Birmingham & Baldwin

Sir:

Your [May 17] issue covering "The Negro's Push for Equality" was expertly executed. You first gave a forceful, factual account of Birmingham's brutality--appealing to the readers' hearts. You followed this with a philosophical article on James Baldwin--appealing to the readers' minds. You have done your part. Let us now hope that the readers have hearts and/or minds.

LARRY L. SMEVIK Binghamton, N.Y.

Sir:

I feel that Baldwin is profound and searching in many of his insights, but that, on the whole, he is too pessimistic. As a Christian and as an American--and, incidentally, as a Caucasian--I am confident that the Negro's struggle for equal rights and opportunities is going to be won. My hope and prayer is that his struggle may be won soon and without mass violence.

PALMER VAN GUNDY

Glendale, Calif.

Sir:

The choice confronting officials in Alabama and elsewhere in America is a simple choice: responsible reform or irresponsible revolution. The ruling class would be wise to open its eyes and see that its best friends are Martin Luther King and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Democracy in the United States simply cannot afford any other alternative to the changes these moderates sponsor.

ROBERT G. L. WAITE Brown Professor of History Williams College Williamstown, Mass.

Sir:

What other police force would abstain from raw use of force when hundreds of screaming, shouting demonstrators charged down the most crowded downtown sidewalks knocking down any who got in their way? Where else are there policemen who can calmly write out citations for teen-age demonstrators screaming filthy obscenities at them?

Get your boys out of Martin Luther King's office and tell them to report the other side of the story. Then you can intelligently evaluate and interpret!

G. B. ROLLINGS WORTH JR. Birmingham

Sir:

"Bull" Connor may be a ridiculous and dangerous official, but give him credit for keeping the Negroes away from the whites. If he had, as you said, allowed crowds of whites to gather without dispersing them, there is little doubt that there would have been a race riot that even you would not enjoy writing about.

DAVID CAIN

Anniston, Ala.

Sir:

You have certainly given an unjust image of the citizens of Birmingham. We would not stand for such brutality against anyone.

The Negro demonstrations were not scenes of violence; only a very few Negroes became unruly. Two Negroes were bitten by dogs, but only after one drew a knife on an officer and the other hit the dog with a board. The water hoses were turned on only after demonstrators had been given ample warning to disperse. Would your reporter deem it better to use guns instead of billy clubs and water hoses? Or should mobs be permitted to run rampant over our police officers who are enforcing the very laws that prohibited the Ku Klux Klan from demonstrating in our city streets against the Negro many years ago.

BERT S. DAMSKY Birmingham

Sir:

We are reminded of the Children's Crusade of 1212, of which Innocent III wrote: "The very children put us to shame." Children are the worst casualties of segregation, as long as it continues. If they can shame the Southerners and the Administration into more appropriate action, they will reap the benefits.

MACKENZIE DODSON Oakland, Calif.

Sir:

It seems senseless to ready ourselves for the exploration of space when we cannot even maintain peace on earth.

WILLIAM L. HOWE New York City

Lincoln Letters

Sir:

The statement that Lincoln refused bodyguards [May 10] is not entirely accurate. At least up to May 1863, my great-grandfather, Captain David Vincent Derickson, was in command of Company K, 150th Infantry Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers (the "Bucktails") and served as his personal bodyguard.

Captain Derickson usually had breakfast with the President and rode with him in his carriage to the War Department or to the White House. As noted in a famous letter (now in the Smithsonian) that Lincoln wrote about Company K and its captain, Mr. Lincoln often stayed at the Soldiers' Home, which was then called the Soldiers' Retreat.

NICOLA CERRI JR. Silver Spring, Md.

>Although Lincoln was impatient with the necessity for bodyguards, he recognized a good soldier. Lincoln wrote, Nov. 1, 1862, to "Whom it may concern": "Capt. Derrickson, with his company, has been for some time keeping guard at my residence, now at the Soldiers' Retreat. He, and his company, are very agreeable to me; and while it is deemed proper for any guard to remain, none would be more satisfactory to me than Capt. D. and his Company."--ED.

Rockefeller's Rights

Sir:

Thank you, TIME, for reporting the facts [May 10] briefly and without mingling unnecessary sentiment! And thank you, Governor, for being a man first, and then a politician. Single, divorced, married--in November you have my vote.

MRS. BRUCE R. BALTER Brookline, Mass.

Sir:

As an encore for Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder? we should all sing, Who Put the Rocks in Rockefeller's Head?

(MRS.) LORI HEALEY Cedar Grove, N.J.

Sir:

How the Democrats must love it!

We Republicans sit back with the probable choice next year of voting for one of the ubiquitous Kennedy clan or a couple of homewreckers.

(MRS.) VIRGINIA PRIEDEMAN

Waukesha, Wis.

Sir:

Governor Rockefeller has now demonstrated in his private life the qualities which I have most admired in his public administration: the courage and determination to pursue an unpopular and politically harmful course which he considers right and necessary. I'll vote for Rocky in '64.

WILLIAM K. WHITENACK Champaign, Ill.

Correct Diagnosis

Sir:

Congratulations upon the interesting and heartening report [May 10] concerning William Powell's operation for rectal cancer 25 years ago.

The article should encourage people to have regular examinations for the early detection of cancer of the colon and rectum, which takes a toll of approximately 40,000 lives in this country each year. At least three-fourths of these lives could be saved by early diagnosis and proper treatment.

HAROLD S. DIEHL, M.D. Senior Vice President for Research and Medical Affairs American Cancer Society, Inc. New York City

It's Arizona State Sir:

We certainly appreciate your recognizing our world-record mile relay team [May 10], but please, please, PLEASE make it Arizona State University, and not our No. 1 rival, the University of Arizona.

DICK MULLINS Arizona State University Tempe, Ariz.

Mount Everest

Sir:

Whuptse! Muptse should be Nuptse! (See Mount Everest footnote, May 10 issue.)

MARGARET FRENO

Barberton, Ohio > Yuptse.--ED.

Educated Educators

Sir:

Hooray for your education story [May 10] on California's new teachers' credentials. And thanks for being the first national publication to give the credit to the person who deserves it: Tom Braden.

The article, however, says that California may have an initial shortage of teachers because of the stiffer requirements. Surveys show that wherever standards have been raised for teachers, the number of applicants has also risen.

RONALD MOSKOWITZ Education Editor San Francisco Examiner San Francisco

Sir:

As a teacher, I have cursed California as an educational wasteland for many years. Its certification laws, I felt, constituted one of the prime perpetuators of "educationism" in the U.S. Now I find that I must dine upon crow. I do so delightedly--with a grateful bow in the direction of Tom Braden.

LEWIS T. CETTA American High School Naples, Italy

Inspecting the Inspector

Sir:

Your book review of the autobiography of C. G. Jung [May 10] was both gratifying and repugnant to those of us who have read Jung's writings carefully and have had the pleasure of analysis by a Jungian analyst.

The article was gratifying in that it pointed up the importance of Jung's final thoughts following a career which yielded nearly 20 thick volumes of major psychoanalytical literature, but repugnant in that it portrayed Jung as a doddering mystic obsessed in his old age by his reflective speculations.

RONALD S. HURST

Denver

Sir:

I was disappointed that you neglected to work into the review the best-known pun on this father-son relationship by the greatest paronomasiac of all, James Joyce--". . . when they were yung and easily freudened" (Finnegans Wake)--who also provides a possible subtitle for the book reviewed, "Jungfraud's Messongebook."

PETER SPIELBERG New York City

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