Hoosier Governor
Sir:
Congratulations for the March 7 story on Indiana's Governor Craig . . . Many persons will be shocked at what seems to be unmitigated graft and corruption in Indiana . . . Others will be confirmed in their dislike and mistrust of politics and politicians, and many friends and foes of Ike will view with alarm or cynicism (real or feigned) the fact that Craig is Ike's boy. However, Indiana, the state Lincoln grew up in, undoubtedly molded him as much as any environment could mold him. Politics are undoubtedly played pretty much the same as they were played in Lincoln's time--in Springfield, III., or in Washington, D.C. . . . "Taken all told," in the words of Huck Finn, we don't doubt that Craig still has the same chances as Lincoln to achieve statesmanship by being an honest politician.
RICHARD P. PETTY Detroit
Sir:
. . . No Hoosier would deny that shortly after Governor Craig "burst" into office, the air was hot and heavy with toll-road plans; and certainly no Hoosier could deny that, as a political tool for graft-minded politicians, the toll-road project is a tremendous achievement. What you didn't mention is that the remainder of our highways have acquired the not so complimentary name of "Craig's corduroy road system" . . .
JAMES W. RILY Indianapolis
Sir:
Congratulations for giving the nation a report on the political shenanigans going on within Indiana's Republican Party . . . Why any politician would want to go to heaven when he can live in Indiana is beyond comprehension . . . Regardless of which party is in power, Indiana always has government of the politicians, by the politicians, and for the politicians. The citizen is the servant . . . Some day the people of Indiana will get their fill of having the state run as a "politicians' paradise."
EARL E. DAWALD Geneva, Ind.
SIR:
FINALLY FOUND FACTS ON HOOSIER POLITICS AND THE TOLL-ROAD ISSUE. WE DON'T GET REPORTING LIKE THIS FROM THE LOCAL PRESS. IT IS TOO BUSY BEATING DRUMS ABOUT THE HERITAGE OF A FREE PRESS. MOST HOOSIERS AREN'T AS PROUD OF THIS PATRONAGE MUCK AS ARE THE POLITICIANS. AT LEAST THE BEST MAN IS ON TOP.
THOMAS E. O'CONNER FORT WAYNE, IND.
Sir:
My opinion as a native of Kokomo (rhymes with ho-ho-ho) is that a rhyming dictionary ain't a good thing to tour Indiana with. In that state, where Peru rhymes with Pee-roo, Brazil rhymes not so much with Hazel as Bray-zill.
VERLE E. LUDWIG Captain, U.S.M.C. Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Having spent 20 years uv my life bein' razed up in the tuff atmosfere uv Clay Caounty's Brazil (pronounced bra as in brassiere, z as in zebra, il as in ill), I think I can say TIME erred. The atmosfere ain't tuff, and the peepul ain't either . . .
H. B. Moss Indianapolis
P: Says TIME'S correspondent:
There was a sweet Hoosier named Hazel From the clay-baking town some call
Brazil; When asked whence she hailed She blushed and then wailed Not Brazil, not Bray-zul, but Bray-zel.--ED.
Air Pioneers
Sir:
It's about time somebody said something good about North American Airlines. For my money they pioneered air-coach service as we know it today.
WM. J. KENNY Lindenhurst, N.Y.
Sir:
. . . Any company that cares for its customers as well as North American Airlines does should be congratulated and not forced out of business by the big airlines. I would like to thank TIME [Feb. 28] for giving this airline a fair shake.
MORRIS ROTHMAN Brooklyn, N.Y.
Ten Against Time
Sir:
. . . From different vantage points, we have had doubts about your recording of current news in your NATIONAL AFFAIRS section. As freshmen Congressmen, it is our privilege to participate in events reported in this section, and we now find our suspicions were fully warranted ... A fresh case in point is your Feb. 28 account of the reciprocal-trade fight in the House. In protest, we raise the record against you on these points:
1) Nowhere did you mention the paramount fact that roughly two-thirds of the Democrats voted throughout for the bill and two-thirds of the Republicans against it. Instead, you carefully created the impression that the parties were evenly split and that the Reed amendment was actually beaten by last-minute Republican vote-switching.
2) Your reporters noted that Speaker Rayburn rallied the Democrats and literally resurrected the bill by his personal appeal; yet, significantly, they failed to report that Minority Leader Martin's plea as spokesman for the President changed only one vote.
