Ickes Avenue

Sirs:

Your article in TIME, Sept. 15, on Secretary Ickes proved very interesting but did not do him justice. Enclosed is a picture of a street named in the Secretary's honor [see cut]. The scene is Mason City, Wash., a small town which grew out of the Grand Coulee Dam. In the picture you may notice only back doors opening onto Ickes Avenue. This is also true of all the houses on this street.

Mason City will soon be a ghost town and Ickes Avenue a ghost street.

WILLIAM F. EGELHOFF Cambridge, Mass.

Junior's Bib

Sirs:

. . . About Mr. Lindbergh one thing has always puzzled me. . . . What has this mechanic and aviator (and a damned good one) ever done that makes him think he is a guiding light for mankind? Isn't this what the psychiatrists call a form of megalomania? It's presumptuousness at the least. Now that he has been revealed as a prime stirrer-upper of racial prejudice he ceases to be merely ridiculous--he becomes a menace to the very ideals of tolerance and justice which we are trying to strengthen and deepen. If we must have Junior in politics let him keep his bib clean.

HARRY SUYDAM Northville, Mich.

Sirs:

In your screwy attack on Charles Lindbergh (TIME, Sept. 22) for classing Jews with British and the Roosevelt Administration as those crowding the nation into war, and charging "the ex-hero's appeal to prejudice and bigotry," you misrepresent him and the whole movement for a Constitutional war or none. I have read every issue of TIME and have found it usually fair. But this is so unfair and foul it stinks.

HIRAM B. HARRISON San Antonio, Tex.

Sirs:

Ex-hero is right! TIME certainly gives Charles A. Lindbergh his proper title in your issue of Sept. 22. ...

For a national hero that Des Moines outburst now makes him a national "dud" and probably the most unpopular national figure in America. I should think he would retire from the public limelight just as quickly as it takes to pack up and go home.

FRANK W. HICKS Gillette, Wyo.

Sirs:

The [New York] Herald Tribune [quoted by TIME] is all wrong. Lindbergh did not "whistle up Old World racial hatreds here." He merely called attention to the fact that Old World hatreds and rivalries have been, and are being, used here by the forces that control the means of propaganda. The three groups he named are trying, for their own selfish interests, to get this country into the war. It is they who "whistle up the hatreds."

NOEL A. DUNDERDALE Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

As a lifelong pacifist, of American birth, may I state that all true Americans must deprecate the testimony, argument and speeches . . . bringing racial questions into the discussion of war or peace, whatever the motives of those who raise the issue.

The myth of Jewish solidarity is as fantastic as the myth of Catholic solidarity. There has never been any great issue in this country decided on purely racial or religious lines. But American solidarity today is being undermined by exciting such myths on such a bitterly discussed question.

Jews in the U.S. are true Americans and have always been in favor of democracy and liberty from the days of the American Revolution to date, and are opposed to Hitler and all despotism. Jews in the U.S. are divided just as all other Americans are on the question of getting into this war, and are divided on what form our help should take towards all oppressed people.

The question of war or Peace is one finally for Congress, aided by the free and open discussion of the people. . . .

HARRY WEINBERGER New York City

Rivalry & Revelry

Sirs:

TIME, SEPT. 22, IS UNFAIR AND UNTRUE WHEN IT INSINUATES THAT "LOUELLA PARSONS DAY" IN DIXON, ILL. WAS USED TO EMBARRASS CINEMA STARS ALREADY DATED UP FOR THE LEGION CONVENTION IN MILWAUKEE OR THAT "RIVALRY RUINED THE REVELRY "TRUE, MISS PARSONS, AT DIXON'S REQUEST, INVITED CINEMA CELEBRITIES TO COME HERE AND THEY DID, TO HELP MAKE THE GREATEST CELEBRATION OF ITS KIND EVER IN DOWNSTATE ILLINOIS BUT THEY WERE DIXON'S INVITATIONS AND DIXON SET THE DATE MANY MONTHS AGO AND WITH NO INKLING THAT IT INTERFERED WITH THE MILWAUKEE CONVENTION. SO FAR AS DIXON IS CONCERNED, NO REVELRY WAS RUINED. BOB HOPE AND JERRY COLONNA WERE AMONG THOSE WHO MADE BOTH DATES. ASK THEM IF ANYTHING RUINED THE REVELRY IN EITHER SPOT.

