New Year's Greetings
Sirs:
May I predict a possible slogan for the 1948 presidential campaign--"Put things right with--Ike!" Ike Eisenhower, of course. Don't ask me which party will shout it; that, time will decide. . . .
ALLEN K. PHELPS Cleveland Heights
Martyr or Menace
Sirs:
Congratulations! TIME'S cover [Dec. 16] depicts John L. Lewis in flames--a martyr for labor. . . .
(REV.) DAVID J. GRIFFITHS
Mansfield, Pa.
Sirs:
. . . Could it be that you are letting imagination cavort and are picturing John Lewis burning in the flames of hell? . . .
MARTIN E. COPENHAFER
Los Angeles
Sirs:
I positively shuddered when ... I looked at that face of Lewis on the front page. To think that a country like ours could produce such a specimen! I am not talking about his physical features, because no man can help that, but our lives are reflected in our faces as we grow in years, and . . . John L. Lewis has developed the cruelty of a man mad for power . . . who cares not what happens to the rest of humanity. . .
M. B. GRAHAM
No Reflexion on the Flavour
Sirs:
In your issue of Dec. 16, in a very able analysis of the difficulties of the British Empire (page 30), your reporter states: "British justice, tramp steamers and Scotch whiskey loosely bind a diverse association of peoples. . . ."
This, in TIME, must shock all thinking men. Nor is this the first time in recent years that this same gross error has marred your factual pages. I humbly suggest that TIME reporters may search throughout this perilous world, from icebound Greenland to hellbent Reno, from Glasgow to Shanghai, and not find so much as one bottle of Scotch whiskey with which to fortify themselves in their admirable pursuit of truth.
There are, of course, bourbon whiskey and rye whiskey. There is, I am credibly informed, Irish whiskey. And, above all, there is--for the comfort of men of good will within and without the British Empire--Scotch whisky.
MICHAEL ARLEN
New York City
P: TIME yields to no one (certainly not to Author Arlen) in its admiration for Scotch but likes bourbon and rye too; and life is too short to spell whiskey two ways.--ED.
Attention: Mr. Hearst
Sirs:
In the Dec. 16 issue of TIME there was an article about the [new] Hearst comic strip. [William Randolph Hearst] speaks of the boy Dick being the son of the keeper of the Liberty Statue. It is not the Liberty Statue; it is the Statue of Liberty. He is not the keeper; he is superintendent. My name is not Dick; it is,
JACK MARSHALL
Bedloe's Island
New York, N.Y.
Relativity
Sirs:
... In the Dec. 16 issue of TIME I find the following statements: First, from the Sport Section, where the Chicago Bears are discussed: "His ball-carrying backfield mates are virtually middle-aged men (average: 28)."
Now, in the same issue, I quote from the Books Department: "Erich Maria Remarque gave middle-agedly of his bnght-but-second-best in Arch of Triumph?'
Offhand, I would say that Mr. Remarque is in the 50s, since he wrote so ably a good many years ago of the First World War, in his All Quiet on the Western Front. Our football stars, who average 28, were either born during the last stages of the First World War, or shortly thereafter. Certainly they are not contemporaries of Mr. Remarque.
From the contradiction, I gather: 1) the Sport writer is very young; 2) the Books writer is middleaged; and 3) the fumble occurred in the Sport arena.
A. GOLDSTEIN
Providence, R.I.
P: 1) No, 2) No, 3) No (a pro football back of 28 is as relatively "middleaged" as a writer of 48).--ED.
Collector's Item
Sirs:
Your review, in verse, of Dali's Macbeth [TIME, Dec. 9] is so clever that I should like to add the original manuscript (or autographed typescript) to our collection.
JAMES G. MCMANAWAY Acting Director
The Folger Shakespeare Library Washington
Work-Week Defined
Sirs:
Having tried the Mt. Clemens Pottery case from the time it started, through the U.S. Supreme Court, I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss the implications you ascribe to the case in your issue of Dec. 16. Commentators have called it the most important case ever decided by an American court, and you suggest that it may subject individual corporations to liability exceeding $500,000,000.
