Cost of Poverty

Sir: The President, his "poverty czar" [March 20] and their henchmen are preparing to take another giant step in the plan to make the American citizen subservient to a regime. The "war on poverty" is obviously a vote-influencing scheme, another duplication of effort, another billion dollars for scattershot, another bureau to enlarge the federal payroll, another gimmick by a glib and slick-tongued politician. The chief cause of poverty is inflation, and after nearly three decades of "spending to create prosperity," inflationary policies are still predominant.

NORMAN H. HAKE Hoyleton, Ill.

Sir: It is a pity that so many Congressmen equate President Johnson's poverty bill with creeping socialism, or even Communism. Actually, the passage of the bill and the program's success would accentuate the superiority of the capitalist system. The program would not only raise the impoverished to a subsistence level, but would prepare those with greater ambition and ability for advancement in the area of their training.

(MRS.) ELLEN Ross Forest Hills, N.Y.

Sir: In all of the recent talk about eliminating poverty from the face of the land, little or nothing has been said in the context of overpopulation in the nation's urban slums. Poverty will never be vanquished from the latter, with their phenomenal birth rates and resultant overcrowding and poor education, without an attack on this problem. While the root of poverty, overpopulation, grows deeper, our Government merely cuts the grass--here, in the fight on poverty, and abroad, in the foreign aid program.

GREG WRIGHT Van Nuys, Calif.

His Bob

Sir: Robert S. McNamara for Vice President [March 27]? Indeed, he is my choice. His abilities, background and education make him outstanding among men. This country needs him in this hour.

ROBERT KUNG Tyler, Texas

The Rights Riots

Sir: On reading of such demonstrations as the recent one at Jacksonville [April 3] that are being waged basically on behalf of the dignity of all men, regardless of color, one can only wonder what true dignity the American Negro will have left if and when the whole mess is ever ended. No matter how strong one's democratic convictions might be, the actions of many demonstrators can only inspire visions of unruly schoolchildren.

As a high school student with a natural concern for the future of the American people, I can only hope that some means may be found to show the Negro how much damage is being done to his cause by impetuous, dangerous and, certainly, undignified demonstrators.

CECELIA LITTLEPAGE Pacific Palisades, Calif.

The Negro in History

Sir: You add new stature to your magazine in fostering the understanding between the races in your article "Desegregated History" [March 27]. It has long been my contention that if white America knew more about the Negro in American history, as distinguished from the history of the Negro in America, and thereby learned of the Negro's remarkable contributions to American freedom and progress, the American conscience would be stirred by this moral imperative. Indeed, if at this significant moment such incontrovertible historical facts of the Negro's place in American history reached the ears of the recalcitrants in Congress during the civil rights debate, this might well tip the scales for the votes needed to pass this long-overdue legislation.

RAYMOND PACE ALEXANDER Judge

Court of Common Pleas No. 4 Philadelphia

Sir: I and other Negroes have always resented the studiousness with which bloody slave rebellions and other facts about us have been deleted from American history books. Ignorance of such facts has enabled too many white Americans to insult us by assuming that we are such a stupid people that we were content with our lot until other white men with hammers and sickles on their armbands "stirred us up." The white man must disabuse himself of this notion if he is to have any grasp of present-day realities. By providing Americans with necessary information that has been kept secret from them for too long a time, you serve this country well.

ELLEN HOLLY Richmond Hill, N.Y.

Sir: The Civil War was half over before any Negro regiments were raised, so the total number killed or mortally wounded among the Negro troops does not seem to be as great as it would ordinarily have been. The total killed or mortally wounded in the colored troops was 143 officers and 2,751 men. The discrepancy between the 38,000 mortalities you give and the actual number can probably be explained through the high rate of death due to sickness and disease. The great killers were malaria, diarrhea-dysentery, typhoid and upper respiratory diseases.

JIM BALLANCE San Francisco

Cheers for Cheever

Sir: Cheers for Cheever [March 27]! I'm on the way to the library to get to know him better. Your excerpts from his writing show me a rare bird--a modern moralist. I'll know more several Cheever books from now.

