Letters: Aug. 4, 1967

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Cry the City

Sir: Thank you for an intelligent, fair and incisive story on Newark [July 21].

The problems of my city are many and complex, but the city administration under Mayor Addonizio has made a real effort to correct them and to improve the living conditions of all the people of Newark. As a fire officer who was in the streets during the riot, I believe I can speak for the great majority of men in the Fire Department. We are all most anxious to put the past to rest and to begin to rebuild, both spiritually and physically, our fine city.

EDWARD M. WALL Battalion Chief Fire Department Newark

Sir: Your biased story makes the poor white store owners who overcharge and gyp ghetto residents, the police, Mayor Addonizio and Governor Hughes appear pious and perfect examples of the "good guys" who cannot understand why this "terrible act of criminal insurrection" has taken place. The Negroes served as perfect examples of the "bad guys" who don't know how to behave and should contentedly nibble on the crumbs provided by the "highly successful" poverty program and other community-action programs—many of which have not even been started. No one group is all good or all bad. My suggestion to Americans appalled by the riots: become a little more appalled with the conditions, physical and emotional, that the ghetto dweller lives under and work consistently to erase and prevent the conditions that make for ghettos and the riots that grow out of them.

CHERYL I. FOSTER Newark

Sir: You can blame riots on anything you want to, you and the rest of the good citizens. There is one reason for them, and you know what it is: the black man is tired of being pushed around, and he has decided to push back hard. This isn't news to anyone, though everyone refused to admit it, but what we are doing in these riots isn't any worse than what the white man has done to us and is still doing to us. The white man just does it in a different way.

E. SLOANE Brooklyn

Sir: It is time for decent Americans of dark skin to disavow black racists, black assassins and black criminals, just as decent Americans of light skin have disavowed white racists, white assassins and white criminals.

Anyone, including my fellow liberals, who now attempts to justify riots, sniping, looting and other viciously criminal acts must henceforth bear a part of the responsibility for such mindless, sickening and self-defeating violence.

Meanwhile, let's have a moratorium on all publicity about the actions and pronouncements of officials of the "NonStudents Violent Committee" and other racist demagogues and terrorists.

P. W. FERRIS Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Come Seven ...

Sir: About your Essay on gambling [July 21]: There's two types of gamblers: a yokel compulsive gambler that thinks he can beat the house gambling devices layouts. Then, you have a professional gambler that makes a living from gambling in a systematic way. A pro gambler before he lays his money down, he studies the percentage against his chances of winning, especially at the crap table.