Between Aspirations & Reality

Sir: That was an interesting and perceptive Essay on Negro achievements and aspirations [Oct. 28].

You correctly identify Negro violence and cries of "Black power" as potentially the most destructive phenomena on the civil rights scene. What must be added, however, is that, in the civil rights movement, as in other revolutionary movements, the narrower the gap between aspirations and reality becomes, the greater the frustration and anger over the remaining obstacles tend to be. We would be expecting something more than human from the Negro were we to demand that he stifle these emotions. The problem, rather, is to channel Negro anger and dissatisfaction into constructive avenues, such as selfhelp. That is what this commission and its federal and state sister agencies are about.

GEORGE G. LORINCZI Chairman

Governor's Commission on Human Rights Milwaukee

Sir: Your Essay on the Negro contributes to the current liberal no-lash, the let's-ease-up-for-a-while feeling spreading among many well-meaning whites. What do your "remarkable" progress, "dramatic gains," "soaring" percentage increases, "impressive" and "enormous" advances add up to? More segregation in Northern schools, limping tokenism in the South, rising unemployment, widening income disparities, a few Negro Congressmen, and a general slowdown of progress in housing and school integration enforcement. Your estimate that the "Negro's choices are widening with fair rapidity" and that we have come "an incredibly long way" since Lincoln depends on what you consider fair and credible.

Surely we have got beyond the more-this-year-than-last-year way of assessing national progress. Must it take "decades to come" to deal with the "most urgent of domestic business?" If the goal is clear, the business urgent, and the resources at hand, what we need is an escalation of achievement now, not self-congratulation and indifference.

JAMES D. BARBER Associate Professor Yale University New Haven, Conn.

Irish Up

Sir: Although now a graduate student at Notre Dame's chief football rival, Michigan State University, I must express my great respect and admiration for Notre Dame's Seymour and Hanratty [Oct. 28], and for the entire Irish squad. They are, and without question deserve to be, the No. 1 team in this country.

JOHN C. DEVONA Notre Dame '66 East Lansing, Mich.

Sir: Hanratty's conviction that he couldn't meet the entrance requirements to Penn State, Parseghian's cry of "we've got to have him," and the boy's present C+ average (with tutoring, apparently) all too clearly account for much of why Notre Dame is No. 1 in the nation today. If you want good football--so the truism goes--you have to get the players, regardless of their academic inadequacies. As the Fighting Irish return to football dominance, I wonder what is happening to the Rev. Hesburgh's drive for academic excellence?

ROBERT A. SAGAR Westport, Conn.

Sir: TIME too is guilty of the iniquitous deed. What a disappointment. Fallen prey to a deluding presentation of Notre Dame's true strength and greatness. A 795-line story with but 13 lines devoted to the fine work of the unsung heroes, Coach John Ray and his defensive unit. LAWRENCE D. SHUBNELL Notre Dame '63 Beltsville, Md.

Bows & Bolos

Sir: Thank you for TIME'S excellent cover story on President Marcos and the Philippines [Oct. 21]. It was a well-developed tribute to Marcos as a person, most timely, and free of the errors in fact and substance that so often mar American writing about the Philippines. H. FORD WILKINS Executive Director Philippine-American Chamber

of Commerce New York City

Sir: As one of the descendants of the bolomen, I wish to inform you that I (and millions of other Filipinos) have never carried a gun in my life. I was born in Tondo and lived there many years, but I didn't realize that the collection of trash and scrap paper is the principal occupation in my birthplace. In all my Jeepney-riding years, I have never had pigs and call girls as co-passengers. Both are easy to identify in my country.

O.K., Marcos is a terrific hero, but must the rest of us ordinary Filipinos be the villains of the piece?

BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa

Sir: You say that "Marcos failed in becoming the only Filipino to win America's highest military award." Actually, three Filipinos have been awarded the Medal of Honor: Sergeant Jose Calugas, Battery B, 88th Field Artillery, Philippine Scouts, at Culis, Bataan, 1942; Fireman 2nd Class Telesforo Trinidad, U.S.N. on board U.S.S. San Diego, 1915; Private Jose B. Nisperos, 34th Company, Philippine Scouts, Lapurap, Basilan, 1911.

FREDERICK A. WARD Colonel, U.S.A. (ret.) Virginia Beach, Va.

Not at all Pleased

Sir: In "Faith, Hope & Parity" [Oct. 21] you write: "The biggest shock to farmers was Freeman's gaffe in March expressing pleasure at a slight--if short-lived--drop in food prices. Never before had a U.S. Secretary of Agriculture publicly applauded a decrease in farm income."

Many times I have denied expressing pleasure at lower farm prices. But this is an election year, and it is not surprising that political opponents and anti-farm-program people would do their best to keep the error alive. The "pleasure" legend sprang from a March 31 conference when I said: "I am pleased to report that farm prices in certain key items have moderated cyclical highs which have accounted for most of the consumer food increase." Of 50 newsmen, only a reporter for the New York Times interpreted this to mean that I was "pleased with a decrease in farm prices." The others understood that I was glad to see pork prices moderate from an abnormal high of $30 per hundredweight, or 122% of parity, for the reason that if the price had remained long at such a level it would have resulted in overproduction of hogs, a glutted market, and ultimately depressed prices to hog producers. Precipitous increases and declines in farm prices are always damaging.

