Candidate Kefauver
Sir:
Re your March 24 cover of Estes Kefauver: Is it the presidency of the United States he is seeking, or the lead in a hillbilly comedy ?
HARRY T. MOWSON Rochester, N.Y.
Sir:
... I am a Republican "but I have never read such a prejudiced article. . .
FRANCINE BRETT New York City
Sir:
Talk about "damning with faint praise"—you couldn't have ruined Kefauver's chances more if you'd taken a meat ax to him . . .
JANE MCCLELLAN RAYMOND Braintree, Mass.
. . . Although your article on Kefauver is about the most obvious attempt at belittlement that I've seen for some time, a picture of a truly impressive man stands out. There is now no doubt as to whom I want to vote for.
ROBERT C. SIMS Watertown, Mass.
The Great Bookster (Cont'd)
Sir:
Mortimer Adler is with us again, I see. Like the seven-year itch, he crops up right on schedule. But why TIME [March 17] should make an issue out of Adler's banalities is beyond me ... His sophistries are more transparent than ever. His furious preoccupation with thought is an academic pose. There is no need for him to make believe that he is searching for truth, because he has it up his sleeve all the time . . .
ARTHUR A. DIENER New York City
Sir:
Congratulations on your cover of March 17. If St. Patrick were alive, he would be helping Mortimer Adler drive the snakes out of modern education.
R. T. MALONE Lincoln, Neb.
Sir:
If Adler is half as good as he or your writer seems to think he is, Mr. Adler can stop looking for God. A glance in the mirror will give him the answer . . .
ROBERT G. MEAD JR. Storrs, Conn.
Sir:
Adler, who "started strangling the snake of positivism almost in his cradle," confuses his philosophical asp with his theological elbow—and TIME comes tumbling after. What Adler would do is to identify philosophy with religion. Though this is not a new enterprise, Adler thinks that he has given it what it has for centuries lacked: a sound logical basis. Modern logicians (fusty gentlemen who, as a rule, do not hire others to do their doctoral research), many of whom are not positivists, refuse to preside at Adler's shotgun marriage. Thus Adler's quarrel is not only with positivism, but with all logical analysis. While he may be "probably one of the best minds at large today," he is no logician . . .
PETER ANTON
Bloomington, Ind.
Sir:
. . . When I had finished the article, I felt it was a pity Gertrude Stein did not use a blunt instrument when she hit him on the head.
E. E. SMITH San Diego
Sir:
Thank God for Adler, who believes in teaching students to think. Every year universities confer more & more degrees, and every year it seems the national I.Q. drops a bit lower. Going to college is fashionable in the same way the poodle cut was, and any education obtained is not only merely incidental, but often accidental. Students are put through an assembly line of ideas and are told what to think. Any deviation from the accepted, any originality is frowned upon . . .
FRANCES GIBSON Memphis, Tenn.