Gallup on Gallup Poll
Sirs:
In your Letters column [TIME, Sept. 2], Senator Wheeler objected to our question on conscription. The question was: "Do you think every able-bodied young man 20 years old should be made to serve one year in the Army, Navy or Air Force?"
Since we started polling on this issue months before the Burke-Wadsworth Bill was introduced in Congress, we have carried it on for trend purposes. Actually, a question dealing with the principle of the Burke-Wadsworth Bill yields virtually the same national results.
Because Senator Wheeler specifically challenged our results which showed Montana in favor of conscription, "we have rechecked sentiment in this State on this question: "Do you favor increasing the size of our Army and Navy by drafting men now between the ages of 21 and 31 to serve in the armed forces for one year?" The results were almost exactly the same as those reported earlier for Montana.
Of those with opinions on this issue, 62% said "Yes," 38% said "No." Possibly Senator Wheeler has found a new and better way of reading the public mind in his State. In so far as we are concerned, we have not yet found a better way than to talk to the people of Montana--in every section of the State and in every walk of life--through the medium of our 15 interviewers located in that State.
GEORGE GALLUP
American Institute of Public Opinion
New York City
Cook and Cannibalism
Sirs:
We of Hawaii feel that the review (TIME, July 8) of Hendrik Willem Van Loon's volume, The Story of the Pacific, does a rank injustice to the people of these Islands, once known as the Sandwich Isles, and to their forefathers. . . .
A careful reading of the passages in the book dealing with Captain Cook's death leads to the inference that the natives of the Sandwich Islands were cannibals, but Van Loon is careful not to make the specific charge. . . .
Nowhere in the official account of Captain Cook's voyages, as issued after the return of the expedition in 1784, is it charged that Captain Cook or the marines who were killed in the affray were eaten by the natives. . . .
The official account of the expedition continued: "This afforded us an opportunity of informing ourselves whether they were cannibals; and we did not neglect it. We first tried, by many indirect questions put to each of them apart, to learn in what manner the rest of the bodies had been disposed of; and finding them very constant in one story, that, after the flesh had been cut off, it was all burnt; we at last put the direct question, whether they had not eaten some of it? They immediately shewed as much horror at the idea as any European would have done; and asked, very naturally, if that was the custom amongst us?" . . .
JOHN SNELL
Executive Secretary
Hawaii Equal Rights Commission
Honolulu, T. H.
> Says Author Hendrik Willem Van Loon to TIME: "It's you who are in Dutch, not me." But though he did not mention cannibalism, Author Van Loon believes that, like other primitive peoples, the Sandwich Islanders customarily ate the heart, liver and eyes of people whom they killed, did so to Captain Cook. Reason: thereby they hoped to gain the virtues of their victims.--ED.
Wild-Rice Harvest
Sirs:
Minnesota is readying for its second, not its first wild-rice harvest under State conservation control, as TIME (Aug. 26) indicates.
I am one of those whites who have worked in the rice harvest in Minnesota. . . .
While Indians can pole their rice boats (not always canoes) from the bow, no white man seems to be able to catch on to this trick. I never could, and never saw a white who could either. Most white crews can harvest more a day than Indians but the whites are more careless with the plants and ruin more heads. To those who have worked in rice TIME'S piece brought back the shuck-shuck of busy flails, the sharp cries of polers calling to each other to break the monotony of lonely rice channels, the machine-gun rattle of rice socking the bottom of the boat. In the lake country that sound is as welcome as the clink of silver dollars at a bank window.
LINN LARSON
St. Paul, Minn.
> Minnesota's rice-conservation law was partially enforced in 1939, but Administrator Frank Broker did not take office until last July and this year's harvest will be the first systematically supervised.--ED.
Why Not?
Sirs:
As an avid reader and long-time subscriber of TIME (and of LIFE since its inception) a thought has occurred to me: . . . Your subscribers . . . must have a number of children of prep-school and college age. Why not promote a special form of subscription to be sold in conjunction with a regular subscription, to be sent to undergraduates only during those weeks they are away at school and do not have access to the parent's copy at home ? . . . Any parent who is a regular TIME subscriber and reader should be very anxious to have his child keep abreast of what is going on in the world beyond the campus walls, and I am sure you would have little sales resistance to such a plan.
HERBERT F. REILLY
Bayside, N.Y.
> To subscribers TIME does already offer supplemental subscriptions to be sent to their children at a special rate of $2.50 for the nine months of the school year.--ED.
Response
Sirs:
I have just read your report of Willkie's acceptance speech at Elwood, Ind. I think, in the main, it is excellent, but I believe, if your reporters had mixed with the crowd, as did I, you would have had a truer picture of the crowd's response.
We arrived too late to get really near the stand--even to imagine the possibility of having seats among the 30,000. We never saw Mr. Willkie, but we heard him perfectly, and we heard the comments of an ever-changing crowd. . . .
You did not mention Mr. Willkie's quotation from Mr. Winston Churchill's speech, where he offered Britain "blood, toil, tears and sweat." The response of the crowd was very interesting, for when Mr. Willkie said he could not offer anyone the prospect of an easy path, that the years ahead could only mean sacrifice, toil and sweat, the crowd's approval was unmistakable, and voiced around me in heartfelt amens.