3) TIME'S report said "the leadership in both parties went all-out for the bill." When the House Republicans decide to go all-out on an issue, as your reporters surely know, they hold a caucus before the bill comes onto the floor (as they did on the tax fight last month). No such caucus was held prior to the tariff showdown, and we observed with surprise that Joe Martin did not raise his voice the first day, when the bill was fighting for its life . . .
STEWART L. UDALL (ARIZ.)
FRANK THOMPSON JR. (NJ.)
B. F. SISK (CALIF.)
JAMES ROOSEVELT (CALIF.)
HENRY, S. REUSS (Wis.)
CHARLES C. DIGGS (Mien.)
DON HAYWORTH (Mien.)
EDITH GREEN (ORE.)
HARRIS B. MCDOWELL JR. (DEL.)
RICHARD E. LANKFORD (MD.)
House of Representatives Washington, D.C.
P: Point by point:
1) The numerical party alignment on the tariff votes may be "paramount" from the standpoint of a partisan politician; from any other standpoint the striking feature of the tariff vote was the historic shift disclosed inside both parties, particularly the shift among traditionally free-trade Southern Democrats influenced by the growing industrialization of the South. Had TIME sought to hide Republican opposition to the President's tariff programs, it would hardly have devoted so much space to the words and works of three prominent protectionist Republicans--Reed, Mason and Brown; nor would it have reported that "Tennessee's Democratic Representative Ross Bass lashed the Republicans for not supporting the bill," nor would it have chosen as symbols of the debate one Republican clearly labeled "Protectionist Mason" and one Democrat clearly labeled "Free-Trader Cooper."
2) Neither TIME nor its ten critics know how many Republican votes, if any, were changed by Martin's reading of the President's letter. The votes before and after Martin's efforts were on different questions.
3) The suggestion that Martin and the rest of the official Republican leadership were not really trying to pass the bill is contrary to the face of the record. The only facts cited by the ten freshmen are 1) that Joe Martin did not speak in the first part of the debate, and 2) that the Republican leadership did not hold a caucus. As the ten freshmen may learn, Martin (like Rayburn) does his most effective work by means other than speeches.
When a leadership knows it has a majority of its group, it will often call a caucus in the hope of enforcing a measure of party discipline on a minority. But the Republican leadership--as the vote proved--was by no means sure of a majority of Republicans. Under the circumstances, the lack of a caucus call was evidence that the Republican leaders were determined to support the President even against a majority of the G.O.P. Representatives --not that they wanted to kill the bill.--ED.
Mathieu's Marks
Sir:
Why does TIME waste space on a sideshow artist like Georges Mathieu [March 7]? . . . It's performers like him wao give modern art a reputation it does not deserve.
(A/3c) DAVID R. STORIE Chanute Field, III.
Sir:
Mathieu's antics bring to mind a statement by Sadakichi Hartmann: "If you think that vaudeville is dead, look at modern art."
ALFRED E. HANSEN Donalds, S.C.
Hadrian's Friend
Sir:
Thanks for the review of Hadrian's Memoirs, | Nov. 29]. This review managed to state forcibly in a few lines some of my principal aims in writing this novel.
MARGUERITE YOURCENAR Fayence, Var, France
Facing Both Ways
Sir:
In the Feb. 21 issue you say: ". . . During World War II Nikita Khrushchev took care of the politics. Politics meant provoking German atrocities ... to disillusion the captive Ukrainian people." Did German atrocities require Russian provoking?
IRENE McKEE St. Louis
P: I In the first flush of their conquest of the Ukraine the Germans were welcomed as liberators. Within a year they had organized a vast army of collaborators, including thousands of Red army prisoners and deserters and battalions of disaffected minority groups, Circassians. Tartars, etc. Andrei Vlasov, a turncoat Red general, led the operation. An obvious Communist tactic was to destroy the Ukrainians' confidence in their new masters by deliberately provoking characteristic Nazi brutality. This they did by isolated acts of terrorism and sabotage and so successfully that Nazi policy soon changed from collaboration to genocide.--ED.
Haul of Fame
Sir:
Your March 7 Cinema review of Jupiter's Darling has another gem: "Esther Williams' pictures are generally just so much water over the dame." It deserves to go in the hall of fame together with an early TIME comment on a Clifford Odets picture after Odets had first gone to Hollywood: "Odets, where is thy sting?"
HARRY LANTRY Harden Lake, Idaho
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