Motto for Americans?

Sirs:

Allow me to applaud your answer to Rev. Otis Moore [TIME, Letters July 8]: "Hate nobody--but keep your eyes peeled."

I think that would make an excellent motto for Americans. So many of us pray: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," and then use up all the rest of our time hating. Hating the Negroes, George III, the Jews, capital, labor, Russia and any other person or nation which we know only through prejudice. The result seems to be that we have no energy or time left to approach our real problems intelligently.

And what a lot of forgiveness we deny ourselves.

EUNICE M. JOHNSON

Hanover, N.H.

Rights & Duties

Sirs:

Attending a Yale commencement for the first time in many years, I was pleased by a new note. In the old days, the president used to say as he gave out each degree: "I admit you to all its rights and privileges." At this commencement, President Seymour in awarding degrees said solemnly: "I remind you of its duties and admit you to its rights."

Grand! In our democratic society there is no place for privileges. And it is highly important that in taking our rights we fully accept the duties and responsibilities that go with them.

EDWIN R. EMBREE

Chicago

Words & Music

Sirs:

In your issue of July 8 . . . you say: "Lie's address was embedded in a garland of music, including the Polonaise Militaire in A Major, and the Song of Free Nations set to Mark Van Doren's Song of One World."

Come, come, TIME. . . . That particular bit of orchestration cost me four nights of sleep. If you name the author of the text, couldn't you also name the composer, so that my friends and enemies will know where to throw the posies or a dead cat?

HARL MCDONALD

Manager

The Philadelphia Orchestra Assn.

Philadelphia

P: Let sleepless Target McDonald prepare to dodge or catch.--ED.

In a Relative Way

Sirs:

It seems true, as you say, that most people will never understand more about Relativity than is told by the limerick quoted in the Einstein article [TIME, July 1]. It is not true, however, that the author will refrain from turning over in his grave should you continue to misquote it.

There was a young lady named Bright,

Whose speed was far faster than light;

She went out one day,

In a relative way,

And returned home the previous night.

This is the correct version as quoted to me by its author, [the late] Professor A. H. Reginald Buller, F.R.S., etc., etc., onetime professor of botany at the University of Manitoba. . . . This world authority on fungi found enough time . . . to write many such light verses, some of which were inspired by what he saw through a high-power lens. Not a little of this time was spent in trying to get credit for the above, which first appeared over his name in Punch. In his own words: "I don't mind the credit going to Bishops, Wits, Established Authors and even that finest of English writers, Anon, but I do wish they'd get the last line right and preserve the alliteration in the second!"

T. W. TWEED

Toronto, Ont.

Sirs:

. . . You may be interested in seeing the sequel to Relativity, also composed by Dr. Buller, which runs as follows:

To her friends said the Bright One in

chatter,

"I have learned something new about

matter:

My speed was so great,

Much increased was my weigh,

Yet I failed to become any fatter!"

You can see that this also brings out an important property of the theory of relativity. . . .

ALASTAIR CAMERON

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Three Catholic Denominations

Sirs:

. . . In the June 24 issue . . . three Catholic denominations? . . .

For over 1900 years there has been only one Catholic denomination. The Catholic Church has as its visible head His Holiness, the Pope, whose proclamations on matters of faith and morals are infallible. The word "Catholic" means "universal" and throughout the world there is ONE CATHOLIC CHURCH! Any variation, namely the two to which you refer, are not Catholic denominations! It would bring your Protestant count to 202! . . .

MRS. DORMAN B. TURNIPSEED

Fresno, Calif.

P: Though Roman Catholics may, TIME does not count Orthodox Catholics and Old Catholics as Protestants. --ED.

To Serve, Not Win

Sirs:

Dr. Morrison's Protestant protest against Roman Catholicism as being "a threat to America itself" [TIME, July 8] indicates a definite ignorance in the matter of the American Catholic and his religion.

He speaks of the Catholic "submissiveness" as being the broad base of Catholic power in the U.S. GAD!! Does he really believe we Catholics are such a powerful political force? Doesn't he remember Alfred E. Smith, a REAL American Catholic, and how the "powerful" Catholic vote DID NOT sweep Smith into the presidency?

The very title of his articles: "Can Protestantism Win America?" is essentially wrong. Protestants . . . and Catholics . . . are here to serve, not win, America.

GEORGE J. VANHEE

Seattle

War Risk

Sirs:

I hate war. . . . I hated combat. . . . I hate the prospect of another war, but I have learned something since 1941.

Haven't we all learned from letting Hitler march into the Ruhr, from Munich, from many another failure that the best way to get into a big war is to go too far in trying to avoid a smaller one?

