Matter of Emphasis
Sir:
You report that President Truman, answering a reporter's question as to whether he had tossed his hat into the ring in San Francisco, replied, "It wasn't my hat."
The President's intentions would be clearer if we could know which word he emphasized. Different meanings might be drawn from: IT wasn't my hat; it WASN'T my hat; it wasn't MY hat; or it wasn't my HAT.
STEPHEN B. SARASOHN Detroit
P: A TIME correspondent who heard the President's reply caught a slight emphasis on the "my."--ED.
Farouk & the Egyptians
Sir:
As you know, TIME is banned in Egypt [but] I was able to read your Sept. 10 article on King Farouk . . . You asked how the U.S. can begin to cultivate her friendship with the Egyptian people. The U.S. has begun --although on a very small scale--with cultural relations. Your ambassador in Cairo stated it explicitly in the letter awarding me the Smith-Mundt scholarship "to promote mutual understanding and friendship between Egypt and the U.S.A."
. . . When I first came here, I was asked where I came from. "Egypt," I said. "Egypt! King Farouk! . . ." and a laugh swept over their faces! . . . That is what most Americans knew about the 20 million people living [there]. Surely you are aware that you are not [giving] a complete picture to the American readers [by] leading them to assume that the King's story is the only news worth knowing about the Egyptian people? . . .
(MRS.) SAMEYA FAHMY
Bloomington, Ind.
Sir:
In consideration of the $3,700,000 the Egyptian government appropriates for "among other things, repair of the royal yacht and of palace walls" and $2,000-a-day on-the-Riviera costs, could you not persuade our Congress to divert that "trickle of Point Four aid" from Egypt to local fields? . . .
JULIANA JOHNS Rochelle Park, NJ.
Sir:
Farouk "tossed in the square white discs worth a million francs ($2,850) each . . ."
I am interested in getting one of these valuable shapes, for which I will swap a priceless circular rectangle from my knothole collection.
JACK TUCKER Des Moines, Iowa
P:I To Reader Tucker, thanks for squaring TIME'S million-franc circle.--ED.
Sir:
The pun on the Sept. 10 frontpiece of TIME ["When a fellah needs a friend"] is as atrocious as the character referred to.
Punning--as you no doubt know--is considered a low form of what some folks call wit.
R. A. SINNOTT San Francisco ^f " Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it" (Jonathan Swift).--ED.
Past Tense, Not Present
Sir:
My attention has been called to an article appearing in the Sept. 3 issue of TIME under the heading: "Corner in Rye?" In this article there is the following statement: ". . . Cullum named some of the combine's members: The Washington lobbyist for one of Chicago's grain speculators, a U.S. Senator, an ECA official and his wife, two staffers of the Senate Agriculture Committee."
Since the article is written in the present tense,it in effect accuses some members of the present Senate Agriculture Committee staff of participating in a speculating combine formed to corner commodity markets ... If the persons referred to in the article are not presently members of the Committee staff, a retraction is in order . . .
ALLEN J. ELLENDER Chairman
Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry Washington
P: TIME'S story should have made it clear that the "two staffers" were former employees of the Senate Agriculture Committee. No present staffer of the committee was involved.--ED.
Popular Pulpit Topics
Sir:
Where did Cain get his wife? (TiME, Sept. 3). I disagree with Pastor McBirnie's answer.* Nowhere in the Bible is a statement found which may be construed to mean that.
*McBirnie's answer: Cain must have married his sister. The only woman in the world at that time not his sister or his niece would have been his mother, Eve.
Cain or any other son of Adam ever married his sister. There are, however, two succinct statements, much overlooked, which indicate that there were men on earth other than the progeny of Adam. For it is written that the "sons of God," meaning the sons of Adam (I presume Cain was included among them) married "daughters of men." Elsewhere we read: '". . . Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod . . . And . . . knew his wife." (Genesis 4:16, 17) ...
D. A. BERBERIAN, M.D.
Loudonville, NY.
