MGIM!

Sir:

Your missile terminology [March 17] ends with TGIF: "Thank God It's Friday!" Teachers have been using that phrase for years. I like much better the one, MGIM: "My Gawd, It's Monday!"

SHIRLEY A. COUSINS Hamilton, Ont.

Big J from Big T

Sir:

Your March 17 story on Senator Johnson appeared at a most opportune time. With all these satellite launchings, etc., the problem of space congestion is getting critical. Obviously, what we need is a space czar. Who is a natural for the job? Senator Johnson of Texas. Why? Because space is what they have most of in Texas; secondly, he should have no trouble in getting confirmed by the Senate. From the way he treats those other "pore" Southern Senators, they should be glad to have him off their backs.

M. D. MILLER Redondo Beach, Calif.

Sir:

I was amazed to read of Johnson's vanity. I doubt if Emerson or Thoreau worried about monogrammed shirts and handkerchiefs.

SABINA L. LOMMERSE Belmont, Mass.

Sir:

Your article failed to give us the coronation date.

MARGARET STILLWELL Hobart, Okla.

Sir:

It was refreshing to learn that the destiny of this nation is being partially guided through the complexities of the atomic age by one who can evaluate character by "pressing the flesh and looking them in the eye." Dinosaurs, move over!

HAROLD E. GRAHAM Camden, N.J.

Trouble in Sheboygan

Sir:

It appears that the real issue of the Kohler strike in Sheboygan, Wis. [March 17] is finally coming to light. Does a man still possess the right to manage his own business, or must he and his management become hog-tied in the pull of the myriad strings that encumber thousands of businesses today and terminate in the executive offices of the labor trust? Unions are wielding much more power today than they should be wielding.

JULES I. GILPATRICK JR. Biloxi, Miss.

Sir:

If other companies followed Kohler's lead, inflation would be lessened and the price of everything from automobiles to hairpins would be much lower.

GERALD SERLIN Bayside, N.Y.

Sir:

I wish to assure you that it is not an everyday sight--"a tight-lipped child followed by other children shrilly jeering, 'Your father's a dirty scab!'"

LESLIE W. JOHNSON Superintendent of Schools Sheboygan, Wis.

Sir:

Sheboygan has been free of acts of violence attributable to the Kohler strike for the past year and a half. It has good government, law enforcement without fear or favor, progressive civic organizations.

ROBERT G. McCoRD

Association of Commerce Sheboygan, Wis.

Sir:

I thought your article gave a fair and objective coverage of a situation that is difficult to report without taking sides; it was bipartisan and showed how reasoning and sense disappeared when an irresistible force (Walter Reuther) met an immovable object (Herbert Kohler).

JACK KRAUSKOPF Milwaukee

Songs to Get Tired Of

Sir:

Concerning Esma Jackson's "closeup" of Mrs. Eisenhower [March 17]: it might turn out to be unfortunate that Reporter Jackson overheard Mamie mention Ike's favorite tune [When You and I Were Young, Maggie]. Perhaps by the time he leaves office, he will have learned to hate it as F.D.R. did Home on the Range.

T. C. MORAN Pittsburgh

Silky Prose

Sir:

I am neither a writer of fan letters nor particularly interested in the sport of improving the breed of horses. However, I am compelled to extend my congratulations to TIME for its outstanding article [March 17] on Silky Sullivan.

ARNOLD R. KRAKOWER New York City

Sir:

By now you have probably heard from Silky himself, who certainly must have laughed his way through your article, too.

S. BRUNDYDGE Middletown, Pa.

En Garde, Avant-Garde

Sir:

My compliments to young Richard Diebenkorn for having had the courage to break with the "new academy of abstraction." I am getting bored by the still-growing multitude of poor imitators of the 40-year-old experiments by Kandinsky, Klee and Mondrian, who, while never reaching them, insist on calling themselves the avant-gardists of our time.

ARTHUR KAUFMANN New York City

P: For a sample of non-abstractionist painting by Reader Kaufmann, 70, a German-born artist now living in Manhattan, see cut.--ED.

Jews & Alcohol

Sir:

I think I'll go out and get plastered, then I won't be so upset by articles like "Jews & Alcohol" [March 17]. Yale's Professor Charles Snyder certainly makes us sound like a self-satisfied, overfed bunch of stinkers. And that song, Shikker Iz a Goy! I'm from an Orthodox Jewish background, and I have never heard of it. The Yale researchers said many could recall it; they must have been oldtimers.

THELMA BLUMBERG Cincinnati

Sir:

It is such translations of the lively ditty Shikker Iz a Goy that send Jews like me reeling to the refrigerator for a glass of Manischewitz.

