Man of the Year
Sir:
TIME'S definition of Man of the Year is "the man who had the biggest rise in fame during the year, and who, more than anyone else, changed the news for better or worse."
The man whose picture should appear on your cover of Jan. 5, 1948 is Secretary of State George C. Marshall.
The year 1947 spotlighted his rise to fame from military genius to the even nobler role of defender of human democracy, and the inspiring plan which bears his name is 1947-8 most effective challenge to the Russian threat of world domination.
JULIUS M. WESTHEIMER
Baltimore
Sir:
... I'd like to nominate as, far & away, the Man of the Year--President Harry S. Truman.
N. RIVES RUTHERFORD Cincinnati
Sir:
I wish to nominate Arturo Toscanini .. .because he is the greatest living musician. ... He sets the ultimate in standards for musicians and music lovers throughout the world.
HAROLD REIF Portland, Ore.
Sir:
Can you again deny him the honor . . . ? I nominate for 1947 the man who rates above everyone else in the world, as measured by all the tests of time, General Douglas MacArthur.
BERNARD K. FRANK Portland, Ore.
Sir:
. . . My nomination is Mr. Burt Shotton, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In demonstrating that the vulgar crudities . . . are not, essentially, an integral part of a winning baseball team, Mr. Shotton has given a renewed respect, a freshened impulse, to our National Pastime.
W. R. PUFFER
El Segundo, Calif.
Sir:
... I should like to nominate Senator Vandenberg. ... He stands so much taller than his colleagues in the Senate as an exponent of good statesmanship and political honesty. . . .
The weight of his influence in Washington has reacted in world affairs as a well-balanced governor. . . .
VICTOR J. BEISSINGER
Los Angeles
Sir:
. . . Because of his splendid record in the Senate, my candidate is Senator Robert A. Taft. . . .
If the G.O.P. has the courage to nominate this able, conscientious, capable statesman as their 1948 presidential candidate, they can count on at least one vote from a Texas Democrat.
JOHN B. POLHEMUS Houston
Sir:
... I nominate Yehudi Menuhin. This artist has shown by his words and actions such a sane outlook upon the affairs of this world that he puts to shame the managers of our international life. He teaches a lesson that . . . tolerance is a two-way street--that the hand of friendship must be stretched out to all men of good will--and not only to those that you particularly approve of. ...
HERBERT W. MUELLER Los Angeles
Sir:
. . . Secretary of State, George C. Marshall.
SERAFINE PANCHERI JR. Iron Mountain, Mich.
The Killers
Sir:
The tremendously gripping five-line story of the three tame bear cubs from the Denver zoo, let loose in the Rockies, that sat up before hunters, begged them for peanuts and were shot by them [TIME, Nov. 3], should not have come under the headline "Americana" but "The World, 20 centuries after Christ." Apparently, killing animals (like killing people) is something as natural today as it had been 10,000 years ago. . . .
JOHN KAFKA
New York City J
Rough Reading
Sir:
All plaudits to TIME for your expose of the Navajo Indian situation [TIME, Nov. 3]. . . . We here in New Mexico know you have depicted a true picture. . . .
ALFORD Roos
Central, N.Mex.
Sir:
. . . Brother, that is damned rough reading. You report that 25-30,000 of my own fellow Americans, who are disfranchised politically, are facing malnutrition and starvation during the winter now approaching. So, all government propaganda and all government giving to Europe to the contrary--it can happen here! . . .
CHESTER E. MILES Washington, D.C.
Sir:
... If your correspondent is presenting the straight goods, and I believe he is, then I, as one of this country's well-meaning, nonthinking citizens, bow my head in shame. . . .
I am enclosing a check for $25. It is not much. But don't send it back. Give it to a mission society having work out there, or spend it for propaganda. Do something. . . .
E. S. PALMERTON, M.D. Albert Lea, Minn.
Sir:
. . . My check for $5.00 is enclosed. . . . THOMAS W. DUNN Lieutenant, U.S.N.R. Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Sir:
Would TIME Magazine, which has already done so much to make us a better and juster people, consent to transmit the enclosed $5 to the cold and starving Navajo Indians? May it bring my 100% fellow Americans a little of our Hawaiian sunshine this winter.
GOTTFRIED SEITZ Honolulu
P: The six contributions so far received by TIME have been sent to Navajo Assistance Inc., Box 106, Gallup, N.Mex. Readers may also send contributions to J. M. Stewart, Superintendent of the Navajo Reservation, Window Rock, Arizona.
Public aid will be given, too. The Indian Commissioner has asked the Bureau of the Budget for an emergency fund of $300,000 (for submission to the special session of Congress), and the Social Security Board has ordered New Mexico and Arizona state Social Security agencies to accept 11,000 Indian cases or face the loss of $7,000,000 in federal matching funds.--ED.
Radiation Protection
Sir:
Please permit me to correct a confusion of terms which appeared in TIME, Nov. 3, under the title "A Geiger Counter for Everybody. "The gadget" which is there described is not a Geiger counter but an ionization chamber type of meter. The distinction is ... vital for the proper protection ... of persons who are exposed to radiation. . . .
It is well known that all radioactive radiations, including gamma rays and X rays, are in the form of separate particles. The Geiger counter counts them one for one, as one would count the pages in a book. However, some types of particles may easily be ten or more times as damaging to the tissues of the body as others. . . .
The ionization chamber, on the other hand, has a response that is proportional to the ionization that the particles produce in passing through the chamber. . . . The response is therefore proportional to the potential body damage. This must be true in any health protection meter that really protects.
