Both Ways

Sir:

Are you trying underhandedly to convert Americans to be Roman Catholics? I just picked up three different copies of TIME, and in each one there are articles slanted definitely toward Roman Catholicism.

ELIZABETH STRY Melbourne, Fla.

Sir:

Exception must be taken to your frequent if subtle slams at the Catholic Church. What a problem you would have if Nixon were a Catholic or John Kennedy a Republican.

J. McVANN Detroit

Changing the Garb?

Sir:

James Bryant Conant is serving the cause of good schools with all of the ability and accomplishment that rate the cover recognition of Sept. 14. I hope that TIME readers may anticipate his fifth cover appearance when he completes his study of our nation's junior high schools and a sixth when he looks at the elementary schools.

HEROLD C. HUNT Eliot Professor of Education Harvard University Cambridge, Mass.

Sir:

The whole business can be summed up and righted by one revolutionary step: the schools must return at once to their proper function --the intellectual process.

JULIUS SUMNER MILLER Professor of Physics El Camino College Los Angeles

Sir:

I'm sick of some of this bilge that even Dr. Conant indulges in.

Like the characters in Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, we're merely changing our garb to suit the spirit of our age.

If the guidance people will guide our kids back to the academics, and if the counselors will counsel the administrators to put most of the nonacademic pabulum back in the extracurricular cupboard, the pursuit of happiness will take care of itself. Bruises to the ego by way of low marks, poor report cards, etc., prepare our youngsters for real-life bumps and bruises, but a "demanned" man at 30 is a tragic thing to behold.

WILMA BOUMAN Holland, Mich.

Sir:

A tougher curriculum is the least and easiest of needed school reforms. The limiting factors loom larger than ever--rule and overrule by small-minded school board members having no single professional qualification, the absence of policy and real authority to cope with overwhelming discipline problems, the license of the lay public in interfering with and abusing school personnel.

FREDERICK RENVYLE Whitman, Mass.

Sir:

Your article points up the biggest weakness in teachers colleges today--the superfluous number of "methods" courses. We future teachers are mired in a curriculum of "how to teach" courses, while neglecting the most important aspect of teacher education, a well-rounded liberal arts background.

RAYMOND JENSEN

Bemidji, Minn.

Sir:

If I may say so, I thought the cover story came out very well. As far as I am concerned, it was all too complimentary, and as far as my views are concerned, accurate, which is the main point. May I congratulate you on the result and express my own personal appreciation.

JAMES B. CONANT New York City

Ideals & the Legion

Sir:

TIME rates a straight "A" for its efforts in making the organization of the 40 & 8 look bad in the eyes of the American people [Sept. 7], I would remind TIME that first, notwithstanding the "white" issue, the 40 & 8 was formed to propagate the American Legion and its high patriotic ideals; secondly, to date, the 40 & 8 has given the National Child Welfare Division of the American Legion $1,017,935; and thirdly, the 40 & 8 has in operation at this time a nurses training program. If this is indicative of the type of society your article portrays, then I am happy to be a part of it. As for the 40 & 8's "lily-white stand," I have the utmost faith in and conviction of the elimination of this blot in our manuals.

JOHN E. TATRO SR.

Grand Chef de Train Grand Voiture du Rhode Island W. Warwick, R.I.

Sir:

Why all the adjectives for 40 & 8, like "fanny-pinching and town-wrecking" and none at all for the parent American Legion? Let me suggest a couple: the public-till-raiding, socialism-for-us-but-not-for-you American Legion.

JAMES C. THOMSON

Elmhurst, Ill.

Seeds of Delinquency

Sir:

Msgr. Joseph A. McCaffrey's denunciation of "coddlers" and "do-gooders" as the chief contributing factors to New York's juvenile crimes [Sept. 14] seems to ignore completely the basic source of trouble. The Roman Catholic Church must accept its fair share of the responsibility. As long as the church insists on its adherents bringing children into the world regardless of their ability or prospects of providing them with decent homes, so long shall we require "more jails" to meet "force with force."

MARGARET SIMMONS San Antonio

Sir:

I was sorry that your article didn't emphasize the oddness of New York's reaction as well as the aimlessness of the delinquency.

