Mr. Culbertson's Vacuum
Sirs:
In TIME, April 12 you report on Mr. Culbertson's latest "system," The World Federation Plan.
Like Clarence Streit and many others, Mr. Culbertson is apparently . . . unable to see that it was American society with its inherent, dynamic qualities that created and preserved our constitutional system, with its facilities for equally dynamic change, and not our constitutional system that preserved American society for over 150 years.
From the history of the creation of Europe's great national states during the 15th, 1 6th and 17th Centuries, and from our own Revolution we must learn this one lesson. It is always a society which creates a government as a means of self-preservation, and the nature of this government is determined by the complex pattern of the economic interests, social traditions and system of ethics of the society which creates it.
Thus, I fear, Mr. Culbertson is creating his world federation in a near-vacuum. . . .
Mr. Culbertson and I agree on the need for a world government to insure a permanent peace. However, . . . I suggest that we follow Mr. Willkie's advice Tin his book] One World . . . and first . . . find a firm social basis upon which this new government can be founded, grow, and become the bulwark of a permanent peace. . . .
PRIVATE KONRAD C. MUELLER Camp Shelby, Miss.
Fed Up
Sirs:
. . . I am fed up with the windbag politicians who run our Selective Service lottery. I am in class 3-A. One day I am told to get into essential war work or be drafted. The next day I am told that drafting of married fathers would wreak an intolerable hardship. Again I am informed that unless I go into essential war work I am unpatriotic. I am getting to feel like a God damn draft dodger. . . .
I am 30 years old, college graduate, and in perfect physical health. If the Army wants me, why in hell don't they take me? . . .
I suppose no father really wishes to be drafted, but I will be damned if I will take an "essential" job as an out. I wasn't in defense work at the start of this war and for me to go in now would be proof, to me at least, that the change was made only to escape induction. . . .
C. DONALD BROWN New York City
Free Speech v. Free Speech
Sirs:
I notice you print a letter from a sergeant in North Africa (TIME, April 12). At last the carefully nurtured myth of a conflict of interest between our soldiers and our workers is beginning to bear fruit. . . . If the fruit of the myth ever fully ripens, it will mean the destruction of democracy in this country. . . . It is thus that the abuse of free speech to enlarge discord will destroy free speech. . . .
NELSON N. FOOTE
Takoma Park, Md.
Concern for the Not-So-Common Man
Sirs:
I have just finished reading your interesting and informative article entitled "The Pub and the People" (TiME, April 12). . . .
I have sharp criticism for the following words, produced by some outspoken, socialist writer: "The socially snobbish do not frequent pubs. The rich drink at home or in their clubs. But not the little people--the ones who angrily withstand blitzes, who keep the mills running, the crops harvested, the ships sailing, Britain going." Are we to judge from such mots that the so-called landed gentry and wealthy persons of Great Britain have not angrily withstood the blitzes, are not working in some capacity in the mills, are not helping out on the farms, are not keeping the ships on the seas, and are retarding further progression of Britain?
My reply to such unsound reasoning as lies between your lines can be excellently expressed by quoting from an article by John Hanna which appeared in the New York Times on Dec. 29, 1942. The professor of law at Columbia University says: "It is time now to make certain that concern for the common man does not destroy the man who is not so common."
PRIVATE ROBERT L. ROEHRS Westover Field, Mass.
TIME'S Venom
Sirs:
. . . I certainly agree [with Gerard B. Lambert, TIME, April 19] that your editorial policy seems to have some sort of unhealthy undertone, call it venom or simply a lack of charity for the other fellow. . . .
MRS. ALBERT G. ALBIETZ
Cincinnati
Sirs:
I fly to your defense!
"Venomous" is definitely the wrong word for you--make it astringent--pungent--antiseptic --bracing--straightforward. Perhaps "tart" is the best all-embracing adjective. The olive in the Martini, the salt in the soup, the bitter chocolate coating on the caramel. . .
MILDRED WOODS Falls Church, Va.
Sirs:
. . . Prefer phrase "unnecessary truth" to "venom." . . .
E. W. SMITH Emporia, Kans.
Sirs:
TIME with its impartial presentation of the news and unrelenting antagonism to sham and pretense of every kind, is the closest to "freedom of the press" that we of these United States have ever had. . . .
If [Mr. Lambert] ever has any pensive moments, he might spend them considering the wisdom of the Chinese proverb: "What is truthful is seldom pleasant, what is pleasant is seldom truthful."
SAUNDERS FLETT
Dearborn, Mich.
Sirs:
The truth always holds a drop of "venom" for people subject to it. . .
BERTHE MAEULE New York City
Sirs:
. . . Having read TIME ever since the first issue, I do not recall a single individual who has "received irreparable injury from one sarcastic line in TIME." Irreparable is a strong expression. Mr. Lambert uses all-out words to express ordinary ideas.
M. C. BROWDER Anchorage, Ky.
Sirs: TIME lure venom? No.
A. J. ABBE, M.D. Winter Park, Fla.
Pipe-Smokers Sabotaged
Sirs:
I wish to direct your attention to a peculiarly subtle form of sabotage of our nation's war effort--the elimination, by order of the WPB, of pipe cleaners. . . .
Consider the effect: Pipe smokers, unable to procure this humble instrument of wire and cotton, are pulling furiously on clogged pipe stems, finally clearing the stoppage by suction, sometimes getting the slug right on the tonsils, thus risking nicotine poisoning. . . .
Most noticeable loss is in the all-round efficiency of the nation's pipe smokers, mostly Republicans, who have been regarded as among our most solid and thoughtful citizens. They are in a constant state of minor irritation--blaming their plight on President Roosevelt who, as a cigaret smoker, is unaware of this crisis in our national affairs. Why doesn't someone tell him these things? . . .
CY CALDWELL
Island Park, N.Y.
Bridges
Sirs:
Allow me to call your attention to a serious inaccuracy in the story on Mr. Harry Bridges in your issue of March 29.
You state--"Ever since 1934 the U.S. Government has insisted that Australian-born Harry Bridges, California labor leader, is a Communist."
That is not correct. Since 1934, interests antagonistic to organized labor have insisted that Mr. Bridges is a Communist, but the first governmental investigation of Mr. Bridges was in 1936. . . .
HONORE ARMSTRONG
Executive Secretary Citizens Victory Committee for Harry
Bridges New York City
> TIME was ahead of itself. The Government did not charge Harry Bridges with Communism until 1938, did not make the charge stick until 1943--ED.
The Soldiers Are Thinking
Sirs:
The enclosed letter from my son in New Guinea, I think, gives one a pretty clear picture of what the boys overseas are thinking about. . .
". . . We will have seen a great deal of this world, learned its problems, how it lives, and of its plans for the future. We will return home with definite ideas and a definite desire for not only a voice in American affairs, but to insure the independence of all nations for all times, and to establish this through force if necessary. It is true that the American soldier of today is the angriest soldier ever produced with a disgust born of the false promises he remembers, those products of the last war, promises of world freedom and the principles of peace that he was saturated with in his schools and colleges everywhere. If the present . . . government in our United Nations isn't adequate to bring the desired results, you may rest assured that we are the boys that will change that form of government. There are many factions at home who would have one feel that winning the war is of primary concern, but from where we are the importance of formulating systems of control over any aggressor peoples, nations, or political parties of the future, and the drafting of plans for winning the peace, are things that vitally concern us all right now. And don't ever believe that these men overseas aren't doing a world of thinking along these lines! . . ."
JOHN B. WOODWARD SR.
San Carlos, Ariz.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.