Eliminating the Poor
Sir / The rapid increase in food prices at food markets is just a part of Nixon's anti-poverty program. He's planning to eliminate the poor by starving them to death.
WARREN H. RAAB
Dover, Pa.
Sir / The low-income people were using substitutes and selective buying before the present spiral began, but now they are hanging at the end of the rope with no relief in sight. What we are being told is, if you cannot keep up with the price rise then lower your standard of living.
D.M. SMITH
Livingston, Mont.
Sir / Let 'em eat cake or cheese or fish or less meat or much less meat or less everything or plant gardens or whatever. What do those people eat who keep telling us what to eat? With their incomes, it must be more than fish and chips!
RICHARD TOURANGEAU
Boston
Sir / If nothing is impossible, why not inaugurate the following: "For every 1% increase in the cost of living, all members of Congress will have their salaries permanently reduced $5,000 per month."
Instead of all the investigations and grandstand plays by the Congress, let it get busy with something to remedy the present situation.
E.R. PARR
Chanute, Kans.
Sir / Those protesting the high price of meat mean well. But the truth is that we have been spoiled for years by low food prices at the expense of the American farmer and producer. Let's be honest enough to admit that most of us would not become farmers because of the conditions and the risk.
(THE REV.) OSCAR T. MOLINE
McPherson. Kans.
No Repeaters
Sir / TIME'S Essay "Fighting Crime" [March 26] reviews death penalty statistics —incompletely. No mention was made of the low incidence of repeat offenders among the ranks of those who have received the death penalty. Further, no argument has been presented to prove that the death penalty is a precursor of violent crime.
HOWARD Q.DUGUID
Darien, Conn.
Sir / Mr. Nixon's "hard line" on criminals is obviously an elementary oversight in cause-effect principles. More precisely and elegantly expressed (with thanks to J.J. Rousseau): "A fool, if he be obeyed, may punish crimes as well as another: but the true statesman is he who knows how to prevent them."
With this in mind, let us hope that Congress rejects Mr. Nixon's "pound of cure" for the much more economical and reasonable "ounce of prevention."
KURT D. LUEDKE
Providence
Hamburgers and Polygraphs
Sir / From reading the article "Truth or Consequences" [March 19j I am of the opinion that your reporter-researcher is quali fied only to serve hamburgers. The commercial use of the polygraph is the only thing that is keeping many small and marginal businesses afloat. This machine is no sinister monster designed to deny people the right to earn an honest living. It is rather a scientific instrument that can guarantee the basic honesty of persons placed in positions of trust.
The polygraph is the best friend an innocent man ever had.
JAMES H. GRIFFITH
Cincinnati
Sir / I must sadly admit we have taken one more step toward the impersonal world of 1984.