Prodigies

Sirs:

You say in the Music department of TIME, Nov. 1 that "All great musicians were prodigies. . . ."

I can furnish no evidence to the contrary but I should like to see you prove the assertion. FREMONT POWER

Bloomington, Ind.

Without calling the roll of all great musicians, TIME suggests that the following bear out its generalization: When he was 4, Beethoven began studying music, knew as much as his teacher-father by the time he was 9. Other first appearances: Heifetz and Elman at 5, Mozart and Josef Hofmann at 6, Fritz Kreisler at 7, Chopin at 8, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Rubinstein, Harold Bauer at 9, Cesar Franck and Schumann at 11.--ED.

Social Security

Sirs:

It occurs to me that if all the growling about Social Security was transmuted into action, the pressure would force a simpler Social Security plan.

As the proprietor of a small business, I can say wholeheartedly that it is the bunk.

If I hire a man for one hour, say to load a truck, and pay him one dollar--I must collect from him one cent--discover his full name--his Social Security number--and make an individual report on the deal at the end of the six-month period.

At the present time I am under suspicion by the Law. In copying figures to a monthly report, I made a mistake and now I am required to send affidavits stamped by a notary public (for which 50-c- is charged), stating my reasons for the mistake and swearing that I am not trying to defraud the Government by paying them 2/10 of a cent too much.

One thing I will say for the plan--I am no bookkeeper, but I will be, if I survive!

I am getting tired of supporting a bunch of politicians' relatives in bookkeeping jobs under the present plan. If they must have jobs, let them come up here and make a census of the wild life of our fair country.

What do you think about it, fellow-sufferers ?

O. J. FARNSWORTH

Ketchikan, Alaska

Egotistical, Intolerable

Sirs:

It would be a pleasure for me if Anthropologist Hooton would relax and take a sea voyage. He has become ever so egotistical and intolerable of human failings. He has flowered beautifully in a Democracy--so much so that instead of correcting and constructing he has become like other Caesars-- destructive.

D. A. YULSMAN Philadelphia, Pa.

P.S. Ref.: Apes, Men and Morons [TIME, Nov. 8].

Omniscience Smacked

Sirs:

In TIME'S review of Anthropologist Hooton's Apes, Men and Morons you quote his statement that sooner or later the public is going to call Science's bluff of omniscience. As the worthy professor is guilty of many positive statements which smack of omniscience, his bluff is herewith called.

With his measurements of skulls; with his statements that morons and imbeciles are on the increase among us, that man's meddling with nature has been detrimental to his own evolutionary status, there is no quarrel. But when he says: "the quality of any individual mind is probably inherent and immutable," that, "we must improve man before we can perfect his institutions and make him behave," that, "the human improvement required is primarily biological," he is talking nonsense. Or, rather, he is talking like that flower of our higher institutions of learning, a college professor.

There have been other observers of human behavior who hold opposite views from the learned professor. Says Anthropologist Robert Briffault, "stupidity is deliberately, laboriously, vigilantly cultivated by the established institutions of medievalism, barbarism, and savagery, whose survival in a world of multiplied intelligence requires that stupidity --a stupidity which is an artificial product. It is not innate, it is not inevitable." Said famed Political Economist John Stuart Mill, "of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences."

R. A. KOCHER, M.D.

Carmel, Calif.

Nauseating Distortions

Sirs:

I was sorry to see Reader Sullivan's shot at your estimate of Braque's painting score only an indirect hit and go skittering off to the side [TIME, Nov. 8].

Fact is, he quoted my own sentiments exactly. Fact is also, your answer will satisfy only that handful of "experts" who rate artistic pratique through some strange omniscient power to see Art in limp watches and nauseating distortions of the commonplace. . . .

I have been waiting a long time for a logical explanation of Surrealism's right to exist; not its existence, mind, but its right to exist. Any kid can sling a ripe tomato, three rotten eggs and a jackknife at a square of wallboard and get a bang-up Surrealistic effect. But is that Art?

Mature, art-loving citizens are entitled to the belief that these Surrealistic loose-screws are in the same boat with the Nudists, Townsendites, Technocrats; aberrationists all. We are sick of seeing them kowtowed to. We want to see them get the razzberry they've got coming to them in the absence of any lucid defense of their craft. . . . T. P. CHITTENDEN Edmonds, Wash.

To keep the record straight for Reader Chittenden: Cubists, such as Georges Braque, make geometrical designs based on the physical world; Surrealists, such as Salvador Dali, try to paint the peculiar vividness of dreams. In distinguishing loose screws from effective artists in both camps TIME will continue to use its own judgment, to respect that of honest authori-ties.--ED.

Sirs:

I, too, am a very ordinary guy. Like Letter-Writer Sullivan I've cluck-clucked a lot at "crazy quilt," Cubist paintings. Yet, after reading one paragraph of TIME'S Art article, dumb as I am, I began to understand what such painters are driving at. With TIME'S permission, I'd like to "get hot, get arty as Hell," and ram a few of my thoughts down Sullivan's throat.

