The Color of the Mind
Sirs:
It is hardly possible to open a paper today without encountering some new phase of the gross cruelty and perverted enthusiasm with which so many of our "superior, kindly" U.S. citizens are persecuting and prosecuting their neighbors, whether black or Jewish or white or Catholic. But we seem, in California (of Nisei persecution fame), to have struck a new low in American idealism. TIME'S forthright report of it, "Nothing Personal" [Feb. 17), is to be commended. . . . To find a group of "white Caucasians" (both conditions a pure accident of birth), holier-than-thou, Nazi-principled bigots going far out of their way to hound a single family, of admittedly good reputation, into court for the purpose of driving them out of their home, is a vicious blight to our hope for the future
Committee Chairman W. A. Douglas, in his defensive explanation, has keynoted the finest in totalitarian thought in his epic statement: "We have no objections to the Crockers personally, other than that they are not white.". . .
The anti-American crime is not the color of a man's skin. The crime is the color of a man's mind. The shoddy, envenomed mentalities that thrive at the expense of their neighbors should be held strictly accountable to a court of law. . . .
CHARLES H. BLAKESLEE Oak Park, Ill.
Sirs:
I hide my head in shame to think that I ever criticized the people of the South for racial prejudice, when every day I find the same disgraceful practice being carried on in this very state.
JOHN MCCARTHY JR.
Watsonville, Calif.
Sirs:
My apologies to the Crockers, and a feeling of pity for the citizens of that Hollywood community who evicted them. Such an act is disgraceful. ... I hope the Crockers will not judge our judicial system by the Aryan decision of Judge Ruben S. Schmidt.
T. E. HOOVER
Bloomington, Ind.
Characters
Sirs:
In TIME [Feb. 17], how are the "200 earnest characters" who met for "shoptalk about sterility" (p. 56) like the "characters [who] paid 50¢ to get in" to "sleazy Stillman's Gym" (p. 61)? Or like the "characters not out of the stock-type catalogue" (p. 64) ? Or like the "characters in Chet Shafer's guileless anthology" (p. 68)? ...
F. W. BRYCE Denver
¶ They are all characters--and so is Reader Bryce.--ED.
Contrast
Sirs:
... I was genuinely appalled at the article titled "Democracy & Security" [TIME, Feb. 17], which linked a known government enemy, Gerhart Eisler, with David Lilienthal, by your inference a "totalitarian liberal." You may not agree with Mr. Lilienthal's views, but there is still behind him a clear-cut record of honest, non-political public service which speaks for itself. . . .
RUTH ELLEN LINDENBERG Chicago
¶ No such inference was intended. TIME was trying to contrast Lilienthal, the true democrat, and Eisler, the Communist, but concedes that the result was open to misconstruction.--ED.
Culture C.O.D.
Sirs:
Careful study of your story on Artur Rodzinski & New York Philharmonic [TIME, Feb. 17] confirms my publicly stated belief that concert music must stand on its own feet financially before it can break away from control by interests not directly concerned with artistic integrity of performance. . . . Conductors should conduct--not diplomatize, socialize & partyize for political purposes.
Change the boards of the symphony into young, active organizations, not figureheads of the diamond horseshoe. Let New York ponder the fact that the Detroit Symphony, withered on the vine four years ago, will pay for itself this season with radio programs, recordings, concerts and moneys from rental of the Music Hall, our permanent home. Culture must be put on a businesslike basis before it can stand on its own. ... If singing jingles can pay for themselves, so can Brahms, Beethoven and Bach.
HENRY H. REICHHOLD President, Detroit Symphony Orchestra New York City
Sirs:
The undersigned members of the board of directors of Columbia Concerts resent your article on Rodzinski in which Arthur Judson, Columbia's president, is referred to as "King Arthur," and by implication the owner of [this] company and its autocrat.
Arthur Judson is president of Columbia Concerts because he is the unanimous selection of the board for this job. He owns 16% of Columbia's stock. His actions are subject to the control of the board exactly the same as any other officer.
The idea that this company is a one-man show is not so. It is a partnership Of longexperienced and well-established leaders in a highly specialized field.
In imbroglios of this sort the crux of the matter is size. To read the papers one gathers that the concert business is a giant industry, instead of what it really is: the very smallest part of the amusement world.
F. C. COPPICUS
LAWRENCE EVANS
F. C. SCHANG
WARD FRENCH New York City
Sirs:
Congratulations upon your making Conductor Artur Rodzinski the man of the week instead of Manager Arthur Judson.
The prestige-incrusted, 104-year-old New York Philharmonic-Symphony has become just an adjunct to a booking agency.
