Letters: May 24, 1968

Of Shame & Slogans Sir: Your article on poverty in America, "A Nation Within a Nation" [May 17], certainly brought home to Americans in a meaningful way the shameful conditions that exist in our nation. Doesn't it seem strange that, after some thirty-five years of political leadership that has given us such slogans as New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, Unfinished Business, Great Society, we should be plagued with such poverty? Doesn't this suggest some kind of a failure in our political leadership and that perhaps we have been mesmerized by Madison Avenue slogans rather than trying to find out the cause of poverty and then eradicating it?

CHARLES P. STETSON Fairfield, Conn.

Sir: The cover speaks 10,000 words. I have never received a message with more appalling force.

ROBIN T. ALLEN

Clearwater, Fla.

Sir: Your excellent photo section and thumbnail sketches of the poor don't deserve the blithe conclusions that go with them. No doubt they were written by the same person who provokes our pity by citing the instance of bags of flour delivered by a misguided welfare agency to "a household that has no oven." Come now, biscuits can be baked anywhere there is a fire to cook with. I have made them: over an open fire wrapped around a green stick, on a flat rock under an old auto fender, on a piep an tilted in front of a fire, under an old dishpan on top of a range, on a piece of foil under a piece of corrugated-tin roof, and the product was eaten with relish by all at hand.

MRS. JOHN ARMSTRONG Palmerton, Pa.

Sir: Since when is this supposed to be Utopia? This is a Republic in which each takes his chances. In return every man, yes, even the black man, has the chance to strive for what he thinks is important to him. Your photographs are very touching. But if you are trying to say that it takes federal doles to clean the junk from the yard, paint the house or wash the kids, or discipline the parents from having too many children, then I don't buy

JACK VASEY Glenview, Ill.

Sir: The youth of today has a big surprise for the world of tomorrow. Because millions of us really care. We are not going to be content with what is going on in Duck Hollow, Ky., or on the shores of Lake Winnecook in Maine. Things will change because we give a damn.

JANE AFTON BARRY, '71 Regis College Weston, Mass.

Listening to the Talk

Sir: The agreement to initiate preliminary peace talks with North Viet Nam [May 10] is conceivably the most constructive achievement of American diplomacy in recent years. It has become increasingly evident that perpetuation of the status quo is untenable. For the incongruence of our increased involvement, upon an ever-diminishing base of rationale, has been unveiled before all eyes. Hopefully both negotiating teams will move swiftly towards an honorable and realistic peace.

DONALD L. CLARKE

Jamaica, N.Y.

Sir: It is interesting that the U.S. considers Warsaw a North Vietnamese ally, but North Viet Nam considers Paris as neutral. This, of course, is the same Pans that the U.S. saved at least twice. Im not sure Moscow wouldn't have been a better site for the U.S. We can at least understand their attitude toward us.

M. ZIMMERMAN

Brookline, Mass.