Isms

Sirs:

I read with interest E. Vance Clark's letter giving Banker Childs' childish illustration and over-simplified definitions of socialism, communism, fascism and New Dealism. I, too, have been regularly receiving the reactionary propaganda letters circulated by his banking firm. To me they reveal an amazing lack of understanding of current conditions and needs. . . .

Our top-flight industrial and financial tycoons would be more useful citizens . . . if they could but be persuaded to take a course of study in political economy and the various current social theories. . . .

For a beginner like Childs, I would recommend, at first, simple light fiction like Bellamy's Looking Backward and Equality. . . . After digesting these, he might pass on to the classical economists, and for dessert swallow a bit of Henry George, Veblen, Stuart Chase, Coyle, Loeb, and the Brookings Reports. Until his course is completed, Banker Childs should stick to his bond business, as his lectures on political economy can be no more helpful than Hitler's on democracy.

IRVING H. FLAMM Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

Banker E. Vance Clark chortled so heartily over the definitions of Socialism, Communism, Fascism, New Dealism as taught by C. F. Childs & Co., investment dealers, that he fails to note the absence of any definition of Capitalism or Old Dealism. How would this do: Under Old Dealism: the bankers milked the cows, then took them on mortgages, but kindly permitted the farmers to feed them in return for the manure.

JOSEPH F. DERF Cumberland, Wis.

Sirs:

Supplementing Childs' bulletins on isms, communicated by Banker E. Vance Clark, may I add:

Under Hooverism you sell both cows for taxes and eat turnips.

WEBB WALDRON Westport, Conn.

Sirs:

. . . There should be one more heading:--Under Capitalism you sell one cow and buy a bull.

T. W. HARRON San Francisco, Calif.

King Jazz

Sirs:

After reading your account of Professor William Louis Bailey's rendition of the New

Testament [TIME, Jan. 30], I should like to suggest that he name it the King Jazz Version.

LEWIS BROWNE Santa Monica, Calif.

Ignorant, Screwy

Sirs:

TIME brags that seven out of ten of its readers are college graduates. After reading so many ignorant and screwy letters written to you, I don't know whether it's smart for me to finish college.

MALVERN DORINSON Livermore, Calif.

Chamberlain-Bonnet Axis

Sirs:

Can you inform a puzzled reader whether the greater menace to Democracy lies in the Berlin-Rome axis, or in the Chamberlain-Bonnet axis?

KENNETH BROWN Chicago, Ill.

Mad-Dog School

Sirs:

Harvard's Hooton . . . has tooted dangerous stuff [TIME, Jan. 30]. If minuscule anthropometric differences exist between prisoners (not always criminals) and the non-penal population, so are body measurements likely to differ between grocery clerks and mailmen, bellboys and musicians, the rich and the poor.

It is a far cry between body measurements and criminal behavior. Many ofthe physical anomalies that prisoners do show can be attributed to vitamin deficiency, general impoverishment during youth, sometimes to police sticks.

Regardless of Dr. Hooton's scientific approach, the public will find the implications clear: that criminals and prisoners are a debased lot; they were born that way; there is little hope for them. Advocates of the Mad-Dog school of penology finally have contemporary textbook backing.

DONALD CLEMMER Senior Sociologist Illinois State Penitentiary Joliet, Ill.

Dies

Sirs:

Your choice of a word to rhyme with "Dies" appears to me a little awkward. May I suggest "Lies" ?

D. P. DUDLEY Buchanan, Va.

Hitler's Dummheit

Sirs:

Herr Hitler is surely in need of a few scholarly advisers to save him from faux pas and Dummheiten [stupidities]. Unwittingly he has conferred royal titles on every last German Jew by his decree that all males must take the name Israel and all females the name Sarah.

He probably overlooked the fact that "Sarah" means "Princess" and "Israel" means "Prince of God" in Hebrew. But what else could one expect from one of his social background? . . .

JAMES B. THOMAS Winter Park, Fla.

TIME'S Index

Sirs:

A SUBSCRIBER'S SALUTE. TIME'S INDEX [TIME, FEB. 13] APPEARS TO BE GREATEST SINGLE AID TO BUSINESS FORECASTING DEVELOPED TO DATE. PLEASE SEND COLLECT DETAILED INDEX INFORMATION. RECORD AND PRINCIPLES USED.

ROY B. EDDY Des Moines, Iowa

Sirs:

. . . I believe that your Index fills a need for an easily grasped statistical description of business conditions.

DAVID L. KAPLAN New York City

Sirs: Please.

EUGENE W. SLOAN Chief Division of Savings Bonds Treasury Department Washington, D. C.

Sirs:

. . . Your Index is of particular interest to me since I have for a number of years made a study of bank figures in attempting to analyze the business trend. I should like to congratulate you on this valuable addition to your Business & Finance section of TIME.

A. E. BORNEMAN Advertising Manager Kidder, Peabody & Co. New York City

Sirs:

. . . As an observer of the changing business scene, I shall welcome into my home another index to supplement and affirm--or disaffirm--other series. . . .

RUDOLPH H. SJOGREN Worcester, Mass.

Sirs:

. . . I am particularly interested in your choice of Townsend-Skinner & Co. as a service company. Will TIME'S Index illustrate the Skinner theory ?

LAWRENCE W. HEINLE Toledo, Ohio

P: The Skinner Theory is based on the fact that, before a car is bought, a truckload of goods is shipped, a bridge built, money usually changes hands. Working from weekly bank statements, Mr. Skinner has evolved a number of formulas for watching this financial ebb & flow as it relates to various factors such as stock prices, bond prices, commodity prices, etc. TIME applies this same method not as a measure of business volume but of business' financial soundness--i.e., an Index of Business Conditions. The resulting Index differs radically from the several specialized indexes Mr. Skinner has developed for his own weekly service to clients.--ED.

Jesse James's Horse

Sirs:

We are grateful that TIME has seen fit to publicize the cruelty inflicted on animals in making the picture Jesse James [TIME, Feb. 6]. So many pictures are being shown in which horses are thrown violently to the ground; animals are made to fight furious battles, which they would never do in the wilds, and other cruel acts are depicted that it is time the motion picture industry was made to understand that such acts are contrary to public opinion. . . .

MARIE ROSATO Secretary Louisiana State Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals New Orleans, La.

Sirs:

Regarding the horse killed in Jesse James which Darryl Zanuck claims in print and letters was an "accident," it is difficult to see how he can thus construe an animal deliberately hurled over a cliff. I am no sentimentalist but as a decided movie fan I and many like me do not relish having an evening spoiled by witnessing scenes in which there is ill treatment of animals, and cross off the list all such pictures when there is advance information.

That incidents can be treated without loss of excitement was proved in Anthony Adverse when Director Mervyn Le Roy showed the team and coach plunging over a precipice by using a long shot of a dummy. The American Humane Association is to be congratulated . . . and TIME'S fair treatment of the matter is what we have come to expect from our invaluable weekly visitor.

(Miss) CURTIS WAGER-SMITH Willow Grove, Pa.

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