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Your "What Is an American?" [TIME, May 10], after conjuring up the impressive shades of the British and Roman empires, reminds us that we are now "the greatest power on earth," to which the world looks "for hope and leadership." You then assure us that the U.S. citizen is "least of all a spokesman of imperialism."
You might have added that we seem "least of all" equipped to revive.the economies of the more than 100 million people in Japan, Korea, Germany and Austria, now subject to our rule . . .
GLENN E. HOOVER Oakland, Calif.
Sir:
I must be getting to be a maudlin old so'n so. At any rate, "What Is an American?" had me shaking with emotion . . .
HUGH JOSEPH MAGUIRE Philadelphia, Pa.
Sir:
We are quite content that you should "own" the atomic bomb, kill the ump, boo the Dodgers and eat more steak than the unfortunates without your borders, but your mode of posing it in international magazines is (we think) not the very best way to win friends and influence people . . .
I eat steak and kill the ump,
And wave the atomic bomb. I am the great American,
Bursting with aplomb . . .
J. D. MACGREGOR Toronto, Ont.
Cole's Capers
Sir:
I was interested in a footnote [TIME, May 10] about one of the undergraduate activities of the late William Horace de Vere Cole (see cut), brother-in-law of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. An English friend of mine . . . told me of a couple of other exploits carried out by Cole while still an undergraduate at Cambridge.
While posing as the Sultan of Zanzibar, he reviewed a unit of the British fleet at Portsmouth, England. With his "suite,"* Cole rode down on a special train for the review, and he noticed that the dining-car attendants were without white gloves. He had the train stopped and white gloves were procured from the next town, as "His Royal Highness" was unused to being served by ungloved attendants. The actual review of the fleet was carried out successfully . . .
On another occasion . . . Cole went to the British Museum and somehow procured some ancient ecclesiastical vestments. Dressed in these robes, and taking the title of the Anglican Bishop of Madras, Cole appeared at one of the better known English public schools, and confirmed several of the schoolboys in the chapel. Why his archaic vestments did not give him away at the time, I cannot imagine, but perhaps as Bishop of faraway Madras, the age and condition of his robes did not matter.
BERNARD S. CARTER JR. New York City
*Including Virginia Woolf (then Stephen) ; TIME, April 12, 1937.