Who for '56?

Sir:

Of course, it goes without saying that we aren't particularly interested in having De Sapio run the country with Harriman as regent; Stevenson may have his faults and quirks, but we independents feel he is basically honest and never opportunistic.

MRS. C. E. EADY Towson, Md.

Sir: Adlai Stevenson can turn an apter phrase than anyone else in sight. It is easier to make epigrams, though, than to make the decisions required of a President. Stevenson does not give the impression of being particularly decisive. He might weigh his decisions so carefully as never to make any; our late foreign policy on China seemed to be conducted in this way. We "waited for the dust to settle" for so long that in the end we did nothing. Stevenson seems to have no clear idea of how far the American people will follow political leadership.

The fact is that there are better qualified men of the same political persuasion and same party. There is even one from Stevenson's own state--Senator Paul Douglas.

W. W. CLENDENIN Austin, Texas

Ave's Way

Sir:

Averell Harriman [Nov. 14] can do his country his greatest service by getting the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956. This will ensure a Republican victory with or without Eisenhower.

LYNN STEWART Hastings, Neb.

Sir:

Do you believe that there is a remote possibility that what helped "Honest Ave" achieve "one of the longest and most varied records in the administrative branch of the U.S. Government" was not his personal contributions to the posts involved, but his financial contributions to the Democratic Party?

T. A. JOHNSTON Nampa, Idaho

Sir:

A class interested in propaganda analysis could do no better than to compare your two recent articles on Mr. Nixon and on Mr. Harriman. You have accomplished the impossible. Not only have you made a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but now you have made a sow's ear out of a silk purse.

GEORGE W. FORELL Iowa City

Sir:

Your cover shows that Harriman bears a striking resemblance to W. Somerset Maugham.

ROBERT G. WILKINSON Pasadena, Calif. P: For resemblance, see cuts.--ED.

Sir:

With all due regard for Harriman's ability, we will need the remainder of this century to recover from the work of another squire in the White House.

LEROY B. LORENZ San Gabriel, Calif.

Sir: lowans may live on ham and corn--but J they despise condescension ("hamminess" and "corniness") from anyone. Let Harriman join ; those who have "foot-in-mouth" disease, and sink into oblivion.

JOHN R. TAYLOR

Iowa City

Sir:

That touched up presentation, both textual and pictorial of A. (for "aged," no doubt) Harriman didn't go unnoticed. Is TIME biased ?

LEONARD GOODMAN Cambridge, Mass.

Bohrod's Vignettes

Sir:

Let's have more of these Bohrod trompe-I'oeil vignettes; they're fun.

LORA STONE GRAUL Ferguson, Mo.

Sir:

Re Artist Bohrod and his trompe-l'oeil covers: twice now, in the past few months, I have pulled TIME out of my mailbox and gotten a handful of slivers.

DONALD RALBOVSKY Washington, D.C.

The Wandering Gills

Sir:

What a host of pleasant, interesting people your admirable magazine must have as readers, including more hill walkers and mountain climbers than ever I guessed were in all of motorized America! We've been getting quite a pile of mail, after you mentioned us in the Oct. 31 issue. Some of our correspondents are home-town lovers, inviting us to include their homes on our itinerary so they may communicate their local pride to us.

MRS. JOHN DAVID GILL

Portland, Ore.

Sir:

The story of the walking Gills confirmed a long suspicion that our family inherited their wanderlust from our Manx father and not our Scots mother, who bore and weaned the six of us in Uganda. After wandering the globe, brother Ian settled in India, brother Noel in Mauritius, sister Kathleen in Iraq, sister Betty in Rhodesia and twin sister Doreen in Canada. I keep in touch with them all from this address.

DEREK L. T. GILL Queenstown, South Africa

Proxy Promise

Sir:

Your Nov. 14 Press section contains a factual error respecting SEC's proxy rule revision proposal. Contrary to the [American Civil Liberties Union] report from which you quoted, it is untrue that a reporter or publisher may be prosecuted under commission rules, present or proposed, for publishing information from trade or other independent sources about a company involved in a proxy contest or the contestants themselves.

J. SINCLAIR ARMSTRONG Chairman

Securities and Exchange Commission Washington, D.C. P: TIME and Investigator Allen Raymond erred in implying that the new SEC proxy rule has already been adopted. But some financial reporters still hold that, if adopted, it could restrict reporting of proxy fights.--ED.

Inside Herman

Sir:

The words you quote from Herman Tal-madge's book [Nov. 14] sound vaguely familiar; Adolf Hitler had much the same feelings in regard to racial mixture. I never thought that the people of the U.S., or even of Georgia, would read even one word of such stupid filth. The best place for trash like Talmadge is the trash can.

RAYMOND COEN Athens, Ohio

Sir:

A year ago, my father's funeral procession, led by two of the city's finest mounted policemen, was routed down the main street right through the heart of town. Thus the city of Griffin, Ga. paid its final respects to one of its oldest Negro citizens. Despite all the puny efforts of Gauleiter "Hummon" Talmadge, the people in the South will still abide by the laws of the nation; and if he would pull off that storm trooper's uniform, he wouldn't be so bad himself.

