Ideals Must Become Deeds

Sirs:

. . . During the war I helped bomb the people of Europe. We left cities in flame and people torn and dead. That was war. But what of the children in those cities, and what of the men in the planes which went down? Do I not owe them something? Does not every human being stand condemned for their death ?

But what can I do? Is it enough to give to famine relief and support the U.N. and hope for a better world? I don't think it is. Ceaseless toil for the rest of our lives would not erase that guilt. . . . Our ideals must become deeds. We must have action. . . .

We must produce, and let nothing stand in the way of production. We must feed the hungry and care for those in distress. If private enterprise cannot do this we must have public enterprise. . . . We must see the fight through to the finish, and show the world that we believe all men are created equal. . . .

DAVID C. DAVIS Cleveland, S.C.

Morning-After Style

Sirs:

. . . After reading countless blasts against Anglophobic Bertie McCormick, I discover, to my confusion, an item written in the same bilious, morning-after style of the Chicago Tribune. I refer to the account of Columnist Nat Gubbins' tirade [TIME, May 13] against:

1) the Bishop of Rochester;

2) the American Senate.

Henceforth, I will keep my weather eye peeled for indications which will bear out conflicting theories I presently have, i.e.:

1) TIME is the mouthpiece of English financial tycoons;

2) TIME is a slick-sheet subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune.

FRED M. SPEAR Marquette, Mich.

P:Or 3) both?--ED.

Only the Dog Loafed

Sirs:

Ed Grebe in TIME [May 20] vents holy ire v. the farmers "who were exempted from fighting to raise food for the country." Ed Grebe should talk with the average articulate farmer and hear his side. Almost all farm boys were inducted eventually. Farmers who remained were generally ineligible--disabled or too old. Hired hands who were ineligible almost all deserted the farms to work in the high-pay defense plants. The farmer had to work twice as hard with broken-down machinery which was irreplaceable, not 8 but 14 or 16 hours a day, his sons in the service, his daughters in the defense plants, his wife on the tractor; only his dog was loafing. . . . Compelling the wheat grower to sell his wheat at an arbitrary price is as unfair as forcing union labor to work at an arbitrary wage of say 80-c- an hour. . . .

B. A. RETLAW

Somerset, Wis.

Courage & Fortitude

Sirs:

Heil Lewis! John L. Lewis [TIME, May 20] is a traitor to his country. ... If [he] is not a conspirator, if he is not restraining trade, if he isn't preventing the normal forces of competition which determine the demand and price which a laborer is able to command on an open market, then I wasted three years in the Army, 22 months overseas, helping restrain a despot who did that very thing. ... If we people will only let it be known how we feel, maybe the proper authorities will screw up their courage to the sticking point and put John L. where he belongs--either in Russia, or behind the bars.

DON J. KROGER Grand Island, Neb.

Sirs:

. . . All a mere housewife can do, I guess, is put out [a] cry of distress and have an oil furnace in the new house she hopes to build, instead of the coal stoker she originally planned. I don't intend to struggle with John L. Lewis every spring--for spring comes once a year. . . .

(MRS.) MARY T. WILSON

New Vernon, N.J.

Sirs:

You are more insidious than the reactionary press of Colonel McCormick, for you parade under the guise of unbiased news reporting. . . .

The article on John L. Lewis was a flagrant case in point: "Paunchy Mr. Lewis is haunted by fat stomachs," but you fail to mention the equally important point that Mine Operator O'Neill is not haunted by them. And Harlan County, Kentucky is tacitly ignored!

WILLIAM L. DARBY

Detroit

Why They Do It

Sirs:

After having read TIME for a number of years, I am inclined to believe most of the LETTERS are written by people who like to see their names in print.

WOODROW J. WELLS

Kansas City, Mo.

P: How's it look?--ED.

In Defense of the Liberators

Sirs:

I am a Frenchwoman [who lived] in France during all the German occupation [and who] saw them in Nice, July 1944, in the middle of the afternoon in front of all the population, hang two young Maqu's men. ... It was with tears in my eyes that I read those terrible words "Odious & Disgusting" [TIME, May 6], criticizing . . . your own boys, liberators, conquerors of all Europe ! With, as you said, only a bar of chocolate to offer, this same G.I. always gave it to an old woman, child or starving girl friend. In Nice 20,000 G.I.s came every week for a rest. They were not so "odious or disgusting"; all of them wanted only to see Mama, Daddy, wife or children again. Believe me, they all knew what they were fighting for.

I am a very lonely woman now, in Europe liberated by those wonderful G.I.s, but also the proud mother-in-law of an American.

(MME.) JULIETTE JOSSELIN

London

Home-Grown Swastika

Sirs:

Before the war criminals have been tried, and while America preaches its doctrines of democracy to a war-weary world . . . the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta, Ga. can advertise publicly, attract a crowd of 2,000, and gain 500 new initiates [TIME, May 20]. How can the fiery cross be considered in any other light than as a home-grown swastika, when it stands for the promotion of racial supremacy? . . .

