Letters, May 1, 1944

“Lev”

Sirs:

Congratulations on your Governor Saltonstall article (TIME, April 10). As a native of Boston and a long-time resident of the Bay State, I am glad to give testimony to the excellence of the Saltonstall regime. His outstanding administrative ability and political honesty are well-known to students of the science of government. Not so well-known is the sincerity and humility and quiet courage which has characterized his every action in public and private life. You have rendered a great public service in highlighting the attributes of Leverett Saltonstall for the benefit of the American people. Our country could well use his talents in its highest administrative post.

J. F. CONLAN

Hempstead, N.Y.

Sirs:

… a fine tribute to the Bay State’s Governor. . . .

ROBERT WARNER

Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs

State of Vermont

Montpelier, Vt.

Sirs:

So Governor Saltonstall’s great-great-grandpa “struck it rich in … Chicago real estate before the 1820’s.” That’s really getting in on the ground floor! But how and where did he find Chicago before 1820?

A. H. ALLEN Chicago

¶ He didn’t. It was Fort Dearborn then. But the Saltonstalls stuck around, made their money after the Chicago Fire (1871).—ED.

Sirs:

You mention Lev Saltonstall as “three-time governor of New England’s largest state.” You mean, of course, except for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. We don’t have to be big, we New Englanders, to be important. . . .

E. P. GOODNOW

Boston

¶ Large has many definitions. Massachusetts bows to her three New England pals in area only.—ED.

Wisconsin’s Primary

Sirs:

I can not express enough the disillusionment and disappointment I felt. . . . This is a bitter blow to those of us who hoped for a liberal Republican candidate to resuscitate American leadership.

We can no longer look to Mr. Roosevelt for great, unselfish leadership in foreign affairs (witness his petulant attitude toward General de Gaulle), let alone national affairs, for he is obviously too preoccupied with playing the starring role in the great world drama of intrigue and power politics to speak with candor on crucial issues, to answer the searching questions of the world’s bewildered and suffering people. . . .

Therefore, we must look to the other major party for such leadership. Yet now the Republicans of Wisconsin turn down the only man in their party who fully recognizes the character of this conflict and the temper of the people regarding it and has the courage to speak his mind on it, for a fence-straddling pussyfooter, of whom not only do they know not his position on the world structure, but also his position on major postwar national issues. . . .

I feel this turn of events to be tragic. Because America has to a great degree the power to make the coming peace a success or failure, she is not only responsible to her own people but to all people. The times demand statesmanship, for America’s greatness and America herself are on trial before the tribune of all humanity.

JAMES M. TERRELL

Des Moines

Sirs:

. . . The American people have perpetrated one of the greatest tragedies in the long history of our political development. In this year of crises the American people desperately want to elect the greatest President in our history. It now seems evident that neither party will present a candidate of sufficient stature to meet that demand. . . . Damn the people of Wisconsin! . . .

(U.S. NAVY QUARTERMASTER)

Mare Island, Calif.

Sirs:

. . . Thank God for a man who (as he sees it) “would rather be right than be President.”

JOSEPH D. KAUFMAN

Washington

Sirs:

. . . The Wisconsin vote was American rebellion against Harry Hopkins and Eleanor Roosevelt and all the starry-eyed impossibilities they blubber. And I’m still for Wendell Willkie!

ADOLPH MUELLER

Evansville, Ind.

Sirs:

. . . Old-line Republicanism may win, but only as the better of the two evils, not on its merits, which are few. Am I going to have to vote for Roosevelt for the first time?

TIBBS MAXEY

Loveland, Ohio

Sirs:

Results of the Wisconsin primary leave many of us in a fine muddle. We don’t want Dewey, we don’t want Roosevelt, we want Willkie. … I could never vote for a reactionary Dewey and I find Roosevelt insincere, “expedient” to the detriment of his “friends.” I like his reforms, but I dislike his poor business sense. Oh, why can’t people see? Willkie is the solution.

ELIZABETH C. LANDWEHR

Tulsa

Sirs:

. . . The liberal Republicans are now faced with the choice of voting for Thomas E. Dewey, who will be the nominee of the re-isolated G.O.P., or of supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt. The latter choice is obviously the lesser of two evils, and I am firmly convinced that President Roosevelt will be re-elected in November with the aid of millions of liberal Republicans and Democrats who otherwise would have voted for Mr. Willkie.

The Republican partisans of Wisconsin have made a blunder, but I’m sure that the Republican Party and the nation as a whole have not heard the last from Wendell L. Willkie.

(U.S. ARMY SERGEANT)

Apalachicola, Fla.