As a would-be fiction writer, I've made analogies between writing and painting. No Supreme Court, thank God, imposes upon us a blind followance of the rules of grammar. Similarly, no Hitler decrees that all painters must draw in perspective. Grammar and perspective are tools, not ends: they must be used, not worshipped. No writer wants his story to be merely schoolteacherish grammar. No painter wants his picture to be merely good architectural perspective. Both writer and painter do have a common purpose: the writer, to amuse, to shock, to entertain the reader; the painter, to amuse, to shock, to entertain the galleryite: both in-tend to jar your emotions. A fiction writer, to stir your guts, will split any infinitive that gets in the way. A painter, for the same reason, may draw his horizon line perpendicular, and scatter vanishing points like confetti.

All this is ''artistic license"--which is not the license to keep a studio-harem, but the right of any artist to use his tools and materials in any way he pleases to achieve the effect he wants. . . . JOHN WILLIAM SHAW

Little Rock, Ark.

Sirs:

George I. Sullivan has got something there --there are ever so many of us, and chances are that most of us would "shrug, smile, disagree with" TIME. . . .

J. T. RAYMOND

New York City

Let Readers Raymond and Chittenden ponder the often cited fact that for 98 years photography has been taking over the representational function which once belonged solely to the graphic and plastic arts. Let all readers reflect that prejudice may prevent pleasure in Art's other and no less important properties -- color, texture, form.--ED.

Man of the Year

Sirs:

I nominate New York City's Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia for 1937 Man of the Year because he was the first person ever to tie the bell of doom around the neck of that nine-lived Tammany cat two times in a row.

HENRY STONER

Barberton, Ohio

Sirs:

For Man of the Year--Jack Garner.

It isn't everyone who can accomplish his purpose by taking a vacation and keeping his mouth shut.

R. E. NYE

St. Louis. Mo.

Sirs:

For Man of the Year, I nominate General Francisco Franco in appreciation of the death blow he has dealt to international Communism; for liberating the Spanish people from the yoke of Moscow; but chiefly for saving Christian civilization in Spain and thereby throughout the world.

FRANK T. TEAKEN Gabriels, N. Y.

Sirs:

For Man of the Year Puerto Rico nominates Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, a liberal-minded statesman, an able administrator, and a very good friend of Puerto Rico.

PABLO L. SOSA

Bureau of Extension and Examination

Department of Education

Government of Puerto Rico

San Juan, P. R.

Sirs:

In my sincere opinion the Man of the Year--the one outstanding industrial Man of Peace in 1937--Myron Taylor of U. S. Steel. . . . STEPHEN M. WALFORD Wallingford, Conn.

Sirs:

I nominate for Man of the Year, the world's most distinguished citizen: Herbert Hoover.

His recent article: The Crisis and the Political Parties, is the only statesmanly declaration in several political generations. . . .

V. A. ROBERTSON

Hollywood, Calif.

Sirs:

. . . My first candidate is the man who has not wanted--hasn't asked for--hasn't accepted any special favor--allotment--salary --relief--or subsidy from his (our) Government.

For the second seat of honor I would name the man who can locate the first one.

GEORGE E. RICE

Oklahoma City, Okla.

Errol

Sirs:

TIME erred in reporting on film stars in sports (TIME, Nov. 8). Oldtime star Leon Errol promotes the six-day bike races out here, not Errol Flynn. You should have changed your Errol. . . .

CHARLES HUNTLEY

Hollywood, Calif.

TIME did indeed err. Errol Flynn is far too British in his sports tastes to be interested in any such thing as bike races.--ED.

Lilly

Sirs:

Reference: "Friday 5#3, p. 80 TIME, Nov. 15." Let not TIME'S Business editor be misled by the advertising manager's list of national advertisers in designating the "Big Four" of "ethical" pharmaceutical manufacturers.

It is obviously artificial, unfair, and misleading to talk about the "Big Four" of pharmaceutical houses, even in business columns, when the only standard for these manufacturers is not size but acceptance by the medical profession and leadership in scientific research. Let your editor ask ten physicians to name the "Big Four" and without thinking in terms of dollars and cents, they would all undoubtedly mention Eli Lilly & Co. of Indianapolis, Ind.

Although Lilly has been outstanding in its development of many pharmaceutical products, particularly liver preparations; although it is the largest manufacturer of Insulin, the firm is not known to the average person because it does no consumer advertising whatsoever; secures distribution of its products only by specification of physicians in their prescriptions. . . .

ROBERT M. LEICH

Charles Leich & Co.

Wholesale Drugs and Druggists' Sundries

Evansville, Ind.

TIME erred by not pointing out that it was listing the "Big Four" among those firms which are publicly owned. Eli Lilly & Co., old and honored, is a closed corporation (in its own words "essentially a family institution") and the volume of its business, although reputedly large, is not a matter of public record, therefore not subject to comparison.--ED .

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