Samson & the Barber
Sirs:
. . . While waiting for a haircut in the Hotel Statler, Washington, I was reading a copy of TIME, June 21. Just as I finished Mr. B. W. Robert's letter headed "Samson and Lewis," the barber called me and put me in a chair next to the redoubtable Mr. Lewis himself.
For a moment I hoped, wildly, that this gentleman . . . was, indeed, about to be shorn of his locks. However, nothing so apropos happens in this life. I found to my disappointment that a tame and civilized barber, far from doubling for Delilah, was merely obeying Mr. Lewis' orders. These were for his usual soup bowl haircut, accentuating the top foliage.
At the same time, Mr. Lewis was having a manicure and a shoeshine to which he paid scant attention, since he was entirely engrossed with instructing the barber and watching in the mirror every snip of the scissors.
When his beauticians had finished with him, he left his chair, preened himself and strutted up and down along the solid walls of mirrors the length and breadth of the barbershop. . . .
I wondered vaguely to what sort of rendezvous this dress rehearsal was leading. . . . The following morning the newspapers announced Mr. Lewis' call for the third walkout of the coal miners since the March 31 armistice. . . .
ALFRED WILLIE
Washington
Sirs:
Lewis (shorn) bears a striking resemblance to Humpty Dumpty. Let us hope he shares the same fate.
F. C. HOWARD
Lake Geneva, Fla.
Protected from Moonshees
Sirs:
A cuckoo's egg in TIME'S nest, if there ever was one—"she-Marines" [June 21]!
A moonshee in laconisms, and you come up with that! . . .
How about . . . "Femarines?" . . .
KENNETH B. JOHNSON
Galveston
Sirs:
. . . I suggest "Marinas." . . .
HENRY R. HARROWER, M.D.
Glendale, Calif.
Sirs:
Isn't "she-Marine" a little crude? Why not "Mariness?"
LAMBERT MOLYNEAUX
University, La.
> Against the Marines' determination that their female reserves shall have no nickname, even a moonshee (Urdu for language teacher) is helpless.—ED.
New Republic Then & Now
Sirs:
TIME'S review of Walter Lippmann's new book says [June 14, p. 100]: "With the late great Herbert Croly he helped form the policy of the Wilson Administration, during World War I, when Croly's New Republic, with a circulation of 48,000 (circulation now: 27,000) was one of the most influential of U.S. magazines."
During World War I (1917-18) the net paid circulation scarcely averaged 25,000. In 1916 it had been about 18,000. This is the period of influence on Wilson's policy to which your reviewer refers.
In 1920-21, with the rejection of the League and the rise of the "red menace" the New Republic lost 40% of its circulation. Branded as Socialistic, Communistic and pinko, the New Republic has not enjoyed an easy acceptance by the great reading public. Yet it has not done so badly.
Its circulation today (net paid A.B.C. 30,000 weekly) is greater than in all but three of the 29 years of its existence: 1919, 1920 and 1940.