Letters, Oct. 27, 1952

First Count, Ike Ahead

Sir: I am a serviceman, and proud to be one. It will give me even greater pride, however, that, as a serviceman, I will vote for Dwight D. Eisenhower for President of the U.S. In fact, I have already done so … by military ballot, which was sent off in the mails . . .

PAUL T. COLLINS

Naval Air Station Norfolk, Va.

Common Types

Sir: Most of us have simple, human dignity. Most of us feel gratitude to those who have served us—and saved us. Most of us prefer civility to rude insults. Most of us are courteous, and most of us mostly tell the truth. Hardly any of us common people are as common as Mr. Truman.

IOLA BOULT FRENCH

Rye, N.Y.

The Campaign

Sir: Herewith is a handkerchief [enclosed]. Use it to dry your eyes. You need it, judging by the Oct. 6 story of the Nixon speech, which obviously was Written through eyes blurred by tears . . .

JOHN CAPRICUSO

Clifton, NJ.

Sir: I was pleased to note . . . the comparative crying styles of fundworthy Richard Nixon and minkworthy T. Lamar Caudle. After his video soul searching, Dick simply “broke into sobs.” The next day in Wheeling, he merely “began to weep.” But at a congressional hearing the same week, Caudle contemptibly “broke down on the stand and blubbered.”

Thanks to TIME, I now realize that the inept Democrats can’t even cry in the same league with the Republicans . . .

BURT SLOANE

New York City

Sir: After the Nixon-Checkers soap opera, don’t you dare poke fun at Barbara Payton again!

R. G. SANCHEZ

Madison, Wis.

Sir: … If Nixon is criticized for accepting help for his campaign, how many thousand dollars did it cost the people to have Mr. Truman campaign for Stevenson when he should have been in Washington attending his job ! He was voted to manage the country and not the political campaign of a party man he chose . . .

G. F. BARTHE

Utica, N.Y.

Sir: . . . How any American can consider voting the Democratic ticket is beyond the grasp of many Canadians. Mr. Truman’s continued attacks on Ike are, in my opinion, very unfair, considering the poor way in which he has run his present Government. Why doesn’t Ike blast back with larger caliber ammo ? . .

R. W. GRIFFIN

Victoria, B.C.

Sir: Why does the Republican Party go on taking the blame for “Hoover’s” depression when it was a worldwide affair? … I am a registered Democrat but I’m going to vote Republican, because of the liberals (Commies) taking charge of the Democratic Party. This Republican depression idea is the key to the reasoning of everyone I know who wants to vote for Ike but is afraid to.

MRS. WALTER RICE

Grayson, Ky.

Sir: I, for one, will be very glad when the campaign is over and I can go back to reading TIME without having to wade through all the Republican propaganda . . .

It isn’t possible that you don’t realize that 1) the true Republican doesn’t need it, 2) the Democrat won’t believe it, and 3) the Independent will see through it …

EUGENE A. MAILLOUX

Woonsocket, R.I.

Sir: In looking over the fence, it is gratifying to see the presidential campaign resolving itself into an increasingly clearer contest of straightforward honesty versus old-line, conventionally tainted politics. The attempt to smear the Republican second-in-command appears to have backfired admirably on the Democratic first-in-command . . .

HOWARD PERRY

Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Sir: I am not a politician, but just a Protestant missionary in India. But let me tell my fellow Americans that one of the best reasons for electing Mr. Eisenhower as the next U.S President is that every Communist in Europe and out here in Asia is hoping, and if they believed in God, would be praying that Mr Stevenson will be elected in November. And why is this? Because the Communists know that the foreign policy of the Democratic

Party during the past few years has really put them in business in both Europe and Asia.

RODNEY H. DAVIDSON

Simla, India

Socialism for Sale?

Sir: I was much impressed by your “Trustbusting, New Style” in the Sept. 29 issue. I agree with Charles Wilson’s statement, “If the concentration of power by business was bad for our country—and it was—then the concentration of power by Government is equally bad—and it is,” as most meaningful, at the least . . .

Undesirable trends in big business can be curbed and checked by sound Government (President Truman’s trustbusting lawyers have shown us this), if it is necessary, but business can hardly check or curb Government that has become too powerful. Too much Government influence can lead only to eventual despair for the governed, regardless of how well-meaning the intentions of the apostles of Socialism and the Fair Deal may seem on the surface . . .

