Death in the Congo
Sir:
Why all this commotion and sympathy about Lumumba? Naturally the Kremlin is upset; this was their stooge, and the foot in the door to communizing the Congo.
The heinous crime of the century, they call it. What about the Hungarian slaughter, the Americans murdered over the Barents Sea and Castro's atrocities?
J. J. DOOLAN JR.
Savannah, Ga.
Sir:
I have followed with resentment the continuous castigation of Lumumba until the payment in reward was made for his head. Unto his death he was "Lumumba the Man," and a "Man" cannot be disposed of so easily.
What difference does it make that he was pro-Communist or pro-anything? He was to me, and to black men throughout the world, a man doing his part in bringing about the self-determination of all black men.
JOSEPH HORTON
New Haven, Conn.
The Bear & the Hunter
Sir:
President Kennedy says, "Each day we draw nearer the hour of maximum danger." He reminds me of a teacher I had in Nebraska as a little girl, around 1898.
Each evening we sat erect, hands clasped on desks, while she told us, "Boys and girls, you are just one day nearer your grave !"
MRS. G. TAUTFEST
Seattle
Sir: All this talk about Mr. Kennedy's sitting in conference with Khrushchev is all nonsense. The story of the hunter and the bear will illustrate: as a hunter raised his rifle, the bear called out, "Can't we talk this over like two sober human beings?" The hunter lowered his gun. "What's to talk over?" he asked. "Well," said the bear, "what do you want to shoot me for?" "Simple," grunted the hunter, "I want a fur coat." "All I want is a good breakfast," smiled the bear. "I am sure we can get together on this." So they sat down to work out an agreement. After awhile, the bear got up--all alone. They had reached a compromise. The bear had his breakfast, and the hunter had on his fur coat.
MRS. C. G. PARTRIDGE
Florala, Ala.
The Unemployed
Sir: With all the foofaraw about our "over 6%" rate of unemployment, too many people have forgotten that during the first two terms of Franklin Roosevelt's Administration unemployment remained above 14%, and in 1938, his sixth year in office, it was 19%.
Today, by contrast, with a far larger labor force, we're worrying because it's above 6%.
Have our years of unprecedented prosperity warped our perspective ?
C. L. SIBLEY
Wallingford, Conn.
P: Reader Sibley's figures are correct. The recorded peak of unemployment was 24.9%, in 1933; the postwar low was 2.9%, in 1953.--ED.
Sir:
For the alleviation of the unemployment problem, I propose that a tax rebate be given to persons earning sums under $20,000 a year or some other arbitrary figure. This rebate should be in the form of credit certificates that have a maximum exchange period of, say, three years. These certificates are exchanged for the purchase of goods, and the seller of the item is credited in his bank through arrangements with the Federal Government. For example, I pay $1,400 a year in income tax. If they gave me back $1,000, I would be only too happy to spend it on many items I forgo purchasing because of the big tax bite.
There are millions of families who are in need of basic goods, both new and as replacements. This certificate method would create a ready and, I am sure, a willing consumer market.
SAMUEL D. KAHN
Studio City, Calif.
Sir:
Re the photo of Pittsburgh's unemployed lined up for surplus food: most of those people look as if they've already had a surplus of food and are now in need of exercise.
This photo would have been more appropriate with Dr. Keys's recent article on Americans eating themselves to death.
L. ATWELL
Savannah, Ga.
Mr. Sam & the Rules
Sir:
I would appreciate the names of the men in the House of Representatives who did not vote on the "Rules-packing" issue.
MRS. MICHAEL H. HOGAN
Indianapolis
P: There were six: Representatives Rabaut (D., Mich.) and Bennett (R., Mich.) were sick. Representative Chenoweth (R., Colo.) was present, but paired his nay with Massachusetts Republican Martin's yea. Martin, still smarting because his Republican colleagues forced him out of his post as minority leader in favor of Charles Halleck in 1959, thus struck a blow against the Republican leadership without actually being on record as voting against it; Chenoweth, by pairing with Martin, took his own vote out of the official total for reasons of his own. Representative Tollefson (R., Wash.) was present at the debate, but left the floor of the House at the roll call. Tollefson was for the measure, but party leadership had drawn the issue along party lines, and while he did not want to go on record as voting against his party, neither did he want to vote nay with it. Speaker Rayburn, by House custom, doesn't vote unless there is a tie.--ED.
Sir:
Re rare appearance of Sam Rayburn's middle name, Taliaferro. I have seen this name twice before. It is the name of a county in Georgia, and it also was Booker T. Washington's middle name. How does this name with the strong Latin connotation happen to pop up in Anglo-Saxon Dixie?
HUGH J. GILMARTIN
Denver
P: The name Taliaferro is said to go back to Julius Caesar, who bestowed a version of it and the right to carry arms on a barbarian who saved him from an assassination attempt. It comes from telum (sword or dart) and jerre (to bear). The family flourished, emigrated and in the middle of the 17th century some of the British Taliaferros (who pronounced it Tolliver) migrated to the New World. Sam Rayburn was named for his mother's brother-in-law, as a young man used to sign his name Sam T. Rayburn, but no longer uses the middle name.--ED.
Taxpayer
Sir:
Your article in the Feb. 10 issue concerning Forest Lawn Co.'s application to establish a new memorial park in West Covina contains two statements about the financial condition of this corporation. One of these statements, that it has assets of more than $16 million, is correct.
The other, that it "last year grossed--tax exempt--$2,300,000," is in error. A company that pays over $300,000 in annual taxes can hardly be described as "tax exempt."
