Monday, May. 12, 1941

Synopsis

Sirs:

First of all I want to thank you for dedicating the April 21 issue of TIME to Yugoslavia.

The subtitle on the cover is perfect. In fact, it may be regarded as a synopsis of the essential belief of the Yugoslav people. Through centuries the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes fought and died for their liberty and independence, always placing the value of liberty high above the value of their lives. Disregarding tremendous odds they always had to face, they defended their freedom, led by a deep and unshaken belief.

And this belief was expressed in the simple sentence you chose: "Men die in fighting, but nations die only in yielding." . . .

BOGDAN RADITSA

Washington, D.C.

Plague

Sirs:

. . . The Middle Ages had the bubonic plague. We of the 20th Century are confronted by something even more incredibly virulent, the Teutonic plague of Adolf Hitler & henchmen. All civilized people everywhere should put their respective shoulders to the task of eliminating this evil before it is too late. . . .

R. A. HAMILTON

Rockford, Ill.

Sirs:

We'll have to get tough!! Hitler is tough. . . .

RICHARD F. LUSSIER

Miami Beach, Fla.

Sirs:

What are we waiting for? . . .

L. C. JOHNSTON

Falmouth Foreside, Me.

Sirs:

May I, perhaps as a "voice crying in the wilderness," protest against the trend of the Christian Church towards blessing World War II? ...

ROLLIN J. FAIRBANKS

Grosse Ile, Mich.

Sirs:

Hendrik Van Loon, among others, tries to indict Colonel Lindbergh's ability as a historian.

One measure of a good historian is his ability to project himself into the future. The accuracy of the Lindbergh predictions is a matter of record. Let Van Loon produce another whose predictions have run as true.

DONALD BRITSCH

Akron, Ohio

No Suppression

Sirs:

Have you reported what happened to the murderer of Trotsky? Was there a trial or has the whole matter been suppressed ? I confess to curiosity as to some explanation of the mystery. . . .

C. J. CANNON

Cambridge, Mass.

> There has been no suppression. The man who calls himself Frank Jackson (alias Jacques Mornard) has been convicted of Trotsky's murder, is in close custody in Mexico City jail awaiting sentence, while Mexican authorities look further into the dark question of Stalinist instigation. Jackson's cell is specially constructed, has steel bars like a tiger's cage. His onetime very good friend, Sylvia Ageloff, was acquitted of complicity, left Mexico for the U.S.--ED.

Appeal

Sirs:

This letter is addressed to the readers of TIME as much as to TIME itself, so that I hope its appeal will find a place in your Letters column.

What I am asking for is TIME for the Army camps. The boys are begging for it. To quote a major in command at Fort Lewis: "Amusement in off hours is a problem for the enlisted man. At this post it costs him 20-c- and about an hour's time to get into town, and then there is darned little for him to do but stand on the street corner. If he stays home he can lie on his bunk and swap yarns or he can go to the battery recreation room which has light and heat but very little else. Your idea of sending books and magazines would be great. The man to handle the distribution would be the regimental chaplain. . . ."

So, TIME-readers! When you have finished with this number, write "Regimental Chaplain" and the name of any of the camps on an envelope, seal it round the rolled-up magazine, stick a stamp--at the low magazine rate of 1-c- for every two ounces--in the corner, and let Uncle Sam carry it to his soldiers. Not too much to do, is it, for the fellows who are giving at least one year of their lives for the rest of us ?

LOUISE REDFIELD PEATTIE

Santa Barbara, Calif.

> Readers who follow Mrs. Peattie's suggestion should bear in mind the importance of mailing copies as soon as possible after publication. Last year's issues will hardly be informative to this year's soldiers.--ED.

Up in Arms

Sirs:

That was a damned sharp review you gave River Rat [TIME, April 7]. Thanks and thanks!

Incidentally, your remarks are being bandied about in the Boston Globe. . . . Townspeople and officials of Dedham refute you and are up in arms over my lousy book. Quite a stink.

Ah, press! . . .

DON LUNDBERG

Tacubaya, Mexico D.F.

Oriskany

Sirs:

Where in the world did the Navy get the name Oriskany as the name of one of the new aircraft carriers? I have several histories of the Navy, not one of which mentions any Oriskany. What did the old Oriskany (if any) do to merit perpetuation of her name? . . .

McCORD SHARER

Atlanta, Ga.

> Aircraft carriers are named not only for historic naval vessels (Wasp, Ranger) but for Revolutionary battles (Bunker Hill, Oriskany). The 26,500-ton Oriskany, ordered in September of last year, will be named after the battle fought on Aug. 6, 1777, near Oriskany in New York's Oneida County, where an American revolutionary force on its way to relieve Fort Schuyler (now Rome, N.Y.), was ambushed by British and Indians. The Revolutionists lost a fourth of their 800 men, but they managed to take about the same toll of their enemies in desperate hand-to-hand fighting. Drums Along The Mohawk gave a good account of the battle.--ED.

Primal Justice

Sirs:

Murder among Eskimos (TIME, April 21) is not as unusual as one might think, and often is the result of a sort of primal justice among the tribes.

In 1920 I spent several months on bleak and frozen Belcher Islands as head of a party of five white men examining the geologic and economic possibilities of certain extensive mineral deposits. . . . While at work we had as helper about camp a native woman, one of the widows of a man who recently had been killed. His legs and arms had been tied together and he had been seated on a rock in the sea at low tide and left to his fate.

When I reached civilization at Moose Factory in the early winter (September) I found that representatives of the Canadian Mounted had just arrived from the south. In some unexplainable manner they had heard of the murder and were on their way to investigate. . . . Their only way of getting to the islands was by favor of my boatmen, who kindly consented to make the journey, hazardous at all times but especially so late in the season. They did travel to the islands, found the murderer, learned the facts, and returned safely to Moose Factory, after notifying the murderer that they would come for him in the following summer and take him out for trial.

DWIGHT E. WOODBRIDGE

Arizona Manganese Corp.

Duluth, Minn.

"I Agree"

Sirs:

In TIME for April 21 you quote William H. Davis [vice chairman, National Defense Mediation Board] as saying, "When you pass compulsory legislation you make the workingman a slave, and there is no use producing defense materials for a nation of slaves, because if there is anything certain in history, it is that a national establishment which has to depend on slaves to produce its materials is inevitably destroyed."

I agree. But I would like to know why the same does not apply to the conscription of young men in order to use those defense materials. If they are drafted and paid slave wages, then they are slaves. And a national establishment which has to depend on slaves to do its fighting for it "is inevitably destroyed." . . .

W. WINSTON THOMAS

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sirs:

. . . If a man works against his will, he is a slave. But what is the man who has a job and wants to work at it but who is prevented by force and violence? Isn't he a slave? Are only strikers to be preserved from slavery and the non-strikers sold into slavery? . . .

B. BALLARD

Lansing, Mich.

Sirs:

Tell Robert F. Kemper, who wrote of "thousands of fellows" in the April 14 issue of TIME, that not all of the union workmen are of the same pattern as the blatant minority.

Not long ago I received a letter from a union man which is very much to the point. In part he says:

"I am a union man and have been for many years, but first and last I am an American.

"The greatest step towards the return of good times in this country would be to bring decency, fairness and justice into the labor movement.

"Labor has responsibilities as well as rights and there can be little lasting benefit when all considerations are given to one side and all responsibility is placed upon the other side. When distrust and suspicion are fostered and when one labor faction is pitted against another, the end will be that labor will finally lose all it has gained.

"We would like to see the time come again when we can give an honest day's work for an honest day's wage, unhindered by fear of fines and blacklisting. . . ."

For obvious reasons this man must remain nameless--he has a job in a union shop, and reprisals are not confined to the totalitarian countries.

TOWNSEND COALE

Seattle, Wash.

Doyle v. Dunninger

Sirs:

My attention has been drawn to a very misleading misstatement of fact concerning my father, the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which appeared in your issue of March 31.

In referring to Mr. Joseph Dunninger, conjurer and self-styled expert on psychic investigation, it is stated that "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Edison and Harry Houdini left secret messages (with him) before their deaths to test the possibility of communication with a world of spirits." Now I cannot speak for Mr. Edison or Mr. Houdini, but I do know for an absolute fact that so far as my father is concerned there is not one word of truth in this statement. . . .

DENIS P. S. CONAN DOYLE

Hollywood, Calif.

> For years Denis Doyle has stoutly maintained that his famed, ghost-hunting father left no secret message with Joseph Dunninger, Manhattan ghostbuster extraordinary. For years Dunninger has stoutly maintained that he did, is ready to sign an affidavit to that effect.--ED.

"Brocklefaced Bozos"

Sirs:

Your slogan seems to be "Curt, Clear, Complete." One meaning of "curt" is rude. Now I could refer to your editors as "bowlegged waddies," "brocklefaced bozos," "drugstore caballeros" or "maverick-roping rustlers," and perhaps accomplish nothing but a feeling of resentment on their part. That would be rude. Besides, it would not be true. But the point I am trying to make is that your writers go out of their way to describe their subjects as "potbellied," "bullnecked," "paunchy," and the like. By so doing they invite ill will, engender resentment, and offend the nice sensibilities, for instance, of foreign diplomats who are schooled in politeness and courtesy. ... It was considered smart by some, after World War I, to be rude. Just when manners seemed to be improving, along comes your magazine, grabs Grandma Literary Digest by the seat of her inner chaps, and throws her clear out of the literary corral. Then your writers began spitting through their teeth to show how smart they were and began to splatter us with them there grammer.

Clearness? Your style is too labored to be clear; the boys in the bunkhouse at the Helen Hiwater get madder'n hell when they have to read some of your paragraphs twice. Beansoup Ben and Sourdough Sam send you 50,000 parentheses to use in your next issue. Are you laughing at us? Sure, we are laughing, too, at old cowpokes lecturing you city slickers on how to write. . . .

THEODORE WANERUS

Buffalo, Wyo.

> TIME never deliberately uses an adjective to invite ill will, is sorry when one does. But TIME does think its subscribers want to be able to visualize the people in the news, and fact is that most of mankind outside of Hollywood are no beauties.--ED.

Sharp Focus

Sirs:

Although we have been acquainted for years, through the medium of TIME, this falls into the my-first-letter-to-the-editor group. . . .

We left the States in 1937, bound for Shanghai. The outbreak of war in that zone shunted us off to Hong Kong while en route. For a year and a half the Colony extended its hospitality to us and our friends. Then on to Shanghai. Two years there, and conditions compelled another move. Now we are at Kalaw in Burma.

During this period TIME has continued to come. It has never been less than three weeks late, and often four or five. And this experience has revealed something to me which I never noticed while in the States. It is this: TIME, a month late, read in conjunction with the daily paper . . . gives perspective and background to the day's news picture. It prevents distortion and overemphasis in terms of the present. It often supplies angles that bring a whole period's reading into sharp focus. . . .

C. E. Wittschiebe

South China Union Mission of Seventh-Day Adventists

Kalaw, Burma

Caption

Sirs:

Among the possible captions for your pictures of the Axiscariots, how long must we wait for "Lout of the Night?"

GRANT FAIRBANKS

The Psychological and Speech Clinic

State University

Iowa City, Iowa

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