Chicago's Dogpatch
Sir:
Horrified to read your nasty "Anglo-Saxon Migration" in the March 18 issue. Don't you realize that these hillbillies are bringing the precious "Southern way of life" to unenlightened Yankeeland?
WARREN L. BASSETT Oakland, Calif.
Sir:
Maybe these "hillbillies" have not yet mastered the operation of modern plumbing --assuming it is available in the slums into which they are "compressed," but I find it hard to believe, however, that their regard for law suffers by comparison with the prevailing Chicago attitude toward law. As a descendant of a long line of hillbillies, I say let us city slickers go a little easy on them as they settle in among us.
EDITH EVANS ASBURY New York City
Sir:
These "problem people" might be new to Chicago, but California has had them for years.
ALMA ANDERSON Fresno, Calif.
Sir:
If hillbillies are so frightening, why do thousands of Yankee tourists swarm Southward annually and enter our quiet, air-conditioned restaurants attired in wrinkled slacks and baseball caps, loudly inquiring "whurs da ladies' room?"
E. GEORGE BILL DORR Huntsville, Ala.
Birthday of a Nation
Sir:
I read with great interest and admiration your March 18 article on the new country of Ghana and the Rev. Martin L. King's affection for it. I believe that the late Senator Theodore G. Bilbo had an excellent idea when he obtained 2,500,000 Negro signatures and proposed the Greater Liberia act, which called for federal aid in the voluntary repatriation of Negroes who were illegally brought against their will to this hemisphere as slaves. A revival of this bill would indeed settle the present racial conflict for the benefit of both races.
JACK MILLER New Orleans
Pen Pals
Sir:
Re your report of Vice President Nixon's visit to Africa and his interview with my father, Nana Osae Djan II: my father speaks English extremely well. After graduating from a Methodist school, he taught school for several years. As for the gift of the ball-point pen, I would like to make it clear to you that in Ghana, when a chief sits in state, it is considered discourteous to refuse a gift, however petty. If my father did accept this pen, in the manner in which you reported, he did so out of respect to the American Government and for no other reason.
OHENEBA PATRICK OSAE DJAN Toronto
The Elusive Jackson
Sir:
TIME, March 18 says: "The Depression-time rarity, the $20 bill, has come to be at home in everybody's wallet"--maybe in everybody's but the Joe on the fixed income. If you see one of those double sawbucks, that is an orphan looking for a home, give it this address. Many that have been shunted to the mothballs haven't viewed the countenance of Andrew Jackson for such a long period that your picture of same was mistaken for that Tennessee minstrel minus his gui-tah.
DICK COFFIN Winthrop, Mass.
Sir:
There are a few thousand of us farmers up here in the Northeast milkshed for whom the "new normalcy" is still the old normalcy, and to whom Andrew Jackson is still a total stranger. Some of our number who are more prosperous have a nodding acquaintance with George, though.
MRS. RICHARD SNETHEN Great Valley, N.Y.
Sir:
Does this fence we're "learning to walk" by any chance parallel the road to Miltown?
LEIGH SMITH Riverdale, N.Y.
The Policymakers
Sir:
Congratulations to TIME, March 18 for its report on Prudential Insurance Co.'s Carrol Shanks. It is men like Shanks who have the best answer to Communism--a better capitalistic system. Give us more about the background and ideals of our business leaders.
EDWARD J. JAGGARD Pitman, N.J.
Sir:
Prudential's Shanks is no great shucks. He's the type of huckster the life-insurance industry can do without. To others in the life-insurance industry, Shanks appears to have rocks in his head--and they are not chips off Gibraltar.
GLENN R. LETTERMAN, C.L.U. Scranton, Pa.
Sir:
It is no wonder that Shanks and friends sport Cadillacs, munificent salaries, plushly furnished offices, etc., and grin like Cheshire cats who have just swallowed the canary. It all comes out of the policyholder. The cost of life insurance should be less.
J. T. HOLMES Escondido, Calif.
Sir:
Your readers owe you and your staff a vote of thanks. As a public accountant and trustee in bankruptcy, I know that there is no safer investment than life insurance.
MORRIS GOODMAN
Montreal
Sir:
After reading about Prudential's millions, I was wondering if they wouldn't mind risking a small portion of that, and come through with a few G.I. loans in rural northern California.
GORDON V. PERKINS Quincy, Calif.