EDWARD L. McCOLGIN Detroit
Sirs:
. . . Mr. Rodzinski's musical sterility (to continue a conceit begun by Rodzinski when he described Stokowski's conducting as "sexual") has time & again made the normally oppressive U.S. Rubber Co.'s "Science Talks" over the air seem the height of esthetic cultivation by comparison. Thus my joy was unbounded when Rodzinski "resigned." This joy was snuffed out, however, by the announcement that he would pilot the Chicago Symphony next season.
In the midst of these mixed emotions, TIME arrived.
I was unduly maddened by the statement that Rodzinski is not "a great conductor" in the sense that Toscanini and Koussevitzky are--Rodzinski is not a great conductor in the sense that Kostelanetz is. But when TIME referred to the Chicago Symphony as "run down," and passed off Desire Defauw with the unjust epithets "earnest, uninspired," the die was cast. . . . Desire Defauw ... is a tasteful, invigorating, often moving musician. There are many of us who wish him Godspeed in Montreal and Brussels, where musicianship is evidently preferred over personnel-browbeating and sensational scandal-making. . . .
ROGER C. DETTMER
Cincinnati
"It Makes You Wonder"
Sirs:
It has come as a profound shock to me to learn of the 80,000 letters, all "gushily friendly," that N.A.B. [National Association of Broadcasters] received [TIME, Feb. 17]. Until now, I had supposed that what was wrong with radio was the minds of the men running it. To my chagrin, I find instead that what is wrong is the minds of the women who listen. . . .
With the magic of radio to bring us all the beauty in all the world--we choose a crooner. With the wonder of radio to bring us all the best thinking of all the best minds--we choose The Voice of Experience. With the universality of radio to help us to become citizens of a peaceful world--we choose John's Other Wife.
It makes you wonder about the future of the race.
EVE REID SMITH Wilmington, Del.
Soldier to Soldier
Sirs:
"The Life at Riley" [TIME, Feb. 17] was timely and accurate; every draftee and short-term enlistee who came in after the war should appreciate it.
One important aspect in the life of every peacetime soldier is the way the men who fought the war look with contempt on the "Boy Scouts" of the peacetime army. They assure us by their actions and outright that any trifling discomforts we may have do not compare with theirs overseas. Let us give notice here that the taste we have had of army life enables us to know infinitely better than anyone else how much they endured and accomplished, and that no one could possibly have a deeper respect for their courage and ability than we do.
We would still like to know that this slice out of our lives, though comparatively small, counts for something.
(CPL.) BENJAMIN D. DUNCAN
Fort Dix, N.J.
Sirs:
Instead of feeling sad for themselves, the bobby-soxers should be thankful that several millions of volunteers and draftees served, fought, and died so that the present crop of soldiers need only live a peacetime army routine. . . . Personally, after being one of the group who was called to active duty in 1940 or who were drafted in 1941, I cannot feel the slightest sympathy for these boys.
We were victims of the "dreary thirties"; were pulled into the Army while in the middle of our college career . . . were taken from the first promising job we ever had, and before we left trained some joker for our job, and came back to find him our boss; lost our businesses . . . left sweethearts behind . . . trained with inadequate, inferior, or no equipment; and earned $21 a day--once a month.
JOHN H. ROCKEL Philadelphia
Sirs:
The article mentioned that the weather was cold--arid snow was falling. All day the corporal was busy; he should have been tired at night. Why didn't he settle down after chow with a book, and relax--study his college books, that is? He knew there was nothing in that small town; why fight his way onto a small, crowded, chilly bus and go to town? Even if the hostess house wasn't full of beautiful blondes--why couldn't the corporal settle for some ice cream or coffee, as he kept studying his college books?
So he thinks he wasted 18 months? Hmmph. I've seen youngsters not much older than him spend their spare time studying and at the same time practice walking on artificial legs. . . .
(T/4) J. FLANNAGAN Fort Dix, NJ.
Sterility
Sirs:
[Re: your] review on a meeting held in Los Angeles by some doctors and such concerned about the sterility in women [TIME, Feb. 17].
The man seemed very concerned over the fact that half of the sterility was intentional or caused by the use of contraceptives. . . . It sounds to me that the gentlemen were worried 'cause women were at last getting the upper hand in this baby business. Well, nuts to their kind. . . .
I have been married almost eleven years. I am childless from choice and every time I have to listen to my neighbors' brats scream & holler and watch their mothers chasing them down innumerable times and the many other things you have to do when you have children I am intensely glad and thankful I am without child. Just think of all the time I have to myself and all the other numerous advantages I have by being childless. . . .
I live for the time when I can live in my own home and not have to be all the time listening to other people's children carrying on like a bunch of wild Indians.
MRS. F. S. ELMORE Long Beach, Calif.
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