Tribute
Sir:
I have just had an opportunity to read the article in TIME dealing with the life and death of Mr. Stimson. I felt that I should like to say how well I thought this article dealt with Mr. Stimson's extraordinary career and character.
JOHN J. McCLOY
U.S. High Commissioner for Germany Frankfurt, Germany
Prediction
SIR:
TAFT NOW OUTSTANDING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. THOSE WHO HOPED FOR MAN WITH MORAL STRENGTH TO FACE DOMESTIC ISSUES HONESTLY AND FAIRLY CAN RALLY BEHIND [HIM]. I PREDICT HIS NOMINATION 1952.
LOYAL K. KING PASADENA, CALIF.
A New [gulp] Low?
Sir:
Your Nov. 6 cover story on the disgusting L'l Abner is certainly a record new low of some sort. . .
R. ROBERT MASTERS Santa Barbara, Calif.
Sir:
Al Capp is certainly a genius. Li'l Abner is a satire comparable to Gulliver's Travels.
ED FLANAGAN
Patchogue, N.Y.
Sir:
Place of honor to Al Capp might have been justified as a depressing example of what our moronic majority feeds on and demands. Instead you appear to deem the pictures artistic, the tortured slapdash stories breathtaking, the primitive jargon and stupid misspellings sidesplitting. You are awed by that $300,000 a year, rather than appalled by the discrepancy between it and the earnings of scientists, researchers, technicians and others of real achievement. It's not your Capp cover and story I object to, it's your enthusiasm over juvenile trash for grownups.
JOHN HARWOOD BACON
Jacksonville, Fla.
. . . The steady stream of gruesome faces, themes, smells, planets, and animals overpowers me ... Why do I keep reading it? I like to annoy myself.
M. J. PALMER Royal Oak, Mich.
Sir:
This gung be short pome from slobbering
fan You nogoodnicks rawng 'bout Half-Cent-chery Man
Painter, shmainter! He's a (gasp) Tory too Finest Hour don't rate with the tale of the
Shmoo
The cigar is lawng, and the face is strawng But Fosdick's is lawnger, and Li'l Abner's
(natcherly) strawnger So Churchill hokay in a seer ius way But a (sob) laff is more needed by pipple
today So for Gootch, Scragg and McSwine, his
neffews and nieces Caps off to Capp -- We luf him to pieces.
RUDY ERTISCHEK East Lansing, Mich.
Clean Sweep
SIR:
... I MADE NO STATEMENT TO INDICATE THAT I ORDERED THE THREE MINESWEEPERS OF MINE DIVISION 32 TO TURN BACK [TIME, Oct. 30]. I DID NOT AT ANY TIME ORDER THEM TO TURN BACK. THE MINESWEEPERS HAD CUT THEIR WAY THROUGH MORE THAN 18 PERILOUS MILES OF MINED ENEMY WATERS BEFORE THE "PIRATE" AND "PLEDGE" WERE MINED. LIEUT. COMMANDER BRUCE HYATT HANDLED HIS SHIPS THROUGHOUT WITH SUPERLATIVE BRAVERY, COOLNESS AND SKILL.
RICHARD T. SPOFFORD
COMMANDER VIA U.S. NAVY HEADQUARTERS
P: TIME likes Commander Spofford's version better than the Associated Press's, which TIME used. -- ED.
Canadian Credit
Sir:
Your story of the victory of the U.S. team in the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden [TIME, Nov. 13] omits a point which I think adds to the story.
Gentleman Farmer Arthur McCashin of Pluckemin, N.J., who assisted greatly in the victory, rode twelve-year-old Paleface, on loan to him from Mr. and Mrs. H. J. O'Connell of Montreal. On a visit to the O'Connells last summer, McCashin took a fancy to the animal, rode him, was convinced of his merit. He took him to his Pluckemin home for further training, successfully put him through eliminations to pick the U.S. team, and the grueling three-day competition.
The U.S. won, but credit at least one-third of the victory to a Canadian-owned horse.
G. J. FITZGERALD Montreal, Quebec
Man of the Year?
Sir:
There are two Men of the Year who stand side by side in making the biggest news: 1) President Truman, 2) General Douglas MacArthur.
NATHANIEL RUTHERFORD Cincinnati
Sir:
... I nominate Warren Austin, of whom all Vermont as well as the Western world is proud. At a critical moment when the U.N. needed new life and hope, Warren Austin gave it in his courageous stand against the Russians and in his typical Vermont way of telling the truth bluntly.
VREST ORTON
Weston, Vt.
... I nominate the greatest criminal in history, the man who stole nearly two whole continents and killed 13 million persons with his ideology: "Handlebar Joe" Stalin.
PFC. E. ROGER FURBUR Trieste, Italy
Sir:
. . . General Douglas MacArthur . . . ROBERT G. EARTH
Mattapan, Mass.
Luscious Strings
Sir:
. . Will you kindly do something for me? Take your Art writer out of that "smaller office on the Northwest (or Montana) corner of the TIME & LIFE Building" [TIME Letters, Nov. 6], and install your Music writer, who reported on Sir Thomas Beecham's rendition of Mozart's Symphony No. 41: ". . . the strings were firmer and not quite so luscious as U.S. strings, not so dry and nasal as the French" [TIME, Nov. 6].
May I point out that they were not so sweaty as the South African, not as beefy as the Argentine . . .
And those cliches: "bounding score," "tone of pure gold," "polished performance" . . .
LEWIS WILLIAMS Philadelphia
P: TIME'S Music editor has already been moved to the West-Northwest corner, and his office is about to be soundproofed.--ED.
Naked Truth
Sir:
In your Oct. 2 issue you published an Acme photo showing naked North Korean P.W.s under the watching eyes of a Marine, stripped as a precaution against hidden weapons . . .
I thought you would be interested in a similar picture appearing in the Sept. 24 issue of the central Hungarian Communist daily, Szabad Nep. The Communist explanation runs as follows: "According to the Geneva international agreement, P.W.s must be treated humanely, they must not be deprived of their personal belongings and must be provided with proper clothing and footgear. The imperialist troops, murderers of thousands of the peaceful Korean people, scornfully disdain the most elementary rules of humanity as well as international agreements. This picture shows an American soldier driving along previously stripped Korean P.W.s."
For people who are not familiar with Communist propaganda methods, this should clearly indicate the way the Communists work . . .
Louis HALASZ Salzburg, Austria
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