Man of the Year?

Sir:

To find a man who really deserves being called Man of the Year for 1951 is difficult. It can be General MacArthur, but his influence on 1951 is not great. It may be Winston Churchill, but he came into power late in the year, too late to deserve [the title]. No one on the other side of the Iron Curtain did anything very important this year. My preference is Senator Estes Kefauver . . .

J. DICK New York City

Sir:

John L. Lewis--who kept his trap shut when it was out of season.

FRED W. BANE Springfield, Ill.

Sir:

There is no question in my mind as to the Man of the Year; he is the ubiquitous--one might say inevitable--cab driver who sums up virtually all of the issues raised in numbers of TIME stories.

By actual count, this cab driver (or his female counterpart, an anonymous scrubwoman) has been quoted 34 times in the past six months. He never yet has failed to comprehend both the broad picture and the significant detail behind each story, and his succinct wisdom is beautifully quotable. I haven't been able to figure out his nationality. Sometimes he is a shrugging Frenchman, frequently a shrewd but likable Cockney. In the Nov. 12 issue he is an analytical Swede ("the only thing that puzzles me is how could a simple Navy N.C.O. get access to so many top secrets. Also, why were his Red sympathies ignored for 24 years?").

This man obviously is eminently qualified to lead the world. You will note how much smarter he is, for example, than your writer. In 490 words, your writer missed this double-pointed puzzle. Not so the cab driver. In two simple sentences, the cabbie got right down amongst the ribs and started probing the heart of the matter. He does it every time, and so does the scrubwoman.

That cab driver is a valuable piece of property, Mr. Editor, hang on to him like serge to lint . . .

TED SMILEY Tallahassee, Fla.

Girls' Guide

Sir:

Regarding your Nov. 5 review of The Intelligent Man's Guide to Women by Vassar Girls Whitbread and Cadden: if these ladies are married,* I'm sure their husbands have the sympathy of all other men and women who read TIME'S piece.

(MRS.) NANCY B. KEYES Long Branch, N.J.

Sir:

The Intelligent Man's Guide to Women sounds as dull as two virgins discussing sex.

MARCIA MATTHEWS McAllen, Texas

Sir:

If we're to believe Whitbread and Cadden, the road ahead for most A.A.M. (Average American Male) Groggles promises to be a rough one, indeed. Unless, of course, like me, they're lucky enough to have married a girl who seems to prefer private happiness to public hypertension.

JOHN T. KELLEY Chicago

Old Brown, Ex Veep

Sir:

Shades of Peter Rabbit! I never dreamed I'd see my childhood friend, Squirrel Nutkin, making TIME'S [Nov. 5] PEOPLE page. Even Old Brown must be blinking to find himself compared to John Nance Garner and mentioned in the same column with Margaret Truman, Princess Margaret and other royalty !

ELIZABETH CONVY SCHMANDT Ann Arbor, Mich

Sir:

I think TIME'S lack of respect for the former Vice President of the United States, Mr. John Nance Garner, is shocking . . . I am a Republican, and I disagreed with the man when he was in office, but . . . this disrespect for a man who once held the second highest office in our land gets under my skin.

FREDERICK A. RICHARDSON Saint Paul, Minn.

Hoof & Mouth Trouble

Sir:

" 'Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons steelyringing imperthnthn thnthnthn,' wrote James Joyce in Ulysses. What he meant was that two barmaids, a redhead and a blonde were listening to the clatter of dray horses in a Dublin street" [TIME, Nov. 12].

He didn't write that, and he didn't mean that. He wrote "Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing" as a brisk note, to be expanded on the next page, of barmaids watching the viceregal cavalcade. He then wrote, on the next line, "Imperthnthn thn thnthn" as a note, also to be expanded a page later, of a bellboy mimicking the [barmaid's] phrase "impertinent insolence."

For fusing two unrelated phrases and turning the viceregal carriage into a dray, to TIME'S imperthnthn editor, an Emily-colored blush.

