Anniversary

Sir:

MY CONGRATULATIONS TO TIME ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS FOUNDING AND EVERY BEST WISH FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUCCESS.

HAROLD E. STASSEN Beloit, Wis.

Sir:

Congratulations from the top of the world.

OSCAR C. NIELSEN

Anchorage, Alaska

Sir:

. . . Congratulations. . . .

FRANK C. OWENS Columbia, S.C.

Sir:

... A remarkable achievement. I am very greatly impressed.

R. J. CRUIKSHANK

Editor

News Chronicle London

Sir:

As a rule one has small opportunity to criticize TIME, but I will wager that many a photographer the country over wept when he saw the group picture of your writers in the Anniversary issue. . . .

CLARENCE STEARNS

Zumbrota, Minn.

Sir:

. . . The photographers you hire don't know from nothing. . . .

HAROLD F. CAMPBELL McKeesport, Pa.

Sir:

The whole crew look unwholesome, joyless, depressed--and even sinister. ... I now know why the political articles are always cynical, the education column senseless gibberish, the religion column gloomy rubbish, devoid of inspiration, hope or spiritual benefit. ...

MARTHA WILSON

Muskegon, Mich.

Sir:

Re cutline, "Hadden, Luce & Printer (1925)" [Time, March 8]: Brit Hadden, yes. Henry Luce--well, if you say so. But no printer was William R. Hopkins, Cleveland's City Manager in 1925.

LEE MERKEL Akron, Ohio

P: Let the keeper of the archives note well--and remember in 1973.--ED.

Sir:

I am indignant at your omission of Bob Chapin's photo in your Anniversary issue.

His maps have made much clearer to me the things your writers have tried to say.

He certainly rates with your cover artists. . . .

What say?

S. D. LEVINGS

Winnetka, Ill..

P: See cut.--Ed.

Sir:

TIME'S story about TIME was the dullest TIME story in years, perhaps in TIME history.

R. McSWINEY Milford, Surrey England

Sir:

The ability of TIME'S writers to make a story "come alive" is admired. . . . TIME'S least successful effort to make a .story "come alive" was its report on its own first 25 years.

VAUGHN FLANNERY

Darlington, Md.

Sir:

Thanks for pulling off some of TIME'S irritating layers of anonymity in the superb behind-the-scenes glimpse offered in "The Story of an Experiment."

E. G. Louis WIEBUSCH, M.D. North Hollywood, Calif.

Sir:

. . . The picture of Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr on the cover, and the article with it are among the best summaries on both a man and a philosophy of religion, as well as a philosophy of an Age, that I have ever read. A really superb job.

May you and yours have another 25 years of the best.

(REV.) KENNETH FARE Salem Lutheran Church Peoria, Ill.

Sir:

Let Pastor Niebuhr confess and repent and atone for his guilt. Let him beware that he is not projecting his own profound guilt on humanity; he who had prodigious influence on the "transcendent animal" in propelling him toward the savage carnage through which he has just gone, and through which he is still going. May Reinhold Niebuhr rediscover Matthew 5:9.

HELEN STRIEDIECK State College, Pa.

Sir:

Your article on Niebuhr was evidently written by a Niebuhr enthusiast who out-Niebuhrs Niebuhr and obscures obscurity.

I am reminded of the Negro preacher who gave twelve sermons on Melchizedek and in conclusion said: "So you see, brethren, we really don't know much about Melchizedek after all!"

If Reinhold Niebuhr could put into 500 words the real substance of his faith, some of us who still remain unabashed liberals might at least have the chance to pin-him down on the main points.

I herewith challenge him to do so.

(REV.) HARRY TAYLOR Congregational Community Church Jennings Lodge, Ore.

Sir:

One brickbat among the hundreds of bouquets for your brilliant article on Reinhold Niebuhr and the paradox of man's freedom and sin.

TIME'S first reference [March 10, 1923] to John L. Lewis miscalled him John J. Lewis. In TIME'S Silver Anniversary Edition, Gifford Lecturer Josiah Royce became Josiah Joyce. You just can't keep those "J"s in line, can you? . . .

BILL LINNEMAN Denver, Colo.

