The Search for Truth
Sirs:
Thanks for digging your fingernails into the rocky Toynbee (TIME, March 17]. Slumbering America needs the challenge of dangling cliffs. What is to be the fate of a civilization which doesn't acknowledge a "schism in the soul?" Historian Toynbee has shown us that our problem is basically theological. . . .
C. W. HOVLAND Yale Divinity School
New Haven, Conn.
Sirs:
From a mere germ in this yeasty civilization of ours, a tribute to Professor Toynbee, TIME, and Artist Artzybasheff.
MICHAEL LAFRATTA Oshawa, Ont.
Sirs:
. . . The good Professor fails to comprehend that religion collectively has been one of the greatest psychic factors in the molding of human history, not the least evil of which has been Christianity. Religion is a man-made stumbling block.
Despite temporary regressions and stagnation, the history of man has displayed a constant upward spiral. Some day the human race will awaken to the glorious truth, first expressed by Confucius, that "the kingdom of heaven is within you," and that deeds are the vital thing--not belief.
EDWARD H. SARGENT
Pittsburgh
P:Says Professor Toynbee: "I agree that the kingdom of God is within us, but it is very difficult to reach. That is our failure. I totally disagree with his [Reader Sargent's] estimate of religion. I think religion is the one help we have toward solving man's main problem, which is himself."--ED.
Burning Question
Sirs:
It is nice to know that while visiting Mexico President Truman wiped out one hundred years of misunderstanding and bitterness in one minute [TIME, March 17].
One burning question still vexes thousands of former Aviation Cadets. Now will Mexico please take back Texas?
DON MCHENRY
Grosse Pointe, Mich.
Motherhood, Ltd.
Sirs:
As mother of two small boys, I find it hard to distinguish between pity and contempt when I read a statement like Mrs. Elmore's --"I am childless from choice" [TIME, March 10]--pity because she will never know or understand the pride and great happiness that can come only from watching one's own children grow and develop; contempt for her intolerance and ignorance and unsurpassed selfishness. ...
Perhaps it is just as well people like that don't have children. ...
MRS. F. W. NUSSBAUMER Duncan, Okla.
Sirs:
The letter by Mrs. F. S. Elmore helps confirm my opinion that Woman Suffrage is the greatest mistake this country ever made.
JACK BURLESON
Tucumcari, N. Mex.
Sirs:
Mrs. F. S. Elmore's letter . . . moves me to pen a defense for Mrs. E. . . . I heartily agree that children are little brats and that having the unsolicited job of caring for them is frustrating, to say the least. I know, because I happen to have one who is unusually sweet and well-mannered by most standards of childhood behavior.
... Of course I realize there are some women, cursed with neither intelligence or ambition, who seem to enjoy slopping around in a monotonous condition of unpaid servitude. These, then, are the logical childbearers of the nation--the honored perpetuators of the human race. But for the other freedom-loving females, I say--more and better contraceptives!
MRS. S. COOK
Chicago
P:Of the 626 readers (319 men, 307 women) who rose to Mrs. Elmore's bait, 624 expressed pity, contempt or horror; two agreed with her.--ED.
G.l.s & the Japanese
Sirs:
I am just another G.I. stationed in Japan, and I'd like to put in a complaint. ... An awful lot of magazines have been printing pictures of G.l.s sitting on the lawn of the Imperial Palace with Japanese girls, or of G.l.s at some of the Japanese dance halls. . . . The majority of the G.l.s over here don't date the Japanese girls as is commonly believed. In fact, there are very few who do. ...
Because of the pictures and articles printed in most magazines, people are beginning to think that we are getting interested in the Japanese. Some of them are actually expecting us to bring a Japanese wife home with us. ... Most of us have girls at home who are beginning to wonder about us. But what they really don't know is that we are . . . waiting for the day that we'll be going home to them. . . .
I don't know if you are aware of the fact that public display of affection to any Japanese girl is considered Disorderly Conduct and is punishable under the 104th Article of War. . . . Pictures of G.I.s with their arms around Japanese girls . . . just don't make sense. . . .
PFC. JERRY TALMONT
c/o Postmaster San Francisco
Wait a Bit
Sirs:
Your story "Wait a Bit" [TIME, March 3] is an attention-arresting and dramatic story of the recent wreck of the Red Arrow.
The story is given impact by relating the alleged presentiment of Pullman Conductor McCormick which kept him from entering a Pullman car in which you infer six passengers were killed. This story suffers in one serious respect, however, in that it is not based on; fact. Conductor McCormick denies making the remarks attributed to him in this article:, and the facts deny your statement that "in the Pullman he had hesitated to enter, a half dozen people had died." The fact is that no Pullman passengers died or were killed in this wreck.
