The Campaign

Sir: We Americans have elected Presidents of varying religious faiths--Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Reformed Church in America and even Unitarian. Since the Roman Catholic Church is the largest single religious body in the nation, it is not surprising that we have elected scores of Catholic Congressmen, Senators and Governors. The election of a Catholic President would be fully in keeping with the American political ethic, which makes no distinctions based on race, color or creed.

JAMES DELMONT

St. Paul

Sir:

I do not intend to vote for Senator Kennedy, but I am nauseated by the malodorous fumes spreading from the dump fire ignited by men of whom Swift once said: ''We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another"

N. K. STEMMEN

Lake George, N.Y.

Sir:

With all the noise about Senator John F. Kennedy's being Roman Catholic, no one has mentioned that he is only 42 years old and hardly "dry behind the ears."

MRS. HAROLD FRIEDSTEIN

Hartford, Conn.

Sir:

It is my estimation, after reading your recent cover story on the Senate majority leader, that a Johnson-Kennedy ticket would bring sure victory to the Democratic Party in November.

RONALD M. DURA

Davenport, Iowa

Sir:

If it is indiscreet to reject Senator John Kennedy's bid for the presidency solely because of his religion, isn't it equally immature to deny the office to Senator Johnson because of where he lives? It seems to me that the two situations are analogous.

FRANCIS MURRAY

New York City

Sir:

Both delighted and impressed by the insight apparent in Artist Artzybasheff's portrayal of Lyndon Baines Johnson on April 25 cover. Or am I presuming too much by my interpretation of the prominence of a certain portion of the donkey's anatomy? MARION T. MOSES

New York City

Sir:

That donkey has the wrong foot raised. If Lyndon tries putting that brand on him, that old mule won't run; he will backfire.

HORACE CHADBOURNE

Belfast, Me.

Missions Accomplished

Sir:

I have just finished reading your April 18 article on "Christian Missionaries from St. Paul to 1960" and looking at the beautiful eight-page color section on the work of modern-day missionaries.

May I congratulate you on the presentation of the situation in which Christian missionaries find themselves today and of their work. I was especially happy to find that the article ends on a note of triumph and hope. That a magazine of your stature and worldwide circulation sees fit to use as its lead feature a consideration of the Christian world mission should go far in refuting the pessimistic pronouncements heard in some quarters (even among church members) that "the day of missions is through."

LEONARD M. PERRYMAN

Associate Director

Department of News Service

Board of Missions of the Methodist Church

New York City

Sir:

Your religion editor must have been nodding when he let "Under the leadership of James, the brother of Jesus . . ." get by him uncorrected. This passage would have us believe that Our Lord had a brother. However, the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God has been the traditional and cherished belief of the Eastern Orthodox Churches as well as the Roman Catholic Church. Inasmuch as both churches-- which can trace their origins to apostolic times--are in agreement on this point, it should be clear that the earliest Christians did not subscribe to the view that Our Divine Lord had a brother.

THEODORE J. KONDOLEON

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Rosary College

River Forest, Ill.

P: Biblical scholars have long been in disagreement on the relationship of "James, the brother of the Lord" (Galatians 1:19), to Jesus. Roman Catholicism teaches that this James, who became the leader of the Jerusalem church, and the Apostle, James the Less, are one and the same James, the son of Alpheus, who was Joseph's brother. The word '"brother," Catholic dogma explains, was often used in Biblical times to mean ''cousin." Non-Catholic scholars who do not subscribe to the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Jesus' mother, Mary, contend that James, the leader of Jerusalem, and James, son of Alpheus, were two distinct persons, and that the Jerusalem leader was a blood brother of Jesus.--ED.

Sir:

In your otherwise good article, "More Than Conquerors", you reported on missionary activity around the world without mentioning the widespread work of Seventh-day

Adventists. Though Adventists had a world membership at the close of 1958 of only 1,149,256 they have workers and church members in 189 of the countries or political subdivisions of the world.

D. S. WALLACK

District Superintendent

Seventh-day Adventist Church

Grand Junction, Colo.

Sir: I was delighted with your article on St. Paul and missions. It is the best brief sketch of the great missionary's life, thought, letters, work, and their results that I have ever read.

(THE VERY REV.) S. L. RIDDLE

Dean

American Cathedral in Paris

Sir:

Your article on St. Paul was sad. Why must you use the flashy, spectacular, smart-alecky approach to a subject which demands a reverential treatment? Your author is a bit too creative an artist for me. St. Paul is a close friend, but I fail to recognize the portrait.

FR. NEAL FLANAGAN

Our Lady of the Forest

Stonebridge Priory

Lake Bluff, Ill.

Sir:

"Christian Missionaries from St. Paul to 1960" is an anachronism in a magazine that pretends to be abreast of scientific developments, and though it will please religionists, it is a discredit to the scientific "spirit" to which you often make claims.