Perhaps, in living half my life in the Middle West, I have become too accustomed to the Middle Western "burr" to be unduly disturbed by it, although I am still conscious of it. Our President has an unusually pleasing voice and accent, but if one compares Mr. Willkie's manner of speech with that of most --and foremost--of our Senators and Congressmen, instead of with that of a person admittedly unique, one is, I think, unreasonably critical to take exception to Mr. Willkie's delivery.
MARJORIE BROWN SHERWOOD
Indianapolis, Ind.
Third Term
Sirs:
"The task of Franklin Roosevelt in accepting the Third Term nomination . . . was to explain why a move that Washington and Jefferson had thought improper was necessary and right for him" (TIME, Aug. 26). . .
Two careful readings of Washington's Farewell Address failed to reveal to this writer any passage which could be construed to mean that the principle of self-succession was rejected by him. Consultation of most biographies of Washington including the famous Irving work, did not uncover proof that Washington was opposed to a third, fourth or fifth term.
On the contrary, I have before me the text of a letter written by Washington to Lafayette. It is dated April 28, 1788. . . . I quote:
"There are other points in which opinions would be more likely to vary. As, for instance, on the ineligibility of the same person for President after he should have served a certain course of years. Guarded so effectually as the proposed Constitution is in respect to the prevention of bribery and undue influence in the choice of President, I confess I differ widely myself from Mr. Jefferson and you, as to the necessity of expedience of rotation in that appointment. . . . I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the services of any man who on some great emergency shall be the deemed universally most capable of serving the public . . . "
PAUL L. PAYNE New Rochelle, N. Y.
> Washington never stated any objection to a third term. He set the example of voluntary retirement after two terms which Jefferson and later Presidents interpreted as a precedent.--ED
Press Poll
Sirs:
Editor & Publisher's poll of the press [TiME, Sept. 2] is misleading, even though statistically accurate.
Eliminating the eleven States of the Solid South, where papers are still preponderantly for Roosevelt, a different picture appears. . . .
Outside the South the score stands 647-106 in favor of Willkie, or 83%. In 15 States [and the District of Columbia] not a single paper favors Roosevelt, in six others only one. In other words, in the 37 States outside the Solid South, there are only 16 in which more than one newspaper favors Roosevelt. . . .
WARREN H. PIERCE
The Times
Chicago, ILL.
Unhazardous Lassen
Sirs:
Re your account of "On Shuksan" (TIME, Aug. 19) you state that "Anne Cedarquist . . . once climbed California's hazardous Lassen Peak." This climb was meagre training for the ascent of Shuksan or any other mountain.
Lassen Peak, chief point of interest in Lassen Volcanic National Park, is the most recently active volcano in the United States (1914-21). The peak is 10,453 feet in elevation and has had a well-graded trail to its summit for many years. . . . Records in the park show that about 8,000 people climb the peak each year. The age differential of the climbers is two to 91 years and anyone in good physical condition can make the climb from the nearest highway point in about one hour. . . .
CARL SWARTZLOW
Park Naturalist
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Mineral, Calif.
War of 1812
Sirs:
On p. 14 (TIME, Aug. 26), you state that in 1814, Congressman Daniel Webster "put his trust in volunteers (who finally won the war)." Although the school histories have erroneously taught that we won the War of 1812 against England, I am surprised to note that TIME would express this view.
Although we won some splendid victories on the sea and on the Great Lakes, yet by 1814 our coast was so tightly blockaded that even a fishing boat on Chesapeake Bay was in danger of capture. Our commerce was driven from the sea and our few fighting ships were held in port.
The Capitol was burned and President Madison barely escaped capture. The battle of Bladensburg fought by the untrained volunteers was a disgrace. The country was practically helpless, had the enemy cared to overrun it--Jackson's victory at New Orleans, notwithstanding.
If these conditions show that we "won the war," I would hate to think of what they would have been had we lost the war!
The facts are that we failed entirely to accomplish the purposes for which we declared war and no reference was made to them in the treaty of peace. It is true that England had stopped impressing American seamen for the good reason that there were no more American ships or seamen sailing the seas.
We started the war. England finished it. She had no territorial designs on America. Her objectives were in Europe.
If we have to fight Hitler with the same kind of volunteers we had in 1812 we will soon be paying him tribute.
TIME could now render a great service to this country by correcting the impression that we won the War of 1812 with an army of volunteers.
REAR ADMIRAL P. W. FOOTE
U. S. N. (Retired)
Chapel Hill, N. C.
> Historians may never decide who won the War of 1812. But: 1) In 1814 the British Government was advised by the Duke of Welling ton that Britain was unprepared to fight on longer for better terms. Hence the Peace Treaty of Ghent.
2) In the fall of 1814 the seaport of Glasgow complained: "That the number of privateers with which our channels have been infested . . . have proved injurious to our commerce . . . and when we have declared the whole American coast under blockade, it is equally distressing and mortifying that our ships cannot with safety traverse our own channels." -- ED.
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