I know that you do not intentionally want to achieve drama at the expense of truth, and I should not think a story of this sort needed such embellishment to make it newsworthy. A correction of the misstatements contained in this article would be deeply appreciated.
JAMES M. CARRY
Vice President The Pullman Company Chicago
P:TIME based its story on spot-news press accounts, got confirmation of the Pullman car deaths from the Pennsylvania Railroad. The press reports, the Pennsylvania Railroad--and consequently TIME--were wrong.--ED.
Liberalism & Truth
Sirs:
Pierre van Paassen's vehement defense of "liberalism" [TIME, March 17], in reply to Msgr. Sheen, deserves admiration for its sincerity, and it has mine. One regrets, however, that the warmth of the gentleman's heart is not matched by the clarity of his mind.
It is all very well to insist on the right of every human being to believe anything he pleases, or nothing at all, if that is what pleases him. But such a right, if it exists at all, is a legal right, a sphere of liberty guaranteed by the state in order that men of differing opinions may live with one another in peace. There is no such moral right, for in the eyes of God truth and error are not indifferent.
If truth is knowable on the moral and religious plane as well as on the scientific, then the terms "good" and "bad" may be applied to moral and religious beliefs. Some beliefs are good because they are true, and others are evil because they are false. The most evil of all is that which asserts that there is no knowable truth in matters of morals and religion: this gives a specious appearance of liberty, but in reality destroys all liberty and all rights because it leaves no firm ground on which they can be asserted. And this is the sin of what many moderns like to call liberalism. Preaching an unbounded freedom of thought, it preaches intellectual and moral despair. That, I say, is doing the devil's work; if it makes the devil look like a Unitarian, so much the worse for Unitarians.
FRANK PATRICK
New York City
Sirs:
More power to Author-Preacher Pierre van Paassen in cleaning away some of the cobwebs in American spiritual life. America leads the world in everything--it's about time we are beginning to lead in exposing the degrading dogmas of medievalism. . . .
FRED DE BOER
San Pedro, Calif.
Sirs:
. . . The vast majority of Protestants and non-Roman Catholics, and I am one of these, will recognize the accuracy of Msgr. Sheen's portrait of the devil. Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Earth, Emil Brunner and the late William Temple have all testified to the feeling within non-Roman Christianity that liberalism cannot adequately suffice the requirements of the Christian faith. Social action is not so important as the saving of men's souls. On the battlefields of the recent war this has found further proof. The friendly pat on the back, the general "be good and you'll be saved" attitude of the liberals, cannot reveal God's presence in the hour of danger, and therefore is useless in less critical moments. Liberalism is dead, and Mr. van Paassen's outburst is its death rattle.
EDWIN C. BENNETT
Hanover, N.H.
Adjustments
Sirs:
Your article on chiropractic in the March 17 issue shrieks too loudly of ... professional prejudice. . . .
If chiropractic were not rendering a needed and appreciated service, it could never have withstood the persecution and prosecution of the American Medical Association. . . .
JUSTIN CLARK WOOD
Chiropractor Salisbury, Md.
Sirs:.
. . . Fortunately, the final evaluation of chiropractic as a healing art is not dependent on the petty, prejudiced mind of your medical editor. The stench emitting from his article is easily identified--it is plain old Fish(bein). Open the door, Richard.
C. F. BOVARD, B.C.
Clearfield, Pa.
Sirs:
Cancell my subscription of the TIME Magazine at once. I have been a subsciber for many years, when I read Trasch like you print against Chiropractic I quit, I dont want to see any more TIME Magazine.
I have been located locally since 1924, and I am sure I coulnt be in practice to day without getting results, I took care thousands of peoples and I believe I always helped NATURE.
What you printed about Chiropractic in Charlston is a LIE, No Chiropractic Adjustment can KILL if it doesnt do any good it doesnt do any HARM.
DR. G. A. STATTI McKees Rocks, Pa.
Rest for the Radioactives
Sirs:
The projected program of National Selected Morticians Inc. for the burial of highly radioactive bodies by lowering the caskets into excavations floored by a copious layer of concrete and then completely surrounding them with more concrete poured to fill the excavations [TiME, March 17], is totally unnecessary.
. . . Our Atomic Burial Vault, a two-inch wall of concrete completely inner-lined with lead, is in the process of manufacture, and within a few weeks will be in stock, ready for interment when the occasion arises. . . .
LOUIS PIROZZOLI
Norwalk Vault Co.
Bridgeport, Conn.
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