Portrait of a Candidate

Sir:

Frankly, I like a smiling Adlai Stevenson such as I saw last week at a Westchester picnic; riding a kiddie train, making witty comments--but the serious portrait by James Chapin on the July 16 cover is superb. Let me also thank you for your very fair-minded feature story on the governor. I have not a doubt in the world but that this vastly intelligent, capable, honest man is destined to be the next occupant of the White House.

A. KLEIN

Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Sir:

On political issues you've got every right to speak your preference. However, there is no excuse in using a badly retouched, unflattering picture of Adlai on your cover.

KEN MOORE

Flint, Mich.

Swampy Politics

Sir:

Hurrah for TIME! Your July 2 article on Earl Long is a masterpiece. Our governor is the worst thing that ever crawled from the slimy swamp of Louisiana politics.

LOEL H. GILBERT New Orleans

Sir:

Louisiana's ills will never be cured by outside intervention or the judgments of outsiders.

W. B. Bizzell ll

The Red Air Force

Sir:

Thank you for your concise reporting and expression of ideas of the visit of General Twining to Russia [July 9]. This has confirmed my ideas of Russia and her accomplishments in modern technological terms; she has not arrived at our "plateau" and will not for a long while.

J. I. RIES Long Island City, N.Y.

Sir:

It would seem James Shepley's article has given Russia more information on the comparative strengths of the world's two great air forces than their paid spies have been able to dig up for the last six months. Is it not possible that this was the purpose of the Russian invitation given so congenially to Twining? Twining, plus the American press, has given the Russians all the answers again. They know that garrulous verbosity is one of America's serious weaknesses.

(THE REV.) H. ROBERT SMITH St. John's Episcopal Church Gloucester, Mass.

Sir:

It wasn't too long ago that people could be found in the U.S. who thought the cussed Bolsheviks hadn't a single thing that they had not gotten from espionage. How they get things matters not. If you are nailed by a thug, does it matter if he stole his gun, bought it, or invented it himself?

JOHN P. CONLON

Newark, Ohio

Drabs & Dolls

Sir:

Must you continually bombard us with all these Italian actresses? Your July 9 issue continues to show Lollobrigida & Co. Without the names to identify, they all look alike--with their bosoms trussed high, their black eyes, sullen lips and the inevitable Italian haircut. Would certainly be most interesting to see these same Italian glamour gals by the time they arrive at the ripe age of 40. We would undoubtedly beg for the forgotten All-America girl who looks just as good at 40 as she did at 20.

ROBERT CASSEL Lemoyne, Pa.

Sir:

After looking at the Marilyns and the Ginas, I, a maturing but durable female plodding between house chores, taking the kids to school, pushing the market cart and comforting a petulant husband, etc., wonder just what these gilded drabs of stage and screen have.

A. TURNER

New York City

Dublin's Mayor

Sir:

Welcome to Lord Mayor Briscoe in his high office in the capital city of Catholic Ireland [July 9]. While nobody expects Jews to reciprocate by selecting a Roman Catholic lord mayor in Jerusalem, it would, however, be good news if Israelis--in response to the "wonderful gesture"--would stop campaigning against the handful of Christian missionaries in their midst. High time that in religious controversies all parties shall confine themselves to debating--and refrain from baiting.

GEORGE A. FLORIS

London

Reconstructing Reconstructionists

Sir:

In Professor Brameld's new theory of "reconstructionism" [July 9] we have a unique and insidious form of educational brainwashing. Throw out the textbooks and the values of our civilization and you pave the way for any demagogue to lead children to think as he sees fit. There's one absolute Professor Brameld can't reject--my determination that my child has a right to grow up unreconstructed. Parents of the world, unite!

LINNEA F. LAYTON

Westfield, N.J.

Sir:

Brameld says there are no absolutes. That's a very absolute statement so fortunately, according to him, we can ignore it. If truth is only what the group or majority says it is, what is to prevent the group from plumping for head-hunting or cannibalism, or destructionism or any other "ism" if it's the group's idea of "being happier, more rational and humane?" Brameld's "dementiaism" sounds like a lot of John Dewey's tripe warmed over.

