Fun in Flanders
Sir:
Why print such a vulgar, ugly picture as Pieter Bruegel's "The Wedding Dance" in the Nov. 26 issue? It takes up much valuable space and its sensuality is far from ennobling. We need pictures that help strengthen our moral fibre.
(REV.) EDWARD EVERETT HAILWOOD Altadena, Calif.
Sir:
Which of the individuals in "The Wedding Dance" is the bridegroom?
ALEX C. PREECE Williamson, W.Va.
Sir:
It sure looks like it was everybody's wedding night . . .
ELVA THORGOLES
Brooklyn
Sir:
It is the sort of [picture] from which students of art, history, and economics can glean information easily on the physical and psychological mores in Flanders four centuries ago. These well fed and active folk bouncing rhythmically to tones from a bagpipe reveal that jazz, jive and jamboree are but modern terms for pleasurable responses long existent in the joys of men & women in group festivities . . . Please give your pages more of such fun-provoking art.
HUGH MCCARTHY
Minneapolis
Sir:
On behalf of the Detroit Institute of Arts, may I express deep appreciation and admiration of the fine article and reproduction of the Bruegel "Wedding Dance"? It was indeed well handled, and we have already had many comments from our public. The Sunday after the reproduction appeared our attendance took quite an unusual spurt; undoubtedly many Detroiters did not realize that they had such a treasure house in their midst.
May we compliment you especially on the high quality and fidelity of the color reproduction ? It is one of the most faithful reproductions of this painting that has ever been made . . .
WILLIAM A. BOSTICK
Secretary
The Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit
Sir-
When the "Wedding Dance" was discovered by Dr. W. R. Valentiner, Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1930, it was not in its original state but had been overpainted, probably in the 19th Century, to cover up parts of costumes shocking to Victorians, but common in the 16th Century . . . The restoration of the picture to its original state was appreciated by all who admire Bruegel's realism and detail . . .
(Miss) HARRIETT L. VALENTINER Cincinnati
P: The part of the costumes painted over by the Victorians was the codpiece, commonly worn by men from the 15th to the 17th Century. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the codpiece as "a bagged appendage to the front of the close-fitting hose or breeches [which was] often conspicuous and ornamental." When the painting was being restored, in 1942, the codpieces were revealed. TIME printed Bruegel's picture the way he painted it.--ED.
Senator Taft's Book
Sir:
Reviewing Robert Taft's A Foreign Policy for Americans, TIME [Nov. 26] says that "he effectively attacks proposals for world government." Taft sets up a straw man. The world government he attacks is one of broad powers. Most of us who are calling for world government have in mind nothing resembling what Taft describes in his book.
United World Federalists . . . advocates developing the U.N. into "a world federal government with limited powers adequate to make, enforce and interpret world laws to maintain peace and prevent aggression." U.W.F. believes that "all powers not specifically granted to a world government should be reserved to the national governments, thus guaranteeing to each nation complete internal sovereignty to manage its domestic affairs." On occasions Senator Taft has come pretty close to advocating this himself.
WILLIAM A. KIRSTEIN
Clearwater, Fla.
Sir:
I am only sorry that Mr. Taft, a man who represents such a great proportion of the population of our country, cannot realize that the U.S. is looked to for world leadership . . .
PETER D. MILES Geneva, Switzerland
Sir:
Why should Taft's book dispel doubts of his isolationism? His record has a clear-cut isolationist pattern, and no matter what he might say, the old dog hasn't learned any new tricks. I may be oldfashioned, but when a man's actions and words contradict each other, I evaluate him by what he does and not by what he says.
ALAN KOHN University City, Mr
Katyn Incident
Sir:
My congratulations to TIME for being the first periodical to break the conspiracy of silence on the Katyn Forest massacres. Mr. Churchill in his memoirs seems to have little doubt as to who is responsible for the crime. And although the Germans were charged in Nuernberg with that crime, they were not found guilty of it.
