On the Scales of Justice

Sir: Re your cover story on law and order [Oct. 4]. As a member of the "young radical" element in our nation, I feel greatly encouraged when a publication as influential as TIME speaks so clearly and honestly on an issue. Although I shall continue to voice my dissatisfaction with our present society, 1 now have renewed hope for the future of America.

JOHN R. MOLITOR

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, Ind.

Sir: A person cannot have a genuine respect for laws unless he respects the law and himself. Changing the laws will not help. Our attitudes need to be changed. I will not argue whether or not income tax evasion is comparable to violent crime. But the attitude that a little transgression is all right definitely is not healthy and clearly points to this nation's need for moral leadership.

CAROLYN AMBROSE

Westbury, N.Y.

Sir: The first step in grasping the reaction of the majority of Americans to lawlessness is to understand that the only thing that makes our Government work is the recognition by the individual of the obligation to accept the majority opinion once lawfully stated, no matter which side he may have taken in' the debating stage. In equating our colony's revolt against King George with the current radicals' attacks on our established democratic forms, you seem to understand this as poorly as the rioters.

WALLACE HOOPER

Westfield, N.J.

Sir: Mayor Lindsay in his attack on the campaign issue of law and order speaks of liberty. I find myself wondering if the liberty that he speaks of is the liberty to be afraid to walk the streets of a once-great city after dark, or the liberty to refrain from using its parks or the liberty of the people of that city to bolt and rebolt their doors and windows so that they may sleep free from the fear of being murdered in their beds. If this be liberty, then give me death.

RAYMOND J. HERBIG

Meriden, Conn.

Sir: Your advocacy of "police calm" in the face of "verbal provocation," "filthy abuse," and "language, however violent" is irresponsible and ridiculous. To justify such acts in the name of the First Amendment is just absurd. Surely you must know that the law prohibits the use of obscene language in public places, disorderly conduct, violent language, and interfering with a police officer in the exercise of his duty. You might as well defend the shouting of "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

LEWIS KAPNER

Judge

Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court

West Palm Beach, Fla.

Sir: One sentence startled me: "Certainly, police should not be responsible for carting drunks to jail--one-third of all arrests." I am wondering what you propose to do with the drunks? Leave them lie to be rolled by other nighttime characters? Leave them lie to become sick? Leave them lie as an unsightly and disgusting sight for sober citizens? I realize that my thinking (based on over twenty years as a Village Justice) is not on all fours with the current thinking on how to cure alcoholism. Perhaps it is a disease but I have "dried out" many an alcoholic with a jail sentence (where alcoholic beverages were denied them) and have been thanked after their release.

G. C. BRADSTREET JR.

Village Justice

Bath, N.Y.

Sir: The only thing tougher than being a policeman in a free society is maintaining a free society in the midst of a strong police force.

REBECCA M PETERSON

Middleburgh, N.Y.

Sir: No demonstrator, rioter or looter should be denied the right to the rich learning experience that can come from a nightstick or knuckles each time he violates another's personal or property rights.

WILLIAM DE Vos

Littleton, Colo.

Sir: TIME'S admirable plea: "Support your local police" requires concrete implementation. The most urgent need is: A "citizens corps" of mature, responsible and specially trained young men and women--recruited from Junior Chambers of Commerce, service clubs, Y.M. and Y.W. associations, churches and other groups committed to civic service, selected by a panel of leading and respected community leaders, screened by law enforcement officers to insure their confidence, thoroughly trained for the specific responsibilities of civilian aids, somewhat like a volunteer fire company, both more wide-ranging and more inclusive than the "urban coalitions," operating not only in urban ghettos but in towns and villages where spreading disorder and lawlessness are dissolving the most elemental securities. The problem is not merely an urban problem, and it is not a Negro problem. Each citizens corpsman would be committed, in collaboration with civic authorities, to prevent and control disorder and conflict, violence and crime. Such disciplined vigilance might halt the mounting menace of self-appointed "vigilantes."

This nation does not lack the human resources to master the most threatening civic ills. Those resources lie in millions of concerned citizens and in groups of varied kinds and sizes already "in being." What is lacking is the effective enlistment and deployment of responsible citizenry, a coalescence of existing but presently uncoordinated and ineffective corporate strength. This, a "citizens corps" or "citizens coalition" could supply.

HENRY P. VAN DUSEN

Sorrento, Me.

Sir: In the book Domestic Manners of the Americans, first printed in 1832, the observation of the English author, Frances M. Trollope, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1820s, would indicate that the Americans have not changed much. She said: "The well-disposed, those whose own feeling of justice would prevent their annoying others, will never complain of the restraints of the law. All the freedom enjoyed in America, beyond what is enjoyed in England, is enjoyed solely by the disorderly at the expense of the orderly; and were I a stout knight, either of the sword or of the pen, I would fearlessly throw down my gauntlet, and challenge the whole Republic to prove the contrary; as I am a feeble looker-on, with a needle for my spear and 'I talk' for my device, I must be contented with the power of stating the fact, perfectly certain that I shall be contradicted by one loud shout from Maine to Georgia."

