A Temple or a Tower?

Sir:

Your July 1 cover story, "The Temple Builder," provides a record and an insight to the thinking of our Supreme Court which every literate American should read. The court's recent decisions are terrifying. Did Khrushchev and Chou En-lai sit in on those historic decisions? If not, they were well represented (except for Tom Clark, who recognized the "clear and present danger").

ED H. HOOVER Denver

Sir:

Chief Justice Earl Warren is reported to have asked, "Who can define the meaning of un-American?" With two words I can answer: Earl Warren.

W. O. BEEMAN Bartlesville, Okla.

Sir:

Why should we continue to spend billions to stop Communism abroad when our own U.S. Supreme Court gives it the green light in this country?

MARTIN COLFAX Coral Gables, Fla.

Sir:

The distorted account of recent Supreme Court history in your June 17 issue constitutes a completely unfair attack on the court and a dishonestly accusive hint of liberalism. Law is not a permanently fixed code determined by TIME or J. Edgar Hoover. It is a constantly shifting redefinition of applicability of rights, which include adequate defense of the individual.

DAVID RAY Chicago

Sir:

The duty of the Supreme Court is to act upon the law as it is--not as they would have it written.

DENNIS OLSEN San Jose, Calif.

Sir:

Can you recall anyone in high public office since Aaron Burr was Vice President who is a bigger menace to America than Earl Warren is as Chief Justice?

HAROLD J. CAHILL Yonkers, N.Y.

Sir:

Someone should tell Chief Justice Warren that man No. 3 ("Sir, I am building a temple") must follow the designer's blue prints exactly, or the temple will turn into a Tower of Babel.

ROBERT HAWKINS Santa Barbara, Calif.

What Jenny Did

Sir:

Read with interest your June 3 article concerning Protestants and the Church of Scotland in the early 17th century. Jenny Geddes threw that "cutty stool" towards the head of my distant, illustrious relative, Dean James Hanna, who was reading the Collect for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity. It was July 23, 1637, and the people in St. Giles excitedly awaited the service book, which had been revised and "stamped" by Archbishops Laud and Wren. Its sponsors chose the most explosive hour possible. Thus, the infamous Jenny hurled the stool (see cut) and cried: "How dare you to say 'mass' to my lug [ear]?" The dean beat a hasty retreat, but Jenny's signal touched off a riot. In spite of chastising Jenny and her drastic action, Hannas today are Presbyterians.

(THE REV.) J. ARTHUR HANNA Oak Hill and Horeb Presbyterian Churches Oak Hill, Ohio

Princess Hamlet?

Sir:

Proposed costume for Actress Jayne Mansfield playing the Prince of Denmark [June 24]: "black tights, bare bodkin." Bodkin threw me for a loop, so I referred to my faithful dictionary, which states that a bodkin is "an instrument for drawing tape through a hem, a pointed instrument . . . a pin for fastening the hair." Even on Miss Mansfield, I can't imagine anything less interesting than a "bare bodkin."

D. J. McCLARY Lynwood, Calif.

P:But how about those tights?--ED.

Turk's Talk

Sir:

I was shocked to see you assert [June 24] that Kemal Ataturk "publicly described Islam as 'this theology of an immoral Arab.' " Ataturk never made such a statement--publicly or privately. Two biographies, which you must have used as your source material, can in no way be considered concrete, authoritative evidence. Ataturk achieved many great reforms, among which was the secularization of the Turkish state, but he never said, or even implied, that this separation of the state from religion was in favor of atheism or irreverence for Islam. Ataturk personally believed in the teachings of Islam and had a great respect for Mohammed.

ALTEMUR KILIC Turkish Press Attache Washington, D.C.

P:TIME's sources were the two biographies of Kemal Ataturk in English which are criticized by Turks as sensational. Turkish scholarship, now so prudent about its national hero, has not yet soundly encompassed the full dimensions of Ataturk's lively character and opinions.--ED.

Famous Last Words

Sir:

Is it not a very strange coincidence that William Sidney Porter's (alias O. Henry) last words whilst dying were "Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark," and over a century before, Goethe, whilst fading away, whispered his famous last words "Mehr Licht . . ." (More light)?

WALTER FUCHS Bonn, Germany

Sir:

O. Henry's last line paraphrases the title of a hit song at the time.*

CLINTON S. COOK Hamilton, Bermuda

Sir:

In his favorite saloon Porter was in the habit of gaining the attention of the bartender by calling, "Oh Henry!" One of his buddies suggested "O. Henry" as a good pen name, since he had certainly used it enough.

EDWARD H. EMMERT Lancaster, Pa.

Mondrian & the Squares

Sir:

With awe I read of Piet Mondrian's supreme effort--when he painted a canvas composed of a white background with two black lines. One can only regret that he did not live long enough to attain the ultimate--the virgin canvas untouched by brush.

MAX SHAPIRO Springfield, Pa.

Sir:

Coming so soon after the Picasso job, your article on Mondrian flashlights the difference between profoundly creative art and the foxy razzle-dazzle of the greatest magician since the death of vaudeville.

JOHN MARSHALL BARBOUR Pasadena, Calif.

On the Roads

Sir:

Your June 24 article on road builders is a marvel of reporting, and the six pages in color are masterpieces which merit the heading "American Art." To make space for them in your Art section, you could have moved Gauguin's Still Life with Apples (a $297,000 gyp) into Business.

S. GINZBURG Berkeley, Calif.

Sir:

May I congratulate you on the excellent article and wonderful photographs. The public is becoming impatient, and there appears to be a great deal of misunderstanding relative to the proposed interstate highway system. Your article described the program in an understandable manner.

EDWARD J. KONKOL Executive Vice President Wisconsin Bituminous Paving Association Madison, Wis.

Sir:

Can't resist congratulating Artzybasheff for his delightful cover of anthropomorphic road-building tools. That apprehensive truck, hands atop head, makes the whole bit.

JACK PITMAN Chicago

Warping Views

Sir:

May we express to Mr. & Mrs. Edmund de Caussin Jr. our sympathy in their tragic experience. Each time we read of the abduction and death of a child under similar circumstances, it seems that the moral flow of our present age cancels out the good that has been produced by our society. Mr. de Caussin places the blame correctly on the emphasis on sex with which we nurture our people.

MRS. JOHN E. ELSING Mansfield, S.Dak.

Sir:

As well-intentioned as Mr. de Caussin's "explosive charge of thought" was, it is regrettable that his tragic plight lends emotional influence to his appeal. The ironical probability is that the man whose atrocity prompted such remarks would react with similar disgust to the sexual stimuli that Mr. de Caussin denounces. Let's open our eyes to the brand of pseudo-moralistic views that produces such warped personalities.

RICHARD EVERSON Pittsburgh

Hell Is Like That

Sir:

The two smugly ignorant letters stating to what Billy Graham could convert Catholics are answered by Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, and the endless line of other saints. "Pope and priest" are precisely what Billy is short of--Christ-given authority and Christ-bearing sacraments.

PAUL HUNTER Union City, N.J.

Sir:

After reading the Letters to the Editor concerning the Billy Graham crusade, I have concluded that hell is a place where Catholics are forced to listen to Billy Graham and Protestants to Fulton Sheen.

JACK WRIGHT Shreveport, La.

*I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark (circa 1907) was a song about a husband who, not very convincingly, tries to tell his wife his reasons for staying out all night.

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