The Big Question
Sir:
TIME, like everyone else, has been castigating the television quiz shows for being fixed but it does not appear as if any of the accusers have paused long enough to examine the real substance of the situation which they are viewing with alarm. After all, what the programs basically purported to dispense is entertainment--and free entertainment at that. We do not expect the gospel truth every time we turn on our sets.
JEROME KURSHAN Princeton, N.J.
Sir:
Let's try comparing a TV quiz show with another form of TV "suspenseful entertainment": championship golf, or perhaps football's game of the week. No one would defend a fix in sports on the wild notion that it added more to the fun!
DOROTHY G. WATKINS Columbus, Ohio
Sir:
I was interested in your discussion of [CBS President] Frank Stanton's attitude toward Person to Person [Nov. 2], and feel inclined to take up the cudgels for Mr. Murrow. I was on this program two years ago. When you state that it is "vaguely" rehearsed, you are right. "Vaguely" is the word. I live in the country; therefore it takes a number of days to cable a house and build various steel towers. I talked some time prior to the program to the writer and director--twice if my memory serves me. Please bear in mind that these gentlemen didn't know me from Adam's off ox--I daresay that should be cow.
Personally to personally, I had a good time on it; I had a week or more of engineers and such running about the house wiring this and that, including trees, and I am indebted to Mr. Murrow. I live alone; I was not surrounded by friends and family; there was just myself tiptoeing downstairs and hoping to God that things would go right. I hadn't the faintest idea what questions Mr. Murrow would ask.
I am not in favor of the rigged program. Most of them involve prizes and/or money. Person to Person didn't and doesn't. But it isn't even "vaguely" rigged. I yield to no one in my admiration for Mr. Stanton, but this is really a little too much.
FAITH BALDWIN Norwalk, Conn.
For the Birds
Sir:
The Navy will never be successful in its attempt to move the albatross from Midway Island [Oct. 26]. I have helped some of these gooney birds to build their nests, and the aid was accepted gracefully, but the bird selects the site. Once I moved a nest, egg and all, to a new site only three feet distant; the bird was thoroughly confused and went about building a new nest on the original site.
The birds cannot be moved to nearby Kure or Pearl and Hermes. The only solution is that the Navy minimize its air activity, while retaining the waters as a submarine base, leaving the islands to their rightful owners or perhaps sharing the area with them on a more cooperative basis--Midway would be tops as a vacation spot.
ARMSTRONG THOMAS Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Its genocidal plan for making Midway Island safe for Homo Americanus volitans makes one suspect that the Navy is not up on its Ancient Mariner. If it were, the Navy would know that the penalty for killing an albatross is disaster at sea [see cut].
IVAN MOFFAT Beverly Hills, Calif.
Sir:
American whalemen knew the albatross as the "goney" bird long before the U.S. Navy had any interest in the Pacific. There is a whaleman's song entitled The Wings of a Goney, from the logbook of the whaling bark Ocean Rover on a voyage made in 1859 that starts:
If I had the wings of a goney, I would fly to my own native home; I would leave Desolation's cold weary ground, For right whales for us there is none.
E. G. HUNTINGTON Vineyard Haven, Mass.
Crime & Sociology
Sir:
Father Joseph Fitzpatrick's view on Puerto Rican crime [Oct. 26] is the typical head-in-the-clouds attitude of sociologists, who spend too much time in the library and not enough time in the streets. Irish and German immigrant crime a century ago is a historical fact but not an excuse for today's crime. Father Fitzpatrick and other sociologists should present workable solutions to immigrant crime instead of simply apologizing for it.
JAMES A. BAILEY New York City
Sir:
Father Fitzpatrick somehow reminded me of Father Flanagan of Boys Town, who once uttered that classic absurdity: "There are no bad boys."
Says kind Father Fitzpatrick: "The things that gave a man or woman dignity and honor in a Puerto Rican village are greeted with ridicule in New York." Really, Father Fitz? Since when are rape, murder, robbery and slashings considered a mark of dignity ?
NORMAN FISHER Washington, D.C.
Sir:
It was most refreshing to read Father Fitzpatrick's evaluation of Puerto Ricans in relation to the delinquency problem in New York City, and his notation that every immigrant group, when it first settled, got into the same trouble, but that as time passed, these groups have become adapted and respectable. Being a Puerto Rican myself, and very proud of it, I was most happy to read this article.
ANTONIO I. LAHONGRAIS Alaska Native Hospital Kanakanak, Alaska
That Was Leyte Gulf
Sir:
We at the Air Force Academy who teach military history have read with great pleasure "Greatest & Last Battle of a Naval Era" [Oct. 26]. The author of the story of Leyte Gulf has done a very fine job of condensing this great battle. Your organization most courteously provided for us copies of your similar treatment of the Battle of Midway. We have used Mr. Chapin's diagrammatic portrayal of that battle in our classrooms. It has been most helpful.
JOHN A. KERIG Lieut. Colonel, U.S.A.F. U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo.
Sir:
I was a member of the crew of the U.S.S. Denver, and after 15 years was surprised to hear she had the honor of firing the first shot in the Leyte landings. She also participated in the Battle of Surigao Strait, which I recall quite vividly, as the entire ship was at general quarters all night, it was hotter than I can ever recall, and the night entailed a good deal of work for the crew in handling hundreds of rounds of ammunition when the ships in our task force opened up rapid salvo fire on the unsuspecting Japanese. In surveying the results of our night's work in the light of the next day, however, we were very pleased with ourselves.
JOHN R.BLOOMER Alton, Ill.
Sir:
Although the Leyte Gulf Battle was 15 years ago, it seems as yesterday. My submarine, Darter, along with Dace, commanded by my classmate Captain B. D. Claggett, with two of the best crews ever to go aboard submarines, held swimming call 15 years ago this morning for Admiral Kurita and his heavy cruisers. Darter still rests on the rocks off Palawan, where we abandoned her after grounding while trying to finish off the cruiser Takao. Thanks to the brilliant work of Claggett, Dace rescued my whole crew.
D. H. McCLINTOCK Captain, U.S.N. Salt Lake City
Look, Three Hands
Sir:
We students and supporters of the S.M.U. Mustangs have many a time seen the amazing talents of our Don Meredith's passing right hand. But, according to the photo of Meredith [Nov. 2], perhaps his coaches should try the potential of Meredith's left hands, which seem to be doubly amazing.
TODD MESSINGER Denton, Tex.
P:Says Quarterback Meredith of the picture, in which he was being hit from behind by a tackler, unseen except for his hand: "I guess I looked a little spooky out there. I don't remember the play. But I remember plenty of times when I could have used three hands--or one good one."--ED.
Symbol of America?
Sir:
The great strike between the forces of management and labor of the steel industry is more than a present threat to the welfare of the U.S. It is a vivid symbol of what America has come to treasure most and fight for the hardest: material security and monetary wealth.
LYNN W. FOELL Milwaukee
Sir:
During the Depression, management bled labor white until labor had no other choice than to organize against the arrogant bosses. Gradually during the 1950s, many union leaders are becoming just as arrogant as their bosses used to be.
ROY WOLFE San Francisco
Sir:
Re the steel strike, I would like to quote La Rochefoucauld: "Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side."
TED MILLER JR. Whittier, Calif.
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