The U.S. Negro

Sir: Thank you for your splendid survey of the Negro in America [TIME, May 11]. As a Negress, still in my 205,1 am old enough to remember prejudice here in New York. Now, as one of three stenographers in a firm in the Wall Street area, I am accepted as "one of the gang." I still encounter certain prejudices --people move to other seats at some lunch counters, I can't buy a girdle at one store near my office, and occasionally I hear the word "nigger . . ." However, I must leave my position in three weeks since I am pregnant--and I have been refused admission to four hospitals in Manhattan. Yet, one of these hospitals admitted a friend at the identical time I will be due.

Yes, prejudice still exists, even in New York, but we have come a long way . . .

(MRS.) DOROTHY PHYLISS JOHNSON

New York City

Sir:

Your article filled my heart with appreciation, confidence, assurance and gratitude . . .

I have confidence complete in the democratic form of government, in spite of a U.S. naval officer telling me once that "it was my hard luck for being born black . . ."

GEORGE FOWLER Washington, B.C.

Sir:

... It is the best thing I have read in years. I must admit, as a clergyman in a white church, that I had to say "Ouch!" It was not easy to read: "Negroes must slowly , wrest from their white fellows . . .the privilege of praying in a white, church" [and] "11 o'clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of American life." In defense of the church, may I say . . . the American nation must not forget that the best and the highest principles in our country exist because we maintain a Christian society.

Without this atmosphere the Negro would have little chance to raise himself up. I still hope, however, the day will come when our white churches can practice the brotherhood they preach.

(THE REV.) W. A. HAUPT The First Methodist Church Sylvania, Ohio Sir: By no stretch of the imagination can "separate but equal" facilities become a reality.

The easiest way to perpetuate inequalities is to maintain separate systems. Anyone who adopts the "Uncle Tom" tactics of Booker T.

Washington will be a modern "Uncle Tom." If the basis of the "Negro problem" were moral, the conscience of the white American would have died long ago from maltreatment of a prolonged malignant illness. Not a sense of moral justice, but internal national crises, intensified by international events, are accountable for the past decade of progress.

RALPH E. JONES New York City Sir: Reams of praise for your factual, concise and interesting article--too long a subject hush-hushed and regarded with apathy . . .

JAMES A. GIBBS Philadelphia

Sir: . . . Black or white, Americans owe it to themselves to read your article. They also owe TIME a 21-gun salute for it.

WILLIAM LOEB

Memphis

Portrait of an Indian

Sir:

It was uplifting to see a picture of a holy man (Vinoba Bhave) on your May u cover, rather than the unholy and wholly unattractive Reds you have given us of late.

RICHARD R. REILLY La Jolla, Calif.

In the Solf Stream?

Sir:

As a New Zealander, I find it curiously gratifying to deem, from your April 13 and April 27 notes about Mrs. Frank Small's hole-in-one golfing habit at Invercargill, N.Z., that readers of TIME are worldly wise and so know where and what N.Z. is.

BRUCE FALCONER

Wellington, N.Z.

Returning P.W.s

Sir:

I am surprised to notice that unusually accurate TIME Magazine erred [May 11] in referring to Pic. James R. Dunn of Anderson, S.C. as a Negro.

W. R. DUNN

Greenwood, S.C.

--I Let the record be set straight: Pfc.

Dunn is a white man.--ED.

How They Got Sitting Bull

Sir:

In your April 20 issue, you . . . describe Sitting Bull at the time of his death (Monday morning, Dec. 15, 1890) as being "old, fat and quiet," and state: "a detachment of Indian police galloped up to his cabin . . . and shot him to death.

"He did not die without a fight. A pitiful handful of his friends battled the policemen, and 16 men were killed in the brutal fray . . ."

To show how little his own people thought of him, out of about 5,000 on the Standing Rock Reservation, he had a following of about 150 at the time of his death, and that was the "pitiful handful" that battled the 45 policemen. It was in resisting arrest that he was shot . . .

I was there that morning. There is but one other policeman living (that I know anything about) who was there too. He is Lieut. Col. M. F. Steele (ret.), living in Fargo, N.Dak. He is very feeble, and over 90 years old ...

