Growth

Sirs:

Why was it "a letdown" for the U.S. to notify Yugoslavia that if our "ultimatum" were not met we would "call upon the Security Council of the United Nations" [TIME, Sept. 2]?

Isn't that what the Security Council is for? . . . Maybe you've just seen a faint sign that U.S. diplomacy is growing up.

J. D. WISE Baltimore

P: Maybe.--ED.

Majorities v. Minorities

Sirs:

Deist Sheehan [TIME, Aug. 26] must be weak in faith indeed if he fears the spouting of atheists. A healthy belief cannot be maintained unless it permits itself criticism. The rigid persecution of unbelievers, and their forceful silencing, by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and the rigid persecution of nondemocrats by most democratic countries today, are typical of the unhealthy attitudes taken by majorities toward minorities. Only by free discussion can humanity progress towards global peace.

FELIX A. E. PIRANI Hertford College Oxford, England

Credit Line

Sirs:

The most excellent story on the Promised Land [TIME, Aug. 26] is as masterfully written as any article I have read. TIME, we know, is a team; the researchers and all had a part in this. Chapin's cover was exceptionally good as are all of his charts. I think we deserve to know the name or names of the responsible persons for perhaps the best piece of reporting in my memory.

A. BRIAN MERRY Augusta, Ga.

P:TIME'S thanks to Reader Merry. For the names of TIME'S team, let him look at the masthead, p. 19.--ED.

Gruff Justice

Sirs:

Milestones [TIME, Sept. 2] describes the late James Clark McReynolds, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, as "grim, gruff." Here is a letter from the former Associate Justice, which might seem to admirably illustrate those qualities.

The letter . . . [dated] March 29, 1917: "You ask for some anecdote about my career. Here is the career as it seems to me! I was born and now am here with a mountain of work demanding my attention night and day. Very truly yours,

J. C. McReynolds." C. HERBERT LAUB Terre Haute, Ind.

Rat in Ring

Sirs:

While reading over the situation in the Dardanelles, I smelled a rat. Looking very closely at your map [TIME, Sept 2], I saw it trapped in the red circle.

DOUGLAS S. BURNS Boston

P:Keen-eyed Reader Burns is one up on TIME Mapmaker Chapin, who drew the Sea of Marmara, saw no rat in his red ring.--ED.

Dzhaz

Sirs:

On the subject of Russian "dzhaz" [TIME, Sept. 2], I find myself quite in accordance with the bitter denunciation of Izvestia. I have obtained a Soviet recording made by this Rozner and the State Jazz Orchestra of White Russia. It is a mercilessly amputated version of the traditional Russian Christmas music. It conflicts with all reason that the government of any country could permit such an atrocity

Serge Prokofiev ... the leading musical voice of Russia, should take it upon himself to eliminate, in good Communist fashion, these completely unSoviet influences; not only for the good of Russia, but as an act of mercy for anyone unfortunate enough to be subjected to the "dzhaz."

Thank heaven that if we must tolerate the lower forms of music in this country our already-suffering jazz does not inflict a deeper wound by satirizing itself.

THOMAS QUINN JR. Norfolk, Va.

P: Let Reader Quinn also give thanks that his classic views may not be enforced in his own country "in good Communist fashion."--ED.

Divorce & Democracy

Sirs:

In describing the birth pains of democracy in Japan [TIME, Sept. 2], the following statement is made: "But there were also signs that democracy sometimes went deeper. Japanese women, awakening from their sheltered stupor, had elected 38 of their number to the Diet, were agitating for an end to concubinage, for liberalized divorce laws, for equal legal treatment."

In other words: the more liberal the divorce laws, the deeper the democracy. It would be truer to say: the more liberal the divorce laws, the deeper the water in which democracy finds itself. . . .

(REV.) JOSIAH G. CHATHAM Natchez, Miss.

