Letters

Chicago neighborhoods: wrong reflection

EDITOR: I enjoyed Richard Shereikis' review of Saul Bellow's The Dean's December and of Bowden and Kreinberg's Street Signs Chicago in your May issue. While both books paint a bleak picture of the city that no longer works, your accompanying photograph presents even more striking evidence of Chicago's changing neighborhoods. It is now evident that Belmont Harbor and Lincoln Park have moved to the south side and the Sears Tower has migrated north of the Hancock Building. Is it true that next month you will be breaking a story about Jane Byrne's impending move to the suburbs?

Edward W. Solan
Oak Park

(Mr. Solan has noticed our reversal of Chicago's landmarks. Next thing to say is that the sun sets over Lake Michigan! I am sorry to say we "flopped" the photograph in the printing process and gave our readers the wrong north-south view of Chicago. — Editor)

Moral Majority

EDITOR: Rev. Eddie Hathcoat of Genoa really needs a truth squad to follow around behind him to clean up his "facts." In the article on the moral majority by Robert McClory in your November magazine, it states that Rev. Hathcoat said that through the efforts of his Family Life Action Coalition of Illinois, school districts in Galena, Mendota, Genoa and other cities have dumped certain textbooks or outlawed classes altogether.

None of this is true. He has also claimed support of our school superintendent, John Ingalls. This is not accurate cither, and the Family Life Action Coalition of Illinois is his own invention.

Alice A. Paulson
Genoa

(Illinois Issues called the school superintendents in the three cities, and none attributed any change in their school curriculum to Rev. Hathcoat. — Editor)

The Women's Movement

EDITOR: Having just completed the May issue of your magazine, I want to offer two-fold thanks: generally, for continuing the lively humanities essays, and specifically, for commissioning Bari Watkins' overview of "The Women's Movement: Place and Power."

As one of the founders of women's studies at Sangamon State University nearly a decade ago, I can appreciate both the enormity of Ms. Watkins' task (surveying the past, present and future of such a diverse movement) and the merit of her accomplishment. Thanks to your magazine's generous reprint policy, I have also been able to share copies of her essay with fellow feminists, on campus and off, and can report their favorable responses as well.

Now that the ultimate showdown on the Equal Rights Amendment seems finally at hand, in Illinois and in the nation, it is an appropriate time to take stock of the extent and impact of our recent cultural reexamination of woman's place. Ms. Watkins properly invites us to look around in making our assessment, but she also urges us to look within ourselves for personal points of connection to this movement. It is this latter invitation, with its emphasis on the value of the individual perspective, which I find especially consistent with the purposes of the Illinois Humanities Council grant and with the tone of earlier essays under its sponsorship.

Judith L. Everson,
Associate Dean,
Arts and Sciences
Sangamon State University
Springfield

The OPEC of water

EDITOR: Congratulations upon your excellent first article on "Illinois: the OPEC of Water." James Krone has really covered a lot of material in one manuscript.

For your information, I note what appears to be a typing error. On the bottom of page 9: 81,000,000 gallons per day of water is the amount used by a community of 250,000-500,000 people rather than 2,500.

Will you feature the state water planning activities in one of your articles? Keep up the good work!

Glenn E. Stout
Director,
Water Resources Center
Institute for Environmental Studies
University of Illinois

(Mr. Stout is correct about the typo, and we regret the error. And, yes, some of the findings of the state water plan will be included in future articles in the series on water. — Editor.)

6 | August 1982 | Illinois Issues