The U.S. Negro

Sir:

TIME's May 11 survey on Negro progress in the last decade is absorbing, objective, and somewhat hopeful; it has been read here in our shop with a great deal of interest. You are to be congratulated, first, for the idea for such a report, and, second, for the memorable manner it was executed.

ROBERT W. BROWN Editor The Columbus Ledger Columbus, Ga.

Sir:

. . . The, American Negro, 1953 will walk right up the middle of every main street in America . . . You have done us all a great service and you have done it without a trace of precocity or philosophical hogwash. . .

LOUIS GRAFF Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir:

... To compress so much in such a small package is a triumph of fine reporting . . .

May I take the privilege to offer two minor [criticisms]? The estimate of Booker Washington is only partly correct. In the beginning of his work he labored in such a limited field that he had to accept, for the time being, second-class citizenship. But that time passed, and there is no longer any reason for the Negro to continue in the Washington pattern. The other matter is the failure of your investigators to discover the "Deep South." I could lead you there where you would not recognize it as what we like to call democratic America. But these are very small matters. The surprising balance of the estimate is refreshing and is a true picture. This article should help to focus the eyes of thinking people on the importance of stimulating the move to eliminate racial discrimination and as the first and most important step to abolish segregation which is maintained by an outrageous and outmoded code of laws in most of the Southern states . . .

J. WATIES WARING U.S. District Judge (Ret.) New York City

Sir:

Your article . . . is interesting but like other such articles, doesn't deal with the jackpot question, viz., would the writer condone or condemn his or her daughter being courted and finally marrying a man of opposite color?

DONLEY H. EBERT Wooster, Ohio

Sir:

Thanks for a good article, [but] TIME forgot a great symbol of progress in Dixie. Remember the politicians who used to rave: "D'ye want your daughter to marry a Negro? Then vote for ole Buzz Drippo for the U.S. Senate." Where is Buzz Drippo today? He's joined the dinosaurs in the museums.

WALLACE HERBERT Ruston, La.

Sir:

Why did you not point out the inevitable end of the progress toward social equality of white and Negro: intermarriage. To some the mixing of bloods is desirable. To many more, especially those who know what the word "genes" means, it is abhorrent . . . The Negroes imported to America were often sold by their black African superiors. In their aboriginal society they were the least intelligent, the least vigorous and were, with very few exceptions, the slaves of the other blacks . .

MRS. H. K. WRIGHT Stonington, Conn.

Sir:

. . . "Many Negroes can't get a vacation trip to a good resort." I suggest that they spend a vacation in Israel. We have no signs such as "Whites only, restricted area" . . . No race riots, no property owners' leagues. No snubbing by desk clerks or head waiters. . . .We wouldn't even stare at them, as we ourselves have been stared at enough.

DR. WALTER LANGE Tel Aviv, Israel

Sir:

How can you state that "no Southern Negro seriously wants or expects complete equality overnight" ? We do not expect it, but the thousands of Southern Negroes who volunteered for occupation duty and who re-enlisted in the Army to stay over there so they could enjoy complete equality furnish proof of the desire of many Southern Negroes to enjoy equality now. Can you actually believe, or is it that white people want to believe, that swanky hotels, nice restaurants, expensive nightclubs and all the other nice things whose enjoyment we are deprived of by racial discrimination are not as attractive to the Southern Negro as to other Americans? . . .

SFC. JAMES N. WILLIAMS Fort Bliss, Texas

Sir:

. . . I believe in Negroes having just as good hospitals, schools, churches, playgrounds and other needs and pleasures of life as the whites do--so long as they are segregated. As for riding on buses and railroads, I would not mind in the least if they sit in front and me in the rear just so long as we are segregated . . . Let the Negro have his Cadillacs, but please not under the same garage as my lowly Chev . . .

JACK BRIDGES Blountstown, Fla.

Sir:

It should be emphasized that separate but equal facilities in education are a physical and financial impossibility. Leaders in Southern schools and colleges realize this but dare not recommend an end to segregation because of political considerations and a desire to hold their jobs.

Although they will deny it to the end, Southern educators hope the Supreme Court will outlaw segregation at all school levels and thus make it possible to say, "Those radicals in Washington are to blame. All we can do is obey the law." History has demonstrated clearly that morals can be legislated, and the progress in race relations provides a shining example.

