Ghoulish or Great?

Sir:

Your May 27 article on Picasso, assisted by wonderful reproductions, will be of much help in aiding the readers to understand and appreciate him. Picasso's art truly manifests the spirit of our wondrous age. No artist before him has been able to portray emotion on canvas in such a way.

HENRY MATTHEWS

Norwich, Conn.

Sir:

For a man who knows "there are vitamins even in garbage," Picasso has parlayed inventiveness into a sizable garbage can. Art always contains elements of invention, but invention is not necessarily art. The final caricature by this apocryphal "genius" is the comparison of himself with Raphael.

CHARLES B. ROGERS

Huntington Hartford Foundation Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Sir:

Your Picasso spread was one of the most interesting I have ever read. The reproductions are by far the finest I have seen, and will make a wonderful addition to my TIME art collection.

MARCIA KARSZEWSKI

Bowling Green, Ohio

Sir:

How can you possibly desecrate and denigrate art by publishing under its aegis those nightmarish horrors by Picasso? That legendary character is fooling no one but himself with his ghoulish atrocities. Of his more conventional paintings, the "Mother and Child" is a poor imitation of Michelangelo's.

W. G. SARGENT

South Bend, Wash.

Sir:

While rephrasing the standard cultist glosses of art-clown Picasso's work, your art editor must not have considered the more appropriate evaluation best expressed by Picasso himself: "I am only a public entertainer ... I am celebrated; I am rich. But when I am face to face with myself, I have not the courage to consider myself an artist in the great and ancient sense of the word . . ."

GERALD H. WHIPPLE Foxborough, Mass.

All in a Nutshell

In the May 13 issue you mentioned a 60-year-old Philadelphia woman who got a skin rash after gathering cashew nuts in Ceylon. When it is picked from the tree, the cashew nut is covered with a hard tough shell that has a thin layer of black oil underneath. This oil is quite corrosive to the skin. It is in the shell, however, which is left in India --in fact is used for fuel--and is not in the kernel that we eat.

In the processing plants here, the nuts are shelled by hand after being roasted to make the shell soft and brittle. The shelling is done by women. Each woman has a pan of ashes by her, and after shelling two or three nuts she dips her hands into the ashes, which protect the fingers from the corrosive oil. In this way they shell nuts all day, everyday, for weeks and months on end, and never have any skin trouble.

ROY SELLERS

U.S. Department of Agriculture Bombay

A Question of Race

Sir:

In describing Irish Gallant Man, unlucky second in the Kentucky Derby, as English-bred, TIME [May 20] has blundered and been unhorsed. The colt, by the Irish stallion Migoli out of the Irish mare Majideh, was foaled and reared at the Aga Khan's stud in County Kildare, Ireland, at whose studs in that county both his sire and dam were foaled.

D. L. KELLY

Editor

Irish Racing & Breeding Dublin

P: It is Reader Kelly that has seen the rump of his mount. Majideh was taken to the Homestall Stud Farm in Sussex, England in 1953 to be covered by Migoli, and returned to Homestall in 1954 to drop her foal. Since a horse is considered to be bred in the country where it was foaled, Gallant Man is English.--ED.

McClellan for President?

Sir:

A superb encomium to Senator John L. McClellan of Arkansas. He did not need a silver spoon to find success; he did it with a $5 Bible and hard, conscientious work. He is doing an excellent job in Washington and we should elect him President.

CHARLES C. WINNING III

Baton Rouge

Seattle & the Senator

Sir:

Your May 27 description of Seattle as a city ashamed is a lie, and your buildup of Senator McClellan is disgusting trash. Compare the working man's lot in Seattle to that in Arkansas, and you'll see that McClellan is the one to be ashamed. Apparently this whole investigation is staged to drum up public support for Mr. McClellan's repressive labor-legislation goals.

RODNEY VEITSCHEGGER

Seattle

Sir:

You say that the "backers of the Seattle Symphony were happy to negotiate with Beck for Teamsters' sponsorship of a radio program featuring Conductor Milton Katims." Station KXA conceived the idea of such a program; it was offered for sponsorship to many Seattle business firms; subsequently, the agency handling the Western Conference of Teamsters' public relations made arrangements to sponsor it. The "backers of the symphony" did not have anything to do with the program nor did they negotiate with Mr. Beck. Mr. Katims did not have anything to do with the Teamsters Union.

JOHN H. DUBUQUE

Station Manager KXA

Seattle

P: Reader Dubuque is technically--but not wholly--right. The actual negotiations were not between Beck and the symphony, but between Beck's press agents and the radio station. But the symphony board formally approved the arrangement, and Conductor Katims submitted to publicity pictures with Dave Beck's off-key concertmaster, Frank Brewster.--ED.

Heartbroken

Sir:

Some months ago, your "Fats & Heart Disease" in Medicine [Nov. 12] nearly nullified for me one of the great pleasures of life, eating. As if this were not enough, your May 27 article, "The Heart at Work and Play," comes desperately close to making life not worth living at all.

JOHN J. HARRINGTON

Worthington, Ohio

The Republican Split

Sir:

The conservatives in both parties have joined hands to ridicule the most completely honest man the White House has seen in several generations.

DAVID H. CARLSON Portland, Ore.

Sir:

Glory be--I never thought I would live to see the day when myopic TIME would realize as it did in its May 27 lead article that President Eisenhower is sadly lacking in political stature, conviction and political ability. My own guess about his future place in history is that he will suffer from comparison with President Grant.

FRANK F. LEE

Riverside, Calif.

Sir:

I find myself inclined to follow the lead of the single man, Eisenhower, as against the combined "intelligence" of all those raucous members of Congress who arc now having such a wonderful time playing their game of politics. In the end, the sound and fury which now rages through the halls of Congress will abate, and Ike will yet emerge the winner.

MYRL E. BECK

Beaumont, Calif.

Still Big in Little Falls

Sir:

TIME'S May 20 Cinema section gives an erroneous box-office report (also published in Variety) for The Spirit of St. Louis in Little Falls, Minn., Charles A. Lindbergh's home town. The film played in two theaters, not one, grossing a near record of $1,380 at the Falls and $239.20 at a smaller theater for a total $1,619.20 in one week. Latest Little Falls population census is 6,717. So Lindy is still a big hero in his home town.

ROBERT S. TAPLINGER

Warner Bros.

New York City

Giving Unto Caesar

Sir:

Thank you for a fitting eulogy on TV's last appeal to humor and reason--Sid Caesar. Henceforth I shall read on Saturday night.

LLOYD L. LAUSON

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir:

Perhaps even Caesar's great talent could not make tolerable his screaming, shouting, yelling all his lines. Television comes into a living room. Remember?

E. MIDDLETON

Hollywood

Occupational Ulcer

Sir:

As producer-director of the Ernie Ford show, I thoroughly enjoyed the fine article [May 27] you did on Mr. Ford. I must take exception, however, to one statement: you say "the only one who had an ulcer on the Ford show was the producer, and he brought that over from the Gobel show." I have never had the pleasure of working with two finer men than both George Gobel and Ernie Ford, and I like to feel that my ulcer is an occupational disease not derived from either show.

BUD YORKIN

Los Angeles

Graham & Guilt

Sir:

As a born-again Christian, I would like to express my appreciation for the wonderful May 27 article on Billy Graham; it was accurate, sincere and complete. As a crusade councilor, I wish some of the scoffers and doubters could see changed people leaving the counseling room at the Garden.

WILLIAM P. ENGLISH JR.

Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

Sir:

I shudder to hear how Billy Graham "expounded the sinfulness of man . . . with the words, 'You are guilty ! You are guilty ! You are guilty ! . . . God looks at you . . . with his magnifying glass and sees your faults . . .' " As a psychotherapist, I spend most of my time attempting to remove from the backs of patients the great weight of guilt most of them have about expressing their genuine human nature. Men like Billy Graham degrade humanity by indicting man for simply being human, and, indirectly, help keep our mental hospitals full.

JESSE H. HARVEY

Columbus, Ohio

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