Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR PAY-TELEVISION William E. Bohn's article on pay-tele vision (NL, March 31) asserts that "during the past few months" Congressmen and others have opposed pay-television because they...
...Teller is motivated by a deep-rooted hatred of the Soviet Union...
...In any case, they cannot be swept under the rug as a preliminary to a workable or not so workable agreement to control or outlaw certain types of weapons...
...Starr's suggestion...
...Italics mine.] These people could be rallied to a. better understanding and support of the labor movement if the unions cooperated with specific moves to lessen inflation instead of simply endeavoring in each single industry to get wages commensurate with increased productivity and the cost of living...
...All the 20th-century tyrants, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco et al., have been hated by millions of their victims...
...Washington Rep...
...It is easy to agree with Mr...
...Teller's case, it certainly is true in untold millions of other cases...
...The passage reads: "In the basic industries where prices are administered, the unions would be well advised to support the proposal for a Government agency to pass on all wage demands and price in* creases, first considering their effect upon the consumer...
...It is most significant that the Federal Communications Commission's own network study staff of independent experts has since, in the so-called Barrow Report, largely confirmed our committee's findings and recommendations...
...Not all farmers wish to reside on "the family-sized farm," and their wives and children want it even less...
...Harrison Brown, in his article "The Future of the Nuclear Race" (NL, March 31), writes: "It seems clear to me that Dr...
...Indeed, the networks themselves freely concede that if pay-TV comes they will seek to enter it...
...Whether or not this is true in Dr...
...K.] are dependent upon pensions, annuities and fixed incomes...
...With enough machinery, it is frequently done in 15...
...CONTINUED ON NEXT PACE Brown cannot know what Dr...
...Brown seems to assume brashly that an international conference "composed of scientists and technologists in the military-nuclear field could, in a relatively short time, agree upon a scheme which would be workable both technically and politically.'' Exactly what has our Government been trying to do these last few years...
...This was more than two-and-a-half years ago—not within the past few months—and my opposition to any form of spectrum grab for pay-TV has been continuous since then...
...Wars seem to be essential to high farm prices...
...Brown asserts that "our policy today . . stems primarily from fear and hatred of the Soviet Union and has produced blindness concerning other serious short-range and long-range problems.'' Our policy does not stem primarily from fear and hatred of the Soviet Union, but from an estimate of Soviet capabilities and intentions...
...Toward the end of the article, Dr...
...Consequently, many wheat farmers find it more pleasant and economical to live in town, close to schools and stores, and to drive to the wheat farm on those days when there is something to be done...
...Emporia, Kansas Harold P. Trdsler TELLER VS...
...Brown's beliefs, the VTest must remain sufficiently armed to inspire respect by would-be aggressors...
...The potential profitability of the proposed diversion of the air waves is such that it will generate irresistible pressures on more and more programs, channels and stations...
...But I have found no reason to believe that pay-TV would provide substantially better program* or be substantially freer from commercials than the present system...
...The five-year drought from which we have just emerged was a terrible thing and had secondary results too numerous to list here...
...I have consistently opposed the projected trials of subscription television because of the grave risk that such trials may result in destroying the existing system of free-to-the-viewer program reception in reliance on which the American people have invested millions of dollars in receiving equipment...
...Teller is motivated by a deep-rooted hatred of the Soviet Union, from which stems...
...Italics mine.] An increasing number of our citizens [including workers—H...
...The great terror of their lives is the menace of inflation...
...This is no small order, and my sympathies are with Dr...
...My own record as an opponent of improvident experimentation with the publicly owned television spectrum contradicts this thesis in two material respects...
...Witness August 1939...
...Certainly the advance was caused by something other than politics...
...Finally, I think it most unfair to compare the prices of war year 1952 with those of peace year 1958...
...Brown, who, it would seem, has permitted 40 years of painful history to pass unnoticed...
...Teller, who harbors no illusions about working out a scheme that reconciles not only the differences of opinions among technicians but also the irreconcilable differences between Communist totalitarianism and democratic freedom...
