The Color of Justice
Sir:
Please accept my thanks for presenting such a concise and effective article on the cases concerning educational segregation now before the U.S. Supreme Court in your Dec. 21 "The Fading Line." ... It is inconceivable that a person could adhere to thinking along racially restrictive lines in the light of the advances and lessons evident in modern humanity.
WILLIAM E. ELSTON JR.
Fort Sill, Okla.
Sir:
Your story . . . was read with interest, despite your obvious bias in favor of the Negro race ... We are far truer friends to the Negro than the Yankee zealots who seek to cram down our throats a principle we will never accept . . . The end of segregation can only result in a mongrel race, as time goes by. Thank God, the blood strain of the South is the purest in the world . . .
GARDNER DICKINSON SR.
Panama City, Fla.
Sir:
. . . You speak of "segregation's old unsweet song." Can't you see that segregation of races is an integral part of our way of life here, and that it is impossible to legislate a social change. The Negroes here aren't unhappy. They're not oppressed. They are making great progress . . .
BEN OWEN
Columbus, Miss.
Sir:
. . . We are not crusaders, but it has helped this family to remain conscious of our American heritage by remembering that each man is an individual and should be judged as such.
ROBERT W. ANDERSON
Wallingford, Conn.
Forgotten Men
Sir: My hat is off to Ken McCormick of the Detroit Free Press [TIME, Dec. 14] ... The article reminded me of a somewhat similar incident: When I acted as Mexican consul in Kansas City, Mo. during President Venustiano Carranza's time [1917-1920], it was my duty to talk with every Mexican in the state penitentiary and secure pardons for in nocent ones who did not have interpreters at their trials. I found one man whom the warden had no record of, but who had been in prison (working in coal mines) for over five years. Investigation proved that he merely accompanied a convicted friend from the mines at Joplin to bid him goodbye at the penitentiary gate. As he walked in, the gates closed. They cut off his hair, dressed him in striped clothes and kept him for no reason ... as he could not talk English . . .
Governor Capper of Kansas not only pardoned him but apologized and paid him a suitable sum of money for every day he was incarcerated, and I sent him to his home in Guanajuato, where he bought a farm and lived happily ever after . . .
JACK DANCIGER
Fort Worth, Texas
Ruffled Hens (Contd.)
Sir:
Whoever thought a Lucy Stoner would be so being girlishly called a sensitive as "newshen" Jane [TIME, Grant Letters, about Dec. 21]? Newshen is one of the cleverest coined words. Short, flattering. To adults it connotes a plump, toothsome chick (no newspaperwoman I ever saw) in fine, glossy feathers (ditto). Stepping high and daintily, she delicately picks the wheat from the chaff . . .
FLORA LESTER
San Pedro, Calif.
Sir: . . . Your comment said that in private life I was Mrs. William B. Harris. Not remotely a fact. In private, public or business life I am Jane Grant . . . The only thing a human being can really call his own is his name. It is the only possession circumstances can't take away from him. I value my name. Also, it's convenient for me not to change it. I never have to remember who I am ; friends needn't pause, trying to remember my newest name . . .
JANE GRANT
The Lucy Stone League, Inc.
New York City
Sir: In the search for a more appropriate term than "newshen," would "newshrew" be of any help? The dignified term "newshawk" might skunk," in as a some cases further be concession replaced to with the "new-ladies of the fourth estate.
J. M. CRAIG*
Washington, D.C.
Sir: ... I for one would rather be a hen, a bird which is industrious, attracts a great deal of attention with her clucking, frequently digs up juicy morsels and covers her beat very thoroughly. Maybe she lays an egg from time to time, but don't we all? ...
KATHRYN NORWOOD
Arkansas Gazette Newshen
Little Rock
Arizona's Turkish Twin
Sir:
There is a saying in Turkish to the effect that each person has an identical twin somewhere, and now we perceive that this axiom apparently applies also to rocks and mountains. Imagine our surprise on seeing a picture of what appeared to be Urgup in Turkey and its caption which described it as Spider Rock, Canyon de Chelly, Ariz. [TIME, Dec. 7] ... Urgup Valley in Turkey's Central Anatolia is full of unique dwellings cut into volcanic formations eroded into strange shapes by wind and water. Early Christians, fleeing pagan persecution . . . settled here and carved a community ... where old religious frescoes may be seen . . . Eroded into pyramids, cones and towers, the volcanic formations are chalk white, grey, or even dark blue . . .
NEZIH MANYAS
Turkish Information Office
New York City
> For a comparison, see cuts. -- ED.
The Outgathering (Contd.)
Sir:
Re your Nov. 23 story [about disillusioned Israeli immigrants who were trying to get into Germany]: I met Joda Eisenbart and have this signed and witnessed statement from him.
"I, Joda Eisenbart, deny that I gave the information attributed to me in this story. I have one child -- not three. I never was in a concentration camp, but was in Russia during the war. I had a wagon and was not a quarry worker. I categorically deny saying that Israel was like a concentration camp." Furthermore, Joda Eisenbart was never in Vienna as stated in the story, nor was he interviewed in Camp Fohrenwald, where he never was . . .
All members of the Munich group of returnees denounced the article vehemently and charged that the magazine deliberately omitted a pertinent fact which they told the reporter--that they were ready to return to Israel for military duty.
TIME owes an apology to the unfortunate people involved, its readers, itself and the state of Israel.
Louis BERNSTEIN
Chaplain (1st Lieut.), U.S. Army % Postmaster
New York City
> TIME rechecked its sources and finds that because of misunderstanding a Yiddish interpreter, it erred on the number of children Eisenbart has and on his former residence in Vienna. TIME regrets these errors, but stands by its story.--ED.
Crazy Like a Mink
Sir:
Re "Carriage Trade" [TIME, Dec. 14]: No wonder Mr. & Mrs. Europe think Americans are a bit crazy. Can you tell us whether or not any of the mink bras and panties--price, $2,500 a set--were sold?
LAWRENCE J. CURTIN
Albuquerque, N. Mex.
>Only two customers bought the set: three others settled for pants alone (priced at a cautious $1,500).--ED.
Building in Manhattan
Sir:
Your picture spread and Dec. 21 account of recent building construction in mid-Manhattan . . . was spectacularly interesting. But why call it "The Great Manhattan Boom"? . . . The use of the word "boom" in characterizing our economy, unless thoroughly justified, only comforts those who regard our economic way of life as a hopeless repetition of "boom and bust." Any issue of Pravda will tell you so. In Manhattan we have had a resumption of office-building construction after a lapse of 15 years. Meanwhile our economy expanded . . . Virtually every square foot in new & old buildings is occupied, at normal rates. The construction was largely financed by our very large and very conservative insurance companies and savings banks. This is not the construction spree of the '20s, when finance was by speculators . . .
CLINTON W. BLUME
President
The Real Estate Board of New York, Inc.
New York City
Sir:
... It should be required reading for those critics of New York who call it a dying city. What's so dead about a city with a record of 965 new postwar buildings and another 94 to come soon? If the design of contemporary New York architecture leaves something to be desired esthetically, it is not the fault of builders. No builder ever turned down a beautiful architectural design if it were feasible economically, if the building could be constructed to rent at a price that business firms would pay . . .
Instead of decrying concentration, why don't the critics recognize the need for a new and fresh kind of architectural thinking, a more realistic building code, and a bolder approach to the problem of moving people and vehicles with greater dispatch, comfort and efficiency? . .
NORMAN TISHMAN
New York City
*No kin to Newshen May Craig, Washington correspondent for a group of Maine newspapers.
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