The First Lady

Sir:

There is a face on TIME'S [Jan. 19] cover that I like to have looking at me, as the magazine rests on my book table . . . Usually I put it there, face-side hidden, as I don't like to be stared at promiscuously. But Mrs. Eisenhower's . . . features say, better than words, that innate kindness and greed-free drives can animate people, even today. Glad I am that she is the mate of a man in a high place.

R. C. DEWEY

W. Arcadia, Calif.

Solution in Korea?

Sir:

TIME'S [Jan. 26] "Solution in Korea" is the first sensible suggestion on this issue to appear in the press since the Communists moved across the 38th parallel. As one of those W.W. II retreads who spent months along the present battle line in Korea, however, I can only lament that this strategy has been too long delayed.

Had General MacArthur, or the political strategists, followed this plan in the late autumn of 1950, the tragic retreat from the Yalu . . . and three long, cold winters on the battle line might have been avoided. Instead, our actions ignored the military capabilities of the Chinese Communists, and were based upon a forlorn hope and false estimate of the enemy's intentions . . .

JOHN F. ZELLER Captain, National Guard Lewisburg, Pa.

The All Too Common Man

Sir:

Professor Joseph Wood Krutch has outlined one of the main causes of our moral, spiritual and cultural deterioration [TIME, Jan. 19]. The Common Man is becoming all too "common" in both senses of the word. If education does not return to its basic function of "leading out" the Uncommon Man from the mass of anonymous mediocrity, we shall soon be complaining with Ortega y Gasset of the ausenda de los mejores [literally, the absence of the better ones].

WARREN T. MCCREADY Chicago

Sir:

Professor Krutch's jeremiad concerning the problem of epistemology facing our age can be stated more succinctly and bluntly as follows:

"How can we get morons to teach other morons not to be so moronic?" . .

GINO J. SIMI Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Your Joseph Wood Krutch item anent the Common Man recalled a good anecdote . . . Back when Henry Wallace, as a vice presidential candidate, was exalting the Common Man, Booth Tarkington . . . commented that the phrase would mean a lot of votes, but the advantage could be more than offset if only someone could prevail on Mr. Wallace to also come out as champion of the Common Woman.

SAMUEL TAYLOR MOORE Southern Pines, N.C.

How Old Is "Old"?

Sir:

Fie on Associated Press's Alan J. Gould for his definition of how old is old [TIME, Jan. 19] ... Rather, let A.P. reporters be guided by the brisk and innocent definition of my maternal branch, active until demise--usually after 80: a boy up to 21, a "young man" to 35, "in the prime" until you are 55, "middleaged" up to 70, "elderly" when you pass 80, and at 100 a triumph to man.

OLGA MAYNARD Yuma, Ariz.

P: Or, as Victor Hugo said: "Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age."--ED.

Of Flies & Men in China (Cont'd)

Sir:

I have just arrived here after 25 years in China (the past year being spent in a Communist jail), to find the Jan. 5 issue of TIME with its astonishing letter of Henry Willcox. I have witnessed the flight of the Nationalist armies, the arrival of the Red Army, the process of Sovietization since the autumn of 1949, but not the phenomena of which Mr. Willcox writes ... It is true the people are bursting with hope--hope that their Communist masters will be quickly driven out forever. The people are eager, desperately eager for freedom from the despots who harshly rule them.

If space permitted I might mention mass arrests, crushing taxation, the omnipresent gun with red tassels, the three Fs: Fraud, Fear and Force. I can verify all of these facts because I was an eyewitness to the subjugation of a free people to virtual slavery.

(The Rev.) Jos. P. McGINN, M.M.

Maryknoll House, Stanley, Hong Kong

Spelling Bee

Sir:

We neighbors of the ancestral home and birthplace of Dorothy Payne Todd Madison are at a loss to find the source of spelling you used in the Jan. 19 issue. She has not been known to us as"Dolley"and we would no more spell it that way than the neighbors of Mamie Eisenhower would spell her name Mamee.

THOMAS C. BRYAN

George W. Lee Memorial Presbyterian Church Winston-Salem, N.C.

Sir:

What is your authority or source for suddenly spelling Dolly Madison's name as "Dolley"? ...

MRS. ROARK BRADFORD Santa Fe, N. Mex.

