Swinish
Sirs:
Your issue of March 30, end of second complete paragraph, has—"In March the British 5th Army under General Gough ran before the last desperate German offensive." This, sir, is a pretty swinish thins to write: the sth Army did not run before any attack, at any time. My own battalion—one of all those who stood and fought—was reduced to about 80 men out of (on the 21st) some 790. The '"bite" resulted from the lack of reserves to support the first three lines in those last days of the month. . . .
R. J. BEA Raleigh, N. C.
General Foch in his memoirs describes the retreat of the 5th Army under General Gough as follows: "On the north the British Army maintained in general its positions, but it was quite otherwise with General Cough's Fifth Army. Along almost the whole of its front, it was swept away, its right in particular being thrown back west of Saint-Quentin up to the edge of the Crozat Canal. On . . . the 22nd, this army, badly shaken, retreated toward the Somme. An extraordinary incident here took place —one only to be explained by the contagion which spread from the confused and shaken troops, driven in by the heavy attack on the front line. The Somme, running several miles in rear, was captured by the enemy practically without a blow being struck."—ED.
Fire Escape
Sirs:
A reader of The New Republic since 1914 and an admirer of the writings of Walter Lippmann wishes to express his appreciation of your column under The Press during the week of March 30. "A Testament'' is very timely. It causes one to recall the closing paragraph in the ninth volume of Henry Adams' History of the. United States. "The traits of American character were fixed; the rate of physical and economical growth was established; and history, certain that at a given distance of time the Union would contain so many millions of people, with wealth valued at so many millions of dollars, became thenceforward chiefly concerned to know what kind of people these millions were to be. They were intelligent, but what paths would their intelligence select? They were quick but what solution of insoluble problems would quickness hurry? They were scientific, and what control would their science exercise over their destiny? They were mild, but what corruptions would their relaxation bring? They were peaceful, but by what machinery were their corruptions to be purged? What interests were to vivify a society so vast and uniform? What ideals were to ennoble it? What object, besides physical content, must a democratic continent aspire to attain? For the treatment of such questions, history required another century of experience."
Only 40 years' have passed since Mr. Adams asked these questions. Mr. Lippmann might have added at the close of "A Testament" that a possible ''Fire Escape" for U. S. A. might be an "Aristocracy of Brains."
DEAN B. THOMPSON Lansing, Mich.
God Save the King
Sirs: