No Slicker

Sirs:

END YOUR BRIEF REFERENCE TO ME AS "SCARLET-FACED SWAMPLANDS SLICKER" AT CHICAGO. I WISH IN THE INTEREST OF ACCURACY TO SAY: MY BIRTH AND HABITAT ARE ON THE PINEYWOODS DRY SAND-LANDS OF THE SOUTH. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE EVER HEARD A MAN AS HOMELY AS I AM CALLED A SLICKER. YOUR LAST REFERENCE TO ME WAS AS A "BACKWOODS NOEL COWARD." THE BACKWOODS IS ACCURATE.

CLAUDE PEPPER

United States Senate Washington, D. C.

Fattrapped

Sirs:

TIME (July 15, "Mexico") erred in rendering my dear President's irrespetuous nickname "El Trompudo" as "Loud Mouth." Fact is Trompudo describes more a physical than a spiritual, talkative condition, would be more accurately translated as proboscy-mouthed, trunklipped, fattrapped. . . .

SALVADOR Novo

Hollywood, Calif.

Mexican Election

Sirs:

I have long depended on TIME'S "hew-to-the-line" reporting to keep facts clear for me in the melee of propagandas in which we live. Your July 15 Mexico election write-up shook my confidence. It seems your representative read a history, consulted some American investment interests, the Almazan campaign headquarters, then wrote.

He stated: "To elect anyone besides Camacho required a miracle. . . ." Wouldn't a little horse sense reveal that it would take a miracle to overcome the following? "Camacho's pre-election backing embraced . . . Cardenas and . . . the Partido de la Revolucion Mexicana, the only nation-wide party, and the CTM, the federation of labor unions which boasts 1,000,000 members." Also . . . the Agrarian party which boasts more than a million members and which also declared for Camacho. A little arithmetic shows that Camacho strength can't help but total over two million votes. The total Mexican vote is under 2,500,000. If the election had been "properly democratic" and without a hint of any chicanery, Almazan would still have needed a miracle--or a Putsch. . .

Throughout the report Almazan's claims and viewpoints are quoted frequently, those of the opposition never. . . . For all of which I don't give a tinker's damn except for the timing of the article. Our Good-Neighbor policy is urgently necessary to us today, the

Inter-American Conference is a critical one, Latin-American unity is important--though uncertain. And yet a local Mexican politician, resentfully repudiated by the mass of the Mexican people is made out a hero by your correspondent. . . .

JOHN FISHBACK

San Antonio, Tex.

P:It is by no means clear that Candidate Almazan was "resentfully repudiated," except by the political machine. Because the political machine of PRM, CTM and Agrarians declared for Avila Camacho does not mean that they went down the line for him. Many observers believe that a good part of the labor vote deserted Avila Camacho on election day. The Agrarian Party to which Reader Fishback refers is allied to the PRM.--ED.

"Homey Little Piece"

Sirs:

I could laugh at your homey little piece on Dr. Westrick, the Fuhrer's latest appeasement-seeker in the U. S., if I was sure that no lame-brained tycoons would be taken in by its disarming simplicity.

So Dr. Westrick's proposals are "plausible and businesslike!" We lend them five billion; they use it to buy back goods from us. Our "security" is two billion in gold that we can't use and would never see anyway, because it would remain in the vaults of the Fuhrerbank (formerly the Bank of France). And as a special concession we are graciously allowed to lower our tariffs to let subsidized Nazi exports in.

As advertising copy the article on Dr. Westrick isn't bad, but most papers give the current address of an out-of-town buyer when he hits New York. Somebody slip up?

D. A. SAUNDERS

New York City

P:Dr. Westrick's address is the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. TIME tried to describe the line in which he was interested.--ED.

Citrine Statement

Sirs:

TIME, May 13, under Reds, Labor and War, says: "... Sir Walter Citrine, general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress . . . agreed to a proposal by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon that pay rises in Britain be stopped. . . . These things caused the London Daily Worker to publish a series of articles . . ." on the basis of which the Worker was sued for libel.

