Letters, Jul. 21, 1941

Four-Word Encyclopedia

Sirs:

Your heading “War of the Dinosaurs” for your June 30 story on the Commu-Nazi war was a four-word encyclopedia of rebuke for the Anne Lindbergh Wave-of-the-Future group. I don’t know when I’ve seen four words that said so much. . . .

NASH BURGER Jackson, Miss.

Sirs:

The latest round-about-face of Herr Hitler is added proof that dealing with him is to be dealt with double, riding along with him is to be taken for a ride, and executing any treaties with him is merely a prelude to ultimate execution. . . .

MAX SWIFT Bloomfield, N.J.

Sirs:

Does anyone find a humorous—but not too humorous—aspect in the latest angle of World War II? I refer to the imminence of a “Bundles for Russia” campaign. Further, the probability of a song being composed about there always being a Russia and the recitation by Lynn Fontanne of the White Cliffs of Omsk. . . . Finally, we will have Brenda Frazier startling the Stork set with a most amusing pair of diamond ear clips done in the shape of a crossed hammer and sickle. . . .

PAUL JONES Columbus, Ohio

Sirs:

I would like to propose that if the Administration wishes to aid the U.S.S.R. against the Germans, the planes that were not produced through Communistic strikes in the American plants be sent Russia in the ships that were not built in the West Coast yards that were tied up through Red efforts.

KEITH N. WALTZ Waterford, Pa.

Encouraging News

Sirs:

TIME’S story captioned “Germany—War at Home,” in the June 30 issue, is the most important printed since the war began. I hope it will be widely publicized in addition to the exploitation you give it, and that it will be followed up. This news is magnificently encouraging and should have immediate effect upon our national thinking and action.

HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE New York City

Bull on Bullion

Sirs:

Is Sir Robert Vansittart descended from the Vansittart who was so elaborately wrong in his counter-resolutions to the report of the Bullion Committee in 1810? Perhaps being wrong runs in the family.

E. W. GROVE Washington, D.C.

> Sir Robert Vansittart, who retired last month as Anthony Eden’s Chief Diplomatic Adviser after eight ill-starred years as Britain’s potent Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is a great great great grandson of Arthur Vansittart (1691-1760), one of whose other grandsons was Nicholas Vansittart (1766-1851), M.P. for 26 years and at various times Special Envoy to Denmark, Secretary to the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1810 Britain—in the midst of war with Napoleon—was off the gold standard, the price of bullion was high in terms of Bank of England notes, foreign exchange was difficult, inflation loomed. A Parliamentary Bullion Committee met, wanted to resume specie payments. But Vansittart urged the country to stay off the gold standard, insisted that public faith in the Government was enough to make paper money a satisfactory coin of the realm. His side won. Inflation did occur and the national economy limped along until 1819, when, with Vansittart’s views in complete disfavor, the country returned to the gold standard with a sigh of relief.—ED.

Cliche

Sirs:

Thank God you could let Dan Beard die easily and naturally (TIME, June 23) instead of subjecting him to your TIME-honored cliche: “As it must to all men. . . .”

I’ll bet my name is legion.

TED MALCOLM San Francisco, Calif.

> As it must to all cliches, Death will come eventually to that one.—ED.

Reader Nolan’s Opinion

Sirs:

In your issue of June 30 is an article, “Exit Verne Marshall.”

In my opinion this is one of the dirtiest, cowardly and most dastardly articles that any magazine, or purported magazine, could publish. This is what I term stabbing a man in the back, and I will venture a guess that the dastardly coward who wrote it together with the unprincipled publisher who published it would not for one minute stand up in front of Verne Marshall and make the statements he has written and published in this rag. . . . I am only a friend of Verne Marshall, and I am 66 years old, but I would like to meet the dirty cur who wrote this article. . . .

CHAS. D. NOLAN Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Vaccines for Cattle

Sirs:

Your May 26 issue carried … a review on the book Brucellosis written by Dr. Harold Harris.

He states that one of the best specific treatments for undulant fever is “injections of a specially prepared vaccine made from dead Brucellae.” Vaccine made from a killed organism is termed a “bacterin” and I heartily agree with his method of treatment because I cured myself of undulant fever by this vaccination and have seen others also recover. . . .

I have been successfully treating Bang’s Disease in cattle (known as undulant fever in people) for 20 years by the use of a specially prepared bacterin. Why then should we kill these animals and tax the people when the disease can be so easily controlled by simply using the same methods which are employed to treat human beings? . . .

J. E. VAN SANT, D.V.M.

Fresno, Calif.

> Veterinary and scientific opinion is not in agreement on the effectiveness of brucellosis vaccines for cattle. A new book by Dr. Thomas Gordon Hull on diseases of animals transmitted to man says that “results so far are disappointing.” But certainly vaccines for cattle is a line of attack worth further investigation.

Since TIME’S May 26 story was published, Dr. Harris has asked TIME to clarify an important point: that while 10% of the U.S. population may harbor the brucellosis germs, only one-tenth of i % of the population are actually ill of the disease at any given time.—ED.

Mad World

Sirs:

My attention has been called to an article appearing in your issue of June 23, entitled “Mad World.”

In this article you refer to the “impassioned speeches at the American Neurological Association.” You then go on to quote various individuals, none of whom is a member of the American Neurological Association except Dr. Douglas A. Thorn of Boston. . . .

HENRY ALSOP RILEY, M.D. Secretary-Treasurer The American Neurological Association New York City

> TIME erred; the meeting, at which several speakers stated Hitler was getting a psychological and eugenic edge on the democracies, was not that of the A.N.A. but of the American Psychopathological Association, held in Atlantic City the same week.—ED.

Sirs:

After reading the views of several of our brilliant psychiatrists, I have but one question to ask. Who let them out?

DAN F. WATSON U.S.S. Melville Newport, R.I.