For many years--even while I was Governor of Minnesota--I maintained that fair and stable prices, rather than boom-and-bust prices, were essential to the best interests of both farmer and consumer. Never have I said that I favored lower farm prices. On the contrary, I have spent a good share of my life fighting for better prices and higher income for the farmer. ORVILLE L. FREEMAN Secretary

Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C.

New York Province

Sir: Since my arrival here from the Midwest nearly 20 years ago, I have concluded that the most thoroughgoing provincialism [Oct. 21]--in the old, bad sense--in the U.S. is that of metropolitan New York.

New York has succeeded in selling its provincialism to the rest of the country, perhaps on the false but all too available premise that where the most money is, there also will be found the highest values.

As a college teacher here, after having taught elsewhere, I am impressed by two qualities in New Yorkers. They are no more gifted--or less ignorant--than their peers elsewhere; yet they are certain that they must be. And they lead lives of exposure to abnormal and unremitting stimuli, against which their defense is a shell of aggressive, blase behavior. What catches their attention and wins their approval must be more aggressive, more shocking, more violent, but by no means necessarily more worthy, than this constant hyper-level of stimuli.

One blind spot in your Essay: you say, "The New Yorker knows that he is making a selection among the best that is available." That word knows is the very essence of New York. Less provincial would have prompted thinks or believes.

ROBERT L. SANDERS Brooklyn

Seconding the Notion

Sir: I would like to add a strong second to Military Historian S. L. A. Marshall's view of "The Basic Flaw in Viet Nam" [Oct. 21]. I spent a year there as an intelligence officer with the 1st Air Cavalry Division. In the three months that I have been back in the U.S., I have been struck by the incredible lack of any substantive news on military operations in Viet Nam. While the infrequent and unavoidable accidents of war claim headlines, major Allied operations are usually dismissed in two or three sentences, or are wedged somewhere between Ann Landers and Peanuts. All too often these reports, when they do appear, are nothing more than repetitions of the canned Saigon daily news briefing, not the actual observances of reporters in the field.

Part of the problem lies with the generally low caliber of reporters in Viet Nam, and having dealt with many of them in the past year. I strongly concur in General Marshall's statements. However, not all the Viet Nam correspondents are that bad. Fact stories that are not bloody or sensational just don't sell. A major portion of the Viet Nam news failure lies with editors at home. A comparison of the extent and depth of news coverage of Luci Johnson's wedding or Senator Robert Kennedy's every move with that afforded the war effort really makes me wonder.

PATRICK G. COLLOTON Madison, Wis.

Don't Go Near the Horses

Sir: Reading your review of my novel Pedlock & Sons [Oct. 21], I was reminded of the time in 1945 when William Faulkner and I were standing outside Warner Bros, studio waiting for our car, both a little glum since we had been working on the screenplay of Stallion Road. Bill said: "Who's going to star in this?" I said, "A horse." "I mean human." "Ronald Reagan." Bill thought a while and puffed on his Dunhill. "I don't know. Back home we'd run him for public office." "Why?"' Bill thought some more, then said, "An actor now has to be the part he's playing, but this boy is too much everything, and none of it settles down. You can't go too wrong in politics going from no place to nothing. And I think you ought to stop writing about horses. You grew up among Jews, not horses."

The result was, I wrote about the Ped-locks and gave up horses. When Stallion Road was released as a film starring Mr. Reagan, I got a short note from Bill: "If you're a horse, you'll like this picture Better start that novel."

STEPHEN LONGSTREET Beverly Hills, Calif.

Non-Believer

Sir: Help, help! First [Oct. 14] you print an extraordinary review of my book,

Behind the Golden Curtain, by someone who seems to think I believe the false images of the U.S. (e.g., "The educational system is lousy," for heaven's sake), which in fact the book deplores.

Then [Oct. 28] you print a rude letter about me from someone who's read only the review.

Before anyone else takes me apart for saying things I haven't said, could I ask that they read the book first? They don't even have to buy it; public libraries are free.

SUSAN COOPER

Winchester, Mass.

What's in a Ship-Shape

Sir: The officers of U.S.S. Safeguard (ARS-25) noted with much interest your story, "The Skunk Watchers" [Oct. 14]. As Safeguard is a sister ship to the U.S.S. Conserver (ARS-39), we found to our amazement that our relative is a "rust-pitted, rickety tug" that apparently is doing well to stay afloat, let alone actually operate.

The ARS are not tugs, although they do have the secondary capability for long ocean tows. Their primary mission is rescue salvage. In this capacity, these vessels have roamed the coasts of Viet Nam pulling less fortunate vessels from the beach and salvaging numerous items from offshore waters.

As for being rust-pitted and rickety: when one considers the mission of an ARS, it becomes very clear that there are times when she is going to get scratched, banged and, in general, look quite shoddy. But it is at this time that she is probably doing her best work in assisting some other vessel. The overall material condition of the ARS is every bit as good as any sleek destroyer afloat.

(LIEUT. COMMANDER) W. C. STEGALL Commanding Officer U.S.S. Safeguard San Francisco

Five Straight

Sir: While bowing to the memory of Grover Cleveland Alexander as the greatest baseball pitcher of all time, may I respectfully disagree with Mrs. Alexander's letter [Oct. 21]?

Larry Jaster of the St. Louis Cardinals shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers five times in a row, as stated in TIME'S pennant story [Oct. 7]. And although Alexander shut out the Cincinnati Reds five times during the 1916 season, quite a feat in itself, it was not five times in a row. Thus, the consecutive shut-out record against one team in a single season belongs to the rookie, Mr. Jaster.

J. KEEN AN BURNS

St. Louis

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