Letters, Dec. 23, 1946

Man of the Year

Sirs:

From the fact that Secretary of State James F. Byrnes has received so many votes for Man of the Year, there are indications that many of your readers are on the right track. But they’re going the wrong way. Byrnes’s fame rests on his struggle against ruthless power to enforce its will on the plain citizens of the world. It is this evil power and its attempt to extend itself . . . that has provided the most significant news of 1946. I therefore nominate for Man of the Year the greatest personification of that power—Vyacheslav Molotov.

GRAHAM CUMMIN Philadelphia

Sirs:

. . . One of the greatest generals and diplomats the world has ever produced—General Douglas MacArthur.

HUGH BEATON, M.D. Fort Worth

Sirs:

. . . May I nominate one who not only has been the spearhead of sincere liberalism in the South, but who has awakened people over our entire nation to work towards a better understanding of minority groups—Governor Ellis Arnall of Georgia. . . .

WILLIAM D. LILLARD Orange, Va.

Sirs:

I NOMINATE HENRY A. WALLACE BECAUSE OF HIS PRACTICALITY, FORESIGHT AND COURAGE IN COMBATING RUTHLESS WARMONGERING MINORITY IN HIGH AND LOW PLACES. . . .

JACK HESS

Chicago

Sirs:

I nominate the veteran legislator, co-architect of U.S. foreign policy, astute & skillful negotiator . . . Arthur H. Vandenberg, U.S. Senator from Michigan.

MICHAEL MILTON Detroit

Sirs:

May I add my note (and vote) for James Francis Byrnes, Secretary of State, who, with the aid of his two great bipartisan statesmen-advisers, has given reassurance of the possibility of building a substantial . . . structure of international cooperation. . . .

CHARLES L. LATIMER JR. Lieut, (j.g.) U.S.N.R. Charleston, S.C.

Sirs:

For forthrightly and sensibly representing the American people … in the U.N.: Senator Warren Robinson Austin.

MR. & MRS. LAURENCE G. KOLLIN

Los Angeles

¶Nominations for Man of the Year are

now closed.—ED.

Citation

Sirs:

Some of us got to talking last night about the rescue of the U.S. Army plane survivors off that ledge of the Wetterhorn [TIME, Dec. 2]. …

And then someone said: “… Somebody ought to find out just what kind of break those two Swiss majors got. Personally, I’d think landing a light plane nine times on the terrace of a 1,000-story penthouse would be unmitigated hell.”

What we all felt, knowing the resolute Swiss temperament in moments of emergency, was simply that the U.S. Legion of Merit ribbon would look sort of nice on those grey-green Swiss uniforms. . . .

ARTHUR TUCKERMAN New York City

The Greater Good?

Sirs:

. . . TIME states [Nov. 25] that the U.S. public, “with some prodding by the Hearst press,” cried ingrate at Tito’s Government. An intelligent and decent U.S. public needed no prodding to recognize . . . Tito for what he is—an unseemly, troublemaking peasant, following his orders from Moscow. . . .

Tito is interested in only one thing: a diabolical master plan, the object of which is to level the standard of living of Americans to that of the European peasant. . . . The starvation and death of several million Europeans is more to be desired than our contribution of $400 million to an international relief fund which would be used to fatten up the Balkan armies so they might be in a position to spit on us and thus start World War III. . . .

JOHN F. MULLANEY EDWARD B. FINNEGAN Scranton, Pa.

Shanghai Czech Sirs:

It is very painful to re-discovere an old discovery. I risk such a blamage, because the case is interesting.

Everybody sees that Generalissimus Chiang Kai-Shek look not too as a Chinese. Mr. Svaricek, postman of Brtnice, whos was 1915-20 at Russia and Siberia . . . declared that Chiang Kai-Shek was born in Moravia country here. His war companion, Mr. Navratil, Businessman of Jaromĕřice and Roky-tna . . . was, they say, with present Chiang Kai-Shek going to school.

Mr. Navratil tells that the Dictator of today was the laughing stock of his school fellows because his dark face; he was going by the name of “Chinese.”

“Chinese” had escaped out of home or army; he revealed on Shanghai. “Chiang Kai-Shek” may be “Shanghai-Czech.”. . .

I am in the position, to bring TIME Inc. all information about the first life of Chiang Kai-Shek; his certifikate of baptism and photo of his family house.

JAN BIRNBAUM Brtnice, Czechoslovakia

¶Later, perhaps. After we’ve cleared up the mystery of the Irishman, General Tim O’Shenko.—ED.

Spanked

Sirs:

LIKE MANY A MISSOURIAN I GROAN TO NOTE YOU MENTION [TIME, DEC. 2] “PACKING 2O,OOO KANSANS INTO THE KANSAS CITY PHILHARMONIC CONCERT HALL. . . .”

