* Octoher TheJ4meriCat1 Mercury

How the WPA Buys Votes-. Gordon Carroll The Myth of the Two-Gun Man Charles B. Roth Liberalism Commits Suicide . Lawn'nce Dennis Missouri Uplift: A Case History Ralph Coghlan I

OPEN FORUM AMERICANA NEW BOOKS

"THE WORKERS" vs. THE WORKERS By Channing Pollock

25 cents a copy Naw MILLIONS af Peaple Are Wealt) HERE were only seven automobiles They have many servants at little em T in John Brown's home town 30 for electricity does the tedious tas: years ago, when John was born. A few about the house. rich men owned them, and the cars­ such as they were-cost well over $2000. This real wealth has come to millio: Today, for much less than $1000, John ofpeople because industry has learned' has a car that is far better than anyone build products that are worth more b owned even a decade ago. In fact, for cost less. Engineers and scientists ha' what a leading car cost in 1907, John can found ways to give the public more f, now have, besides a better car, other its money-more goods for more peop things-automatic house heating, a at less cost. radio, golf clubs. Mrs. Brown can have In this progress G-E research and en,g an electric refrigerator, a fur coat, and neering have ever been in the forefron a lot of new dresses. And still, in the Research Laborator Today in America three out of four in Schenectady, General Electric sc families have cars better than the best a entists continue the search for ne' few years ago. Their homes are more knowledge-from which come saving cheerful with improved electric light, new industries, increased employmen which also costs less. Their house fur- benefits which bring to millions I nishings are more attractive and com- John B~owns real wealth unknown fortable, yet less expensive. generatton ago. G-E research has saved the publicfrom ten to one hundred dollars for every dollar it has earned for General Electric GENERALe ELECTRIC LISTEN TO THE HOUR OF CHARM. MONDAY EVENINGS, NBC REO NETWORK ' CH,ICK SHAVERS have been used for proof-nonehas been in use long enough Smore than five years. More than a to demonstrate that it can shave, 'day million-and-a-half men shave with the after day for years, with no appreciable Schick daily. Out of their day-by-day ex­ ,wear of the cutting surfaces. periences come the proofs of the lasting From thousands of unsolicited, un­ qualities'of this remarkable shaver. paid-for letters we have chosen some ex­ No other shaver can possibly have this tracts which speak for themselves.

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~ VOLUME TABLE OF CONTENTS NUMBER ~ ~ XLII 166 ~

~ October Paul Palmer, Editor 1937 +~

~ "The Workers" vs. The Workers Channing Pollock 129 ~ -:n'+ Missouri Uplift: A Case History Ralph Coghlan 139 +~ ~, How I Became aFascist .. "'" :Anonymous 147 ~ ~ The Myth of the Two-Gun Man Charles B.Roth lSI N ~+ Liberalism Commits Suicide Lawrence Dennis 157 ..u:-o

~ Deeper Than Atlanta. Verse Iackson Mathews I 68 ~ ~ The Disarmament Hoax Fletcher Pratt 173 ~"'" ~ Russia's Goldbrick Constitution William Henry Chamberlin 181 ~~ ~ Fallacies AboutYour Health " August A. Thomen 187 ~ How the WPA Buys Votes Gordon Carroll 194

...".:::u The Road to Hell. A Story John Fante 214 ~ ~:~:::in~:~£'. ~~gO Black I: .: .:.:.: .:.:.: .:.: .:.:.:.: .:.:.: .:: .: .:.: .:::A;be~: Ja; :~~c~ ::: ~ ~ ~::~;:na;o~;:nomic R~y~.i:t. J~~~. ~'. ~h~~~:~~,.~r .. :~: 9 ~ The Check List...... iv ~ ~ The Contrib\ltors...... xiii ~ ~ Recorde~e::S:: ~;I~~n'H~;I, '~i:t~r 'M: ~~d~lev~, J~h~'RUS::~li:c::::::n xiv ;1

~ Gordon Carroll, Managzng Editor @ ~ Albert Jay Nock, Contributing Editor John W. Thomason, Ir., Literary Editor ~ ~ ~ @ Lawrence E. Spivak, General Manager 9 ~ ~ . '. ~~~ii~~ii~~~l~~ii~~ii~~ii~~ii~~~

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(Continued on page vi) iv By ISABEL EMSLIE HUTTON, M.B., Ch.B., M.D. Physician to the.British Hospital for Functional Mental and Nervous Diseases, London. Foreword by IRA S. WILE. M.D., Former Commissioner of Edu­ Illustrated with Explanatory Diagrams cation New York City. SUBJECTS INCLUDED T comes as a startling fact to many couples who THINK they I are well-informed, that they ARE in REALITY, AMAZINGLY PRE-MARITAL PREPARATION IGNORANT OF THE SEX TECHNIQUE IN MARRIAGE. - Necessary Sex Knowledge - Sex Freedom Before Marriage for the "When no trouble is taken to learn how to make sexual intercourse Man; For the Woman '- Sex Instinct harmonious and happy, a variety of complications arise. Very often in Men and Women Contrasted­ wives remain sexually unawakened, and therefore inclined to dislike Implications of Courtship - Heredi­ sexual intercourse. When that happens, husbands do not experience tary Factors - The Age Factor ­ what they longfor,and are apt to be sexually starved. 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By Hugh Fenwick

ANY people seem to be puzzled about I at a certain age. Perhaps you may want to this matter of assuring themselves of build an educational fund which will mature M funds on which to retire. Some feel at the right time for yourchildren, or a travel that they have to put aside a very large sum in fund, a mortgage fund, a pension to a devoted order to get any retirement-income plan servant. Or, if you are doing exceedingly well started.· Others feel that these plans require now, perhaps you may want to "telescope" monthly installments of such a size as to your plans so that you can retire sooner than interfere with their present mode of living. you would otherwise be able to. Still others believe that they will not re­ At any rate, the many various annuity and ceive a stipulated monthly income until they retirement plans may be adjusted to fit almost are "too ald." Other misconceptions are that any personal desire for the future which you "you have to pass a medical examination," may have. They apply whether your incomeis that" our situation is so different that no plan large or small, whether you are in your will apply," or that the chance of future dis­ thirties or your seventies, or regardless of the ability may cause them to lose out, that "if age at which you wish to retire. It is all a you miss a monthly payment you lose your matter of being thoroughly familiar with the annuity rights" -or other mistaken opinions. plans obtainable, and ~ applying" them, with I have· been seeing and talking with people expert help, to your own case. about this subject for many years. They are That kind of expert guidance has been my deeply interested in it, and there seems to be work for a good many years. I don't just no end to the questions in their minds. But the represent any'one company or anyone plan. I unfortunate thing is that many others face a represent all of the companies which offer dangerous situation in the future simply be­ annuity plans accepted as sound and worth­ cause no one has ever set them straight on while. During the last six months I have exactly how they could easily provide for it written annuities representing over $1,000,000 during the present. in premiums. Due perhaps to their own procrastination, Perhaps you yourself have hesita.ted to do no one has helped them to analyze their par­ anything about this matter because you felt ticular present situation and future require­ that some angle of it didn't apply to your ments or desires. And no single annuity plan particular case. If this is true, you may be should be adopted by any person unless all the doing yourself and your family a grave in­ facts about the various .plans (of all com­ justice. And perhaps needlessly, because there panies) are explained fully - to determine doubtless is a sound annuity plan, entirely which may most soundly and intelligently be consistent with what you can afford, which integrated into one's individual program of life. will meet any particular future requirement For example, if you have a son, you may that youhave set up in your own mind, but want to make sure that when he is ready to have never provided for. go into business you will be able to provide May I suggest that you write to me, telling him automatically with a fixed sum as a good me the questions that are in your mind, and start. Or you may want to get away from giving me as many facts as you care to? I will worrying about the investment of your own study the information you give me and, with­ funds; particularly so in these times Qf in­ out obligating you in any way, will con­ decision as to how to invest with safety, and scientiously advise you as to which plan may yet receive a worthwhile income. . best meet your needs. Address: HUGH FENWICK, Or you may want to provide for taking up Fenwick & Company, 99 John Street, New the holdings of (partner who wishes to retire York, N. Y. vii GOOD TELEPHONE APPARATUS GIVES GOOD SERVICE• ••• SELL SYSTEM SERVICE IS BASED ON 'WeSit!rn Electric QUALITY viii VOLUME XLII OCTOBER;, 1.937 NUMBER 166

The American MERCURY

"THE WORKERS" vs. THE WORKERS

By CHANNING POLLOCK

MESSENGER from· Mars who come a sacred cow. He is the A visited our little planet would source of all virtue - and all votes; be justified in carrying away the the world goes on solely because of conviction that its only useful him, and, therefore, heand he only citizens are laying bricks or pud­ should rule the world. Whether he dling steel. "The population," he actually works or not, he must be would write in his travel book,· "is provided with electric ice-cream unequally divided into two classes: freezers, pastel-tinted bathrooms, the Workers - men and women of and the motor cars ·he repeatedly the greatest ability and character, refuses to make. He is the inspira­ who perform all the labor, are re­ tion of much of our poetry and sponsible for all accomplishment, literature, most of our political and are invariably poor and ill­ policies,. and practically all our I treated; and the idlers, who are slogans. Our hopes and fears begin rich, wasteful, unproductive, self­ and end with him; he is the center indulgent, steeped in vice, and de­ of our sentimentalities, the arbiter voted to the exploitation of the of our destinies, the keystone in the larger group. An effort, however, arch of civilization. We have taken is now being made to remedy this his worth, .his cause, .and his situation." cliches at their asserted value. Last Currently, that is the view. in week, a circle of the .. fattest men America. "The Worker" has be.. and women in New York City 13° THE AMERICAN MERCURY moved endlessly before the Empire average American is still inclined State Building, carrying picketing to agree with that modern Galahad, placards that read "Weare on Governor Murphy of Michigan, strike against starvation wages" ­ that "while it may be true that the and nobody laughedl laboring man sometimes makes Developments of the past few mistakes", they are mere trifles "in months, however, have knocked the struggle for human justice". some of the plaster off "The Boys will be boys, and what's a Worker" fetish. The average stick of dynamite among friends? American is impervious to any­ Red Russia and Roosevelt have thing that doesn't affect his per­ won practically worldwide cre­ sonal comfort, and this includes dence for the postulation that "The mental comfort; he doesn't like be­ Worker" is the exploited victim ing forced to think; but when he of the idlers he makes rich, of does think, no matter how super­ "piratical methods and practices", ficially, the process stirs atavistic of Economic Royalists and Princes faiths, and a latent sense of justice. of Entrenched Greed. "A small The average American doesn't group has concentrated into their actively resent your pushing him own hands an aln10st complete downstairs, but then if you kick control of other people's property, him in the head long enough, it other people's money, other peo­ makes him mad. The sit-down ple's labor, and other people's seizure of other people's prop­ lives." It would, perhaps, be sedi­ erty didn't disturb him much, tious to inquire further into the because, after all, it was other peo­ identity of this group. ple's property~ But armed denial of Of course, Dr. Roosevelt did not the right to work hit closer home, invent this theory - or any other. and at last, even the placid average Long before Dr. Karl Marx ar­ American began to question the rived with Das Kapital, Ulysses S. sacrosanctity of "Labor" that, allied Grant, who ·wasn't above a little with Moscow and Washington, rabble-rousing for his own benefit, censored the mails, beat and kid­ declared: "Whatever there is of naped citizens, tore up rail­ greatness in the United States, or way tracks, and dynamited water indeed in any other country, is due mains. to labor. The laborer is the author As yet, however, this question­ of all greatness and wealth." With ing is distinctly tolerant. The the rise of Democracy, and the in· "THE WORKERS" tiS. THE WO.t<..l\..~.l\'.~ cre~sedvoting power of the masses, -including. his own job. Before that phrase, or its approximation, anybody can make anything, some­ has become an international stencil. body must,invent it. Tenor twenty The flaw in it is the implied - or or fifty other people must perfect at least accepted - definition of the invention, devise machinery the word labor. To say that labor for its manufacture, and finance, - all l~bor - "i~ the ~uthor of !Ill org!Inize, !Ind direct the proceed­ greatness and wealth", is like. say­ ing. Somebody must create a de­ ing that water runs down hill, or mand, and a sales force to supply that heat rises. The truth is that it. The hardest and most important pretty nearly everybody in the work in the world is done at desks world is a worker, and that, when and drafting boards; in offices, at this ceases to be the truth, the home, and even on golf courses and world, as we know it, will cease to tennis courts; before, throughout, exist.' If there are drones, they are and after union hours, by men no more likely to be among the "labor­ proletarian has ever thought of as ing class" than anywhere else, for "The Workers". the simple reason that only the The wealth of the world is hired man can live with much less created bya cerebral organ weigh­ than his maximum effort. "The ing only a few ounces; and, if the Workers" err in assuming that five hundred best of these had been there·is something uncommon in liquidated in every generation, work, that it is the monopoly­ there would be no wealth and no or the burden, as you choose - of "Workers". This is true even of so­ anyone class, and that it is done ex­ called natural wealth. Oil, for ex­ clusively with a hammer, a saw, a ample, "is a product of nature that wheelbarrow, or a sewing-ma­ belongs to all of us". It wasn't much chine. good to any of us, however, until The now-general insistence that nature also produced John D. this kind of work, unfortunately Rockefeller and Henry Ford. How performed. by a distinct minority many "Workers" would be produc­ of our citizens, and almost exclu­ ing wealth from electricity if there sively by those incapable of other had been no Franklin, Edison, effort, creates "the real wealth" is Westinghouse, orGeneralElectric? sheer nonsense. Of .himself, by Wealth comes of the genius and in· himself, and for himself, this type dustry of a James Watt, an Eli of worker can't produce anything Whitney, a Cyrus McCormick, an THE ·A.MERICAN MERCURY Orville.Wright, or·.a Lee De For­ as we say "ham and eggs", or, per­ rest, and, in a progressively de­ haps, more as we say "good and creasing degree, of the industry of evil", but without anything like the workers (without quotes) who equal understanding. What is develop, finance, organize, direct, Capital? What is Labor? My guess market,and, by skilled and un­ is that the image in the mind of the skilled labor, mold, make, or as­ average American who answers the semble the product. All this con­ first question will approximate the stitutes an essential partnership, late Frederick Opper's cartoon of with a sliding scale of rewards; The Trusts, amid the luxuries to but when manual labor denies that which we have been accustomed by there is any other kind, or that the Cecil de Mille. Labor, on the other other kind earns the larger share of hand, has its ideograph in racial the reward; when, in fact, either recollection of a stalwart figure that kind arrays itself in sustained op­ once was used to advertise Ply­ position to the other kind, it isn't mouth Rock overalls. This figure going to be very long before the now appears in ink, paint, bronze, only wealth left will be in the hands or marble as the microcosmic typi­ of demagogues, politicians, and fication of toil. agitators. Neither one of these pictures is dependable. To begin with, most II capitalists are, or certainly have been, workers. Capital does not The weakness of America - per­ create itself, and the· number of haps of the world - is its passion­ capitalists who have .acquired the ate addiction to any good slogan. wherewithal by inheritance or We went to war in 1898 because speculation is strictly limited. The somebody bade us "Remember the Century Dictionary defines capital Maine", though no one yet knows as "an accumulation of the prod­ who destroyed the Maine. Wewent ucts of past labor capable of being to war again to "Make the World used in the support of. present or Safe for Democracy",whichseemed future labor". That accumulation reasonably safe until we went to may be large or small; the hun­ war. But no two loosely-used words dreds of millions required by rail­ ever had a larger responsibility for ways and steel mills, and that our troubles than Capital and greatest and most predatory of all Labor. We have come to say them capitalists, the government, or the C

MATILDA'S GLASSES

By JOHN RUSSELL MCCARTHY

ATILDA'S glasses added a cold worth M To any easy natural warmth of earth. Matilda's glasses misted the clear sun And merged the gold of morning into dun Of noon. Her glasses smudged the sharp desire In young men's eyes, and governed her own fire. Thus guarded, she has taken her human charm Into the grave without life's slightest harm. MISSOURI UPLIFT: A ·CASE HISTORY

By RALPH COGHLAN

NE of the notable characteris­ Now it happens that the sover­ O tics of the present Uplift cru­ eign commonwealth of Missouri sade in America is the dexterity is known as the Show-Me State. with which its more cynical advo­ And in the instance of the Do­ cates hide behind the banner of Good crusade, the State of Mis­ Idealism. Every movement aiming souri is in a position to show the at the betterment of the aged or rest of the country precisely what the indigent is .so fashioned, at occurs when the banner of ide­ some stage of its political life, as to alism is stripped from a venture bear the imprint of the grail; .any into the More Abundant Life, critic of Do-Good legislation is, at revealing not a framework of some stage of his political life, cer­ altruistic ideas but a skeleton of tain to be excoriated as a heartless sordid political corruption. The reactionary and an Enemy of the venture involved here is the Mis­ Masses. By playing subtly on the souri old-age pension program, a emotions of a fundamentally gen­ movement which has been per­ erous American people, the "ideal­ verted by the politicians, with the ists" have casually waved aside joyous co-operation of citizens statements that ninety per cent of over seventy years of age, into the the Uplift measures now in oper­ most astounding racket in the ation are in the hands of corrupt State's history. politicians, and that virtually all An examination of this gran­ the .results of these measures are diose Townsendian scheme, in irreparably harmful to the citizens which the federal government is whom they are designed to bene­ particeps criminis, will produce fit. When maneuvered into an not partisan accusations and reck­ untenable position by repetition of less charges, but facts and figures such embarrassing accusations, the as incontrovertible as the vote­ Uplifters offer the classic defense: snatching methods which motivate Where is your evidence? them. 139 THE AMERICAN MERCURY In 1930, according to United Uplift sounded innocent enough, States census figures, there were and it was soon to appear even 145,214 .persons in Missouri aged more guileless by the speeches 7o-plus; today, it is estimated that made by the amendment's· advo­ the figure has grown to 158,429. Of cates. The leading spokesman was these, 100,000, or two out of three, one Oscar Leonard, a high-pow­ have filed applications for pen­ ered press agent who bore the title sions, and approximately 75,000 are of Executive Director of the Mis­ receiving monthly checks. In other souri Committee for Old-Age Se­ words, one of every two persons curity. Mr. Leonard's most effec­ over 70 in Missouri, the tenth rich­ tive argument was that the grant­ est State in the Union, is repre­ ing of pensions would abolish the sented as having reached a stage county poorhouses, liberating the of destitution entitling him to pub­ inmates to a Fuller and Freer Life, lic support. The generously open­ andthat the cost of pensions would handed federal government pays actually be less than the cost of half the bill for this Uplift meas­ poorhouses. At that time,. the State ure, which will cost in the current had eighty-five such institutions, biennium $34,000,000 for pensions housing about 3000 people, and the and $2,125,000 for administrative total cost per inmate, including de­ expenses, or a total of $36,125,000. preciation and interest on the in­ This sum is more than seventy-six vestment, averaged $387 per year, per cent ofMissouri'sentireexpend­ a total of $1,161,000. itures out of general revenue in "Old folks are happier outside of the last biennium. poorhouses than in poorhouses," To procure a perspective on the breathed Mr. Leonard. "It also gigantic fraud that has been prac­ happens to be more than fifty per ticed upon Missouri's taxpayers, it cent cheaper to pension them than is necessary to go back to the Fall to keep them in poorhouses." of 1932, when the voters were Again: "The fact that it costs less asked to approve an amendment to provide for aged dependents by to the State Constitution enabling a State pension fund than by local the Legislature to.grant pensions institutions has a great appeal to to persons over seventy "who are taxpayers." It was estimated by incapacitated from earning a liveli­ Mr. Leonard that not more than hood and are without means of 9000 persons would be eligible for support". That language of the pensions in Missouri, and that the MISSOURI UPLIFT: A CASE HISTORY cost, after the second year of oper­ 1000 more than his earlier estimate. ation, would be slightly more than Perhaps he referred to a report of $2,000,000 annually. the St. Louis Chamber of Com­ This visionary messiah had en­ merce, which figured the num­ thusiastic lieutenants. Dr. O. My­ ber at about 14,000 and the cost king Mehus of the State Teachers' at $4,000,000. More likely, he had College told the Monday Men's reference to the wild estimate of Forum of Maryville to "vote yes on the National Association of Manu­ the old-age pension amendment facturers, which thought 47,911 next Tuesday and thereby help de­ would be eligible. That estimate, crease taxes in Missouri. Seventeen however, was obviously the prod­ States have enacted old-age security uct of Tory minds who would go laws and their experience has to any length of misrepresentation shown that it costs about one-half to damage an Idealistic movement, as much as it does in poorhouses. and it was immediately dismissed Not only is there a saving in taxes, as preposterous. but the pension system is more hu­ So the voters, assured that they mane". J. Lionberger Davis, head could shower happiness on the in­ of a St. Louis bank, gave his ap­ digent aged and close the noisome proval "because the old people of poorhouses; assured, moreover, the State can be better taken care that it would cost less to. do .this of in their own homes and because than to keep them open, went to the pension system will be much the polls and gave the amendment more economical". Dr. Arthur E. a smashing victory. The vote was Bostwick, librarian of St. Louis, 988,594 to 275,297. It was the big­ sounded a pathetic note: "It costs gest majority ever given to a practically fifty per cent less to ena­ constitutional amendment in the ble the aged poor to live in quiet State's history. Thus did the Up­ dignity and decency than to herd lift come to Missouri, wearing royal­ them in poorhouses and break raiment and uttering noble senti­ their hearts." ments. Mr. Leonard then took time out Well-that was just the night to denounce indignantly a "whis­ before the morning after. In the pering campaign" exaggerating light of the grisly dawn that has the number of Missourians who followed, it appears that not a sin­ would be eligible for pensions, gle poorhouse in Missouri has which he gave as 10,000 ~ just closed its doors, and that, in addi- THE AMERICAN MERCURY tion to the burden of their con­ old folks would be. lost if .. t.hey the cost couldn't sit around talking overthe tinued maintenance, problems of the day with theil· of old-age pensions is rapidly cronies." approaching $40,000,000 per bien­ nzum. But the cat was still more or less in the bag. Mr. Jameson assured II the people of Missouri that "we in­ tend to administer the law so as The enabling act was signed by to give the highest possible amount Governor Guy B. Park on June 4, relative to the individual require­ 1935, to go into effect on August ments, but there will be no waste". 27, 1935. In charge of its adminis­ He thought that the number of tration, the Governor appointed Uplift pensioners would be about Allen Thompson, a horse-trainer 12,000, and the cost would fall and livestock dealer from Boss within the $2,5°0,000 appropriation. Tom Pendergast's Kansas City. A Under the terms of the law, the bureau headed by Mr. Thompson applicant must be more than 70 was set up in the department of years old; he must have resided in W. Ed. Jameson, president of the the Stateone year immediately pre- Board of Managers of the State ceding application and at. least eleemosynary institutions, who five of the preceding nine years; promptly gave out a statement dis­ his income, if any, must be less quieting to 988,594 people who than $30 a month; his property or thought they. had voted to abolish interest in property must not ex­ poorhouses. A newspaper dispatch ceed $1500, if single, or $2000, if of July 12, 1935, read as follows: married; he must have no child or The belief that the old-age pension relative able to support him; he law will eventually mean the elimina­ must not receive aid from any tion of the county poor farm is dis­ other public fund; he must not be counted by W. Ed. Jameson. In the first place, he said, a large percentage an inmate of a jail or an asylum. of inmates are under 70 years old, and The act provided for payment of a not eligible for the pension. Also, it maximum of $30 to single persons is often cheaper for counties to main­ per month, and to married tain the infirmaries than to support $45 inmates through pensions in private pairs. residences. The joker in the law, however, "We must also consider that the in­ was not in the requirements for mates of these places want and need companionship," he added. "These eligibility, but in its administrative MISSOURI UPLIFT: A CASE HISTORY I43 set-up. It authorized each County proper adn'1inistration of the pen­ Court (an elective body charged sion law, the St. Louis board for a with supervising county affairs time closed its doors, notifyinK and not judicial in nature) to ap­ Mr. Thompson that "if political point boards which, in turn, were preference is to be shown to any to pass upon applications for pen­ worker or applicant, the St. Louis sions. Naturally, the members of board will have nothing to do with the County Courts seized this any further activity under this opportunity to butter their politi­ act". cal bread and made partisan ap­ In the first month of the law's pointments to the pension boards, operation, 71)030 appl£cations were whose recommendations as to who filed, five times as many as the should go on the rolls were, except pessimistic Chamber of Commerce in rare instances, final. estimate of eligibles, and 23,119 The pension rush began in Sep­ more than the obviously Tory esti­ tember, 1935, with thousands of mate of the National Association persons in line at the courthouses of Manufacturers. The local throughout the State, and with boards, almost entirely free from only fifty-two investigators to look any kind of supervision, began to into the applications. The quality assay the political gold mine of the investigators may be gauged which lay before them. Applica­ by the four who were sent by Mr. tions' bearing the hearty recom­ Thompson to assist the St. Louis mendation of the local boards board, whose membership was poured into Mr. Thompson's of­ much above the average. One fice at Jefferson City. Figuring was a former brewery salesman; each pensioner to be worth an aver­ another a plumber, discharged by age of six votes on election days, the city water department for in­ the local boards threw all con­ competency; the third helped his science to the winds and began to wife run a confectionery; the certify practically everyone who fourth was a delicatessen clerk looked gray enough to be 70. In whose schooling had not pro­ some cases, when the applications gressed beyond the sixth grade. All, did not come in fast enough, the however, had glowing political local boards actually went into the indorsements. In protest aga~nst streets and through the country­ these appointments and other con­ side, inviting persons over 70 to dltions hampering any sort of get in on the gravy. 144 THE- AMERIC~N MERCURY By July, 1936, more than 48,800 III pensioners were receiving monthly checks and, since the $2,5°0,000 ap- When the campaign of 1936 rolled . propriation, plus federal contribu­ around, the politicians had grasped tions, would not nearly provide the full significance of the effect of each pensioner with $30 a month, old-age pensions upon their public­ as the law contemplated, the sums spirited continuance in office. And given each ranged from $7 to $12. so, shortly before the election, it Just how a person destitute, within was found possible to increase each the language of the amendment pension $2 per month. According and the terms of the law, could to the testimony of two members live on such sums has never been of the St. Louis board, published revealed. In any case, the really de­ in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, serving old people had to take "attempts were made to secure a from $7 to $12 in order to permit list of those on the pension rolls by the chiselers to get on the rolls. candidates for office". When such During the first year of the law's lists were obtained through one operation, 88,000 applications had source or another, "our pensioners been filed and pensioners were be­ were deluged, prior to the election, ing added to the rolls at the rate with letters describing the candi­ of 1000 a day. As has been stated, date's solicitude for them and the applications have now reached promising undying devotion to the neighborhood of 100,000, and, their interests". when and if the people approve Two classic instances of the kind a pending constitutional amend­ may be cited. I have before me a ment to reduce the age to 65, which letter dated October 29, 1936, is necessary if further federal signed by Forrest Smith, Demo­ grants are to be received, most of cratic candidate for re-election to the· 100,000 or more within that the job of State Auditor, who mails age bracket may be expected to ap­ the Uplift·checks to pensioners. ply. In other words, the Uplift, so Some of the passages in the letter far as Missouri is concerned, is to voters follow: likely to continue onward and up­ I am taking this means of asking for ward until that politically Utopian your vote and influence in my race day when every inhabitant of the for a second term as State Auditor, because you, as an old-age pensioner, State, from birth to senility, is on know I have been your friend.••• the public payroll. Have you stopped to think what MISSOURI UPLIFT: A CASE HISTORY 145 might happen to· your pension if look upon their:.presence on the another person is elected State Audi.· rolls not as a matter of need, but tor who is not in sympathy with you and. this law? Have you ever read in as a matter of right. And far from the papers or had a letter from my any stigma attaching to receiving opponent saying he is sympathetic monthly checks from the State, it with you, or that he will work to get your pension increased? If.you have has become a matter of pride to not, why take any chances? You "make the grade". know an unfriendly person could and might stop your pension. If I am Inquiry reveals that there is elected, your pension. checks· will be hardly any deception or subterfuge mailed you promptly as long as I am to which many old people will re­ in office. fuse to stoop in order to get a pen­ A letter dated October 26, 1936, sion. In most places in Missouri, was sent to pensioners by G. W. such tactics are not necessary, but Gray, president of the Missouri where some effort has been made Old Age Pensioners' Association, to conform to the law, the septua­ of Clayton, Missouri. Mr. Gray genarians slyly misrepresent their was interested in the candidacy of circumstances. One investigator, one Joseph A. Falzone. "If he is reading a newspaper item that a elected November 3," the letter woman had been robbed of $1600, reads, "we will have in the State recalled that her name was on the Senate a friend who will fight for rolls as being destitute. An old us to the very finish. He has also man, living in a luxurious home offered his assistance to collect.·for and affectionately cared for by his us the money due us from the family, applied for a pension so State of Missouri referred to as he could have some money to jin­ 'back pensions' or 'retroactive pay'. gle in his pocket. He was entitled According to the records you are to a pension, he said, because he entitled to back pensions of $80.00. had paid taxes for many years. . ... Above all things do not fail Another old-timer attempted to to vote on November 3 for Mr. Fal­ conceal the fact that he wasre­ zone." ceiving a pension from a corpora­ These two bald samples of using tion so that he could augment his the old-age pension law as a spring­ income with a pension from the board into office are typicaL But State. Numerous other instances the old people of the Show-Me concern recipients of tax money State hardly need encouragement. who hide the fact that they have Long since, they have come to lucrative jobs or hidden hoards. THE AMERICAN MERCURY An odd commentary is the at­ the perversion of the clear terms of titudeof the children of the aged. the constitutional amendment will In thousands of cases, children be corrected. well able to support their parents The lessons of Missouri's noble have no hesitancy in insisting they experiment are pretty clear. They \ become public charges. These chil­ reveal the method by which un­ dren, who have supported their scrupulous politicians, clothed· in parents in the past, look upon the the garments of the righteous, ma­ old-age pension law as relieving nipulate sociological programs to them of all moral responsibility. It serve their own ends. They indi­ is no uncommon occurrence to find cate the fate in store for the even expensively dressed women bumper crop of Uplift measures guiding their old mothers and now emanating from Washington. fathers to the old-age pension of­ They emphasize the moral that the fice so that. they may file applica­ urge to Do Good in this great de­ tions. mocracy is often indistinguishable At the last session of the Legisla­ from the urge to prostitute the ture, a new Social Security Law character of impressionable people. was passed in an effort to tighten Lastly, they point the warning that up some of the obvious loopholes the United States as a whole-as in the present set-up. As originally in the case of Missouri - can en­ written, it was a good law; as tertain no hope of correcting the passed through the gantlet of the abuses and expenses of the old­ politicians, it has numerous short­ age pension racket except through comings, deliberately insertedso as the medium of a popular revulsion, not to )deprive the officeholders of which will not only destroy the the juiciest racket ever to come movement itself but a number of their way. But the damage has other "worthwhile" sociological been done, and there is not the cases which have been painstak­ slightest hope that the rolls will he ingly nurtured for the past .one purged of the undeserving, or that hundred years. HOW I BECAME A FASCIST Or The Parahle of My Grandfather's Cat

