A Chip for Our Shoulder?

Sir:

I am a high-school senior who will graduate this spring. We would not object to giving a year of military service to our country if we felt such service necessary. We have our doubts, however.

You stated [TIME, June 9] that the proposed cost of a U.M.T. program would amount to nearly $2 billion annually. We wonder what would happen if we doubled our educational program. Two billion dollars yearly would almost do that. We wonder how far $2 billion would go towards feeding the hungry peoples of the world. Could a lasting peace be established if $2 billion yearly were given to the church for advancing Christianity in foreign lands? . . . Would $2 billion lick cancer? . .

ALLYN F. ROBERTS

Marquette, Mich.

Sir:

It seems to me incredibly crazy to waste billions of dollars and millions of man-years on anything so stupid and negative as the proposed U.M.T. program.

It is admitted that the crippling destruction which required 3 1/2 years of saturation bombing over Germany could be accomplished in a matter of hours in the next war. Yet, under the U.M.T. plan, it would take a year to mobilize "an effective force of around 7,500,000!" It appears, then, that having a nation of men with basic training would be useless, for under atomic, chemical and bacterial invasion we could never get them mobilized!

Why can't we be reasonable? Let us stop insulting the rest of the world. Let us stop wasting priceless energy and billions in wealth merely to build a larger chip for our shoulder. (History has proved that the world will not be intimidated.) Let's apply that energy and wealth to making friends; to lending a helping hand; to being honestly sincere in striving for peace on earth. Let's abolish the hypocrisy that's leading us all to our foolish destruction.

LEONARD PRICE Baltimore

Five Greatest Living Composers

Sir:

TIME'S piece on Dmitri Shostakovich [TIME, June 9] dogmatically names him "one of the five greatest living composers (the others: Sergei Prokofiev, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Sibelius). . . ."

... If Shostakovich belongs among the "big five," how about Hindemith, Milhaud, Vaughan Williams, Ives and half a dozen others?

Had TIME said "most grandiose," "most played" or "most publicized," it would have been on the mark. But "greatest?" May I quote two less gullible judgments which, I believe, are fairly representative of competent critical opinion outside of Russia?

"If imagination in Berlioz' vein can be confused with eloquence, Shostakovich is an eloquent composer--eloquent perhaps in the manner of the political orator, of the haranguer of the masses, which, indeed, for him seems to be a desirable aim."--Adolfo Salazar, Music in Our Time.

"The depth of great art does not exist for one moment in the work of Shostakovich, only the spirit, the colored robe and the sparkling flexibility of virtuosity." -- Max Graf, Modern Music.

JOHN H. HARVEY St. Paul

P:Degrees of gullibility are hard to determine--in New York, Moscow or St. Paul.--ED.

The Colonel's Hat

Sir:

Putting the paper cap on Colonel McCormick's head, on the cover of your June 9 issue, was in atrociously bad taste. The Chicago Tribune would certainly appreciate such tactics.

JOHN R. GOETZ

Minneapolis

Sir:

Honors and ovations. . . . The McCormick cover is TIME'S best yet.

F. REXFORD SLAUSON New Haven, Conn.

Sir:

. . . One small detail hit my eye--the design on the Colonel's necktie. It looks like the king's crown emblem used by Columbia University. Can it be that the Colonel wears a tie with an emblem suggesting two such abhorrent institutions as the British Crown and the effete Eastern seat of learning?

JEAN O. JAMETON Pharr, Tex.

P:Artist Chaliapin exercised poetic license in executing the Colonel's foulard.--ED.

The Colonel's Person

Sir:

. . . Your ungentlemanly, outlandish, unfair, and blistering attack on the person of the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. This poisonous tirade. . . .

If the truth were really known, perhaps the cause of the undying rancor and hatred by the "Mr. Bigs" of the powerful periodicals in the East is that Colonel McCormick preferred' to side with the majority of the American people, who were opposed to our involvement in another senseless European war. . . .

Unfortunately for good old Uncle Sam, nephews of the breeding and character of Mr. Robert McCormick are, like the American Indian, vanishing fast from our scene of life.

GENEVIEVE CORNELL New York City

Sir:

TIME hit a new low in its eulogy of onetime Hitlerian Bedfellow McCormick. ... A sad commentary, indeed, on the drift of TIME into the bedchamber of those forces somewhere to the right of the status quo. . . .

JAMES R. KLONOSKI Virginia, Minn.

Sir:

Thanks for your article. ... It was time someone evaluated the Colonel and his mouthpiece. . . .

