Why Are We Not Rationed?

Sirs:

Thank you for publishing Mary Burnite's open letter to the Government [TIME, Jan. 7] concerning relief for Europe. Why are we not rationed on food when people are starving? I am ashamed to be an American.

MRS. E. T. ERICKSON

Kalmia, N.C.

Sirs:

All Americans can rightfully share the guilt felt by Mary Ida Burnite. . . .

Indeed, we can spare much, much more.

PAUL J. FLAM AND

Lieutenant, U.S.N.

Lynbrook, N.Y.

Wanted: Moral Indignation

Sirs:

Perhaps I lost my conscience and sense of moral values while serving in the Marine Corps. There we were taught that if one loved his enemies overmuch, he was likely to wake up a very dead pigeon.

I, for one, cannot sympathize with all the breast-beating and crying of mea culpa over our use of the atomic bomb. Granted that it is a weapon sufficiently terrible to make the abolition of war advisable, is its use one whit worse than the piecemeal destruction of cities and civilian centers by bombing and fire raids ? . . .

Among our returned veterans there is a strong current of isolationism, combined with a tendency to dislike our allies and to feel over-sympathetic to our enemies, many of whom are still our enemies. The low morale and worse behavior reported from our armed services and occupation forces indicate that most of our men do not yet understand why they are in the national service.

This, it seems to me, is due directly to the failure of our educators and clergy, who should now cease to recoil from established facts in pious horror, and should now, late as it is, attempt to factor out, explain, and teach fundamental causations.

While moral indignation at means employed may be partially justifiable, there is absolutely no excuse for losing one's original moral indignation at the conditions and practices which called forth the use of those means.

ROBERT W. EHRICH

Amherst, Mass.

The Pony Trots

Sirs:

. . . The pony edition . . . . is trotted around among our friends and acquaintances, and when at length it returns to its stall, it is dog-eared and thumb-worn, which while distressing to the eye is most gratifying to the heart. We know it has been well read!

As to appreciation, from all sides, and mainly among French people, come the most enthusiastic comments, and all marvel at the sources and accuracy of TIME'S information.

FRANCES WILSON HUARD

Paris

Man of the Year

Sirs:

In one breath, you name and apologize for Truman--the Man of the Year. . . . One may as well say the flea is king of beasts because he rides in the lion's mane.

TIME elevated him and time will relegate him to "plain food, whiskey-&-water and lodge meetings."

FREDERICK H. LEVIS

Philadelphia

Sirs:

. . . This question has arisen in my mind through the recent publication carrying the Man of the Year on its front page, and here it is: ARE YOU KIDDING?

ALLAN D. BOGGS

San Quentin 60561

San Quentin, Calif.

Sirs:

Admiration for your marvelous handling of the Man of the Year and the Thing of the Year!

GEORGE H. SHULL

Princeton, N.J.

Bright New World

Sirs:

. . . Once-confident, once-buoyant TIME has become a Caspar Milquetoast, shuddering in fear at every shadow, bewailing each news item as a foreboding of fresh evils yet to come. Read for yourself the news of the world in the issue of Dec. 31, as seen through TIME'S dim, grey-tinted spectacles.

Does TIME give thanks that thousands of servicemen have been returned safe & sound to their loved ones? Does TIME exult in the successful conclusion of a great war? Does TIME shout from the housetops that Americans still live abundantly?

Definitely not! TIME is too busy presenting to its readers such items as: The Bomb & the Man, Death & the Ballot Box, Shallow Peace, Anti-Climax, End of the Line, Crime & Punishment, Death & the General, The Wilted Flowers. . . . You editorialize with: "There was as yet no sign of confidence from the Man of the Year . . . that anything could be done. . . . The feeling was abroad that . . . even presidents [were] mere foam flecks on the tide. In such a world," you sob, "who dared be optimistic?"

Come out of your dismal, crepe-shrouded offices and stop wringing your verbal hands in despair. For there's a bright new world ahead of us all. . . .

ROBERT (POLLYANNA) DINSMORE

San Gabriel, Calif.

Of Moos & Men

Sirs:

In the Dec. 17 issue of TIME [as I reported in the Memphis Press-Scimitar of Dec. 20] there is a picture of a young man picking up a small heifer (Phoebe). . . .

Great Scott! That's no way to lift a calf! That's making the outstretched arms do most of the work. That'll kill you in time. You've got to get under your beast and lift with all the power of your legs and shoulders. . . .

You will note . . . that a young heifer . . . is being used in this test. What's more, she has a little sissy collar of flowers around her neck! And that, of course, makes it strictly junior or bush-league stuff. . . .

And in this connection . . . I'd like to correct a misstatement in the TIME article. . . . Your man said legend has it that Milo "lugged a four-year-old cow." That's wrong. Milo toted an ox. Your city man may not know it ... but an ox ain't a cow.

ELDON ROARK

Memphis

P:An ox it was. To TIME'S cattle editor, "a little sissy collar of flowers"; to Reader Roark a view of Phoebe (212 Ibs.) and Allen (150 Ibs.) (see cut) in a brand-new position.--ED.

Odds, Ye Gods!

Sirs:

The probability for two identical bridge deals to occur in 18 deals, as described in your Nov. 12 issue, is grossly in error. . . . The chance for the event to occur as described is one in 350,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 instead of one in the unit 85 with 54 zeros. . . .

JOSEPH S. DUNHAM

Chicago

Sirs:

. . . The odds are much more like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. . . .

ALDEN BESSE Cambridge, Mass.

Sirs:

. . . Odds . . . are 350,610,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to one. . . . Nevertheless, I still don't believe it.

ARTHUR D. DENNY

Caldwell, NJ.

P:TIME erred; Readers Dunham and Denny are almost right. Correct ratio: 350,620,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to one.--ED.