UGENE U. BLALOCK
Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Glendale, Calif.
P: TIME erred.--ED.
Campus Conservatives
Sir:
Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing to public attention "The Conservative." May it well know that The Conservative is not to be found preserved in formaldehyde at the local museum, but rather alive throughout the United States in an assortment of ages, sizes, colors and shapes.
DELIESSELINE THOMPSON
West Lafayette, Ind.
Sir:
We object to your naming Peter Stuart editor of the Michigan Daily. He is one of several juniors who are night editors, and unless TIME has usurped the powers of our Board in Control of Student Publications, Thomas Hayden is the only editor duly appointed to speak from that post.
THE SENIOR EDITORS
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Sir:
Take the college student today. Eighteen to 22 years old, he expects after he is graduated to have his pick of several well-paying, secure jobs. He knows nothing of war, recession is something that causes unemployment in coal mines and steel mills (dirty places in which he wouldn't consider working), and while he has heard of depressions, he knows they can't happen any more. How easy it is for him to be a conservative. Much of the liberal program provides help to those who need it. He doesn't need it--yet.
SHERMAN SIEGEL
Apalachin, N.Y.
The Electric Shock
Sir:
Judge Ganey's "shocking indictment of American free enterprise" caps three decades of being brainwashed with distrust of the profit incentive in our economy. With this indictment in hand, and with our politically nurtured tunnel vision, we can now clearly see business profit standing alone--the sole source of the burden we bear as the price of freedom. A wide-angled view would include the collusive abuse of power and trust in every aspect of our existence where the hand of man can control, and the indictment would perforce become one of the whole idea that man should be free.
MILTON VORDAHL
Beaver, Pa.
Sir:
It was interesting to see the effect of American Christianity on its adherents in your article, "The Great Conspiracy." Two of the executives were described as "pillars of the community"--one, a vestryman of the Episcopal Church, and the other, chairman of a campaign to build a Jesuit seminary. This is an indictment not only of American business but of the American churchgoing community, which allows such driftwood to become "pillars." Ethical behavior and Sunday church attendance have no interrelation.
ELLIOTT J. LEVI
Brooklyn
The Big O
Sir:
You have really done yourself proud in your story on the "Big O." You refer to the N.B.A.'s superb star, but may I use the very same adjective in reference to your coverage of the star.
MAURICE PODOLOFF
President
National Basketball Association New York City
Freedom to Criticize
Sir:
Poor Professor Toynbee! He has dared to criticize Israel and must now be branded as antiSemitic. Criticism of Jews or Israel is for some uncanny reason construed as advocating a pogrom or approving the ghastly atrocities of the Nazis. Professor Toynbee could have excoriated Southerners, Protestants, Puerto Ricans and Catholics with impunity, but he made the unpardonable mistake of expressing an opinion uncomplimentary to Zionists (and not necessarily to Jews).
We are losing our freedom to criticize, to think and to judge in a society that identifies the criticism of Israel with antiSemitism. We are losing our sense of intellectual balance in believing that anti-Protestantism, anti-Catholicism and anti-Southernism are less deplorable than antiSemitism. They are equally deplorable, though certain shallow liberals would have us believe that anti-Semitism alone is objectionable.
VLADIMIR KANNIN
Toronto
Sir:
The moralistic veneer of Jew Baiter Toynbee has become transparent. With authentic bigotry, he projects the guilt he feels upon the victim and thereby attempts to squelch the inner voice of his own conscience.
WARNER L. LOWE
New York City
Nostalgia & Night Court
Sir:
English being my native language, it is sometimes difficult for me to understand TIMESE, and therefore I humbly ask for some clue to the meaning of the first sentence in TIME under the heading "Broadway." It says: "As sentimental occasions go, this one was only slightly more nostalgic than a session in night court."
The article then goes on to report that the remaining members of the Algonquin Round Table had been gathered together as part of the celebration of Actress Peggy Wood's 50th anniversary in the theater. It did not mention that she had been the first female to have been admitted to that group. However, what has the night court to do with it, even as an allusion? Are night courts nostalgic? Or is the night court the antithesis of nostalgia? Perhaps your reporter meant that those of us who comprised the Round Table in the '20s--oh, I give up. I don't know what your man meant. Do you?
PEGGY WOOD
New York City
P: Yes, nostalgically.--ED.
Facts of Life
Sir:
Why does the usually keen cinema critic of TIME find "comedy" in middle-class immorality as vulgarly portrayed in the movie Facts of Life? European moviemakers can portray immorality with realism and thereby engender some soul searching. Facts of Life, in typical Hollywood fashion, features lewd innuendoes and lascivious smirks topped off by the subtle suggestion that this sort of affair is not taboo, just inconvenient.
B. R. DAVIDSON JR.
Kokomo, Ind.
Sir:
Facts of Life sounds more like truth than filmdom. Here is my September 1960 vintage sonnet, "Were I His Mistress."
Were I his mistress I should not be coy.
The asking smile, the reassuring kiss,
The sweet, unscheduled interlude of joy
Would lace my humdrum life with champagne bliss.
To his cross-fingered vow of great devotion
I'd swear eternal love (a year or more)
And share forbidden sweets with mixed emotion,
The crumbs to one I legally adore.
But rendezvous, with people coming in
Or children home or lentils on to boil,
Are slow to jell. Experimental sin
Needs privacy as dressing needs the oil.
Ah, yes! We shed our fear of wrath divine
But neighbors, watching, make us toe the line.
MRS. ONEITA FISHER
West Chester, Iowa
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