No wave of hysteria should engulf the country simply because the highest court of the land has now defined the term "workweek" to include time spent upon the employer's premises at employer's request, including walking-time and time spent in performing various preliminary duties, such as changing clothes, sharpening tools, preparing machinery for production, and similar activities. . . .
Under the decision, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that the obligation to keep accurate records of all time worked is upon the employer, and if such records are not kept, then the employee's estimate of such time worked will be accepted. . . .
It is important to note that the United Mine Workers in their trial of the issues actually waived their claims for walking-time on the employer's premises, before punching the time-clocks and for time spent in preliminary activities--the very gist of the Mt. Clemens decision.
EDWARD LAMB
Toledo, Ohio
Liturgy & Spiritual Resources
Sirs:
I am puzzled by the concern ex-Chaplain Clark feels over Protestantism's lack of liturgy or ritual for use in emergencies [TIME, Dec. 9].
The Roman Catholic believes in the necessity of the ritual he uses as a mode for the investment of the worshiper with the grace of God. He is trained in that belief, and would feel spiritually empty, I presume, minus the use of such ritual.
The real Protestant feels no such need. He may use some ritual in formal worship, but does not associate with its use a guarantee of a special ministry of God. He does not require the services of a clergyman to purge his sins. The future of the soul of the dead he does not believe to be related to the use of the kind of ritual employed before or at the time of burial. The Protestant clergyman is not called into emergency situations because he is believed to possess any special ritual, or a special right to use such ritual essential to the need at hand. His ministry is in terms of his own faith, his knowledge of the Bible, and his knowledge of the spiritual needs of the person desiring his help. . . .
If Mr. Clark lacked confidence in the spiritual resources he did possess, why did he enter the chaplaincy? He should have learned as a civilian minister that neither the Church nor the Army had any special magic box to hand him for his military use capable of doing what his resources as a disciple of Christ failed to do. . . .
FRANK ANSON HAWLEY
Pastor
The Presbyterian Church
Florida, N.Y.
Sirs:
I, and probably all fellow communicants of the Episcopal Church, refer ex-Chaplain Clark to the Book of Common Prayer, a famous and most complete liturgy which [other] Protestants might do well to copy.
JOHN B. KENDALL
U.S.N.
Fleet Sonar School
Key West, Fla.
Sirs:
... It was about a month before the invasion of Okinawa was to take place when we took the Marines aboard for our trip to the beachhead. The chaplain attached to these Marines was John Ruskin Clark. It was on this trip that I saw and heard the tops of all chaplains. This month just prior to Easter was a long and trying one, and Clark made each service fit the day. . . .
What an ideal time to get across the message of the Crucifixion to young, impressionable men who, on Easter Sunday morning, would leave our ship on such a dangerous mission! That was an Easter parade I shall never forget, and ex-Chaplain Clark will forever be my hero of the Battle of Okinawa. Perhaps the combat photographers would prefer men kneeling at confession, but men in need of spiritual and physical help will always prefer a John Ruskin Clark. . . .
NEIL E. WARREN ex-Lieutenant, U.S.N.R. Pleasant Ridge, Mich.
Abstract Understanding
Sirs:
Artist Crawford was right [when he said .". . . Most people won't understand"]. After studying Test Able [TIME, Dec. 9] for two hours, I'm convinced. . . .
LEONARD V. MILLER
Minneapolis
Sirs:
Bikini explosion? Ha! . . . With artists like that loose, it's no wonder, and a good thing, the camera was invented.
JACK T. DAVIS
Fayetteville, Tenn.
P: Perhaps Readers Miller and Davis will find Abstractionist Crawford's S.S. Nevada-at-Bikini more understandable.--ED.
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