New Signs in the South
Sir:
The cool beauty and grandeur of your June 4 Southern scenes and the captions describing what happened there should help outsiders see why we Southerners so easily let sentiment cloud our wrongheaded race thinking. The rightheaded thinking of my alma mater (Spring Hill College--noted in your Education section) is a source of deep pride--and a tangible sign that sentiment can be overcome. This issue of your magazine is symbolic: men from the Hill, which graduated Mrs. Motley, a Negro, fought in the pictured Civil War battles. There is a new South!
WM. JUNKIN, SJ. Saint Mary's College Saint Marys, Kansas
Report on Puerto Rico
Sir:
It would be hard to measure the extent to which TIME'S recognition of our struggle here spurs the people of Puerto Rico in their efforts to improve their economic position. It would also be hard to measure our appreciation of the outstanding job done by your correspondent and the editors of TIME for their May 14 article. My sincerest thanks.
LUIS MUNOZ MARIN
Governor San Juan, P.R.
S. for Something
Sir:
TIME, May 28, says "Harry S. (for Swinomish) Truman." Is that a bit of humor lost on me? My biographical material says that "S" alone is used because the Truman family was unable to agree upon whether it really stood for Shippe or Solomon.
MRS. L. A. STODDART Logan, Utah
Cheating Made Easy
Sir:
I enjoyed your May 28 story on exam cheating in Spain. However, I do wonder if your Education editor ever attended an American university. I have attended four universities, and in two of them cheating was the accepted way of passing exams. Wherever a school retains the fraternity system, you are likely to have cheating; American fraternities keep the tradition alive as a means of protecting the academic records of their membership and a powerful means of attracting pledges. Their exhibits of chuletas [literally, cutlet] are just as good as Jose Suarez'--though not as public.
MAUS V. DARLING
Tappan, N.Y.
Sir:
When I was a student I had two dreads: math and science. For science I wrote the formulae on my fingernails; for mathematics I wrote them on a circular piece of paper, slipped under the crystal of my wristwatch. Result: I never flunked. Note to students: I have not patented these cutlets.
WILLIAM HARVEY West Hartford, Conn.
Sir:
Chuletas were in use at Cambridge in Bret Harte's time. Witness the unknown parodist on a student caught in the ancient history examination:
In the crown of his cap Were the Furies and Fates And an excellent map Of the Dorian States; And in both of his palms They discovered What is common in palms--That is, dates.
KENT CURTIS
Grand Rapids, Minn.
Sir:
Your article indicates poor taste concerning the way in which the whole matter is treated. Spanish students have to face a tremendous competition when they want to get into the university. Vacancies are scarce and some boys try four or five years before they can get in. Thus the chuleta becomes a necessity. Having studied in Spain, I know what it is like.
JAIME ZOBEL DE AYALA Harvard College Cambridge, Mass.
Yorkton's Pride
Sir:
In a fine story about Sardinia [May 21] you state the anopheles mosquito was driven out of the island and the war against malaria was successful, but you do not name the man who did this. In charge was Dr. John Logan, working with the Rockefeller Foundation. Here in his home town of Yorkton, Sask., we are rather proud of him, for at one time he was mentioned as Nobel Health Award winner for his great work in Sardinia.
STAN OBODIAC Yorkton, Sask.
Whomogemzed, Indeed
Sir:
I suffered an abrupt jolt to find, in your May 28 review of Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins, an example of whomcgenized
English such as it would have given me no pause to encounter in a less flaw-free publication. I do not know whom wrote that review, but I feel that him should be disabused of the notion that anyone's "daughter hops in and out of bed with whomever strikes her fancy." Even the most licentious young lady would limit herself to going to bed only with whoever struck her fancy.
MURRAY GRUMETTE
Hollywood
remains a whomdunit.--ED.
Re-Enlistment Blues
Sir:
Your May 28 article aptly illustrates the fact that our armed forces are continuously losing the skilled specialists and trained personnel needed for an efficient, effective military organization. Low pay for highly specialized personnel, poor living conditions, and undue, unnecessary harassment of the rank and file are but a few of the conditions which make it impossible for military life to compete with civilian life for the cream of our nation's youth.
