Last Thoughts

Sir:

There is only one reason why President Eisenhower could possibly lose this election: he has spent his four years in office building a free nation and a free world instead of building a political machine.

C. E. MACNAB (an independent voter) Millington, Tenn.

Sir:

Ever since the primaries, Stevenson has been the victim of TIME'S oozy cattiness, its perennial substitute for straight reporting. Depicted as a hopeless bundle of personal defects, Adlai lies beneath the heel of your caricature and Yale's vegetable-throwing fresh men. A plague upon you -- whatever happens Nov. 6.

PETER G. EARLE Princeton, NJ.

Sir:

I am a mother of four children, and I think Stevenson and Kefauver are bad influences.

MRS. W. E. JACKSON Norwalk, Ohio

Sir:

This year brought my first opportunity to vote in a national election. I eagerly read up on both parties, but how can a person possibly find the truth among the mud-slinging and heated accusations on both sides? There fore I'm not going to vote.

SANDRA F. ARTWICH State College, Pa.

Sir:

Let's face it. On Nov. 6 I and millions of other enlightened Americans would vote for Mickey Mouse were he the candidate on the Democratic ticket.

THOMAS COLLINS Rockaway Park, N.Y.

Sir:

As a member of the U.S. armed forces in Western Germany, I have observed that many of my fellow soldiers as well as a large majority of thinking Germans were shocked by Stevenson's statement on the draft. This is not the time for halting statesmanship or cheap appeals for mother votes. Give me Ike.

THOMAS W. RICKEY Lieutenant, U.S. Army Baumholder, West Germany

Sir:

Is it possible for Mr. Stevenson or any other man to satisfactorily handle the stag gering responsibilities of the presidency with out the loving care of a devoted wife?

EDGAR L. MCCOUBREY Riverside, Calif.

Sir:

You recently printed a picture of Ike captioned "Wearing the Coat." Some of us voters would like to know when he is going to start wearing the pants.

R. L. MITZENBERG Madison, Wis.

Sir:

Ike has restored dignity to the golf course.

L. K. YOUNG Chicago

Sir:

Many thanks to TIME on its fine coverage of the political campaigns, which have been sadly neglected by most news media here in Europe.

DAVID S. HUDSON U.S. Army Aschaffenburg, West Germany

Georgia's Way

Sir: Hooray for your Oct. 15 report on Herman Talmadge. It's about time he was given worldwide recognition, for I'm sure he is the most outstanding symbol of bigoted white supremacy to be found anywhere.

EDNA KRIMS Brighton, Mass.

Sir:

In the black pots of your desperation, what a witches' brew you've brewed with your story. Nobody could have supposed that the campaign of a putrid peach like Georgia's Talmadge held any interest for you halfway through the fall of '56 -- his election is not even an issue. Has the prowess of the real Democrats driven you so far as to drag Mr. Stevenson through the mud?

CHARLES T. YERKES Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: If Adlai Stevenson needs Herman Tal madge or vice versa, we need neither of them. Sometimes I think Lincoln should have let the South go.

MRS. DOROTHY GEORGE Lincoln, Neb.

Sir:

The only well-meaning public figures to have come out of Georgia for a long time are Pogo and his friends from Okefenokee.*

VIRGINIA MERLINO Los Angeles

Enlightened Georgians

Sir:

Boris Chaliapin has again demonstrated his artistic ability in the Talmadge cover, even in the shack in the background. An}' Southern country boy will easily recognize that the pole arising behind the house is for gourd martins. Enlightened Yankees, how ever, will call it a TV antenna, and will assume that the artist intended to imply that the typical Georgian lives in a shack, plants cotton, surrounds himself with barbed wire, votes for Talmadge, and buys a TV set before house paint.

PAUL A. WOOD Camden, S.C.

P: That pole behind the shack was not strictly for the birds, but even a TV antenna, if hung with gourds, might make a nestwork for the South's Progne subis, also known as the purple martin (see cut). -- ED.

Stevenson at Yale Sir: I wonder if you can identify the elderly lady and gentleman who appear in the photograph depicting Yale students heckling Stevenson [Oct. 15]? The contrast between the couple's mature demeanor and the yakking, jackal-hyena-like appearance of the Yale students is astounding.

CHARLES L. GREINER Cleveland

Sir:

Re the "two Yale students" in front row at Stevenson rally: obviously that last year at Yale is really tough.

J. MILLER Washington, D.C.

Who's to Blame for Elvis?

Sir:

Mr. Weinberg, in his Oct. 15 letter to TIME, states that "Elvis Presley could only be a product of our current Republican Ad ministration." Why, then, does Mr. Presley support Stevenson? Perhaps he feels that his white Continental Mark II puts him in the underprivileged common-man class?

ANN CALLAWAY La Canada, Calif.

Sir:

Elvis is 21 years old. Please note that he was born, as only someone like him could be, during a Democratic Administration.

WILLIAM WILKSHIRE PHYLLIS BERK New York City

Pushbutton Thought Control

Sir:

Electrical Engineer Schafer, who thinks it might be possible to graft an electronic gadget into a man's brain, states that "the controlled subjects would never be permitted to think as individuals [Oct. 15!" If that is biocontrol, it's nothing new. We've had that for years; it's called television.

DAVID RHODENHISER Macon, Ga.

Sir:

Let us not be confused by the ramblings of dilettantes. Engineer Schafer's visions reveal a woeful lack of appreciation of basic mechanisms of central nervous system activity and can be immediately rejected. The only electrical activity that can control a man's mind arises as a consequence of the functional activity of another's.

D. P. PURPURA, M.D. New York City

Warning

Sir: As Christians, we cannot approve of a magazine printing such a picture [as Play mate Pilgrim, Oct. 15] on general principles.

Certainly its appearance must also have offended many of the millions of other Chris tians in our country 'who take seriously the warning of Christ in Matthew 5:28, "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

PASTOR & MRS. H. E. SIMON Faith Lutheran Church Appleton, Wis.

Sir: So that I wouldn't have to explain to my children -- aged 13, 10 and 6 -- why that gorgeous gal is sitting beneath the Christmas tree with nothing on but her rhinestones and rabbit fur (presumably Santa Claus caught her minus even those), I tore the page out to show to my husband -- who will no doubt need no explanation.

CAROL K. WHITNEY Westboro, Mass.

The Peccant Peck Sir: Apropos of the Catholic "venial kiss" discussion | Oct. 8]: one imagines countless exchanges like this on Irish lanes: "Gi! Said a me lad a to a venial lass, kiss." "To Hell wi' ye, son. I kiss mortal, like this!"

RICHARD J. STONESIFER Lancaster, Pa.

Liberace in London Sir:

Concerning Cassandra's column in the London Daily Mirror about Liberace [Oct.

15]: I do feel that every decent-minded person should take up the cudgel against such infamy. Poking fun at Liberace is one thing, but when it goes to the extreme of criticizing the hallowed tradition of mother's love, it's beyond the pale. It would seem that anyone with the proper regard for the Good Neighbor policy would hesitate to fling insults at the judgment and good taste of millions of people of an allied country, who are devoted and ardent admirers of Liberace.

JESSIE LEE CAVE New Orleans Sir: I was disgusted by the treatment accorded to Liberace by the British press. Incidentally we like our men to be hairy, heavy, noisy, predatory, single-minded -- a return to the caveman; the average man (Dagwood or anyone's Pop) is merely tolerated. Liking Mom is an admission of weakness. When are we going to grow up? MARION PALMER Amityville, N.Y.

*Pogoesc spelling.

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