Letters, Nov. 19, 1945

(2 of 4)

.. . The originator and designer of this unique and strictly unofficial emblem, Lieutenant Ray H. Northcutt, SG (s), U.S.N.R., fortyish and vice president of a prominent West Coast construction firm, "got religion and joined up," expecting assignment to Seabee construction overseas.

Relegated (and reconciled, perforce) to a desk job in Washington, B.C., because of substandard eyesight, he found expression in this brainchild which he designed on V-J day holiday morning as a shoulder patch for himself and fellow officers to wear, he says, in American Legion parades.

He persuaded a military emblem manu facturer to make a minimum order for a reasonable figure and now is being besieged by Naval personnel and others to have more made of this insignia, so appropriate for the many desk-bound fighters of this war.

DOROTHY F. COLQUITT Washington

Wrong Ericlcson

Sirs:

TIME ERRS IN STORY ON UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA [OCT. 22]. FRANKLIN C. ERICKSON, EMINENT GEOGRAPHER BUT NO KIN TO THE UNDERSIGNED, WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE DURHAM INTER-RACIAL DINNER NOR WAS IT A TWOSOME AFFAIR BUT RATHER AN HONORARY DINNER GIVEN BY NEGRO CITIZENS OF DURHAM, MOSTLY DEMOCRATS, IN RECOGNITION OF A MEMBER OF THEIR RACE WHO HAD ACHIEVED NATIONAL PROMINENCE. THE UNDERSIGNED WAS ONE OF SOME 20 WHITE PEOPLE WHO WERE INVITED AND ATTENDED. E. C. DANIEL, THEN A CUB REPORTER FOR RALEIGH NEWS AND OBSERVER, AND NOW WITH THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, PLAYED UP THE STORY IN A SENSATIONAL MANNER, FEATURING UNDERSIGNED'S NAME PROBABLY BECAUSE OF UNDERSIGNED'S BEING AT THAT TIME CHAIRMAN OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF NORTH CAROLINA. . . . REQUEST YOU MAKE THIS CORRECTION IN FAIRNESS TO MY COLLEAGUE FRANKLIN C. ERICKSON.

E. E. ERICKSON Chapel Hill, N.C. Professor of English

Sirs:

... I was in no way connected with this incident. This event involved another person on the University faculty and a confusion in names on your part has caused this serious error. . . .

FRANKLIN C. ERICKSON rM, i mi XT/^ Professor of Geography Chapel Hill, N.C.

TIME'S apologies to both of North Carolina's Ericksons.—ED.

New Deal? Old Deal?

Sirs:

At this writing I am stationed on an island in the Philippine group preparatory to leaving for the States. ... On what basis can anyone condone the act of the British and Dutch in the recent killing of natives, who revolted against the Imperial troops in Java ? . . .

Evidently old and tried British and Dutch despotic treatment of their Colonial Empires is something else, not in the least similar to the Japanese taking over the Philippines and setting up governments headed by traitors.

The word must have been passed even in the deepest and blackest holes of these poverty-stricken countries that there was a new deal on, forceful rule was out, and equality because you're a HUMAN BEING in 11 The Indonesians try to rule their own country, the Annamese revolt against the return of French rule, and they're cut down by machine-gun fire like animals. I can't understand the mental make-up of people who were themselves just released from the yoke of the vanquished and now take up the mantle of Conqueror again.