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Political letters
* IT HAPPENS AT EVERY election time, and this time has been no exception. A sincere, concerned citizen with a definite preference among political candidates, has written a letter-to-the-editor stating this preference and urging others to follow suit at the ballot box.
Now this is a perfectly legitimate function of letters-to-the-editor, and newspapers like to make this column as much of a public forum as possible. But if we run one of these letters, then we must surely run one for the other side. And if one side or the other gets personal — and this seems to be inevitable where political exchanges are concerned — then the column becomes not a forum for public debate, but a means of carrying on personal arguments in print.
We’re willing to listen to the case for the contrary, but right now we’re going to put the political preference letter aside and hope that everyone accepts our reason for, doing so. We want to emphasize here that this is only a tentative decision, .and that if compelling arguments for following a different policy are forthcoming we’ll be the first to admit our error.
But political letters ca n be like poetry for a weekly editor: You print one poem and you’re deluged with offers — nay, demands — that you print the efforts of a thousand other poets or wouldbe poets. Life is difficult enough without inviting further complications. □
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