MRS. WALTER L. BAYNE Henry, Ill.

Baby Snooks

Sir:

The man with the "sort of photographic brain capable of almost total recall" [i.e., Billy Rose] should remember that it was not he who wrote the original Baby Snooks routines [TIME, June 2], but the late David Freedman.

Freedman not only wrote the original routines, and almost all Snooks material for radio and stage until his death in 1936, but was the sole and authentic creator of Baby Snooks herself. Credit grabbing in this connection has become a national pastime. . . . From the beginning, the material, properly labeled with the author's name, has been registered with the Authors' League and the Library of Congress. Rights in the property itself were purchased outright from the Freedman estate in 1937 by M-G-M for Fanny Brice. . . .

(REV.) DAVID NOEL FREEDMAN

for

BENEDICT FREEDMAN

TOBY FREEDMAN

ISA ARIEL FREEDMAN

Los Angeles

P: Fanny Brice disagrees. Her version: In 1915 a songwriter named Blanche Merrill did a vaudeville sketch for Fanny called "Poor Little Moving-Picture Baby," a burlesque on one of the child stars of the period. Fanny kept this character in mind for 15 years. About 1930 she suggested it to Moss Hart, who wrote a skit for Sweet & Low about an infant known simply as "Babykins." This was, in effect, the first Snooks script. Billy Rose may well have helped Hart, says Fanny.

In 1933 Freedman was writing radio scripts for Fanny, and she kept trying to talk him into doing a "Babykins." Finally sold, he wrote the first Baby Snooks script so named. In other words, Snooks is strictly a Fanny Brice creation, says she, and the Library of Congress can go climb a tree.--ED.

The Tragedy of Austria

Sir:

Paula Hoffmann reports in TIME [June 9] that: "The Church has no practical suggestions for helping Austria out of its earthly mess." One might ask: "Did the Church get Austria into its earthly mess or is the Church one of the occupying powers?"

As a matter of fact, the Pope gave practical suggestions before, during and after the war, but is there any evidence that the peacemakers of either World War paid any attention to the Church? . . . The tragedy of Austria is to be occupied by Stalin's minions whose leader gave his measure of the Church when he asked how many divisions the Pope had.

It is a strange anomaly that the Church should be expected to produce political effects but to stay out of politics, and in an age which does not believe in miracles, to produce new miracles. Is it not the primary business of the Church to deal with the souls of men, and the primary business of the politicians and the economists to deal with the "earthly mess"? Possibly I am behind in my reading and unaware that the Pope has been appointed (with Stalin's blessing) Economic Stabilizer of Central Europe.

JOHN B. McDoNOUGH

Long Beach, N. Y.

Torpedo Juice & Pioneers

Sir:

In regard to your article "Pioneers" under Miscellany [TIME, June 9], I would say that the two Long Beach, Calif, policemen were about four years too late to be classed as pioneers for making an amphibious arrest of a tipsy driver, or should we say coxswain.

I made a similar arrest some time in September 1943 at Guadalcanal, while a sentry aboard ship. A sailor was celebrating the discovery of some torpedo juice (190 proof) and using an LCV for a taxi.

So you can tell the two policemen that they are just "Boots" when it comes to seagoing arrests for tipsy skippers.

JIM DOUGHERTY Philadelphia

Marse Robert's Rank

Sir:

Re: TIME, June 9, footnote p. 28: ... At the time of the capture of John Brown at Harper's Ferry in 1859, Robert E. Lee had been addressed by the Army as "Colonel Lee" for over eleven years, having received that rank by brevet for his services at the storming of Chapultepec. . . .

He held rank as brevet major for four months and two days during the summer of 1847. . . . .

I cannot see why you speak of "Major Robert E. Lee" in the above reference. . . .

Let's do right by the memory of Marse Robert. After all, he was the greatest and grandest officer the United States Army ever produced.

CHESTER W. HILL Brookhaven, Miss.

CJ Let TIME'S Southern-born footnote editor mind his memories.--ED.

Pellets for Peace

Sir:

Very cleverly disguised in the June 9 issue of TIME was the story of "handsome Mel Johnson, inventor of the Johnson semiautomatic rifle and machine gun," whose latest contribution to the peace of the world is a "toy" gun which shoots pellets.

I say a bucket of hot lye solution to Mr. Johnson for the wonderful gangster indoctrination he has given American youth. . . .

I'm sure the American people will be proud of Mr. Johnson, who "hopes to bring the rifle range into every home."

HIRAM C. NAJARIAN

Beaver, Pa.

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