The Impoverished & the Privileged
Sirs:
When Dorothy T. Pearse [TIME, Letters, July1] expresses sympathy for the hungry of Europe and grows impatient with delays on the British loan and on food relief, I agree with her. But when she says she feels "a sense of shame at being an American . . ." then I get mad.
Is she ashamed that her country, through progressive, intelligent industry has become the richest in the world? Is she ashamed of America because the nations of Europe, in contrast, have impoverished themselves through ignorance, intolerance, greed and hatred ? . . .
Don't let's be ashamed, Miss Pearse--tell them to be.
MORRIS COHEN
1st Lieutenant, A.U.S., Ret.
Los Angeles
Sirs:
I have just recently returned from my first visit to Scotland and England in seven years. ... I stood in the queues to listen. Of the Americans I heard no word of envy or criticism.
Dorothy Pearse need not be ashamed of being an American. I am not, but I am ashamed to eat my dinner. ... I live meagerly since my return to the U.S.A. and send the rest over there. ... I shall do my part, with millions of other American citizens, to aid to the best of my ability those who cannot help themselves, and think myself privileged. . . .
ANNA CHRISTIE
Washington
Einstein Issue
Sirs:
Congratulations to the staff of TIME on the issue of July i. More specific congratulations to the science editor, writers and researchers who turned out the ten columns on Einstein and . . . The Bomb. . . .
If the history of physics was presented to students in the form so successfully utilized by TIME, the proportion of interested and active students would increase by leaps & bounds. . . . Teachers might well copy. . -.
JOHN J. CARMODY
New York City
Counter-Clockwise Cut
Sirs:
. . . Don't TIME'S internationally minded writers know that in England the horses run in the opposite direction to that of the picture on the English Derby (June 17). The negative should have been turned over.
H. LIPSEY
Vancouver, B.C.
P:British horses run both clockwise and counterclockwise. TIME'S cut was right; if the negative had been reversed, the signs would have read backwards.--ED.
Seclusion for the Pharmacist
SIRS:
STORY ON JUSTIN DART AND UNITED-REXALL [TIME, JULY1], WHILE EXCELLENT FACTUAL REPORT, CONTAINS ONE STATEMENT SUBJECT TO POSSIBLE MISINTERPRETATION: "NOW HE BURIES PRESCRIPTION COUNTERS IN THE BACK OF STORES LEST THEY TAKE UP VALUABLE SPACE FOR RAG DOLLS, BOOKS, ETC. . . ." FOR BOTH COMPANY-OWNED STORES AND THOUSAND INDEPENDENT REXALLITIES MR. DART HAS CONTINUALLY PRESCRIBED PRIMARY EMPHASIS FOR THE PRESCRIPTION COUNTER. IN SHORT, IT'S .THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR BUSINESS. IT IS TRUE THAT SAID COUNTERS ARE USUALLY LOCATED IN THE REAR OF THE STORE FOR TWO REASONS: PROTECTION FOR THE DRUGS, SECLUSION FOR THE PHARMACIST TO INSURE THE ABSOLUTE ACCURACY OF REXALL-FILLED PRESCRIPTIONS.
THOMAS H. LANE
Director of Sales and Advertising
United-Rexall Drug Co.
Los Angeles
P:It also helps keep nosy people out of other people's prescriptions.--ED.
Indifference Sirs:
. . . After reading your "rave" notice on The Pale Horseman [TIME, June 3], I lost no time in booking it to show yesterday at our local Rotary and at our church. The weekly papers cooperated magnificently in giving publicity. . . . No admission was charged; no offering solicited. . . .
What happened? Rotary had one of the lowest-attended meetings so far this year. An even dozen turned out for the night showing. ... Of my own parishioners, two from a membership of 211 showed up.
The principal reason given for not coming to the picture was: "I don't want to see such horrible things!"
Many who do not want to see such horrible things are rather loud in their complaints of shortages in the local food stores. . . .
Maybe it's my Calvinism cropping up in me, but I think we've already begun to lose the peace. In some places it's indifference. In others, like that Methodist church out in Michigan, they adopt the 20th Century version of crucifixion--getting rid of their pastor when he speaks the truth as he sees it [see below].
(REV.) WILLIAM M. HUNTER
Tunkhannock, Pa.
Marysville Double-Faults
Sirs:
Did the Rev. John Safran's dismissal [TIME, July 1] take place in these United States of America . . . ? Surely "Christian America" would not countenance a man's dismissal simply because he dared to discuss racial tolerance and equality--or perhaps our category of "self-evident truths" no longer contains the clause that "all men are created equal. . . ."
