Beds & Divorce

Sirs:

Seventy-three years before Anthropologist M. F. Ashley Montagu set down his reflections on double beds & divorce (TIME, Jan. 1), Lewis Henry Morgan, the "Father of American Anthropology," wrote in his European Travel Journal, which you reviewed in TIME, Jan. 10, 1938:

"At Cologne we stayed at the Hotel Concordia . . . close by the Cathedral. Here we had our first experience with the narrow German beds so much detested by Queen Victoria. They are just wide enough for one. . . . As they separate man and wife I am opposed to them. A man who has a wife he does not delight to sleep with is badly married. . . . [Sleeping together] tends to make good husbands, to strengthen the influence of the wife, and to improve her position in the family. It cannot be otherwise, because it tends to increased friendship and mutuality of life, and is one of the reasons why American husbands are better than German or French husbands, and why a woman's position in the U.S. is higher than in any other part of the earth."

LESLIE A. WHITE

Dept. of Anthropology

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Eh?

Sirs:

Have you ever heard anyone sing in a barbershop (TIME, Dec. 25)? Have you ever been in a barbershop? Why don't you go out and get yourself a haircut?

BERNARD S. GREENSFELDER

Oakland, Calif.

P: 1) No; but they used to, particularly in the South. 2) Yes. 3) Too busy.--ED.

Coddled Killers

Sirs:

Your account of the P.O.W.s having their daily apple-picking quotas reduced because of their sit-down strike and general naughtiness, while being used in an effort to save the apple crop of Washington (TIME, Nov. 13), caused great resentment here.

It is high time the people of America and, specifically, those in charge of the P.O.W. camps in the U.S., realize that those men whom they coddle so are the same fanatical Nazis who have just finished killing their sons and brothers and who have tortured, starved, and enslaved the people of Europe. We have seen the ghastly results of the atrocities committed by these same apple pickers. We have seen our comrades go down under German machine-gun fire and torn to bits by artillery and mortar shells. We have heard the Nazis manning these weapons cry "Kamerad" when their ammunition was gone or the going got tough. These men are cold, brutal, and trained from childhood as killers.

We only ask that these P.O.W.s be treated justly but firmly, not pampered and handled like naughty children.

SIX DISGUSTED COMBAT OFFICERS

c/o Postmaster

New York City

Jungle Woman

Sirs:

Couldn't you tell us more about Ursula Graham-Bower, the female T. E. Lawrence of northern Burma? (TIME, Jan. 1). Your story whets my appetite for more. At any rate, since she "looks like a cinemactress," couldn't you give us a picture of this pretty guerrillist ?

NORMAN A. BEASLEY

New York City

P: Herewith an unguerrilla-like photograph of the lady.--ED.

F.D.R. as Prophet

Sirs:

If memory serves me the President, in a speech about five years ago, made a statement to the effect that our front line is on the Rhine. If I am correct it would seem that he has qualified for the role of, at least, a minor prophet.

H. F. HOFFLANDER

Minneapolis

P: Seven months before World War II, the President was reported to have made the major (not minor) prophecy that the U.S. frontier was on the Rhine. He denounced the report as "a deliberate lie" and "100% bunk," said its originator was a "boob."--ED.

Instead of Varga Girls

Sirs:

Following is an excerpt from the letter of a soldier who has met the Germans first hand. It is interesting, I think, for its bearing on the question: what to do with Germany after the war?

"In a place where Germans have lived, I get a chance to see what kind of people they really are. Their furniture is modern, and so are their conveniences and sanitation. They are far advanced over the British and French in these respects. From there on, their thoughts turn to war! I have looked at countless books and magazines with dates from 1921-44, and all of them, in some way, glorify the war machine! I looked over some old German calendars. In the U.S. on the page for each month we usually put a 'Varga Girl' or maybe rural scenes, or advertisements. On all the German calendars are beautiful color pictures of the German Army in action or in training: such thrilling scenes as a German Panzer unit crushing and running down a group of British Tommies who are shown screaming and clutching their stomachs as they are machine-gunned to death. Or perhaps it is a German Pionier Gruppe assaulting a Russian pillbox with flamethrowers and dynamite. . . .

"It makes me thank God for several things:

1) We are separated from them by a now 'too small' ocean.

2) They didn't have the foresight to include a large navy in their war scheme.

3) The British people gave us time to prepare.

4) American inventive and copy genius and production has been able to surpass in three years what the Germans did in 25."

E. L. WARNER JR.

Detroit

PX X

Sirs:

You state that at Army PXs comic books outsell LIFE, Reader's Digest and Satevepost combined--10-to-1 [TIME, Dec. 18].

It may well be, but it isn't necessarily indicative of servicemen's taste.

Whoever is responsible for stocking the PX assumes lowly tastes on the part of the servicemen. I, a servicewife and a veteran of many PXs, can work myself into a huff just thinking about it. ... I'll wager nine out of ten comic books are bought in desperation. If people like to read and depend on it for relaxation, they'll read anything rather than nothing. . . .

KATHRYN HARRIS

Washington

P: Overseas, PX magazine supply conforms more closely to demand. At home it is more variable, depending on the X of distributors and PX officers.--ED.

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