In Germany when the symptoms showed, the disease was already too far advanced to stop, except by involving a whole world in its course for five years. Now, before our dead are in their final resting places, the beer hall in Munich has moved to Stone Mountain in Georgia.

I am a veteran from the Asiatic-Pacific theater, and I'm tired of war; but not too tired, now or ever, to fight for freedom for myself and all other peoples, at home or abroad. Out there I used a gun; back here I use a pen. Let's dig out our local fascists before we all have to trade our pens in on our guns again!

WELTON I. TAYLOR Urbana, Ill.

Seeds in Moonlight

Sirs:

. . . Whoever wrote that article [reporting that the Department of Agriculture was battling rural superstitions--TIME, May 20] is neither a scientist nor an agriculturist because, whether or not the moon influences the crop yield in general, a full moon can assist in seeding time. The light that comes from the moon is polarized, and seeds germinate better under polarized light. I am unable to quote any authority for this statement. . . .

The rule of three for a successful farmer is "Observe--Remember--Compare"; and farmers have been at it much longer than your "scientific" reporter. . . .

THOMAS W. BARRUS

Lithia, Mass.

P: TIME refers Reader Barrus to the witchcraft section of the Department of Agriculture.--ED.

No Mapper, Parker Sirs:

I sort of resent being charged with napping, the evidence being that Parker Pen has not brought out a ball pen [TIME, May 13]. It's like charging you with napping because the Curtis Publishing Co. brought out a magazine called Holiday and you didn't. Maybe you didn't want to.

Earnings, I think, are still the best way to show how you're doing, and the box score in the pen business for the 12 -month period ending Feb. 28, 1946 was: Net Earnings Before Taxes After Taxes Parker $7,3O1,548.72 $2,331,682.99 Eversharp 5,602,444.56 1,805,444.56 Sheaffer 1,606,946.43 847,460.14 Others Unknown but smaller As long as two years ago, our management realized (between naps) that we could make a quick fast bulge in sales and profits by marketing a ball pen. You don't have to be the seventh son of a seventh son to sell things in a tailwind market, even a pen which has been described as "the only pen that will make eight copies and no original." If & when Parker brings out a ball pen it won't resemble anything now on the market.

This is not the first time the Parker Pen Co. has turned thumbs down on making a lot of easy money. We voluntarily produced many millions of dollars' worth of munitions on a no-profit basis. It's things like that maybe that enable one to take a nap without bad dreams. Also, we want to stay in business another 58 years.

KENNETH PARKER

President

The Parker Pen Co. Janesville, Wis.

Deer, Horses & Fire

Sirs:

... Old "Bring 'Em Back Alive" [Frank Buck, who said: "You never see a deer get burned in a forest fire"--TIME, May 13] is sorely in need of some travel experience of the "See America First" variety. ... In the photographic files of the U.S. Forest Service are scores of official photos of deer carcasses, sometimes shown in heaps--all victims by roasting in forest fires. . . .

It seems to me that because horses are destroyed by barn fires it should not be looked upon as the final answer to the equine's intelligence. It is my guess that if a deer and a horse were side by side during an approaching forest fire, they would both move in the direction of safety. Moreover, many a horse-wise Westerner would probably lay a bet with omniscient Mr. Buck that the horse would be the one that would escape. . . .

MARTIN J. CHICOINE

Washington, D.C.

G.I. Executions

Sirs:

. . . You have a paragraph on Joseph Hicswa [TIME, May 20]. I wish to bring to your attention one sentence with which I can't agree:

"More compelling, Pentagon lawyers could find no precedent of a U.S. serviceman's having been executed for murder or rape of a German or Japanese."

I was with the 2nd Armored Division from start to finish, and recall a number of special orders posted describing the death sentence having been carried out for rape-murder! These orders came from Army command and I have no reason to doubt them. ... It seems to me the Pentagon lawyers can find no precedent in many things we took for granted.

(EX-SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD)

New York City

The official figures: of a total of 141 G.I. executions, one was for repeated desertion, 139 for murder alone, or for rape and murder--all of nationals other than Germans or Japanese.--ED.

Processional

Sirs:

... In selecting a Negro to teach music . . . [Antioch College (TIME, May 20) is] really following a procession. I am told on good authority that within the past five years 40 colleges and universities, which previously had all-white faculties, have added Negro instructors.

. . . We did not choose Mr. Anderson merely because he is a Negro. He seemed to us to possess the best qualifications among some 60 candidates for the position.

A. D. HENDERSON

President Antioch College

Yellow Springs, Ohio

*Reynolds International Pen Co. say that their net earnings after taxes (for six months) were $2,333,149-01 --ED.

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