Reformed Emissionary

Sir: I have just read your superb and frightening article on Environment [Feb. 2], and you have certainly persuaded this now reformed emissionary to do all possible to convert our effluent society.

C. BENJAMIN GRAHAM, M.D. Associate Professor Radiology and Pediatrics University of Washington Seattle

Sir: TIME'S cover story is a notable contribution to the great and belated public awakening. The message conveyed, however, is incomplete in one critical respect: the role of private institutions already in a position to act, and their need for the public's financial support. These bodies require money--big money--primarily to buy land to be set aside permanently for conservation uses. It is often a costly race against property speculators; unless we can win, all the publicity and good will are of little avail. Conservation is an infant among charities. It cannot grow to effective maturity until it obtains adequate financial support. Only upon this second awakening will conservation have a fighting chance.

BERNHARD

The Prince of The Netherlands President

The World Wildlife Fund International Baarn, The Netherlands

Sir: The emphasis on environmental problems by our communications media signals the arrival of a fashionable new issue--one without political allegiance which everybody can embrace. But how long does an issue last? The example of gun control, after Robert Kennedy's assassination, shows how important issues can be quickly forgotten. One of the products of present concern and anxiety must be the natural acceptance by each individual of environmental quality control as part of his way of life. Ecology is a complex synthesis of many aspects of science, but simple principles can be taught to young children in the form of natural history. Though a branch of biology, it should be treated as a distinctive study for all students; then, hopefully, unrestricted exploitation of the ecosystem will cease to be regarded as a virtue.

ROBERT G. B. REID University of Victoria Victoria, B.C.

Sir: We should begin at once to design legislation that would reward the family with two children or fewer and penalize those with more. Why not give each female in the 15 to 30 age range a federal bonus for each year she remains childless? Young men could be paid for undergoing vasectomy, as in India. Income tax exemptions for dependent children should be reconsidered; perhaps those who adopt babies instead of bearing them could be given tax advantages. To multiply is definitely not to be fruitful.

CAROLYN S. FOOTE Boise, Idaho

Sir: We need birth control for automobiles now. A good bicycle can take a healthy urbanite on many of his local jaunts with no hydrocarbon emissions and only minuscule demands for material and road space. He gets economical transportation and an exercise program in the bargain. I will believe that the environment is a popular cause in the U.S. when the talkers get out of their cars and begin to ride bikes.

JAMES A. WORTHEY Instructor

Saint Clair County Community College Port Huron, Mich.

Sir: The optimism of the article on environment--i.e., that politicians have got the message--is somewhat unwarranted. You might be interested in knowing that the $800 million appropriated by Congress to finance new municipal water-treatment plants will probably never be spent. Despite considerable lobbying by ecologists, Mr. Nixon has ordered the Department of the Interior to hold back on spending this necessary appropriation and has given instructions to the department to come up with an alternate method of financing these water-treatment plants. The practical outcome of this hold will be a passing of the buck back to local units of government, with the hopes that local municipal bonding will suffice. It will not. I am afraid that Mr. Nixon must receive an A in equivocation.

THOMAS R. HELMA County Supervisor Tngham County Board of Supervisors East Lansing, Mich.

Sir: Your otherwise excellent article missed discussing one of the newest and possibly worst pollutants of our environment, excessive noise. As any city dweller can verify, we are bombarded day and night by excessive noise. Do we really need before-dawn garbage pickups that ruin one night's sleep in seven? And surely we can do something about those horribly noisy and irritating motorbikes--like require a better muffler. And how about the SST? It seems to me that the screaming jet noise is plenty bad enough without having to put up with sonic booms too.

JOHN NEWELL Hayward, Calif.

Sir: Lacking in all the articles that I have read is a specific mention of Christmas trees. 1 have estimated that my husband and I and our combined families have used roughly 180 trees--a small forest --over the past 60 years, only to consign them to the city dump after a few days. And that is just a small portion of a large family, and just one family out of a nation! The spirit of Christmas is supposed to be one of giving, but in the criminal act of chopping down millions of trees every Christmas, some of which never get used, we are not giving but, in the worst way, taking from our earth.

MRS. CARL E. PICKHARDT III Austin, Texas

Sir: TIME quotes Barry Commoner's lament about Peruvian fish meal ending up as cat food despite a starving human population, while "we don't even eat the cats!" Mr. Commoner is excused, but his psychology is inexcusable. Ecology--your very subject, I believe--has arisen from man's ruthless conquest of nature and supposed rightful "domination" of all other species.