(MRS.) MARY R. MILLER Altoona, Pa.

Sir: Mr. Cheever of Wapshot is the type of review one reads twice.

FATHER Gus GORDON

Milwaukee

Sir: John Cheever's natural, provincial piety is the most satisfying vision in American fiction today.

(Pvx.) RONALD M. HOLDEN Fort Ord, Calif.

Hartford's Art

Sir: Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art [March 27] as a protest against abstract art is most welcome and encouraging. It is to be hoped that it heralds a renaissance of what Mr. Hartford calls beauty, truth, goodness, and strength --characteristics so sorely needed in much of what is termed art today. Architect Edward Stone has given us a beautiful interpretation of Mr. Hartford's ideals.

LINDSEY BLAYNEY Marine-On-St. Croix, Minn.

Sir: Despite your none too enthusiastic coverage of the museum's opening, the message of the Gallery of Modern Art will be enthusiastically received by those who still believe that art is the craft of the artist and the appreciation of art is the privilege of just pla.n people.

ANDREW A. BRADICK Huntington, N.Y.

Sir: I suggest that above the red pile carpets on the solid bronze doors there should be: Gallery of Nostalgic Art.

HILDEGARDE HEIDT

Los Angeles

Metal Mind

Sir: It is a mistake in an article on electronics [March 27] to refer to an electronic device as being mechanical. Much worse is your calling a computer a brain. A brain has approximately 10 billion neurons, logic and memory units, and possesses the capabilities of instinct, intuition and imagination. A computer can have the equivalent of about 100,000 neurons and is a complex tool to magnify man's intellect. It is very important that the public understand what computers are and what they are not because of the increasing impact of computers on our society. DONN B. PARKER

Association for Computing Machinery San Francisco

Safe Savings

Sir: The article in the March 27 issue of TIME does a great injustice to the thousands of fine and responsible savings and loan associations. It pyramids the small number of problems that have occurred in three states into a criticism of the business throughout the country.

Every business has misfits, and ours is no exception. Certainly, responsible persons in our business support the efforts of federal and state authorities to eliminate these persons from savings and loan ranks.

NORMAN STRUNK U.S. Savings and Loan League Chicago

Medals for Ministers

Sir: You stated that the Rev. Joseph Timothy O'Callahan [March 27] won the only Congressional Medal of Honor ever awarded to a chaplain. There has been at least one other--Chaplain John M. Whitehead of the 15th Indiana Infantry. The deed judged significant enough to merit the award occurred at the Civil War battle of Stone's River (near Murfreesboro, Tenn.) on Dec. 31, 1862. The medal was issued on April 4, 1898.

HOMER PITTARD Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Two other chaplains also received the Medal of Honor during the Civil War--they were Francis B. Hall of the 16th New York Infantry for action at the Battle of Salem Heights, Va., May 3, 1863, and Milton L. Haney for action in Atlanta in July 1864. During the Civil War, the Medal of Honor was the only decoration given for bravery. Some 1,577 medals were given to Civil War fighters, while only 429 were awarded during World War II.--ED.

More Time

Sir: I enjoyed your short article on college basketball [March 27]; however, one point was overlooked. Under the 1963-64 rules, the clock was stopped on all violations and heretofore such was not the case. This, in effect, lengthened the playing time at least another three minutes, and this accounts for the scoring records. They cannot be attributed entirely to better players and better coaching.

MILT PAPKE Fairfax, Va.

Toucfie

Sir: Fencing [April 3] is not only an athletic feat; it is an art, a skill, a fierce and fast-precision thing with judgments and reactions timed to the quarter-inch.

But I do thank you for mentioning fencing at all. It is far from a sissy sport, no matter how it may look in pictures. I could still take a football player for an hour's workout, and he wouldn't be able to walk stairs comfortably the next day. BURKE BOYCE

U.S. Olympic Fencing Team, 1924 Vails Gate, N.Y.

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