ANONYMOUS

· aT so many years ago,· you Nobody, from La Pasionaria Brow­ N. . could hardly pick up a mag~ der himself to the beetle-browed azine without finding some sort of tots of the New School for Social extremely personal article, written Research, ever tires of. pointing his anonymously, and beginning: "I finger at me and screaming. am a Forgotten Man". This pres~ It all began a few years back, ent article might well have. begun when a solemn Consistory of with a statement that "I am the American Liberals, conferring to­ Unforgotten Man". For such is, gether on the clarification of cer­ God knows, the case. I, who am an tain points of dogma, apparently ordinary (and would once upon a decided that any man who was time have been thought a respecta­ solvent, monogamous, and who ble) citizen of the United States, had once set foot in a church, was am never for a moment forgotten to be known henceforth and irrev­ by the swarming .members of the ocably as a Conservative. When Great Left-Wing. They have their the first twenty people applied this eye on me every minute. They lis.. label to me, I protested a little. But ten to my smallest utterance, and they soon showed me, of course, write interpretations of its ideology my abysmal self.ignorance, and for the Daily Worker. They ana.. after some fifty or sixty sessions of lyze my tastes, and find in them being told how my fondness for the stuff for sociological docu­ Mickey Mouse was really a subli~ ments in the New Republic. They mated covetousness for real estate, roat at me in the public prints, and and how my enjoyment of gar­ berate me in private, and never for dening (which in my simplicity I an instant cease their unrelenting had always thought a gentle and Hymn of Accusation against me. inoffensive pastime) ,vas actually a 147 THE AMERICAN MERCU:RY subconscious gesture of capitalist over with me I saw of course that arrogance, I gave 'in and believed. they were indubitably right. The I accepted the Conservative label. signs and stigmas were unmistak­ In time, in fact, it became quite a able.Had I not admittedly laughed comfort to me. The house that my unrestrainedly at a recent Laurel wife and I almost own is only a & Hardy movie which was, as they $3000 one, and my income has to be now explained to me, n9thing but subjected to considerable stretch~ a cleverly camouflaged piece of ing sometimes in order for us to get Capitalist Propaganda?' Was itnot along, but whenever things looked true that I had knowingly received pretty bleak I could always cheer into my house a newspaper con­ myself up by thinking, "Well, after taining pictures of a certain motion all, I am a Conservative." It would picture actress, and thus clearly give me a fine warm feeling of licked the boots of William Ran­ solidity and massiveness. dolph Hearst? Had I not, in a pe­ It wasn't long, however, before culiarly brutal way, insisted that another conclave of the Cardinals my Mrs. Polatczek eat her lunch of American Liberal Thought got in the kitchen instead of dining together, and presently a brand­ with me and my wife? There was new Definition of Dogma was no blinking charges like these. I loosed from the Holy See at Wash­ stood amazed, indeed, that I had ington. It seems there had been a never seen myself in the right light slight mistake about me. After long before, and known myself for what meditation and prayer, and taking I was. :Unmistakably an Economic into consideration the facts that I Royalist! The trifling fact that I almost owned my own house, was had always been scared to death of an employer of labor (that would Mrs. Polatczek and had never be Mrs. Polatczek, who comes to dared reprimand even her most" us every other week for a day's glaring faults, had incomprehensi­ cleaning), and was ataxpayer, there bly blinded my eyes to the incon­ could now be no possible question testable T ruth. My real relation but what I was clearly an Economic with Mrs. P. was that for years I Royalist. I remember that when the had been standing with my foot first member of The Faithful on her neck, grinding her face in brought me these tidings, it startled the dust, and, I dare say, now and me a little; but after a dozen or two then giving her a quick rabbit... of my friends had talked the thing punch for good measure. HOW r BECAME· A FASCIST 149 Well,we went on being Eco­ that I was on record as once having nomic Royalists for a year or two, said that Leon Blum was a Jew­ my wife and I. Sometimes, to be and presently emerged. sweating sure, we deviated a little, and were from their conclave with the Final occasionally slipped for a short time Divine Revelation of what I was. into the Bourbon class~ But, by and I was a Fascist. large, I felt sure that at last my true At first,. of course, it was a little nature had been established and hard for me to grasp, because classified .for all time. "Royalist! I had always thought General Royalistl" I would murmur to my­ Franco a rather unattractive man self, with a happy musing smile, and I had audibly tittered at a as I studied our unpaid bills or de­ newsreel shot of Mussolini strut­ bated the problem of how to settle ting through Libya; but pretty with our plumber for putting in soon I was brought to realize that that new washer. these were merely superficial re.. And then, all of a sudden, there actions and didn't mean anything. was called yet another Council of I was a reader of the Atlantic the Deciders, and this time the Monthly, wasn't I? I had never whole United Front-from Mike sent H. L. Mencken a threatening Gold to the Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr letter, had I? Or thrown a stink.. - went to work on me. They evi­ bomb? Or picketed the offices of dently studied me from every con­ the Herald Tribune with a placard ceivable angle, from my taste in saying: "Walter Lippmann Is A hats to my net weight. They x­ Scab" ? Well, no; I had to admit rayed me in the People's Press, and that I hadn't. So finally they made got Freda Kirch~ey to do a fluoro­ it clear to me, and I knew The scopic of me in the Nation, and I Truth. I saw how for years would not be at all sure that the William Randolph Hearst had Daily Worker, in its thorough way, been subtly seducing me: how didn't manage to perform a uri­ Cardinal Pacelli - with diabolical nalysis. Having got all the availa­ wile - had been poisoning my ble scientific data together, they mind, how I had been all my life went· into a protracted huddle­ contributing to the perpetuation of pondered the facts that I had once serfdom in this country, abetting beenseen reading Time, that I had the exploitation of the m~sses, and viciously refused to hiss a Metro­ metaphorically spitting in the tone newsreel of Pope Pius, and workingman's beer. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Oh, I am a Fascist all right. My grandfather, as I say, was an There is no getting around it. I amiable man, so he stood this mad­ am definitely earmarked to get a dening attitude of the cat's as long slug from William Z. Foster's how­ as he could, and tried to overcome itzer when The Revolution breaks it by being pleasant and reasonable loose next Tuesday at twenty.. with the beast. minutes-after-seven. But one day a great hullabaloo In the short time remaining to broke forth in my grandfather's me, though, I would like to recount house. As my grandmother told it the Parable of My Grandfather and later, it seems that my grandfather The Cat. simply sprang up suddenly from My grandfather, a mild and al­ his chair, seized a walking stick, ways well-meaning man, was ex­ and cried out in a great voice at the tremely fond of cats. And cats, not cat (which was lurking under a surprisingly, were in consequence sofa, glowering sourly at him): always fond of him. Once, how­ "All right, by God, if you're going ever, he acquired a cat which, for to persist in viewing me as ama­ some unknown reason, persisted in levolent ogre, I'll be one for you!" regarding my. grandfather with Whereupon this most gentle and acute distrust., My grandfather kindly of men pursued the cat all tried to be propitiatory, to be ami­ over the house until he cornered it able, to show the harmlessness of in an upstairs room, where he pro­ his intent, but it was all to no avail. ceeded to lick the daylights out The cat insisted on viewing my of it. grandfather· as a Deep-Dyed Ogre, And that is all. Just a simple par­ a Foe of Catdom, a veritable able, presented with my compli­ Fuhrer whose life was dedicated to ments to the hard-working Com­ abusing, as it were, the Under-Cat. rades of America. THE MYTH OF THE TWO-GUNMAN

By CHARLES B. ROTH

. AItT of every American's credo man in all three. Weare told he Pis his' belief that the Wild could hit a running enemy with a W est,during the era of Buffalo revolver every time at one hundred Bill and company, was populated yards; he could crease a friend's almost exclusively by expert hair at fifty paces, with no damage marksmen who could shoot the to hair or owner. Indeed, accord­ pi,ps. out of a playing. card at. fifty ing to his palpitant biographers, yards (or 100 or 1000). Virtually he was never known to make an all early Western literature deals outright poor shot. with marksmanship which .has But actually - judged by mod­ never been equaled~on paper. ern standards of marksmanship The very names of the pistol ex­ ~ Wild Bill was pretty terrible. p~rts .. are ones to conj ure with­ The proof lies in the targets which \Vild Bill Hickok, Jesse James, have come down to us from fron­ Bat Masterson, Doc. Carver, Billy tier times and in the targets· that the Kid, et ale But what about these are being punctured every Satur­ famous shots? Could they really day afternoon nowadays on a clip the buttons from an adversary's thousand practice ranges. Unless vest at thirty· paces? Alas, the fact Hickok showed a tremendous im­ is. that of all the myths foisted upon provement over his feats of the a gullible American public, the 'Seventies, .he would be classified, one about frontier sharpshooting if alive today, vvith the tyros ofour is the most grandiloquent - and police squads. the most preposterous. But we don't have to close our Take, for example, the notorious discussion with Wild Bill. A much Mr. Hickok. Today, his fame is better shot was Frank James, secure as that of a great pistoleer, brother of Jesse; a much better perhaps the greatest; in one recent shot, in fact, than Jesse himself. year, three Hickok biographies We have Frank James' best target were published; he did· not miss a preserved: it is signed by him: it THE AMERICAN MERCURY was his pride. As. a revolver per­ marksman owns a weapon vastly formance, however, it wouldn't superior to that of the Western he­ get passing notice nowadays, for roes. The modern weapon has six the best Frank James could do was times the range: and is accurate to keep twenty shots inside an up to 300 yards. eight-inch circle at twenty yards. Anyone who pretends to be a pis­ II tol expert today could hold those shots within a four-inch circle, and The best marksman of the old half a ~dozen of the holes might be West was a mild little soldier you covered by a fifty-cent piece. have probably never met in your I am not attempting to dispar­ readings for the good reason that age frontier marksmen when I he doesn't appear there. He was make these assertions. All things too busy with his job to talk to considered, they performed cred­ newspaper correspondents. But itably. As Colonel Cody once re­ the annals of Nebraska history marked to me: "We men did the write him large. Major Frank best job we could with the tools North was his name, and he was we had." In that remark you have commanding officer of the Pawnee an explanation of why frontier pis­ Scouts, a body of Indian soldiers tol yarns are false. The marksmen that served during the Indian didn't possess guns capable of the campaigns. His brother, Captain performance claimed for them. Luther North, was associated with In the past half-century, the him. Often I have queried Luther speed of the revolver bullet has North about frontier marksman­ doubled, the accuracy increased ship. three times. On the frontier, with a "Did you ever see Wild Bill cap and ball muzzle-loading pistol, Hickok shoot?" the best shooting possible was six "Many times." bullets in a six- to eight-inch group. "Was he pretty good?" That was as good as the weapon "Yes. But Frank was better. would shoot under ideal condi­ Even Bill said so." tions, with machine rest. And no "Just how well could they man ever shot better than his gun. shoot?" With a modern revolver, one-and­ "About as well as anyone, with a-haH-inch to two-inch groups are the guns they had. They both could average. In other words, the 1937 live up to the test of good marks- THE MYTH OF THE TWO-GUN MAN manship. Frank better than Bill. manship that kept them on top,"it Y bu put up a letter envelope ten was nerve. paces away, and if you could keep Also in the hall of Western all six shots in the envelope you mythology is the two-gun man, were counted good. One of the who stalked into literature at an shots had to be in the stamp which early date, a pair of enor­ was pasted on the back of the en­ mous Dragoon revolvers strapped velope, in the center." around his hips.• At the first hint "How big were the envelopes?" of trouble, he pulled both with a "Five inches square. And the graceful movement, so fast the eye stamp an inch square." missed it. And then he shot both "That doesn't sound hard." simultaneously. And swiftly! And "It isn't - now," said Captain he is still stalking through, West­ North. "It was then. We didn't ern literature, the darling of pulp have the guns." editors and their thrill-hungry , "You've seen Hickok and your readers. But there is no such thing brother in shooting-matches?" as a two-gun man in the accepted "Many times." meaning of the words. The char­ "And your brother would usu­ acter is a myth. In the first place, ally win?" no man can use two guns effec­ "I never saw him lose." tively at the same time; and sec;' "What did Hickok think of ondly, it was fatiguing enough to that?" tote one four-pound gun, let alone "He took it good-naturedly. He two. would say: 'Frank, you can sure There were, however, real two­ beat me when it comes to shootin' gun men on the frontier - of a at these little black dots, but I different stripe from the blazing can beat you when it comes to figures on pulp-magazine covers. hitting men.' And this was true. They carried two guns, but used Frank didn't shoot at men. Hickok only one at a time. The second gun did." involved a deadly trick employed That statement explains why against their adversaries. For ex­ Hickok and Jesse James and Bat ample, a gambler in a Western Masterson and the other frontier faro hall would be fully dressed gunmen were superior to their with his orthodox holster weapon: foes - and would be superior to a large Colt revolver. He wore it modern g\lnmen. It wasn't marks- outside where the warld could see; THE AMERICAN MERCURY his customers were similarly at­ level and using sights. But·. the tired. But gamblers, from habits search has been vain. They all pull engendered in following their pro­ the gun from the holster, .level it fession, do not believe in giving the from the hip, and let fly. Hitting other fellow a break. So they a one-inch bullseye at a hundred evolved a way to kill him quickly paces is commonplace; shooting with a minimurn of risk to their birds on the wing is not beyond own mortality chart. The second credence. And all from the hip. gun was small-perhaps a der­ But the actual facts about hip­ ringer. It was ingeniously con­ shooting are plain. It can't be done: cealed, in the left sleeve, in the it isn't humanly possible. An ex­ crown of the hat, possibly in the pert I know spent $200 to learn top of a boot or even under a news­ how to shoot a revolver well paper on the table. enough from the hip to hit a one­ The hapless cowboy, probably foot circle occasionally at ten feet. a youngster and full of whisky, At longer range, he said, this robbed of his earnings by crooked styIe of shooting was as uncertain cards, would become angry. He as a Chinese lottery. would start, in his befuddled state, And then there is hip-shooting's to go for his holster. But the gam­ first cousin, a more spectacular bler, by making a decisive move­ member of the family, which goes ment toward his hat, his sleeve, or by the name of "fanning". In place under the newspaper, would beat of firing the pistol from the hip by him to it by seconds. The cowboy pulling the trigger, you tie· the hadn't a chance; he rarely man­ trigger back or· remove it· alto­ aged even to draw his gun. A gether, and then move the heel Western historian tells me that of the hand over the hammer, pull­ three out of four shooting deaths ing it back, letting itfall, and then on the frontier were caused not by repeating the motion. The result big-holster revolvers, but by the is a simulation of the old Gatling spiteful little second guns. gun. Stories of such marksmanship I have been searching for fifteen never fail to impress. But fanning, years in books of Americana, on alas, is useful only on the Fourth the covers of pulps, and in West­ of July. All that anyone has. ever ern movies for sight of a hand­ accomplished is the creation of un­ gun marksman actually shooting necessary noise. his revolver by holding it at eye- No man can fan a six-gun and THE MYTH OF THE TWO-GUN MAN

hit anything. In the outdoor mag­ "He wasn't shooting at any­ azines some years ago, a lively con­ thing.He just wanted to show us troversy thrived upon this subject, how fast he could get his gun into and .an expert settled it in forth­ action." right manner. He posted a $1000 SenDr Lopez is astute: at least certified check, to go to anyone I hope he is. Because if he ever who could fan a revolver and tries to pull a revolver from a hol­ make hits even at ridiculously ster and hit what he is aiming at, short ranges. The ofter was pub­ he will find it will take him ap­ lished widely. But no one ever proximately seven times as long as tried to collect the $1000. it did merely to draw and fire. The average time, secured after III hundreds of trials with a stopwatch connected to an electrical device About a year ago I was down in which noted the exact time the the Kanab Creek country in Ari­ hand touched the butt and the zona, listening to stories about a exact time the cartridge was fired, marvelous citizen recently im­ is one and two-thirds seconds. ported from Mexico, a gunman by Nevertheless, the myth of the the name of Lopez, hired by the lo­ quick draw is another which will cal cattlemen's association to dis­ not down. You kill it with facts, courage Arizona citizens from and it's out again inside of two thinking that every cow they saw weeks - because pulp magazines was their own. He was a profes­ operate on a semi-monthly sched­ sional gunman and made a tremen­ ule. dous impression upon the citizenry There are a score of other fron­ 'by demonstrating the speed with tier gun myths which might be which he could draw a six-gun and discussed here, but I wonder if fire. One goggle-eyed citizen told there is any need. The best rule to me of seeing Lopez in action. "It cover every case is to discount didn't take him a fifth of a second what you read by ninety per cent. to get his gun out," he proclaimed. Yet there is one point that needs "Did you time him?" attention. How did the myths get "No. Buthe told us that." started? That traces back to one "You saw him do it?" man-Edward Z. C. Judson. Of "Sure." boundless imagination and unlim­ "Did he hit where he aimed?" ited confidence in the credulity of OCTOBER BIRTHDAY Americans, he sat down one day cut playing cards in half from the and wrote a· novel about a subject thin side. of which he was entirely ignorant. Lying blissfully content in some He signed the book "By . Ned hay-mow, your eyes bulged as you Buntline". And now you under­ followed a Buntline hero. You be­ stand. Ned Buntline was the au­ lieved what you read. And millions thor of those paper-covered shock­ of other Americans read. And be­ ers you devoured in your youth. A lieved. And thus, right under our Buntline hero could do anything eyes, we had a mythology created with a gun that Buntline wanted - a mythology as lusty and per­ him to. He shot from the hip, sistent as that of ancient Greece­ fanned, slew Indians from the the mythology of frontier marks­ back of a galloping mustang, and manship.

