Vinegarish Report Sir:
I have always held the reporting in TIME as something to be used as the final court of information in any discussion of current events or personalities. However, the issue of April 5 certainly presents a distorted review ' of General Stilwell's historical notes which appear in the current issue of Ladies' Home Journal. . . .
AARON COX Cicero, Ill.
< Only time can tell whether TIME'S or Reader Cox's view is distorted.--ED.
Sir:
Your vinegarish report on General Joseph W. Stilwell moves me to quote a bit from the Bard:
The evil that men do lives after them: The good is oft interred with their bones.
CHRISTOPHER BLACK Shawnee, Okla.
Sir:
Your article . . . perpetrates a grave injustice to the memory of a forthright and honest man. . . .
Chennault's refutation of General Stilwell's record is emasculated in its own turn by the fact that . . . [he] presently makes a very handsome living from the operation of an airline which lifts relief supplies for the Chinese government. It is not likely that he would jeopardize his livelihood by voicing anything but fulsome praise for Chiang. . . .
General Stilwell, as his memoirs manifest, was neither polemicist nor stylist, but in his own unembellished manner he has expressed the very acute problem which remains to plague us even at the present. How may we, in our anxiety to triumph over an enemy, insure that we do not become identified with an equally reprehensible and unregenerate ally ? The current issue over Communism has come down to us from the wartime practices in which we sought to strengthen an ally now become an enemy. . . .
The memoirs should be regarded as a further but redundant demonstration that a policy of sound principle and sober purpose ultimately will prove of more avail than one of protean extremism. . . .
H. HANDLEY CLOUTIER
Cambridge, Mass.
Bunk or Bunkers?
Sir:
Your article on the coal strike states: "In Wilmington, N.C., 15 Liberty ships, loaded with food and fuel for Italy, remained tied up at the docks. No coal." [TIME, April 5.]
If those ships are waiting for coal as fuel for Italy, OK. If it's for fuel for the ships themselves, they'll rust at the docks. Liberty ships . . . are oil-burners.
N. LEONARD WENER Dayton, Ohio
Sir:
. . . Tsk, tsk! . . .
LIEUT. (J.G.) PAUL O'CONNOR U.S.N.
Monterey, Calif.
> Tsk to Readers Wener and O'Connor. Those 15 "Fort Type" Liberty ships (built in Canada for the U.S. in the early days of the war) are indeed coal-burners.--ED.
The Invocation of Purity
Sir:
We have been astonished by your comments on the French film Farrebique [TIME, March 15]. We considered the film boring, indefensible. . . .
By despising the picturesque and invoking purity, one could eulogize anything: an empty bottle floating in the gutter, litter swept by the wind. It's too easy.
AMADEO LEGUA Paris, France
> On the contrary, TIME considers it so hard that only the best artists ever bring it off.--ED.
Leave Us Alone
Sir:
Can it be possible that two cities in the U.S. have declared similar "Leave Us Alone Weeks"?
This seems to be the case in your April 5 issue. In your Miscellany column, you reported: "In Wichita, city commissioners scheduled seven new fund-raising drives, suppressed a move .by Commissioner L. A. Donnell to proclaim a "Leave Us Alone Week." In [National Affairs] you reported that merchants in Douglas, Ga. (pop.: 10,000), irked by a spate of fund-raising drives, announced that they would observe a Leave Us Alone Week.
Is it possible?--Two cities with but a sin--gle thought?
JACK C. POPE Utica, N.Y.
> I Yes. Maybe it's a trend.--ED.
Sweeten, and Add Water
Sir:
AMAZED TO READ UNDER "SUGAR" [TIME, APRIL 5] THAT WE DISTRIBUTE A PIDDLING 400 MILLION GALLONS OF WATER ANNUALLY.
WE ACTUALLY DISTRIBUTE 70 BILLION GALLONS ANNUALLY THROUGH OUR DITCH SYSTEM. TIME READERS MAY BE SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT ... IT TAKES APPROXIMATELY 140 BILLION GALLONS OF IRRIGATION WATER ANNUALLY FOR HAWAIIAN COMMERCIAL & SUGAR CO. TO PRODUCE 135,000 TONS OF SUGAR; THAT is 518 GALLONS OR OVER TWO TONS OF WATER (NOT INCLUDING RAINFALLS) TO GROW A POUND OF SUGAR.
