Hot Seat

Sirs: You are on the hot seat, as everyone knows. You've been there for over a year. In fact you are virtually sizzling now, for you are going to have to come to a decision on your so-called "Man of the Year." There is only one person who belongs--the same that earned this "distinction" last year, but whom you didn't have the guts to name, nor have you the fortitude today. Thus it is inevitable that we shall all be choking in the fumes of your hypocrisy sooner or later--for Adolf Hitler is the man of the year, if there be any such, and I wish to go on record now as predicting that you gutless hypocrites will pass him over again in favor of some such ass as Churchill--or Rusefelt even, if he is successful by the year-end in pushing us into this war. . . .

B. A. NUGENT El Paso, Tex.

No Softening

Sirs:

. . . This subscriber thinks he detects a softening criticism of New Deal inconsistencies. If this assumption is correct, is it the result of our undeclared war which the Congress may be asked at some future time to ratify ?

My Scandinavian friend who lives at the fork of the road thinks TIME'S present policy is that of the father whose son had decided to marry a certain young lady. As the lady definitely was to become a member of the family, the less said the better.

HORACE TERRELL McGregor, Minn.

> The assumption is not correct. Neither TIME nor any of its relatives intends to marry the Administration.--ED.

Sirs: Just to let you know that I am keeping informed as to what is really going on in the world, but not through your propaganda sheets. Oh, I also read propaganda material, but have enough intelligence to weed it out, even though I'm only a hillbilly. Don't worry, I'm not at all confused, for I have the interests of America at heart--in other words, I'm pro-American, something you propagandists call pro-Nazi. But the tide has turned and now we can call you pro-Red. However, come what may, I'll still plug for America and America only. . . .

EVA BARTELME

Bowman, N.Dak.

Sirs:

I suppose like many others I have been curious as to the support the leading isolationists get in their home towns. The first of July of this year I was in Bowling Green, Mo., the home of Bennett Champ Clark. I did not attempt to make a poll of the town. I only made inquiry in a casual way. . . . The first time I asked the question was to a farmer in a barbershop. The reply was, "I can tell you what we think of him here, his picture in the court house has its face turned to the wall." . . .

GILBERT SNEED Waco, Tex.

Terrible, Frightful Things

Sirs:

In TIME, Sept. 15, there appears a resume of a book written by one Hans Habe (Jean Bekessy) under the title of A Thousand Shall Fall. ... it would seem that your said resume contains the most sensational, exaggerated and disagreeable portions thereof. ..

In justice to the French, let me say that in my regiment, the 12th Infantry of the Foreign Legion (also a supernumerary regiment organized in France after the outbreak of the war) no man was without a perfectly modern and frequently tested gas mask, no man but had a well-fitted helmet, new shoes and clothing throughout, modern weapons, and excellent food. . . . To me it seems incomprehensible that [Sergeant Habe's] regiment should have differed so in all essential respects from ours.

To be sure, the armament was that of a light infantry regiment, totally inadequate for modern warfare. To be sure, our few 25-mm. anti-tank guns were incompetent to cope with even the lightest German tanks. Certain it is that I never saw at any time a French tank in action nor a French plane in the sky when the going was tough. To be sure the German tanks harassed us at will and their vast fleets of airplanes plastered and peppered us ad nauseam and to their heart's content, which was no fault of the officers and men of the regiment, among whom there existed the most admirable discipline and respect, even affection. . . .

Terrible, frightful things did happen in France, which I should like to forget insofar as is possible, and I am sorry now to see Sergeant Habe bringing them to light. This doesn't seem to be the time for America to condemn France, who after all helped us in our hour of need and with whom we shared in the past her days of glory. .

