Same Old Cake
Sir:
"Upton Sinclair, his radical grip long since relaxed . . ." [TIME, Dec. 15].
How very unkind; and the more so since it isn't true. In the story of my "ubiquitous wonder boy, Lanny Budd" I have been putting a bit more icing on the cake than I used to, but if you bite underneath you will find that it is exactly the same cake that I have been baking for nearly a half-century. Its ingredients are the abolition of parasitism and exploitation of man by man, and their consequences of poverty and war. Some day you will eat that cake and like it. ...
UPTON SINCLAIR
Monrovia, Calif.
>TIME likes homemade bread better than store .cake.--ED.
Sparkler
Sir:
Never in my three-year subscription to your effervescent publication have I seen or read such a sparkling bit of satire as the one entitled "The Last Traffic Jam" [TIME, Dec. 15]....
FRANK J. LANGSDALE
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Protested Pratfall
Sir:
In TIME'S issue of Dec. 1 . . . you publish: "A Royal Pratfall."
I protest! I protest against the expressions used with regard to our Crown Princess Juliana: "Plump Princess Juliana . . . [danced] the conga. . . . She slipped, and stayed down, while [the Duke of Gloucester] tried to tug her up. . . ."
It seems highly improbable that: 1) our Crown Princess would dance the conga, and 2) that this vulgar dance would be allowed at Buckingham Palace. . . .
But what most goes against the grain . . . is the vulgar and contemptuous way your correspondent expresses himself. . . .
MRS. M. BOUMAN-OVER
The Hague, The Netherlands
> TIME reported the vulgar facts.--ED.
Push-Button Learning
Sir:
If John W. Studebaker's Commission on Life Adjustment Education for Youth [TIME, Dec. 15] really takes itself seriously, it should delete the word "Education" from its impressive title. If the group's goal is to see that our nation's youth is equipped merely with such utilitarian skills as the secrets of job hunting, the intricacies of homemaking, the mysteries of "practical" English, and the essentials of physical fitness, then we as a nation have no right to call ourselves an educated people. . . .
A person trained in a few practical skills is not an educated person, nor is he necessarily "life-adjusted." Only through a solid acquaintance with the humanities can we expect to retain a true perspective of life and of the world in which we live. To reject the so-called "impractical" subjects in our high schools is to deny our cultural heritage. . . . It is tantamount to admitting . . . that learning, as far as we in America are concerned, is nothing more than a quick method for discovering which button to push and when to push it.
ANSON C. PIPER
Madison, Wis.
Sir:
How well I remember the dreary and profitless hours studying Latin, literature, history and other inane and dry subjects. And in college a continuation of the same program. What a waste of my time. Much better it would have been had I been taken out of school at the age of 14 and put to work and tried out at various vocations to discover what pleased me; and if I found I needed more book learning, then, and only then, I could return to the proper school to learn what I needed, instead of being filled with a lot of useless junk that the educational experts thought I should be filled with.
D. DAVIDSON
Chicago, Ill.
Fluttering Soprano
Sir:
Under "Antics at the Met" [TIME, Dec. 8], your critic makes note of Soprano Erna Schleuter's "sickening, undulating vibrato." No doubt what he meant was a ... tremolo.
A vibrato is a regular movement in the voice . . . coming from an off-&-on impulse of the diaphragm in tension. ... A tremolo is a very irregular movement in the voice . . . deriving from a fluttering movement of the tongue. As this movement grows worse it includes the jaw, larynx and, in advanced cases, the entire head. . . .
MRS. EARLE R. SNOW JR.
Albany, N.Y.
> Soprano Schleuter did not seem to be suffering all over.--ED.
Pipeful
Sir:
You quote Mr. Alfred Nessler of Schenectady as holding the world's record for keeping his pipe alight without relighting for 87 minutes 55 seconds [TIME, Nov. 24].
I should like to state that, this afternoon, I kept my pipe alight, without relighting, for 113 1/2 minutes--witnessed by my wife.
My pipe is not abnormal; bowl dimensions are:
Internal diameter of bowl: 0.9 in.
