The Morality Issue

Sir: As the American version of the Profumo scandal comes from the White House, the future of this nation requires some truthful and objective answers. If the 1959 morals arrest that is now revealed indicates Jenkins' vulnerability to Soviet blackmail during these years, and if this dangerous fact has been concealed by President Johnson, then the fitness of this Administration not only to govern but to defend this nation from its enemies must be examined.

BILL DEMING

Hollywood

Sir: Re Walter Jenkins: I wonder how many more unsavory characters are in the Johnson Administration.

(MRS.) MARY CRUNKER Savage, Minn.

Sir: I trust that the American people will be able to evaluate and vote on the real issues whatever malicious scandal Dean Burch succeeds in dredging up. However shocked we may be about the private morals of public officials, the U.S. cannot be persuaded that the public moral problems of civil rights, nuclear war, poverty and prosperity are better understood by Goldwater than by President Johnson. JEAN BAKER Minneapolis

Sir: It is with great disappointment that I see America's "leading clergymen" have thought it ethical to use their power, pulpits and journals as instruments for influencing politics [Oct. 9]. This action appears even more ludicrous in view of the scandals that have been characteristic of the Johnson Administration. Why has there been no mass clerical denunciation of the Bobby Baker scandal? Certainly the respectable clergy cannot be blind to the lack of morality in high offices and widespread disregard of the law that are now so prevalent in our country.

EDWARD HERNANDEZ Los Angeles

Sir: So William Sydnor says that those of us who are voting the Goldwater-Miller ticket are not Christians and are committing the sin of ardent nationalism. Since when, may we ask, is patriotism a sin? Evidently he believes that there is only one way to achieve brotherly love and world peace--by voting the Democratic ticket. May we suggest that he check into the personal integrity and character of both Mr. Goldwater and Mr. Johnson.

We think that he will make some startling discoveries.

BARBARA B. PUCKETT ELIZABETH H. BABB Richmond

Sir: What a commentary on the mixed-up American way of life that practitioners of medicine, entrusted with the job of ministering to our mentally ill, should allow themselves to be a pawn in the cheap journalistic efforts of Ralph Ginsburg [Oct. 9]. That professional men of such stature should be taken in by such an obvious political smear is indicative of the days in which we are living--days of compromise and diluting of principles, days when sin is labeled as "error," when morality is relative and when materialism emphasizes the values of expediency and the shirking of responsibility. God help us to choose wisely Nov. 3.

H. L. BAILEY

Chicago

Mr. Humphrey's Wet Peanut

Sir: You printed a picture of Mr. Humphrey in Tifton, Ga., with a huge peanut [Oct. 9]. Mr. Humphrey didn't mention how wet that peanut was, but I'm sure it was the wettest of all peanuts, and I'm afraid Mr. Humphrey got his hands stained handling it. I made the peanut on short notice. As clay takes time to dry and of course to be fired, I consented to do one in plaster. After finishing the peanut, I soon found that it would not stain successfully because of the water content of plaster. I tried my best but stain will just not adhere to a wet subject. Tifton County is Goldwater country (mostly), but I do hope Mr. Humphrey enjoyed his visit to our city. I also wish I had known in time. I could have made him a ceramic peanut that he would have been proud to have. VENICE OWEN Tifton, Ga.

The Nine Justices

Sir: The ugly raving and ranting of the hate groups, heaping calumny on the revered Court [Oct. 9], is one of the many indications of decay in our national morality. Respect for law and the courts, and most certainly the Supreme Court, is essential for the survival of our democratic institutions.

S. E. PASETTE Los Angeles

Sir: Pleased to see that you are aware of the impact of Justice Black on the

Supreme Court, but I miss the hammer and sickle on the cover.

JAMES B. McCULLOUGH JR. Philadelphia

Sir: Your article on the much-maligned Supreme Court was perceptive and sympathetic, and pointed out the Court's strange new role of defending our basic rights against our "elected" legislators. For those of us who love our land, but are increasingly repelled by its contradictory, obsolete, and often irresponsible state and local laws, the Supreme Court has come to be a major hope of eventual sanity and freedom. We have heard too much talk of states' rights--now perhaps we'll have some individual rights.

RICHARD PETTERSEN Norristown, Pa.

Sir: Without the Supreme Court's Black, Marshall and other "judicial activists," the Constitution would be a collection of hypocritical platitudes serving only the rights of the few. Instead, in their hands, it has been a marvellously adaptable living document, standing as a bastion against inequality and privilege, oppressive state power, public prejudice, and majority suppression of minority belief, action, writing, and speech. Your article should be required reading for all.

ROBERT BASKIN Little Silver, N.J.

Sir: What a snow job! But not quite deep enough to cover the footprints of socialism marching across the American soil.

MRS. W. F. NELSON

Gardnerville, Nev.

Sir: We seem to be living in a rights-oriented society in which the teaching of corresponding responsibilities is progressively neglected. Hence an increasing amount of crime, placing before the bench more and more defendants to be granted further rights. Those of us who dislike the stench of this trend are called "extremists." The club could use more members!

