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Sirs: I am wondering if the Republicans are so hard up for reasons to defame the President that their nominee, Mr. Dewey, resorts to accusing the President of descending to "the depths of demagogy" because the President quoted from Mein Kampf in warning against false tactics. The Bible frequently quotes the Devil to warn against evil. . . .
M. GEORGION Rutherfordton, N.C.
Sirs: . . . Since when is it newsworthy to have a Presidential campaign trip run on a well planned schedule? Could it be that any trace of planning or thinking ahead in connection with that office makes it such a phenomenon that it is worthy of space in these hard-to-get-paper days?
And about his [Dewey] aloofness, cold personality and so on. Maybe it is high time for some generous doses of such medicine. For twelve years now, the nation and the world have been regaled with a surfeit of first names and backslapping. We have been "Dear Albened" to near death and personalitied until we are squirming.
KENNETH CLOUD Manomet, Mass.
Sirs: After reading and listening to accounts of the public's reactions to the speeches of our Presidential candidates, I'm undecided as to whether we need a statesman or a showman in the White House. . . .
MOLLIE MARSON Hollywood
Barons v. Peasants
Sirs: You write about Poland: ". . . land economy built around baronial estates . . . " (TIME, Oct. 2). Yes, this was true 150 years ago. In prewar Poland 82% of the land belonged to small farmers or peasants. I cannot believe that TIME researchers get their stuff from Hollywood script writers.
ANDREW EBERHARDT Evanston, Ill.
¶ When World War II broke upon Poland, 39% of it was owned by i% of the landholders. Most of them were nobility.—ED.
What to Do with Germany
Sirs: In the judgment of a law-abiding, peace-loving citizen, interested in the progressive culture of civilization, Mr. Morgenthau's plan for postwar treatment of Germany (TIME, Oct. 2) is not too drastic.
In a community of individuals, when a gang of criminals organizes to molest, terrify and murder indiscriminately the rest of the citizens, an organized police force apprehends them, by force if necessary, turns them over to lawful judicial hands.
The community from which the criminals came does not necessarily hate them; nor, on the contrary, does it take measures to set them up in business again with the admonition to "be good boys." They are corralled until, or if, they can be re-educated to take their places in society with at least reasonable moral sense of responsibility.
Why should this plan, recognized as fundamentally necessary in a community of individuals, be opposed by intelligent men like Messrs. Cordell Hull and Henry Stimson, as a basic plan in considering the community of nations?
JANET S. WRIGHT San Marino, Calif.
Sirs: . . . Perhaps Mr. Morgenthau has not realized his own barbarian tendencies. Or perhaps he has not been informed of the fact that just such tendencies, prevalent among the leaders of Germany, were the basic cause of the present war in Europe. Elimination of the finer qualities of a nation can do nothing more than bring forth, more strongly than ever, their tendencies which resemble Mr. Morgenthau's disease.