Haughty, Obviously Idle
Sirs:
An orchid and many thanks for your article on Florida (TIME, Jan. 10). I have just finished reading it, while I . . . wait here in the U.S.O. at Washington's Union Station for a train to get me back to my ship--I hope before she sails without me.
I am already A.O.L. [absent over leave] and no prospects of even getting standing space on the next train. But I am only one of scores of service men & women who have spent the afternoon watching haughty, obviously idle people with train reservations carry expensive luggage and golf bags to already crowded trains. . . .
(Y 2/C) LINDSEY WILLIAMS
c/o Fleet P.O.
New York City
Freudian Bird
Sirs:
Apropos your amusing discussion of the World-Telegram's "Arpad" (TIME, Jan. 3) I should like to make a suggestion as to his probable origin, which seems to be in doubt.
You will find the case of Arpad discussed by Professor Sigmund Freud under "The Infantile Recurrence of Totemism."
"Little Arpad" had a "poultry perversion," and was interested in nothing but the various activities of the chicken yard. He thought he was a chicken himself, crowed and cackled and talked of nothing but the poultry. At the age of five he said, "Now I am small, now I am a chicken. When I get bigger, I shall be a fowl. When I am bigger still, I shall be a cock." Heimer's words fit him to a startling degree: "[Arpad's] a chiseler, a no-good with the mental ability of a weather vane--one day one thing, the next day another. In short, a stinker!"
What does Bill Pause say?
MABEL REEVES NORTON
Brattleboro, Vt.
> Said Arpad's artist, Bill Pause: "Well I'll be damned."--ED.
The Greater Impetus?
Sirs:
Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Poling on his report on the state of religion in the armed forces (TIME, Jan. 3). . . .
[But] to the people of my generation (I am not quite 30), science and the understanding of human relations are far greater impetuses to good than any so-called religion. When the churches catch up with the psychiatrists, then they may claim some credit for the innate decency of humanity. Not now.
MONICA BREWSTER
New York City
More About Aitutaki
Sirs:
In regards to "Adorable Aitutaki" Mr. Archie Campbell (TIME, Sept. 13) tells about the beautiful, and amiable women on this [South Pacific] island of paradise, which is governed by New Zealand. Clothing there is very scarce.
The [U.S.] Army boys on the island sent money to the U.S. for clothing for these beautiful belles, and also shoes. In due time they received the dresses but no shoes as the women have very large and wide feet thus they could not be supplied with shoes.
Now when they go to dances they have dresses but no shoes. An Army officer came to my cabin and asked me if I had any shoes I could sell him, but me wearing size seven they would be too small for these beautiful belles.
The native men on this island have anywhere from $800 to $1,500 but have no place to spend it so will pay a large price for clothing. They bring trinkets and shell beads on board to trade for clothing. A string of beads that would cost 25-c- before the war they asked $2 for. I sold one an overcoat.
The troops looked very happy and healthy and a lot of them said that they would like to stay there. . . . An amusing thing to me was watching the natives come aboard the ship bareheaded and after giving one of the natives a checkered cap they all bought one from me out of the slop chest. One of the natives was wearing a bathrobe that one of the crew sold him for an overcoat.
The natives are all very good gamblers and they were on the deck of the ship shooting crap. In very good English you would hear them say "shoot five dollars" or "you're faded." They knew everything about a crap game.
I was the Chief Steward on the Liberty ship with Mr. Archie Campbell.
WILLIAM J. MARKEY
c/o Fleet P.O.
San Francisco
The Marshall Cover
Sirs:
My sincerest congratulations on the choice of General Marshall for "Man of the Year" (TIME, Jan. 3).
When I was accorded the privilege of opening the 1943 "Man of the Year" nominations with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, my choice was based on the fact that Eisenhower's campaigns led to the knocking out of one Axis partner and actually encompassed a "second front" by invading Europe.
After reading the Marshall story . . . I don't see how there can be any other selection.
WALTER L. DENNIS
New York City
Sirs:
The piece on General Marshall is above all price.
(SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD) Austin, Tex.
Sirs:
You couldn't have made a better selection. I think General Marshall is the truest living example of American manhood. . . .
DAN W. WEIDMAN
Marfa, Tex.
Sirs:
TIME, Jan. 3: "He (who has never cast his vote) . . . stood for the civilian substance of this democratic society." General Marshall may be the Man of the Year, but I fail to find peculiarly American one who has never recognized this primary right and responsibility that distinguishes democracy.
BOBBIE W. HENRYSON
Leon, Iowa
> Regular soldiers rarely vote, because of 1) the services' classic fear of involvement in politics; 2) the red tape of absentee balloting.--ED.
Ferocious Civilians
Sirs:
Talk about bad reporting. The statement that I advocate "extermination of the German people" (TIME, Jan. 3), cannot be documented by any word I have ever spoken or written. Only a combination of a jackal and a jackass could advocate extermination of 70,000,000 Germans, and I am neither.
What I do advocate is that Americans should learn enough of German history and politics to realize the truth: that Hitler and the Nazis are merely the latest and most hysterical expression of the century-old master race obsession of the German people and their resulting mania for world conquest.
Lacking such knowledge and realization, most Americans do not even know what is going on when, for instance, Germans like Paul Wohl and Prince Lowenstein start a campaign (in the New York Herald Tribune) to put over Erwin Bumke as a "good" German with whom we could deal in confidence. In the anatomy of the German rattlesnake, the rantings of Hitler are merely the rattle; it is men like Bumke, and the large majority of the German people who share their views and their disease, that carry the deadly poison of Pan-Germanism.
There are at least two practical alternatives to extermination, but you couldn't spare space enough to treat of them in detail.
Did a little German bird tell you that I advocate extermination?
REX STOUT
New York City
Sirs:
I have never written or spoken a word advocating "extermination" of the German people. It is quite unimportant that such a complete misstatement harms me personally. But it is important (and terribly disheartening) that such a complete misstatement is fine grist for the propaganda mills of our enemies.
CLIFTON FADIMAN
New York City
> TIME erred: neither of these ferocious civilians has actually advocated the total extermination of the German people. Clifton (Information Please) Fadiman, before the P.E.N. Club (Oct. 28, 1942) said: "I know of only one way to make a German understand and that's to kill them." Rex (Nero Wolfe) Stout in the New York Times (Jan. 17, 1943) said: "I hate Germans and am not ashamed of it."--ED.
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