Two subjects are taboo in this column, politics and religion because they are emotional, controversial and unresolvable. Sometimes it is hard to draw the exact line between these subjects and other phases of life. We do the best we can. This prelude is to explain that nothing in today's installment is intended to be political. It is basic personal philosophy.
What we wrote here recently about our national tragedy came truly from the heart. The death of the president was so intensely personal that it was like going through the family griefs all over again. Many Americans apparently felt the same way, as was clear from letters which came to this desk. But one letter was contrary to the general opinion and challenged us to answer, -- as though we had been insincere, or misinformed.
First, here is a sampling of responses which felt the shock the same way I did.
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Dear Hope: I want to congratulate you on that wonderful article about our late President. I read it over and over. The world is so sad.
We have three children and seven grandchildren. We still live on the farm. I read the Household and pass it on to my mother. Keep up the good work. -- Mary E. Jones, Illinois.
Dear Hope: Your Household column is always splendid but we have just read your tribute to our late President Kennedy and feel it should be read by every one. It is wonderful. Thank you for giving us such an inspiration, even out of a terrible tragedy. -- Mr. and Mrs. Claude Canaday, Nebraska.
Dear Mrs. Needham: I have read a great many learned editorials on the death of our President but none of them equaled yours in depth and insight. I wish it could be published in some leading American magazine. It should be given wider publicity than just here in your column in the Midwest.
Since I do not have nor want TV, and the radio makes me nervous if I leave it on more than a few minutes, you gave a few facts regarding the tragedy and the life of Mr. Kennedy that I had never heard before. I just had to take time to tell you how sincerely I appreciate your talent and your gift of words.
My one gift seems to be health. In my 83d year now, I do a great deal of hard manual labor, then a little brain work at night. Sold a short story in November. I am well and happy. My children are all doing well. They had to make their own way. I'm always glad when you mention your family in the column. -- Pearl Chenoweth, Kansas.
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And now for the letter which was so shockingly different.
Dear Hope: I just read what I would call your "Sob Special" on the late President JFK. As a 78-year-old farmer I was really surprised at your stand on this man. He is no different from the last four presidents. All you have to do to find out what people in public office or other positions stand for is read what they write and what they say in public, and you have it right before you with their names signed to it.
Maybe JFK was a sincere man, but he and "Yes-Man Ike" ordered troops with bayonets into a sovereign state just to get one or two Negroes into a school where they were not welcome and Gen. Edwin Walker said it was the worst unconstitutional, cowardly, disgraceful duty he was ever assigned to in his military life. What kind of men have we had as presidents that will do a thing of this kind but take no action against a small island just 90 miles from our shore?
Also, JFK supported the UN, and any good, honest American will say the UN is the worst enemy our country ever had, because its charter is 100 per cent communist. We hear of Ike as a great war hero, though he never heard a shot fired on a battle field in his life, but you never hear any praise for such men as McArthur, Van Fleet and Patton, because they are all against this socialist government we have had for 30 years.
When you condemn anyone who will take an honest stand against our socialist government as a a "right wing extremist", just remember it is still one great privilege in this great God-given nation of ours to say what you think, but if the socialist state department which JFK supported could have their own way, you would write what you are told to write or you would not do any writing.
Please do not take time to read the printed article enclosed. As to answering this letter, that is strictly up to you, Hope, for I think I have your answer right here before me. -- Chas. Howell, Illinois.
The pounds and pounds of printed matter which reach this desk daily do not indicate any suppression of free speech. Your letters and the printed article interested me greatly but amazed me by their bitterness and cynicism. Any man who is elected president of my country becomes my president, and he gets all my loyalty and trust. I honor all our presidents, but JFK seemed to me one of the greatest, the American ideal, a modern "universal man", with his native ability, his training, his wide sweep of interests and talents, his compassion. He brought fresh vigor and vitality to a world that was tangled in difficulties. Maybe his impact was greater on me because he came to office when death and loneliness had thrust me into a slough of despond. His inauguration address brought the first flicker of interest in taking up life again. If any person thinks that presidents, congressmen, judges and military are as evil as your letter and the article imply, why would he care to go on living?
