Bread v. Stone
Sirs:
As subscriber to TIME since its first number, I request a few lines' space to express dismay at the suggestion of a Reverend to collect $500,000 for the purpose of erecting a statue of Christ upon some mountain peak.
This today when children faint in schools for lack of food, teachers seek death from high places in desperation of the future and lone workers crawl starved into haystacks to die. Who may ask pence for a Stone while children cry for bread? WHO said: Feed my lambs, and again: Feed the hungry?
Let us call a moratorium on all monuments till a day come when it shall no more be said as once in Judea that: foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of man has not where to lay his head. Across these United States churches with their cushioned pews glow warmly while underfed thousands huddle in packing cases and on cold plazas.
Millions give, even their pence, but unless
I we act promptly, compellingly. disregarding politics, high finance or creeds, charity will be but
a millstone around our necks in "that day."
I am neither an atheist nor a communist, only a bewildered Christian and an ashamed capitalist.
ANNA JOHNSON KINGHAN Erwinna, Pa.
Vice President's Flag
Sirs:
More TIME-history about the Vice President's flag, as partly revealed in Dec. 26 issue, p. 2, col. i.
The present silk flag was gift of San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, to replace one that had stood through man)' stormy administrations in vice presidential offices for approximately 60 years.
Original was gift of California silk manufacturers and, of course, made from product of California silk worms. No such pretense is made for present gorgeous emblem which San Francisco Chamber was glad to send on to take its turn as sentinel beside the Vice President's desk, relieving its brother that had become tattered & torn (actually) by merely standing still.
C. B. DODDS Chamber of Commerce San Francisco, Calif.
California's Johnson
Sirs:
The following readers of TIME would like to have you print a biographical sketch of Hiram W. Johnson, senior Senator from California.
ALLEN C. LATSON MEDFORD F. AITON J. C. REBHOLTZ H. CURRIE R. R. VEALE San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs:
The undersigned would appreciate a fair and comprehensive survey of the senatorial career of the Hon. Hiram Johnson, senior Senator from this State.
CYRUS E. ROSE EUGENE A. OSTAGGI E. R. GRANT F. P. FOOTE JAMES FERRARIO San Rafael, Calif.
The record of Senator Hiram Warren ("Hi") Johnson of California is as follows:
Bom: At Sacramento, Calif., Sept. 2, 1866.
Career: His father, oldtime California politician and one-term (1895-97) Congressman, long served Southern Pacific R. R. as counsel. His mother was of French descent. He left the University of California his junior year to become a shorthand reporter. Studying law in his father's office he was admitted to the bar in 1888, moved to San Francisco 14 years later where he has since made his home. As a young assistant to Francis Joseph Heney, famed prosecutor, he helped drive out San Francisco's ''boodlers" and convicted notorious Abe Ruef of bribery after Heney had been shot in the courtroom. A born crusader, he turned on the Southern Pacific to break its political hold on the State. As a result he and his father were not on speaking terms for over ten years. On the railroad issue he stumped the State in a little red automobile, was elected Governor in 1910, re-elected in 1914. His term produced great reforms--the initiative and referendum, the direct primary, workmen's compensation, woman's suffrage.
In 1912 he went to the Republican national convention at Chicago, clashed violently with the Old Guard that renominated Taft, bolted with Theodore Roosevelt whom he had never met. He accepted the Bull Moose vice-presidential nomination. In 1916, still Governor, he was back in the Republican fold when Charles Evans Hughes visited California under Old Guard auspices. They failed to meet, though for some time they were under the same hotel roof. Johnsonites were insulted. Hughes lost the State and the Presidency while Johnson was elected to the Senate where he has served continuously since 1917. In 1920 he missed a White House chance when he turned down the Republican vice-presidential nomination which then went to Calvin Coolidge. His political and personal hatred of Herbert Hoover is proverbial. In November's campaign, he deserted his party, supported the Roosevelt New Deal. To suggestions that the G. O. P. punish him for disloyalty, he hotly retorted: "Talk of reading some of us out of the Republican Party is all poppycock. It's the other way around. ... If those managing and manipulating the Republican party don't stop their clamor and change their attitude we'll read them out. . . . It's got to be a liberalized party; 'its got to recognize the common people."
In Congress: He is a vehement individualist, voting his own convictions, following no one. leading no one. The Western insurgents can count on him no more than can the Old Guard. He plumes himself on his Progressivism, yet he is narrowly nationalistic to the core. When he entered the Senate he promptly enlisted in the "Battalion of Death" against the Versailles Treaty. Because like many another Californian he hates & fears Japan, he believes in the biggest possible Navy for the U. S. and therefore fought the London Naval Treaty (1930) almost singlehanded. He dislikes all foreign powers, suspects them of sinister plots against the U. S. Mention of the World Court infuriates him. His overseas outlook is almost precisely that of William Randolph Hearst whose newspapers glorify him.
As a domestic legislator, his greatest single achievement was the Boulder Canyon Project Act which he turned into an onslaught upon the 'Tower Trust." [His satisfaction soured when the project's name was changed to Hoover Dam.] As a good Californian, he votes for top-notch duties to protect Californian products, seeks to exclude all Filipinos.