JOHN J. STREAM Loveland, Colo.

The Men & the Man

Sir: It is a constant source of amazement to me to read about the antiwar demonstrators heckling Hubert Humphrey at every turn. Of the three candidates, Humphrey has done more (through fostering legislation), to humanize the lives of the American people.

Can these agitators be Nixon and Wallace supporters in disguise?

(MRS.) EVELYN ODIN

Stratford, Conn.

Sir: By drawing enough blood with his verbal spears at Candidate Humphrey and the Democratic Administration, Richard Nixon hopes they will become as weak as his campaign promises. Dick is "trickier" than ever. If he can convince a nation of voters we were wrong in 1960 and 1964, he'll sell us that "used car" yet!

CHRISTINA J. FORTIER

Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir: I feel that you have given Nixon a very well-deserved boost up the ladder to become the next and possibly the best informed President of the U.S.

FRANCIS J. KOWACK JR.

Oceanside, N.Y.

Sir: There is one mistake that Nixon made in his 1960 campaign that he didn't repeat this year: he did not choose a Vice President who is more intelligent and honorable than he! One heartbeat away--one little heartbeat!

(MRS.) MARY Lou LASSEN

Arlington, Texas

Sir: The vicious attack upon Richard Nixon by George Ball is proof positive that Mr. Ball is determined to sow his own seeds now for the presidential race of 1972. This crass, opportunistic pretty-boy has only contempt for the low-brow Johnsons and Humphreys.

He says Nixon "lamentably lacks" the qualities to be President. That term trips up this Machiavellian prima donna. He knows that Humphrey cannot win; and by inadvertently using such a phrase he demonstrates a contemptible scheme. He should be unmasked as the four-flusher he really is.

DANTE J. MERCURIC

Bloomfield, N.J.

Sir: Ambassador Ball's experience in the U.N. makes him a natural for the H H,H. campaign team. After all, both organizations squabble in the huddle, fumble American taxpayers money, and let the toughies write the rules. The Republicans should be overjoyed that Hubert has the Ball.

HOWARD M. CASSELMAN

Bartlesville, Okla,

Sir: What almost every reporter and self-styled political expert in the country has overlooked regarding the campaign of George Wallace and his apparently successful showing is that he, alone among the candidates, has stated unequivocally just what he stands for, or, if you'd rather, what he doesn't stand for. Hubert Humphrey, in the true Democratic tradition, refuses to alienate anyone by taking a concrete position on anything, preferring to lasso the masses of strange bedfellows which have always been the key to Democratic successes. Likewise, Richard Nixon, in a desperate attempt to present the Republicans as the new party of everybody and his fifth cousin, is avoiding any statement or action which might possibly inform the voting public as to his exact position.

Perhaps they do have firm beliefs, but they're not about to express any, other than support of Motherhood, the Monroe Doctrine, and extension of the Erie Canal. Whether you agree with Wallace or not, you know just where he stands, that Alabamian.

ROY TREADWAY

Baylor University

Waco, Texas

Sir: May I already nominate the American voter as TIME's "Man of the Year" for having to put up with so much, for so long, for so little,

LAWRIE FRANCIS

Melbourne, Australia

Invitation to Rejoin

Sir: Hooray for Colorado and Warden Patterson [Oct. 4]! I hope their prisoner self-help rehabilitation program is the howling success it deserves to be. I also hope the thinking behind it spreads to all other penal institutions throughout the country.

Prisoners can, if given the opportunity, still become productive members of society. When we learn to stop isolating them from the society that they are someday expected to rejoin, then we can hope to see an end to the reports of outrages committed against human beings in prisons such as Philadelphia, Chicago and Arkansas. These reports have come too frequently to put off any longer much-needed reforms in our penal thinking.

ROBERT J. BOILEAU

Long Beach, Calif.

Magic Circle

SirI have just read your Essay on "That New Black Magic" [Sept. 27]. I fully agree with the statement: "Much of this concern for the arcane is a genuine attempt to find enrichment for arid lives,"

Yet is this search down barren paths a result, as some say, of failure on the part of organized churches to make Christianity relevant to the present? Or is another factor at work here?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of those who seek "cheap grace," who look for enrichment of life while turning away from commitment. In attempting to find through magic what authentic Christianity has always promised the believer, is the devotee trying to gain guidance while giving nothing of himself? To find mystical manifestation while making no inner moral change?

(MRS ) RUTH HELDERMAN

Wheatland, Ind.

Sir: Me superstitious? Of course not! I know nothing will happen to me as long as I keep my fingers crossed.

ROZE V. CHASEMAN

Miami Beach, Fla.

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