Why Watts?

Sir: I must express my embarrassment and humiliation as a result of the terrible violence in Watts [Aug. 20]. We in Los Angeles had felt proud of the way the racial situation had been handled; we must have been blind not to see the melting pot of hate bubbling in the Negro sectors of this great city. I feel a great sense of sorrow for the Negro and his plight.

ROBERT J. TOBIAS Los Angeles

Sir: I am a Negro, but I am an American first, and I am ashamed of the rioting and murder and looting that occurred in Los Angeles. The causes of this tragic event must be corrected. How can police say they do not practice brutality when millions of people watching TV saw a white policeman kicking a suspect? If we are to respect law and order, let the officers of the law set a proper example.

DOROTHY M. DAVIS El Paso

Sir: Chief Parker almost hit the nail on the head. The reason for the riots is not that the Negroes are told they are being abused and mistreated, but that they actually are being abused and mistreated. The saddest fact is that Mayor Yorty and Chief Parker still refuse to admit that there is a problem. Since nothing is being done to ease tensions, another riot is inevitable. The next one could make this one look like a Boy Scout outing.

K. R. CRAWFORD Alamogordo. N. Mex.

Sir: Perhaps Los Angeles will serve to convince some Northerners what most Southerners have always known--that the majority of Nigras are unstable, subhuman savages. When the riot scratched the fragile "civilized" crust of the biochemistry graduate of your article, the despoiler and murderer of the Belgian nuns in the Congo was revealed.

W. L. SHAEFER New Orleans

Sir: There is growing revulsion against the civil rights movement and the so-called "downtrodden" Negro. I have talked to several Midwesterners who were very sympathetic with the movement but now, because of the barbaric riots, have become disgusted.

DONALD FORCUM Poynette. Wis

Sir: In your Essay, "The Negro after Watts" [Aug. 27], you write, "Whether he likes to be reminded of it or not, the Negro has made spectacular progress in the past decade." Is it possible that it is the white man who has made the progress? For two centuries we have enslaved and discriminated against the Negro, exploited his labor, shunted him into inferior schools and housing, denied him his civil rights, prejudged and hated him. Yet for 99 44/100% of that time, he has done a minimum of hating and rebelling. Now that the legal and cultural evidences of our hate and prejudice are being exposed and we are being forced by the conscience of the world to begin rectifying the situation, it seems patronizing to remind the Negro of how far he has come.

DOYNE E. MICHIE Associate Pastor First Presbyterian Church Decatur, III.

Good Grief!

Sir: I don't mind my 20-c- per day for the space program. I don't mind contributing to Viet Nam, social security taxes or the "anti-everything" programs. But good grief! A thousand dollars' worth of souvenir pens [Aug. 20]! How much milk would that buy for the world's orphans? I'm for President Johnson's investing $1.98 in a permanent ballpoint.

JOHN D. ALLEN Yuma. Ariz.

Specialty Licenses for Lawyers

Sir: In considering group practice, the American Bar Association [Aug. 20] overlooks a major problem faced by the public: to find a lawyer knowledgeable about the specific problem confronting the client. The legal fiction that all attorneys are qualified to handle all matters once they pass the bar examination is ridiculous. The only salvation lies in recognition of specialties by the A.B.A.and the issuance of specialty licenses like those in medicine and dentistry.

MARTIN C. BLAKE Attorney Cleveland

The Sisters Strike Back

Sir: TIME insults and misrepresents the "Seven Sisters" colleges [Aug. 20]. Smith College's sweet-faced, anyone-for-tennis stereotype became outdated in the early '50s, if not before, when our endowment was increased so we could offer scholarships to a large proportion of students. You need only scan our faculty list or glance through scholarly journals and the Congressional Record to find that keen scholarship is encouraged at Smith. Your stereotypes could discourage brilliant students who do not want a "socialite," "country-sweet," or other pervasive campus atmosphere from applying to the Seven Sisters.

WINGATE MAIN Smith '66 Ormond Beach. Fla.

