Nixon's New Economics (Contd.)

Sir: The President's lack of courage and insight throughout the last year and a half has forced him to take drastic action in the area of wages and prices. His complete wage-price freeze erases all equity. It rewards those unions and businesses that have demanded and received exorbitant increases in 1971, while penalizing those that have exercised restraint and haven't received increases this year.

While asking that we bite the bullet, the President has lost sight of the fact that many now have weakened gums, and that some no longer have any teeth.

SAMUEL S. ROSEMAN Stanhope, N.J.

Sir: Thank God! Nixon is the one man who had the guts to do what should have been done ten years ago. I'm sorry I didn't vote for Nixon in '68, but rest assured I shall in '72.

KENT LAWRENCE Nashville, Kans.

Sir: In an age when the average homeowner can't afford the price of bread in the markets, King Richard responds with his anti-inflationary proposal, which says in effect: "Let them eat cars!" The only way a homeowner can now get any money back is not through lowered prices or raised salaries but by a refund for every new car he buys.

MARTI KAPLAN Long Beach, Calif.

Sir: George Meany's intemperate blast at the President's wage and price freeze, a policy that seems remarkably fair and free of favoritism, sounds for all the world like a spoiled brat's demand for instant wish gratification. He obviously means to have his own way, even if it's at everyone else's and the country's expense, and regardless of how any of us may feel about it. If his demands are not met will he throw a tantrum or hold his breath till his face turns blue?

KENNETH T. ROBINSON Lewiston, N.Y.

Sir: I am so dismayed by the reaction of the large unions and other groups that are fighting President Nixon's wage and price freeze. I must admit to not being a Nixon admirer, but he has finally done something that makes sense. What's wrong with Americans that they can't make a sacrifice for their country? And it is their country, not just President Nixon's.

KATHRYN I. KELLEY Boston

Sir: It is quite obvious that the culprit responsible for America's international monetary problems is Japan. The U.S. is therefore being grossly unfair in penalizing Canada, whose currency has been floating for some time now.

The U.S. is acting like the schoolteacher who makes the whole class stay after school because of the misbehavior of one student.

JOSEPH A. TORBAY Callander, Ont.

That Gentle Land

Sir: As a student of both Irish and British history, I found it incredible that you describe Great Britain as "that most gentie and civilized of lands" [Aug. 23]. Surely you speak in jest. No other country could compete with the imperialistic, bloody past of England. In her notorious history, that "gentle land" has been involved in war with almost every nation on earth. Such an unadmirable trait seems to stem mainly from misguided English efforts to civilize the rest of the barbaric world. I remember that Americans' forebears threw the English out of America in 1776. The Nationalists in Derry are merely following in that tradition.

BARBARA A. BRADY Potomac, Md.

Sir: Your fine article on the trouble in Northern Ireland seems to miss the main point, for it is only incidental that the struggle is between Protestants and Catholics. It is really between English and Irish and always has been.

To show how very true that is, in the infamous Plantation of Ulster the settlers were both English and Scottish, and almost immediately the Scots began to receive the same brutal mistreatment at the hands of the dominant English that the Irish were receiving. All the Scotch-Irish who could left Ireland. Mainly they came to the American colonies, and they brought with them an abiding hatred of England. That hatred proved useful to the Americans during the Revolution.

GALE HUNTINGTON Vineyard Haven, Mass.

Sir: Your otherwise excellent piece on the situation in Northern Ireland had an irritating bit of malarkey about the 12th century Pope who first "gave" Ireland to the English. You forgot to tell your readers that the Pope in question [Adrian IV] was English!

H. DESMOND BYRNE Pinole, Calif.

Sir: I would like to applaud my fellow countrymen, the British soldiers. What other country can boast of such disciplined men, keeping their tempers and feelings under strict control in a situation that daily causes them to be jeered at, insulted, stoned, wounded and even murdered? I am reminded sadly of the panic and disorder that was Kent State, when all the troopers faced that black day were students.

(MRS.) EMILY JANE FOLLIS San Jose, Calif.

Supreme Mistake

Sir: Father James Schall epitomizes the insensitivity, the blindness and the outright stupidity that have characterized the attitude of mankind in his relationship to the rest of this planet [Aug. 23]. Few creatures with an intellect above that of a canary would doubt the primacy of man.

Where ecologists and like-minded people differ from Father Schall is in the extent of man's dominion-his rights and privileges against those of all other living things. To believe that he could reverse or remedy the situation by intellect or will so long as his number continues to increase without bound is easily the supreme mistake of all time.

HOWARD A. GARCIA Boulder, Colo.

Sir: Hope and blind faith are fine-up to a point. But I also believe that God gave us intelligence, and that it is sinful not to use it. I say it is the ecologists who are using their intelligence and who really have the interests of man as well as those of nature at heart.

(MRS.) JOSEPHINE T. KAESTNER Baltimore

Sir: All of us, feathered, furred, naked, scaled or multilegged, make it together or not at all.

ALEA H. PETERS Lakewood, Colo.

Sir: Cheers to Father Schall for his sobering views on the subtle heresy of ecological zealots who place nature above man. There is a terrible insanity afoot when we display more outrage over oil-soaked ducks than over human fetuses that are disposed of because there is no room.

JERRY KLEIN Peoria, III.

Honest Anger

Sir: In your Essay "Look Back on Anger" [Aug. 16] you have taken a quotation from my book The Intimate Enemy out of context, thereby creating the misleading impression that we naively assume that anger cannot be faked or used in destructive-manipulative ways. I did write as you quote: "Anger cannot be dishonest," but added at length the conditions of authentic intimacy under which this statement is hopefully true.

GEORGE R. BACH, Ph.D.

Institute of Group Psychotherapy

Beverly Hills, Calif.

White Tests?

Sir: I have but these few words to say about the article "Is Equality Bad for You?" [Aug. 23]. It is nothing but white racist trash. Allow any white child to take an IQ test as biased in favor of the black culture as the present tests are oriented to the white culture, and you know who is going to come out on the low side. It does not take a brilliant person to realize that if you have been exposed to the material on the test, it is not too difficult to pass.

DAVID A. LEFURGEY Hays, Kans.

Sir: I would just like to know what gives Harvard Professor of Psychology Herrnstein the idea that the nation has a high-IQ ruling class.

ELAINE MERCER East Randolph, N.Y.

The Lindsay Candidacy

Sir: Your story on John Lindsay [Aug. 23] filled me with dismay. But let us screw up our courage and admit it: it could happen. This beautiful but dumb, confused, double-dealing, disingenuous, opportunistic, party-swapping non-mayor could make it to the White House. And how, after four feckless, extravagant, regressive years would he defend his record as President? He would surely aver that "the United States of America is probably ungovernable."

DOUGLAS MARTIN Glen Rock, N.J.

Sir: John V. Lindsay is the most attractive candidate to emerge from a field of dull, colorless men. I'm tired of political parties picking the most loyal party regular to run for office instead of the man who can win. Rather than cries of opportunism, why not unite behind the only man who can realistically beat Nixon?

(MRS.) BARBARA WINSTANLEY Concord, Mass.

Principle Argument

Sir: As one of the 56 "old grad" judges of the University of Detroit law school [Aug. 23], I heartily endorse the students who are altruistic, innovative and active in court.

If only the great jurisprudential theorists at the prestigious law schools would follow the lead of the "streetcar law factory" activists, perhaps all our courts would finally be forced to take time for argument over a principle and thus administer justice, which, incidentally, is the reason for their existence.

GREGORY T. ARSULOWICZ

Municipal Court Judge

Walker, Mich.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.