A Christian Spark for Peace
Sir:
May I bring to your attention one point in which the democracies have failed in their battle against the communistic ideology ? They have overlooked their greatest ally, the spirit of Christianity in the Russian people themselves.
A close scrutiny of Russian literature reveals an innate comprehension of the Christian faith, a strong religious tendency and an earnest seeking after the solution of the human riddle. Such a spirit if it lived, and it did, in Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Nikolai Gogol ... as recently as the last century cannot have been obliterated by the domination of a material-thinking group within a few short years. As well to imagine that a tin roof can obliterate the sunrise.
I would suggest that if the democracies are sincere in their intentions toward the peace of the world, they appoint a commission to study the spiritual development of the Russian people as a people and as represented by their great and spiritual literature. Proceeding on the theory that the way to shut out the darkness is to turn on the light, I believe that such an undertaking would do much to fan to flame in the hearts of the true Russian people the Christian spark which once ignited can never be permanently put out.
GWENYTH BARRINGTON
Toronto, Canada
Pure Pennies
Sir:
. . . Has inflation reached the stage where even the weight of the lowly copper has been inflated? Or maybe you included the fog, coal smoke and dust, dirt and other elements that are present in the New York air, when you weighed your pennies [TIME, May 19]. Here in the Great State of Texas . . . pennies weigh only 138 to the pound; i.e., 70 pounds have a value of only $96.60.
LANIS GROSS
Wichita Falls, Tex.
P: On the contrary, New York's pennies must have been worn thin and Texas' characteristically outsized. A pound of pure pennies, fresh from the mint, is worth $1.45% (70 lbs. = $102.08).--ED.
Reproach
Sir:
Congratulations on the splendid photo of "French Children, 1947," which serves to point up the lead article of your May 19th issue.
These silent little victims stare as if in mute reproach to our generation of "adults" whose puerile irresponsibility let this war come to pass. Weary, aged and disillusioned beyond their years, they plead the case for relief and rehabilitation far more eloquently than their elders who . . . have so grievously failed them. . . .
J. LINCOLN GALE
New Orleans
Children's Future
Sir:
Your "self-evident fact" that there is no future for one's children in Europe any more [TIME, May 5] is entirely untrue.
There are millions of people in Holland, and other countries of Europe, determined not to leave their country in the lurch in difficult postwar times, working harder than ever, and absolutely convinced that their children will find a good future there, if they too want to express their love for their country in hard work. So do not worry that we all want to join your "paradise" over there. Personally, reading about the life in the States in TIME, I am every week more and more glad to live in Holland!
DR. G. STOEL Dirksland, The Netherlands
P: Even in Germany, Austria, Italy and Poland, there are men like Surgeon Stoel whose courage and convictions will brighten the future of Europe's children.--ED.
Patience in Paris
Sir:
As one who sat at a Montparnasse cafe table in 1922 with Sinclair Lewis, "arch-progenitor ... of the stenographic, Pullman-smoker school of writing" [TIME, May 12], I do not remember that "every [American] expatriate eye turned icily away." Quite the contrary. Those eyes welcomed him as a prosperous bestseller, and with a few ragged introductions, the self-invited guests started pushing tables together. The saucers recording the prices of the drinks rose higher & higher, and so did the comments on the shameful commercialism of writing books like Main Street and Babbitt. Mr. Lewis was extraordinarily patient, but finally called for the bill--suddenly all chairs but two were empty.
GRACE CASANOVA New York City
Little Finger
Sir:
In re "was graduated" v. "graduated" [TIME, May 19]: I chuckled over TIME'S mild rebuke to Reader De Boer, but fear that some readers may have missed the delicate subtlety of "that extended little finger." People who say "was graduated" are like those who pronounce the "i" in parliament and the "t" in often. As a matter of fact the dictionaries allow either the transitive or the intransitive use of the verb, but the stately OXFORD says of "was graduated": "now rare except U.S."
HENRY H. RICHARDS Groton School Groton, Mass.
Party Line
Sir:
I was extremely interested in reading the letter addressed to you by H. W. Claybaugh of Little Rock, Ark. [TIME, May 12]. He cites the Preamble to the Constitution. Then he asks and answers the questions: "How many of these objectives are the Communists helping us to secure? Are they helping us form a more perfect union?" Mr. Claybaugh answers both in the negative. . . .