E. SHELDON Detroit

Sir:

No truer song was ever sung.

ISADORE FREEDMAN Vineland, N.J.

Sir:

It warmed the cockles of me heart to see that the Irish came out with high score in another contest--alcoholism--and left the other nationalities trailing behind. We Irish don't do things halfway, particularly in a drinking contest. We just get in there and win--it's only when it's too late we find the darn stuff may be intoxicating.

REGINA MALONEY The Bronx, N.Y.

Freedom v. the French

Sir:

I was disgusted to read your recent accounts of war crimes committed by the French in Algeria. How long are we going to condone the murder and torture of women and children? What kind of people are the French anyway?

G. FAURE

Boston

Sir:

Your excellent reports on France's worse-than-Gestapo activities in Algeria and Tunisia shock the conscience of all freedom-loving people and should convince our congressional leaders to halt the flow of economic and military aid to such an irresponsible and unstable country.

Louis A. HEYD JR. New Orleans

Winston's Boy

Sir:

I don't like Mr. Randolph Churchill, but in the matter of his outburst with John Wingate [March 17], I am all for him. If more people had the guts to stand up to characters like Mike Wallace and Lawrence Spivak, TV interviews might not degenerate into exhibitionism only fit for sadists.

WILSON VELLOSO Washington, B.C.

Sir:

Your account underlines the fact that no one excels the English in producing a pompous ass.

FRED GRESFAN Kitchener, Ont.

Sir:

All the Churchills: Huzza!

ANN YATHERS Oakland, Calif.

Meeting the Press

Sir:

Your March 17 Press section tries to condemn the Atlanta Journal's recession coverage ... 1) TIME says "The Journal suppressed the news of a layoff of 2,000 Lockheed workers last fall until it could report that the factory had found other jobs for some of them." Lockheed announced the layoff August 15. We printed it August 15, under a three-column headline. We printed it again August 30. It was four months later . . . that we carried our first story on the factory finding other jobs for them. 2) TIME says the Journal, until last week, "even banned the word recession from the paper." The most cursory check shows we were calling it the "current business recession" on page one as long ago as January 15. We've used the word almost daily since . . .

EUGENE PATTERSON The Atlanta Journal Atlanta

Sir:

TIME stated that the Memphis Press-Scimitar "last week ran a glowing story on expansion plans for a local Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. plant--without mentioning that 2,600 of its 3,600 employees have been laid off." The only recent Press-Scimitar story about possible Firestone expansion in Memphis was printed in the Press-Scimitar on Nov. 19, 1957. Raymond C. Firestone, company president, on a visit to Memphis, was asked by a Press-Scimitar reporter if the company planned any expansion in Memphis in 1958. He replied:'"We have expanded the Memphis plant every year in the 20 years we've been in Memphis." His statement was printed in the story. At that date ... Firestone reported it was employing 3,400. Today the plant reports 3,200 employees ... No layoff is planned. There has never been a layoff of as many as 2,600 at the plant.

EDWARD J. MEEMAN Editor

The Memphis Press-Scimitar Memphis

Sir:

You [print] a headline from the Providence Bulletin over a caption that reads "Hopeful Headline.':, 'We don't want to scare advertisers' "... The story upon which the headline was based, and which apparently was not read by your compiler of headlines, was an ironic one, and so was the head. The jobs referred to were four in number, at the Rhode Island Development Council, at salaries ranging from $8,650 to $14,820.

MICHAEL J. OGDEN

Managing Editor The Providence Journal and the Evening Bulletin Providence

Sir:

The report that the Nashville Tennessean was "pointedly warned by advertisers that its alert coverage of the recession was 'bad for business' " is not correct. What I told the TIME reporter in response to a question was that we had received no such pressure, though I happened to know some business people were concerned by the news coverage. COLEMAN A. HARWELL

Editor

The Nashville Tennessean Nashville

P: Holding to the proposition that the recession was downplayed by much of the U.S. press, TIME nonetheless concedes that some of its documentation was off the beam of sound reporting. TIME erred.--ED.

Between Aye & Nay Sir:

I would like to thank the editors of TIME for not taking sides on the delicate question of the decision rendered against Bishop Fiordelli of Prato, Italy [March 17]. Prato is a strongly Communist city. For a few years the Reds have deliberately tried to deter young couples from church marriages; yet bishops the world over must protect the holiness of marriage.

Bishop Fiordelli acted within his rights to stop the growing evil and to discourage more public scandals.

JAMES D. NELSON, S.J. Los Gatos, Calif.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.