Suppose Russia Had It?

Sirs:

Re: Pepper, Ball and Crossroads [TIME, April 1].

Let us consider our feelings if matters were reversed--Russia holding the secret, producing a daily increasing number of atomic bombs . . . announcing officially that this "Damoclean sword" would be kept especially from the U.S., etc. All this would throw our country into a state of alarm which would make the effect of the Pearl Harbor attack seem like a W.C.T.U. picnic. . . . There would be no reconversion-- only armament. We would insist that Russia either share the secret or "destroy every atomic bomb, smash every facility for making another," before a basis of unity could be established and the U.N. fulfill its proper function. . . .

KURT LADENBUKG

Rocky Hill, N.J.

Veteran Aid v. Loans

Sirs:

. . . You seem to be overly worried about the sums which have been paid or are being paid to veterans of past wars and this war, yet you very courageously campaign for the loan to Britain.

You say (in connection with the G.I. Bill of Rights) the taxpayers might well ask themselves, "How long does a war last?" [TIME, April 1]. I think you would have been much more justified in printing the above quotation in connection with the loan to Britain.

Is TIME a U.S. or British periodical?

A. E. CLOUSE

Mason City, Iowa

P: A U.S. periodical whose editors believe that a war lasts until the peace is won.--ED.

Pasquel v. Hornsby

Sirs:

In the March 11 number of your magazine an item appears concerning the Liga Mexicana de Baseball (Mexican Baseball League), of which I am president, and concerning me in particular. . . . I am writing you to explain a few ideas expressed by the scoundrel Rogers Hornsby during his short stay in Mexico.

This individual robbed me of the sum of $2,000 which was loaned to him as an advance on his salary for the year of 1944; and, after having lost this entire sum betting on horse races, he left Mexico at a very inopportune time and without my knowledge.

The part stating that I objected that he should not have batted so as to win one game because it might hurt the attendance for the following game is a vile slander. . . . My reputation for personal and moral integrity is far above such baseness. . . .

JORGE PASQUEL

Mexico, D.F.

P: Hornsby on Pasquel: "He agreed to pay me extra for serving as a pinch hitter, but I never collected that. . . . I left a little ahead of the three months I was scheduled to handle the team, so I figured things were even." Advice to Mexico-jumping ballplayers: "Get all the money deposited in a bank on this side of the border. . . . They have funny standards down there."--ED.

Caballero's Son

Sirs:

TIME'S objective sincerity in reporting Francisco Largo Caballero's death [April 1] is highly commendable.

. . . May I add a footnote to your reference to Caballero's "missing" son? He was Franco's prisoner. Franco offered to exchange him for a leader of the Falangist movement, in jail and coming up for trial on charge of treason to the Republic. Caballero refused. His son, Caballero said, had committed no crime!

SAM BARON

Cornwall, Ont.

Luther Defended

Sirs:

Luther is accused [TIME, April 1] of being the evil genius of Germany's absolutism, worse than Hitler. But in his Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, he writes: "But when a prince is in the wrong, are his people bound to follow him then too? I answer, No, for it is no one's duty to do wrong." Hardly compatible with the accusation leveled at him, is it? . . .

RICHARD C. WOLF

Instructor in Christian History

Lutheran Theological Seminary

Gettysburg, Pa.

No Pope-Haters

Sirs:

In your March 25 issue, you say: "U.S. Protestantism is seething. . . . Charges of too much politicking . . . have been openly leveled at the Church of Rome, not only in the Pope-hating Southern Bible Belt, but by top-drawer Protestant clerics and laymen as well. . . ."

In the course of my duties I visit about 140 Methodist churches in central Alabama each year. I can assure you that the gatherings which I attend are not given over to "Pope-hating." . . . The range of conversations includes: the essential need of church unity in support of the United Nations, furthering the cause of industrial peace, strengthening racial understanding and getting rid of racial antagonisms. . . .

GEORGE STANLEY FRAZER

District Superintendent

Selma District (Central Alabama)

Selma, Ala.

P: TIME'S thanks to Methodist Frazer for pointing out that many Southern Protestants are concerned with more constructive courses than Pope-hating.--ED.

Britain with Clean Hands

Sirs:

. . . If the blood and tears, the sweat, toil and untold misery caused by this disastrous war have not taught the British Empire that its worst enemy is its own shortsightedness, then the Empire is not worth saving at any rate, at least not with the blood of American youth. After all, when the Japanese enemy came, none of the natives risked their lives for the Empire, nor for the Dutch, who are, as Colonial Empires go, similarly behind the times. How different was the story in the Philippines!

