Japanese Lanterns

Sir: Re your cover story on Hirohito [Oct. 4]: for generations Japan has made it inferior and sold it cheaper than any country in the world. To make merchandise 10% poorer would mean the shirt wouldn't stand one washing, the appliance wouldn't last a week, and the radio wouldn't even bring in a local station.

It will be healthy for us if they are forced to revert to Japanese lanterns. Then, when the garden party is rained out, we can expect to throw the lanterns away, and the American manufacturer can return to the building of quality products.

SHELDON WALKER Pharr, Texas

Sir: Through the generosity (or naivete) of the U.S., which supplied capital, raw material, modern equipment, technical assistance and even wide-open markets to the poor defeated Japanese during the past quarter-century, this little island country with no energy resources of any kind was able to reach the enviable position of world's No. 3 industrial power. Yet these ungrateful people are accusing us of deceit. What other country in the world will help Japan carry through to the 21st century with the same rate of growth?

EDWARD K. NIEH New York City

Sir: Again we are blaming the Japanese for our economic problems. Your article is something else people can grasp as a reason for hate. It comes at a time when there is a tendency to blame Japan for a trade imbalance created by allowing our workers to become fat and lazy. The simple fact is that the United States has been priced out of the world market. In most industries our workers are not so productive as the Japanese, and our technology is not superior.

RODNEY L. WALLACE Brookfield, Ill.

Sir: If it is true, as David Bergamini alleges, that the Emperor of Japan steered his nation into World War II, lost the war and then emerged smelling like a rose to become chief of state of the world's third superpower, perhaps he really is a god, after all.

R.L. WINTER Saigon

Sir: I dimly recall a cover story on Emperor Hirohito that included some unusual instructions for respectful treatment of the magazine bearing his likeness. As background for understanding the position of the Emperor, would you reprint those instructions?

ROBERT S. BROYLES Los Angeles

> The position of Emperor Hirohito has changed somewhat, but here is the footnote from the issue of June 6, 1932: "Japanese who hope and trust that TIME readers will show every respect to His Majesty have made the following request: let copies of the present issue lie face upward on all tables; let no object be placed upon the likeness of the Emperor, shown in his sacred enthronement regalia."

Whipping Boy

Sir: Representative Richard Poff (R., Va.) would have been a great Supreme Court Justice and a valuable asset to the survival of our country.

The liberal press expresses pious concern about divisiveness in the U.S. whenever conservatives fight for what they feel is right. Never a word is said about divisiveness when a few power-hungry "liberals" in the Senate pull out all the stops to smear a man like Poff in order to enhance their political aims.

The South is a popular whipping boy for ruthless politicians looking for black votes, big-city votes and labor-union votes.

ORION A. TEMPLETON Lynchburg, Va.

Sir: Your pompous assertion that "the professional competence of the court will decline" no matter whom Nixon appoints as Associate Justices [Oct. 4] is unjust. Intellectualism does not equal liberalism, does not equal competence.

LAWRENCE S. GIORDANO West Roxbury, Mass.

Sir: I propose Mr. Nixon for an Associate Justice. He may appoint himself and resign from the presidency at what certainly will turn out to be the height of his popularity, thereby availing himself of the opportunity of a lifetime for the job of a lifetime. He will have the blessings of a vast majority of the population, and the Senate is likely to confirm him by a voice vote.

ERIC ROTHSCHILD San Francisco

Presidents by the Yard

Sir: Now that the American voter's true yardstick of a presidential candidate has been discovered ["Heightism." Oct. 4], it will be interesting to watch the repercussions. Will there be a dump-Nixon drive, followed by a draft for Wilt Chamberlain? Will Muskie be used merely to set up Lew Alcindor? Will Humphrey, too short for the team, be given pom-poms and taught to do backflips?

If this theory is correct, it would appear that Presidents are born, not made. A win by Humphrey over Nixon, however, or of Nixon over any of the others, would of course make short shrift of one of the most short-lived theories ever offered by a shortsighted sociologist.

NORRIS R. WEIMER Livermore, Calif.

Sir: With blacks, Mexicans, Italians, women, homosexuals, et al., complaining about discrimination, I wonder if it was necessary for Sociologist Feldman to rile up the Shrimps. Next will be calls for Runt Power.

