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This befuddlement arises mainly from failure to distinguish between the serious industrial and economic problem which intelligent folk have long admitted, and the particular "ism" adumbrated by a word. Technocracy, which was invented by William Henry Smyth.
TIME did not undertake to present a treatise on the development of the machine and its relation to human labor. Numerous books and articles on that subject had appeared long before "Technocracy" broke into print on Aug. 21, 1932. The scientific findings of "Technocracy'' have yet to appear. What TIME did do was to summarize all that was newsworthy (i. e. what little had been specifically revealed) as to "Technocracy's"' scare-&-cure. — ED.
Sirs:
Just a personal note of to thank you for the information in your current issue about Howard Scott and Technocracy.
Sadly puzzled for the past three months to ascertain what the shooting was about, I had given up in despair, when my copy of TIME came to the desk. . . .
What a mess this world is in! And with what delight Voltaire and Dean Swift would report its befuddlement! We are in such a state of jitters that our religious leaders are falling for Buchmanism, our industrial, financial and economic leaders solemnly discussing "Technocracy," and our political leaders quarreling about decimal points in beer.
Your little magazine (I mean little in format) seems to be the only ray of sanity in a very dark world. I thank you and congratulate you.
MALCOLM W. BINGAY The Detroit Free Press Detroit, Mich.
To Editor Bingay, thanks for thanks.— ED.
Duck Soup
Sirs:
After sending in a two-year subscription to TIME so that I could get my news complete, concise and readable, picture my dismay in trying to decipher your paragraph on Technocrat Howard Scott, The Man— "obfuscate," "rodo-montade," (my dictionary gives the adjective as "rodomont"), "ratiocinated," "transmogrified," "pupated."
That barrage of tongue-twisters may be duck soup for Chancellor Chamberlain and "to the more responsible and more informed section of opinion in the United States," but are they not a bit heavy for the mere Middle West?
BYRON SMITH Valparaiso, Ind.
Sirs:
Deep in an armchair, with a cocktail at my elbow, I relished TIME'S report on Technocracy. . . . Aside from being informative, the article was TIME-worthy in another respect. Perhaps it was the amiable cocktail, but when I came to the word "obfuscated." I smiled. And when, in the same paragraph, I reached "rodomontade," I chuckled aloud. . . .
WILLARD C. STIEVATER Buffalo, N. Y.