Hogs & Humans
Sirs:
With men, women & children the world over starving for lack of bread [TIME, April 29], it is shocking to discover that farmers here in Howell County, Mo., are feeding flour to hogs! . . . Farmers [are] forced to purchase large quantities of wheat flour in order to buy feed for their livestock. We have in our office signed statements from farmers and retailers alike testifying to the situation. So far, there has been no OPA action, although it is a distinct violation of laws forbidding dual purchases. . . .
MRS. A. B. YOUNG JR. West Plains, Mo.
Sirs:
Next time you run into Gus Kuester [TIME, April 29] pacing the anteroom of his porcine maternity ward, would you suggest to him that perhaps one reason he is so cheerful about the future of this country is because I am helping to pay for his pigs? I myself am not so happy about it, as it wasn't my idea to let Washington spend one-fifth of my rapidly diminishing income on these subsidies-- although since I must, I only hope the pork chops are going to starving Europe, since they certainly never show up in my OPA-strapped meat market. . . .
MARY FOY Hollywood, Calif.
Sirs:
. . . Suggest that we utilize only known large-scale reserve of food which is ready to ship immediately and has not already been figured into the national food picture: namely, the vast reserves of C, K, and other emergency rations currently held in depots in U.S. and overseas by Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines against contingency of war. Despite international squabbling, I believe even military leaders will admit war is definitely no threat for a minimum of a year or two until other nations are in atom bomb production. . . .
Believe investigation would show these food stores, if completely committed, are sufficient to feed millions of people until other emergency measures, such as expanded wheat shipments, could begin to fill present shortages. . . .
WILLIAM J. SHIRLEY Houston
Flat Betrayal
Sirs:
I am pained by TIME'S flat betrayal of a lovely girl [TIME, April 8]. As author of Paulette Goddard's first screen test and as the fortunate producer of several of her pictures since, I am in a position to assure you that we have never felt it necessary to call in the Blimp Section of the Make-up Department.
ARTHUR HORNBLOW JR. Hollywood, Calif.
P: TIME bows to the swelling blast from various quarters (including costumers, make-up artists and union officials), cheerfully admits that it would be supererogatory for anybody to add anything to the lady's charms. TIME'S apologies to Miss Goddard.--ED.
Mr. Sherwood Saw Henry
Sirs:
You ask [TIME, April 29]: "Has anybody here seen Henry?" (Meaning Laurence Olivier's motion picture production of Henry V.)
Well, I have--and I wish to testify that TIME was right.
In acting and direction and production, Laurence Olivier has done one of the greatest jobs in the history of the screen or the stage. The script is good, too.
I say all credit to TIME for having given credit where credit is so amply due.
ROBERT E. SHERWOOD New York City
Categorical Non-Imperative
Sirs:
... I am still a bit perplexed at your story on Ilya Ehrenburg [TIME, April 29]: "Robert Glass . . . tossed them [the Russian newsmen] a tough one: would any Russian newsman have the right to write an article demanding Stalin's removal? Ehrenburg coolly sidestepped. . . . 'Categorically no! . . ."" Just what, in TIME'S estimation, might be a direct answer?
MRS. R. W. STOUGHTON Oak Ridge, Tenn.
P: One that stopped right there. Ehrenburg's sidestep, as quoted in TIME: "Sometimes we have all found ourselves in a position where you couldn't tell what would be done. . . ."--ED.
Sin & Damnation
Sirs:
In your issue of May 6 ... the Unitarians attribute to Professor Reinhold Niebuhr, among others, a conviction of "no hope for mankind on earth, but in heaven if you believe. . . ."
[This is] an interesting paradox: those who stand against a conviction of human sinfulness are here testifying through their own actions to the truth of the position they oppose. Professor Niebuhr, a strong "social gospel-ite," continually stresses man's "indeterminate possibilities" of goodness on earth, although . . . there is always the added warning that . . . the Kingdom of God ... is forever "beyond" the world.
A deliberate misinterpretation of a man's position, through overstressing one aspect of his thinking, is what we call dishonesty, and dishonesty is an aspect of human sin.
(REV.) A. ROY ECKHARDT Floral Park, N.Y.