GUY A. BLAISDELL San Diego

Sir: As one of a family of small women, let me point out that females who are below average in size are also at a considerable disadvantage. We are often the last to be noticed and waited on in a crowded store, we are rarely hired for jobs that require the exercise of authority, we have difficulty asserting ourselves with our children once they have surpassed us in size. Worst of all, we are usually dated by the shorter boys and consequently end up marrying a short man, thereby having to share the life of one of those less successful victims of heightism.

(MRS.) LIA SCHIPPER

Highland Park, NJ.

Sir: Hooray for Saul Feldman for finally telling it like it is. For fifteen years I have been the victim of size slurs ("How's the weather down there?"). I have finally decided to strike back by forming the L.P.D.L. (Little People's Defense League).

LEWIS SERVISS Philadelphia

Birthright

Sir: Your abortion report [Sept. 27] states that Birthright was founded by the Archbishop of New York following the enactment of the abortion law. Birthright was founded in 1968 by Mrs. Louise Summerhill of Toronto. It has now spread across the U.S. to 41 cities in 20 states. Each office operates independently. Nearly all are private, nonsectarian, supported by contributions and operated by volunteers. We believe "it is the right of every pregnant woman to give birth and the right of every child to be born."

ROSEMARY DIAMOND

President

Birthright of Chicago

> Despite the common name and mission, the New York organization is separate from the others. In the spring of 1971 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York founded a group called Birthright, which is staffed by paid social workers and other professionals. It, too, offers help and counsel on a nonsectarian basis.

Where Were the Voices?

Sir: Having been born and schooled in rural North Carolina, I find myself now fed to the teeth with the hue and cry brought on by recent busing decisions.

Where were those voices for the twelve years of my white life that I was bused (a one-hour ride each way) past one Indian school and one black school to an all-white school? I was, I might add, accompanied by some 40 other children.

Any Southerner (and, I strongly suspect, any American anywhere) who claims this "new" development to be grossly unfair has developed a very strange lapse of memory and a peculiar blind spot.

LOUISE S. NELSON Euclid, Ohio

Silver and Civilization

Sir: Claire Patterson's study of the supply of silver in Rome [Oct. 4] is only valid for the economic historian. It is not valid for the cultural historian who sees the fall of Rome as a breakdown in the spiritual ideal of the civilization; that is, a loss of faith in the imperial culture and the emergence of faith in the Christian ideal. The cultural historian sees the economic facts as only one sphere within the total context.

DAVID T. BIRD Leesburg, Va.

Speed Test

Sir: Your United Nations story [Oct. 4] is not a "Test of Strength" but rather a test of speed: Who can get on the Chinese bandwagon the fastest? Not even one speaker at the U.N. horse-trading session seems to have mentioned the fact that expelling Taiwan from the U.N. means that 14 million people will not be represented in that world body.

At the same session of the General Assembly, some tiny Persian Gulf states were admitted. You should have mentioned that the population of Qatar is 80,000 --but of course there is a lot of oil there.

HERMANN ARNDT Hong Kong

Sir: The U.S. policy on the admission of mainland China is an exercise in hypocrisy. For two decades the U.S. has defended the "logic" of denying U.N. membership to one-quarter of the world's population.

Now the U.S. has decided for political reasons that it would be "correct" for these millions to be represented. And Washington is shocked that the world does not see the obvious logic of its new two-China policy.

MARSHALL STRAUSS Swampscott, Mass.

Sun or Water

Sir: Please--no more scientific explanations. Let me keep my belief that the tranquillity I felt living in El Paso's Sun Country was not merely "something in the water" [Oct. 4].

(Mrs.) BETTYE SULLIVAN Houston

Sir: El Paso, with tranquilizing lithium in its drinking water, seems a natural solution seeking a problem.

In casting about for problems. I would urge that the Pentagon be moved promptly to El Paso.

Secondary priorities open up a host of attractive possibilities: consider a central facility for restive prison inmates along with their guards; the FBI along with the Mafia; bottled El Paso water in place of bottled gas for riot squads. Or just consider the ramifications of "Madison Avenue, El Paso."

ROBERT K. MCKNIGHT Hayward, Calif.

Sir: Lace your own water with lithium! I live in Chicago, and I need every bit of energy and alertness that I can muster to direct in constructive and positive endeavors and to recognize and protest any such mindless suggestions as yours.

EVERETT OEHLSCHLAEGER Chicago

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