The Forgotten
Sir:
It was a pleasant surprise to find in TIME for Oct. 1 the report from the Middle East on the forgotten Arab refugees. Too long has this situation been neglected, leading to deterioration not only in the physical and moral condition of the Arab refugees but also of our international relations . . .
PAUL B. FREELAND Presbyterian Board of World Missions Nashville
Sir: . . . Courageous article . . .
RUBY E. TAYLOR
San Francisco
Sir:
. . . Accurate and timely . . . Last year I visited ten or a dozen of these refugee camps. Your description is a mild understatement of the true conditions.
W. HAROLD DENISON New Haven, Conn.
... I have read with interest and mixed feelings your article entitled "The Forgotten." . . . [It] does not present all the facts . . . You have not pointed to the fact that the Arabs, defying the U.N. partition of Palestine, invaded Israel . . . The Arab propaganda machine bid Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes . . . Helping this situation along was the fact that the British pulled their garrisons out of Haifa and Jaffa a month before the end of the mandate . . . Arabs who were smart enough not to flee from Israel are getting along much better than their fellowmen who fled at Arab instigation--and considerably better than Jews unfortunate enough to still be in Arab countries.
KARL BENNET JUSTUS San Francisco
Sir:
... I was in the Middle East during June and July, and made an intensive study of the Arab refugee question in Lebanon, Jordan and the Gaza strip. The thing is appalling . . . The Arab league does nothing for the Arab refugee except in one place, the Arab Development Project, near the Dead Sea . . . These states refuse to meet with Israelis to consider a solution of the refugee problem within the framework of the general peace settlement.
Our Congress has just allocated $50 million for Arab refugees, so they are not "forgotten people." . . .
(THE REV.) JOHN EVANS Chicago
Sir:
. . . What is there to stop the Arabs the world over to collect as much as they please for their unfortunate brethren? God knows that a few only of the Arab kings and sheiks could easily outmatch the donations of the Jewish communities in this country or abroad . . .
OTTO HERSHMAN Los Angeles
Sir:
. . . Premier Ben-Gurion and his government [were] ready to make an initial contribution of a million Israel pounds ($2,800,000) toward relief of Arab refugees, but that cannot be done without setting up some kind of framework in which to deal with the Arab countries. This the Arabs refuse to do ...
JOHN ANSON FORD Los Angeles
With an Umlaut
Sir:
Re your story on Bert Lahr, Oct. 1: TIME should listen again. Methinks Bert Lahr's bewildered cry sounds more like unngah, unngah than gung-gung!
R. P. BALIN
Miami
Sir:
Bert Lahr's ululations are represented phonetically by "ngah ngah ngah," rather than by "gung-gung-gung." . . .
WM. KOHMANN Arlington County, Va.
P: Says Lahr: "Gung-gung-gung is all right so far as it goes, but it should be pronounced with an umlaut. That cry is really most effective during the ragweed season."--ED.
Thank You
Sir:
... I commend you and those able writers responsible for the splendid portrait of our nation drawn in your lead story in "The Nation" section of the Oct. 1 issue ... A masterful example of your particular specialty. Thank you.
JOHN W. NICOLL Pacific Grove, Calif.
Sir:
... A masterpiece from the hands and mind of an inspired writer.
WM. D. MARTIN
Cleveland
Sir:
As long as sorghum hangs heavy, golden-rod gilds the fields and black bass sail fat and complacent on river bottoms, our constitutional and, let us hope, indigenous heritage of godliness should be able to circumvent Cicada McCarthys, Cicero citizens and their contemporaries.
R. A. SINCLAIR Cleveland
The People v. "Ciceroism"
Sir:
There is no other country in the world talking more about democracy than the U.S.A. But how can we possibly believe what you are talking about, when H. E. Clark, your own people, was thrown out from his apartment in Cicero for no other reason except that he is a Negro? . . . Today I read your Oct. 1 issue and found that those who had helped H. E. Clark in getting the apartment were indicted, but those rioters all went free. My dear American friends, please help us believe what is your democracy, the subject you have talked so much to us.
Y. CHEN
Manila, P.I.
Sir:
. . . Let the citizens of Cicero, Ill. beware lest the term "Ciceroism" come to stand as a symbol of hate, savagery, and racial prejudice.
MRS. H. EISENBERG San Mateo, Calif.
