Above Politics

Sir:

Even though a lifelong Republican with a yearning for a change in the present Federal Administration, I am disturbed over plans being laid by certain Republicans of brass-hat level to pressure General Eisenhower into giving up his present European responsibilities and accepting the Republican presidential nomination. The planners, in my opinion, could do no greater disservice to the country.

As a purely political move, it is granted that the nomination of the general would be a knockout . . . [But] General Eisenhower is now engaged in European work of tremendous importance to the safety of this and other non-Communist countries ... his weight is needed in Europe to facilitate the prevention, through preparedness, of a third World War which would have consequences too terrible to contemplate . . . No political aspirations on the part of others should take the general from his work.

Let's keep Ike in Europe! It would be interesting to know how other readers of TIME feel.

RAYMOND H. SMITH Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Bipartisan Moral Policy

Sir:

Most of the Republican Party and Republican press are making Democratic morality --or the lack of it--a major campaign issue.

Yet that party and that press are parties to a conspiracy of immorality . . . that makes the Democratic RFC shenanigans look like peanuts: I refer to the continued immorality that is McCarthyism . . . A Bipartisan Moral Policy is in order. HARRY MARGOLIS

The Bronx, N.Y.

The Clever Chinese

Sir:

I accept the cliche about the cleverness of the Chinese as fact, and I am prepared to believe a really ingenious forger capable of almost anything, but I simply do not credit your story [TIME, Sept. 24] that "many of the money orders were small, and the amounts were often changed by clever forgers, e.g., $1.37 to $1,379.44." Any such tidy kiting of U.S. Postal Money Orders is completely outside the realm of possibility, inasmuch as the absolute maximum value of each one is $100.

JASON LINDSEY Hollywood

P: Reader Lindsey is right. Above $100 the kiting was done on U.S. Treasury checks.--ED.

That Payton Person

Sir:

A large bouquet to the writer responsible for "Manners & Morals" [TIME, Sept. 24], and a faint slap on the wrist to TIME for lending importance to the matrimonial (there is a better word) tag matches that distinguish a certain layer of Hollywood society. Tone, Payton and Neal, like "That Gardner Girl," might best be left to their petty problems . . .

JOHN W. DOWNS JR. San Diego

Sir:

. . . Seldom have the frailties of human nature and the acceptance of alley-cat morality been more humorously chronicled.

KERMIT HABER New York City Sir:

. . . The finest piece of tongue-in-cheek writing I've seen in many a moon.

GEORGE B. Ross University City, Mo.

Sir: . . . It's exquisite!

LES BARNARD

Nashville

Sir:

I appreciate the satire . . . but must you waste so much space on so trivial a subject in these days when there is so much to be written on subjects of real interest?

IRVING F. ANDERSON Hopewell, Va.

Sir:

Why don't the authorities in Hollywood just abolish marriage . . .? At the same time they could issue "Mutual Admiration Cards" to those others who desire something to take the place of wedding rings or marriage certificates ... In this way Hollywood could still have its fun and games and the sanctity of marriage might not be so exposed to ridicule as it now is. . . , " , R. C. QUITTENTON Arvida, Quebec Sir:

Come now, TIME, quit teasing and let's get on with the show. Re the Tone-Neal-Payton isosceles--what was Lord Coke's Rule in Shelley's Case?

THEO. SLADE Chattanooga, Tenn.

P: Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), first to be called Lord Chief Justice of England, was only 27 when he pleaded and won "Shelley's Case," the most celebrated in English real-property law.

Its doctrine did not originate with this case, but was so ably pleaded that it became known as the "Rule in Shelley's Case." What it did, in effect, was to punch a loophole through an old legal wall by making it possible for an heir to dispose of an estate at his own discretion (within reasonable limits) instead of holding it perpetually at the disposal of his heirs.--ED.

Epistle to a Cantabrigoxonian

Sir:

The difficult and fine distinctions drawn between Oxford and Cambridge by Norman St. John-Stevas [TIME, Sept. 24] are for the most part accurate . . . However, I suspect that the good Cantabrigoxonian had little to do with English letters or natural science while rusticating or ruminating at either place, for he would not have said that Oxford has the edge in poetry, nor would he have failed to recognize the distinction of Cambridge in the field of science. Can Oxford possibly match Spenser, Marlowe, Milton, Dryden, Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge . . . or Bacon, Harvey, Darwin?