DAVID J. CARRIGAN

Reynoldsburg, Ohio

Sir: Your scholarly and highly informative story of Justice Black and his confreres has transformed the Supreme Court from a formidable, little-known group to a coterie of human beings, to be admired and respected for their efforts in behalf of all of us.

KATHARINE K. MOORE

Glen Ellyn, 111.

Senator Salinger

Sir: You quote George Murphy on farm labor: "Mexicans are really good at that. They are built low to the ground, you see, so it is easier for them to stoop [Oct. 16]." As a Californian of Mexican descent, I wish to assure Candidate Murphy that I am just tall enough to reach that old ballot box.

VICTOR SILVA Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Sir: I emphatically deny ever making derogatory comments about bracero Mexican laborers as to their physical abilities or characteristics. I have never said, "Americans can't do that kind of work. It's too hard." I have said that Americans won't do that kind of work, and the experience of California farmers is the basis of that statement. I also bitterly resent your unfair reference to a fine volunteer worker, Mrs. Tucker.

GEORGE MURPHY Los Angeles

> TIME has checked its sources, finds Candidate Murphy spoke as quoted.--ED.

Sir: The editorial on Salinger reads like a Broadway review of a comedy--a lemon at that!

ELISABETH BECK

Pasadena, Calif.

Sir: Mr. Murphy is no longer the "song and dance" man you have so crudely illustrated but is now, and has been for some time, a politician in the highest sense of the word.

GLENN W. MOORE

Arcadia, Calif.

Sir: As an old and ardent debater, I think that in the television debates Mr. Salinger had an edge from the start and perfect timing. Mr. Murphy had to be constantly reminded that his time was up. In the question-and-answer period, Murphy was inexcusably rude. The moderator quite fairly had to remind him of this. When Murphy made the generous gesture of offering Salinger time--as he said he "had taken some of [Salinger's]"--it was a grandstand play and left me untouched. P. C. ANTHONY San Diego

Home Away From Home

Sir: Granted that a Korean hooch was not a home [Oct. 16], it was the closest thing to home in contrast to the cold barracks 60 miles north of Seoul. Besides, I would take one moose any time in exchange for five U.S.O. dolls.

ALEX S. DORIAN New York City

Sir: Being an ex-G.I. who served 19 months in Korea, I had to undergo an interrogation from my wife after she read your hooch story. The Rev. Ernst W. Karsten's charge is an exaggeration.

JOSEPH A. FARRAH Daly City, Calif.

Bard of Housewifery

Sir: Phyllis McGinley's paean to the American housewife is absurd [Oct. 9]. Housewifery is not a profession. Does one need an education to do a good job making beds? And is it any more "noble" to bake a cake than to teach a child to read? Not all members of the profession have the intellectual sanctuary of a typewriter and a poetic mind to retire to when the emotional strain of being mentally unemployed becomes too much.

STEPHANIE WENKERT Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Sir: As a profession, housewifery may be noble as hell, but as a day to day occurrence, it is rather vapid. Like death and taxes, it should largely be regarded as regrettable and ignored when possible. Simpering over boiled pudding is neither professional nor noble.

MRS. FRED BIKLE Littleton, Col.

Sir: It's about time someone answered "the creative, fulfilled career women" who have helped plant the insidious seed of discontent in so many of our young wives and mothers.

SYLVIA MERLIN Merion, Pa.

Eccentric Roots

Sir: My God! To refer to Ludwig Wittgenstein as an "eccentric Cambridge professor" [Oct. 2] is like talking of Albert Einstein as an eccentric who believed that everything is relative. Wittgenstein's reputation among contemporary philosophers is comparable to Kant's, with practically all of modern linguistic analysis having its roots in the "eccentric."

ERNEST H. WALBERG JR. Santa Barbara, Calif.

Post Dated

Sir: TIME, Oct. 16: "the Saturday Evening Post borrowed much from the technique and styles of existing magazines, among them TIME." From my article on Pierre Salinger in the Post May 30: "Politics in California has outdone itself with sudden lurches, phosphorescent goblins, and things that go bump in the dark." From TIME'S article on Salinger Oct. 16: "[California's] political landscape is alive with sudden shadows, phosphorescent goblins, and things that go bump in the dark." I apologize to TIME for having stolen a vivid line from you--five months before you wrote it.

JIM PHELAN Saturday Evening Post New York City

-- Touche! The goblins in our office were real.--ED.

Life After 45

Sir: What are you, Dr. Kistner--some kind of Miss Ogynist [Oct. 16]? Look around you sometimes at the many gorgeous grandmothers in and out of the soap ads and ask yourself, honestly, do they need a pill. You flatter yourself in your male ego and medical knowledge that a man and a pill are essential to a woman's golden years.

RITA BOSCIA

Tuckahoe, N.Y.

Sir: Dr. Kistner forgot to add that since men have their greatest capacity for procreation during adolescence, they can all be dispensed with before the age of 20.

(MRS.) LYNN BRAVO Flushing, N.Y.

Silenced Sportscaster

Sir: It may be true that Mel Allen was corny at times [Oct. 16], but his ability to generate excitement, lend color and flavor to the drabities that afflict baseball, is unmatched. With Mel Allen's voice no longer calling the action, these ears will no longer listen to Yankee broadcasts.

MOSES M. BERLIN

Brookline, Mass.

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