Man of the Half-Century?
Sir: I wish to second the nomination [by B. G. Hoos, TIME, May 9] of the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill as the Man of the Half-Century . . .
WILLIAM J. PRUTZMAN
Charlottesville, Va.
P: Eighteen others have seconded this nomination.--ED.
Sir:
For the Jan. 2, 1950 cover of TIME [instead of a Man of the Year], I would like to nominate Pope Pius XII as Man of the Half-Century . . .
C. C. PEARL Monterrey,
Mexico
Sir:
. . . For my money, Lenin is the Man of the Half-Century . . .
R. D. MACDONALD
Seattle, Wash.
Sir:
. . . Mahatma Gandhi . . .
KHALIL BHAMDOUNY
Beirut, Lebanon
Sir:
. . . The Unknown Soldier . . .
J. MACDONALD
Pleasantville, N.Y.
Sir:
. . . Dr. Albert Schweitzer.
SHIRLEY BELL
Casper, Wyo. ir:
Sir:
. . . I wish to nominate a man who has had more influence (for bad or for worse) on more lives than any other man thus far in the 20th Century--Adolf Hitler.
JACK RENDAHL
Moorhead, Minn.
Sir:
. . . How about one of America's all-time greats: Herbert Clark Hoover?
HARRY D. EDWARDS
Hollywood, Calif.
Sir:
. . . Jean Sibelius . . . greatest of living composers.
DAVID FLODIN
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
. . . Why not choose the Unknown Taxpayer on whose shoulders rests everything that makes a true democracy !
ALFRED RENAUD
City Editor
Le Soleil
Quebec City, Canada
Sir:
. . . Joe Stalin . . .
BILL VISSARIS
New York City
Sir:
. . . Henry Ford . . .
C. C, EDELEN
Toledo, Ohio
Sir:
. . . Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin . . .
JOHN A. CONDE
Detroit, Mich.
Sir:
. . . For better or worse, Franklin D. Roosevelt probably had more effect on the events of the world than any other individual . . .
P. F. CLEMENT
Bakersfield, Calif.
Justice for Yamashita?
Sir:
Your just and discerning piece on the trial and execution of the Japanese General Yamashita [TIME, Nov. 7] is very commendable. This whole business is a black mark on American history. Those who, like me, were captives of the Japanese in Manila knew what was going on there and something of the measure of Yamashita's guilt as a "war criminal," and I think few of us approved the scant justice he received in his trial, or the ignominious fashion in which he was put to death.
MARC T. GREENE
Boothbay Harbor, Me.
Sir:
I was on Okinawa when Yamashita was on trial . . . The reports we received of the trial convinced me beyond doubt that Yamashita was a general who was doing his duty, completely ignorant and innocent of the murderous actions of his troops, and strangely similar in character and actions to the kindly, intelligent and duty-conscious General Kutuzov of Tolstoy's War and Peace . . .
THOMAS CARCATERRA
New York City
Sir:
I was a Yank correspondent covering the Yamashita trial. I was convinced that he was a man of unusual caliber who was being railroaded. I left the trial after nine days because I felt as though I were watching a lynching. The twelve reporters who remained for the whole thing held a secret vote on whether Yamashita should be hanged. Their vote: No (12-0).
ROBERT L. SCHWARTZ
New York City
Research for Mankind
Sir:
I was delighted to see the face of Dr. Waksman peering from the cover of TIME [Nov. 7]. The pictures of politicians, prizefighters, musicians, models, etc. are all right in their small sphere; but the work of men like Dr. Waksman, which results in good for all mankind, regardless of race, creed or color, is of much greater importance . . .
MICHAEL LIPMAN
Drexel Hill, Pa.
Sir:
I am sorry that two items were omitted from your article . . . First, the names of the students who were most closely associated with the isolation of streptomycin in 1943--Miss Doris Jones, Dr. Albert Schatz, Miss Elizabeth Bugie and Dr. H. Christine Reilly. Second, the fact that Dr. Dubos did his work on tyrothricin at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, to which he was appointed after receiving his degree at Rutgers in 1927. A casual reading of the article might convey the impression that this most significant work was done in our laboratories . . .
SELMAN A. WAKSMAN
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ.
Tales from the South Pacific
Sir:
The story of Cat Island [TIME, Nov. 7] is told in full by Frederick O'Brien in his book Atolls of the Sun (Century Co.; 1922) . . . I don't wonder that it could not be found on maps, because Cat Island is not its name. Its real name is Tetiaroa, and it lies about 30 miles north of Tahiti . . .
JOHN D. BUDDHUE
Pasadena, Calif.
Sir:
Shortly after the first World War, Dr. Walter Johnstone Williams, dentist and British consul in Papeete, Tahiti, acquired the atoll of Tetiaroa . . . Dr. Williams was the only dentist in Papeete for years, and he did quite a business--considering the Polynesians' love for "glitter-work" in their mouths . The royal Pomare family fell in debt to Dr. Williams for gold fillings . . . so they gave him Tetiaroa to clear up the bill . . .
Dr. Williams had previously cased Tetiaroa and found it covered with thousands of coconut palms, from which he could realize a tidy profit in copra . . . and in a short time he had the island producing . . . But he quickly found that rats on Tetiaroa were determined to thwart this commercial enterprise . . . He advertised in Papeete for cats . . . and soon streams of Tahitian lads were trotting to his office and home with yowling cats in bags, crates and nets.
When Dr. Williams had a thousand cats he chartered a schooner and transported [them] to Tetiaroa . . . The cats made short work of the rats ... but with such a vitamin-packed diet ... the thousand cats multiplied. With their food (rats) gone, they turned in a cannibalistic orgy on each other . . . [Finally] cat sense seemed to grip the few hundreds left. Perhaps they held a truce, and all agreed to end the war of extinction. They then reverted to the almost forgotten practice of fishing . . . and turned to the lagoon for their food . . .
Today the cats of Tetiaroa are lazy and fat Dr. Williams died on Tetiaroa about 1937, and was buried there. The atoll, as far as I know, is still owned by his widow . . .
WILMON B. MENARD
Laguna Beach, Calif.
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