The McCarthy Cover

Sir:

Congratulations on your Oct. 22 McCarthy story. Never was "demagogue" more clearly denied.

R. V. BOYLE

Oklahoma City

SIR:

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR STERLING DEFENSE OF TYDINGS, HISS, MARSHALL, JESSUP AND THE REST. YOU HAVE EARNED THE CONFIDENCE OF A DISILLUSIONED AMERICAN PUBLIC AND HURRAH FOR SENATOR MCCARTHY.

ALFRED WENTWORTH BAYSIDE, N.Y.

Sir:

Cancel my subscription . . .

RALPH WAYNE New York City

Sir:

Only wish we had 90 more Senators like McCarthy to hold you (TIME), and other real demagogues in line.

C. A. EAST Glencoe, Ala.

Sir:

Cannot adequately express gratitude which I feel as a citizen for superb and immensely courageous McCarthy report . . .

JOSEPH ALSOP Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Having respect for TIME heightens the shock at your McCarthy piece, which, for filthy innuendo, outdoes anything McCarthy's worst enemies have ever accused him of doing . . . You are aware that the Communists' No. 1 target in U.S. is to destroy McCarthy. Perhaps a more clever job than you realize has been done to poison your mind against a man who, if not the perfect champion, fights effectively for a cause that we should all be interested in. This newspaper has strong editorial opinions but confines them to the editorial page and doesn't prostitute its news columns as you have done.

WILLIAM LOEB

-Publisher

Union-Leader Manchester, N.H.

Sir:

We agree with you that Senator McCarthy should catch these Commies with a butterfly net. Why don't you start a fund to get him one? It would be terrible if he got a member of six and seven fronts by accident . . .

ALFRED MORSE THOMAS SCOTT Flushing, N.Y.

Sir:

So TIME finally caught on to McCarthy. Well, well, WELL!

DAVID D. MARCH

Fulton, Mo.

Sir: A splendid article '. . .

RICHARD HELKE

Madison, Wis.

Sir:

. . . While McCarthy is the worst sort of demagogue, many people listen when he yells, screams and sputters, because they are afraid. In addition to the persecution of many innocent people by this man, the greater danger lies, as you point out, in that those who should be eliminated from public life as being unfit or subversive, can now defend themselves by stating that it is merely another McCarthy smear ... I am sure that when Joe started on his anti-Communist ravings, he had no idea that he would create the tremendous interest that he has. Once he had commenced his campaign for personal publicity, he became carried away with it ...

ALBERT L. REISENFELD Cleveland

Monstrous Mistake

Sir:

. . . Your recent write-ups on organized vice, municipal corruption, McCarthyism and moral deviation in high places surely must have brought home to a lot of readers the one salient fact that the U.S. . . . shouldn't be allowed to fumble on as a self-governing country . . .

Of course the trouble all began with that monstrous mistake of 1776. The only way out is for the U.S. to apply for readmission to the British realm as some kind of protectorate. The Colonial Office in London would see to it that good government was once again brought to America. Perhaps, a few hundred years hence, you might then be mature enough to join Canada as a self-governing Dominion with Ottawa as capital.

OLE G. CLAUSEN

Copenhagen, Denmark

Boston Knows All the Ensors

Sir:

Your excellent Oct. 8 story on the Ensor exhibition reported that our friends, New York's Museum of Modern Art, put on the show. As a trustee of Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, keen to see credit go where credit is due, may I point out that the Modern Museum and the Institute have been associated in this undertaking, but that the Institute was wholly responsible for organizing the show, and that its director, James S. Plaut, has conducted negotiations with the Belgian government ever since 1947 to win permission for most of Ensor's important works ... to come to the U.S. for the first time.

EDWARD WEEKS

The Atlantic Monthly Boston

The 57th Variety

Sir:

With what might be called an intimate knowledge of the Army's passion for "correct nomenclature," I can't help but wonder how many members of the military drew a bead on your Oct. 15 picture caption [which] erroneously labeled a 75-mm. recoilless rifle. It is actually a 57-mm. recoilless rifle.

Our instructors in basic training are probably still shaking their heads sadly. " , , , c _, PVT. STAN COHEN rort Jackson, b.L.

P:I So is a caption writer in the Defense Department who inadvertently transposed the figures on the official picture.

-ED.

