Trucks on the Roads
Sir: For your Aug. 10 article "Trucks on the Roads" my thanks and congratulations. I am calling it to the attention of all my legislators. It's very gratifying that at least one publication is not strangely silent on the basic cause of our traffic woes -- trucks.
R. E. BAUMER Los Angeles
Sir: . . . The best report to the nation on the subject ... To my mind, a fair tax on all inter-city trucks would be one based on ton-miles operated.
LEROY MORRIS Mississippi Central Railroad Co.
Hattiesburg, Miss.
Sir: ... Do the railroads pay you to do this? . . . You may be an editor, but what do you know about trucks? . . .
EDWARD W. CHADDERTON Sharon, Pa.
Sir:
. . . No ordinary motorist is safe with these monsters loose on our highways.
GEORGE E. MCCALLUM Erie, Pa.
Sir:
. . . My own small business . . . depends 100% on trucks for delivery of merchandise; I'd be out of business within a month without their direct delivery . . . Until it is proved that the trucking industry does not pay its fair share of road taxes and that it actually does damage our highway system out of proportion ... I suggest that TIME be more impartial in its reporting . . .
CHARLES MCSHANE Fargo, N. Dak.
Sir:
. . . The rich mushrooming trucking industry is not paying their share. They should build their own highways . . .
(MRS.) CARRIE CASE Waco, Texas
Sir:
The article ... is a biased example of small-minded railroad propaganda with no concern for the progress of our equally important trucking industry. Our main highways are critically deficient. They were poorly engineered and constructed with little regard for the type of vehicles or for their drivers who must use them in order to deliver the nation's necessities . . . The answer to the problem has not been "fogged" so much by propaganda from the trucking industry as by the concerted efforts of the railroads .. . .
If politicians of the past had made proper use of the millions of dollars allocated for road construction with a view to the future, I am sure that our enormous traffic problem would never have occurred. Unjustly censuring the trucking industry and forcing them to pay for the mistakes of others is a poor attempt to conceal our lack of leadership and planning.
DONALD STROCHAK
Forest Hills, N.Y.
TIME'S report on "Trucks on the Roads" noted that the whole issue has been complicated by "a smoke screen of publicity from the railroads" as well as the trucking lobby, which New York's Governor Dewey has defined as "a powerful, highly organized lobby, devoted exclusively to the purpose of preserving the extreme preference now enjoyed by the biggest trucks." In the interests of complete fairness and accuracy, TIME comments herewith on the five specific points singled out by American Trucking Associations, Inc. in a paid advertisement on the opposite page:
1) TIME clearly stated in the preceding sentence that it was referring to an axle-weight or weight-distance figure." The point would have been restated more clearly if TIME had said that a man who "drives a four-door Plymouth . . . pays 34-64-c- worth of gas taxes and fees per ton to move his car over 100 miles of open road." Thus, on a national basis, a Plymouth owner pays nearly three times more per ton to move one ton of his car 100 miles than does the owner of a 60,000-lb. truck.
2) Further research would have shown the truckers exactly what former Governor Smith did deny. He denied telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Missouri legislators had received money from truck lobbyists. But he did tell a legislative investigating committee that he understood from others that money had changed hands to defeat a bill to increase truck license fees.
3) TIME erred. It should have said that a study made in 1951 by the New York State Temporary Commission on Agriculture showed that $146 million would "improve" (instead of "build") all of the 26,000 miles of town roads, but would pay for only 737 miles of highways sufficiently strong to support the relatively few heavily laden trucks.
4) TIME did indeed refer to ton-mile taxes and plainly said: "Laws . . . to tax trucks on their weight and distance traveled."
5) TIME did not use a limited figure, but one for all freight, supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Roads for 1951, the latest statistics available. The bureau took the total tonnage of each carrier (e.g., trucks, boats and railroads) and multiplied it by the miles carried, thus got a comparative ton-mile figure for all carriers for all freight. On this basis, railroads totted up 672 billion ton-miles, river and harbor boats 182 billion ton-miles, and trucks 152 billion, or 15% of the total.
The statistics and information used by TIME were not "propaganda," but were those on file with state and federal agencies and readily checkable by anyone. With the exception of the clarifications noted, TIME stands on its figures.--ED.
Europe's Provinces
Sir:
What the hell is the matter with you? You start a new series on the Provinces of Europe, then say [Aug. 10] that Alsace is the first of three in a series. Why three ? Why not 30? This is one of the most interesting added attractions that you have ever brought forth, then you want to give us only three. Come on TIME--don't cut this series short . . .
EUGENE LANG Belleville, Ont.
Sir:
Many congratulations to Jerry Cooke for his superb color photographs [and] congratulations to R. M. Chapin Jr. for his map . . .
JOYCE FRANKLIN
Felpham, Sussex, England
How to Handle Old Eggs
Sir:
What is this old Chinese custom (mentioned in the Aug. 3 story on the CIA) that the theoretical winner of a theoretical battle pays tribute to the theoretical loser? Or did TIME lay a 1,000-year-old egg?
R. MURRAY New York City
P: TIME scrambled an ancient egg. In China, as elsewhere, the loser pays.--ED.
How the Ball Bounced
Sir:
Your Aug. 3 Korean story, "The Way the Ball Bounces," was the letter home I've been trying to write since I arrived in Korea last March. Thanks for doing the job so completely.
(CPL.) JOHN L. MCWILLIAMS c/o Postmaster San Francisco
Sir:
. . . Having discussed the article with other members of this outfit, we all agree that it is the nearest thing to the truth that has been written since the Korean war ... I, for one, am sending it home . . .
(Pfc.) ANTHONY J. LAROCCA 180th Infantry Regiment Korea
Sir:
. . . Each sentence brought back visual images of Chunchon, Inchon, Wonju, Seoul, Uijongbu and the fragrant countryside between. As a Korean veteran, may I attest to the realities described . . . and thank whoever wrote it?
WILLIAM L. DARBY
Detroit
Sir:
. . . Give the author a commendation and/or boost in salary. For in the few short paragraphs he has summed it up, drawn sketches of scenes which many of us can never forget . . .
BILL FRYDAY
Norman, Okla.
Gargling Noises
Sir:
After reading the four reviews of new movies in your July 27 issue, I feel you have reached a new high in exquisite sarcasm. One choice bit is the comment that the Mexican bandit [in Ride, Vaquero!] gargles with vino. My comment would be that your Cinema Editor gargles with hemlock!
CAROLYN KOLKEY
Los Angeles
Korean Aftermath
Sir:
I have only now read your review of my book [ I Was a Captive in Korea--TIME, July 27]. I would like to tell you how very flattered I am ... It may interest you to know that the correspondent I describe in the opening paragraphs of my book is your own Carl Mydans, whom I have long admired for his ability, integrity and humanity.
PHILIP DEANE London
P: Former Correspondent Mydans is now a photographer attached to the TIME-LIFE Bureau in London.--ED.
The Hiked Hemline
Sir:
The only saving grace about Monsieur Dior's ". . . itching to pin up women's skirts" [TIME, Aug. 10] is that it is cheaper to shorten a dress than to lengthen it. It does border on sheer idiocy to let one man's vacillating mind ... be the pioneering spirit for a multitude of hiked hemlines.
The fact remains that for piano legs, a full-length evening dress is too short, while for stems a la Charisse ... an ice-skating costume is recommended.
GEORGE A. FREUND
Idaho Falls, Idaho
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