RUSSELL T. SANBOEN Garland, Texas

Sir:

Your article was most realistic . . . Nevertheless, I question your conclusion . . . that the "Negro Problem" is basically moral. True, the overt acts of job discrimination, social segregation, court injustice, etc., are moral--they are not in accord with Christian and democratic principles. But let us ask, "Why do men do these things to fellow humans?" I say that the major reason, by far, for doing so is economic--economic exploitation of man based on the color of his skin . . .

CARL A. ROUSE Pasadena, Calif.

Sir:

When the American citizen realizes the facts you have given and especially the statement ". . . the Negro's biggest preoccupation is not economics but social equality," there will be more progress in the future . . .

During the coming year, I will be doing ministerial work among Negro and white. The entire problem of integration appears so enormous I often feel, and not I alone, as if I should stay as far from it as possible. Your article has helped convince me that it is not a hopeless process . . .

KARL THIELE St. Louis

Right Commander

Sir:

Re TIME's May 4 "Revolutionary's Rise": Your story said Egypt's Premier Naguib refers to young Lieut. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser as "my commander," though the fact is exactly the other way around. The error was due to a transmission garbling of my cable.

JAMES BELL Beirut, Lebanon

Remembrance of Things Past

Sir:

I liked your monograph on Maud Gonne [TIME, May 11]. It was almost as living as herself. About a year ago, I sat . . . listening while she poured out the saga of her life. I had come to Ireland to do research on a book about William Butler Yeats, and she had consented to see me; but nothing so rich and gracious had been anticipated. Wrapped in a black silk brocade robe with great silver buttons, she sat by a coal fire under an oval picture of her mother, and guarded by a Maltese cat. My heart hurt. Could this wreck, this ruin, this witch be the "outrageously beautiful" Maud Gonne? The woman Yeats had called "a classical impersonation of the spring, with complexion luminous as apple blossoms through which the light falls"? The mouth had sunk. The chin approached the nose. How heart-wrenching the mutations of time . . . But as she talked, I felt the upsurge of a vibrant personality. She lived; I could believe in her beauty . . .

In this not wholly foul world I remember her last words, after a life of daring: "Old age is so boring." And, of Yeats, "I shall see him again."

VIRGINIA MOORE Scottsville, Va.

Ten-Year Stretch

SIR:

MANY THANKS FOR COMMENTS ON MY WIFE AND ME AND OUR VARIOUS CHORES ON RADIO & TV [TIME, MAY 18].

TO CORRECT VITAL STATISTICS, I AM 35 YEARS OLD, ALTHOUGH AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR I FEEL THE 45 YOU GAVE ME.

ELLIOTT LEWIS HOLLYWOOD

Death in Miami

Sir:

Your May 18 story on the Tongay case vividly illustrates the violent force of one man's ambition. Tongay is no father, but a hardened man, driven by a personal aspiration and downright selfishness, who tried desperately to make precision machines out of his two scrawny but rugged youngsters . . .

In the death of Kathy, his mania has betrayed him . . .

MARLENE A. BURNS Pittsfield, Mass.

Sir:

Your story . . . made my blood boil. I did not realize it was legally possible to exploit one's children in such a manner . . .

W. B. LILES Sinking Springs, Pa.

Turner Sees Red (Cont'd)

Sir:

Re the two letters from Turner Air Force Base airmen, appearing in TIME's issue of May 11 . . . complaining about the delay in expending funds provided by a sports-car race [held at Bergstrom Air Force Base]: I feel that an injustice has been done a most worthwhile project . . . General LeMay granted permission for the race to be held at Turner's request. He did not direct it. Subsequent to the race, a committee of airmen and a hearing committee of officers from each unit on the base was formed to decide what, in the way of living improvements, should be purchased with the money made on the race. This committee . . . has made [six] proposals [but] . . . it was discovered that existing regulations or public laws prohibited the expenditure of non-appropriated funds for the projects selected due to the fact that Turner is considered a permanent installation. This has resulted in delay . . . The fund is [now] in the bank, and plans are well advanced for construction of a picnic pavilion which conforms with regulations . . . The balance of the funds will be used to make certain improvements in the hobby shop . . .

THAYER S. OLDS Colonel U.S.A.F. Turner Air Force Base Albany, Ga.

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