I Am a Camera
Sir: I was delighted to find my portrait, done under the skillful brush of Artzybasheff, on the cover of TIME, Nov. 2. It was an abstract rather than realistic portrait, of course ; for clear realism would have shown an Omnica bag, Norwood light meter, Exakta VX, and three photo--all lenses with including travel a stains from being logged 95,000 miles through twelve countries and four Pacific islands. But as a symbolic portrait it was superb . . . W. NORWOOD BRIGANCE Crawfordsville, Ind.
Sir: Your story features the progress of U.S. photography. Is it significant that the cover is a painting of things photographic rather than a photograph of same?
BART. A. GREENE Riverdale, N.Y.
Sir: Again Artzybasheff seems to show us to ourselves, his myopically candid-eyed character beautifully portraying the recent, rather revolting development within our ranks . . . of a whole group of souls who don't know what they've been looking at until the films come back from the drugstore, the exasperating but so frequently met guy who'll "tell you about my vacation when the prints are developed." This sort of thing first hit me hard a few years ago while comfortably moseying over the Skyline Drive in Virginia . . . There were the usual fenced-off views . . . and each time as we obediently halted to look, we met the same happy couple, simple tourists like ourselves, but with movie camera attached. Roaring into the parking spot, they slammed to a halt, leaped out, and whirrilling like some great electronic brain, focused their mechanical eye . . . Then, whoosh! - into the car and off, one driving alone with an eye for the next stop, the other busily twiddling gadgets and sorting film. . . Granted that picture-taking is fun and that pictures are nice . . . good heavens! Let us remember to look around our camera lens occasionally and see something ourselves . . .
JACQUELINE GOODCHILDS Ithaca, N.Y.
Sir: The article saluting a half century of photography leaves no doubt that photography has taken root in America. Retrospectively, while a half century ago photography was little more one than a curiosity, its society was contemplating converting itself into a bicycle club. I wish to thank the editors of TIME for the comprehensive review . . .The title and "Two that Billion pictures Clicks" points to the amateur photographer in a crowning report on the camera subject and an inclusive history of the medium.
T. Anthony Caruso Curator of Photography The Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn
Atlantic Schism (Cont'd)
Sir: Fair-minded TIME-readers, rereading my Oct. 12 article and Malcolm Muggeridge's reply [Nov. 2], may note that his is much more general (and rhetorical), mine more specific. He answers few of my concrete arguments. He doesn't even say if he agrees with the British or the American view on recognition of Peking, but he seems to accept the American view. If so, he is to that extent less representative than I of British opinion --though TIME, correctly, did not present my views as representative of British opinion as a whole.
Muggeridge himself criticises U.S. policy only as "sentimental and imprecise" -- i.e., too good for this wicked world. In fact, U.S. foreign policy since the war has been governed repeatedly, not by altruistic abstractions, not by sober assessment of world realities, not even (always) by fear of the U.S.S.R., but by cynical, domestic vote catching. The line on such issues as Palestine and South Tyrol and the timing of announcements on them were not argued on merit, but determined by their supposed attractiveness to this or that section of the American electorate . . . My of contrast Communism between and the the "Christian heresy "anti-Christian paganism" of Naziism, which excites some TIME-readers to such unchristian frenzies of abuse, was a quote from the late, great Arch bishop of Canterbury, William Temple, whose works I advise them, for their own good, to study.
I should like to reply in detail to all these readers. Obviously, I cannot. Instead, summarily: 1) Most of them seem unable to identify themselves imaginatively with, e.g., Asians seeking freedom from hunger and colonialism and without our experience of the benefits of liberal Western democracy. These decent, God-fearing Americans fail to realize that, if they were Chinese peasants, they probably would prefer the Peking Communist regime to its predecessors. 2) To those who say "Look at the map, look at the Soviet expansion," I reply . . . look at the U.S. bases globally encircling the U.S.S.R. How would Americans feel about a Soviet base near the Panama Canal? How about a Monroe Doctrine for China? 3) I believe the Anglo-American partner ship potentially valuable for peace, as it was for war. But there should be genuine, frequent consultation between partners (as there was, usefully, between President Truman and Mr. Attlee in December 1950). Meanwhile, it is not the differences between us which endanger peace by encouraging Soviet expansion; on the contrary, the more monolithically united we seem, the more acute will be Soviet fears, and fear is a bad mood for policymakers, in Moscow or in Washington. 4) Only those committed to the inevitability of World War III can deny the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of Russia and the West. If this possibility is accepted, there is no point in continuing the cold war and the rearmament race ; the West already has enough arms for defense ... let us concentrate more and more on the economic and social uplifting of underdeveloped areas. If war is regarded as inevitable -- and it is presumably hoped to win it -- what do TIME-readers propose to do when the war is won and both halves of the world devastated? Occupy the whole of Communist Europe and Asia? For how long? And how?
TOM DRIBERG House of Commons London
Sir: Both Driberg and Muggeridge carelessly throw around the phrase "Christian heresy" when speaking of Communism. Muggeridge is entirely inaccurate when he says this notion was "first Toynbee." The phrase propounded by and the idea Professor are far Arnold older than Toynbee and mean "something dif ferent from what Muggeridge thinks. The late Archbishop of Canterbury, William heresy" [in Temple, 1933] used and the called phrase Communism ""Christian "undoubtedly the most serious menace which has threatened the Christian Faith in the civilized world for some hundreds of years." The theme has since been used by such bril liant foes of Communism as Roman Catholic Jacques Maritain, Protestant Reinhold Niebuhr and Skeptic Bertrand Russell. All these see what Driberg and Muggeridge glibly overlook -- that battles against heresy may be more critical than battles against completely alien faiths.