The Uninvited
Sir:
The President's slight to Senator McCarthy, when he invited every other member of Congress to a White House reception [March 18], proves he is too small for his job. To do what he did to McCarthy shows that Ike is of about the same small caliber as his predecessor.
ORA L. JONES Pompana Beach, Fla.
Sir:
President Eisenhower invited Nehru, Red China's greatest apologist, to the White House. Yet Senator McCarthy is an "untouchable."
EDWARD PHILIP CLARKE The Bronx, N.Y.
Sir:
The President has earned little credit for himself by this spiteful display of bad manners, and TIME none at all by being so obviously pleased about it.
CHARLOTTE CONNERS Houston
Railways & the Atom
Sir:
Physicist Edward Teller is to be commended for his timely warning that this nation must take urgent and far-reaching steps to prepare itself for survival in a nuclear war [Jan. 21]. However, Dr. Teller's suggestion for placing principal reliance on highway transportation on the unsupported assumption that "our system of railroads is likely to be completely knocked out, at least for the moment," deserves further examination.
From experience as a combat commander in Europe during World War II and more recently in Korea, it is my firm conviction that our system of railroads is not likely to be completely knocked out by a nuclear attack, even for a moment. It is a matter of record that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki railroad-type structures stood up among the best, while at Hiroshima regular railroad service was resumed within 18 hours after the first atomic bomb was dropped.
JAMES A. VAN FLEET General, U.S. Army (ret.) Auburndale, Fla.
The Big E
Sir:
I read in TIME, March 18, that Admiral Halsey and the former men of the U.S.S. Enterprise are trying to raise $350,000 for the purpose of buying her as a national relic. The idea of this great American ship being scrapped after her glorious war service brings to my mind the almost identical case of the U.S.S Constitution. The generosity of the American people helped save "Old Ironsides" and I am sure that we can count on them to save the "Big E" now. Please forward my small contribution to Admiral Halsey for her salvation. FRANK A. CUTTITA Loudonville, N.Y.
Torch Song
Sir:
For Pete's sake, why does everybody have to refer to fortyish Torch Singer Roberta Sherwood as "middle-aged"? Speaking for myself and all us girls in this interesting age bracket, my spread has not changed status one bit in the last 20 years; furthermore, I am not now and never will be middleaged. CONSTANCE SANDERSON Brockton, Mass.
Welcome, Mr. R.
Sir:
We, in Arkansas, are glad to have a Rockefeller--a very rich (also civic-minded) newcomer in our midst [March 11]. Ark is a poor state because it is all, or more than half of it, mountains. Beautiful, but too cold for a winter resort and too hot for a summer resort. There is rich rice and cotton land in the Ark River Valley, but we can't get money to develop our big river and get the water freight which is a must for big industry now. This is just to explain that while we welcome Mr. Winthrop Rockefeller in our midst, we did wear shoes before he came.
(MRS.) LEIGH KELLEY
Fort Smith, Ark.
Advice for Janet
Sir:
To Janet E. Thomas, whose letter [March 18] got under my skin: Did you ever stop to think that the trouble lies with the guy you married, who entertains you by dropping off to sleep every night, and not by the lack of concerts, theaters and dances in Baltimore, your "lousy burg"?
BETTY J. BORTHWICK Willow Grove, Pa.
Sir:
Please, Mrs. Thomas, don't take out your displeasure in your choice of husbands on the "sweet land of liberty." When next you sit alone with a sleeping husband, think of the other 40 million of us, doing the same.
JANET MATLIN
Chicago
Fear or Favor in Cyprus
Sir:
Your March 11 article on Cyprus contains many inaccuracies and omissions. For example, in the Joannis Christoforou case, two police were charged by the complainant, but the court refused to commit for trial. The coroner's inquest on Andreas Panayiotou included no evidence that he was beaten to death. I must repudiate any suggestion that Miss Maria Lambrou was assaulted; she was examined by a Greek-Cypriot doctor who certified that she had had a septic abortion, Governor [Harding] has constantly affirmed that all specific complaints of ill-treatment will be investigated without fear or favor. Since April 1955, six members of the security forces have been prosecuted for assault; five were found guilty and sentenced, one not guilty and discharged.
JAMES HENRY
Attorney General Nicosia, Cyprus
P: TIME reported these and other Cypriot charges, also noted that Sir John Harding repudiated them all but reused any inquiry.--ED.
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