Complacent Talk

Sirs:

Is there anyone in this world who really wants another war--who truthfully believes that an atomic war could be won satisfactorily by one nation or a group of nations? Then why are we complacently talking about the next war as a foregone conclusion? . . .

(PFC.) ROBERT W. POINDEXTER

U.S.M.C.

c/o Fleet Post Office

San Francisco

Limperary Criticism

Sirs:

Now I never said that the Albino limerick [TIME, March 4] is or ever was my favorite. I only said that it is a better limerick than the Pelican--which isn't saying much. I never esteemed either of them. But, having been pursued by the darned bird for 40 years as Mr. Coleridge's old sailor was by the albatross, I am certainly entitled to have it and the other one appear no worse than they are. And your version of the Albino appears worse than anything I have seen--which is saying a great deal. It really goes:

In the land of the frolicsome rhino

Lives a beautiful female albino.

Her parents were blacker

Than Navy tobacker,

And how she was born white I'm damfino.*

. . . You had the Pelican about right except for the second line, where the worst limp is. That line should read:

His bill will hold more than his belican.

. . . I just couldn't write one as rotten as the thing you printed.

DIXON MERRITT

Lebanon, Tenn.

* And how you scan that line I'm damfino.--ED.

Fact & Fantasy

Sirs:

Kudos for your masterly Alice in Wonderland presentation of President Truman's recent OPA reshuffle [TIME, Feb. 25]. That's the sort of writing which makes TIME my favorite magazine--factual reporting agains) a background of timeless fantasy. . . .

JAMES F. BEZOU

New Orleans

The Marx Cousins

Sirs:

In your March 4 issue, you reported . . . that Sam Marx is no relation to Karl, Groucho, Harpo, Chico or Zeppo. You may be right about Karl, but I have it on good authority from my father (Groucho) that he and his four brothers (you left out Gummo) are Sam's second cousins. Up until now tht Marx family has declined to release this valuable information, because: 1) Sam is very touchy on the subject and likes people to think he comes from an austere, strait-laced family; and 2) the Marx Brothers don't want it to get around that a second cousin of theirs is concealing atomic bomb secrets in his desk. . . . I think the general public should be correctly informed if another world war is to be averted. . . .

ARTHUR MARX

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sirs:

. . . Sam is our ever-loving cousin. We are confident he will not only be the first to popularize the atom, but will do the job in radiant Technicolor.

GUMMO MARX

Hollywood, Calif.

P: Says Sam, buckling under the pressure and acknowledging a distant relationship: "We might be just about anything."--ED.

Scalded Female Ape

Sirs:

For weeks now I have been viewing the contents of your Art page with a passive feeling of disgust. . . .

Are these modern artists trying to produce items that are beautiful and awe-inspiring or are they trying to put the comic strips out of business? Witness for example the social outrage titled "Benediction" [TIME, Feb. 18]. Just what is this supposed to be, or what is it trying to represent? It looks like either the missing link or a scalded female ape searching for a long-lost flea. . . .

ROBERT TURNBULL

Norman Wells, Northwest Territories

Where Is the Heart?

Sirs:

Isn't it strange that we can't find a place somewhere under God's sun for those refugees (European Jews) whose story you have noted in your issue of March 11?

Where is the Christian heart?

HYMAN H. HAVES

New York City

When Doe Meets Gibbs

Sirs:

TIME'S [March 11] direct quotation of Mr. Wolcott Gibbs's opinion on the Maxwell Anderson-Truckline Cafe fracas seems a bit cavalier on the surface, since Mr. Gibbs's published New Yorker version is worded quite differently from TIME'S. Realizing, however that TIME had no chance for a gander at the forthcoming New Yorker review, I hazard the following free translation of the probable situation:

It is late evening. The scene, a corner table downstairs at "21." TIME Correspondent John Doe nervously approaches Gibbs, who is deeply involved in a plate of pompano and a bottle of Berncasteler Doctor '34. . . . Doe asks Gibbs what he's going to say in his review. Gibbs wipes his mouth with napkin, stares at Doe somewhat frigidly. Doe says, "Will it be something like, Quote I'd say offhand that there are only about three newspaper reviewers here who are competent to write about anything, but it is absolutely absurd to make an issue out of this play, which has no merit whatsoever, unquote?"

