Farm Policy

Sir: I enjoyed your cover story on the Farm Bureau's Charles Shuman [Sept. 3]. Shuman's farm philosophy is sound. His economics make sense for all of us, whether taxpayer, consumer or producer. TIME'S piece should help speed up a long overdue overhauling of Government farm policy. JOHN E. FOGARTY

Member of Congress from Rhode Island Washington, D.C.

Watts Still Burns

Sir: Your cover story on the riots [Aug. 20] is a generally fair recital of Los Angeles' problems. But it is unfortunate that you did not go further into the subject of police brutality. The problem is more subtle than you indicate. The Negro's complaint is, in most cases, not one of physical brutality but of arrogance, of a lack of human decency and respect. Often, the attitude betrays the conviction that all Negroes are lawbreakers.

RUTH GREENSPAN Los Angeles

Sir: Police brutality is not a reason; it is an excuse for weak-minded lawbreakers. JOHN DANIEL WHITE Mount Edgecumbe, Alaska

Sir: Deliver us from white tolerance and understanding. Judging by TIME letters [Aug. 27], white people missed the point of the riots, which guarantees that they will happen again. For the first time, we have directed our hatred not at ourselves, but at the rightful objective, those who oppress us. For the first time, we have asserted our dignity, the dignity of rejecting what rejects us. If you still do not understand what the riots said, I will tell you. They said, "No, we do not love you"; they said, "Go to hell and take your slums with you." Is it possible that you still don't dig? ALMENA LOMAX Editor-Publisher Tribune Los Angeles

Sir: My husband is Polish. When his family first came to this country, they were despised and discriminated against, as were thousands of Irish, Orientals, Jews and Italians. These people did not use discrimination as an excuse to burn, rape and pillage. With determination and work, they earned acceptance and made better lives for themselves and their children.

(MRS.) PEG DRABKOWSKI Burdett, N.Y.

Sir: Will the Negro ever get equal as long as he keeps trying to get even?

BOB WIGGINS Joseph, Ore.

Sir: Why should federal aid [Aug. 27] be rendered to an area that was instrumental in its own destruction? Why should crime pay?

ROZELLE W. COLEMAN

Denville, N.J.

Sir: You reported [Aug. 27] that "police in Mississippi's Amite County pointedly photographed Negroes waiting to register, menacingly asked them who their nearest white neighbors were." Then you began your Essay with the asinine statement: "Any Negro--literate or illiterate--who fails to vote in future elections will only have his own ignorance or indifference to blame." Need I say more?

DAVID LLORENS Assistant Editor Negro Digest Chicago

> No, since both statements are true.

Sir: Registration is not voting. What guarantees are there that the Negro in the South will be allowed to cast his ballot when election time comes? What is to prevent some of the self-styled "law-enforcement" officers from barring the way either physically or on trumped-up excuses?

RENATE HAYUM Newark

Tribute to Jonathan Daniels

Sir: Thank you for your fine article on Jonathan Daniels [Aug. 27], a schoolmate and personal friend. As you recorded, Jon participated in the Selma-Montgomery march and returned to the seminary, but, contrary to your report, only long enough to petition the faculty for permission to return to Selma to live among my people. He and Judith Upham (E.T.S. '67) went back to Selma, studied by correspondence, and returned to Cambridge only at the end of the spring semester to write their exams.

CLARENCE BUTLER Class of '67

The Episcopal Theological School Cambridge, Mass.

Gemini's Kraft

Sir: You have done an amazing job in "Space" [Aug. 27], producing a scientifically accurate and dramatically absorbing story of the accomplishments of Flight Director Chris Kraft and his staff. One aspect of this project likely to be overlooked by many readers, often too prone to belittle Government employees, is the heartening devotion of NASA personnel to the achievement of sustaining human life in space.

PAUL A. MCCARTHY Redwood City, Calif.

Truth or Confidences?

