Who?
Sirs:
THANKS FOR YOUR GUESS AT MY IDENTITY. ESPECIALLY CHURCHILL JUNIOR. WHY OMIT VIC OLIVER?
"CATO"
London
>"Cato" is the pseudonym of the author of Guilty Men (TIME, Sept. 30), a crushing arraignment of Britain's high-placed political bunglers. Some guessed that "Cato" might be Newsman Michael Foote of the Evening Standard, H. G. Wells, Lord Beaverbrook, Leslie Hore-Belisha, Alfred Duff Cooper, or the Prime Minister's brash son Randolph Churchill. Actor Vic Oliver, hitherto a dark horse in the guessing, is Winston Churchill's son-in-law.--ED.
Hard Work
Sirs:
Your reference in your Sept. 16 issue . . . to the Nazis crawling about like beetles all over South America is to my mind a fair example of the wishful thinking or poor reporting in which the U. S. press has been indulging itself for a long time, even though the events of the past few months have made it clear that we can no longer afford such nonsense. The Germans are strong in South America in certain sections, not so much be cause they crawl about like beetles performing their loathsome machinations at the dictates of the Nazi High Command, but because in the last 20 years numbers of them have worked hard, very hard, to make them selves and their families a living in South America and in doing so have performed real services to their communities and countries. To put the matter bluntly, the Germans have had the guts to do many things which we have not had the guts to do, and as a result have badly outsold us in our own back yard. Germans, as a rule, learn Spanish thoroughly ; they not only speak it well, they have usually boned a good Spanish grammar until they know the structure of the language as well as they do their own. The average American, on the other hand, learns just enough Spanish to get along in his work. ... A typical American sales representative will breeze into the Bogota branch of the National City Bank and ask for an interpreter to go around and talk to some Colombian businessmen for him; your German will ride two days on muleback to sell a dozen packages of razor blades. The American in a Latin country tends to insulate himself from contact with the people of the country; the social customs seem to him absurd, and he makes little effort to understand them. He is not interested, and usually is not backward about showing his disinterest. Germans perhaps feel the same way, but if they do they are quite generally able to hide it. They marry Latins relatively more frequently than is the case with us, and are careful to choose a girl of good family. The sum and substance of all this is that the Germans, in some parts of South America, are strong because they have done some honest hard work in the past 20 years, and have shrewdly watched their chances. We could have done the same; but we have got so used to easy money that the idea of working for it is repulsive. Now, in towns all over Colombia, Germans are leading citizens -- actually presidents of the Tennis Clubs, Clubs de Comercio, and so on. There is nothing really sinister about how it was done -- it was done by honest work. The implications, however, are perhaps very sinister. . . .
It seems to me that implicit still in everything we say or do as a people is a fatuous refrain: "We are the greatest democracy on earth. We are the greatest people on earth. We are the richest people on earth." And so on. Since May this has sounded somewhat feebler than formerly -- rather like a small boy whistling in a graveyard ; but there still seems to be no recognition of the fact that greatness, in the words of Mr. Churchill, comes from tears, blood, sweat and toil. All of these things, I suggest, we are still unwilling to give. . . .
The fact which all our thinking and all our talking sheers away from is that Hitler's success, with the mortal threat it carries, is based solidly and squarely on our own weaknesses. . . .
JOSEPH H. SPEAR
Supervisor
The Anglo-American School Bogota, Colombia
Britain's War
Sirs:
Whilst I believe you are friendly to the British cause in this war, I note you base very many of your reports only on what the Jerries have claimed and do not mention the corresponding British assertion. In TIME, Aug. 5, you state unequivocally that the Germans sank ten out of 21 ships in a single convoy. I personally know that, in the convoy referred to, only five ships were sunk, although five more were damaged.
The Jerries regularly claim having sunk anything over 200,000 tons of shipping in a week. You do not mention that the British figures, checked by all kinds of people, show that we have not lost more than an average of 50,000 tons a week, and that our tonnage is now actually greater than before the war. We have never lost 200,000 in a week. . . You do not mentiion that the British figures, checked by all kinds of people, show that we have not lost more than an average of 50,000 tons a week, and that our tonnage is now actually greater than before the war. Foreigners seem to find it very hard to believe that British war reports are never exaggerated, and in fact tend to err on the conservative side. Most of your correspondents over here, however, have by now found this to be true. We do not kid ourselves. . . .
