The Significance of Selma Sir Your cover story on Martin Luther King [March 19] certainly was the most stirring article on civil rights that I have ever read.

RALPH B. ROVEGNO

Lewisburg, Pa.

Sir: Your description of Col. Lingo's storm troopers' clubbing down defenseless citizens was a vivid picture of Selma's horror. But there are other smaller details that are just as significant. On March 9 more than 50 white Alabamians participated in the march led by Dr. King. One of four white women looking on was heard to remark: "Just what do they want?" An elderly Negro woman standing near by answered, "We just wants to be treated like people." With that, a state trooper who had been standing facing the marchers said, "For the first time I'm beginning to see what this is all about." As the marchers turned around and headed back, we broke out singing We Shall Overcome. As we marched along, I saw and heard a state trooper join in singing with us--reverently, as if he were in church. Is this the beginning of an answer to Jim Clark's "Never"?

JAMES S. ACKERMAN

Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Sir: If the sadists of Selma can murder so flagrantly, even with the eyes of the world on them, we may well imagine what it has been like for the Negro when the eyes of the world weren't on Selma! God help them!

CHRISTINA M. LYON

Honolulu

Sir: The Negroes' leader, King, is the only one that can help them to join us rather than to try to overcome us. I beseech Governor Wallace, in the name of democracy, to listen to him.

LINDA BARTS

Montgomery, Ala.

Sir: One could not help noticing the many Negroes among the marines arrivine in Viet Nam. Same old story--good enough to fight but not good enough to vote. Shameful!

MRS. RICHARD JACKSON

Rochester

Sir: You stated that your selection of Kins as Man of the Year brought you 2,500 letters. Chances are that you will receive more than that from Alabama alone about the March 19th issue--all critical. If they didn't have at least that many ignorant people down there, they would kick Wallace off his throne within 24 hours. Some idiot may assassinate Dr. King before this fight is over, but that will detract nothing from his accomplishments. They shot Gandhi, Lincoln and Kennedy, but monuments are erected to their memories. They had clubs and bullwhips in Christ's day but they didn't have rednecks and Ku Klux Klansmen walking along dropping tear-gas grenades beside the helpless victims. 1 have seen numerous dead and wounded on the battlefield, but 1 have never seen enemy wounded subjected to such barbarity.

DOUGLAS C. FORD

Honolulu

Sir: Without exception, every American adult should have the vote. Then perhaps we can herd more illiterates to the polls and fill our halls of Congress with Adam Clayton Powells!

(MRS.) DOROTHY JOHNSON

Raleigh, N.C.

Sir: The problem arising out of Selma is a product not of the so-called denial of constitutional rights but of vote-greedy politicians, a warped, sensation-seeking press, and the immoral desire to pillory the South of certain groups of so-called reformers and overt agitators.

LARRY HAMILTON

Dallas

Sir: Because of distorted news reporting, the average Northerner's real knowledge of the South could be compared with that of an Ethiopian who still believes the Indians are uprising in our western states. PAUL J. BENNETT

Atlanta

Sir: The majority of white Americans are sick and tired of seeing mobs of troublemakers, malcontents and beatniks parade the streets. Irresponsible students (out for kicks, some interracial sex and "unholy discontent"), slick politicians, and a few left-wing labor leaders are hardly representative of the public. Priests, nuns, ministers and rabbis have no right to run down South to turn a horrible mockery of law and order into a religious crusade.

ROBERT P. FITZGERALD

Havertown. Pa.

Sir: For conspiring to destroy law and order and fomenting the racial strife that caused the death of his fellow preacher, James Reeb, King should now be indicted for murder.

ERNEST L. MCLAUGHLIN

Union, S.C.

Sir: Re Reeb's death: I decry the eulogizing of any man, ordained or not, who has been killed while advancing the cause of mob rule in defiance of the law.

C. E. JAMISON

Glendora, Calif.

Sir: Whether Reeb's goals were right or wrong, it is still an American's right to travel where he wants, to speak what he believes, and to fight for what he feels is right, whether or not he happens to be a resident of the state where he travels. For, above all, we are Americans first and state citizens second, and should never be labeled "outsiders" in this country.

JOHN C. STEWART

Frostburg, Md.

Shahn's King

Sir: My compliments on your choice of cover artist and his representation of Dr. Martin Luther King. Ben Shahn has demonstrated both in his art and in his writings an unmistakably vivid social consciousness, so necessary in our time. W. GRAY SMITH JR.

New Orleans

Sir: The swollen face, the wide-open mouth and the worried eyes of Martin Luther King on your cover were magnificent. Here is exemplified a man swollen with dissatisfaction--a dissatisfaction that can easily mean the difference between leaders and men of average performance. And the most marvelous thing about this man. Dr. King, is that his action is expressed through love.

THEODORE R. DEBRO JR. Atlanta

Sir: Your cartoon depicts a crowd haranguer and a fanatic, and shows nothing of the Christian sensibilities and calm self-restraint that have made him a Nobel Peace Prizewinner and an effective leader. M. D. BLUE

Hamilton, Ohio

Sir: When "we have overcome," then there will be time enough for comedy and caricatures.

