Free Choice

Sir: The May 10 cover. "Lincoln and Modern America," is a classic. I hope it will be available in booklet form.

JOHN E. ELIASON Siler City, N.C.

Sir: Your anniversary issue must stand as the noblest product of your 40 years. The Lincoln cover and the Lincoln essay stir me in my soul. What is written stands like rock. It is a great piece of literature. It is all of history. Those who put it together deserve the highest accolade.

JULIUS SUMNER MILLER Professor of Physics El Camino College, Calif.

Sir: Your cover story on Lincoln shatters the self-esteem of every individual who considers himself lettered or, at the least, sufficiently educated. The rapid-fire exposition of famous names and "should-know" philosophies gives all readers without a Ph.D. a deflated ego. Our only solace is that the article extolling individualism was prepared by a committee. Bravo to you (collectively); to the library for us (individually).

DANIEL STIEBER Rolling Meadows, Ill.

Sir: Robert Vickrey's cover portrait of Lincoln has me weeping. I gasped to see such an alive and compassionate painting, and I cry because Lincoln is dead.

RAY J. CARSON Derry, N.H.

Sir: I thank you for the fine article about Lincoln. But I still say he shouldn't have done it.

JACK J. McCubbin Kansas City, Mo.

Sir: It is ironical that the same issue should also carry reports on the violence in Alabama engendered by the eruption of race hatred and bigotry. It would be wise to heed what Abraham Lincoln wrote: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."

FRED SHORE New York City

Birmingham

Sir: The bloody riots over a Negro's admission to the University of Mississippi, the continued denial of minority voting rights, and the recent demonstrations in Birmingham [May 10] all demonstrate the need for a federal policy on integration.

The shotgun approach has not worked, and it will not work. Integration cannot be solved with injunctions, troops or demonstrations. Men cannot be forced to change their minds. The human heart cannot be beaten into shape.

GOMER R. WILLIAMS State College, Pa.

Sir: Re "Dogs, Kids & Clubs": the "real" police dog in the illustration is wearing dark glasses, a badge and a smirking grin.

MRS. JOSEPH F. BOYD JR. Toledo

Sir: This is disgraceful! If the U.S. is so strong, why can't it keep its own house in order? A family divided will always fall!

RICHARD L. WIGAN Frankston, Australia

Pilot's Plight

Sir: As an old friend of Eleanor and Marlon Green [May 3], who suffered with them--and with less patience than they have--I appreciate the light you have thrown on the nasty discrimination that keeps an expert pilot from his work. How can we talk of equality of opportunity in a country where a man has to wait six years, employ lawyers, and appeal to the federal courts to convince employers (supposedly eagerly seeking qualified pilots) that he is more competent than other job applicants? (THE REV.) JOSEPH H. FIGHTER, S.J. Loyola University New Orleans

Sir: By what authority may a Supreme Court (state or federal) order a corporation to hire anyone ? Doesn't an employer have any voice whatsoever in the selection of men on his payroll? Has our country plunged so far into socialism that the state can now force an employee upon an unwilling employer? Why not take the next step ? Nationalize all private industry. Then the Supreme Court can do openly what it has practiced under "interpretation" for so many years--DICTATE !

MARIO L. CALUDA Baton Rouge, La.

Each Voter Must Decide

Sir: Mr. Rockefeller's personal affairs [May 10] are of public concern because they reveal the character of the man. When a man shows so little regard for his own vows and the vows of others, it is only natural that people should question his integrity and his fitness for high public responsibility. Another prominent man once flouted morality and public opinion and gave up everything for "the woman he loved." No doubt Mr. Rockefeller would declare himself willing to do the same. I sincerely hope that the voters give him that opportunity.

ROSALYN BAILEY Keene, N.H.

Sir: What Nelson Rockefeller does in private life is strictly his business, and what he does in politics is the public's concern. If we are going to vote with our hearts instead of our heads, I feel sorry for the future of the United States!

MRS. HARVEY YAZIJIAN Belmont, Mass.

Sir: Republican Party professionals should be more concerned with acquiring a candidate who is positive in his approach to government than in whether he has violated the marriage taboos of a segment of our heterogeneous population. Governor Rockefeller is practically the only potential candidate positive enough to counteract the image created by the party's senior citizens on Capitol Hill.

