tended Sacred Heart College, still goingnstrong). Apparently two plaquesnwere put up by the United Daughtersnof the Confederacy to mark the site,nironically on Union Avenue, wherenDavis lodged with one of Montreal’snleading citizens, John Lovell. Whitenleftists and black activists have demandednthat the plaques be removed.nOnly a French plaque remains.n— Lionel AlbertnMontreal, CanadanOn Tour Papers, Please’nI don’t know who Mr. R. Cort Kirkwoodnis or what his credentials to writenabout “law” are. His knee-jerk reactionn(Vital Signs, November 1990) to efficientlynverifiable identification of applicantsnfor special recognition in thenUnited States today compels me tonsuppose that they are minimal.nNo one suggests that there be anyncompulsion to carry a card imposed onnevery person found on U.S. territory;nwhat I do insist is that every applicantnfor a U.S. privilege established by lawnmust be positively and promptly identifiablenas a person qualified for it. Bynprivilege I mean simply any benefit ornpenalty for which an identity is listednby the relevant law as a prerequisite. Bynway of examples, a driver’s license,nvoter registration, passport. Social Securitynstatus, eligibility for some jobs. Ifnany of these or any other examples arenfelt to be ones in which the requirementnfor identification has been improperlynmade, let’s rewrite the law toneliminate it. Let’s not insist that somenconstitutional right is infringed by effectivenand inexpensive enforcement ofna proper-requirement.n— W. Brown Morton, ]r.nWarsaw, VAnFILMING AN EXECUTION atnSan Quentin Prison is what San Francico’snKQED has asked the U.S. DistrictnCourt in California for permissionnto do: it wants the unedited tape to runnnationwide over the Public BroadcastingnService network.nKQED is not doing this merely ton6/CHRONICLESnMr. Kirkwood Replies:nI must admit, Mr. W. Brown Morton,nJr. is right in observing that “no onensuggests that there be any compulsionnto carry a card imposed on every personnfound on U.S. territory.” I never saidnany such thing. What Mr. Mortonnhasn’t discerned from reading the lawnis that the identification card legislationnwould require every American citizennto carry an unforgeable I.D. card to getnany kind of work. Mr. Morton’s complaintnis with the fatheads in Congress,nnot with me.nI did not “insist” that “some constitutionalnright is infringed by eflFectivenand inexpensive enforcement of anproper requirement.” In fact, I saidn”effective and inexpensive enforcement”—nto use Mr. Morton’s wordsn— of existing immigration laws wouldnobviate the need for American citizensnto carry identification papers. As Inobserved in the article, if Congress didnits duly appointed job — to protect thenlives and property of American citizensn— the U.S. Border Patrol would havenenough money to do its job withoutnadopting identification cards, fingerprints,nand retina scanners to identifynAmericans like myself, who have paternalnroots going back to the militaryncampaigns of George Washington, fornthe purpose of employment.n— R. Cort KirkwoodnOn ‘Letter Fromnthe Lower Right’nThough John Shelton Reed’s Decemberncolumn was engaging and enjoyable,nhe made a very common error innmisstating the old saw about Yanks andnRebs together being invincible. As Mr.nReed put it, “one observer remarkednCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSnget higher audience ratings. It thinksnthat once people see what an executionnis like, support for capital punishmentnwill wane. Michael Schwartz, directornof KQED’s current affairs department,nsays, “We want the camera to be anneutral witness. The camera can donwhat no other medium can do, andnnnthat if he had Confederate cavalry andnUnion infantry he could whip any armynon earth.”nThe observer in question was NorthnCarolina’s own irascible and celebratednYankee-hater, General Daniel HarveynHill. On July 1, 1862, at Malvern Hilln(presumably no relation). Hill watchednUnion artillery chew up wave after wavenof Confederate infantrymen who hadnstupidly been ordered to assault dug-innYankees uphill and across open ground,nand who repeatedly did so with a determinationnequaled only by the Unionninfantrymen acting under similar ordersnat Fredericksburg in December of thatnsame year.nSome twenty years after the war,nHill, in a Century magazine article’ntitled “McClellan’s Change of Basenand Malvern Hill,” paid justiy deservedntribute to the courage and fighting skillnof all the men on the field that day bynwriting, “The battle, with all its melancholynresults, proved . . . that thenConfederate infantry and Federal artillery,nside by side on the same field,nneed fear no foe on earth.”nThe statement seems always to beneither misquoted or wrongly attributed.n—James MorgannMartinsburg, WVnMr. Reed Replies:nOops. Thanks to Mr. Morgan for settingnme straight. Let’s hope that Yanksnand Rebs, in whatever combination, arenstill unbeatable. I don’t know if ournmilitary scares Saddam Hussein, but itnsure scares me.nthat’s to bring the viewer to the eventnin an unmediated way.”nTrue. In turn, KQED will want tonshow the other side of the story, too.nTo get the other side, KQED ought tonask various police departments in thisncountry to supply the films they havenof the victims of capital crimes. Thenn