Is He Is?

Sirs:

In 1940 or 1941 [another] magazine said that there was no such person as your Contributing Editor Peter Mathews. Merely a nice name: one to use as a catch-all for blame.

I notice in "Business & Finance" [TIME, April 21 ] a fictitious Peter Mathews as the driver of a moppetful car of "Burma-Shave" sign readers.

Peter Mathews--is he is or is he ain't?

GEORGE E. McCLURE

Long Beach, Calif.

P: Reader McClure must have missed TIME Correspondent Peter Mathews' thrilling reports from Lower Slobbovia [TIME, Oct. 7].--ED.

Derby Details

Sirs:

TO KEEP THE RECORDS STRAIGHT, WARREN WRIGHT'S FAULTLESS [WAS] TRAINED BY CALUMET'S SMART TRAINER JIMMY JONES, SON OF BEN JONES, GENERAL MANAGER OF CALUMET FARMS.

JIMMY SUNDAY

Savannah, Ga.

P: Reader Sunday was left at the gate. General Manager Ben Jones, hoping hard for his fourth Derby victory (see SPORT), personally trained Faultless. (Son Jimmy, now Calumet's trainer, has the stable's Maryland division under his care.)--ED.

For a More Perfect Union

Sirs:

I think the letter of A. Hamilton Mencher in your April 21 issue presents a dangerous misconception of freedom and democracy.

There never has been, and never was intended to be, such a thing as unlimited and uncontrolled freedom in any civilized society. . . . Even democracy stands only for such freedom as does not interfere with nor destroy, the freedom of others. . . .

Communism and democracy cannot boll flourish in America. Unless we insist that the freedom of our democracy is not abused there will be no freedom and no democracy

PAUL S. FISHER Chicago

Sirs:

. . . Would you print the Preamble to the Constitution and give me room for a few remarks ?

We, the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

How many of these objectives are the Communists helping us to secure? Are they helping us form a more perfect union? On the contrary, their declared objective is to divide us. Are they striving for domestic tranquility--and helping to promote the general welfare? . . . Then are they fit to be citizens of this country whose basic tenets are as stated above? . . .

Communism and Democracy operate under entirely different sets of rules. Give me a short length of iron pipe and let me ignore the Marquess of Queensberry's rules and I'll get in the ring with Joe Louis--provided he wears gloves and abides by the aforesaid rules. ... In outlawing the Communist Party in this country as a subversive group whose aim is the destruction of Democracy, we would simply be upholding our Constitution. It is that simple. . . .

H. W. CLAYBAUGH

Little Rock, Ark.

Rude Awakening

Sirs:

Let United's Patterson [TIME, April 21] spend more time supervising his airline and less time indulging in smart repartee with Eddie Rickenbacker. The plight of the average United passenger who is dumped at an airport miles outside the city is not unlike that of Raft-Man Rickenbacker. . . .

Patterson might drop in on his airline terminal restaurant at Denver, Colo, some morning for breakfast. He will find: 1) door usually locked, 2) one disgruntled, rude waitress on duty, 3) food greasy, unpalatable . . . 4) sanitation at ceiling zero.

His night trip out of Spokane, Wash., on the night we took it, was featured by a loudmouthed stewardess who kept sleep-inclined passengers awake with an all-night conversation with an unattached sailor.

Having flown many thousand miles in Air Transport Command-managed lines, where "customers" were nonpaying, yet courteously treated, my introduction to [a] commercial airline's bid for traffic was a rude awakening.

JAMES E. COLE

Johnstown, N.Y.

Greetings

Sirs:

SINCE THE ARABS TOOK THE ABSURD ATTITUDE THAT THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO DEFEND THEIR PALESTINE HOMES AGAINST THE CRIMINAL ASSAULTS OF ZIONISM, AN UNPROVOKED CAMPAIGN WAS WAGED AGAINST THEM, WIELDING THE DEADLIEST OF WEAPONS RIDICULE. IN YOUR ISSUE OF APRIL 21, APROPOS OF NOTHING, BUT BECAUSE YOU ARE ONE OF THE WEAPONS OF ZIONISM, YOU HELD UP TO RIDICULE AN ACCOMPLISHED SCHOLAR AND A REFINED GENTLEMAN, THE PRESIDENT OF LEBANON. YOUR SLURRIOUS REMARKS ARE NOT LESS OBVIOUS BECAUSE THEY ARE MORE SUBTLE. BECAUSE WE DON'T CONTROL VOTES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES NOR DO WE VICTIMIZE THE FANATIC AND THE GULLIBLE TO RAISE HUGE FUNDS . . . WE CAN NEITHER HALT YOUR CLEVER SLANDER NOR HOPE TO CONVERT YOU TO THE SIDE OF THE TRUTH, AND THEREFORE THERE ONLY REMAINS FOR US TO PRAY FOR THE SALVATION OF YOUR SOUL IF IT CAN BE CALLED A SOUL, THIS MASS OF VENOM THAT FILLS YOUR BLACK HEART AND FLOWS FROM YOUR FILTHY TONGUE.

SAID TAKY DEAN

Manila

Sirs:

... If the author of this article had in mind to entertain Americans, he certainly met his aim. Magazines such as TIME are supposed to educate people rather than to relate "gossip"--this is the word used by the author--especially as gossip means lack of truth. . . .

EMIL MATTAR

Press Attache

Legation of Lebanon

Washington

P: TIME occasionally finds gossip informative and information entertaining.--ED.

Religious Illiterates

Sirs:

I must take issue with the article under the subject of Education [April 21]. ...

You say that the result of this separation ... of Church and State is "a generation of religious illiterates"--but you neglect to point out [that] these religious illiterates are the smartest youngsters we have ever produced.

I quite agree that "the Bible is second to none among the books that have influenced the thought and ideals of the Western world," but not for good. ...

No book ever produced by man reeks with as much murder, sodomy, incest, rape and filth as does the so-called word of God. ... No book has held back the march of science as much as has the Bible. . . .

Instead of worrying about producing "religious illiterates," let us concern ourselves about producing men & women who are wise in the ways of science and wise to the bigotry of supernatural nonsense.

SAMUEL D. MENIN

Denver

Texas City Disaster

Sirs:

TIME'S STORY "DISASTER" PAGE 22, APRIL 28TH ISSUE, STATES: "THEN, IN A SPLITTING SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS . . . THE MONSANTO PLANT AND MOST OF THE REST OF THE WATERFRONT BLEW UP." THIS IS NOT CORRECT. NO PART OF THE MONSANTO PLANT EXPLODED OR BLEW UP. MATERIALS HANDLED BY THIS PLANT WERE INFLAMMABLE BUT NOT EXPLOSIVE, AND THE PLANT BURNED BUT DID NOT BLOW UP.

J. HANDLY WRIGHT

Monsanto Chemical Co.

St. Louis, Mo.

P: TIME'S statement was based on eyewitness accounts by correspondents for TIME, the Associated Press and numerous national and local newspapers. Technical opinion now seems pretty well agreed that flash fires, rather than explosions, caused the Monsanto holocaust.--ED.

A Small Voice

Sirs:

Mr. Wallace (to whom you refer as "the Messianic windbag") is speaking in the interests of world brotherhood [TIME, April 21]. What should be more natural, more desired, than that he should carry his message abroad to all parts of the world? . . . This is no time for narrow nationalism. Civilization hangs in the balance. If the future proves a growing organism, and we find ourselves making great strides toward a better expression of life on earth, coming generations can give thanks that we heeded the Christian philosophy Mr. Wallace represents. If civilization declines to an era similar to the Dark Ages--or perishes completely--we can attribute this to the fact that we turned deaf ears to a small voice. . . .

RAY PRICE

Columbia, Mo.

Gross Understatement

Sirs:

Your comment that Connecticut's Blue Law is widely disregarded [TIME, April 21] is a gross understatement. In both Massachusetts and Connecticut it is illegal for doctors to give contraceptive advice to married women, and the Roman Catholic citizens are told that "Birth Control is against God's Law." Yet the birth rates in these two states are among the lowest in the country, and before the war were lower than those of France--about one-third of the physiological maximum. Obviously the majority of the people in both states practice birth control regardless of legal restrictions and religious taboos.

KARL SAX

Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Policeman's Lot

Sirs:

I should like some information. In the April 14 issue, you stated that the Baltic people used to go swimming along the beaches of the Gulf of Riga, often in the nude--"the early part of the morning was reserved for men, the latter part for women, and police saw to it that none of the early bathers overstayed their allotted time."

I assume that the police were members of the stronger sex. If the police watched the men bathers to see that they did not hang around, who watched the policemen?

VIRGINIA G. Du BOSE

San Antonio

P: Peter Mathews.--ED.

Free Enterprise at Fair Harvard

Sirs:

The article in your April 7 issue regarding Princeton's "Save Capitalism Committee" interested me, but I was annoyed at the implication that no other college had a similar organization.

Last December, a group of undergraduates at Harvard founded the "Society for the Preservation of Free Enterprise," whose primary aim is to educate its own members and others regarding the desirability of maintaining free enterprise as the basis of U.S. economy. We define free enterprise as the economic system under which private individuals, alone or jointly, are permitted the acquisition, secure ownership, and management of natural wealth, tools of production, and means of distribution; and, further, are permitted to enjoy the legitimate earnings therefrom, free from excessive taxation, monetary manipulation, confiscation, or undue government interference. . . .

ANTHONY NEIDECKER

President

Society for the

Preservation of Free Enterprise

Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

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