PHILIP DE RONDE Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sirs: I have received a copy of a letter [see above] by Mr. Philip de Ronde in which he takes issue with a number of statements in my book A Thousand Shall Fall, reviewed in your Sept. 15 issue. Mr. de Ronde describes himself as an ex-captain of the Foreign Legion, which, as everyone knows, is composed of long-term volunteers who are either professional soldiers, adventurers, or men who have their private reasons for joining. It is an elite corps, with its own special standards of discipline, and it has always been kept isolated from the French people and in fact from the rest of the French Army. The extent of that isolation may be judged from the fact that Mr. de Ronde believes that the Foreign Volunteer Regiments (Regiments de Marche des Volontaires Etrangers) were a part of the Legion. They were not.

My book tells of what I saw and heard, and if it sounds incredible to a professional soldier like Mr. de Ronde, it should be no more incredible, than the destruction of the "finest army in Europe" in six weeks. As for specific points, our regiment received gas masks exactly three days before going to the front. During six months of training we never saw a gas mask, let alone a gas chamber.

I saw and felt the rusted rifles that were part of our equipment. And I know by the map that we marched as much as 45 kilometers in a day. I also know dozens of people--civilians and soldiers--who marched up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) a day during the retreat. As I say in my book, many officers--not all--executed those same miles in dashing Citroens.

Of course no soldier--general, captain, or sergeant--can see the whole picture. I fought with the 21st Foreign Volunteers, and it was one regiment among thousands. But the prison camp at Dieuze gave me an opportunity to talk with members of scores of other units in the French army; and their stories convinced me that our regiment's experience was much closer to the typical than the unique.

As for the propriety of writing about the fall of France, and drawing from it what lessons we can for the defense of world democracy, I differ with Mr. de Ronde. The job of a professional writer is to write, and it was my singular good fortune, as a professional writer and a lover of democracy, to have a story to tell with a meaning for our time--the story of how not to carry on the battle against Naziism. . .

HANS HABE

West Point, N.Y.

The "LowDown"

Sirs:

. . . May I be allowed to say that you people are simply genial and that several of my Chilean friends who take TIME find your magazine of extraordinary importance, especially at the present time when things are so unsettled and everybody wants to know the whole thing, the "lowdown" as you Americans say.

What can I say about your flying your magazine down to us here in South America? Before, I used to go to the post office myself and actually elbow my way into the sorting room so as to get TIME right away, I could not wait to get it. Now I don't do the same but I am at the door of the office every Tuesday waiting for the boy who brings it in. ...

Your Air Express edition is one of the most outstanding features of American good will towards South America, because after all it is not only the profit you may get out of it, which I presume you do, but the service what has made you do this. . . .

This is all very fine but I think that in order to make the United States better known and better liked by us South Americans, it would be an excellent thing to have a lot of South Americans go to the United States to live there for a period of two years, for instance, during which time they will be working in factories, stores, plants, mines, offices, etcetera. When I say live there, I mean lead the life that the ordinary man in the street leads, unknown to the American Government, lost in the mob, riding in streetcars, having a Coca-Cola at the counter of some botica, getting into traffic jams, eating hot dogs at the races and getting very little sleep if they should live in New York City where the horns of automobiles make it so tough for one's nerves. No gorgeous Cadillacs or Packards waiting for him at the door of the hotel every morning, no stiff cocktail parties, no limelight. . . .

The families of those boys will do nothing else but talk about them to all their friends and acquaintances, and this will be the best propaganda imaginable. . . .

ENRIQUE BARAONA Santiago, Chile

Peru & Ecuador

Sirs:

Compliments to TIME for its 320-word, impartial, concise report of the Peru-Ecuador Bad Neighbor-Good Neighbor dispute.

We have been extremely interested in knowing these up-to-date news about our continent, inasmuch as our own papers, because of an erroneous criterion of diplomacy, keep us in an absolute ignorance of the facts. It has been TIME again who brought through the first reliable report. Let's have some more ! . . .

Incidentally, the Ecuadorians are not angry with the U.S. for not Lend-Leasing them arms, but they feel cheated by the elder Good Sisters for not putting more punch behind the agreements reached. . . .

