The First and Real Americans

Sir: The American Indian [Feb. 9] is truly one of the most tragic figures in American history, having been enslaved, starved, robbed of his land and finally shoved into a dark corner by his "white masters." It is ironic that he is treated as a foreigner by people who are less American than he. Thousands of Indians live and die without ever knowing what the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" really means.

CHRISTOPHER MEHNE Valhalla, N.Y.

Sir: To have tamed and broken the bold spirit of these magnificent people, while molding them into submissiyeness, bears resemblance to the sin of taming all wild stallions to pull a plow and letting the eagle become extinct.

(MRS.) CAROL ELFERS Norwalk, Ohio

Sir: As a resident of Wyoming, constantly derided for my "cowboy and Indian" heritage, I can assure you that your maudlin expose on the American Indian will serve the sole purpose of enhancing the Indian's position as a curiosity piece along American highways.

STEVE RODERMEL New Haven, Conn.

Sir: In an otherwise thoughtful article, you mentioned Senator Edward Kennedy's concern for Indians but omitted any reference to the contribution to Indians made by Arizona's Senators Paul Fannin and Barry Gpldwater and by Representative Sam Steiger. American Indians do not .ne.e4..mqre, concern; they need more help. We Arizonans are proud of the important contribution American Indians have made and are making to our state and nation. And we are likewise proud of the effects of our congressional delegation in helping them gain equal opportunity. Please remind your writers, and perhaps Senator Kennedy, that the age of rhetoric is over; the time for action is at hand.

CHARLES R. MCDOWELL Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir: Perhaps the American Indian has some right to be indignant at being misnamed by "some dumb honky who got lost," to use the words of a Berkeley student whom TIME ironically refers to as a "Sioux"--a good old honky name for the Lakota or Dakota people. But then, so would the Innuit, who were misnamed "Eskimo" by their traditional enemy, the "Indians." No racial insult was intended in the first misnaming--I'm sure plenty was intended in the second! And by the way, the artist whose photo you show is probably no more an Indian than is his pottery tableau of three Eskimos wearing Inland Caribou dress and whimsically seated on the edge of an oversize Eskimo cooking lamp. My educated guess is that the artist is Tegumiak of Rankin Inlet, Northwest Territory, Canada. As a part Abenaki, I think we can afford to give our fellow "Americans" credit where credit is due, and the position of the Eskimo in the modern art world is creditable.

PHILIP H. GRAY Bozeman, Mont.

Sir: I was an "inmate" of one of the BIA schools. The school offered no courses in math higher than arithmetic, no languages, no electives, and only elementary science classes. What we were offered was regimentation, strict segregation from the white kids in town and an insidious way of robbing us of our dignity by the staff, both Indian and white.

We're now beginning to regain a vestige of our racial pride, and I think we're learning we must unite and stop trying to show our puppy-dog good will by laying a hatful of feathers and an honorary chieftainship on every "white savior" that comes among us. Maybe a few arrows in the glutens maximus would be more apropos.

CARTER A. CAMP Escondido, Calif.

Sir: I thought it was an excellent article, and our religion teacher read it to us. I appreciate your concern with the Indians because we have a big school for Indians as our next-door neighbor. We have been helping them in religion trying to get more on God's side.

MIMI MACKEY, Grade 6 St. Francis Xavier School Phoenix, Ariz.

Sartorial Mickey?

Sir: Nixon's "palace guard" [Feb. 9] is more appropriately garbed for appearances outside Radio City Music Hall than the White House. Some costume designer slipped Dickie a sartorial Mickey!

(MRS.) HARRIETTS B, WAGNER Northbrook, 111.

Sir: It is high time that the White House guards were given a fitting ceremonial uniform. The usual U.S. police uniform is exactly the same as that of a night watchman. All hail Graustark, Ruritania and Danilo--the Hart, Schaffner & Marx of the Nixon Administration.

GEOFFREY C. DOYLE San luan, P.R.

Sir: It is very disturbing to me as an old Nixon disliker, dating back to his first congressional race, to hear about the ball he is having as President. My only consolation after our last disastrous presidential election was that Mr. Nixon would realize what a world of unsolvable problems our head of state is burdened with.

Instead, Mr. Nixon is haying the time of his life--changing the uniforms of the White House police to resemble musical-comedy costumes, entertaining his Cabinet officers at his San Clemente home with dinner served on the Truman china flown to California especially for the occasion, etc.

Meanwhile even the middle class, let alone the many poor, is finding it difficult to live on present income, and many smaller businesses are headed for disaster.

Enjoy your job, Mr. President. You worked hard and long to get it. But please don't flaunt it.

(MRS.) LILLIAN MEYERS Roslyn Heights, N.Y.

Previous Paul Reveres

Sir: Your superb article on the environment [Feb. 2] will carry the message to millions who have not yet been reached by such clarion criers of alarm as Ecologists Cole, Commoner, Odum, Ehrlich and Watt. The tragedy is that a generation ago William Vogt (The Road to Survival) and Fairfield Osborn (Our Plundered Planet) and two generations ago John

Vluir were already playing Paul Revere and being largely ignored. We'll make it eventually, I think, but we're going to take one hell of a beating first.

MARTIN R. BRITTAN Professor Department of Biological Sciences Sacramento State College Sacramento, Calif.

