"Depraved"
Sirs:
I hereby cancel my subscription . . . and also the subscription sent you ... as a Christmas present to Mrs. R. C. Grant, 286 Chestnut Hill Avenue, Allston (or Brighton) Mass.
. . . You have not the standards, intellectual or moral, which I desire in the periodicals read by my family. I shall quote three examples from your issue of Dec. 3.
First, you furnish free advertising to the extent of one-and a-quarter columns and a picture to one of the most insidiously dangerous pastimes offered to men even in this period of depraved consumption. ... I find no news value, but simple pornography in the article "No. 1 Stripper" on p. 24, under Theatre. This is the moral lapse. . . .
Specifically, then, under Cinema, p. 45, The Painted Veil, your premises are that 1) Mrs. Fane's marriage was loveless and ignoble at the time of her arrival in Hong Kong; 2) She committed adultery; and 3) Her marriage was neither loveless nor ignoble at the conclusion of the picture. From these premises you conclude that "the picture . . . can be considered an advertisement for adultery as a matrimonial cure-all." In other words, since the marriage was happier after the adultery, it was happier because of the adultery.
Under Foreign News, Mexico, p. 22, col. 2, footnote says: "The educational clause is the Plan's red rag to the pious, for it provides, 'The primary school, in addition to excluding religious instructions, will provide truthful answers--scientific and rational--to every question not clear in the minds of the students.' "
The "pious" are of course a group to be derided. The catch is that the exclusion of religious instruction, as you well know, makes impossible the provision of truthful, scientific, or rational answers. It is exactly parallel to a decree making two times two equal five, and any such insult to the intelligence of the thinking men of the world should be opposed and resented. . . .
. . . My feeling in shutting TIME from my mind is purely one of relief. When you decide to be square, open, upright, scientific, rational and intelligent, assurances to that effect might elicit further interest.
W. F. M. LONGWELL 1st Lieut., Corps of Engineers U. S. Army San Juan, P. R.
Friends
Sirs:
... I have always been both interested and disgusted by the letters published from those whose narrow-mindedness, partiality, bigotry, pedantry, stupidity and conceit cause them to write to cancel their subscriptions when there appears in TIME some word, phrase, or article which does not agree with their warped, fussy, self-opinioned, dogmatic, fanatical, illiberal, intolerant, meanspirited, jaundiced, prejudiced, shortsighted, pigheaded, distorted, one-sided, infatuated, biased and provincial ideas. . . .
I figure that the loss incurred annually by TIME from such cancellations cannot be heavy, but all the same I am quite sure that you prefer $5 . . in your bank balance, rather than in that of your ex-subscriber. So here is what I suggest.
Let us form among your readers and other friends, an association which might be called "The Friends Of TIME." The annual subscription, paid at the same time as the subscription, would depend upon the amount of money necessary to pay for two subscriptions for each one cancelled the year previous.
For example, say that in the last calendar year there were 1,000 subscriptions cancelled by these rather uninteresting people who cannot bear to read an opinion which differs from their own. . . . That means 2,000 subscriptions to pay by the "Friends Of TIME," or some $10,000 (although you might make a lower price for the quantity). Say that only 20,000 of your readers "joined" at 50-c- each; the 2,000 subscriptions are covered.
To whom should they go? University, college and other libraries who are not at present subscribers; or additional subscriptions to large institutions, hospitals, even waiting rooms, etc. In other words, everywhere where such subscriptions can do the most good.
See the lovely way it would work out. "Ah, you cancel your subscription because we called Senator Umpah an incompetent blowhard; all right--two subscriptions will go out, each of which will be read by a large number of people."
RICHARD WALLER Le Luc, France
Boiling Businessmen Sirs:
I was very much amused to see the way in which the various presidents, vice presidents and treasurers boiled up and over at your gibe in your comment on the meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers. If they were as constant readers of TIME as I they would know that to enjoy a crack at Big Hearted (with other people's money) Harry Hopkins and Honest Harold Ickes we must learn to take one ourselves occasionally. Mr. Bath is as weak on hitching his quotation to the right person as the schoolgirl who thought that Laurel was the man who said, "Kiss me, Hardy". . . .
H. W. GETZ One More President Moline, 111.
Sirs:
As to the Association of National Manufacturers, let me commend TIME in mildly ridiculing an American" type at which historians will laugh, at which most thinking Americans today indulgently smile.
