Medals Sirs:

I nominate as the group which brought the most joy to the heart of suffering humanity during 1938 the boys who beat up Goebbels, and I trust every effort will be made to commemorate in some fitting manner the action of these public benefactors. I would be delighted to subscribe to a fund to buy them costly medals, if they survive.

FRANK SULLIVAN Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

-- Their whereabouts are unknown, their act unverified.--ED.

Thackeray to Kieran

Sirs :

I note, on p. 36 of TIME, Jan. 9, the following, under heading "Kieran & Co.":

"Mused Father John [Kieran] into the microphone in Kieranized Shakespeare: 'How sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have a serpent child.' "

Let TIME and omniscient Mr. Kieran read William Makepeace Thackeray's The Kickleburys on the Rhine (1851), where they will find this paragraph:

"Lady Kicklebury remarked, that Shakspeare* was very right in stating, how much sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have a serpent child."

WM. GEO. SULLIVAN Indianapolis, Ind.

Carlyle

Sirs:

"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of--the air."

(Thomas Carlyle in the Edinburgh Review, June 1827)

E. SMALLWEED

Somerset, N. J.

Takashi Masuda

Sirs:

May I thank you personally for your extremely unbiased and sympathetic account of the death of ex-Baron Takashi Masuda [TIME, Jan. 9] ? At this time when we are being urged on all sides to think all Japanese dragons, your reportorial honesty does you credit.

We met Mr. Masuda last year. We went, on a rainy day, to his house outside of Tokyo, primarily to see his private collection of Chinese and Japanese Art. We came away adoring that merry, hospitable and clever old man. . . .

When we saw him he was recovering from an ailment and leaned heavily on a cane. Every now and then the cane gave way and would do a sidewise step across the room.

Each time his two girl attendants would giggle. His instructions were that his ailment was to be ignored or treated gaily.

He had, as you mentioned, extremely individual notions about food. I remember his insisting that I take honey instead of sugar in my tea, that it was better for me. The honey was from his own bees, the tea grew on shrubs which stretched for an acre in front of us as we sat there sipping it, and made up his front garden. He had two boxes packed for us. . . .

I have two regrets. One, that we could not return for Mr. Masuda's promised tale of his intensely interesting experiences during the exciting changes which took place in Japan during 1860-1875; the other that my New Year's greetings reached him too late.

ELEANOR LAPORTE Ann Arbor, Mich.

True But Naive

Sirs:

Every true American patriot . . . should protest emphatically against the war-breeding statement against the totalitarian states made by Chairman Key Pittman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (p. 6,TIME, Jan. 2).

It is true that the people of the U. S., the writer included, do not like the governments of Japan and Germany, but Pittman's conclusion that Americans have "the right and power to enforce morality and justice . . . and they will" is incredibly naive, dangerous, and unpatriotic. . . .

DAVIDSON COOKE Los Angeles, Calif.

Bibs

Sirs:

Our attention has been called to TIME, Dec. 12, p. 38 describing NBC's new broadcasting studios in Hollywood.

The Main Lobby, an enormous, high room was treated partly with Fabricoustic, the sound-absorbing, ornamental fabric-base material.

In your article you mention that when studio audiences appeared in full dress, their starched shirt bosoms bounce sounds back, being poor absorbers.

To obviate this condition, we are now prepared to furnish Fabricoustic bibs for stuffed shirts in, or outside of studios.

ZARA WITKIN Engineer Fabricoustic Co. Los Angeles, Calif.

Ashamed

Sirs:

It seems to me that the withdrawal by the publishers of the two Jerome Weidman books, I Can Get It for You Wholesale and What's in It for Me? (because "their principal character, a smart-guy Jew, is enough to rouse anti-Semitic sentiments in a rabbi"--TIME, Dec. 26) ; the withdrawal of Richard Simon's Miniature Photography (because "it commends some German-built cameras"--TIME, Dec. 26) ; and the boycott of the Anne Morrow Lindbergh book, Listen! the Wind! by the New Hyde Park library club (because of Colonel Lindbergh's acceptance of a Nazi decoration--TIME, Jan. 16) is just as bad as burning books in a public square. The difference is in method only. The reasons and results are the same.