ROBERT BRUCE
Manager
East Maui Irrigation Co. Paia, Maui, Hawaii
More About Matisse
Sir:
Thanks for putting those colored "art" pictures right in the center of TIME [April 5]. I was easily able to tear them out and up without harming my magazine.
MARGUERITE LEFEBVRE Montreal, Que.
Sir:
The article on Matisse was excellent. I was agreeably surprised to see such a lavish display of color reproductions. . . .
ALBERT CRISP
Chicago, Ill.
Sir:
. . . The primitive forms of art on which Matisse draws for inspiration were made by mankind on its way up; let's hope these modern forms are not phases through which we are passing on the way down.
GEORGE GLEASON Lincoln Park, NJ.
Sir: Of all the impossible, crummy things. . . .
REEVES WARM Staunton, Va.
Sir:
Thank you for the lovely Matisse prints. I hope this sort of thing becomes a regular TIME feature.
ARNOLD ZEILER Brooklyn, N.Y.
Sir:
Barnum advanced the theory that a sucker is born every minute. Matisse proves it.
JOHN A. ROME Baton Rouge, La.
Coincidence
Sir:
The firm, J. A. Quinn & Co., Ltd., Import and Export Agents, with offices in Vancouver, Canada . . . New York, U.S.A. [etc.] wish to disclaim any knowledge, relation, or association with the John Quinn mentioned under Foreign Trade-[TIME, April 5].
It is unfortunate indeed that a coincidence both in name and occupation has occurred. . . .
J. A. QUINN & Co., LTD. G. O. Basil Hackett Vancouver, B.C.
Sales Talk
Sir:
Your article "10-c- a Tooth" [TIME, March 29] has aroused more interest in sodium fluoride treatment for children than all the talking I have been doing the past year.
I now keep a copy of that issue open on the table of my waiting room. . . .
SHELDON G. BAHOFF, D.D.S. Philadelphia, Pa.
Food for Thought
Sir:
After reading your article "Not Enough to Eat" [TIME, March 29], I couldn't help remembering the three years . . . that I spent inside various Japanese prison camps.
You state that the [conscientious objectors who made the tests, living on 1,570 calories a day for six months] took great care to guard their place in the chow line. I can remember how we used to jockey for that place in the chow line where the servers realized that there was enough rice to go around and would start "hitting" a little heavier, yet not too far back in the line should the rice begin running short. . . .
The facts as stated in the article are so accurate, and follow so closely the pattern that I experienced, that I want to thank you for reminding me how wonderful it is to be alive in a country where food is plentiful. BEVERLY N. SKARDON Major, G.S.C. Governors Island, N.Y.
Who's Who in the G.O.P.
Sir:
Congratulations on the start of your clear, concise [reports] on the Republican candidates [TIME, April 5, et seq.] . . . .
VIRGINIA H. CHARLTON
Portland, Me.
Sir:
I'll wager that many Texans are bawling like wounded steers. . . .
I am under the impression that Beauford H. Jester is the Governor of "the nation's biggest state," Texas, not Tom Dewey.
CHARLES T. TRIMMER Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Sir:
... I take it you meant to convey that New York is the most populated state.
RAY A. LAJOIE
Island Creek, Mass.
P: Yes (pop.: 12,584,913 v. Texas 6,786,740).--ED.
Independent
Sir:
. . . The American Academy of General Practice was not organized by the American Medical Association [TIME, April 12]. The American Academy of General Practice is a national organization independent of the American Medical Association.
PAUL A. DAVIS, M.D.
President
American Academy of General Practice Akron, Ohio
Golden Words
Sir:
Rarely has a piece of reporting affected me as much as did your "Age of Love" [TIME, March 22].
I found myself reading Father Lombardi's words a second time, and a third. Would that his message could be brought to everyone, everywhere. Better still, that we all would take his simple, golden words* into our hearts.
My deepest gratitude for bringing to me a gleam of hope that somehow man will emerge from the black night now creeping over him.
CYRIL ASTLEY Belmont, Manitoba
* That Quinn was mixed up in a forged export license inquiry.--ED.
* "For five centuries men have tried to make the world fit for heroes. The result is that angry individualism and angry collectivism stand growling at each other. . . .
"Woe to the rich man who does not hear the call. Woe to the poor man who angrily nourishes hate and dreams of violence. . . . The age of love is approaching.
"Let us all unite . . . with our determination to destroy egoism in ourselves, also all vainglory and selfishness. . . . Let us love again. . . . Do not listen to demagogues who preach class hate. It leads only to tyranny. . . ."
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.