Foreign Piece

Sirs:

If that dinky pistol carried by General George Marshall on his visit to the Normandy beachhead is a Service model .45-caliber automatic, then my bazooka is a popgun.

(SERVICEMAN'S NAME WITHHELD) New York City

P:George Marshall's super-popgun is a 9-mm. corto (short) Italian-made Beretta automatic. As a weapon it is nothing special, but the General likes it.--ED.

Republicans

Sirs:

I think that Dewey [TIME, July 10] is undoubtedly an able and capable man. He, however, does not have the emotional appeal, the ability to inspire hero worship that Willkie had. One other factor may keep many people from being enthusiastic over Dewey, and that is the suspicion that he is not fully behind the movement to establish a family of nations. . . .

There are many of us who would like to vote for another administration simply because this one has been in office too long and has lost its original impetus. Yet we are not yet willing to risk our Ship of State in the hands of men who are not wholeheartedly in favor of doing our full part toward international peace. ... I believe that Dewey would substantially strengthen his party and consequently his chances of becoming President if he let it be known that he would like to have Wendell Willkie as his Secretary of State. . . .

EVELYN SKAER San Marino, Calif.

Sirs:

... It sounds well to assert that the out come of the election can't affect the military conduct of the war, to promise that military conduct of it will be left solely in the hands of General Marshall and Admiral King. But this is impossible since, fortunately, it is not our private war. . . .

It is not possible for an American general or admiral to determine in what numbers, and where, our Allies shall fight. This has to be ironed out by the responsible Allied Governments--ironed out with Churchill, De Gaulle, Stalin, and Chiang Kaishek. It involves commitments only Government heads can make. It involves the national aspirations which are the basis of practical military strategy.

Let Mr. Dewey abandon an oratorical point and face up to the realization that a U.S. President in World War II must play a role in determining with our Allies the global strategy of the conflict. . . . Let him recognize that the outcome of the American election can make all the difference in the world.

RONAL KAYSER La Jolla, Calif.

Sirs:

Candidate Thomas E. Dewey in his acceptance speech at Chicago placed the accent on youth. The Administration, he said, has grown old and tired in office. He also said, "General Marshall and Admiral King are doing a superb job." Marshall is 63 years old; King is 65. President Roosevelt is 62.

Query: When should old men be retired from office?

Answer: When they belong to the opposite party.

JOHN VALENTINE

Decatur, Ill.

Sirs:

... In his acceptance speech Mr. Dewey stated that "old, tired men" should be ousted from the White House. To this I say, it is far better that we have an older, a wiser man, a dignified man, and a man who commands our respect as President than a mustached Henry Aldrich. . . .

BETTY LEE KUHN Pensacola, Fla.

Sirs:

In our barracks on a lonely, windswept, foggy island, we were listening to the acceptance speech of Mr. Thomas E. Dewey. Following this we heard a summary by a Mrs. Olive Clapper, whose very ladylike comment that Mrs. Dewey had once been in George White's Scandals gained for Mr. Dewey several votes. . . .

(SERVICEMEN'S NAMES WITHHELD) Los Angeles

Too Dumb to Survive

Sirs:

We the people, dumb as we are, are ahead of the politicos on foreign policy. We have been in every major war, even with an isolationist policy. We can't get into any more of them than we have with an internationalist policy. So what in hell are we waiting for? ... Peoples perish because they are too dumb to survive. The only way to have peace is with an internationalist policeman's club.

LEWIS A. LINCOLN

Kansas City

P: But who will boss the policeman (TIME, Sept. 13 BACKGROUND FOR PEACE)?--ED.

"The Answer Is You"

Sirs:

To 2nd Lieut. Thomas Riggs Jr. (TIME, July 3): The answer, Lieutenant, is you. In yourself you have the answer to "what is true and what is not true in our national life." The way you feel is the way Lincoln felt, the way I feel and the way countless other Americans feel. Though the Great Meadows incident is a festering evil, men like you will keep it from becoming malignant. . . .

The very fact that you cry out now amidst carnage and despair against a far-off injustice, and the fact that TIME prints your letter, and the fact that many people will reply, supporting your views, should tell you that our national life, while far from perfect, is still good, still worth your coming back to, still in need of you and your straight thinking.

Personal, too, as love and beer and death is your feeling for mankind and brotherhood. You are an American and all you inherently know and feel was born in you here. You are a true picture of our national life.

HOWARD W. RAPPORT Chicago

More Than Coincidence?

Sirs:

I believe it is more than coincidence that the two most reprehensible Central American dictators have resigned shortly following the four or five articles you have published exposing them. I join the millions of our neighbors to the south who feel a warm sense of gratitude for your good work.

S. D. CAPLAN

Los Angeles

Bowdoin v. Amherst

Sirs:

The people of Maine must have been extraordinarily impatient if, as you state, they founded Bowdoin (in 1794) because they "tired of sending their young men to alien . . . Amherst" (organized in 1821 JOHN S. SMITH Washington

P: Not half so impatient as TIME'S errant Education researcher was.--ED.

Smug Puss

Sirs:

Listen, TIME, there's enough cheap talk being thrown around without having you encourage more of it by printing it for a laugh. Your July 3 issue introduced the no-nonsense girl, Pfc. Eunice Shepard, who saluted the "deskbound male Marines" at the Brooklyn Navy Yard with the icy remark: "I joined the Marines to free a man to fight. Who's leaving?"

Now there you have the type of rubber-jawed female who thinks she's going all-out for victory by slapping some unoffending stranger with the sneer: "Why aren't you in uniform?" when he's liable to be a discharged vet or someone like me, who volunteered and was rejected three times for hernia. Both remarks presuppose that men are free agents and aren't in combat only because they are craven, and that's more nonsense than your Miss Shepard ought to be allowed. . . .

Don't print a story like that unless you are able to report that one of the boys got up and slapped the heartless girl across her smug little puss.

BOB RIDGWAY Los Angeles

Since January 1, 1943, TIME, LIFE, FORTUNE and THE ARCHITECTURAL FORUM have been cooperating with the War Production Board on conservation of paper. During the year 1944, these four publications will use 73,000,000 lb.( 1,450 freight carloads) less paper than in 1942. In view of resulting shortages of copies, please share your copy of TIME with your friends.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.