Joachim's Children Sir:

Your presentation of "Journalism and Joachim's Children" in the March 9 issue is a service to Western civilization . . . Man's self-announced importance and his unrestrained freedom contain the elements of his destruction.

ROBERT T. HAUBRICK

Rutherford Heights, Pa.

Sir:

In the 30 years that I have been reading TIME, I do not remember an article that has pleased me more . . . It is good when journalists try to achieve an orientation that will make their presentation of facts sounder and their comments on events saner. However, it seems to me that the attack on Gnosticism is beside the point . . . In all matters that have to do with human beings we must get away from notions of absolutes, first of all, because they do not exist and, secondly, because they are used as brakes on human experience and progress . . . Such things as human rights--freedom and liberty--are manmade, and are unmade by man . . .

WM. EDW. ZEUCH

Los Angeles

Sir:

Your intellectuality (Joachim's egghead children) was far too scrambled for this eggnostic.

M. L. WALKER

New York City

Sir:

Shame! Picking the bones of an old positivist like Comte! At the very least he got off the ground floor with his classification of thought into theological, metaphysical and positivist levels. TIME, still in the dark basement with a lot of other theologians, is trying to translate knowledge of the real world into dualistic mumbo jumbo. The most you can accomplish that way is to produce a few pages of high-sounding argument without once having to refer to reality . . . Come on, TIME, dig the culture concept and a little bit of scientific method if you want to play in the intellectual big leagues. You and Reinhold Niebuhr are sticking your heads into the same sandpile and waving your tailfeathers while the world goes by.

TED MERRILL

New York City

Sir:

Someone slipped a dozen eggs too many into that birthday cake of yours! . . .

LOUIS GRAFF

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir:

. . . A masterpiece. In the deep subjective sea of life, Joachim's poor children can be understood as blowfish. The little blowfish is alone and frightened, and he has worked out a system of puffing up and blowing when confronted with dangerous reality . . . The sad thing is, as you say, they have widely sold this system as a universal mode for coping with reality, so that the "pathological dream world is fairly effective." Gullible men may be impressed, but reality doesn't seem to be.

J. M. WEBSTER

Beaumont, Texas

Sir:

Thanks for the absorbing synopsis of Political Scientist Voegelin's thesis. The waters of TIME are running deep. Such earnest probing into the roots of the current intellectual crisis inclines me to agree with you that there are signs of movement toward a solution . . .

CHARLES W. BOYD

Chicago

Sir:

. . . Garbled nonsense . . . This Voegelin is just another egghead . .

MICHAEL CALLAGHAN

Minot, N.D.

Sir:

Congratulations to the editors of TIME on the inspiring statement of moral and spiritual convictions elaborated in your 30th-anniversary issue. They constituted the most important news in that issue . . .

CARL F. H. HENRY

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Sir:

Thirty years ago I became a cover-to-cover reader of TIME . . . Although my work requires day-by-day following of a news ticker, week after week I am amazed and benefited by the brilliance with which TIME adds news and helpful background to otherwise "old news." The continuous bettering of the magazine and its reach is further proof of the creative genius behind it, so I . . . congratulate you . . . and wish you long years of health and accomplishment.

A. G. NEWMYER

Washington, D.C.

Socialism & Peace

Sir:

In your issue of March 2, you correctly quote some remarks I made in a new pamphlet I wrote for the League for Industrial Democracy on the subject of democratic socialism. Nevertheless . . . you . . . tend to give a rather distorted point of view of my opinions. Thus I insist that the dominant principle in a good society must be cooperation and that cooperation requires planning in which the state must play a great role. I specifically discuss the necessity for extending social ownership under democratic controls. While I agree that capitalism is not the cause of war and that socialism is not an automatic panacea for peace, I do definitely suggest the contribution to peace that democratic socialism should make.

NORMAN THOMAS

New York City

Behind the Times

Sir:

Re Christine Jorgensen's homecoming, when she "tossed off a Bloody Mary" [TIME, Feb. 23]: Apparently my colloquial vocabulary has not kept pace with TIME'S; it does not seem to encompass a Bloody Mary.

DOROTHY A. SHUMAN

Santa Ana, Calif.

