The Man at the Station

Sir:

In your Oct. 20 issue, you state that the 89-year-old photograph showing a tall man with a stovepipe hat (supposedly Abraham Lincoln) will "start a historical argument." I doubt it ... You are correct in saying that the photograph was taken at Hanover Junction, Pa., by Mathew B. Brady, the famous Civil War photographer. However, the assumption that it shows Lincoln on the way to Gettysburg is nothing but a railway pressagent's wishful thinking . . .

STEFAN LORANT Lenox, Mass.

Sir:

... It has been discovered that the photograph isn't a picture of Hanover Junction Station, but Burke's Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, which was published on page 93 in Roy Meredith's book Mr. Lincoln's Camera Man--Mathew B. Brady.

Louis FABIAN BACHRACH Newton, Mass.

Sir:

. . . There is little doubt in my mind but that Abraham Lincoln is the man in the center of the picture.

ELAINE M. FALLON Chicago

Sir:

. . . The elongated gentleman in the photograph is not the man who delivered the celebrated Gettysburg Address. Mr. Lincoln did not leave the train on which he was riding until it reached its destination . . .

DAVID RANKIN BARBEE

Orange, Texas

Keeping an Eye on Baby

Sir:

I thoroughly enjoyed the short story Romance, by Joyce Gary [TIME, Oct. 20], and I know that matters of factual accuracy should never be picked over in a work of art. But either Mr. Gary knows nothing about babies, or else his fictional one is unusually backward. Who ever heard of a baby able to crawl and yet just beginning to learn how to turn over on his stomach?

LOUISE M. HIEATT Stamford, Conn.

Sir:

Babies must crawl before they can walk, but they all can roll off their backs before they can crawl. I believe Joyce Gary is all and more you say he is, but in the case of that apple-headed infant of his, his bright eye erred. Could he have had in mind a baby turtle, tortoise or even cockroach? They have that trouble. Not babies.

J. HATCH New York City

Saute & Mix Well

Sir:

And what is a "jambalaya" [TIME, Oct. 20]? A. M. MIXON JR. Spiro, Okla.

P:A New Orleans dish containing rice, chorizos, ham or shrimp, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, paprika and cayenne pepper.--ED.

Man of the Year?

Sir:

Soon, Man of the Year proposals will be crowding your desk. Last year it was rightly Mossadegh . . . This year, one's selection can only fall on Egypt's new leader, General Naguib . . .

VICTOR B. CRANLEY L'Aurent-Clarens, Switzerland

Sir:

I nominate . . . Federal Judge David Andrew Pine. His courageous ruling, upheld by the Supreme Court, that President Truman's seizure of the steel mills was unconstitutional, restored constitutional government to the U.S. ...

BERNARD K. FRANK Portland, Ore.

Sir:

. . . Dwight Eisenhower.

LEONARD E. LESOURD

New York City

Sir:

May I nominate Harry S. Truman as the Worst Man of the Year? . . .

GOLDWIN GOLDSMITH

Austin, Texas

Sir:

. . . Wisconsin's Senator Joe McCarthy . . . Lashing out with brute, uncomprehending frustration in frenzy at a real but little-understood danger, he is almost the perfect symbol of this frightening age.

R. COSMIC

Philadelphia

Sir:

John L. Lewis, a U.S. citizen who is bigger than the United States Government, an individual at whose nod the wheels of the greatest industrial system in the world grind towards a halt, a man whose unspoken motto is--The Public Be Damned.

CHARLES H. PORTER Tamworth, N.H.

Unsuspected Cancer

Sir:

Many women will sadly misunderstand your Oct. 20 article, "Unsuspected Cancer." The figures quoted from my paper--"90% chance of survival for five years, and 65% chance of living ten years"--do not refer to the very early cancers usually discovered by vaginal smear, but refer instead to localized invasive cancer (Stage 1) of many months or years growth. Stage 1 cancer used to be considered early cancer; but with the vaginal smear we are now detecting cancer long before Stage 1 is reached. These very early malignant lesions (Stage 0) have not yet invaded the tissues, and are curable in almost 100% of cases . . . Periodic vaginal smear examination of "well" women is about the only way of finding these very early lesions. Women should realize that this earliest type of cancer is entirely curable.