LIEUT. JOHN MORESBY, R.N.V.R.
H.M.S. Escallonia
> TIME should have said "striking ten out of 21." But TIME, Aug. 19, pointed out that British accounts of planes lost by both sides are more trustworthy than the German; TIME, Sept. 9, cited Minister of Economic Warfare Ronald Cross's statement that 2,000,000 tons of new shipping had been commissioned, as against 1,900,000 tons destroyed; TIME, Oct. 21, noted that a one-week shipping loss in September of 131,857 tons -- acknowledged by the British -- was the highest of the war, etc.
Recently reporting of the war at sea has not been helped by the Admiralty's practice of holding up announcement of losses in merchantmen and warcraft for a fortnight or more. -- ED.
No Jealousy
Sirs:
As a subscriber since about 1928 and an inveterate cover-to-cover reader . . I wish to take issue with your article on the Navy (Oct. 14).
In the first place the Navy has good airplanes -- perhaps more than you know about. We also have excellent fliers. . . .
There is no jealousy between fliers and deck officers. Each man does his own job. I may possibly be prejudiced but I've been flying for about 16 years and in the meanwhile have kept up as a deck officer also -- and no jealousy ! . . .
We have developed a fine Naval Aviation Service -- but not a separate air force.
Please, TIME, let the Navy carry out its function as the country's first line of defense. That includes the Naval Air Arm -- every member of which is confident that we can produce what it takes if and when called upon.
And we're still in the Navy ! !
SILAS B. MOORE Lieut. Commander, U. S. Navy
Philadelphia, Pa.
> TIME advocated no separate air force, cast no aspersions on the Navy's crack air service. But that there is room for more intelligent use of air power in the Fleet, many a Navy officer privately admits.--En.
Hitler's Fear?
Sirs:
Why does TIME assume that the Axis attempt to defeat Roosevelt is favorable to Roosevelt?
It seems that Hitler, if he really wants to dominate the world, would like for his potential slave nations to be democracies instead of corporate states. Hitler's opinion and conquest of democracies is well known and his opposition to Roosevelt suggests a fear of the possible development of a corporate state under Roosevelt. . . .
HUGH WILSON
Member
Oil Workers International Union, C. I. O.
Port Arthur, Tex.
Sirs:
Messrs. Wallace, Lehman and Jackson assert dogmatically that Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini are opposed to the re-election of the incumbent of the Presidency. This clairvoyant statement Mr. Roosevelt slyly confirmed in his press conference. Mr. Willkie frankly admits he doesn't know whether these foreigners are for him. I, for one, can't stand this suspense. I want to know definitely which Presidential candidate Der Fuehrer and Il Duce favor so that our election won't be bogged down by this terrible uncertainty. I want to start a fund to send a cable each to Messrs. Hitler and Mussolini and suggest the following: "Please quit stalling. Americans must know immediately whom (or who) you support for President. Charges for three-word reply guaranteed. Please answer by return wire.". . .
A. V. VOIGT
Pittsburgh, Pa.
-- TIME cannot undertake to sponsor reader funds, however laudable the purpose--has refunded Reader Voigt's two bits.--ED.
No Bowed Head
Sirs:
IN RE ISSUE OCT. 7, NO BOWED HEAD HAD PRESIDENT JACOBSON ON NEWS OF JAP SCRAP EMBARGO. INSTEAD HIS INSTITUTE HAD THE SATISFACTION OF SEEING A CAREFUL STATE DEPARTMENT FINALLY PUT INTO EFFECT AN EMBARGO URGED BY IT SINCE SHORTLY AFTER THE BEGINNING OF OUR NEW PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM. CONTRARY TO TIME'S USUALLY ACCURATE REPORTING, HIS INSTITUTE MONTHS AGO HAD CITED TO THE MUNITIONS CONTROL BOARD THE GROWING SHORTAGE OF SCRAP ESSENTIAL FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE AND URGED EITHER RESTRICTION ON JAPANESE SCRAP OR OUTRIGHT EMBARGO. . . .
JOSEPH E. JACOBSON
President Institute of Scrap Iron & Steel
Pittsburgh, Pa.
