The News, Good or Bad

Sirs: I should like to answer the poignant, all-important questions concerning war production, "Why the letdown? Overconfidence?", that caption the picture of General Somervell on p. 19 of your July 12 issue.

First, I wish to commend TIME for putting enough confidence in the public's intelligence to give us the news, good or bad. . . .

When newspapers seize upon each insignificant or minor victory to belch blatant, optimistic headlines and then, conversely, relegate our own losses to squeamish type or the back pages, it is no wonder that we are overoptimistic. When Washington luminaries drop intangible statements or "in-the-know" hints about our military successes, but on the other hand hush our defeats ... it can plainly be seen that the burden of guilt rests squarely on the politicians' and publishers' shoulders. That is the main cause of this subconscious letdown in war production.

Give us the truth! To survive, we can and must take it!

(SGT.) DAVID LANG JR.

Birmingham

A Soldier Takes a Trip

Sirs:

Now I know why. This picture published in the July 12 issue tells me why. . . .

Here was my experience: I left Fort Sill, Okla., at noon on a Saturday, and arrived in Oklahoma City late that afternoon, expecting a reservation (for which I wired ahead two days previous). . . . Reporting to the train at the appointed hour, I found that although I already possessed a Pullman reservation, it had been sold again to a civilian who already occupied the berth (it being then 11 o'clock). Therefore, I rode in a coach sitting upon my suitcase--no seats there either, all night and half of the next day--contemplating my reservation, which I still held blissfully in my hand. I finally got a seat in the men's room of a Pullman car. Arriving at Springfield, Mo. ... I once again held a reservation for an upper berth, but was informed very pleasantly by the conductor that the people in Kansas City had had a slight mix-up and that John Q. Civilian was once again in my berth. I rode once again upon a collapsing suitcase into Atlanta, and decided to take a chance on reporting a day late, and get some sleep, which I did in a fine hotel there. Having previously made arrangements for Pullman reservations to Wilmington, that evening as traintime drew near, I checked at the ticket window to make sure of my berth. To my utter amazement, my reservation had been taken over by a man who was visiting his aunt in Wilmington. Once again the suitcase and the coach.

The payoff came when my baggage was delayed ten days. . . . Can't we at least restrict the cats and dogs in the baggage car?

ALEXANDER CLARK

2nd Lieutenant

Camp Davis, N.C.

The Weed and the Wife

Sirs:

The author (I use the word advisedly) of the article "The Weed" (TIME, July 19), a subtitle to your Music (?) column, arbitrarily dumps jazz musicians into two categories. He gives us the hopheads, the drunkards and, unfortunately for the future growth of American jazz music, no middle road. . . .

While I have never observed in my husband the marijuana symptoms your staff writer so obligingly points out, I am well aware of the lamentable fact that all his friends are jazz musicians ... I have seen my husband with more than one under his belt and alas, on occasion, one or two or even four of his friends harmonizing Baby, Won't You Please Come Home. ....

This is my problem. I'm the mother, sister, companion, nursemaid, sparring partner and wife of a jazz clarinet. Should I continue to live with this sink of iniquity and listen to his lousy rendition of Baby, Won't You Please etc. or should I divorce him, marry a shoe salesman or magazine writer, and listen to Sweet Adeline?

MARY RUSSELL

New York City

>Mrs. Russell should take a sober look at the facts. TIME estimated the marijuana smokers among all U.S. dance musicians as not more than 20%, guessed that drinking dance musicians might outnumber the marijuana smokers. This still leaves plenty of room for sober clarinetists.--ED.

For Fewer Japs

Sirs:

It will be just dandy if the Japs persist in their battle technique demonstrated at Attu Island (TIME, July 5), viz. killing themselves rather than surrendering.

It will save us expense for internment camps, and at the same time solve their colonization problems for some time in the future. Their little island will be plenty large enough for them at war's end if they don't weaken.

WALTER S. KENNEDY

Albion, Mich.

The Bombing of Cathedrals

Sirs:

In the July 12 issue of TIME you stated that the Very Rev. William Ralph Inge, former Dean of St. Paul's, made an unpopular point by stressing regret for the bomb-shattered cathedrals of the Continent. This may be unpopular for some, but it is not for the ones who love and appreciate beautiful and priceless art. . . .

It takes approximately two years to construct a present-day skyscraper, but it took over 600 years of patient toil and sacrifice to construct the Cathedral in Cologne.

ROY BRUNKENHOEFER JR.

Yorktown, Tex.

> Not strictly so. For a correction of this popular misconception about Cologne's Cathedral, and for evidence that the Cathedral still stands, see TIME, July 26, p. 75.

Last fortnight Dean Inge replied to public protests against his objection to the bombing of German cultural monuments. Said he: "There is evidently a most evil temper among our civilians. . . . Philip Sober will [yet] be heartily ashamed of Philip Drunk."--ED.

"Men's Roadster"

Sirs:

Since when did cars as old as 1902 have a windshield, fenders, wheels and lights like those on Mr. Rockefeller's car (TIME, July 12)? I believe that's a 1912 car, not a 1902.

(PVT.) HAYDEN R. SHEPLEY

West Point, N.Y.

Sirs:

. . . The car pictured was known as a "men's roadster," and was a popular model around 1913. . . .

ALFRED S. LEWERENZ

Chairman, Board of Directors

The Horseless Carriage Club

Los Angeles

Sirs:

. . . We do not know the exact year of the car you illustrated, but by the style of headlights and sidelights which show, it is about 1915 to 1917. . . .

JAMISON HANDY JR.

Detroit Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Co.

Detroit

>TIME'S Horseless Carriage Editor backed the wrong horse. One of the Rockefellers thought it was a 1902 model, the other guessed 1910. The car is registered as a 1916 Anderson.--ED.

Operatic Expectancy

Sirs:

In your short article on grand opera in New Orleans (TIME, July 12) ... your correspondent recounts an anecdote that "during one performance of Faust, an expectant mother is said to have turned to her husband, remarking: 'Pierre, I do not think I can wait for the ballet.' "

The story is taken from my play, A La Creole, which was produced at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre in New Orleans in 1927, by the Professional Players in Philadelphia and the Pasadena Community Playhouse. The speech in the play is made by a little Creole spinster doing job work in Madame Toup's carnival costume shop. Mademoiselle Titine says: "It was a religion my Pappa had for opera, yas. Me, I can show you that box at the opera where I am almost born! It was Les Huguenots and when the chorus sing--'La-Lal-la'--Mommon say to Pappa, 'Felix, me, I cannot wait for that ballet, NON !'"

A little better, don't you think? . . .

FLO FIELD

Ossining, N.Y.

> Frankly, OUI.--ED.

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