Loser Be Damned

Sir Sir / No, it is not that the entire country is uncontrollably violent; nor are we a hopelessly sick society. The problem is that we do not take care of the sick in our society.

If Arthur Bremer [May 29] had been recognized as an emotionally disturbed youth and properly rehabilitated, he might not have become our most recent assassin without a cause. His teacher graded him A for his graphic description of a young boy crying out for help; but most American school systems are not equipped to provide help to the troubled youngster.

It is the winner-take-all, Ipser-be-damned philosophy of life in America that shot Wallace.

(MRS.) NICOLE SIMON Arlington, Mass.

Sir / TIME'S article "The Making of a Lonely Misfit" loads both barrels and fires them at the Bremer family. Arthur Bremer, how ever, is just another American who never found the "promised land." For him, life in America is a "shabby, working-class corner of Milwaukee's South Side." If the Bremers were a "problem family," it was probably an outgrowth of pressures created by American class struggle. William Bremer should have been able to cry unashamedly years ago, and when he prays, he should pray that all "our sins" will be forgiven.

JEANIE SLATTON CRAIN Lafayette, Ind.

Sir / Mr. Warner's observations in his Essay "Did America Shoot Wallace?" contribute to the publicity given to acts of violence, which serves to make such acts more appealing to attention-seeking egos.

Within seconds of a tragedy, the mass media rush to provide all the bloody details, all the comments of "experts" and bystanders on the "state of America today," and to point the finger of guilt at society.

There is much to criticize in America -- and the mass media make sure we hear and see it all. But until the courts begin dealing out swift justice for all criminal acts and the mass media stop making heroes of these people, I don't see how we can make a blanket condemnation of the American public for the actions of these isolated egomaniacs.

ELLIE HASHMAN Indianapolis

Conscious v. Subconscious

Sir / When I was 17, I became pregnant and subsequently underwent an expensive, emotionally upsetting, legal abortion. Three years later, Lawrence Downs and David Clayson [May 29] announce that my pregnancy was probably not accidental, but in stead a "subconscious effort to cope with extreme emotional stress."

Poppycock! I'm thoroughly sick of men deciding that women become pregnant to play out their little games/neuroses, then commit the unpardonable sin of being aborted. I have worked with a pregnancy counseling service and my experience has been that a small percentage of unwanted are indeed subconsciously. The majority of women, myself in are under exceptional emotional after conception, not before.

PATTI OSTERBERG San Diego

Sir / How typical of men to look for woman's unconscious choices. Could it just possibly be that under extreme stress and anxiety the women sought warmth, love and release through sex and got pregnant because under stress they were not careful? And that this was a typical conscious choice that backfired when a biological accident took place?

MS. PAT WILSON Sault Sainte Marie, Mich.

Sir / Your article "A Pregnant Choice" reminded me of a common experience that is noticed by woodsmen: the sight of fatally damaged trees producing many times their normal crop of seeds in their last season.

Whether this phenomenon is triggered by fire or bulldozer, it is manifested in flower, fruit, cone or propagating root. But be it relatively mechanistic or biologically complex, it elicits the same response from man's subconscious -- when threatened by disaster, life sees to its own perpetuity.

KARL STAUBACH Pleasant Hill, Calif.

Sir / It's a very good sign that while the mentally healthy mothers were having children, the mentally unstable were having abortions. Good for the children.

JANE ENGLISH Cambridge, Mass.

Education and Wages

Sir / The computation by Stanford's Henry Levin to show that lack of high school diplomas cost 3,000,000 American men $237 billion in their working lifetime because of low wages [May 29] is the kind of dumb logic that has made our education system so ridiculously expensive.

A man might possibly improve his wages if he did not affect the average, but if all had gotten diplomas, it would only mean what it already means -- employers would demand more education for exactly the same work at the same wages. The only difference would be that more people would feel cheated because their diploma didn't mean anything much.

RICHARD A. DAVIS Columbus

Sir / So Henry Levin has computed how much the American economy loses when students drop out before they finish high school?

That assumes of course that there would be jobs for them if they graduated.It's more likely that we would have the most educated unemployed of any country in the world.

DAVID LESTER, PH.D. Pomona, N.J.

Proof Wanted

Sir / The encroachment of public schooling on the lives of American children has now been checked by the decision in the Supreme Court against compulsory schooling for Amish children [May 29].

The Amish believe that the schools are part and parcel of an inhuman competitive technological society, of which they will have no part.

I rejoice in the decision, for I feel that it could lead to significant change in the education establishment. I am hoping for a voucher system under which the schools must prove accountable for doing what they claim they are doing, namely educating young people, or else children will not at tend them.

CRAIG G. NEWBERGER Meadowbrook, Pa.

Sir / In granting Amish children exemption from state-imposed schooling, the Supreme Court recognized the religious educational needs of an organized group.

A non-Amish with similar educational requirements backed by his own thought-out reasons must still follow the public school route.

The opinions of organized religion override personal opinions. But who defends the person?

KARLDOERNERJR. Houston

Resident Shareholders

Sir / Your recent feature article [May 15] on the Federal Government's approach to U.S. investment in Canada included a map pinpointing the major companies controlled by U.S. interests.

This map incorrectly listed British Columbia Forest Products Limited, which has 69% of its shareholders resident in Canada; they hold a majority of the common or equity shares of the company. Nine of the 14 directors also are Canadian.

IAN A. BARCLAY President British Columbia Forest Products Ltd.Vancouver

Plea for More Stars

Sir / Reviewer Lance Morrow has made a valid and, unfortunately, true observation concerning Major Josiah Bunting, author of The Lionheads [May 29]. Morrow states that the novel has been "written by a career officer who in another time, another war, would be bending his disciplined mind toward winning his stars."

Regardless of the present circumstances. Major Bunting should still be trying to win his stars, for he is one of those Army officers who are obviously understanding of the morality of war in this age. Even if we acknowledge the inevitability of war, human suffering should still not be accepted as a fact of life.

JAMES L. ADAMS Indianapolis

Cultural Lag or Crime?

Sir / Your article on Jay Rockefeller [May 22] is just another in a seemingly endless series of condescending putdowns of West Virginia. It might surprise the rest of the country to know that not all travel is done via footbridge or on horseback in "poor farm and hill towns." There are railroad tracks, airports and paved roads.

Of course, the state has obvious problems, but so do all the other states. Maybe New York would like to trade two cups of organized crime for three cups of West Virginia's so-called cultural lag. Not all West Virginians make moonshine or exist in a shoeless, welfare-subsidized, illiterate "creek-bed hollow."

DIXIE G. GOLDEN Massillon, Ohio

No More Christmas Sir / I have personally been a victim of the Worldwide Church of God's tactics [May 15]. It was a living nightmare for me and three teen-age children. No more pork, no more medicine, no more doctors, no more birthdays, no more Christmas, New Year's, Easter, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and on and on and on. Oh, I almost forgot -- no more voting either.

Praise the Lord! TIME is brave enough to publish information regarding a "stern, bizarre sect" that I consider to be a very real danger to society.

MARIAN S. MASSEY Fort Worth

Sir / You would have done better had you got your information on the Worldwide Church of God from the literature we put out rather than from our enemies. Had you done so, you would know that we teach against cruelty to children as well as animals. Most people think nothing of going to war and killing, yet are appalled at the spanking of a child.

It takes time to unlearn all the errors we have always assumed were truth, so you find us in all stages of growth. With God's help we try to change and live as God commands us, while the world is on the downward trend, ordaining homosexuals.

MARY MIKOLAJZYK Toledo

Address Letters to TIME, Time & Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y. 10020

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