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Waging Peace by Serving Your tenth anniversary issue [Dec. 11] was magnificent, particularly the Year of National Service idea by Roger Shattuck. Any opportunity promoting the ideal of public service is strengthening the security of us all, worldwide. As Toynbee states in his book, America and the World Revolution, the world can become a slaughterhouse or one great family with richly unfolding potentialities. Just as in a private family one can’t make a profit each time a need is met, just so in a world family ; a lot of serving is necessary to fill the gaps in order to establish stability. “Waging Peace” is a good label for all these facets of serving. More power to Roger Shattuck! Mrs. Peter C. Duisberg, 4641 Emory Way, El Paso 22, Tex. This Is the Question Better send me another dozen copies of the tenth anniversary issue. I have several more with whom I want to share my pleasure in “The Texas Observer as a Free Thing.” My job happens to have that same quality of freedom that yours possesses. In that sense we are both rich, as very few others are todayor any day, for that matter. Question: How to create a society in which all may have that kind and degree of freedom? Weld Carter, executive secretary, Committee on Taxation, Resources, and Economic Development, 4900 Marine Dr., Chicago, Ill. Not a Nation of Christians “Brains” [Obs. Dec. 25] did not shock me nearly as much as a recent excerpt from Saturday Review in which former President Kennedy told a group of church leaders that the communists did not fear or 16 The Texas Observer ganized religion, which has always accommodated itself to any form of government, but that what they did fear was that America might become a nation of individual Christians. It is one theologian’s theory that the mind of the Maker is better understood from the creations of real artists, and if Winston Bode is a real artist, we have plenty of food, for thought from the mouths of his creatures. If they are true to form, and I’ve heard even worse mouthings in any ordinary day, we are not yet a country of individual Christians and Bode is showing us our reflection in the framed mirror of his story. This doesn’t go for smut writers for profit, and we have too many of them; they will reap their own destruction if we Christians change our mores. We must support organized religion to keep our faith alive and moving. Too bad our artists are often not welcome within the fold, though, even as our Maker himself found it. Mrs. Kathryn Blackman, 5321 Beaumont Ave., Groves, Tex. On the Other Hand I am happy that you decided to publish “Brains.” It was an excellent piece of faction.Alice Rowe, 3426 Florida Ave., Kenner, La. Just a note to support your publishing “Brains.” It is a good story. The editorial post-scripts were also good. A victory for Art over Politics, if you will excuse the. analogy.Max Crawford, 1716 Albans Rd., Houston, Tex. Wash The Window Our window to the South is all smeared up with mud and must be washed so that window shoppers can see in and we can see out. “Liberty without obedience is confusion.” All of us need continually to examine the basic assumptions to which we are obedient and the mythology we have built on those bases. Ten pages of inartistic, unpatriotic, venomous propaganda are hard to wade through even with high and washable boots! This sort of stuff by “Winston Bode,” whoever he is, killing little children, lynching students, bombing and burning Christian churches will not stay the wheels of change. Besides, democracy is too precious a heritage and ideal to give up. And the editor, an accomplice, has betrayed the trust of a large ethnic group he has heretofore helped and whose votes and cooperation we all need to advance good causes.Eubanks Carsner, 3920 Bandini Ave., Riverside, Calif. Strong Meat for Faint Hearts I think you were right to go ahead and publish Bode’s short story in spite of your reservations. Certainly it is strong meat for the faint of heart. Though I do sincerely maintain that a man’s perception of truth in human relations is not arguable and, hence, can not be a fit subject of controversy; we can only perform an act of faith and believe that he is being as honest with us as he knows how to be. And I would like to see Bode given full credit for rushing in where so many of the rest of us dare to tread. Not that I mean to imply in any way he is foolish. I only mean that too often we hold back for fear of being misunderstood by those we would most like to reach. I know I have; I also know that this foolish fear has been a hindrance to me. Betty Tucker Mann, Route 3, Box 490, Marshall, Tex. \(Mrs. Mann also enclosed a long letter for forwarding to Bode in which she specified her criticisms and appreciations of “Brains.” The editor has also received some communications not for publication on this subject ; they are being shared with A Difference Congratulations on the tenth anniversary of the Observer. You and your colleagues and lovely Mrs. Randolph have made a difference. May the Observer continue to grow from strength to strength for many more decades. Joseph Krakower, 4800 Trail Lake, Fort Worth, Tex. Hog Jowls and Robin Hood In these columns \(“Sales Tax Groceries,” Ky., wrote about the fairness of a 2% sales tax. . . . Mr. Deming, the mere fact that some of “the colored population purchase their provisions” in the emporium \(supermarket, I. cash, albeit they may buy the cheapest produce possiblehog jowls, beef tripe, bacon ends, or possibly dog food or horsemeat. But the really poverty-stricken and emanciated live in squalor and search for “good food” in garbage cans. A garbage collector, when asked about his pay, stated his weekly wage, adding, “and all I can eat.” A 2% sales tax on food would make the pickings for such as these even leaner, except perhaps during the winter holiday season, when many a would-be luscious roast must be discarded as over-done. Also there are Jean Valjeans in Texas, and in Kentucky, who would steal a loaf of bread rather than see their brothers and sisters starve. A sales tax on necessities is a most inhuman and unfair means by which to support a state. The alternatives for Texas is a tax on incomes. Let the state promote the general welfare of its people, even if it thereby becomes a Robin Hood. William E. Roth, P.O. Box 3161, Austin, Tex. Bountiful Enthusiasm Observer pieces especially follow-ups and analyses on the electionhave been masterful, and, yea, have gained bountiful notoriety about the offices of the San Francisco Examiner. Sighting an issue on the coffee table of my apartment the other night, in fact, nearly caused an orgasm on the part of my date, for five years a woman’s editor on a Texas paper who used to cavort in the Austin beer garden and knew many libs. Paul Green Houston, 2401 Jackson, San Francisco, Cal.