Hot Mail

"You can't kill a Jap with your yap." That was the kind of rude remark the U.S. citizen was writing to his Congressmen last week. Rarely, if ever, had contemporary Congresses seen such mail. The letters were blistering. The average citizen blamed his Congressman for every defeat from Pearl Harbor to Java, and told him so in writing that scorched the paper.

John Q. Voter was mad because Congress did not suspend the 40-hour-week law. He was mad because Congress did not stop strikes, did not stop useless Government expenditures, did not ship aid to MacArthur.

Congressmen winced, weaseled, worried. This kind of letter could not be answered with the usual smooth line: "All of the points you raise have been noted." One Congressman was almost tearful:

"Where will we be if public confidence is lost in the Congress? I wonder sometimes if the public, writing such letters, realizes where it would be if Congress were renounced."

Well might Congressmen worry. Some letters and telegrams had ten or 20 signatures. Small-town forums gathered to roast their representatives. Some of the letters criticized the President too: The public is weary of so much talk from the White House and so little action.

"They write," wailed another Congressman, "as if they thought I am telling General Marshall how to run this war, as if I see the President every day." They wrote:

"Either by your negligence or by being a rubber stamp and because you lack intestinal fortitude to do your duty you may cause this country to fall under a scorched earth policy. . . .

In case you don't know it, we are at WAR. . . .

I wonder why we are constantly bombarded with admonitions to wake up when it's the Government in Washington that needs to wake up. . . .

You men in Congress are just like the men in the French Chamber of Deputies, you are putting your own personal politics in front of your country, and may God have mercy on you if, for any reason, we lose this war. . . .

Your election is coming up this July and if you do not get right on this question (the 40-hour week) there IS something that we can do about it. . . ."

That last remark was what made Congressmen really wince.

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