The Devil
Sirs:
... I wish to give an Atheist's answer to the point of view presented by Msgr. Sheen in ... his broadcast [TIME, Feb. 3].
The claim made by the gentleman is that Liberalism is dying, allegedly because such Liberalism requires a moral basis which it is unable to create or maintain. This is absolutely false. The ideas of goodness in the broader sense are not the exclusive property of, or even result of, religion. The basic ideas of decent and cooperative behavior are but the inevitable product of intelligent people who wish to live together in harmony.
... In an unreligious society there is no cessation of judgment as to what is right and what is wrong. Such judgments are made, however, not out of fear of some mysterious supernatural unknown, but for the sake of the right action itself. . . .
FRED KUEHNDORF JR.
Scarsdale, N.Y.
Sirs:
Historical Liberalism dying! Rather, "Modern man in his loneliness and frustration" is hungering for membership in a community that will give him "enlargement of purpose" which nearly 2,000 years of historical Catholicism has been unable to satisfy.
To decry as "the ape of God" all those who do not hew to the party.line is ecclesiastical dictatorship at its apogee. . . .
RUTH M CRAIG
Erie, Pa.
Sirs:
What Msgr. Sheen is describing is not the dawn of the religious phase of human history, but a retrogression to the era of the persecuting bigot and the inquisitor. . . .
JOSEPH V.THOMAS
Columbus, Ohio
Sirs:
As a Unitarian ... I take personal offense. . . .
The liberal religion of humanitarians has given to the world the great works of such men & women as Horace Mann, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, Thomas Jefferson, Peter Cooper. . . .
Just look around you, Msgr. Sheen, at some of your Catholic countries--Mexico, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, etc., where ignorance, squalor, pogroms, ghettos, persecution and the Roman Catholic Church rule. . . .
JEAN H. MASSIMO
New York City
Sirs:
After careful consideration of the excerpts from Msgr. Sheen's address, I have come to the conclusion that I am the Devil. What do I do now?
CRANE C. HAUSER
Chicago
Ans.
Sirs:
Now that we have all enjoyed guessing, are you going to tell us or do we have to wait for your quarterly quiz? The question is, did Marshall tell Chiang of his new appointment [TIME, Jan. 20, p. 21], or was Ambassador Stuart the only one who knew it [p. 34] ?
BART NELSON
Stockton, Calif.
P:I The shamefaced answer: TIME was wrong on p. 21, right on p.34.--ED.
Flatbush Exception Sirs:
Just beyond the outskirts of the Brooklyn community known as Flatbush--but geographically in a section called Crown Heights --there happen to be a few acres of ground called Ebbets Field. Undoubtedly, certain sport-minded residents are interested in what goes on there. But there is a widespread impression that not only Flatbush but all of Brooklyn is merely an extension of that ball park. TIME is one of the worst offenders in disseminating that humiliating propaganda.
"Nobody in Flatbush," smirks your issue [Feb. 3], "blamed Leo and Laraine for flying to Juarez, Mexico, to get her a second divorce with no strings attached, or for driving back to El Paso to be married." In other words, the Hollywood, irresponsible, matrimonial philosophy is sanctioned blithely in Flatbush! . . .
Flatbush is a fairly prosperous middle-class residential community made up for the most part of marriage-respecting, law-abiding families. The Dodgers' manager may be a hero to certain thousands of Brooklyn's three million, but an amazing preponderance of the residents are serenely unconcerned about the arrogant gentleman's penny romance.
JANET S. ALTSHULER
Brooklyn
P:TIME notes the exception, hastily qualifies its flat statement about Flat-bush--which it still believes, nevertheless, is not really boined up about Leo and Laraine.--ED.
Fault?
Sirs:
The caption over the item concerning William Tatem Tilden II [TIME, Jan. 27] read "Fault!" Would it not have been more appropriately "Fault?"
I wonder how long it will take before the progressive, scientifically developed peoples of the r world will be able to distinguish between the criminal and the diseased and will treat each group individually. I doubt sincerely if Judge Scott's method of cure --nine months in jail and then five years of probation--will prove very effective.
Since alcoholism has been regarded realistically, as the disease that it is ... there has been an encouraging percentage of cases cured. There seems little doubt that sexual abnormalities could also be more effectively handled by physicians and psychiatrists. . . .
