New Justice

Sir: After reading your article on Byron Raymond White [April 6], I can see that President Kennedy has dismissed political temptations in order to make a wise choice.

T. L. KRISCHUNAS Chicago

Sir: Why Whizzer White? A vacancy on the Supreme Court should be filled by the best available legal mind in the U.S.-- the current Attorney General. I just can't stand a President who isn't loyal to his relatives and friends.

GRANT W. ERWIN JR. Seattle

Sir: Byron White has many fine qualities as a lawyer, but there are other older, more experienced lawyers who should have been first considered for the high office of a Supreme Court Justice. Mr. White was an excellent student and athlete and may do well in the new job. We will just have to wait and see if Kennedy's choice was a wise one.

FREDERICK J. MILLER Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Red Hat

Sir: Congratulations for your splendid, well-measured story on the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church [March 30]. I have never read such a panoramic view of the Curia.

RENE DOUSDEBES SJ. San Gregorio Quito, Ecuador

Sir: There is no resemblance between ostentatious ecclesiastical fabrication of the Roman church and the simple but dedicated church of the New Testament.

G. DANIEL McCALL Highlands, N. C.

Sir: If a cardinal must lay out $3,000 for his cassocks and skullcaps, it seems to me that if the church can afford such extravagant material goods for its leaders, it should also be in a good position to support its own school system.

DANIEL P. TALBOT Asbury College Wilmore, Ky.

Sir: From a Catholic point of view your article is rank with slanted, loaded adjectives, spelling vendetta in every paragraph.

MRS. CHARLES W. FUNARO North Hollywood, Calif.

Sir: That was a most gorgeous article, and it will prove to be most informative to my pupils, especially during these months preceding the coming Vatican Council, when my boys are asking hundreds of questions about the makeup of the church's organization.

BROTHER ALOYSIUS, C.F.X. St. Teresa's Boys' School Brooklyn

Fondness for Animals

Sir: "Fondness for animals," indeed. Doesn't Jackie realize that a mongoose has as good a chance against a cobra [March 30] as a fox does against a pack of hounds?

MRS. PAUL B. ECKLAND Ste. Foy, Que. > Both cobra and mongoose survived. Had the snake charmer allowed the fight to go to the finish, Rikki-tikki-tavi, as any Kipling fan knows, would win. -- ED.

Sir: Since when has the horrified reaction of a sensitive, decent person like Jackie Kennedy while watching the final breaking of a cobra's back by a mongoose become "ladylike"? Violent death, in any form, is an awesome and repugnant thing -- to normal people. Is the poor kid to be badgered because she is normal ? Have we gone that far ?

FRITZ BOSWORTH Atascadero, Calif.

Mocking Bird & Eagle

Sir: "To kill a mocking bird is a sin!" I'm sure you agree. Thank you for your appreciation for the very small contribution I made to your recent cover story on the life and work of my son, "Tennessee" [March 9]. I'm glad that he has not forgotten his early training. He was born and bred in the South, and the first lesson a little child received there, be he "white" or "colored," was courtesy. If we wished to betray our early back ground, I could give you many interesting and amusing stories (were they not, also, so tragic!) of the anything but courteous treatment my son and his collaborators received at the hands of so-called "critics." A less hardy soul would have been discouraged, but having descended from a long line of fighting ancestors, on both sides of the family, I'm proud to see that though he has the soul of a "mocking bird," he has the spirit of an eagle.

EDWINA DAKIN WILLIAMS Clayton, Mo.

Low Blow Low Blow

Sir: As your April 6 story reports, indiscriminate second-and third-class postal rate increases would be a low blow from which some smaller magazines with little advertising; might not recover. But it is incorrect to say that, in the case of the New Republic, they "add up to something close to a death sentence." We'll be hurt, but not fatally.

GILBERT A. HARRISON Editor and Publisher The New Republic Washington, D.C.

Fool's Gold

Sir: I think the formula in the March 30 Letters column for enthusiasm toward conservatism could be more accurately written: FeS^2, H^2O in MCMLXIV B.C.

FORREST MORGAN, '63 Norfolk College of William and Mary Norfolk, Va.

A Proper Respect

Sir: I want to compliment you on the fine story about the Chloromycetin case involving my client Mrs. Carney Love, of Palo Alto, Calif. [March 30]. Your story, I am sure, has done much to bring home to the medical profession that this drug must always be treated with proper respect.

JAMES F. BOCCARDO San Jose, Calif.

Sir: A judgment against the makers of this valuable drug [Chloromycetin] is similar to a judgment against General Motors every time a Chevrolet is involved in a mortal accident. The logic escapes me, but obviously a judge and jury saw it differently.

HORST D. WEINBERG, M.D, Fresno, Calif.

Sir: Six years ago our daughter had an almost fatal case of anemia as a result of two prescriptions of Chloromycetin. Luckily she was cured after months of taking cortisone, endless tests and more than $1,000 worth of expenses, not to mention the anxiety involved. Patients should be warned of its possible side effects.

MRS. GORDON PATE Auburndale, Fla.

Hesburgh & Manion Sir:

As the reporter of the Father Hesburgh cover story [Feb. 9], I would like to correct what may be a wrong impression left by the statement that among the first acts of Father Hesburgh, as Notre Dame executive vice president, was the replacement of Clarence Manion as dean of the law school. Father Hesburgh became executive vice president of Notre Dame in 1949- In January of 1952, Dean Manion resigned for personal reasons, because of pressure of his private business interests. Father John Cavanaugh, who was then president of Notre Dame, in accepting Dean Manion's resignation, said that "his career has marked the personal, the professional and the spiritual that add up to a remarkable epitome of what Notre Dame means by moral, responsible leadership." Fa ther Cavanaugh then named Joseph O'Meara to succeed Dean Manion.

MARVIN ZIM Chicago

Buber Speaks

Sir: The main point of the saying you are quoting from my Tales of the Hasidim [March 23] is expressed not in the words you quote ["What the Torah teaches us is this: none but God can command us to destroy man"] but in the sequel: "And if the very smallest angel comes after the command has been given and cautions us: 'Lay not thy hand upon . . .' we must obey him." I would think it desirable to draw your readers' attention to this part of the saying.

MARTIN BUBER Jerusalem

Where the Lost Wax Went

Sir: In tracing the "lost wax" process used by Greek sculptors in the Art story "Young Man of Piraeus" [March 30], you describe a final step: "Molten bronze poured between the two clay surfaces melted the wax and replaced it, forming a hollow statue of bronze filled with irremovable clay." The wax, in any "lost wax" process, cast today as well as in ancient times, always has to be burned out of the mold before the bronze can be poured in.

JOHN C. SPRING Vice President Modern Art Foundry, Inc. Long Island City, N.Y.

> Reader Spring's foundry, where Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz' statues are cast, burns out wax in the traditional way by placing the double-thick clay mold in a kiln fired to 1,200DEGF. Some of the wax escapes through a small hole in the cast, but most of it is absorbed by the porous clay.--ED.

A Fast Ride

Sir: I am glad to hear that the elevators at the new Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles will "whisk" fans to their seats at the rate of "200 ft. per second" [March 30]. A quick calculation indicates that at 136 m.p.h., passengers will be plastered all over the floor for half the trip, and all over the ceiling for the other half.

JOE W. REECE University of Florida Gainesville, Fla.

> It should have been 200 ft. per minute, not per second. TIME erred.--ED.

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