Sir:

It was . . . with quiet applause that I laid aside TIME after finishing the July 4 article on the President. Here at last was something I had waited for: an excellent, concise report of the successes and failures of Eisenhower . . . There were not many failures . . .

ELAN TUITE Rockford, Ill.

Sir:

Why, for a sophisticated magazine like TIME, was it necessary to put any caption at all, let alone the cornball one "The President of the U.S.," under Mr. Eisenhower's picture on the cover? I think his face is known to everyone on earth . . .

JULES M. LIEBERTHAL The Bronx, N.Y.

Davy & the Bell

Sir:

A very good picture of Mr. Eisenhower on your July 4 cover, but haven't you heard that our Davy Crockett had fixed up the Liberty Bell?

JAMES P. KING

Radford, Va.

Sir:

My friends . . . say Davy Crockett is a big fake because the Liberty Bell is still cracked. Maybe Davy didn't patch up the crack like the song says. I wish you would tell me if Davy was a real man or was he just a nobody? I think he was a good American pioneer hero the way I would like to be, but if he didn't do what he says he did, maybe I don't want to be like him.

CHRISTOPHER WENTWORTH

(Age 8) Mexico City

P: TIME reassures Reader Wentworth that Davy Crockett was as real as Walt Disney is, regrets, however, that there is no historical evidence to support the song's claim. That crack appeared a year after Davy last visited Philadelphia--ED.

East Is East & Chest Is Chest

Sir:

I wish to protest against your picture of the Burmese Prime Minister's backstage visit to Kismet [July 4]. Although it is quite obvious that U Nu knew what he was doing, a family newsmagazine is hardly the proper place for this bust-by-jowl juxtaposition of the traditionally quiet Eastern dress and the pseudo-Eastern undress.

A. W. WILSON

Lompoc, Calif.

Confidentially

Sir:

Bravo on your July 11 article "Success in the Sewer." It certainly is shocking to learn that such a large number of Americans degrade themselves by reading such trash as Confidential . . .

Soliciting the support of Walter Winchell, a sensationalist himself, only goes further to prove that any intelligent American reader should not waste his or her time turning the cover.

LESTER C. GUILBERT Buffalo

Sir:

You have done a public service by printing the truth about Confidential . . . Your title fits it to a T ...

ROBERT KRAUS Washington, D.C.

SIR:

AT NO TIME IN MY CAREER HAVE I OR ANYONE IN MY EMPLOY EVER BEEN PICKED UP BY POLICE "FOR TAKING PORNOGRAPHIC PICTURES." YOU HAVE ERRONEOUSLY REPORTED THE NEW JERSEY INCIDENT IN YOUR ARTICLE . . . THE FACTS ARE THAT THIS WAS A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY. IT WAS ACKNOWLEDGED AS SUCH BY THE BERGEN COUNTY (N.J.) PROSECUTOR, WHO APOLOGIZED FOR THE EMBARRASSMENT CAUSED TO ME AND TO MY EMPLOYEES . . .

ROBERT HARRISON PUBLISHER "CONFIDENTIAL" MAGAZINE NEW YORK CITY

P: New Jersey police, after looking at the developed films, found their suspicions unfounded.--ED.

Sir:

YOU SAY "CONFIDENTIAL'S" EDITOR, ROBERT HARRISON, IS A BACHELOR. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY AND POSITIVELY UNTRUE. HE HAS BEEN MARRIED TO THE FORMER JUNE FREW FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS. OBVIOUSLY THERE IS A MRS. ROBERT HARRISON.

MRS. ROBERT HARRISON NEW YORK CITY

P: Publisher Harrison declares that he is not married to June Frew.--ED.

Sir:

. . . Perhaps you will realize only too late that the vitriol TIME poured out proved to be Confidential's tonic. Thousands of people who otherwise would never have heard of this trash will do their level best to get a copy after reading your article.

JAMES I. MORTON Berrien Springs, Mich.

Military Fashions

Sir:

It would be a pleasure to have my "knees to the breeze" during hot summer weather as the fortunate Air Force personnel will be able to do in the near future [July 4], but, alas, I am one of those many Naval officers on Washington assignment who must wear a hot gabardine blouse to work every day, while the Air Force, Army, Marines and other services are in shirt sleeves. Another indication of the relative progressiveness of the services . . .

B. H. MILLER Arlington, Va. Lieutenant, U.S.N.

Sir:

. . . Why doesn't Mr. Twining and the rest of the Air Force's fat-bottomed brass get on the band wagon and dress their boys properly? . . . During my three years in the Air Force (staff sergeant), I ... wondered whether I was in the Girl Scouts or the military service. Now I have my answer . . .