(REV.) JACK L. SHAFFER Grove
City, Pa.
Sirs:
. . . Perhaps it would be wise if the new pastor first took some sort of oath. We suggest the following .. . . : "I, Pastor --, hereby swear to be intellectually and morally honest at all times except when by being so I might hurt the feelings of a first-rate citizen. I will be particularly careful to say nothing that will bring disgrace on the Pastoral Relations Committee, and glory and a future in the hinterlands on myself, as did my unfortunate predecessor, Pastor John Safran."
Your article, TIME, discloses Marysville's Methodists double-faulting at a crucial time in the match.
J. T. WALKER, JR.
Amherst, Mass.
Minus 41,000 Strikers
. . .TIME [June 10 ] SAID: FOR THE PAST FOUR MONTHS, 60,OOO EMPLOYES IN SEVEN ALLIS-CHALMERS PLANTS HAVE BEEN IN AND OUT."
FACT: SINCE MARCH 14 ... APPROXIMATELY 19,OOO EMPLOYES HAVE WALKED OUT IN SEVEN OF OUR EIGHT PLANTS. . . .
W. C. VAN CLEAF
Director Industrial Relations Div.
Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co.
Milwaukee
Chinese Realities
Sirs:
Your "Bad Government" [June 10] was good TNT. After 16 years here may I comment? Suggestions:
1. Stop flattering the Chinese. Face realities. China is , not a great power, but a weakling, a child among adults, who for her good and the world's must be treated justly but firmly, spanked when unruly.
2. Stop all UNRRA supplies . . . till the distribution can be put entirely into foreign hands. . . . Before War II, relief committees did a fine job, but always with a foreigner in control in every committee. . . .
3. Try to save China from Russia. . . .
4. When Marshall's mission fails, don't blame him. He was given an impossible task--to arrange [an] understanding between cats & dogs. .
5. Don't forget that the same department which adopted what Sumner Welles called an "incredibly stupid" policy for Argentina, and united the Spanish almost solidly around Franco by its "White Paper," is also determining the U.S. policy in China. . . .
Do I think that if these suggestions are followed out in China they will prevent the impending civil war, or subsequent chaos? Hell no!
B. K. JAMES
Shanghai
Progress Exaggerated
Sirs:
I wish to call to your attention a number of inaccuracies in your story "Progress Report" [TIME, June 24].
To refer to our work on the growth of the tubercle bacillus as "the greatest contribution to TB research since Robert Koch first isolated the germ itself in 1882" is, to say the least, a gross exaggeration. There have been many great achievements in the field of tuberculosis since the time of Koch. Thus, the therapeutic possibilities of sulfones and streptomycin, as well as the studies of immunization with BCG, are discussed in the very same issue of your magazine; you could also have mentioned, among other lines of progress, the improvement of X-ray methods of diagnosis, the campaign for the detection of early cases, the growth of sanatoria, the different procedures of collapse therapy, etc., etc.
Any student of elementary bacteriology knows that it does not necessarily take months to grow the tubercle bacilli on the classical media.
There is no basis for the statement that tubercle bacilli growing on the classical media are so modified as to "make experiments inconclusive": for all we know it may be the bacteria growing in our own unorthodox media which are modified.
Gramicidin is not a mold extract, but is produced by bacteria. The development of penicillin was independent of our work with gramicidin.
RENE J. DUBOS
The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
New York City
Star Dust
Sirs:
Why did you do it? Where does it get you--that write-up of the General Federation of Women's Clubs convention in your last issue [TIME, July 1]? . . .
The time when ridicule was the challenge for women was some 50 years ago--:'s TIME modern and up-to-date, or does it only think it is?
For me the convention was filled with inspiration. Our Illinois president, Mrs. Chapman, voiced the hope that we might "return home with star dust in our care." That, I suppose, your reporter would not understand. (Miss) EDNA McDAVixx
Paris, III.
P:TIME hopes its reporters know stardust when they see it.--ED.
Sirs:
It was indeed with a sigh of relief that I read in your July 1 issue that the General Federation of Women's Clubs "had signified their approval of ... war veterans. . . ." I shudder at the thought of the fate which would have befallen ten million veterans had these 3,000 women voted their disapproval of our status as veterans. . . .
GEORGE B. BOSWELL
Princeton, NJ.
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