Ubiquitous Slap

Sirs:

Your story of the slap-on-the-bus [TIME, March 23] interested me very much.

This incident, or one notably similar, actually took place last summer in Toronto. Two girls were talking in a bus and one remarked that she was making very good money in munitions and would like to see the war go on for a long time. A middle-aged woman across the aisle hauled off and socked her. The sockee demanded that the conductor stop the bus and get a policeman. When the policeman asked the other passengers what the disturbance was, nobody on the bus had noticed a thing.

CATHERINE JONES

Ottawa, Ont.

P.S. The socker had two sons in the R.C.A.F.

Sirs:

. . . You say it is merely a story. . . . It is more than a story, my friend. It actually occurred in York, Pa., a few days after the Pearl Harbor incident. . . .

I read the article the day it was published.

REV. LESTER M. UTZ

York Springs Lutheran Parish

York Springs, Pa.

Sirs:

. . . The story . . . did not "crop up" in Amarillo, Tex. It occurred in Wichita, Kans. The actual slapper involved was a man, not a woman as your story states. When the slappee appealed for help another woman passenger remarked that she felt like repeating the angered father's handwork. . , .

BILL HIGHLAND

Stillwater, Okla.

Sirs:

Before TIME'S haw-haw . . . Columnist Howard C. Hosmer of the Rochester Times-Union went to considerable lengths to explain how he had fallen for the chestnut.

"The trouble," sadly concluded Hosmer, "is we all like a good tale too well not to believe it--especially when it suits us to believe it."

FRED H. POWERS

Rochester, N.Y.

Sirs:

Please note enclosures. Face-slapping story seems to have started in Harrisburg. Item was first printed Feb. 25 in Roundabout column. Later we corrected when social editor recalled that it was kicking around in World War I. ...

PAUL WALKER

Harrisburg Telegraph

Harrisburg, Pa.

> The Telegraph reported that the story appeared in a Harrisburg newspaper in 1898; that one man had heard it, in a Civil War setting, from his grandmother.--ED.

Lost Newsmen

Sirs:

In your issue of March 16, statement is made that the Army does not know where 7,000 ex-newspapermen are now located in the armed services; also that "their talents had not seemed useful enough for separate classification."

Since Jan. 18, 1941 classification departments throughout the Army have been or should have been classifying newspapermen as "Public Relations" men under Specification Serial No. 274. Information about each man has been entered and the Specification Serial No. entered and coded on the soldier's qualification card. In addition to this, a new job title, "Reporter," with corresponding Specification Serial No. 399 has been employed beginning Dec. 1, 1941. . . .

L. E. THOMASON

Staff Sergeant

Air Corps

Jefferson Barracks, Mo.

Sirs:

Re your piece on the "lost" newspapermen in the Army--I would like to sound off to the Air Corps in your million-and-more copies.

Here!

PRIVATE CODY PFANSTIEHL

Sheppard Field, Tex.

Sirs:

CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO APPLY FOR POSITION IN ARMY PRESS SECTION? . . . A COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE WITH NEWSPAPER

AND RADIO COMMERCIAL EXPERIENCE . . . PLUS ONE YEAR IN THE ARMY. I'M SURE I HAVE THE QUALIFICATIONS. I'D SELL MY HOPE OF HEAVEN FOR A CHANCE LIKE THAT, CAN YOU HELP ME ?

PRIVATE C. R. ZEININGER

Fort Worden, Wash.

> So far as the War Department is concerned, the newsmen are still lost. The classification "Public Relations Men" is too inclusive, and "Reporters" too recent. Needed are experienced newsmen over 28 who have been in the army at least six months. Those in service who think themselves qualified should write their local draft boards, which will notify Selective Service Headquarters, which will tell the War Department.--ED.

Absurd Headlines

Sirs:

For some time, it has appeared to me that the newspapers are unintentionally doing the country, and the military services in particular, a disservice in playing up without warrant and out of all proportions the few successes that we have so far had in this war. As a result of my naval experience, and not because of any knowledge of the events themselves, it has been clearer to me perhaps than to the average citizen how absurd many of the headlines are. It is of course equally clear to military persons in enemy countries. As a result, we must appear to be blowhards who are long on talk and short on action.

When the truth comes out, the country will blame the military services and will lose confidence in them and possibly in itself. . . .

Newspaper reporters and columnists that I have had the privilege of knowing have been outstanding men with whom nothing came ahead of the good of the country. I do not believe that editors and headline writers are any different. In my opinion, they would cooperate 100% with a request from any authoritative source that they cut their headlines to fit the facts.

You took the lead in urging preparation for the war that was coming. May I, as a subscriber to TIME, urge you to plug for a curt, clear and complete reporting by newspapers of the war that is here.

J. W. REEVES JR.

Captain, U.S. Navy

U.S.S. Wasp

> One big trouble has been that few editors know as much about war as their sportswriters know about sport. But though many may still be naive about battles, the number who are deliberately sensational is far smaller.--ED.

"Come On!"