> If the Institute has ever in recent months advocated a scrap embargo, the fact is not on the public record. Last February, before the House Military Affairs Committee which was investigating the need for an embargo, the Institute's Executive Secretary Edwin C. Barringer declared: "The attitude of our institute ... is this: In case of national emergency, we stand ready, as we always have, to subserve all other interests to that of the national defense, but until such emergency arises, and we do not believe there is such an emergency today, we stand for the principle of a free and open market. We believe that the present supply of scrap is ample for all purposes, for the national defense program that is under way, and also for all normal or peacetime requirements. . . ."--ED.
No Record
Sirs:
The writer has no record of the date of the death of Mme. Cecile Chaminade. He has been in continual correspondence with Mme. Chaminade for many years, the last letter from her being dated June 1940.
Will you kindly inform us just when and where she died, as you refer to her in your Oct. 14 issue of TIME in the Music department as "the late Frenchwoman, Cecile Chaminade."
JAMES FRANCIS COOKE
Editor
The Etude Music Magazine
Philadelphia, Pa.
>-TIME erred. When last heard from last summer, Mme. Chaminade, 79, was alive, near Monte Carlo.--ED.
Brash Defiance
Sirs:
. . . TIME talks of Roosevelt political magic but I can't think of any magic to compare with Wendell Willkie linking "a freely competitive economic order" with his case for election in brash defiance of his long and intimate association with the public utilities, which have a reputation for being anything but freely competitive. . . .
DAN Ross
Clarksville, Tenn.
GWTW
Sirs:
... In re your picture of ... Candidate Willkie speaking in Manhattan's Times Square [TiME, Oct. 21]. The setting is so prophetic that the confident Democrats cannot resist suggesting that truly Willkie is "Gone With the Wind and the Rain in His Hair."
H. W. MORELOCK Austin, Tex.
> The Gone With the Wind sign, which appeared in the picture's background on the fac,ade of the Astor Theatre, reached Times Square a long time (almost ten months) before Candidate Willkie did.--ED.
How Much?
Sirs:
I hate you for the way you have belittled our Honorable President.
I hate you for the slurring remarks you have made about Wendell Willkie.
I hate you for your policy of pushing us into war.
I hate you for trying to make us isolationists. . . .
How much do I owe you for two more years ?
G. C. CLARK
Minneapolis, Minn.
> Eight dollars.-- ED.
Spiteful, Petty
Sirs:
From the Oct. 14 issue of TIME ... I quote the following: "... For miles Wendell Willkie, his smile set, drove past surly, scowling, derisive faces. Men in their working clothes leaning out of factory windows booed louder & louder. Snaggle-toothed old women stood with feet planted wide, arms out, thumbs down in the ancient gesture. Viragoes spat and jeered. Men with smut and grease on their dungarees shook their fists, bellowed epithets. . . . Outside the heavy-meshed 'strike fences' stood mocking, spindle-legged children, hard-muscled men, mustached old women."
This disparaging attitude on the part of TIME toward the laboring class of the American people is the most spiteful, petty and thoroughly disgusting piece of journalism I have had the displeasure of reading for quite some time. It is not only a malicious insult to labor but also an attempt to characterize the supporters of our great President as "spindle-legged children, hard-muscled men, snaggle-toothed and mustached old women." . . .
DORIS ROBBINS
San Antonio, Tex.
> TIME reported the scene in the outskirts and industrial sections of Toledo as TIME'S reporter saw it. Political candidates are not usually held responsible for the appearance, physique, mannerisms or manners of their audiences. -- ED.
"Mark My Margin"
Sirs:
.....The Oct. 14 Willkie story . . . [is] one of the finest pieces of journalistic reporting and writing in many a deadline and, mark my margin, when the prizes are awarded it'll score damn high, widely, handsomely.
THOMAS CASNER
New York City
Horrible Thought
Sirs:
A horrible thought occurred to me last night and I wish you would verify it.
Since that virago La Rue was kicked out of her job because of illegal use of hands, has she been kicked into a place on the Relief rolls? Judas -- I hope not. . . .
M. C. BARRY
Rochester, N. Y.
> Miss Doris La Rue, who injured another woman when she tossed assorted furnishings out of a Detroit hotel window during a Willkie parade (TIME, Oct. 14), was not on Relief last week. Having resigned her RFC job, she was looking for another, expecting to find one. Out on bond, she was also awaiting trial on a charge of felonious assault. -- ED.
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