Grace, Beauty, etc.
Sirs:
WHILE I OF COURSE APPRECIATE YOUR FRIENDLY AND CLEVER TREATMENT OF THE MORE BOISTEROUS AND JOLLY ASPECTS OF OUR DANCING, I WISH TO PROTEST THE UNDIGNIFIED IMPRESSION YOU GAVE OF MRS. WING. SHE DID NOT SPRAIN A KNEE IN OUR CLASS. A PREVIOUS KNEE INJURY PREVENTED HER TAKING ANY PART IN THE ACTUAL DANCING AND LIMITED HER INTEREST TO THE CLASS DISCUSSIONS AND OBSERVATION. IN FACT HER VERY PRESENCE ATTESTS TO THOSE ELEMENTS OF GRACE AND BEAUTY AND ESSENTIAL DIGNITY IN THE OLD DANCES AND THEIR USEFULNESS IN DEMOCRATIC LIVING WHICH YOUR ARTICLE FAILS TO MENTION. TIME STRIKES THE HOURS, AND THE STROKES FALL WHERE THEY WILL
LLOYD SHAW Colorado Springs, Colo.
> Misled by a correspondent, TIME regrets implying that Mrs. Wing, headmistress of The Madeira School in Virginia, hurt her knee at Dr. Shaw's school, where he has substituted square dancing for football as an equally strenuous major sport (TIME, Sept. 8).--ED.
Color
Sirs:
After all of TIME'S and the U.S. public's pleas for centralization of defense management, isn't establishment of Supply Priorities & Allocations Board big enough news without splashing the photographs of the blonde secretaries of Mr. Nelson and Mr. Henderson over p. 11 of TIME, Sept. 8?
Being a native of Minnesota myself, it is gratifying to read the success stories of neighboring contemporaries, but I do feel that the detailed "cream cheese and veal sandwiches account of their Washington lunch hour is irrelevant and weak preface material for your article on SPAB. . .
HELEN MARGARET OLSON Naugatuck, Conn.
> The defense picture in Washington is not so effulgently rosy that a little secretarial color hurts it.--ED.
Cushions
Sirs:
I just read a news item which stated that Mr. Roosevelt was preparing a cushion for little business in order to soften the shock that is coming to all business organizations not engaged in defense work. . . .
Concerning this cushion business, I am wondering if history will not repeat.
In Washington Irving's History of New York he vividly describes the battle between the forces of Peter Stuyvesant and those of General Jan Risingh who was in command of the Swedes. Irving goes on to describe how the battle for possession of the Swedish fort waxed so warm that the two generals met face to face in deadly combat. He states that the Swede struck the Dutchman over the head with his sword and that, "the good Peter reeled with the blow . . . and missing his footing, by reason of his wooden leg, down he came on his seat of honor with a crash which shook the surrounding hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he not been received into a cushion softer than velvet, which some kindly cow had benevolently prepared for his reception." . .
HARRISON TODD Sacramento, Calif.
Winchargers
Sirs:
TIME, Sept. 8 states: "A few small wind-driven generators, with three-day storage batteries, have been used for private residences, chiefly in England."
Most of the wind-driven generators used in England have been imported from the U.S. The Wincharger Corp. of Sioux City, Iowa, started by two farmers' boys, have sold over the world 334,762 wind-driven generators since 1935 for the purpose of charging storage batteries for lighting homes and running radios.
Winchargers are extensively used by the U.S. Forestry Service, the U.S. Lighthouse Service, the Indian Service, and farmers generally in unelectrified areas.
Part of the cargo of the S.S. City of Flint, the ship seized by the Germans in 1939, consisted of Winchargers destined for Eire to be used in lighting bombproof shelters.
E. F. MCDONALD JR. President
Zenith Radio Corporation Chicago, Ill.