Tokyo Rose

Sirs: TIME (April 10) hit home when it spoke of Tokyo Rose. I cannot resist sending you excerpts from a letter received a few days ago. The article and the coming of this letter from “somewhere in the Pacific” so nearly coincided that you might use it to stress TIME’S timeliness. The writer of the letter is at present a 1st lieutenant in the Army attached to the service company of the 154th Infantry. He writes:

“I have just had the queerest sensation and one of the biggest thrills of my life. We received our radios today. When they turned the power on tonight, I went to the colonel’s tent and started fooling around with the set. I picked up Jack Benny by rebroadcast, then I changed the set to a different wave length. What do you think I heard? A lovely, warm, cultured, female voice spoke as follows:

” ‘Hello fighting men in the Pacific. Are you lonely tonight? This is Radio Tokyo bringing you your Sunday Evening Concert Hour. Tonight we feature the magnificent playing of Jeśus Maria Sanroma, and the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler.’

“At present they are playing the second recording. Can you imagine those bastards hitting so near home? Reception on this station is perfect and the program must be heard by many thousands. I don’t know whether to be mad at them for doing it or thank them for their beautiful music and fine recording.

“. . . Now a program called Zero Hour . . . and the announcer: ‘Soldier, how about some of that music we used to have three times a day? Imagine yourself all dressed up with that girl beside you. Listen!’ Benny Goodman, at his very best, playing Stardust.

“It is the best music we’ve heard since leaving the States. I can’t get over how smart those devils are. Don’t you know that this must make a hell of an impression on battle-strained minds? What a smooth Yankee voice the gal has! She says that she is playing these selections because they are her favorite selections, and they seemed to give the American boys so much pleasure when she was in America that she noticed it. . . .”

That article certainly was, as this letter proves, a job well done.

CARYL WEINBERG

Brookline, Mass.

Error Repeated

Sirs:

I wonder if John Chamberlain wrote the review of A Modern Foreign Policy for the United States which appeared in TIME (April 10)? For in it there appears the same egre gious error of fact which I found in Chamberlain’s review of the same book in the New York Times.

The reviewer says that in order to reanimate the executive in the conduct of foreign affairs and make the people responsible for foreign relations I “would create a foreign-relations council consisting of the Secretary of State, the Under Secretary of State, and delegates from the Senate and House Committees on foreign relations.”

This is unfortunately no minor error. It misses the point of one-third of the book. If Mr. Chamberlain had read Chapter III, he would have discovered that what he ascribes to me was a proposal made by Senator Wiley which I used in order to introduce Secretary Hull’s sweeping rejection of Congressional interference with the conduct of foreign affairs. If he had plodded on through 20 pages more (which is perhaps too much to ask of a reviewer), he would have discovered my program on pages 86-87, five clearly enumerated points, of which the first and by far most important is that the Secretary of State should appear once each month before a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives for a full-fledged debate on foreign policy in which he would be questioned by the members. Another point was that the Secretary should make a semiannual report to Congress on the state of our foreign relations. And there were three more points.

JOSEPH M. JONES

New York City

¶ TIME is grateful for Author Jones’s clarification of A Modern Foreign Policy.—ED.

The March of TIME

Sirs:

Congratulations to you and the Army Post Office for delivering an air mail copy of the March 20 TIME to Subscriber Victor Rankin (of OWI) in Southern Hukawng Valley on March 27. Twelve thousand miles from New York we Americans at this front were able to read a TIME report of the Battle for Hukawng while the last shells of the retreating Japs were still standing in our vicinity.

JAMES SHEPLEY

With Stilwell’s Chinese and American Forces in Burma

Sirs:

I am amazed at the comprehensive and lucid coverage of your Pacific war news. Those of us who are in the thick of it can appreciate the excellent job you are doing. . . . Each of us is engaged in our own little phase of operations. Then we sit back, read TIME and get the overall picture. It makes us twice as proud of the part we played.

(Y 1/C) WILLIAM A. HAFFERT

San Francisco

Sirs:

Regular receipt of TIME during my recently concluded tour of duty abroad provided me with a highly enlightening factual presentation of news which was otherwise unobtainable. . . .

I have just received a request from my friend, Air Vice Marshal Weedon, of the Royal Air Force, to arrange to send him a subscription to TIME, and trust that you will be able to accommodate him, for unbiased reporting is now more than ever essential to our allies as well as ourselves.

JOHN M. CLARK

Brigadier General, U.S.A.

Middletown. Pa.

Sirs:

TIME continues to be the one and only reliable source of news on world events that seems to find a way to get delivered to us in a minimum of time. . . .

L. L. LETTERMAN

Lieutenant

San Francisco

Sirs:

. . . The “Pony” edition is considered by many people on this ship to be a step forward in the publishing world. Personally, I think you are doing a hell of a good job by letting people know just what is going on the world over. Keep it up.

(Cox) JOSEPH L. EVANS

c/o Fleet P.O.

San Francisco