Seltzer on Right & Wrong

Sir: If ever the American public were given a heaping dish of nourishing food for thought, it was served up in your Aug. 27 reprint of Louis B. Seltzer's editorial in the Cleveland -Press.

For this down-to-earth piece of writing and timely document of good common sense, which should be digested by every adult in these United States, I nominate Seltzer as TIME'S 1951 "Man of the Year." BEN F. HOLZMAN Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sir: . . . Our country needs more men like Seltzer. MABEL I. MORRISON Chicago

Sir: . . . In a sentence: Babbittry triumphs over Christianity . . . We are not likely to be any different, as long as students only want to know, and schools teach, the shortest way to a buck. Idealism has replaced sex as the forbidden topic of conversation. J. H. SUMMERELL Detroit

Sir: . . . This country is suffering from malnutrition of the soul, and the watery broth of lip service and frosting of morality are not going to get it back on the road to recovery. Our too many religious cooks have added so many man-made seasonings and garnishes to the original all-nourishing Christianity that we are in the stew instead of its being in us . . . MRS. CHARLES R. ALLERS JR. Pittsburgh

Sir: . . . It is perhaps not proper for me to air any criticism after having been in this country for only nine months [but] what strikes me most are the manners & morals of young people (5 to 25) here . . .

An alarming portion of young people in Cleveland (where I live) seem rude, insolent and very vague about what is right or wrong. This includes seemingly trivial things: shouting at people walking by, rude jokes about girls, exaggerated "sex-interest," exaggerated "money-consciousness," and disinterest in anything worthier than crime novels, gangster films and certain magazines . . . ADOLF A. PERLES Cleveland

Sir: . . . Many of our citizens do not even seem to know what is basic to their happiness, and seek to assuage their discontent and to escape their confusion in movies, radio, TV, books and so forth. The modern housewife is content to buy an electric mixer to mix her box cake and to open some cans, in preference to creating an appetizing meal. Her husband argues with his boss for shorter working hours and more pay, and expects the Government or anyone other than himself to make his life secure and comfortable . . . MARY ANNE HAYES Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: "Can't we tell right from wrong?" Asks a question . . . but it does not furnish the answer . . .

The answer was given more than 19 centuries ago, when Jesus Christ declared the supreme importance of spiritual things, and the relative unimportance of what is called material success . . . RAY BROWN Ottawa, Canada

Advice from Abroad

Sir: I, for one, am tired of hearing and reading about the nation's declining morals . . .

Let us work at our lives and jobs with the earnestness with which we have been arguing about the lives and jobs of others. ANSON B. GARDNER JR. Engineering Section H.Q. EUCOM c/o Postmaster, New York City

Great Game

Sir: You are to be congratulated for the excellent coverage of tennis in the Aug. 27 issue. Dick Savitt's picture on the cover exemplifies a true American youth with poise, self-confidence and fighting heart.

Your willingness to devote several pages to one of the truly worldwide sports will be appreciated by all of us working with this great game. HARRY FOGLEMAN Cincinnati

Right Hand, Left Hand

SIR: IN TIME, AUG. 27, THERE APPEARED THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE: "WHEN THE MEETING [IN KAESONG] WAS OVER, GENERAL HODES ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED WITH HIS ARM AROUND NORTH KOREA'S COMPLAISANT LEE [SONG CHO]."

I FEEL CERTAIN THAT THOSE THROUGHOUT THE SERVICES WHO KNOW ME, WON'T BELIEVE SUCH A STATEMENT, AS IT IS COMPLETELY WITHOUT FOUNDATION IN FACT. HOWEVER, IN FAIRNESS TO ME, I WOULD LIKE FOR OTHERS WHO CAREFULLY READ YOUR MAGAZINE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE STATEMENT WAS COMPLETELY WRONG.

IF IT IS OF INTEREST TO KNOW WHAT MY RIGHT HAND WAS DOING AT THE TIME OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, IT WAS HOLDING MY BRIEF CASE. H. I. HODES MAJOR GENERAL, U.S.A. VIA TOKYO, JAPAN P:TIME, which based its report on an A.P. dispatch from Kaesong, is glad to get the straight of it, right from the horse's mouth.--ED.