CESAR BORJA

Buenos Aires

Ticklish Territory

Sirs:

I was very much surprised to read in TIME for Oct. 20 the Panama story entitled "The Doctor Takes a Trip." You mention "At 10 the Cabinet met in the Balboa police station." Please understand that Balboa is in the Canal Zone and if the Cabinet met in any police station they met in the Panama City police station. If your article was true then you are contradicting Secretary of State Hull's statement that the U.S. Government had nothing to do with the change of Government here in Panama which is absolutely correct.

GEO. L. MADURO Panama City, Panama

> TIME erred. If the Panamanian Cabinet which ousted President Arias had met in Balboa--it did not--suspicion of U.S. wire-pulling would have been justified. The Cabinet actually met in the city of Panama.--ED.

Pike v. Apple

Sirs:

Upon reading TIME'S Oct. 6 article concerning Robert E. Wood I find that he was called by Indian guides Captain Ogontz. TIME states that Ogontz means "walleyed pike," which to me seems slightly insulting because I graduated last year from the Ogontz School and was always led to believe by the school authorities that Ogontz meant "Big Apple." . .

ANN WILDMAN

Huntington, L.I.

> The Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology and various other authorities back up TIME'S translation of the Ojibway word ogontz (variants: ogans, ogah) as "pickerel'"' or "walleyed pike." Despite its name, this is a very respectable fish. -- ED.

Harvester In Harlan

Sirs:

TO KEEP THE RECORDS STRAIGHT WITH REFERENCE TO YOUR OCT. 27 ARTICLE "PEACE IN HARLAN COUNTY." INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER'S WISCONSIN STEEL COAL MINE AT BENHAM, KY. IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN A MEMBER OF HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. IT DOES NOT AND NEVER HAS HIRED THUGS OR GOONS, OR "FOUGHT TO KEEP WAGES DOWN." ITS EMPLOYES ARE REPRESENTED NOT BY CIO'S UNITED MINE WORKERS BUT AFL PROGRESSIVE MINE WORKERS WHO HAVE TWICE DEFEATED UMW IN NLRB ELECTIONS. WE DEEPLY RESENT YOUR IMPUTATION OF ANTI-UNION ACTIVITY TO THIS COMPANY. IN HARLAN COUNTY, AS ELSEWHERE, OUR ONLY INTEREST IN UNION OR GANIZING EFFORTS IS TO LEARN THROUGH LABOR BOARD ELECTIONS WHAT UNION THE EMPLOYES WANT TO REPRESENT THEM.

GEORGE E. ROSE Vice President International Harvester Co. Chicago, Ill.

Enthusiastic Reception Sirs:

I am at present serving with the Royal Air Force, and recently one or two copies of LIFE and TIME came into my possession.

These copies have been most enthusiastically received by myself and my colleagues, and we should very much like to see further copies,, and are wondering if any of your subscribers would be willing to send their copies on to me when finished with. They would be most, gratefully received by the personnel at my Station. . . .

G. A. LEE 7 Beatrice Road Oxted, England

High Hitler Sirs:

When war with Great Britain started, Herr Hitler made an impassioned speech. He declared he would put on his Army uniform and wear it until he won this war.

That was over two years ago and the war is still going on so he must be still wearing; the same uniform. It might be for that reason he ranks so high and for the same reason his friends are leaving him.

EMILY H. ROWLAND New York City

Humunt Events Sirs :

Sinse I had to quit subscribin for TIME I ben buyin it off a barber onct a month an payin for same out of hare cut money my woman leaves me take out the box an him cutting my hare two thurds eech time for what is left insted of all over. If twant shes turibel neer sigted Id have ketched hell an she wuld have busted the barber an now theys compney comin an I dasent do it no more for qite a spel nor wont git to reed it out in the barn like I ben. This is to leave you know abowt why I aint reedin TIME if you shuld heer I quit on you an not leave you think I done it a purpus. TIME brings home more humunt events than my dogs got flees an thats abowt all they is that aint dead. . . .

RODNEY DEWEY Onsted, Mich.

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