Mazo de la Roche will be affectionately remembered by Atlantic readers as the author of Jalna and Whiteoaks of Jalna. ▵ Educated at Cambridge and the University of London, William Orton served as an officer in the British army during the ’World War. Later he spent three years in the Ministry of Labor and in 1922 came to America, where he is now Professor of Economics at Smith College. Richard Shelton Kirby is Associate Professor of Civil Engineering in the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale.

A grandson of Thomas Huxley, Julian S. Huxley is well known for his distinguished work in the biological sciences. His most recent book is The Science of Life, written in collaboration with H. C. Wells. ▵ As a practising lawyer at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, F. Lyman Windolph has acquired a firsthand knowledge of country justice. Margaret Wilson is an American novelist living in Loudon. Her Able McLaughlins, published in 1923, won the Pulitzer Prize for that year. Reinhold Niebuhr lectures on the philosophy of religion at Union Theological Seminary and edits The World Tomorrow.Ken Nakazawa is in the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Southern California and has recently organized a Japanese section in the Los Angeles Art Museum. Samuel Spring has practised law in California, Massachusetts, and New York, where he has gathered a wide range of knowledge concerning the methods of financing industrial and commercial operations. ▵ Thirty years as headmaster of Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, have given Frederick Winsor decided opinions about boys who should go on to college and those who should not. Edward C. L. Hemsted is a British novelist who makes his home in Switzerland. He has traveled widely in the Ear East: at one time he was tutor to the sons of the Japanese Emperor.

Paul Doncocur, a distinguished member of the Society of Jesus, is Associate Editor of Les Études, Paris. During the war he served as a chaplain in the French army and was an intimate friend of Marshal Foch. Lawrence Sullivan is a seasoned Washington correspondent. ▵ An inveterate critic of unscientific fallacies, T. Swann Harding has contributed numerous articles to numerous magazines, both lay and professional. ▵ As a trapeze performer in a traveling circus. Jay Zarado has visited the far corners of the earth and taken part in many strange adventures. To risk her neck in the big top was all in the day’s work until a prosaic automobile accident sent her into enforced retirement. William B. Munro was Professor of History and Government at Harvard from 1920 to 1929; he now holds a similar professorship at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

While the January issue containing William Orton’s article, ‘The Level of Thirteen-YearOlds,’ was still on the news stands, the Columbia Broadcasting System unwittingly submitted documentary evidence to support Mr. Orton’s indictment of the radio. The evidence came in the form of a release ‘to 1400 newspapers’ and was accompanied by a blurb which read: ‘Hundreds of stories each week cover the high points of Columbia scoops-on-the-air — each of them news. The press release attached is one of the interesting flashes of the week. It is sent to you, first because it’s news, next because it’s Columbia . . . doing a job.’ And this was the job: —

The first international beauty broadcast will come from Paris to the WABC-Colunbia audience at 10.45 A.M., E.S.T., Thursday, January 20, when Barbara Gould, American beauty expert, formally opens her new Parisian salon. ... The opening of Barbara Gould’s Paris salon will mark the first of a series of American beauty centres. She plans to establish her headquarters in Lausanne, Zurich, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest;, and London.
Miss Gould believes that, although Continentals pay a great deal of attention to beauty, they are more concerned with their clothing than complexions.
Miss Gould likewise contends that there is an increasing number of American tourists who want American beauty methods, even abroad. Freach cafés feature ham and eggs, British bartenders know a Manhattan cocktail, and she says there seems to be no reason why American complexions should not be accepted as well.

