Less Knife, More Invisible Hand

I was struck by this quote from Gov. Mitch Daniels, as reported by Mark Hemingway in your June 8 issue (“Mitch the Knife”): “The plant will employ a process called ‘coal gasification’ to exploit the state’s coal reserves more efficiently, creating jobs and lowering utility bills.”

It should not be government’s role to intervene in the market for the sole purpose of creating jobs. If utilities find that this new process will save them money, they will make the investment on their own. I certainly hope that the taxpayers of Indiana are not paying their utilities a subsidy to invest in a clean-coal technology that will cost more than the savings from using locally mined coal.

Governors need to be less involved in such details, not more involved, as Mr. Hemingway’s essay implies. This is just another subtle demand for better philosopher-kings to rule us. The free market needs no such ruler, no matter how brilliant he is, or pundits think he is. The sole role of government is to protect our life, liberty, and property. I think I read that somewhere — oh, yes, the Declaration of Independence.

Patrick Barron

West Chester, Pa.

Wise Latin

Your laudable attempt to appease those who obsess over inclusive language is, alas, less than successful. In “The Week” (June 8), you offer, in a touching display of empathy, a Latin grace for meals in secular colleges: Benedictus benedicat. You translate this invocation as “may the Blessed One bless” — indicating that Blessed One is blessedly free of disturbing references to gender.

It pains me to point out that the –us ending of benedictus identifies it as a masculine form of a Latin adjective belonging to the first and second declension — the feminine form would be benedicta. It would appear that no matter how earnest our efforts are to purge language of a pervasive male bias, we keep falling short. With benedictus, not only do we fail to neuter the word “One,” what’s worse, we make it linguistically clear that the One whose blessing we seek is incontrovertibly masculine. This is not the kind of thing to throw in the faces of those we don’t want to get mad.

Joseph Moscinski

Hillsborough, N.J.

Correction

In “Hinge of History” (May 25), by Ronald Radosh, it was asserted that the Crooms, a couple in Lionel Trilling’s novel The Middle of the Journey, were based on Alger and Priscilla Hiss. In fact, Trilling later denied this, asserting that he had not known the Hisses until after the book’s publication. The article also wrongly located Trilling’s birthplace as London; it was New York City.