DONALD F. HUGHES
Syracuse, N. Y.
Lightning Strike
Sirs:
Re the footnote to your article, "The Colonel Takes a Trip" [TIME, Jan. 27], in which you describe the monument commemorating the decisive battle for our independence at Yorktown, Virginia . . . the statue [of Liberty] which tops the marble shaft is no longer what your researcher would have you believe. In fact, the "arms outstretched," as well as the head once no doubt held high, have vanished having been struck by lightning some years ago. . . .
MRS. A. D. VAN NOSTRAND
Cambridge, Mass.
P:Herewith Liberty's head and miscellaneous fragments, knocked from the monument in 1942.--ED.
Shades of Junius
Sirs:
What a relief to get back to TIME again after years of our British cap-touching, bootlicking press, cowed into the "everyone is so wonderful" line by our hush-hush libel and slander law.
As an old journalist, it is such a welcome change to read again what another journalist really thinks of something or someone else. . . .
They are so busy here watching to see that they don't damage someone else's racket (polite English: vested interest), that they never manage to say anything genuine at all. Criticism, literary, music, etc., is largely a farce since the good old English full-throated invective has been driven underground by the lawyers. Shades of Steele, Addison, and Junius. . . .
MAYNARD GREVILLE
Dunmow, Essex, England
Whose North Stars?
Sirs:
. . . TIME [Feb. 3] stated that "Canadian Vickers Ltd. has produced only five North Stars [airplanes] at an estimated cost of $16,000,000 to the Canadian Government." Canadian Vickers Ltd. has never had anything to do with the manufacture of North Stars.
Canadian Vickers Ltd. built the [Montreal] factory for the Government to manufacture Catalina aircraft during the war. Canadian Vickers Ltd. discontinued its aircraft operations on Nov. u, 1944, and has had nothing to do with the operation of the factory since that time.
Canadian Vickers Ltd. has not had any interest in Canadair Ltd., which has operated the factory since November 1944. . . .
T. R. McLAGAN
Vice President & General Manager
Montreal
P:For a misinterpretation of a news dispatch, TIME'S apologies to Canadian Vickers Ltd., manufacturers of ships, engines, boilers and general engineering products, but not airplanes. -- ED.
Les Soeurs Marx
Sirs:
With all due respect to Louis Untermeyer, who [TIME, Jan. 27] is quoted as saying, "There are ... no Marx Sisters," I would refer him to Les Soeurs Marx (The Marx Sisters) by Louisa May Alcott.
Elliot Paul, in The Last Time I Saw Paris, says of Les Soeurs Marx: "To American readers this requires a word of explanation. Little Women, translated directly into French as Petites Femmes, would have a meaning which would have distressed Louisa May, of Concord, Mass. The Frenchman of the street confused the name 'March' (the family name of Miss Alcott's Little Women) with Marx, made famous in France as elsewhere by the inimitable Groucho, Harpo and Chico. So Little Women was named The Marx Sisters, and was believed by many purchasers, who were later disappointed, to have the zany qualities which have become synonymous with America's distinguished comedians."
AUBREY J. HALTER
Winnipeg, Canada
Just an Opportunity
Sirs:
You are to be complimented on your mention of Douglas Moore's article in the Saturday Review of Literature [TIME, Jan. 27], Professor Moore's remarks are quite generally shared throughout the country by all professional musicians who know what is going on. That we continue to debate about the American composer, or to discuss the virtues of opera in English, or to give these many ridiculous prizes to Americans, are all evidence of national infantilism. . . .
Our musical system is as monopolistic as anything we have ever had, and no less venal. It discourages all sincerity and genuine accomplishment, and encourages pretention, charlatanry, and vulgarity. . . .
ERNST BACON
Director of the School of Music
Syracuse University
Syracuse, N.Y.
Sirs:
The article about Douglas Moore was most interesting in its comments about American music. There was one statement, however, which I feel would justify further elucidation: "It is dollars to doughnuts that the conductor, preferably a foreigner. . . ."
We in Los Angeles take pride in two facts -- that Alfred Wallenstein, music director and conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, is American-born (Chicago); and that he has during his first four seasons here established some sort of record in presenting American works and artists, not only for the first time on the West Coast, but in many instances for the first time in the United States. . . .
WILFRID L. DAVIS Manager
The Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles Los Angeles
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