Maximum depth of bowl: 1.3 in.
I'm sorry to put Mr. Nessler's "small" effort to shame!
T. P. IRWIN
Arbroath, Scotland
Paul (Bob Hope) Revere
Sir:
Have any of your other readers called attention to the remarkable resemblance which John Singleton Copley's portrait of 18th
Century Silversmith Paul Revere [TIME, Dec. 1] . . . bears to 20th Century Jokesmith Bob Hope? . . .
H. M. ALLISON
Hingham, Mass.
> Yes, ten others.--ED.
Up, Fine Gael!
Sir:
I read with interest the article on the rise of Sean McBride in Irish politics [TIME, Dec. 1].
Very few people in Ireland regret the election of Mr. McBride to Parliament for they recognize his personal ability, but they do fear any further successes for his party, for they consist almost entirely of discontented left-wing De Valera-ites or members of the Irish Republican Army, which openly backed Germany during the war.
McBride and De Valera have one thing in common: they both profess to believe in a Republican Ireland isolated and cut off from the rest of the world; and most of the young people in the country are anxious to see Eire take its stand with the U.S. and Great Britain in their effort to create better world conditions. . . .
Fine Gael will be the only party which can offer the electorate a team of educated men of ability sufficient in number to form a responsible government, and they are the only party which stands for wholehearted cooperation with the U.S., Great Britain, and the other countries of the United Nations. . . .
JOHN HARDING
Trinity College Dublin, Eire
Top Four
Sir:
The article about Nicholas Murray Butler [TIME, Dec. 15] stated that the faculty of Columbia University is among the nation's four best. Can you report the names of the other universities that rank with Columbia
HERBERT RAUCH
Teaneck, NJ.
> Harvard, Chicago and California.--ED.
Unbearable
Sir:
. . . You published a letter from another John Kafka on behalf of bears and criticizing humans [TIME, Nov. 24]. I wish to disassociate myself from this letter, which has embarrassed me. . . .
My family and I have been pestered by large numbers of bears hanging around our house lately. This situation is becoming unbearable, as more appear each day. . . .
JOHN KAFKA
Flushing, N.Y.
> Bears please note.--ED.
Exception
Sir:
TIME'S PRESS EDITOR GIVES EXCELLENT ACCOUNT NEWSPRINT-HUNGRY FLEET STREET [TIME, DEC. 15] BUT ERRS GRIEVOUSLY IN SWEEPING STATEMENT "U.S. NEWS RARELY MAKES THE FRONT PAGES UNLESS IT IS SUCH MUSICOMEDY STUFF AS THE 'HOLLYWOOD HEARINGS."' IN 78 ISSUES OF THE LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH PUBLISHED BETWEEN SEPT. 11 AND DEC. 10 AMERICAN NEWS APPEARED ON FRONT PAGE ON 71 DIFFERENT DAYS. SOMETIMES THERE WERE SEVERAL AMERICAN STORIES ON FRONT PAGE. . . . HARDLY ANY OF THEM DEALT WITH THE HOLLYWOOD HEARINGS. . . .
ALEX FAULKNER
New York Correspondent
New York City The Daily Telegraph
> TIME'S editor-in-charge-of-Sweeping-Statements insists that the exceptional Telegraph, now covering the U.S. with eight correspondents, merely proves the Fleet Street rule.--ED.
Rope Tricks
Sir:
All of us here on Bear Creek Valley Ranch read with deep interest your piece on Bob Kleberg and the great King Ranch [TIME, Dec. 15].
We were particularly interested in the line: "As a calf high-tailed it for the mesquite brush, the nimble cow ponies always outran it; a vaquero's lasso snaked out and around its neck, brought it thudding to the ground." Up here in the Hereford country of the Missouri Ozarks, no vaquero would drop his rope over a calf's neck for fear of general ridicule by everybody in the valley; if he could not get a clean throw at its front feet, he would settle for the hind feet.
JESSE GEORGE MURRAY
Spokane, Mo.
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