Russia is so obviously insincere, so plainly not playing the game with U.N. that I want to see her forced to back down, even at risk of war in the near future. I should like to see our military establishment rebuilt at once to show that there is a limit to what we will take and that that limit is not much beyond where we are right now.

For my part, I'll take the risk of being called to active duty, perhaps to combat. Are there not thousands & thousands like me?

PAUL C. HAWKINS

1st Lieutenant, O.R.C. Air Corps

Eustis, Fla.

Little Magazine (Adv.)

Sirs:

In appreciating your review of "The Little Magazine" [TIME, July 1], I must express regret . . . that you managed inadvertently to give the impression that Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, died with the passing of devoted Founder Harriet Monroe in 1936. Won't you tell your readers that Poetry not only continues [but] to a larger subscription list than ever? . . . Poetry is still published in its same home in Chicago . . . "232 E. Erie."

WILLIAM A. BREWER

Chicago

P: Monthly; $3 a year.--ED.

Worthless Weapon?

Sirs:

[The atomic energy] proposals advanced by the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. reflect not so much divergent ideologies as the different stages of the development of atomic energy in the two countries. Were the positions reversed [and] the U.S.S.R. had the bomb the Russians might well have proposed a plan along the lines of the Baruch report; it s not as magnanimous as it sounds. And the Americans undoubtedly would have rejected

The U.S., having belatedly discovered that possession of the bomb is only a temporary asset, and utterly worthless as a weapon of diplomacy, is now trying to cash it in for something more permanent and substantial--the abolition of Russia's veto. But it is idle to suppose that the U.S.S.R. can be stampeded into such a deal, when they know: 1) that nothing can possibly happen to them for refusing; we are not going to use the bomb for the next five or ten years in any event; 2 ) by that time they will also have the bomb.

Only when that time comes will they be ready to negotiate with us. Their plan will then seem eminently fair and reasonable and the Senate will be happy to accept the proposal since it in no way impairs the sovereignty of either nation. .

(REV.) DAVID NOEL FREEDMAN

Baltimore

Austin's Renfros

Sirs:

In your July 1 issue you report the purchase of the Renfro chain in Texas by United-Rexall Drug Inc.

The stores that were purchased by United-Rexall Drug Inc. were those owned and operated by the E. T. Renfro Drug Co. of Fort Worth. As our company, the Renfro Drug Co., Inc., is still operating 13 stores in the state of Texas, we would appreciate a . . . mention of this fact. Like the Fort Worth organization, we are Rexall dealers but all units in our group are Texas-owned and operated.

JOE F. RENFRO JR.

Renfro Drug Co., Inc.

President

Austin, Texas

Imperial Symposium

Sirs:

Mr. Loeb "thinks that living in a Wright-designed house will be worth a little inconvenience" [TIME, July 1]. Why "little"? If it is any relation to the celebrated Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Mr. Loeb's bazink will be replete with inconveniences. . . .

The Imperial's sleepless rooms are a tight symposium of cubes and hexagons, an epidemic of shallow drawers, a rash of unpainted knobs, an aurora of burnished copper. The bed (in the room I occupied) was a grass-fed sarcophagus. . . . The capacious copper wash basin made me feel that I was usurping the rights of the turnips at a steam-table lunch counter, and the light was directed at such an angle that I could shave myself successfully only between the shoulder blades. . . .

Hl SIBLEY

Nuevo, Calif.

The Only Haven

Sirs:

As I read TIME for July 1 I became progressively depressed. . . .

Senator Bilbo seems to be assured of reelection next November because a majority of his constituents continue to believe in the "master race" theory. . . . The "Big Four" foreign ministers find little to agree about except the excellence of French champagne. . . . There is danger of war in Palestine. . Hungary is desperately hungry and gripped by a destructive inflation. . . . China remains a house divided. "Operation Crossroads" is . . . the crowning achievement of centuries of scientific research--a way to end civilization quickly but painfully. Dr. Einstein believes in God . . . and considers Him impotent.

But finally I came across three pages which lifted my feeling of despair. TIME'S Religion department assures me that there is still reason to hope. Methodist Pastor Safran has the courage to speak out against the . . . racial bigotry which we in the North practice. The Church of England actually has more applicants for religious training than it has vacancies. A fighting Protestant Irishman has gotten hard-bitten policemen to act like "gentlemen." Japanese Christians predict a tenfold increase in their ranks. And TIME says that "the greatest writing in human history has been religious writing. . . ." A wonderful department, indeed! . . .

In a world gone mad, religion, as always, provides the only haven. Its therapeutic powers may not be so consistently advertised as those of Mothersill's Seasick Remedy; but those of us who have sampled this medicine know that it is the only ultimate source of sanity, hope, and peace.

MELVIN E. SCHOONOVER

Monon, Ind.

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