Railroading

Sir:

I have just read your exceptionally well-written report [July 26] on the current labor relations problems on the railroads. The conclusion, regarding the motives of Mr. H. E. Gilbert and his prospects for victory, is as frank and perceptive as any I have read.

ALBRO MARTIN

New York City

Sir:

That featherbedded gondola looked cool, clean and comfortable to me. Couldn't help thinking that 37,000 sanitary engineers could be used to clean those trains allotted to nonbovine passengers east of the Mississippi River.

I think the railroads really need those firemen with their buckets--just switch from sand to soap and water.

MARY JOYCE LUNN

Olmsted Falls, Ohio

Sir:

A man works for 30 or 40 years under all kinds of conditions. When he reaches 60 years of age or so, he has worked up to where he can hold one of those "cushy passenger jobs." What industry is there that does not reward years of good service with a little goody?

I am a railroad brakeman (A.T.S.F.) and my investments in the stocks of Santa Fe, Western Pacific and Southern Pacific have enabled me to take my family to Europe every summer.

It is very easy for me to see that the owners of the American railroads are doing much better than the working stiff.

J. DE MAYO

Bakersfield, Calif.

Sir:

It seems to me that you should also give an account of featherbedding in the upper strata of the large railroads, and how they could save many millions by reorganizing their higher executives in accordance with modern business practice. EDWARD S. NORVELL Darien, Conn.

Sir:

It is a sorry thing when a charge of political cowardice can be leveled at a President of the U.S. The proposed work rules are patently for the good of both the railroad industry and the country. That their enactment should be held up purely because they happen to be politically inexpedient is a scathing condemnation of the one man who should consider himself and his office beyond the reach of politics and pressure groups. Military hero the President may be; he has yet to display the same courage in his leadership of our nation.

GEORGE G. KITCHIN

Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Germany

Transplant the Farmer?

Sir:

Congratulations to Dr. Higbee [July 19] for his suggestion to discontinue farm price supports in favor of free enterprise. The problem, as is pointed out by Higbee, is one of continual overproduction encouraged by unwieldy price supports. The only real solution to this dilemma is to get the marginal farmers off the farm and discontinue what have been lucrative price supports to the large farmer.

LYLE F. SCHOENFELDT

West Lafayette, Ind.

This "Us" & "Them"

Sir:

You are to be congratulated for your article on "The Dangers of Militancy" [July 19]. Although one can see the Negroes' reasons for bitterness, he must still be disheartened when he sees antiwhite prejudice erupt into violence just as he thought the end of the tunnel was in sight.

Conscientious men of both races who have been struggling for years against hatred are now being pushed into the background by Negro extremists who, it seems, wish not an end to hatred but only a change in who does the hating.

LEE W. SMITH

Great Falls, Mont.

Sir:

I look with dismay upon the rising militant actions of Negro leadership. Negro impatience can readily be understood, but whereas peaceful demonstration brings ever more sympathy and strength to the movement, defiance and ultimatums breed doubt, and riots breed hatred that delivers irreparable damage. Poor leadership has lost many a battle regardless of the strength of the troops. I pray that the Negro community will follow those leaders capable of restraint.

MARVIN CHRISTENSEN

Venice, Calif.

Sir:

As for the charge that the Negro is too militant in his fight for social and political justice, I would say that after 400 years of cruel, barbaric and unjust treatment, the American Negro is fed up with the unmitigated gall and hypocrisy, as well as the moral cowardliness, of the white man.

JOHN A. DAVIS JR.

New Rochelle, N.Y.

Sir:

This "us" and "them" business has got to stop. You and I are "we," human beings and Americans.

My children will soon be old enough to weep for the cruelty of men to men. Soon they will be ready to fight any man who seeks dominion over the lives of others. But they will not be taking sides--white or black--unless we idiots tell them there are sides to take.

FRANCES A. MILLER

Phoenix, Ariz.

Oteliaquette

Sir:

You would think an atom bomb had exploded here. You never saw such excitement in your life as that about my making TIME. Every time I turn around, somebody tells me that they read your story of July 19--the faculty, the students, the beauty operators, the food clerks, and people on the streets whom I never saw before. I am as much of a celebrity here as the Kennedys are in Ireland!

TIME really did help me spread the idea of the crying need for instruction in good manners, and I am most grateful.

OTELIA CONNOR

Chapel Hill, N.C.

Jason & the Bronze Beast

Sir:

In your July 19 issue, criticizing the film Jason and the Argonauts, you state: "And they have dreamed up monsters Jason never saw, including a steam-powered King Kong, built of bronze, with a drain plug in his heel." This monster is genuine and belongs to the myth of the Argonauts. In his well-known The Greek Myths, Robert Graves writes: "The Argonauts reached Crete, where they were prevented from landing by Talos the bronze sentinel, a creation of Hephaestus, who pelted the Argo with rocks, as was his custom. Medea called sweetly to this monster . . . and, while he slept, she removed the bronze nail which stoppered the single vein running from his neck to his ankles. Out rushed the divine ichor, a colorless liquid serving him for blood, and he died."

MICHAEL C. ASTOUR

Assistant Professor of

Mediterranean Studies

Brandeis University

Waltham, Mass.

Keeler's Chronicle

Sir:

The expectation is expressed in St. Stephen's Pub, alongside Parliament here, that Christine Keeler's memoirs will be published under the title: "A Moll and Her Night Visitors."

JESSE LEVINE

London

Baron Munchhausen

Sir:

Your statement that Baron Munchhausen was a fiction [July 19] is untrue. Hieronymus Carl Friedrich, Baron von Munchhausen was born on May 11, 1720. He was a page at the court of Duke Anton Ulrich von Braunschweig, later served as lieutenant in Riga and advanced to captain in the regiment of Peter III of Russia in 1750. He was a great soldier, hunter and teller of tales. He died on Feb. 22, 1797. He is buried in Boden-werder, which to this day calls itself the "Munchhausen Stadt."

When I came to the U.S., I was appalled to find that most people thought the baron was a fiction. I therefore wrote a book, called The Real Munchhausen, which was published by Devin Adair in 1960.

ANGELITA M. WINKLER

(nee von Munchhausen)

Washington, N.J.

Entree

Sir:

As a TIME addict since college, it was satisfying indeed to read your [July 26] report on my Miss Caroline.

The White House can be a genuinely funny place. For example, last summer, shortly after the publication of Who's in Charge Here?, President Kennedy invited me to the White House for an amiable chat. At the northeast gate a guard asked to see some identification, and I showed him my Diners' Club card. He grabbed the phone and said, "Mr. Gardner of the Diners' Club to see the President."

GERALD GARDNER

Oradell, N.J.

El Chamizal Sir:

The U.S. is not giving Mexico 630 acres of U.S. territory [July 26]; it is returning Mexican territory to Mexico. Our great President Don Adolfo Lopez Mateos also was as just as your great President in not charging the U.S. back rent from 1911, the year that international arbitration declared in our favor. We are definitely more than good neighbors.

Luis RADA

Mexico City

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