HARRY T. MATHER Kansas City, Mo.

Sirs:

The only time “20,000 Kansans” appear in Kansas City, Missouri, is when they’re thirsty, not music-hungry. May I have the honor of spanking your prettiest researcher?

K. C. NORMAN

New York City

¶ Too late. TIME’S Music researcher, already spanked, has bought a geography to ward off further punishment.—ED.

Blizzard’s Wake

Sirs:

You state [TIME, Nov. 25] that for 48 hours a blizzard moaned down out of Wyoming, with nothing to stop it but fence posts and cottonwood trees.

Why must newspapers insist that everything bad comes from Wyoming? When Wyoming has a snowstorm, Colorado papers call it a blizzard, and if Colorado has the same kind of a storm it is called a million-dollar snowstorm. . . .

MRS. C. F. AINSWORTH Hanna, Wyo.

The President Cuts

Sirs:

TIME [Dec. 9] asserts that Panama’s President Enrique Jiménez, as part of a program of governmental economy, cut his salary $500 a year. In all justice to him, you should know that he took the top cut for all governmental employes: $500 a month, which figures out at 25%.

PETER BRENNAN

Ancon, Canal Zone

¶ To President Jiménez, TIME’S sincere apologies for a mistake taken from a careless Associated Press dispatch.—ED.

Bushmen, Distaff

Sirs:

Your picture of “African Bushmen After Eating” [TIME, Nov. 25] makes me laugh. I’ll bet that the four biggest “men” are pregnant as a glance at their breasts will show. I’ll bet all six have 1) intestinal parasites, and 2) enlarged spleens due to chronic malaria. . . .

H. CLAIR AMSTUTZ, M.D. La Plata, Puerto Rico

Sirs:

Perhaps my eyesight and perception are a little the worse for wear, but I have been unable, after very close scrutiny, to discover any “men” in the cut.

JAMES MCCONNELL

Baton Rouge

¶ Other ailments than stuffed stomachs may well have afflicted these African Bushmen. But none suffered from misinterpreted sex. The name of the tribe applies to both male & female.—ED.

How Much Lipstick? Sirs:

. . Certainly Stephens College [TIME, Dec. 2] has a Division of Home & Family, including Marriage Education, Foods and Nutrition, Child Study, Personal Appearance and half a dozen other wonderful courses. And certainly we have an aviation program and classes in riding and golf and tennis. But these courses are well mixed with history, languages, sciences, mathematics, English, classes in current affairs, government, economics, and others too numerous to mention.

Instead of “spending more time on our lipstick than on our Latin,” we are becoming more completely educated, both culturally and vocationally, than your generation ever had the opportunity of becoming. . . . None of [the credit belongs] to those of you who, whether intentionally or in sheer ignorance, criticize progressive education.

PATTY FONVIELLE DELILAH REESE MARIANNA REEVES SUE ROBINSON

Stephens College Columbia, Mo.

Sirs:

We find ourselves directly at odds with you regarding your article on Stephens College. . . . We [students of the University of Missouri School of Medicine] have not found in the last year any “Susie” who is being fitted for wifehood and homemaking. . . . We would like to know just what horseback riding, golfing, archery and flying have to do with homemaking. . . . It is apparent that these women are well trained only in the art of wasting time and money. We will grant them the capacity of motherhood, but . . . a course at Stephens is hardly necessary for this; it could happen to any woman.

Your article tells of the preferential selection of girls for admission to Stephens—HOW? It is obvious to us that several or more of the Stephens “Talent Scouts” are suffering from severe, intractable myopia. This fact can readily be demonstrated on any afternoon on the streets of Columbia, or in restaurants over a coke, cigaret, and french fries. . . .

DAVE MACDONELL THE “ECCENTRIC WHEEL” (WCR) AND EIGHT OTHERS University of Missouri School of Medicine Columbia, Mo.

Mothers & Moms

Sirs:

In reply to Psychiatrist Edward A. Strecker [TIME, Nov. 25]. There have been so many similar remarks in current magazines that it seems time for the much maligned mothers to express themselves.

The average American boy was brought up to admire peace and abhor war. When his mother saw a group of boys fighting . . . she did not send her boy out to join in the fray. . . . Instead, she told him it was not his fight and he had better stay out of it.

This whole foreign war looked just as simple as that to him. When the nations began to fight, he did not want to fight. He did not even know what he was to fight for. Yet he was forced to go. . . . Why in the name of all that is reasonable should he have been happy abroad?

When “our boys” received letters from Mom it is to her everlasting credit that they were reminded of peace and harmony and love.

Anyhow, be fair ! There are two parents for every boy. The Spartan letters the fathers wrote and the thrill they felt at having their sons fighting foreign wars ought surely to have counteracted the poor mothers’ mistakes.

MARGARET HOWER OHLE St. Louis