OCTOBER BIRTHDAY

By SISTER M. MADELEVA

'ERE I immortal only I would proffer W Tokens tremendous as a god can give: Planets in leash, an earth whereon to live With all October's fugitive gold in coffer, Its moon a sorceress, its wind a scoffer, Oceans it carries in a sandy sieve, And stars aloof and undemonstrative. Gifts casually infinite I could offer.

But as a woman and your love I bring you The simple, homely things a woman must: A little, human-hearted song to sing you, My arms to comfort and my lips to trust, The tangled moods that, Autumn-wise, I fling you, The frail and faulty tenderness of dust. LIBERALISM COMMITS SUICIDE

By LAWRENCE DENNIS

EARLY everyone nowadays defect of this philosophy-the phi­ N seem"s to take it for granted losophy of the League of Nations that Liberal Democracy all over - is that there is no preventive of the world, even in the United war, never has been, and never can States, has to stand or fall with the be as long as human nature pre­ British Empire and the present in­ serves certain qualities which to­ ternational status quo. This belief, day show absolutely no signs of however, is historically untrue of diminution. It will not prevent the past and logically untenable for strife to line. up the Have-Gots-­ the present. Nevertheless, it may be America, England, and France­ used to lead the peoples of the against the Have-Nots-Ger­ United States, the British Empire, many, Italy, and Japan-or the and France into another world Liberal angels against the Fascist war, forcing them to link their devils. Such an alignment would fortunes with those of collective se­ only make a world war of what curity and Communism, or to re­ might be, and would have been in sist with armed force any further the nineteenth century, a localized expansion by Germany, Italy, and conflict. Of all the absurdities that Japan. Such a course of action will have ever come to be seriously ad­ prove suicidal for millions of peo­ vocated as public policies, the ple in the Liberal Democracies, threat of a war to prevent war is and suicidal for their present type the most absurd. For the threat is of civilization. effective only if carried out. The argument of the collective Logically, as well as historically, security advocates is that democ­ there is everything wrong with the racy can survive only if all wars idea that Liberalism, peace, and are prevented, all boundaries guar­ collective security are indivisible. anteed, and all aggressors held in It is as contrary to the logic of the perpetual check by the supremacy present as to the facts of the past. of a United Front. The practical If this suicidal idea is made the 157 15 8 THE AMERICAN MERCURY ruling policy of the three Liberal cion down to the outbreak of the nations of today, two tragic conse~ W orId War one of universal peace quences seem inevitable: In the and respect of treaties, interna~ first place, if democracy can sur~ tional law, and the rights of vive only if peace continues un~ weaker peoples? Emphatically not. broken and existing territorial ar~ Yet that was the dawn and high rangements remain unviolated, noon of democracy. The progress then democracy .is doomed, be- of Liberalism was not retarded by cause peace is always broken and our conquest of Florida, Mexico, boundaries always redrawn by the or the Philippines, nor by the Brit­ next war. In the second place, if ish conquest of the Boer Republic democracy has in thefuture always or the French conquests in Africa to fight world wars and can never and Indo-China. The most preda~ again participate in or stand aside tory and least defensible war of the from· a small, localized conflict, nineteenth century, that of Prussia such as the present disputes in against France in 1870, in which Spain and China, then democracy France lost two provinces and a is doomed to perish in the throes billion-dollar indemnity, was fol~ of a modern Armageddon. lowed by a·great advance of de- Let us turn to the historical rec- mocracy in both countries. ord. Liberal Democracy may be Even Napoleon's wars andterri­ traced back to Cromwell's revolu~ torial conquests were among the tion in 1648, to the Magna Carta most creative forces in the spread in the thirteenth century, or to an- of Liberalism through Europe cient Greece. In its modern form, it during the first quarter of the nine­ may be said to have commenced teenth century. As much, however, with the American and French cannot be said for the war of Revolutions. From these great up- Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd heavals down to 1914, democracy George, the two greatest Liberals madeswiftprogress throughoutthe of their century; nor can as much world. Even China and Mexico, to- be said for the Treaty of V er~ailles ward the close of this period, were or that· chef-d'oeuvre of twentieth­ advancing rapidly toward the goal. century Liberals, the League of (Today, of course, they are moving Nations. Napoleon's works, nota­ with equal rapidity toward Com- bly his Code, prepared Europe for munism and chaos.) Was this pe~ democracy, whereas the League dod from the American Revolu- and the peace treaties prepared LIBERALISM COMMITS SUICIDE it for Fascism. The chief forces The satisfied great powers today opposed to Liberalism early in are Liberal Democracies precisely the· nineteenth century center<:d because of, and not in spite of, their around. the Holy Alliance, which many successful wars, land grabs, stood for universal peace, the pre­ and revolutions. The dissatisfied vention of war by collective action, nations are F aseist because they the guarantee of the status quo, did not share these successful ex­ and, generally, the same ideals periences. Those "Liberals" now as the League. Notwithstanding, writing impassioned polemics then, the fact that each of the three against Fascism fail to identify in­ now-foremost democracies added terest conflicts with ideological millions of square miles of terri­ conflicts. The significant "We or tory to its dominion through wars They" aspect of the present world of aggression during. the 140 years situation is that "We" Americans, prior to 1914, we are asked today Englishmen, and Frenchmen, are to believe that war and aggrandize­ not going to share our nineteenth­ ment are incompatible with lib­ century gains with those referred erty in the United States and the to in H. F. Armstrong's recent British Empire! book 1 as "They". Can we con­ The Pilgrim fathers who shot sistently, at the same time, deny Indians between prayers and their right to follow our examples helped lay the foundations of de­ in respect to the backward areas mocracy in the United States had which we have not yet appropri­ no such notions. The men who ated? If we choose to deny that founded a nation in America by right, then we must expect to back waging two wars with England, up the denial ultimately in the one with Mexico, two with Spain, greatest war of history. and innumerable conflicts with the It is sheer bad faith for an Amer­ Indians, the men who won Flor­ ican or an Englishman to say that ida, Texas, California, Oregon, and "They" can buy freely of our raw the West, were·· not after Making materials. To buy, "They" must be the World Safe for Democracy. able to sell. Present American and They were after making a home, British tariffs make it impossible and making it" safe for themselves for the underprivileged nations to and their children. This they did by sell enough to purchase necessary taking the land· from others and 1 We Or They, by Hamilton Fish Arm­ shooting Indians and Mexicans. strong. New York: Macmillan. 160 THE AMERICAN MERCURY raw materials. Only so long as gul­ a great democracy second only to lible American purchasers of for­ England both in Liberalism and eign bonds supplied funds, could colonial possessions, and the Hitler be kept out of power in World War might never have Germany. Equally absurd is it to taken place if only, at the turn of talk about equality of economic the present century, England and opportunity in a world in which France had decided to accept Ger­ the British, Americans, and French man expansion at the expense of dominate nearly two-thirds of all Russia and Central and Southeast­ territory and resources, and vir­ ern Europe. This statement, of tually exclude immigrants. course, is not susceptible of proof, What the dissatisfied countries but neither can it be disproved. It are really challenging is not Lib­ remains demonstrated, however, eralism, but the Liberal attempt to that the victory of the Liberal check further expansion, coupled United Front in 1918 has proved with Liberal maintenance of tariff more disastrous to democracy than and immigration barriers. If there all the imperialist and nationalist is to be conciliation, it must take aggressions of the preceding IS0 place in the realm of interests or years. Not only have the dis­ ends, rather than in the fields of satisfied turned to Fascism, but rationalization which receive so the satisfied are fast drifting to­ much exploration by our Lipp­ ward the same authoritarian ways. manns, Armstrongs, and Dor­ After the defeat of Napoleon, othy Thompsons. It is the conten­ the victorious Allies at Vienna tion of this article that the inter­ sought to leave the defeated satis­ ests of the satisfied and dissatisfied fied. Fortunately for democracy, could be reconciled by a large the Allies in 1815 were headed, not measure of concession and license; by Liberals like Woodrow Wilson, but that if concessions be denied, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau, no true interest of the Haves could but by hard-minded Conservatives be served by another world war to and' realists acquainted with the check expansion by the Have-Nots. limits of power. In 1815, Welling­ ton wrote to Lord Castlereagh: II We must, if we take this large cession, consider the operations of the war as deferred till France shall find a suita­ There might be no such thing as ble opportunity of endeavoring to re­ Fascism today, Germany might be gain what she lost; and, after having LIBERALISM COMMITS SUICIDE 161 wasted our resources in the mainte­ arming and dismembering of Ger­ nanceof overgrown military estab­ many. A good soldier, a good po­ lishments in. time of peace, we shall find how little useful the cessions we litical scientist, or anyone with a have acquired will be·against a na­ little common sense, would· have tional effort to regain them. insisted (as many did at Versailles) The Versailles victors, however, that if the purpose was to Make gave no adequate thought to the . the World Safe for Democracy, future war potentialities of the then harsh terms must be avoided; vanquished. Not content with existing political arrangements humiliating peace terms, the Allies must be disturbed as little as pos­ crdhed a new irritant for the losers sible; moderate reforms must be - forced acknowledgment of war undertaken only within the limits guilt. The peace tenus, particu­ of the practical; and, most impor­ larly the Reparations payments tant of all, a Europe-wide regime and the survival of the newly-cre­ of virtually free trade must be im­ ated political entities, were impos­ posed on victors and vanquished sible of fulfillment. These could alike. The peace punished, exacer­ only produce. the conditioQs in bated, and demanded the impossi­ Europe which are now the ·night~ ble, but did not incapacitate the mare of Liberals. defeated for future war. The peace­ The leaders at Versailles should makers reasoned from premises have made either a soundly mili­ contrary to fact and experience; tary or a soundly Liberal peace. collective action has always made, They did neither. Unlike Napo­ rather than prevented, war in the leon or Wellington, they were past. neither soldiers nor administra­ Liberal Democracy, which flour­ tors.. They were merely experts at ished on the localized conquests of winning popular elections and ma­ the nineteenth century, cannot nipulating mass opinion. The war­ survive world wars of today's mag­ guilt clause was a typical example nitude. The reasons are obvious. of a Liberal politician's idea of a The nineteenth-century conflicts sop to win votes in a British elec­ could be waged largely by profes­ tion. A good soldier would have sional armies and with a minimum insisted·(as many did at Versailles) of' disturbance to business. T 0­ that if the purpose was to humili­ day, however, any major war must ate Germany, it should be carried be fought between comparative out logically by a thorough dis- equals, with all the resources of 162. THE AMERICAN MERCURY both sides. It must be a totalitarian day, they are so surfeited with pos­ war of the nation-in-arms type. A sessions that they are strongly in-' war of this kind involves the sub­ disposed to further wars of con­ stitution of National Socialism for quest. Liberal Democracy. If such a war The far-flung British Empire to­ is prolonged, it will be impossible day presents far more points of to revert from the war-regimented vulnerability than elements of scheme of things to the ways of strength for offensive warfare. The Liberal Democracy. British fleet might still be able to The dissatisfied powers have to­ defeat the combined fleets of Ger­ dayadopted Fascism because they many, Italy, and Japan in one have understood that the democ­ grand engagement~ if the latter racies intend to oppose their fur­ were obliging enough to accom.. ther expansion while maintaining modate the British with such an high tariffs and immigration bar­ opportunity. But it is most doubt­ riers, wherefore great wars must ful that the British fleet, or any follow, wherefore the new authori­ fleet within their power to main­ tarian order is indicated as the only tain,. could, without combined scientific basis for fighting such American and French aid, crush wars. All this is logical. But not so the naval and air power of Ger­ the determination of the democra­ many, Italy, and Japan operating cies to set a limit to the expansion against Great Britain all over the of the dissatisfied nations. Those world. It seems reasonable to sup­ who now affect a militant Liberal­ pose that expansion by Germany, ism, without understanding the Japan, and Italy would eventually first principles of militarism and encounter the same weaknesses of force, argue that if the satisfied do bigness. The deeper Germany got not impose their will on the dis­ into Central, Eastern, or South­ satisfied, the latter will go on from eastern Europe or Russia, the the subjugation of the weak to the greater would be her problems and mastery of the world. While this the weaker her potentialities for argument cannot be disproved, it attacking France or England. The certainly finds little support in his­ more involved Italy becomes in tory. Great Britain, the United Africa, or Japan in China, the.safer States, and France were the they are likely to become for West­ world's chief land-grabbers during ern Europe. The fighting in Spain the IS0 years before 1914. Yet to- demonstrates the strength of the LIBERALISM COMMITS SUICIDE defensive in modern warfare wonder is how successful such where '. the opponents are evenly salesmanship is proving when the matched. Italy's victory in Ethi­ intentions of the peddlers arc: so opia over a backward people'has frankly disclosed. not enhanced her power for an There are, of course, many offensive war in Europe. Con­ moral, ethical, and legal reasons trary to the argument of many Lib­ why the satisfied nations should erals, it is not territorial expansion make war on the dissatisfied rather but just the reverse - prolonged than permit their expansion at the frustration and poverty - which expense of weaker peoples. I am is' most likely to render a popu­ not discussing these reasons, how­ lous nation bellicose. ever, because I am concerned with What is most ignored by the the question whether democracy Liberal and Conservative advo­ will commit suicide by fighting an.. cates of ap anti-Fascist United other world war. Such reasons for Front is that the ousting of the trying to check the dissatisfied will present regimes in Germ'any, Italy, not stop them from fighting, nor or Japan could not be expected to will these moral, ethical, and legal lead to democracy. Still less can it considerations turn any war of the be believed that any military vic­ satisfied into a triumph of Liberal­ tory would yield compensation in ism. The sole hope of preventing'a reparations or enlarged markets. suicide lies in creating a will to The Have-Gots could win small live. And Liberalism today seems wars of conquest in backward possessed merely of a will to die for countries during the nineteenth some cause other than its own. It century, but they cannot win a war would seem to me that suicide is against the Have-Nots ,today. It is bad ethics, bad morals, and bad a case of heads the Communists law. win, tails the Liberals lose. The Communists have long understood III this and prophesied the ultimate triumph of Soviet Russia through To clinch the argument of suicidal the collapse of Capitalist civiliza­ madness, it is necessary only to tion in an all-elubracing, suicidal stress the utter absurdity of the contest. It is not strange that they growing Liberal alliance with should now be trying to sell such Communist Russia. The underly­ awar to their future victims. The ing philosophy of that alliance is THE AMERICAN MERCURY palpably fallacious so far as Lib­ have in countries .1ike present-day eral interests are concerned. The Sp~in, France, Italy,· and Ger­ logic runs as follows: Soviet Rus­ many, questions of national boun­ sia, by reason of being the largest daries become secondary to social, nation in area, population, and nat­ economic, political, institutional, ur~l resources, wishes to preserve and personal problems. Precious the status quo. The democracies little interest should a French have a similar interest. The Have­ bourgeois have in the geographical Nots, however, are not so situated status quo of Czechoslovakia or or disposed. Therefore, the democ­ Siberia if his personal situation is racies and Russia should make soon to be altered by a Communist common cause against all chal­ firing squad. Americans who lengers. The fatal flaws in this think Russia would make a good reasoning are as follows: While ally against Japan for the .defense Russia momentarily may be satis­ of the Philippines ot,: the Open fied with her frontiers, as themoth­ Door in China (which is now erland of Communism she is not about closed), should first consider satisfied with the political, social, what might be their personal posi­ and economic conditions in the de­ tion if America were allied to Rus­ mocracies. Therefore, while Rus­ sia and John L. Lewis were Presi­ sia is anxious to exchange hands­ dent. Better by far for America to off guarantees with England, abandon all its Pacific possessions France, and the United States, she and allow Japan a free hand in the is preparing for World Revolu­ Far East than to have the Com­ tion. These guarantees are desired munist class-war brought to our by Russia solely as means to the shores by an alliance with Soviet end of revolution. Russia. Any idea of solidarity be­ If the Communist dream should tween democracy and Commu­ come true, disputes about terri­ nism is fantastic. The two sys­ torial security would continue tems can never have anything in raging in the future between dif­ common except a common battle­ ferent Communist States exactly as field, and, possibly, a common they have raged in the past be­ grave. tween different States under Capi­ Perhapsthe only sound hope for talism or Feudalism. But once democracy today lies in the sub­ Communism and world revolu­ conscious feudal and military in­ tion become important, as they stinct of the British Tories who LIBERALISM COMMITS SUICIDE

