Adlai's Man Estes

Sir:

You did our country a great service by printing the background of Estes Kefauver [Sept. 17]. You sum up his accomplishments and they spell zero; no wonder he relies on shaking at least 500 hands a day to get votes. If by freak chance he should become President of the farmers and labor barons whom he concentrates on, we'd need another President for most Americans.

ARTHUR E. WYNN Forest Hills, N.Y.

Sir:

I suppose as Estes campaigns through the Middle West he will attempt to woo the debt-ridden farmer with the call

Pie in the sky

With Adlai and I.

ROBERT J. MIZE Kellogg, Idaho

Sir:

Your article on Senator Kefauver characterizes him as a rather sinister, continually scheming individual, which is unfair. I suppose fair-haired Richard Nixon is in on the race for his health (more likely, another's health).

SUE McKEE New York City

Ike's Man Dick

Sir:

"Given the advantage of the worst Republican Vice President in years," blathers Frank Jeter Jr. in your Sept. 10 Letters column. As a college senior with a profound interest in political science, I want to know just precisely what Jeter Jr. believes is so completely nix about Nixon? Exclusive of Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower, I doubt if anyone in this entire nation knows more about the complex functions of the Federal Government than our young V.P. He has had more solid experience in the past four years, more grass-roots on-the-job training for the presidency than any other man. Ike has done his best to demonstrate that Dick is No. 2 man on the team. Nixon merits Ike's unqualified support. He deserves our confidence and, certainly, he has won my admiration.

IAN THOMPSON-BOWERS Walnut Creek, Calif.

Sir:

The enlightening article by Murray Kempton reprinted in your Sept. 3 "Judgments & Prophecies" says that Nixon ". . . had on a suit of shoddy which only the most expensive tailor could have cut to fit so badly." He "turned once to wave to Herbert Hoover to establish the true pedigree." (Which proves what? Guilt by association? And if so, guilty of what? Pro-Americanism?) Nixon "always did give the effect of having a great wad of unmelting butter stuffed next to his lower jawbone." Try to get your teeth into those facts! Perhaps it is only coincidence that this attack on the man whose big sin is anti-Communism happens to be couched in the now familiar feathers-instead-of-facts style.

(MRS.) WM. J REICHARD Birmingham, Mich.

First Families

Sir:

As a woman voter, I, and I'm sure millions like me, think of the "family group" that will inhabit the White House. Looking at photographs of the various families, I, at least, return to Mamie and Ike. Those Stevenson boys with their toothy smiles are altogether too Ivy-Leaguish, and the aunt, I'm afraid, would be terribly officious. Mrs. Kefauver, at least on the '52 try, was also too much in evidence--pert and pushy. No, let's keep Mamie, who, with her naturalness, is also self-effacing and lets Ike run his side of the show. Another thing. The old talk of Republicans being "big business," Ike and Nixon came up the hard way; Stevenson and Kefauver are the bourgeois boys.

MONICA THOMAS New York City

The Busy Readers

Sir:

Your publisher, in his Sept. 10 letter to his readers, makes an arbitrary statement that the President is "already the busiest man in the world." Oh, come now, Mr. Linen. Part of the President's time may be spent in important pursuits. But don't let be silly in the effort to glorify. To be "busy" means to be "not idle." Thousands of boys and girls have after-schools jobs and stay "busy" ten or twelve hours each day. Thousands of housewives are "busy" from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., 365 days a year. Thousands of workers are so "busy" they never have time for golf and vacations. The President may often be busy. But he is definitely NOT the busiest man in the world.

J. M. GARRETT Houston

A Word From Milwaukee

Sir:

Concerning your Sept. 17 reference to Harry S. Truman's appearance on a "TV panel show" [where questions were addressed to Truman on whether he once characterized Richard Nixon's investigation into the Alger Hiss case as a red herring]: Our station originated the show, but you did not mention our call letters WXIX.

EDMUND C. BUNKER Milwaukee

Non-Partisan Interest

Sir:

The Democrats accuse the Republicans of forcing up interest rates to the detriment of the little man and the profit of the bankers. We all know that the Federal Reserve Board is a prime factor in causing this rise in interest rates, so I was rather surprised to learn from your very informative Sept. 10 article that Chairman William Martin is a Democrat, that he was originally appointed to his position by President Truman (and subsequently reappointed by President Eisenhower), that he has striven to make the "Fed" independent and non-partisan (as it should be), and that he "scrupulously refers all major issues to his board of governors."

