Letters, Dec. 15, 1952

Man of the Year?

Sir:

May I suggest for Man of the Year—Senator Robert A. Taft, a good loser and a great man.

MARY C. HANSON

Hollywood, Calif.

Sir:

. . . The gentleman who put the Republicans back in the White House—Alger Hiss.

HELEN B. MICHAK Cleveland

Sir:

Dr. Daniel Malan, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, the worst racist alive . . .

A. BABS FAFUNWA Denver

Sir:

. . . Herbert C. Hoover . . . The opponent of every Democrat for the past 24 years . . .

WILLIAM L. MUNCASTER Santa Barbara, Calif.

Sir:

. . . Harry Truman … for setting socialistic judicial precedents back 20 years by overplaying his hand in the steel case . . .

Ev. SPRING

Honolulu, T.H.

Sir:

… Federal Judge David A. Pine, whose momentous decision in the steel case was a harbinger of the great November rebellion . . .

LLOYD M. ST. OURS Baltimore

Sir:

. . . Adlai Stevenson, the most charming personality of his generation.

PAUL D. STRATTON

Granite Falls, Minn.

Christmas Suggestions

Sir:

Two years ago a group of high-school boys like myself started a campaign: to put Christ back into Christmas. We wanted people to realize that Christmas is important —not because it is a holiday when we send cards and exchange presents—but because it is Christ’s birthday . . .We wrote to some of our country’s leaders, asking them to help us. These leaders did . . . and the people listened to them.

Would you help us, too? When your readers send their Christmas cards this year, why not Send one showing the crib at Bethlehem? When they decorate their tree they could set up a crib under it. Then when Christmas Day comes, they can go to church . . .

RONALD CLASGENS

St. Xavier High School Cincinnati

The Corps: Devotees & Dissenters

Sir:

As a retired naval officer of some 43 years of service and a veteran of amphibious warfare from Guadalcanal to the occupation of Japan, I dust off and don my uniform cap to salute you on your Nov. 24 article on General Lemuel Shepherd . . .

As a naval attack force commander, I am proud to have landed and supported General Shepherd and his 1st Provisional Marine Brigade in the recapture of Guam, and his 6th Marine Division in the assault and capture of Okinawa. So from intimate knowledge I congratulate TIME on its magnificent tribute to the fighting United States Marines and one of their greatest fighting generals.

LAWRENCE FAIRFAX REIFSNIDER

Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret.) Coronado, Calif.

Sir:

A hearty “well done” for your excellent cover story. I suggest, however, that you “deep six” such terminology as “gaudy” (Marine) uniforms, especially when some of our other services resemble bus drivers (Air Force) or look like they’re walking around with their pajamas on (Navy) . . .

WILLIAM M. ABER 2nd Lieutenant, U.S.M.C. Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Sir:

. . . The Marines . . . usually forget to reveal their secret weapon (the Army), which always comes to their rescue when the chips are down. I was with the 7th Infantry Division at Changjin Reservoir at the time of the trap, and if it hadn’t been for us, the Marines would have been holding roll-call in a telephone booth after the breakthrough . . .

M. DRAKE

Lieutenant, U.S. Army Greenville, S.C.

Sir:

. . . You show a famous painting captioned “Marines Entering Mexico City (1847).” It shows General J.A. Quitman of the U.S. Army leading a group of Marines into Mexico City. There were some 300 Marines and 14,000 soldiers engaged in the War with Mexico, and it was the Army’s Captain B. S. Roberts who hoisted Old Glory over the National Palace (“The Halls of Montezuma,” etc.) . . .

WILLIAM M. COLE

Monterey, Calif.

Publishers’ Correction

SIR:

IN YOUR DEC. 1 REVIEW OF “THIS I BELIEVE,” YOU QUOTE HAROLD TAYLOR AS WRITING: “l BELIEVE WE MUST, EACH OF US, MAKE A PHILOSOPHY OUT OF BELIEVING IN NOTHING.” TO DR. TAYLOR’S AND OUR OWN CHAGRIN AND REGRET, THIS REPRESENTS A PRINTER’S ERROR IN THE BOOK WHICH WAS SET FROM THE ORIGINAL SYNDICATED MATERIAL WHICH READS: “l BELIEVE WE MUST, EACH OF US, MAKE A PHILOSOPHY BY WHICH WE CAN LIVE. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO MAKE A PHILOSOPHY OUT OF BELIEVING IN NOTHING.”