Gibbs, having taken another bite of pompano, suddenly chokes, his head nodding up and down, as if in assent. Doe thanks Gibbs happily, rushes out, taxis to TIME & LIFE Bldg., writes article, makes it just before deadline.

Right?

VIRGINIA RADCLIFFE-RURIC

Los Angeles, Calif.

P: Wrong. The Gibbs edict, delivered from a pompano-less mouth, first appeared in the New York Sun. Furthermore, TIME'S Doe would have been a researcher, feminine, and not nervous at all.--ED.

Melchior's Moola

Sirs:

Allow me to protest against the atrocious bad taste evidenced by TIME in its article [Feb. 25] about Mr. Lauritz Melchior, and its enumeration of how many thousands of dollars, pounds, and kroner worth of Tristans, Goetterdaemmerungs, and Siegfrieds Mr. Melchior had performed during the last 20 years.

Cela pue au ciel--et de revers!

HANS KINDLER

Conductor

National Symphony Orchestra

Washington

P: TIME'S enumeration of Tenor Melchior's triumphs and rewards was Melchior's own.--ED.

Radio v. Pulps

Sirs:

. . . When a radio editor [the New York Times's Jack Gould--TIME, March 4] chucks pulp-writing to the wolves, I for one must rise and protest in the name of all my kind.

Why hell, I am acquainted with one ex-pulp writer who has made a lot of money doing radio scripts. He had to write down to do it! And if he had essayed to sell one of his radio plots to a pulp editor the convulsion would have blown 42nd St. apart. . . .

WILLIAM R. Cox

Tampa, Fla.

Fishermen v. Faculty

Sirs:

Your comment [TIME, March 11] that of the men assigned to start the atomic bomb work at Bikini, the "two commercial fishermen [were] reportedly paid higher wages than the scientists" is no surprise. Last year the union fishermen of Boston had a higher average income that did the faculty members of the colleges in the Boston area including Harvard.

KARL SAX

Cambridge, Mass.

"Portable Foxhole"

Sirs:

As the House sounded the death knell of Wilson Wyatt's inspired housing program on March 4, clearing the way for bigger & better bowling alleys, filling stations and movie houses, hundreds of ill-housed and homeless war veterans struggled to buy some 250 obsolete streetcars which had been placed on sale as "homes" by a Chicago scrap dealer. The "portable foxhole," so jokingly referred to by our soldiers during the war, has become a postwar civilian reality. . . .

We veterans can't beat the Congressional lobbies, but we can do something about our House of Un-Representatives, come next election.

RUSSELL R. RADFORD

Ex-Serviceman

Chicago

Buffalo Bill's Bats

Sirs:

By innuendo as well as direct statement, you give the impression [TIME, March 4] that Colonel William F. Cody was a cheap barfly, given to lying boasts about himself. It is perfectly true that Colonel Cody liked hearty parties and occasionally went on "bats." But never in our 25 years of intimate friendship did I see the Colonel comport himself as anything but a gentleman. . . .

W. S. OWENS

Police Judge

Cedy, Wyo.

Black & White

Sirs:

Recently in Washington, D.C., I accidentally ran into a friend of mine who had been in the Navy with me. He is a student now at Howard College. I asked him to join me at dinner. There was no hotel or restaurant that would admit us because he was black and I was white. . . . This happened in the capital of my country--our country--where democracy should be displayed at its greatest. My friend and I . . . feel cheated.

TONY ALBERT

New York City

Toast & Layer Cake!

Sirs:

Here is one American housewife who is tired of being called wasteful. Because there is nothing willful in our waste. We would give anything to be able to share with Europe's hungry. We hate the careful, diffident approach made by the Hoover committee to the whole problem of feeding Europe. "Stop making too much toast!" "Bake cakes with two layers!" There is something shameful in such talk. The American woman doesn't want to be appeased--she wants to act. . . . Put back rationing. . . .

HORTENSE FLEXNER

Bronxville, N.Y.

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