Letters, Jan. 2, 1950

Archaic Principle?

Sir:

Professor W.P. Webb declares flatly that “the principle of the Republican Party itself was archaic and had been archaic for years” [TIME, Dec. 5]. I object, on the grounds that if the dignity and creative force of an individual is not to be preferred over the extended palm of the laissez-faire masses, if free enterprise is not to be preferred over nationalization of business (and professions), if a sound government economy is not to be preferred to a government pledged to spending and the increasement of the national debt, and if belief in the operation of natural economic laws is not preferred to government-controlled economic laws, then and only then can the Republican Party be so accused . . .

C. LEONARD Kona, Hawaii

Pride of the Welsh

Sir:

TIME [Dec. 12] calls Dylan Thomas an English poet. Though he writes in English, he is a Welshman, and we Welsh are proud of him . . .

ANGUS MCDERMID Bangor, Wales

¶ Blwyddyn Newydd Dda—ED.

Ghostless Exceptions

Sir:

Your Dec. 5 article relative to ghostwriters gave me a kick. By inference you say everybody in the upper bracket in Washington employs ghostwriters—except Generals Eisenhower and Kenney.

For your information, I have written a series of six books for boys, two technical books, have been co-author of three other technical books, have written numerous magazine articles—with no ghostwriter ever being involved … In the case of my book Global Mission, I personally typed and dictated 530,000 words—no ghostwriter . . .

How do I get the “touch of ectoplasmic eloquence” removed?

H. H. ARNOLD Sonoma, Calif.

¶ Will Generals Eisenhower and Kenney move over, and make room for General “Hap” Arnold?—ED.

Mithridated Mosquitoes

Sir:

The Greeks have a word for it! You speak of the fact that DDT has become ineffective against mosquitoes [TIME, Dec. 5]. Last summer while I was in Crete, a friend of mine said: “Yes, we have flies, and they have been Mithridated.” Mithridates was King of Pontus just before the birth of Christ. He was quite unpopular, and made himself immune to poison by taking small and gradually increasing doses [until] he could take without risk something like 26 or 27 poisons . . .

Louis E. LORD Newton, Mass.

¶Mithridates did not believe in immunizing others: he not only murdered his mother, his sons and the sister whom he married, but also his concubines.—ED.

Cowman’s Beef

Sir:

My heart was touched by the folksy pleas to the steak eaters of Hollywood from the managements of the Brown Derby, Romanoff’s and La Rue’s, as reported in TIME, Dec. 5. It is a fact that the prices we ranchers receive have dropped about 30% in the past year, but . . . there seems to be a whole ambush of Ethiopians in the woodpile somewhere between here and the tables at Romanoff’s. Maybe if some of you who have heaped the whole onus of beef prices on our heads for the past several years would look into the devious byways of the trade, cowmen could once again go to town in their working clothes without taking the risk of being tarred & feathered with some unpleasant form of meat substitute.

J. S. BRENNER Grant, Mont.

OOOOWOWOW!

Sir:

“THE . . . MINNEAPOLIS STAR AND TRIBUNE (COMBINED CIRC. 105,332) . . .” [TIME, DEC. 19] oooowowow!

MINNEAPOLIS STAR AND TRIBUNE COMBINED CIRC., SIX MONTHS ENDING SEPT. 30, 1949 (PUBLISHERS’ABC STATEMENT) : 470,070 DAILY, 591,250 SUNDAY.

INCIDENTALLY, TIME IGNORED THE MAIN POINT OF MY . . . COMMENT TO CARLETON COLLEGE SOCIOLOGY STUDENTS ABOUT COLUMNISTS: “THEY ARE MODERN EQUIVALENTS OF THE MUCKRAKERS OF LINCOLN STEFFEN5′ AND IDA TARBELL’S DAY OR THE PAMPHLETEERS OF TOM PAINE’S TIME. MANY PEOPLE DIDN’T LIKE THOSE WRITERS OR THEIR ETHICS, BUT THEY UNQUESTIONABLY PERFORMED A USEFUL SERVICE.”

GIDEON SEYMOUR

Executive Editor Minneapolis Star and Tribune Minneapolis, Minn.

¶TIME stands convicted of bad arithmetic.—ED.

Congressmen Abroad

Sir:

During the more than three years since my return from a long and rather embittering period in the Pacific Theater of Operations, I have read some pretty disheartening things about our attempt to sell democracy to the rest of the world. But I can recall no other single account which has caused me to feel greater discouragement than your report under The Congress [TIME, Dec. 12].

