"? Ya leyo TIME?"

Sirs:

In the name of our countrymen, we want to express our deep appreciation for letting the American people and the liberty-loving world know (TIME, May 22) the life of shame that Hondurians are suffering under the tyranny of Dictator Tiburcio Carias Andino.

TIME is doing more for democracy and true Pan Americanism than all the "beautiful speeches" about democracy and freedom that we have been listening to over the radio. TIME has raised our hearts and hopes, and has given us a determination to fight for the freedom and decency that every man deserves anywhere in the world.

Although your magazine is blacklisted and confiscated by the Gestapo of Carias, copies are constantly sneaked in and translations that take the underground channels are made, thus reaching the rich and the poor. The usual greeting of "good morning" has been replaced by " ?Ya leyo TIME?" ("Have you read TIME?").

You have taken the only course there is, to unite the Americas through the people and foster true democracy, since the attempt to unite them by dealing with dictators is a complete failure.

CARLOS PERDOMO Ex-Secretary of the Honduras Legation in Washington

GUILLERMO DAVILA CORDOVA Attorney at Law

FRANCISCO HINESTROSA M. Ex-Consul of Honduras in Belize, British Honduras Guatemala City

Niffnaw

Sirs:

TIME (July 24) gets to me two days ahead of time in publication date, but farther than that ahead in vocabulary. What is "niffnaw?" Webster's New International gives only 600,000 words, but not this one.

WALTER C. EELLS Washington

P: Niffnaw, a U.S. colloquialism, means a teapot-tempest. It may possibly be derived from the old Scottish dialect word niffnaff, meaning "trifle " example (from a poem by Scottish Poet Allan Ramsay):

Dear lassie, it is but daffin To had thy wooer up ay niff naffin

--ED.

Molecule Atomized

Sirs:

Close examination of Artist Artzybasheff's molecule in TIME [July 31] reveals its in finitesimal structure--an atom and its whirling components of nucleus and satellite electrons (see cut).

STANLEY P. McMiNN Managing Editor

CHARLES F. DREYER Art Director Electronic Industries New York City

God Bless the Heifers

Sirs:

In TIME (July 24) under RELIGION, I read with heart-warming interest your account of the "down-to-earth" postwar planning of the Church of the Brethren. Surely they are on the right track; the heifers (God bless them) will show the way.

(MRS.) C. R. WALKER Gunnison, Colo.

Sirs:

... In my opinion that is real commonsense, practical Christianity. May it increase.

ANN L. WURTELE Goderich, Ontario

Swearing Chaplain

Sirs:

It's a good thing Chaplain Gatlin wasn't around when your July 10 issue reached me here in Italy or he might have heard a chaplain swear!

Your uncritical quoting of his story that the Navy asked for his resignation because he wanted to preach the gospel implies that all of the chaplains who haven't been asked to resign from the Navy either do not care to preach the gospel or have submitted to Navy censorship.

I know that you are not naive enough to believe either of these alternatives to be the case.

E. A. DE BORDENAVE Chaplain, U.S.N.R.

FPO

New York City

Postwar Netherlands

Sirs:

In TIME (July 3) you published an article on The Netherlands which, in certain respects, contains statements at variance with facts which have come to us.

The article states, "few [Dutchmen) expect 6 TIME, AUGUST 21, 1944 any strong demand that the Queen give up her throne." Our information from the Dutch underground, as well as the testimony of those Netherlanders fortunate enough to escape from Holland, has brought to light no demand whatsoever. . . .

The article further seems to link the proclamation of a state of siege with the postponement of elections--postponement because the Government "is none too sure of its reception at home."

The state of siege has no connection whatsoever with the postponement of elections. The former will be an act of military necessity to facilitate the task of the Allied Supreme Command in every possible way. Popular elections will be held as soon as the Civil Election Registers are recompiled. In the interim, moreover, the entire Cabinet will resign upon arrival in The Netherlands so that any changes, compatible with the public will at the moment, may at once be made.