Sirs:
. . . [One] definition of the difference between Unitarians and Universalists [is that] the Universalist believes God is too good to damn him, and the Unitarian believes he is too good to be damned.
About their being Boston-based, there is a take-off on the Unitarian credo--"The fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Man, and the neighborhood of Boston. . . ."
When I applied to the Christian Science Monitor for a job once. ... I [said] that I had been brought up a Unitarian. My questioner brightened perceptibly and said: "Well, that's not so bad. Then you don't really have any convictions about anything, do you?"
BARBARA BIGELOW New York City
Loans to Veterans
Sirs:
. . . "Legislation provided . . . loans [to veterans] up to $4,000 to build homes, start businesses" [TIME, April 1].
This is not a correct statement.
It is not the amount of the loan, but merely the amount of guaranty or insurance to be granted by the Veterans Administration, that is subject to limitation. Where the loan is to purchase real estate, the guaranty may not exceed $4,000, or 50% of the loan, or the insurance credit $4,000, or 15% of the loan, but if the lender is satisfied as to the veteran's ability to pay the carrying charges, there is no limit to the amount of money that may be loaned. On non-real-estate loans, the same holds true, except that the limitation is $2,000 instead of $4,000. . .
THOS. H. HICKEY Loan Guarantee Officer Veterans Administration New York City
P: TIME'S thanks to Reader Hickey for the skull-cracking details on a skull-cracking provision of the G.I. Bill.--ED.
"Odious & Disgusting"
Sirs:
The Rev. Renwick C. Kennedy's incredible indictment of the American soldier overseas [TIME, May 6] is unworthy of a minister.
His branding of the average soldier's conduct as "odious and disgusting" is a slap, not at the Army, but at the American way, for the Army of World War II was a civilian Army. He expresses wonder at "how naive and stupid" were the G.I.s. . . . Perhaps the former Army chaplain has forgotten that these "illiterates from Brooklyn, Texas and Los Angeles" are the same men who made it possible for him to return to this country in peace and hand down his judgments to their discredit. . . .
Soldiers and veterans are beginning to speculate on whether such opinions as voiced by this ex-holder of a noncombat commission will become the accepted version when memories fade.
CARL H. CHILDRESS Conway, Ark.
They Need Never Worry
Sirs:
I, too, am a war widow who has visited her husband's grave in the Pacific islands [like Red Cross Worker Virginia Matthews--TIME, April 1]. My husband, Major Lloyd E. Whitley, Army Air Corps, was killed on Iwo Jima on March 26, 1945. . . .
I was stationed on Guam, and through the understanding and kindness of the command of the forward areas . . . was permitted to fly to Iwo.
As I stood in the 4th Marine Division cemetery there, I mentally embraced the many mothers, fathers, wives and sweethearts of the many men buried beneath those crosses, and thanked God that at least one of us could be there to pay at least a humble tribute. I wished I could tell them that they need never worry about the care of their loved ones' bodies, for I, who am supposedly conditioned to the "exigencies" of the service and expecting much less, was surprised to find such well-kept cemeteries.
It seemed to me that there pervaded on that island one of the deepest respects and reverences for the dead. . . .
I am convinced that no other place could be better or more appropriate, nor would the boys themselves wish their bodies to be moved.
DOROTHY MAIN WHITLEY Parsons, Kans.
Why Men Fly
Sirs:
The motivations of the flyer are not different from those of persons engaged in many other activities. "They fly" for the same reasons "they" report the news. The article from which you quote [TIME, April 29] does not imply that any new or exotic motives exist in the flyer. . . .
It explains how various types and intensities of motivation may succeed or fail to sustain the flyer in his environment. This last point is the entire point of the article. The excerpts which you quoted might convey the impression to some, that all flyers are motivated by what might be termed psychologically unhealthy drives. That is not my opinion. There are some concerning whom this is true in all activities. Aviation has no more than its share. . . .
R. C. ANDERSON Colonel, M.C., A.U.S. Topeka, Kans.
P: Perhaps TIME, in reporting Colonel Anderson, should have included the following from his speech: "Some . . . have charged that a psychopathic personality is a prerequisite in a flyer. It is hardly necessary to refute that charge, but it is probably true that aviation has more than its share of such individuals.''--ED .
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