Sir: The vitriolic responses to Arthur Schlesinger's unquestionably accurate comments on Dean Rusk [Aug. 27] demonstrate a disturbing fact of American political reality: the tendency to suppress rather than disseminate truth. If Kennedy seriously considered dropping Rusk, the American public is entitled to know it. WILLIAM SAWREBYE New York City

Sir: Thank you for exposing the so-called friends of and authorities on the late President Kennedy. It takes a pretty low form of human being to betray the confidences of a dead man.

EDITH MCMANMON Lowell, Mass.

Sir: Author Schlesinger's answer to criticism ought to be expanded to read: "I do not comment on impetuous reaction; I am too busy writing it."

DONALD W. RIEGLE JR. Cambridge, Mass.

Fantasy Answer

Sir: The fantasy you reported of starving Haitian peasant mothers offering to sell their babies for 40-c- [Aug. 27] could be answered by the 600 U.S. church emissaries of various faiths who are in Haiti trying to help our underprivileged. GERARD DE CATALOGNE Director General

Office National de la Propagande Republique d'Haiti Miami Beach, Fla.

Sir: Having recently visited Haiti on a Baptist youth mission tour, I can testify to the deplorable conditions you describe. The poverty, ignorance and terror under which the Haitian people live are unbelievable. With no American aid and no Peace Corps workers, the only relief comes from church organizations and missionaries. If something else is not done soon, the Black Republic will erupt with repercussions that will match and exceed those of its Dominican neighbor.

JOHN W. FISHER Lansdale, Pa.

The Hillhouse Mystery

Sir: Your article on Hillhouse High School [Aug. 27] is puzzling. As one who has read transcripts from Hillhouse for 19 years and watched Hillhouse graduates live up to expectations, I find it difficult to believe the charges made against the principal. Colleges don't judge students solely on senior-year interim marks. If there were serious altering of marks at any large high school, the fraternity of admission officers, a gossipy group, would know about it; so would all the students and teachers in the high school. There is still a lot of mystery in this case.

EUGENE S. WILSON Dean of Admission Amherst College Amherst, Mass.

Pilots' President Sayen

Sir: Your obituary on Clarence N. Sayen, former president of the Air Line Pilots Association [Aug. 27], properly recognizes his many contributions to air safety. But you say that he "called senseless strikes against the airlines in a bitter struggle for control of the smaller Flight Engineers Union." A review of the record will show that while the Air Line Pilots Association advocated that all aircraft flight-deck crew members be pilot-qualified, Mr. Sayen called no strikes to enforce this view. However, the Flight Engineers Union called several and was responsible for the resulting air-transportation shutdowns.

CHARLES H. RUBY President

Air Line Pilots Association Chicago

Edie & Andy Revisited

Sir: Down through history, the upper class has been entertained [Aug. 27] by clowns, buffoons and sideshows, so nothing has really changed.

CHARLES J. HUDGINS Minneapolis

Sir: Your story serves as a reminder to us plain folk of the Midwest plains that not all corn is on stalks.

STAN GATES Bloomington, Ill.

Sir: The story of Warhol, Sedgwick et al., ad nauseam, was an indigestible item in and of itself. However, the additional misfortune of printing it along with the agonizing Los Angeles riot story lent a nightmarish, Kafkaesque irony to both pieces. One wonders just which group is the more adolescent, futile and self-destructive. At least the Watts rioters had damn strong and pretty valid motivation for their temporary loss of reason.

BRIAN DENNEHY Manorhaven, N.Y.

Sporting Life

Sir: Thank you for your fine article on the A.A.U. swimming nationals [Aug. 27]. But you forgot to mention the world record set by Kendis Moore of Phoenix in the 200-meter butterfly. This was the second world record by Miss Moore in the past month; the first was set in the 220-yd. individual medley. In addition, Bernie Wrightson of Phoenix swept all three diving crowns. This was the first time in the history of the meet that this had been accomplished.

BILL HUCK Phoenix, Ariz.

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