Letters, Dec. 12, 1949

Tide Stopper?

Sir:

“The U.S. State Department wants to recognize the Chinese Communists,” and “Acheson suggested that U.S. warships join British warships in breaking the Chinese Nationalist blockade of Communist ports” [TIME, Nov. 21] …

The State Department’s . . . sycophancy toward Great Britain, plus abject fear of Russia and its least organized satellite, has betrayed China, and is thus moving to concede all Asia to Communism.

At this point, things have gone so far that we have at most one last jump into the future. And that is to revive certain elements of the Japanese army—which, under U.S. direction, can stop the Red tide . . .

DREW W. KOHLER Honolulu, T.H.

Man of the Half-Century?

Sir:

I’m willing to bet practically anything that TIME will elect either Roosevelt or Churchill as Man of the Half-Century. Yet surely the scientific discoveries of Albert Einstein have had a much more far-reaching effect . . .

LOUISE M. HIEATT New York City

. . . For Man of the Half-Century, I offer . . . Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism. Dr. Herzl’s movement, launched in 1897, when he predicted the re-establishment brought of the Jewish state “50 years later,” brought to fruition the greatest scheme in behalf of a persecuted people . . . Dr. Herzl was the half-century’s counterpart of a Biblical prophet.

MAURICE WINOGRAD New York City

Sir:

… George Bernard Shaw . . .

HARLAN L. CLAPP Audubon, N.J.

Sir:

The first 50 years of the century could be told in the story and world outlook of one man, and he ends a period—J. Pierpont Morgan. The man who will most influence the next 50 years is . . . Albert Einstein. Beyond that . . . there had best be another Christ, or at least a more far-reaching Gandhi.

Louis POLLOCK Los Angeles, Calif.

Ana, Full Length

Sir:

Concerning the picture and article of Ana Maria Alvarez Calderón, the Western Hemisphere beauty queen [TIME, Nov. 21], quit teasing us and print a full-length shot of her. MORTY SCHIFF DON WHITE William Jewell College Liberty, Mo.

Sir:

Money isn’t everything, so we’ll overlook her $32 million if you will print a full-length picture of Ana Maria Alvarez Calderón. WOW!!!

BOB LYONS GEORGE STELLJES TOM STUBBS BOB COLLINS JACK SAUNDERS University of Georgia Athens, Ga.

Sir:

. . . Show me more.

JOE C. HOLDWAY

Nashville, Tenn. ¶See cut.—ED.

Exuberant Chancellor

Sir:

Prompted by your excellent cover story on the University of Chicago’s Robert Hutchins [TIME, Nov. 21], I should like to express my opinion about the exuberant chancellor.

Hutchins doubtless has made of Chicago a great university. But I think that his statement—”It is not a very good university . . . simply the best there is”—reflects a preposterous conceit. In respect of the ability of its faculty, the caliber of its students, the level of undergraduate intellectualism, the content and presentation of its courses, not to mention the ability of its president, Chicago certainly has its equal in Harvard . . .

ROBERT SPINDLE (’52) Harvard College Cambridge, Mass.

Sir:

Let Educator Hutchins remember that ideas are also facts. Great Books graduates can link the man with the idea, but it is still to be demonstrated that they know what the idea means. Many Great Books students tend to be erudite beyond their intelligence . . .

ROBERT C. BIRNEY Middletown, Conn.

SIR: I simply gloated over TIME’S story about Hutchins, and cursed my guardian angels for letting me come into, and leave, the Chicago picture a few miserable years too early. Here is the champion I prayed for in 1921 to rescue me from John Dewey! . . .

Cincinnati, Ohio DOROTHY SISSON

Sir:

In Chancellor Hutchins there is perhaps a prime example of what can be accomplished by way of establishing a reputation largely on the basis of telling everyone else that they are wrong—regularly, loudly, and with fetching witticism over a period of 20 years . . .

Few people seem to understand that placing the time-post “B.A.” at the end of what is normally the sophomore year has little total effect when such a student usually has to spend three more years to secure a masters degree, whereas the average student with a non-Chicago B.S. can secure a masters degree in one year . . .

TIME’S report that Chicago students find “no one at home to talk to” is perhaps the most pertinent comment of all on an academic system which seeks, intentionally or unintentionally, to establish a group of “intellectually elite” men & women. Whether such a move, based on some of the old European ideals of higher education, is either progressive or democratic, is open to considerable question.

ROBERT E. SCHREIBER University of Maine Orono, Me.

Sir: I think Robert Hutchins would like to nominate himself “Man of the Year” . . .

MRS. HARRY MULHOLLAND JR.

Milford, Del.

Sir:

It’s good to see that we still have sane people like Hutchins of Chicago in Education …

THOMAS B. GORGANSON New York City

Sir:

TIME repeats the remark of a student at the University of Chicago who found her alma mater to be “one of the few places where you can make a philosophical reference and have it understood.” Her opinion was shared, apparently, by an undergraduate who was heard to say recently on the Midway: “Oh, she’s cute all right—but a materialistic little dialectic.”

HARRIET D. HUDSON Champaign, 111.

Sir:

Roses to you for your article on Robert Hutchins. Those unfortunate undergraduates of today who are inextricably caught in the regimented and intellectually stifling institutionalization of our “modern” higher education system look to Hutchins as an Abraham Lincoln, a Thomas Paine and a Wendell Willkie all rolled into one.

Hutchins is teaching men to think and to act consistently with those thoughts. And if nothing else, his antiphony intellectualism procedures show that there are some men in the educational field who understand the plight of the ordinary college student.

JAY LOCKMAN

Western Maryland College Westminster, Md.

Cheesecake Fame

Sir: I am tired of hearing Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner [TIME, Nov. 21]; complain that they hate . . . “cheesecake.” It seems most of them built their fame by what they now hate. If they had real acting talent in the beginning, they would not have become famous for posing with practically nothing on.

TIMOTHY TUNG Columbia, Mo.