Letters: Sep. 14, 1970

(4 of 4)

Sir: Father Daniel Berrigan [Aug. 24] does not impress me. Someone who knowingly and deliberately breaks the law and then tries to evade the consequences of his actions is not a man of principle—he is a vandal. The moral force of his opposition to laws that he considers unjust comes when he accepts the responsibility and the consequences of his actions. As Thoreau stated in Civil Disobedience: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

Unfortunately principle and moral force are not the determining factors in modern-day martyrdom; media coverage is.

DAVID R. STONE

Lima, Peru

Man the Beast

Sir: Your informative account of the current cholera epidemic—not yet, mercifully, a "pandemic" [Aug. 31]—would have been still more informative if you had not been so nasty-nice-Nellie in talking about "waste-contaminated water supplies." I know you can't use the usual four-letter word—though what's wrong with "dung"? But the fact is that cholera bacilli multiply only in human (not animal) intestines. To carry cholera, water supplies must be contaminated by human fecal matter, or, if you prefer another bowdlerism, human excrement. If man would stop drinking and washing in the water into which he defecates, there would be no more cholera. The disease may be 80% to 90% curable, but it is 100% preventable—if people were not such filthy beasts.

GEORGE CROZIER

Manhattan

A Couple of Cards

Sir: Naturally we were very pleased that TIME chose to illustrate an item on California's population problems [July 27] with one of the "PotShots" postcards created, copyrighted and published by this company, even if you didn't give us any credit for it. Lest it be thought, however, that in saying, "It's really quite a simple choice: life, death or Los Angeles," we have despaired of California altogether, let me point out that there is another card in the same series that says, "There may be no heaven anywhere, but somewhere there is a San Francisco."

ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

President

Brilliant Enterprises

San Francisco

War May Be Injurious

Sir: Your readers are correct. It is deplorable that U.S. Senators have purchased TV time to advocate peace [Aug. 24]. I strongly suggest that these Senators and the "Advertising People Against the War" take action to have the Federal Communications Commission order all broadcasters to give free and equal time for messages about peace to match all those that they have carried for the Government for a half-century as "public services"—messages in behalf of military recruiting, war efforts, reserve units, etc.

After all, if the FCC has forced the electronic media to carry messages against cigarettes because of the suspected link between smoking and disease and death, why not compel them to admit that war, too, may be injurious to human health?

PATRICK E. LEE

Great Falls, Mont.