Letters, May 31, 1971

Japan's Allure

Sir: Why does the American consumer buy Japanese products [May 10]? Why does the American consumer buy products other than American? Simple. Quality, price, customer relations. Too often the American dealer is great until he has your money and then to hell with you. I have bought foreign products not out of disloyalty to my country or big business, but because I am sick and tired of getting junk for my money and nothing for my patronage.

ORVEL K. JANS Major, U.S.A.F. APO New York

Sir: Break out the crying towels and sour-grape wine for U.S. business. For years, while we were squeezing the life out of foreign nations, no one complained. Now the U.S. is learning of its own tactics from Japan—and the tears start.

RICHARD TOURANGEAU Boston

Sir: What the Japanese military forces could not accomplish in 1941-45 with bullets and bombs—a successful invasion of the United States—the Japanese business community is actually doing today with consumer goods.

This action may, as a matter of fact, establish a precedent for the world at large and particularly our Communist antagonists—that advancement through force is now anachronistic.

SAMUEL S. SHERWIN Los Angeles

Sir: We won the war, but the Japanese must now be enjoying a good laugh at our expense.

In exchange for our precious natural resources, which we obtain by stripping our national forests and ravishing our Appalachian Mountains for coal, we are sent a bunch of consumer junk, and we still end up with a billion-dollar-per-year deficit in the balance of payments.

R.J. BRUEHLMAN Wilmington, Del.

Sir: The solution to "How to Cope with Japan's Business Invasion" is simple. It's one I've been practicing on my own ever since I returned from the Pacific theater toward the end of World War II. Whenever I must buy any article, I first examine it to see where it was made. If the inscription "Made in Japan" appears on it, I toss it back onto the store counter and either make do with what I have or do without. I am not going to make Japan's economy any stronger. Wake up, America. Buy American.

ROBERT J. MILLER Philadelphia

Protest Debate

Sir: Nobody has told the unvarnished truth about these protest marches in Washington [May 10], and that is that we are conducting a kind of civil war against our own young people.

What do we have—Nixon prancing round the country while kids in the capital city are being teargassed. What do we have—19th century Agnew pontificating somewhere while long-haired youths are being herded into compounds.

I'm in my 60s and I'm ashamed of my peers. These young ones are sometimes a little messy, but they are trying to change things. They are trying to make us realize that war is an outmoded horror.

HALE WILLIS Fullerton, Calif.

Sir: If Rennie Davis & Co. don't know what is in the heads of the people who go to work every day, maybe someone should try whispering the message quietly in their ears: "You are demonstrating in the wrong city, you idiots. Try Hanoi." Maybe our semisacred fourth estate should lend an ear to that message a little more often too.

GORDON ELLIOTT Agana, Guam

Why Did the Chicken?