A Sense of Shame

Sirs:

... I am an American, working with UNRRA in the British zone of Germany, where I have been for a year. It is difficult to be an American here today, working with persons of English and continental nationality who are so tired, after over six years of conditions which the American public, and particularly political leaders, can never understand. The gulf between our standard of living and that of these other nations is too great for world security or understanding. . . .

I wish our Congressmen could live on British Army rations for a month, these rations which all the Britons say guiltily are so much better than their families get at home. I wish they could feel the embarrassment I feel when I read in the papers of the delays on action on the British Loan--and the apathetic attitude toward the world food situation. I believe they would feel, as I regretfully admit I feel, a sense of shame at being an American. . . .

Today, the apparent callousness of my country is making it difficult for me to work among the less favored people of Europe. . . .

DOROTHY T. PEARSE

Germany

Mae West's Play Clothes

Sirs:

THE PERSON WHO DESCRIBED MISS MAE WEST AS WEARING TWO "SLINKY" NEGLIGEES [TIME, JUNE 3] OBVIOUSLY DOESN'T SPEND MUCH TIME IN BEDROOMS. FOR YOUR INFORMATION SHE WEARS TWO EVENING GOWNS AND ONE NEGLIGEE. I KNOW THAT TO BE AN ABSOLUTE FACT, AS I AM THE PERSON WHO DESIGNED THE CLOTHES MISS WEST WEARS IN HER PLAY. . . .

, PETER JOHNSON

Los Angeles

P: Mae West has a way of modifying the absolute.--ED.

Bear Necessities

Sirs:

You think you hear "the mutter of the bears" [TIME, June 10]. We'd like to be heard, all right, but I didn't know anyone was listening. I'm a mama bear myself and there are thousands like me. I have never bought anything from the black market, and I should object to being compelled to do so if excessive prices are legalized by the removal of OPA regulations. It will still smell like a black market to me, and I shall refuse to buy anything except bear necessities. . . , Unfortunately, a buyers' strike cannot provide an adequate solution. How can I strike when it's a matter of shoes and clothes for the children, or simply enough wholesome food and the chief household essentials? . . .

The Greeks knew what they were doing when they coined the word "economy" from expressions meaning to manage a household. If the men up top would let a few of us genuine economists join in their conferences, they might learn some fundamental lessons. . . .

MARION WEST STOER Philadelphia

Book Readers v. Critics

Sirs:

Your review of A World to Win [TIME, June 3] has been read and censures duly noted. I think your readers might be interested to know that the first printing of this book was 80,000 copies and that the Dollar Book Club has agreed to take not fewer than half, a million copies next autumn.

The war between the public which knows what it wants to read and the critics who know what it ought to want to read is as old as literature. I can remember that when I was a boy it never occurred to anybody that Mark Twain might be a great writer, and the suggestion would have brought laughter. Later on, I saw the same attitude taken toward Jack London; but the public went on reading Huckleberry Finn and The Call of the Wild, and it still does.

The average man doesn't read a novel in order to see how many faults he can find in it, or how superior he can feel to the writer. He reads to be entertained and, incidentally, to widen his vision of the world in which he lives. If a writer takes him into the presence of Roosevelt, Hitler, and Stalin, it would never occur to him to require legal proof that such an experience ever did happen to any one man in the course of one year.

So, au revoir, until next May when I hope to present you with volume VIII [of the Lanny Budd series].

UPTON SINCLAIR

Monrovia, Calif.

P: TIME joins Author Sinclair and his readers in admitting that he is (sometimes) as good as Jack London. -- ED.

Three French Zeros

Sirs:

TIME, June 10: "The Socialists' setback [in the French elections] would undoubtedly have been worse if their Elder Statesman Leon Blum had not dashed in, like the Texas Rangers, three days before election, with a $1,400,000 U.S. loan."

Evidently having dropped, en route, a small matter of three zeros.

LEONARD LEE Los Angeles

P:J Elder Statesman Blum, more careful of his zeros than TIME'S researcher, dashed in with the whole influential $1 ,400,000,000. -- ED.

Sick, Not Criminals

Sirs:

It is a pleasure to ... express the appreciation of The Star [published by the patients of the U.S. Marine Hospital for lepers in Carville, La.] . . . and others of the patient body who read your account of the Hornbostel [leprosy] case [TIME, May 27]. The quality of your reporting was conspicuous by the absence of sensationalism. . . .

We are hopeful that [the Hornbostel case] will give us the opportunity to present a "leprosy-conscious" nation facts in connection with our illness; one of which is that we are sick and not criminals, and that in the long run the publicity will aid us in our fight to substitute truth and justice for ignorance and prejudice.

BETTY MARTIN Carville, La.

Labor's Responsibilities

Sirs:

A man as informed as William Green must know that Fascism won't "grip America unawares" [TIME, June 10].

There are millions of people all too aware that a fundamental principle of democracy is that "all men must stand equal before the law."

Let William Green prove himself a statesman by campaigning for correction of the gross inequalities in our labor laws. . . .

CARROLL WILLIS Wichita, Kans.

