Letters, Oct. 31, 1955

The Vice President

Sir:

What an inspiring message your Oct. 10 issue held for the independent voter—so it's Dicky Nixon! . . . May we all rejoice over this shining symbol of banality—let Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn sing hallelujah . . .

ANTHONY S. FELSOVANYI
Los Altos, Calif.

Sir:

. . . My thanks for the cover story on Vice President Nixon. So many distorted and possibly libelous reports have been released by big labor about him that it is hard for the small man to discern fact from fiction. In one paragraph you refute all of the distorted reports re Nixon's ambitions and intentions . . .

J. M. RAYMOND
Jacksonville, Fla.

Sir:

Congratulations for your clarifying article on Vice President Nixon and his responsibilities in the present Administration. As a close personal friend of Whittaker Chambers, whom I got to know after he became a fellow Quaker, I have had a front seat from which to view the amazing and irresponsible campaign of vilification against this dedicated patriot. Many Quakers, I am ashamed to say, were taken in by it and became a part of it.

And now this same group has turned upon Nixon as the man who stopped Hiss's triumphal march and helped to vindicate Chambers. If ever there was a flagrant case of the truth's being twisted by knaves (the real Communists and their conscious sympathizers) to set a trap for the thoughtless and the unwary, this is it. You deserve great credit for beginning to clear the air.

HENRY C. PATTERSON
Philadelphia

Sir:

One of the most thought-provoking things I read was Vice President Nixon's name at the head of the list of possible presidential candidates. Let us face the facts. Mr. Nixon, for all his "intelligence, youth and vigor," is hardly a presidential candidate . . . He couldn't have acquired the wisdom and knowledge needed for the job in the few short years he has been in Washington. I think the nation's welfare is more important than that of the party. There is too much partisanship in the Republican Party now, put there by people who think only of feathering their own nests by riding the popularity of others. Let's elect someone who is clear of trouble with the "party" . . .

NORMAN Q. WILSON
Wichita Falls, Texas

Voltaire's Half-Acre

Sir:

The Oct. 3 review of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus states: "The garden which Voltaire advised the French to cultivate (instead of listening to crazy Germanic philosophers) has turned out to be a stony little half-acre. Furthermore, the horticulture is hampered all the time by the heavy tread of Germanic philosophers among the petits pois." . . . The philosophic garden of Voltaire sprouted such "petits pois" as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the U.S. Constitution. These intellectual crops still come in handy . . .

CONSTANCE ROWE
New York City

Sir: