The Campaign

Sirs:

"It's time for a change" [TIME, Oct. 23]. You never printed a truer caption! Let's look at someone else for a while. It's well and good for you to plug your candidate, but there must be a good many of your constant readers who, like myself, are getting fed up with Dewey already. . . .

It is about time that the Republican Party thoughtfully considered your front-page caption. Why don't they change the tone and tenor of their Presidential campaign and give us something constructive for once? Those of us who loyally support Mr. Roosevelt and those of you who are unalterably opposed to him recognize that there have been mistakes made and--whether you admit it or not, Mr. Dewey does--tremendous advances have been made in our social planning and economic development. We know how old Mr. Roosevelt is, we know who his advisers are, we are fully conscious of everything he has done, is doing, and plans to do.

Then why not stop this everlasting series of complaints, this constant bitching and screaming and yelling and name-calling? . . Judging by the caliber of men the Republican Party has offered us as their best, I've about come to the conclusion that in my own opinion Mr. Roosevelt becomes increasingly indispensable to the future good of my country. . . .

E. HUGH BEHYMER Bethany, W. Va.

Sirs:

I'm no journalist, but if your story on Dewey in TIME, Oct. 23 is objective new? reporting, I'll eat every word of it. ... TIME readers who expect news and not editorial opinion from you will see through that campaign document. . . .

N. K. APRIL

New York City

Sirs:

Here is a statement which appeared in TIME (Oct. 23): "On the record he [Dewey] stood at least even-Stephen with Franklin Roosevelt on world-security plans."

. . Mind you, I have no objections to your taking sides. That is your right, and in view of your connections it is perfectly-normal that you should be in the Dewey camp. But be frank and honest about it. Do not claim to be giving your readers impartial news and then print such obvious partisan nonsense as the above quotation.

Your biggest asset is your readers' confidence in your statements. Think that over before you write your next campaign article and temper your desires with judgment.

RAYMOND S. ANDERSON Newark

Sirs:

Have you seen this haymaker-slogan flying around?

When you're in the middle of the stream AND the horse starts riding YOU--it's time to change horses.

JOHN L. GROOM Chicago

Sirs:

News publications seldom provoke me to the extent of written remarks, but I feel that this issue [Oct. 23] of TIME has so seriously injured my opinion of your publication as to require a small rebuttal. I fear that it will take many months of honest news reporting before you can eliminate the bad taste which this issue has left in the mouths of faithful readers.

MRS. JEROME ROSOW Yeadon, Pa.

Sirs:

So it's a demerit for Mr. Dewey that he mildly exclaims "good gracious" and "Oh Lord" when excited (TIME, Oct. 2). To be a good President one has to know all the stronger "swear" words, I suppose. I admit that the majority of American businessmen prefer "My God" and "Well, I'll be God damned" to "good gracious." Personally, I admire a man who hasn't forgotten that he once learned "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. . . ."

CLARINE H. SPENO Ithaca, N.Y.

Sirs:

I agree with TIME (Oct. 2) when it states that Governor Dewey has many merits and demerits. However, there are many men such as myself who would have a better idea of what is to take place in the future if Governor Dewey would tell us what he will do and not what must be done, or what can be done. I think we know that by now. [ARMY SERGEANT'S NAME WITHHELD] Camp Chaffee, Ark.

Sirs:

Dewey reminds me of a young over-zealous friend of mine, a Fundamentalist preacher, who had a good case when he decided to preach against the outlandish hairdos of the young women of his congregation. I asked him if he had a theme and a text. "Most assuredly I have," he replied. "My theme is Top Knot Come Down. My text is in Mat. 24:17, also Mark 13:15, also Luke, 17:31: 'Let him which is on the house top not come down' "

JOSEPH K. THOMSON Paterson, NJ.

Sirs: In TIME (Oct. 9) I note with interest the statement of Harry Truman, Democratic candidate for Vice President: "A statesman is only a dead politician. I never want to be a statesman." Many of us soldier voters were faced with an impossible choice this fall: should we choose Dewey with his inexperience in foreign affairs, or Roosevelt, who has been in too long and who has an inept man running with him who may very well serve part of the next term? A man who can make the above statement in any sincerity is a sad example of the results of American politics

Unless the people of this country take steps to bring politics up to the level of statesmanship, millions of men are fighting for nothing. It's high time we had some statesmanship in our politics.