Age in Hollywood

Sirs:

TIME, we think, missed badly in referring to Joe Mankiewicz as "Hollywood oldtimer" in its review of Somewhere in the Night [TiME, June 24]. A veteran writer (from Skippy to Keys of the Kingdom) and producer (from Fury to Philadelphia Story), he is now just 37, directing only his third picture, The Late George Apley. However, as it has to all men, TIME seems to have put its indelible mark on Joe Mankiewicz (see cut).

RONALD COLMAN RICHARD NEY

PEGGY CUMMINS PERCY WARAM

CHARLES RUSSELL MILDRED NATWICK

RICHARD HAYDN EDNA BEST

VANESSA BROWN NYDIA WESTMAN Beverly Hills, Calif.

P: Only such veterans as Colman (55) and Edna Best (46) can juniorize Joe Mankiewicz, who began work in Hollywood as a writer 18 years ago.--ED.

Chile's Catholics

Sirs:

I write you in connection with the article appearing in TIME [Aug. 19], entitled "The South American Way." It deals with the question of the Catholic population of Chile, and as a Chilean and also a subscriber to TIME I feel it my duty to correct the figures given. They were obtained from a semiofficial source [Direccion Informaciones y Cultura] but they are entirely wrong.

I should like to point out that in the last general census held in 1940 under a Popular Front Government, out of a total number of inhabitants of 5,023,539, those who officially declared they were of the Roman Catholic faith amounted to 4,675,277 or say in round figures 93%.

I might add a further argument: not more than 20% of the pupils attending high schools were "eximidos" (let off) from religious courses, by their parents' or guardians' request. ...

I grant you that a good number of the Chilean Catholics can hardly be classed as regular churchgoers, but in all fairness does that justify your labeling them as "freethinkers"?

EXEQUIEL A. PUELMA Ex-Consul of Chile in New York Quilpue, Chile

Scooped

Sirs:

You stated [TIME, Sept. 2] that the trade secret of the fact that Barnaby was ghostwritten had been let out of the bag last week. However, in an article for my junior high-school paper I mentioned that Mr. Johnson had stopped working on the Barnaby strip. This issue of The Reflector came out last June.

CHARLES DUNN Rowayton, Conn.

P: To Journalist Dunn, all credit for a clean beat.--ED.

Negro Ballplayers

Sirs:

Your story on Jackie Robinson [TIME, Aug. 26] says: "It was the first time a Negro had ever played Class AA ball without being passed off as a Cuban," etc.

This tends to create the impression that Negroes have in the past played AA baseball as Cubans or Mexicans. If this is the case, can you name a specific instance?

BOB BERRELLEZ News Editor Nogales Daily Herald Nogales, Ariz.

P: For one, Charley Grant, secondbase-man of the old Baltimore Orioles, who passed as an Indian.--ED.

Religion in Hollywood

Sirs:

The publicity afforded to an important subject [TIME, Sept. 2] is gratefully acknowledged, but inaccurate misquotations detract from the truth and the success of spreading the Christian message by means of film.

Examples: The Hand that Drove the Nails is not my novel, but was written by Dr. Fletcher Ray. The film script, originally based on this book . . . deals with the life of Jesus, whereas that excellent book, The Robe, does not deal with the life of Jesus. What I said was that the little short films made by non-profit-making Cathedral Films, Inc. were, by comparison, so good that they beat all other religious films to date "into a cocked hat."

I was a prewar R.A.F. padre, not a pilot, a slight difference in occupational activity. I did not say that The Bells of St. Mary's was "so bad," but that it had a dishonest element to which devout Catholics also objected.

(REV.) BRIAN HESSION, M.A. Vicar of Holy Trinity Aylesbury, England Chairman Bible Films Los Angeles

Requirements

Sirs:

You state [TIME, Aug. 19] that new applicants to U.N. "merely had to be peace-loving." The other two, and possibly more important requirements (Art. 4, par. 1) read as follows: [Must] "accept the obligations contained in the present Charter" and "in the judgment of the Organization are able and willing to carry these out."

While the definition of "peace-loving" is somewhat ethereal, these other requirements are fairly simple to judge.

CARL GREER Berkeley, Calif.

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