LETTERS
Shame! Shame!
Sirs:
That stab in the back at Willkie was remindful of Mussolini. . . . Shame! Shame!
T. C. LODER
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sirs:
. . . After reading your ill-timed and very uncomplimentary remarks about Wendell Willkie in your last issue, I have decided not to renew my subscription next year.
KATE L. ROWLEY
Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
Alas, gone is the objectivity of your National Affairs section. When will you add the slogan "Veni Vidi Vilki" to your masthead?
JOHN F. CLOSE
Mount Royal, Quebec
Sirs:
TIME had better take heed of the fate of the Literary Digest as a result of the misinformation supplied by it in its anti-Roosevelt stand. . . . I, for one, shall not renew my subscription.
MRS. R. L. HOLLINGSWORTH
New York City
Sirs:
It seems to me that the man who is traveling on the Willkie train is affected with a sour stomach and should have a change of assignment. I might expect to find such an article as appears in your issue of Sept. 23 headed "Republicans" in some pretty ordinary-class magazine, but it is a surprise to me to find such an article in TIME.
WILLIAM RUSH
Hartford, Conn.
Dictaphone Button
Sirs:
Busy Beaverbrook is wasting a great deal of time if he dictates without depressing the Dictaphone button as he fails to do in TIME'S Bourke-White cover photo.
Small wonder his office is in a state of "complete chaos."
MAC F. CAHAL
Chicago, Ill.
>> Typical was Lord Beaverbrook's pose but pose it was.--ED.
Rubicon
Sirs:
Many political thinkers and a recent "Letters" correspondent say something which seems to me both un-American and dangerous.
The argument is that a Hitler victory in Europe will be economically disastrous for America because our free economy could not compete with a Nazi empire.
The argument is unAmerican. It is an economic tenet of democracy that the free laborer produces more than the slave-laborer. If highly paid labor does not produce even more in proportion to its higher standard than subsistence labor, then democracy has not been economically feasible. . . .
The argument is also dangerous. The whole unsolved problem of the depression will be blamed on Hitler. Every time a payroll is cut, it will be slapped on Adolf's back. We will be ballyhooed into an aggressive expeditionary war on economic grounds.
Now an expedition to save France and England might be morally worthy. But war which is openly waged for economic reasons is very immoral. The strongest basis of democracy is the nation's moral structure. Nothing could undermine us more than warfare on economic grounds.
Nor does the reasoning seem valid when it is plain that our land is rich enough to support us all comfortably. Our interest in European affairs is necessarily cultural, incidentally economic.
Such an argument graduates easily into accepting war as a way out of the unemployment problem. If we are "forced" to do something on economic grounds, then to do that thing is economically sound. Being "forced" to fight for an economic advantage will make it to our advantage to fight--and whenever anyone speaks now of economic advantages he has unemployment in his mind. Louis XIV repented his policy of war for profit . . . and we will repent it on ours if we ever follow that policy.
We must never publicly confuse Hitler and our economic failures. If we do we will cross a philosophical Rubicon that will be infinitely harder to recross than a real Rubicon--which has seldom been recrossed.
DONALD PURCELL
Pleasantville, N. Y.
Please Cancel
Sirs:
Please cancel TIME. . . . Our poor stomachs are no longer strong enough to handle TIME. You can have Jew Beaverbrook, et al.--we still believe America worth saving from this holocaust for Americans--not British.
D. C. MEYERS
MARY R. MEYERS
Ithan, Pa.
>> Just as neither Franklin Roosevelt nor Wendell Willkie wants anti-Semite votes, so TIME wants no readers who cultivate race hatreds. It so happens that Lord Beaverbrook--once Max Aitken of New Brunswick--is no Jew but the son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers and descended of a long line of Presbyterians.--ED.
Flowahs & Buhds
Sirs:
We note that you don't like Willkie's "slurred syllables" and "Indiana twang."
Well, to some of us it's a relief, after seven years of Newyawkese, to hear Willkie's vigorous, honest American r's.
We're rather weary of sweet flowahs and twittering buhds; of labuh and neighbuh, wukuhs and fahmuhs, wah and so on; of promises blandly honored in the breach; of lip service to the Constitution; of "liberalism" that purges, stands for Hagues and the Chicago Kellys and for political use of National relief; that cunningly labors to undermine American enterprise while deftly advancing the system of socialism.
