The Army v. Hearst

Sirs:

. . . TIME [March 11] quotes Brigadier General Charles T. Lanham of the Army I. & E. section as saying:

"A reporter on the Hearst papers is not at liberty to attack Mr. Hearst or the Hearst policy. If he does, first, it doesn't get in the papers, and second, he is fired. Why then should the staff of a soldier publication feel that it is entitled to attack the War Department? . . ."

Might I remind the General that the Hearst chain, regardless of its merits, is the product of free competition. . . . On the other hand, the military paper Stars and Stripes is strictly a monopoly in its field and therefore it must serve the purpose, if it is to further democratic ideals, of all the competitors it would have under free competition.

(SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD)

Fort Knox, Ky.

Gloomy, Promising

Sirs:

As one surveys the general strike situation of the country, it would seem the trend indicates its gloomy as well as its promising outlook. I think it can be said that the overall picture will steadily improve unless it takes a turn for the worse, in which case it will not be as hopeful as it might have been if things had developed more favorably.

And that I think sums up the labor-industry situation today.

C. D. WAGONER

Schenectady, N.Y.

Promotion, a Bad Word

Sirs:

Your reference to the Scholastic Sports Institute, Ltd. in the excellent article on high-school basketball [TIME, April 1] contained an inadvertent but important misstatement. The Institute is a service organization for high schools; not a "promotion group. . . ."

Schools cannot and do not participate in or cooperate with "promotion" programs as the term is commercially used (i.e., to promote directly the sale of any given product or item). . . .

G. HERBERT MCCRACKEN President, Scholastic Sports Institute New York City

Hymenopterological? Isopterological!

Sirs:

In TIME, March 25, Winston Churchill is unjustly accused of making a "hymenopterological" analogy when he compared Russia to a community of "white ants."

Of course he was referring to termites, which are neither white nor are they ants. Generally yellowish or brownish in color, they belong to the insect order Isoptera which is only remotely related to the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps). . . .

GEORGE H. BEATTY III American Entomological Society Philadelphia

Sirs:

Since TIME and Mr. Churchill have turned to entomological similes and the "soul of the white ant," it may be just as well that it be right. . . .

The termitary is not ruled by a queen. She, incarcerated by her own obesity in the center of the community, is fed by the workers who bring her food and who carry away the eggs as fast as she lays them--which among certain African species may total as high as 40,000 per diem (and this for 30 years). The male, bewildered by all this fecundity, crawls about Her Majesty's belly performing his time-honored functions. . . . Nor will the colony die if the queen dies. In a manner still an entomological mystery, the workers of the termites can take one of the winged species and convert her into a substitute queen.

Mr. Churchill doubtless was referring to the social mechanism of the termite colony . . . which ends in making the individual a soulless functionary. . . .

VICTOR W. VON HAGEN Westport, Conn.

How the Hecate?

Sirs:

After reading your excellent review of Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate County [TIME, March 25], I pondered upon the author of the footnote which declared that the name of the place is pronounced "heck-it." I assume that the author in question refers to the Age of Pericles as the Age of Perickels. . . .

JACK MULLEN New York City

Sirs:

In connection with the American genius for mispronunciation, if you people pronounce Hecate "heck-it," how the heckity do you pronounce Daphne?

P. LOCKWOOD Verdun, Que.

Sirs:

What, pray, is your authority for the footnote? Webster would put it heck-a-tee. . . . Of course, Webster allows that it was "formerly often" a dissyllable, and Shakespeare found it handier thus six times out of seven. . . . An author can call his book anything he wants to, and if your authority is Edmund Wilson, that settles it.

WILLIAM CORCORAN New York City

P: Tt is.--Ed

Duranty No Dotard

Sirs:

I cannot fail to be gratified by the attention you paid to me in my letter-writing game [TIME, March 25], but . . . I'm far from ailing, though I can't deny my age. It is true that I lost a leg in a train wreck in

France and so, literally, have one foot in the grave. . . .

Your article implies that I am trying this letter thing as a last refuge in adversity. Which is very far from the case. I'm not at all in the position of a dreary dotard writing begging letters, as you seem to suggest. Dammit, sir, I had a piece in Collier's only last month, and my Russian history book, called USSR, published two years ago, not only sold well here and in England, but is being translated in half a dozen languages. And my lectures are not based on "anecdotage" or any other form of dotage. . . .

WALTER DURANTY Los Angeles

Pickle Barrels Screened

Sirs:

TIME, March 11, states, quite correctly, that the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (a civilian group established by presidential directive to appraise the results of the war in the air) found the Air Forces somewhat too exuberant in reporting the accuracy of their bombing. Such terms as "pinpoint bombing" and "pickle-barrel bombing" are more colorful than precise. However, TIME'S report on the Survey's Oil Division Findings is unintentionally unjust to the Air Forces and to the crews who manned the combined bomber offensive. . . . Accuracy was reduced by the defenses the Germans lavished on these plants. Leuna, for example, was protected by a smoke screen that effectively covered a 20-mile-square area around the plant and by more antiaircraft batteries than defended the entire city of Berlin. . . .

