Major General Bennett

Sirs:

. . . I am a little disturbed that there may be an impression through the reading of [TIME, March 9] . . . that Major General Gordon Bennett was felt to have deserted his men.

No such suggestion has of course been made in Australia or, so far as I am aware, elsewhere, and I am sure that no such implication is intended in TIME's release. The editors may, however, feel it worth while, since Major General Bennett is likely to be in the news again shortly as the result of appointment (not yet announced) to a responsible position, to quote, in part at least, the enclosed statement made by the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin, after hearing Major General Bennett's report. I have been assured privately, by cable from Mr. Curtin, that this statement is in no sense a whitewash of General Bennett.

DAVID W. BAILEY

Director

Australian News & Information Bureau New York City

> Says the statement:

". . . His [Bennett's] leadership and conduct were in complete conformity with his duty to the men under his command and to his country. He remained with his men until the end, completed all formalities connected with the surrender, then took the opportunity and risk of escaping."

Letter from a Poet

Sirs:

Ballade of News Commentators

These prophets whom the crowd reveres

Are heard above the martial din

Proclaiming that a Crisis nears,

And where, and who is sure to win.

They know what Russian, Nazi, Finn

And Jap are planning,P:then how dares

The wicked thought come creeping in,

Our guess is just as good as theirs!

As listeners lend attentive ears

The experts wag the solemn chin;

They've all had marvelous careers,

Such men they've met, such men they've

been!

But while it is a shame and sin

To doubt their grasp of world affairs,

At times we lift a brow and grin:

Our guess is just as good as theirs.

They've "facts" to feed our hopes and fears

And wondrous are the yarns they spin,

Yet they've been wrong, the truth appears,

So often that they must begin

To find their credit wearing thin;

Yes, though they've heard the talk backstairs

In Moscow, Tokyo, Berlin,

Our guess is just as good as theirs.

Envoi

Dear friends, though little gods of tin

Play oracle and put on airs,

Their judgment isn't worth a pin:

Our guess is just as good as theirs.

ARTHUR GUITERMAN

Fort Myers, Fla.

> For sentiments aptly rhymed and said, TIME's thanks to Poet Guiterman. --ED.

Negroes' Thanks

Sirs:

. . . Your article in the March 2 edition on "White Man's War?" is the most gratifying I have read. Hundreds of Negro boys have been training themselves for skilled occupations at a Federal project sponsored by the northern Negro's No. 1 college, Wilberforce University, and the much harried National Youth Administration.

Each new group of trainees comes in with an air of curiosity about these unfamiliar and denied occupations, and after completing their training and obtaining a few skills and ideas of the much-needed defense occupations they leave glorying in this revelation and bursting with ambition and pride. We who know the real answer cannot bear to tell them the bitter truth, but we still pray and hope that our boys will have the "barred gates" referred to in your article opened for them.

HENRY PARKS JR.,

Director Wilberforce Resident Center National Youth Administration for Ohio

Wilberforce, Ohio

Sirs:

FOR THE MILLIONS OF NEGROES THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WE THANK TIME FOR THE SPLENDID UNBIASED AND UNDERSTANDING ARTICLE ON OUR PEOPLE.

FRANKLIN L. CHAMBERS President

The National Negro Culture Service Brooklyn, N.Y.

Military Training

Sirs:

. . . The article entitled "Military Training" (TIME, March 2) . . . is a fine piece of institutional publicity for the University of Chicago, but it is hokum just the same. . . . The Army is not interested in "pre-induction" training in the sense of training that would markedly depart from the normal program, apart from the emphasis which it places upon the desirability of preserving the standards as well as increasing the quantity of regular academic work in mathematics, in physics, in chemistry and in physical education. That is the job for the colleges--and it is a job for which they are especially fitted. The argument that college men should get special attention in the Army is highly questionable--they should prove that they deserve special attention after induction on the basis of their measured achievements as college men. The Army has announced that it expects its own candidates schools to train officers in a proportion of about two to one when compared with the flow of R.O.T.C. graduates. To me it seems to be an excellent scheme. It puts our college men to the test of survival in direct competition with the other draftees. . . .

The entire "pre-induction" bubble is on a par with the scheme to depreciate the Bachelor's degree by conferring it at the end of the Sophomore Year. This proposal simply puts a premium on superficiality--just about the last thing the country needs today. A sophomore by any other name is still a sophomore. . . .

HARRY D. GIDEONSE

President Brooklyn College

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Pfeifer Freed Sirs:

In . . . TIME [Jan. 19], an item appeared about the arrest of Friedl Pfeifer, ski instructor at Sun Valley, by the FBI after several weeks of investigation. . . . Last week Pfeifer returned to his lucrative post at Sun Valley. . . .

Were TIME and others mistaken about Pfeifer's activities? What influence was brought to bear to release him from the concentration camp?

L. CUNNINGHAM

Hailey, Idaho

> Pfeifer's case was reviewed by the district Alien Board, which, without making public its findings, had him released from internment camp. Shortly after his return to Sun Valley, however, he found himself so unpopular with guests that he resigned his position. He was last reported at the Salt Lake City home of his influential father-in-law, Banker Fred E. Smith.--ED.

Disheartening

Sirs:

I am in the import and export business in Nicaragua, and I have noticed in TIME the shortage that there is in the United States of rubber, scrap steel, aluminum, brass, copper, etc. There are hundreds of commodities that we are unable to import from your country, such as steel bars, tires, copper wire, etc.

We do not have in Nicaragua rubber plantations, but some rubber is exported from wild trees and more could be had if price justified. Recently I offered crude rubber to an American firm in New York and they promptly answered: "If the quantity is not large enough we are not interested, as import permit is required now from the Government and there is quite a lot of red tape with so many forms and papers to fill." Another firm of Los Angeles, Calif, wrote recently:. "We cannot ship lavatories nor any other sanitary goods as we are unable to obtain allocation for the material required for brass fittings." I offered to ship brass and copper scrap, but they answered that they could not use it as they would have to go through such red tape that it would take years before being through.

To another exporter in San Francisco I offered to ship scrap iron if he could ship back a part of it in rolled bars. The answer was disheartening.

MANUEL J. RIGUERO

Managua, Nicaragua

Faded Footprint

Sirs:

Any pharmacist can tell you that heroine of the Soviet Union, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (TIME, March 2), has a venerable name. Saints Cosmas and Damien are the patron saints of the pharmaceutical [and medical] world. . . . Fact and fancy credit them with many medical miracles. They were victims of the Diocletian persecutions in the 4th Century, and their tomb in Cyrus, Syria, has been venerated as a shrine for centuries.

Kosmodemyanskaya is one of the many faded footprints of Christianity in Godless Russia.

If the Moscow correspondents are going to read "Damyankee" into every place where they find the hallowed name of Damien, they will have Damyankees appearing in history a thousand years before Columbus.

ROBERT D. HARRIS

Beaumont, Tex.

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