Letters, Feb. 21, 1949

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

Sir:

Roses to TIME [Jan. 31] for a vivid sketch on Cole Porter.

Orchids to Mr. Porter, the artist, for a sparkling new hit [Kiss Me, Kate].

Garlic to Mr. Porter, the man, for his astounding, frenetic hedonism and illiberality . . .

WILLIAM C. MOHLER (YALE ’48)

New Haven, Conn.

Sir:

. . . The way you talk you would think Irving Berlin and Cole Porter were the only two songwriters living. I’ll take Jule Styne over both of them overrated buffoons. The score to High Button Shoes is truly great . . .

JUNE BOCHAN

Chicago, Ill.

Sir:

I was amused to read your moralistic envoi to the Carnegie-Kahn way of living, in the same issue that described, with evident relish, the Byzantine extravagance of Cole Porter’s semiprivate life. Mr. Porter seems to have survived very nicely those “five presidential elections” in which, as you assume, the American public dictated simpler domestic habits for its great.

JOSEPH SAGMASTER

Associate Editor

Cincinnati Times-Star

Cincinnati, Ohio

Having Wonderful Time

Sir:

It pleased me very much to read of the experiment with Read deliveries at the Grace-New Haven Community Hospital [TIME, Jan. 31]. Both my children were delivered there while my husband was studying at Yale —the first in the time-honored tradition of sweat and agony, and the second with the benefit of my clinical training in the Read method. It was almost unbelievable that two deliveries in the same general atmosphere could be so different. During the labor with my first child, I was scared to death, expecting the worst, and experiencing it. I couldn’t wait for the anesthetic. My second delivery was a natural childbirth with no anesthesia, and no desire for any . . .

The whole theory is so simple and makes so much sense. One of the things which impressed me most was the fact that Dr. Read gives women credit for having the desire to go through with a natural childbirth . . .

I hope that the printing of your article, in a magazine so widely read and highly respected, will acquaint more women with Dr. Read’s theories. Perhaps then they will ask their obstetricians what they can do to help themselves in labor, instead of what drugs he is going to use to ease them through a delivery in which they will miss the most wonderful experience of their lives . . .

ELIZABETH F. PACINI

Owego, N.Y.

Evasive or Unequivocal?

Sir:

Your article, “Penalty for Secrecy” [TIME, Jan. 31] … in general hides the central issue of academic freedom and civil liberties.

Before the University of Washington Faculty Committee I was charged with being a Communist. This is not true, and I answered clearly and unequivocably that I was not a Communist, and the committee concluded that I had not been proven to be a Communist.

[The report of the University of Washington Faculty Committee says: “The manner of the respondent Gundlach in answering questions put to him on cross-examination and by members of the committee was frequently evasive and not responsive . . . [Asked] the direct question: ‘Are you a member of the Communist Party?’ Gundlach replied: ‘No one can prove that I am and I cannot prove that I am not’ . . . We [the committee] feel that he has been evasive on many matters.”—ED.]

I was fired for two main reasons: 1) I would not collaborate with the State Un-American Activities Committee, but resisted what I considered to be their improper drive against the foundation of our democracy—civil rights … 2) as a citizen and social psychologist I have exercised my right to petition, meet, speak, and join with organizations having legitimate aims I support; and I have been undistracted by their being called “Communist fronts” by those who oppose . . . such organizations as Consumer’s Union, Spanish Refugee Appeal, and the Progressive Party. Hardly a “penalty for secrecy” . . .

RALPH H. GUNDLACH

Seattle, Wash.

Dream President

Sir:

If Hoover was the 31st President [TIME Jan. 24] and Truman the 32nd [TIME, Jan. 31], was F.D.R. just a dream (good or bad) ?

FRANKLIN E. DILLARD JR.

Molokai, Hawaii

¶ TIME (Jan. 24) absentmindedly followed Who’s Who and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which count Grover Cleveland twice—as both 22nd and 24th Presidents—thus make Herbert Hoover No. 31 and Franklin Roosevelt No. 32. But Harry Truman, with the backing of the Congressional Directory, has decided that he is the 32nd President of the U.S.—ED.

Exceptional Child

Sir:

When you used the picture of an eight-year-old Italian boy, Italo Renzetti [TIME, June 7], who was blinded and left armless by a World War II hand grenade, we received many contributions from your readers* . . . We used some of the money to buy for him what is known as a Galimberti machine. [With it] Italo Renzetti, an exceptionally bright child, not only learned to write Braille, holding the stylus between his stumps, but the other day managed to “draw” an airplane, which he told our Italian representative was “for TIME Magazine” . . .

CONSTANCE GURD RYKERT

Foster Parents’ Plan for War Children, Inc.

New York City

Eton’s Block & Birch

Sir:

In Colonel Bodley’s letter re Eton’s whipping block [TIME, Jan. 24], there are a few reminders of a visit to Eton . . . The whipping block . . . had the birch rod standing beside it looking like a broom for sweeping garden leaves, but with a very stout handle. My wife said: “That wouldn’t hurt much.” The reply was “Madam—I would like you to remember there’s nothing between the boy and the birch” . . .

E. L. BROWN

Melbourne, Australia

* Almost $300 received. — ED.