I am frankly ashamed of my country and my countrymen for indulging in the very intolerance they profess so sincerely to abhor in other nations and other people. . .

ERA ZISTEL

New York City

"Bachelor's Children"

Sirs:

TIME Magazine in its issue of Dec. 12, printed an article entitled "Bachelor's Children" concerning my father, Ferdinand de Lesseps, and the film Suez. . .

"Last week in Paris, 28 de Lesseps, including Ferdinand's two surviving sons, Mathieuf and Paul, attended the family preview. When it was over, despite the implied reflection on themselves and their parentage, the de Lesseps were not shocked enough to bring suit, suggested a few minor changes. Relieved, Twentieth Century-Fox officials agreed to make them."

In point of fact, since the month of July 1938, I have demanded of the Fox Co. that the scenario and the film itself should be submitted to me, and I have not received any satisfaction from them.

Although I am a son of Ferdinand de Lesseps, I was not asked to attend the screening of the film on Dec. 2. ...

The Fox Co. not only made it impossible for me to attend this showing, but also subjected numerous grandsons and granddaughters of de Lesseps to the same discourtesy. I was only able to see the film at the "premiere" by paying for my seat as did other spectators.

PAUL DE LESSEPS Paris, France

To M. de Lesseps, who had to pay for a seat to see a dramatization of his famed father, TIME'S apologies for a mistake. Both M. de Lesseps and the Marques de Casa Fuerte, grandnephew of the Empress Eugenie, sought injunctions to have Suez suppressed in France. Last week, in a Paris court, the referee rejected both petitions on the ground that the film does not offend either ancestor "perniciously," contains "charming naiveties as well as inaccuracies." --ED.

Socialism, Etc.

Sirs:

With all the talk about Socialism, Communism. Fascism, etc., many others may have been sharing my vagueness of understanding of the differences between these ideologies.

C. F. Childs and Co., investment dealers, in their January bulletin speak thus:

"Socialism means that if you have two cows, you give one to your neighbor.

"Under Communism, you give both cows to the Government, which gives you back some of the milk.

"Under Fascism you keep the cows but give the milk to the Government, which sells some of it back to you.

"And under New Dealism you shoot one cow, milk the other and then pour the milk down the sink."

E. VANCE CLARK

The Home National Bank of Brockton Brockton, Mass.

Send-Off

Sirs:

THANKS FOR THE SEND-OFF UNDER PRESS [TIME, JAN. 16] BUT PLEASE PERMIT ME TO CORRECT THE IMPRESSION THAT MY MOTHER IS WIDOWED OR A TIMES STOCKHOLDER. FOR 19 YEARS SHE HAS HAD A SWELL HUSBAND NAMED GAVIN HAMILTON BUT SHE HAS NEVER OWNED A PENNY'S WORTH OF A SWELL PAPER NAMED THE TIMES.

GAIL BORDEN

Managing Editor Chicago Times Chicago, Ill.

To Mrs. Gavin Hamilton, TIME'S profoundest apologies for widowing her and presenting her with stock not hers. In any case, TIME never meant to imply that nepotism promoted her able son. --En.

Scots' Scrimmage

Sirs:

Rocking in the wake of Mr. Stuart Scrymgeour's artificial-flowery spate of indignation (TIME, Jan. 9), I am reminded that contemporaries of Alexander Scrymgeour, of the days of William Wallace, sometimes referred to him as Alexander Skirmisher, the forms scrimmage and skirmish illustrating the R-metathesis common in English and other Germanic languages. That Mr. Scrymgeour knows how to pronounce his name, or that ancestors of both of us were skirmishers and huntsmen in Scotland "afore the Saxons landed," I do not doubt; but a Scot who supposes that these forbears bore our present, or any other, established surnames must have a head rather less than hard.

WILLIAM A. HUNTER

Sharpsville, Pa.

*Thackeray's spelling.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.