Yale's Thomists

Sir: In your Aug. 13 article "For Yale, a Thomist" you point out correctly that the Yale department of philosophy seeks to have all important positions represented, in the conviction that they will profit by mutual criticism. It is therefore happy to have Thomism represented. By way of giving credit where it is due, however, may I point out that this representation is not new? For some years past the Thomist position has been very competently presented by Dr. William M. Walton, whose acceptance of a more advanced post elsewhere left an opening for the appointment you describe. BRAND BLANSHARD Yale University New Haven, Conn.

Under the Shadow

Sir: Your brilliant appraisal of Soviet air power in the Aug. 20 issue should spur all Americans to greater defense efforts.

For those of us who live under the shadow of the "golden falcons' " wings, it had special meaning. RICK LINDEN Paris, France

What Is McCarthyism?

Sir: Your Aug. 27 article, "McCarthyism" v. "Trumanism," ignores the real point about the brazen baseness of McCarthyism . . .

There are many shortcomings for which Truman may rightly be held to answer. But to say that "McCarthyism is going to be around until Harry Truman . . . eliminates from U.S. foreign policy the tendency to appease Communism," looks like an attempt to conceal the truth that under Truman, U.S. foreign policy has long been opposing Communism with American money, arms and lives. In doing this, your piece becomes not news but an editorial that approximates McCarthyism--and Trumanism, if you will . . . LAWRENCE CHASE Arcadia, Calif.

Sir: The assumption that "Trumanism" is the cause and "McCarthyism" the effect is pure whitewash ... A spot on a suit is not removed by destroying the suit. WARREN R. SCOLLIN Wollaston, Mass.

Sir: . . Don't you think you should have listed a few specific examples of U.S. appeasement [of Communism]? Off hand, I can't think of any; I doubt if the Russians can either.

The decision to fight in Korea, the creation of SHAPE and our plans for a Japanese peace treaty are mighty strange manifestations of appeasement . . . WILLIAM ATTWOOD Paris, France

Rebuke to Duke

Sir: Having been a sometime resident of Eton and Windsor, and having come to own an affection for the legend and tradition which abound on both the Eton and Windsor sides of the Thames . . . I resent, sir, the present Duke of Wellington's contention that his forebear did not remark that "the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton" [TIME, Aug. 27].

In these times of paucity of respect for the past, let us not tamper with the grassy slopes that extend out toward the crass commercialism of Slough . . . If the first Duke of Wellington did not say this in so many words, then one of his post-cedents should have. HARRY HESS New York City

Sir: If the seventh Duke of Wellington denies the validity of the Eton-Waterloo epigrammatic statement attributed to his famous ancestor and is willing to spend his money to prove his point, what might he not be willing to do in the case of the story which is quoted from the Irish Digest?

The Duke of Wellington, when he was very old and incredibly distinguished, was telling how once, at mess in the Peninsula, his servant had opened a bottle of port, and inside found a rat.

"It must have been a very large bottle," remarked a subaltern.

The Duke fixed him with his eye. "It was a damned small bottle."

"Oh," said the subaltern, abashed, "then no doubt it was a very small rat."

"It was a damned large rat," said the Duke. And there the matter has rested ever since. --Gilbert Murray, Stoic, Christian and Humanist D. E. STANTON Memphis, Tcnn.

Chimp's I.Q.

Sir: TIME Aug. 27 says, "After testing 220 white and Negro babies on such items as crawling, babbling, standing and grabbing, Psychologist A. R. Gilliland of Northwestern University poked another hole into an old superstition. Mean I.Q. of the white babies: 103; of the Negroes: 105.6."

The clear implication here is that the Negro babies were, if anything, slightly brighter than the white . . . Use of the term "I.Q." with babies is of doubtful validity at best and may often be misleading, while "I.Q.s" obtained from baby tests have almost no predictive value for later measures of intelligence taken when the child can read and write. Negroes, in general, mature more rapidly than whites, so that Negro babies can be expected to perform better than whites in the activities your article describes.

In fact, in crawling, grabbing and the like, a baby chimpanzee would do better than either racial group . . . HENRY E. GARRETT Department of Psychology Columbia University New York City

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