Peacetime Conscription
Sirs:
Compulsory military training can have but one aim: to build up a large reserve of trained soldiers. The basic problem of compulsory military training is: will it work, and is it necessary ?
The proponents blandly speak of its benefits: it will build up the health of the nation. The health of the nation is a job for the various agencies of public health, the school gymnasium, and the medical profession. They speak of education and in particular of vocational education. That too is the job of our public and private institutions. It is not the realm of the military. They speak of rearing the national youth to its responsibility of citizenship. Everyone knows that the Army is a buck-passing institution from the highest general to the lowest pfc. But few realize that buck-passing is the refusal to accept responsibility. Citizenship is not to be learned in an institution where responsibility is something to pass on to another and initiative in action something to be shunned. . . .
Because I had to take it and my father had to take it and Joe Doakes had to take it, do five more generations of Americans have to learn to wipe that smile off their ugly pusses? Sure, the Army would like a year to "inculcate" every man with "the Army way."
If the knowledge of war is necessary to our defense, let's have it and a dozen more West Points. But let us not condemn a generation of Americans to living where there are two views. Because we have fought too long to make this world a one-view world for all mankind.
(SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD)
Camp Gordon, Ga.
Sirs:
... If "the clergy, educators, labor unions" could walk amongst the rows of white crosses in the cemeteries; if they could see a boy die, or smell the stench of death, they could realize how fed up and tired and sick we are of seeing soldiers killed. It is up to us to prevent as many deaths as we can in the next war. This requires training for the men who will fight it--this requires conscription. . . .
(PFC.) THOMAS N. LEIBRAND c/o
Postmaster
San Francisco
Sirs:
Add this small (but far from still) voice to the others in favor of peacetime conscription. Add also this suggestion: that at least one-half of the year spent in the armed forces be spent in foreign duty, if possible, during the next few years, in one of the occupied countries.
Reason: to expose youngsters to the broadening effect of travel; to expose them to the problems that other people have; to show them that whether we like it or not, all of the good ideas in this world didn't come out of Brooklyn, or Texas, or San Diego.
Secondary reason: to show future generations of foreign countries that the U.S. produces its share of "jerks" too; that many Americans abuse the freedom they have to fight for every 20 or 25 years. But also to show those same people that the abuse of freedom is much less dangerous than the abuse of slavery.
(SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD)
Chico, Calif.
Join the Marines
Sirs:
Your report of Lieut. Colonel Samuel A. Sandler's study of Army somnambulists [TIME June 18] is unfair to happy, gentle sleepwalkers who are very much interested in women, who never dream of snakes or rabid dogs, or of screaming for Father to come to the rescue. As one of the latter, might I suggest the Colonel withhold further reports until he has studied more than a mere 22 Army men (who probably did not want to join the Army anyway) and try next to include some Navy men, and certainly a Marine or two, whom no one afoot would dare accuse of being "Papa's boys."
J. M. JONTRY
Lieutenant, U.S.N.R.
c/o Fleet Post Office
San Francisco
Healthy Statesman
Sirs:
. . . Reference is made to your adjectives "greying, ailing" in your description of President Sergio Osmena [TIME, June 11]. Mr. Osmena is greying, but not ailing--far from it. His operation at Jacksonville was a complete success. I have had the privilege of working with him every day, Sundays and holidays included, and my observation is that he has never been more fit in his career than at this time. Twelve hours a day he is on the job, and still he has time to receive visitors at night and enjoy a little dancing. Indeed, the rigors of the presidential post have not touched him in the least and he stands ready to shoulder the heavy burdens of the Commonwealth reconstruction and rehabilitation program. The Philippine public agrees with me that Mr. Osmena's perfect health is due to his methodical existence and his complete abstinence from forms of excesses.
MAURY MENDEZ
Under Secretary of Information
Manila
P: TIME'S best wishes for President Osmena's continued good health.--ED.
Freemason's Talk
Sirs:
TIME [May 14], commenting on the expression "It is so ordered," frequently used by President Truman, stated that he had picked up this phrase somewhere during his Senate years. Evidently the writer of the article is not a Freemason, or he would have recognized it instantly as an old Masonic expression used by the masters of lodges for centuries. . . .
When you hear such expressions as "So mote it be" (signifying approval); "Called from labor to refreshment": "Take due notice and govern yourselves accordingly"; and that gem that Blackstone loved and quoted in his Commentaries, "From a time whence the memory of man runneth not to the contrary"; you may well know that the persons who use them are members of "That Ancient and Honorable Institution of Freemasons that has outlived the fortunes of kings and the mutations of empires."
