The Bricker Amendment
Sir:
Your generally fair and objective discussion of "The Bricker Amendment" [TIME, July 13] contains several inaccuracies . . .
The New York State Bar Association has not denounced the amendment as "unnecessary, unwise, divisive and dangerous." One of ts committees reached that conclusion, but :he committee's report was not put to a vote at the association's June meeting. The American Bar Association and more than 20 state jar associations have endorsed the proposed treaty-control amendment. No state bar association has opposed it.
Your article refers to the motion of Gouverneur Morris, defeated in the Constitutional Convention, providing that no treaty would be binding "which is not ratified by law." That was not the "Bricker Amendment" of 1787. It was the part of wisdom to vote it down, because Morris' motion was applicable to all treaties. My amendment requires congressional implementation only of those treaties that become effective as "internal law," and to that extent alone. The very first section of the Constitution reads:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
How, then, can it be considered that a part of the national legislative power was vested in the President and the Senate?
. . . The proposed amendment conforms to the Administration's announced treaty-making policy. That policy is so good that it should be preserved in perpetuity . . .
JOHN W. BRICKER
U.S. Senator
Washington, B.C.
Sir:
As a lawyer who has spent a great deal of time studying the committee reports and attempting to form an objective opinion of the merits of the Bricker Amendment, I compliment TIME on an outstanding explanation of an important issue. The problem is a complex and difficult one. I didn't think it could be handled so well in two pages.
ARTHUR G. FIELD
Madison, Wis.
Sir:
The American people want the Bricker Amendment passed, and the sooner the better.
ROGER STANTON
Detroit
Sir:
Hurray for those two pages regarding the proposed "Bricker Amendment."
Congress already has plenty of power--to investigate, to withhold funds and to legislate--and to give Congress any further power (say, in the matter of foreign policy) would not only hamstring the executive branch in its day-to-day handling of foreign affairs, but would also upset the balance of government so wisely planned and laid out by our forefathers when they wrote the Constitution.
VIVIEN MILES
Dunedin, Fla.
Military Doodling
Sir:
Reader Boone (TIME, July 6), aiming with eyes closed, still hit the nail on the head. Archimedes did indeed "doodle with theory" when the Romans hit Syracuse ... He tirelessly doodled up military engines of such bewildering variety that the Roman marines broke and ran whenever a beam showed itself above the city wall. It does credit to his legend that he is said to have fired part of the enemy fleet with burning glasses. Thus Syracuse resisted for three years until betrayed, almost entirely through the efforts of an aroused intellectual, who took no special pride in practical accomplishment, but no doubt simply felt that the exceptional man should as a matter of course be the exceptional citizen . . .
HOWARD E. ROGERS
Richmond, Calif.
What's a Liberal?
Sir:
Mayor (of Philadelphia) Joseph S. Clark's outrageous usurpation of the term "liberal" for his program of more & more government [TIME, July 13] is part of the very thing that has discredited this once honorable appellation so much. I still believe that most of the time a true liberal should find himself on the side of the greater rather than the lesser individual freedom. It is a sad commentary on the state of confusion of our ideals that nowadays many conservatives are more liberal than too many of our so-called "liberals" of today.
(DR.) G. M. WOLTEN
Jersey City
Sir:
. . . Practically, the modern "liberal" might be described as one favoring indefinite liberality with other people's money. The conservative (to whom the liberal looks for money) changes less, and clings to the notion that he should have something to say as to how his money should be spent . . .
LEWIS E. OWEN
Brookline, Mass.
Uncle Alami
Sir:
Your story about "Uncle Alami" in the July 20 issue was most thrilling. I, with many Arabs, feel that as long as this country has foundations like the Ford Foundation, friendship between the Arabs and American peoples will stay, regardless of politics in its many forms.
GHASSAN NAKSHBENDI
Troy, N.Y.
Civilization Saved
Sir:
In the issue of July 13, you accorded my book [The Minister's Personal Guide) and myself very generous space and a racy write-up. I appreciate both very highly, and thank you sincerely.
