The Limp Lip

Sir / At last, after decades of a reputation for head cracking and bone crushing, we are no longer looking for a fight. Hardhats are looking for a leader. From a labor point of view, Nixon and McGovern clearly do not qualify.

I not only admire George Meany [Sept. 11] as an able, though aged labor leader; this time I even agree with him. As your article indicates, most hardhats do think for themselves, and many may just sit out '72.

Who knows? This may well be the election year that local politicos get the lever, but presidential candidates wind up with the limp lip. It just might happen.

P.J. MCGRATH

Member, Local # 1

I.U.E.C.

New Windsor, N.Y.

Sir / As a first-time voter, a blue-collar worker and as an American, I intend to take President Nixon's advice and make my first vote one of my best ever. I will vote for Senator George McGovern, next President of the U.S.

MICHAEL STEINBACH

McPherson, Kans.

Promotional Raises

Sir / In reading your story on the presidential campaign [Sept. 18], I noted your quoting Senator McGovern as saying that the president of Dow received a pay raise of 196% and has to "eke out an existence on $305,000 a year."

Senator McGovern referred to a raise in pay C.B. Branch obtained when he became president of Dow after having served as executive vice president for nine years.

Substantial promotional raises are not unusual in various fields of endeavor. For example, if a Senator is elected President, his pay is raised from $42,500 to $200,000, a 370% increase.

MARK BATTERSON

Director

Public & Community Relations

The Dow Chemical Co.

Midland, Mich.

Tom Dowd's Good Buck

Sir / I wish to express my great delight in reading about Construction Worker Tom Dowd's "good buck"--$94,000 a year [Sept. 181. Here is a story of a doer, a worker, a builder who can work skillfully with his hands if need be. Never mind the comments like sky-high paychecks, outrageous, grossly inflated, needless expense, etc., etc.

Usually such rewards go to the soft-handed--like stock market jobbers, suave promoters of semi-useless gadgets--or to some superjock adept at little boys' games. So when a worker can achieve semimillion-aire status by his skill and sweat, I say cheers.

As one who has labored many a day in the hot sun for $2 an hour (and glad to get it), this account of Mr. Dowd's success is just great. May his tribe increase.

FRANK BUCKLER

Walla Walla, Wash.

Tough Luck

Sir / The strandees at London's Gatwick Airport [Sept. 18] learned what seasoned travelers have long known--in any kind of emergency, one can expect more help from a casual stranger in the street than from the U.S. embassy. If your money has been stolen, you may be lent enough to cable home for more. If it takes a couple of days for the money to come and you have no place to sleep--tough luck! If you have no one to cable to, tougher still.

Embassy reform is badly needed. Instead of being made to feel we are somehow offside to apply for help when we have nowhere else to turn, we should be welcomed and given ungrudging assistance.

KATHARINE WILLIAMSON

Jamesport, N.Y.

Sir / If tourists in distress find an occasional U.S. consul coldly impervious to their problems, earlier travelers are probably to blame. Years ago, when I was a fledgling vice consul in Montevideo, Uruguay, I met and deeply sympathized with an upstanding young couple, innocent victims of unforeseen disaster. No official funds being on hand, I made them a personal loan of what amounted to two weeks' salary, never doubting that it would be repaid.

Some weeks later, a friend in the States wrote to tell me he had met the couple at a cocktail party, where they proudly boasted that they had made the grand tour round South America wholly on the largesse of gullible vice consuls like me. Their only expense was passage to the first foreign port, where they wangled enough money to get to the next one and so on round the cape and back home. Strandees who expect the Government to foot the whole bill are in effect trying to pass on their misfortunes to the long-suffering taxpayer.

DEWITT STORA

Los Angeles

Janitor for Mayor

Sir / The contest for mayor of Elizabeth. N.J. [Sept. 18], seems to offer Candidate Anthony Carbone, the courthouse janitor, an unusual opportunity for sweeping reforms and a clean administration.

