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What Col. Lindbergh should have said is, "We must be as impersonal as the professional mourner, who doesn't lament the seriousness of the plague, or the number of fatalities, as long as it helps his own business." ROBERT E. SHERWOOD The Playwrights' Company New York City
JULY 28, 1941
Many thanks for the flattering reference to my gaudily crowned head but may I file a gentle demurrer to your repeated use of the adjective "dwarfish" in describing my person. Although I actually stand five feet four inches in socks, I have never objected to being ribbed about my size. Your pet word, however, strikes me as inappropriate as it carries a connotation of the monstrous and stunted. Let me suggest that such phrases as "smallish," "minute," "miniature" and even "pocket-size" Billy Rose would be considerably more appetizing. Of course, if your mind is made up, I assure you that I would rather be labeled "dwarfish" than not be mentioned in your splendid magazine at all. BILLY ROSE New York City
JAN. 5, 1942
TIME used the words "yellow bastards" and "Hitler's little yellow friends" in speaking of the Japanese. I suggest that none of us use the word "yellow" in speaking of the Japanese, because our Allies, the Chinese, are yellow.
In this war we must, I think, take care not to divide ourselves into color groups. The tide of feeling about color runs very high over in the Orient. Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, and others are sensitive to the danger point about their relation as colored peoples to white peoples. Many Americans do not realize this, but it is true, and we must recognize it or we may suffer for it severely. The Japanese are using our well-known race prejudice as one of their chief propaganda arguments against us. Everything must be done to educate Americans not to provide further fuel for such Japanese propaganda. PEARL S. BUCK Perkasie, Pa.
TIME emphatically agrees with Novelist Pearl Buck that raising a race issue is as unwise as it is ignoble. However, "yellow bastards" was not TIME's phrase but the factual report of typical angry reactions documented by correspondents all over the U.S. As for actual skin-color, U.S. white, pink or pale faces may well be proud to be fighting on the side of Chinese, Filipinos and other yellow or brown faces. --Ed.
JAN. 18, 1943
I appreciate greatly that not once was the word obscene mentioned in your article. Epithet too easily used which assailed unanimously the appearance of "Interpretation of Dreams" by Freud, psychologic document which is and always will remain in spite of all the most important and sensational of our epoch. SALVADOR DALI Carmel, Calif.
MARCH 6, 1944