O. D. GROOM Bristow, Okla.
Like Chewing Nails?
Sirs:
Your publisher Mr. Prentice's apology for the writing in TIME [July 16] is evidence, I will be frank, that he is not a literary critic. TIME style not only exists; it stinks. It may be economical, as you suggest, in a narrow, mechanical sort of way, but I'll bet that most people who have read widely and appreciatively in the great tradition of English and American prose from Aelfric to Stein & Joyce will agree that the prose in your magazine is pretty awful.
Shall I tell you about how it is to read through TIME? Friday comes and I think "My God, must I do it all over again?" As if I were a dope fiend who wanted to break the habit but couldn't, I then read, and it's like chewing nails. I think, "Do real human beings write these words, or do machines?" When I am done, my insides feel jarred and as if they had been rubbed against broken glass. It takes a few hours to feel right again.
You know very well that when you read good prose, you do not feel that way. You feel refreshed and at peace. . . .
I will admit that your style used to be worse than it is now.
JAMES BINDER
Bethlehem, Pa.
P: That's encouraging.--ED.
Perfect Compliment
Sirs:
This is perhaps the perfect compliment.
As wire editor of the Merced Sun-Star, local daily, every day I read thousands of words of news as it clicks off the teletypes. Then, on Friday, I read TIME to learn what in hell it's all about.
GEORGE D. MARSH
Merced, Calif.
What Is the Score?
Sirs:
TIME [July 2] certainly renders no service when an article reporting the objections of religious leaders to the obliteration bombing of Japanese cities ends with the quotation from an Army captain: "They [the religious leaders] don't know what the hell the score is." It happens that they do know what the score is and are trying to show the American people that the military leadership of this country is running wild as it perpetrates one of the most terrible massacres of civilians in human history. . . .
Instead of giving the military free rein to continue this wholesale destruction of life and property, common sense indicates just what the churchmen advocate: "clear and immediate formulation of American objectives [and] conditions of surrender." If this nation retains enough sanity to reckon achievement of objectives other than semi-annihilation of a people to be the object of its fighting, then the advice of the churchmen will be taken. Thereby it is very probable that the war will be materially shortened and the lives of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of American boys will be saved. If these considerations do not appeal to Captain Vest or to TIME, it is apparent that it is they who "don't know what the hell the score is."
ROBERT T. BEAN
Glendora, Calif.
Calcutta to Kunming
Sirs:
Reference is made to TIME'S [June 25] article on the Calcutta-Kunming telephone line. . . . Word received here from the India-Burma Theater indicates that TIME'S casual reference to construction by "U.S. engineers, with British material and Chinese and Indian labor" has had a detrimental effect on the morale of some 5,000 U.S. Army Signal Corps men who participated in the project. These men spent 22 months fighting malaria, monsoons, wild animals, pests, and Jap snipers to build this vitally important line through 1,700 miles of treacherous jungle and mountain terrain, and unquestionably deserve a world of credit for a great job. . . .
In overcoming tremendous obstacles to build this communications link, which serves the Stilwell Road, the pipeline and many airfields, these Signal Corps men have made an important contribution to victory over Japan and certainly should not be ignored in any discussion of the project.
FRANK E. STONER
Major General, U.S.A.
Office of the Chief Signal Officer Washington
P: Wilco.--ED.
Nimitz's Cottage
Sirs:
Whom are you trying to snow when you state that Admiral Nimitz lives in a "bare little cottage?" . . . Personally, I am highly insulted after all the working hours and expensive material we Seabees put into what looks to me to be a palace. ... Or have I been overseas on these islands too long? (SF 2/c) NOEL A. PREECE
c/0 Fleet Post Office
San Francisco
It's Pink
Sirs:
Your otherwise esteemed art editor is no doubt suffering from the heat. In the July 9 issue he says: "Washington, D.C.'s stiff, white marble National Gallery" etc.
Now, whether it is stiff or not is a matter of opinion, but it certainly isn't white and never was. I put in three hard years helping to quarry and shape the marble and I know it's pink and always will be pink. . . .
That building, sir, is made of the famous Tennessee Pink Marble and I hope your art editor will always remember it.
CORNELIUS C. BOND
Concord, Tenn.
P: Pink too is TIME'S temporarily colorblind art editor.--ED.
Since January 1, 1943, TIME, LIFE, FORTUNE and THE ARCHITECTURAL FORUM have been cooperating with the War Production Board on conservation of paper. During the year 1945, these four publications of the TIME group are budgeted to use 73,000,000 lb. (1,450 freight carloads) less paper than in 1942. In view of resulting shortages of copies, please share your copy of TIME with your friends.
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