Tactics Against Injustice

Sir: Any tactic capable of moving the Senate to activity in the area of civil rights can hardly be described as "pointless."

ARTHUR DANIELS

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: This white citizen shudders when he reads that the Denver Post thinks any group of Americans looks "silly" when demonstrating against racial inequality [April 24]. Imagine the outrage of certain Boston housewives when all that tea was dumped in the harbor! Senator Humphrey's remarks about the "inconvenience" to World's Fair visitors ring very hollow.

DAVID B. HICKS

Miles College

Birmingham

Sir: Tsk, tsk, tsk--the whites dislike traffic jams. I'll bet they'd like Harlem even less.

(MRS.) JUDITH L. GOODMAN

Los Angeles

Sir: Your article about the civil rights movement in New York only made me more infuriated than I was. As a white who believes in civil rights, I can see the Negro only hurting his chances for equality by staging these ridiculous strikes. I don't consider these fair tactics; I call them stupidity. If the Negro wants his rights, he should not deprive the white man of his.

LEONARD NOVICK

Brooklyn

Sir: The image of peaceful demonstrators facing snarling police dogs has been impressed on America's conscience. The image of Black America infected with the disease of revenge could mar America's future with a disfiguring scar.

DAVID M. HOLDT

Lakeville, Conn.

Sir: Clothed in self-righteousness, the "liberal" deplores intensified demonstrations as "civil wrongs," contending that such activity precludes the enactment of meaningful legislation. Such a patronizing posture blithely ignores the realities of the issue. The majority of such demonstrations are protests against flagrant injustice. It is inevitable that continued frustration of responsible Negro leadership can only result in less temperate demonstrations in the face of intolerable grievances.

ROBERT E. EDMANDS

Westminster, Calif.

Sir: I was deeply moved when I saw the picture of the young Rev. Mr. Klunder's mangled body lying in front of a bulldozer [April 17]. The most appalling aspect of the incident was the needlessness of it.

As a minister, I can sympathize with Rev. Klunder's desire to act effectively in behalf of a very worthy cause. We must remember, however, that even in the pursuit of Christian ideals it is possible to conduct ourselves in a most unChristlike manner.

Surely, there are better ways for a man of God to promote integration than to incite a mob to violence, or throw rocks at law officers, or lie in the way of bulldozers. I only wish that he could have added to his "fierce sense of indignation" a finer sense of spiritual direction.

JACK H. POPE

Missionary

Church of God

Rio de Janeiro

Sir: I knew Bruce Klunder. He did not act irrationally on April 7. He was a man who intelligently determined all of his convictions, and he believed in acting upon them. He did not condone violence. He would have been dismayed by the rioting that followed his death.

He did not plan to die. He realized that he would probably be arrested, and his decision to "lie-in," as such action is called, was deliberate. He had a lot of work to do at the Student Christian Union and he did not want to be arrested, but he felt that he had to demonstrate. He did and he died. He died for what he believed. How many of us would do that?

ELIZABETH ROBINSON

Cleveland

An Invitation Accepted

Sir: We did not go as "ladies bountiful" to "help the Negroes" in St. Augustine, but went after we were invited [April 10].

The St. Augustine leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. Robert Hayling, wrote to the Massachusetts unit of S.C.L.C. and asked for help. Last September Dr. Hayling was beaten by the Ku Klux Klan, his home shot into, his dog killed, and his family imperiled to the point that he had them move elsewhere. In short, the Negro population of St. Augustine was being terrorized in reprisal for any efforts to desegregate America's oldest segregated city.

Canon James Breedon, an Episcopal priest and civil rights leader here, gave a sermon about this situation, and when he asked for volunteers, I agreed to go. It was an opportunity to do something definite and to stand up for my convictions.

I would also like to "fuss" about your comment that we left St. Augustine unchanged. Surely we didn't do all we wished, nor accomplish all that needs to be done, but we may have helped a little. For example, part of St. Augustine's problem was that its extreme racism was not known to the American public. Now TIME, a good judge of news, has told the country about the tragedy of St. Augustine.

MRS. MALCOLM E. PEABODY

Cambridge, Mass.

Courageous Finch

Sir: Even if the voice of Apartheid Fighter Helen Suzman is a "finch's chirp" to a South African Nationalist [April 17], we are grateful to TIME for recording it so that she may hopefully reach the conscience of the world.

JUDITH W. SANDLER

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Sir: TIME quotes me as calling the Bantu Laws bill, which was recently passed by the South African Parliament, "slave labor." In fact, at no stage of the debate did I use this expression to describe the contents of the bill, as I do not believe that exaggeration advances the anti-apartheid cause. My description of the bill, inter alia, was that it legalized a system of "forced" labor, which, in all conscience, is bad enough.

HELEN SUZMAN,

M.P.

Cape Town, South Africa

Vladimir llyich's Heirs

Sir: I must say that your study of Communists [April 24], from absurdity-stricken Marx to pugnacious Lenin, from chameleonic Stalin to untimely Trotsky, and from Western-style Khrushchev to strutting Mao, is impressive. I trust that your article will help inform the millions of people in the free world who are not quite aware of the historical inconsistencies of Communism.

CHANG JIN PARK

Los Angeles

Sir: Thank you for your timely and well-written study of the Communist split, and most particularly for the excellent Ben Shahn sketch on the cover.

ROBERT H. HANSON

Second Lieutenant, U.S.A.

