Tale of the Tiger

Sir:

Re Carmine De Sapio [Aug. 22]: Do you honestly think that the Tammany Tiger under De Sapio has changed stripes, or that the people think so ? For all the whitewashing . . . the black stripes are still there, even though De Sapio has a new technique. He says Tammany is honest, and--ergo--that is supposed to make it honest. He should read Macbeth once again, to refresh his recollection about a "damned spot" that is still there . . .

CLARENCE GREENBAUM Republican County [N.Y.] Committee New York City

Sir:

Carmine De Sapio's professed disassociation with the mobster elements around Tammany came as no surprise; that TIME should print it was a surprise. Of course, if De Sapio is on the level, then TIME did the public a service with its cover story . . .

LISTON F. COON Watkins Glen, N.Y.

Sir:

So Carmine has to get out of being in the next room to Costello! Well, for at least five years, and maybe ten, Costello and his ilk were running Tammany . . .

JACK M. WEBSTER Fort Worth, Texas

Sir:

... A very clever job in leaning over backward so as not to give De Sapio the benefit of any doubt . . .

HOWARD P. SMITH

North Bennington, Vt.

Sir:

. . . Carmine De Sapio spends ". . . hours each day in his national committeeman's headquarters in the Biltmore Hotel." On Mondays and Fridays he ". . . holds court ... in Tammany Hall." He "averages a dozen speeches a week . . . He politicks at his kitchen table from 8 a.m. and all the while he is trying to chart the presidential candidacy of the Governor of New York, Averell Harriman, etc., etc." Tell me--do our taxes pay this man a salary as Secretary of State?

JOHN J. WILSON New York City

Sir:

When I saw the tiger behind De Sapio on the cover, I thought it looked familiar to me, so I put on my reading glasses, and, sure enough, there were the words "after Th. Nast." To say I was pleased is an understatement, because Thomas Nast was my father. I am nearly 76 years young . . .

C. NAST New Rochelle, N.Y.

Just a Gambol

Sir:

Concerning the Aug. 22 report that the President's 13-month-old gift-heifer, Irvington Roamiss Pear, "reared up on her hind legs, clicked her front hooves, and gamboled into the pasture," we wonder if this is not a slight exaggeration. The three of us represent over 47 years of accumulated farming experience, but none of us ever witnessed such an event . . .

GENE DICKEY LEON E. TESTER W. M. HENDRICKSON Chincoteague, Va.

Sir:

Even on Kentucky bluegrass our heifers merely rear on front legs, click hind hooves . . . What crazy grass was Irvington Roamiss Pear reared on?

DAVID B. DICK Lexington, Ky.

P:TIME put a city-bred correspondent's foot in its mouth--ED.

Pacific Paradise

Sir:

Your Aug. 15 article "Okinawa: Levittown-on-the-Pacific" should have been "Okinawa: Dependent's Paradise." . . . Take us away from this lushest of assignments and give us that rough Stateside duty . . .

(SFC.) EUGENE J. BARRIOS (SGT.) THOMAS J. RYAN (SP/2) DONALD E. SEIDEL U.S. Army c/o Postmaster San Francisco

Sir:

For two disgusting years (1952-54) I was ... on Okinawa . . . Gentlemen, I assure you, I would suffer the loss of my right arm to keep from returning there ... If the Okinawa economy has boomed, chances are that this has more to do with more troops, more prostitutes, more saki and beer than it has "military bustle." This was the basis of the Okinawa economy during my tour there, and nothing short of a miracle could change it ...

JAMES A. CARSON Austin, Texas

The British Press

Sir:

Re your outspoken Aug. 22 commentary on what is seen in Britain's newspapers: don't blame the newspapermen. You indict the British people, and they deserve it. The Daily Sketch did not recognize changing times so it was sold to someone who knew that the people do want "cheesecake, sex and crime" . . . You are misleading on one point. True that Britain has had compulsory education up to 15 only since 1947; misleading, because we have had compulsory education up to 14 for at least 50 years. Not that that means very much. English primary education doesn't teach you how to think; for that you have to go to Scotland or some other place.

H. A. HARTLEY London

Sir:

TIME'S pious criticism of the British national press is hard to take. As a newspaperman who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic, I can only say, "Who are you kidding?" The wildest excesses of London's tabloids are as the cooing of innocent babes compared with the obscene and inept muckraking of their New York contemporaries (GIN CRAZED,

SLAYS FOUR. BARE COMMIE PLOT). I Work for the ''irrepressible" London Daily Mirror, and I'm not ashamed of it.

JOHN BIERMAN

London

Sir:

The Fleet Street national dailies--which naturally range from the "stuffy" to the "sensational"--are merely morning newspapers and have to compete with local and regional papers throughout the country. Evening papers are locally and regionally produced and give worldwide news coverage in a sober and responsible manner. Contrary to your conclusion, the British newspaper reader is probably the best-informed layman in the world today.

THOS. M. WILSON Detroit

Sir:

. . . Why, then, if Britain has three quality dailies, has America none at all?