In the printed article this mis-statement was especially startling: "The death of President Kennedy was plotted and accomplished by a confessed communist who was under the orders and subject to the discipline of Fidel Castro's conspiratorial murder-bund." Yet the FBI concluded after their investigation that Oswald, the accused assassin, was a loner, an erratic, unstable individual who never submitted to anyone's discipline and who was not even accepted by either Khruschev's or Castro's communists as a person they could trust.
The printed article continued with a congressman's astonishingly critical statements about almost everything and everybody in the U. S. A. But J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI says: "Our best offensive against crime, subversion, intolerance and all enemies of America's heritage of freedom is brotherhood, . . . built upon a solid foundation of mutual trust, understanding and faith in God."
The military moved into Little Rock and into Alabama and Mississippi, on order of the President, not to push unwelcome students into schools but to uphold the integrity of our courts. A governor has no more right than any other citizen to defy a Supreme Court order. We are all under the same law.
As to the UN, it seems to me a great and good idea, one which is doing as well as could be expected, being a new experiment after centuries of war. It may prove to be the salvation of humanity.
At the end of the printed article there is a sort of a questionnaire, which implies that anyone who is "for" certain phrases is wrong and that anyone who is "against" them is right. The phrases are short and explicit, convenient to use, but each includes a great deal, and all refer to problems which are debatable -- not attitudes where all the "bad guys" are for and all "good guys" against.
One of the phrases is "foreign aid." That covers a good deal, but most of us have a general idea of what is meant. No one would say it has been handled perfectly; but neither is it all bad. It can be, has been, should be and will be modified and improved. In due time it may be reduced and even done away with. But for its time, in the aftermath of war, it provided safety and healing for the civilized world. The "test-ban treaty" is another phrase surely it cannot be all bad if our nation and about 110 other agree that it is a good step forward -- not a big step but in the right direction.
The "sale of wheat" is another of the phrases. This, too, is debatable, but neither the one who is for nor the one who is against is a villain. Maybe it is better not to sell, but maybe it is better to sell, with proper safeguards as to payment, than to continue to pay storage on it until it spoils.
And as to "medical care" through "social security"; If the 535 elected representatives of our citizens in the halls of Congress decide that is a good way to look after our aged indigent, that is all right with me. I don't need help myself but many do, and a national plan seems logical. But if Congress decides against it, surely other methods will be developed.
As to the tenure of the President we got along for about 150 years without spelling out a definite limit. Whenever the people want a man to run for more than two terms, why should they not be free to vote that way, just as they are free to vote a man out at the end of one term if they prefer? Government of necessity moves slowly because of its very size and complexity. One term is hardly enough for an administration to complete its task. That is why the people have almost always given a second term to a president.
In regard to the president's treaty-making powers, the constitutional arrangement has worked so far. Why complicate procedures now? Is the idea to forbid treaties altogether, to limit them some way by statue, to put treaty-making into the hands of Congress or of the governors of separate states, or what? The present method seems efficient and practical, with the president negotiating treaties and sealing them with the consent of the Senate.
Speaking of Congress, many people picture that body as two armed camps facing each other, bristling and threatening. That is because the occasional dramatic clashes are what get into the news. For the most part they are a quiet group of gentlemen reasoning together, compromising, adjusting, accomodating, negotiating and finally deciding by majority vote the rules by which this vast and complicated country will run.
We can not maintain our nation on distrust, bitterness and cynicism. We can't just be against propositions. We need to take positive steps to meet challenging new situations, as science changes our world and population expands. Universal literacy will help, as will the eradication of disease and hunger. Maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but it seems to me that most of our citizens, including officials, are honest, well-meaning and reasonable; that the executive, legislative and judicial branches, on balance, are doing the best they can with complex problems, and that their best is probably better than many of their critics could do.
It is well for all of us to learn about all sides of any proposal, but the learning should be in the form of analysis and debate rather than name-calling and castigation. It should be the aim of each individual to help
[typist note: ended without a period or Hope's signature. not sure the whole text was included.]
Memory Gem
Only man, among living things, says prayers. Or needs to. -- Peter Bownan. (Sent by Heidi of Wisconsin)