Whose Germany?
Sir:
Your June 9 article on Germany's Kurt Schumacher maintains TIME'S high standards of reporting the international scene. No article has been better presented in its blend of Artzybasheff's cover, the penetrating lead line ("Tiger, Burning Bright"), and factual information on Schumacher's background and present position in Germany . . .
This splendid eye-opener lends all the more weight to a positive, straightforward American foreign policy supporting Western Europe and Adenauer's approach for the new Germany.
ROBERT E. WALSH
Fort Worth, Texas
Sir:
. . . The U.S. may wake up to the fact too late that men like Schumacher are the democracies' most dependable friends in Europe . . . Schumacher may be a fanatic, but considering democracy's slim chances in Germany against the forces of both Communism and Naziism, its champions will have to be fanatics.
KIRK BRYAN, JR.
Cambridge, Mass.
Candidate Taft
Sir:
Seldom, if at all, is the veracity and integrity of Robert A. Taft ever questioned, yet after reading of the Taft Texas steamroller [TIME, June 9], I begin to have my doubts. True enough, Taft himself was not there to help, but his cousin and campaign manager, David Ingalls, was, as well as another man high in the Taft organization, Carroll Reece. These men and the Texas Taftmen will of course be in Taft's favor in the event of his nomination and election. All the time we hear Taft harping on Democratic corruption, and yet by their actions, the Taft organization promises to give us the same type of self-perpetuating corrupt practices . . .
GEORGE A. BROWN
Columbus, Ohio
Sir:
That Texas steamroller was jet propelled, but we don't brag about it down here. We hope to have it dismantled at Chicago.
JOE K. SHOLDIN
Dallas
Sir:
Must the road to the White House be a dirty one? It comes as a shock to me that a man of Mr. Taft's stature and ability should come off the pedestal on which I had placed him and resort to--or allow his manager to resort to--such mudslinging and unfair practices, which are beneath the dignity I always felt inherent in Mr. Taft . . .
J. H. JOHNSON
Alhambra, Calif.
Candidate Eisenhower
Sir:
. . . Just how much of this Pollyanna Eisenhower stuff do we have to take? No man, however noble, could be as naive as Ike is being billed. His backers are not green; they are just as experienced in politics as Taft and his crew. Please know that Mr. & Mrs. U.S.A. have enough brains to realize that Taft and MacArthur are just as high-principled and concerned over the fate of our world as Eisenhower . . .
MERLE LAINE
Los Angeles
Sir:
. . . When a man has unimpeachable character, worldwide popularity, near perfection in personal and diplomatic relationships, social and economic insight, integrity of purpose, political acumen, absolute honesty, would we eliminate him as a presidential candidate, just because he also is a military genius? . . .
C. E. TURNER
Boise, Idaho
Poodles, Pigs, Love, etc.
SIR:
THANK YOU FOR THE EXCELLENT REVIEW [JUNE 16] OF "HOW TO TRAVEL INCOGNITO." MAY I POINT OUT, HOWEVER, THAT I WROTE OTHER BOOKS: "THE DONKEY INSIDE"--ON ECUADOR. "THE BLUE DANUBE"--ON THE MISERY OF GERMANY. "THE BEST OF TIMES"-- ON POSTWAR EUROPE. "FIFl"-- ABOUT A POODLE. "MADELINE"--ABOUT A LITTLE GIRL. "DIRTY EDDY"--ABOUT A PIG. "THE EYE OF GOD"--ABOUT A MOUNTAIN. I SHALL, HOWEVER, HEED YOUR ADVICE. MY NEXT BOOK IS ABOUT LOVE. ITS TITLE: "WITH THE GREATEST OF PLEASURES." LOVE.
LUDWIG BEMELMANS
NEW YORK CITY
Flying Sorcery
Sir:
Your excellent June 9 article on flying saucers must be a great blow to the credulous --particularly the reminder that citizens were seeing mysterious sky ships as early as 1897. An even earlier notice comes from observant Samuel Pepys. In his diary for April 26, 1664, Pepys writes: "Home to the Old Exchange by coach, where great news and true, I saw by written letters, of strange fires seen at Amsterdam in the air--and not only there, but in other places thereabout."
Actually, these celestial phenomena were old stuff even to Tacitus more than 2,000 years ago. He accurately caught the mental climate they flourish in by writing: "Prodigies which were now noised about from various sources increased men's terror. It was said that . . . from the temple of Juno there had rushed forth a form greater than the form of man; that the statue of the Divine Julius, which stands on an island in the Tiber, had turned from the West to the East on a calm and tranquil day ; that an ox had spoken aloud in Etruria . . . besides many other things, such as in barbarous ages are observed even during seasons of peace, but are heard of only in times of terror . . ."
ROBERT S. FOGARTY
New York City
Sir:
My eternal thanks to Dr. Donald Menzel, for he has provided me with the needed ammunition in my battle with my gullible friends. Hitherto, my pooh-poohing of the "space-ship theory" . . . has been backed up only by my feeble guesses that they are caused by the trickery of lights; now, some one theory" who has knows and unmasked can these prove his terrors "light-spot (perhaps from another planet) of the sky . . .
It will be interesting to read the replies to Dr. Menzel from the diehards, especially the devotees of fantastic-story magazines, who prefer to think themselves mentally advanced and would rather continue feeding a fear to themselves and others. I, for one, accept Dr. Menzel's theory . . .
(THE REV.) W. R. BRANDLI
Woodlawn Reformed Church
Brooklyn
Yanks at Oxford
Sir:
Your June 9 article on Oxonians states that Donald Hall is the first American to win the Newdigate Prize for English Verse.
I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the late Professor Franklin McDuffee of Dartmouth also won the Newdigate in 1924 with his poem, Michelangelo.
FREDERICK H. WALLIS
Lieutenant, U.S.N.R.
Laurel, Miss.
Sir:
... Willian Chase Greene, professor of the classics at Harvard, turned the trick [with his prize poem, Richard I Before Jerusalem] as a Rhodes scholar in 1912......
EDWARD ARTIN
Springfield, Mass.
P:TIME erred. Readers Wallis and Artin are right. -- ED.
Rainbows & Mackinaws
Sir:
Those South American trout mentioned in your June 2 story could be used for bait to catch some Priest Lake (Idaho) Mackinaw trout. One recent catch weighed 35 Ibs. . . .
J. H. LYNCH
Spokane
Sir:
. . . Last May and June I fished Titicaca and several of the rivers that flow into it. The lake proper is not too good for trout, but the rivers are out of this world for a trout fisherman. A morning's catch would run ten or twelve rainbow over 25 in. up to 32 in., smaller ones too numerous to count. Would advise the use of casting rod, not fly rod, spoons and 20-lb. nylon lines. There is no fishing on this continent to compare with it.
SYLVESTER LEWIS
Lampasas, Texas
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