happen now to be in power. means that, if Great Britain gets Things would look brighter for into serious trouble, we must come democracy, of course, if the Brit­ to her rescue. Yet, if we were now ish had a Wellington or a Castle­ to v~nture suggestions about Brit­ reagh and not·an Eden or a Cham­ ish policy, we should be told to berlain in charge of foreign affairs. mind our business. In British Im­ Luckily, the old Liberal Party is perial trade, we have no prefer­ dead and the militantly Liberal ence. Indeed, we can't even collect and pacifist Labor Party is badly our dues from them. disorganized. As noted before, the Prime Minister Neville Cham­ best friends of real Liberalism berlain, in a speech delivered July have been the hard-minded real­ 2, 1937, during the height of an in­ ists; its worst enemies are the ternational crisis, declared: "I hope Lloyd Georges and yvoodrow the United States will not think Wilsons who would build democ­ me presumptuous if I say we have racy on foundations of dreams. If the same confidence in their out­ the British henceforth enjoy a look upon the great problems of Tory leadership, it may repress the the day as we have in that of the excessive zeal of militant Liberal­ British Empire." More .directly ism and shape policy in the cold stated, England now expects every light of reality. American to do his duty in the. de­ The next best hope for peace fense of the Empire. How are would be to have in America an Americans made to believe that intense wave of nationalism, which they owe such a duty? By being would convince the English and propagandized with the idea that . French that America was deter­ liberty and democracy the world mined to let them fight single­ over would perish if the British handed in any future conflict. Such were to lose a war or to be forced a conviction might avert a major by diplomatic pressure to make war for a long time. If the British substantial concessions to the dis­ were certain they could not count satisfied powers. What makes this on us in an emergency, they would propaganda doubly dangerous just be more likely to keep out of it. now is the unusual combination of The worst of American Anglophi­ money, brains, and moral idealism lism is that it gives us great lia­ advancing it. Radicals who used bilities without corresponding ben­ to denounce imperialism and efits or voice in British policy. It pacifists who used to denounce all 166 THE AMERICAN MERCURY wars are now' clamoring to be led three great revolutions. under by the British Tory imperialists in Cromwell, George Washington, one more war to save the British and Napoleon. It has since won and French Empires, and, of many wars of conquest at the ex­ course, liberty and democracy as pense of backward peoples. It has well. advanced in spite of small wars be­ The Radicals and pacifists are tween Liberal States. It has really really animated with the fury of lost but one war, that of the United despair and frustration. G. D. H. Front in 1914-1918 to save democ­ Cole, Britain's most effective racy. When England fought Na­ writer in the Socialist ranks, has poleon, America, the second great justadmitted in an article entitled, democracy, fought England - the "Can Capitalism Survive?" in the War of 1812. This fact probably symposium What£s Aheadof Us?, had much to do with the sensible­ that there·is no immediate chance ness and moderation of the victors of bringing about Socialism in at Vienna as compared with the England. There is, of course, less harshness of the victors at. Ver­ in the United States. The Radicals, sailles a century later. The Liberal therefore, see their only chance Revolutions have been won. The of immediate self-expression and Communist Revolution is now glo.ry in.a great war against Fas­ on. cism, a crusade to save imperialism In the face of the Communist and democracy. If they cannot win Revolution, Liberalism has a con­ the masses to the Labor Party, they servative interest. But, as this arti­ may be able to egg the Tories into cle has sought to show, conserving a suicidal war. After all, war­ Liberalism, or the fruits of the mongering is about the easiest ob­ Liberal Revolutions, is not a mat­ jective for any pamphleteer or ter of conserving the status quo or propagandist. the present possessions of every The idea on which this propa­ Liberal State. Nor does conserving ganda is based, as we have already Liberalism mean conserving Rus­ seen, finds no support in the his­ sian Communism. Conserving tory of the past or the logic of the Liberal Democracy today would present. But nothing is easier than seem to mean preserving, as far as for human nature to be swept to possible, conditions similar to its destruction by a wave of un­ those under which Liberalism rose reasonableness. Liberalism won its and flourished. Those conditions LIBERALISM COMMITS SUICIDE

have never included united fronts tions and ultimately productive of .or collective security. Those condi­ chaos and Communism. Let it be tions, however, have involved ex­ recalled that Liberalism has never treme national individualism and flourished on international combi­ competition, the true spirit of Lib­ nations for the restraint of the dis­ eralism. Nothing could be more satisfied. On the contrary, it has alien to this spirit than the new thriven on a plethora of opportu­ spirit of international collectivism nities for the dissatisfied to help which the Anglophiles and the themselves. If the present tariff pro-Leaguers would foist upon and immigration systems of the Americans. satisfied democracies are main­ Finally, let it be repeated that tained, and there is no likelihood those who now ask for a United of their early modification, then Front of ·the Liberal Democracies the dissatisfied must be left to for the conservation of Liberalism emulate the self-help examples of and the status quo are asking for the now satisfied Democracies­ world war. Such a war must neces­ or else· all modern civilization sarily create conditions immedi­ must be undermined, if not de­ ately destructive of Liberal institu- stroyed, in another world war. DEEPER THAN ATLANTA

By JACKSON MATHEWS

BULLETS IN BATON ROUGE LONG LIVES

My boy was gwine his ways like the boy I made him With his thumb in his suspenders, Lawd, and they shot him. Why, good Lawd, did you let em?·Why did you let em Pull their gun on my boy? Wasn't hurtin nobody, Merciful God, he wasn't doin nothin to nobody, Nothin but his own blessed business in Louisiana.

KINGFISH KILLED-DELTA DICTATOR DIES

Lawd, just look at all the roads that aint paved, And all the po white chillun in Louisiana.

HUEY IN HEAVEN - LONG LIVES

Deeper than Atlanta Down in Louisiana Nursed by niggers Raised with hill-billies At circus sideshows Chawed by chiggers You know how it is.

Down in Louisiana Struttin with jiggers Dozin in the lilies 168 DEEPER THAN ATLANTA Bullyin the bozos Pullin triggers You know how it is.

Down in Louisiana Bull-dozin the niggers Fingerin fillies Seen among so-so's Suckin big cigars N osin in big business Jugglin the figgers Slicker'n city~slickers You know how it is.

Down in Louisiana: Deeper than Atlanta.

Huey took to the stump and stirred Farmers and mosquitoes with his word, With his waving arms and· his palmetto fan. Politics is sure hell and sweat and fun. "You birds want to know what power is? It's legally entrenched lawlessness. Just give me a grab at it, I'll give you bucks Plenty of paved roads and free schoolbooks. Why, every last one of you po white trash Will wash in bathtubs and use a comb & brush. I'll educate yo younguns in shonuft schools And give you homes, radios, and· automobiles. And five thousand dollars free of debt And twenty-five hundred a year after that. I'll swap you hill-billies a bungalow for a shanty, Louisiana's got to face· the fact of plenty.

Sharecropper croppin by the old bayou What makes me do you like I do? THE AMERICAN MERCURY "Why, hell, I got a university down in Baton Rouge that cost me $15,000,000, that can tell you why I dolike I do. . I built em a plant that'll make Tulane's Look like the grammar school of New Orleans. I hired em a football team of giants, . And the best brains money can buy teach em science, Why, in five years our boys'll be so brainy They'll make the weather be dry or rainy Whenever they wanta so's to suit the crops. You farmers '11 feed ice~cream & cake for slops To your razor-back hogs, you'll be 50 rich. And I tell you now, they aint a gu11ey nor a ditch In North Louisiana, just as sho as you born, That wont be as smooth and green as a lawn. Why, my brainy boys can make sugar cane grow On a piece of ground so doggone po You cant raise a umbrella on it. That's so! I want you sharecroppers to be your own boss, Own your own farms, and not plow no horse But a big tractor pullin fifteen plows; And a car in yo barn keepin company with the cows; And the cows not keepin no company with ticks, But them kind of little weak-kneed cows that sucks. Yo women can stay in out of the field And do the tendin to their own yield. Work aint so powerful hard by God With lectric lights and a paved backyard And waterworks sproutin round the do. God knows we wont stand to be po no mo.

Learned professors in their laboratories Nod their heads among ruined categories.

"When I have done my do for Louisiana: Look out, America1 I'll grah you by DEEPER. THAN ATLANTA 171 The Florida tit And the Texas thigh And throw you skyhigh. I'll dehorn you of Alaska Wean you from your Mexico. This is Huey Long speakin on the radio.

Look. out, America! You've got me to deal with now. Look out for filibusters, Long's blizzards Of truth, you pie-eatin sons of buzzards, You senator boys: I'm usin airplanes To tote truth to Washington from New Orleans."

BULLETS IN BATON ROUGE SAVIOR SHOT DICTATOR DEAD

jooba up jooba down jooba all around town jooba dis jooba dat jooba kill a yaller cat ]OOBA!

Death does not smile: death is the fixed feature. Death is busy fixing an uncertain future. Death is a dour doughface mixing sour dough: A dictator sinks in it deeper than other men do. Heavier than other men in human affairs He sinks to the level of the lower despairs: Low among the dough dolls of death he lies And stirs to vacate stuff too thick to rise.

If Huey had arisen and borne his bullet He would have had in him the martyr's nugget, 172. THE AMERICAN MERCURY The lode·to magnetize the people's mind And point all noses into the same wind, While our learned prophets and pundits ponder The immediate re-establishment of wonder.

LONG BIER BORNE TO BURIAL BODYGUARDS GUARD BODY

But death will not smile: death dictates terms To dictators concerningthe living wage of worms: Next year Kai Shek or warlords of the West Will smell like last year's yellow-hammer nest. Dictators, living, load their visions down With memories of Rome or a Five-year Plan, Soak the rich, or tamper with a supreme court Forgetting a dictator's life is supremely short. When strict death shows them how to behave This lumber tumbles after them into the grave And there weighs them deeper and deeper down, Deeper than Atlanta, deeper than Atlanta town.

Roll them bones, Lawd Read em and weep: Deeper than Atlanta Laid to sleep Deeper than Atlanta's dark shadow Six feet de~p in his first tuxedo.

Laid where earthworms Nudge him not yet with their noses For the best coffin Money can buy encloses Him close around Safe from the roots of roses Quieter than the living ever will be Until an ice age heal the sea. THE DISARMAMENT HOAX

