Man of the Year

Sir:

The following must figure in the final shakeup: Eisenhower, Nixon, Salk, Pope Pius XII, Eden, Adenauer, Nehru and Tito. There seems to be no top man in Russia nor did one emerge in Argentina after the deposition of Peron. Pope Pius XII is always in the running, but TIME would have to deal with so many canceled subscriptions that it is very unlikely that he will ever make the grade. Eden has taken up residence at No. 10 Downing Street, while the "Old Man" from West Germany is still in the field. The enigmas are Nehru and Tito; because they are enigmas, they must be considered.

F.M. SLATTERY Asdee, County Kerry, Ireland

Sir:

All Americans are grateful for the gallant recovery President Eisenhower has made. This brave soldier truly deserves your title.

GEROLD C. WICHMANN Boulder, Colo.

Sir:

Who else but Walter Reuther--father of the bride at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. merger.

PAUL LUTZEIER

Detroit

Sir:

Richard M. Nixon--also, he would make a good President and might be a great one.

MARY CLAUDINE HANSON Hollywood

SIR:

NONE OTHER THAN EGYPT'S NASSER, WHOSE INFLUENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, MORE THAN ANY OTHER, WILL INFLUENCE HISTORY FOR YEARS TO COME.

GIDEON CROCKETT JOHNSON SILVER SPRINGS, MD.

Sir:

The President of the French RepublicP:Monsieur Rene Coty.

JOHN F. O'SCANLAN

Vanves, France

Sir:

My nomination is the late Emmett Till. I believe that his death and the subsequent acquittal of Bryant and Milam have awakened the U.S. to the true meaning of Mississippi fascism with its warped sense of justice.

LESTER BANKS Los Angeles

Xmas Marx

Sir:

Several years ago the dormitory residents at New York University decided to give a Christmas party for orphans from the New York City area. Requests for contributions were sent out but the response was poor. Had it not been for the generosity of Louis Marx the party could never have taken place. Since then the orphans' Christmas party has become an annual one, and Mr. Marx still donates a considerable amount of toys every year. Your Dec. 14 cover story is of special significance to us.

JULIUS TRACHTEN Treasurer

Gould Hall Society New York University New York City

Sir:

May I commend TIME on its story about our friendly competitor, Louis Marx. You intimate that Marx "knocked off" our best-selling Robert the Robot by meeting our price and adding a battery motor. In order to meet our $6 price, Marx eliminated from his robot the phonograph recording which permits our Robert to talk. It says, "I'm Robert the Robot, the mechanical man. Drive me and steer me wherever you can."

B. F. MlCHTOM Ideal Toy Corp. New York City

Curt, Concise, Cutting

Sir:

TIME's Nov. 28 review of Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara is stupid.

JOHN STEINBECK Sag Harbor, N.Y.

Sir:

TIME's review of Ten North Frederick says what needed saying about O'Hara, and says it with just the right length of blade and cutting edge.

L. STIMPSON

New York City

The Oldtime Religion

Sir:

Thanks for your Dec. 5 article on us Baptists. We Baptists demand religious liberty for all. We are the common people; the common people accepted Christ and his teachings.

SAMUEL W. JOHNSON Alexandria, La.

Sir:

The Baptists are a fine people, but their devotion to the separation of church and state is rather one-sided. Nowhere in the South where Baptists can muster a majority do they hesitate to enact into law their peculiar moral scruples, to the discomfort of liberals and Christians of the older orthodoxies.

WILLIAM H. HESS Brownwood, Texas

Sir:

Both my wife and I are Christians, but we have never been affiliated with any denomination. We have long felt that we should join some church, but we have never been able to agree on the denomination. Partly on the strength of your article, we are joining one of Abilene's Southern Baptist churches.

RAY F. TURNER Abilene, Texas

Sir:

We are grateful for the story and the spirit reflected all through it, and trust that it will strengthen and help both our Baptist cause and all Christian life and work. I am sure it will give a lift to our little Baptist congregations in other countries where they are struggling minority groups. I am glad that the subject of baptism was treated on the cover and in the story with such reverence and respect.

(PASTOR) THEODORE F. ADAMS First Baptist Church Richmond, Va.

Sir:

I was born a South Carolina Baptist, and raised an Oklahoma Baptist. You won't find better folks no place. TIME's article about the Baptists was just fine.

COWBOY PINK WILLIAMS Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma Oklahoma City

Sir:

Where does TIME get its authority for saying that first century Christians were generally unaware of baptism by sprinkling or pouring? Paul was probably not immersed. The Philippian jailer who was converted at midnight by Paul was baptized within the hour, probably by sprinkling or pouring.

MICHAEL DAVES Wichita Falls, Texas

P: After Jesus' baptism by John, Matthew 3:16 says, "He went up straightway out of the water." After Philip's baptism of the eunuch, the two are described (Acts 8:39) as coming "up out of the water." In other Biblical instances, such as that of Paul and the jailer (Acts 16:33], the method of baptism is not described.--ED.

The Clerihew

Sir:

TIME, Nov. 28, used the small verse about Clive without referring to it as a clerihew.* This omission occasioned our small circle much disappointment, as we have dedicated ourselves to the study of the work of E. C. Bentley (1875--), whose inimitable hand wrought:

George the Third Ought never to have occurred. One can only wonder At so grotesque a blunder.

HUGH A. MACLEAN

Clerihew Society of Ontario Mundane Mills, Ont.

TIME Covers

Sir:

TIME's Dec. 5 cover, with a likeness of the Rev. Theodore Adams, wins my vote as the most effective of 1955; I wonder if Artist Baker took his inspiration for the praying hands from Duerer's work. Incidentally, Duerer's drawing [see cut], dramatic in spite of almost stark simplicity, is the subject of a new Christmas stamp issued by the Saar.

EMMETT PETER JR. Leesburg, Fla.

P: Artist Baker was thinking of the similarity of hands in prayer and the sheltering roof of a church.--ED.

Sir:

It is always good to see a real TIME cover. Lately, you've seemed to be lost among the old wood and slapdash. Give us more Baker, Giro, Chaliapin and Artzybasheff--the big four.

MARY DEWEY

New York City

Sir:

More of those wonderful covers by Aaron Bohrod--please!

Y. CARMEN BOBA Chicago

Dartmouth's Dickeys

Sir:

I was extremely pleased to read your Dec. 5 tribute to our president's first ten years in office. In sympathy with President Dickey's youngest child, however, I beg to correct your identification of its sex. John Sloan Dickey Jr., 14 and a student at Exeter, is the president's son and not one of "three daughters."

PEIRCE McKEE ('51) Rolla, Mo.

Gin & It

Sir:

Concerning martinis [Dec. 5]: the hell a twist of lemon peel is acceptable to a martini drinker; a true devotee allows no garbage of any kind to contaminate his martini. If those slobs want lemonade, why don't they come right out and ask for it!

WILLIAM F. HICKEY Bay Village, Ohio

Sir:

When the proportion of vermouth is so infinitesimal, why is the drink still called a martini, "Montgomery," ''Hemingway"? Isn't it really straight gin--the same elixir which old, broken-down scrub ladies of London were wont to drown their sorrows in? Let us Americans face the world boldly with the fact that we are becoming a nation of gin drinkers, not martini imbibers.

BETSEY CISSEL Goleta, Calif.

* A sort of formless four-line verse named after its inventor, English Author Edmund Clerihew Bentley (Trent's Last Case). Other sample Bentley clerihews:

The art of biography Is different from geography. Geography is about maps, But biography is about chaps.

John Stuart Mill By a mighty effort of will Overcame his natural bonhomie And wrote "Principles of Political Economy."

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