Guns Cocked or Dozing?
Sir:
Your story "The Coming Missile Gap" is the most concise, comprehensive, fair and frank statement of the terrific problem of defense that we currently face that I have seen. You cut through all the confusing conflict of recent testimony in a way that performs a real public service.
SAMUEL S. STRATTON Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives Washington
SIR: TIME MISSILE GAP FACTS [FEB.1] INDICATE MILLIONS OF AMERICAN LIVES MAY WELL REST ON POLITICAL-FINANCIAL DECISIONS. WE SHOULD KEEP OUR GUNS COCKED ON THE UN PREDICTABL RUSSIAN BEAR. DOZING OFF MEANS FINISH.
L. B. COYLE SAN DIEGO
Sir: Now that we have a missile "gap," may we presume that the nation will resort to stopgap measures?
ANTHONY L. PALAZZOLO Lieutenant Commander, USN Newport News, Va.
Unwise to Lump
Sir:
I would like to comment briefly on the review of my book, The Future of Public Education [Feb. 1]. The book specifically states (contrary to the interpretation in the review) that it has been unwise to lump all teachers together, regardless of grade level or subject taught, into one vast organization.
It is not my reckoning that "U.S. schools will improve only when the teachers take charge." Teachers have the major responsibility for improving education, but saying that education will improve only if teachers "take charge" goes beyond what I meant, if not what I wrote.
Finally, I don't believe that educational policy -- without any qualification whatsoever -- can or should be the sole prerogative of the teachers. Educational organizations have been ineffective in developing broad educational policy. They should not be a law unto themselves in this regard. Right now the problem is not whether they can dominate educational policy but whether they can influence it at all on important points.
Having unburdened, myself, may I also express my deep appreciation for the review, and the hope that it will help focus attention on some neglected but important problems of education.
MYRON LIEBERMAN Cleveland
Big Joke
Sir:
My line [Feb. 8] about feeling as Edison would have if they had rejected the electric light was a joke,Son, and not a whimper. TIME also erred in stating that NBC felt I was not the proper moderator for "Meeting of Minds." NBC offered me 30 minutes elsewhere in the week to broadcast the segment. I rejected the offer.
STEVE ALLEN
Hollywood
P:TIME never had such a laugh, Son.
--ED.
Ballot Box
Sir:
Your cover story on Hubert Humphrey [Feb. 1] proves that, if you want to be, you are capable of being fair-minded even where liberals are concerned. If you keep it up, you may woo quite a few of us, who quit you long ago, back into the fold.
WILLIAM H. FISHER
Las Vegas, N. Mex.
Sir:
Humphrey is obviously the thinking man's candidate, but unfortunately not the voting man's choice.
JOCK McFARLANE
Brown University Providence
Sir:
Certainly Senator Humphrey talks a lot. He has something to talk about. He is the best-informed man in Government today.
RAY CHISHOLM
Minneapolis
Sir:
Your report that Hubert Humphrey's father was converted to the Democratic Party after hearing William Jennings Bryan speak reminded me of another such incident.
As a local official of the Democratic Party in Phoenix, Ariz, many years ago, my father had to spend an entire day listening to Bryan's oratory. A few months later he became a Republican, and has remained one ever since.
JOHN W. WILLES
Washington
Sir:
Hubert Humphrey's fine ability to orate is only overshadowed by his innate ability to ad-lib in embarrassing situations. I am reminded of a dinner a few years ago where Humphrey was slated to be the speaker and was one hour late because of some last-minute campaigning. I, acting as emcee, introduced the Senator and remarked about his lack of punctuality. Humphrey rose and stated: "I would rather be Hubert Humphrey late than the late Hubert Humphrey!"
BERNARD SINGER
Minneapolis
Bible Class
Sir:
We were much interested in the report "Revelation and Education" [Feb. 1], relating to the centennial of Wheaton College. But the term Bible college is used in a technical sense to refer to those institutions of higher learning which major in Biblical studies, and carry the name Bible in their title, such as Columbia Bible College, S.C.
