Letters, Dec. 3, 1945

Third-Class Country?

Sirs:

There seems to be a lot of criticism of the behavior of our Army of Occupation [TIME, Nov. 19]. Some of our freeborn citizens are showing shocked surprise that the American soldier is not acting like the true, redblooded, 100% American the blueprints originally called for. Well, gentlemen, brace yourselves; I am coming out swinging.

Just what do you critics expect from a generation that has been brought up on comic books, flabby popular music, motion pictures that are hag-ridden by the Hays office and the Legion of so-called Decency, and the unending flood of nauseating pap that drools from our shiny little radios? Who is responsible for the fact that our young men now helling about Europe and lousing up the reputation of the U.S. have their heads stuffed with nonsense?

You are, gentlemen, and you might as well face it. Our young people don’t think because they haven’t been taught to think. . . . Have you done anything to remedy this?

You can’t take his comic book or his radio away from him now because he’s used to them and he might cry, but you can work for, fight for a decent, liberal educational system, for better pay for teachers so that better teachers will come to nourish the minds of the next generation. You can stop patronizing the stupidest 90% of Hollywood’s products until they stop making them and are forced to use talent, intelligence and new ideas. You can demand that your radio station devote more time to adult entertainment. You can club together and go out after the hide, ears and tail of the Prohibition Party, the Watch and Ward Society and all other Nosey Parker institutions for the small, unoccupied mind. In a nutshell, you can throw your weight around for a more mature, tolerant, beautiful America into which to lead the next dewy-eyed batch of moppets. . . .

I have five young children, healthy, handsome, confident that they live in the best and most beautiful part of the finest country in the world. I will hate to see their faces when they discover they are citizens of a third-class country with first-class equipment.

LEROY BLODGETT Burlington, Vt.

Return to Isolationism?

Sirs:

It seems to me that public and congressional criticism directed at the point system of discharge and the speed with which it is being carried out does the country a disservice. One of our generals has said that the earlier point systems took away his first and second teams, and it doesn’t bode too well for the success of U.S. policies that the whole world knows we are playing the game with an unwilling third team which the rooting section is trying to get off the field. This is return to isolationism in everything except name. . . .

(NAVAL OFFICER’S NAME WITHHELD) c/o Fleet Post Office San Francisco

“I Don’t Like It”

Sirs:

A brief news item has just reached us via Army News Service: “The United States has made the first large-scale sale of surplus war goods in the Pacific—65,000 tons of material sold for about $20,000,000 to The Netherlands East Indies Government.”

I think it is our right to know if these materials of war are going to be used for the forcible suppression of the fighters for Indonesian freedom who are getting such a kicking around from the “peace-loving” British and Dutch. If this is the case, it is an odd business for the U.S. to be mixed up in, and for myself, as one American, I don’t like it. …

(SGT.) MARTIN D. LEWIS

c/o Postmaster Seattle

> Before the sale was made, the U.S. State Department stipulated that arms and munitions would not be included among the clothing, medical supplies, construction equipment, etc. which The Netherlands Government got.—ED.

Dissolve the Naval Academy?

Sirs:

… As Congress debates the advisability of tripling the Naval Academy, the men now in training have dismissed every idea of making the Navy a career. … In conducting a poll, I have found that out of 3,000 midshipmen at most 500 plan to accept commissions and stay in the Navy as career officers. The feeling is strongest in the upper classes, who unreservedly advise all underclassmen to resign now while there is yet time to return to colleges where they can learn.

The only solution would be to dissolve the Academy as an undergraduate institution and use the plant as a two-year postgraduate academy for welding together and molding the best material from N.R.O.T.C. into the career Naval officers whom we must have to maintain the peace. . . .

(NAVAL ACADEMY MIDSHIPMAN’S NAME WITHHELD) Annapolis, Md.

Sirs: It’s about time that someone came to the defense of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Navy officers. It is a shame that upon the conclusion of the greatest naval War in history, won by the largest and finest Navy in history, the officers who so capably led our sea forces should be attacked and discredited from many sides—even from within their own ranks. . . .

Much of this criticism of the Navy way, of the “trade school” graduates and the system of rank and promotions, has been brewing for a year or two among a certain element of disgruntled and “sour grapes” Naval Reserve officers who never really were officers in any respect except their uniforms….

Unfortunately the Navy didn’t have time to send many of these men through midshipmen’s schools or even to indoctrinate them, at first. So these junior executives, bond salesmen, tie clerks and miscellaneous experts in their early 30s were commissioned as lieutenants junior grade or even full lieutenants. They donned uniforms, and it was hoped that some day they would see fit and be able to carry out the duties of an officer in the U.S. Navy. Many filled the bill; some, to the eventual discredit of the Navy, never did.