ROGER LINCOLN SHINN Professor of Philosophy and Religion Heidelberg College Tiffin, Ohio Sir:
... I would say that any antagonism toward the U.S. by the man in the street in England is emotional rather than rational, e.g., "Let them start the next war, and we'll come in two or three years later, after we've made a pile selling them stuff," or "If there had been a few bombs on New York in the last lot, they mighn't be so bloody keen now." It is not Communists who make these remarks.
The truth is that -- individual cases aside --Britons do not like Americans, and I suspect most other nations don't either, for the same reason that Britain was disliked when she ruled the roost. This dislike does not matter very much; the trouble is that a bungling foreign policy plus the utterances of a few of your louder-mouthed politicians have cost the U.S. the respect she enjoyed in 1945.
P. LANDY Ashbourne, Meath, Ireland
The Pursuit of Fire Water Sir: Your Nov. 2 report that the Arizona Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. recommended . . . that the ban on the sale of liquor to Indians be lifted is in error. Synod did not make this recommendation. Rather, in the interest of civil rights, Synod voted to request Governor Howard Pyle to put the matter and final decision in the hands of Indian tribal councils ... It isn't that Presbyterians are in favor of liquor. The point is that they are against discrimination, and they feel that white man's laws banning the sale of liquor to Indians were discriminatory . . .
DOUGLAS S. VANCE State Executive Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Synod of Arizona
Family Portrait SIR: MANY THANKS FOR YOUR WONDERFUL NOV. 9 STORY [ON THE RADIO-TV SHOW "MY LITTLE MARGIE"]. ALL OF US WERE VERY THRILLED, ALTHOUGH MY THREE SONS, PHILLIP, PETER AND PAUL, RAISED A FEW OBJECTIONS. THE BABY WHO APPEARED IN THE PHOTO WITH ME WASN'T MINE BUT SIX-MONTH-OLD DEBORAH ANN FARRELL (NO RELATION TO CHARLEY), WHO WAS FEATURED ON ONE OF OUR PROGRAMS. I CERTAINLY DIDN'T MIND, AND AM SURE DEBORAH ANN DIDN'T, BUT MY BOYS SEEMED TO RESENT AN INTRUDER . . .
GALE STORM HOLLYWOOD
JUNE TURNER Whitefish, Mont.
Sir: . . . To have come through the big drop in cattle prices on the hoof and to see the small difference it has made in retail prices still buffaloes me; if the farmer gave the packer the cattle and hauled them in free, how much would the price of retail meat lower? Admittedly the prime and choice steaks will be high-- they always have been--but let the Cadillac owners and swank restaurants have them. Your reporter might be surprised to see the towns and stores that don't carry as good a quality as the "good," but at a "good" price ; and much of that hamburger and lower-priced meat isn't from the 14-c- steer, either; it comes from that 6-c- and 8-c- cow that we have been selling . . As for your solution of "... a wider attempt to breed better-grade cattle with less waste . . ." one would assume that we are still marketing the scrubbiest of the old Longhorns. Have you never heard of purebred bulls? of the purebred breed associations? of the international and various livestock shows? . . .
T. W. GREEK Louisa, Ky.
Sir: You've made a lot of us "cattle producers happy in doing the job the American Meat Institute has failed us in-- that of informing the consumer on the "why" of high beef prices, which the institute could help solve in educating the housewife to ask for commercial cuts of beef. Our cattle operation has lost money for two years, we have no oil wells, and we'd rather go broke than see Benson sold down the river and the Government mess up all competition and enterprise with price supports. Secretary of Agriculture Benson is our nomination for TIME's Man of the Year.
ASHBY WARDEN HARDY Craig, Mont.
Six of the Best Sir: Here's one reader who jumped for joy when he read of the English education of Chicago Newsman Ernie Hill's stepson Jona than prise to [TIME, learn that Nov. 2]. "six of It the comes as best"-- no six sur wal lops with the headmaster's cane -- work wonders with a boy too long exposed to progressive education in U.S. schools . . .
THOMAS G. BRUNI Allentown, Pa.
Sir: The tribulations of Foreign Correspondent Ernie Hill in the education of Jonathan may leave him "strictly speechless," but, for my money, not speechless enough ... If little school" Johnny can was hardly tardy 32 be times blamed in for one that year, fact the ... If six wallops with a birch cane were what Jonathan needed (as it turned out, big surprise), let Papa Hill know that birch canes are for sale in New York as well as in Lon don, and it is his legal duty to apply the cane. Is it an indictment of the American public school system that Mr. Hill is a failure as a parent? . . .
ARTHUR B. BENSON Los Angeles
Sanare's Tractor Sir: I am much taken by your Oct. 26 article "A Tractor for Sanare" ; of a people financially limited but spiritually rich trying to improve their condition. I know they have the best wishes of many people, but perhaps they Tractors should need have fuel and more oil -- than and just one wishes. tractor must feel very lonely in the mountains of Venezuela. Enclosed please find my check for $25 for the people of Sanare and their tractor . . .
CARLTON F. EVANS Atlanta P:TIME has forwarded Reader Evans' check to the Friends of Sanare Society, which bought the tractor. -- ED.
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