Letters, Jul. 25, 1960

The Campaign

Sir:

You begin your article “Is the Presidential Campaign Too Long?” with the following observation: “Every four years, in just about the length of time it takes to produce a baby hippopotamus, the U.S. brings forth a President.”

I hope it is not a bad augury, but elephants breed less frequently than burros.

B. TARBUTT Rio de Janeiro

Sir:

Lengthy presidential campaigns have important advantages. The resident becomes a responsible citizen; but primarily, it is best to have a good look before marrying. CHARLES F. MORAN Los Angeles

Sir:

My bills, H.J. Res. 547 and H.R. 9584 would restrict presidential campaigns to 60 days.

Member of Congress House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

Sir:

As we approach the 1960 presidential election, I become more and more disturbed as I think of what may happen to the man who will be elected President this year. What disturbs me is the fact that every President elected in a year divisible by 20 beginning in 1840 has died in office:

1840 William Henry Harrison . .. Died in office 1860 Abraham Lincoln …. Assassinated 1880 James A. Garfield ….Assassinated 1900 William McKinley …. Assassinated 1920 Warren G.Harding . . . Died in office 1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . Died in office

J. C. HOUSE

Princeton, N.J.

Sir:

Regardless of political affiliation, every American should give long and sober thought as to how he is going to vote in the coming election.

In this century we have had three Democratic Presidents, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, and each one of them has taken us into war. Three out of three is a mighty good batting average for a baseball player, but it is a mighty sorrowful average for Democratic Presidents. With such a record and with conditions in the world as they are, can we risk electing another Democrat? Foresight is better than hindsight.

F. L. STACK

Landing, N.J.

Sir:

Mr. Nixon has said that there is no chance that the Soviet economy will surpass that of the U.S. during this century. Small as the chance may be, it is obviously inaccurate to say that there is “no chance.” The statement may have been intended merely as a placebo, regardless of truth, for the American public and thus as an aid to Mr. Nixon’s political aspirations, or it may accurately represent his belief. In either case Mr. Nixon’s election would be unwise, as the denial of such a threat can only serve to increase its magnitude.

DAVID J. NORTON Urbana, 111.

Sir: If it weren’t a campaign year, perhaps we wouldn’t have to bear the shame of continued contumely heaped upon our country and its Government by some of our own people. What’s wrong with us? Not the U-2 accident—if accident it was.

On the part of our committee of national defense, it would have been criminal negligence to have opposed the overflights.

Not the failure of the summit meeting; there never has been one that was a success.

Not our response to the murderous fury of Red China and its allies in their bitter resentment of our aid to the struggling free nations.

Only at home must we lose face. In the childish and vindictive words and behavior of men who should be our statesmen, we are still taunted regarding these things, all of which were borne with, honor.

HELENA W. FREELAND Honolulu To Arm or Not to Arm Sir:

E. B. White’s thesis that we had better have all the panoply of arms, atomic and otherwise, rather than no arms at all is intriguing. Certainly if we were to awaken one morning to an unarmed world we’d probably have that walking-down-Hollywood-Boulevard-in-the-altogether feeling. However, Mr. White is, I think, oversimplifying. The very fact that we are in the atomic age defeats his argument. As more and more nations acquire the know-how and or the weapons themselves, the logarithm of danger will increase. We cannot be sure even today that “some 2nd lieutenant somewhere” will not out of ignorance or ennui press the button of our finality.

DONALD C. SKONE-PALMER North Hollywood, Calif.

Sir: One of White’s questions—but not the only one, as you implied—was: Will disarmament make the world safer? But the larger question he asked, as he has done before, was: Can we hope for peace without achieving “the vision of a federal union of free democratic capitalist states”? To this, as to the first question, his answer is: No.

H. WILEY HITCHCOCK Ann Arbor, Mich.

As You Like It Sir:

I can forgive you much (and your crimes are many) for your splendid piece on Shakespeare. Its phrasing is not unworthy of its subject; indeed, I think it probable that in some Elysium, Will is rolling your suckets under his tongue.

G. R. STEVENS Montreal, Que.

Sir:

In TIME, July 4, there appear two of the finest paragraphs ever written about Shakespeare’s consummate skill. Plums to the author or authors of the excellent exposition of Shakespeare’s life, his England, his “rewriters,” etc.!

HARRY W. TAYLOR Professor of English Andrews University Berrien Springs, Mich.

Sir:

My compliments upon the excellent feature article on Shakespeare. The illustrations, both black and white and colored, and the text are informative and exciting.

The author slipped on one quotation [“men must endure their going forth” should read “going hence”] and misattributed the Restoration opinion of Elizabethan plays; it was John Evelyn [rather than Samuel Pepys] who made the notation in his diary after seeing a performance of Hamlet. But these are venial sins. His judgment about the three big festivals, about American acting, Baconianism and some other topics is sound and pithily expressed.

JAMES G. MCMANAWAY

Director The Shakespeare Association of America Washington, D.C.

Sir: When you salute the three Stratfords for gaining “some of the fluidity of the Elizabethan theater,” you overlook the fact that the Shakespearean Festival—in Ashland—insists that Elizabethan staging is necessary to achieve the full value of our stage. It is built on the known dimensions of the 1599 Fortune Theater of London. Because of it we can, and do, produce an uncut Hamlet (without interruption of any kind) in three hours.

We have been in successful production since 1935, earning the indisputable title “America’s First Elizabethan Theater.” ROBERT B. REINHOLDT President

Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association Ashland, Ore.

