obstacle of "officialese and legalese" and make things say what they mean in TIME'S "curt, clear and complete" way.

ALFRED D. MCKELVY

New York City

America's First Co-Eds

Sirs:

Preposterous! Villainous! TIME must be in the pay of the Yankees! LETTERS (TIME, Nov. 6) quotes Dixie Cornell Gebhardt's barefaced claim that Elizabeth Blackwell (1847) was "the first woman in the U.S. to gain admittance to a man's college."

All literate, right-thinking Americans know that the first college in the nation to admit women students was Blount College (now the University of Tennessee). William Blount, Governor of the Territory South of the Ohio, secured admission of his daughter Barbara, Kittie Kain, Colonel McClung's daughter, and three other young ladies of the capital's aristocracy to the institution named for him.

If your editors have a genuine passion for verification, you can go to Knoxville and get all six names from the doorplates of the dormitories named for America's first coeds.

[SERVICEMAN'S NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD]

P: Blount College's first crop of co-eds numbered five, not six: Barbara Blount, Polly McClung, Jennie Armstrong, Kittie and Mattie Kain. None won a degree. Elizabeth Blackwell's M.D. was U.S. women's first.--ED.

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