PAUL H. NITZE

Vice Chairman

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Washington

Frumious Mayor Kelly

Sirs:

I feel like a frustrated frump in a frumenty, because I don't know what frumious means, and Webster's doesn't tell me. I knew Mayor Kelly was fulgid and fubsy, but I never before suspected his frumiousness [TIME, March 25]. You've been my revered fugleman for so long that I know you won't let me down now.

MARJORIE WHITTUM Manorville, N.Y.

P: Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!

--Lewis Carroll.--ED.

Or Good Red Herring

Sirs:

In a recent issue of TIME [Feb. 11] there was an article in which the work of the Russian scientist, Lysenko, was reviewed. Far be it from me to belittle Lysenko's work, but have you kept abreast of developments in Indiana ?

I have never been able to see it, but I was told by one who should know that fur-fowl is being bred successfully in this state. The fur-fowl is a cross-breed between New Zealand Red Hare and a Buff Orpington Hen. The offspring, which is hatched from an egg, has the head of a hare, with long ears and brown eyes. It has the body of a chicken, and a hare's tail. It walks on two legs, like a chicken, and, in place of wings or forelegs, it has short stubs that swing back and forth as the fur-fowl walks.

The fur-fowl is covered with fur, which is very similar to that of a hare, and it eats grain, vegetables and grass. It is especially fond of alfalfa. The eggs that the female fur-fowl lays are soft-shelled like the eggs of a turtle or a snake, but, instead of being round or elliptical in shape, the fur-fowl eggs are hexahedral.

What worries the Fur-fowl Breeders Association of Indiana is that all the eggs laid so far have been sterile. . . .

MARY L. MORELAND Indianapolis

Nazi Patents

SIRS:

IN YOUR STORY "16,000 NAZI TRICKS" [TIME, MARCH 11] YOU SAY: "AS TO HOW OR

WHEN THE NAZI PROCESSES AND PATENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO U.S. INDUSTRY, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS NOT YET MADE UP ITS MIND." THIS OFFICE PUBLISHES A WEEKLY BIBLIOGRAPHY LISTING THOUSANDS OF TECHNICAL REPORTS ON NAZI PRODUCTS AND PROCESSES. . . . IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE WAR DEPARTMENT WE ARE CONDUCTING EXHIBITIONS OF CAPTURED GERMAN EQUIPMENT AND ARRANGING FOR INDUSTRY TO EXAMINE AND TEST THIS EQUIPMENT. THERE IS NO IMPEDIMENT TO BUSINESS GETTING THE FACTS IT WANTS.

A BUSINESSMAN WISHING TO USE A NAZI PROCESS SHOULD OF COURSE MAKE THE CUSTOMARY PATENT SEARCH. IF THERE IS NO U.S. PATENT THERE IS NO PROBLEM. IF THERE IS A U.S. PATENT TAKEN OUT BY AN ENEMY ALIEN, PATENT RIGHTS WILL BE CONTROLLED BY THE ALIEN PROPERTY CUSTODIAN. . . .

JOHN C. GREEN

Executive Secretary Office of the Publication Board Department of Commerce Washington

P:TIME erred; most Nazi patents are now readily available to U.S. businessmen.--ED.

Wrong, Stupid, Presumptuous TIME

Sirs:

This letter is to record the fact that, like a good many others, I expect, I will not let your vile magazine go unprotested.

During precisely which weeks was it that you decided that you had, after many years of excellent journalism, a fund, of public respect which could now be spent in U.S.S.R. baiting, in the company of other savory persons who spend their time at it? During the '30s, when the Chinese Communists were the only group who persistently called for resistance to the Japanese invasion of northern China, or when Litvinoff was the only representative of a major power to speak for Ethiopia against Italy, or when the U.S.S.R. alone made an effort to defeat Franco in Spain? Or during the '40s, while the battles of Sevastopol and Stalingrad were being fought, while the U.S.S.R. was managing to save more of the Jewish civilians left in Europe than any other major power, or perhaps while the charter of the United Nations Organization was being signed?

You are, thank Heaven, only puny war-mongerers, wrong, stupid, presumptuous, and equipped with very little more than an inane way of expressing your sagacities. . . .

DAVID SAYRE

Philadelphia

Churchill, Grant, Whiskey

Sirs:

In your issue of March 18, you refer to Mr. Winston Churchill as follows: "According to his custom, before dinner he rapidly downed five Scotch highballs." Also: "His valet slipped him a slug of brandy to reinforce him." You are probably right, but I am reminded of a legend about President Lincoln during the War between the States. When some character was complaining to President Lincoln about the Northern General Grant's proclivities for whiskey, Lincoln is said to have remarked that he would find out the brand of whiskey that General Grant used and send a barrel of it to various other and less successful generals.

A. LESTER TAYLOR

Penticton, B.C.

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