Letters, Nov. 19, 1945

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These small countries have a right to revolt against the rule of a foreign power, and be allowed to give the terms to permit the foreign country to remain in their country. It's up to the U.S., who stands the shining model of what these little countries want, to come to their assistance, and tell the imperialistic countries that the free & easy pickings are over, the Indonesian and the Annamese are right, no one can deny them.

[AiR CORPS LIEUTENANT'S % Postmaster NAME WITHHELD] San Francisco

Homing Pigeon Sirs: Contrary to Ray Bethers [TIME LETTERS, Oct. 29], who says the "present discharge button is not popular," I maintain that it is the best liked, most coveted emblem designed since 1918.

The Navy, as usual, has a much more picturesque word for it than the Army's "ruptured duck." To us, it is the "homing pigeon."

(AMM 2/c) JOHN R. SUYDAM Pensacola, Fla.

Sirs:

I sincerely sympathize with the veterans who have to wear the "ruptured duck" discharge button. However, if the War Department will accept my humble suggestion, this situation can be remedied.

I have designed a three-inch emblem that can be pinned to the top of your eyeglasses where it can't be missed. In case you don't wear eyeglasses, I have an unbreakable neon sign for the lapel. At night it lights up and reads "I'm a veteran."

An ex-G.I. and Happy Button Wearer

M. LIPINSKI Jersey City

That's Why Darkies Were Born

Sirs: IN THIS WEEK'S [OCT. i] ISSUE OF TIME,

YOU CREDIT JACK LAWRENCE WITH THE AUTHORSHIP OF THAT'S WHY DARKIES WERE BORN. IF PHIL BAKER, ON HIS TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT BROADCAST WERE TO SERVE UP A $64 QUERY ON THIS SONG, I WOULD TESTIFY, IN ORDER TO CLARIFY TIME'S RECORDS, THAT THE NUMBER CAME FROM THE PENS OF RAY HENDERSON, TUNESMITH, AND LEW BROWN, LYRICIST, AND THAT IT WAS INTRODUCED BY EVERETT MARSHALL IN THE 1931 EDITION OF GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS, FOR WHICH BOTH HENDERSON AND BROWN WROTE THE ENTIRE SCORE.

BEN F. HOLZMAN

William Morris Agency Beverly Hills, Calif.

To Reader Holzman, his hypothetical $64; to Hit-Songsmiths Brown & Henderson, TIME'S apologies.—ED.

Man of the Year

Sirs:

. . . The man who saved the lives of the countless thousands who would certainly have otherwise died on the beaches of Japan and on the typhoon and kamikaze-swept waters of the Western Pacific.

Gratefully I give you my choice for Man of the Year, Dr. Vannevar Bush!

EDGAR D. SMITH Ensing, U.S.N.R.

% Fleet Post Office

San Francisco

Sirs:

The man of 1945 is a composite picture —the American G.I. He has fought around the earth on a scale hitherto unimaginable, has suffered, bled, and died for a cause he deeply felt but was never able to put into words. To all the peoples of the earth who know him, he is a symbol of deliverance.

HARRY NOLDER JR. Washington

Sirs:

Permit me to second the nomination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as Man of the Year. . . .

His life will be regarded as the symbol of the fight of peoples of the world against Fascism wherever it occurred during this past ten years. . . .

ROSANNA SHANNON