Sirs:

I respectfully salute the enterprise of my good friend Suzanne Warner [TIME, Feb. 17], but feel that I must defend myself against the inference . . . that Miss Jane Russell rouses the wolf in me!

True--very true--that I registered 28 centimeters [on an "emotion meter"] to Jane Russell in her loose bodice. But Suzanne cunningly omitted to mention that I registered even higher at the sight of a horse! What does that make me? Just an all-round emotional fellow, I suppose!

Also--and here's the real crux of the situation--the scientist in charge of the galvanometer assured me that though the machine registers emotions it's quite slap-happy as to which emotions it registers. Thus my 28 centimeters' emotional reaction to the curvaceous Miss Russell might have been the emotion of disgust, derision, contempt, horror, quiet amusement, fury, nausea, or cynicism. Of course, it might have been sex!

Anyway, Hostile Critic Dick Richards still insists that The Outlaw is a shockingly bad film, despite the queues!

DICK RICHARDS

London, England

The Devil--Cont'd

Sirs:

. . . The . . . letters you ran in your Feb. 24 issue under the caption, "The Devil." and purporting to show reader reaction to Msgr. Sheen's radio sermon, were replete with malice and prejudice. . . .

It would seem that your readers missed the essential point of the distinguished prelate's thesis: . . . that the world is rapidly splitting into two opposing camps--those who believe in a personal God, and those who do not. People who do not believe in a personal God are by their very thought content perfect suckers for the Leftists, regardless of all their protestations to the contrary. Study every fellow traveler, Communist sympathizer, mush-headed liberal, totalitarian liberal, sentimental humanitarian and all the other nondescript members of this ilk in the U.S. today and you will find a man or a woman who has lost or never had a belief in a personal God. . . . No man who studies the thought-content of the Left can fail to understand that ultimately the Left in thought, word and deed means the complete and remorseless dictatorship of monolithic materialism--all in the name of Man, of course, with God tolerated, if at all, as a superstitious myth. . . .

EMIL D. CRISCITIELLO

The Bronx

Shades of Susan

Sirs:

As one who has had a comparatively long and diversified teaching experience in this country, and who is willing to concede that our public school system has distressing weaknesses, I cannot quite swallow Dr. Fine's description of the civics teacher in the region of the Rockies [TIME, Feb. 24]. Surely no normal adult can be ignorant of woman's right to vote. . . .

ARTHUR F. WINSLOW

Hartford, Conn.

P: Neither Dr. Fine nor TIME called her "normal."--ED.

Inches Away

Sirs:

In this most squalid and quarrelsome of all centuries (somewhat rudely known as the Century of the Common Man), it is undeniable that kings have dwindled in stature, but that is no reason why we should exaggerate the darn dwindling. King George II of the Hellenes is not 5 ft. 2 in., as stated in TIME [Feb. 24], but about 5 ft. 8 1/2 in. . . .

MICHAEL ARLEN

New York City

P: Reader Arlen is closer to the fact than TIME was, but not squarely on it. His great & good friend George II is 172 centimeters tall--5 ft. 7.7 in.--ED.

The Terror That Is Greece

Sirs:

Your article on Greece [TIME, Feb. 24] is the most comprehensive description of what is going on in that country that I have seen so far, anywhere.

The main tragedy--namely, that Greece was never liberated from fear--has been given its proper perspective, though I shall venture to add that emphasis was lacking to transmit that idea vividly enough to people who do not know the perpetual terror of inescapable fear.

Permit me, however, to elucidate one point which you mentioned in passing. . . . I believe that this point is the sorest spot, the most serious problem confronting the Greece of today. I quote: "The old ability to make two drachmas grow where one grew before seems to have sputtered out." Right; the lack of individual enterprise--or rather, the complete reluctance to indulge in it . . . is the most perplexing reality in Greece's present national life. It is also the most important single factor in that country's current stagnation. No reconstruction, no rehabilitation, not even a simple personal improvement in the economic field can be expected when that all-permeating fear, born of uncertainty, terror and outright hopelessness, paralyzes every man's moves and every man's motivations. Take that fear away from Greece and it will be back to normal within three to five years. And that, with a minimum of financial support from abroad. Leave Greece one more year in its present terrorized and stagnant condition and nothing will save that country from extinction--not even the U.S. Budget.

RUDOLPH P. ATCON

Deerfield, Mass.

Star Hazing

Sirs:

In your article on Roy Roberts of the Kansas City Star [TIME, Feb. 24], you neglected to mention the great pulse of public opinion. When the Star and Times were "bedridden" it was tough not to see what Li'l Abner was doing. However, nine out of ten people then and now would drop the Star like a hot potato if any other kind of daily sheet would only come to town. The people's prayer is: please, God, send one, so we can have both sides of an issue and not have just what one paper likes shoved into our mental stomach. If Marshall Field, Hearst, McCormick or anyone wants stockholders in a new paper enterprise in Kansas City, he can figure up how many he can get by taking the Kansas City population and subtract those in top places at the Star, the City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce. All the rest would beat a pathway to that better mousetrap.

