Man of the Year
Sirs:
Because his plan for the control of atomic energy is civilization's only hope--because in a world sadly lacking in great men he stands with the few--Bernard Baruch is Man of the Year.
Cincinnati JERRY EDELSON
Sirs:
... I nominate the most perfidious and contemptible of megalomaniacs who ever betrayed organized labor and his fellow countrymen--John L. Lewis. . . .
THOMAS E. MATTINGLY, M.D. Washington
Sirs:
For Man of the Year I nominate Vyacheslav Molotov, the man who contributed most to shape international news (for good or for worse?). . . .
KLAUS NETTER Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sirs:
I would like to nominate our "foreign policy twins," Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, as the Men of the Year. . . . SERAFINE PANCHERI JR. Iron Mountain, Mich.
Sirs:
. . . The Man of the Year is unquestionably Secretary of State James F. Byrnes.
CASSIUS KIRK JR. San Jose, Calif.
Sirs:
... I nominate Hermann Goering as the Man of the Year. I could write an essay on why & wherefore--but just stick around 20 or 30 years and see.
J. C. KIRKWOOD
Gallup, N.Mex.
Sirs:
As Man of the Year I nominate . . . Henry A. Wallace--who by his unselfish, patriotic action exposed the recklessly dangerous, foreign-inspired, so-called foreign policy of the U.S.A. . . .
WOLFRAM HILL St. Paul
Sirs:
Wallace? How about Mr. Snerd? Mor- timer, that is.
FRED W. HENCK Knoxville, Tenn.
Sirs:
... I nominate--no one. I am not jesting. . . . Our politicians from the President on down have demonstrated their complete inability to cope with present-day problems. Men of science are still putting their heads together to develop weapons of destruction instead of methods of construction. And our labor leaders . . . are heading hell-bent for election in their common enterprise to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. . . .
WALTER JARVIS New York City
Faith in U.N.
Sirs:
This letter is ... a plea ... to do more to back up the United Nations, and to engage in an intensive, positive campaign to stop the fun-poking and degrading comments made about U.N.
Almost every time you turn on the radio, you hear jokes about U.N., Molotov, Bevin or some other aspect of the organization. . . .
This degradation of the U.N. must stop. We must put public opinion behind and faith in the United Nations. The time to begin is now.
JO ANN MOORE
Ohio State University
Rembrandt Restored
Sirs:
In my study-journey through the museums in the United States, I have heard rumors in connection with the restoration of Rembrandt's "Night Watch" [TIME, Oct. 28]. ... Perhaps some of the details may interest your readers. . . .
The last big restoration of this masterpiece, which was painted in 1642, was done in 1758 by the restorer, Jan van Dijk, and in the nearly two centuries which have elapsed since that time, the picture has been covered with different layers of oil, varnish and balsam, mixed with dust. These are the layers which have been removed, bit by bit. . . .
The decision to restore the painting was . . . greatly influenced when, during the war years, the great painting had to be unrolled in the daylight and, startlingly, in the merciless sunlight, the muddy-looking, pseudo-mystic brown-black crepe suddenly appeared to be shadow. . . .
It is now possible, because of the present restoration, to see the painting as it was the moment it was painted. . . .
TON KOOT
Secretary of the Rijksmuseum Chicago
This Shame
Sirs:
Your article ["This Shame," TIME, Nov. 11] on state mental hospitals struck rather close to home, and I will admit that scenes such as the accompanying photo depicted are not uncommon. However, s'milar situations exist in private mental hospitals as well, and will continue to exist wherever mental illness exists.
You see there are reasons for the forlorn poses that some of the patients assume. . . .
Just because patients sit in a catatonic-like position does not necessarily mean they are neglected. It may be the outgrowth of their illness -- just as a person in pain may double up in agony, so a mentally ill person may take any characteristic pose he chooses.
Don't get me wrong -- as you say, there is much to be done.