By FLETCHER PRATT

"ON THURSDAY, December IS, eral staffs of the world are at this 1921," said the Philadelphia moment preparing for the next Public Ledger of December 16, Armageddon. None of the much­ 1921, "the Race for Armaments publicized treaties has moved the came to an end." The occasion for human race by so much as an inch such an exalted statement was the toward that goal of Peace which signature of the Washington naval the pacifists talk so violently about; limitation treaties. Gullible editors the only material r'esult of "limita­ all over the world echoed the tion" has been a highly negative Ledger's sentiment in high-sound­ one - the process by which the ing phrases, deaf to the .queasy nations of the world have ceased comments of admirals, who were building warships. at random and merely profes~ional militarists and have concentrated all .their tech­ therefore unable to appreciate the nical skill and money on the task of remarkable coup the politicians building warships aimed at specific had accomplished by not listening enemies. to them. At this writing, the treaties are Today, sixteen years after the dying in an atmosphere of inter­ event, it has become clear that· the national distrust and hatred, with hard-headed admirals were right charges of evasion flyip.g in all di­ and the sentimental editors wrong; rections, the armament·situation that the whole naval-reduction far worse than it was in 1913 or business was only one more 1919, and few persons really be­ maneuver in the familiar racket of lieving that any of the signatories bilking the taxpayer; and that will observe the weak "notifica­ "naval limitation" limited nothing, tion" clauses any longer than it is saved nothing, improved nothing, politically expedient to do so. In and achieved nothing, save for a short, there is not now, nor has slight change in the sinister papier there ever been, any such thing as mache mask behind which the gen- naval disarmament or navallimita- 173 174 THE AMERICAN MERCURY tion, in spite of the fine phrases of not make sense, and neither does a the Versailles Treaty and the pre­ doctrine of repeated coincidence, amble to the minutes of the Wash­ or for that matter, any other, except ington Conference. the assumption that the representa­ There are several possible tives of the nations who met at methods of accounting for this Washington in 1921 did not possess paradox. The simplest is to con­ the celestial powers they· thought sider the men who drafted the they had when they signed the Washington agreement as tools of naval agreements. In other words, the munitions makers, and to im­ they signed to renounce the use of pute to them a deliberate intent to navies in war, which was an effort deceive in a spirit of cynical hypoc­ to control the elemental forces of risy. This is the explanation ac­ nature by denying their existence cepted enthusiastically by the - as futile as an attempt to treat great Left-wing. But it has the syphilis with facial unguents. serious defect of ignoring statistical possibilities, of positing the ex­ II istence of a gigantic plot embracing all the responsible governmental It is important to remember that officials of the world, and of assum­ nations do not build warships for ing that the intern~tional armorers the fun of seeing them sail past have been able to buy them all, in­ in majestic review. The World eluding the commissars· of Soviet War underlined the technological Russia, who of course should be change in naval construction; immune from such Capitalistic demonstrated that the cost and bribes. A second simple explana­ complication of the modern war­ tion is that we are ruled by con­ ship are such that its characteris­ genital idiots - an attractive yet tics are necessarily a compromise sophomoric theory, which pre­ among various desirables, the con­ supposes an atrophy among all the ditions of which compromise are best minds· the various govern­ the strategic possibilities of the pas.. ments of the world have been able sible war in which the ship is in­ to find to carryon their business tended to fight. for a de~ade and a half. But surely, The point becomes clear by a now and then there must appear brief examination of the fleets left a reasonable man among them. in being by the close of the WorId; No - such glib explanations do War. England possessed fifty-six THE.DISARMAMENT HOAX 175 ships of the first line .(battleships against England, larger than any­ and hattle~cruisers), nominally the thing she had, more.. powerfully best fleet in the world, but.only armored, better armed; they would nominally, for many were ob­ give us at least a twenty-five per solescent pre-war types, and the re­ cent superiority over the British mainder had been built during navy once they were afloat. But and for thepurpose of the war with they were not afloat, only building, Germany, and had the special and with Congress balking at ap­ characteristics and defects imposed propriation bills, it was possible by war in the North Sea. That is, they would never float. being inte.Q.ded to operate near The first-line fleets ofFrance and their base, the fuel capacity was Italy had both been intended for low, and as the base was England operations against the always small - rich in coal, poor in oil-they navies of Austria and Turkey, and were coal~burners. Speed was high, hence were negligible. The Rus­ handiness great, guns powerful, sian and German fleets had been armor weak. Behind them stood a wiped out by the war. In the whole huge fleet of small craft, of which world, the Japanese navy alone was only the light cruisers, intended to still useful for the purpose for run the trade-lanes against German which it was designed - to keep surface raiders, were valuable for the Anglo-Saxon powers from in­ any other purpose than a European terfering in any action the Japanese conflict. wished to take on the western The American navy of the same shore of the YeHow Sea. date had only thirty-three first­ Two other points are worth not­ line ships in the water, with sixteen ing as contributory - the fact that new ones completing, but these . the Anglo-Japanese naval alliance sixteen were the essential fact be­ was up for renewal, and the fact hind the conference, for they were that the surrendered German bat­ the vessels of the Wilson program, tleshipOstfriesland had recently undertaken early in 1916 when the .been sunk by American air bombs, methods of the British blockade an event which, when announced had drawn from the President without technical details, had the exasperated determination to' created doubt as to whether battle~ "build the biggest navy in the ships were any more use at all. • world, and then do as we please". Summarize it this way: every­ In other .words, they were built one was hard pressed for money 176 THE AMERICAN MERCURY after the spending spree of the war; ers. Not even the abrogation of everyone had battleships, very the Anglo-Japanese alliance nor costly to repair and maintain; and stoppage of work on the American no one but Japan had any con­ Pacific fortifications could truly be ceivable use for those battleships. attributed to the treaty; Harding's The possibility is strong that if. the "normalcy".Congress had failed to Washington conference had never appropriate for .the forts, and at been held,every nation would have least a month before the call to the done exactly what it was bound to conference, Austen Chamberlain do by the conference treaties - i.e., had declared in Parliament that scrap large numbers of obsolete "we shall be no party to any alli­ pre-dreadnaughts, halt construc­ ance directed against America"­ tion on new battleships, and launch which,with Germany and Russia programs of technical. experiment out of the way, was'the only possi-' . with the new naval weapons hie purpose of the Anglo-Japanese brought to light during the war, alliance. notably, aircraft and torpedo-car­ No one had any intention of riers. Similar retrenchment had oc­ actually sacrificing anything, but curred after every naval war for in the prayer-meeting atmosphere over a century: after the Napo­ of Washington, 1921, it was fatally leonic Wars, after our Civil War, easy for each party to believe that the Crimean, and the Franco-Prus­ it had sacrificed much - England, sian, the only difference being that a magnificent fleet-in-being against on those occasions, no magnifico "paper ships" from the other sea­ called in the newspaper reporters powers; America, a still more and stuffed them with hooey about magnificent fleet against vessels al­ the End of the World Armament ready bound for the scrap-heap; Race. Japan, the· determination to carry The Washington conference ac­ her arms into the land that offered complished nothing else whatever: an outlet for her surplus· popula­ when the idea of limiting cruisers. tion; France and Italy each, do­ came up, Mr. Balfour for England minion of the Mediterranean. talked about "the hard, brutal When admirals in everyone of the necessities of plain and o~vious signatory countries leaped into faats"; France would have nothing print with articles. describing the to do with any limitation on sub.. treaties as a sacrifice of English marines, nor America on destroy- (American, French, Japanese, THE DISARMAMENT HOAX 177 Italian) interests, the impression sonableness as at Washington. But that they had received a square deal on all sides was overlooked the fact all around seemed confirmed. that the real question of naval The dangerous myth here was armament in a world of increasing­ not one concerning any "sacrifice" ly 'mechanical warfare was that of of interests, or that the conference special ships to fight a specific naval was in reality just one more diplo­ war, and counter-construction by matic deal in a game that had been the power menaced; a question going on since Pharaoh, but that which the Washington conference the delegates, in their,sincere ,in­ had not even touched. The 1921 sincerity, believed they had laid treaties had, indeed, savagely in­ the foundations of a new principle tensified this question by limiting of mutual concession toward dis­ the most generalized 'warship­ armament, and that they ,so con­ the battleship - and so restricting vinced the folks back home. The the tonnage of other vessels as to logical responsibility of the treaty force specialization. was the renunciation of naval'war Consider the state of the big as an instrument of national policy; navies in 1927, just before the and none of the 'signatories, not opening of the Geneva conference, even our own pio~s Republic, was 'after six years of "disarmament". genuinely willing to make this re­ The United States fleet was in the nunciation. In short, the delegates Pacific, facing Japan; we had build­ could not produce the goods they ing eight heavy cruisers with eight­ had contracted for. inch guns, ideal ships for a Pacific war, distinctly less so for any other III purpose, in, which their size and cruising range would be wasted; The extent' of the failure did not we were rapidly developing ship­ become obvious until the Geneva board aviation, an arm which by conference, six years later. The na­ definition is intended to operate far tions which sent delegates'to this from the coast. Japan had just com­ second meeting fully expected pleted the largest naval program them to come home with an agree­ in her history - slightly heavier ment' for the scrapping of large "replies" to the American cruisers, numbers of warships; and it is destroyers slightly stronger than quite possible that the delegates ours, and submarines whose sea themselves expected as'much rea- endurance was absurd unless they THE AMERICAN MERCURY

" were intended to operate oft had useless ships; everybody had California or New South Wales. conceived a possible enemy and Both countries and England as built against that enemy a special well were working as fast as they type of ship. Unfortunately for the could at"luodernizing" battleships, Geneva conference, the ship types a euphemism for building new that would serve Italy against Eng... ships under the names of the old, land or Japan against the United with the rules allowing everything States would not work the other but changes in big-gun caliber. way around. Italy had just brought out four The result was. that each of the high-speed light cruisers, three conferees magnanimously offered heavies, two divisions of destroyers to scrap the types most useful and three of 'submarines, all pos­ against it-Japan and Italy to do sessing military characteristics[deal away with battleships and aircraft for aggression against French or carriers; England and America, British Mediterranean communica­ submarines; America offered to re-, tions, and practically useless for strict cruisers as to total, but not 'as any other purpose. France had to individual, tonnage; Japan and built twelve super-destroyers in re~ England, to restrict them in indi­ ply to the Italian destroyers, six vidualbut not total tonnage. Yetat super-cruisers in reply to the Geneva the powers really asked no Faseist five, and had concen­ more thanthey hadasked at Wash­ trated in the Mediterranean ington and showed no more ob­ everything but her new fleet of stinacy in resisting each other's de­ submarines, which were just what mands; it was not until the com­ she needed to'control the English plete breakdown in Switzerland Channel. Across that Channel the that the spiritual poverty of the English had replied to the French ,Washington achievement became and Italian submersibles with visible. dozens of new destroyers and gun­ It seems altogether likely that· boats, and had on the slips eleven the delegates who took part in that heavy cruisers, no match for the melancholy debate in the Palace of, American, and Japanese types, but the League were genuinely hurt at just the" right vessels to deal with the attitude, of the" other nations., Mussolini's fast tin-clads or the Bp.t whether they were or whether light super-destroyers of the Gauls. they accepted the whole proceed.;,. In other words, nobody any longer ing with calm cynicism does not· THE DISARMAMENT HOAX 179 now matter; for the public every;.. .pace has accelerated; the total naval where· (except in certain parts of appropriations for the last nine theUnited States, where the failure years are something like four was attributed to a pipe-dream times what they were for the nine from the mind of a Washington years from 19°5-1914, and they lobbyist, William B. Shearer) be­ continue to increase. Germany has came convinced that the fair prom­ now joined in, and it has become ise of the earlier agreement had apparent that behind the mask· of been destroyed through the Machi­ Soviet censorship, an energetic avellianism of the· other partners. program of Russian warship con­ The effect was at once visible on struction has been going on for naval· appropriations. Never· so years. soon after a major war have the Nor is the production of the powers plunged into a new arm­ against - one - country specialized ament race, never so unanimously, warship the only evil result of naval and never at such a pace. Italy "limitation" treaties. By limiting commenced work on eight more numbers of ships, they have en­ cruisers, two squadrons of super­ abled the second-class naval powers destroyers, and the modernization to enter the race with expensive of her four battleships~ France laid special types, which give them a down twenty super-super-destroy­ good chance of winning the mas­ ers and six cruisers; England began tery of the seas against the larger twelve light cruisers and four navies; and by making tonnage heavies; our Congress authorized and gun-calibers the only criteria fifteen heavies; Japan, four heavies, of strength in the individual ship, six lights, a dozen destroyers, and they have placed a premium on a whole fleet of the new trans­ evading the spirit of the treaties pacific subs. The total bill for the through clever design. France's re­ year was a little better than twice ply to the first restrictions on as much as the combined naval ex­ cruisers was the production of a penditures of the entire world in submarine mounting eight-inch 1913, which is a neat rise, even guns, more powerful than any light allowing for the change in the pur­ cruiser afloat, and Germany's to chasing .power of money, since the similar restrictions of the Ver­ three of the I9I3 competitors sailles instrument was the pocket­ (Russia, Germany, Austria) were battleship, which took the bille­ not included. Since that date, the ribbon from all the heavy cruisers 180 THE AMERICAN MERCURY in the world at a single bound. placed idealism which announced Any effort to blame one nation the Washington treaty as the end or group of nations for this state of the armament race and thus con­ of affairs is useless. A case can be vinced· each nation of the other's \, made out against Italy for viola­ bad faith when it responded to the tions of even the letter of the Wash­ treaty restrictions by building ington treaty, and a somewhat bet­ special types, useful against one or ter case can be made out against at most two nations. Today, even Japan; but the spirit 'of the instru­ the slight hope of naval reduction ment died as the result of a spon­ that once offered has faded and we taneous and universal movement are left facing the bigger .arma­ -or perhaps it would be more ac­ ments, the distrust, fear, and irrita­ curate to say that it never was born. tion which are the natural result If a cause behind this general of the "end of the Race for Arma­ movement, this complete miscar­ ments" until that perfect day when riage, is sought, it can hardly be the sleek new' warships will be found anywhere but in the mis- tried·out against each other.

AUTUMNAL

By EILEEN HALL

LIKE these Autumn leaves that burn to die, I Lifting their brittle scarlet to the sky; Sap, song, wings all relinquished, Spring's desire, And nothing left of them but death and fire. RUSSIA'S GOLDBRICK CONSTITUTION

By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN

.ICTATORS and their hired men torical process of masking the ugly D will have their jokes. A fa.. facts of despotic rule with. the miliar statement, which has been pleasing fictions of model, up-to­ repeated over and over again in the date laws and constitutions. house-organs of Stalin, Hitler, and On paper, some of the promises Mussolini, is that liberty in "Capi­ of Stalin's brainchild make a brave talist" countries means liberty to showing. For instance, under Arti­ starve~ In actual fact, of course, the cle 125, citizens of the USSR are only authentic cases of mass starva­ guaranteed "freedom of speech; tion in Europe in modern times freedoJ;l of the press;• freedom of have been in the Soviet Union, assembly and holding mass meet­ while the per capt-°ta food consump­ ings; freedom of street processions tion in democratic countries is and demonstrations". John Stuart vastly higher than it is in dictator­ Mill could have asked for nothing ships, whether of the Red, Black, better. But the following paragraph or Brown coloration. Another suggests that there are considerable amusing joke of the bright young difficulties for any critical minority men of the Soviet Union, Ger­ which endeavors to exercise such many, and Italy is to maintain, desirable privilegeso It reads: with every appearance of serious­ These rights of the citizens are en­ ness, that the gagged, controlled sured by placing at the disposal of the press of their own particularcoun­ toilers and their organizations print­ ing presses, supplies of paper, public try constitutes "the only really free buildings, the streets, means of com­ journalism in the world". But if munication, and other material requi­ there were a Nobel Prize for the sites for the exercise of these rights. jokes of dictators, it would cer­ Anyone who is acquainted with tainly go to Fuhrer Stalin as the the uses of language in the Soviet author of the new Soviet Constitu­ Union will readily recognize that tion. No shoddier goldbrick has "the toilers and their organiza­ been turned out in the long his- tions" is a euphemism for the

