Man's Quest

Sir:

I have been a TIME reader for all of my adult life, yet never have I experienced from it as keen a pleasure as on reading "Man's Quest" in the July 18 issue. M. Malraux's biography and philosophy, and TIME'S presentation of both, are deserving of the highest praise.

ROBERT B. KESSLER

Philadelphia Sir:

. . . Whether by divine power or electrical cosmos, man operates in a highly limited field. He can neither fashion the future nor alter the past. His only power lies in the immediate present, and every effort to extend it ends in failure and frustration . . . Malraux seems to resent it that man fails to qualify as God's private secretary or chief button-pusher for some nuclear Jove. There is some evidence that man is approaching the latter, but unfortunately the only button on the horizon is destructive. Doubtless some Malraux will push the damn thing to prove his importance ... I'm glad I don't have such an abnorMalraux to hoe.

ROBERT E. GREENWOOD

Fitchburg, Mass.

Sir:

The cover by Ben Shahn certainly is your finest. Thank you! May we see more of the same kind . . .

B. D. BERTHIAUME

New Haven, Conn.

Sir:

From one who usually hates your covers, all I can say is thank you. It is a welcome relief. I'm glad to see character portrayed, not characters.

WENDY WAHLERS

Maplewood, N.J.

Suds in Your Eye

Sir:

I am 90 and thought I had seen everything till I saw my copy of TIME, July 11. A cover and a large section of the Business section devoted to Beer! I am shocked, offended and ashamed for you.

ED L. WOOD

Wilkinsburg, Pa.

Sir: . . . The psychology of it--associating beer with sun and sky and clouds and birds instead of with human woe and degradation and tears--fits perfectly into the liquor sellers' scheme . . .

ALLEN BOWMAN

Marion, Ind.

Sir: ... I wish to register a vigorous objection to such daring advertising . . . May I remind you the Cardinal is a bird that nests around the home?

MRS. HARLAN L. FEEMAN

Lansing, Mich.

Sir:

. . . Shame on TIME for devoting so much precious space to capitalist puffery. We have to admit, however, we enjoyed the profile of Gussie Busch, "the original Peck's Bad Boy" and his fermented empire.

CHIZ MATHIAS

Bucks County, Pa.

Sir:

... As interesting as the article might be to many of us native St. Louisans as well as to millions of others who are deeply grateful to the Busch family for what they have done for America, St. Louis and the beer industry, I am not so sure that you are entirely correct in saying "When Prohibition was finally repealed . . . Gussie, his father and his older brother picked one of the first cases off the bottling-plant line and sent it air express to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a heartfelt token of thanks ..."... As I recall it, the first case of beer went to Al Smith when it came off the line, and I am wondering if you do not feel that this would have been a good spot in the article to have mentioned the "Happy Warrior" in this connection . . . Franklin D. Roosevelt, while he signed the bill doing away with Prohibition, was a cagey individual. He certainly never fought Prohibition in the open like Al Smith.

ROY J. McDERMOTT

St. Louis

P:Al Smith, as well as F.D.R., received one of the first legal cases from the Busch family. It was delivered by wagon drawn by four span of Clydesdales to the Empire State Building.--ED.

Sir:

TIME again has uncovered heretofore unrecognized evidence on a vital issue: in the biographical sketch of Gussie Busch of our beer nobility, noting decreased sales of beer; attention was called to diversions, including the do-it-yourself movement, made possible by unprecedented income and leisure of the common run of Americans. Such diversions, it was suggested, could account for less dependence on alcoholic drinks for relief from boredom. This is evidence that Americans are not being led into debauchery by prosperity and the five-day week . . .

OTTO MCFEELY

Oak Park, Ill.

The Commuter

Sir:

Twice recently TIME has described me as an "expatriate." The word suggests, according to Webster's, exile, a withdrawal from one's native country, or a renunciation of natural citizenship in favor of another. That such an impression might apply to me is very upsetting . . . Despite frequent and largely unnoticed "commuting," I have, admittedly, been obliged by recent circumstances to spend more time abroad than at home. This, however, has not precluded me from completing more than 15 years in the U.S.N.R. (in which I was promoted less than a year ago), or from representing both private and public American interests . . .