M. LINCOLN SCHUSTER SIMON AND SCHUSTER NEW YORK CITY

Sir:

Because of the typographical error … I have been saddled with a philosophical position I abhor—the philosophy of believing in nothing . . . My views are quite different. I believe in a philosophy of personal commitment, and I think that those who hold honest beliefs on the basis of evidence should be prepared to say what they are and to stand by them. Otherwise we develop a flabby society full of timid people.

HAROLD TAYLOR

Sarah Lawrence College Bronxville, N.Y.

The Domestic Animal

— Sir:

It is rubbing salt into an old wound to have TIME, one of my few refreshing contacts with the outside world, look down its patrician nose at that unfortunate domestic animal, the housewife.

In her report on the wives of Yalemen (class of ’37), Editor Agnes Rogers [TIME, Nov. 24] did not report the state of mind of Mrs. Median Yale, intelligent enough to know better than to be a housewife; but I can tell you that Mrs. University of Texas (3.0 children, twelve hours a day housework, no part-time maid, ten books a year, Ike-Republican) longs for a wonder drug which will vaccinate a wife and mother against the ravages of monotony and boredom . . . The truth hurts … so please, dwell on the more glittering facets of this world—please concentrate on lifting us out of our dullness, not on exposing it.

MRS. FRANKLIN G. MOORE

Corpus Christi, Texas

The Eggheads (Cont’d)

Sir:

Re the eggheads and your Nov. 24 Letters column: I would be interested in knowing how many indignant letters you received from eggheads who took this new moniker personally. The “unhealthy gap” between these self-styled intellectuals and “we, the people” is of course created by their regrettable lack of humor, and their even more regrettable lack of other forms of perspective. These are the armchair variety of philosopher, politician, diplomat, businessman and economist who can’t see past theoretical idealism to the cold, practical facts … I venture to guess that most of them are under 35 —William Allen White’s arbitrarily set age for graduation from socialistic idealism. Some of them—Hollywoodians—are no doubt maladjusted and feel the need to cling desperately to their raised eyebrows.

Incidentally, I have a suspicion that a big hunk of the 27 million mentioned in one letter are far from intellectual!

I must admit that I am an alumnus of the elite—I once voted for Norman Thomas.

(I was well under 35.)

HARRIET F. BECKUS North Hollywood, Calif.

Sir:

What manner of being is an egghead? Do you mean a sort of Martini-sipping Guru of beer-guzzling disciples? Or just anyone in whom intellect surpasseth understanding? . . . Perhaps . . . your readers can give us a clarifying definition of this intriguing word coinage … So many of TIME’S readers in your Letters column acknowledge being eggheads, we should certainly be able to pin this thing down.

TOM SWEENEY Wheeling, W.Va.

Sir:

Perhaps this will help in the egghead discussion: 1) an intellectual is a person who is well-informed and intelligent; 2) a liberal intellectual is an intellectual who espouses liberal political programs; 3) an egghead is a person (possibly intellectual) who for profit, publicity or in the search of power espouses liberal political programs.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, Ike nor Adlai, have to worry about the first two categories. But you and I and everybody have a lot to worry about if the third group gets power.

ROBERT S. RADCLIFFE Ardmore, Pa.

Sir:

. . . The term egghead was, if I gather rightly, originally intended to be a bit derogatory, indicating a capacity for and a preoccupation with mental activity of a particular kind, limited in its scope, and by no means resulting in an orderly process of thought capable of producing wise decision, nor of envisaging constructive and adequate planning for this nation’s life, liberty and happiness. Alger Hiss is an egghead, Whittaker Chambers is an egghead, with a latent streak of common sense. There are all kinds of eggheads—neurotic, paranoiac, schizophrenic. There are also harmless and normal eggheads, including a few useful ones.

The electorate, however, was not looking for an egghead … At work in its mind was what Barrett Wendell of Harvard described as “the awful sanity of the average man” . . .

MARJORIE CATHARINE CAREY Tulsa

Sir:

… As a lifelong Democrat who tried without success to make some sense out of the beautifully phrased, intellectual double-talk of the late lamented “talk sense to the American people” candidate, let me say that I am proud that my one vote helped to swell the total to 33 million for a first-rate President . . . Let the weeping and wailing of these socialistic eggheads be heard throughout the land and praise God that the 33 million who for once used the good old-fashioned horse sense He gave them now have the upper hand . . .

RUTH JOHNSTON Rome, N.Y.