Shocking Story
Sirs:
Thank you for your comment in the horrid story of a high-school sorority initiation [TIME, Jan. 13], to the effect that the properly shocked foreign lady was assured by her U.S. friends "that it was not typical of college sororities." . . .
The National Interfraternity Conference, composed of the national collegiate social men's fraternities, does not favor high-school organizations calling themselves fraternities and sororities. The Conference also is, and for some years has been, vigorously on record with their members and with all college administrations in opposition to hazing or initiation practices involving physical brutality, or anything tending to humiliate or degrade.
I believe the ladies (National Panhellenic) have as good a story. . . .
GILBERT W. MEAD
National Interfraternity Conference Chestertown, Md.
Sirs:
The reading of your article . . . brought with it the stark realization that there exist within our society the same sadistic elements which prompted the brutality of Nazi concentration camps and Japanese prisons. . . .
PAUL L. WRIGHT
Enid, Okla.
Sirs:
. . . What kind of a society have we created) in which a high-school youngster has to be physically tortured and mentally degraded by his fellows in order to be socially acceptable?
MRS. RICHARD M. SNETHEN
Ridgewood, N.J.
Sirs:
. . . The greatest praise to TIME for having the courage to print a story about something which most would wish to have hushed up. Only by exposing such situations can people be informed of them and can cures be applied.
WILLIAM H. WOLF JR. Williamstown, Mass.
Sirs:
... It was a masterpiece of yellow journalism and a breach of every code of decency I know. . . .
The extreme vagueness of the article makes it suspect. No names or places are mentioned, and there is no evidence shown that it actually occurred. ...
You have done a great disservice to American youth. . . . You owe each & every reader, and each & every American an apology.
ARTHUR H. LEONARD Kansas City, Mo.
P: TIME reported facts, doubts that it did a disservice to American youth, feels that no apologies are in order.--ED.
Each-One-Teach-One
Sirs:
In the Jan. 6 issue of TIME is an article captioned "Ecuador. Just Short of a Miracle." ... It is a miracle. . . .
The entire technique, as described in the article, was taken to Ecuador, to Mexico and to other Latin American countries, by Dr.
Frank Laubach. He first used it in the Philippines, where he was a missionary of the Congregational Christian Churches; Dr. Laubach performed what could well be described as a miracle in giving the Moros an alphabet and teaching them to read & write. There, the each-one-teach-one technique was worked out and used with astounding success.
When the war came, Dr. Laubach returned to the U.S. and . . . obtained the financial aid which took him to South America. ...
Dr. Laubach has been more interested in planting the seed and getting results than in getting the credit, but some of us who know what obstacles he had to overcome . . . would like to have it known where this splendid accomplishment began.
Dr. Laubach's 1947 field for literacy is Africa. I believe you can look for another miracle.
RICHARD C. BUDLONG St. Louis, Mo.
P: All credit to 6 2-year-old Dr. Laubach, inventor of the each-one-teach-one method. A Congregationalist missionary who went directly to the Philippines from his studies at Princeton and Columbia, he has spent more than 30 years teaching millions of illiterates, from India to Ecuador, to read & write their own languages. Now in Cairo, Dr. Laubach will set up literacy charts in 20 languages and dialects to keep the each-one-teach-one ball rolling through Africa.--ED.
Hot Stuff
Sirs:
Re: Mr. Lipsey's question [TIME, Jan. 13] as to what happens to a Dana perfume when Airwick ("the total deodorant") advertises too. One doesn't bring Airwick into the drawing room until the violin has been laid aside and the lady's perfume no longer matters, because of the smoke.
MARTHA K. WHITMORE West Hyattsville, Md.
A Christian Act
Sirs:
For the Johnstones, in endowing their $10,000 scholarship for Orientals [TIME, Jan 13], there can, of course, be nothing but praise. Theirs was a Christian act of two good, well-meaning people.
In my opinion, the practical value of their altruistic gesture is another matter. . . .
Let us contribute to the relief of distressed Japanese if we will, endow food kitchens for their children if we must, but for God's sake let's keep them out of our colleges and universities. They knifed us in the back once and will do it again if it ever seems expedient.
