Sense or Smear?
Sir;
For the first time in my life I have read a sensible . . . report on Puerto Ricans in New York City [TIME, June 12].
The hateful smearing campaign of the New York tabloids often made me angry and created resentment in Puerto Rican professionals who attended American universities . . . You have done a lot for us, who are proud of our American citizenship, and for that, as a Puerto Rican ... I do thank you.
HECTOR REICHARD
Aguadilla, P.R.
Sir:
Shame on your article on Puerto Ricans. It is evident that TIME was looking for a sensational type of journalism akin to the Daily News. Your publication, about the only one in New York that has not tried to degrade a long-suffering people, has at last put in its two cents of cowardice . . .
If we Puerto Ricans had among us a powerful Anti-Defamation League, or an organization along the lines of B'nai B'rith . . . you wouldn't pick on us so much. After all, outside of cowboys and gangsters, Americans have not produced any great brains . . .
DEMOSTENES SANTIAGO ROQUE
New York City
Sir:
As you reported . . . there is a surplus of jobless Puerto Ricans in New York. So we proceed to fly several thousand more from Puerto Rico to Michigan, to harvest the sugar-beet crop for sugar which might better have been made from Puerto Rican cane in the first place! . . .
ROGER WARD
Washington, D.C.
Literary Hawkshaws
Sir:
I would like to be among the first of the literary hawkshaws to point out that the fairy tale [about an eccentric actress who gave a party and forgot to mail the invitations] on which Billy Rose was anticipated by Evelyn Waugh [TIME, June 12] was not original with Mr. Waugh, either. In Hesketh Pearson's biography, Oscar Wilde [Harper; 1946], we find Wilde telling a florid version of it to a friend on whom he fobbed it off as a true story about one of his own family. And since Wilde was no stickler for pure originality, the tale was probably kicking around long before his time, too. . .
H. R. CARTER JR.
Berkeley, Calif.
Sir:
. . . It looks as if it were the turn of British Author Evelyn Waugh to give a party.
D. L. MONTANO
Montreux, Switzerland
Sir:
. . . We can now add another chorus to the celebrated [Gertrude] Stein song, and say that a Rose is a Waugh is a Wilde; which is a harrowing enough hybrid for anyone.
DAVID SHELLEY NICHOLL
Cambridge, Mass.
Backhands Across the Sea
Sir:
You report that a resolution regretting the dominant influence of the U.S. among the democratic nations was passed by the Oxford Union under the persuasion of [British Philosopher] C.E.M. Joad [TIME, June 12]. He is an irresponsible smart aleck, the measure of whose irresponsibility in attacking America may be gauged from the fact that he had the effrontery to write a book about the U.S. entitled The Babbitt Warren [Harper, 1927] at a time when he had never even visited this country . . .
STAFFORD WHITBY
Akron, Ohio
Sir:
What a stinker Cyril Joad is!
KENNETH BROWN
Charlottesville, Va.
Phuture Fonetic Phun
Sir:
. . . I was amazed by the hurdles thrown in the path of the judges at the National Spelling Bee [TIME, June 5]. The laugh should have been on those who meddled with the dictionary spellings, rather than on the contest judges . . . To spell supersede with a "c" and coruscate with a double "r" is to disregard the Latin roots from which they stem. Sedere and cedere have entirely different meanings in Latin . . .
If this trend continues, there will soon be no purpose in a spelling bee. When we reach phonetic spelling (it will then be fonetic), the stupid will be able to spell as well as the bright . . .
MAX F. CORNWELL
San Marino, Calif.
Serious Approach
Sir:
I have often wondered whether people recognize that major achievement is possible in movies outside the field of acting. Your [June 12] article on Darryl Zanuck . . . was a serious approach to a Hollywood biography, instead of the "intellectual wise guy" attitude that is almost standard with magazines . . .
HYE BOSSIN
Toronto, Canada
Sir:
If I am good, when I die and go to heaven, can I become a Zanuck?
H. J. STRICKLAND
Alpine, Texas
Spontaneous Sprockets
Sir:
The film wrapped around Darryl Zanuck's head on your June 12 cover wouldn't pass through any projector anywhere. All movie film has four perforations to each frame, not six. . .
JULIAN A. WESTON
San Jose, Costa Rica
Sir:
. . . AS A ZANUCK ADMIRER, I'M NOT BLIND TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT CELLULOID FINDING ITSELF IN ACTUAL CONTACT WITH ZANUCK'S BROW MIGHT SPONTANEOUSLY DEVELOP AN EXTRA SPROCKET HOLE.
EARL FLYNN
Gallup, N. Mex.
Sir:
. . . If that very thin line running down the side [of the film] is supposed to be a sound track, you have hurt the technical spirits of sound engineers everywhere . . .
FREDERICK C. SPIELBERGER
Mexico City
Mayhem on Madison
Sir:
We were fascinated by the Madison Avenue bus driver [after a tongue-lashing from one passenger, he put all the riders off his bus--TIME, June 12], but we want to know whether the company was sympathetic or whether he lost his job.
JOHN AND YOSHIE CROSSON
Paauhau, Hawaii
P: After getting a "mild reprimand" from his bosses, Driver Coyne--a calmer man--is back on the job.--ED.
Traffic Education
Sir:
WITHOUT ATTEMPTING TO CRITICIZE YOUR [JUNE 12] STORY ON THE SAFETY FILM SHOCKER, "LAST DATE," I AM SURPRISED YOU OVERLOOKED THE MOST OUTSTANDING TRAFFIC SAFETY FILM YET PRODUCED--"AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR."
AS PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE LOS ANGELES TRAFFIC SAFETY COURT. . . I PERSUADED GENERAL PETROLEUM CORP. IN 1949 TO MAKE THIS FILM FOR USE IN OPENING EACH COURT SESSION AS WELL AS FOR GENERAL SAFETY EDUCATION PURPOSES. "AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR" WAS THE RESULT, AND IT IS SHOWN EACH DAY IN OUR LOS ANGELES COURT . . .
ROGER ALTON PFAFF
Los Angeles, Calif.
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