Sir: You may not agree with what I said, but please criticize what I did say, not hearsay.

At the Science Conference I said (quoting from a dictionary) that ecology is '"the branch of biology (BIOLOGY) that deals with the relations between living organisms and their environment.' I hope that all of you who are talking about ecology are talking about what the dictionary says it's dealing with and not talking about preserving the rocks and strata of Alaska that have no relationship to any living organism. We're talking about trying to preserve Alaska as it is, trying to make sure that our sons and daughters can enjoy it the way it is, and if you want to come up here and join us, then God bless you, come and join us."

I did not say there are no living organisms on the North Slope--I have been there, and I know what is there.

To Alaskans, people who come from smog-ridden, polluted cities located on polluted lakes or rivers are hardly qualified to tell us what should or should not be done in our state. We listen to advice, but we rebel at being told what we must do by people who really don't know Alaska.

TED STEVENS U.S. Senator, Alaska Washington, D.C.

Sir: Imagine a container for beer, beans or pop made of a material the chemical structure of which is dependent upon the contents. Such a can, having served its function, would dissolve under the force of its emptiness, leaving only the sponsor's name in flakes of bright color free to fly with the wind.

DAVID TUCKER Squaw Valley, Calif.

Sir: None of the 23,000 tons of daily refuse collected in New York City is dumped at sea, nor has it been for about 34 years. Seventeen percent of New York City is the result of sanitary-landfill operations, including Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, the World's Fair site at Flushing Meadow Park, Shea Stadium, Orchard Beach, Canarsie Beach, Marine Park with a 27-hole golf course, and the new United Nations School at the East River.

In five years we will have exhausted our landfills and will then have to seek other sites to accommodate the residue from our proposed new, pollution-free incinerators. Your recommendations will be welcome.

GRISWOLD L. MOELLER Commissioner The City of New York Department of Sanitation Manhattan

Sir: Needless to say, I was greatly surprised to see TIME echoing the now thoroughly discredited charge that seals were killed as a result of the Santa Barbara Channel oil spill.

Evidence disproving the charge has been a matter of widespread public record for many months. To cite just a few of the many scientific studies conducted:

A team that included the director of the National Wildlife Health Foundation and the president of the Humane Society of the U.S. reported that the seals on San Miguel Island showed no signs of injury from oil pollution.

The U.S. Department of the Interior concluded that "there is no evidence that deaths of seals or sea lions on [San Miguel] Island could be attributed to oil pollution."

The superintendent of the Channel Islands National Monument, National Park Service, stated that "I defy anyone to go out and find a whale, seal or fish killed by oil. The animals along this coast have lived with oil all their lives, oil from natural seeps."

FRANK N. IKARD President

American Petroleum Institute Manhattan

Man and Society

Sir: Milton Yellin's letter [Feb. 9] would seem to blame Christianity for what he calls "the holocaust in Nigeria with its 2,000,000 dead." Many millions of sensitive Christians are more moral and Christian than the governments under which they live. Governments act on the basis of expedience and are therefore amoral, while the true Christian's view of responsibility is vastly superior in a humanitarian sense to that of his government. Reinhold Niebuhr's phrase, "Moral Man in an Immoral Society," suggests a vital distinction between a Christian and the society in which he lives. To make such a sweeping generalization as Mr. Yellin appears to make without taking the broader view reminds us of Gilbert Chesterton's statement: "All generalizations are false, including this one."

(THE REV.) H. DANIEL HAWVER Needham, Mass.

Just Julius

Sir: Judge Hoffman missed by more than a quarter-century being the first Chicago jurist to bear the label "Julius the Just" [Feb. 9]. During a seminar held at Northwestern University Law School in 1945, the late distinguished Judge Julius Miner was asked whether he was aware that he was frequently referred to as "Julius the Just." With characteristic wit he replied immediately: "Yes, but I think of myself as just Julius."

Just to keep the record straight, attachment of the tag to Judge Miner was by no means sardonic.

MAURICE H. SCHY Surfside, Fla.

Sweet Revenge

Sir: Regarding the recent machinocide [Feb. 9], I must relate an incident that happened at a local steel mill: a milk-vending machine was destroyed by an angry craneman after he lost 150 to it. He maneuvered his crane over the automatic "bandit," raised it 15 feet in the air and let it drop.

I wonder if that craneman will take his own milk-filled thermos bottle to his next place of employment?

THOMAS T. ESKILSON Gary, Ind.

Decisive Definition

Sir: The American College Dictionary (since the accent is on youth) defines obscene as: "offensive to modesty and decency," which is how Mr. James Aubrey characterizes the love scenes between Burt Lancaster and myself [Feb. 9], in an obvious reference to The Gypsy Moths, an MGM film that predates his assumption of supreme power in Culver City.

It seems to me, however, that age is not a prime factor in determining what is offensive to modesty and decency. A film about young people can be equally obscene as one about middle-aged people in love, the aesthetic sense of the director and the artists involved providing the all-important, decisive element.

I realize, of course, that to argue aesthetics with Mr. Aubrey would be quite futile, as the producer of The Beverly Hillbillies is apparently a stranger to "the science which deduces from nature and taste the rules and principles of art" (American College Dictionary again). It would be like arguing honor with a mule. Or a cobra.

DEBORAH KERR Klosters, Switzerland

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