He voted for: War (1917), 18th Amendment (1917), Volstead Act (1919), Jones Act (1929), Restrictive Immigration (1924), Soldier Bonus (1924), 15-Cruiser Bill (1929), Tax Reduction (1924, 1929), Reapportionment (1929), Farm Board (1929), Tariff (1930), Muscle Shoals (1931), Direct Jobless Relief (1932), Anti-injunction Labor Bill (1932).
He voted against: Debt Moratorium (1931), Hughes for Chief Justice (1930). He was paired against the R. F. C. Act (1932).
He votes Dry, drinks Dry.
Legislative Hobby: Federal supervision of private foreign loans. Late in 1931, he initiated a Senate investigation of U. S. investments abroad, raked "international bankers'' severely over the coals for their part in U. S. losses.
In appearance he is short (5 ft. 6 in.), chunky (160 lb.), with a white crest above a round, deep-lined, bespectacled face. He favors brown suits with white-braided vests. Like Coolidge, he smokes cigars in paper holders. Next to Idaho's Borah, he is the Senate's most forceful orator. No casual debater, he carefully prepares his infrequent addresses, draws a big gallery. His delivery is marked by physical violence, his whole body vibrating, his pointed finger shooting skyward. His voice is loud and clear, with words coming out like bursts from a machine gun. He sprinkles exclamatory "Sirl's" throughout his text and makes homely words crack like a whip. His humor is cold, caustic, unsmiling. A speech by him is a highly emotional event for all concerned.
Outside Congress: He lives at No. 857 Green Street in San Francisco, swims regularly at the Olympic Club. His Washington home on Maryland Ave. S. E., half a block from the Capitol plaza is an old renovated brick house filled with French period furniture. There he lives with his wife, the former Minnie McNeal who, aged 17, married him, aged 20, in 1886. Their two sons practice law in San Francisco. Worried about his waist line, he works daily in the Senate gymnasium. Joe, his Chinese cook, he has had for over 20 years. He gets about in a Locomobile town car. He lost two cars by fire when he was living at Calvert Manor, outside Washington which, much to his ire, was bought from under him by Arkansas' late Senator Caraway. He sallies occasionally into official society, entertains friends at home with current cinema hits on his private standard-sized projector. He is well off. not rich.
Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: a shrewd, industrious legislator of independent intelligence but devoid of leadership: a good hater who is roundly hated; a voluble Progressive afraid to take a positive stand on the Mooney-Billings case in his own backyard: a would-be President embittered by successive failures: a loud vital force who will leave a large imprint on the Senate, if not U. S. history. His term expires March 4, 1935. -- ED.
Scott & Christ
Sirs:
I expected a lucid discussion of Technocracy in this week's issue of TIME, but was woefully disappointed. Your article, unlike almost everything else in TIME, was inept, amateurish.
I found two and one half columns devoted to the past life of Howard Scott, one half column devoted to the future, if any, of Technocracy.
Obscure as may be the theory of Technocracy, your article was more befuddled. Howard Scott may be a charlatan, but does this condemn the findings of the much-discussed Columbia coterie?
While the simile may be farfetched; I am reminded of a scoffer who might have said: ''This guy Christ used to be a carpenter. What does he know about God?"
PAT FRANK Chicago, Ill.
Subscriber Frank errs in his statistic. Of three columns, just one went to Scott The Man.-- ED.
Sirs: .
. . . The Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, was not a Fellow of Oxford nor did he have the benefit of our five Jesuit schools. Yet his ideas had a little something in them,. . . .
That TIME should murder sleep of ignorance, yes -- we might even say, Bellerophon like, it has been the stalwart steed of many a noble young thought -- but -- to base its attack on the one real thought that came out of the depression, upon a lack of credentials!!! How unfortunate, those seeking refuge in the Ark could not prove they had come over on the Mayflower!
JEREMIAH ETIENNE Washington, D. C.
Sirs:
Have read your article in the Dec. 26 issue of TIME, entitled "Technocrat" with interest. In a nation tired and disgusted after three years of starvation in the midst of plenty, a plan which promises as sweeping economic and social reforms as does Technocracy is bound to produce an enormous wave of enthusiasm, and TIME does well to give it extended space.
But why waste an entire column of newsprint in an attempt to tear down the character of the man behind the movement? Surely it is no criticism of Howard Scott that he failed to be born with a gold spoon in his mouth. Jesus Christ began His career as a carpenter. . . .
It might be of interest to your readers to know that Technocracy is far from a new idea. Edward Bellamy, in his books Looking Backward and Equality, written 50 years ago. gives a clear and complete picture of the plan in operation. . . .
GEORGE N. HEFLICK Mantua, Ohio
A doctor who offered a sure-cure for cancer would be required by sensible people to present scientific credentials. Or. a doctor who predicted that the world was doomed soon to perish from cancer would be required by sensible people to present scientific credentials.