Sirs:

. . . The policies of irresponsible labor unionism as seen today can only lead directly to ... the rising of the very "fascist system" which union leaders now attack. The country simply cannot continue to be torn up by the roots, every time some small group of citizens wishes to "soak the public."

JOHN G. HOLYOKE

Beloit, Wis.

Management's Responsibilities

Sirs:

... I notice that you say in your Case bill explanations [TIME, June 3] that the bill would make unions legally responsible for violation of contract, like management. For years I have heard . . . that unions should be forced to keep contractual agreements the same as managements have to do. ... There never has been anything to force any company to keep an agreement. . . . NLRB states definitely that it is not their function to police contracts. They won't even take cases of contract violations. . . .

BOB GRAY

Hagerstown, Ind.

P: Reader Gray is technically right, actually wrong. NLRB does not police contracts as such, but does take cases of violation (under the Wagner Act) if the company's breaking of a contract leads to changes in hours, wages or working conditions not cleared with the union.--ED.

Report to the People

Sirs:

In your magazine, May 27 issue, you made comment on my report to the people, which was inserted in the Congressional Record. The members gave their consent because such procedure not only is authorized by Congress, but it has been the usage and custom since some time before TIME Magazine was established. . . .

You called attention to the fact that I was a "Democrat," but I have not observed your criticizing any Republican member of the House for doing the same thing. You insinuated, at least, that I was mailing that report free to all my constituents. The fact is that the campaign committee out in California advises me that they prepaid the postage on these reports. However, both you and your readers should know that, as Congressman, I did frank several hundred of these to constituents after paying about $600 to have them printed.

In your comments you did not say that members of the House had to pay their own printing bill for copies of such things.

Several members on the Republican, as well as the Democratic side, are congratulating me on your noticing my "report." Again, thank you.

CLYDE DOYLE. M.C. Washington

P: It was a pleasure, Mr. Doyle.--ED.

For the Hot & Bothered

Sirs:

Mr. Carl Childress [TiME, May 27] .is entitled to his opinion' of my article "The Conqueror" which you quoted in the May 6 TIME. He is not entitled to his gratuitous slur upon all chaplains when he refers to them as holders of noncombat commissions who came safely and comfortably through the war under the protection of combat soldiers. . . . Chaplains did hold noncombat commissions in that they carried no weapons. But they were assigned to every combat outfit in the Army, and had less protection than the average combat soldier since they did not carry weapons. Seventy-seven of them were killed in action, 253 were, wounded, and 82 died in non-battle, including five who died in prison camps. . . .

For the benefit of any who are hot & bothered over my article, the majority of scores of letters I have received from servicemen who were in the ETO have approved of the article.

Also I would like to add that in the original article in the Christian Century, I criticized the conduct of officers more severely than that of enlisted men.

(REV.) REN WICK C. KENNEDY Camden, Ala.

Luminal & Hemoglobin

Sirs:

. . Into the usually accurate medical department of TIME [June 10] crept two errors.

Luminal is not an alternate for phenobarbital in the therapy of epilepsy, but is a proprietary or trade name for phenobarbital.

And of course, you didn't mean that the poor mother received transfusions of pure hemoglobin, which would have been toxic if not fatal. Mrs. Wenger probably received whole blood to build up her hemoglobin level.

JAMES A. KAUFMANN Memphis P: Right is Reader Kaufmann; TIME'S Medicine editor nodded (humidity, not Luminal).--ED.

Hero of Los Alamos

Sirs:

THE FULL STORY OF THE DEATH OF DR. LOUIS SLOTIN AS TOLD BY A VISITING SCIENTIST ADDS AN IRONIC TWIST TO TIME'S STORY [TIME, JUNE 10]. SLOTIN, WHOSE FIELD WAS ORIGINALLY BIOLOGY, BECAME SO EXPERT AT HANDLING SUBCRITICAL MASSES FOR BOMB ASSEMBLY THAT HE WAS PUT IN CHARGE OF TESTING THE MATERIALS FOR OPERATION CROSSROADS. HE WAS WORKING ON HIS LAST ASSEMBLY ON HIS LAST DAY IN THE LAB BEFORE TAKING OFF FOR THE PACIFIC.

APPARENTLY FOR NO BETTER REASON THAN THE PRESSURE TO GET THE STUFF TOGETHER AND ON ITS WAY, HE WAS WORKING ONLY 18^ INCHES FROM THE SUBCRITICAL MASSES WITHOUT ANY PROTECTIVE GUARDS. ADMITTEDLY GOING TOO FAST FOR SAFETY, HE LET HIS SCREWDRIVER SLIP. IN LESS THAN A FLASH HE RECEIVED A FATAL DOSE OF RADIATION. FULLY AWARE THAT DEATH WAS CERTAIN, AND NOT WANTING ANY KNOWLEDGE TO DIE WITH HIM, SLOTIN RETURNED THE NEXT DAY TO THE LABORATORY AND EXPLAINED EVERYTHING TO THE STAFF WHICH HE HAD BEEN INSTRUCTING IN ASSEMBLY. NOT UNTIL THE END OF THE DAY DID HE GO TO THE HOSPITAL TO AWAIT THE END.

Washington FRANCES HENDERSON

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