Challenge for Democracy
Sir:
TIME is to be congratulated for the fine article on Palmiro Togliatti and the rise of Communism in Italy [TIME, May 5]. It showed the tremendous appeal that Communism has for people who are starving and without hope, and pointed the warning of what could happen in our own country were we to have another depression. The challenge is there for the Western democracies. . . .
EDWARD P. J. CORBETT
Chicago
Sir:
You made clear an important point: all Communists aren't black-bearded bomb tossers. They're at least as clever as we, and more interested. . . .
JOHN HARRINGTON
Chicago
Sir:
Congrats to TIME. The article on Italian Communism couldn't have been done up better by the old master himself—Hearst.
RICHARD B. SUTTIE
Petaluma, Calif.
Sir:
Your chagrin at Catholic Italy's going Communist amused me more than anything since I can remember, and I will be 88 years old next week. . . .
B. FREEDMAN
Chicago
A Night in Chicago
Sir:
In your issue of May 5 . . . it was stated that Dillinger was killed 13 years ago (1934).
I was returning from my wedding trip in California and we spent the night of July 22, 1933 in Chicago. The next morning the papers announced the death of Dillinger.
Either I was married a year later than I thought I was, or Dillinger was killed a year earlier than you state he was. . . .
PHILIP ADAIR
New York City
¶Shame on Reader Adair for not knowing when he was married.—ED.
Vile Caricature
Sir:
Your issue of April 21 contains an interesting but slightly misleading article on Keats's sketch of Haydon now exhibited in the London National Portrait Gallery. The reproduction fails to make clear that the "vile caricature of B. R. Haydon by John Keats" (as Haydon, not Keats, wrote beneath it) is the faintly drawn profile in the background, reproduced herewith [see cut] with the other sketches by Haydon suppressed. . . . This is indeed a "vile caricature.". . .
WILLARD B. POPE
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vt.
¶Although Professor Pope's claim is persuasive, the National Portrait Gallery in London insists that the phrase "a vile caricature" refers to all four heads in the sketch. TIME must plead with Keats:
Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively on these mighty things. . . .
—ED
Reminder
Sir:
Retiring Headmaster Fuess appears to be troubled about Andover's becoming too exclusive [TIME, May 5], and suggests a broadening of its enrollment, presumably by an increase of scholarships. This reminds me of the lady who installed an elevator in her house, and then felt obliged to join a gymnasium class in order to get the exercise of which the stairs deprived her.
MARGARET LEE SOUTHARD
Hingham, Mass.
Lonely Vicar
Sir: