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KATHARINE K. MOORE
Glen Ellyn, 111.
Senator Salinger
Sir: You quote George Murphy on farm labor: "Mexicans are really good at that. They are built low to the ground, you see, so it is easier for them to stoop [Oct. 16]." As a Californian of Mexican descent, I wish to assure Candidate Murphy that I am just tall enough to reach that old ballot box.
VICTOR SILVA Pacific Palisades, Calif.
Sir: I emphatically deny ever making derogatory comments about bracero Mexican laborers as to their physical abilities or characteristics. I have never said, "Americans can't do that kind of work. It's too hard." I have said that Americans won't do that kind of work, and the experience of California farmers is the basis of that statement. I also bitterly resent your unfair reference to a fine volunteer worker, Mrs. Tucker.
GEORGE MURPHY Los Angeles
> TIME has checked its sources, finds Candidate Murphy spoke as quoted.—ED.
Sir: The editorial on Salinger reads like a Broadway review of a comedy—a lemon at that!
ELISABETH BECK
Pasadena, Calif.
Sir: Mr. Murphy is no longer the "song and dance" man you have so crudely illustrated but is now, and has been for some time, a politician in the highest sense of the word.
GLENN W. MOORE
Arcadia, Calif.
Sir: As an old and ardent debater, I think that in the television debates Mr. Salinger had an edge from the start and perfect timing. Mr. Murphy had to be constantly reminded that his time was up. In the question-and-answer period, Murphy was inexcusably rude. The moderator quite fairly had to remind him of this. When Murphy made the generous gesture of offering Salinger time—as he said he "had taken some of [Salinger's]"—it was a grandstand play and left me untouched. P. C. ANTHONY San Diego
Home Away From Home
Sir: Granted that a Korean hooch was not a home [Oct. 16], it was the closest thing to home in contrast to the cold barracks 60 miles north of Seoul. Besides, I would take one moose any time in exchange for five U.S.O. dolls.
ALEX S. DORIAN New York City
Sir: Being an ex-G.I. who served 19 months in Korea, I had to undergo an interrogation from my wife after she read your hooch story. The Rev. Ernst W. Karsten's charge is an exaggeration.
JOSEPH A. FARRAH Daly City, Calif.
Bard of Housewifery
Sir: Phyllis McGinley's paean to the American housewife is absurd [Oct. 9]. Housewifery is not a profession. Does one need an education to do a good job making beds? And is it any more "noble" to bake a cake than to teach a child to read? Not all members of the profession have the intellectual sanctuary of a typewriter and a poetic mind to retire to when the emotional strain of being mentally unemployed becomes too much.
STEPHANIE WENKERT Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Sir: As a profession, housewifery may be noble as hell, but as a day to day occurrence, it is rather vapid. Like death and taxes, it should largely be regarded as regrettable and ignored when possible. Simpering over boiled pudding is neither professional nor noble.
MRS. FRED BIKLÉ Littleton, Col.