MABEL S. SHAW, Publisher, Dixon Evening Telegraph WM. V. SLOTHOWER, Mayor of the City of Dixon WALTER C. KNACK, President, Dixon Chamber of Commerce Dixon, Ill.

> TIME insinuated nothing. Legion officials in Milwaukee said that their program arrangers were inundated with calls from "Lolly" Parsons' press agents asking for the Legion's blessing on the Dixon jamboree and for the loan of Legion-dated stars, but the Legion did not surrender its prior claims.--ED.

"The Only Good Thing"

Sirs:

Your otherwise effective article on the smelly side of the union labor movement [TIME, Sept. 22] was completely ruined by the unnecessary reference to Jimmy Petrillo as "the son of a ditchdigger" when you mentioned his $46,000 yearly salary. Many people, especially union members, will regard that reference as a sneering challenge to the right of any son of a ditchdigger to draw a salary of $46,000 per year.

I don't believe the writer actually meant it that way, but I happen to be an old TIMER from way back. Unfortunately, the issue of TIME containing that article is the only issue many union members will ever see. Therefore, it will be easy to brand TIME, in their minds, as just another "tool of capitalism."

To me the only good thing about Petrillo is that he is the son of a ditchdigger. The disgusting thing is that this man, who gained so much under the American system, constantly flaunts every primary principle of Americanism. . . .

CHARLES EMGE Los Angeles, Calif.

> Union members should not read "challenges" into ordinary and straightforward biographical statements.--ED.

Hollywood for Army

Sirs:

I was very interested to read the story in this week's TIME on the War Department Training Films. . . .

While the particular films shown at the recent preview in Washington happened to have been produced by the studios indicated in your story, it is of importance that all studios in Hollywood are producing Army Training Films for the War Department on a non-profit basis, under my supervision. . . .

To quote from a booklet recently issued in Washington by the War Department:

". . . No studio is charging overhead for films produced in their stages. All equipment and facilities used in the production of these films are made available without any charge. . . . Individuals in the industry are contributing . . . their time and talents to assist in the production of Training Films without cost to the Government. The only expenditures involved in the production of these films is money actually paid out for labor, film and other 'out-of-pocket' expenses."

DARRYL F. ZANUCK Chairman, Research Council Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Hollywood, Calif.

It Isn't Hay

Sirs:

. . . The old TIME was a fine unbiased weekly condensation of the news to which I should have subscribed at twice the rate, but I wish to free my mailbox of that stable odor (not new-mown hay) which seeps from the pages of your new-deal TIME.

Subsequently, please take the issue of TIME which you would send me, roll it into a slender roll, locate your managing editor, and shove it down his throat.

O. P. PREMO Glendale, Calif.

Cover Pictures

Sirs:

. . . TIME is very timely--and gives a very comprehensive idea of what is going on. . . .

May I say, however, that I do not like the horrible pictures of noted men that you print on the front cover. . . .

E. L. G. TOBORG Little Falls, N.Y.

Sirs:

Your artist seems to get the idea over pretty well.

My four-year-old grandson was sitting on my knee when I started to peruse the Sept. 22 issue. We looked at the front cover--Japan's Nomura--and the little fellow remarked :

"He's rubbing his head; he looks--maybe he's not feeling so good."

ERNEST E. COOPER Biloxi, Miss.

Brushface

Sirs:

Not Bushface, but Brushface is the nickname of Private Carlton N. Krause, whose first visit to Mineral Wells, Texas made National Defense news (TIME, Sept. 22).

Omitted from TIME'S excellent account of the visit were the names of Brushface's pretty guides, Nancy Haman and Doris Dickinson, whose smiles kept Krause happy and decorated scores of photographs.

Also TIMEworthy was Brushface's joking answer to a radio announcer who interviewed him, made him tell what he had done all day, then asked him what he wanted to do next. Said Krause: "I want to go back to camp."

CORP. DAVID R. MCLEAN Camp Wolters, Tex.

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