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR.

London

P:TIME congratulates Captain Fairbanks on his latest promotion.--ED.

Two Collaborators

Sir:

In the July 11 issue we read of an uneducated waif, Harold M. Dunn, who in 33 months under duress collaborated with Communism, later confessed and received a sentence of eight years at hard labor. In the same section a highly educated college graduate, Winston Burdett, who without duress--seemingly for the whim of it--collaborated with Communism, later confessed and received praise from his boss and the Senate committee. I wonder if it was with premeditation or happenstance that TIME placed these sad tales side by side to illustrate this inequality of our scales of justice.

B. K. STEVENS Centreville, Mo.

Sir: ... If this turncoat Winston Burdett truly repented his past sins, wouldn't his revelations have been of much more value when the great recanters Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley came forth with their stories and were being crucified by the press? . . .

R. J. BRANDT A. C. BRANDT Chicago

Sir: . . . What a travesty of justice and a horrible commentary on American liberty to commend one ex-Communist sympathizer and spy for his "strong sense of duty" and to sentence the other to eight years at hard labor . . .

WALTER SMETANA

Denver

Down on the Farm

Sir: We farmers appreciate your fine July 4 article, ''Automation on the Farm." However, lest the urban public think that farming has become a soft, push-button operation, let me emphasize that today's farmers work as hard as their forebears, and under much more tension, to keep the expensive machinery and larger herds producing . . .

BRAD BENEDICT

Lynden, Wash.

Sir: One of the finest examples of automation on the farm was slighted. The double-page color spread, showing seven Case No. 301 combines speaks for itself, but Case was not mentioned in the text of the article, despite its record of 113 years of mechanical excellence . . . Montevideo

JOSE M. PEREZ GUDIN

Hildy & the Law

Sir:

Despite the laws of Massachusetts and of the Roman Catholic Church, the fact that a child is being used as a pawn is shocking. Being a real parent involves far more than bringing a child into the world. To uproot little Hildy McCoy [TIME, July 18] from the only security and love she knows and transplant her is like putting a family pet into the city dog pound.

ROSEMARY MICKLISH

Madison, Wis.

Sir:

Is Hildy McCoy's future happiness going to depend upon her mother's retroactive conscience? The fact that Hildy was born out of wedlock automatically eliminates the vague legal implications of the Roman Catholic prenuptial contract . . .

(THE REV.) LEE JAMES BEYNON JR. First Baptist Church

Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Sin in Cicero

Sir:

I have just read with some amusement the July 4 letter of that blithe spirit, Virgil C. Krebs, of Cicero, Ill. Mr. Krebs sought not only to castigate the Richmond News Leader but the South in general (a popular sport in some parts of this fair land). Can it be that Mr. Krebs of Cicero, Ill. is weak in his own local history? Can it be that Mr. Krebs is unaware that his home town, having been born in sin, nurtured in bathtub gin, brothels and girlie shows, is the same town which grew and prospered and ultimately became the one town in the world whose name is synonymous with racial prejudice? . . . Oh, Mr. Krebs! Cast not the first stone!

HAM HOLMES

Columbia, S.C.

Interracial Marriages

Sir:

TIME, June 27 listed North Dakota among those states in which marriages between whites and Negroes are prohibited. If this statement had appeared in the next issue, TIME would have been in error because by Chapter 126, Laws of North Dakota, 1955, this prohibition was repealed, effective July 1, 1955.

MANLEY G. PAISLEY

St. Paul

The Red Dean

Sir:

You reported in the July 11 issue on Canterbury's continuing embarrassment over its irremovable dean, the Very Rev. Dr. Hewlett Johnson. Poor Elizabeth! Poor Anglicans! Poor Dean Johnson ! Elizabeth, though head of the church, can't remove the dean--much as she might like to--and neither can anyone else . . . Anglicans must listen to him willy-nilly.

But I think Dean Johnson is worst off of all, for ... he has no one to tell him what is right and wrong, true or false--only his apparently jammed radio waves to the Holy Spirit.

I'm glad I have an infallible Pope, who can tell me with complete certitude that Communism is not Christian !

ROBERT J. STOWE, S.J.

Denver

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