JOHN W. WAGEMAN

West Chester, Ohio

A Nip for Nehru

Sir:

We Indians are aware of the fact that you don't like us very much these days. Further, you like our Prime Minister even less. As such, you are entitled to point out his bad points, but we think you are going too far when you refer to him as "India's teetotaling Nehru" [June 20]. Some Indians are very proud of the fact that Mr. Nehru is not a teetotaler. Sometimes, he has to put his party's views before his own, and may therefore not drink in public. But reliable sources state that he still likes a drink occasionally.

DlNI ROZUMDAR Calcutta

To Rome & Return

Sir:

Father William Witcutt retreated from Rome partially . . . because, he says, the Roman Catholic Church "does not allow for any advance in philosophy made since the 13th century [July 4]." He's dead wrong there. We (Jesuit seminarians) defend different philosophical theses every year precisely because of advances allowed and encouraged by the church. Please relay Father Witcutt an invitation to spend a couple of hours with us and see for himself-Aristotelian doctrine, qualities, color, and all. We may be stretched over a barrel, but we keep rolling along.

THOMAS A. O'CONNOR, S.J. St. Louis

Sir:

Anglican Witcutt seems to have a few wrong ideas about the Roman Catholic Church. He says: "The God of Scholasticism was unworshipable. Nor do Roman Catholics worship Him. They cannot. They worship the Sacred Heart, the Virgin, and the Saints."

Scholasticism is a spirit that takes all knowledge, whether known by faith or reason, and places it in orderly, systematic arrangement ... [It] is a channel leading to the Almighty God. The most famous philosopher of all times, St. Thomas Aquinas, found new knowledge of God through his scholastic studies . . .

SAM WAKEN Oklahoma City

Sir:

It passes my understanding why you publish stuff of this nature ... In any case, my opinion is that the Church of England is welcome to him.

ALLAN JOHNSEN

Wyomissing, Pa.

Public, Not Progressive

Sir:

TIME readers in touch with educational matters will quickly recognize the error in your issue of July 4 in using the name of the Public Education Association and its widely known nickname "P.E.A.," in what you evidently intended as a report on the disbanding of the Progressive Education Association-anentirely different organization. The activity and vitality of the Public Education Association have expanded quite steadily since its organization in 1895, and continue to do so. WILLIAM B. NICHOLS President

Public Education Association New York City

Breakfast Menu

Sir:

If I ever needed any additional knowledge of the intense reader interest in your magazine, I have had it from your description of my taking over Country Gentleman [June 20]. I knew there would be real human interest in the story, but when letters came to me from all over the country expressing interest in the laxative used on my morning Quaker Oats, I surely had full confirmation. The letters have come from important people in many states, wanting to know what the laxative was . . . For your information, it is called Regulin . . .

GRAHAM PATTERSON Publisher Farm Journal Washington, B.C.

Monumental Questions

Sir:

Your bias against the Democratic Party was never more evident than in your July 4 article on the proposed Taft monument. You did not mention in previous issues the introduction by Senator Lehman of a bill to erect a monument in memory of F.D.R. F.D.R., with twelve great years in the White House, is more deserving of a monument than Taft with his 14 in the Senate. Moreover, Taft distinguished himself only for the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act.

FREDERICK WALLACH The Bronx, N.Y.

Sir:

. . . The thought of wasting $1,000,000 on a marble monument is appalling. How much better to contribute this million to cancer research or some other health program that would better serve humanity, as Senator Taft would no doubt have wished . . .

HARRY B. WILKISON Lieut. Commander (ret.), U.S.C.G. Bradenton, Fla.

Truk with Snails

Sir:

Snails may be a delight to Author Jean Cadert [June 13], but they are a plague here. The African snail (Achatina fulica) was apparently introduced during the Japanese Mandate by an enterprising businessman who sent them by mail order from Japan as "pets." Having few natural enemies, they soon became established throughout most of the islands. Today they are a major pest and are so numerous that population densities may approach hundreds of thousands per square mile. Roads are sometimes covered with their crushed and rotting bodies . . . The snail is edible, but when cooked and eaten it has a highly offensive odor and taste.

Paradoxically, the Trust Territory is pinning its hopes of combatting the African snail on another recently introduced predator snail, which eats the African snail alive. Theoretically, when the predator has consumed all the African snails it will die of a lack of food, and the snails will vanish. As a practical matter, however, les escargots will probably be with us indefinitely.

FRANK J. MAHONY District Anthropologist Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands Truk, Caroline Islands

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