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TIME, July 5, indicates that there is a trace of nobility 'about Congress' recent "revolt," including the thumbs-down on subsidies. Is this nobility untainted by an unwillingness to face the wrath of the Farm Bloc and certain others who fancy they will make a killing out of inflation?
It's time Congress was disillusioned about the farmer. In early youth I learned a piano piece called The Happy Farmer. Where the composer picked up such a weird inspiration, I can't imagine. The farmer is hardworking, honest, pays his debts. But he is a congenital pessimist, finds conditions always bad, and blames everything on the Government—including rainfall.
When inflation comes, hell gripe as loud as the rest of us. Then Congress will look to him in vain for a kindly word.
Would Congress instead consider being a St. George for the humble housewives? We have a sweet nature and remember our friends.
MRS. D. S. STRONG
Austin, Tex.
The Fate of the Lieutenant Colonel
Sirs:
I have just received a letter from my husband, Captain Henry Pollard, who is a dental officer with the ist Infantry Division in North Africa, enclosing a clipping from the May 10 issue of TIME. . . .
There is an interesting conclusion to the fate of the lieutenant colonel who, according to the writeup, was not heard from again after marching two platoons up the hill.
The letter says: "The lieutenant colonel of our battalion took the hill, but was captured with his men when ammunition ran out and he was cut off. He's a young officer, not over 28 years old, and in El Guettar I pulled out the root of his front tooth that had been hit by a shell fragment, as is reported in TIME. . . .
"It seems the Germans had tried to evacuate the prisoners by boat to Italy, but our planes—and there were hundreds of them over us at all times—bombed them no end till the vessels' seams split and the German crew surrendered to the prisoners. The lieutenant colonel had the crew beach the boat at Tunis and actually he was the first American to be in Tunis as he waited for the British to come in."
ANNABELLE SHUR POLLARD Portland, Me.
The "Enlightened" U.S.
Sirs:
Congratulations on p. 32, TIME, June 28, Your Algiers correspondent, Jack Belden . . has written . . . the most scathing condemnation of American complacency and universal ignorance of world affairs that has yet emerged from World War II.
The young Russian Brigadists, interned in a filthy war-prison camp in Delfa for four years, were better informed, better read in world affairs, than American soldiers who had had access to 10,000 newspapers—which they never read.
... I was heartily ashamed of my countrymen when I read Jack Belden's condemnation of our ignorance. . . .
BERT HUFFMAN Newton Station, B.C.
Sirs: