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For your information, the last paragraph in the article on the earthquake in TIME, Feb. 6 issue, is the product of somebody's imagination. The cracks in the earth caused by the earthquake were not wide enough or deep enough to bury bodies in. Practically all of the 30,000 bodies were buried without identification in trenches built outside the cemeteries in each of the cities. The earthquake occurred during a dry season. It had not rained for three months prior to the date of [TIME'S] statement. Also, there were no cold winds down from the Andes. It was warm enough for me to sleep in the park and in the open hangar at Chilián. . . .
For the first time in the history of aviation major operations were performed above the clouds. The Argentines provided a surgeon and five nurses and a plane which evacuated the wounded from Chilián. In this plane was an operating table, which was frequently used. Three Pan American planes were commandeered and during the first five days the American pilots and the two American bombers carried out 598 wounded from Chilian to Santiago. . . .
COTTON MATHER
Atlanta, Ga.
Colobus abyssinicus
Sirs:
I have regarded Hitler as Colobus abyssinicus and Mussolini as either Gorilla berengei or Pithecia monachus but your recent photograph of Il Duce with his king [TIME, April 3] gives fresh point to wags' comments: "Mussolini—the duck."
Thanks for the hilarity-rousing picture of II Duce's legs.
E. THOMAS
Flagler, Colo.
None Under 40
Sirs:
War possibilities are in every thinking mind, as you know. . . . Most of us, whether old or young, have come to feel that if the U. S. should get into war no one less than 40 years old should be drafted for service. Of course, any person physically fit should be free to enter service but no young person should be forced to do so, as in the World War. . . .
1) Modern warfare is not a matter of brain and brawn, of military genius and manpower. It is a matter, among other things, of diabolical cleverness and high-powered explosives, of murderous attacks on non-combatants and of irresistible poison gas. It needs the seasoned judgment of older men rather than the fresh vigor and enthusiasm of younger ones.
2) Medical science has succeeded in lengthening the human life span. The average man past 50 seems to feel that he is much better able to endure the strain and hardship of war now than he was when he entered the World War more than 20 years ago.
3) Our national birth rate has decreased alarmingly since the last War and its resulting Depression, as is shown by the startling decrease in school enrollment below high school. The country cannot afford further sacrifice of potential fathers.
Naturally, we all hope our country can keep out of war. Failing that, it should let the older men bear the brunt of the sacrifice. Fathers would infinitely rather offer their own lives than their sons' lives, for the horrible carnage. And as conditions will be, the fathers' service would probably be more efficient. When France prepared for possible war last year it was the older, not the younger, men who were to be drafted. That is sound reasoning.
MARY JOHNSON
Long Beach, Calif.
Coast Defense
Sirs: