On Chinese Exclusion
Sirs:
YOUR ARTICLE REGARDING HEARINGS ON REPEAL OF CHINESE EXCLUSION LAW [TIME, JUNE 14] WAS EXCELLENT EXCEPT THAT YOU MENTIONED THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT WOULD BE ANGRY IF LAW REPEALED BUT FAILED TO INDICATE THAT OTHERS WERE SUPPORTING REPEAL. MOST IMPORTANT ARE THE CALIFORNIA STATE C.I.O. . . . AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE . . . HAVE URGED CONGRESS TO PASS LEGISLATION REPEALING THIS DISCRIMINATORY LAW AND PUTTING CHINESE ON QUOTA BASIS.
A. McKIE DONNAN
San Francisco
Soldier's Analysis
Sirs:
On leave in Los Angeles, I had opportunity to investigate the zoot suit feud [TIME, June 21]. . . . I could find nothing to ""distinguish the behavior of our soldiers from the behavior of Nazi storm troop thugs that roved Berlin in mobs bent on beating up outnumbered non-Aryans. .
Los Angeles papers carried this typical headline: "Zoot Suit Hoodlum Mobs Attack Service Men." I saw nothing to justify this headline except circulation. I found the situation to be entirely the reverse. I found the zooter on most occasions outnumbered 200 to one, except in their enforced segregated districts. . . .
In my opinion the type of soldier (a very tiny proportion of the Army) who drifted in the Los Angeles terror mobs suffers from an inferiority complex. Regimented, and in his drab same uniform, he resents the attention the zooter is paid when garbed in his nonmilitary, free-choice, albeit outlandish, getup. . . . This type of soldier has a subconscious bitterness towards all civilians, fostered by labor strikes which are played up by the press, and against capital which they imagine is making millions while they, poor souls, are the "goats."
He cannot take his frustrated bitterness out on "any civilian." That would be civil war which he knows to be very wrong; but he can take it out on the outcasts of society. This is a form of class war which is not frowned upon in most sections of America when directed against the Negroes, and in Los Angeles against both the Mexican and the Negro. . .
Why does Los Angeles have these silly problem children rushing about in their ridiculous suits? Los Angeles has pressed the Negro and the Mexican into squalid ghettoes. Is it then so miraculous and amazing that this sordid environment does not produce model young Americans?
(S/SGT.) WILLIAM D. EASTLAKE
Camp White, Ore.
Seven Times 47?
Sirs:
TIME (June 14) reports a speech by Herbert Hoover in which he asserted that we have no important food supplies with which to meet the demands of starving people if the war should suddenly end, and in which he asserted that the policy of restrictions imposed on farmers by the present administration has taken 47 million acres out of production.
I should like to point out that, due to the ever-normal granary plan, we started this war with rather substantial surpluses of grains which we did not have in the last war. Also, the record crops of 1942 may have been due in large part to the soil conservation practices put into effect by the present administration.
The farm is a food factory, and like other factories it cannot operate forever at a loss. . . . With the ruinous prices paid [in 1932], seven times 47 million acres would probably have been taken out of production.
All we need to boost farm production is attractive prices. If farmers can make good profits, it will not take long to put every available acre into production. . . .
H. G. JOHNSON
Belview, Minn.
Sirs:
Ex-President Hoover is again counseling us as to how and what to do about food. . . . I can't understand how anyone could have any faith at all in any of his views. . . .
JULES KAPLAN
Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Dear God" . . .
Sirs:
Dear God . . . give us more sailors like Evan Owen Jones [who supported the anti-poll tax bill in an impromptu speech from the House Gallery--TIME, June 7] and fewer senators like Bilbo.--Amen.
Bilbo and like-minded Southern demagogues nullify in considerable measure what this nation fought a war to achieve.
(SGT.) JAMES W. HAMMETT JR.
c/o Postmaster New York
Sweden's Place
Sirs:
May I congratulate you on your excellent article about Sweden and the Swedes (TIME, May 31).
