Letters, Apr. 24, 1944

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Maineiac

Sirs:

In regard to "Frisco's Frenchman" in TIME (April 3): we all liked the article very much indeed, but we must take exception to the statement that Mr. Monteux dyes his hair. We will be in New York in November when this French-American will conduct the New York Philharmonic, and we would like very much to invite the editors of TIME to assist at a thorough shampooing of the Maitre's black locks. If one bit of coloring is found in the water, we cordially invite said editors to the Stork Club for a champagne dinner.

As for my being a "rolypoly French wife": rolypoly I certainly am, due in part to the steady diet of oysters and champagne. This I cannot refute. But I definitely am not a Frenchwoman. I am a dyed-in-the-wool (and I do not mean Mr. Monteux's wool) Maineiac, and proud indeed of my old New England ancestry.

One fact remains: both French and American members of the family heartily approve of TIME.

DORIS HODGKINS MONTEUX

San Francisco

¶ Grateful TIME salutes the Gallic-spirited wife of San Francisco's black-haired maestro, whose music is often as brilliant as a clear Maine morning.—ED.

Bailey the Great

Sirs:

In TIME (March 20) a serious injustice was done a great woman. According to your piece on Mildred Bailey . . . she "fell into obscurity" for eight years, until, in 1942, she "wandered into Manhattan's Cafe Society Downtown . . . and was recognized."

Nonsense ! Mildred Bailey . . . was a bigger name in those eight years than she ever had been before. With Husband Red Norvo she led one of the first great bands of the so-called swing era. She made many very successful recordings for the Vocalion, Columbia and Decca labels. She sang on such "obscure" radio shows as the Camel Caravan, with such "obscure" bands as Bob Crosby's. . . .

For according Mildred the kudos of "the greatest popular songbird in the U.S.," thanks. For describing her voice as "small," her large but not unattractive figure as shapeless, for sending eight, great, productive Bailey years into the limbo of obscurity, shame!

BARRY ULANOV Editor Metronome New York City

¶I Mildred Bailey's eight years were anything but obscure to connoisseurs of jazz singing. They were so to the popular musical public in general. Her remarkable voice is very small by traditional vocal standards.—ED.

Yankee Scientist

Sirs:

Congratulations on your article "Yankee Scientist." Surely the leaders of this country should realize the need for fostering the development of science as a weapon of war and a bulwark against chaos in the peace to come.

GEORGE ALVIN RICHTER JR. Wilmington

Sirs:

Your story (TiME, April 3) of Dr. Vannevar Bush and his 6,000 silent scientists is superb. Whether or not so intended, your record of these men, achieving magnificently yet anonymously and without personal credit or special compensation, is tongued with biting censure —for politicians who live and breathe for favorable headlines, businessmen who make profits prerequisite to patriotism, and every mother's son among us who thinks a ten-billion-dollar tax bill an excessive burden. The 6,000 give one a lift. Could they be bureaucrats?