In defense of thirteeen-year-olds.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
DEAR ATLANTIC, &EMDASH;
Someone ought to reply to Professor William Orton and show him up for the mental thirtcen-ycar-old that he is himself. He has devoted a great deal of thought to the subject of radio. Granted. He has read to a certain extent, though in a flippant way. He has talked with persons ‘on the inside.’ He subscribes to the Listener, price thrippence. Perhaps he possesses the BBC Year Book for 1981. If he has the 1930 book, let him turn to page 231 and learn something. last him turn his dial intelligently and patiently and, I might add, industriously. Let him put in from four to six or even more hours every night, let him ‘call the roll’ from coast to coast, and from 50 watts to 50 kilowatts, and he will have more respect for this great medium of communication.
He will be even more depressed than he now is at the way it is being so grossly abused by so many selfish and ignorant persons; but at the same time he will perceive what our cultural leaders are trying to accomplish and will be encouraged by the progress that has already been made. And the public, that, great proletariat of Binet-Simon thirteen-year-olds, is a factor that, cannot be disregarded. If for no other reason, it deserves consideration just because it makes radio financially possible.
I should like to ask Professor Orton how much he has contributed in a constructive way toward the improvement, of radio programmes. How many times has he telephoned or written to a station with a word of praise? How many times Juts he complimented an artist, or speaker upon his efforts to give pleasure?
Professor Orton, you, and others like you, can do a great deal to help bring about the improvement in programmes that you want. Write letters, plenty of them. And instead of finding fault with what you don’t like, praise what you do like. Get back to your dialing and don’t be so highbrow. There are lots of programmes that do not interest me, but I don’t sneer at the people who like that sort of thing.
My idea about the whole matter is this. First encourage the greatest number of persons to use their radios extensively. Then gradually lead them into an appreciation of the best. And if there still remain a considerable number who don’t want to be uplifted, why worry? The ability to interest persons of a mental age of thirteen years in useful knowledge is genius of a very high order. The broadcasters are doing it and doing an increasingly better job as time goes on.
Very truly yours,
C. M. FALCONER

Bureaucracy at its transcendental best.

BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR ATLANTIC , &emdah;
Notwithstanding the devastating truth of Lawrence Sullivan’s article on the Great American Bureaucracy, there is at times a higher intelligence in the government departments than appears to the ordinary citizen.
For instance, I was Engineer of Water Works and Sewers, or so-called Municipal Engineer, at Panama and Colon under the administration of I he First Isthmian Canal Commission. Local initiative of hiring and firing being taken away and transferred to Washington, I made application for three pipelaying foremen. Washington sent down three men who turned out to be respectively a drug clerk, an undertaker, and a tombstone cutter.
But my wrath and dismay turned into admiration for bureaucratic foresight, for the introduction of non-immunes brought back the yellow fever, and my drug clerk, undertaker, and tombstone cutter proved indispensable.
Very truly yours,
CARLETON E. DAVIS

Bureaucracy at its blundering worst.

HAKKISBURG, I LLINOIS
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Lawrence Sullivan’s article on ’The Great American Bureaucracy’ in the February Atlantic interested me exceedingly for two reasons, the first of which is that I have my own little incident to add to the amusing spectacle of a bureaucracy that lacks all intelligence and humor. On June 14, 1918, I was slightly wounded in action on the Western Front, Under date of May 17, 1919, about ten days after I bad returned to my Illinois home, the War Department solemnly and officially notified my parents that I had been wounded, that, it was not serious, and that they hoped I would soon be out of the hospital. This letter I still have in my possession for anyone who doubts the truth of the story.
ROSCOE PULLIAM

All large bodies move slowly.

FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Mr. Sullivan’s picture of Washington is so regrettably true — but I wonder if he ever tried to get an erroneous bill adjusted at any local gas officc?
CHARLES E. KELLOGG

A correction of detail which docs not alter the general charge.

WASHINGTON, D. C.
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Mr. Lawrence Sullivan’s genial article opens fire upon the foibles of Washington officialdom in a charming and diverting fashion. It is to be regretted that the humorous touch and disarming note that marked the opening of this paper were not sustained t hroughout. For under comedy we can forgive much that is not accurate. But when Mr. Sullivan doffs the mask of buffoonery .to play a didactic role he assumes certain responsibilities and his readers are entitled to factual veracity at least. Thus, in behalf of a good story, we can treat with an indulgent smile the errors of attributing to naval dignitaries the parrot decisions of 1929. For it would have spoiled this yarn to let out the fact that such quarantine measures are the function of the public health service, and that consequently the ‘ Admirals’ referred to really had very little to do with the destiny of parrots aboard government vessels.
It is regrettable that Mr. Sullivan experiences so much difficulty with the Washington telephone book. From certain of his statements it. is apparent that he has the same difficulty with encyclopædias and other sources of information.
Categorically, it is untrue that the Navy occupies a building a quarter of a mile long. What Mr. Sullivan has in mind, no doubt, are the two temporary buildings connected by a ramp now occupied jointly by the Army, Navy, Shipping Hoard, and Park Commission. However impressive as a portrait of bristling militarism it may be, the approach to the Secretary of the Navy s office is not as described by Mr. Sullivan. Therefore, should you ever have occasion to call upon the Secretary of the Navy, you will not be greeted by an armed Marine guard. Nor will there be any fixed bayonet waiting to disembowel you.
In closing may I quote the following from a fairly recent memorandum of the Secretary ol the Navy :
‘ It is directed that when a Senator, Congressman, Government official or any other person entitled to especial courtesy shows enough interest in any case either to telephone personally or to call personally in the Department, the officer or clerk to whom the first call is made shall make every effort to see that the person calling obtains the desired information or is escorted, if necessary, to the office having cognizance of the matter of interest.’
C. G. MooRE
Lieutenant, U. S. Navy

The Anglican position.

