Ike & the U.S.

Sir:

Your recent news treatment of Mr. Eisenhower is said by some wags to be roughly equivalent to the College of Cardinals criticizing the Pope. If being 67 years old is what is slowing down the President, then I heartily wish TIME were twice its present age.

DOROTHEA MORRIS Smyrna, Ga.

Sir:

You show a lack of appreciation of the personal sacrifices the President has made since 1956 when he bowed to Republican demands that he win for them a second term. D. ARTHUR New York City

Sir:

Please lay off nagging Ike every time he takes a change of scene. F.D.R. spent long weeks working at Warm Springs, Ga. and no one ever nagged him about it.

MARGARET MARTIN Moultrie, Ga.

Sir:

Your March 3 issue lead story has these words: ". . . what longtime White House reporters deemed the most baffling of all Dwight Eisenhower's presidential weeks." Out of curiosity, we hunted today for any White House reporters (aside from TIME'S man) who had been polled by TIME on what they thought of the President's week. We are sure you are not surprised that we found not a one. We question your right to attribute your own conclusions to "longtime White House reporters" who might not agree with you.

MERRIMAN SMITH GARNETT D. HORNER Press Room The White House Washington, D.C. P: TIME'S own White House reporters do not need a poll to know when their colleagues are acting baffled.--ED.

Sir:

Indelicate is one word to describe Washington newsmen who keep harping to Ike about his health and reduction of his work load. These patriots err by putting all their eggs in one basket. If they are really concerned for the country's good, let them also visit the halls of Congress where absenteeism is said to be high.

E. MARCELLUS NESBITT Beaver, Pa.

T.R. & the U.S.

Sir:

Your March 3 cover article made me feel like a kid again, for it took me back to my grammar-school days when Teddy was the hero of every schoolboy. Bully for you.

F. J. TERRA Major, U.S.A. (ret.) Cambridge, Mass.

Sir:

T.R. wisely told us to "speak softly and carry a big stick." Nowadays, the big stick is a mashie.

LEA HOPE BLUM Chicago

Sir:

Give me a Republican President of T.R.'s stature, and I'll quit voting Democratic--as I have in the last five campaigns.

W. T. WARD Anaheim, Calif.

Sir:

T.R.'s day is over--why not realize we are in the Sputnik Age? No wonder the Russians are ahead.

T. J. JOHNSON Minneapolis

Sir:

How badly we need a leader of Teddy Roosevelt's plain, old-fashioned guts today. Instead, we are stuck with pussyfooting little politicians, afraid of the voters' shadows. Would T.R. ever have sanctioned the ruinous farm surplus system, the Korean disaster, the betrayal of Hungary, the Aswan Dam blunder?

P. J. REED-MAAR

East Haddam, Conn.

Sir:

Theodore Roosevelt was not a member of Alpha Delta Phi at Harvard. Rather a most illustrious member of Delta Kappa Epsilon.

KARL ROBINSON New Haven, Conn.

P: See below.--ED.

Sir:

The practice of allowing a man to be a member of more than one undergraduate social fraternity once existed at Harvard. Baird's Manual of American Fraternities verifies this as it names T.R. as a member of both Deke and Alpha Delt. As a result, Delta Kappa Epsilon honors Roosevelt as one of its greatest members, and we do not feel inclined to allow Alpha Delta Phi exclusive claim.

JAMES A. MARTENS Ann Arbor, Mich.

Glad Handers?

Sir:

How foolish can the Democrats, including ex-President Truman, get? That A.P. picture in your March 3 issue of Harry and Faubus shaking hands across the table is good for hundreds of thousands of votes for Nixon in 1960.

C. C. CUNNINGHAM

San Diego

Re-engineered Smoke

Sir:

In your March 3 prompt reporting of the [House Government Operations Committee] hearing, there is an error in your reference to our Parliament and Marlboro brands. I refer you to the report of the hearings where you will note that both the new high nitration Parliament and Marlboro are among the top three popular-price brands in low tar and nicotine delivery according to the Government's accepted figures. These brands were re-engineered late in 1957 and by February of this year were further reduced in tar and nicotine delivery.