W. HUGH KENNER Santa Barbara, Calif.

P: I And deservedly--but not Emily-colored (see below).--ED.

Sir:

" 'I did not write any poem referring to Emily-colored hands,' hissed Miss Sitwell . . ."

I am an admirer of Miss Sitwell but I will absolutely worship her if she can hiss that sentence.

SIDNEY JONES Philadelphia

P: TIME'S hiss expert deposes, with a Sit-wellian smile, that one sibilant in a sentence is enough for a real hisser.--ED.

Sir:

We were glad to learn Miss Sitwell is capable of roaring on to a battlefield and hissing by post. Such vocal athletics no doubt enhance the status of a poetess who has progressed beyond the White Cliffs of Dover to the point where she writes of the "pink cheeks of young country girls in unintelligible floral arrays."

And the reason James Joyce wrote as he did is, no doubt, explained in the first episode [of Ulysses], "You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible example of free thought." However, both are artists. And what else, cries the voice of doom, matters?

LEWIS WILLIAMS Philadelphia

Envoy to the Vatican

Sir:

The tired old saws elicited by your Nov. 19 readers (Protestant) concerning the appointment of Mark Clark as Ambassador to Rome (Catholic) have caused me to draw a bead of indignant ire on them . . .

I am a Master Mason, therefore surely not prejudiced in favor of the Holy See in Rome . . . The basic weakness in Protestantism seems to be an insecure and wholly immature feeling, which impels them to show extreme aggression against any school of thought not completely in accord with their feelings and doctrine . . . Our common enemy is not Russia, Poland, or Communist China, but the things they stand for. They believe, and as sincerely as we believe the opposite, that power is right. Any means that we can use . . . to combat this incipient evil, are the means that we should use, including the appointment of a courier to Rome.

JAMES F. HAYS Beverly Hills, Calif.

Incident at the Stork

Sir:

TIME'S Nov. 12 piece on the Winchell-Baker-Stork-Club fiasco rates three loud cheers. Your treatment of racial-prejudice incidents has always been excellent. Also nice blow for the misused word "discrimination." It used to be a handy one. And may Sugar Ray Robinson's "Daddy-O, ungather my dry goods, or I'll have to let you have it," be remembered favorably with Joe Jacobs' candid "I shoulda stood in bed."

STAN WALKER Austin, Texas

Sir:

Winchell is a member of a minority group, and therefore shouldn't sound off about being the "foremost champion of human rights," when it's his duty to stand up for the minorities. La Baker's persistent invasions of plush society spots smack of a trite proverb: give her enough rope and she'll hang herself! Sugar Ray's threat to withdraw from the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund (unless the situation is cleared up) is detrimental to his reputation as a champion. Is the fund a project for saving thousands of cancer victims, or a measuring stick for popularity and good fellowship? Come on, folks, let's be grown up and give this thing time!

FRED W. HOSBACH Huntington, N.Y.

Sir:

. . . I hope that Miss Baker and Mr. Robinson are not trying to buy their way into the Stork Club by giving to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund. The $80,000 which they recently gave to the fund could have been contributed to Negro organizations . . .

STEPHEN MERMIGIS Kansas City, Kans.

Sir:

Of course it's a pity Miss Josephine Baker did not get her filet mignon at the Stork Club just when she ordered it, but I don't think the incident is enough to send half the nation rushing about bellowing self-righteously in all directions as if the steak had been cut from their own hindquarters. Am I morally obtuse, or is there really a menace to the American Constitution entrenched on 53rd Street? . . .

JETHRO HATCH Kent, Conn.

The Protestant Idea

Sir:

We of the Protestant faith certainly appreciated your fine Nov. 5 analysis of Clarence Hall's and Desier Holisher's U.S. Protestant Panorama. I would, though, like to take issue with the implication that "there are at least signs that--faced with the growth of the Roman Catholic Church . . ." It is, to be sure, a distinct challenge to be "faced" with the growth of any religious body. Even though quantity does not prove the point, the Protestant faith is not only outstripping the population growth by a great deal, but growing more rapidly than our brethren of the Roman Church--and we do not bring members into our fellowship (or count them) until they are approximately twelve years of age.

