What Would You Do?

Sir:

In your story about Dr. Gisella Perl, who aborted women prisoners in Nazi camps to save them from the gas chambers [TIME, Sept. 20], you omitted [a point] of great importance. Many of these women became pregnant because they were raped by the prison guards, who then had to conceal their violation of their own "racial purity" laws by killing the defenseless women. It is easy for shocked moralists, safe in this country, to condemn Dr. Perl. One wonders how nobly moral they would be if their own wives & daughters were in a similar situation.

MORREY HAEL

New York City

Sir:

... As regards Dr. Perl's [being] "sentimental and well-meaning," and Dr. Deutschman's condemnation of her "wholesale slaughter of infants," I cannot but wonder about Dr. Deutschman's pretentiousness in passing judgment on the doctor's morals . . . Presumably, it would have been a happier choice to put the mothers to death before the children were born, [or] should the camp authorities consent to exceptions ... to raise children with the prospects of starvation, medical experimentation, permanent physical and mental mutilation . . .

SUSAN V. SPADER

New York, City

Sir:

In all the theological haggling over the virtue or sin of Dr. Perl, no one seems to have noted that the unborn babies were doomed in any event . . .

DOROTHY MCKALSON

San Francisco, Calif.

Cover Girl

Sir:

Ana Pauker [TIME, Sept. 20] is no cover girl--not even for the rankest Communist's money ... I have felt that to make the cover of TIME should be somewhat of an honor. Surely we must have in our own country true Americans [who] could more profitably take up the time of your capable artists . .

CHARLES F. RODGERS

Detroit, Mich.

Sir:

Your article on Ana Pauker makes one weep for humanity.

DAVID WHITE

Kansas City, Mo.

Sir:

The story is told concerning certain foolhardy Athenians who had the misfortune to look the wicked Medusa squarely in the face --they were turned instantly into stone. I think TIME readers all over the world, who might today be stalagmites, should thank your cover artist for painting Comrade Ana Pauker's features in profile.

ANTHONY CHRISTO

Greencastle, Ind.

Better Than the Worst

Sir:

In answer to your question "What's the matter with U.S. stamps?" [TIME, Sept. 20], I believe that most serious-minded collectors object not to the number of different stamps issued this year, but, rather, to the things or occasions for which some of them are being issued.

It's true that all of this year's new issues are not Rembrandts . . . but I still feel that the general run of U.S. stamps is far superior to the general run of stamps of any foreign country for beauty and design. Our worst are far better than their worst; our best are far better than their best . . .

RALPH D. WILLIAMS

Batavia, N.Y.

Sir:

We know that Postmaster General Donaldson's hands are tied. The one Postmaster General who has risen from the ranks--a laudable appointment--finds himself harried by the demands of provincial politicians . . . Let us see ... if he will turn to Paul Sample, Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses, and other greats, to give us designs depicting the American Scene which we love.

EDWARD KAUFMAN

President

Beverly Hills Philatelic Society

Los Angeles, Calif.

"Mumble-Jumble"

Sir:

I wish to take this opportunity of expressing my objection to the tone of your article concerning Monsignor Ronald Knox's book The Mass in Slow Motion [TIME, Sept. 20]. I have always enjoyed and appreciated the light vein in which you presented our erstwhile serious world affairs, but as a Catholic I wish to affirm that the Mass is a very sacred subject to us, and to hear it alluded to as a "mumble-jumble" is not only disedifying but most revolting.

MRS. EVA K. TALBOT

Huntington, N.Y.

Reader Talbot's complaint should have been directed to Msgr. Knox. Sample passage from The Mass in Slow Motion: "When there are priests in choir, you know, they are supposed to mumble all this part of the Mass to one another while the priest is getting through it at the altar."--ED.

Sir:

The Mass may, indeed, be "mysterious" to Protestants, but if it is "mumble-jumble and "mysterious" to Catholics they have only themselves to blame. Priests from pulpits and Sisters in classrooms have talked themselves hoarse in an effort to induce these "many Catholics" and their children to use the Mass Missal . . .

ROBERT BRIZZOLARA

Chicago, 111.

Novel Doctrine?

Sir:

IF MY EXPOSING THE DICTATORSHIP WHICH HAS ENSLAVED THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE FOR 30 YEARS MERITS MY BEING LABELED BY YOU A RUSSOPHOBE [TIME, SEPT. 20], THEN ALEXANDER KERENSKY, WHOSE FIGHT FOR RUSSIA'S FREEDOM I HAVE SUPPORTED ALL MY LIFE, MUST ALSO BE REGARDED AS A RUSSOPHOBE. AND WILLIAM C. BULLITT, WHOSE UNMASKING OF THE CHICANERY AND TREACHERY OF COMMUNIST POLICY HAS PARALLELED MINE, MUST ALSO BE BRANDED A RUSSOPHOBE. IN FACT ANYONE WHO SIDES WITH RUSSIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES AGAINST THE SOVIET SATRAPS SHOULD BE BY YOUR DEFINITION A RUSSOPHOBE--A NOVEL DOCTRINE FOR A MAGAZINE WHICH COMMUNISTS DESCRIBE AS RUSSOPHOBE.

ISAAC DON LEVINE

Editor

Plain Talk

New York City

TIME'S branding iron slipped. If Editor Levine is a Russophobe, so is TIME.--ED.

Veteran Newcomer

Sir:

In TIME [Sept. 20] there is an article about "Bootsie" (Mrs. McDonnell Cassini Hearst) which goes on to say that she has welcomed another newcomer to the Hearst fold . . . You state that the column is ghostwritten. I write my own column. I do not have a ghost writer. I have Mr. Charles Gentry, who helps me get news, types my copy, and goes to some places for me as I can't be in two places at the same time. In the second place, you said it started without a byline for the first few days. I had a byline from the very beginning . . . [But] your reporter is quite right when he calls me a veteran; I am a grandmother, too.

COBINA WRIGHT SR. Beverly Hills, Calif.

TIME erred, apologizes to Columnist

Wright.--ED.

History `a la Lanny Budd

Sir:

Many thanks for your amusing review of One Clear Call [TIME, Sept. 6]. When a reviewer reads 6,237 pages by an author, he is entitled to gratitude, and not to be blamed if he gets a little tired before he reaches the end.

All I wish to comment on is the first sentence: "Despite an almost universal and merciless drubbing by critics, the first eight Lanny Budd novels of Upton Sinclair sold 1,340,139 copies in the U.S. . . ."

Not long ago I happened to reread Mark Twain's magnificent annihilation of Fenimore Cooper's Leather stocking Tales. Mark Twain proves that the books contain about every kind of literary and historical absurdity imaginable; but in my youth I read these tales with delight, and so probably did you, and so probably are thousands of persons doing at this moment.

Nobody has ever pointed out any historical errors in the Lanny books, and I will venture to put on record the prediction that students in high schools will be learning their history of the first and second World Wars from these books long after TIME has ceased to be.

UPTON SINCLAIR

Monrovia, Calif.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.