How can intelligent men swallow the story of St. Paul without choking? If Jesus Christ could so easily appear to Paul and convince him of his error, why perform this marvelous trick with Paul alone? Think how much suffering, violence and evil Jesus Christ could have avoided by appearing to other enemies of Christianity.

M. NOVELLA

Miami

Sir:

You may receive brickbats for this article. Please accept from me a bouquet for a magnificent reporting of more than 19 centuries of news.

EMMET RUSSELL

Short Falls, N.H.

Sir:

Amen.

JON T. KEEKLEY

Pastor

St. Timothy Lutheran Church

Hyde Park, N.Y.

A Place in Letters

Sir:

In your April 18 TIME LISTINGS, there is a reference to me-- unavoidable, since a current novel of mine has been on your bestseller list for a good many weeks. And in your Music section, you lead off with an appreciation of a recording of excerpts from the rehearsals of Maestro Toscanini, in which I had a certain part. Your music critic, like your book reviewer, who evidently considers my novels beneath his notice, has chosen to ignore me, which is a treatment I much prefer to possible deprecation.

The fact is that the recording is the joint property of Mr. Walter Toscanini and myself; that it was released by us jointly for sale for the benefit of The Musicians' Foundation; and that my part in the record was thought necessary for and by the largely lay audience to whom the rehearsal excerpts were first presented. I am sure your music critic considers my remarks as unworthy of his notice as your book reviewer considers my novels; but Maestro Toscanini was one of the people who recognize that I have my place in American letters and in musical expertise.

MARCIA DAVENPORT

New York City

The Combine Age

Sir:

As a footnote to your April 18 article on combine-maker Robert Rauschenberg in 1948 a youth hosteler in our pension in Paris had purchased a ticket for a performance of the Paris Opera, not realizing that it was a strictly formal affair. She, in a very real sense, had "nothing to wear" for this sort of occasion.

Bob took a bedspread, and, using nothing but safety pins, he draped and hung the material, creating one of the most exciting strapless gowns I've ever seen. For a stole, he and several other hostelers went to the Bois de Boulogne and gathered sacks of green ivy, which they stitched to a latticework of ribbon.

At the opera that evening, the gown and stole were a sensation. Next day, it was unpinned and placed back on the bed.

C. JUNE COLBERT LANE

Los Angeles

Freedom, or License? Sir: Scratch one more American university from the shrinking list of free academic institutions! If Illinois' priggish President Henry considers ex-Professor Koch's condonation of sex , breach of academic responsibility [April 18], he joins a troop of travelers along the road to unreason.

To Professor Koch--who now knows how upsetting it can be to make people think--goes a reminder that Galileo, Huxley, Darwin and Freud all expressed unpopular ideas. It is still true that no idea can be judged by a jury that never hears it.

THOMAS P. HOWARD

Rochester

Sir:

President Henry has based his stand on commonly accepted standards of morality"; yet these standards are fuzzy, transient, often sick, and by no means commonly accepted. (Burning was, for centuries, a commonly accepted countermeasure for witchcraft.) The conflict of currently accepted standards with reality has led to a pandemic of neurosis and hypocrisy that is destroying our integrity as human beings.

BRADFORD D. PEARSON

Boston

Sir:

The school's action was correct in dismissing Professor Koch, for there is something important at stake here that involves all America.

Where men and women lose sight of moral and spiritual boundaries in life, or fail to see that such realms exist, nothing can result but chaos.

With this happening, life loses much of its meaning for the citizens and youth of America, and therefore it is easy to see why too many of them have become the prey of such philosophies as the dialectical materialism of godless Communism.

E. WAYNE RYAN

Wilmore, Ky.

Sir:

Biologist Koch may think he knows something about sex, but it's quite evident he knows nothing about God.

MRS. LOUIS J. SCHULTE

Norton, Kans.

Use-Tested

Sir:

I read with great interest and contempt the futile efforts of your so-called great doctors to discover a certain method for not having babies, besides abstention, that is [April 11].

May I offer a sure and much-tested way: if a woman catches a frog and, after spitting thrice in its face, leaves it where she found it, she will not be pregnant again.

Some people may laugh at this suggestion, but it has been tested and found successful for ages.

HAKIM UMARJAN KHAN

Karachi, Pakistan

Plain English

Sir:

As a secretary who has been stumbling through overgrown bureaucratese for many years, I couldn't resist my own version of Mr. Newton's April 25 memo. His started out:

"One responsibility Communications Department: provide rest of Astronautics assistance improving ability transmit information one person to another. Therefore this experiment to improve memos originated Communications Department." Here is mine:

"One responsibility of the Communications Department is to assist others in learning to communicate; hence this memorandum."

No claim is made for this version as an experiment, since plain English has been in use for centuries by hundreds of millions of people.

ELSIE M. ROGERS

Waterville, Me.

Sir:

Newton bit talk no stranger TIME talk

WELSHVEEPCOMGENDYNM*

New York City

* (Vernon M.) Welsh, Vice President, Communications, General Dynamics.

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