Distinction Sirs:

May I correct a misstatement in TIME, Dec. 16, p. 19, concerning the "liar" charge against Major Berry?

I did not call Major Berry "an unqualified liar." What I did say was that his charge against me was "an unqualified lie." I stand squarely by the statement as I made it.

This distinction may seem technical but is none the less real. A man may make a statement which is "an unqualified lie" without the man himself being an "unqualified liar." . . .

A. P. HAAKE

Managing Director

National Association of

Furniture Manufacturers, Inc.

Chicago, Ill.

Managing Director Haake is entitled to whatever satisfaction he can derive from the distinction he makes.--ED.

Difference Sirs:

There is a difference between Stakhanovism and the speedup: The result of Stakhanovism is more goods for the workers, the result of the speed-up is more profits for the bosses.

Yours for the cool end of the poker.

MORRISON SHARP

Cambridge, Mass.

Hitler's Catholicism

Sirs:

On p. 21 of TIME, Dec. 2 you again refer to "Catholic Hitler."

Surely TIME'S intelligent and informed Religion editor could inform the foreign department that an ex-Catholic who has not communicated for years and who has openly attacked the Church can no longer be described as a Catholic without flat inaccuracy. To be a Catholic, as TIME knows well, is to be a member of the Catholic Church, and this membership is voluntary, not racial, nor an irrevocable product of onetime membership. Hitler is a de facto apostate Catholic, and his status is properly describable only as that, or simply as "ex-Catholic."

One sympathizes with TIME'S patience in meeting innumerable quibbles from readers, but this _ is one really seriously inaccurate and misleading statement. . . .

A. J. LYND

Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

Asked 'Is Hitler a Catholic?" the Archbishop of Munich, Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber replies: "The Archbishopric is not aware that Der Fuehrer has ever withdrawn from the Catholic Church." Declared Herr Hitler's own Realmchancellery: "Adolf Hitler was born a Catholic, baptized a Catholic and is still a Catholic, although not a practising Catholic in the ordinary churchgoing sense." The latest German Wer Ist's (Who's Who) plainly lists Der Fuehrer as "Catholic."--ED.

Breeding

Sirs:

I notice you often refer to certain people as being "well-born," "blue-blooded," and so on. For instance, in one sentence you speak of ". . . Host Stimson, the well-born Manhattan lawyer . . . and Undersecretary Phillips, the Boston blueblood. . . ." [TIME, Dec. 9.]

Now, I'm no one in particular, but it riles me to think that you consider these men--and other men of long-wealthy families--superior to me by birth. . . . The human race hasn't been worked on by professional breeders--yet. It's different with hogs, and guinea pigs. You can mate animals experimentally, and by doing a good job of matchmaking for many, many generations you can arrive at a "wellborn" hog and call it a Poland-China, or what not. But that's never been done with people, so why pretend it has? If a family can name its pappies and grandpappies for 300 years back, we call it an "ancient" family. And yet, 300 years amount to only about 12 generations. What is twelve generations, when it comes to breeding? In twelve generations of careful breeding you couldn't even eliminate the tendency to go to sleep in church. And there's no family under the sun that's had twelve generations of careful breeding. Or even five generations. Take the proudest family in the world and they'd be ashamed to mention the occupations of all 32 of their great-great-great-great-grandfathers. That is, if they knew them. But they don't know them, because they've paid attention only to the particular lines of descent that had the money and the prestige. And 99 times out of 100 those lines of descent got their money and prestige--like the royal families of Europe--by grabbing some swag 300 years ago and holding on for dear life ever since. . . .

You can't name a family, in America or Europe, that doesn't have its feet planted squarely in the mud.

Perhaps what you mean by "wellborn" is "money-in-the-family-for-the-last-three-or-m o r e-generations." If so, Stimson and Phillips and the King of England and the Duke of Duluth are wellborn, and I'm not. But as far as genes and chromosomes are concerned, I rise to announce that I'm just as well-born as any person you've ever mentioned in your excellent magazine. With the possible exception, of course, of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary.

A. ANDERSON

Minneapolis, Minn.

Bell Buckle, Tenn.

Sirs:

In TIME, Dec. 16, under Education, you quote Headmaster Horace D. Taft as saying: "Why should we teach them to do something which any calf can do better?" with reference to initiating a course in milking in Taft School.

Being an alumnus of Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tenn., I have noticed this with interest since, in the South, this remark has always been attributed to the late William R. ("Old Sawney") Webb who founded Webb School in Culleoka, Tenn., in 1870. Due to the pressure of the local "Wets," "Old Sawney," an ardent Prohibitionist, found it expedient to move. At the request of the townspeople of Bell Buckle, who built him a schoolhouse as an inducement to come, he moved the school there in 1888. In moving, the schoolbody came in spring wagons holding classes on the way. I might add that when Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, it was of Webb School that he said: "They defy all the accepted laws of pedagogy, but their boys are the best prepared that we get." Webb School is still carrying the banner of fundamental education high under the leadership of "Son Will," "Old Sawney's" eldest.