This statement is almost identical with one of the libels complained of in the action against the Daily Worker and in respect of which damages were awarded.

In the course of the trial it was proved that Sir Walter and his colleagues did not return from France on a French destroyer, had on no occasion agreed to a proposal by Sir John Simon that rises in wages should be stopped.

Did not your reporting err in stating as facts allegations which were disproved?

WALTER GRAEBNER

London

P:A garbled cable misled TIME. The report should have read that the Daily Worker "alleged Sir Walter Citrine had agreed to a proposal. . . ."--ED.

Anti-Nazi Refugees

Sirs:

We are deeply touched by the American offer to look after British children. . . . We have had three extremely generous offers of homes and education for our own younger children, for the period of the war. If we had been still living in London I think I should have accepted, knowing that everything would be done to make them happy; but the strain of separation on children is great, and what they may lose in formal education they will gain in the other kind of education that will come through living in a community where, at last, all must take their share in work and courage for a common end. In the meantime two are still at school in the South; one, just 14, writes from her school: "T. woke me up, shaking and calling in my ear, the beastly sirens were going full blast and they make a vile, almost tangible din. I really was very scared, you see I was half asleep and the flashing torches, the general din and semi-panic was rather horrible. And of course I couldn't find my coat or my gas mask or my shoes, and my knickers jammed in my pyjamas. Eventually we all got down and sat on benches, then everybody lay down on the stone (very cold) floor and wrapped ourselves in bathing wraps. . . . We had two more today, one very short and then a long one. We got quite blase. . . . We giggled and talked, and it was almost dawn before we got to bed. Nobody came to breakfast before half past nine. Don't for goodness sake get rattled, the staff has been awfully decent and there has been absolutely no panic. They all look absolute screeches, especially the fat ones in tight slacks, and J. getting on her tin hat over her curlers! It has altogether been great fun."

But there are others who need a refuge almost as much as the children, and these are some of our many anti-Nazi refugees. Most of them have suffered already at the hands of the Nazis, all of them have lost their homes; some of them have broken nerves. And a great many of them have had their names down for emigration to America for months, even years. May I appeal, through TIME, to the American people to open the welcoming gates a little wider and let some more of them through? . . .

NAOMI MITCHISON Argvllshire, Scotland

Sense of Proportion

Sirs:

Re an article in the July 22 issue of TIME on "The Strategic Geography of Southeastern England," there is one statement which I feel I must contradict. The authorities did not evacuate all women and children (though the foreigners may have been) from all areas within 20 miles of the coast shown on the map, as early as June. The children I am in charge of, and I, returned from Wales to our respective homes to say good-by (Beaulieu near Southampton and Bournemouth) on July 2, our last night before sailing, and in both cases our parents and all our friends and the usual inhabitants were still in their homes and were hoping to remain there--though, as a military area, we well know that people may be evacuated any moment--but it had not happened then and I hope will not. The people in England have quite sufficient food, and are very calm and confident--there is no doubt in our minds of the result of the war. Over here there seems a tendency to exaggerate everything, and as for the few deaths that have been caused by air raids, they are not to be compared with those lost in road accidents. We must all keep our sense of proportion. . ..

AMY HUSSEY

Montreal, Que.

Guild Election

Sirs:

As chairman of the Boston Globe unit of the American Newspaper Guild, I want to straighten out a double misstatement of fact in your otherwise accurate account of the election of Donal M. Sullivan as president of the Guild [TIME, July 22].

The Globe unit, which, as you say, Sullivan helped to organize, did not "disband" after its Labor Board election of Oct. 24 last, nor did Globe employes "vote to get along without a union." The issue in the election was one of expansion, to see whether business office employes would join with already-organized editorial and maintenance workers. The nays won, 194 to 175. But the unit did not disband. Its 150 members are still paying dues and they constitute not only the second largest unit in New England but also one of the most vigorous Guild groups anywhere. . . .

DONALD B. WILLARD Boston, Mass.

P:TIME erred. The Globe unit is very much in action. -- ED.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.