(Sp. 3) HOWARD N. SILVERMAN
U.S. Army Fort Lewis, Wash.
Sir:
As the wife of a serviceman, I would suggest the proposed bigger bonus, longer enlistment brain wave be buried in some dark hole. Granted that better pay is a stellar attraction of private industry, it is the living and working conditions the serviceman and his family must endure that make for the low re-enlistment rates. Few of us are born nomads; yet in five years of marriage, I have set up and torn down a household seven times. Five of these times were transfers to other stations.
REGINA S. MILLER Detroit
Measuring Stick
Sir:
The May 28 issue of TIME carried the obit of Dr. Leo Spears, who was described as a "high flying quack" and an "anomaly." For a quack, Spears did some remarkably good work at his hospital despite his flamboyant methods. As one who knew him and had grown to understand the man, I bristle at this ridiculous measuring stick which prompts Spears to be called a quack.
Louis GARRETT, D.C.
Canton, Ohio
Sir:
Your harsh account is a brutal slap to the thousands who owe their health to this -man and his "glassy" institution.
ORRIN K. WARD, D.C.
Denver
Sir:
Leo L. Spears was a chiropractor. He may have been an anomaly. Neither make him a member of the medical profession.
ED FRANKEL Inglewood, Calif.
U-Usage
Sir:
I think that for an American magazine you handled the question of U and non-U speech [May 21] splendidly. But there is one aspect of this enthralling subject which seems to me to have been generally overlooked: the U attitude, around which a whole school of humor has grown up. The classic story of this school is, I believe, the following: A young officer who had lived through the Battle of Dunkirk was being urged by his hostess at a dinner party to describe his experiences. With a shudder he replied: "The noise, my dear! And the people!"
MARY STRICKLAND
New York City
Sir:
Enjoyed the story on Nancy Mitford. Precieuse few are U these days.
B. BECK Champaign, 111.
Gremlins Answered
Sir:
I would like to thank you for the June 4 story on our radio operations; however, a little gremlin must have been at work--and he succeeded in transposing the call letters of our Omaha station. They are KOWH--being derived from the Omaha World Herald, the original owners of the station. On our station in Minneapolis, you batted 50%, one time referring to it as WGDY, another place as WDGY. The latter is right.
TODD STORZ
President
Mid-Continent Broadcasting Co. Omaha
Sir:
Enjoyed your story about R. Todd Storz, King of Giveaway. KOWH is one of the finest stations to listen to because of its music and news, and its commercials are often a riot to listen to.
L. D. BAUGHAN Lincoln, Neb.
Non-Skid Row
Sir:
Novelist Nelson Algren, according to TIME, May 28, is convinced that "Skid Row makes the choicest book fodder." Does it? Am I the only one who is weary of problem novels about problem people and of stories that suggest fun and games are to be had only extramaritally ? Mr. Algren would refuse to attend the wedding of Marjorie Morningstar to The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Why should I have to officiate at the agonies of his Man with the Golden Arm?
PAMELA M. LOWRY
Toronto
Navy Knots
Sir:
I thought that your May 21 article on Admiral Arleigh Burke was excellent; there has been a little contention here concerning the cover. We are wondering if the line around the Admiral's picture has 31 knots in it or not; there are 27 knots visible, but others may be obscured by the yellow band in the upper right-hand corner.
THOS. LEE ALLMAN JR.
Midshipman '57 Annapolis, Md.
Sir:
For a taut cover shouldn't there be 31 knots?
CONSTANCE L. OLINDER
Summit, N.J.
that yellow bulkhead.--ED.
Happy Returns
Sir:
Many thanks for the mention of my opera, The Birthday of the Infanta, in your issue of May 28. The "happy returns" are already coming in with eleven performances in the offing, publication and recording. A small correction, though--my age is 26.
RON NELSON Rochester
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