They couldn’t take it. They couldn’t take the discipline; they didn’t like the system. They didn’t like to take orders from younger professional officers. . . . They were unhappy that they didn’t get a nice, new warship berth, but instead drew the amphibious force, or perhaps even a drab and dangerous LST. But worst of all, none of this group of “experts” was worked hard enough. . . .

On the record the Academy-trained officers did a fine job, training the reserves at first, commanding most of the combat ships, setting a standard of professional excellence, and giving the tone to the Navy that most of the good reserve officers saw fit to comply with. They more than justified their and their school’s existence, for they set the character of the fleet. . . .

(MARINE OFFICER’S NAME WITHHELD) Marine Corps Schools Quantico, Va.

Admiral Strauss, Regular

Sirs:

Your issue of Oct. 29, in the course of a splendid article on the Navy, characterized Commodore Lewis L. Strauss, U.S.N.R., as “a bitter anti-regular.” This is an injustice to an outstanding officer, and hundreds of friends and admirers among the regular officers can testify that he is the antithesis of that designation.

Any organization, be it government, navy, commercial or educational, will from time to time need to adjust itself to charging conditions. It is only by this process that we eliminate the old and adopt the new. Commodore Strauss has vigorously and successfully introduced and advocated new ideas in order that the Navy may be better able to meet its changing and increasing obligations.

Those of us who know him know also that he is actuated solely by his deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the Navy.

H. G. BOWEN Rear Admiral, U.S.N.R. Chief, Research and Inventions Washington

¶ Perhaps TIME should have said “fuddy-duddy.” Commodore Strauss is a bitter anti-fuddy-duddy.—ED.

“Thoughtful” Citizens

Sirs: In TIME [Nov. 5] you state: The general attitude toward racial problems was most sadly expressed by the more thoughtful Southerners, who said they only wished they could spend the next few years where there weren’t any Negroes.” Why should “more thoughtful Southerners” take this attitude toward a race of people upon whose bloody backs Southern aristocracy reared its chivalric head? Can it be that these thoughtful people will never cease yearning for a return to the good old days when the South reeked with chivalry, hospitality, and slavery? . . .

The mournful melody of the Negro spiritual was not born in the hearts of a people who were enjoying themselves at a Sunday-school picnic. Rather, it was from hearts which knew the meaning of longtime humiliation, ostracism, and rape. Even Adolf Hitler himself must take a bow to American methods of keeping citizens from getting the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship. . . .

In the light of the record, were Negro citizens “thoughtful” in the same way as Southerners, they might wish they could spend the next few eternities where there weren’t any Southerners. . . .

R. SINGLETON SIMS Madison, Wis.

Literary Cockle-Warmer

Sirs:

Congratulations! Aristotle would be proud of you. Your article, “How to Sell a Novel,” in TIME [Nov. 5] warmed the literary cockles of my heart. At least TIME still has standards of literature even if the New Yorker doesn’t. Judging from your remarks Broker Clarke would have gained more if he’d slept through The Manatee, too.

BETTY CONVY

Webster Groves, Mo.

Sirs:

As a fiction writer I was naturally interested in the Bruff saga reported in TIME [Nov. 5]. I dare say those authors on Publisher E. P. Button’s list with works of recognized merit which sell three or five or possibly eight thousand copies, might be more interested than I in Button’s $40,000 advertising budget for a commonplace novel. Personally, I question some of the figures in TIME’S story: a $24,000 royalty cut on 52,000 books, or almost 50¢ per copy, would in my experience constitute a remarkable contract for a first novel. Figures notwithstanding, I think that TIME is the perhaps unconscious author of a highly interesting corollary, for in another part of the magazine its reviewer, in a quite different context, observes that the Anglo-American novel is at its lowest ebb in years. Maybe your reviewer means the Anglo-American publisher.

Louis PAUL

New York City

¶ TIME’S reviewer said “novel,” and meant it. Author Paul (The Pumpkin Coach, etc.) should know about publishers. As for Novelist Bruff’s royalties, her husband says that TIME’S figure is just about right.—ED.

How Many?

Sirs:

Just a suggestion. You . . . [reported] the election of Mr. O’Dwyer as Mayor of New York City. Perhaps others will be interested, as I would, to see a statement such as: “He thus becomes the governing official of more persons than comprise the total population in each of (how many?) of the sovereign nations of the world.”

JOHN W. SCHWARTZ Summit, N.J.

¶ Forty-one of the world’s nations (total: 70 at last count) have fewer people than New York City (an estimated 7,677,000).—ED.