Letters, Sep. 27, 1943

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Sousa Swung

Sirs:

I have just read with complete disgust . . . that Captain Glenn Miller has begun to "swing" the age-old, magnificent marches of John Philip Sousa (TIME, Sept. 6). . . .

When Sousa wrote them he left no room for improvement.

—*

Portland, Me.

Sirs :

Captain Glenn Miller has the right idea swinging those Sousa marches. The tunes are marvelous but the way Army bands have played them in the past has made them sound like an old-fashioned victrola which needed to be wound up. . . .

LEE TYLER

Newton, Mass.

Sirs:

There is so much more I could and should have said against the "swinging" of legitimate and famous military marches. . . . No! Sousa marches do not need "streamlining"—but probably a few of the "bandmasters" who advocate the "swinging" of his music do.

Any good band under a capable bandmaster playing a Sousa march (as the composer wrote it) or any other standard march will thrill and inspire the marching soldiers. The sad thing is that most bands never rehearse marches at all or, if they do, not as they should. . . .

Personally, I feel that the question of swinging military marches is a question for commanding officers to settle. Do they want their armies to march with military bearing, to fine inspiring rhythm—or do they prefer them to "jitterbug" their way along? . . .

EDWIN FRANKO GOLDMAN

Mt. Tremper, N.Y.

Greek Words For It

Sirs:

I would like to protest against Mr. Winston Churchill's terrible term "triphibious," as applied to Lord Louis Mountbatten. . . . Amphibious, derived from the Greek words double and life, means adapted to both elements of life, i.e., land and water; hence the correct neologism would be (in the case of Lord Louis, able to fight on land, water and air) tribious. . . .

M. I. SALOMON, M.D.

New York City

— Mr. Churchill will not be disturbed. He took careful exception to his own phrase: "[Mountbatten] is what, pedants notwithstanding, I will venture to call a complete triphibian. . . ."—ED.

Timely Eisenhower

Sirs:

My compliments to your great magazine on your "timely" cover of the great General Eisenhower.

On Sept. 9, Italy surrenders to this brilliant General; Sept. 10 TIME arrives with the General himself adorning the cover.

PHYLLIS L. SIDDERS

New York City

Tundra Troopers

Sirs:

. . . I am the wife of Captain Robert Thompson, who commands the [Alaska] Scouts (TIME, Aug. 9), and the picture, which you identify as him, is actually Sergeant Hiram Walker. This [mistake] has appeared in three magazines now. . . . Also, your picture of Larry ("Diamond Jim") Beloff, half-breed, is William ("Diamond Jim") Seaton. William Seaton is no more half-breed than you are and was sort of bothered about it.

The article itself was very good and accurate and I am very proud of it. . . .

I am enclosing a recent picture of my husband taken upon his return from a scouting trip.

MRS. R. H. THOMPSON

Anchorage, Alaska