I have spent a good deal of time in various parts of Sweden and was amazed not only by the overall accuracy of your report, but chiefly by the vast amount of detail your writers have observed and recorded. The Swede's remote though obsolete fear of Russia, his condescending smile for Finland, his varied relatives in Minnesota, his selective respect for the Royal Family--all these are factors ... in the shaping of the remarkable course his country is taking in the history of the world. . . .
HENRY FAUL
Boston
Missing T?
Sirs:
JUNE 21 COVER FIRE THE TYPESETTER TOR OMITTING THE LETTER T BEFORE LETTER H OF, HIS.
JOHN BAILEY
Washington
> The caption: ''His heel is in hot water."--ED.
Note to Lippmann
Sirs:
Your review of Walter Lippmann's U.S. Foreign Policy [TIME, June 14] shows that Mr. Lippmann has by experience acquired somewhat better judgment of affairs than he once had. But if he thinks that his four great powers will after the war "organize and regulate the politics of power" by their "nuclear alliance" without differences and conflicts of aims and interests, and will be able to impose upon the other nations of the earth their common will, he is as impractical, visionary, idealistic and theoretical as was that eminent phrasemaker, Woodrow Wilson.
By the time-honored and tested U.S. policy of performing, and demanding the performance pi, international obligations and maintaining peace and friendship with all other; nations, this country won and held the confidence of other nations and occupied a unique position on the earth. The continuance of this policy now, supplemented by an enlightened policy of mutually beneficial international trade, without assuming to dictate to and control other nations according to the theories of our doctrinaires of the present day, is the course of national wisdom.
As long as men and nations remain unchanged in their natures, desires and cultures, wars will not be made to cease by the preaching of elevated doctrines of peace, sweetness and light. We need not expect this to be the last war.
MARVIN WEST
Decatur, Ala.
99% Americanism
Sirs:
Having been born and raised a Southerner, I was not surprised that North Carolina would sponsor such an advertisement [One Language Is Enough in North Carolina] as appeared on page 88 of TIME, June 14 (though I was heartily ashamed).... Please, leave such outbursts of "99% Americanism" to Social Justice and the Patterson-McCormick publications, and let TIME stick to the 100% Americanism of Sabata, Judd, et al. (p. 25, June 14 issue).
CATHERINE PHILLIPS
Washington
Sirs:
I am a member of the armed forces stationed in North Carolina. It was with amazement and anger that I read the ad in your June 14 issue in which the State of North Carolina . . . insinuates that non-native-born workers are not as patriotic. . . .
Why does this State glorify the native-born workers who are in reality nothing short of tenant farmers so wonderfully portrayed in Tobacco Road? It is these very workers who are the target of Southern discrimination because of color and breeding. Why, therefore, does the State of North Carolina picture these products of feudal serfdom as glorious, happy Americans? . . .
(PVT.) D. J. HOROWITZ
Johnson Field, N.C.
Bancors in Lease-Lend
Sirs:
Over here in Australia, Lend-Lease-in-reverse is really Keynes' Bancor system working itself out quite effectively; at least, that is the way it appears to me. For example: America supplies Australia with materiel; Australia pays back by supplying the American forces with food. Does this balance out? Not yet, as munitions cost more than mutton.
But after the war, Australia--from her 120 million sheep and millions of cattle--can supply us with wool and steaks . . .; she has a surplus of wheat and barley; all this can repay us and mutually increase both our standards of living. . . .
From where are the wages and the profits to come? Same place they are coming now. I'll gladly pay $5 a week out of $50 weekly [rather] than work for $25 a week and unemployment taxes, only instead of gold-backed currency it will be Bancor-backed currency, Labor value being the source of all wealth anyhow--gold was just a means to represent this.
Stated simply: Lend-Lease as I see it is simply a gigantic socialist production-for-use program, the control of the means of production being held in the hands of the industrialists and not the workers; any other plan for postwar reconstruction--short of Socialism--not based upon this principle will fail, and we will begin to plow food under and kill cattle to keep the price up while the people starve.
(PFC.) GEORGE KAUFFMAN
c/o Postmaster
San Francisco
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