Mr. Churchill paints the story of the "Red Bear" very gloomily, and there is no doubt that it is. But a weapon more powerful than any atomic bomb are millions of despairing hearts--hearts of the peoples of all the nations of the world who had hoped 'that true democracy would be the fruit of this terrible struggle, and not more power politics. . . .

An alliance of Britain and the U.S. would be a most natural thing in the world. But let Britain come with clean hands and supported by the cheering millions of her citizens in all parts of the world to whom she has brought true democracy and all our hearts will be with her, and neither the Soviet Union nor any other power on earth would be strong enough to disunite her.

ERNEST NATHAN

West Warwick, R.I.

Try It, Mr. Conway

Sirs:

So Robert Conway and the New York Daily News, which he represents, think there is no hunger in Europe today [TIME, April 1]. Conway ate well in black market restaurants in England, France, and Italy. He was never so well fed in America since Pearl Harbor, he reports; therefore, no one starves in Europe. . . . Is this what complacent America wants to hear, while a half-billion people starve?

I have just returned from nine months in Europe, mostly in the three countries Conway gourmandized in at New York nightclub prices. . . . The official rations are 680 calories (a day) in Italy now. Try it, Mr. Conway, and compare it with your black market restaurants, or with America's normal diet of over 3,000 calories a day.

Does the Daily News wish to be responsible for the deaths of more thousands, forgotten by a smug isolationism to which everything foreign is out of human bounds?

CHARLES R. JOY

Executive Director

Unitarian Service Committee

Boston

Sirs:

Your December tribute to the "Man of the Year" has become something of an American Institution. May I suggest a counterbalance for this feature ?

Select some hot, humid Monday in late June or early July, when man's faith in man reaches its perspiring nadir, to publicize "The Biggest Damn Fool of the Year."

. . . First Nomination: Robert Conway of the New York Daily News [TIME, April 1]. He will have, I am certain, no serious competition.

HENRY FOLEY

Syracuse, N.Y.

Hatten's Curve

Sirs:

TIME, March 25: "Pitcher Joe Hatten . . . has a curve ball that can turn a corner." Was it not LIFE that not so long ago ran quite an expose of curve balls, complete with diagrams and photographs, offering final proof that there is no such thing as a curve ball, merely an illusion?. . .

A. L. MACCOOL

Seattle

P: LIFE or no LIFE, TIME'S Sports Editor swears that Hatten's curve can turn a corner; that what's more, his fast ball smokes, and that batters can count the stitches on his slow ball.--ED.

Republocrats Sirs: Would you be good enough to give us the names of the "Republocrats" in the House and Senate who have organized for the purpose of defeating President Truman's legislative program [TIME, March 25]? Since the aim of this coalition seems to be to keep wages down, the cost of living up and national health poor, is it not rather vital to the democratic process that the voters know who is supporting this program? . . .

JAMES P. ETHERIDGE JR.

Tampa, Fla.

Sirs:

Why "Republocrats?" Why not call them Demopublicans -- or, more candidly perhaps, Demi-Publicans?

JOSEPH WECHSBERG

Hollywood

P: Sometime followers of the Republocrat line: Senators Josiah Bailey (North Carolina), Harry F. Byrd (Virginia), Peter G. Gerry (Rhode Island), Pat McCarran (Nevada), W. Lee O'Daniel (Texas), David I. Walsh (Massachusetts) ; Representatives Fritz Lanham (Texas), Carter Manasco (Alabama), John Rankin (Mississippi), Howard Smith (Virginia), Hatton W. Sumners (Texas), Carl Vinson (Georgia).--ED.

Last Trivia

Sirs:

Logan Pearsall Smith, the day before he died, began a ten-page letter to me with some words of thanks that I think whoever wrote your long review of All Trivia [TIME, Dec. 10] might appreciate, since the reviewer was clearly a discriminating admirer of dear old Logan: "How kind of you to send me that review of my book All Trivia which I shouldn't otherwise have seen, as I never have press cuttings from America, or indeed any reviews sent me. I learned from Santayana to avoid reading criticisms of my writings--people either shower them with insipid praise, or say disgusting things that stick like burrs in one's mind. But this article in TIME was pleasant, as it didn't overpraise the little book, but quoted from it with discrimination."

JOHN L. BALDERSTON

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Who Is Ed.?

Sirs:

The perspicacity of the character disguised as Ed.--[Letters column]-- is . . . obvious.

What I would like to know is, who is this Titan of titillation, this wizard of caustic wit, or would divulging his name release a deluge of voodoo curses, symbolic hexes, and homi cidal fan mail upon his sainted head?

G. A. SWANKIE

Sharon, Pa.

P: He is a footnote on the sands of TIME.-- ED.

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