GRACE AND ST. PETER’S CHURCH
BALTOMORE, MARYLAND
DEAR ATLANTIC, &EMDASH;
I have read, with some care, the article which appeared in the February issue by Dean Robbins of New York. It reminds me of a story which I heard somewhere, and which I have often told.
Two vestrymen of an Episcopal church were standing oil the platform of a suburban station somewhere in Long Island. On the other platform they saw the rector of their own parish, engaged in conversation with a lady, and gesticulating very violently. The one vestryman asked, ‘What is the matter with the rector? The other shrugged his shoulders and replied, ‘He is engaged in explaining the Anglican position to a deaf woman.'
ROBERT S. CHALMERS, Rector

’Two contrasting views of the same thing.

MONASTERY OE THE LITTLE PORTION
MT. SINAI, L. I., N. Y.
DEAR ATLANTIC, —AMP;LT;BR/>Your welcome February face has just come and was partly enjoyed last night.
Let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for the outstanding essay from Father Robbins, “ Episcopalians and Their Neighbors.’ It is indeed a forecast of spring to find an article so truly Catholic and so free from what might be well called oatholic Sectarianism. As an active member of the AngloCatholic party, I find it very hard at times to overcome a great sense of disgust at what is very near a worship, not of either God or Our Blessed Lord, but of tbe outward word and shell of Catholic form, which, as Father Robbins says, are ‘quite unauthorized interpolations borrowed from Rome.’
I have no ill feelings about ‘ Rome, as she has a full right to do as she sees fit ; but there are still a few of us left who much prefer London.
J. COOPER REEVE Order of St. Francis

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
I wish to make a strong protest to your publishing the article by Dr. Robbins, entitled ‘Episcopalians and Their Neighbors.’ I protest not because I disagree with the reverend doctor (though I profoundly disagree), but because in thus opening the pages ol the Atlantic to such controversial material I see an initial atrophy to the magazine s true usefulness.
A magazine of general reading has no right to open its columns to a matter of controversy within one communion. It misleads the average reader, who will suppose that there are great unrest and greater strife within the Church. Such is not the case. We have religious papers that cater to the different ‘schools of thought’ and such an article belongs in such a paper.
I object (you see, I am also somewhat of a protestunt) to the article because the reading public, informed that Dr. Robbins is a professor of the General Theological Seminary, will therefore conclude that the reverend doctor is therefore fitted to speak on the subject. I would call your attention to the fact that the article deals with matters of history and theology, and to the further fact that the reverend doctor occupies a chair in neither of these subjects.
I object to the article because the reverend doctor takes as the base of his thesis a statement signed by thirteen priests (at least they were so ordained) of the Church and implies that that statement was revolutionary; while as a matter of pure fact there is not a bishop or priest, within the Church who would not sign that statement.

I object to the article because it is unfair. The reverend doctor continually quotes the Articles of Religion as his authority, while neither priest nor layman in the Church is asked to believe the Articles, and while he anil almost every priest in the Church denies most of the Articles —except certain ones he wishes to believe.
I object to the article because the reverend doctor states that the Church denies the validity of nonepiscopal ministries of the Word and sacraments of Christ. This is not true. The Church does not deny the validity of non-episcopal ministries. The Church simply says that unless one has episcopal ordination one is not a priest and therefore cannot do what only a priest ran do.
I could protest tandem, hut you may feel that already I, who believe myself to be a priest of the Holy Catholic Church, have already overemphasized my protestantism.
CAUL I. SHOEMAKER
Hector, the Annunciation Episcopal Church