Sir: A Bryn Mawr girl with a hockey stick in one hand usually carries a volume of Chaucer in the other. More than 50% of Bryn Mawr graduates go on to further study in medicine, law, and the arts and sciences. Besides, Bryn Mawr girls are widely known for their good looks.

JEAN SELIGMANN Bryn Mawr '66 New York City

Sir: Wellesley girls sound like the drones of the Great Society! We have Junior Leaguers, "muscle-bounds," Peace Corpswomen, "brains," conformists, and Sally Sweethearts. PLUS Dr. Connie Guion. Santha Rama Rau, Madame Chiang, and Margaret Clapp, to mention only a few of our "oddest" graduates. Anyway, thanks for your salute to Miss Clapp, a magnificent example of what our college can produce.

NELL FISHER GRIM Wellesley '57 Perkasie, Pa.

Brushing Their Brains Away?

Sir: The theory that vibration may affect mentality, as reported in your Music section [Aug. 6], is disturbing. I use an electric toothbrush. Is my IQ slipping, even as cavities are being prevented? Might my daughters suffer intellectual attrition in the years before college?

(MRS.) SHIRLEY CARVER Portland. Ore.

Sir: If TIME had asked me to say something about tenors, I could have given an answer without taking credit for someone else's wit. The quotation you attribute to me is by Anna Russell.

BIRGIT NILSSON Stockholm

$386 Disappointment

Sir: In "A Touch of Economicare" [Aug. 20], you say that couples in the top social security bracket will get $492 in retroactive increases. Beneficiaries who rely on this information are in for a big disappointment. The maximum monthly benefit now payable to a couple is $190.50. The 7% increase will give them $13.30 additional per month, retroactive to January. The checks covering the increase for eight months, to be mailed out in late September, will therefore amount to no more than $106.40 for couples in the top benefit brackets.

ROY L. SWIFT Social Security Administration Washington. D.C.

Word of Caution

Sir: How happy the mothers with cystic fibrosis must be with their healthy babies [Aug. 20], and how elated the doctors with their success in bringing their patients to child-bearing age. All physicians rejoice in this achievement. But how tragic to think that many of these healthy babies carry bad genes and consequently the potential for perpetuating this terrible affliction. As these children themselves approach child-bearing age, they must understand that their own babies might be affected.

KEITH HAMMOND, M.D. Jefferson Medical College Philadelphia

East Side Earp

Sir: The rifle used by Charles ("East Side Earp") DiMaggio [Aug. 20] is one of the types Senator Dodd of Connecticut wants to outlaw. DiMaggio has already been prevented from obtaining a pistol by New York City's cumbersome permit regulations. I wonder how many of the 26 men who held him up had gun permits?

SEYMOUR GOLDSTEIN Island Park. N.Y.

Model A to the Rescue

Sir: As the wife of a Model A owner, I chuckled over your article on putt-putts [Aug. 20]. My husband drove his '28 coupe from Philadelphia out here when we moved, and drives it 20 miles a day to work in Chicago at 50 m.p.h. and 20 miles per gallon. I have had him chug up more than once to rescue me when my new car has let me down. And what a dream to find in a parking lot!

MRS. JOHN W. POSTON Park Forest, III.

Copy Cat

Sir: The poem credited to young "D-Minus" Arnie Gant [Aug. 20] is in reality a bit of "A-plus" plagiarism by somebody. It was written by me more than four years ago and has been recited by me dozens of times on TV and at colleges, clubs and hotels all over the country. It is one of 200 such poems that I have composed and that will soon be published under the title, The Poetic Foolosophy of Nipsey Russell.

NIPSEY RUSSELL New York City

The Durable D-J

Sir: About "Those Misleading Averages" [Aug. 20]: the Dow-Jones industrial average first appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 8, 1896. Your statement that the average "began in 1897" is a common error. Assaults on the D-J are not new. In the Sept. 24, 1889 Wall Street Journal, the editor defended the twelve-stock average against a charge of including too few stocks. The D-J has withstood complaints for three-quarters of a century, and will survive the present onslaught.

GEORGE W. BISHOP JR. Professor of Finance University of Tennessee Knoxville

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