What Goes in the War

Sirs:

I wanted you to know that the boys of my son's battery, somewhere in Australia, use TIME as their barometer of "what goes" in the war. In every V-letter he sends, we are instructed: "For accurate war news, read TIME. They haven't missed yet on facts we can verify."

ADELE Ross New York City

Nautical Exactitude

Sirs:

As a lover of things nautical and of sailing ships in particular, I rise in protest against your description of the Gertrude L. Thebaut as a "full-rigged schooner" [TIME, Dec. 14]. Webster defines full-rigged as "having three or more masts, each with its full complement of square sails." As a schooner is fore-and-aft-rigged it could not conform to the requirements of this definition. A full-rigged schooner would be as anomalous as a two-legged centipede.

GEO. T. BUSH Atlanta

P:Reader Bush is not so salty as he thinks. A full-rigged ship and a schooner are two things. But of late years so many Gloucester fishing schooners have been built "bald-headed"--that is, without topmasts or topsails--that to distinguish the few which still carry all their rigging, it is expedient to speak of full-rigged schooners. A centipede may have anywhere from 38 to 400 legs.--ED.

N.A.M. and the Future

Sirs:

TIME, in its Dec. 14 number, has misled its readers and has done an injustice to the 4,000 industrialists who attended N.A.M.'s recent War Congress of American Industry.

To report or to editorialize that the Congress "failed even to face" the problem of postwar world rehabilitation was grave distortion of the facts and the record.

At the very outset of the Congress on Dec. 2, I emphasized the heavy obligation of private capital not only to cooperate with Government in the immediate post-war relief of stricken areas, but to assume major responsibility for long-term economic rehabilitation here and abroad.

On Dec. 3, the Congress adopted unanimously a war program for industry, the result of months of study by nearly 100 manufacturers. This included a six-point statement of industry's post-war goals.

On Dec. 4, a whole session was devoted to discussions, through addresses and a symposium comprised of outstanding economists, of ''industry's plan for the post-war period."

In addition to looking into the future of the post-war social structure, these manufacturers lad some very practical discussions on what corporations can do even before hostilities cease. One of the most practical and definite talks of this nature, by D. C. Prince, vice president of General Electric, analyzed the techniques of market and product research which will stimulate after-war employment. This supplemented an earlier N.A.M. checklist of points for management to follow in aid of a better post-war economy.

Finally, the Congress adopted, again unanimously, a 15-point post-war program in which s detailed the factors which industrial management earnestly believes must be taken into action in any rehabilitation plan.

That record refutes the assertion that N.A.M. "failed even to face" the problem. Manufacturers, not only in this war conference but in deeper analysis throughout the year, have been studying their obligation of post-war leadership with the same earnestness and wholesome purpose that economists, Government officials and other interested groups are showing.

America can rest assured that when peace comes, the industry which is now forging the weapons of victory, will be prepared to play its equally essential and rightful role in the economic re-establishment of a better world.

W. P. WITHEROW 1942 President, N.A.M. New York City

Do Queens & Bishops Fight?

Sirs:

Your "Little Wars" story in TIME for Dec. 14 omitted a discussion of the war game that has withstood the test of centuries and undoubtedly will be played when the modern games are wholly forgotten--chess.

ORVILLE A. BECKLUND St. Paul

Macon County Health

Sirs:

In the article in the Dec. 14 issue of TIME entitled "Negro Health," you erroneously placed Macon County in Georgia instead of Alabama where it rightfully belongs. . . .

The campaign in Macon County, Alabama for the eradication of syphilis would not have been successful without the continued support of the Alabama State Department of Public Health. Probably no state has done any more in extending as many opportunities to Negro physicians and public-health nurses to engage in public-health activities among their own people as Alabama.

So let's give Alabama credit. . . .

WILLIAM B. PERRY, M.D. Birmingham

-- Right, but let's give Georgia credit for confusing TIME by also having a Macon County.--ED.

Wave Lengths & Such

Sirs:

May I call your attention to a misleading statement made in the article "Seeing by Electron Waves" [TIME, Dec. 14].

The author of the article says: "Higher magnification requires shortest possible electron waves, hence higher voltage." As a matter of fact the wave length of electrons accelerated by say 15,000 volts is already roughly 50,000 times smaller than that of visible light. According to the information concerning magnification presented in the article the actual improvement gained by substituting electron waves for light is only 50-fold.

It is evident therefore that not "higher voltage" but improvement of the "optical" parts of the instrument is desirable.

I do not hesitate calling the electron microscope as it is a magnificent instrument. In view of future developments, however, it has to be admitted at the same time, that with respect to its lenses in their present state, no more favorable comparison can be made than with the microscope as it was at the time of Leeuwenhoek.

P. DEBYE

Ithaca, N.Y.

> Peter Debye, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1936 (TIME:, Dec. 28), is right. What the electron microscope needs is better definition by better focusing of electron waves. But when higher magnification is attained it will be by shorter waves, higher voltages.--ED.