Several loyal sous of Iowa have written in to protest against Frank H. Vizetelly’s statement in his February article that the correct pronunciation of the name is ‘I’oway, not Io’wah.’ Even a few ‘outlanders’ have been moved to question it, and one of them, Mr. Henshaw Ward of New Haven. Connecticut, wants to know ‘whether the “I oway that Mr. Vizetelly recommends is due to carelessness of a proofreader.’ To clear the proofreader and cite his own authority, Mr. Vizetelly has traced the genealogy of the word back to its Indian origins:

The story of the word ‘ Iowa belongs to the State. The lowas were a branch of the main group ol a Southwestern Sioux tribe which received the name of ' Pahoja,’ or ‘Gray Snow,’ which they retained, but they were known to the while people by the name of ' Iownys’ or ‘ Aiaouez.’ Now this name was spelled phonetically in both eases—one for the guidance of the English-speaking people, and the other for the guidance of the French-speaking people.
In 1689, the spelling ‘ Aiaoua ’ was that used in American literature, and is to be found in Perrot’s Memoirs, page 196. The form varied at that time, and I he plurn I was given as ‘ Aiaouais and ' Aiaouez. In 170-2, Iberville used ' Ayooues’ (the acute accent, as you know, gives the word the sound of e in ' they’). My 1791, ’Aynouais’ was used by Beauharnois and Ilocquurt, but varied in 1761 to ' Aiauway, a lorm to be found in the Journal of Lewis and (’lark. In I lie following century (1804) ‘ Vieways’ was used, and ' Aiowais’ was used by I’ike in bis Travels (1811), lull in 1810 we had ’loway’ as a variant. In 1821 ' la was’ and ‘la ways’ were used, and in 182a ’lhoway,’which latter form is to be tound in the Senate Document #21 of the Eighteenth Congress, Second Session. The forms current in 1848 were ’Ayauais’ for the plural, and minus the $ for the singular, and ’Iowav. By 1878 the name took the form ‘Ayeouai’ in the singular, with an s in the plural, and in 1905 ’laways.'
Whether or not the State I.egislalure will finally decide upon the pronunciation of its own State name, which it certainly should do, is a matter that must he left to I he future.

The geography of R.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Dr. Vizetelly’s article in the February Atlantic awakes some responsive chords in my mind, but in some respects it jars. As a Huston man I have always been a little amused at the complacency with which the Westerners congratulate themselves on sounding all their r s, as if that I proved they were more careful in speech than New Englanders and the English. We can assure our critics that we are quite content with our treatment of the letter r and see no more necessity of pronouncing it in the word ’park’ than of pronouncing the l in ‘talk. Probably our ancestors sounded the l in ‘talk, ’walk,’ and ‘chalk, but their descendants have the! ter and some of their descendants have improves! on ‘ parrk.’
In other words, careful speakers in England and in New England prefer to elide the r before a eonsonant. The sound is more pleasing to them than the nasal turned r of the Wesl. I call it a turned r because it is produced by turning up the tip of the tongue, It is not the trilled r that Dr. Vizetelly would imply that New York and the West, have in common with Scotland and Ireland, which is produced by sending a swift current of air over the upper surface of the tip of the tongue. Many of us who dislike the Western r are captivated by the burr of I he Scotsman. I enjoyed hearing il in Edinburgh last summer. And when I got to 1’aris I found still another r in use by the Parisians the uvular r. And of course the Parisians abhor the trilled r of the South of Prance. Here are four ways of treating that one letter, and how can we say that any one of them is right to the exclusion of the others? We can only hope that our friends m New York and the West will be broadminded enough to respect our choice!
lint there is still another way in which I be letter is pronounced, — or mispronounced, and for this I can see little excuse or defense. I mean the New York way the r with that curious i sound in it. At its worst, in the Bowery dialect, it makes an early bird an ‘oily hnid,’ but of course Dr. Vizetelly’s friends don’t speak that kind ol English. And. of course, the educated New Yorkers don t know they put in that i, but we Hostoniaus hear it, and marvel.
To return to the trilled r. Have you ever heard a Westerner say ’vir-r-rile ? I wonder il Dr. Y izetelly really hears the word that way in the ’boundless West.’ lint that is just the way the English say it! They do (rill the r between vowels. If that is an indication of virility, England is still safe.
FRANCIS H. ALLEN

It is only fair to a distinguished inventor to print this note.

