Not a Refuge
Sirs:
UPON MY RETURN FROM AN INSPECTION OF THE WEST COAST MARITIME SERVICE TRAINING STATIONS, I WAS SHOWN THE ARTICLE HEADED "SLACKERS AND SUCKERS" WHICH APPEARED IN YOUR DEC. 21 ISSUE.
IF THE SALUTATIONS (WITH WHICH NO ONE ON THE STATION IS FAMILIAR) "SLACKER," "SUCKER" AND "PROFITEER" ARE EVER USED, IT MUST BE IRONICALLY. THESE "SLACKERS" ARE TRAINING FOR A SERVICE WHICH HAS SUFFERED A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF CASUALTIES TO DATE THAN HAVE ANY OF THE ARMED SERVICES AND THEY KNOW IT. THESE "DRAFT DODGERS" ARE VOLUNTEERING FOR AS TEDIOUS, AS HAZARDOUS AND AS ESSENTIAL A DUTY AS THERE IS IN THE WHOLE WAR PROGRAM. THESE "PROFITEERS" COULD MAKE MORE MONEY IN DETROIT OR GARY OR CLEVELAND FROM THE BACKGROUND OF THEIR OWN HOMES WITH THE COMFORT AND PLEASURES OF PRIVATE LIFE THAN THEY WILL MAKE ON THE LONG, COLD VOYAGES TO THE ARCTIC OR RUNNING THE GANTLET OF "BOMB ALLEY." THE "ROUGH AND RAMBUNCTIOUS . . . 13-WEEK TRAINEES" SEEM TO ME, AND I HAVE HAD OVER 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN HANDLING AND JUDGING GROUPS OF MEN, TO BE EXCEPTIONALLY HIGH-GRADE REPRESENTATIVES OF YOUNG AMERICA. THEIR CIVILIAN STATUS DOES NOT PRECLUDE DISCIPLINE. THEY DO NOT THUMB THEIR NOSES AT M.P.S. THE TRAINING STATION HAS ITS OWN POLICE SYSTEM WHICH OPERATES EXACTLY AS DO THE NAVAL AND MILITARY POLICE SYSTEM.
THE STATEMENT THAT THESE MEN "SNEER" AND "WAIT FOR THE DAY THEY SIGN ON FOR DOUBLE PAY," UNTIL AND UNLESS IT CAN BE PROVED TO BE A GENERAL PRACTICE, IS AN INTOLERABLE INSULT TO BRAVE MEN VOLUNTEERING FOR DANGEROUS DUTY. . . .
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FIVE-DAY WEEK AT SHEEPSHEAD BAY. NO LIBERTY AT ALL IS GIVEN FOR THREE WEEKS AFTER ENROLLMENT. THEREAFTER LIBERTY IS GRANTED TO TWO-THIRDS OF THE MEN FROM SATURDAY
NOON UNTIL SUNDAY NIGHT APPROXIMATELY
THE SAME LEAVE AS IS GIVEN TO MEN IN THE OFFICERS' TRAINING SCHOOLS. THE 15% ATTRITION IS NOT ALL VOLUNTARY. I QUESTION WHETHER IT IS ANY GREATER THAN THAT FOUND IN THE TRAINEES FOR THE ARMED FORCES.
THESE ERRORS OF FACT, GLARING AS THEY ARE, ARE NOT THE MOST SERIOUS CHARGE WHICH CAN BE LEVELED AT THIS ARTICLE. THAT CHARGE IS THE ACCUSATION, IMPLICIT IN THE SUBHEAD AND GENERAL TENOR OF YOUR STORY, THAT THESE MEN ARE SEEKING AN EASY, WELL-PAID REFUGE FROM DANGER AND FROM THEIR DUTY TO DEFEND THEIR COUNTRY.
CAPTAIN EWARD MACAULEY U.S.N. (Ret.)
U.S. Maritime Commissioner, Deputy War Shipping Administrator having supervision of Maritime Service Training for the U.S. Merchant Marines Washington, D.C.
>Captain Macauley has no greater admiration than TIME for the courage of those who nowadays set out to serve their country in the Merchant Marine. Their dangers and their hardships are all the more notable because largely unsung. The fact that (begging the Captain's pardon) the trainees do jokingly greet one another as "slacker," "sucker" and "profiteer" is, so far as TIME is concerned, not evidence of their seeking a refuge from danger but of their good tough morale. In so far as the story in question gave any other impression, it was a very bad story indeed.--ED.
TIME Got Him Covered
Sirs:
Recently at this studio it was decided to reopen the completed Bob Hope-Dorothy Lamour comedy, They Got Me Covered, for addition of a sequence depicting, perhaps prophetically, the flight of Mussolini from Italy. In preparing the actor for the role, the makeup and wardrobe departments used TIME, Dec. 14, for the most characteristic pose of II Duce (see cut).
I enclose herewith Hollywood's version of TIME'S Mussolini. The actor is Joe Devlin, New York born, of Irish antecedents. . . . WILLIAM HEBERT Samuel Goldwyn Inc. Los Angeles
Rough Pupils
Sirs:
I was interested in the reason advanced by the head of New York City's Bureau of Child Guidance for the insubordination and general cussedness now so prevalent in the schools of New York [TIME, Dec. 14].