SGT. THEODORE WOLTJER

% Postmaster, San Francisco

Death of a Philosopher

Sir: Congratulations on your enlightening and stimulating account of George Santayana in your issue of Oct. 6. Your readers may be interested in the thought that he composed for me when I visited him at his retreat in Rome: “One of the best fruits of reason is to perceive how irrational we are: laughter and humility can then go together.”

CYRIL CLEMENS

Webster Groves, Mo.

¶ I For Santayana’s last poem, see BOOKS.—ED.

Sir: I was quite surprised at the statement in the obituary of Santayana that there has never been a Spanish philosopher. Francisco Suarez [1548-1617], a Spanish Jesuit, was one of the foremost systematic thinkers of all time. Besides being a theologian of great merit, he was the first scholastic philosopher to write a formally philosophical treatise, his Disputationes Metaphysicae. Furthermore, his De Legibus is an acknowledged milestone in the development of the philosophy of law.

WM. C. MCFADDEN, SJ.

Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Who Shot Father Christmas?

Sir: I was sorry to see in your Oct. 6 “News in Pictures” a photo with the caption “Merry Christmas!” Do you not think that our Communist opponents will have every right to call the U.S. a “warmongering conglomeration of assassins” (definition used by Nikita Khrushchev, whom you mention in another section of the same issue) if we display “rocket guns, interplanetary ships,” even “jet-propelled Santa Claus” as toys for our kids? Have we got to indoctrinate the youngest generation with the terrors of warfare? Would not an old-fashioned Santa Claus with a red suit and white beard do all right?

ANDREW LORANT

Radio Free Europe Istanbul, Turkey

Who’s on Whose Knee?

Sir: Re your cover of Oct. 6: Instead of Malenkov sitting in Stalin’s lap, wouldn’t it be more effective to have Uncle Joe with Truman on one knee and Acheson on the other? Acheson, of course, to be on Stalin’s left knee, next to his heart.

JAMES I. DAVIS

Rome, Ga.

Sir: I think the cover would have been more timely had you substituted Mr. Taft for Mr. Stalin and Mr. Eisenhower for Mr. Malenkov.

HARRIET RUBIN

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Sir: … It reminded me … of the Democratic National Convention when Harry Truman appeared with his arm around Stevenson and said, “Here is your candidate, Democrats.”

R. D. WELLS

New Orleans

Throw Out the Coddlers

Sir: I see that the Russians demanded the recall of our Ambassador to Russia Mr. George F. Kennan. Republican President Herbert Hoover refused to recognize the Russian Communist government; it was only when we got F.D.R. that the Communists were recognized … In coddling Communists, our entire Government has been tainted with their infiltration. I would vote for any presidential candidate who would throw these evil men out of the country. I think Eisenhower will do it; I know Stevenson will pussyfoot about it.

MRS. J. B. VAN SCIVER JR.

Chestnut Hill, Pa.

Sir: . . . Our cringing acceptance of the Kennan insult is outrageous. Since 1947 I have had a growing conviction that our State Department would sacrifice America before they would deviate from diplomatic protocol. How many lessons does our State Department need in order to recognize the fact that in dealing with the Soviets, Das Kapital is their bible and their book of protocol? It is foolish to use diplomatic niceties on a regime which recognizes none of the common usages of civilized society.

God help us if we fail to elect a forceful and courageous leader on Nov. 4, a leader who will retrieve our self-respect.

J. E. McAULEY

Norman, Okla.

Early Movies

Sir: In your Oct. 6 review of The Magic Box, William Friese-Greene becomes, in your words, “British cinema’s pioneer” (which over here means that he introduced cinema to Britain); and The Magic Box “shows . . . his development of Britain’s first practical movie camera in 1889, at about the same time that Thomas Edison in the U.S. and Louis Le Prince in France were perfecting their cameras.”

For the record, Edison’s patent for a kinetoscopic camera was issued on Aug. 24, 1891, Friese-Greene’s on June 21, 1889.

RAY ALLISTER

London, England

¶ Both Friese-Greene and Edison, working independently, invented and patented their own versions of the early movie camera; later, both became involved in a patent suit. In 1910 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Edison’s claim, decided that Friese-Greene got there first.—ED.