Unsettled Dust

Sir:

In looking through a scrapbook compiled during the 1920s, I came upon the following article from the March 14, 1927 issue of TIME, under Russia and the title "Orator Orating":

"In Trades Union Hall, Moscow ... a vast crowd surged . . . They had come to hear the first public speech in four months by Russia's greatest orator, famed Leon Trotsky. All knew that M. Trotsky had been silent perforce, following the crushing of his section of the Communist party by Dictator Joseph Stalin . . .

"Choosing words carefully . . . Comrade Trotsky said: 'The lands bordering the Pacific will be the scene of the world's most important events. Europe does not relish this any more than it relishes the fact that the United States has become the most dominant power in the world . . . We not only sympathize with the Chinese revolutionists, but, if we could, we would gladly drown in Shanghai waters all who intervene.'

It would seem that while Trotsky's section had been "crushed," the Kremlin had a Far Eastern policy in 1927--and it was Trotsky's. No wonder that the dust has not settled.

NATHANIEL T. LANE JR. Chicago

The Issue

Sir:

In reply to the Rev. Robert J. Welch's criticism [TIME, June 11] of Paul Blanshard's book, Communism, Democracy and Catholic Power . . .:

Anybody who has read the book recognizes great evidence of inductive thinking on Blanshard's part. If the author could be attacked on a scientific plane rather than through McCarthyish stigmas, the issue could be better appreciated.

JOHN G. BOYD Lubbock, Texas

Sir:

... I submit that Mr. Blanshard in his writings uses the research methods of a scholar. He cites chapter and verse. May I suggest that his critics, instead of declaring how "fantastic and hilariously funny" his writings are or how "adolescent" his mind is, adopt the same scholarly method which he uses, and in replying to him cite chapter and verse . . .

J. R. SAUNDERS Rio de Janeiro

Sir:

When Rita M. McPherson states, ". . . Many of my friends and I pray constantly for Paul Blanshard ..." I trust that she means that they pray that he might be given the wisdom of understanding and tolerance . . .

JAMES P. K. MATTHEWS Chicago

Read Clegg for Flack

SIR:

IN TIME OF JUNE 18 THERE IS AN ERROR IN MEDICINE. DR. I. H. FLACK IS THERE DESCRIBED AS THE EDITOR OF THE "BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL," A POST I HAVE HELD FOR 4 1/2 YEARS AND STILL HOLD. UNDER MY GENERAL DIRECTION DR. FLACK EDITS "FAMILY DOCTOR," A POPULAR HEALTH MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

HUGH CLEGG

LONDON

Invisible Censorship?

SIR:

DESPITE YOUR FAVORABLE CINEMA REVIEW [MAY 14], WHERE is "OLIVER TWIST" BEING

SHOWN? NOT DOWN HERE AND NOT IN NEW YORK ... IS THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT STILL EXERCISING CENSORSHIP REGARDLESS?

(MRS.) MARIAN STRACK

RUMSON, N.J.

P:No censorship, invisible or otherwise. Oliver Twist has already been shown in Bridgeport (Conn.), New Orleans, Miami Beach and Chicago. Now nationally released, it simply awaits bookings by United Artists, which does not own its own theaters. -- ED.

Pro-Peyote

Sir:

TIME would do better to rely on the many scientific reports available on peyote [TIME, June 18] than on the accounts of missionaries and traders. I have not met a single missionary or trader who has been to a peyote ceremony, and the "paleface" you quote obviously had not been, either.

A peyote meeting is not a "party" or "hassle" or any other kind of orgy, but a religious ceremony during which more time is spent on long prayers and the singing of sacred songs than in the consumption of peyote . . .

DAVID P. MCALLESTER Assistant Professor of Anthropology Wesleyan University Middletown, Conn.

Sir:

. . . Your article repeats a familiar pattern which has been recurring for over a half-century. Whenever the peyote cult has been accepted by another tribe, the local Indian Christian converts, wishing to please the missionaries, from whom they receive secondhand clothes and other handouts, report "sex orgies," "deaths," "insanity," etc., caused by peyote. No scientists have been able to discover these evils. I have checked dozens of such reports and found them all either pure fabrications or misrepresentations . . .

OMER C. STEWART

Associate Professor of Anthropology University of Colorado Boulder, Colo.

Those Eyes Sir:

With that mouth and those eyes, is University of Toronto's Chancellor Vincent Massey [TIME,, June 18] no relation to U.S. cinema's Canadian-born Raymond Massey?

(MRS.) ELEANOR P. A. SOTHERN

Story, Wyo.

Forced Labor

Sir:

The picture published in the June 18 issue of TIME, illustrating ten tugboats now being built at Viareggio, Italy for Soviet Russia, with the accompanying few words captioned, "Help for the Enemy," is not doing justice to . . . the effort that the Italian government is making in order to keep Italy on the right side of the fence . . .

The kind of work you have publicized is forced upon Italy by the Peace Treaty--of which the U.S. is one of the signatory parties . . .

LUIGI SOSSI

New York City

Onward Syria!

Sir:

Previous to last summer, even I might have been misled by such statements as appeared in the article on Syria [TIME, June 18]: "Few countries in the world are more backward than Syria." However, having now seen with my own eyes conditions and the true situation, I must register my definite protest against such an irresponsible, unfactual statement . . . Everywhere were evidences of economic projects; new, modern industrial plants . . . irrigation projects; significant agricultural development, acres and acres of land being given over to growing cotton, tobacco and other crops which are making their impact upon a world market.

According to official U.S. figures, 32% of the budget of Syria is going into economic projects . . .

FRANK MARIA

President

Syrian and Lebanese American Federation of The Eastern States Lowell, Mass.

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