Fort Benning, Ga.

Sir: We think your readers might like to know that the sign carried by the gun-toting demonstrating Chinese reads: "Hurrah for World Peace." Complicated situation, isn't it?

JOHN SCHRECKER

MARK MANCALL

Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

Virile Mustang

Sir: Your article on the new Ford Mustang was fascinating. So impressed was I with your article [April 17] and the color photographs that I plan to purchase a Mustang for my wife.

HARRY A. MCCARTY

Big Horn, Wyo.

Sir: Black books and hidden microphones. Good grief! One thing is sure. I am not going to buy any car Mr. Iacocca had anything to do with.

JEANNETTE ANDERSON

Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir: I can almost hear the uproar as thousands of enraged sports-car owners across the nation throw their TIME Magazine to the floor in indignation! How dare you try to place the Mustang among our ranks? A "compact"--yes, "sporty"--possibly, but a "sports car"--never!

KENNETH A. BAUSER

Garden City, N.Y.

Sir: That opening paragraph under U.S. BUSINESS fooled me for a minute. I thought maybe it was a new Ian Fleming saga of James Bond's exploits: you know--craggy face, fast car, exotic smokes.

Ford's got a genuine virility symbol or two there.

B. A. CARVER

Detroit

Sir: Having met and talked with Ford's Lee Iacocca here at Ohio University, I can say that TIME did an excellent job in capturing his spirit and drive. A short talk with him reveals why, at 39, he is general manager of Ford Division. More people could profit if more had his get-up-and-go.

KATHLEEN LODWICK

Athens, Ohio

Sir: I grew up in the same neighborhood in Allentown, Pa., as Lee Iacocca, and was a close schoolgirl friend of his sister, Delma. (Lido was a slender, soft-spoken kid--several years our junior--in those days.) But I would like to say that his success couldn't happen in a nicer family.

1 feel almost as proud of Lee's success as if he were my own "kid brother."

RUTH GOTTHARDT RANSON

New York City

Sir: As an enthusiastic dabbler in photography and one who has known Ed Bailey for many years, I am gratified and pleased to see his excellent work so prominently displayed in TIME.

N. E. MCNEIL

Lansing, Mich.

Sir: Please ask Lee Iacocca why I have to wait 40 days for my new Mustang.

F. S. PINE

Maxwell, Ala.

Children in Limbo

Sir: Your comments on hell and limbo [April 17] are incredible. Are there really educated people who take hell seriously today? The idea of limbo is too ridiculous to ridicule. I have known for a long time that Christianity was in bad shape, but I keep forgetting how bad till I trip over something like this.

ARTHUR M. JACKSON

Lebanon, Ore.

Sir: Although "modern Protestant theologians generally find no basis in Scripture for an opinion" concerning the fate of unbaptized children [April 17], may I, in favor of the "optimistic salvation theories," quote John 1:9: "The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world." This means that every man in this world (even an unborn child) receives the necessary light for his final salvation and his own final and personal decision.

Bereaved parents can find real consolation as to the ultimate salvation of a lost child in Holy Scripture. The method can be safely and properly left to the Lord.

And the same would apply likewise to all who through no fault of their own die without baptism.

(THE REV.) NICHOLAS M. WILWERS

St. Vincent Pallotti Novitiate

Phelps, Wis.

Sir: Nothing quite equals the secular newsmagazine for giving a fresh perspective to things religious. Continue such exposure: the preachers may learn why multitudes of thinking people cannot stomach the churches, and the laity will surely come to demand more responsible thinking by the clergy. In our time, Christianity needs nothing so much as the courage to base its outlook squarely upon reason applied to the observable facts of human experience, rather than upon the imaginative speculation of past ages.

CLIFFORD W. P. HANSEN

Minister

Seventh Day Baptist Church

Salem, W. Va.

Sir: Christ said, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me! for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He made no mention of original sin, infant baptism, limbo, etc. Why should we?

SHERRI W. FRAZIER

Milledgeville, Ga.

Sir: If theologians would stop worrying themselves about the souls of dead babies and start worrying more about the souls of live babies, this world would be much better off.

PHILIP COMPTON

Manchester College

North Manchester, Ind.

"Oh, There Be Players That I Have Seen"

Sir: Your theater critic wrote the only review of Burton's Hamlet worth reading [April 17]. TIME displays a sensitivity in the arts heretofore manifest only in journals of more modest circulation.

STEPHEN A. LIPPARD

Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: The fine rhetoric of your charitable review of Burton's Hamlet obscures the degree to which Burton's talents have been misused and misapplied in this production. This is not an intellectual's Hamlet, but a dilettante's. It is not drama at all, but rather an elegant play-reading.

Burton's voice is fine, but his Hamlet lacks nobility. He is all surface; at best Gielgud's puppet. When he soliloquizes, he is not a distressed man deliberating a painful dilemma, but an actor delivering, with some embarrassment, a difficult soliloquy. He acts the part well, but he never becomes the man.

STEWART A. BAKER

New Haven, Conn.

Sir: Thanks for the skill with which you reviewed Hamlet. The review itself was a refreshing repast to be savored as surely as Burton's Burgundy.

One indeed takes pleasure in vicariously viewing the inhabitants of the Elsinore Hilton, some possible shortcomings in cast and costume notwithstanding.

MRS. ALLEN H. SMITH

Jacksonville

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