MAURICE FREMONT-SMITH, M.D. Boston

Curled Up with Bad Books

Sir:

I finished reading the Books section of the Oct. 13 issue of TIME with a distinct feeling of nausea. Is your taste so low that you believe books like these should be brought to the attention of your readers, or is the trend of literature so degraded that your reviewers can find nothing that would be fit for decent-minded people to read?

ROSE N. HARTNETT Maiden, Mass.

Sir:

... I was repelled and nauseated ... by such horrors as: The Great Beast, by J. Symonds; The Illusionist, F. Mallet; The Skin, C. Malaparte. Please, please let the mud remain where it belongs. Don't even mention them in your fine periodical . . .

(MRS.) KATHERINE MCMORROW Hamden, Conn.

Sir:

. . . Surely the bottom of the debauchery barrel was scraped to gain material for these books . . .

G. STILL Winnipeg, Manitoba

Sir:

Your review of John Symonds' The Great Beast was beastly . . . Aleister Crowley was an accomplished poet, a mountain climber of some ability, and an oddity whose biography should engage the attention of anyone interested in the vagaries of the human race . . .

JOSEPH V. WILCOX

Albion, Mich.

One Man's Philosophy

Sir:

Your Oct. 20 columns interpreting The Theology of Paul Tillich were informative in the best sense--lively, sane, and critical. This article proves again that the admittedly difficult assignment of presenting theology and philosophy in such a way that the general reader will grasp the issues can be accomplished when undertaken by skillful and sympathetic hands ...

CHARLES W. KEGLEY

Professor of Philosophy Wagner College Staten Island, N.Y.

Sir:

Dr. Tillich's philosophy is compared enthusiastically with that of St. Thomas, but

I feel that St. Thomas would not be caught, making such an unproven statement as: "God is utterly outside human experience" . . . This particular assumption makes it impossible to discuss religion intelligently. If God cannot be approached through reason, there's no point in being reasonable about religion. If religion is simply a matter of emotion (Dr. Tillich's "grace?"), then the Communists are correct when they say that religion is merely souped-up soap opera for the masses.

The fact is that every basic tenet of orthodox Christianity can be explained as logically as a theorem of Euclid. Few have followed St. Thomas as he piles syllogism on relentless syllogism, building from the bald fact of existence until he reaches the sky and beyond; but for those who have, the comparison of his work with that of most modern philosophers is like comparing the drawings of an architect with the scrawls of bright children.

E. A. PHILLIPS Oakville, Ont.

Lemon Squash

Sir:

I'm convinced that Zsa Zsa Gabor is the most conceited female on this universe, and is concerned about no one except Zsa Zsa. My sympathy goes to George Sanders, for I'm sure he's worse off than just a "squeezed lemon."

VERNA HILL

Detroit

Hobby

Sir:

. . . Only two days ago I was lamenting the fact that you never mention my most loved hobby--chess. Then, as if it were a personal response, you come up with a grand profile [Oct. 20] on Samuel Reshevsky, the greatest chess player of them all. Thank you ! . . .

GLORIA WOODHALL

Chicago

Religious Poll

Sir:

I see from the Oct. 20 issue of TIME where 90% of Americans believe in God ... I wonder how many Americans in a poll would be able to correctly define the word "Christianity."

JOHN GARDNER

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sir:

It is gratifying to know that such a large percentage of Americans believe in God. However . . . did it ever occur to the editors of the Catholic Digest to ask these subjects "why" they believe in God? It would certainly be much more gratifying if the answer was obtained and the percentage of valid reasons stayed the same.

Louis HART JR. Englewood, N.J.

Sir:

The understandable joy of the editors of the Catholic Digest over their recent poll should be tempered with a large dose of realism. It is very easy to check an answer on a questionnaire, particularly if the answer proves one a good person. It is quite another matter to live on the assumption of the validity of the Christian (or even the theistic) philosophy in the routine of daily life.

If 99% of our people acted as though they believed in God, our country and our world would be a very different place than it actually is ...

OCTAVIA S. SELL Danville, Va.

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