Breakfast at the White House
Sir:
I am an ardent admirer of President and Mrs. Eisenhower, but I'm afraid the publicity in TIME, Feb. 2 about the poor type of breakfast they eat* will set good nutrition back 25 years . . .
Gaylord, Minn. ALLIE KNOBEL
The Old Man & the Secretary
Sir:
Sometimes an offhand remark is revealing, sometimes misleading. I hope the latter is true of a comment by our new Secretary of the Treasury, quoted in your fine article [Jan. 26] on him. You report: "When he caught Mrs. Humphrey reading Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, he asked, with a wink, 'Why would anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure and never amounted to anything?'"
Probably the wink meant he was kidding; but it would be too bad if our nation's new financial boss writes off as unimportant "failures" such successes as Hemingway's Old Man, who worked his life out at a useful job, won the adulation of a boy and the affection of his own community. If Mr. Humphrey's own children catch from him as much of the real meaning of life as the old fisherman imparted, then he too is a successful man . . .
San Francisco HAROLD F. STRONG
Sir:
. . . Suggested reading for Secretary Humphrey, with a wink: the Sears, Roebuck catalogue. No failures in that work. And you get so much book for your money.
C. G. CHRISTOFIDES
Ann Arbor, Mich.
The Senator & the Secretary
Sir:
In your Feb. 2 issue, I find: "Friends said [Wayne] Morse's swoon probably resulted from treatment to his jaw, broken last year when a horse kicked him." I know a group who would like to know the name of the horse to award same an Oscar "for the supreme exhibition of horse sense."
P. S. CHURCH
Montreal, Canada
Sir:
This screwball Wayne Morse, who was frothing at the mouth re Engine Charlie--where was he while the parade of crackpots, misfits, nincompoops and just plain crooks were operating in Truman's menagerie? Why wasn't he protesting then? ... It would be characters like Morse who would deprive the country of the services of men of real honest-to-goodness ability and integrity.
H. A. HEISEY
Connellsville, Pa.
Sir:
Re the Secretary of Defense: Instead of repeatedly calling on God to witness what a tremendous monetary sacrifice he made in accepting the post . . . Engine Charlie should be thanking God that he lives under a Government which makes it possible for men like him to attain such financial success . . .
W. JAMES BASTIAN
Washington, B.C.
Sir:
. . . "What is good for General Motors is good for the country." Not knowing Charles Wilson's ideas concerning his moral philosophy, but hearing it said . . . that he is a man of unquestioned integrity and honesty, such a statement as accredited to him suggests strongly that he is a staunch utilitarian.
In a democracy such as ours, the utilitarian approach to things of a governmental nature appears to be the only sane approach ... If Mr. Wilson is utilitarian, then his statement takes on a laudable aspect ... I am pretty sure that he knows "good," as he used it, is not a word meaning capricious advantage to one and a fortuitous disadvantage to another, but rather, that what is good is mutually beneficial to both, and to all ...
BURNS R. ROBBINS
Boston
Tale of a Tub
Sir:
I have always worn a velvet suit, wrist watch and earrings when I have done the family wash, but have felt shamefully dowdy. However, your Jan. 26 picture illustrating the use of the "Electro-Sonic" clothes washer has given me courage to go on.
Life can be beautiful!
AUGUSTA REID Columbia, Mo.
Natural or Unnatural? (Cont'd)
Sir:
I was astonished to find in your Jan. 19 edition a rehash of Drs. Mandy & Co.'s paper ["Is Natural Childbirth Natural?"] . . . What right has anyone to allege that I am responsible for "unbridled publicity" given in the lay press to a new concept of childbirth ? I am responsible for this teaching but not for the understandable enthusiasm of my followers and imitators in the U.S. . . . Has the astonishing and gratifying spread of ... the great miracle of childbirth urged this caucus to throw one last handful of mud in a despairing effort to rob thousands of American women of the full and natural joy of young motherhood?
Progress in medical science has always been assailed by shortsighted and usually bigoted critics. Ambroise Pare, James Young Simpson, Semmelweis, Lister, Jenner, Pasteur and a host of other servants of mankind have fought against, laughed at, or succumbed to the vituperation of their contemporaries. As a mere shadow of my famous predecessors, let me laugh and fight on as I have for over 30 years . .
GRANTLY DICK READ, M.A., M.D. Johannesburg, South Africa
The Runaway Train
Sir:
Industrialists the country over will appreciate your handling--in the Jan. 26 issue--of Washington's Union Station mishap. Like any other responsible industrial installation, railroads are equipped with the best protective devices that technology can think up and money can buy. But in industry as elsewhere in life, technology and money sometimes fail . . . and the only recourse is to the personal bravery and quick thinking of everyday human beings. It was, as you indicate, such bravery and thinking by such everyday human beings that averted a major catastrophe.