Believe it or not, I feel no bitterness toward the Japanese, despite the hell they gave me on the Bataan "Death March" and 3 1/2 years of prison "existence" as their guest. I did at first, but for my own peace of mind soon conquered this feeling. Neither do I feel any bitterness toward a rattlesnake. I see him for the venomous, treacherous reptile he is. EDMUND J. LILLY JR.
Colonel, Infantry
Fort McClellan, Ala.
Sirs:
I have encountered so much intolerance and hatred since I came back that I had begun to believe that the tenets of this fellow Jesus of Nazareth had been forgotten.
Comes now Mr. & Mrs. Johnstone, with their scholarship for young Nishiyama, to make me feel that maybe--repeat maybe--the 3 1/2 years that I spent as a prisoner of war were not in vain.
VINCENT OWEN
Las Vegas, Nev.
Southern Pride
Sirs:
In your Jan. 13th issue of TIME you facetiously stated that George Washington Carver was a man of whom the U.S. was proud and that some day the South would be proud of him too. ... I have yet to meet a Southerner who has anything but praise for him and his many accomplishments.
BETTY LISENLEY PARMLEY Collingdale, Pa.
Sirs:
The South has been proud of George Washington Carver for a long time. TIME'S inference to the contrary ... is a vicious, damyankee slur. . .
", GARDNER DUNCAN Eagle Lake, Tex.
Sirs:
. . . All Southerners . . . [are not] in the same category as those blind followers of the doctrine of white supremacy who persist in placing men like Theodore Bilbo and the late Gene Talmadge in positions of honor, whence they may spread their evil appeals to the ignorant.
Chapel Hill, N.C. CHARLES G. BRITT 'f| TIME wishes that such Southerners as Readers Parmley, Duncan and Britt were in the majority. TIME shares their hope and belief that in the South, as in the rest of the U.S., Dr. Carver will be remembered long after Bilbo and Talmadge.--ED.
Mr. L-C.'s Pill
Sirs:
I read with interest, but with some astonishment and concern, a letter to the editor in the Jan. 13 issue, by C. Llambi-Campbell of Galvez, Argentina, who said, among other things: "No one in the world respects anything of your country, in the full and real sense of the word like one does an Einstein, British Justice, Sweden," etc. . . .
I know of at least one Argentine who did not think as Mr. Llambi-Campbell evidently does. His name was Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, onetime President of Argentina in the-1870s. He established schools based upon the United States model, educated his people in the political institutions of the United States, which he greatly admired and respected, by having such great American documents as the Federalist, and the constitutional writings of Joseph Story, translated into Spanish. . . .
I for one believe the United States will continue to make its contributions to the world, along with Argentina (in spite of Presidente Peron). . . .
GEORGE S. WALLIS JR.
Delaware, Ohio
Sirs:
It would be well for every American to read the letter by C. Llambi-Campbell and think about it. Many will . . . conclude that the writer is pro-Nazi and dismiss it. It is my conviction, however, that there are millions with similar views. My experience in Panama leads me to think they are justified. I have seen the overbearing insolence of the soldiers we naively call "our smiling ambassadors."
Americans object if a man is considered superior merely because of his wealth, and yet we use this measurement of nations. History taught in our lower schools leads to faulty thinking, by whitewashing our part in wars, and calling our imperialism by less odious names. . . . Finally, we are too quick to think ourselves a Santa Claus when we give a trifle out of our plenty.
GORDON R. FOLSOM South Berwick, Me.
Sirs:
... As that Persian philosopher remarked, "Here's to Truth--a bitter pill, but a good physic." ...
JOE HARVEY
Gladwyne, Pa.
No Northrop Legs Yet
Sirs:
In . . . your article on Northrop artificial limbs [TIME, Jan. 13], you [gave] amputees the impression that new and improved Northrop prostheses were immediately available to them.-
. . . This is definitely not true of the artificial leg, which is still in an early stage of development. It may be some months before it is ready for production. . . .
We are pushing the project as rapidly as we conscientiously can, but we are by no means ready. . . . We would appreciate your making this clear. . . .
MEYER FISHBEIN
Northrop Aircraft Co. Los Angeles
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