It is certainly remarkable that Schoolmen Webb and Taft were both: Prohibitionists, believers in a strong Classical education, users of homely illustrations; but the former antedating the latter by some 20 years.

MORGAN CARTLEDGE WILLIAMS

Louisville, Ky.

"Greatest Living Painter"

Sirs:

Your article in TIME, Dec. 2, is one of the cheapest pieces of publicity that ever could have been written about the greatest living portrait painter in America, Howard Chandler Christy. It looks like the work of a rewrite man who wants to be smart and plays on the reputations of noted men who are really accomplishing things for America and American Art. Forgetful is he of the fine spirit that Mr. Christy has shown in his work for the Red Cross, in the Will Rogers Memorial when he skips over this fact with a scanty line to make his cheap allusions to the two very fine women who have made these posters possible.

Furthermore, please warn your reporters to use cleaner methods in their interviews and give our Art an opportunity to live, against the paid publicity that French Art has been receiving. Foisting these foreign modernistic brainteasers upon our gullible public is doing much to hold back American Art. . . .

MICHAEL M. EXCEL

"For American Art"

The American Artists Professional League

New York City

Princeton Also Booed

Sirs:

There is a serious inaccuracy in your account of the Yale-Princeton football game (TIME, Dec. 9). In speaking of the childish stunt of tearing down the goal posts long before the game was over, you say, these actions "were roundly booed from the Yale stands."

To one sitting on the Princeton side of the field it seemed that the booing was just as hearty from that side as from the other. . . .

R. P. McCLENAHAN

Parlin, N. J.

A., B. & C.

Sirs:

As a Georgian, was very much interested in the very readable article "Game of Polio," p. 13 of TIME, Dec. 9. However, you erred in describing Warm Springs, Ga., in the first sentence of the article as "... a jerkwater Georgia town on the Southern Railroad." Irrespective of whether or not the term "jerkwater" is apropos, the town is served by two railroads, namely, the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast Railroad and the Southern Railway, as shown by the map reproduced on the same page of TIME. The Birmingham-Manchester line of the A. B. & C. Railroad, is the railroad shown on the map, directly across the highway from the "Polio Pools." . . .

JAMES T. MATHIS

Supt. Relief Dept.

Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast Railroad Atlanta, Ga.

Presidential Plymouth

Sirs:

. . On several occasions I have seen photographs of our President at the wheel of a 1930 Plymouth touring car taken at Warm Springs. Has he traded in the Plymouth for a used Ford which he had rebuilt? Also please enlighten me as to what make of cars he owns in Hyde Park. . .

H. EDWIN MEEKS

Meriden, Conn.

On only one day during his visit to Warm Springs last month did President Roosevelt use his 1929 Ford, which he has given to Farm Manager Otis Moore. On other days he drove his tan 5-passenger 1931 Plymouth touring car. About Hyde Park he drives a 1933 De Soto convertible sedan. Each is the President's personal property.--ED.

Chicago Denies

Sirs:

As I take it that TIME wishes to be fair and not . . . sensational, I wish to protest against the story "Chicago's Worst" in your Dec. 16 issue. . . .

Your charge that Lola Fletcher had paid $125, or any other sum, to be allowed to sing is most unjust and damaging to Miss Fletcher . . . and to the Opera Company. I trust that after you have verified her flat denial and that of the Opera Company you will print a retraction. . . . The Chicago City Opera Company denies absolutely that anyone has been asked to pay for singing at its performances. . . .

CHARLES S. PETERSON

Acting President and Treasurer

Chicago City Opera Company

Chicago, Ill.

TIME gladly prints Soprano Fletcher's letter to Paul Longone, director of the Chicago City Opera Company: My dear Mr. Longone:

. . . You know, and I know that I did not have to pay anything at all for my debut as Musetta in La Boheme. ... I not only did not pay but I was not asked to pay. . . .

LOLA FLETCHER

Chicago, Ill.

Factor List

Sirs:

I've got you this time. In TIME, Dec. 9: "Today nearly every important cinemactress, except Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Miriam Hopkins, is on the Factor list." Now look at the advertisement I found. ... As you see Miriam Hopkins' face & name head the list. . . . Do I get a medal or something?

N. L. LEWIS

Orlando, Fla.

Reader Lewis gets TIME'S thanks, nothing more.--ED.

Hot

Sirs:

Congratulations on ''hot news" coverage.

As I read the "Transatlantic Talk" item on p. 60 of TIME, Dec. 16, I heard the same item broadcast on I. N. S. radio announcement.

O. M. CONRAD

Atlanta, Ga.

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