P: A justified jab.--ED.

Sir:

. . . TIME must be congratulated on giving its readers an easily read summary of Niebuhr's theology, a feat which a great many trained theologians would be unable to perform. . . .

BARBARA G. PRASSE Cleveland, Ohio

Sir:

TIME'S religion editor has apparently succumbed to Reinhold Niebuhr's obfuscating theological phraseology. If he would try to put Niebuhr's thoughts into words of one or two syllables, both he and we might be able to understand them.

HENRY HARRISON West Newton, Mass.

Sir:

. . . The fellow who wrote this article seems to have become so steeped in and imbued with Niebuhr's paradoxes that he has convinced himself that the more complex he makes his report the simpler it will be for the readers to understand.

Probably a swell article to those in the know, it left me circling the airport in a dense fog, with just an occasional glimpse of the landing field of understanding. Can't it be put in everyday language ?

J. M. DECKER

Long Valley, N.J.

Sir:

To hail Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr as America's No.1 theologian is poor reporting. He is not even a representative Protestant thinker. Most prefer not to think of his logic as being transcendent, but a denial of rudimentary forms of expression (even his!). . . .

The curtain cannot be rung down on liberalism until the possibilities of applying the scientific method to thought have been exhausted. It is merely petty to label all who disagree with Dr. Niebuhr as being "rigorously secular." . . .

Every period [in history] has been labeled a "Lenten age" by some theologians in order to dramatize their own Easter story. But if by this you hail Easter, then dear Lord give me Lent Eternal.

(REV.) T. F. LINDLEY JR. Enfield, N.H.

Sir: I have only one "kick" to make [on the Anniversary issue]: the top border of past TIME covers makes a swell picture quiz--but where are the answers?

JOE R. PATRICK Urbana, Ill.

Sir:

Of the 70 figures topping the story, I was able to identify but 30. Since then, I have not slept very well. I must know the names of the other 40.

R. GIACOMELLI Hamilton, Ont.

Sir:

I'll bet you did it with malice aforethought --publishing former TIME cover pictures across the top of the pages relating to TIME'S history and growth--to see how many of your readers would make a guessing game out of it.

Now if you will just let us have the answers, so we can tabulate our scores, it will be greatly appreciated.

RALPH L. HARDEW North Attleboro, Mass.

Sir: Since the writer was running around in knee pants when the first issue of TIME went to press, will you kindly identify the 70 postage-stamp reproductions. . . . We think we got 56 of them.

FRANK E. HOLMES JR.

Philadelphia, Pa.

P: Herewith, 1. to r., the full list:

First Page: Joseph G. Cannon, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jack Dempsey, Henry Cabot Lodge, William E. Borah, Sir "Thomas Lipton, John D. Rockefeller.

First Spread: George Gershwin, Stanley Baldwin, Will Rogers, Helen Wills, Will Hays, Dame Nellie Melba, Max Reinhardt, Nikita Balief, Robert La Follette, Charles Lindbergh, Florenz Ziegfeld, Cardinal O'Connell, Princess Elizabeth, Jimmy Walker.

Second Spread: Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Al Capone, Bobby Jones, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Mohandas Gandhi, Paul von Hindenburg, Al Smith, Katherine Cornell, Sara Delano Roosevelt, Marie Dressier, George M. Cohan, Hugh S. Johnson, Henry Pu Yi, Huey Long.

Third Spread: Alexei Stakhanov, Alf Landon, Clark Gable, Wallis Simpson, Fulgencio Batista, Jean Sibelius, Walter Winchell, Chiang Kai-shek & Wife, William R. Hearst, Grover Whalen, James Joyce, Eamon de Valera, Ethel Merman, Martin Niemoller.

Fourth Spread: Joe Louis, Rita Hayworth, Husband E. Kimmel, Dmitri Shostakovich, George Marshall, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Bernard Baruch, Douglas MacArthur, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Omar Bradley, Harry S. Truman, Adolf Hitler, Bill Mauldin's "Willie."

Last Page: Laurence Olivier, Albert Einstein, John L. Lewis, Billy Rose, Robert McCormick, Jackie Robinson, Reinhold Niebuhr.--ED.

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