Letters, Dec. 30, 1935

Distinction Sirs:

May I correct a misstatement in TIME, Dec. 16, p. 19, concerning the "liar" charge against Major Berry?

I did not call Major Berry "an unqualified liar." What I did say was that his charge against me was "an unqualified lie." I stand squarely by the statement as I made it.

This distinction may seem technical but is none the less real. A man may make a statement which is "an unqualified lie" without the man himself being an "unqualified liar." . . .

A. P. HAAKE

Managing Director

National Association of

Furniture Manufacturers, Inc.

Chicago, Ill.

Managing Director Haake is entitled to whatever satisfaction he can derive from the distinction he makes.—ED.

Difference Sirs:

There is a difference between Stakhanovism and the speedup: The result of Stakhanovism is more goods for the workers, the result of the speed-up is more profits for the bosses.

Yours for the cool end of the poker.

MORRISON SHARP

Cambridge, Mass.

Hitler's Catholicism

Sirs:

On p. 21 of TIME, Dec. 2 you again refer to "Catholic Hitler."

Surely TIME'S intelligent and informed Religion editor could inform the foreign department that an ex-Catholic who has not communicated for years and who has openly attacked the Church can no longer be described as a Catholic without flat inaccuracy. To be a Catholic, as TIME knows well, is to be a member of the Catholic Church, and this membership is voluntary, not racial, nor an irrevocable product of onetime membership. Hitler is a de facto apostate Catholic, and his status is properly describable only as that, or simply as "ex-Catholic."

One sympathizes with TIME'S patience in meeting innumerable quibbles from readers, but this _ is one really seriously inaccurate and misleading statement. . . .

A. J. LYND

Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

Asked 'Is Hitler a Catholic?" the Archbishop of Munich, Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber replies: "The Archbishopric is not aware that Der Führer has ever withdrawn from the Catholic Church." Declared Herr Hitler's own Realmchancellery: "Adolf Hitler was born a Catholic, baptized a Catholic and is still a Catholic, although not a practising Catholic in the ordinary churchgoing sense." The latest German Wer Ist's (Who's Who) plainly lists Der Führer as "Catholic."—ED.

Breeding

Sirs:

I notice you often refer to certain people as being "well-born," "blue-blooded," and so on. For instance, in one sentence you speak of ". . . Host Stimson, the well-born Manhattan lawyer . . . and Undersecretary Phillips, the Boston blueblood. . . ." [TIME, Dec. 9.]