But to follow through on a very sticky wicket, here is an extension of the delicate differences between the two Ancient & Honourable Universities as observed by an American [and Cantabrigian]. Oxford: Scotch whisky, Parliament, Press & Pulpit, Beautiful men, Boyish women, Refined brilliance, Marry good country girls or Americans. Cambridge: Audit ale, Poetry, Pubs & Privacy, Handsome men, Manly women, Rough genius, Marry lusty city girls or Continentals . . .

QUENTIN KEITH, M.A. (CANTAB) Captain, U.S. Army Fort Monmouth, N.J.

Eternal Copyright

Sir:

The Last Supper was Leonardo da Vinci's, and the Spitfire was Reginald Joseph Mitchell's, circa 1900-1937. Subsequent tampering, even for a decade, by Joe Smith [TIME, Sept. 24] will never alter the identity of the designer of the fateful interceptor.

W/C RODERICK I. A. SMITH R.C.A.F. Toronto, Ontario

P: Wing Commander Smith is right in defending Reginald J. Mitchell's claim to the major credit for the Battle of Britain's great Spitfire. Joe Smith, who succeeded Mitchell as chief designer of the Supermarine company when Mitchell died in 1937, was chief draftsman throughout the Spitfire's development period.--ED.

Bulls I Have Known

Sir:

The Wall Street Bull picture [TIME, Sept. 24] is unfair, misleading. It indicates that the bull is fearsome, dangerous. Not so. A bull is dangerous or not, according to his horns. Without fighting horns, he is not a fighter . . . The bull shown in your picture has a badly bent horn. He can't fight. Have no fear of him. He couldn't scare a Jersey heifer.

RICHARD B. HUMPHREY Dallas

Monophysitism

Sir:

Your footnote to the Sept. 24 article on the Vatican makes the statement that "Roman Catholic theologians believe that the Monophysite theory can lead to the destruction of the very basis of Christianity . . ." Not only Roman, but all orthodox Christianity--Eastern, Anglican and Protestant as weil--follows the Council of Chalcedon in rejecting Monophysitism.

(THE REV.) A. M. SHERMAN JR. Allentown, Pa.

Sir:

In reference to the heresy of Monophysitism, I enclose the poetic commentary entitled "Hunger Requires Bread," which expresses the Catholic point of view . . .

Why should He multiply these loaves for men, Those who were hungry? Why not destroy hunger? Or simply make man never to yearn again, Never dread dawn or fear the darkness longer? He did not say, We hunger not and need Not then be filled. Rather, I am not the first, Nor last, but only One of you to bleed With the paradox of thirst, to cry, "I thirst!"

. . . He shared, in pity of the multitude, Not loaves alone, but man's Gethsemane.

NORBERT ENGELS South Bend, Ind.

Electric Frenchman

SIR:

TIME's TRIBUTE TO COMMANDER IN CHIEF DE LATTRE AND FRANCE RESURGENT [SEPT. 24] EVOKES IN THE BREASTS OF PEOPLE WHO COUNT FREEDOM FIRST SOMETHING OF THE EXALTATION THAT ELECTRIFIED AMERICAN AUDIENCES DURING WORLD WAR I WHEN "THE MARSEILLAISE' RANG OUT . . . TODAY LET'S EQUIP FRANCE'S MACARTHUR TO CONSOLIDATE HIS TREMENDOUS GAINS TOWARD ENDING WORLD CHAOS.

NORMAN F. D'EVELYN

SAN FRANCISCO

Faint Praise

Sir:

In your Sept. 10 issue, the reference to "Sophocles Venizelos, a bridge-playing, bumbling, well-intentioned Liberal," leaves me baffled. Do you mean that you're for him or ag'in' him? I thought, at first reading, that you were trying to damn him with faint praise; then I wondered if you might not be trying to praise him with faint damns. Surely even a Liberal ought to have good intentions; and what does bridge-playing indicate in a politician,.except maybe a liking for bridge? And when you say that he bumbles . . . what is it that you wish to convey? Does he hum like a bee, cry like a bittern, bungle, blunder, bustle, or muffle ?

ROBERT MACCOLL ADAMS Austin, Texas

P: Personally a "good guy" with good intentions and reasonable opinions, Venizelos is one of the world's best bridge players. But as a political leader he has been largely ineffectual, i.e., a bumbler.--ED.

Tin-Scan Alley?

Sir:

I do not think much of your verse of David and Bathsheba [TIME, Sept. 10], It is extraordinary, Americans never seem to write verse that scans. This is better:

David was a general, Uriah was a sub. David saw Uriah's wife washing in her tub. David sent Uriah to a front line trench And Uriah stopped a hand grenade, so David got the wench.

J. E. OUSELEY WALKER

Kilquade, Ireland

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.