Slave
Sirs:
. . . my father, writing to me from Southwestern China, has in custody a white girl, unable to speak a word of English but aware that she is the daughter of an American father and a Russian mother. For nearly 20 years she has been a slave, bought and sold among various Chinese families as necessity dictated. From Mukden, her presumable birthplace, where she was first placed in an orphanage, she has been carried over North and Central China to her present haven near the Burmese border. Undoubtedly, along with my own parents and all the population of unconquered China, she has endured the horrors of Japanese bombing raids. Ahead of her, even if China should win, is only anonymous drudgery; if taken by the Japanese she will fare no better than the other human loot of captured cities. . . .
It all adds up to this, TIME: somewhere in America are the family and friends of a young man who died in Manchuria; they may know of his Russian wife, and of his daughter. They are probably readers of TIME--what student of world affairs is not? and through its medium they may release the girl from her life of tragedy. Any correspondence on this subject may be forwarded to me in Portales, New Mexico, or directly to the C. I. M. Hospital at Anshuen, Kweichow, South China.
ALFRED CROFTS Eastern New Mexico Junior College Portales, N. Mex.
New Mosses v. Krivitslcy
Sirs:
Your Press editor seems to take quite seriously the New Masses' recent "exposure" of General Krivitsky. I should have expected TIME to be sophisticated enough to have looked into the following points: i) Why does the New Masses charge merely that Krivitsky-Ginsberg can't shoot a rifle and has never seen Stalin (two charges that by their nature can't be proved or disproved and anyway don't mean anything) while avoiding any attack on his main claim, which is that he was for some years chief of the Russian Military Intelligence Service for Western Europe?
2) What's all the shooting for about Krivitsky's name being really Ginsberg when the letter he wrote to the French Minister of the Interior at the time of his break with Stalin (reprinted in the Socialist Appeal of Dec. n, 1937) begins: "The undersigned, Samuel Ginsberg, bearing in the U. S. S. R. as a Soviet citizen the name of Walter Krivitsky, and the political pseudonym Walter, born June 28, 1899, at Podwoloczyska, Poland, has been a member of the C. P. S. U. since 1919."
Considering all this, just what "guns" is the
New Masses still sticking to, according to your Press editor?
DWIGHT MACDONALD
New York City
> Says the New Masses: Krivitsky-Ginsberg never was in Russia, never was a Soviet official, is a fake. To these guns it sticks. TIME sticks to no guns but its own.--ED.
Disgusted
Sirs:
As an Englishman I am obviously pleased to see on the front of your recent issue [May 15] that very excellent and natural picture of King George VI, but when I turn to the editorial under the heading Great Britain .and find on p. 25 such words ". . . for which the British public, almost forgetting that Edward VIII ever happened ..." I am singularly disgusted.
The history (truthful and untruthful) of the causes and results of Edward's historic abdication has been told and retold and quite apart from its diplomatic and political effects, the average Britisher, and probably the average person anywhere in the world, will agree that it was the biggest piece of un-sportsmanship enacted by a nation that has usually been famous for its traditional sportsmanship. . . .
There is an extremely large section of the British public that would like to see the Duke of Windsor at least officially recognized, or preferably welcomed home to a position of something better than degradation.
There has been talk in the press of his being invited to visit the New York World's Fair in the fall and I am sure many people will heartily welcome this: it would be an act of recognition for which my own country fears to be responsible, as a result of which a sportsmanlike Englishman can but hang his head in shame.
KESTON PELMORE New York City
Distinctly Smart Aleck
Sirs:
Just a few lines to let you know I am well fed up with your line of Smart Aleck stuff. Your article on Great Britain [King George VI] in the May 15 issue is about as raw, fresh, uncalled for and unfriendly as anything I've read.
All I want to say now is this. Your magazine contains no news, we read all the news in the newspapers a week or so ahead of your issues. Your comments do not amount to a row of pins, after we have seen enough _of them to size them up. Your attitude is distinctly Smart Aleck and Puffed Up--"Swelled Head," so to speak.
I still have something like a year to go before my subscription runs out. If you are any kind of sports I stump you to publish this letter in your Letters page with your 'Ultrasmart" comments, and send me that issue of TIME. You can then discontinue sending me any further issues. Whatever money you save in the deal, buy something for your staff.
W. B. HARPER
Outremont, Montreal, Que.
> No comment.--ED.
