Astride the Storm

Sirs:

Speaking of prophecies re Churchill [TIME, March 31], the following is from Prophets, Priests and Kings by A. G. Gardiner. It was published first in 1908.

"If we could conceive him [Winston Churchill] in a great upheaval, he would be seen emerging in the role of what Bagehot calls 'a Benthamite despot,' dismissing all feudal ideas and legitimist pretensions, sweeping aside all aristocracies, proclaiming the democratic doctrine of the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number' and seating himself astride the storm as the people's Caesar--at once dictator and democrat."

MARY LITTLE JOHN

Toronto, Ont.

> Alfred G. Gardiner, journalist, essayist, biographer (Pillars of Society, The War Lords, Certain People of Importance, The Anglo-American Future, etc.), was editor of the London Daily News from 1902 to 1919, is now serving as a justice of the peace in Buckinghamshire.--ED.

Free Trade, Golden Age

Sirs:

In TIME, March 31 under "Science," British Author-Chemist E. C. Large gives as his reason for Free Trade and the Empire's Golden Age--Ireland's potato famine.

True, the potato famine did help establish Free Trade. But how about those stout-hearted manufacturers (not industrialists) of Manchester who sacrificed their fortunes and in some cases their lives for the principles of Free Trade long before the fungus struck the potato crop.

In spite of the political fungus that was nurtured by such "statesmen" as Disraeli, Gladstone, Wellington and others who sinned against the light, it was finally cleansed from the British mind by the long and titanic efforts of John Bright, Richard Cobden and others of the Manchester school.

If the principles of Richard Cobden had been followed Great Britain would still be celebrating the Golden Age, and if Free Trade and economic equality had been practiced throughout Europe I wonder if World War I and II would have occurred.

Thank God and the Tennessee hills for Cordell Hull; for his patience and breadth of vision. And some day may Free Trade be complete in this part of the world, so we can set an example against avarice and economic inequality for the rest of the world to follow. . .

HARRY A. COBDEN

Berkeley, Calif.

> To Reader Cobden all credit for still upholding the doctrines of his grandfather's late brother, Economist Richard Cobden.--ED.

Amused, Puzzled

Sirs:

On the evening of March 7, 1941, Count von Luckner, the old sea raider, had dinner at my home and during the course of the evening I showed him the story that you wrote about him in your Jan. 13 issue. The old Count was a little amused and puzzled too. Finally, he took his pen and wrote the following over the page:

The old raider has prepared for his World War II job by having trained himself as a "heart raider" on his world cruise. I also had a hell of a time getting through the British blockade as a fisherman. I am proud of being an honorary citizen of San Francisco. (Signed) Felix Count Luckner, Berlin, 7 III, 41.

As for the arsenal on board, the Count said that he had seven guns of various types--none for raiding.

The Count arrived back in Stettin harbor on his yacht, the Seeteufel, during the last week of February. He asked to be remembered to his thousands of friends and followers in America.

> TIME'S Jan. 13 story cited rumors that Count Luckner, famed sea raider of World War I, was raiding again in the Pacific, not in his yacht Seeteufel ("Sea Devil") but in a 7,100-ton armed merchantman. Now 56--according to Wer Ist's, the German Who's Wh --the Count likes to tell people he is 72, then show he is still in the prime by tearing telephone books in two. --ED.

Ford on Women

Sirs:

"To say it plainly, the great majority of women who work do so in order to buy fancy clothes," says Henry Ford (TIME, March 17).

This is not only untrue and unjust. It is downright insulting to thousands of women who are working from necessity, not from choice.

I have worked for 19 years, with two years' time out to have two children (and I mean JUST two years, for I taught school until three months before my daughter was born, and started office work when my son was six months old).

Before marriage I worked to support myself. After marriage I worked because I was tired of trying to take care of a family of four on $15 a month; tired of seeing my husband come home worn out and dejected after days of job hunting. (Many of these days were spent in front of a Ford factory.)

I know dozens of women who work. . . . Probably every one of them would rather be at home if she had a husband earning an income sufficient to live on. Believe me, a woman who works eight or nine hours a day and then goes home and does her housework, cooking and sewing at night, hasn't much time to think of "fancy clothes."