Erma's Estonians

Sirs:

We, Estonians from Erma in Norfolk, read your article in last number of TIME [Jan. 7] and we feel our story sympathitically treated, which we appreciate very much. But there were some errors, from which at least one might give the wrong impression of us. Namely: we did not wish to return to a Soviet-Estonia, as the Swedish Government recommanded us. This is why we left Sweden five months ago. But none of us left Estonia after the country "was taken over by Russia." Vice versa, all of us left our native land when it was occupied, entirely or dealwise, by Germans. Some of us escaped from Germans in 1943, more than one year before Russia occupied Estonia. These two facts, why we left Sweden and how we left Estonia could best characterize us: we don't like undemocratic systems, it is not important from which nation or leader.

We are sorrow over this error. . . . We request you, if it's possible to publish something of how the facts were in actuality (stuff to this you have in this letter, and in your correspondents Charlton Whitehead's report, too). We do this, informed over this that TIME is world's greatest magazine and that every word published in it has weight and power. We would be very happy we could read Truth over us in such magazine as TIME.

ERMA'S ESTONIANS IN NORFOLK

Norfolk, Va.

Oradour's Sculptor

Sirs:

Appelles Fenosa, the sculptor who molded the statue Oradour as a reminder to future generations of the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane, France, is not of French nationality as reported [TIME, Dec. 31]. Fenosa is a Catalan, born at Sant Marti de Provenc,als, near Barcelona, in 1899. . . . When Fenosa was 20 years old [he] went to Paris. He returned to his native Catalonia in 1931. He was awarded several first prizes in sculpture by the Catalan Government. His best known works are Maternity and The Three Graces, of which there is a copy in New York and one in Philadelphia. After the fall of Catalonia to Franco's fascist hordes, Fenosa returned to France.

J. VENTURA SUREDA

Forest Hills, N.Y.

The Affair of Father Perez

Sirs:

An Army lieutenant stationed at Matsuyama, Shikoku, Japan, has written a friend of mine here a story which goes as follows: "When fire bombs destroyed his church, school and convent at Matsuyama last July, Father Perez watched 27 years of labor in Japan go up in smoke. . . .

"Then came the 24th Division to Matsuyama. Kindhearted G.I.s brought the Spanish missionary food and clothing. One lieutenant from the Engineers rounded up a few volunteers, built a hut from scrap lumber and installed a makeshift stove. From somewhere an Army cot and blankets for the nuns appeared. Best of all, a few bags of Australian flour were produced. . . . Father Perez faced the winter with confidence.

"Then came the blow. MPs swooped down on the nuns' shack. Food, clothing and bedding were confiscated. At the provost marshal's office the bewildered priest was grilled for the names of his benefactors. The Engineer lieutenant and two enlisted men, awaiting a ship at Nagoya to take them home for Christmas, were ordered back to Matsuyama for an investigation and possible court-martial. The entire Engineer Battalion was restricted. . . .

"Meanwhile, Father Perez went back to sleeping on the boards. Disgusted G.I.s are wondering why Jap prostitutes can get U.S. penicillin but a missionary can't get a U.S. cot."

FRITZ GOODWIN San Francisco

Luther v. Thomas Mann

Sirs:

Thomas Mann's opinion of Martin Luther (TIME, Jan. 7) is of little importance; but . . . Mr. Mann knows perfectly well Luther was referring to the pillaging, ravaging, raping and murdering rabble and he was incensed that honest peasants had been forced into the devilish confederacy.

Luther was not only a Christian liberator, but a champion of the peasants of his day. On one occasion Luther, son of a peasant, reprimanded the princes, cried: "Men will not and cannot tolerate your arrogance any longer! God will not have it. Times are past when you drove and hunted men like beasts."

And again, in appealing to the princes and nobles, he wrote: "We owe this revolt to none other on earth than to you . . . who are hardened to the present day and do not cease to rage against the Holy Gospel, and in your secular government do nothing else than tax and extort . . . until the poor and common man can no longer endure it. The sword is hanging over your heads, and yet you think that your seat in the saddle is secured. Such obdurate foolhardiness will cost you your neck. You must change and obey the Word of God. And if you do not do it willingly and friendly, you will be forced to do it through violence. If these peasants do not do it, others will. God will and must punish you." . .

ALLEN R. KALB

Cincinnati

Brotherly Waldensians

Sirs :

Your Dec. 24 issue under Religion carried a reference to a U.S. Army chaplain who, finding the little Waldensian congregation in Cerignola without a pastor, took charge of it and "for a whole year exercised in that place a brotherly ministry. . . ." The man referred to was Chaplain Martin H. Scharlemann of the 43rd Air Service Group, which had its HQ in that town, and of which the undersigned was the historian. . . .

Not mentioned by Moderator Virgilio Sommani in his list of faiths at whose disposal the Waldensian churches were placed was the Jewish faith. We held regular Friday night and also holiday services in the little Protestant chapel in Cerignola, and sometimes the Waldensian members would come in and watch.

GEORGE G. MALTENFORT

Chicago

A "Freshman" Talks Back

Sirs:

Markoosha Fischer's indictment of Moscow correspondents (TIME, Dec. 17) is, it seems to me, unfair to a lot of American newsmen. . . . The contemporary "freshmen in world politics" almost to a man fought the good fight with the Narkomindel in an effort to secure greater access to information and a freedom from arbitrary Soviet censorship. . . .

In July 1944, I found myself gently eased out of Russia when the Soviets withdrew my press credentials after an argument with one of their more abusive censors. . . . Our own State Department, to whom the event had been fully reported, uttered not a squeak of protest.

(PvT.) JAMES FLEMING

c/o Postmaster

San Francisco

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