Opinions
Sirs:
WHY DO YOU PERSIST STUPIDLY IN ANY DEROGATORY COMMENT OF WILLKIE, OUR NATION'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY, UNLESS YOU WANT THE ELECTION OF ROOSEVELT, AN UNSCRUPULOUS DICTATOR AND A NATIONAL CALAMITY?
MRS. GEORGE B. MASSEY
Winnetka, Ill.
Sirs: . . . Just a few words in TIME this week gives some of us hope that you may be beginning to see [Willkie's] full proportions--which are far smaller than most people have dreamed. There could be no greater calamity for our country at this hour of peril than a mind like Mr. Willkie's--one almost entirely devoid of ability, which is proved to a great degree by his searching for ideas among newspapermen--a fact given out on the radio this week by a commentator. . . .
SUSAN FRANCES HUNTER
New York City
Sirs:
TIME magazine is read in my home regularly. We feel that you favor President Roosevelt and the New Deal in your editorial pages and use a cloak of pretense to be neutral and non-partisan to exploit your favorite. . . .
If you are openly for the New Deal, the Third Term and President Roosevelt, please stop my magazine.
MRS. S. C. CARNES
Cambridge, Ohio
Golden Corn
Sirs:
I have been a resident alien in the U. S. for 17 years, and I have seen a number of letters written from England, published in various magazines.
This one from my mother seems to me to be rather more indicative.
My mother is 70 years old and has previously lost two sons in the Army. Now she lives in the Thames Valley, has two more sons in the Army and two in the Royal Navy. This is her latest letter to me.
". . . Thank you for your birthday letter which was dated July 30 and arrived on my birthday by the afternoon post. You have had a heat wave which was passed on to us. I was worried about you, I saw in the papers so many people had passed on with it. We have had a most lovely summer and everything has done so well, the vegs., plums and apples, pears, and I have never seen the corn so golden since the old days at Cuxham. We are still getting TIME but it generally comes three at a time.
"We get German planes over us every night, and we hear bombs and anti-aircraft guns in the distance. We heard this morning that Robin is a prisoner in Germany, poor lad.
"You know of course that Government Regulations made your sister leave her editorial job. She now milks her cows and washes her dairy cans, etc., every day, and finds life very dull, I think. The boys are well--Snoops is still in Alexandria, Baba has just sailed under sealed orders. John seems to get a lot of nasty raids on the coast. Jack is having his tonsils out next week. Irene has eleven chicks and hopes they will lay in the winter. But I believe about six are cocks.
"I hope if the war is over next year that you will come home.
"I wish someone would strangle Lindbergh.
"We are knocking the Germans down like ninepins.
"Much love, Mother" Does anyone question British morale? LADY MARY CAMERON New York City
Catholic Reports Sirs: In your issue of Sept. 9, on p. 28, reference is made to 45 German Catholic bishops meeting in solemn conclave at Fulda, Germany.
The article states that, "The Catholic Church in Germany is indebted to German troops"--with the result that a pastoral letter was written to be read from all pulpits glorifying Hitler and his German troops, if & when the war is won. A further reference is made to the suspension of the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, and that the Vatican sought and found a "modus vivendi" with all powers except Russia. . . .
P. T. BUTTERY Toledo, Ohio
^ TIME noted that the report of the Fulda conference came from the German News Agency (DNB). A report from Geneva recently called the German report "spurious" and denials have now come from Vatican City that Osservatore will cease publication.--ED.
Brother & Sister
Sirs:
It is remarkable that on p. 24 of TIME, Sept. 2 you refer in a footnote to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-und-Gotha, apparently not remembering that his sister is shown on the cover of the same issue.
Princess Alice and the Duke are both children of the late Duke of Albany, the son of Queen Victoria.
It is quite likely that the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-und-Gotha will be "siwashed" a second time.
G. E. WILKINS-ELLINGTON Vancouver, B. C.
> Right. And a hearty reproof to the editor who failed to point it out specifically in TIME'S footnote, which said that "Saxe-Coburg-tmd-Gotha was the house of the British Royal Family which gazetted itself the House of Windsor only in 1917." (As a retort to that gazetting, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his court attended a command performance of Shakespeare's comedy, The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-und-Gotha.}--ED.
Anti-Adlermann Sirs: With reference to Emil Adlermann's letter in [the Sept. 9] issue, p. 4, the "God Strafe England" paragraph stamps him as a Hun and true to type. May I ask him which God is to strafe England? The Christian God--the God of the universe--whom the Nazis have repudiated, or the mythical German gods which Hitler sometimes calls upon? . . .
G. SlMMONDS Denver, Colo.
Sirs: I have just finished reading Herr Adlermann's exceedingly disgusting letter. If Herr Adlermann objects so strongly to having the truth told about his "beloved" Germany's Air Force, why does he not leave America, go to Hitler's Greater Germany, and make it a superior air force which it certainly is not now. . . .
The so-called "Riff-R.A.F." seems to be doing a pretty good job of shooing the "Kultured" German Air Force back to where it belongs and with a handful of planes, too. What does Herr Adlermann say to that?
