LETTERS: THIS SHOULDN'T HAPPEN IN THIS ENLIGHTENED TIME

To the editor:

Were our father still alive, we children know what he would say about recent events. "Such things have happened before" was the comment he frequently made when puzzles and absurdities piled up so quickly that we began to fear for the ship of state.

Perhaps such things have not happened before, although reporters scurry through records and always discover that they are indeed not new. There is some comfort in learning that our generation does not have a monopoly on selfish and distorted thinking. We learn about current Electoral College hassles wedged between ads for soap powder and granola.

Were my father living and repeated his favorite platitude, I might remind him that such things had indeed happened, but we expect something better in our own enlightened time. I hope they will never happen again. Then I would regain Dad's good graces by telling him I agreed with him about the necessity of the Electoral College.

PETER HILTY

Cape Girardeau