Heaven only knows how it must make the Congressmen feel—and I suspect they have no feelings at all except their own selfish ones—but surely the people themselves ought to feel terribly ashamed: 1) that they elected such fatheads and drunkards to office, and 2) that there apparently is no way to keep these guys from going to Europe . . .

Heaven only knows that the Communists . . . have enough material with which to belittle and undermine our form of government in the eyes of the people they seek to unite, without [Senator Elmer] Thomas and a bunch of other saps going over and indirectly but very effectively helping out.

I, for one, extend my most deep-felt apologies to the Swedes, the Belgians, and any other people who might have been offended by these visitors . . .

RICHARD R. BECK

Cambridge, Mass.

Higgledy-Piggledy Disturbance

Sir:

Many thanks to that valiant knight of the anti-bugaboos, Philosopher Isaiah Berlin, for tearing one of the first rents in that facade of misdirected idealism—social consciousness [TIME, Dec. 12].

The detached and impersonal attitude can be the only vehicle employed for the manifestations of lasting endeavors in art, thought and science. The label of “humanitarian” as applied to works of art or scientific invention is invariably applied by those other than the creating artist, thinker, scientist or poet who originates, discovers, creates merely as an expression of his innate self and a fulfillment of that self.

Mr. Berlin is recapitulating the truths of the few as against the fallacies, vain hopes and naive beliefs of the many.

ERIC MASON

Toronto, Canada

Sir:

A few of us “too many helpers” have preceded Isaiah Berlin’s return to Oxford to disturb him further with our “higgledy-piggledy” thoughts.

Having been a student at Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School, and now a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol, I’ve also done some observing of American and English college students. Lots of my fellow U.S. collegians are proud to possess a “naive, sincere and touching morality.” And we prefer this to an all too prevalent Oxonian preciousness and desire to escape from the realities of our contemporary world.

. . . While some would be content to discourse from their academic armchairs, the rest of us would rather act, would rather assume the “intellectual and moral burden of facing problems that may be too deep or complex” . . .

[Anyhow], does Philosopher Berlin think he is able to judge the attitudes of students in more than a thousand institutions of higher learning in America on the basis of one year teaching at Harvard, which is hardly typical of our colleges?

The answer to the debate: provide more fellowships and scholarships for English students to study in the U.S.A. Many of them are dying for a chance. Let’s let them make up their own minds!

RICHARD A. WILEYBalliol College Oxford, England

Tulsa Story

Sir:

Your article on Tulsa’s first television station, KOTV, contains a statement which has no basis in fact . . . “Wearing shorts, she clambered up 400 ft. on an outside ladder to inspect the tower installation. (During the ceremony, a startled workman dropped a wrench to the street below, killing a woman pedestrian from Sapulpa, Okla.)”. . . [TIME, Dec. 12].

I did not climb KOTV’s tower the day of the unfortunate accident, or any other day…

You’re wrong about the three-year-old lace dress, too. It’s four years old.

HELEN ALVAREZ Tulsa, Okla.

¶The back of TIME’S hand to its Tulsa correspondent, apologies to KOTV’s President Alvarez.—ED.

Big Type

Sir:

Your cover story about Hotelman Hilton [TIME, Dec. 12] made very enjoyable reading. I admire men of his type—men who think “big” and act “big.”

Our country would be better off with more men of Hilton’s type and fewer government “big bureaucrats.”

FREDERICK C. KELLY Presque Isle, Me.

Sir:

. . . Speaking of the new Caribe Hilton in San Juan, you say: “On one side of the hotel were the coral beach and the long rolling waves of the Caribbean.” Please be advised that it is not the Caribbean. It is the Atlantic Ocean whose rolling waves are next to the Caribe Hilton.

ALMA BENEDETTI Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

¶TIME was, obviously, at sea.—ED.

Okinawa Incidents

Sir:

We wish to thank you for the fair and constructive treatment TIME [Nov. 28] gave . . . the occupation of Okinawa, where the Army is doing a difficult job . . .

We would appreciate it, however, if you would correct the figures concerning untoward incidents in Okinawa during the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 1949. The correct official combined Army-Air Force figures for this period disclose that there were six murders, eight rapes, seven robberies and 23 assaults. TIME’S figures, which we could not confirm or deny during the few hours they were available to us before publication, were [considerably higher]. . .

F. L. PARKS

Major General, U.S.A.

Chief, Public Information Division

Washington, D.C.