After the Big Bash Is Over

To the Editors:

That "Birthday Issue" [July 5] was a real bracer. Thanks! I needed that. Uncle Sam is durable. Growing pains? Yes. Mistakes? Perhaps. But no other nation on the face of the earth has offered so much to so many who had so little.

Albert Forslev Mount Prospect, Ill.

And after the big bash is over, what happens next? 1977 looks to be filled with red, white and blue garage sales.

Mark W. Schwartz White Bear Lake, Minn.

Congratulations to big beautiful America on your birthday. May you continue to prosper and lead the world for the next 200 years!

J. Frank McCaffrey Strathfield, Australia

This Bicentennial "thing" is ridiculous, and I was thoroughly disappointed by your apparent approval of it. What this country needs is a new revolution that would bring us better laws, more justice and internal peace.

Robin Buchalski Kenmore, N. Y.

Happy birthday! From a Canadian who is immeasurably pro-American.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were (and are) the culmination of an ideological dream and the expression of a people hungry for freedom.

America 1976 is the product of that ideological reality.

Rick Assels St. Catharines, Ont.

Happy birthday, America! A great country with huge people built around tiny minds. What a happier birthday it would be without segregation, discrimination and with America minding her own business.

Faloye Patrick Kaiserslautern, West Germany

"I Could Have Kissed Him"

"The New Immigrants: Still the Promised Land" [July 5] fired me up as nothing else I've read in a long time. We can learn something wonderful from these people. When Julius Koco related his escape from Czechoslovakia to Austria and said, "I could have kissed the stones there," I could have kissed him!

Sibbie O'Sullivan Wheat on, Md.

Bravo, excellent, inspiring!

Being a Middle American from Oklahoma, I never fully appreciated the importance of our immigrants until I married an Italian whose grandparents had migrated to America. Not every person can experience this, and many look down on our non-native Americans; but let them remember, their ancestors were immigrants also.

Ada Jo Russo Lawton, Okla.

Let us not fail to remember, as you apparently have, the American Indians, from whom we have leeched land and blood. They know and value America more than we immigrants ever can.

Michael Hugo Easton, Kans.

It is the epitome of hypocrisy that America can still boast of itself as a "Promised Land" for foreigners when, after 200 years, it has failed to grant full equality to its black citizens.

Anita King New York City

As Chinese, Koreans, Indians and, of course, Mexicans victimize this republic yearly by their arrival, TIME blithely suggests that these people are valued additions to our gene pool. This is an infamy.

This nation was established in 1776 as a white republic. You and your irresponsible cohorts want to bastardize it into a miscegenationist grayness that will lead it to an inescapable decline.

Ida Mae Rowland Philadelphia

Wake up. It isn't 1850 any more.

There is no longer a need for Chinese and Irish peasants to build the railroads, or Polish and Lithuanian serfs to feed the fiery machines of our industrial revolution. There are no more small parcels of land thirsting for the magic touch of Swedish and Russian farm hands.

What makes us think that we can continue to sacrifice our limited space and resources to the relentless population pressures of the world? Must we continue to serve as the escape for every medieval country until we become just as choked by corruption, caste and privilege as they are?

S. Hubbell Moore Sausalito, Calif.

True Bicentennial Spirit

Henry Grunwald's Essay on "Loving America" [July 5] is one of the clearest, most intelligent, perceptive statements about this nation that I have ever read. You have captured the true Bicentennial spirit.

Lawrence J. Kessenich Milwaukee

At the risk of sounding like an aging flower child come down with a terminal case of the jeremiads, I wish to remind TIME that the very power of the American promise, of the dream, makes all the more unbearable the malevolent legacy from our first two centuries.

Greg Brecht Green Bay, Wis.

No Freak

Your article "Mars: The Search Begins" [July 5] was interesting, but I object to being called a "cosmic freak."

There are still many who believe man was placed on earth in an orderly manner and with a definite purpose.

Richard K. Walters Philadelphia

Connors, Booby Prize

According to your cliche writing in the People section [July 5], Marjorie Wallace has won the most recent match v. Chris Evert for Jimmy Connors.

The reality is: Chris Evert is the winner, if a winner has to be proclaimed. Jimmy Connors is the booby prize, and Marjorie Wallace the loser.

Elizabeth Kurnetz Southfield, Mich.

A Bit Much, TIME

TIME brings changes, but to change the site of the Battle of Hastings to Flodden Field [July 5] is a bit too much.

Not only is the distance from Hastings to Flodden Field approximately 340 air miles, but Hastings was fought and won by the invading Normans in 1066, while Flodden Field was won by the English against the Scots in 1513.

Agnes A. Jordan Buffalo

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