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Sirs: You evidently have a large list of readers in York, Pa., for much comment has been aroused by your article in TIME, Dec. 24, on ''Hexes.'' Scores of feature writers from the metropolitan press have given York super-sensational publicity the country-over. It's the kind of stuff about which these '"artists" can give their modern but characteristic vocabulary free reign. By adroit manipulation of words they give the average reader the impression that York is a backwoods community, unintelligent and saturated with superstition. They seek to create in the reader's mind general conclusions by featuring few and isolated instances. Your article is much more fair, however, for you do not attempt to single out York as the only community where belief in the powers of darkness exists in some fraction of the population. You also give due credit to Chicago, New York and Atlantic City. It is very strange, however, that even in your article you mention beliefs which you consider current of which we who have lived here for years have never heard. Neither I nor any of my friends have ever seen the barbers take care of the harvest of hair in the manner you describe. Neither have we found any shortage of black cats in our last rural cat census. . . . No people as generally superstition ridden as Yorkers have been described could march along in the forefront of civic achievement and industrial leadership, as York is doing. Witness a model Y. M. C. A. building costing $800,000, a new hotel worth $1,300,000, a new $1,200,000 hospital now building—all the funds being raised by popular subscription within the last five years. All this gives the lie to hex and witchcraft publicity artists. In industry York has the proud distinction of national leadership in the production of refrigeration machinery, water turbines, bank vault doors, artificial teeth, wall paper, baker's machinery and auto tire chains. For the real facts of the characteristics of York County's population, we recommend our critics to read Caret Garrett's authoritative article in the Saturday Evening Post of Oct. 13 in which, after an exhaustive investigation, he says that York County is one of the two bright spots in the entire country where agriculture and industry are uniformly prosperous. E. A. null Secretary York Chamber of Commerce York, Pa. TIME would not state that those who save their shorn locks, lest a bird build her nest with them and bewitch the rightful owner, are the same men that have marched York to prosperity.—ED. Potbellied, Red-nosed Sirs:
Your article on Christmas in the issue of TIME Dec. 24, was good as far as it went. Why didn't you, assuming that you know it, tell of the group of Anti-Christians in Europe a few centuries ago who substituted "X" for Christ, and finally Xmas the feast of "X," in place of Christmas, the feast of Christ and how careless and indifferent Christians actually use this blasphemous term?
Why didn't you discuss the fact, and deplore the fact, that old potbellied, red-nosed Santa Claus with his ridiculous reindeer have been substituted for the Christ Child, the Virgin, the Three Wise Men with so many unthinking Christians?