"Technocracy" was a diagnosis of the economic structure allegedly based on scientific calculation. "Technocracy" was also an obscurely defined cure for an otherwise fatal condition. TIME asked for the No. 1 Technocrat's credentials and reported what it found.
The analogy with Jesus Christ, apart from considerations of blasphemy, seems to TIME to illustrate the befuddlement of those who grasp so eagerly and pitifully at a means of salvation which has not yet been announced.
This befuddlement arises mainly from failure to distinguish between the serious industrial and economic problem which intelligent folk have long admitted, and the particular "ism" adumbrated by a word. Technocracy, which was invented by William Henry Smyth.
TIME did not undertake to present a treatise on the development of the machine and its relation to human labor. Numerous books and articles on that subject had appeared long before "Technocracy" broke into print on Aug. 21, 1932. The scientific findings of "Technocracy'' have yet to appear. What TIME did do was to summarize all that was newsworthy (i. e. what little had been specifically revealed) as to "Technocracy's"' scare-&-cure. -- ED.
Sirs:
Just a personal note of to thank you for the information in your current issue about Howard Scott and Technocracy.
Sadly puzzled for the past three months to ascertain what the shooting was about, I had given up in despair, when my copy of TIME came to the desk. . . .
What a mess this world is in! And with what delight Voltaire and Dean Swift would report its befuddlement! We are in such a state of jitters that our religious leaders are falling for Buchmanism, our industrial, financial and economic leaders solemnly discussing "Technocracy," and our political leaders quarreling about decimal points in beer.
Your little magazine (I mean little in format) seems to be the only ray of sanity in a very dark world. I thank you and congratulate you.
MALCOLM W. BINGAY The Detroit Free Press Detroit, Mich.
To Editor Bingay, thanks for thanks.-- ED.
Duck Soup
Sirs:
After sending in a two-year subscription to TIME so that I could get my news complete, concise and readable, picture my dismay in trying to decipher your paragraph on Technocrat Howard Scott, The Man-- "obfuscate," "rodo-montade," (my dictionary gives the adjective as "rodomont"), "ratiocinated," "transmogrified," "pupated."
That barrage of tongue-twisters may be duck soup for Chancellor Chamberlain and "to the more responsible and more informed section of opinion in the United States," but are they not a bit heavy for the mere Middle West?
BYRON SMITH Valparaiso, Ind.
Sirs:
Deep in an armchair, with a cocktail at my elbow, I relished TIME'S report on Technocracy. . . . Aside from being informative, the article was TIME-worthy in another respect. Perhaps it was the amiable cocktail, but when I came to the word "obfuscated." I smiled. And when, in the same paragraph, I reached "rodomontade," I chuckled aloud. . . .
WILLARD C. STIEVATER Buffalo, N. Y.
This has been done by numerous writers at great length. Brief bibliography: Recent Social Trends (published Tan. 2. 1933), Vol. 1. Chapter 6, by Ralph G. liurlin and Meredith B. Givins. Thorstein Yeblen: Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904; The Instinct of Workmanship, 1918: 7 he Place of Science in Modern Civilization, 1910; The Engineers & the Price System, 1921. Frederick Soddy: Wealth, Virtual Wealth & Debt, 1926. Fred Henderson: Economic Consequences of Power Production, 1931. Alvin Harvey Hansen: Economic Stabilisation in an Unbalanced World, 1932. Paul H. Douglas & Aaron Director: Problem of Unemployment, 1931. Leon P. Alford: In Recent Economic Chanties, 1926, Chapter 2; Leo Wolman in Recent Economic Chanties, Chapter 6; also George E. Barnett, a publication of the Harvard University Press on Machine and Labor. Important magazine articles are also numerous. The general subject is discussed abroad under the heading of "Rationalization," and a report on the "Social Aspects of Rationalization" published by the International Labor Office at Geneva in 1931, will serve as an introduction to the foreign field. The best general digest of material published in this country may be found in an article in the Monthly Labor Review published by the U. S. Department of Labor in November 1932 on "Technological Changes, Productivity of Labor and Labor Displacement."
In February of the same year the Monthly Labor Review published a lengthy bibliography on "Dismissal Compensation" which skirts the same held. See also issues for October and December 1931, January, April, June and August 1932. Other important articles are a series by Rexford G. Tugwell on the "Theory of Occupational Obsolescence" beginning in the Political Science Quarterly in June 1031; an article by Robert G. Myers in the Journal of Political Economy, August 1929: an article by Clague & Couper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1931: studies by Elizabeth F. Baker in the American Economics Review, 1930, by Paul H. Douglas in the American Educationist 1930, by Franklin Hobbs in the American Bankers Association Journal 1930 and by Michael Scheler in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1931.
Readers lacking the time or inclination to explore this bibliography will find in FORTUNE for December 1932 an article ("Obsolete Men") dealing popularly with the general problem of technological unemployment. The FORTUNE article is not concerned with "Technocracy," but presents the underlying problem which "Technocracy" has recently attempted to appropriate as its own.
*Permission to publish granted.--ED.
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