Also orchids to Harry Hopkins on his remarks. But who wouldn't like an excuse to visit White Sulphur Springs this weather?
P. E. COLEMAN Swarthmore, Pa.
Plain Out-In-Out Lying Sirs:
Due to your recent change in editorial policy in regard to the USSR, I have been prompted to take you to task. Aping Hearst you 1 unleashed a vicious, slanderous attack upon Soviet Union. Among your crimes are truths, distortions, over-zealous imagination just plain out-in-out lying.
You, in your own inimitable way of li satirical "newswriting," are horrified by execution of your own class-brothers--the Wh Guardists--rats that got what they deserve, justice, proletarian justice. Of course, couldn't be expected to understand; your begeois ''culture" makes you a champion of " democracy" with its courts, "free," "open" ; jury trials with its McXamaras, Mooneys, Sac and Vanzettis and its Scottsboros (chosen "bitrarily") in comparison to its Insulls. T is your justice.
You are frightened by the constant progr and the rising living standards of the work in the Soviet Union--the Socialist world-comparison to the general crisis and great degradation of the working class in the capital world. You are afraid to print the truth-hurts. All the rottenness of your "culture everything you stand for is being torn down a real democracy, a fine, healthful world is being built to replace it. You can't afford to print this--it doesn't suit your purpose.
Some day not so distant your filthy dollar shall do you no good; so squirm you prostitute, you have cause to fear!
MELVIN ROSEN New York City
Let Reader Rosen catch up with the latest official versions of Comrade Kirov assassination. Currently the Soviet pubic prosecutor claims that the killing was inspired not by "White-Guardists" but by Josef Stalin's implacable Red nemesis Leon Trotsky. Currently too, the chief plotters to receive "proletarian justice were Russian Communists who carried inpeccable party membership cards at the time of their arrest.--ED.
Lawyer's Orchid
Sir:
An orchid, silver medal (we are off gold) of something to your movie critic (TIME, Dec 31, p. 15) who reviewed The Band Plays On and calls the "silliest shot":
"Betty Furness telling her fiance . . . that he must continue college because as soon as he becomes a lawyer they will have plenty of money."
........Tell the critic that he's an ace, and 1 haven't seen the picture.
ELDON HALDANE Lawyer Atlanta, Ga.
Omaha Justice
RE: THREE BANDITS WHO HELD UP ONE HORSE GROCERY STORE OUR CITY REFER TO CRIME ARTICLE IN TIME DECEMBER TWENTY FOUR BE ADVISED THAT BANDITS WERE ARRESTED AND SENTENCED TO TEN TEN AND EIGHT YEARS RESPECTIVELY STOP ALSO THAT LAUDE WATTS AND BERNARD ANDERSON ARRESTED FOR ROBBERY FOUR SATURDAY MORNING DECEMBER TWENTY TWO AT ELEVEN THIRTY IN MORNING SAME DAY SENTENCED TO TWENTY FIVE YEARS IN NEBRASKA STATE PENITENTIARY.
A. C. ANDERSEN Inspector of Police Omaha, Neb.
To Omaha's constabulary, congratulations on swift action.--ED.
Death & Taxes (Cont.)
Sirs:
The suggestion of Mr. D. J. Foss, Wooster, O., regarding 100% tax on burial expenses is sensible (TIME, Dec. 31). The whole undertaking racket should be spread-eagled. Let the public have the facts concerning the costs and selling prices in the "industry" and common sense should do the rest. . . .
L. W. GRISWOLD
Batavia, N. Y.
Sirs:
Splendid! Congratulations to Mr. Foss for a knockout idea. Although funerals have been a source of income to me for several years I would gladly deprive myself of it if for no other reason than to help rid modern civilization of one of the last vestiges of barbarism.
An organist usually has a ringside seat for these affairs and I have come to the conclusion that many people go to funerals to see how the bereaved "take it," to see how many flowers the deceased "rated," to get a look (I can't imagine why) at the corpse. . . .
Bring on your 100% tax!
C. R. BERRY Rochester, N. Y.
Sirs:
Yes! Amen and amen! TIME-reader D. J. Foss is only voicing what I believe is the honest sentiment of most Christian ministers and a great many Christian laity.
Louis L. PERKINS
Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church Kittanning, Pa.