FLORENCE E. COLEMAN

New York City

Sir: Artist Ben Shahn has depicted King as I see him--just plain evil.

ANNE STEWART

Chicago

Sir: He looks like a black Mao Tse-tung having his tonsils checked.

MAXINE GOLDEN

Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Sir: I thought that that was the most horrible cover you have ever had--until I read the story. Now I think that it is the most powerful cover you have ever done. What a magnificent job!

ARTHUR GLOWKA

Scarsdale, N.Y.

New Hope in Peru

Sir: The magnitude of your achievements in the Peru cover story [March 12] certainly matches the prestige of the magazine. I know of no better way to serve the cause of democracy in Latin America than to reveal the truth about those countries that, like Peru, are struggling for a positive social and economic transformation.

VICTOR ALBITES

Brooklyn

Sir: Having spent twelve years in Peru, we found your report accurate. But your statement that Communists are few and out of date in Peru was naive. Those people pictured in the slum-area photo outside of Lima will listen to any voice if it can help to give them even three meals a day. U.S. aid of $86.8 million may be some sort of record for Peru, but this is peanuts compared to the approximate $625 million given to Viet Nam last year. If we invest our money closer to home, we perhaps can avoid another Cuba.

GEORGE COLING Sarasota, Fla.

Sir: The 30-odd Indian tribes in Peru, all with individual spoken languages, have one thing in common: none have even an alphabet, to say nothing of a written language. Many North Americans will be proud to know that a group of about 250 of their fellow citizens in the self-supporting Instituto Lingueistico de Verano (Summer Institute of Linguistics) are daily making substantial contributions to this area of social progress in Peru [Sept. 27, 1963]. The assignment finds its final reward in the relatively easy job of teaching the Indian his own language in writing. MILTON C. CARLSON Northfield, Ill.

Scugnizzi & Friends

Sir: Regarding "The Gold of Naples" [March 12], the U.S. Government wouldn't have lost a nickel to native thieves had it not been for the enthusiastic complicity of the American G.I. Most of us, it is true, did not participate; but we all knew about it. Perhaps one of the most unattractive features of the thievery was not that our supplies were stolen, but that they were never freely given. There was always a quid pro quo: perhaps money, perhaps sex.

ROBERT D. KEMPNER New York City

Sir: The Casa dello Scugnizzo is a unique home for these boys, and was set up by a Neapolitan priest, Don Mario Borrelli, who has been battling this problem almost singlehanded for the past 15 years. A scugnizzo is not merely a piece of colorful folklore: he is a half-starved, lonely little human being--unwanted, uncared for, unloved. His only home is the street. He sleeps on the hard pavement at night. If he begs and steals, he does so because it is his only means of staying alive. Since 1950, Mario Borrelli has given a home, a taste of family life and an education to more than 1,000 of these boys.

MRS. M. D. HECKSCHER Utrecht

Affluent Comrades

Sir: The reviewer of my film Nine Days of a Year [Jan. 15] says that the characters in Soviet films "are frankly bourgeois." Does he see bourgeois signs in the fact that the characters are well-dressed, go to restaurants, drive cars, freely express their opinions, live in modern apartments, and complain about "administrative fools"? This is a curious kind of logic! It reminds me of a capitalist who came to Moscow from his Eastern country, unfortunately a backward country. "You call this socialism?" said the man. "In my country we have real socialism, for three-fourths of our population go barefoot and in rags!" Poverty and starvation were never a sign of socialism--either in the works of Marx or in the works of Lenin.

MIKHAIL ROMM

Moscow

Monster Mix-Up

Sir: In your issue of March 12 you reproduced a large bronze sculpture of mine, most handsomely in color, over the caption Evolution of the Minotaur. However, in evolving the bull-headed monster from Greek legend, I did not conceive him to have changed his sex. The work you reproduced is another, entirely different, and female figure, called Oracle.

MICHAEL AYRTON Essex, England For the real male minotaur, see above.

No Riders

Sir: In your issue of March 5 you erroneously state: "Only one U.S. railroad is state-owned: the 115-mile Rutland Railway, which Vermont bought last year to prevent it from dropping its passenger business." Since 1953 no passenger service--only freight--has been performed on this line (other than an occasional excursion).

L. G. BUCKLIN Executive Vice President Rutland Railway Corp. Rutland, Vt.

Dixie Moderates

Sir: Jonathan Daniels of the Raleigh News and Observer deserves to be in any list of Southern editors who have "preached moderation for many years" [March 19]. Nor should the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot--a Pulitzer winner for guiding school desegregation--be overlooked.

ROY PARKER JR.

Washington Correspondent Raleigh News and Observer Washington

Arf & Arf

Sir: Cor blimey, why carn't you Americans use English proper when yer wants ter be colloquial? Yer don't half muck us up. It took me rahnd abaht five minutes to find out what yer meant wiv "Things did not go half badly" in "Down the Middle" [March 19]. Eiver you says "Things did not half go badly" (viz: They did go badly) or, as in American English "Things didn't go top badly." Honest, I fink you'll find I'm right, 'cos I'm one of them British secretaries in New York wot is supposed to know their onions.

ELIZABETH LANGDON Flushing, N.Y.

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