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O. Henry was one of the best authors that we have had in this country in modern times I admire his style and the cleverness of his stones, but it is hard for me to believe that there is someone on the staff of TIME who is. capable of successfully using his unique manner of writing.
In the April 30 issue of TIME I ran across two items that seemed to me to have been written in rather poor taste. One was the account of a birthday party held at the grave of a little girl, and the other was the article concerning Bob Michelet of Dartmouth.
. . . After the reader had been given an account of the various honors which had been bestowed upon this man during the spring we were told that he had died late in the winter.
When one settles down to read a magazine such as TIME after a day of more or less hard work, he doesn't desire or expect to be faced with this type of morbid literature. Coming upon it unexpectedly, he is left in a rather peculiar state of mind, a state of mind that can be achieved by reading any number of cheaper publications. At least, he should be able to expect well-written informative material, and he should be able to feel satisfied that he is better off for having read it. ...
THOMAS T. CHASE
Hamilton, N. Y. "Arms and the Men" (Cont'd)
Sirs:
Recently at Cornell a student conference on War and Fascism was held, which was largely dominated by a group who held that war is concomitant of capitalism, that Fascism is the last recourse of capitalism, that the only alternative is Communism. A speaker not of this group quoted from "Arms and the Men'' [FORTUNE, March 1934] quite extensively. During the discussion I pointed out that capitalists are being reformed with regard to war as evidenced by "Arms and the Men" appearing in FORTUNE whose circulation is almost exclusively "capitalists." The only answer was from a professional Communist who called FORTUNE "that stinking flower of capitalism."
I think that TIME shows a very good awareness of our trends to the left, which is a useful service because unless we do move in that direction we may go suddenly and violently all the way, followed by reaction. PAUL MACY
Ithaca, N. Y.