As you noted, the heat was oppressive; the area was a slum; the killers had contacts with a marijuana salesman; they were all Puerto Rican immigrants; the two leaders had stepparents, and one lived with a sister whose husband had deserted her. Yet the city scoffed at the "theory that blames juvenile crime primarily on environment!"

JOHN T. WILCOX New Haven, Conn.

Sir:

Juvenile delinquency is not only a problem of New York but a problem of the whole nation. In Western Europe, law is not laughed at and toyed with as it is in the U.S. It is tough and means what it says.

VANCE ANDERSON Naples, Italy

Sir:

As a means of reducing tension between the law and juvenile criminals in New York City, I suggest that President Eisenhower invite some of the gang leaders to tour the country. Let's show them the corn belt, Levittown, Pa., and Congress in session. Let's show them that this country is too strong and determined to tolerate lawlessness. After all, we do keep bothering Comrade Khrushchev with facts when his mind is already made up.

VIKTORS PUPOLS

Seattle

Sir:

As one who has lived in Puerto Rico, I would like to remind TIME, which is usually so capable when it comes to racial issues, that there are white Puerto Ricans and Negro Puerto Ricans, just as there are white Americans and Negro Americans.

I believe that even though it has become common practice in New York to call Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans as though they were a different race, TIME has done upstanding Puerto Ricans engaged in more normal activities a grave injustice.

MRS. ANA T. JAHN Berkeley, Calif.

To the Front

SIR:

I BELIEVE TIME UNINTENTIONALLY AFFRONTED PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY OF JOE ALSOP IN LAOS PRESS STORY [SEPT. 21]. ALSOP DID NOT HOLE UP IN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM BUT IN FACT MADE TWO TRIPS TO THE FRONT AS HEART-THUMPING AS THE ONE YOU DESCRIBED.

PHILIP L. GRAHAM PUBLISHER

WASHINGTON POST AND TIMES HERALD WASHINGTON D.C.

Enigma in India

Sir:

One would like to hope that Mr. Nehru's courtship with the Communists would now come to an end. The people of India, both the educated and the illiterate, have stood behind Mr. Nehru and his party through much turmoil, unhappiness and misery, despite promises of economic betterment. However, it is too much to expect that the Indian people should continue to endorse Mr. Nehru's play or his ministers' frolics with the Red rapists.

JAGDISH MEHRA Long Beach, Calif.

Sir:

While reading TIME, it suddenly struck me that Nehru is on the horns of a Dalai Lama.

FAROOQUE SAIGOL Lyallpur, Pakistan

Missing Hiss

Sir:

In your Sept. 21 report on the airport murder of Syrian-born Double Agent Mohammed Mahmoud Jamil, you say, "Hissed back Jamil: 'Don't look over there.' " Can anybody hiss that--even a double agent?

MARSHALL MORISON

New York City

P: It hisses better in Arabic.--ED.

Portrait of a President

Sir:

As an avid TIME reader, I was appalled by your Sept. 7 cover. Mr. Wyeth is undoubtedly a talented artist, but as an advertising man who observes a wealth of art work, I can only view his painting of Ike as an insult to the American public.

T. W. NORSWORTHY Dallas

Sir:

Wyeth's thoughtful, striking Eisenhower, scarcely typical, may well become the remembered likeness.

LEE J. KINGSMILL Fort Richardson, Alaska

Incident in Izmir

Sir:

Re your Sept. 14 story on American sergeants charged with black marketing in Turkey: Just what kind of treatment does Sergeant Dale McCuistion and his tribe of noncoms expect from the Turkish authorities after his alleged "get-rich deal" of open black marketing? And just how true are his accusations of brutality on the part of the Turkish police?

Having just returned from a one-year tour in the U.S. Army stationed in Istanbul, I know that every American in Turkey is well aware of the open offers of black marketing. Yet not all of us jumped in and caught the bandwagon. I think Sergeant McCuistion should be happy that the Turkish court has his case and not the educated military minds of the U.C.M.J.*

(SP4) CARL F.SHAW Fort Devens, Mass.

Sir:

Turkey is still a sovereign country and has her own laws to be obeyed by those who live in Turkey. Aren't foreigners who do not abide by the laws of this country arrested by American police and brought to trial by American authorities?

MEHMET ADANALI Los Angeles

*Uniform Code of Military Justice.

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