Sir:

After TIME’S view down the nose at Stratford, Conn., one enthusiastic member of the Festival’s audience thinks that Shakespeare was right when he said “and Time, that takes survey of all the world, must have a stop.”

DAVID STRAND Breckenridge, Minn. Sir: TIME on Shakespeare alone is worth a year’s subscription. But please permit this comment. “He [Lear] utters his towering, fivefold ‘Never, never, never, never, never!’ Then . . . ‘Pray you undo this button.’ No one,” continues TIME, “would have dared put those two lines together; no one but Shakespeare could.” St. Paul could write like that and did.

In 1 Corinthians: 15, as shown before the 13th century Archbishop Stephen Langton put the Bible into chapters, St. Paul writes of the Resurrection. Then instantly, and seemingly without lifting his stylus from the parchment, he says, “Now concerning the collection . . .” He, like Shakespeare, could transport us from heaven to earth “in a” moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” ELLIS JONES HOUGH, D.D.

St. Louis ¶Said TIME, in its April 18 cover on St. Paul: “To a remarkable degree Paul had the grace—especially needed by a missionary—to keep his heart in heaven and his feet firmly planted on the ground. In 1 Corinthians, after his wise and tolerant sermon on the diversity of spiritual gifts, after his famed passage on love and a triumphant challenge to death (‘Where is thy sting?’), he ends with a matter-of-fact ‘Now concerning the collection . . .’ ” — ED.

Fallout

Sir:

In your interesting article about me [July 4], there is one sentence that is clearly erroneous. It is the sentence, “Although the genetic effect of [nuclear weapons] test fall out is still a wide-open scientific question, Pauling, backed by his prestige in genetics, nonetheless said without qualification that continuing the tests would lead ‘to an in crease in the number of seriously defective children that will be born in future genera tions.’ ” In fact, there is no reputable geneticist who disagrees with my statement quoted above. I surmise that your writer has confused the genetic effect of small doses of high-energy radiation with the somatic effects, such as the effect of causing cancer, about which scientists are still uncertain.

LINUS PAULING Pasadena, CA Catholics & Contraceptives Sir: I am a Roman Catholic, embarrassed by the remarks attributed to Msgr. Irving A.

De Blanc. The Church exhorts us to seek converts, and he suggests that we not even have those of other faiths in our homes ! It is a ridiculous suggestion. I married a Protestant who is now a very devout Catholic.

Msgr. De Blanc’s trouble is that he only sees those having marital difficulties. Only the free exchange of religious views, particularly where Catholics well-educated in their religion are concerned, can allay the religious intolerance that still exists in this country.

FLORENCE G. BRUNS Frederick, Md.

Sir: Msgr. De Blanc and others of the Roman hierarchy have placed themselves in an untenable position. He is indeed correct when he assumes that Catholics are using contraceptives and even requesting surgical procedures for sterilization. Many of my Catholic patients tell me that they think the Church is wrong in its teachings on birth control.

R. G. ALLEN, M.D.

Bartlesville, Okla.

Sir: One emotional influence likely at work has not received the attention it deserves.

Artificial contraception was, until a short time ago, almost universally regarded as reprehensible and unworthy of man.

I submit that historically and psychologically speaking, powerful unconscious guilt feelings probably remain in many, if not most, of those who are today practicing artificial birth control.

Couples who believe in all sincerity that they have a right—or even a duty—to prevent conception by mechanical means are still psychologically influenced by the deep and contrary convictions of their immediate forebears.

If the 20th century birth controller is plagued by subtle and emotional misgivings about the “rightness” of his stand, then this unconscious but very real guilt at least partially explains some of the current defensive and noisy objections to the Catholic moral position.

(THE REV.) G. HAGMAIER, C.S.P.

Institute for Religion in Life New York City Sir: Having been a so-called “good Catholic” all my life, I find that the majority of happy marriages among Catholics are those in which the couples either practice birth control (in one form or another) or find it very difficult to conceive anyway. Most of the avid advocates of the church’s viewpoint are in the latter category, and I’m sick of it. There are many people—Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and what have you—who want a great many children, and for them that’s fine, but my very happy marriage to a fine non-Catholic could easily be ruined by the church’s viewpoint and my fertility.

MRS. CHARLES T. HOLROYD Rumford, R.I.

Sir:

Thirteen years ago Msgr. De Blanc performed the marriage ceremony for my wife and myself. We were at that time of different faiths; he solidly prophesied that we’d never make it. It’s true we aren’t dead yet and won’t know until we are but so far we’ve done fine and have two children, spaced right, and they will be our family since we believe in birth control. Msgr. De Blanc ties a good knot. As a prophet and a psychiatrist, he falls flat on his face.

JOHN B. THOMPSON

Baton Rouge, La.

Unique Satisfaction Sir: I hope this note comes late enough after the review [May 16] and Best Reading listing [June 13] of my novel, Venetian Red, to make it unconventional.

I came to this country the first time as a student from Italy shortly before the war, and I have been reading TIME book reviewing ever since, whenever possible. During the war in the countries where I was, it happened very belatedly and only occasionally, hence more impressively. And especially of late, beyond the peculiarities, the imagery, the style puzzle, the puns, all things for which I always envy the editor—playing that instrument must be delightful—I feel that there is in the Books section a hard core, indeed the presence of almost stern literary standards.

I shall never forget when I finally read the review in Martindale’s bookstore; I really wish to thank you for that moment.

Listening to the particular, familiar sound of the instrument is always enjoyable; hearing it applied in convincingly positive terms to one’s own work is a unique satisfaction.

P. M. PASINETTI Beverly Hills, Calif.