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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.