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Sir: I certainly would not have recognized Al Capp from your article about his campus tours [April 11]. I was lucky enough to have the chance to judge for myself when Mr. Capp appeared at Southern Illinois University, where I am a student. Did you ever wonder why a millionaire cartoonist spends six hours trooping all over a campus to talk with over 6,000 students? Surely you don't believe it is for the $3,000. Those students whom he calls S.W.I.N.E. were the first to jump up for his autograph and a chance to pat Mr. Capp on the back. Indeed he does hit hard with most of his comments, but I feel that those students need to know that it is a hard world out there.
MARGIE A. WATSON Carbondale, Ill.
Sir: It was inevitable. Sooner or later some bitter, commercially motivated has-been was bound to discover a way to make money off student dissent.
We young "Nazis" are truly indebted to your generation. After all, didn't you furnish us with the prototype?
JOHN FORD LEON Pelham Manor, N.Y.
Only a Gift
Sir: Please watch mixing Christian doctrine with Greek philosophy. You say, "To the believing Christian, death is a moment not of annihilation but of resurrection, when a soul's turbulent earthly journey comes to a happy end in eternal life" [April 11]. The concept of soul is good Greek philosophy but not theologically sound; nor is it true to the Bible to speak of some sort of indestructible inner core that lives on after death. Christians confess the resurrection of the dead and thereby acknowledge that life is a gift from God—and only a gift. We cannot claim it as a right, which is exactly what we do with this concept of soul, "whose earthly journey comes to a happy end in eternal life." This statement sounds like one of those "unctuous funeral parlor euphemisms" that tries to avoid mentioning death at all!
(THE REV.) GEORGE B. BRUNJES Richmond Hill, N.Y.
High Overhead
Sir: A footnote to tax revision [April 4]: pity the plight of the single person who has no advantage comparable to "income splitting" of the married couple. The unmarried are entitled to only one exemption of $600; yet overhead costs are the same and living expenses are much more than half those of childless married couples. Unmarried people supporting others not closely related have no "head of household" status. It's enough to make a gal consider matrimony!
MARGARET PROUTY Madison, Wis.