Letters: Aug. 1, 1927

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TIME said: "The Scouts . . . are often pointed to as a potent reserve behind the national arms for peace or war." The Scout Manual, in answering the question, "What is a Boy Scout?" says: "A scout is a patriot and is always ready to serve his country at a minute's notice. ... He desires a strong body, an alert mind and an unconquerable spirit so that he may serve his country in any need. . . . A scout chooses as his motto 'Be Prepared.'"

In deference, however, to many letters received from Scouts and others, TIME will not list Scouts again under ARMY & NAVY. ED.

Mosquitoes Are Few

Sirs: I am amused by the fervor with which some TIME readers advertise the mosquitoes and flies in their altitudes. (Of TIME, July 11). The absence of insects of that nature in the Black Hills is more properly attributable to our lack of stagnant waters than to altitude.

For instance, the names of our streams indicate their character. Rapid River runs through Rapid City. Fall River, originally the River of Falling Water, flows through Hot Springs. Other similarly fast streams have their names preempted by historical events.

Mosquitoes are few in the Black Hills.

FRANCIS CASE

Hot Springs, S. Dak.

Correspondence with Altman

Sirs:

If the magazine were not otherwise worth the price of subscription it has been worth it in placing me in touch with Mr. Stanley B. Altman of Albany, N. Y., an Atheist Jew.

I answered as you know, Mr. Altman's letter to TIME [TIME, May 30] requesting you, if possible to give him a "sound rea son why he should embrace a deity which offered no evidence of existence."

For some reason you did not see fit to publish my letter although you commented favorably upon it in a private communication, saying it was "a very good letter" and that you were forwarding it to Mr. Altman.

Your doing so brought about a lengthy and weighty correspondence. Recently in a small circle of friends I referred to TIME and this related affair; and the consensus of opinion was that yours is an atheistic medium, pure and simple, sponsored by and for the purpose of promoting Atheism, hence your placing me and others no doubt in direct communication with these professed and confessed, so-called "Truth Seekers," thereby causing them to release a batch of atheistic literature. My friends agree that it is one method of distribution. I warmly defended TIME.

Singularly perhaps I believe Mr. Altman is sincerely a truth seeker, but he will have to let go of his very elementary books before he can hope to progress. He hasn't learned to read the Bible yet, let alone criticize and dissect it.

However he is honest and gentlemanly enough to apologize to me for calling me "foolish" because I disagree with him.

Also in his last letter he challenges Christians to "Show your colors or shut up."

We will, I assure him, "Show our colors, but whether he will ever be able to distinguish them from the blue sky above is another question. As a matter of fact they are so high now that they are beyond his low line of vision and have floated there since the beginning of the year 1 A. D. nay since Abel built his altar which was sometime B. C.