To be sure, the write-up contained one civilization-imperiling error. The official pronunciation of our family name is Shutty perfectly truly rhyming with nutty, putty and rutty. But civilization is withstanding a lot of hard knocks in these days, and it will survive this one.
WALTER E. SCHUETTE
Sewickley, Pa.
Bumper Crop
Sir:
In your July 13 issue, you mention a total U.S. wheat supply of 17 billion bushels. That's a lot of wheat. It should have been 1.7 billion bushels.
J. A. SHUTE
Lafayette, Ind.
P:TIME hid its decimal point under a bushel. -- ED.
Aid to Texas
Sir:
Note with interest your article concerning federal emergency aid for drought-stricken Texas ranchers [TIME, July 13].
Shame on them, accepting federal relief after all of their high and mighty talk on states' rights as they pushed for the giveaway offshore bill ! All I hope is that they won't turn around and say they have become the victims of "creeping socialism," but they probably will . . . GEORGE B. GREEN
Billings, Mont.
Marines' Secret Weapon (Cont'd)
Sir:
Re the letter of Ted Powers [TIME, July 20], let me give Powers a little scoop concerning the overpublicized Marine Corps. The Marine Corps receives public attention because marines have a peculiar habit of being the best in anything they undertake. If I remember the 27th Army Division correctly, they were the outfit on Saipan that could not keep up with the Marines and whose commanding general, Ralph Smith, was relieved of his command because he couldn't get his men to move forward. As for comparisons between the Army and Marine Corps, the Marine Corps will top the Army in anything except size . . .
(T. SGT.) MIGUEL A. HERNANDEZ
U.S.M.C.
San Juan, P.R.
Sir:
. . A marine doesn't mind being lambasted if it comes from the right source. But we don't like it coming from the 27th Army Division . . .
F. B. MILLS
Berkeley, Calif.
Closed-Door Policy
Sir:
What is there in the mental make-up or background of a man with a fine Irish name like Patrick McCarran which compels him to oppose immigration measures like the Watkins bill so resolutely [TIME, July 13]?
I can only assume that he feels the Irishers have found such a good thing over here that he aims to hang on to it, and not have it diluted by "all them furriners."
If this country were run on the sole principles which motivate Pat McCarran and Joe McCarthy, no self-respecting "furriner" would want to get in.
W. L. CUNNING
Northfield, Minn.
Sir:
As an American citizen and taxpayer, 1 am unalterably opposed to any scheme that circumvents the McCarran-Walter bill for the economic convenience of 240,000 Europeans of unknown integrity.
EDWARD T. HILL
Chief Mate
U.S. Merchant Marine
New York City
Wrong Address
Sir:
The political group of the French Revolution known as the Jacobin Club was not located on the Rue St.-Jacques, nor did it take its name from that street as TIME [July 6] records. The club had as its quarters the former library of the Dominican monks of the Rue St.-Honore, on the Right Bank.
Since the Dominicans were first established in Paris (1218) in the monastery of St. Jacques, near the Rue St.-Jacques on the Left Bank, the friars were otherwise known as the Jacobins. That name was derisively applied to the political order for having the Dominicans as landlords . . .
JOHN G. ROBERTS
Ashland, Va.
Medici Method
Sir:
Professor Waldo Sweet [TIME, July 20] is right in using the Berlitz method to make his students of Latin talk Latin: Loqui loquendo distilur (Talk is learned by talking) is the Berlitz motto . . .
But Latin or classical Greek are generally studied for reading more than for conversation, and the best method for this purpose is the one used in the Florence schools of the Medicis and by most of the humanists of the Renaissance: Erasmus, Thomas More, Theodore de Beze, etc. After a minimum of grammar, the student was given an original text with a good translation; instead of thumbing for each word through a dictionary, the student read the original text and its translation carefully, sentence after sentence. At first it was an arduous work . . . but after a while . . . Homer, Plato, Virgil, Horace, were read easily for the fun of it.
L. BARRIELLE
The Berlitz School of Languages
Cincinnati
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