Propaganda Pratfall
Sir:
Indiana's Senator Homer Capehart has identified part of the Republican Party line as Socialistic propaganda. He has done this by so identifying the Army's Sad Sack recruiting booklet [TIME, Oct. 1] . . . What the Sad Sack booklet had to say about the "pitfalls and pratfalls of civilian life" is only a repetition of what Republicans have been saying for 15 or 20 years.
WALTER R. UPSON
Minneapolis
Bouquets & Boo-Kays
Sir:
Highest praise should go to President Truman and the nine Congressmen against the Rankin ("Veteran's Grab") Bill [TIME, Oct. 1] . . . No veteran wants to be treated as a member of a select group; if his country's cause is just, the veteran does not feel that his country is in debt to him for having served .' . .
JOHN S. CHAPMAN
Charlottesville, Va.
Sir:
. . . Military service is potentially one part of every young man's life today ... In case anyone is interested, I'm a nondisabled combat veteran of World War II, resisting the temptation to pluck giveaway benefits from the VA cornucopia.
CHARLES J. MELLIS JR.
Los Angeles
Sir:
. . . Bouquets to Byrd, Douglas, Ellender, Fulbright, Gillette, O'Mahoney, Robertson, Duff and Ferguson. Boo-kays to the rest.
FRANCES P. WENNER City Point, Fla.
Eliminating a Squeak
Sir:
Re TIME, Oct. 1, "Along New England's shores, the squeak of a fisherman's oars against thole pins . . ."
I have clomped, crabbed and fanned quite a few oars against thole pins, but I have yet to recall one as squeaking. Against an oarlock, maybe yes, but a drop of [cod] liver squeezings . . . will eliminate any such annoyance.
It was with muffled oars against thole pins that New England fishermen ferried Washington across the Delaware . . . Thole pins went out with button shoes and derby hats.
ABBOT R. "DICK" COFFIN Winthrop, Mass.
Booming Alberta
Sir:
After reading your magnificent article on Alberta, "Texas of the North" [TIME, Sept. 24], I am just about convinced that I should pack up my bags and head for Canada . . .
TERESA M. RODNEY
Hinton, W. Va.
Sir:
. . . Your feature on my native province . . . was well handled, even from the standpoint of one of the many who feel that agriculture, not oil, is the true backbone of our province . . .
MRS. E. S. FAIERS New York City
Sir:
Re Canada's Manning, Premier of Alberta, long may we have his type in government of our country ... a good, God-fearing man.
MARGARET ALEXANDER Hamilton, Ont.
Due Credit
SIR:
YOUR USE OF THREE COLUMNS FROM AND ABOUT OUR COPYRIGHTED BOOK, "WE NEVER CALLED HIM HENRY," IN TIME, OCT. 8, GRATIFYING. YOUR FAILURE TO MENTION PUBLISHER UNTIMELIKE. "WE NEVER CALLED HIM HENRY" IS A GOLD MEDAL 25-c- BOOK PUBLISHED BY FAWCETT PUBLICATIONS . . .
RALPH DAIGH EDIT. DIRECTOR FAWCETT PUBLICATIONS, INC. NEW YORK CITY
Cactus Joe
Sir:
Under People in TIME of Sept. 24, you speak of the delicate mauve orchid christened Marshal Stalin, now renamed General George Patton. So that the realm of botany be graced with Stalin's name, why not rechristen the barrel cactus (I hope you never sit on one) Marshal Stalin?
WM. FISHER
Indio, Calif.
Degas & Les Petits Rats
Sir:
Re your brief description of Edgar Degas [Oct. 1] ... to say that Degas was not sentimental about ballet, called his dancer-models "little rats," just doesn't make sense. For "little rats" is precisely the term used for all "apprentice" dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet, and has been so used for generations. It is a term of affection rather than derision.
REED SEVERIN Lynbrook, N.Y.
Gentle Sting
Sir:
With reference to Simone Weil [TIME, Oct. 1] . . . she belongs to no religious group. She belongs to the "pure in heart" who alone see God. She belongs, like Isaiah and Jesus, like Schweitzer and Kagawa and Father Damien, to the human race--she belongs to God.
Her life is a gentle yet stinging rebuke to our little minds that constantly make God "in our own image," unaware that He "hath made of one flesh all the peoples of the earth" to live together in charity and fraternity.
The world is permanently richer for such souls as she.
(THE REV.) JOHN G. CLARK
First Baptist Church Pulaski, Va.
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