Gandhi's New England Ideas

Sir: TIME [June 30] failed to credit Henry D. Thoreau's essay, Civil Disobedience, for the policy of Gandhi. Thoreau, native advocate of the anarchist ideal who practiced it and went to jail, is known to his fellow Americans merely as a "nature writer." His short essay was published and sowed broadcast in the U.S. by fanatical anarchists of the Emma Goldman period without any effect whatever on our affairs. Not until the essay fell into the hands of Gandhi did the seed sprout to shake the British Empire. OTTO McFEELY Oak Park, Ill.

Sir: . . . [You] failed to point out that Gandhi is in a real sense a spiritual child of New England. In the very first chapter of The Kingdom of God Is Within You, which Gandhi read with such avidity in his South African days, Tolstoy refers to ... The Catechism of Non-Resistance, written by the Rev. Adin Ballou (1803-1890), who more than 100 years ago founded and became the first president of Hopedale (Socialist) Community in Hopedale, Mass. . . . Gandhi's "passive resistance" is just Ballou's "nonresistance" under another name. LEWIS O. HARTMAN Resident Bishop Methodist Church Boston

P: Gandhi has read many a book. In his autobiography, where he called Tolstoy's book on of the two most important in his life, he wrote: "The one book that brought about an instantaneous and practical transformation in my life was [Ruskin's] Unto This Last."--ED.

Young Henry

Sir: Thanks ... are due to TIME for reporting the uncovering of a hitherto unknown portrait of that interesting monarch, Henry VIII [TIME, June 30]. . . . TIME slipped, however, in stating that the English collector [Stannard] had "rescued from oblivion Henry's earliest known portrait." There is a quite authentic and well-known "Portrait of Henry VIII as a Child" [see cut) which antedates the portrait in question by some 15 years. The childhood portrait, made about 1494 by an unknown artist, has in recent years belonged to the collection of the Verney family at Rhianva, Anglesey, England. It shows that even as a child of four, Henry displayed that heavy jowl and petulant mouth which Holbein the Younger was later to immortalize on canvas. FRANKLIN M. WRIGHT Ithaca, N.Y.

P: British Collector Stannard's dealer sticks to his story: that his portrait of Henry is the earliest authenticated one. The National Portrait Gallery sits firmly on the fence.--ED.

Guided Missiles

Sir: I was quite surprised to see a review of [my] article on guided missiles, which was published in the Marine Corps Gazette, in TIME for June 23. It is presented in the usual excellent TIME manner; however, there are three points which I would like to clarify: The caption "PushButton War" is looked upon unfavorably by scientists, engineers and military men in general. . . . Although the problem of propulsion is generally more advanced than that of guidance and control, it is by no means [true that] "Power supply is no problem." The suggestion that "Bat" and "Loon" are the only guided missiles to have passed the blueprint stage is not quite correct. There are several projects that have entered the test phase, but of course no elaboration on any such projects can be given because of the security regulations vital to national defense. The conservative and factual presentation made by TIME is representative of the high type of journalism necessary in the development of a program of this nature. . . . KEITH B. MCCUTCHEON Lieut. Colonel, U.S.M.C. Washington, D.C.

Sir: Your crack, "if the war is staved off long enough," referring to World War III in an article describing guided missiles, is, I hope, not indicative of an editorial state of mind among TIME writers. This type of lighthearted cynicism ... can lead us all directly to destruction Wilmette, Ill.

P: Reader Pope will strain his eyes looking for cynical cracks in deadly serious copy.--ED.

Dr. Johnson to Mr. Lee

Sir: . . . According to your statement of Clark Lee, made in his new book, the Army doctor asked who had moved Tojo . . . causing blood to gush from his wounds [TIME, June 16]. The Army doctor mentioned in this article asked no such question. Blood had not gushed from Tojo's wound. Neither did that doctor commend the gentlemen of the press for moving Tojo, nor did he make such an erroneous statement as, "If that blood hadn't drained out, it would have filled his lungs and drowned him." Nothing could have been further from the truth if it had happened. . . . I know these things to be facts. I was that doctor. JAMES B. JOHNSON JR., M.D. Newark, Ohio

Old Ivy

Sir: You stated that Princeton University is "the fourth oldest college in the U.S." [TIME, June 30].

The Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year . . . shows the following eight schools as having been founded in the year indicated: 1) Harvard--1636, 2) William & Mary--1693, 3) Yale--1701, 4) University of Pennsylvania--1740, 5) Princeton--1746, 6) Washington & Lee--1749, 7) Columbia--1754, 8) Brown--1764. This puzzles me. . . . RICHARD H. MILLER Washington, D.C.

P: The key to this old ivy puzzle is the University of Pennsylvania. Penn dates its founding from 1740 and the erection of a building which eleven years later opened '"for the instruction of poor Children gratis in Reading, Writing and Arithmetick." The Academy and Charitable School, as it was originally titled, was actually chartered as a college in 1755.--ED.

Fine Distinction

Sir: VERY GRATEFUL AND FLATTERED WONDERFUL WRITE-UP [TIME, JUNE 23]. WOULD BE HAPPY IF YOU COULD MAKE FOLLOWING RECTIFICATION*; PROUVOST WAS MY PUBLISHER, NOT COLLABORATOR, AND HE DID NOT WORK UNDER NAZIS BUT IN UNOCCUPIED ZONE. Pierre Lazareff Paris

P: Publisher Prouvost was Vichy Information Minister. Some people make a fine distinction between Vichy and the Nazis.--ED.

* To statement that Paris-Soir Editor Lazareff "left Paris when the Germans arrived; his collaborator, Jean Prouvost, stayed on and worked under the Nazis."

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