Letters, Feb. 6, 1950

Slogan for ’52

Sir:

TRUMAN CAN REACH HIS NATIONAL OUTPUT GOAL OF TRILLION PER ANNUM [TIME, JAN. 16] WITH VERY LITTLE ACCELERATION OF NEW DEAL INFLATION PROGRAM. SUGGEST SLOGAN FOR 1952: “A GOOD FIVE-CENT DOLLAR.”

EDGAR H. CHURCH

Houston, Texas

Sir:

. . .[So] “Harry Truman sees the Government as a full, active partner in the new-fashioned business economy developing resources, SPENDING on education, health, and social security.”

We want our resources developed. We want our children to have health, education, and social security—but for how long can we have any kind of security with a partner who runs up a $5.1 billion deficit in one fiscal year? Confronted with a total national debt in 1952 of $263.8 billion, the taxpayers should worry —although “it seemed to worry the President hardly at all . . .”

The housewives of New Zealand and Australia were credited with the defeat of the socialistic governments of their respective countries. It could happen here.

GERTRUDE E. TRONSEN Watsonville, Calif.

Douglas for President?

Sir:

The quote [“All I want is to be a good Senator”] under your Jan. 16 cover picture of Senator Douglas is the key to his greatness. Would that we had more public servants —business and professional men, too, for that matter—who aspired to be “good” and not merely “successful.”

A. CHRISTOPHER

Lincoln, Nebr.

Sir:

. . . You have truly described a great man who has the qualifications of, and could well be, a great President of these United States.

“,. S. N. BECKER

Chicago, Ill.

Fish Habits

Sir:

In regard to your interesting and accurate article about the purchase of the New York Sun by the World-Telegram [TIME, Jan. 16]: you said by intimation that such habits as Tropical Fish were in a measure responsible for the unfortunate demise of the Sun.

That worries me, as I handled Pet and Tropical Fish advertising for the Sun and now do so for the World-Telegram and the Sun … I hope you will agree that both Tropical Fish and Pets are not only a popular national hobby (or habit if you must), but . . . will in no way harm the newspapers brave enough to carry these features.

A. BRYANT HENDERSON

Red Bank, NJ.

¶ TIME did not intimate that a little tropical fish could ever harm a big, brave newspaper like the World-Telegram and the Sun—ED.

Are Strikes Old-Fashioned?

Sir:

I have read with considerable interest your Jan. 16 article “Mother Union,” giving the results of Dr. McMurry’s study of labor-management relations.

Our organization, using a technique based on questions & answers, together with written comments, has found the same reaction in nearly 20,000 employees of all skills in industrial plants in the Midwest . . .

Employees want to know about their company, its policies and its problems, and they want to know top management. They are suspicious when left in the dark . . .

MORRIS MESSICK

Dayton, Ohio

Sir:

As a former union member and unpaid organizer, I agree with many of Dr. McMurry’s findings—especially with regard to the professional labor leaders who toss out the slogan, “The S.O.B. management is out to skin you now.”

. . . Isn’t there another way ? Why not pool all union dues, strike assessments and losses into a fund to purchase blocks of stock, then put officers on the board of directors to have a direct vote in management and profit distribution. Example: 100,000 Westinghouse employees, 4 months’ strike, loss in wages $75,000,000 plus $2,500,000 dues, or approximately 3,000,000 shares of stock. This would put a sizable union representation on the board.

A strike is old-fashioned when you can vote yourself a handsome dividend or a cut in order to survive . . .

H. T. RIGHTS

Metuchen, NJ. “Mercy Killing”

Sir:

The fundamental question—at least from the standpoint of society, rather than of individual conscience—in such cases as the current “mercy killing” in Manchester, N.H. [TIME, Jan. 9 et seq.] is not whether a person’s . . . suffering should be mercifully terminated by lethal means. The basic issue is: Who is to make and execute such decisions, the state or the individual citizen? … No civilized society can afford to allow individual citizens to exercise this right . . .

LESLIE A. WHITE Professor of Anthropology University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir:

. . Were I in Abbie Borroto’s condition,

I only hope some doctor would do the same for me.

MRS. ROBERT A. POPSDORF Ontario, Calif.

Sir:

… Dr. Hermann Sander would easily have won first prize for colossal egotism, by arrogating unto himself the power to judge how long a fellow human being had to suffer on this earth before meriting his (or her) eternal reward . . .

W. BAYER JR. Oil City, Pa.

Sir:

The objective account of the termination of an agonizing illness by a New Hampshire physician exemplifies TIME’S handling of news of this character . . .

The unspeakable brutality of World War

II prison camp officials, Gestapo and OGPU methods of all ages could break morale and spirit in hours or days. But the despair and physical suffering of many cancer patients persists for weeks and months. The need for increasing amounts of pain-killing drugs like morphine develops so rapidly that few patients find relief. The costs of nursing, of medical and surgical treatment sufficient to keep the patient comfortable, are frequently prohibitive … If an alternative is socially desirable, there is only one: euthanasia.

J. C. BATEMAN, M.D. Washington, D.C.

Sir:

One of the greatest human dramas was the life of the Prophet Job. His was the triumph of faith over despair . . .

Suffering or agony may come our way as a test to our faith. It is our greatest spiritual opportunity to prove to Almighty God that we love Him when we offer our suffering for His glory . . .

NAMY TED DAKIL Chicago, Ill.

Sir:

. . . We who know Dr. Sander and love him, not only as a first-rate physician but as a close friend, know he is incapable of a-dishonest act or thought.

PRESCOTT BUFFUM

Manchester, N.H.

Sir:

… If, by any chance, the so-called “mercy killing” of suffering incurables should be legalized, the proponents of such a bill might just as well carry the whole business to its logical and inevitable conclusion: 1) the extermination of the malformed, the insane, the criminal, the social and biological misfit; 2) the slaying of the mentally and physically weak, the blind, crippled, mute, diseased, alcoholic, aged; 3) the liquidation of all enemies of the state.

Then, as we progress, the law might be stretched to include the rich mother who has been hanging around a little too long, the “unjust” father who will not let us have our way, or the neurotic wife who is something of a bother to us …

Is it later than we think, or has the anti-Christ already arrived?

WALTER V. CARTY

Chestnut Hill, Mass.