Sirs:
. . Bravo Citizen D. J. Foss! . . . Down with undertakers, and their ballyhooing, cemetery lot speculation, sumptuous undertaking palaces, etc.! What do the dead care for a real mahogany casket or a metal one? Apres moi--I don't give a damn!
HENRY A. MONAT, A. B., M. D.
U. S. Veterans Hospital Dayton, Ohio
Sirs:
Well, let Mr. Foss go ahead and be buried in Potters' Field if he wants.
But would Mr. Foss tax as "fanatical, superstitious and heathenishly extravagant expenditures" the Roman Catholic masses for the dead?
E. D. SMITH
South Bend, Ind.
Sirs:
. . Modern cemeteries, with sweeping lawns, mausoleums and columbaria with their noble statuary and architecture are as much a part of the community as the public art museum or library. Destroy them and the living will exist --no longer LIVE.
RAYMOND BRENNAN
Executive-Secretary Interment Association of California Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
Why is it more "fanatical, superstitious and heathenishly extravagant" to bury the dead for an expenditure well within the means of the funeral purchaser, than it is for some women to lavishly buy cosmetics and hairdressing attention, some men to own magnificent yachts, racing stables, or "harems," or for anyone to indulge themselves in anything beyond that which is necessary to actually sustain life? . . .
A. H. PIERCE
The Springfield Metallic Casket Co. Springfield, Ohio
Sirs:
. . . Burials, Mr. Foss seems to forget, are an absolute necessity if public health is to be protected--burials or cremations. The development of embalming has played a considerable part in decreasing the hazards of epidemics. . . .
There are things that might be more easily taxed than burials. Why not begin with a 500% tax on Mr. Foss's necktie and a 1,000% tax on the shoe polish he consumes and 2,500% tax on the value of the church he attends?
Which brings up our last point--that the American funeral is a civilized institution that brings beauty and solace to the living as well as decent burial to the dead. The average family has a funeral about once in 15 years. Is its average annual expenditure extravagant?
CARL HAESSLER
Director
Institute for Mortuary Research Chicago, III.
Sirs:
. . . There is no question but that many funerals are gross exhibits of personal vanity, but to call all such expenditures "examples of barbarous superstition" is clearly a misstatement. Undoubtedly, in my mind, the way in which any nation disposes of its dead is a gauge of the cultural life of that nation. Funerals, I think--contrary to the general belief--are not conducted wholly to advertise the standing of the deceased, but as a demonstration of the esteem of the friends left behind.
I think a rich man who cheaply disposes of his dead is just as full of vanity as the poor man who spends more than he can afford. In other words, a man should be buried somewhat on the financial scale which he lived. . . .
CECIL E. BRYAN
Memorial Securities Corp. Los Angeles, Calif.
Sirs:
An atheist will argue that there is no soul to depart from a corpse, a believer will say that the soul is immortal, but both agree that after death, the body is just a worthless piece of flesh. Why then, give this 98-c- worth of lifeless meat an all-metal casket costing thousands of dollars, an expensive monument, a shower of floral wreaths and a long line of hired cars filled by hired mourners?
Because it is a final gesture of a vain, pompous society to give a rich man an expensive funeral, a poor man a box in a field: a last earthly proof of the snobbery and hypocrisy of civilized social structure. ...
HENRY C. BUSH
Midlothian, III.
"Libeled Masterpiece"
Sirs:
YOU FLATTER ME WITH SO MUCH SPACE, SO I SHALL CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO ONLY TWO OF THE MANY INACCURACIES IN YOUR ARTICLE ABOUT ME AND MY WORK ON P. 70 OF YOUR JAN. 7 ISSUE.
THE PORTLAND OREGONIAN'S DAILY CIRCULATION IS NOT 92,500, BUT OVER 104,000 AND INCREASING: AND WHEN YOU SAY I LOOK ''SOMETHING LIKE A PELICAN" YOU GROSSLY LIBEL THAT MASTERPIECE OF NATURE.
GUY T. VISKNISKKI
Portland, Ore.
Exalting Faces
Sirs:
Congratulations to TIME for the opportunity to see, in some measure face to face, a few of the new Governors [TIME, Dec. 31]. After studying these faces of statesmen and patriots one feels exalted and draws therefrom renewed confidence in American constituencies. This is especially true in the case of the incoming Governor of Maryland. . . .
M. T. ALEXANDER
Tacoma, Wash.
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