Tale of the Tiger
Sir:
Re Carmine De Sapio [Aug. 22]: Do you honestly think that the Tammany Tiger under De Sapio has changed stripes, or that the people think so ? For all the whitewashing . . . the black stripes are still there, even though De Sapio has a new technique. He says Tammany is honest, and—ergo—that is supposed to make it honest. He should read Macbeth once again, to refresh his recollection about a "damned spot" that is still there . . .
CLARENCE GREENBAUM Republican County [N.Y.] Committee New York City
Sir:
Carmine De Sapio's professed disassociation with the mobster elements around Tammany came as no surprise; that TIME should print it was a surprise. Of course, if De Sapio is on the level, then TIME did the public a service with its cover story . . .
LISTON F. COON Watkins Glen, N.Y.
Sir:
So Carmine has to get out of being in the next room to Costello! Well, for at least five years, and maybe ten, Costello and his ilk were running Tammany . . .
JACK M. WEBSTER Fort Worth, Texas
Sir:
... A very clever job in leaning over backward so as not to give De Sapio the benefit of any doubt . . .
HOWARD P. SMITH
North Bennington, Vt.
Sir:
. . . Carmine De Sapio spends ". . . hours each day in his national committeeman's headquarters in the Biltmore Hotel." On Mondays and Fridays he ". . . holds court ... in Tammany Hall." He "averages a dozen speeches a week . . . He politicks at his kitchen table from 8 a.m. and all the while he is trying to chart the presidential candidacy of the Governor of New York, Averell Harriman, etc., etc." Tell me—do our taxes pay this man a salary as Secretary of State?
JOHN J. WILSON New York City
Sir:
When I saw the tiger behind De Sapio on the cover, I thought it looked familiar to me, so I put on my reading glasses, and, sure enough, there were the words "after Th. Nast." To say I was pleased is an understatement, because Thomas Nast was my father. I am nearly 76 years young . . .
C. NAST New Rochelle, N.Y.
Just a Gambol
Sir:
Concerning the Aug. 22 report that the President's 13-month-old gift-heifer, Irvington Roamiss Pear, "reared up on her hind legs, clicked her front hooves, and gamboled into the pasture," we wonder if this is not a slight exaggeration. The three of us represent over 47 years of accumulated farming experience, but none of us ever witnessed such an event . . .
GENE DICKEY LEON E. TESTER W. M. HENDRICKSON Chincoteague, Va.
Sir:
Even on Kentucky bluegrass our heifers merely rear on front legs, click hind hooves . . . What crazy grass was Irvington Roamiss Pear reared on?
DAVID B. DICK Lexington, Ky.
¶TIME put a city-bred correspondent's foot in its mouth—ED.
Pacific Paradise
Sir:
Your Aug. 15 article "Okinawa: Levittown-on-the-Pacific" should have been "Okinawa: Dependent's Paradise." . . . Take us away from this lushest of assignments and give us that rough Stateside duty . . .