Mr. Ford had better stay on the subject of automobiles. He certainly knows nothing about women.

MRS. R. E. SOBEY

Castle Rock, Colo.

Cheerful

Sirs:

A quaint performance, that review of my novel, Between Two Worlds! [TIME, March 24]. Your reviewer cannot forgive me because I write "easily." He ought to know that I have been 46 years at it; the day when I began may have been before he was born. [Right--ED.] There is a saying that "easy writing makes hard reading"; but your critic admits that in my case both are easy. . . .

What annoys him most appears to be what he calls my "almost moronic cheerfulness." This seems to me a classic phrase and I will do what I can to immortalize it. All my long writing life I have been called a killjoy, a sorehead, a Jeremiah, a muckraker, a common scold, a public nuisance--all the names you could think of; and now, having achieved serenity in my 60's, I am "almost moronic." Let me point out to your reviewer that the case is not entirely unique. Emerson managed to keep cheerful through the tragedy of the Civil War; so did Whitman, after a fashion. Victor Hugo managed to live through the days of exile and the agony of the Franco-Prussian War: "Moi, qui me crus apotre!" [I, who believed myself a zealot!]. . . .

UPTON SINCLAIR

Pasadena, Calif.

Sensitive

Sirs:

All congratulations for a fine, beautifully written tribute to Sherwood Anderson [TIME, April 7]. I don't think Sherwood ever answered his critics, though he might have. He wrote time and again about them in his letters, he professed to be insensitive to what they said, but he was nevertheless sensitive about the charge that he was obsessed with sex. When, three months before his death, my secretary and myself had dinner with the Andersons, Sherwood mentioned that he was writing his memoirs. My secretary, knowing that Sherwood had lived in many portions of the United States, and thinking also of the variety of his writing, asked whether his memoirs would be "sectional." "Oh, no," replied Sherwood with a surprised, reproachful glance, "not at all sexual." I think that, more than anything else, indicates that he was sensitive about this criticism. . . .

AUGUST DERLETH

Sauk City, Wis.

The Real Reason

Sirs:

TIME, April 1, announced under Milestones the death of Professor Eugene Dubois, Dutch anthropologist.

TIME is in error. . . . Dr. Dubois died at his country estate, "de Bedelaer," near Haelen in The Netherlands (not Belgium).

It was not for reasons of piety that the discoverer of the Java Man withdrew the fossils from further examination until 1926. Only his immediate family knows the real reason, and I am now writing the story of my father's life and discoveries, in which I will mention the real reason.

J. M. F. DUBOIS

Denver, Colo.

Fruit of the Tree

Sirs:

Your magazine is "tops" with me. . . . But one statement in your Religion column of March 31 is a bit strange: "Adam & Eve fell, not through eating an apple, but an apricot."

Well, who said they ate an apple? Surely not the Bible. The Bible simply says it was "fruit of the tree." So the wizards at the flower show can guess again if they like, for nobody who knows the Bible will gainsay them.

F. LAWRENCE, Minister St. James' Presbyterian Church

Truro, N.S.

> Art and legend have made it an apple for thousands of years, will probably continue to do so, despite literal-minded botanists who point out that no apples worth eating could have been growing in Palestine when Genesis was written. The apple tradition may have started because of the Hebrew word tapuah, which was used both generally for any fruit and specifically for apples. --ED.

Chapter & Verse

Sirs:

Just for curiosity, what was the source of the quote on Bing Crosby with my name on it in the April 7 issue?

I don't doubt you have chapter and verse on it. It's just that it feels a little queer to see yourself quoted without the foggiest idea of where and when. If it was in one of the movie pieces I used to do for the New York Herald Tribune Sundays, you people have either astounding memories or a voluminous morgue.

Would you mind letting me know?

J. C. FURNAS

Lebanon, N.J.

> Prolific Free-Lance Joseph Chamberlain Furnas (best known for his sensational piece on motor accidents,--And Sudden Death) may be forgiven for not remembering just when & where he summed up the Crosby appeal: "The prevalent feminine verdict is that he is definitely cute, while the masculine part of the audience seems not to mind him at all. . . ." It was in deed in the New York Herald Tribune --May 6, 1934, page 97.--ED.