Congratulations on your forthright statement that Protestantism is the big threat to Communism . . .

(REV.) PHILIP H. OXNAM The Methodist Church Pleasantville, N.Y.

Sir:

. . . As a Roman Catholic, I have been more than disturbed at the large amount of literature attacking, directly or indirectly, the church of which I am a member. But the statement that Russia's real enemy is the "freedom-loving Protestants" is too much. Certainly there is enough evidence in Europe to show the Soviet's feelings toward Catholics . . .

EDWARD E. FORD Youngstown, Ohio

Sir:

. . . If Cardinal Mindszenty was so "easy" a conquest for Communism, why was it necessary to break his mind and health? . . .

MARYDELL LATORRA Boulder, Colo.

Sir:

. . . What are intelligent people to do with such rhetoric as "Protestantism in the main . . . first unleashed the ideal of freedom and set it singing in the hearts of men?" Are we supposed to forget Moses and Israel?

(RABBI) STANLEY R. BRAV Cincinnati

Bleats from the Guard Sir:

. . . I hate to think that I and thousands of other National Guardsmen have in the past and will continue to waste our time, two nights a week in many cases, numerous weekends, and two weeks' summer camp in a "militarily obsolete organization" [TIME, Nov. 5]. If I had only known this, I would have devoted more time to earning a living and enjoying my family.

(CAPTAIN) ROBERT F. PAVIOUR N.Y.N.G. Rochester, N.Y.

Sir:

. . . When Army units left the Hawaiian Islands for Korea in 1950, they were armed in part with equipment taken from Guard units here at the last moment. The same has happened elsewhere in the U.S. If that equipment had not been maintained by Guardsmen who put in much more than their required one night of drill a week to keep it in shape, it would not have been available for the Army . . . We are in the Guard because we know that only with a ready mobilization force can the U.S. be a world power, and we will remain until someone points out a better way to maintain such a force. We resent your adverse generalizations.

LT. COL. THURSTON TWIGG-SMITH Honolulu, Hawaii

Benign Revolution?

Sir:

TIME, Nov. 12 reports on the "revolutionary" teacher-training plan which the State of Arkansas, backed by the Ford Foundation, is instituting in its teachers' colleges. To the private and independent schools, the Ford plan is not "revolutionary," but their standard teacher-training method, carried on for years. These schools demand from their teachers expert knowledge of subject matter, and have found that well-educated graduates of liberal-arts colleges can readily acquire teaching techniques by working directly under an experienced teacher. Both "master teacher" and principal supervise these "internes."

Every aspect of the beginners' work is covered--classroom practice, lesson-planning, presentation of material, assignments, grading, examinations. Help is always available, but these internes are constantly encouraged to develop their own methods. Usually this combination of freedom with direction is wholly successful . . .

BEATRICE CONSTANT MARVIN Columbus School for Girls Columbus, Ohio

P: The Ford Foundation's plan may be nothing new to U.S. private schools, but as a statewide plan applying to all public-school teachers, it still seems revolutionary.--ED.

Of Mice & Women

Sir:

The new drug which stops pregnancy in mice by "resorbing" the fetus may be called a contraceptive by some. If this plan is to be used on humans, I call it murder . . . Let Dr. Goldsmith take heed of the countless thousands of murders he will be responsible for if he puts his new "contraceptive" [TIME, Oct. 29] in the hands of the people. Why must our scientists use their brilliant minds . . . as tools of the devil? . . .

MRS. A. G. KRAMER Parker Dam, Calif.

Sir:

Re the possibility of an oral contraceptive: discriminating women since Eve have employed one very effectively, viz. NO!

FREDERICK W. SANDERS Marblehead, Mass.

*They are, Author Whitbread to an admiralt} lawyer; Author Cadden to a businessman. Each has three children.

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