M.R.A.'s Message
Sir:
Congratulations on your objective Aug. 15 reporting on the Moral Re-Armaments play entitled The Vanishing Island. This travesty on the real world made its debut in Santa Barbara several months ago, and MRAers' comings and goings stirred up tremendous ill-feeling here. They are a misguided group and certainly an irritating one. I was delighted that you placed your review of this incredible slush under "Organizations" and not "Religion." These people dream of substituting M.R.A. for religion whenever possible, and they woo the Catholic and Anglican clergy shamelessly . . .
How any red-blooded MRAer could read your story about the eleven released American airmen and then go onstage and mouth the nauseating -- and badly written at that -- lyrics of The Vanishing Island is beyond my understanding. They belong in Alice in Wonderland, not paddling around in a duckpond of childish politics with a world in crisis!
ROBERT E. GARY
Santa Barbara, Calif.
Sir:
I wonder if you realize what kind of "Commie prop" you are publishing? The Vanishing Island, which was seen by 75,000 in Pakistan alone and has created a sensation as it has toured the countries of Asia, has received unfair treatment at your hands . . .
EVELYN A. ENGLUND
Minneapolis
Sir:
... I find it hard to reconcile your treatment of the subject with TIME'S reputation for reporting integrity . . . The Vanishing Island made a very deep impression in Tokyo, where it was seen by many of our country's leaders ... I was privileged to join the group traveling with this play when it left Japan for Formosa, the Philippines, Thailand and Burma. It is difficult to conceive of any mission, primarily composed of Westerners, receiving such a wholehearted and impressive response . . .
My father, Yukio Ozaki, gave not only the cherry trees to the city of Washington, but gave his life in the cause of Japan's being a real democracy and finding the right relation with America and the West, as well as with our Asian neighbors. I believe that Moral Re-Armament is the way to the practical fulfillment of his convictions . . .
YUKIKA SOHMA (NEE OZAKl)
Tokyo
Sir:
. . . M.R.A.'s stated precepts, "Absolute Love -- Absolute Truth -- Absolute Peace," are no different from the hopes and prayers of the rest of us. The difference is that MRAers use these mouthed precepts to live (very well indeed) on donations from the wealthy, who give in an ecstasy of "belonging"; endorsements from harried politicians; testimonials from dredged-up ex-Communists, who see the error of their ways when confronted with a path of righteousness strewn with first-class airline and hotel accommodations.
CORNELIA HOLLANDER
Washington, B.C.
Sir:
If The Vanishing Island does not make the U.S. a laughingstock in Asia and the Middle East, then I'll eat the remainder of my TIME subscriptions ... I must compliment TIME on its unbiased report . . .
SEYMOUR J. GREENBERG Hammond, Ind.
To Be?
Sir:
Mrs. Stevenson's likening her ex to Hamlet [Aug. 22] may not be too farfetched at that. If Adlai should be nominated in '56, one of the major ghosts he'll be haunted with was born on the night he conceded defeat back in 1952. When a reporter asked him if he would run again for the presidency, Adlai snapped: "Have that man's head examined."
FRED HAYES
Clinton, Ind.
Monstrosities
Sir:
The lead article, "Eleven Came Home," in your Aug. 15 issue should answer quite conclusively why Red China cannot be admitted to the U.N. . . .
ERNEST MEZO
New York City
Sir:
... It becomes more than a little ridiculous that the U.S., up to 1953, was so little aware of what was happening to the millions of NKVD victims in Russia and China that we could be surprised at what had happened to our soldiers in Chinese prisons -- that our military leaders proved their utter confusion by cold contempt toward the prisoners broken by the Reds, and by court-martial proceedings against these prisoners later.
It is more than a little sad that the moral monstrosities of the Communist police state have paid off so well in the last 30 years that the greatest free nation of history is falling all over itself in its eagerness to "coexist" with the authors of these monstrosities.
ALFRED B. MASON
Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Corn & the Queen
Sir:
Re the Aug. 15 review of Miss Bette Davis' Virgin Queen: that your reviewers fail to recognize a great performance is understandable, but that they make loud and noisome puns is as unforgivable as the popcorn bags I am sure they rattle. It is some relief that not all critics have found the Virgin Queen "strictly corn of the realm" . . .