Grey Stronghold

Sirs:

This is to express appreciation, on the part of an ardent alumnus, for the very fine article on The Citadel [TIME, Dec. 21].

We alumni are extremely proud of the record made by Citadel men both in past wars and in peacetime, and we feel sure that they will live up to this record in the present conflict.

Your_ statement to the effect that The Citadel is the nation's staunchest stronghold of the Grey traditions is a high compliment, and well-deserved by the Old School.

Incidentally, there are approximately 3,300 Grads on active duty at present.

JOHN T. STONE, M.D.

Baltimore, Md.

Fighting Swiss

Sirs :

You made an amazing statement about General Eisenhower in TIME, Nov. 16:

"There was nothing about the Eisenhower tradition to suggest this choice [of being a soldier]. In the dim past the Eisenhowers were Swiss. . . ."

TIME would have a hard job to find a Swiss of any generation who has not in his past a military tradition. Military, mind you, not militaristic. Even though the Swiss have not fought actively in 100 years, the tradition is completely alive. In some parts of Switzerland, masses for the dead are said every year for soldiers who fell in the glorious encounter at Morgarten in 1315. That fight was against invading Habsburgs, who never could, nor apparently can, keep their rapacious hands off a free people.

The proportion of forces then, and in many later battles, was about i to 10. The Swiss by no means always won, but, make no mistake, they by all means always fought!

GERTRUDE ZURRER

Hartford, Conn.

No Suckers, No Slackers

Sirs:

Regarding your last issue of TIME, you ran an article about the Merchant Marine calling us suckers and slackers. Also stating that we were expected to boo the message from the President of the United States. I wish to inform you that we are not slackers and suckers and also we respect our Commander in Chief, the President of the United States. We Merchant Mariners, 10,000 strong, are trying to build up the reputation of the backbone of the American victory fleet.

ROBERT Eis ROBERT ENSMINGER JAMES MACKINTOSH CLYDE M. WALKER

U.S. Maritime Service Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn, N.Y.

> TIME did not call the Merchant Mariners suckers and slackers, but reported that that is what Merchant Mariners jokingly call each other.--ED.

The Threat of Priorities

Sirs:

. . . Under the caption Radio, you have an article (TIME, Dec. 7) on Messrs. Rodriguez & Sutherland in which you say:

"The team picked up a shampoo sponsor and tripled his business in six months. When priorities closed the business last August, the pair continued over KECA on a sustaining basis."

The "shampoo sponsor" is my client "42" Products, Inc. It is decidedly in business and its shampoo is decidedly on the market. However, last August, when priorities threatened the business, the radio contract with Messrs. Rodriguez & Sutherland, which expired at the time, was not renewed. . . .

AARON B. ROSENTHAL

Los Angeles

Biddie in Brazil Sirs:

In your issue of Dec. 21 why did you intentionally misquote the cable wired by your Rio de Janeiro representative in stating that tweedy Artist Biddie was "the first U.S. artist ever commissioned by a South American country to decorate public buildings." He reported to you -- did he not -- that Biddie and Helene Sarde.au were together commissioned to decorate the main lobby of the National Library with fresco and bronze bas-reliefs? . . .

GEORGE BIDDLE Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.

> It was an oversight that Helene Sar-deau (Mrs. George Biddie) was not mentioned in TIME'S story. She should have been credited with her bas-reliefs, entitled Violence and Charity. One depicted a brute strangling another brute; the other, figures with outstretched hands succoring a dying comrade. But let Mr. Biddie be advised that TIME does not intentionally misquote anything. Furthermore on the rare occasions when TIME undertakes to quote a correspondent, its readers are so advised. -- ED.

Background for Rubber

Sirs:

In your Aug. 14, 1939, issue, "Background for War," you outdrew Pearson, not by days, not by months, but by years.

Perhaps if some of those in Washington had followed your Background for War a little more carefully, some of our shortcomings might have been avoided.

SIDNEY H. STERN Cleveland

> Time said: "Modern war is mechanized. It rolls on rubber and is driven by oil. The U.S. will have to bid for rubber against desperate belligerents. Driving an automobile may become a luxury . . the U.S. may turn to substitutes. ... To create them may well require several billion dollars. . . ." -- ED.

Younger Lieut. Colonel

Sirs:

We have read your issue of Dec. 14 with great interest but we believe we have discovered an error in your story of Lieut. Colonel "Buzz" Wagner in which you state that he was (at 26) the youngest officer of his rank in the Army. Lieut. Colonel Chesley Gordon Peterson of Santaquin, Utah is his junior by four years. Lieut. Colonel Peterson, former leader of the American Eagle Squadron, is now stationed in England with the A.A.F. AVIATION CADET J. A. LOWRY AVIATION CADET J. A. LINDQUIST

Aviation Cadet Center San Antonio

>Lieut. Colonel Peterson is younger but not four years younger than the late Lieut. Colonel Boyd D. Wagner. He is 24. -- ED.

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