No doubt the fact that many parents have depended on Federal and local Governmental agencies for support in recent years has contributed to a lack of feeling of responsibility on their part which is reflected in the attitude of their children.
In my opinion, however (and I'm an ex-school teacher), the situation which has developed in New York ... is a rather natural outgrowth of the so-called "progressive" methods of teaching which have been so generally adopted in the past few years, and which, according to various reports in TIME, are very much in vogue in New York.
No doubt some of the young hoodlums now terrorizing their teachers have attended so-called "child centered" schools in which "freedom" was the all important objective.
Instead of being taught respect for authority, children in such schools are encouraged to express themselves and their teachers are constantly admonished by their superiors not to blight the young lives entrusted to their care by imposing an adult will.
In theory, children learn self-control in such an environment. In practice they become intolerant of authority, freedom becomes license and, in some cases at least, definite antisocial attitudes develop. . .
W. T. MONTE Cincinnati
Sirs:
Regarding "Terrorized Teachers," besides the insecurities in their own homes, there are, of course, other reasons why children in New York City schools behave in such a shockingly aggressive manner. Part of the trouble may lie in the mental states, in the attitudes and behavior of the teachers themselves. . . .
When I was attending Public School 45 in New York City, 20 years ago, the pupils hated and frequently expressed desires to kill some of the teachers. Common behavior of pupils: punching teachers in classroom or hallway, throwing board erasers at them, swearing at them with that inimical profanity of New York children.
Common behavior of teachers: locking a child in a narrow, stuffy clothes closet (I know, I spent many hours there); making him sit under the teacher's desk all day, making a child stand for hours with his feet on the ledge of the blackboard (which holds the chalk) and hold on to an old gas fixture above the blackboard; humiliating, ridiculing, insulting, and degrading a child in front of other children.
There was one person on the staff who was never assaulted by children. He was kindly, generous and understanding. He was the principal: Mr. Angelo Patri.
JOSEPH ANDRIOLA
Muskegon, Mich.
Medals to Marines
Sirs:
In your Dec. 21 issue you carry a story about medals won by servicemen. . . . Under Silver Star you have marines winning only one. In reality in an August list of decorations there were 68 Silver Stars listed as awarded marines. Under Purple Heart the same August list gives 78 of those medals to marines.
The marines are not trailing the rest of the crowd so much as your story infers.
LIEUT. JAMES L. DENIG, U.S.M.C.
Amphibian Tractor Detachment Dunedin, Fla.
>TIME'S figures came from the Army and the Navy. The Navy did not give full figures on the Silver Star and Purple Heart awards because, with very rare exceptions (such as the single marine listed under Silver Star), they are Army awards. The Army gave Silver Star and Purple Heart awards but did not include Navy and Marine recipients. Lieut. Denig's figures are correct.--ED.
Mispaginations
Sirs:
Believe it or not, I read ads. In your issue of Dec. 14, I read in a Batten, Barston, Durstine & Osborn ad that that agency was responsible for certain companies' ads elsewhere in the magazine, and that those ads appeared on indicated pages. Two of them were not on the right pages, and in your pre-Christmas issues, finding them made me realize that two needles are no easier to find in a haystack than one.
WILSON TRUMPER New York City
>To B.B.D.&O., TIME'S apologies for a couple of inadvertent mispaginations. -ED.
Kibitzing v. Reporting
Sirs:
... If Hitler had agents among our soldiers at ports of embarkation and in North Africa he would have them whisper in private what you shout in public [TIME, Dec. 21 ].
The Commander in Chief's letter to General Franco announced that our North African strategy assumed the continued neutrality of Spain. Otherwise, as you suggest, our men might be needlessly imperiled in the western Mediterranean. Your article has Franco in operations against us through movements of his troops. You refer to his "belligerent words & deeds" and (top of page 25) you say that Franco intends to "strike back in northwestern Africa" at our troops. ...
When the Commander in Chief makes the decision for those giving their lives--that goes for us too. However we may disagree, we must shut up unless we approve. Those who do not so close ranks behind the Commander in Chief are doing the enemy's job of sniping and undermining an existing war operation in which blood is flowing. . . . ARTHUR T. O'LEARY New York City
>Let Reader O'Leary mind his quotation marks. TIME did not say that "Franco intends" to strike in northwestern Africa. That was reported as a "primary objective ... of the German High Command." The U.S. Commander in Chief hopes, as TIME does, that Spain will not attack in Northwest Africa, but the decision on that point rests with Franco. If Americans play ostrich in the sand, they may increase rather than avert the danger.--ED.
Post-War Proposal
Sirs:
Why get headaches and insomnia about what to do with the German Army after the war is over? Just apportion it out among the various countries which have enjoyed its protecting influence, in direct proportion to the number of inhabitants of the several countries which Germany has used to aid her own war industries and for other purposes. They could be used on reconstruction programs, among other things, and with proper oversight and supervision, and without their arms.
... It would be surprising indeed if the idea that war, as a national policy, was not uprooted once and for all from the mind of this most militaristic of all nations.
YATES PENNINGTON West Park, N.Y.
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