The Strong Man
Sir:
Your brilliant Feb. 18 story of the Rev. Martin Luther King is a picture of early Christianity. It left me ashamed of my own ministry as I realized how cowardly I have been in the struggle for justice, mercy and equality. Thank you for opening my eyes, and congratulations on a thought-provoking piece of journalism.
FRANK A. KOSTYU Pastor
Immanuel Evangelical and Reformed Church Alliance, Ohio
Sir:
Thank you for a heartening story. May King's words live in history: "The strong man is the man who can stand up for his rights and not hit back."
JAMES H. S. MOYNAHAN
Milton, Mass.
Sir:
Have just read your nauseating article on the Rev. Martin Luther King. Cancel my subscription at once.
GEORGE HARRIS Dallas
Sir:
What a fitting article for you to publish on the day following Lincoln's birthday. As history has revealed Lincoln to be the Negroes' Moses, I doubt not that Martin Luther King Jr. will be their Joshua.
VICTOR SHARP
Lorain, Ohio
Sir:
What possible excuse could you have for placing King's picture on TIME except to increase the color subscription lists? Throughout the entire black v. white matters that have arisen, it appears that you have deliberately tried to break up the friendly relations that existed between white and colored in the South.
R. D. WILLIAMS JR. Brookneal, Va.
Sir:
I shall pay reverence to both TIME and Martin Luther King at the worship service on Sunday by using your story as the source of the Scripture lesson, and reading King's words beginning and ending with ''Please be peaceful. We want to love our enemies . . . and God is with us."
H. DEGRASSE ASBURY Minister
St. Paul Methodist Church Jamaica, L.I.
Crime & Color
Sir:
Your Feb. 11 article on Negro crime is a timely one, as have been others within the past year. However, it should be made clear that this is one of the self-sown seeds of American destruction. Negro crime will diminish in proportion to the amount of participation afforded the Negro in American affairs. This Negro crime is the price America pays for her racial doubletalk and social hypocrisy.
AL CALHOUN
Montgomery, Ala.
Sir:
The average Yankee just cannot know and will not believe what the average Negro in his own environment will do to himself and his neighbors when he feels like going on a tear--nor how often he goes. The average Negro is treated as a second-class citizen because he is a second-class citizen.
CHARLES C. LOUGHLIN
Colonel (ret.), U.S. Army Rocky Mount, N.C.
Sir:
A month ago I was mugged, brutally beaten and robbed by Negroes in New York City. I must say that this experience and some of the appalling statistics that leak out from time to time have opened my eyes. I now have a little more appreciation of the problems in the South. Certainly with equal rights go equal responsibilities? I'd like to see the N.A.A.C.P. do a little more to face up to this problem.
W. A. BECK Midland, Mich.
Sir:
It is high time someone woke up to the fact that Negro criminals are a privileged class in the U.S. They are usually treated as naughty children, their wrists are in effect slapped, they are turned loose on society and told to go and sin no more. Needless to say they are soon back in jail as repeaters. I have spent a major portion of my life in the South, and I find that nine times out of ten, if a Negro commits a crime against another Negro he gets the lightest sentence possible. However, it he commits a crime against a white person he gets the book thrown at him. Why should the offender not be punished as severely for wronging one of his brothers as he is for injury to a member of a different race? Incidentally, I am a Negro.
MELVIN H. JONES MFC, U.S. Army Fort Knox, Ky.
The President's Picture
Sir:
About Ike and Saud conferring at the White House and that picture hanging on the wall in Ike's office [Feb. 11]. Is it Mecca? Does it hang there all the time or just on certain occasions ?
HUGH L. MCWILLIAMS JR. Winnetka, Ill.
Sir:
I would like you to tell me how the painting with the churches of Riga, Latvia found its way into President Eisenhower's office. CHRISTIAN A. KRAUSE Pittsburgh
<$ The Towers of Riga, by Latvian Artist Ludolfs Liberts (see cut), was given to the President in 1953 by
Latvian admirers now living in the U.S. and Sunday Painter Ike has kept it in his office ever since.--ED.
Slogans for the Secretary
Sir:
We all owe a vote of thanks to Charles Wilson, not alone for what he has accomplished as Secretary of Defense, but even more for what he has tried to do in his blunt, honest way to cut through the muddled poli-thinking of Government today. Poli-thinking is a political phenomenon resulting from men having both ears to the ground--a position which naturally prevents keeping one eye on the future. If the National Guard, Air Force, Army, Marines or Navy are not prepared to fulfill their defense missions, it is his job to tell Congress. Too bad there aren't more men in Government with the same courage and blunt manner of calling a card as they see it.
EDMUND BURKE Riverside, Conn.
Sir:
Does Mr. Wilson still have the slogan Nulle Bastardos Carborundum (I believe the translation, loosely, was ''Don't let the bastards get you down") on his desk? I hope it's still there.
