Men of the Year

Sirs:

I NOMINATE FOR HIS THIRD TERM AS MAN OF THE YEAR FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT. THERE IS NO CLOSE SECOND.

ROWAN HOWARD

Austin, Tex.

Sirs: I nominate for Man of the Year, not the heretofore irresistible force, but today's immovable object, Winston Churchill--sustaining, and sustained by, the morale of a free people in its darkest hour.

E. MITHOFF NICHOLAS

Columbus, Ohio

Sirs:

. . . Wendell Willkie gave us one last warning to un-France ourselves, but we shut off the alarm and turned over for just one more snooze (four years). Time will tell, but TIME should elect Wendell Willkie Man of the Year.

F. B. PUTNAM

San Marino, Calif.

Sirs:

. . . For . . . Man of the Year I would like to suggest . . . Mr. John Bull of Merrie (?) England.

ARTHUR T. LYON

Chevy Chase, Md.

Sirs:

I nominate for the Man of the Year, Elizabeth, Queen of England. . . .

MORRIS GOODMAN

Montreal, Que.

Summary

Sirs:

Curt, concise, clear summary of election results: Chump met Champ.

With malice toward none. . . .

G. B. GAIENNIE SR.

Waukegan, Ill.

Sirs:

Let Mr. Willkie remember that . . . 22,000,000 intelligent citizens on Nov. 5 supported his amazingly superb crusade for democracy! As long as Americans have leaders like him, we shall not surrender our prized American heritage.

BERNICE A. PATTERSON Harrisburg, Ill.

Sirs:

... I really think (maybe I'm a narrow-minded Democrat) that we the people of the United States have made a fine selection in re-electing President Roosevelt for a third term. Don't you?

LILLY GLAZER Philadelphia, Pa.

> Yes. No. Perhaps. Perhaps not. We shall see.--ED.

"Congratulations"

Sirs:

Attached is a cartoon clipping from this morning's Tampico El Mundo which illustrates the reaction of some Latin Americans to the re-election of President Roosevelt.

The caption reads, "Congratulations, old man, now you've got your own Porfirio Diaz," which refers to the ... dictator who succeeded himself in Mexican elections for 30 years until he was finally removed by the 1911 revolution.

FRED DEAN SMITH Tampico, Mexico

Reason & Rhyme

Sirs:

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ELECTION EXTRA. IT WAS SUBLIME. IT HAD REASON AND RHYME. AND IT CAME OUT ON TIME. WE IN CANADA TRUST AND HOPE THAT THE THIRD TERM OF F. D. R. WILL MAKE A FOUR-STAR FINAL.

SERGEANT MORRIS GOODMAN

Ottawa, Ont.

Sirs:

Your Election Extra came yesterday (Thursday), a full 24 hours ahead of your regular issue. I think it is an exceedingly good account. . . .

B. H. KIZER Spokane, Wash.

Sirs:

Thank you for the Election Extra.

I am deeply moved by [the story entitled] "Post Election."

It is not just because it is well written.

It reflects more keen analysis, more clear thinking, more sound, realistic approach than I had ever expected to see, even in TIME. . . .

HAROLD T. SIMON Brooklyn, N. Y.

Sirs:

Congratulations, TIME, on your Election special. Congratulations on your attitude during the whole campaign. It was fine!

We would like to ask a question. Has Hugh Johnson eaten the Gallup Poll yet? I remember that he came out in his column and said if Gallup was right he would eat the Poll. . . .

GUY H. HARVEY

Yankton, S. D.

> Columnist Johnson offered to eat his own column, not the Gallup Poll. He backed down, pleading (in effect) lack of appetite.--ED.

Sprigged Challis

Sirs:

You Yankees make me laugh!

So Miss Ruutz-Rees [of Rosemary Hall, Greenwich, Conn.] was first to prescribe uniforms in a U. S. girls' school, introducing them over the objections of her pupils in 1897 (TIME, Nov. 4) ? . . .