ROBERT P. ROPER Vice President Philip Morris Inc. New York City

Baskin in Sympathy

Sir:

We have just finished reading your March 3 report of the Lakeland, Ga. school board's recent action against Teacher Minnie Lee Baskin. The Georgia gentlemen's reason for firing her [for letting one of her white students ride in a Negro bus] is undoubtedly the most shocking revelation of ignorance displayed in the South to date. But let's give Mrs. Baskin a break. She did not intend to promote interracial matrimony; she merely permitted a nine-year-old white boy to get home in time for supper.

JUDY ESTY '58 MICHAEL MOORE '58 SUE HOLTZ '58 Vassar College Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Sir:

After reading your article, millions of Americans will laugh those three Dickensian characters (Superintendent Threatte, Board Chairman Thigpen and Member Crum) to scorn, and that sweet little old lady in your portrait will be Baskin in the warm sunshine of public sympathy and approval.

EARL C. MERCER Bloomfield, Conn.

Optics v. Art

Sir:

If El Greco was astigmatic [March 3] figures would have appeared elongated to him, but so would his canvas. If he painted precisely as he saw, the effect would have been self-correcting. An astigmatic person may see a circle as an ellipse, but if asked to draw what he sees, he will draw a circle. I bet an eye doctor would back me up that El Greco's elongations were artistic, not optical, aberrations.

RODERIC C. HODGINS Cambridge, Mass.

Sir:

Astigmatism, closing one eye, or somehow throwing one eye out of commission makes it possible for the painter to see reality simultaneously in three dimensions. The painter tilts his head; horizontal and vertical lines and shapes correspondingly shift and tilt from one lower corner to the opposite upper corner of the canvas.

This rhythm helps to counteract the destructive forces of perspective.

HENRY KOERNER

Pittsburgh

After the Storm

Sir:

Your education section's "Wanted: Prestige" [Feb. 24] might have reported that [retiring] President Schmitz did not bar Dr. Oppenheimer from speaking at the University of Washington in 1955 or any other time. Indeed, Dr. Oppenheimer did appear at the university in 1956, a fact about which TIME was strangely silent.

DONALD K. ANDERSON University of Washington Seattle

P: Said Dr. Schmitz in 1955: "My decision not to invite Dr. Oppenheimer to lecture on the university's Washington campus was reached only after long and careful study ... I do not plan to reconsider it." After the resulting storm of criticism, the university in 1956 welcomed Oppenheimer to a campus gathering of international physicists.--ED.

The Author on the Couch

Sir:

It is very heartening to read [March 3] that Tennessee Williams is taking psychoanalytic treatment, but judging from the first excited oversimplifications, such as "Evil is merely a sickness--a psychic distortion," there are many tinny rationalizations prancing around on the roof of Mr. Williams' intellect which need to be separated from the psychic cats before the doctor's fat fee can be tabulated.

R. A. NICKLAUS Washington, D.C.

Sin, Science & Peanuts

Sir:

In your March 3 issue, a striking contrast could be noted: Missile Expert Wernher von Braun earns $16,000 yearly; Comic Strip Artist Charlie (Peanuts) Schulz, who "somehow graduated from high school after flunking algebra, Latin, English, physics," makes a whopping $90,000 a year.

MRS. WM. T. RILEY

Cohoes, N.Y.

Sir:

Compare Dr. von Braun's salary of $16,000 a year with the average annual income of $20,000 of a call girl (as noted in your March 3 Medicine story).

PAUL F. LUDER Managua, Nicaragua

The Drinking Set

Sir:

In the Jan. 13 issue you referred to our cocktail lounge as a "dive just outside Los Angeles." We are the owners of the Beacon Cafe and we're pretty damn mad! We have one of the nicest, cleanest family bars in Inglewood, and our patrons are mad about this statement also.

JOE AND HELEN NAYMOLA

Inglewood, Calif.

P: TIME agrees with Readers Naymola and their satisfied patrons that a man's own friendly neighborhood bar is never a dive.--ED.

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