> Start with a pinch of salt. Add the juice of half a lemon, half a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, two dashes of Tabasco, two jiggers of vodka. Mix well with eight to twelve ounces of chilled tomato juice. Sip slowly.--ED. No Place Like Jerome

Sir:

. . . As mayor of the city of Jerome, characterized by your [March 2] article as a "neon-lit, slot-machine satellite town . . . outside Twin Falls," I am greatly incensed over such a farfetched . . . description of our town. I would like to give you a few facts: Jerome was incorporated as a village on the 15th day of July, 1909 . . . It was made the county seat of Jerome County . . . in 1919. It serves a large agricultural area with a population of approximately 11,000 people . . . It has a modern 50-bed hospital . . . 17 churches, four public schools, two parks, a swimming pool and a public library . . .

The city of Twin Falls, which, from your article, is the parent city of Jerome . . . is situated 14 miles south of Jerome . . . True, Twin Falls is the wholesale center of this entire area, including Jerome, but to label Jerome as its satellite slot-machine town is just plain poor reporting to put it mildly. I feel that your article was written by an anti-slot-machine propagandist . . .

JOHN W. HOSMAN

Jerome, Idaho

Sir:

. . . The jeering of Twin Falls residents over your statement will be intolerably

humiliating . . .

J. R. MANN

Spokane

Two Words for One

Sir:

In your "Legally Hot" story of Feb. 23, I was disillusioned when I read the phrase "mental telepathy." If you will look up the word telepathy in Webster's . . . you will find that you were guilty of tautology . .

PAULINE F. WOODARD

Nashville, Tenn.

> TIME'S tautological Science Editor has now been taught.--ED.

Under the Ivy

Sir:

I cannot sympathize with the educators who oppose congressional investigations of Communism in the universities [TIME, Feb. 23]. It seems to be the opinion of many that Communism is rampant among the nation's teachers. If this is not true, there is nothing to fear, but an investigation to determine the truth of these allegations is an infringement on no one's rights. Did it never occur to our educators that these suspicions would be quickly dispelled if they would cooperate freely with the investigators and even invite them to their campuses? People with nothing to hide do not fear the spotlight . . . The supposed threat to academic freedom is a bogeyman . . . I am a college man, but I believe these investigations should be pressed vigorously.

RICHARD R. DAVISON

Snyder, Texas

Sir:

. . . The effect on the university students and instructors is very demoralizing. Instructors are becoming mere "yes" men, unable to express any opinion besides the accepted one for fear of losing their jobs . . . Some students like myself (graduate--June '52) who had planned on becoming teachers have given up the idea . . . This "search" . . . is doing more to drive instructors away from our schools than any loss of pay.

D. F. MILLER

Chicago

Sir:

. . . I have grave doubts about Senators McCarthy, Jenner and Velde. But however crude their procedure, they have discovered, and they have made the public aware that something is badly wrong with America's educators and intellectuals . . .

W. T. COUCH

New York City

Record in Olney

Sir:

Re the March 2 News in Pictures spread: You say the lady in the pancake race in Olney, England ran 415 yards in "1 min. 7.2 sec." If she had gone 75 feet farther [at the same speed], she would have run the quarter mile in approximately 71 1/2-- seconds. Having in view her habiliments, sex, the skillet and other handicaps, this seems to me incredible . . .

H. M. QUAIFE

Highland Park, Mich.

> The Vicar of Olney, unchallenged arbiter of Olney's annual Shrove Tuesday's Pancake Race, declared Housewife Dix's winning time a "world's record."--ED.

Delightful & Beautiful

Sir:

Your Feb. 23 cover depicting "sweetie-pie" Clooney was delightful [and] the color spread, accompanying the story on Mexico's new University City, was beautiful!

MRS. HAROLD C. BROWN

Kentfield, Calif.

Vanitas vanitatum

Sir:

Regarding your March 2 article "Preview for the Prophet": Since when has the will of God been for men such as "Prophet" Jones to delude the minds of people to such an extent that they purchase him $3,900 Lincolns and $12,900 white mink coats?

It is a shame and a detriment to such long-established denominations as Presbyterianism, Methodism, Catholicism, etc., that such persons are permitted to "preach" . . . "Prophet" Jones cannot seriously consider himself serving God or Christ by wearing topaz and garnet rings, a $17,000 diamond bracelet, and sporting over 400 suits . . .

ROBERT E. WILLIS

El Paso

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