During the past month hundreds of you have written us about TIME'S story on Marian Anderson (Dec. 30). Seldom, if ever, has a story in TIME evoked such a wide and warm response. For those of you who wrote in, and for those who didn't, the following may serve to answer some of your inquiries and comments:

As most of you know, TIME'S Christmas cover and story, like our Man of the Year, has become an institution with us. With a few exceptions, like the wartime covers of Generals Douglas MacArthur and the late Lesley McNair, it has been a religious cover. This year, the choice of Marian Anderson, a great singer and a great Christian, seemed eminently fitting.

The choice was made finally in late November, and the story turned over to TIME'S Special Projects department, a division set up last year to fill a long felt need by Managing Editor T. S. Matthews. Its function is to handle well in advance of publication certain stories which by their nature obviously require a particular seriousness and deliberation of treatment not always possible in the hurly-burly of reporting the week's news of the world [e.g., Laurence Olivier in Henry V (TIME, April 8), Iowa Farmer Gus Kuester (TIME, April 29), Eugene O'Neill (TIME, Oct. 21)].

Clearly, the Marian Anderson cover was a Special Project. In fact, the Senior Editor in charge decided to write the story himself. The preliminary work involved talks with Miss Anderson, her mother, friends, teachers, impresarios, etc.' But the important work was done, the writer claims, one afternoon when he shut himself up with a phonograph and a heap of records of Negro spirituals and played them over & over.

The story he wrote was hailed as a moving and beautifully expressed tribute to Marian Anderson and Negro Americans. This response came from Protestants and Catholics alike. The Inter-Racial Department of the Institute of Social Order (a group of Jesuit priests dedicated to improving the social order in America) has asked permission to reprint up to 100,000 copies of the story for distribution throughout the U.S. G. Bromley Oxnam, Methodist Bishop of New York, was moved to write: "To me, this is journalism at a high level. It is the finest statement of the case against racial discrimination that I have read, in addition to being a splendid revelation of the heart and mind of a distinguished artist."

Of the many expressions of approval, this tone was typical: ". . . an appeal to the finer sensibilities of thinking people . . ."; "it inspired in me a spirit of exaltation and rededication . . ."; "as, you say, 'religion informs art and makes it greater than itself,' so may religion inform journalism. . . ." Reader Carl G. Doney, E president emeritus of Willamette University, probably summed it up best, in saying: "Most of all we are grateful to Miss Anderson for what she is and what she does."

Because, in general, TIME'S group journalism makes it difficult to assign ultimate credit for a single TIME story among those responsible for it (reporter, researcher, writer, editor, etc.), TIME'S longstanding rule is seldom, if ever, to divulge the authorship of a story. In this case, so many of you have wanted to know the author that TIME has decided to break the rule. Speculating on the authorship of the Marian Anderson story, Marjorie Kinnan (The Yearling) Rawlings wrote: "My belated obeisances for the magnificent story on Marian Anderson. It was so beautifully written (my guess would be Whittaker Chambers) and gave such a spiritual lift." Novelist Rawlings guessed right.

Cordially,

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