GEORGE L. CONNALLY JR. Cleveland

The Blackboard Bungle

Sir:

Your Nov. 14 review of Retreat from Learning struck a responsive chord in a teacher of many years' experience. Teachers are a dedicated group. The older generation of teachers were so completely cowed by bureaucracy and politics that freedom of speech was just a pat phrase. Conditions have changed only to grant that freedom to pupils. The public asks so frequently, "Why don't teachers do something about all this delinquency?" They should read how Author Joan Dunn shows up the limitations of teachers' authority.

G. M. RUSH

Oak Park, 111.

Sir:

Your article should be required reading for every parent. As a graduate student, after completing a large part of the requirements for secondary-teaching credentials, I gave up in disgust at the conformity required.

WM. ORCHARD-HAYS Santa Monica, Calif.

Sir:

Granted, the pupils in the New York metropolitan schools are "apparently" difficult, and the educators are "apparently" failing to meet their goals, other cities and other communities are meeting their problems and coming up with solutions and New York City does the same. The younger generation always seems to be worse than the last. I suggest that Miss Dunn should become more acquainted with other schools, other pupils, and become a bit more experienced in teaching before she condemns ... If all young teachers "give up" after four years, who is to supply the answer?

DONALD H. BONHAM New York City

Sir:

Judging from the group of high-school graduates that I have observed and counseled in the past two years, I suspect that mathematics has been discarded and pictures have already replaced words in the average high school.

W. W. HANNAFORD

Key West, Fla.

Sir:

Why is it that the quitters and destructive thinkers get such a quick response from editors and publishers? Perhaps it is that the people who step into a situation fraught with annoyances and injustices and all kinds of failings, and work as hard as they can, and accept the rewards from teaching, do not blow their own horns. I began to teach at a junior high school in Manhattan. All the things that Miss Dunn complains of are there: poor facilities; an overabundance of administrative duties; disturbed, uninterested, not bright children. And I cannot refute her argument that a teachers' college does not prepare one for keeping order among 37 "growing" adolescents. Yet a good teacher extracts what she can from the modern theories, applies them when she can. and then sometimes has the great satisfaction in having helped her charges. Why so much sympathy for Miss Dunn for her abandonment? Are we teachers to wait for ideal conditions before trying to help these unideal children learn to use what they have in the best way possible in an imperfect world?

MERIEL MOSKOWITZ New York City

Sir:

I am in my fifth and last year of teaching for the very same reason as Miss Dunn's. I have been considered a radical and even undemocratic when expressing my views, which in no way conform with those of "modern educators." The entire public-education system needs a rejuvenation.

ANN R. PYNE Linwood, Md.

Further Debates

Sir:

In TIME'S Nov. 7 Letters column, Congressman Sam Coon claimed that "nonfederal interests" could participate in his partnership bill for the John Day Dam. The Congressman failed to reveal to your readers that the Rural Electric Cooperatives of Oregon, for example, have described his bill as "a scheme to turn over the rivers of the Northwest to private monopoly."

RICHARD L. NEUBERGER U.S. Senator from Oregon Washington, D.C.

Fie, Says the Cowboy Sir: Fie on the reviewer of The American Cowboy for referring to Dr. Frantz and me as "dude professors" and "vicarious vaqueros" [Nov. 14]. I was riding an Indian pony and not "grabbin-- " leather when I was "going on" seven, and I have broken more than one broncho. Furthermore, we don't the cowboy, and we believe that and the reality are inseparable.

J. E. CHOATE JR.

David Lipscomb College Nashville P: TIME'S dude critic smiled when he said that. -- ED.

Sir, Last month at a midwestern U.

Two penpunchers hove into view.

Their punch may be corny, Their style too longhorny, The book a great bore, With hoofnotes galore, But I sure did enjoy TIME'S review.

I. G. EVERSON Staten Island, N.Y.

Margaret's Decision (Contd.) Sir: This may be classified as old news now, but I can't help but comment that Margaret's decision has been analyzed, weighed, and blamed upon everything from symbolism to the Archbishop, per your Nov. 14 "Judgments & Prophecies." The most obvious and logical influence on Margaret's decision seems to me to be that she must have heard from Uncle Edward.

MRS. SYLVIA PRESSMAN Dearborn, Mich.

Sir:

What an appalling display of fuzzy thinking in some of the world's leading editorial comment! The moral law as defined in the New Testament still stands as our civilization's highest criterion, no matter how outmoded some people may feel it has become.

RUTH HILL Washington, D.C.

Meticulous

Sir:

I was rather disturbed by your meticulous description of Ann Woodward as she was found by the police [Nov. 14]. Must you resort to such intimate and unimportant details ("blue negligee," "black brassiere ') in order to present a story in its true form? Are you competing with the cheap "tabloids"?

ALEXANDER ALEXIADES New Haven, Conn.

A View from Partridge Sir: In your Nov. 14 Cinema review of The View from Pompey's Head I note the use of the word "peckerhead." I have my own definition of this word--will you kindly provide me with yours? PERRY W. PARKER Major, U.S.A.F. (ret.) Palmdale, Calif. P: According to Partridge's Dictionary oj Slang and TIME'S movie reviewer, peckerhead means a kind of beak-nosed eager beaver.--ED.

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