ROSLYN M. RICE, O.T.R. Chief Occupational Therapist
Toledo State Hospital Toledo
Sirs: . . . The state insane hospitals are not asylums for the sick but are nothing less than American concentration camps. . . .
THEODORE PRICE Framingham, Mass.
Uncle Don Sirs: I was deeply grieved to read in TIME [Nov. 1 8] that William "Donald of China" had died. I had not heard from him since he left Honolulu some months ago, and had hoped against hope that he was recovering.
I know of no testing ground which can compare with an internment camp for bring ing out the true worth of any individual. I did not know "Uncle Don" before I was interned with him, but the two years I knew and worked with him in Santo Tom`as and Los Banos Internment Camps, he was a never-failing source of encouragement to me. He was a true friend to me when friends I had known for years wavered--so trusted by myself and my husband (then friend) that he was allowed to listen to our concealed receiver whenever he wished to get straightened out on some of the more wild rumors. There is no trust higher than that, believe me, in a Japanese internment camp.
He is still the most vivid recollection of my eight-year-old son, whom he entertained daily with his wonderful fairy stories of "Winkie Doodle"--interspersed with bits of his own true life story in China. On my son's sixth birthday, Uncle Don invited him to his "shanty," in Santo Tom`as, for a birthday dinner (no mean invitation when every mouthful was weighed carefully), and promised that some day when we got out he'd give him a bicycle; Last year, at Christmas, a money order arrived for that purpose. He was a true friend, no less than a great personality in China, and more than that cannot be said of any man.
MARGARET SHERK SAMS McLean, Va.
Carmen's Friends
Sirs:
Your review of the French-dialogued, made-in-Italy Carmen [TIME, Dec. 2] mentions "Escamillo's smugglers." Unless this particular movie scrambles Merimee, Bizet and all traditional Carmens, you must be scrambling the Gypsy Girl's boy friends. "Garcia's smugglers" maybe, or even "Don Jose's smugglers," but surely Escamillo still sticks to his bull ring?
MARGARET WRIGHT New York City
P: Yes. And TIME'S Cinema Editor, who sometimes sees more movies than are good for him, should stick closer to his cast & credit sheets.--ED.
Very Much Alive
Sirs:
The statement contained on page 95 in the issue of TIME of Dec. 2, in which you characterize the Empire Plow Co. as "moribund," was evidently made by you in reckless disregard of the truth. Because of the wide circulation of your magazine it will have a seriously injurious and damaging effect upon the business of the Empire Plow Co., which is one of the oldest and best established agricultural implement concerns in America, with a worldwide distribution of its products. . . . The business of the Empire Plow Co. is over 100 years old ... has [long] enjoyed the highest confidence and reputation in the industry....
WALTER M. HAAS
President
The Empire Plow Co. Cleveland
P: TIME'S apologies to Empire for a stupid error -- by a moribund copy-reader.--ED.
The Quality of Mercy
Sirs:
TIME, Nov. 18, reported that 1,500 New York doctors had joined in sponsoring a euthanasia bill. This figure was accurate when TIME went to press, but the day it reached its readers membership on the Physicians' Committee for Legalization of Voluntary Euthanasia had grown to 1,748....
When Msgr. McCormick denounced the euthanasia bill as "anti-God" did he forget Who said "Blessed are the merciful"?
ELEANOR DWIGHT JONES
Executive Vice President Euthanasia Society of America, Inc. New York City
Sirs:
. . . Why should we deny to man that which we give to any dog--a dignified death in the face of an incurable affliction ?
MR. AND MRS. F. R. BLACKWOOD Gettysburg, Pa.
Sirs:
I read the article "Make It Legal?" with a feeling akin to horror. I can sympathize with, and usually condone, the doctor who, in the face of hopeless and intense suffering, does or neglects to do the little thing which makes the difference between this World and the next. ... He believes he is obeying the dictates of his conscience and his God
But, a court to deal out death! Who,may I ask, appoints the judge--and who 'picks the jury? . . .
EUNICE M. JOHNSON
Hanover, N.H.
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