MRS. ELMER FETTIN Omaha
-I Secretary Wilson has replaced this old slogan with two others. One reads:
THE CAR TO VATCH IS THE CAR BEHINDT
THE CAR IN VRONT OF YOU, YET. The other reads: VE GET TOO SOON OLDT
AND TOO LATE SCHMART. ED.
Quiz Whiz
Sir:
Your Feb. 11 story on Charles Van Doren and the Van Doren family is the most fascinating thing I've read in many a day. The private and public personality of Charles is tops. And so is your splendid article.
ARCH P. PERKINS
Dallas
Sir:
Your willingness to add your great weight to glamorizing intelligence and memory (Van Doren) should earn you new praises. Look what glamorizing did for sex, athletics and big business. Let us hope it can do the same for mental powers. A great many teachers and "students" are probably adding their thanks to the egghead's.
LOREN DUNTON Denver
Sir:
Was truly amazed that Columbia University pays him only $4,400 per year--little wonder that there is a teacher shortage.
FLORENCE ROENIGK
Independence, Iowa
Sir:
Please have pity on the frustration of all the mothers of young intellectuals who combed your Van Doren article for Charles's IQ. What is it?
MARGARET DE Lucco Lakewood, Ohio flSays Quiz Whiz Van Doren: "I don't know and I don't care."--ED.
Sir:
May I be the first to nominate Charles Van Doren as the "Man of the Year." And in the even far more distant future, I would nominate this particular egghead as the 1960 replacement for Adlai Stevenson (if he were 35 by then). By way of politics, which camp claims Charlie Van Doren?
ANNETTE KALSON
Pittsburgh
-I Says Van Doren: ''I'm a maverick.
I keep changing my mind."--ED.
Sir:
What, if any, religious affiliation does Van Doren have?
LAYTON BERRY
Minister
The First Methodist Church Faulkton, S. Dak.
-I None.--ED.
Hucksters' Saint
Sir:
The Vatican bobbled the dialectic ball again. That the staid St. Bernardino of Siena should be the patron saint of advertisers [Feb. 4] and bandied about by the mass-media Babbitts is unforgivable. Our blatant and vulgar advertising is the one crack in our picture window that anti-Americans point to as our literary output. Madison Avenue's grey flannel mouthings could never wear Bernardino's hair shirt.
(PVT.) E. ALBERT WASHAK JR. U.S.A.F.
Fort Bragg, N.C.
Sir:
For your article on St. Bernardino, why didn't you consider the title "Saint in the Grey Flannel Habit"?
PETER KENNEDY Columbus, Ohio
Rummaging for Rubles
Sir:
Allow me to add a few words to your Feb. 11 article "Anastasia", regarding the alleged fortune deposited in England by the late Czar Nicholas of Russia. In July 1917 Alexander Kerensky, the revolutionary Prime Minister, declared that "all rumors regarding the fortune of the Czar abroad is a baseless legend." Actually, what started this legend was the enormous sums in gold rubles deposited in England by the Russian Imperial government during the first World War to cover purchases for ammunition. This sum was frozen by the British government after the Communists seized power. These funds, of course, had nothing to do with the private fortune of the imperial family.
ALEXANDRE TARSAIDZE Russian Nobility Association in America, Inc.. New York City
Needling Nehru
Sir:
I don't like your needless needling of Krishna Menon over the Kashmir affair in the U.N. [Feb. 4]. Not that I favor the Indians in the Kashmir question; on the contrary, I think they are wrong. But what apparently you do not realize is that TIME is unnecessarily unfriendly and, sometimes, insulting to India. Use your enormous influence to further good will abroad toward the U.S.
IKE HAISSMAN Pasadena, Calif.
Sir:
Had India agreed to be an American satellite like Pakistan, you, I am sure, would certainly have endorsed India's legitimate actions in Kashmir. Why don't you practice what you preach? Let the Negroes and Red Indians breathe freely in your country.
A. J. PEREIRA Singapore
Sir:
Shame on TIME. If Nehru was wrong, Abe Lincoln was wrong.
PHILIP H. PARTRIDGE Hillsboro, Ohio
Sir:
The hypocritical nature of Indian foreign policy has been at last revealed to the world. It is most regrettable that a man like Nehru is allowed to get away as the "spokesman" of the Afro-Asian countries. By her bullying action the present Indian government has lost all claim to moral authority.
HAROUN AR RASHID (President, Pakistan Assn.) Cambridge, England
Over & Under
Sir:
"London Bill" Tucker's arrogant letter in your Feb. 11 issue--with its haughty gibe about American boys being "overfed, overpaid, oversexed, and over here"--brought back memories of the way we answered this crack during World War II. We damned well let them know that their blokes were underfed, underpaid, undersexed, and under Eisenhower.
MARVIN E. BROOKS Captain, U.S.A.F. (Res.) Los Angeles
Sir:
To Mr. Tucker's opinion of American boys, please add overtaxed because they've been overgenerous to unappreciative limeys. MARIE NORVELL
Oklahoma City
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