F. B. SHERMAN San Francisco

The Nun's Story

Sir:

To defy nature's laws and retreat to a cloister means that such women are rebuffing their Creator. You say "The Nun's Story is the story of a failure [Sept. 3]." How wrong you are! Gabrielle Van der Mal successfully overcame the prejudices, the superstitions, the bigotry and the intolerance of the cloister. She succeeded in throwing off the yoke and defying the power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and returned to the world God had meant she should live in. A definite story of success.

G. H. LINDSEY New York City

Oyster on the Soft Sell

Sir:

Your Sept. 3 article "The Sophisticated Sell" neatly pinpoints the latest flanking movement of the ever resourceful adman. Remember his credo:

The female oyster is a creature

dwelling in the sea

Which makes it difficult to reach her

(even with TV).

But don't forget that girls are girls

on land or in the ocean,

And you can sell an oyster pearls

with proper sales promotion.

DON KREGER New York City

Canal Crisis

Sir:

Could not an Association of Canal Users form an International Corporation, perhaps under U.N. charter, to lease, for a fee, the canal from Egypt? A lease recognizes the ownership of the lessor, thus honoring Mr. Nasser's pride in his country.

JOHN S. SAYLOR JR. Wyomissing Hills, Pa.

Sir:

Why doesn't Mr. Dulles suggest to President Nasser the feasibility of building another waterway parallel to the Suez Canal--in Israel?

HELEN SPINOLA Culver City, Calif.

Fouling Fowler's Nest

Sir:

A foreign locution, probably Yiddish in origin, has recently been invading the English language. It appears frequently in the New York Post, occasionally in the Times. Now it has made its bow in TIME, Sept. 17. The error is so new that it is not even treated in the last edition of Fowler, but it should be in the next, with scorn.

You speak of Secretary Mitchell's "campaign to convince as many union men as possible to vote for Dwight Eisenhower." The verb convince takes a substantive, not an infinitive clause. It has adequate synonyms that do take the infinitive (persuade, induce). Have your proofreaders developed a tin ear to the difference? Or do you already consider the error sanctified by usage? Unlike other Yiddish imports, this one brings neither color nor economy with it, nor any other advantage I can see.

J. K. JESSUP New York City

Back to School

Sir:

I have been reading in the Dutch newspapers about the things that happened in Clinton, Tenn. I say shame on the U.S. and its citizens (white).

P. NOUWENS Breda, The Netherlands

Sir:

Maybe to you the white patriots in Tennessee and the other Southern states are a mob, but to me and millions of other white Americans the Supreme Court is responsible if any blood is spilled to enforce the unconstitutional Black Monday decision.

JAMES BURTON Baltimore

Sir:

Re school integration: any law that requires bayonets to enforce it is a bad law. The dictators of Germany, Russia and, in the past, Italy, used bayonets and still use bayonets to enforce their laws. We fought two world wars to correct this situation.

EAVES ALLISON Sarasota, Fla.

Sir:

The story of man's maltreatment of his fellow man is tragically long, but it is sad to think that some of the most recent chapters are being enacted in the democratic U.S. of 1956. You may be ahead of the rest of the world in many things, but in the matter of human relations your Deep South is on a par with the Neanderthal man.

R. KARUNARAJAH Geneva, Switzerland

Salt Water into Fresh

Sir:

In your Sept. 3 issue Alexander Zarchin claims "a $10 million plant [to distill seawater from the Mediterranean into the Negev] could turn out 1,000 gals. of fresh water per hour for 2-c- a cubic meter . . ." It is obvious that either the $10 million cost or the 2-c- per cubic meter is incorrect.

EVERETT D. HOWE Chairman College of Engineering University of California Berkeley, Calif.

Sir:

A regrettable mistake occurred . . . The sentence should have read: "Zarchin claims a $10,000 plant could turn out 1,000 gals., etc."

A. ZARCHIN Tel-Aviv, Israel

19-39-45

Sir:

Concerning your Sept. 10 item on Maria Luisa Garoppa: just thought you would'like to know that at least one American female can match measurements with Maria Luisa (45-19-39), only in a slightly different order: 19-39-45. However, Monsieur Dior has come to my rescue with his voluminous Dior cape (seen in your same issue), designed especially for figures like mine.

CLARICE McDERMAND North Platte, Neb.

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