(MRS.) JOAN BEARDSLEY Baltimore

Sir: Divorce is one thing, and divorce followed by an unforeseen marriage is another. But mutual divorce with intent to obtain another's partner in subsequent marriage is the lowest form of moral corruption. My Republican vote will never go to this kind of rocky feller.

OLIVER K. FINSETH Minneapolis

Soul Music

Sir: A fine piece on Ray Charles [May 10].

NAT HENTOFF New York City

Sir: Charles has never made a big hit in country and western music. He has instead made a big hit in popular music by setting country lyrics to a "soul" tune. When You Are My Sunshine is sung by Jimmie Davis, it is country. But when Charles sings it, it is "soul music."

JOHN GILL Denton, Texas

Pop Art

Sir: Pop art [May 3] is the most exciting thing that has happened in America since Little Eva tripped over the ice cubes. The Guggenheim Museum is to be congratulated on its forward-looking policy. Fifty years from now there will be a revival of pop art that will make the recent revival of the Armory Show look pale indeed.

JASON A. SPENALZO Hamilton, N.Y.

Sir: I'm not fooled. I think it stinks.

DIANE FRECHIN Bremerton, Wash.

Sir: As a cartoonist I was interested in Roy Lichtenstein's comments on comic strips in your article on pop art. Though he may not, as he says, copy them exactly, Lichtenstein in his painting currently being shown at the Guggenheim comes pretty close to the last panel of my Steve Roper Sunday page of Aug. 6, 1961. Very flattering ... I think?

WILLIAM OVERGARD Stony Point, N.Y.

Sir: Well, I'll tell you, it was really something! Since we don't allow the kids to read war comics, our first problem was to acquire suitable copies. My wife and I worked both sides of the alley for two blocks and finally came up with a couple of good ones out of a garbage can. One was Blood and Bombs and the other Guts and Glory. We started the project at 8 p.m., and by 11 we had cut out and pasted to the walls of our living room 147 panels. These ranged from a buxom nurse giving a G.I. a shot of penicillin to a Communist guerrilla with his intestines exposed by mortar fire. The next day I stomped flat eleven empty cans. We stuck mostly to Campbell soup cans, but threw in a sweet potato can and a cardboard chow mein container for originality. These I nailed to the walnut paneling above the fireplace. When my wife returned from her trip to a nearby drive-in, we took the hamburgers and a single hot dog and affixed them to the north wall of the dining room, then stood back and threw hot chili and beans over the entire arrangement. No need to tell you that our new art collection is the rage of the community. In the past, we had envied our more financially blessed citizens for their expensive art objects. Now we not only feel their equals, but, if my civil suit for the return of two old jackets I gave to the Salvation Army is successful, I sincerely feel that we can take one giant leap up the local social ladder to a position of unchallenged eminence.

WILLIAM E. HAFFORD Tucson, Ariz.

Vogue's Vreeland

Sir: Delighted with your [May 10] article. It seems to me you did so much with so little.

DIANA VREELAND New York City

Sir: No normal adult male shares Dee-ann Vreeland's abhorrence of the full-blown female bosom. Diamond Jim Brady's remark (about diamonds) may be paraphrased with relevance: "I notice them that has 'em, wears 'em!"

FRANCIS LYNCH Los Angeles

Citizens of Academe

Sir: TIME is to be commended for opening its pages to an examination of academic freedom [May 101. However, it is unfortunate that your article, at one point, may create the impression that college professors employ academic freedom "to license oddball behavior" or to "give special sanction to a teacher's statements when made off campus or outside his field" or to "excuse incompetence, or exempt professors from criticism." College professors have not asked for the kind of exemption you describe. They do insist that they be protected from unwarranted assaults when they teach or do research in controversial areas, or when in the performance of their duties they take unpopular positions. Likewise they ask protection from attack by forces which would deny them the ordinary liberties to which all members of the civil community are entitled. In return, they pledge themselves, as members of a learned profession and as responsible citizens, "at all times (to) be accurate, (to) exercise appropriate restraint, (to) show respect for the opinion of others," and to make every effort to indicate that they are not institutional spokesmen. Professors willingly recognize that "their special position in the community imposes special obligations." However, it would be exceedingly unfortunate if those "special obligations" were used by powerful segments of the public to deprive professors of their rights as citizens to speak forthrightly on all issues of public concern. As you correctly point out, everyone is cheated when the academic scholar takes a "safe" position in the face of strong pressures to conform.

WILLIAM P. FIDLER General Secretary American Association of University Professors Washington, D.C.

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