N. A. C. SLOTEMAKER DE BRUINE

Director

The Netherlands Information Bureau New York City

Stack Sacked

Sirs:

Chalk up another error for TIME. U.S.S. Solace, the hospital ship pictured in TIME (July 31) is not the former Clyde-Mallory Iroquois as stated. The Iroquois (and sister ship Skawnee) were double-stackers.

DR. A. E. ROSENTHAL Miami

P: Lay that chalk down. The Iroquois was indeed a double-stacker, but one stack was sacked when it became the Solace, because the Navy liked it that way.--ED.

Cockroach DDTs

Sirs:

In TIME (July 31) ... you state that the new insecticide DDT is deadly against the gypsy-moth caterpillar, black fly and mosquito. You have overlooked the fact that it is also deadly against the honey bee. . . . According to tests made at Michigan State College it has been found effective against flies, mosquitoes, ants, berry moths, leaf hoppers, thrips, and even rose chafers, but they have also found it ineffective against aphids, plant lice, Mexican bean beetle, and it just makes cockroaches drunk. . . .

BOB NIEHAUS Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sirs:

. . . Could Entomologist C. F. Campbell inform your readers whether, after the application of DDT in 20 acres of timberland, the birds that usually appear in them have gone elsewhere? .

"Wonder insecticides" probably have their consequences.

L. L. MCARTHUR JR.

Chicago

P: Still in the experimental stage, DDT does indeed kill bees and certain other beneficial insects, probably also affects the bird population by cutting down its source of food.--ED.

Prodigy Sidis

Sirs: Anent the late William James Sidis [TIME, July 31], your description of him was some what sympathetic, and those of us who knew him as a Cambridge schoolmate are grateful it was not worse.

You might have revealed the fact that his father, Boris Sidis, realized his wrongdoing long before Professor Terman. Shortly after the ending of World War I, I met Boris Sidis in California, and he asked me to expose Bill to a mixed group of young people in order to help the boy overcome his gynophobia (fear of women).

In 1915, in Cambridge, Bill wrote a treatise on an ideal social economy, entitled it "Hesperia" (which his schoolmates nicknamed "Hysteria"). He began by locating his ideal community in a desirable latitude and longitude, and outlined many working economic features such as the staggered day of rest, etc., which seemed novel to us at the time. Later, by coincidence, the Soviet system embodied this and other devices in its own administration. . . .

Bill was a true seeker after knowledge. His burning power of pure rationalization often startled a listener out of his skin. He never posed or preached. But he seemed to invite the tormenting ridicule of many who could not understand him, and he was sensitive. Had conditions been different, the contemporary world might have been a gainer.

BEN TRYNIN Pasadena, Calif.

Christianizing Japan

Sirs:

In your report (TIME, July 31) of an article I wrote recently for Christianity and Crisis you have me saying that the word lamb in Japanese is an "epithet of contempt and derision . . . perhaps the vilest word in the language." What I actually said is that one of the Japanese words for sheep is such an epithet.

The torii is spoken of as though it were Buddhist, but it is Shinto.

You impute to me a thesis that the reason Christian missionaries to Japan have converted only one-half of 1% of the population is largely because they have presented Christianity in terms incomprehensible or repellent to the Japanese. I did not say that, and it is not my opinion.

For the rest of the article, all the qualifiers I had used to depict changes and revisions as mere possibilities were stripped away, thus turning them into measures which I advocate. This is distortion. . . .

GEORGE S. NOSS

Columbia University New York City

P: In attempting to report briefly Ex-Missionary Noss's sensible and newsworthy suggestions for adapting the outward symbols of Christianity to Japanese tastes and traditions, TIME omitted his discussion of the more familiar reasons for slow missionary progress in Japan (traditional anti-foreignism,multiplicity of competing sects). TIME is sorry if it inadvertently made Mr. Noss appear overly confident, or overly critical of his fellow missionaries, but doubts that many readers will misconstrue the constructive spirit of his proposals.--ED.

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