RALPH C. CHAMPLIN Vice President, Public Relations Pennsylvania Railroad Co. Philadelphia
Sir:
It might interest you to know that the John Feeney who warned the stationmaster's office from his post at Tower K in Washington's Union Station of the runaway Federal Express is the son of the late John Feeney, who dispatched Southern's "Old 97" on the day it was wrecked [Sept. 27, 1903]. I knew the father in his old age as a respected citizen of Kensington, Md. He was train dispatcher at Union Station for, I believe, over 40 years.
(THE REV.) WADE SAFFORD Department of Missions Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.
Arms & the Man
Sir:
. . . The tone of your [Jan. 26] article on Douglas Fairbanks Jr.--the "international commuter"--was unfair, inaccurate and mean. The British clubman who announced "Enter Captain Hornblower" when Fairbanks appeared at a fashionable London club wearing some medals was the very height of rudeness . . . This country would benefit by having many more families like the Fairbankses . . . [who] work for better . . . understanding between the peoples of different nations . . .
EDWARD BULKELEY VAN ZILE Dublin, N.H.
Sir:
We enjoyed your article on Douglas Fairbanks Jr., for we were in Doug's outfit during World War II. At our shore base in the mud of Ferryville, Tunisia, Doug always wore a spotless white shirt, white cap cover, British battle jacket, pegged blue trousers, low black boots, a tremendous string of ribbons, and topped it all off with a handkerchief up his sleeve. He almost looked as sharp as the picture you ran . . .
LIEUT. PAUL B. BREMICKER JR. LIEUT. THOMAS HUNDERMARK U.S. Navy San Diego
The Situation of Jonah
Sir:
In asking the question concerning Jonah and the whale, "Who does believe those stories that has any mind at all?", the Rev. William Wright [TIME, Jan. 26] is stating in effect that Jesus Christ was a brainless liar, for Christ declared: ". . .as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly ; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40) . . .
Mr. Wright is entitled to his own opinion, but let him be honest about his opinions, and stop masquerading (at a salary) as an apostle of Jesus Christ.
FRANK S. NAUMAN
Havertown, Pa.
The Spirit of 76, etc.
Sir:
I am surprised and mortified to see that TIME. Jan. 19, contained no letters from British subscribers thanking you for your compliment to our Queen, and that TIME. Jan. 26, had none championing her against the slurs cast by readers dissenting from your choice [of Woman of the Year]. It is remarkable that the working head of any democratic state should be referred to as a "parasite." ... It would be a good thing if U.S. school history books began to tone down the spirit of '76 stuff, and teach young America a little more of the British side of the American Revolution . . .
ROBERT APSION London, England
Sir:
I must say that I am surprised at the vituperative nature of some of the letters you printed about TIME'S choice . . .
E. PEARCE Ledbury, Herefordshire, England
Sir:
. . . Those pin-size mentalities so busily knocking your Woman of the Year forget that TIME, unlike many of its readers, set its sights on the whole world in making its choice ... A young and lovely woman leading an old and resourceful nation will be just the equal partner America needs to get the rest of this half-witted world straightened out.
NIGEL MORLAND
Chesham Bois, Bucks, England
Sir:
. . . Letters anent your choice . . . show a foggy ignorance of the tremendous burden of the crown . . . The criticism of your readers is neither constructive nor charitable.
MARY BRKICH Saskatoon, Sask., Canada
Sir:
. . . Their blatant display of ignorance is appalling.
MALCOLM M. BAILLIE
Aruba, Netherlands Antilles
A Wish for a Niche
Sir:
Thank you very much indeed for your . . . understanding review of my novel The Little Emperors, which appeared in the Jan. 26 issue . . . But the particulars you publish about my private life . . . are, to a certain extent, inaccurate.
In 1924 I sailed for a long cruise in the barkentine St. George, which visited remote islands in the Pacific to collect specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. But I myself was never employed by the museum; I just went along for the trip. I have also studied medieval armor for my own pleasure . . . But I am not in the true sense an expert ... In fact, at the present moment, my sole occupation is writing books, an ill-paid and precarious employment. I wish I had a niche of my own . . .
ALFRED DUGGAN London, England
* The President's: half a grapefruit and a cup of coffee; Mamie's: a cup of Sanka, a piece of toast.
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