Challenge
Sirs:
A COPY OF THE LETTER TO "DAD" AND SIGNED "LEE," DET. 120TH SIGNAL RADIO INTELLIGENCE, IN OCT. 12 ISSUE OF TIME, SHOULD BE SENT TO EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND POSTED IN EVERY DEFENSE PLANT IN AMERICA. IT IS THE TRUEST AND MOST POIGNANT EXPRESSION OF THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THIS GREAT COUNTRY OF OURS TODAY. IT IS A RINGING CHALLENGE TO EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED AND NOT FOUND WANTING.
ELIZABETH CURRAN
Carmel, Calif.
Oldtimer
Sirs:
I have just read your article on William Francis Gibbs in TIME, Sept. 28. . . . One little bracketed statement in the fourth paragraph is rather amusing and very false. You say, "By contrast, in World War I U.S. yards, building smaller, poorer ships delivered not a single cargo vessel of the wartime program until after the war was ended." That virtually means, as it stands, that the U.S. Shipping Board got no deliveries of cargo vessels in 1917 and 1918.
The record shows that in twelve months from August 31, 1917 to August 31, 1918, there were launched from the ways of American shipyards 574 ships for the U.S. Shipping Board, with a total deadweight tonnage of 3,017,238. Of these, 325, representing a total deadweight tonnage of 1,941,875, were delivered during that twelve-month period. I cite the figures for this period because I happen to have them handy. You will agree that the rate of delivery here shown would indicate a substantial addition to the figures before the November date of the Armistice. . .
R. J. ALEXANDER
San Francisco, Calif.
> More pretended than real were the few actual deliveries to which Reader Alexander refers: they had already been started (for foreign governments and private shippers) before the wartime program got under way. "Not a damn one of them"--to quote Maritime Commissioner Land--"ever got into the show."--ED.
Flying Symbol
Sirs:
I quote from TIME (Oct. 12):
"One high Brazilian Army officer retorted in kind (to Secretary Knox):
" 'Why wait for a German attack? We entered the war to fight. Let us fight.' "
As a step towards the active participation of our Latin American allies in active conflict, wouldn't it be a splendid idea to organize a Pan-American aviation unit?
Several squadrons recruited from our friends to the south would be a rallying point for our neighbors, and a grand symbol of unity.
I would even suggest a name: the Bolivar Squadron.
LAWRENCE H. SINGER
New York City
Morals v. Mechanics
Sirs:
On page 94 (TIME, Oct 5) is a sum of "The Strange Case of J. H. Phillips." By veiled implication, "Dr. Phillips" is puffed as a very competent surgeon who had the misfortune to run afoul of the license laws in California. It is likewise stated that the "A.M.A. Journal printed [his record] with reluctant admiration."
Medical charlatans have existed since the beginning of history and doubtless will always exist; even Hippocrates had his contention with the school at Cnidus. There is nothing unique about a man's being able to perform major surgery without basic training in anatomy, physiology and pathology. As a Navy Hospital Corpsman, I assisted at surgery and could have done a neat appendectomy many years before I was licensed as a physician.
An essential point is lacking in TIME'S report and it is this: the mechanics of medicine and surgery can be acquired quickly by any reasonably intelligent person, but the morals of medicine and surgery can be acquired only slowly, and require a painfully long period of training and preparation. If it can be said of any man that he is "an operating fool," the adjective "operating" is redundant. A great surgeon is not a man who has mastered the mechanics of a simple appendectomy or tonsillectomy or any other "ectomy," he is a man who knows not only how to operate but upon whom an operation should be done and, more important, upon whom an operation should not be done. Surgeons are "great" because they have sound judgment rather than mere mechanical skill.
J. G. OLSON, M.D.
Ogden, Utah
Time to Start
Sirs:
Congratulations for placing willpower ahead of brainpower and manpower on the cover of the current issue of TIME [Oct. 5]. Right now there isn't anything America needs so much as willpower. Adolf the Awful and Tojo the Treacherous must derive real satisfaction from our indecision and inaction. . . .
You can't win wars by saying "please," and you can't win wars by "request." It is time to stop saying "we may" and "may we?" It is time to start saying, "WE WILL."
EARL E. DAWALD
New Orleans
Backfire
Sirs:
In your excellent article on Hesketh Pearson's biography of George Bernard Shaw [TIME, Oct. 5] you quote H. G. Wells as having called Shaw "an intellectual eunuch." Wells has plagiarized the phrase from Byron, who in his satirical dedication of Don Juan said of Milton:
Would he adore a sultan? He obey
The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?
