Christopher Columbus

While I join the demonstrators (“Down With Columbus,” Oct. 13) in their cause against the shameful way American Indians have been treated in the last 500 years, to blame Columbus for their pains is patently absurd, as is obvious from two arguments:

1. Columbus found America for Europe; he did not determine the course of events that followed. To be consistent his detractors should also condemn the discoverers of fire, iron, gun powder, rifles, chain saws and bulldozers for also destroying American Indian culture.

2. These demonstrators are hypocritical for if they knew their own history they would know the idea of the “noble savage” is a myth. Indians are no different than other people. They describe Columbus as a symbol of “greed, slavery, rape and genocide,” as if their own ancestors were free of these vices.

Columbus should be admired for the prodigious deed he performed, which took enormous ability and courage. He does not deserve scorn for the misdeeds of thousands of others, including American Indians.

CHARLES HOGUE, Los Angeles