Letters: Sep. 6, 1963

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Echoes of the Awful Roar

Sir: Regarding your cover story [Aug. 30] on civil rights, I think it is time somebody stood up for the poor, abused, white bigots. In pressing for their constitutional guarantees, the Negro community has every moral and legal right to sit-in, swim-in, wade-in, waitin, parkin, standin, lie-in and chain-in, but they have gone too far with the pray-in.

After all, freedom of religion is also a constitutional guarantee. Those whites who believe in a nigger-hating god have their right to pray to him unmolested.

They don't have a prayer otherwise.

RICHARD F. STOCKTON

New York City

Sir: You quote the Rev. James Bevel as saying: "Some punk who calls himself the President has the audacity to tell people to go slow. I'm not prepared to be humiliated by white trash the rest of my life, including Mr. Kennedy."

Any man who can make that statement should not have the right to live here.

DAVID M. SANZARO

Providence

Sir: I must compliment you on another well-written story; Mr. Roy Wilkins and the problems of the Negro are accurately depicted.

I have noticed, however, that whenever the subject of housing is mentioned in reference to the Negro, with or without a picture, it is invariably a slum area. This portrayal of the "typical" Negro area insidiously impedes the Negro's drive for better housing by presenting an unfair image. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that slum areas do exist, but I feel that if some of the pleasanter-looking Negro areas were shown in the press, as a change from the hackneyed slum picture, a wrong impression of Negroes and their relation to property values would be corrected, and the "showdown" between the ideals and wallets of other Americans would be unnecessary.

HAROLD NORMAN

New York City

For the People

Sir: After reading [Aug. 9] that by 1980 the Government at all levels will employ 1 in every 4 workers, does it not seem possible that Abraham Lincoln was speaking of a future employment program when he said, "government of the people, by the people, for the people"?

VINCENT CIAMPINI

Youngwood, Pa.

Sir: If the federal work force has increased 8% since 1955, what has been the percent of increase since 1955 in the U.S. population, which in effect is serviced by federal employees?

FRANK PARAN

Rockville, Md.

>12½%.—ED.

America's Arsenal

Sir: I shall save your cover story of Aug. 23. It will be useful for scaring my grandchildren—if I ever have any grandchildren.

BARRY G. CLARK

Pasadena, Calif.

Sir: It is really refreshing to know the strength of the "arsenal of democracy" and its determination to preserve its superiority over Communist forces. But whether the U.S. will employ its strength to protect its weaker friends is debatable.

IQBAL Z. AHMED Lahore, W. Pakistan

Sir: I should like to propose that we turn over the billions of dollars appropriated for the military budget next year to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Birth Defects Center, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, etc.