And finally we are nauseated by the transparent hypocrisy of the "draft" for a third term.
But we rejoice that Willkie is holding his own in the Gallup polls--"momentarily."
By the way wasn't that "momentarily" crack of yours a bit below the belt--say down about the shinbone?
LAND N. PEASE
Maplewood, N. J.
>> Let Reader Pease note that recent Gallup polls show Roosevelt ahead momentarily.--ED.
In Heaven's Name
Sirs:
Excerpts from Mr. Willkie's talks in and around Chicago include the following choice morsels: "The hell with Chicago."--"I want to find out if you really are too damn dumb to understand. Is anyone here so damn dumb that he thinks we can go on another four years, anyone so damn dumb that he cannot realize that burden?"--"I can do as much work as any damn one of you."
In heaven's name, what are things coming to? Does Mr. Willkie think he can swear his way into the White House?
PHILIP J. SIMON
Chicago, Ill.
>> Let Reader Simon mend his damns. The three "damn dumbs" which he quotes were themselves quoted by Wendell Willkie from Harry Hopkins. Instead of the other, Candidate Willkie said: "I have worked as hard as any guy in this crowd."--ED.
TIME Denounced
Sirs:
Less than an hour ago I walked out on a Willkie meeting in the Sylvan Forum at Holmdel, N. J., with a feeling of both shock and disappointment.
After listening to several speakers tell us that our very freedom was endangered, with specific reference to freedom of the press, I heard one Donald Smith, introduced as president of the Associated Willkie Clubs of New Jersey, denounce TIME for printing the stories it did about Willkie's acceptance speech and about the slump in the Willkie campaign.
Mr. Smith then added that Mr. Luce, the owner, was a Willkie man and urged everyone present to write to Mr. Luce to ask that those who had written these Willkie items be dismissed. From the same sanctimonious lips that had feared for the freedom of our press! . . .
SAMUEL STEINMAN
Somerville, N. J.
>> If Reader Smith said what Reader Steinman thought he heard, he is a stupider man than a TIME reader ought to be. If Editor Luce started firing people for what TIME says he would have to begin by firing himself, for he shares joint responsibility with the other editors for TIME'S reports.--ED.
Faith of the Future
Sirs:
. . . In your review of my book, Living Religions and a World Faith (TIME, Sept. 2), the reviewer concludes with a quoted sentence which he says is my idea of "the world faith of the future." The sentence is this: "God is in his world, but Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed are in their little private closets, and we shall thank them, but never return to them."
This sentence, taken from the outset of the book (p. 22), is not presented there as my own view, nor as a true view. The sentences which follow it are these: "Such is the spirit of world citizenship at this moment. The analogies to which this spirit appeals are, however, not wholly encouraging. Religion is in a different case from science, etc.," and the rest of the chapter is devoted to showing why this spirit is mistaken. It is the whole point of the book to show "the dilemma of religion"--that we cannot get to a world faith by the easy and usual philosophical path (proposed by Dewey and others) of eliminating the particular and historical characteristics symbolized by Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed. . . .
WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING
Madison, N. H.
Leave It to the Marines
Sirs:
In your report on recently acquired naval bases from Great Britain (TIME, Sept. 16, p. 18) your editorial strategist has committed the common error of overlooking the part the U. S. Marine Corps will, in all probability, take in making these bases effective naval stations. . . .
My comment is just to remind TIME that the Army does not garrison Navy bases. The Marine Corps has been doing that job in a satisfactory manner for some past years. . . .
My concluding crack is a professional boast and nothing more. You state the Army's schedule will not allow the defensive construction at these bases to be adequately completed before 1942. I'll bet my practically new chevrons that the Marines do the job in half that time or in other words twice as fast.
Yours till the situation's well in hand.
PAUL D. HOLMES
Staff Sergeant, U. S. Marine Corps
San Diego, Calif.
>> All credit to the Marine Corps, which does indeed garrison Navy bases. But outlying naval bases are usually supported by Army posts. The Army's 23,000 men in Hawaii are not there to protect pineapples from mealy bugs. --ED.
Precedent
Sirs:
The transfer of 50 overage destroyers from the U. S. to the British navy is without precedent in history. However, I am inclined to believe that the spirit behind this obvious assistance is not new. A striking parallel attitude can be found in Britain's second Chinese War, 1859.
In trying to force his way past the Taku forts on the Pei-ho River, British Admiral Hope was wounded, had his gunboats all but shot out of the water by the Chinese "rabble" and British prestige was seriously endangered.
At this point, Commodore Tattnall in command of the American Asiatic squadron came to the assistance of the hard-pressed British in violation of his neutrality. Said Tattnall, "Blood is thicker than water." This breach of neutrality by Commodore Tattnall was later sustained by public opinion and by the U. S. Government.
SAMUEL D. LITTLEPAGE
Louisville, Ky.
Ashes
Sirs:
WHAT THE H ---? TIME SEPT. 9, P. 32, SAYS TROTSKY'S ASHES WEIGHED 1.76 LB. LIFE, P. 26, SAYS THE SAME ASHES WEIGHED ABOUT 6 LB. WHAT THE H ---?
RODERICK M. MONTGOMERY
Houston, Tex.
>> Reader Montgomery doesn't know the worst. A recheck shows Trotsky's ashes weighed 1,200 grams (2.64 lb.). --ED.
Russian Cotton
Sirs:
I am flabbergasted by the statement in TIME [Aug. 26] that the Soviet Union is producing 12,000,000 bales of cotton. If that were true, Russia would be not third, but first, in world cotton production. . . .
The Russians have adopted the slogan, "We must surpass the capitalistic countries in industrialization." But I cannot believe they will ever surpass the United States in the production of cotton. Your figure of 3,000,000 tons must refer to seed cotton which would amount to around 4,000,000 bales of lint. . . .
When I left Russia in the spring of 1937, the Soviet cotton officials told me that they estimated the 1936 cotton crop at a little over 3,000,000 bales. They added that they hoped to be able to expand their production to around 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 bales annually, which would just about take care of their domestic needs. They explained that 6,000,000 acres is about all the land the Soviet Union has that is suitable for cotton culture, and they hoped ultimately to bring their average yield up to about a bale to the acre. But even if they should reach their objective, they still would not be a threat to the world market if they consume as much cotton as they claim they will. . . .
J. D. RUST
Memphis, Tenn.
Friend
Sirs:
In your issue of Sept. 16, p. 24, there is a picture of "R. A. F.'s Dowding & Friend."
Don't look now, but we think the friend is King George VI of England. What do you think?
A. M. CUNNINGHAM
Lachine, Quebec
Sirs:
TIME has a way with it--it is an XYZ-irritating way to a good many people. . . . We want to find out:
1) Was the King of England treated insignificantly, as not worth mentioning--just a "Friend" of Dowding's
or --
2) Was the use of the word "Friend" intended to imply to the reader. . . . "You see who he is." . . .
A. J. DENNE
Toronto, Ont.
>> Right the second guess. For a picture of a Bystander seated see page 57 of TIME, Sept. 23.--ED.
For Future Peace
Sirs:
The statement in TIME of Sept. 9 (p. 28): "From Winston Churchill came a quick letter of assurance that French colonies who supported England's cause would receive the same trade and political concessions as British possessions," may well be historic. . . .
Only by the free flow of goods everywhere, so that each may make and sell that which he is best able to and so that each may buy at the lowest prices those goods which he has not at hand can the terror-breeding plight of the have-nots be eliminated in any future peace. . . .
JOHN M. SAYWARD
Bound Brook, N. J.
Sabotage
Sirs:
. . . We read [TIME, Sept. 23] of one more serious explosion in a U. S. munitions plant, casualty list not yet determined but in any case high.
Let's get Congress to arrange in some way that sabotage of anything concerned with defense be made a Federal offense if it is not such already and that sentence of death can be made in the discretion of the court. Let them also establish and publicize very severe penalties culminating in death penalty for treason. If it doesn't require legislation, let's give publicity to the possibility that the death penalty would be executed.
It is time that this be done. Let's not tolerate delay as we did on the conscription measure. . . .
A. C. GREENMAN
Minneapolis, Minn.
>> Reader Greenman should be satisfied with the present penalties. For sabotage: a fine up to $10,000 and imprisonment up to ten years ( in wartime up to 30 years). For treason: the death penalty or, at the court's discretion, imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than $10,000. -- ED.
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