‘Subway Crime’

Ex-New York City parks commissioner Henry J. Stern makes an excellent point as to why we should care about the open sale of pirated DVD’s – “What is to prevent the entire subway system from becoming a bazaar, making it difficult for riders to traverse the passageways?” But he omits the most important reason to crack down on such open flaunting of our laws [“Subway Crime,” Opinion, February 24, 2006].

This reason was well understand by Mayor Giuliani and used successfully to improve the city and lower crime to a remarkable degree.

Mr. Giuliani waged a campaign against what he termed “quality of life” crimes, small infractions such as graffiti, panhandling, and prostitution, which if left untouched and openly transacted, gave the impression that lawlessness prevailed and worse crimes would be tolerated.

It was this strategic tactic that led under Mr. Giuliani to the historically all time crime rate low of his administration. As someone who lives in Manhattan and walks its streets, I have noted a sharp decline to this approach. I have seen police walk by numerous illegal street vendors who are, as Mr. Stern fears, making it near impossible to walk the streets.

Whatever the reason, the message is clear: Crime will be tolerated. We send this message at our own peril. This permits the criminal to wager on where and on which crime we will draw the line and say: Go no further.

SUSAN DAVIDOWITZ
Manhattan

‘Testing Harvard’

The departure from the scene of Harvard’s president, Lawrence Summers, may well be a last hurrah for Harvard’s faculty Bolshies, as there is handwriting on the wall that cannot be obscured [“Testing Harvard,” Editorial, February 21, 2006].

The event’s unpopularity with students suggests that extremism has here authored its own demise, and that the 1990s may in fact come to be regarded as the true apogee of the left’s ideological influence at Harvard.

As the passage of time gradually sees off the 1960s activist cohort currently dominating the broader American university scene, it will likely replace them en masse with representatives from a public long since reverted ideologically toward the political center.

America beyond campus gates has always been of a more conservative persuasion, and its children are increasingly skeptical of holdover leftist dons from another and no longer glamorous era.

RON GOODDEN
Atlanta, Ga.