The Lion's Share
Sir:
The British Empire and the British Commonwealth and the British dream are not rotten or dying or disintegrating. Perhaps TIME (March 12) can think only in terms of guns, dollar balances, wealth, but in the terms of history the British Commonwealth is writing a page in history of a greatness never conceived by man before . . . Let the frustrations of foreign ingratitude . . . not blind TIME in honoring its true friends. The mighty British Commonwealth and Empire has experienced these things for centuries.
JOHN HAIG Belleville, Ont.
Sir:
When the so-called British "upper classes" went down, the British Empire went down with them ... As the wartime song went, "There'll always be an England," and that's just it: there won't be anything else left. A.L. PAYNE Salt Lake City
Sir:
Your comment on Jordan gave a onesided impression of the position. British policies are both unfair and narrow-minded from the Arab point of view. Glubb's sacking has been greatly overpublicized.
SHEILA M. WILSON Potters Bar, Middlesex, England
Sir:
Glubb Pasha must have had his head buried in the Middle East sands for 25 years if his dismissal from the Arab Legion came as a shock to him. I've been in the Middle East only four years, and it came as no surprise to me.
In an area where a greased palm overrules a handshake, such treachery is normal . . . H. B. SHIELDS Frankfurt, Germany
The G.O.P.'s Hallmark
Sir:
Your verbal picture [TIME, March 12] of Leonard Hall's Alpha-plus Republicans grinding out their slogans portends the party's approach to the masses come the presidential season: Rip off the top of a Democrat and mail it to Hall for Your Handy Republican Speech Kit and, for promptness, a dozen Hardly Used Campaign Cliches.
FERREL ATKINS Richmond
Sir:
Along with his other achievements, President Eisenhower has done much to pull the Republicans to a new unity, and to make them stand for all he stands for. Had Leonard Hall allowed Ike's heart attack to throw the party into bickering and confusion over possible successors, the G.O.P. would certainly have lost much ground that it cannot afford to lose. The Republicans owe more than they know to Mr. Hall.
MAX J. K. CLARK New York City
Bound for Babylon
Sir-
If the editors of Christianity and Crisis fear that Billy Graham's scheduled crusade in Manhattan [TIME, March 12] will embarrass or further prejudice against religion "the modern 'enlightened' but morally sensitive man," let them conduct their own crusade. If they feel that their message is more relevant to the broader social issues of the day, and they are better able to discern the real sins of such a Babylon as Manhattan, let them come out of the editorial sanctuary and tell what they know.
MRS. J. F. EBERLE Westfield, Pa.
Sir:
Billy is spiritual, scriptural and sane. It is the bankrupt liberals, the wild-eyed apostates, the deceitful modernists whose message, interpretation and teachings are demagogic, irrelevant and Babylonish.
MEROLD E. WESTPHAL Seattle
Sir:
Fundamentalists of Billy Graham's caliber are so intent on hewing a straight and narrow path, and trying to restrict everyone else to the same path, that they have no conception of cultural and social problems that can never be reduced to black and white.
GRACE M. WATSON
Seattle
Foul in Gaul
Sir:
In Sport [March 19] you note professionalizing of athletics as one of the causes for the fall of the Roman Empire. And in Education you give a good explanation for why this was. Obviously, the empire fell because the professional athletes were busy trying to figure out what they were being paid, and concluded that the government was cheating them. Claudius was offered nine bucks (IX) per week to throw a discus in Gaul for four (IV) weeks. He put it down
IX
IV
and multiplied the top line by each figure in the bottom line, remembering that teacher had said that "an X is an X, no matter where it appears." He got IXIIIIIXXXXX --not bad, he thought, LXVI for four weeks. Then he got his paycheck, and it was only XXXVI, because the boss had counted on his abacus. So Claudius sulked in his tent, and didn't throw the discus at all well.
AGNES LOGAN
New York City
P:TIME neglected a caveat: in some Roman numbers subtraction is implicit, e.g., IV is V minus I, and these must be multiplied as a unit rather than separately.--ED.
Top Grenade
Sir:
I read with interest "Big Bang" in the March 12 issue, and I would like to deprive Red China of their "presumed" world record for the hand grenade throw of 225.99 ft.
While attending Infantry O.C.S. at Ft. Benning, Ga. in 1944, I was privileged to serve with Al Blozis, holder of many shotput records at that time. (He was killed in action a short time later, during the "Battle of the Bulge," while trying to save one of his men.) While in training at Ft. Benning, Al set the Army record for the hand grenade throw of 94 yds. 2 ft. 6 1/2 in. (284.54 ft.).
NORMAN H. FRIEDMAN Seattle
P:For Grenade Champion Blozis as a famed shotputter (indoor record: 56 ft. 4 1/2 in.), see cut. -- ED.
Bloody Facts
Sir:
... I am assuming, of course, that you know quite well in your report on Communist China's Lo Jui-ching [March 5] that "hsiao mieh" does not mean "kill" or "execute" but is a military term (in civil war also used politically) meaning to "disperse," "render harmless," "drive off," render "hors de combat," etc. Chiang Kai-shek used the same term over and over again in encounters with both military and civilian Red organizations during 20 years of civil war, and if you added up all Kuomintang claims of people "done away with, deprived of existence or otherwise disposed of," they would also total many millions.
Don't you think it is a pretty serious thing to give Americans the impression that present-day Chinese (Red or white) are murderers more bloodthirsty than Genghis Khan?
EDGAR SNOW
Palisades, N.Y.
P:TIME clearly denned hsiao mieh as "deprived of existence, done away with [or] otherwise disposed of." As Author (Red Star Over China) Snow could easily discover, estimates for such Communist casualties range as high as Formosa's estimate of 45 million, as low as the State Department's diplomatic 15 million (in testimony by Assistant Secretary of State Walter S. Robertson in January, 1954), since updated by government specialists to 20 million.--ED.
The Price of Abortion
Sir:
Herod killed a handful of children and was condemned through the pages of history. Roy Odell Knapp [TIME, March 12] murdered 5,500 unborn human babies and was sentenced to four months in jail . . .
DAVID WALTHER
Milwaukee
Sir:
The public at large knows what results when mothers-to-be seek in desperation for abortions and find them performed by unscrupulous, unlicensed practitioners . . . I'm only sorry that Dr. Knapp told the judge that he felt ashamed. He had no need to. STANLEY HARRIS Miami
Sir:
Dr. Knapp has deprived 5,500 babies of life, but Dr. Knapp has also saved 5,500 babies from a loveless life!
MRS. JAMES L. BEVAN Hershey, Pa.
Paradise Island
Sir:
As an expatriate Jamaican, I write with considerable pride and gratitude to commend you on the wonderfully sympathetic and factual appraisal accorded my beloved country in your issue of March 12. My only fear is lest world-famous Jamaican hospitality should break under the strain of attempting to cope with the increased numbers of visitors who will now most certainly wish to test for themselves your and Columbus' statements concerning "Paradise Island"! HERBERT GEORGE FOLKES Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
Sir:
I am directed by the governor to express this government's deep appreciation . . .
J. M. STOW Colonial Secretary Kingston, Jamaica
Sir:
You quote Columbus as saying about Jamaica: "It is the fairest land that eyes have beheld." We Cubans have always been under the impression that he said this or something similar about Cuba.
Luis G. MENDOZA Havana, Cuba
P:Columbus was a farsighted diplomat. On first seeing Cuba in 1492 he deemed the island the fairest he had seen. Ditto for Jamaica--but two years later.--ED.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.