America Aglow

To the Editors:

I am elated. Your "America's Upbeat Mood" [NATION, Sept. 24] article captures the essence of the prevailing U.S. spirit. How refreshing to read that we are celebrating our nation and that displaying affection for our country is in vogue. This radiating sentiment invigorates and livens our communities. It rejuvenates our purpose as a nation.

Michael Todd Miller Nashville

What is wrong with patriotism? Probably nothing, unless it is a guise for mass escapism. Given the spiraling deficit, the nuclear arms buildup, the decline of the middle class, I think the current "glow" will be short-lived. Sooner or later we are going to have to face reality.

Clark D. Mueller Florence, Ala.

The current upbeat and patriotic mood of the nation is in large measure attributable to President Reagan. He has told us what is right about us and about the country. It stands to reason that, after being constantly told what is wrong for the past ten years, Americans would think kindly of a man who could tell them what is right about themselves.

Robert C. McClure Lake Jackson, Texas

The joy of freedom is what makes me love the U.S.

Eric Troxell Ashville, Pa.

I feel quite loyal to America, but I am still waiting to be proud of it.

Sharla Vohs Oakland, Calif.

As a Canadian, I believe that my fellow citizens enjoy as much personal freedom and almost as much prosperity as Americans. Thus I regard the present surge of patriotism in the U.S. as a harmless if naive and tactless exercise in self-congratulation. I become quite frightened, however, at the memory of what other powerful nations have done in the past when they became convinced they had exclusive title to truth, freedom, justice or some other great moral virtue.

Edwin R. Kammin Waltham, Mass.

Instead of making ourselves stronger economically, we are getting deeper and deeper into debt. Right now some people are so confused, blind or maybe naive that they want to hear, read and believe only what they think is good, whether it is true or not. Would you call that a basis for renewed pride?

Emma DeGoey Reseda, Calif.

Americans should feel up. We deserve to feel good.

Joe Wilharms Menasha, Wis.

Your article describing America's upbeat mood cites patriotism for the increase in military enlistment. In our area, high school graduates who cannot afford the increasing cost of a college education have two options: a minimum-wage job or military service. Military service provides better pay, as well as benefits that cannot be found in the private sector.

Stephen Meredith Tecumseh, Mich.

I am a German who has lived in the U.S. for only a few months. Pride in being a member of a nation is not bad. But I notice that this feeling blocks out everything outside the U.S. Your nation is a beautiful and powerful one. Yet it is part of this world. Nearly everything that happens in other countries affects the U.S., and vice versa. I think Americans should be more aware of this.

Joerg Boese Atlanta

Delicate Difference

Charles Krauthammer's story on religion and politics [ESSAY, Sept. 24] inexplicably distorts the distinction I drew between Government policy and private choice. Obviously my speech on tolerance does not suggest that help for the poor, racial discrimination and murder are "private choices," since in every case more than the welfare of the individual is involved. No one in our society questions that. But there is a deep division within our society about whether this is the case with respect to abortion. Appropriately then, it is a matter for individual and not Government decision. Krauthammer's misreading of my position is glibly farfetched.

Edward M. Kennedy

U.S. Senator, Massachusetts

Washington, D.C.

New York Governor Mario Cuomo distorts and oversimplifies the American Lutheran Church's position as supporting legalized abortion [NATION, Sept. 24]. Actually, the church's 1980 statement on abortion "affirms that human life from conception, created in the image of God, is always sacred" and "deplores the absence of any legal protection for human life from the time of conception until birth." The American Lutheran Church acknowledges that there may be circumstances when "an induced abortion may be a tragic option." But it notes "the alarming increase of induced abortions since the 1973 Supreme Court decision and views this as an irresponsible abuse of God's gift of life."

Herb W. David

Director of Public Information

American Lutheran Church

Minneapolis

Worshiping in China

Your one-sided reporting of the church in China [RELIGION, Sept. 17] does not take into account the fact that, like most Americans, Chinese Christians do, on religious grounds, support the leaders of their churches and country. During the past 35 years in China, there has been a "love church, love country" practice that permeates the Christian communities. Chinese Christians are trying their very best to seek unity among their diverse traditional backgrounds of Christianity in socialist China. American Christians have much to learn from them.

Frank J. Woo

Director, China Program

National Council of the Churches of Christ

New York City

Your recent article on the harsh persecution of Chinese Christians who desire to worship in free or house churches rather than in official government-sanctioned ones starkly illustrates that freedom of worship does not exist today in China. Chinese citizens are not free to worship as they choose.

Rodney L. Stiling Madison, Wis.

Animal Fitness

Farmers feed antibiotic-laced grain to food animals [MEDICINE, Sept. 24] not merely to stimulate growth but primarily prophylactically, to ward off stress-related diseases that current intensive farm-animal rearing practices create. A solution to both problems is to improve the living conditions. A recent study of the veal industry commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that if calves exercise and associate with other calves, they require less medication and gain weight more quickly than those reared in confinement. Other studies reveal that cattle, pigs and poultry grow more quickly and have fewer stress-induced diseases when physiological, social and behavioral needs are taken into account.

John F. Kullberg, President

A.S.P.C.A.

New York City

Paying for Lodz Stefan Kanfer, in concluding his review of The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-1944 [BOOKS, Sept. 10], implied a direct link from Nazi atrocities to the creation of the state of Israel to our current guilt or discomfort over tensions in the Middle East. If indeed the world is paying so "high a price," the reason--anti-Semitism--predates the Second World War. As those "headlines from the Middle East" testify, that continues to this day.

Samuel M. Lohman Oklahoma City

I doubt if the 240,000 men, women and children who inhabited the Lodz ghetto would appreciate your discussion of their tragic existence in one breath, and in the next, your political statement that "one has only to glance at the headlines from the Middle East to know how high a price the world continues to pay for the crimes that were committed there." There is no price to be paid. The residents of Lodz paid long ago.

Joan S. Marcus Huntington Beach, Calif.

Outcast Offspring

In assigning blame and guilt solely to military men for the tragedy of the illegitimate Amerasian children [NATION, Sept. 24], you overlook the thousands of newsmen, civilian contractors, Government employees and merchants who flocked to Viet Nam in pursuit of the dollar.

William F. Sullivan Seattle

Secretary of State George Shultz fails to tell us who pays when the Amerasian youngsters are brought to the U.S. If these children are shunned by their maternal families, tell me why we are also taking their family members. Who is to know if we are being used, as we were by the Cubans, as a dumping ground for prisoners?

James Hanson Rochester, Minn.

All Together Now

Requiring public prayer [NATION, Sept. 24] in this country is like asking the members of the United Nations to stand and sing the national anthem of one country.

Peter Cushnie Milford, Conn.