Long Live Britannia and everything she stands for! And may a certain international big bully receive the much-needed beating it deserves!
ALFRED FLETCHER Atlanta, Ga.
Sirs:
Who is this so-called "American" German sympathizer? What we need is phew-Herr Adlermanns and fiihrer Hitlers in this world.
With best wishes for an unusually speedy Emil Adlermann blackout! God Girdle the Garlicky Germans!
DICK OWEN Clewiston, Fla.
-- Herr Adlermann's blast against the British moved some 40 TIME readers to reply. Two agreed with him.--ED.
Car Rankings
Sirs:
TIME, Sept. 9, p. 69, says, "Other sixes, especially Chevrolet and Plymouth, have cut into Ford's market, reduced him from first place in 1930 to third in 1940."
According to car registration figures for 1940, Chevrolet is first, Ford second, Plymouth third. How come?
R. B. STETSON Detroit, Mich.
> Reader Stetson's statement is correct; TIME'S also correct but confusing.
In 1930 Ford Motor Co. led General Motors and Chrysler Corp. (producers of Pontiac, Dodge, Oldsmobile, De Soto, Chevrolet and Plymouth--other sixes). In 1940 Ford Motor Co. ranked after them.--ED.
Senatorial Squirrel Hunter
Sirs:
Is Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, quoted in TIME, Sept. 2, as speaking against conscription ("the squirrel hunters of North Carolina and Kentucky can keep Hitler or anyone else off until the Marines arrive and the situation is well in hand") any relation to a member of Congress of the same name who was held up on the auto road between Mexico [City] and Taxco a few years ago? ... If he is the type of squirrel hunter they have in North Carolina, for God's sake give us conscription quick in the States.
R. H. RICHARDS
Puebla, Mexico
-- In October 1936 Senator Reynolds was robbed of his wrist watch and $200 by bandits near Taxco.--ED.
Plane Costs
Sirs:
According to my juggling of the figures in the enclosed clipping from the New York Times, Lockheed is to be paid $73>85DEG apiece for making 410 interceptor pursuit planes and Boeing is to get $254,332 apiece for 277 heavy bombers ordered under War Department contract last week.
In TIME, Sept. 2, you indicate that 100,000 pounds sterling will purchase "an entire Spitfire squadron" or "20 Hurricanes." Figuring the pound at $4 the cost of Hurricanes would appear to be around $20,000 each.
Now the Hurricanes seem to be pursuing and intercepting successfully the very aerial foe we are preparing to ward off, and yet for that same function the U. S. must pay more than three times as much, plane for plane. Is it inefficiency, the standard of living, or gravy ?
NORMAN S. HEANEY
The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Md.
-- Several factors account for this difference: i) The Lockheed P-38 is a much bigger (11,171 lb. unloaded, compared to the Hurricane's 4,670 lb.) and faster (404 m.p.h. to 335 m.p.h.) plane; 2) it has two Allison engines instead of the Hurricane's single, less expensive Rolls Royce Merlin; 3) it has not yet gone into mass production; 4) in Britain the average weekly wage for aircraft workers is about $20, in the U. S. about $30.--ED.
Hitchhiking in Europe
Sirs:
I wonder how many of my acquaintances have written to you after reading that how to thumb a ride is "a trick unknown to Europe" (TIME, Sept. 2).
During a half-year's tramp around the Continent in 1938 we found that the principal conversation while doing the Youth Hostel supper dishes invariably reverted to a comparison of the day's hitchhiking mileages, or better kilometerages. It was, I grant, in general limited to the Americans present, but in numerous cases we found natives had ably learned the art, and, indeed, the best record of which we heard was that of a Swedish chap: from Paris to Goteborg in three days.
... In most countries, wearing an American flag on the sweater or rucksack was a distinct help, though frequently even folk wealthy enough to own cars did not recognize what it represented.
Another means I heard mentioned was to barricade the road and demand, from the first car, the favor of a ride in partial payment of the country's war debt. . . .
PHILIP M. KLAUBER Lynn, Mass.
Netherlands Navy
Sirs:
I would be much interested if you could give me any information as to what has happened to The Netherlands Navy.
According to Jane's Fighting Ships, they had a considerable number of light cruisers, destroyers and submarines. Although I remember that it was mentioned in dispatches that the greater part of this fleet escaped at the time of the invasion of Holland, I have been unable to discover what has happened to these boats since that time.
WILLIAM G. MORTON Syracuse, N. Y.
-- Two of The Netherlands Navy's three warworthy cruisers, four (possibly six) of its eight destroyers, twelve of its 23 submarines and about half its smaller vessels were in The Netherlands Indies at the time of the German invasion, are there still. Two of its best ships, the cruiser De Ruyter and the torpedo cruiser Tromp, escaped to Britain. Sev eral others were sunk. The Germans seized few Dutch warships in commis sion, but doubtless got two cruisers, one torpedo cruiser, four destroyers and five of the seven submarines that were then building. Two submarines near completion made a getaway to Britain.
--En.
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