Sirs:

WE HAVE READ WITH INTEREST THE ARTICLE IN MARCH 30 ISSUE OF TIME UNDER THE HEAD "SHIPPING." WE NOTE WITH GREAT INTEREST THAT JOSHUA HENDY IRON WORKS NEAR SUNNYDALE, CALIF. ARE BUILDING TRIPLE EXPANSION ENGINES FOR LIBERTY SHIPS AND THAT THE HENDY WORKS EXPECT TO PRODUCE BY THE END OF 1942 SUFFICIENT ENGINES TO DRIVE ONE MILLION TONS OF CARGO SHIPS. FINE. THIS IS GOOD NEWS TO US. BUT IN FAIRNESS TO A THOUSAND OR MORE HARD-WORKING EMPLOYES OF THE PLANT WILL SAY THAT A LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR AGO WE DEVELOPED HERE THE CONSTRUCTION AND TOOL-UP DRAWINGS FOR THESE ENGINES AND SUBSEQUENTLY FURNISHED SAME TO ALL OTHER ENGINE BUILDERS. AND FOR THE RECORD WE WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT OUR COMPANY HAS SHIPPED AS OF TODAY ENOUGH OF THE SAME TYPE TRIPLE EXPANSION ENGINES TO PROPEL 850.000 TONS OF SHIPPING AND FROM MARCH 30 TO THE END OF 1942 WE PROPOSE TO SHIP ENOUGH OF THESE ENGINES TO PROPEL AN ADDITIONAL 1,550,000 TONS OF MARITIME COMMISSION LIBERTY SHIPS AND THIS PRODUCTION WE WILL ALSO TAKE IN STRIDE. COME ON MESSRS. KAISER AND MOORE.

THOMAS GILMORE

Works Manager

Hooven Owens Rentschler Division

General Machinery Corp.

Hamilton, Ohio

> To Manager Gilmore and his plant all credit for a great achievement that TIME should well have noted.--ED.

TIME Delayed

Sirs:

I have been a subscriber to TIME for at least eight or ten years. I have always looked forward to receiving it on Thursday of each week, but for the last five or six months I have not been getting it until Friday and sometimes Saturday, and of course when I get it Friday afternoon or Saturday I am not able to read it, in most cases, until the following week. . . .

F. B. DANIELS

Assistant Treasurer

Standard Life Insurance Co.

Jackson, Miss.

Sirs:

Enclosed is check for $5 in payment of renewal of my subscription for one year. I could have sent it sooner but I like to get your letters so held it up for a while. I should have waited for the "Jones pays the postage" letter.

What has happened to the Friday delivery? Some of us here in Sacramento are much put out because we don't receive TIME until Saturday. Friday nights are just made for TIME-reading, cover to cover. The Post Office says the magazines don't get here until Friday night; maybe they're just passing the buck but, if that's right, could you do something about it?

MRS. E. T. THOMAS

Sacramento, Calif.

> To Subscribers Thomas, Daniels and any others who have been troubled by late deliveries, TIME'S apologies. Something has happened over which TIME has no control: a war. Even the fastest of mail trains is sidetracked nowadays when troops or defense materials have to move. Moreover, in some areas schedules of connecting trains have been cut. TIME can only ask its subscribers when copies are late to be not vexed with the mails but thankful that the war effort is moving.--ED.

All-Out Teachers

Sirs:

While the arguments fly back & forth about the justification for time-and-a-half and double-time pay for people engaged in defense work, it might be appropriate to bring before the public the status of the thousands of men & women in the colleges and universities which are inaugurating the "accelerated" programs.

For the most part, these people have been living for years on a ten-month salary payment plan, with two months of unprofitable summer vacation. Although under the new system of beginning regular college instruction in July some colleges may be able to make compensatory salary increases, the vast majority of them are simply asking and expecting that the teaching profession accept the increased work schedule as part of an all-out effort toward national effectiveness. There will be no more long summer vacations.

The striking thing about this situation is that no complaining has come from these professional people. They have taken the work gladly. They have not shouted about injustice. They have not asked for increases in salary, let alone time-and-a-half or double time pay. Furthermore, in thousands of cases their remuneration is less than the well-paid defense worker is enjoying.

Maybe this doesn't mean anything at all, but unless someone somewhere says it, the war is likely to come to an end without public realization that the teaching profession has played a significant part in the drama of defense.

LESLIE R. SEVERINGHAUS

Haverford, Pa.

> To its unsung teachers everywhere doing their full part in the war effort, quietly and usually without payment, the nation does indeed owe thanks.--ED.

Dramatic Houses

Sirs:

In your article "Housing -Prefabrication's Chance," TIME, March 16, you talk about a 977-unit colony completed last fall in Vallejo, Calif, as an "eyesore" and go on to say that prefabrication faces a brand-new problem in whether it can ever live down the drabness of its first mass production.

It was my good fortune to sell this job of Precision-Built Houses and am enclosing a photograph of what we actually sold fa house with a pitched instead of a flat roof--ED.]. However, the Government architect in San Francisco had different ideas and he is the man who changed the houses to what you call "eyesores." . . .

F. VAUX WILSON JR.

Vice President

Homasote Company

Trenton, NJ.

Sirs:

. . . Standardized prefabricated houses on a bare piece of ground cannot and should not look like a country club suburb. But Carquinez Heights is far from being "drab." . . .

We who made the site plan . made an earnest and perhaps even successful effort to produce something bold and dramatic and interesting. It could not be intimate and individual in any case.

Red, green, blue yellow, natural wood in large blocks were used which might shock but would hardly bore your editors. And the plan by dropping the houses down upon the scopes just where they fall, without the usual expensive cut-and-fill shelving, is a good demonstration of the flexibility and lightness of prefabricated construction.

WILLIAM WILSON WURSTER

Architect

San Francisco, Calif.

Sirs:

Allow me a derisive guffaw at the perversity of the esthetic editors of TIME, FORTUNE and the ARCHITECTURAL FORUM. After years of tub-thumping in favor of prefabricated housing they don't like the appearance of Carquinez Heights! Believe me, if one of the most sensitive artists in America today, I speak of "Bill" Wurster, cannot satisfy the champions of demountables with a bang-up job like the Vallejo project there must be something basically wrong with the theory. I studied the detail drawings and photos of this job very carefully and am at a loss to know how it could be done any better. . . .

ROI L. MORIN

Portland, Ore.

> Under the circumstances, TIME'S judgment was perhaps too severe.--ED.

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