Editor:

One can hardly resist "nit-picking" when Doris Soule promulgates such profound untruths as found in her last two Casper Star-Tribune letters.

First, the one of Oct. 14, about prayer proclamations: True, Thomas Jefferson, when Governor of Virginia, in 1779 did sign a proclamation for a day of thanksgiving and prayer, but never did he do so while president.

Jefferson's writings during his presidency made clear that he did not believe such proclamations to be a proper function of the federal government. Three of his statements adequately set forth his position: 1) the original draft of his Danbury Baptists letter; 2) his letter to the Rev. Samuel Miller of Jan. 23, 1808; and 3) in his second inaugural address when he said, "In matters of religion, I have considered its free exercise is placed by the constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, (emphasis added) to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of state or church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies."

Second, in the final paragraph of her letter of Nov. 4, Ms. Soule purports to quote from a well-known passage supposedly found in the work of Alexis de Tocqueville "Democracy in America." Although versions of the full paragraph, or parts thereof, have been used by numerous politicians and others beginning with Eisenhower in 1952, the language is spurious. The words do not appear in "Democracy in America" or in any of Tocqueville's other writings. No matter how often used the language is still phony.

When Ms. Soule berates the judiciary for usurping authority, she might consider these real "Democracy in America" words of Tocqueville: "Within these limits the power vested in the American courts of justice of pronouncing a statute to be unconstitutional forms one of the most powerful barriers that have ever been devised against the tyranny of political assemblies" and also take note of his approval of separation of church and state.

DUANE C. BUCHHOLZ, Sheridan