Letters, Oct. 25, 1954

(2 of 3)

Sir: Calling Charles Ives, one of America's greatest composers, "an insurance broker who pioneered polytonal music in the U.S. in his spare time" [TIME, Sept. 27] is tantamount to saying that Herman Melville was a customs clerk who dabbled in literature or Goethe a theatrical manager who once in a while wrote a book.

Charles Ives was able to become a great composer precisely because he was intelligent enough to become an insurance man at a time when the type of music which made him great was still less productive of even a slight commercial success than it is now.

ERNST KRENF.K Vienna

Composer Ives, an insurance man for over 30 years, effectively answered Composer Krenek in a letter written to a friend: ''My work in music helped my business, and my work in business helped my music."—ED.

Bodies by Bequest

Sir: You have done medical education a service with your forthright article on the cadaver shortage in this country [TIME, Oct. 4]. However . . . your selection of Tennessee as an example gives a mistaken impression. Although the University of Tennessee College of Medicine accepts 200 medical students a year, we have at this time five students at each dissecting table. But the situation is getting worse rather than better . . .

ROLAND H. ALDEN Chief of the Division of Anatomy University of Tennessee Memphis

Sir: ... It occurs to me that the best way to promote the giving of bodies by bequest would be for each physician to bequeath his own body to the school from which he graduated. In this way, he would be repaying a debt which he alone can fully pay. Furthermore, if the medical profession would lead the way, the general public would eventually follow.

H. G. PARKS Bay City, Mich.

New Directions (Contd.)

Sir: Dr. David Riesman's brilliant account of evolution of mankind into "other-directeds" [TIME, Sept. 27] is perhaps the reason and cause for the super-mediocrity of most people, most jobs, most professions, even most autonomous men.

JOHN KINDL Livonia, Mich.

Sir: Between Mrs. Ambrose Clark and Mr. David Riesman, I'll take Mrs. Clark because she says, "Lose as if you liked it," and this Mr. Riesman (in a million words) just gets me mixed up ...

JACK PEERS Salt Lake City

Mission to Mecca

Sir: I was greatly pleased with "The Propaganda Pilgrims" [TIME, Sept. 27]. I happen to be witness to the fact that in 1924 the Soviet border was completely closed and that no pilgrimage was allowed. A few years later (1928-30), the mosques were either torn down or used for different purposes. The clergy was liquidated or sent to Siberia; so 40 million Mohammedans in the Soviet Union were forced to do their worshiping secretly . . . During World War II, Russia pretended to show the free world that the Mohammedan behind the Iron Curtain had religious freedom. But this was utterly false according to testimony from Mohammedan refugees . . .

America should ever be on the lookout ready to expose these "fakers" . . . Mohammedans who live and enjoy freedom in this country would gladly cooperate in this project.

ALT. R. NIJASI, M.D. Los Angeles

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