The phrase carries quite a kick when applied to Castlereagh, the forgotten second marquess of Londonderry, but becomes flabby when so ineptly used against Shaw, literary cannon-cracker of recent times.
KENNETT F. P. LOVE
Princeton, NJ.
Why Frelighsburg Lives
Sirs:
In your issue of Oct. 5, you report the failure of the plan to give the name Lidice (after the martyred Czech village) to the Canadian town of Frelighsburg. You state that Premier Godbout of Quebec rapped the knuckles of the Lidice Lives Committee, and of its executive chairman, Clifton Fadiman. As a member of the Lidice Lives Committee, and as the individual who visited Godbout and had all details of the affair in hand, I feel qualified to give you the facts.
M. Godbout has at all times shown his complete willingness and eagerness to rename a Canadian town Lidice. Frelighsburg, where M. Godbout has a large farm) Was selected by the Quebec Government for the ceremony. An emissary was sent to Frelighsburg to notify them of their selection. At the very moment of his arrival, a news leak occurred in Canada resulting in stories in the Canadian press that the town was going to have its name changed. There had not yet been time to consult the mayor of the town. The mayor was aggrieved and refused to permit renaming. I have letters from M. Godbout expressing his regret and his assurances that he would find another Quebec locality for the ceremony. On the very day that TIME reported the alleged knuckle-rapping, M. Godbout wired me that a new town had been selected for the renaming. The announcement of this new town will be made in due course at M. Godbout's discretion. . . .
ALAN GREEN
Lidice Lives Committee
New York City
> To Reader Green, thanks for an illuminating account of the reasons for Premier Godbout's knuckle-rapping.--ED.
Where Mothers Are Needed Most
Sirs:
The article "Children without Morals" in TIME, Oct. 5, deserves more than passing thought.
FBI's J. Edgar Hoover and San Francisco's Police Department's Kate Sullivan, know well that the love and affection of mothers at home would prevent most of our criminal and delinquency cases. The best available figures show that there were around 4,300,000 criminals in the U.S. last year--of which 72% were under 23 years of age--and that about 150,000 girls disappear each year into an infamous easy life.
From now on, it may become increasingly necessary for women to leave their homes and enter directly into the war effort; but it would seem that such jobs could be filled for some time to come by women without adolescent children. If drafting of such labor becomes necessary, we will most likely have the same consideration for mothers then that we now have for fathers with regard to military service. Until such time, the mother's duty is at home; the father's duty, to make it possible for her to stay there.
In recent months there has been a rapid rise in the number of cases where children are being left to care for themselves while the mother is out working in an avid grab for the big "defense" dollar. (There are an estimated 1,500 in Kansas City alone.) If this practice is allowed to continue, our already overburdened Government will find another real job has fallen to its lot--the operation of nursery schools; a great expense with questionable results.
I think most of this "sheep follows sheep" out of a home and into a job, would stop immediately if U.S. mothers were shown where they are needed most. . . .
RICHARD N. CHAPIN
Kansas City, Mo.
Shipbuilding Record
Sirs:
Fourteen days from keel laying to delivery date is indeed a record of which American shipbuilders can well be proud. This seems a far advance from the 47 years required to construct the U.S.S. Alabama. Originally intended as a storeship, her keel was laid at Portsmouth, Va. Navy Yard in 1817 but not until April 23, 1864 was she launched. A record of 47 years under construction.
FORREST B. SMITH
Norfolk, Va.
> The Alabama indeed ranks high among the curiosa of shipbuilding. Laid down as a last-word, 86-gun ship of the line, she was held up by several stingy Congresses. Finally launched in the Civil War, she was too antiquated for anything except a floating warehouse.--ED.
Overdone
Sirs:
The call for patriotic citizens to rally to the defense of country by joining the miliary services, irrespective of civilian usefulness, has been overdone. As TIME ably pointed out (Oct. 5 issue), a full survey must be completed and quick action taken if we are to preserve a national economy which can support with food, munitions, essential supplies and finance our huge military personnel. . . . The public has not grasped the fact that trained professional, mechanical, agricultural or other workers are just as patriotic when performing civilian jobs as they would be if in uniform. . . . If those same persons were in the Army, they would perhaps do much less real good. Fear that the term yellow or slacker may be given them after the war is driving many essential civilians into uniform. I have recently seen a school superintendent, a mathematics instructor, a physician and several essential iron-ore mineworkers, all of whom were not replaceable, join the colors because of this fear. An unthinking public daily cuts national civilian productiveness by thus forcing into combat service men who are properly exempted from service by age, dependency or draft-board action. . . .