EDDIE GEORGE
Huntsville, Ala.
SIR:
YOU ARE USUALLY KIND TO ACTRESS BETTE DAVIS IN THE PICTORIAL DEPARTMENT, THEREFORE IT CAME AS A SHOCK WHEN YOU DID NOT PUBLISH A PORTRAIT OF HER ELIZABETH. OBVIOUSLY, YOU DID NOT WISH ANYONE TO SEE THE VIRGIN QUEEN BALD. I SHOULD THINK YOU WOULD HAVE SAVED US THE TRIAL OF GOING TO THE MOVIE JUST FOR CURIOSITY.
WHITNEY STINE
LOS ANGELES
-- For Cinemactress Davis' nightcapped baldness, see cut. -- ED.
Security Sins
Sir:
The Aug. 15 picture of the Merchant Marine's graduation is a colossal monument to intolerance, injustice and stupidity. If Eugene Landy should turn into a Communist, who could blame him ? Shame!
PABLO A. THAYER
Genoa
Sir:
... I have no sympathy with Communists, and I have equal lack of sympathy with nincompoops. Somewhere in the Navy there must be a lot of nincompoops wearing gold braid . . .
GERTRUDE TIPPLE
Ghent, N.Y.
Sir:
I think Eugene Landy will get his Navy ensign's commission. I know that he has been admitted to Yale Law School and doubtless has a bright future before him. I also know of one man who since his discharge from the Army has worked through nine jobs. From each he was discharged with regret by employers when they discovered that he had less than an honorable discharge from the Army. This is the kind of penalty for which there is no parallel . . The President's security and loyalty procedures require drastic revision in the civil service. They are not applicable in the Army at all. Draftees are not seeking a privilege, but accepting an obligation, and the Army is entitled to judge them only on their performance in its ranks. Any preliminary investigation of youthful sins against security should be carried on before induction, if at all ...
NORMAN THOMAS
New York City
Reading {With Without} Tears
Sir:
Re your Aug. 15 Johnny Can't/Can Read: Thanks!
A. C. CLARK
State Teachers College
Bemidji, Minn.
Sir:
The key phrase in all this Flesch-pother is his statement: "... teaching of reading never was a problem anywhere in the world until the United States switched to the present method around 1925." Surely learning to read has always been a problem. I was taught with the aid of a famous English primer called Reading Without Tears, which was first published in England in 1857, and used by at least three generations of English children. But that it did not live up to its title is confirmed by Winston Churchill, who refers feelingly in his memoirs [A Roving Commission] to his early bouts with this primer. The pre-primer you mention as now being in use in Detroit schools sounds remarkably like our old primer, which also used simple drawings and rhymes. Cat, fat, bat, says the Detroit primer. Pat a fat cat, said Reading Without Tears. Winston Churchill evidently finally learned to read, but I don't suppose his parents demanded their money back because Reading Without Tears made Winston cry. Nor, I'm sure, did they jump to the conclusion that their son was mentally retarded because he was slow to learn. Learning to read is tedious. Why shouldn't it be?
ROSALIND CONSTABLE
New York City
Troubled Waters
Sir:
In comment on your Aug. 15 article, which states that a famed New Orleans surgeon, Dr. Alton Ochsner, joined the ranks of those opposing fluoridation of public water supplies, I wish to take issue that "these ranks are filled mainly with crackpots." When countless numbers of reputable physicians, dentists and scientists also oppose the adding of a powerful poison (even in small concentration) to our drinking water, the name-calling by the promoters of this highly controversial plan would seem to be extremely out of order.
WILLIAM F. STREIT, D.D.S.
Detroit
Sir:
Dr. Ochsner's disillusionment with fluoridation of public water supplies adds one more illustrious name to the growing list of scholars in the health professions who see through the pretensions of this pseudoscientific gimmick and its salesmen. How you must have hated to admit it ! ... Phooey on opinionated, supercilious TIME ! . . .
P. J. BENRIMO
Birmingham
Sir:
... I am proud to be called a crackpot. Without crackpots history would be a blank.
JOHN B. ATKINS
Birmingham
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