NEW YOHK, N. Y.
DEAR ATLANTIC, &EMDASH;
May 1, as one who lias lived through the history of the vacuum-tube development which is portrayed by Mr. George W. Gray in your December issue under the title ‘ Aladdin’s Lamps,’point out an error in chronology? The article states that the highvacuum tube came before the feed-back circuit. This is incorrect. The feed-back circuit preceded the high-vacuum tube both in time of invention and in time of introduction into the field of commercial use. Very truly yours,
EDWIN H. ARMSTRONG

Sentimental waxwings.

UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA
February 1, 1931
DEAR ATLANTIC, &EMDASH;
Mr. Huxley’s delightful article, ’Bird Mind, in the October Atlantic recalls a charming bit of courting I watched in New Hampshire early one rainy morning. Just outside the front windows of the old farmhouse was a large snowball bush, so loaded with blossoms that, the added weight of the rain had bent a branch of it almost horizontally across the window. On this branch sat. a pair of cedar waxwings completely absorbed in the game they were playing and quite oblivious of both the rain and my presence on the opposite side of the glass. One held in his beak a small snowball blossom. His mate hopped up to him and took the blossom in her beak and hopped off a few inches, where she waited, looking rather self-conscious, until her lover slipped up and took the flower back. They repeated this exchange until the blossom was literally worn out; all the time they were chirping softly to each other.
It seemed a surprising exhibition of playful sentimentality in birds I had known only as silent and debonair cherry thieves.
MARJORIE JOY* PAUL

Spiders,
SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
DEAR ATLANTIC, &EMDASH;
In the October Atlantic. Sir John Campbell related an Indian experience with what he referred to as ‘spiders.’ The incident seemed to have aroused a modicum of editorial skepticism, which, however, was apparently readily dispelled by deliberate appraisal of the author’s record and personality. Possibly the editor will be pleased to find corroborative evidence supporting his judgment of Sir John’s veracity in the following experience nearer home in a semi tropical region of Mexico.
In March 1929, I ventured into that part of the State of Jalisco which the Ameca River and its tributaries have carved into curiously precipitous, Brobdingnagian mountains. Our way zigzagged across astonishing barrancas, the evening’s destination sometimes visible from where we mounted in the morning, down and up through a flora ever changing with elevation. Sometimes it lay beneath league-long walls of granite, where it followed the river bed tediously. Over most of the distance my mule picked her way imperturbably between boulders and across gravel washes, following a trail wholly invisible except where it reassuringly mounted the bank and became a thorny lane through bottom land in the embrace of some meander. Down these shady vistas my guide, the faithful Pedro, would plunge to warn against the nettle, ‘mala mujer,’ and to cut away with his machete such vines and branches as ended the ride of David’s son.
At the elbow of a meander the current often deepened and swung hard against overhanging cliffs. Pausing in midstream on one of the fifty crossings, his calzones rolled high on his thighs, Pedro suddenly turned and shouted: ‘ Mira, mira, señor! ’ at the same time pointing to a shadowy cliff of perhaps fifty feet encircling a sharp bend in the river.
I could see nothing except the swirling current and the cliff above it, brownish black with some mossy growth. Unwittingly Pedro had shown me much that was strange in this fantastic country; and again, though mystified, I appreciated his eagerness to share with me his interest in whatever new thing might be here. He then let fly a pebble, which struck sharply and caromed on the curving surface. It was as though Pedro had waved a wand. Immediately the moss appeared as if melting away; presently all had vanished save a patch of a couple of square yards. A second well-aimed stone, and that vanished likewise, leaving naked gray granite which a second before seemed dark with moss.
Pedro motioned me toward the cliff, I followed, half prepared to see the cliff open to his touch. But after all Pedro was a simple, kindly peon and no wizard. Below the cliff the eddying water was covered by a porous mat of daddy longlegs, story on story of them. Patches became detached and were borne off on the current. But they soon dissolved and got nowhere. The base of the cliff at the water line swarmed with tangling legs. There was a curious unceasing, silent movement of thousands of hair-like legs supporting mere dots of bodies traveling shoreward over layer on layer of their fellows. An enormous colony had been disturbed at some stage of its progress wherein it seeks the damp and shade of an overhanging river bank.
Twice on later occasions I bathed in pools beneath walls clothed with these creatures, careful lest I destroy their communal peace and equilibrium and my bare body go dark as the cliff under myriads of legs, and I then have to bathe more in earnest to remove the curiously faint but distinct, sweetish, fetid odor of them.
RICHARD N. HUNT