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Dialogue MIMIP~~M#I44M#~~e ef~#~~M# ###~~~04# More Thoughts on War There is an old aphorism, “It’s a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” This has been spoken in many tongues since the dawn of history and, with few exceptions, applies to war in general. In considering the war in Vietnam and the lesser struggle in Santo Domingo, in which we are involved, it would be interest ing if the Observer would present the material dealing with American investments in both these countries and the businesses here at home that are not anxious to see the war end. There’s another old saying, which has considerable merit, I think. “As long as there is a profit in warinaking it’s almost impossible to end it.” Carl Brannin, 5614 Ridgedale St., Dallas, Tex. For All I Know . . Your article on electioneering techniques \(“The High Cost of Democracy,” Martin Staples who announced to a family gathering back around 1920 that he intended to run for President of the United States. His technique was simple and direct: “I will hire the greatest a r t i s t in the world,” he explained, “to paint the most beautiful picture that has even been painted of mortal man, and I will write beneath it, ‘Vote for Martin Staples.’ I will have ten million copies printed and tacked to every telephone pole in the country. I will go off into the mountains and hide until after the election. Then I will hire for ten thousand dollars a year the Pro 16 The Texas Observer ### fessor of Government at Harvard to run the country, and on the remaining sixty-five thousand I will spend the winter at Palm Beach and the summer at Hot Sulphur Springs.” This was soon after woman’s suffrage, which Uncle Mart opposed vehemently, and he was expressing his contempt for “the female vote.” He never really ran. For all I know, he might have been elected. I know politicians with equal cynicism and less imagination who have. Martin Staples Shockley, Denton, Tex. Baytown In late summer I succumbed to the urging of my wife and made a trip through the 18-hole Goose Creek Country Club golf course. I have lived in immediate propinquity to the course as long as it has existed, the fifteenth fairway having been built adjacent to my back yard. Despite torpid weather, it was a pleasant experience, jouncing along in the odd cart with its three flat-tired wheels. The course is replete with small irregularly-shaped bodies of water, some of them teeming with aquatic creatures. Darting legions of tiny black tadpoles played about the marshy perimeters of the pools, minnows carved straight flight patterns under \\ the calm surfaces, and swift water bugs skated near the grey mud of the shallow bottoms. Hyacinths and cat tails and other river vegetation crowded against the banks. A brace of white ducks and a desultory flock of brown mallards dozed in the inconsequential shade of a lone tree. But these pools, I learned, are designed not for nature study but to frustrate golfers who make anguished noises as an occasional ball plops into the water. Adjacent to the course is a fenced-off fection of private property still covered with the lush and luxuriant growth of virgin forest. Tall oaks cluster thick, kneedeep in trailing vines and tangled underdrush. A few vines and an occasional clump of wild violets have crept beyond the fence to enliven a stretch of rough, as we golfers call the terrain fringing the manicured fairway. By mid-morning there was a caravan of the noiseless electric carts, each of them bearing a pair of oddly-costumed golfers. Most of the golfers we passed looked quite professional in long-billed caps, which they pulled down over their eyes before peering down the fairway preparatory to swinging at the ball. Those who looked most professional swung savagely and propelled the small ball respectable distances, although Double Your Money A recent news report says LBJ bought something for half a million dollars . . . Since I have four male grandchildren who are likely to be killed in the war, LBJ’s purchase set me to thinking. On the advice of a broker, I bought 40 shares of Lear 7Siegler, not knowing it was a war stock a stock sure to go up if LBJ escalated the murder. F our teen months later, when I found I was profiting from the war, I sold it for a $400 profit. On margin, this would have doubled my money in 13 months. Nathan Hale regretted not having two lives to give for his country. No doubt some of those fighting in Vietnam regret not having two lives to give for the millionaires who are doubling their money in one year. Richard Ashman, 5902 Marshall Foch St., New Orleans, La. without much accuracy. Quite often the ball bounded into marshy long-grassed lowlands where other golfers, wiping their foreheads frequently with their shirt sleeves, were arousing swarms of mosquitoes while probing through the vegetation. At another place along the course golfers were misdirecting their balls beyond a small drainage ditch into higher ground, where great locust plagues of brown grasshoppers whirred away with the advent of each search party. A few apologetic-looking beginners, some of them not even wearing caps, were whacking along self-consciously with pitiable results. One dribbled his ball about ten feet, then gazed back in misery at his small gallery of companions. They were all staring stonily at nothing. My cursory examination of the game of golf left me with the impression that it provides its participants with more pain than pleasure. The course, with its clipped and rolling fairways, its teeming pools and shaded roughs, would make an idyllic playground for children and poets, but this is a materialistic world and neither children nor poets make enough money for green fees. AL MELINGER Fire Circle How long will this fire circle keep From me the gulling black? This small cache of driftwood reap The hungry flame? Can it hold back Cold shadow figures until day? Now, brand by brand, I clutch the light, And when the last ember goes gray, I, without turning, face the night. GEORGIA EARNEST KLIPPLE Austin Thoreau on the Third Tee