P: TIME'S source*:

-- ED.

What Comes Naturally

Sir:

As an obstetrician's wife who has had two out of four children "naturally," I cannot let the remarks of Drs. Mandy et al. [TIME, Jan. 19] go unchallenged. The key to their squawk about natural childbirth lies in the assertion that "tried and true methods are suffering unfairly by comparison . . ." Childbirth under anesthesia demands, I admit, less time and effort from the doctor than the natural delivery, at which he must be like a coach to an athlete in the field. When these doctors develop a more mature relationship with their patients, they will see for themselves the rewards, medical and psychological, of natural childbirth.

MRS. JAMES E. BOWES Lakewood, Ohio

Sir:

Natural childbirth is no craze. It is the desire of a group of healthy, well-adjusted women to go about having their babies naturally . . .

FRANCELLA R. POSTON Asheville, N.C.

Sir:

. . . Dr. Grantly Dick Read's theories may be stated in rather flowery, idealized, overemphatic terms, but the fact remains that natural childbirth can be (as it was for me) a truly thrilling, uplifting and relatively painless experience . . . While it is true that "deepseated anxieties" (as well as the presence of certain physical conditions) render some women unable to successfully have their babies in this fashion, those who are able to witness and fully experience the birth and first moments of life of their babies are indeed fortunate . . .

ISOBEL PERRY

New York City

Sir:

... A certain small percentage of obstetricians hold themselves unalterably (and irrationally) opposed to natural childbirth, basing their objections on flimsy scientific reasoning, and insist on complete anesthesia during delivery so that they can manually extract the child. Their unconscious motivation: that they cannot bear to allow a woman to do something which they want to do themselves; in the last analysis, they insist that they must bear the baby . . .

EVELYN EMIG MELLON Shaker Heights, Ohio

French Circus

Sir:

Thank you for your [Jan. 19] explanation of the reasons for the French troubles with finding a stable government. It reminds me of a poem by A. A. Milne:

I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind another Elephant who isn't really there . . .

MRS. JOSEPH W. PARKER Crossville, Tenn.

Military Justice

Sir:

In your Jan. 19 issue, you state that the court-martial which tried Dorothy Krueger Smith for the murder of her husband found her guilty of first-degree murder by six votes to three and sentenced her to life imprisonment; that "a unanimous verdict of guilty would have made the death sentence mandatory." This is not correct. The only offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice that requires a mandatory death sentence is spying in time of war . . . and the only offense requiring a unanimous finding of guilty is that for which the death penalty is mandatory, namely, spying in time of war . . . First-degree murder is punishable . . . by death or life imprisonment . . .

MORTON JOHN BARNARD

Chicago

Sir:

. . . How [TIME] could know that the actual vote was six to three ... is a mystery . . since the Manual for Courts Martial . , . states: "Only the required percentage of members who concurred in findings of guilty shall be announced . . ."

For Dorothy Smith to be found guilty of murder, only two-thirds of the court needed to concur . . . and for her to be sentenced to life imprisonment, three-fourths (i.e., seven members) needed to concur. To sentence her to death, two-thirds of the court would have to concur in the finding and all in the sentence. It is worthy of note that the court votes twice--once on the finding and once on the sentence.

W. C. MOTT

Captain, U.S.N.

U.S. Naval School (Naval Justice) Newport, R.I.

P: TIME erred, relying on a news agency press dispatch which reported the six-to-three vote.--ED.

* In his first two volumes on the life of Madison, Author Irving Brant called her "Dolly"; in the third volume -- James Madison: Father of the Constitution, 1787-1800 (Bobbs-Merrill) -- he switches to "Dolley." Says Biographer Brant: "Dolley Madison's spelling of her name became apparent the instant family manuscripts were looked into. She, her husband, her son and her lawyers all spelled it 'Dolley.' It appears that way in the original text of legal documents, but is commonly changed to 'Dolly' in copies made by clerks. Her correspondence with the sculptor [John H.] Browere specifically rejects Dorothea, Dorothy, Dolli and Dolly. Inquiry at Guilford College, N.C., where the minutes of the New Garden (Quaker) Monthly Meeting are preserved, disclosed that it was 'Dolley' in the record of her birth."

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