J. LAWRENCE McLEOD, M.D.
The Itasca Clinic
Grand Rapids, Minn.
Foreshortened
Sirs:
Is Professor Wood's "New Geography" (TIME, Oct. 5) intended as a subtle means of making West Coasters feel safer than Midwesterners from long-range Jap air attack?
Measuring a standard globe, plus checking with tables of airline distances, shows that --even allowing for a Kiska stopover--the Japs would find Minneapolis at least 300 miles farther from Tokyo than is San Diego. And, similarly measured on great circles, Chicago is at least 1,000 statute miles closer to Punta Gallinas, Colombia, than to the nearest Siberian point.
Please explain this geopuzzling geobversion.
EDWIN J. PUBOLS
Inglewood, Calif.
> TIME should have more closely scrutinized misreports of Professor Wood's distances which agree with those of Reader Pubols. TIME correctly reported the main point: that polar routes will vastly expedite future air travel, vastly change old concepts of distance.--ED.
Golden Opportunity
Sirs:
The article on "Disunited Nations" and the second front [TIME, Sept. 28] has brilliantly summed up the relationship of Russia to the Democracies.
I wonder how many of us realize that at the present time there is a golden opportunity to win Soviet Russia into the fraternity of freedom-loving peoples, after she had willfully isolated herself from the rest of the world for more than 20 years. . . .
What we need today is a united spiritual front, a unity of purpose and action. This will not be possible as long as we cannot wholeheartedly support and uphold Russia in our innermost convictions. Russia's continued appeals for a second front will be understood and unreservedly supported only if and when the Kremlin makes a definite effort to understand us (as we have been sincerely trying to understand them) and unites with us to guarantee the principles expressed in the Atlantic Charter.
Before a military second front there must be a spiritual second front. Soviet Russia can hasten its approach by taking following action:
1) Join the signatories of the Atlantic Charter.
2) Officially renounce all claims to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
3) Add to freedom of religious "worship" also freedom of religious "propaganda." The history of Soviet persecution of Christians has not yet been written.
4) Permit the Bible to be sold openly in Russia.
5) Establish close academic, cultural and trade connections with the United Nations.
6) Take the initiative in establishing peace with Finland.
7) "Stimulate Russian interest in the Democracies and their aspirations."
I believe that Russia has a great future, now that its people have a chance to find their own soul. Let us help them, let us believe in them and let us not be afraid to tell them the truth, though it may cost us something. Let us hope that the governments of the United States and Great Britain will have enough wisdom, foresight and courage to see this matter through. Let us get rid of meandering diplomacy so that we may not be called cowards by the great Eastern community of nations.
DANIEL FETLER
Northwestern University
Evanston, Ill.
Different Grounds
Sirs:
How thrilled I was by the detailed review of that book by Georges Bernanos in the Religion department [TIME, Oct. 5]. He is a Frenchman in the spirit of his great tradition which started not in 1791 but in the feudal days when the spirit of France shot up and gushed forth like a fountain. That "honor and sainthood are his two absolutes" reminds me of that French sea captain in Conrad's Lord Jim, who on diagnosing Jim's trouble in the Patna affair, finishes "the honor, monsieur! . . . The honor . . . that is real" and goes away--his shabby cape swinging.
For Frenchmen and for all of us now--HONOR is the only thing we find real anymore. The English call it "duty," Americans probably say "It's tough, but let's do it." But the word "honor" is so much better.
ELIZABETH LYMAN
Omaha, Neb.
Sirs :
. . . Now tell me on what grounds (literary or others) dare you compare Bernanos' book to Hitler's? What have these two books, these two men, in common? You imply, rather you indeed say, that the Lettre aux Anglais is a raving book, a quixotic book, but of "greater sanity" (sic) than Mein Kampf! I have to make an effort to suppose that your collaborator meant well, but the parallel is scandalous. Please do keep in mind that only one out of 100,000 TIME readers has read through and understood Mein Kampf; therefore the majority will conclude that both elucubrations are of the same caliber, one in the positive, the other one in the negative sense. On the whole, this article libels Christianism itself, or seems to. . . .
DR. E. V. TELLE
Department of Modern Languages
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Neb.
> TIME neither said nor implied that Bernanos' book was "raving," found in it a contrast, not a parallel, to Mein Kampf.--ED.
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