At the Woman's Masonic College of Covington, Ga., now out of existence, where my grandmother received her A.B. degree in 1854, the prescribed uniform was "a sprigged challis" over hoops, with a demure green velvet poke bonnet tied under the chin. . . .

And in my own college, La Grange (Female) College, La Grange, Ga., which celebrated its centenary in 1936, the walls of the old Prayer Hallare lined with pictures of long-dead maidens in the prescribed uniforms they wore during the war. For those four tragic years, and long afterward, they dressed in exact grey Confederate uniforms, with braided basques, bell skirts instead of breeches, a jaunty forage cap perched upon their curls. . . . But make no mistake; these ingenues' botany textbooks were written in Latin. . . .

ELMIRA GROGAN

Elberton, Ga.

The Peaceful Irish

Sirs:

Your notes on the Irish ports desired by Britain [TIME, Nov. 18] and your curious reference to Mr. de Valera's conscience are based on a misreading of the Irish situation. You say Mr. de Valera in refusing the ports is handcuffed by his Briton-hating colleagues. One could hardly accuse the Irish Times of being Briton-hating and yet this paper, consistently friendly to Britain, speaking specifically of the debate on the Irish ports in the British House of Commons, deprecated "the loose talk concerning Ireland which occasionally creeps into the proceedings of the British Parliament," and adds: "The people have endorsed the neutrality pursued by the Irish Government and are prepared to abide by it."

The policy of neutrality is supported by every party in the Dail, by all the people, and by every metropolitan and provincial newspaper in the country. It is based not on hatred of anyone but on a very natural love of Ireland and an equally natural desire to keep war from her shores. It is not denied that cession or lease of the ports to either side would bring war to Ireland.

The Irish didn't fight for over 700 years for their survival as a nation in order now to embark on a policy which would invite annihilation. Consequently, Mr. de Valera's conscience is clear when he says "the Irish people will defend their rights in regard to these ports against whoever shall attack them."

Your map clearly shows that the Irish ports would be useful to Britain. Could it not also be used to show they would be useful to Germany, and will anyone contend that Germany would be justified in demanding them on the grounds of their usefulness? . . .

ROBT. BRENNAN Irish Minister to U. S. Irish Legation

Washington, D. C.

> To His Excellency Minister Brennan thanks for expounding the feelings of his people. The fact that the conservative Irish Times, long the upholder of British interests in Eire, is against the leasing of bases to England, lends his contention strong support.--ED.

Citizen Chambrun

Sirs:

TIME, Oct. 21, makes the statement that Count Rene de Chambrun as Lafayette's great-great-great-grandson is an honorary citizen of the United States.

I have read on several other occasions that the Congress of the United States after the close of the Revolution had made Lafayette and his male descendants honorary citizens of the United States. I have made what I thought was a thorough search of the laws enacted by the Congress and the resolutions adopted by that body but I have found nothing that in any way substantiates the statement in question. . . .

ALFRED E. LENTZ Sacramento, Calif.

> In 1784 the Maryland General Assembly, in gratitude to the Marquis de Lafayette, passed a law making him and his male descendants forever citizens of Maryland. In 1932 his descendant, Count Rene de Chambrun, asked permission to take the New York State bar examinations. Permission was at first refused, on the ground that he was not a citizen of the U. S. The Count cited a provision of the Constitution which gives to citizens of one State the immunities and privileges of all States of the Union (which means, in effect, that a citizen of any State is a citizen of the U. S.). The Court of Appeals then granted the Count the right to take his bar examinations. He took them, passed, was admitted to the New York bar in April 1934.--ED.

Paraphonia

Sirs:

TIME and Mussolini seem to have a common source of information as regards the strength of the Greek Army. . . . Both regarded Greece as a pushover. Having discounted her strength in your issue of Nov. 4, you find it necessary in your current issue [Nov. 11] to discount reports of Greek successes and chances of final victory. . . .