MAJOR W. G. WILKINSON

(Formerly Private, Troop G, 8th Cavalry) Clearwater, Fla. Green Cheese Over Jersey

Sir:

Fantasy apparently dies hard, even among TIMEsters. In your issue of May 11, you say that the "Garden State of New Jersey" is pronounced "Goddan State of New J-eh-sy." The silent r, a phonetic phenomenon typical of New York City, has, admittedly, spilled across the Hudson into the only places on the west bank known to the provincials of the Big Town. In the hinterlands (all areas more than ten miles from Manhattan) live approximately 90% of New Jersey's people. These people invariably pronounce their r's, and are proud of thus distinguishing themselves from the denizens of the city of "New Yawk."

If someone should tell TIME that the moon is made of green cheese, look at him with suspicion. His story will not be true, either.

GEORGE F. MONAHAN JR.

North Plainfield, N.J.

Sir:

... I would suggest that you form your opinion about the physical make-up of our state not only by looking out of train windows on a trip to Washington, but also by a delightful, refreshing tour around the southern Jersey countryside.

FRANCIS E. DAVENPORT

Pitman, N.J.

Starlit Disaster Sir: TIME'S April 27 review of the 20th Century-Fox picture Titanic states that the ship went down [April 15, 1912] in a moonlit sea.

There was no moonlight that night. Starlight, yes, but no moonlight. I happen to be one of the survivors . . .

AUGUST J. ABRAHAMSON

Brooklyn

--I TIME'S Cinema section, taken in by Hollywood lighting effects, thanks Reader Abrahamson, one of the 512 survivors (1,513 were lost), who was traveling steerage at the time as a 19-year-old Finnish immigrant.--ED.

The Flying Bridgeman (Cont'd)

Sir:

Your April 27 cover article was greatly enjoyed by an ex-squadron mate of Bill Bridge-man's. However, Bill was wounded ... at Puluwat, 120 miles west of Truk. At the time he was flying a low-level bombing mission as copilot for the squadron skipper, "Buzz" Miller. Miller later described the incident: "We were making a low-level bombing run on a radio station when a Jap three-inch shell burst over the cockpit. The explosion of the shell had kicked the blocks out from under the top turret guns and depressed the barrels . . . The -50-caliber bullets from those lethal muzzles came streaming through the greenhouse into the cockpit. Bridgeman and I could do nothing but sit there. The bullets, screaming between us from the turret above, smashed the instrument panel before our eyes and filled the cockpit with flying bits of glass and metal.

The muzzle blast singed the hair on our heads and arms. Both of us bled from scores of small wounds." ROBERT W. CONKEY Lieutenant, U.S.N.R.

Pawtucket, R.I.

Sir: . . . Haven't missed an issue of TIME since I've been in Korea . . . The X-3 coverage was excellent . . . Give the author a cigar.

(PvT.) ALVIN GOLDSTEIN % Postmaster, San Francisco

The Word from Mexico

Sir:

Re TIME'S April 27 article on the Mexican "ants" [wetbacks]: these guys go up there for the good old American dollar, for which they work. They do not go up north to get canned chicken soup, nor pink nylon panties, as these are obtained here . . . For your information Mexican women were using silk panties here long ago, while American women were still using flour-sack-cloth drawers and the "sweet paste (wonder of wonders) for scrubbing the teeth" is not an American "invention" and was obtained in Mexico long before you Americans learned that the mouth should be.washed once in a while.

The northbound Mexican "ants" are not unlike the American southbound "ants" (in lesser quantities), who come here as fugitives from the automatic, monotonous daily grind only known to the American robot . . .'

MIGUEL SAN MIGUEL

Mexico City

Texas' Hobby

Sir:

In the excellent May 4 story on Mrs. Secretary Hobby, TIME slipped up in one statement. She was not the first woman to earn or receive the D.S.M. Evangeline Booth received this award from President Wilson 35 years ago for the services rendered to the armed forces by the Salvation Army.

CHARLES DOWDELL The Salvation Army Athens, Ohio

Sir:

After reading the ... life story of Oveta Hobby, I'm willing to bet anybody that Rita Hayworth has had a heluva lot more fun and will be remembered just as long . . .

R. G. OGLESBY Dallas

The Bishop's Evening (Cont'd)

Sir:

In your excellent article on the Rt. Rev. Stephen F. Bayne Jr. in the March 23 issue there is one grievous error. Bishop Bayne did not quickly accept the bishopric of Olympia. As I remember, his acceptance came something like three weeks following his election and I well remember how all of us in the diocese of Olympia prayed that he would feel that it was God's will for him to come to us as our bishop. It was not an easy nor a hasty decision on his part. He as far too spiritual a man to assume such tremendous responsibilities without first having prayed for guidance and assurance.

(THE REV.) DANIEL H. FERRY Cortland, N.Y.

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