Warming Up for November
Sir:
. . . The country is faced with a choice between Uriah Keep ("I am aware that I am the 'umblest person going") and the Constant Tin Soldier ("He did not think it right to shout in uniform"). For myself, on election day I shall go not to the election booth but to the church pew and pray for the future of the country.
EAMON MCDONOUGH Weymouth, Mass.
Another Goal for Murray?
Sir:
Warmest congratulations on your masterly exposition of the steel situation [TIME, Aug. 4] ... It placed Phil Murray in a more favorable light than is commonly accepted. Were Murray's wisdom (and unselfishness) as great as his "big heart" he would, instead of fastening further inflation on all of us, be setting a goal of having every steelworker become the proud owner of 100 or more shares of steel stock. Community respect for such would be automatic . . . Indeed, such an outcome might turn the tide against the New Deal's insistent march toward converting Americans into class-conscious voters.
C. A. DECAMP Lieutenant Colonel Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif.
Fouled Up
Sir:
We have news for Winston and Reader Hughes [TIME Letters, Aug. 4]. Snafu and cummfu are a bit old hat in Washington, along with tarfu ("things are really"), fubar ("beyond all realization"), fubb ("beyond belief").
The current dimensions are sapfu ("surpassing all previous") and the latest version: tuifu ("the ultimate in") . . .
EDGAR JONES
Washington, D.C.
For the Choi Jung Mooks
Sir:
I am the mother of a six-year-old myself--and as I read your July 21 story of the homeless children in Pusan, I became conscious of the fact that I must bear my part of the blame for all the Choi Jung Mooks of the world.
It made me feel guilty because there were times when I carped at my husband's $3,000 a year salary, which paid our rent in the crumbling rookery in which we live, and forced down our standard of living because of the high rent we have to pay for the privilege of living in said rookery. However, at least we live. Is there anything that we can do to help those people? . . .
ELSPETH LEE
New York City
Sir:
Those 10,000 "toddlers" and children are sitting in those filthy Pusan streets . . . Tell us, your army of readers, what to do--where to send funds--to help. We ... are directly responsible for the horror of abandoned and dying children in that ruined country . . .
LOUISA BOYD GILE
La Jolla, Calif.
P: Contributions can be sent to CARE, 20 Broad St., New York 5, N.Y., or to American Relief for Korea, 133 East 39th St., New York 16, or to Save the Children Federation Inc., 80 Eighth Ave., New York II. The two last-named agencies also accept children's clothing.--ED.
Reluctant Kogis?
Sir:
Anthropologist Reichel-Dolmatoff states that a Kogi woman at night lures her husband "to lie down in the fields, threatening to cut off the soup if he refuses [TIME, July 28]." He then explains the Kogi man's aversion to sex stems from a cult of love for a world-mother spirit.
I disagree with the scientist and maintain that the Kogi male just doesn't like soup.
JACK GROSS
Detroit
Sir:
Accompanied only by a half-breed guide, I have explored the seaward slopes of the Santa Marta Mountains inhabited by the Kogi Indians . . . Far from being reluctant to sex, the mama to whom I talked, professed interest and wonderment at my being one of the first white women he had ever seen. After cautiously inquiring if I was a wealthy widow, he promptly proposed. I did not stay long enough to disprove further Reichel-Dolmatoff's claims.
(Miss) BERNICE GOETZ Rocky River, Ohio
Home-Town Boy Makes Good
Sir:
. . . Whatever success the revival of King Kong is now enjoying in the U.S., it must be trifling compared to its appeal in West Africa Hardly a week has gone by, since the film was first distributed in this area, that in some town it hasn't delighted huge audiences of fascinated natives who go again & again to see the great ape which they think is enormously funny ... In the Gold Coast, one movie owner possesses only two features, King Kong and The Mark of Zorro . . . On Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays he has packed them in for years with the former; on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with the latter. On Sunday there is always a surefire double-feature--King Kong and The Mark of Zorro.
SAM OLDEN JR. Lagos, Nigeria, B.W.A.
Ruthlessness in Colombia (Cont'd)
Sir:
May I, as a Catholic, thank the Rev. George F. Packard, Episcopal minister, for his letter published in TIME, July 21?
Catholics are so unused to having anyone, not of our faith, write in exposing the real cause of trouble behind the incidents in Latin countries--namely, the incessant anti-Catholic propaganda of Protestant missionaries--that I am sure many Catholics were very touched by the gesture of this minister . . . While deploring the extreme actions of a few Colombians, I can't help feeling that their provocation must have been great . . .
V. R. ELLIOTT
Montreal, Que.
Sir:
The Colombia incidents are very unfortunate, and no Christian church would condone such violence . . .
If non-Catholic Christian clergymen want to convert the pagan, why do they insist on invading countries that have been Catholic for centuries? And if they do enter such countries, why must they preach a vicious, and-Catholic brand of Christianity?
(THE REV.) W. C. HEIMBUCH
St. Michael's Rectory
Elizabeth, N J.
Tribute to Sisu
Sir:
Your July 21 "Sisu" was superbly done. I have read few articles that have presented with such excellency the spirit of the Finnish people and the obstacles they have had to surmount because they live under the shadow of the historical Russian bully . . . What all of us, from the Thuringian Forest to Sheboygan, must realize is that to survive we need, along with armor, A-bombs and valuta, sisu.
WILLIAM C. SIMENSON
Madison, Wis.
Schweitzer v. Orthodoxy
Sir:
So Dr. Clarence Macartney thinks "modernism [in the U.S.] is not nearly so belligerent as it was. The barrenness of it has been demonstrated [TIME, July 21]." Demonstrated by whom, when, where? Dr. Macartney's statement is one that sounds good if you say it quickly, but won't stand examination. To consider only one example, let's look at Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the missionary in the Belgian Congo. While Pastor Macartney has been preaching to congregations of educated, cultured people, some of whom doubtless are fairly wealthy, Dr. Schweitzer ministers to African natives untaught in the ways of polite society, ignorant, poor, and unable to repay him except in the coin of gratitude and love. But by Dr. Macartney's doctrinal standards, Dr. Schweitzer is a modernist, a heretic ... He denies many of the basic doctrines that to Dr. Macartney are essential elements of Christianity . . .
DWIGHT E. ALLEN
Niagara Falls, N.Y.
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