Destroyed or Decayed?

Sirs:

I was rather surprised by the inference Mr. Purcell drew (TIME, Letters, July 15) that "Men cannot be concerned with the age-old struggle for personal improvement when whole nations of men are face to face with destruction. . . ."

Destruction is no new thing: our remote ancestors faced destruction from pride, envy, anger, hate, sloth, gluttony, lust, famine, pestilence and violence--just as we do. A cavalier attitude toward personal improvement usually results in personal deterioration.

Though not the best argument for personal improvement, it is fairly cogent that in the final accounting the book will read "destroyed while working upward" instead of simply "decayed."

P. R. BRADBURY

Marietta, Ga.

Just Work

Sirs:

Editor Robert van Gelder in his book Writers and Writing (TIME, July 22) quotes Novelist [Sinclair] Lewis thusly:

"Writing is just work--there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes--it is still just work."

Yet TIME (Oct. 8, 1945) attributes this statement to Lewis:

"Since then [publication of his first novel] I've never done an honest day's work. Writing novels is an easy life--don't let any writer tell you how hard it is."

To preserve the sanity of a million struggling authors who accept the mouthings of literary titans as gospel. . . . What gives?

JEROME D. GIDDINGS

Boston

P: Novelists think as well as write, and Author Lewis has had time to think it over.--ED.

Servizio Speciale

Sirs:

It was gratifying to get on the record (TIME, July 22) the fact that on behalf of the New York Times Rome bureau it was I who was the first of the postliberation correspondents to fire Msgr. Enrico Pucci as Vatican tipster.

May I add a moot fact or two: first, when I gave him the bad news, Pucci had the superb crust to suggest, even as I spoke, that of course if I wanted his servizio speciale--at a higher rate--I would undoubtedly get better results.

Second, he reminded me that as an "old collaborator of the New York Times" (as well as of a dozen other papers and agencies to whom he supplied the same semilegible onionskin handouts at $50 monthly), he would of course be entitled to a healthy severance allowance. I suggested that he sue. . . .

MILTON BRACKER

Mexico, D.F.

Slur?

Sirs:

Permit me to 1) express my gratification for your piece on Mary McLeod Bethune (TIME, July 22) and 2) slip TIME a detonating A-bomb for using the term "Negress" which made my brown face take on a reddish hue.

Negroes don't like "Negress" any more than Jews like "Jewess" and consider it a slur. . . .

DANIEL E. DAY

Major, Field Artillery

Washington

P: TIME, which intended no slur, admits to some bewilderment. So do competent Negro authorities. Dr. Kelly Miller, quoted in H. L. Mencken's The American Language: Supplement I, is not offended by the word "Negress." Says George S. Schuyler, associate editor of the Pittsburgh Courier: "If we accept the term Negro, there is no sound reason for spurning Negress--and yet its use is discouraged and condemned without, of course, any sensible argument being advanced for this position. . . ."--ED.

Take Off the Kid Gloves

Sirs:

. . . Joe has done it again ! Still we sit back and do nothing about . . . the recent "trial" and conviction of the Chetnik leader, Mihailovich [TIME, July 22]. . . .

I fought against the Germans myself and would do the same thing again, but when my Government stands by and lets a man be executed who was a truer patriot than even some of his executioners, it makes me boiling mad !

I was one of the many flyers who were rescued from the Germans by Mihailovich and the Chetniks. . . . The time has come to take off the kid gloves and get hard-boiled with "friend Joe" and his satellites if we are to have real peace and security in the world.

C. M. CARD

Los Angeles

Penetrating . . . Distorted

Sirs:

Your story on Portugal [TIME, July 22] reminds me of one of those European writers who spend two weeks in New York, visit the Bowery, Broadway and Wall Street, and lightly proceed to write a book on the United States. . . .

The self-criticism and pessimism implied in Camoens' stanzas did not prevent the decadent Portuguese, in the 17th and 18th Centuries, from throwing off 60 years of Spanish rule, from exploring half the South American continent, fixing its frontiers, defending it against European rivals and laying the basis for that political unity and freedom from race prejudice which are admirable features of modern Brazil.

In the 19th Century the Portuguese played their part against Napoleon, and later. . . became the first Europeans to cross lower Africa from coast to coast. . . . Portugal's colonial policy has proved itself one of the more understanding of the native character; native populations have shown the most favorable demographic trends of any in middle Africa.

If, as you say, the Portuguese "have never been masters of [their] land," is it not odd that . . . they should have spent so much energy in peopling other lands, bringing with them their culture and religion and those qualities of industriousness and honesty which have been demonstrated by their settlers in the United States . . .?

And is it not odd that in the 20th Century they should have staged an unaided recovery, in the midst of a world depression, from the 70 years of deficit finance which was perhaps the inevitable result of the disparity between the slender resources of the country and its stubborn overseas effort . . . ? The opinions of eminent Spanish and British critics like Unamuno and Aubrey Bell would seem to refute your contemptuous dismissal of Portuguese literature. . . .

Your picture certainly does not tally with the impressions of thousands of refugees who during the war found in Portugal respite and a friendly welcome.

And at a moment when Portugal publishes a White Book detailing her cooperative attitude toward Allied requests during the war for facilities in the Azores . . . must you ignore that record and have you only such a distorted picture to present?

P. B. DE SOUSA PERNES JR.

Press Attache

Portuguese Embassy

Washington

P: Even at Portugal's long past zenith, the Portuguese were ruled rather than governed--mostly by men less shrewd than Salazar (who exacted a pretty escudo for war aid to the Allies).--ED.

Sirs:

Whoever wrote your penetrating and devastating analysis of Salazar's dictatorship gave a good boost to the cause of democracy. No dictator can be quite sure of his job while free men can wield such a pen.

WILBUR LAROE JR.

Washington

Three Are Indignant

Sirs:

This being the first indignant-letter-to-the-editor that I've ever written, I'm not sure about the correct form but. . .

1) My mother (Craig Rice) is not plump, and the fact that you described her as such (TIME, July 29) is going to do a great deal of harm to the family campaign to make her gain 15 pounds.

2) Craig Rice . . . never said that it was impossible to believe [Heirens] guilty; she merely stated that he didn't seem to her to be a murderer. Remember, in America a man is considered innocent until proven guilty.

3) And furthermore, my mother is not popeyed!

NANCY LIPTON

IRIS LIPTON

DAVID LIPTON

Santa Monica, Calif.

P: Let TIME's Chicago staff henceforth interview Whodunit Authors under softer lights than those in city rooms and county jails.--ED.

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