Incidentally, a much more widely used and better-known relative of the meter that you described in the article is the Gamma Ray Pocket Dosimeter. Latest models are no b.rger than a fountain pen. They are worn with a clip in the pocket, and indicate at any time during the day the total quantity of radiation that the wearer has absorbed and so whether it is safe to continue at work. (DR.) O. G. LANDSVERK Chicago
P:TIME'S thanks to Dr. Landsverk, and a Dosimeter to the Science editor.--ED.
Passing Thoughts
Sir:
Three cheers for your cover story of Michigan's Bob Chappuis [TIME, Nov. 3] . . . Reading about Michigan coach & players was like sitting at the training table & listening to them talk shop. .
MICHAEL MILTON Detroit
Sir:
. . You state that Bob Chappuis of Michigan is the best passer "in 1947 collegiate football." ... In five games your champion completed 19 passes, five of them for touchdowns. . .
According to official statistics released Oct. 30 by the National Collegiate Athletic Bureau, Charles Conerly (playing his last year for the University of Mississippi Rebels) in the first six games of the 1947 season completed 69 passes, ten for touchdowns. . . .
Not only does Conerly of Ole Miss rank as the nation's most successful passer, but he is first in total yardage gained--passing and rushing. . . . [Also] he has taken part in 61% of all Rebel plays to date. His defensive play has been as outstanding as his offensive. . . .
You and Michigan can have Chappuis. We want Conerly for the Ole Miss Rebels, and for 1947 All American.
TOM CULLEY MORTON KING
Oxford, Miss.
P: TIME would like very much to have "Chunkin' Charley" Conerly in its backfield (and his pass-catching teammate, ex-West Pointer Barney Poole, at left end). But neither TIME nor Michigan is trading off Bob Chappuis, who holds the alltime passing record in the Big Nine, as tough a league as there is.--ED.
Average Britons?
Sir:
The diatribes of Messrs. Hindle and Yates in the Nov. 3 issue of TIME cause one's temperature to rise, until one realizes that such chaps are the unfortunate victims of the beating England took and has taken during and since the war--only to come through unconquered. They should not be held responsible for such mental gyrations.
No one with a scintilla of intelligence can believe that we like wars which take the best of our youth; that we like to throw away good money in support of an economic philosophy which we are certain will lead to England's and our own loss; that we like the hatred of the rest of the world because we are fortunate enough to be able to help other nations out of their difficulties; that we are proud of the destructive characteristics of the atomic bomb. . . . The fact that our acts redound to our advantage at times is hardly a just excuse for vilification . . .
JOHN MONTGOMERY MAHON Harrisburg, Pa.
Sir:
... I am fully in accord with Mr. Yates's statement that: "The average Briton . . . would much prefer to starve quietly than see our loathsome, contemptible politicians conniving with you to tie us up for generations with the dollar loans ..." I only wish there were more average Britons.
W. C. METZ Sioux City, Iowa
Sir:
. . . We Anglo-Saxon Americans still retain a warm regard for what we knew as England. But that was a fighting and not a whining England. We think that it is England's tragedy when Englishmen accuse us of wanting to use England as our shield in a war with Russia. What kind of a shield would England make? Unless she gets up off her spiritual fanny, she will be a minor province of the Russian Empire--and soon.
E. P. WILSON
St. Joseph, Mo.
Sir:
May I apologize, on behalf of the British people, for the ill-mannered and ill-conceived attacks . . . made by Messrs. Kindle & Yates? . . .
Windbags exist in every country. Please ignore these two.
ANDREW BOYD London
Teaching Standards
Sir:
The 67% average made by Colorado teachers on a history examination [TIME, Nov. 3] does not surprise me. . . .
. . . Teachers' colleges stress psychology, teaching methods--all kinds of high-powered hooey . . . but give little attention to the subject matter which they may later have to teach.
Yet I found when I first stood before a class that the first requisite of a teacher was that he know more than the pupil. Some teachers don't.
I believe that higher pay for teachers when given as blanket increases will do little to increase their knowledge or efficiency. Higher pay and promotion should be based on ability --on results.
And to determine results, why not scholastic as well as athletic competition between schools? . . .
A. E. CORNELL Tunkhannock, Pa.
When Is Indian Summer?
Sir:
TIME for Nov. 3: "Never in the memory of a living New Englander had there been such an Indian summer."
TIME is correct, because Indian summer never comes until November. My authorities are many, but they all seem to root back to the first mention of Indian summer in poetry in the poem October's Address by Philip Freneau (1752-1832), published in a collection of his poems in 1815:
. . . An orange hue the grove assumes, The Indian-summer days appear; When that deceitful summer comes Be sure to hail the winter near: If autumn wears a mourning coat Be sure, to keep the mind afloat.
The flowers have dropt, their blooms are
gone,
The herbage is no longer green; The birds are to their haunts withdrawn, The leaves are scatter'd through the plain; The sun approaches Capricorn,* And man and creature looks forlorn. . . .
[This] places Indian summer pretty well into November. We have always figured it began Nov. 13 in The Old Farmer's Almanac.
ROBB SAGENDORPH
Publisher
The Old Farmer's Almanac Dublin, N.H.
Sir:
. . . John Kiernan in Footnotes on Nature says: "It's a curious thing that so many persons mark Indian summer far too early on their calendars. They place it in late September or any part of October, but the real Indian summer comes late in November, and may even lap over into the first week in December." . . .
J. SELLERS BANCROFT
Wilmington
*In 1947 the sun enters Capricorn Dec. 22 at 11:43 a.m.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.