The fact is, we face probable extinction today primarily because of our total disregard for other life forms. By according slovenly man a priority above that of the immaculate cat, TIME upholds the shal low and presumptuous credibility of Genesis 1: 26.

MARK E. BEHREND Montreal

Sir: The suggestion that the fault lies at the door of the Judaeo-Christian ideology amazes me. A careful reading of the Genesis text and the related passages makes it abundantly clear that the word dominion can in no way be translated or interpreted as abetting damaging exploitation.

On the contrary, the Bible states explicitly that man was placed here as the dominant species with the responsibility to manage the planet Earth and accountable to God for his stewardship. Adam's rebellion against and alienation from God resulted in terrible mismanagement of the generous commission. In the last book of the Bible there is a prophecy of the inevitable end. God's indictment is tersely summed up in the words, "and destroy them that destroy the earth."

(MRS.) E. LORRAINE AUSTIN Montrose, Calif.

In the Shallows

Sir: I commend your Essay on "Revisionist Historians" [Feb. 2]. For these historians to say that the U.S. is the only nation in existence interested in aggression is completely to disregard the history of Western civilization. It seems to me that there were several wars of aggression among the great powers before the U.S. came into existence. How is it that we are, all of a sudden, behind every international conflict of this century, while the old hands at it have become innocent victims of our imperialistic plots? Their arguments are so shallow that I can think of only one two-syllable American word to describe them.

MACK K. SAMPLES Instructor of History University of South Carolina Lancaster, S.C.

Sir: It has always been considered essential to good citizenship and a sense of nationhood that Americans exalt the glories of their past. But the most unfortunate result of this approach has been a colossal superiority complex, the kind of my-country-right-or-wrong attitude that got us bogged down in Viet Nam. What revisionists are saying is: we are mature enough to look at ourselves honestly and learn from our mistakes; and an honest look at the American past reveals a panorama of violence, racism, imperialism, demagoguery and economic exploitation. FORREST G. WOOD Associate Professor of History Fresno State College Bakersfield Center Bakersfield, Calif.

This Creature Man

Sir: It is all right to threaten war if the Russians try to take over West Berlin. It is all right to send Marines to the Dominican Republic to prevent a Communist takeover. It is all right to wage an endless war to make sure that the authoritarian North Vietnamese don't get the better of the corrupt and grafting South Vietnamese.

But it is not seemly to use the faintest hint of force to get food to the people of Biafra [Feb. 2]. No, that would be in terfering in the internal affairs of another nation. Let the Nigerians and ex-Biafran generals whoop it up at their wedding parties. Let the Ibo babies rest their heads in pools of diarrhea and cry the remainder of their lives out. It's just good politics.

I am finally convinced. God never made this creature Man.

BONNIE MAKAIWI Livermore, Calif.

Taking Chances

Sir: Your article re Penn Central [Feb. 2] brings to mind a standard quip one of the conductors on our train brings to light ever so often. Because of a particularly hectic day at the ticket window, a passenger had to get on the train without a ticket. He asked the conductor if he sold tickets on the train. The conductor said: "Hell, we don't sell tickets, we sell chances!"

MARY H. BAIR Elizabethtown, Pa.

The Numbers Game

Sir: After reading your article "Dial 686-2377 for NUMBERS" [Feb. 2], I will inform you that you can reach me at work by dialing GAY ANTS, and that you can reach me at home by dialing HAM SALT. My landlord can be reached by dialing I ADVISE. And don't forget that granddaddy of all telephone names: New York City's getting the time of day by dialing NERVOUS.

ROLF S. AUGUSTINE Santa Cruz, Calif.

Eschewing Out

Sir: In the name of G.B.S., when are you going to stop treating vegetarians as if they were a fourth sex? You refer to Brigid Brophy [Feb. 2] as "vegetarian"--yet you never refer to Graham Greene or John Updike as "flesh eaters."

Come off it, TIME, and get with all varieties of cheese. Some scientists are already gloomily admitting that those who have eschewed (Brophyism intended) blood and guts are going to be ahead.

TESSA UNTHANK Assistant Professor English Department Cumberland College Williamsburg, Ky.

Only His Tailor Knows

Sir: I was pleasantly surprised when I read about Philip Roth in the PEOPLE section [Feb. 2]. However, being the clothing salesman in question, I thought I would let you know a closer version of the story because it's more amusing than yours.

The time of the incident was approximately one month before the release of Mr. Roth's book Portnoy's Complaint in February 1969. In the course of conversation, I asked Mr. Roth his occupation. Upon receiving his answer, "a writer," I asked, "Do you make a living at it?" His reply, which at the time meant little, was "I ... manage to make ends meet."

JERRY ALBERT Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

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