Artzybasheff & the Pentagon

Sir:

Americans everywhere, I am sure, will be highly fascinated by Artist Artzybasheff's :over picture of the Pentagon [July 2]. _

This fascination will center about the illusration of the two loose ends of the red tape shown encircling the Pentagonian figure.

We never knew that there was even one end to that red tape--much less two.

RICHARD J. DILLON Madison, Wis.

Sir:

It is assumed that the decorations represent the U.S. Marine Corps.

COMMANDER CHARLES F. HOYT

U.S.N. Pearl Harbor

Sir:

Whether purposely or not, Artist Artzybasheff shows the arm of the Navy as being the only one on top of, not bound up in red tape.

D. R. WHITNEY Portland, Ore.

Sir: I can understand its four stars--might even be five for its five sides. I can understand its command pilot's wings for its flights of fancy. I can even understand its theater ribbons, though the W.W. I is farfetched, its not even having been born then. But why the Purple Heart? When was the Pentagon wounded?

BETTY JOHN Cleveland Heights, Ohio

P:TIME'S Pentagon is not wearing the Purple Heart but the Legion of Merit --which should have been put after the Silver Star instead of ahead of it.--ED.

Not Responsible

Sir:

In the TIME article (June 18), you stated that we had cut off the lights and water in the President's house. This is untrue. I simply notified the utility companies that we would not be responsible for the account after June 30, but that Dr. Wagner could continue to receive the service on his own account if he wished, which, by the way, he did.

JOHN TIEDKE Treasurer Rollins College Winter Park, Fla.

Training Pants & the Pennsy

Sir:

The Pennsylvania Railroad story of July 2 was a blow below the belt . .

The curtailment of unprofitable commuter service is certainly good economics. If revenue traffic does not warrant operating certain "off-peak" trains, their continuance merely throws an added burden on other traffic, both freight and passenger. Is TIME criticizing sound private-enterprise methods?

GEORGE L. WILSON JR. Cynwyd, Pa.

Sir:

I am not prepared to argue about tracks, roadbed, stations or top management of the P.R.R., but I must rise to the defense of the passenger trainmen. They are--at least on the Middle and Pittsburgh Divisions--courteous and helpful gentlemen ... On one occasion I discovered a conductor sending a wire ahead for "training pants" for a distracted mother, whose baggage had not made the train in Pittsburgh. These important articles were placed in her hands at Harrisburg.

H. A. RIDDLE JR. Lewistown, Pa.

Sir:

Last Thursday, June 28, making my first trip in many years on a Pennsylvania Railroad train, I was shocked to find such a drop in standards ... I tried to knit but the car swayed and jerked; I tried to read--the paper jiggled with the wheels; the roadbed was in awful condition. That night I read TIME, and there in print was everything I had experienced to New York and back again. Rough riding, dirty aisles, filthy windows, curt conductor, and no drinking water.

EDITH OGELSBY PEALE Newtown Square, Pa.

Overridden

Sir:

"Hold hard," TIME !

Your caption is wrong for the foxhunting picture of July 2. Your hounds are merely resting in pack with their huntsman and a whipperin.

"Gone away!" has nothing to do with the situation pictured. That cry is used when the hunted fox is seen leaving the covert from which hounds have routed him.

The hounds in your picture will be moved off at a steady trot by a few short notes on the horn, when huntsman is ready to go draw the next covert.

RAYMOND BROWNE New York City

P:Pink-faced TIME, held hard, awards Reader Browne the brush.--ED.

Credit Shifts

Sir:

Your Science article [TIME, June 25] on the work of Humason and the redshift of the nebular spectra is excellent and is interestingly written. However, the story tends to give an inaccurate idea by saying that this effect was "first discovered by Hubble . . . and that on it he based his startling theory of the expanding universe." In reality, I believe you will find that the redshift was first observed by V. M. Slipher of Lowell Observatory. Hubble, however, was the one to notice the law connecting the amount of the shift and the distance of the nebulae.

DR. IRA M. FREEMAN

Department, of Natural Sciences, UNESCO Paris, France

Sir:

... Is it not true that the theory of the "expanding universe," or "exploding universe," was developed by Abbe G. Lemaitre, a Belgian priest?

L. V. DEGNAN

San Francisco

P:There had been many mathematical theories suggesting the possibility of an expanding universe, but Hubble's law gave the first firm evidence from observed data.--ED.

Great Hope

Sir:

In the June 25 issue of TIME, your magazine [refers to] ". . . crag-faced Republican Hugh Roy Cullen (who hoped MacArthur would run for President) . . ."

I never told anyone, as your magazine stated, that I hoped General MacArthur would run for President. Nor did I discuss any political matters with the general while in New York or while in Texas. The fact of the matter is I have a great hope that we will have peace and that I will have an opportunity to work and vote for General Ike Eisenhower for President; for it is my belief that he has the respect of nearly all of our citizens in both the Democratic and Republican parties . . .

H. R. CULLEN Houston

Malacca Henry, Circumnavigator

Sir:

Regarding the controversy between patriotic Spaniards and the Festival of Britain as to who was the first man to sail around the world [TIME, July 2]: Leonard Outhwaite, in Unrolling the Map, published in 1935, says that "the first individual known to history to have passed around the world was a treacherous East Indian slave" known as Malacca Henry. Magellan bought him when he was in the East with Almeida between 1504 and 1512 and took him back to Spain. Magellan made this voyage by traveling eastward from Portugal. When he made his great voyage he sailed westward, taking Malacca Henry with him. Thus, when Malacca Henry arrived once more in his native region, he had been around the world although Magellan's men had not yet finished their circumnavigation.

ROBERT P. LUDLUM President Blackburn College

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