Say It Ain't So

Sir: I don't believe it! You mean to tell me that Tommy the Traveler [June 22] was a pig? I remember in April when he came to Keuka. We were having an anti-Administration sit-in in the hallway outside the President's office. He popped up, said he was from S.D.S., and showed us a film right there in the hall about the Berkeley riots. We acknowledged the presence of this outsider probably because he was cute and Keuka's an all-girls school! He kept saying that we'd never get our list of demands met if we didn't use violence. He was probably right, but being girls, we were scared of flying bricks and burning buildings. If there had been more guys on campus he could easily have started a riot at Keuka. Instead, the only thing that happened was that he upset several girls by the movie, and he broke a table in the hallway when he sat on it. What will the cops do next to make us not trust them?

SUSAN JEWELL

Averill Park, N.Y.

Sir: I believe that there is a point concerning the Hobart College incidents in Geneva, N.Y. that was not mentioned in your article about "Tommy the Traveler."

Following the "on-campus marijuana bust" that you report, several groups of Hobart College students exited from their dorms and captured a police car and police officers who were involved in arresting several students found to be in possession of marijuana. The police and students then came to a mutual agreement whereby the arrested students would be allowed to go free if the police car and police officers were returned. The exchange of prisoners took place, and peace returned to Geneva.

There are many people in Geneva who are not students at Hobart College, but individuals known as residents, taxpayers, voters, etc. As a person raised in Geneva, I was taught by its schools and in our home that capturing police cars and police officers were no-nos and that there were things called laws against that sort of thing. I wonder how many of the some 17,000 people who choose to make their home in Geneva wonder if there isn't a separate group of laws applying to Hobart College?

RICHARD MASON

White Plains, N.Y.

The Students' Need

Sir: Thank you for "Thoughts on a Troubled El Dorado" [June 22]. I am a 17-year-old girl graduating from high school today with a peace symbol on my cap. I appreciate the opportunity you have provided for those mentally distant masses labeled the "Silent Majority" to catch some glimmer of understanding into the puzzle of my fellow protesters and students. The political and social extremists in America today may never be able to accept or condone each other's actions, but they must begin to listen and try at least to understand. Hopefully, listening will eventually lead to a desire on the part of the majority -- as well as on the part of the minority -- to correct injustices and change traditions, thus eliminating the need for a student like me, who has campaigned within the system and demonstrated peacefully, to turn to destruction of property, rock throwing and animalistic violence out of sheer frustration and despair.

SHERRILL COHEN

Los Angeles

Sir: "Thoughts on a Troubled El Dorado" slighted consideration of the following:

Most of those who carry the torch of the moment are neither zealots nor political activists. They are people who are bored with routine lives. They would accept success within the system if they could be instant captains, but they cannot face the prospect of spending decades in preparing to do and doing the things which apparently are necessary to make a technical-industrial system fruitful. They are satisfied to consume rather than to produce. Their egos would suffer if they acknowledged this role, so they accept parts in passing causes.

My role in life involves listening to a very large number of those who do not get along within the structure of this civilization. It may be that one out of 50 has a long-range objective and is really trying to push society in a direction he thinks proper. The other 49 are goofing off for purely personal reasons. Whether they get caught in a left-wing or a right-wing movement is pure accident.

SAMUEL W. GARDINER

San Rafael, Calif.

Treatment of Massacres

Sir: Your short, offhand treatment of the Communist massacre of civilians at Thanh My [June 22] only confirms Vice President Agnew's assessment of this continent's press. Remember when the news media sensationalized unproven American atrocities at My Lai? But when the Communists wantonly murder women and children as part of their terrorism is reported as just another incident of the war.

And what of our idealistic, "concerned" youth? Do we see them demonstrating and protesting against the inhumanities perpetrated by the Viet Cong as they "liberate" Southeast Asia? No, sir, they are much too busy learning revolutionary rhetoric, burning tax-built and supported universities and finding fault with America's defense of democracy.

DENNIS H. MARTIN

Scarborough, Ont.

Raindrops Keep Falling

Sir: I am amazed at your shortsightedness concerning the environmental problem of electric power [June 22]. You state at only one point that the reason for the problem is the consumer's desiring unnecessary labor-saving luxuries.

Umbrellas don't stop rainstorms; neither will a conversion from aluminum to tin or pitiful stopgap measures like turning off unneeded lights eliminate the pollution resulting from power plants and the electricity shortage. Only a lessening of American "thing consciousness" and a change in our concept that less work means better living can free us from the encroaching oppression of an unbalanced ecology.

CAROLEE WILLIAMSON

Pelham Manor, N.Y

Wolfe at the Door

Sir: Tom Wolfe is notably apolitical and uninvolved [June 15]. He makes his career as a parasite on the body of his "Beautiful People." We could afford and be amused by Wolfe's flip, deft, 1960s-vintage "pop" sociology when he was writing about Ethel Scull's parties for Andy Warhol in the 1960s. But the 1970s are a critical time for our country, and many of the people whom Wolfe chased after in the 1960s have become committed in the 1970s. Wolfe is so out of touch that he doesn't realize this--or doesn't care, as long as he can make a buck.

The "party" at the Bernsteins' may have been naively conceived and arranged. But those who attended came in an effort to listen, and to help the Black Panthers--as they would help any group--to secure the due process of law to which they are entitled. They were trying to open a dialogue with an almost totally alienated segment of the community.

Had it not been for flyweight parasites like Wolfe, they might have succeeded.

RICHARD L. FEIGEN

Manhattan

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