Grass Roots Report
Sir:
What a great, wide, amazing country it
turns out to be when one of your editors gets
away from big city thinking [TIME, Sept.
14] ... Send more editors on tours of this
great country !
LAVONNE C. CRAWFORD
Dallas
Sir:
Your article . . .filled me with a deep sense of shame . . . Every group, it appears, is a special interest group . . . People's attitude seems to be ... that we can have prosperity and security without paying for them. I hope there are a few citizens who thank their lucky stars that they can afford to pay taxes to defend their land, afford to pay for all the luxuries Americans enjoy . . . who deem it a privilege to help the world remain free, so that we may remain free ourselves. We are admittedly a warm-hearted people when disaster strikes. Must we be awakened by a cataclysm?
MARY LEE HUNTER
Kentfield, Calif.
Sir:
Your "strong and stable U.S." strikes me as typical smug Timery! All your readers are not thriving farmers, satisfied businessmen and relaxed Republicans. Neither are most Americans ... I would be very much interested in a feature article on "Our Forgotten People," the time-clock punchers, housewives and oldsters in the tragedy of America --the aging big city.
The people who prosper move their homes and stores to the suburbs, out to the sunlight and trees, but the millions who follow the same deadly routine every day, year in and year out, see no improvement in their lives, and many don't have the nerve or ambition to want any. These are our starving ones--not starved for food, but for stable home life, religious training, proper channeling of talents toward making a productive livelihood, ability to amuse themselves . . .
EDITH J. WILMER Minneapolis
Sir:
Your contributing editor Alvin Josephy's junket produced an incisive report . . . However, Josephy's use of the label "progressive conservatism" is as valid as a label "conservative Communism." Conservatism, understood, needs no sugar-coated shell such as "progressive" to be palatable.
JOSEPH M. TOCKMAN
Las Vegas, N. Mex.
Sir:
These one-man, grass-root surveys of public opinion leave me skeptical. People are polite by instinct and tend to tell the inquisitive stranger what they think the stranger wants to hear, or at least something that won't hurt his feelings . . .
RIDGELY CUMMINGS San Francisco
Shot Returned
Sir:
The arrogant British naval officers had better mind their language when they call the Chinese Nationalist navy "riffraff" (Sept. 7). In the past two months, I have visited Chinese navy ships, inspected their naval academy and watched their maneuvers. I have met many of their men, including admirals and sailors, and I'll cast my vote for their men being equal to the British or our own U.S. naval personnel. I've been privileged to know many British and American admirals, including such charmers as Britain's Admiral Tennant and our own beloved Admiral Halsey. Free China's Admiral G. John Ma can hold his own with any of them.
Had it not been for the determination of the Chinese Nationalists to remain free, plus America's continued recognition of Free China, it is very doubtful if the British would have Hong Kong and Singapore today. The Chinese Nationalists are law-abiding citizens, which is more than anyone can say for Communist China's naval pirates . . . Shame on England for not withdrawing recognition of these world gangsters.
ZETTA WELLS
Taipeh, Formosa
Don Adolfo & His People
Sir:
Congratulations on the excellent cover story on Mexico's President Ruiz Cortines [TIME, Sept. 14]. With Naguib in Egypt, and Ike in America, one is moved to hope the usual moral decay following war is about over. After the long and dreary procession of aged, powerful murderers, sly and clever phonies, eggheads, screwball Messiahs, hotshots, white-haired, fast-buck boys and just plain internationally celebrated jerks--it is refreshing to realize that an oldfashioned, honest man is, at long last, news.
WILLIAM CARLTON DAVIE Rosedale, N.Y.
Sir:
If you want to join the gang bent on smearing Miguel Aleman, go ahead. That's what a free press is for, isn't it? But how do you know about those gaieties of Aleman and his pals? Did you have sleuths sneak in on them, or are you satisfied with broadcasting dirty gossip ? Why get so incensed because Aleman is good-looking? . . .
President Ruiz Cortines is a very fine man. That's why Aleman made him his understudy for many years in the difficult task of ruling Mexico wisely and, with no prodding from anyone, picked him to be his successor . . .
JULIO C. GAMAS MARIN
Mexico City
Sir:
You fellows seem to know more about Mexico than we that live here. Makes me feel like working for Don Adolfo after I read your excellent article ... Up to date there are a lot of people that believe that Mr. Ruiz Cortines is a puppet of Miguel Aleman's regime . . .
A. E. RICHARDS Mexico City
Sir:
Everyone who read your article certainly must have been really impressed by the character and the doings of President Ruiz Cortines . . .
It may be only an impression at first sight . . . Has Mr. Ruiz Cortines jailed any of his former Cabinet colleagues of the Aleman era? Has he taken away from them the hundreds of thousands or millions of pesos which they had received illegally and corruptly ? Why has he done nothing of this kind? ... If he only had tried to do it, he would have been dead the very day his purpose became known to all these corrupt people who have, today as yesterday, more power and more influence than the decent people like Mr. Ruiz Cortines . . .
You and your reporter . . . overestimate the influence that the very high ethics of the President will have upon the conduct and the character of the officials ... I have no doubt that nothing has changed really except the behavior of the President himself and that of a few of his friends, who are a tiny minority . . .
DR. WERNER ARON Quito, Ecuador
Sir:
Sombreros off to Chaliapin's clever cover-piece of Mexican Eagle Ruiz Cortines beheading a rattled and appropriately A-shaped, S-mottled snake-in-the-GRAFT . . .
HENRI DESCAMPS-FAJARDO Caracas, Venezuela
Sir:
You slap the Mexican press when you say that it was too close to the game of Aleman and his cronies to chronicle much of it. Just what do you mean? That it was in jeopardy and therefore scared ? Shucks! Like yourself, the Mexican press isn't scared of anything this side of the grave . . . Probably the lack of the chronicles you miss is due simply to the fact that there was nothing of the sort to chronicle . . .Who was the editor who, not with the traditional blue pencil of his kind but with the rewrite man's typewriter, was hurled out of his window four flights into the street, or was it a courtyard? He must have had a name. There must be a date to the crime. In short, who, when, where to substantiate your fabricated why.
ARTURO DOMINGUEZ PAULIN Mexico City
P: No fabrication is the defenestration of Presente's Editor Jorge Pino Sandoval, who tried to print such chronicles in 1948, was tossed from the fourth floor into a courtyard by thugs, suffering severe injuries.--ED.
Pro-Piltdown
Sir:
Allow me to say a few words for Piltdown man . . . TIME'S book editor [Sept. 14] implies that this ancient prototype leaves him cold. I realize, of course, that you can't like everybody. But just the same, it wasn't easy being Piltdown man. All he had between himself and starvation was a club. And what can you do with a club ? . . . He had a lot more to worry about than the question: What British author is going to write about Piltdown man? Nor do I believe he would object to a historical romance involving a pithecanthropus or two. But then he never heard of editors.
MERVIN C. HELFRICH Glen Ridge, N.J.
Mr. Dulles' Ad Libs
Sir:
By what right does TIME become the judge of how a U.S. Secretary of State should act or talk [Sept. 14]? Also, how does TIME get the right to "score" his "hits and errors"? . . . Russia clearly stated how it wanted the German election to go. That was never criticized. However, when Mr. Dulles made a statement which was an exact reflection of the feelings of most Americans, the screams of "righteous" indignation were loud and long . . .
WARD S. YUNKER Atlanta
Sir:
It strikes me that the criticism expressed may be well-founded, but is grossly misplaced . . . Congratulations, Mr. Dulles. It's a real relief to get an honest statement from anyone these days--and especially a diplomat . . .
I am sick unto death of our adolescent approach to foreign affairs, and especially our pitiful fear of what the rest of the world thinks of us. Personally, I don't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks.
MARGARET A. BURKE Windsor, Vt.
Sir:
We are indeed fortunate in that Mr. Dulles was not a Democrat under the Truman Administration. One ad-libber at a time is enough.'
HENRY M. MICHELCIC Mt. Olive, 111.
Little New School House
Sir:
Concerning modern schools [Sept. 7] ... since when did octagonal and hexagonal buildings with their cost doubling and tripling the cost of a foursquare, three-story building improve the study of the 3Rs? The average taxpayer and his school board have been taken for a fast ride down the chute by a lot of modernists who are not quite sure what they want to do except that it must be "different."
G. I. BAGGETT Green Bay, Wis.
Payne Whitney Clinic
Sir :
Your article on the Payne Whitney Clinic [Sept. 14] expresses with clarity the process of psychiatric treatment which is so often surrounded with mystery and befuddled explanations. As a clinical psychologist I am frequently asked to explain what psychotherapy is. In printing this article, TIME has made available to many readers an accurate account of "one of the hopeful arts of healing."
JANET L. HOOPES Lansdowne, Pa.
Strongest Men in the World
Sir:
It was a pleasure to see a magazine of your caliber devote a little intelligent attention to the sport of weight lifting [Sept. 14], a form of athletic competition which, in its rude forms, is as ancient as any . . . and is deserving of more than the jealous jeers hurled at it by lesser men.
JAMES C. WOLFORD Forest Hills, N.Y.
Sir:
"Officially, and beyond controversy . . ." Doug Hepburn is the 1953 world heavyweight weight-lifting champion--but not "the strongest man in the world" . . .
There were two men in the contest at Stockholm who have lifted higher totals officially than Doug Hepburn. John Davis, this year's runner-up, who was handicapped by a leg injury, holds the world's record total at 1,062 1/2 Ibs., and Jim Bradford, who failed to place, has totaled 1,040 Ibs ...
At the present time there is a young man (20) from Tennessee who is more deserving of being called "the world's strongest man" than anyone else known in the weight-lifting world. He is Paul Anderson, who packs a massive 300 Ibs. on a 5 ft. 9^ in. frame.
In one year's intensive training, he is within 15 Ibs. of Hepburn's press record (a record it took Hepburn nine years to establish), has snatched more and has cleaned and jerked more than Hepburn. In fact, Anderson is one of the few men in the world to have cleaned and jerked 400 Ibs. ... In the squat, which first brought fame to Hepburn, the comparison is as follows: Hepburn's best is 665 Ibs.; Anderson's official best is a staggering 762 1/4 Ibs. . . .
JIM MURRAY Managing Editor Strength and Health York, Pa.
Family Survey
Sir:
. . . The Family Survey of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod [Aug. 17] ... is not a "Kinsey for Lutherans." The sex question was only one in 50 that were asked. The questionnaire, as a whole, was less than a third of the entire research into historic doctrines and practices in the Christian church.
Regardless of the scientific objectivity of Dr. Kinsey, his name has come to be associated with anything "sexational." It is not a compliment to have a religious study labeled in that way.
PAUL G. HANSEN Research Director Lutheran Family Survey St. Louis
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