Wavell's Allenby

Sirs:

We were gratified to notice in the April 7 issue of TIME a review of General Sir Archibald Wavell's Allenby: A Study in Greatness, which we published last Thursday. . . . We were somewhat disturbed, however, to see that the book is attributed to Lippincott, and we wonder whether you couldn't find space in your next issue to correct this mis-attribution. . . .

PHILIP VAUDRIN Oxford University Press

New York City

>TIME fumbled its publishers, heartily apologizes.--ED.

Baptism of Fire

Sirs:

. . . Am very pleased to enclose bank draft for $7, being renewal of my subscription to your journal for another year.

I would like to reaffirm the great interest and pleasure that your magazine continues to give me. . . .

I am enclosing ... a typewritten copy of a letter which I recently received from my youngest brother who is on active service "somewhere in Africa," being an account of his first baptism of fire. . .

SONNY COHEN

Cape Town, South Africa

Dear Sonny & Lolly:

I don't know yet what the newspapers have published about the capture and destruction of El Wak and the part that the South African troops played, but just in case you are interested I am going to give you a firsthand account. . . .

The colonel addressed us on Friday evening the 13th and informed us that we'd be leaving at 6 a.m. the following day for the purpose of capturing El Wak. Big cheers, beer, sentiment, fellows pulling others to the side and rather shamefacedly asking for nice letters to be written to their families in case anything happened, water checked, rations checked, grenades charged, etc. . . . We were a pretty huge force. . . . Troops from the Gold Coast and East Africans accompanied us. ...

Sunday 5 a.m. we arrived at our jumping-off point. . . . Try and sleep and find it impossible and then the news comes through that our plans have to be changed. The road to El Wak is mined and the Banda are strung in front of the fort in very large numbers and it's our job with A Company in front to mop them up.

Night falls and tomorrow is zero day. We embus, wish each other luck and proceed to our next point by moonlight. The whole force is parked there in the open and what a marvelous sight it was. ... At 12:30 I awake to the sound of scurrying feet and rat-a-tat-tat, peeng, bang! We're being fired on from the bush, and shots and ricochets are whizzing past our heads. I'm perfectly unafraid. . . . Our troops near the bush return the fire and the Banda . . . fade into the night. ... At 2:30 a.m. enemy firing starts in earnest. They're firing right down our lines, the peeng of their ricochets strikes me as being as funny as hell. ... In the meantime our machine guns open fire and we lob two mortar shells into the bush, and the Gold Coast add to the noise by firing rifle grenades and by the time I have made up my mind where to place myself the whole show is over and back I go to sleep.

Came dawn and zero hour is on hand. . . . A Company forms up and. . . we're on our way. . . . What bush! Armored cars accompany us and it's still a miracle how they got through. A Company are to contact the enemy, artillery is to open up and the rest of the battalion is going to mop up the pieces. Our planes roar overhead, the heat is killing, the pace is terrific. We reach our first bound but the enemy are gone. I pass the word around: "Save your water." I rinse my mouth out and we go forward. . . .

El Wak fort and a post strongly held in front of it were being shelled throughout our advance and had already been taken when the colonel and C Company moved up. A Company is placed in reserve and we are told to march back to our transport, which is moving up along the road to meet us. We literally stagger along the road. One of my blokes falls, all he can say is, "Water! Water!" and then he passes out and is picked up by ambulance and is taken back. We reach the transport and collapse beneath the trucks which provide the only shade. . . .

What a road home, like traveling over sand dunes, but we are on the way home. Arrive in camp in the evening singing: "We'll hang out our washing on the El Wakline." There's a brandy issue. Glorious mail, my stretcher has arrived and another parcel. Two gallons of water per man. Dig a hole, put my ground sheet in--makes a perfect bath and lie flat on my back in the water reading my post--of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. .

MARK

"Somewhere in Kenya"

* Signature, omitted by request, is' that of one of the few Americans still in Berlin.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.