Synthetic Stockings
Sirs:
In TIME, May 8, under People you noted that General Motors' president had presented Princess Ingrid of Denmark with a pair of synthetic silk stockings. Since the Japanese sacked Nanking in 1937, I have worn no silk at all--and the substituted lisle & rayon hosiery are hateful to me. Those synthetic silk stockings sound like the answer to a maiden's prayer. Are they on the market as yet? If so, where, please? If not--who is making them? Surely not General Motors? Whoever is making them can probably use another experimenter to test their wearability as a new product--so if you can give me any information, I will be more than grateful.
MARION LEVINE New York City
> Du Pont's synthetic silk, said to have the elasticity that rayon lacks, is a synthesis of coal, air and water called Nylon, or Fibre 66. Nylon is not yet on the market, but Du Pont has given three girls at the New York World's Fair a pair of Nylon stockings apiece which they have been wearing steadily for the past three weeks. Celanese Corp. of America is also working on a synthetic silk fibre, as yet unnamed. --ED.
Diligent Perusal
Sirs:
Orchids to you for your clear, complete and reverent handling of all the news relevant to the Vatican since the death of His Holiness, Pope Pius XI. I was surprised and pained in reading the last few issues (our last is of March 20) to find no letter commending you on those splendid articles. Where are those who gave you a severe headwashing a few months back over the nickname applied to a certain clerical radiorator? Perhaps they unwisely canceled their subscriptions too soon. If not, they should be as ready with praise as they were with hysteric criticism.
TIME comes to us as the result of the kindness of a friend, and it is "the" magazine that all of us missionaries await most eagerly. No other keeps us so well informed on world affairs, and no other gets such a diligent cover-to-cover perusal. The one copy that comes to us weekly is pretty well frayed after the 18 American missionaries in our Vicariate are through.
REV. THEODORIC KERNEL, O.F.M.
Catholic Mission
Chowtsun, Shantung, China
Aquatint
Sirs:
Ave aqua vale!
You beat Billy Rose at his own game when you dubbed one of his performers an aquabat in your issue of May 15, p. 36.
Other suggestions with an aquatint: Why not have a hundred aqueducts swimming around in front of Billy Rose's aquapolis for a decorative note? And for a real sensation, have his "aquabelles" clothed in the sheerest aqua velva. Those who are tired of his aquiline can tell it to the aquamarines.
ALAN BARNES
Mexico, Mo.
Hole-in-One
Sirs:
For a golfer to "hole out in one" is considered something of an achievement. By holing out in one on the same course and at the same hole three times, twice on successive days, Major G. V. Golding of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, stationed at Peshawar on the North West Frontier of India, is believed to have set up a world's record.
On April 17, 1937, the Major holed out the 168-yards Fifth hole with his spoon shot from the tee. The feat was duly recorded -- and celebrated. . . .
On April 24, 1939, the Major, playing Major J. Hennell of the Royal Indian Army Supply Corps, using his spoon and at the same hole (now renumbered the nth), repeated his feat of two years ago by holing in one. . . . -
The next day, he set out with a friend to go round the course and at the same old hole, using a No. 3 club and forsaking his spoon but playing with the same ball he demonstrated what had happened. To the amazement of both men he drove the selfsame ball for the second time on successive days straight from the tee to the hole. . . .
BERNARD FONSECA Bombay, India
Jalopy
Sirs:
Is it jalopy or jalopy ?Webster doesn't say and the two words have caused quite an uprising between two of our English teachers. Personally I think of a Model T spurting, spouting, chugging and loping. When speaking of a decrepit, dilapidated car, we express our thoughts as we think the object looks. So I would say it is jalopy, sorta carelessly.
But I would like your opinion so as to settle the argument in my mind. Thank you.
IDA PACINA
Blackfoot, Idaho
> According to the compilers of the monumental Dictionary of American English (now abuilding in Chicago), the pronunciation is ja.-lop-y.--ED.
Epsilon Aurigae's Companion
Sirs:
I should appreciate it if you would correct one statement which you made in your article concerning the McDonald Observatory in a recent issue of TIME [May 15]. The determination of the size of the double star companion of Epsilon Aurigae was the work of my colleague, Professor G. P. Kuiper. My own investigation of this unusual star was concerned with other properties.
OTTO STRUVE
Director
Yerkes Observatory
Williams Bay, Wis.
The King!
Sirs:
If 7 meet the King! I will not bow low from the hips, watch the King! closely, shake hands only if he extends his hand first [TIME, May 22]. On the contrary I will accord to him the respect due to any foreign official, and no more.