Exceptions (Oxon)

Sir:

Regarding the relative poetic prowess of Oxford and Cambridge [TIME, Sept. 24]: in my youth I was told that, with a logic understood only in Britain, the Oxford Book of English Verse had been so named because it was compiled, almost in its entirety, from the works of Cambridge poets. Protests that at least one Oxford poet-of the first magnitude was represented therein were greeted with the reminder that his university career had ended prematurely when he was "sent down." . . .

EDWARD MANLEY HOPKINS Bronxville, N.Y.

> Other Oxonian exceptions: Matthew Arnold, Walter Savage Landor, Southey, Swinburne and a second cousin of Reader Hopkins, the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.-ED.

The Lights of Judaism

Sir:

As editor of one of the oldest Anglo-Jewish weeklies in this country, I wish to tell you how much pleasure I received from the Oct. 15 story, "A Trumpet for All Israel" . . .

Concerning the difference between Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, one of the most illuminating definitions was given recently by a Conservative rabbi when he said:

"Reform Judaism is like the green light urging one to go forward; Conservative Judaism is the yellow light, advocating caution in breaking with the past; and Orthodox Judaism is like the red: stop, and observe in the manner of traditional Judaism" . . . HOWARD M. WERTHEIMER Editor

The Jewish Review and Observer Cleveland

SIR:

CONGRATULATIONS FOR A THOROUGH STORY ON DR. LOUIS FINKELSTEIN, A GOOD SPOKESMAN AND LEADER FOR CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM.

CULVER CITY, CALIF. DDEGRE SCHARY

Sir:

Permit me to offer a Protestant minister's appreciation . . . Articles of this quality do more to combat anti-Semitism than the sentimental "we're-brothers-under-the-skin" variety. The cause of brotherhood is advanced when the differences between Jews and Gentiles are recognized rather than slurred over . . .

(REV.) CARL A. GLOVER

Pawtucket, R.I.

Sir:

My sincerest compliments on a ... stirring piece . . . Maybe the dual fact that I'm Jewish and that my synagogue was pictured, biases me. But I think this is one of the best written pieces that has shown up in your magazine for quite a little time.

SAM KRUPNICK St. Louis

Sir:

[It] notably contributes to Christian understanding, and should strengthen in American Judaism its essential and religious mission. Thank you for it.

HAROLD E. FEY Managing Editor The Christian Century Chicago

Sir:

. . . We Jews have a great heritage. Many of us do not appreciate it. Only when the great majority confess to living our Judaism as it has been handed down to us through the many centuries will we have the respect and love of our Christian neighbors.

Rabbi Finkelstein is optimistic. God grant that his dreams come true . . .

LEOPOLD HIRSH TELLER Philadelphia

Sir:

As a survivor of Nazi persecution, I want to thank you for your message about Rabbi Finkelstein's splendid work in "bringing people together and helping them understand each other."

MANFRED LEWANDOWSKI Philadelphia

Preview

SIR:

YOUR OCT. 22 ISSUE PRINTS A REVIEW OF BERRY FLEMING'S "THE FORTUNE TELLERS" WHICH IS NOT PUBLISHED UNTIL NOV 7. THIS BREAKING OF A PUBLICATION DATE, PARTICULARLY ON SUCH AN IMPORTANT TITLE, IS ALREADY BRINGING IN WIRES AND PHONE CALLS FROM THE PRESS AND BOOKSTORES AND WILL CAUSE US A GREAT DEAL OF PAIN . . .

RICHARD DANA J. B. LIPPINCOTT CO. PHILADELPHIA

P:I TIME regrets its unintentional lapse, which it hopes will cause Publisher Lippincott less pain and more sales.-ED.

The Con & the Canary

Sir:

In the Oct. 15 issue you mentioned a man who grew marijuana, then mixed it with birdseed.

Marijuana is a variety of hemp and up to a few years ago, many mixtures of birdseed contained hemp seed, which was supposed to improve the singing of the canaries.

Some 20 years ago, at San Quentin prison, it became very popular for the inmates to have a canary in their cell, for which they purchased birdseed. It was finally discovered that the interest in the canary was solely to have an opportunity to obtain hemp seed, which would then be planted in some obscure spot in the prison yard, or mixed directly with smoking tobacco.

The rules were then changed, forbidding any prisoner to have a canary in his cell . . .

MAX WATSON San Jose, Calif.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was tossed out of Oxford for publishing The Necessity of Atheism.

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