[ARMY CORPORAL'S NAME WITHHELD] Raleigh, N.C.

Sirs:

Thanks for your excellent reporting of the Dewey campaign. It is heartening to millions of Americans who feared the Roosevelt dynasty may have been given a grant. in perpetuity. Before going to the polls on Nov. 7, I should like to put a question to Candidate Dewey, in a paraphrase of a song from the motion picture, Going My Way: "Would you be satisfied with two terms in the White House ... or would you rather be a pig?"

T. HARRY THOMPSON

Philadelphia

What Happened?

Sirs:

What happened to your 50,000 researchers when it came to the Books section (TIME, Oct. 16, Lee's Lieutenants) ? Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, editor of the Times-Dispatch? Gawdamighty, no! We of the News Leader object.

JACK KILPATRICK Richmond News Leader Richmond

P: TIME'S Books researcher got into the right building (jointly occupied by the jointly owned Times-Dispatch and News Leader), tripped over the wrong editorial chair.--ED.

About Time

Sirs:

In TIME (July 31) I saw an article which said that on New Britain G.I.S had to come back to the theater three separate times in order to see The Hard Way. I have one to top that. Last May we had to come back to the theater on five separate nights to see The Major and the Minor. The first night the hospital electric generator broke down. The second night the projection lamp burned out and there were no replacements handy. The third night one of the tubes in the amplifying system burned out. On the fourth night the excitor bulb burned out, and finally on the fifth night, just as the final reel was completely through the machine, the motor burned up. After that we got a new machine.

FRED T. BURKE c/o Postmaster San Francisco

"Our Girl"

Sirs: TIME'S story (Oct. 9) titled "Daughters for Harvard" inspires me to forward to you a letter dated November 1847, regarding Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the U.S. to gain admittance to a man's college. Elizabeth and my father, Dr. Norman R. Cornell, became friends during the days spent in Geneva Medical College. Their friendship continued through the years. To my mother, he wrote, in part: ". . . In regard to the College all things progress finely, and agreeably, with the exception of a subject or two on hand for dissection, that smell most intolerably rank of spoilt meat.

" 'Our Girl' -- as the students call her --Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, gets along finely.

She can behold the nakedness of male or female before us without a blush. Which is more than my hardened face can always endure without a change of color. I think she will be distinguished. . . ."

DIXIE CORNELL GEBHARDT Knoxville, Iowa

"Oh, Brother!"

Sirs:

Senator Claude Pepper is, politically, completely impossible to me, but I must now, I confess, "give the devil his due." His idea of putting Congress on the air [TIME, Oct. 9] is a classic. It could not fail to have a salutary effect.

And, oh, brother! It would certainly expose the absentees, logrollers, floor-hoggers, etc., in our legislative houses!

HENRY LEE JR.

Chicago

Cool Facts

Sirs:

The history of wars has always been written differently by different authors, depending a great deal on their sources of information. Some day, when historians start writing "Inside World War II," they could find no wider and more reliable source of material than TIME.

There are a lot of people around the earth that consider luncheon speeches, income taxes and propaganda as necessary evils of civilization. Nowadays it is much easier to get to know how guns are being fired than to find out why those guns are in action. TIME is fulfilling a mission amongst those who prefer cool facts to wishful thinking, even during a world war.

OLOV HJELMSTROM Swedish Consulate Rio de Janeiro

What Is a Dictaphone?

Sirs:

In TIME (Oct 2), in an advertisement of Dictaphone Corporation, appears this statement of fact: "The word DICTAPHONE is the registered trade-mark of Dictaphone Corporation, makers of dictating machines and other sound recording and reproducing equipment bearing said trade-mark."

Wholly disregarding this fact, your Music editor, in the same issue, prints the following: "Experts . . . thought the wire recorder might in time replace dictaphones."

Your writer, by this slip, has unwittingly attacked the trade-mark value which we seek to build up and protect by advertising in your magazine. Of course, he meant the generic term "dictating machines," not the trade-mark "Dictaphone."

MERRILL B. SANDS President Dictaphone Corp. New York City

P: Ediphone and Soundscriber also make "dictating machines." But like kodak, frigidaire, celluloid, and other registered trade names which have been hammered into the vocabulary by their own advertisers, "dictaphone" is on its way to becoming a new common noun in the American language.--ED.

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