The prototypes of Grover W., however, need not be perturbed, for I will not meet the King! being only a citizen and not one to shiver in my holy socks on seeing royalty.
Besides, what would the King ! do in Texas?
JACK CARMER
Kingsville, Texas
> TIME, misled by a press association dispatch (since corrected), erred in reporting that the State Department had issued rules of etiquette for U. S. citizens who meet the King and Queen. The Department issued no such rules.--ED.
Sirs:
With reference to the protocol in addressing the King of England, it seems treachery to every concept of democracy to treat him otherwise than we would our own President. To read the instructions issued by the Department of State, William Penn would have blushed with shame (and I am no Quaker)....
These rules may be satisfactory to ceremony-loving, class-conscious snobs in Washington, but I would alter them to read:
Men, women and children: remember that you carry the dignity of (admittedly) the biggest power in the world, and that you are meeting the representative of a friendly nation. Advance easily and look him "straight in the eye"; shake hands if he offers to do so and let him lead the conversation, if any. When leaving him, turn your back squarely and try not to stumble on your way out!
GEORGE R. BROTHERS
San Francisco, Calif.
Hot Water Bottles, etc.
Sirs:
It is indeed regrettable that we no longer have a Brisbane or a Scripps with guts enough to speak forth editorially against the embarrassing verbosity of our First Lady.
Her indelicate releases anent our guests-to-be, Their Majesties the King and Queen of England, reach a new low in the all-too-pronounced American tendency to blab and run at the mouth over juicy but personal morsels that are best treated with a dignified reticence. . . .
. . . Maybe the Embassy did make some suggestions as to how Their Majesties like their beds made, how many hot water bottles they would like, etc. etc.--all strictly private matters that are meat to our gossip-starved public but nevertheless matters that are best left undisclosed. If I were in His Majesty's position I would be inclined to call the whole visit off--or put up at a hotel where one's privacy is a foregone conclusion. . . .
L. M. LUCAS
Washington, D. C.
God Save the King
Sirs:
Being an Englishman and living in Montreal for the last 20 years, and not speaking French, I am writing to you to inform you that the French-Canadian is patriotic to both King and country. . . .
And, may we further inform you that the King and Queen have not begun a "Royal Torture," . . . but, in their own words, "we are looking forward to our trip to Canada." May we also inform you that if any of you Americans were presented to the King and Queen of England you would not know whether to stand on your head, shake hands, or bow. . . .
And if you wish it we can also send you a letter from Americans who were here to see the King and Queen and who said that we were lucky and indeed fortunate to have such a great King and Queen, and that they hoped that one day they would also be subjects of our King and Queen.
We suggest that you read and learn a little more of what is going on in Canada and thus broaden your stilted views of Canada and its people.
And, as a last word, "God Save Our King and Queen, and God Save the British Empire."
G. GARRAWAY
Montreal, Que.
> If any U. S. citizens renounced their citizenship in Montreal, they may have trouble getting across the border coming home.--ED.
Tommy Corcoran No. 3
Sirs:
MORE TOMMY CORCORAN [TIME, MAY 29, p. 20]: TOMMY (THOMAS FRANCIS) CORCORAN, CHEMICAL ENGINEER, DU PONT COMPANY, WASHBURN, WISCONSIN. GRADUATE (CUM LAUDE) UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 1920. MAY NOT BE TIME'S NUMBER 3 BUT IS TOMMY CORCORAN NUMBER 1 TO ANN, 6, TO PAUL, 4. CANNOT VOUCH FOR HIS POLITICS.
MARY BARRETT
Pullman, Wash.
"All Quiet Along the Potomac"
Sirs:
. . . This poem [All Quiet Along the Potomac, TIME, May 22] first appeared in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 20, 1861, as the work of Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers. Many months later, it began to come out in Southern journals, represented as a genuine product of Southern talent and said to have been found on the person of a dead Confederate soldier. Thereupon at least two Southerners rose to claim it as their own, the more loquacious of whom was Major Lamar Fontainne, of the Second Virginia Cavalry Regiment. . . .
This controversy has been gone over time and again in many books of Civil War songs and ballads. It is discussed in the article on Mrs. Beers in the Dictionary of American Biography. In October 1879, on tne day before her death, appeared a book of Mrs. Beers' collected poems, entitled "All Quiet Along the Potomac and other Poems." The issue of authorship had then been settled adequately, but now after 60 years Decca is again stirring up this little flame of sectional jealousy!
ALDEN W. SQUIRES
Brcokline, Mass.
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