ROBERT KEETNER

Kansas City, Mo.

Church & State

Sirs:

Thanks for an objective report on the recent Supreme Court decision on the New Jersey school bus case [TIME, Feb. 24].

When tax money is used to transport a child to a denominational school, it might be remembered: 1) the people who subscribe to that denomination also pay taxes; 2) to pay for transportation is not to pay for religion; it is not even to pay for education. . . . The wall between church and state remains --but it is not moved so far over as to crush a child.

JOSIAH G. CHATHAM

Washington, D.C.

Sirs:

. . . In law, as in mathematics, the most stringent method of testing a decision or formula for fallacies is to submit it to a trial of extreme conditions. If it fails under these circumstances, then the formula must be abandoned. . . .

Therefore, I propose that all New Jersey citizens who choose to send their children to private schools, regardless of denomination, creed, or location, sue the Government of the State of New Jersey for the transportation involved. This might deeply encumber the State Treasury if, for instance, many children were sent to distant schools. But, qualitatively, are not all men equal in the eyes of our courts of justice, regardless of economic status or religious belief?

FRANK R. ELDRIDGE JR.

Springfield, Vt.

Elegance

Sirs:

Certainly your description of the State Department's new home as being "as elegantly modern as a Radio City men's room" [TIME, Feb. 17] is meaningless to women readers.

CLEMENT MCCARTHY

Lowell, Mass.

P: I The appointments on the other side of the lounge are about the same.--ED.

Red's Big Day

Sirs:

[Re your story of] a hunter returning home with two pheasants flushed and caught by a dog before the hunter could fire a shot [TIME, Feb. 17].

As owner of that dog . . . I shall give you the highlights on the hunting trip in question.

The dog's name is Red, a 1 1/2-year-old Irish setter, out for his first real hunt. I had him out in the fall of 1945 when he was six months old. Then the birds gave him the runaround. ... He wasn't going to have that happen again. The open season of 1946 arrived, with Red a year older and a bit wiser, but still a pup. The opening day my three partners, Stan, Morey, Jim and myself gave Red his day.

Each man had to wait his turn to come in on the flush. Morey, Jim, and I each had our turn and got our birds. It was Stan's turn next, which turned out to be Red's. Remembering the bad time the birds had given him last year, and by studying each bird he ran to cover and by watching how each one acted, he doped out a way to catch the bird in flight. He also found that if he got in a certain position he could make that bird come out where he wanted it to.

When he heard me say we only had two to go, he must have figured he had better get in his licks. We continued down a rice check. Red ran to cover a cock pheasant and came to point. Stan walked in for the flush with his gun in position. I gave the signal and out came the bird. With a leap and a bound, Red made a perfect catch in the air. Everyone was surprised and began to kid Stan, saying that he would have missed anyway, so we gave Red credit for the save. Not thinking Red would repeat the performance, Stan was told he had but one more chance and he'd better make it good or the dog would be one up on him. In a few moments Red ran to cover his last bird and, believe it or not, did a repeat performance--leaving Stan standing there with his mouth wide open.

Now, top that if you can! . . .

LINCOLN E. BECK

Lafayette, Calif.

For King & Country

Sirs:

. . . Re the article on the departure of the Royal Family for South Africa . . . [TIME, Feb. 10], I think it's about time America began to grow up in its ideas on the British throne in general, and what it means.

Our love, admiration and respect for it is not just a unique and somewhat endearing form of sentimentality. It is one of the few remaining powerful moral-political forces left in the world today. Americans should be learning to understand that the movements of a man who, by his very existence in the world, puts common ground beneath the feet of diplomats and housewives, financiers and factory hands; laborites, liberals and tories; who commands the absolute loyalty of this island and makes possible the unity of the Commonwealth, are not to be dismissed, nor are those of his family, with ignorant frivolity by you or anyone else. They are much too important.

... As for his "tottering Empire," we'll let that go. But very few of us here have any doubts whatever about one thing: that it will almost certainly be called upon to perform again all by itself for a couple of years, the next time the world's bacon needs saving.

MURIEL KURNITZ

London, England

Many Try . . .

Sirs:

. . . I am a brave soul and Minnesota is a safe distance from Rockefeller Plaza. Why not entitle your "Letters" column with a more lengthy, but obviously more appropriate, heading--"These are the souls who try TIME'S men."

JOHN Q. ERICKSON

Minneapolis

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