A. M. WASUNG London, England
Tracy's Trials
Sir:
How can you question the high standards and honesty of Dick Tracy when for the past 20 years he's worn the same suit?
PEG SLOTE White Plains, N.Y.
The Right Winner
Sir:
In your Dec. 3 report of the automobile race through Mexico ... the caption under the picture is wrong.
Between Alberto Ascari, in sweater, and Luigi Chinetti is shown Luigi Villoresi, rather than the winner, Piero Taruffi.
All four are members of the Ferrari racing team, with Chinetti confining himself to sport-car events . . .
CHAS. LYTLE
Sharon, Pa.
P: TIME'S caption was indeed wrong;
herewith Winner Taruffi.--ED.
The Protestant Picture
Sir:
If the Rev. John Mackay's report [TIME, Nov. 26] on Spain is true, it is something we Catholics are not proud of and wholeheartedly against, and would certainly do our utmost to change . . .
In visiting Catholic countries, I am afraid the Rev. Dr. Mackay missed Ireland. I am sure if he could have visited Ireland, he would have found that conditions existed there as in Spain for some time. Only, as in most cases, "the shoe was on the other foot," that is, the Protestants persecuted the Catholics . . .
GRAHAM GILMARTIN
Detroit
Sir: . . . Dr. Mackay is as notorious a papist-baiter as Paul Blanshard . . .
THOS. F. O'CONNOR
Newburgh, N.Y.
Sir:
Here's hoping Dr. Mackay goes to the Protestant countries like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark next summer and gives us the true religious picture there.
REV. WALTER J. MOLEK St. Augustine [Roman Catholic] Church Pittsburgh
The Magsaysay Story
Sir:
Congratulations and thanks to TIME for its job on the Philippines and its defense secretary, Ramon Magsaysay. The 50 Filipino
Fulbright students here are most interested in "selling" our country to your people, and I believe TIME'S Nov. 26 article will give the millions of people we cannot possibly reach a fairly accurate picture of our country today, and what we are doing to make democracy work in that part of the Far East.
ENRIQUE P. ROMUALDEZ
Evanston, Ill.
Mildly Squiffed?
How did Henry Adams, get "mildly squiffed" on kawa [TIME, Nov. 12] ? It is not alcoholic ... It is prepared from the roots of the shrub Piper methysticum and is drunk before it would have time to ferment.
It must have been those Samoan girls.
GRANGER JOHNSON South Yarra, Victoria, Australia -3 Other travelers to the South Seas have thought that kawa had some authority. Let Reader Johnson consider the Greek root of "methystic" ("Of or belonging to drunkenness, intoxicating").--ED.
Man of the Year?
Sir:
Allow me to make my annual nomination for Man of the Year. Once again Harry S. Truman stands head & shoulders above all competition.
ROBERT E. DAEHN Chicago
Sir:
How about Dean Acheson?
FRANCES GIBSON Memphis
Sir:
Baseball's blue-chip pitcher, Allie Reynolds . . .
R. M. HOISINGTON Duncan, Okla.
Sir:
. . . Galo Plaza Lasso, Ecuador's President . . .
E. S. WHITMAN New York City
Sir:
. . . Bob Taft . . .
J. R. WALLACE, JR. Falls Church, Va.
Sir:
. . . General Eisenhower . . .
VERNON C. BARKER Mendota, Va.
Sir:
I nominate Turkey's [Democratic Party leader] Celal Bayar ... By 1955 or later, we will come to recognise how many billions of dollars and thousands of lives this man has saved us through a fateful course of events in the strategic Near East. There is hardly any doubt about the geopolitical value of Turkey pitched against Russia, her Arab neighbors or the shifty Balkan countries. Substitute the word "with" in the foregoing sentence for "against," and think where we would be today! Bayar's merits in Turkey's present position are little known to Westerners--they are not too well known to his own countrymen, few of whom have the political instinct, moral integrity or patient perseverance of this statesman, who is now establishing the Easternmost bastion of democracy and fair play for peace in our time.
JOHN H. HAAS
Washington
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