...After six-and-a-half years of the New Deal, wheat in Kansas was around 45 or 50 cents per bushel...
...New York City Hans Kohn THE FARM PROBLEM As an admirer of Tris Coffin's "Washington— U. S. A." column, I was » little sad to read his recent comment on farm problems (NL, March 31...
...First, as early as June 1955 I called attention to the dangers of pay-TV and introduced a bill that would have prohibited the imposition of a toll for the privilege of home-viewing TV programs...
...The plowing, seeding, harvesting and marketing of a wheat crop takes no more than 60 work days...
...I hope that labor and management economists, the Administration and Congress will seriously consider, and act upon, Mr...
...Brown scans the future...
...Bohn's statement that as television viewers we don't want Shakespeare mixed with soap or Beethoven sharing the screen with digestive aids...
...In the first place, his problems are not nearly as great as politicians would have him believe...
...Notwithstanding Dr...
...Philadelphia Robert Stkausz-Ht/pe...
...I have friends who have lived under the terror of the first three...
...What exactly does Dr...
...Teller had warned of this contingency a long time ago...
...Teller, who appears to have learned his lessons in the school of hard knocks...
...Unless a fanner possesses and cares for livestock, farming with modern machinery is only part-time job...
...This sort of innuendo strikes me as extremely odd in an article written by u. scientist about matters of fact...
...Brown loves the Soviet Union or, for that matter, his mother...
...Teller feels about the Soviet Union, just as I cannot know whether Dr...
...Eight years later, it was $2...
...More important, what does Dr...
...It might be useful for The New Leader to publish a supplement enumerating the number of treaties, top- and bottom-level agreements, etc...
...Brown says that "Dr...
...As Edward T. Chase wrote in his March 31 letter, Coffin is out of his field and "never comes to grips with its essence.'' Being a country grain dealer (no Government storage) with some farming and livestock interests, I am forced to the conclusion that many people who have the intelligence to write, know very little about the practical problems of the farmer...
...Brown propose to do about it...
...He speculates upon the consequences which will follow from the possession of atomic weapons by growing number of states...
...The present high price of cattle is one of them...
...Second, far from being naively receptive to network propaganda, as Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary and of its Antitrust Subcommittee I have been severely critical of numerous restrictive practices engaged in by the television networks and others, which have impeded the full development of a nationwide and competitive television system...
...The people of the United States would be ill advised to ignore either...
...BROWN Having read Edward Teller's "Meet the Press" interview (NL, March 17), in which he stated that "disarmament is a lost cause," and having also read Harrison Brown's dissenting comments (NL, March 31), I award the crown to Dr...
...DEAR EDITOR PAY-TELEVISION William E. Bohn's article on pay-tele vision (NL, March 31) asserts that "during the past few months" Congressmen and others have opposed pay-television because they have uncritically swallowed what the writer calls a "mess of crude propaganda" generated by the television networks...
...Brown propose to clo about the political issues that might give rise to atomic conflict...
...Emanuel Celler CONSUMERS' WOES In Mark Starr's letter on auto prices (NL, March 17), there is a passage which strikes me as one of the most constructive proposals made for the salvation of our economy...
...And, of course, no one can afford to own sufficient modem machinery to operate only a family-sized farm...
...The problem is indeed one of finding « scheme which would be workable technically and politically...
...The capabilities of the Soviet Union are a matter of record...
...I cannot condone a course of action that bids fair to force the viewing public to pay for programming not significantly superior to what il receives today free of charge...
...their harrowing accounts of life in Russia, Germany and Italy impress me much more than the sweet reasonableness of Dr...
...I hope that you will give it all the publicity that it deserves...
...which have been negotiated, signed, repudiated or violated by Moscow since the Lenin-Trotsky counter-revolution 40 years ago...
...My position on pay-TV may readily be summarized...
...Extensive hearings before the subcommittee during the 84th Congress were followed by a detailed report which pointed to these practices and recommended their discontinuance...
...The intentions of the Soviet Union have been stated by its leaders...
...Montreal Squire Blackshaw Dr...
Vol. 41 • April 1958 • No. 16