Accounts of heroic exploits published daily in the papers give a measure of Greece's determination to fight to the finish and her cause deserves a more sympathetic treatment by Nothing Sacred TIME, whose accounts constitute a paraphonia (sour note to you) in the echo of almost universal acclaim. . . .

EUTHYMIOS A. GREGORY Aiken, S. C.

Sirs:

Your write-up of Greece . . . is especially interesting in view of my former residence in Greece, part of the time in Salonika and part in Athens. I . . . was acquainted not only with Greek soldiers and officers and ordinary Greeks, but also with many high officials. I have two decorations from the Greek Government.

Your jocular spirit is justified, though I know another side. What I object to is the distorted picture you give of Venizelos, whom I knew personally. He is the one outstanding figure in the comic opera, who, as President Wilson said, rose to the height of one of Europe's greatest statesmen. "Quisling" is not a word to be used of him.

JOHN C. CRANBERY The Emancipator

Georgetown, Tex.

> All praise to the brave Greek Army and still more praise if it can in the long run defend independent Greece from the much bigger and much better-equipped Italian forces.--ED.

Lights at Night

Sirs: Congratulations on printing Supervisor Spear's letter from Bogota. He is a brave man and you are a liberal publication.

That is the trouble with the Germans--they work when others loaf. In ten years' travel around the world before War I, I saw lit up, until near midnight, the German offices in Hong Kong, Bangkok or Bombay. The British, already then largely Scotch, closed their offices at two or three for the races, later to sit around their clubs cursing the swine who were stealing their markets.

Worse still, those damn Germans adapted the stuff they tried to sell to the needs and desires of the people. Such betrayal of European standards was just too much for the British merchants. So the Germans had to be knocked out and now we have got to do it again.

PORTER SARGENT Boston, Mass.

> To white-thatched, peppery Porter Sargent--educational adviser, publisher, bon vivant who collects old china, old prints and old cheese--thanks for more peppery views.--ED.

Leathernecks v. Doughboys

Sirs:

TIME, Nov. 11: "Today the Marine Corps is the keenest rifle-shooting outfit in the world." Perhaps some other day it may have been or again may be. . . . It was the Infantry which placed 21 men in "The President's Hundred" against twelve by the Marines, and the Infantry which took top three places and ten medals in the National Individual Matches, against fourth place and six medals for the Marines.

N. R. POTTER Formerly Captain, Tank Corps, A. E. F.

Rochester, N. Y.

> Not even Pitcher Bobby Feller wins all his games. In the last 14 team matches, the Marines have won nine times, the Army five times. The Marines won them this year. In the last 13 individual matches, the Marines have won seven times, the Army six. Let the people of the U. S. take pride in the fact that the marksmanship of their armed forces is the best in the world.--ED.

Word from Beecher

Sirs:

I understand that you are paging me [TIME, Nov. 18], so here I am. I have been a migrant all my life, and am likely to turn up any place in America. New York City was my point of origin 36 years ago. The panic of 1907 started me on the road at a tender age. . . .

Right now I am intentionally out of a job. I want to write mainly and get a lot of things said that have been piling up inside. My poem, "And I Will Be Heard," that you reviewed in your Oct. 14 issue is the start of what I have to say. Twice A Year Press, 509 Madison Avenue, New York City, is bringing it out. . . . The title stays "And I Will Be Heard" and the book costs 50-c-. It may be obtained from the publisher direct or at any book store.

JOHN BEECHER

Birmingham, Ala.

Next-to-Last Laugh

Sirs:

. . . TIME . . . says that Carl Snavely never swears nor smiles on a football field. . . . During the Syracuse game Oct. 19 (Cornell 33--Syracuse 6), Cornell was in a tight spot. Forced to take the ball from behind Syracuse's goal line, Quarterback Matuszcak called an end around instead of a punt. When the runner netted some 20 yards, Snavely threw back his head and laughed and laughed. It was not funny to Syracuse.

The Cornell Daily Sun, which allows the coach three laughs per season, reported that this was the second one.

ELIZABETH A. HERROLD '41 Cornell University

Ithaca, N. Y.

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