Wheaton has always been a standard liberal-arts college in the fully accepted sense of that word, and is accredited by the standard agencies. We do believe the Bible to be the Word of the Living God, and that may constitute us a "Bible" college.
V. R. EDMAN President Wheaton College Wheaton, Ill.
Matter of Choice
Sir:
This ex-newspaperman was unhappy to find his svelte 191 1/2 Ibs. described as portly and--to add insult to injury--that his years of covering courts and police beats have now made him into an amateur, according to your story on coverage of the Finch murder trial (Feb. 1].
Please, dear TIME, even if you must detest us who have deserted you for the movies, and even if the rewards of our full life make us look portly in your eyes, do not stigmatize us as amateurs.
ALBERT ZUGSMITH
Universal City, Calif.
Sir:
The writer in attendance at the Finch murder trial may be Max (I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf) Shulman, Arnold (A Hole in the Head) Schulman, or even possibly Irving (The Amboy Dukes) Shulman.
Do we have a choice?
ROGER PERRY
Omaha Whose Rights?
Sir:
Your article concerning the case of Dr. Abel Leader and the medical society [Feb. 1] is interesting. Dr. Leader, incidentally, espoused a cause that is by no means democratic and reasonable, for imagine those people who have confidence and who depend emotionally on their personal physician and who will be told in the future that they cannot have their practicing physician's care in the hospital but must accept a "university oriented," "career-type" doctor. Doesn't it occur to anybody that the patient has certain rights too?
GEORGE VASH, M.D.
Lonaconing, Md.
Sir:
I take issue with your premise that medical societies' officers may wield power of life or death over the average patient by deciding whether his personal physician or surgeon can admit patients to the best local hospitals and treat them there.
The medical society wanted to keep staff membership of the Jefferson Davis Hospital open to all practicing physicians. The medical school wanted to staff it mainly with research-minded faculty members. Dr. Leader needled the medical society and used strong words. They contented themselves with censuring him. Who succeeded in excluding the patient's personal physician from treating him in the Jefferson Davis Hospital?
JAMES L. FISHER, M.D.
Youngstown, Ohio
Error in Miltown
Sir: In "Trouble in Miltown" [Feb. 8], you state that Miltown "sells to druggists for 3.3-c- and retails for about a dime." In reality, Miltown costs the pharmacist $3.25 per bottle of 50 tablets, which is 6.5-c- per tablet.
Therefore, at 10-c- a tablet, the price is quite reasonable.
SHELDON DECK Registered Pharmacist
Brooklyn
Catastrophe
Sir:
TIME'S Jan. 18 issue quoted my reference to the steel strike and its settlement as a "national catastrophe" without amplification. That one phrase alone might lead the reader to believe that the "catastrophe" meant was the economic damage done to the economy.
The real catastrophe was not so much the millions of dollars' worth of damage done to the economy as it was the failure of the political parties and their leadership to face the basic causes of the steel impasse. Our antiquated labor laws, premised on the principle of monopoly, are in conflict with antitrust laws, premised on the principle of competition. They have permitted the existence of opposing power-centers, big-labor on one hand and big business on the other, with the danger of further extension of already excessive federal power to regulate both. In the present status of world affairs, this is a situation we can no longer afford.
GEORGE ROMNEY President
American Motors Corp.
Detroit Anyone for Lionburgers?
Sir:
Thanks for another adroit job of reporting in your Feb. 1 article, "Bible Disneyland." Do you suppose Messrs. Winecoff, Haley & Co. have considered the profitable possibilities of a Drive-the-Money-Changers-Out-of-the-Temple Gallery or the happy prospect of a Mt. Calvary Merry-Go-Round with the bloody Cross as its axis? Or would these features, perhaps, offend someone's "religious sensibilities"?
(THE REV.) R.A. LAUD HUMPHREYS St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Bartlesville, Okla.
Sir:
We have come full circle with the lion-burgers to be served at the proposed Bible Storyland. Now we are throwing the lions back to the Christians.
TOM LEVY
Ottawa, Kans.
Sir:
Good Lord above have mercy on us all.
DAVID M. WEIBLE Stanford University Stanford, Calif.
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