MARTHA C. LANCASTER

Decatur, Ga.

Program for the Customers

Sir / TIME'S inappropriately titled "Highway Robbery" article [Sept. 11] was poor journalism. Three horror stories out of millions of satisfactory auto-service cases a year don't suffice to condemn an entire industry. Neither is it right to parrot the authors advice to boycott franchised automobile dealers for service.

Franchised dealers have service woes, admittedly, but are meeting the challenge. A national industry program is under way to certify automotive mechanics' skills and competence. Dealer groups and associations are working with consumer groups and Government agencies, and our NADA has implemented a tough self-regulation program to resolve customer problems.

CHARLES J. WHITTEY

President

National Automobile Dealers

Association

Washington, D.C.

Burr Rooms

Sir / We understand that there was no "jocular" motive involved in placing "The Aaron Burr Memorial Press Room" plaque in the U.S. Treasury Department Building, Washington, D.C. [Sept. 11]. It was instead an appropriate recognition of a man who was willing, when it seemed necessary, even to criticize some of the founding fathers themselves.

Colonel Burr was a hero of the American Revolution, a conscientious public servant, a distinguished statesman, the leading lawyer of his time and a man who merited the respect of his fellow citizens.

The members of the press are well advised in thinking of Colonel Burr as an advocate of presenting the news "as it is," no matter who may be hurt by this practice. We suggest that all of the press rooms in the public buildings of the nation's capital should be known by his name.

SAMUEL ENGLE BURR JR.

President General

The Aaron Burr Association

Linden, Va.

Aid to the Doctor

Sir / "Automated Examinations" [July 31] contains several inaccurate comparisons between multiphasic health testing and the executive checkups performed by Executive Health Examiners and the Greenbrier Clinic.

We at Executive Health Examiners believe that an examination is only as good as the doctor who performs it, and that multiphasic testing (which is a part of every examination we perform at Executive Health Examiners) is only an aid to a highly competent physician in his effort to make a correct diagnosis. Examinations at Executive Health Examiners do not cost "$200 or more" but may be had for as little as $90. Further, the average time for an examination is two to three hours, not "several days."

The critical point, however, which I wish to re-emphasize, is that multiphasic screening is fine, but only as an adjunct and aid to well-trained physicians in achieving proper results.

RICHARD E. WINTER, M.D.

Director

Executive Health Examiners

New York City

Black September

Sir / I cannot understand it. After the Olympic tragedy, some had the nerve to say, "This is the end of all the Olympics." No! The tragedy produced in fact one of the greatest demonstrations of human unity for a long time. The entire human race united in fear, horror and disgust over the criminal acts of the Black September group. A tragic event, but we were all together.

RICHARD MACEY

Sydney, Australia

Sir / I want to cry in outrage against the murders of innocent Israelis. I cannot because in my name innocent Asians are killed every day. I am tired and ashamed of living in this glass house I didn't build and feel helpless to remodel. Help lift this guilt from me, from America's shoulders, so that once more I can cry out against murder and injustice without the rest of the world replying "Hypocrite."

BONNIE BUCKLEY

Winchester, Mass.

No Connection

Sir / TIME was mistaken [Sept. 18] in claiming that the P.L.O. office in Beirut is a recruiting center for the Black September underground organization. TIME was also mistaken in reporting that Abu Yusif, a well-known member of the executive committee of the P.L.O., has any connection with Black September.

SHAFIC HOUT

Palestine Liberation Organization

Beirut

No Offense

Sir / I am a U.S. citizen, and I do not feel "offended" at the behavior of Vincent Matthews and Wayne Collett on the gold-medal winner's pedestal [Sept. 18].

After decades of discrimination in sport, housing, employment and education, how can anyone expect complete respect for the flag from those who have suffered under it for so long? Collett and Matthews won their medals by their own hard work.

BETTE ANN BRAMA-KRAVIT

Columbia, Mo.

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