P. O. WELLS

London, Ont.

Sir:

If Professor Theodore Brameld can keep on writing phrases like "the social consensus of the majority," he will be untroubled by educational "essentialists" in his reconstructed society. They will all be dead of tautological suffocation.

ALBERT LYND New York City

Sir:

It probably wouldn't hurt anything to try out "reconstructionism," since U.S. education couldn't get any worse.

MICHAEL CALLAGHAN Missoula, Mont.

Chest-Testers

Sir:

Your July 9 report on "The Age of Research" gives me all the evidence I need to support my theory that the weakest spot in American culture today is an almost total lack of true creative thinking. We have become a nation of improvers, adjusters, takers-apart, putters-together, dissectors, bisectors, inspectors, assemblers and reassemblers. The average American proudly thumps his breast, pointing with complacency to our vast quantity of technologically "superior" wealth. Where are the minds to match the intellectual curiosity of Edison, Marconi, Alexander Bell, Henry Ford or the Wright brothers?

J. W. EGGERT

Florham Park, N. J.

Sir:

Thanks for the excellent eye-opening report. Just in 1949 (with a B.S. in physics and math), I found in many a fair-sized concern that the director of research was either nonexistent or at the very bottom of the administrative list. With sales managers near or at the top of the list, I went into sales. W. ROBERT MELZER Pittsburgh

Confusion in the North

Sir:

We have grown accustomed to the Russians claiming the credit for every invention of note during the past 100 years, but when TIME [July 9] credits the Unitarians of Boston with the Old North Church and the famous ride of Paul Revere, it takes one's breath away. Boston's Unitarian Second Church was not the Old North, nor had the former anything to do with the exploit of Paul Revere. The so-called "Old North" is the Episcopal Christ Church, built in 1723.

(THE REV.) DANIEL R. MAGRUDER

St. John the Evangelist Hingham, Mass.

P: TIME erred. The Unitarian Second Church was once known as Old North as its congregation met in the Old North meetinghouse. But the Old North Church of Longfellow's poem is the Episcopal Christ Church.--ED.

The Navigator

Sir:

Please accept our sincere gratitude for your July 2 tribute to our good friend Navigator Daws Trotman. The only thing we might add would be a comment on Daws's consistent, active interest in what he called "other works"--evangelical Christian groups spreading the Gospel message in other ways. He was a valued, active member of our Board of Directors, which otherwise is made up almost entirely of airmen.

CHARLES J. MELLIS JR. Missionary Aviation Fellowship Fullerton, Calif.

Peru's Pride

Sir:

In your May 7 issue you say: "Though outnumbered in an 1879-1883 war with Peru and Bolivia, they [the Chileans] easily grabbed the copper and nitrate riches of the rainless northern deserts." Between the Pacific Coast, where the war took place, and Bolivia's cities and population is the formidable barrier of the Andes, so that the Bolivians were geographically impeded from actively participating in this war. Peru was also engaged in an internal civil war, which made demands on the available manpower. So much for the outnumbering to which you refer. As to Chile having "easily grabbed the copper and nitrate riches," I wonder if there is not a contradiction in terms. If the war lasted four years, as you record, I do not know if the word "easily" applies.

MANUEL I. PRADO New York City

Between the Faiths

Sir:

It is certainly impossible to reconcile the statements of the Very Rev. Francis J. Connell [July 9] with any of the teachings of Christ. His admonition in speaking of non-Catholics, "we must remember that their religion is false and that its practice is opposed to the commandment of Jesus Christ," displays an arrogant intolerance totally unsuited to this nation.

S. J. LEWIS JR. Augusta, Ga.

Sir:

I am certain Father Connell must be a direct descendant of the priest or the Levite who "passed by" the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

FRANK DAHM Yonkers, N.Y.

Sir:

The Very Rev. Connell's comments on interfaith relations raise this earthshaking dilemma: while driving to Mass on a Sunday morning, I often drop off my (pardon the word) Protestant wife at the church of her choice. By such action am I aiding and abetting a great conspiracy against the Almighty? Or should I be on the safe side and let the poor misguided heathen walk?

JOHN G. BARRY Baltimore

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