BRUCE CUNNINGHAM

New York City

Sir:

An Englishman, I ashamedly agree with every word of your damning indictment of the so-called popular British press. At the same time, nationwide, also with notable exceptions, isn't this veritably a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

ALAN NEAVE DODD Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir:

You pick out the London Times, Daily Telegraph and Manchester Guardian as representing the highest level in British daily newspapers. I think you are right. But, although not strictly a British journal, I think you should have mentioned the Irish Times . . .

ASHLEY BROWN Ashford, Wicklow, Eire

Ire v. Eire

Sir:

Your Aug. 29 article on the I.R.A. shocked me . . . "In 1939, taking advantage of Britain's preoccupation with the coming World War II, the I.R.A. sought to revive the issue of partition by launching hundreds of terrorist bombings in Manchester and London." If I were of southern Irish lineage, and/or a sympathizer of the I.R.A., I would blush with shame. It's comparable to a naughty little boy kicking his mother in the rear as she stooped over to pick up the laundry. How juvenile can you be?

DOREEN TUXBURY Manchester, N.H.

Sir:

When striving to gain independence from England, the founders of the U.S. were also considered by their European progenitors to be an "outlawed, audacious nationalistic group" . . . Irish nationalism, confined as it is to a desire for the unification of Ireland, is preferable to the odiousness of English colonialism.

JOHN C. HENNESSY Glendale, Calif.

Kinship in Bronze

Sir:

I have with pleasure read your Aug. 15 article about "Metal Sculpture: Machine-Age Art." When I saw the picture of Reg

Butler's bronze Machine, I found that the construction and lines are very much like the old Danish idol sculpture Solvognen (Sun Wagon), dated 1500-1000 B.C. . . .

POUL BREHMER Kastrup, Denmark.

P:For British Sculptor Butler's kinship with a Danish Bronze Age craftsman, see cuts. -- ED.

The Blood Story

Sir:

The Aug. 22 medical section of your magazine carries a brief report of my research on the preservation of whole blood by freezing . . . The story is ... misleading. We do not spray liquid nitrogen on the blood but vice versa. The transfusion was not a complete success since over 6% of the cells were destroyed in the processing and another 6% left the circulation in the first six hours after transfusion. Storage is only theoretically indefinite at temperatures too low to be practical. Storage at higher temperatures is being studied, but results are not yet available. My associate, Mr. [Emanuel] Kafig shared equally in the research and also took a transfusion . . .

HAROLD T. MERYMAN, M.D. Sloane Physics Laboratory Yale University New Haven, Conn.

M.R.A.'s Message (Contd.)

Sir:

Re Moral Re-Armament: I have just read your July 18 article and subsequent letters to the Editor with regard to the 'junket" that 192 of the faithful have been making to the Far East and Africa. I had the greatest sympathy with the American taxpayer when I saw three U.S.A.F. transports at Nairobi ... I think it is disgraceful that Moral Re-Armament's The Vanishing Island should have been allowed to be put on at the National Theatre of Nairobi--whose charter clearly states that nothing of a political flavour can be shown in it. The play is anti-British, anti-democratic and anticolonial. At a time like this, when we are having the greatest difficulties in stabilizing colonial administration, it is a great pity that this sort of thing has been allowed to be shown in a theatre backed by the colonial administration . . .

J. W. WILKINSON

Nairobi, Kenya

Sir:

Concerning M.R.A.'s play: the use of U.S. Air Force planes to carry the germs of Moral Re-Armament to Asia is a typical example of Mr. Buchman's skulduggery because it implies U.S. Government sanction of the movement.

It is politically inexpedient for a publication, an organization or an individual to challenge a group that professes to be the epitome of everything good and the nemesis of everything bad. We admire your position.

C. R. GRANT

General Chairman, District No. 100. International Association of Machinists Miami Springs, Fla.

A Matter of Opinion

Sir:

The diversity of opinions and criticisms about Andre Malraux [TIME Letters, Aug. 18] made me not only laugh but made me realize for the first time what a school of democracy your Letters department is. Your fearless publication of the pros and cons is, in my estimation, real democracy . . .

ALBERT CONTI Hollywood

Sir:

. . . Your article about Malraux was the reason for many a long discussion and exchange of opinion on board our ship during a recent trip from Naples to Istanbul. It helped greatly to bring passengers from different parts of the world nearer to each other and to understand each other's ideas and ideals.

HUGO SEINFELD Istanbul, Turkey

Auto Credit

Sir:

Auto credit is not as serious a danger as you picture in TIME, Aug. 22. Your claim that the auto purchaser owes more than his car is worth for the first 9 1/2 months after he drives it from the showroom is not correct, and the frightening-looking graph alongside is misleading. In the text, you say that the customer pays 25% down ("common terms nowadays"). This means that he owes initially only $1,800, which is less than the $1,920 the car is then worth . . . You ought to correct the impression given by the chart . . .

THOMAS M. KLEIN

Ann Arbor, Mich.

P:TIME was right: the auto buyer owes more than the $2,400 car is worth for 9 1/2 months, but it neglected to explain that he pays $504 in finance and insurance charges, thus faces an unpaid balance of $2,304 after a 25% down payment.--ED.

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