Mr. Claybaugh asked the wrong question. To fight for the Constitution today is to find yourself called a Communist--witness Wallace, Pepper, Franklin D. Roosevelt, his wife and numerous others. But rather, the question is: Why, since 1787 when that Preamble was written, has our United States not achieved those ideals spoken of in the Constitution's Preamble? How could the late President Roosevelt honestly and correctly, a century and a half later, speak of a nation of which one-third was ill-housed, ill-clothed and ill-fed?
Communists have never been in power anywhere in these United States. Ill-housing, ill-clothing and feeding are the trusts' and capitalism's rewards to the people in the richest country in the world. That is why the Communists seek ownership by the people. And that is why the trusts and their apologists seek to outlaw the Communist Party. It is that simple.
WILLIAM L. PATTERSON Secretary, Public Relations Commission Communist Party of Illinois Chicago
Important Figure
Sir:
CONGRATULATIONS ON HIGH QUALITY OF ARTICLE ON CHEN LI-FU [TIME, MAY 26]. IT IS THE FIRST INTELLIGENT STUDY OF THAT IMPORTANT FIGURE. CONGRATULATIONS TO [CORRESPONDENT] FREDERICK GRUIN FOR HIS SPLENDID WORK.
LIN YUTANG
New York City
In the Bear's Den?
Sir:
Your eulogy of General Hodge for his statesmanship in leading the way out of the Korean impasse [TIME, May 19] missed only one essential point: Hodge and his Washington superiors have really delivered the 30 million Korean people directly into the den where the Russian bear is licking its chops.
The U.S. agreed to reopen negotiations with Russia provided that all Koreans who will sign "Communique No. 5" shall be admitted to consultation in setting up an all-Korea government. This Communique binds Koreans 1) to accept the "aims" of the Moscow decision, including trusteeship for their nation; and 2) to refrain from any demonstrations against trusteeship during the course of the conference. Only Communists will sign such a document. . . .
The trusteeship idea is a bastard offspring of timidity and confusion. Where, in all the world, do these four powers work together with sufficient coordination to suggest they could jointly administer anything? How can Koreans believe that at the conclusion of five years of confusion and intrigue the trusteeship would actually end? Who can doubt that Communist agitation would be invoked to create such confusion that a prolongation of the trusteeship would appear "necessary"?
After 20 months of chicanery, double-dealing and delay in granting their thrice-promised independence, Koreans surely have every right to expect better of us than this. Korea is a rich country, forced by power politics into a beggar's role. The division of its country, giving the industrial half to Russia and the agricultural half to the U.S., is impoverishing it. Our economic strangulation of south Korea is creating lasting bitterness. Democracy has not failed in Korea, for we have never given it any chance to operate there. . . .
ROBERT T. OLIVER Washington, B.C.
Bobby's Brain Box
Sir:
In your May 19 issue you say: "Eugene DuBois . . . got interested in the fuel-consumption processes of the body in 1911. . . . He and famed Physiologist Graham Lusk were the first ... to use the calorimeter . . . on human subjects."
I think you are going to hear from quite a few Wesleyan graduates on that subject, because Wilbur Olin ("Bobby") Atwater, Beach Professor of Chemistry at Wesleyan University, was using human subjects in his respiration calorimeter, in the basement of Judd Hall, several years before 1911. I know, because I was one of them. At midyear examination time of my junior year (i.e., February 1905), a number of us took our examinations in Bobby's box, with the idea of finding out whether brain work consumed any physical energy. As I recall it, they never proved that it did, or at best reached a Scotch verdict. But it was a man-sized calorimeter with all the fixings, and subjects would sometimes stay in it for a week or two, living on scientifically controlled rations and producing energy by pedaling a stationary bicycle. . . .
FRANK E. ROBBINS Ann Arbor, Mich.
P: Reader Robbins is right; TIME should have said "first to use the calorimeter on human patients"--i.e., sick and ailing.--ED.
Errors & Experts
Sir:
Did anybody ever tell you how most instructive your Letters Dept. really is? . . . Errors that slip by your editors are not noticed by the ordinary person; it takes experts, which goes to show that top people in every field are reading TIME and are cooperating in writing to you--resulting in welcome information for other readers. . . .
WALTER GANZ Valparaiso, Chile
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