Sober Mood
Sir:
Your analysis of the public's sober mood about Korea [TIME, Aug. 14] is all bone and sinew, no fat. What's more, after much traveling lately, I feel sure it is in essence accurate. I think I detect in our country a fine latent dignity and seriousness which I was frankly not so sure of a few months ago.
I recently visited a Southern town where the local American Legion pranksters had brought out all their bags of tricks--40 & 8 locos, hotfoots and all the rest. The poor guys had probably scheduled their jamboree before Korea, since you have to do those things a long way ahead of time. Result: empty streets and stores, closed shutters, raised eyebrows or shrugs among the few pedestrians watching. When will Washington catch up?
ARTHUR TUCKERMAN New York City
Sir:
. . . Somebody better tell Congress to stop worrying about reelection, vote universal military service and put every munitions factory to work full blast--or a seat in Congress won't be worth a damn anyway. Somebody better tell the legislative and executive departments of this Government to begin to work together or we will soon have commissars to run the whole works . . .
I am only one of the millions of American citizens who think that our country is really in a hell of a fix ... Talk about getting peace through the U.N. now sounds as unrealistic as the Crittenden Compromise* at the opening of the Civil War. Today we need a Churchill to call us to our battle stations with promises of nothing better than blood, sweat, toil and tears . . .
W.T.DAVIS
Lincoln, Neb.
Whew!
Sir:
Cora Carlyle's advice to women [on how to get a husband--TIME, Aug. 14] was the last straw. Such advice has spawned unhappy marriages from coast to coast, and helped produce the awful thing: a woman without dignity, honor, or truth.
I hope Cora is working on a companion article: "How to Get a Divorce Fast" . . .
NONA LINTON AGUILAR Wilmette, III.
Sir:
I have just read your "Strawberries, Blueberries & Men." Whew!
Do Miss Carlyle's editors and publishers actually believe intelligent women will pay serious attention to this . . .?
Still, her theories should provide a great many laughs . . .
ANN DANFIELD
Emngham, 111.
Sir:
Cora Carlyle [TiME, Aug. 14] may believe in marriage . . . but she certainly doesn't believe in men . . .
One suspects that Cora will not be the girl to write that all-important sequel, "How to Hold a Husband."
LILLIAN J. CRAWFORD New York City
Railroad to Nowhere
Sir:
The following extract is from one of my husband's letters [he is a Transportation Corps major in Korea]:
". . . TIME, of all publications, succumbed to Korean logic in concocting the war map in its July 31st issue. You will note that it shows a railway leading from Pohang north along the coast through Yongdok. Thereby hangs a tale.
"The Japanese laid the bed for a railway, completing numerous tunnels and erecting all the masonry work for the required bridges. Then came 1945, and they moved out. Of course the Koreans intended to complete it, and like the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado, it seemed logical therefore to include it on the maps they made up in honor of the new republic. Furthermore, they even included train schedules for this line in their master timetables. Actually, not a rail has been laid . . ."
NAN D. SPEIR Westhampton Beach, L.I., N.Y. P:TIME'S map department, also informed by the National Geographic Society that the railroad does not exist, will henceforth regard its Japanese and Korean source maps with skepticism.--ED.
A Man in ihe Yard
Sir:
In the Aug. 14 article on Daniel French's sculptures, I notice that the statue of John Harvard has been moved from its customary position in front of University Hall and placed in front of Memorial Hall, a hideous but charming edifice at the north end of Harvard Yard . . .
CLINTON B. TOWNSEND JR. Harvard '50 New York City
Sir:
. . . French's statue of John Harvard seems to be behind Memorial Hall, where the only thing he could contemplate philanthropically is the motorman of the Arlington local.
In my experience he always "sat" before University Hall, staring with weathered disdain through the ranks of callow youths dragging themselves into the deans' offices . . .
FREDERICK W. ROLOFF New York City
P:Because pictures of the statue taken before it was moved (in 1907) showed French's work better than later pictures, TIME decided to ignore the direction of his philanthropical contemplation.--ED.
Unsung Heroes
Sir:
I have been following, with great interest, your reporting of the Korean war, and for the most part, I believe that as usual, TIME is doing a creditable job . . . [However] I feel that insufficient credit has been given to 1) the South Korean army, and 2) that forgotten group of American soldiers, the Korean Military Advisory Group.
The South Korean army, against overwhelming odds, and with no armor, no fighter or bomber aircraft, and no artillery larger than the obsolete M-3 105-mm. howitzer, put up a gallant stand once it had recovered from the initial shock of the Communist attack . . . Under strength and fighting continuously since the morning of June 25, underestimated and looked down upon initially by their American comrades-in-arms, ignored by 90% of the correspondents covering the Korean war, these South Korean troops have written the first pages of their country's military history in a way that will make future generations proud of them.
The Korean Military Advisory Group, composed of fewer than 500 officers and men, have been . . . working, living and fighting side by side with their Korean counterparts. These men have provided the tactical and technical advice so desperately needed by the fledgling Korean army . . . Denied decorations by the high comrnand because they are not a combat organization . . . these men, along with the Korean army, are the unsung heroes of the Korean "Police Action."
JAMES D. HOLLAND Major, U.S.A.
Korean Military Advisory Group Korea
Nice Pussy
Sir:
Thank you very much for printing the letter from the American Feline Society, Inc. [TIME, Aug. 7] ... I am delighted to know that the members of this society have dedicated their "lives, energies and resources to dispel old wives' tales and folklore inimical to this noble creature."
At this writing I am out more than a dozen young robins, several baby quail, two young phoebes, all killed and eaten by these noble creatures at my summer home in Montauk, N.Y. There are one or two of these noble creatures around my grounds early in the morning and just at dusk, and I wish the American Feline Society, Inc. would come and take them away . . .
HARRY BRUNO
New York City
*A proposal made by Kentucky's Senator John Crittenden to restore the Missouri Compromise line and allow new states to decide the question of slavery for themselves, maintain interstate commerce in slaves, and provide federal compensation to owners of slaves freed by violence.
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