Atmosphere at Williamstown
Sirs:
AS A DELEGATE TO WILLIAMSTOWN INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RELATIONS I REGRET MISLEADING IMPRESSION CREATED IN OPENING PARAGRAPH OF OTHERWISE FINE REPORT. YOUR ARTICLE SAID NEW HIGH IN RELIGIOUS INTERVENTIONISM WAS SET BY INSTITUTE AND THAT A BALLOT MIGHT HAVE REVEALED AN ACTUAL MAJORITY FOR A SHOOTING WAR NOW. MY OBSERVATION WAS THAT THE INSTITUTE SPEAKERS AND MEMBERS COMPRISED ALL SHADES OF OPINION--INTERVENTIONISTS, ISOLATIONISTS, PACIFISTS, NONPACIFISTS --A FAIR SAMPLING OF ALL POSITIONS HELD BY AMERICANS. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL WHETHER AN ACTUAL MAJORITY COULD HAVE BEEN MARSHALED FOR AN IMMEDIATE DECLARATION OF WAR.
HENRY SMITH LEIPER New York City
> Since no poll was taken, majority sentiment at Williamstown could only be judged by the tone of the speeches and the general reaction to them. Able Churchman Leiper is entitled to his own observation--but TIME'S reporter, who spent all six days at the meeting, is also entitled to his.--ED.
No Reaction
Sirs:
In TIME, Sept. 8, you report that "Variety last week showed that there is no U.S. reaction whatever against German music."
Can you or Variety inform me as to what has caused the music of Richard Wagner to almost entirely disappear from the air lanes? If our people have no "reaction" against it, who then is denying radio audiences the greatest dramatic music ever written? . . .
LIEUT. MARTIN HUNLEY Fort Knox, Ky.
> The big symphony orchestras are mostly silent in summer and little Wag ner is played then (except on high-class recorded programs like WQXR). This autumn and winter, there is every likelihood that Reader Hunley will again get his fill of "the greatest dramatic music."--ED.
Worried Wooing
Sirs:
Please don't weaken in your policy of debunking our worried wooing of the Latin American republics. By showing them that some of us are laughing with them you are rendering propaganda service of the best order. And then it helps to keep sensitive people like me from going mad when we learn that pictures like Argentine Nights are ever allowed south of the border. Sabotage!
JAMES T. MORGAN
Santa Ana, Calif.
Fourth in China
Sirs :
... I was completely flabbergasted to read, in TIME, Sept. 1, that the Fourth Marine Regiment was sent [to China] from Honolulu in 1937.
British, French and Italian regiments have come and gone, but the Fourth Marines have been very much a part of Shanghai life for approximately 14 years. . . .
LESLIE W. DEARDEUFF Platoon Sergeant U.S. Marine Corps Fort Lafayette Brooklyn, N.Y.
> TIME, abashed, hastily restores to the famed Fourth its other ten years in China.--ED.
TIME to Sweden
Sirs:
I received your letter . . . asking me whether the delivery of your magazine is irregular or not.
Up to now I have no complaints because I receive all your copies in relatively good time. On the average it takes two to four weeks until TIME arrives, but I regard this as fairly good under the present conditions. . . .
Anyhow I enjoy very much your paper and beg you to continue with its mailing. Your free comments on the actual situation is an enlightenment in every respect and in comparison to the blackout of news reports on this side of the Atlantic.
ALFRED E. RAPP
Hallstahammar, Sweden
Pop and the Lightning
Sirs:
Just reading in TIME about my friend Pop Corry [Grand Old Man of Sailing, 78, who has competed in Larchmont's regatta for 43 straight years--TIME, Sept. 1]. Ask him about the boat he was on last Saturday in Long Island Sound being struck by lightning. . . .
FREDERICK W. GWINN JR.
New York City
> On the day mentioned by Reader Gwinn, Pop Corry was persuaded to go for a ride with a party on Adrian Iselin's powerboat. Suddenly the sky grew dark and sharp squalls roamed the sound like devils. Sailing craft lost masts and canvas; thunder cracked. The Iselin yacht was rolling heavily when a lightning bolt hit smack on the bow, ripping the side above the water line. "If the gas tanks had been for ward instead of astern, she, and we, would have been blown to bits," Pop observed later. As it was they made shore without further mishap but Pop, who has sailed everything from dinghies to 60-ft. sloops, seemed to think it was a warning for him to stay away from boats with engines. -- ED.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.