Sir:
. . . We members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church) have the correct answer and there is no confusion about it. Moses [according to Mormon scriptures] 5:28 tells us: "And it came to pass that Cain took one of his brothers' daughters to wife, and they loved Satan more than God." So, from scripture, we are informed that Cain married his niece . . .
DAVID Y. ROGERS San Francisco
SIR:
IF ANYONE IS WORRIED ABOUT CAIN MARRYING HIS SISTER LET HIM READ GENESIS 5:4.* HOWEVER, TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH'S RECORD GROWTH IS NOT DUE TO POPULAR PULPIT TOPICS . . .
REV. W. S. MCBIRNIE
SAN ANTONIO
Gotham Travel Note
Sir:
Re the Museum of Modern Art's exhibit of ancient stylish cars [TIME, Sept. 10]: just for the record, in what type "hollow rolling sculpture" does Car-Connoisseur Art-Curator Arthur Drexler flit about Manhattan?
FRANK SKINNER St. Petersburg, Fla.
P: Curator Drexler admires cars only as static works of art, but admits to riding occasionally in a hollow rolling De Soto taxi.--ED.
That Gardner Girl (Cont'd)
Sir: [Re TIME'S Sept. 3 article on Ava Gardner] has it ever occurred to Hollywood that there is a segment of the American pub lic that is not interested in finding a glamorous star but rather an actress, someone who appreciates what an art and privilege acting is and who is not "bored" with acting. This is one area which is sadly lacking in potential fulfillment.
MURIEL SNYDER
Denver, Col.
Sir:
Zuzu, a local Airedale, would make a perfect Hollywood glamour girl. She is absolutely indifferent to the public, to say she enjoys sex is an understatement, and her poise is so developed she can pass a fireplug without batting an eyelash . . .
Glamour is O.K., but most of us will settle for better pictures.
LEWIS WILLIAMS Philadelphia
Johannesburg P.S.
Sir:
The Sept. 3 issue of TIME was banned in South Africa because of a story by Alexander Campbell, "A Report from Johannesburg, City in Terror . .." It so happens that it was reprinted in the Cape Times in a message from their London correspondent, and my Negro messenger got hold of it and read it. The following conversation ensued:
Negro: (to me) Does this boss live in South Africa?
Me: Oh yes. He has been here for years.
Negro: You can see that he has lived in South Africa.
Just in case somebody tries to tell you that Campbell has been "misrepresenting" South Africa.
R. F. WINDRAM Johannesburg, South Africa
Sir:
. . . The newspapers here seldom give their readers any data on South Africa other than its output of gold. Therefore, the people of the British Isles, with the exception of those of us who have been in the Union, know little of the terrible injustice meted out to the natives by a sordid administration aided and abetted by a fiercely reactionary Dutch Reformed Church, and passively if not actively enforced by a white minority, whose conduct belies all that Christianity stands for ...
MICHAEL MURPHY Birmingham, England
Sir:
From my father I derived a sympathetic interest in the Boers of South Africa and a reverence for their great commander, Jan Christian Smuts . . .
It seems to me that Afrikaners have created the terror for themselves, as men so often create the monsters which eventually devour them. It was a sad day for South Africa when Malan and his program of apartheid took over her destinies . . . South Africa lost her soul when she lost Smuts.
FRANK VAN OOSBREE Korea
Playing with Fire
Sir:
No doubt this is about the umpteenth letter you will have received concerning the Sept. 10 article on the tragic ergot poisoning incident in France.
Your attention is invited to the erroneous statement that the above-mentioned disease is known as "St. Anthony's fire." In any medical dictionary you will discover that erysipelas, not ergot poisoning, is referred to by the lay term of "St. Anthony's fire." A pox on your researcher for that obvious error. MILDRED A. FISHER, R.N. Monmouth, 111.
P: Let Reader Fisher have a care. St. Anthony's name was given to numerous inflammatory scourges, one of which was ergotism.--ED.
"And the days of Adam after he had be gotten Seth were eight hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters . . ."
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