lSI THE AMERICAN MERCURY Communist Party, the Union of trated by a few questions. Has it Communist Youth, and such Com­ been possible, before or after the munist-controlled subsidiary or­ inauguration.of the Constitution, ganizations as the Soviet .trade­ for people to assemble and criticize unions. In the same way, it could Stalin as freely as Americans·have be pointed out that Messrs. Hitler criticized their Presidents, from and Mussolini are not stingy when Washington to Roosevelt II, not it is a question of supplying "print­ even excluding Lincoln during the ing presses, supplies of paper, pub­ Civil War? Has a single inde­ lic buildings", etc., for the promo­ pendent non-Communist editor tion of Fascist propaganda and been allowed to publish a news­ street demonstrations. paper or a magazine devoted to the A still clearer evaluation of the proposition that some policies of "democratic liberties" promised in the Soviet Government maybe the Soviet Constitution was fur­ mistaken and open to censure? Is nished by Mr. ~atanyan, a high there a Civil Liberties Union in official of the Soviet Commissariat Russia; if so, has it ever been able for Justice, who offered the follow­ to publish revelations of the in­ ing. realistic comment: numerable arbitrary acts of the We have universal suffrage, enjoyed GPU or of the physical conditions by all except the insane and people in which Russia's forced-labor po.. disfranchised by court ruling. The litical prisoners (who number hun­ same applies to freedom of meeting. There can be no meetings of the in­ dredsof thousands, by the testi­ sane or criminals, such as Monarchists, mony of Soviet sources) are kept? Mensheviki, and Socialist Revolu­ There are plenty of disgruntled tionaries. proletarians in Russia; the proof of Here one has an admirable fonnula this is to be found in many reports for preserving a cast-iron dictator- in the Soviet press of murders and "ship while promulgating the most beatings of those workers who are" Liberal principles in the world. pacemakers in the Stakhanovite You simply assume, as every dicta­ speed-up in factories ; what are the tor does, that anyone who dis­ chances of· those dissatisfied work­ agrees with you is criminal, or in­ ers, under the new constitutional sane, or both. dispensation, to hold street demon­ A further revelation of the status strations or meetings, to voice their of democratic and civil liberties in grievances, to form unions free the Soviet Union can best be iHus- from Communist control, or, better RUSSIA'S GOLDBRICK CONSTITUTION 183 yet,to carry out with impunity sit­ ments today, just like the more for­ down strikes in SovietState plants? tunate Poland and the Baltic States, Ifanyoneof the developments sug­ which were- also attacked by the gested in these questions should Soviet Government, but without ever become a reality, it would be success. hrst~p~ge news ~ll· over the world. The Constitution has its full Another patently fraudulent share of weasel words. Itprescribes, promise in the Constitution is Arti­ for instance, that "in all courts of cle 17: the USSR, cases are heard in.pub.. Each. Union. Republic reserves the lic, unless otherwise provi~ed for right freely to secede from the USSR. by law". How this works out in Now the right to secede is mean­ practice may be judged from an ingless unless it also implies the Associated Press item from Mos­ right freely to advocate secession. cow in the New York Times of And any Ukrainian, Georgian, April 13, 1937, after the Constitu­ Karelian, or other non-Russian tion's "guaranties of civil liberty" who would advocate the separation were supposed to be in full work.. of his native country from the So­ ing order: viet Union would be an uncom­ Workers who attempted to sabotage monly poor life-insurance risk. As construction of the second link of ithappens, Communism was nota­ Moscow's subway already have been "liquidated", the organ of the Com­ bly weak in the non-Russian parts missariat for Heavy Industry disclosed of the former Czarist Empire. today. The names and number of the alleged wreckers were not given in the Ukraina, Georgia, Central Asia, account published in the newspaper, Daghestan, to mention only a few Za lndustrialisaziu. Nor was the of the more conspicuous examples, method of "liquidation" stated. had to be conquered by Russian Muchpublicityhasbeenaccorded troops. The picturesque little to the provisions of the new Con­ Georgian Republic, which had a stitution establishing secret ballot.. non-Bolshevik Socialist govern­ ing, abolishing the open voting ment, was overrun by Russian which formerly characterized So­ troops after the Soviet Government viet elections, and removing the had recognized its independence former discrimination against peas­ and entered into treaty relations ants in favor of the urban popula­ with it. All these States, if they had tion in the matter of representation been left to themselves, would be in Soviet Congresses. It is interest­ under non-Communist govern- ing to note in this connection that THE AMERICAN MERCURY neither Mussolini nor Hitler has labor. ·And there has· been a con­ found it necessary to resort to open spicuous.and significant lack of any voting or to unequal representation tendency among the· unemployed for different classes in .order to in other countries to emigrate to maintain a thoroughly efficient sys­ Russia and take advantage of the tem of dictatorship. One must look "right to work" under the highly elsewhere for the essential bases of unsatisfactory conditions, as re­ the Communist-Fascist system of gards food and housing and sanita­ minority rule. These bases are: a tion, which prevail in that country. monopoly of political power for a The Soviet Constitution can best single party, which is itself obedi­ be understood as a choice morsel ent to the will of a supposedly in­ of propaganda for use by profes­ fallible leader; complete control by sional and amateur friends of Rus­ the existing regime in its own in­ sia abroad. Soviet citizens are too terests of press, schools, theater, well trained to make any undue broadcasting, and every other use of the paper liberties which agency of propaganda; ruthless ter­ have been showered on them from rorism, directed against the faintest on high. But the resounding symptoms of organized opposition. phrases of the Constitution sound There is not the slightest evidence euphonious to persons who know to show that any of these essential nothing of Soviet political realities bases have been undermined by the and who may promote one of the adoption of the new Soviet Con­ major Soviet political objectives: to stitution. obscure the fundamentally dicta­ There is a good deal of ballyhoo torial charactet of the Stalin regime about the "right to work" which and thereby to make easier the use has been written into the Soviet of democratic countries as cats­ Constitution. There are, however, paws in the war which Russia a good many far-from-pleasant anticipates with the Fascist States. places where this "right to work" exists: Sing Sing Prison, for. in­ II stance, and the "Republic" of Venezuela under the sway of the The Soviet Constitution has re­ late Dictator Gomez. There are· no cently found a suitable publicity guaranties in the Constitution (and agent in Anna Louise Strong. For still less in actual life) against sixteen years she has been trump­ wholesale conscription of forced eting the supposed achievements RUSSIA'S GOLDBRICK CONSTITUTION and delights of life in the Soviet viets which is elected at four-year Union. Nothing - neither fam.. intervals. It would be hard to imag­ ines, nor forced labor, nor frame.. ine .a more naive misstatement of up trials, nor wholesale executions the mechanics of power in Russia of old revolutionaries, nor growing than the author's reference to the chasms of inequality between the Supreme Soviet: lords and masters of the Soviet The whole united power of the State order, the high civilian and mili.. in all its functions is combined in one tary bureaucrats, and the rank-and­ body of representatives directly elected by and recallable by the people - a file workers and peasants, nor simple, efficient, and democratic struc­ abrupt reversals of policy and ture of power. ideology - has been able to shake As a matter of fact, the power of her childlike faith that all is for the the Soviet State would function best in her Soviet world. In her quite as vigorously if the Supreme hands, Stalin's Constitution is safe Soviet were not in existence. That against profane skepticism. She body is a bit of decorative window­ treats it with vastly more reverence dressing with no more actual inflll­ than the most fossilized Conserva­ enceon the course of foreign and tive in A.merica would be likely to domestic policy than a Hitler evince in regard to the American Reichstag or a Mussolini parlia­ Constitution. Not one of the many ment. I have attended a number of glaring discrepancies between the Soviet Congresses in Moscow. I re­ verbiage of the Constitution and call no instance when these "sover­ the facts of Soviet daily life is noted eign representatives" voiced any in her book.! disapproval of any proposal which To her, supreme power in the was laid before them by the govern­ Soviet Union is vested not in Stalin ment or when any important meas­ and his co-opted yes-men in the Po­ ure received less than a one-hun­ litical Bureau of the Communist dred-per-cent vote of ratification. P4rty (the members of this body·at Miss Strong is intensely, not to the time of Lenin's death, Stalin say painfully, serious; the only glint excepted, have all been shot, driven of unconscious humor in the book to suicide, exiled or arrested) butin is to be found in a few extraordi.. the Supreme Soviet, the new name nary bits of Pollyanna poetry, re­ for the unwieldy Congress of So- sponsibility for which the author casts on the Russian peasants. Two 1 The New Soviet Constitution, by Anna Louise Strong. Holt: New York. of these couplets read as follows: 186 THE AMERICAN MERCURY Where do we get the happy looks rights, equally owners of all.the You see across our land? nation's wealth". The growth of You never saw them under the Czar Or on a foreign strand. the political power of the Red Army is something well worth Let the balalaikas ring, watching in the future, despite the Raise anew the chorus, Isn't it a happy thing­ execution recently of eight of Rlls­ The road that lies before us. sia's leading generals. All this is calculated to make the Miss, Strong does her propagan­ most stalwart "friend of the Soviet dist best in this book, as always. Union" a little jittery. The slaugh­ But one has a feeling that the ter of Trotskyists has emptied Zeitgeist is ;against her. For the many pews in the church, where Soviet Union today is obviously Miss Strong and other glorifiers of caught up in one of those great the Soviet Union like to hold forth. waves' of reaction which follow More shocks are probably in ~tore. every big revolution; which gave The French Revolution, like the England Charles' II after Crom­ Russian, had its fringe of worship­ well, and led France, after the ful admirers in other countries. But poetic frenzies and wild ferocities their ranks began to thin when of the Terror, first to Thermidor revolutionaries as well as aristo­ and then to Bonaparte. The slaugh­ crats and victims of false denuncia­ ter' of Trotskyists, some of whom tion were taken on the ride to the contributed as much as Stalin him­ guillotine. Some sympathizers must self to the original victory of the have fallen by the wayside when Revolution, is one symptom of the Danton's head dropped into the present epoch. In line with this is basket; more when Robespierre the increasingly conservative trend and his closest associates were,put of legislation and the growing to death. And by the time N apo­ spread between the incomes of the leon appeared on the scene, the Soviet elite and of the "common stoutest defender of anything ind people", which makes a bitter everything that happened in "Rev­ mockery of the author's reference olutionaryFrance" must have felt to "a society of worker-owners, disposed to quit. The auguries in equal in economic and political Russia are not dissimilar. FALLACIES ABOUT YOUR HEALTH

By AUGUST A. THOMEN

This is the second of two articles in which a physician debunks a number ofmyths concerning medicine andcures, which have long been held as truths in the American home.

That to scratch oneself with a T hat rubber boots, rubbers, and . rusty nail or pin is particularly galoshes "draw" the teet, and often dangerous. cause sore eyes it worn indoors. Rust is merely an iron oxide, the It is a common experience that result of the union of oxygen with when anyone of the articles men­ metal. It could not possibly of it­ tioned is worn for several hours, self make any wound more dan­ the feet are distinctly moist and gerous. Iron oxide is similar to the sweaty. This is mainly due to the iron which doctors give their pa­ fact that normal perspiration is not tients who are poor in blood. It permitted to evaporate rapidly. isn't the wound which is of impor­ That these various articles when tance, but the germs which have worn indoors cause sore eyes is.a been introduced into the body as a misconception. result of the wound, the most dan­ gerous being those of tetanus. That the drinking of medicinal waters at health springs is in itself T hat an intestinal tapeworm an efficient cure for manyailments. causes an excessive appetite in the According to enthusiastic advo­ patient. cates of the "cures", they are capa­ This is a myth, derived from the ble of remedying a wide range of notion that the tapeworm requires ailments, provided that care be to be fed. It most certainly does, taken in the prope, selection of the but to those familiar with the phys­ special water, the waters being clas­ ical make-up of tapeworms it is sified mainly as saline, alkaline, apparent that very little sustenance acidulous, arsenical, chalybeate is needed. (containing iron), and sulphur- 187 188 THE AMERICAN MERCURY ous. Doctors now consider it a It is much more important to well-established fact that the drink- ' chew breadstuffs, vegetables, and ing of these waters is of decidedly fruits than meat. The reason lies in secondary importance in "taking the fact that the digestion of bread­ the cure". The waters have no par­ stuffs, etc., is begun in the mouth. ticular curative value except as lax­ If they are not chewed, they will atives. Such benefits as arise in not be mixed with ptyalin and some instances result chiefly from therefore will be so much dead simpler diets, change of habits, the weight in the stomach, for the avoidance o£excesses, etc. stomach juices do not digest car­ bohydrates but only proteins. That whisky will cure snake-bite. When meat (or other,forms of K. P. Schmidt, an authority on protein) is swallowed, it is immedi­ reptiles, says: "Thorough-going ately attacked by the pepsin-hydro­ experiments have shown that alco­ chloric acid present in the stomach, hol in small doses increases' the and digested in great part before it rapidity with which snake poison is moved on to the small intestine. is absorbed by the body, while in Thorough chewing may aid the larger doses it very rapidly be­ digestive process, but is certainly comes an active aid to the snake not essential. poison, weakening the heart action when it most requires stimula­ That whole-wheat bread does not tion." The great majority of North contain much starch, and hence American snakes are non-poison­ may be eaten without harm by ous and harmless. But to most peo­ those who must be careful of their ple, all snakes are poisonous. diets. Hence, if an individual is bitten by Why anyone should believe a harmless snake, and is given this particular notion is most diffi­ whisky, his recovery is attributed cult to say. Bread is bread and the to the efficacy of the latter rem­ difference in the carbohydrate, pro­ edy. This, the harmless kind, is the tein, and fat composition and the only kind of snake-bite ever to be unit food value among the vari­ "cured" by whisky. ous kinds is so slight that it is al­ most negligible. White bread That meat should be more thor­ contains only six grains more oughly chewed than bread, vegeta­ starch per ounce than whole-wheat bles, or fruit. bread. FALLACIES ABOUT YOUR HEALTH

That fish is a brain food. between the nasal depression and About fifty-nine per cent of the the hair line, and in the forehead's general· population and about height compared with the total thirty-two per cent of schoolteach­ height, Dr. Hrdlicka found that ers believe that eating· fish im­ "the old Americans - at large cer­ proves the brain. These interesting tainly one of the best·stocks in figures were obtained through a every way - stand not at or· even questionnaire sent out by the New near the head, but at the foot of Mexico State Teachers' College four groups", which include the and distributed among parents and American Indian, the American teachers in fourteen States. But sci­ Negro, and the Alaskan Eskimo. ence knows that no one food has The Eskimo was shown to' have rnore value, as far as the brain the highest forehead of the four is concerned, than any other. In..; groups in relation to total height. deed, the .extraordinary develop­ Obviously, whether one is a "high­ ment of the brain in infants occurs brow" or a "lowbrow" is not im­ during the time of life when the portant. chief article of diet is milk, a food as far removed from fish as any That a receding chin is a sign of could be. weak character. There is no truth in this notion. That a high forehead is a positive In man, the receding or protruding sign a/intelligence and culture. jaw has no definite significance. If Like many other fallacies, this one's acquaintance is sufficiently one results from insufficient obser­ wide, he wjJl readily be able to re­ vation - associated with the mis­ call individuals with receding conceived notion that the larger chins who possess as much charac­ the head the larger the brain. ter and courage as any average per­ When"however, the matter is sub­ son. On the other hand, who does jected to statistical study, it is not know of individuals with de­ found that there is no difference cidedly protruding jaws whose intellectually between the "high­ real character and courage belie the brow" and· the "lowbrow". Such supposed significance of the facial is the conelusion of Dr. Ales appearance? The fallacy of the Hrdlicka, anthropologist of the receding jaw is only another Smithsonian Institution. In both form of the misconceived notion the absolute height of the forehead, concerning the supposed ease with THE AMERICAN MERCURY which we can tell a person's in­ added information, for you were telligence from his facial· ex­ touching the clock in the same pression. manner while· it wason the table. It is the sensation of resistance de­ T hat only weak-minded people rived from your muscular sense can be hypnotized} and that the which produces this knowledge. hypnotist uses great powers of will. Physiologists speak of the tem­ As a matter of fact, there is noth­ perature sense} as different from ing mysterious about hypnotism. It that of touch; likewise of the pain is merely a form of artificial sleep. sense and the articular sense} that Anyone can hypnotize if he takes is, the consciousness attendant the t;ouble. to learn a few simple upon the articulation of the joints. principles. And anyone can be There is also the distance sense­ hypnotized provided he knows the power of estimating distance how to co-operate with the oper­ without sight or direct physical ator, and knows how to concen­ contact; and the static sense} by trate on one or a limited number of which the equilibrium and ori'ent­ ideas. ing of the body in. space are .se­ cured, and which resides in the T hat we have only five senses. semi-circular canals of the inner The fact is that we have a num­ ear. Thus we see that instead of ber of other senses in addition to having merely five senses, we ac­ the five that· are so well known. tually possess eleven. Their existence is readily demon­ strated. Take for example the mus­ That there is such a thing as "sec­ cular sense: suppose you place your ond sight". hand upon an alarm clock stand­ One often hears of ··elderly per­ ing on the table. You hear it tick­ sons whose eyesight has apparently ing, you see it, and you feel it. 'You improved so much in old age that are thus able to gain certain infor­ they are able to dispense with eye­ mation regarding it - its size· and glasses, which they have worn for shape, etc. You feel that it is made many decades. These persons are of glass and metal and that it is said to have obtained their second cold. While grasping it, raise it sight. But there is no such thing. from the table. Yau learn that it This alleged phenomenon occurs has weight. Now it is not the sense in some degree in all persons natu~ of touch which gives you this rally nearsighted. A nearsighted FALLACIES ABOUT YOUR HEALTH person is one whose. eyeball is too That men. UIho are very hairy are long, thus causing the image to fall possessed ofgreat physicalstrength. in front of the retina. Tli.is defect is Any physician can testify to the corrected by placing a concave lens incorrectness of this age-old notion. before the eye, which causes the Some of the hairiest persons are image to be moved back onto the often found to be among the con... retina. After.the age of forty a stitutionally weakest; and the dev­ small, very important muscle in otee of the prize and wrestling the eye, which controls the shape rings knows that great physical of the lens, begins to weaken. This strength is in no sense associated occurs in every person, and is a with hairiness. In none of the nu­ normal aging process. The effect of merous accounts of gigantic strong this weakening is to cause the men, of both ancient and modern image to move backwards. As this times, is any mention made of un­ process continues, a weaker and usual hairiness. weaker lens is required to correct nearsightedness, until because of That when a person falls from a the change in the eye lens, the great height he loses consciousness image is moved back far enough to or. is dead before striking the reach the retina, without the aid of ground. glasses. There is no truth in the notion. The experience of numerous para... T hat some persons actually have chute jumpers should offer a final double joints. settlement of this question. It is The "double-jointed" individu... a common practice for them to fall als, as certain acrobats and contor­ many thousands of feet, before tionists are called, are merely openingtheir parachutes. persons who have permanently stretched the ligaments which hold That a drowning person rises to together the ends of bones forming the surface three times before the various joints. This stretching finally sink£ng. results from the repeated contor... All too often the drowning per­ tions usually practiced from early son sinks at once. On the other childhood, and naturally gives hand, drowning people often come these persons much greater free­ to the surface two, three, and more dom of motion than is had by the times. The specific -gravity of the average individual human body is slightly greater THE· AMERICAN MERCURY than water, hence its natural tend­ That at the moment of death, es­ ency is to sink. The drowning per­ pecially when it occurs suddenly, son, however, struggles to reach the important events of a person's the surface. In doing so he draws life are speedily recalled. water into the windpipe, which There can be, of course, no· ex­ causes him to cough, thereby ex­ perimental evidence on the subject. pelling water. But on the next sub-­ The writer has interviewed a num­ mergence more water is taken into ber of persons who at one time or the nose and mouth, which may be another had escaped sudden death swallowed or drawn into the lungs. and in not a single instance was The body at first tends to rise to the there the slightest verification of surface because of the air in the the notion. In s~veral instances the lungs and as. a result of the move­ individuals concerned were so ment of the limbs. Soon it is again overwhelmed by the impending submerged. When insensibility ar­ calamity that their minds ceased to rives, death occurs quickly and function; in the majority of cases, placidly from suffocation. however, their only thoughts con­ cerned measures that might lead to T hat powdered glass can cause safety. death when mixed with food, ana that it can be used as a "poison" T hat if a woman who is to become unknown to the victim. a mother is frightened, her child It has been proved by recent ex­ will probably bear a birthmark periments made under the direc­ which may show some resem­ tion of the U. S. Department of blance to the cause of the fright. Agriculture that glass, whether There can be little doubt.that coarsely or finely powdered, has no the persistence of this fallacy ill effects upon rats. Rats were fed among the educated is in some for some time on food mixed with measure due to its employment as glass and they did not seem to be a theme for many novels. But it is injured. And when they were now definitely established that killed and examined, their alimen­ there. is not the slightest truth in tary canals were found to be in nor;' this ancient and unfortunate super­ mal condition. The belief in. pow­ stition, for science knows with cer­ dered glass as a poison may there­ tainty that there is no nervous con­ fore be safely relegated to the list of nection between the mother and popular fallacies. the unborn child. The numerous FALLACIES ABOUT YOUR HEALTH stories which one hears are mere be one way of getting warts. But coincidences, embellished with im... frogs and toads have nothing to do aginative details. No single case .with the causation of warts. has ever withstood scientific scru­ tiny. T hat cats sometimes suck the breath ofsleeping babies. T hat the retina of a murdered per­ This commonly-held belief exists son's eye records the image of the mainly in rural sections. But it has murderer. no foundation in fact, for the ana­ This fallacy is propagated chiefly tomical formation of a cat's mouth by writers of sensational fiction. makes it impossible for it to pre­ Some years ago the officials of vent respiration by the mouth and Scotland Yard made experiments nose of a baby at the same time. with definitely negative results. If That a cat has sometimes caused the anatomical structure of the ret­ the death of a baby in its sleep is ina be considered, it is difficult to well known, but the explanation see how such a phenomenon could does not involve any malice on the occur. part of the cat. A cat as a rule seeks a soft place for slumber. It may T hat the human eye has the power bnd such in a child's crib or car­ to over-awe animals. riage, and may accidentally lie di­ The human eye has no such rectly on the baby's head. power whatever. This is abundant­ ly attested by those who have been T hat maddogs foam at the mouth, . attacked by animals, and by the and that they are always excited. attendants at zoological gardens Actually, the dogs whose bites and circuses. are to be dreaded the most, neither foam at the mouth nor do they That if a person touches atoad or a rush about in an excited manner. frog he will get warts. It is in the last stages of the disease, The origin of this interesting fal­ when the dog is so paralyzed that lacy is hard to fix. The typical toad it can hardly stand, that consider­ has numerous wart-like elevations able quantities of ropy saliva hang on its skin. The conclusion was no from the mouth. The bite of a dog doubt reached centuries ago that suffering from rabies may be most because of· these prominences, dangerous when its disposition is touching or handling a toad must actually amiable. HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES

By GORDON CARROLL

Last month, THE MERCURY published the first of three articles concerning the New Deal's vast propaganda ma­ chine and the methods .it employs to further the personal political ambitions of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This second article presents specific details of how the machine operates through the medium of various bureaucratic organizations as set up by the Democratic Party, in Congress assembled.

F ALL the Good-Life-for-Amer­ the forty-eight States; and (b) un­ O ica agencies, none is better der their control, the directors of known - in a propaganda sense the Federal Writers' Projects in - than the Works Progress Ad­ each of the forty-eight States. This ministration. Owned and operated field force, by the nature of its by the egregious Harry Hopkins, structure, must support a general its pnilosophy, its technique, its staff, captains, lieutenants, and agents, and its easy money have privates; but the essential task of penetrated into every corner of the all these Treasury-subsidized job.­ Union, under the protection of Dr. holders is precisely the same: Roosevelt's house flag. Primarily, namely, to perpetuate the New the success of theWPA in thus Deal and its Fahrer. Nowhere, not enfolding the country's voters to its even in today's Russia, Germany, paternalistic bosom has· been due or Italy, is there a publicity machine to the publicity efforts of its field of greater potentialities. representatives, disguised· as work Oddly enough, this far-flung or­ of an "informational and educa­ ganization publicizes everything tional" nature. Directed by the except its own operations. But such master propagandists in Washing­ modesty is a matter of censorship ton, these field operatives may be rather than of ethics. Investigators classified in two divisions: (a) the find it impossible to obtain com­ Information Directors in each of plete data on WPA propaganda 194 HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES 195 actIvIties because of an order answering attacks on WPA and signed by Mr. Hopkins, forbid­ developing favorable public senti­ ding any employee, either in ment through news stories, feature Washington. or in the field, from articles, and the like. These white­ revealing such information. The collar press agents originally were technical set-up of the Works hired to prepare the remarkable, Administration field offices, how­ many-volumed American Guide, ever, is obtainable from public sometimes known as the American records. Baedeker; but when any Works The WPA administrator in each Progress activity comes under fire, State enjoys the services of an In­ the travel-book experts drop their formation Service director, whose researches into rural folklore and job is to glorify a1110cal projects turn to answering the critics, relay­ and transmit publicity material of ing such defensive propaganda regional or national import to through their State offices to Wash­ Washington, where it may be ington. As the Writers' Projects are cleared through headquarters. In so organized as to cover every sec­ the majority of cases, these regional tion of every State, the field work­ missionaries of the More Abundant ers are within reach of all projects, Life are former newspapermen, no matter how small, insignificant, and as such, they distribute press or isolated. The result of such mass­ handouts, magazine articles, radio coverage upon thepoliticalfortunes scripts, photographs, and (upon of Dr. Roosevelt can easily be com­ authorization from Washington) prehended. newsreels. To aid them in this The routine task of the press "educational and informational" agents is to prepare stories on par­ crusade, Mr. Hopkins has placed ticular projects, accompanied by at their disposal the professional cheery statements from New Deal services of the State directors of the politicos, as well as explanations of Federal Writers' Projects-erudite how WPA cash will bring the individuals who function as city Good Life to a specified regional editors on a large scale, bulwarked area. The stories also are likely to by staffs ranging from a few indus­ contain favorable comments from trious leg-men to more than one influential local citizens, \vhich, hundred. Naturally, many of the when relayed to Washington, pro­ staff men are tormer journalists, vide heavy ammunition for Roose­ and to them is assigned the duty of velt senators and congressmen in THE AMERICAN MERCURY answering Opposition critics. In at all times to inform the public fact, much of this propaganda, just how Dr. Roosevelt proposes to carried under a W ashington date~ bring endless leisure to the Mary­ line, has found its way back to the land proletariat, through the me­ State where projects are under fire, dium of Mr. Hopkins' spending­ and has been printed by forward~ to-save policy. looking journals favorable to the As to the political value of such Roosevelt Administration. State units, a brief glance at the The organization of the Federal Washington record is revealing. Writers' Project in Maryland, one Last year, for instance, Senator ofthe smaller Commonwealths, is Hastings of Delaware loosed a representative of conditions in barrage against the WPA from the other sections of the country. floor of the Senate. Being a Repub­ There are fifty-two employees, lican, he was naturally suspect as a housed in government-rented Tool of the Interests, if not as an suites in the .new Enoch Pratt incendiary direct from Wall Street. Library building, Baltimore, whose Nevertheless, the Senator delivered supposed goal is the preparation some .forthright blows: he men­ of the Maryland Guide. The pay­ tioned specifically the famous roll for the office is $5°,4°0 annu­ super-dog-pound project in Nash­ ally, considerably less than the fig~ ville and the equally famous rat­ ure last Winter before thirty em­ extermination project in the pur­ ployees were dropped. To date, lieus of Cleveland, both of which the Maryland program has cost monumental undertakings were the tidy sum of $85,000; and no being financed by the unsuspecting one knows how much more Treas~ American taxpayer. Such gaudy ury cash will be tossed around WPA projects, remarked Mr. Hast- before the project winds up its pro­ ings, were tantamount to boon­ motional work for the Complete doggles raised to the nth power. Life. The assistant to the State di­ At the time, there was a pained rector is a newspaperman. Twelve silence from the side of the cham­ of the office workers, or approxi­ ber where the· professional New mately twenty-five per cent of the Deal apologists foregather. They staff, are classified as former were, however, merely marking "proofreaders, copyreaders, re­ time. Senator Hastings' attack was viewers, editorial and sports writ­ the. signal for action on the part of ers". In this sense, they stand ready the· propaganda machine estab- HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES 197 lished by Mr. Hopkins, using the follows: federal health authorities Writers'Projects as a medium. estimate that a rat will perpetrate Orders were relayed from Wash­ two dollars' worth of damage of ington through the State super­ all kinds in a year; and 100,000 visors to the district chiefs of the dead carcasses had been found and Writers' Projects in Nashville and destroyed in Ohio's famous indus.. in Cleveland. They were told to trial community. Of this potential prepare data to be used in answer­ saving of $200,000, the cost to be ing Senator Hastings' blast. With deducted was only $3000. Mr. their academic knowledge of WPA McKellar indicated that this was work in their communities and pretty efficient work on .the part their wide acquaintance among of­ of WPA. And it was - on the ficials, voters, ;lnd others, the Pro­ part of the press agents who gath­ ject leg-men were able to gather ered the rebuttal material for him. fancy statements concerning the At another time, when the so­ two criticized projects. The.result called Federal "Cultural Projects" was that within a few days, Senator - art, music, theater, and writing McKellar of Tennessee took the - were under fire onthe Washing.. floor of the Senate to offer a typical ton front and the news was being Roosevelt rebuttal of Mr. Hastings' noised about that maybe the attack. He had in hand statements Fiihrer would ask Congress to curb from the mayor of Nashville and their remarkable non-cultural ac­ health officials that the dog. pouna tivities, an appeal was sent out by was necessary as a meal?-s of pro.. the WPA to procure fervent ex.. tecting children from. rabies; that pressions from leading citizens, the streamlined building was con.. politicians, clergymen, educators, structed to replace an unsightly artists, and Communists in every structure; and that itscostof$15,oOO city where the Projects were operat­ was not excessive. From Cleveland ing, urging the continuance of such he had procured a statement that efforts to bring the Good Life to the rat-extermination crusade was America. Within a few days of purely a. health measure; that it this impassioned plea to WPA re­ was aimed to combat rats, known gional offices, the hard-working to be carriers of disease; and that legislators·in Washington were re­ it represented a potential saving to cipients of telephone calls, tele­ the city of·about $197,000 a year. grams,personal visits, and letters This latter figure was reached as from every section of the country. 198 THE AMERICAN MERCURY Thus did the Roosevelt propa- requires five master-minds at a ganda machine validate its exist.. combined figure of $11,720. Penn.. ence. sylvania has two at $6200, Tennes- Just what percentage of the vol- see has one at $2100, Texas one at ume of such sectional propaganda $1800. In West Virginia, the WPA is put to practical use - on a day- division of information and pub­ to-day basis - is a debatable ques- Iication supports twelve employees, tion, for the figures are highly on the phenomenally light budget "confidential". But the fact remains of $12,300. The collection of such that the WPA is supplied - at data relating to personnel and the taxpayers' expense - with the salaries is highly difficult, not only greatest torrent of usable publicity because of the general secrecy sur­ ever obtained by any governmental rounding Dr. Roosevelt's publicity agency, in this country or abroad. program, but because State opera- The salaries of the Information tives are paid out of State budgets Directors who handle this publicity of federal money, thus keeping the traffic are variable; no two States record doubly obscure. reveal similar figures. For example, In their efforts to earn their crisp the director in.California was re- Treasury checks, the field direc­ cently listed as receiving $1920 per tors are constantly· engaged in annum, as compared to $5000 paid mapping new and grandiose in Ohio. The director in Massachu- schemes for the dissemination of setts was put down at $3600, and Good Life gospel. One of the more his assistant, $2600. Michigan re- refined techniques in WPA propa­ quires three propaganda wizards ganda is the process by which State ata total cost of $7200, while New administrators wangle favorable Hampshire, a stronghold of Black comments from civic and political Republicanism, finds it impossible leaders. These joyful blurbs are to publicize Dr. Roosevelt ade- gathered by means of question­ quately without five men, whose naires, framed by the WPA and combined pay-checks total $8160. broadcast to various notables. The So far as the WPA admits, Illinois questionnaires follow this general isgetting along with only one di.. form: rector at $2400, Connecticut also has one at $2000, New Jersey has I. Do you consider work a proper method of settling the unemploy­ one at $1320. New York State, how­ ment problem as compared with the ever) being a populous voting area, dole and idleness? HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES

2. Is the work being done under tors, readers,writers, and assorted WPA useful and needed? jobholders is furiously engaged in 3. Is there useful work yet to be done under a continued WPA pro­ oneof the most comprehensive bal­ gram in your community or county? lyhoo campaigns in history. Natu­ 4. Could you suggest projects that rally, the Bureau is sub-divided you desire under a continued WPA program? into those various cells with­ out which a first-rate, growing It will be seen that the answer­ bureaucracy cannot function. An ing of this quiz places a heavy re­ examination of one office, the sponsibility upon anyone who has Special Reports Division, gives ever cast a vote, or has prevailed an indication of the general or­ upon his fellow-man to do like­ ganizational technique. Here, a wise. That is, the questionnaire "special assistant" (Roosevelt eu­ puts politicians on the spot. Their phemism for publicity agent) pre­ favorable replies are collected in sides as a sort of managing editor, mimeographed or multigraphed keeping a schedule of assignments books, bearing an explanatory pref­ of stories to various Good-Life ace, and the volumes are then dis­ writers, the status of each story, and tributed to newspapers, public of­ a list of demands for ghost-written ficials, and leading citizens. Hence, speeches from New Deal magni­ thequestionnaires not only identify ficoes' including every brand of persons as favoring Dr. Roose­ oratory from soothing fireside chats velt's free-cash-and-handout sys­ to outright bids for votes. When a tem, but also make it difficult for particular script is completed, it is the New Deal projects to be repu­ up to the talents of the special as­ diated at a later date on political sistant to place it in publicity chan­ grounds. nels where itwill do the most good. The propelling machinery for Stories are classified for adaptation this nation~wide' WPA propa­ to daily newspaper-feature pages, ganda mill is located in Washing­ Sunday supplements, health maga­ ton. Of the home-office units which zines, welfare publications, Sun­ thus operate in the District of Co­ day rotogravure sections, and edu­ lumbia, none perhaps is more in­ cational, agricultural, and technical teresting to the student of Roose­ periodicals. An analysis of the Di­ veltian publicity than the·WPA's vision's schedule for one period last self-styled "Information Bureau", year reveals the following propa­ where a high-pressure staft of edi- ganda articles in preparation: 200 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

ARTICLES OUTSTANDING eral road and bridge construction, Farm Pest Eradication (crickets, cat­ traffic survey, hump eradication). tle tick, etc.). Public Beaches, Swimming and Wad­ ~ Removal of Eye Sores. ing Pools Recreation Service and McDowell feature story. (Ephraim construction of. McDowell House, Danville, Ky. Zoological Park Projects - Animal Historical building restoration). studies and natural landscaping Air Pollution. (Recreational). War vs. Works Program - Baker Children's Dental Clinics - Rural Speech. . and Urban. School Lunches. Rural Clinics and Nurse Visitation. Privy Construction - Public Health. Use of Salvage Material-Toledo Zoo. Special Health Program ("Medical Review of Unemployment Statistics Care and WPA"). for the Christian Century. Condensing Questions· and Answers Tax Surveys - Revealing delin- of WPA Work (Additional Ques­ quency and overlooked tax assess­ tions). ments. Oyster Seeding - Anti-Star Fish Household Aid Training. (Added Material). Speech to be delivered before the Maritime Safety. Young Negro Democratic .Club. Fisheries Project. Building· Better Babies - Article for Archaeological Projects (Added ma­ Parents' Magazine on some phases terial; rewrite). of work of Women's Division. Individual Case Histories - Human Nursery Education - How it is ben. Interest Stories of Individual Re­ efiting Negro children, mothers, habilitation. and teachers. Basic Speech for Women of WPA. Music Project - Negro units in Fed. Quantitative Statements of Works eral Music Project. Projects - Paragraphs Introductory Selected Paragraphs from Authori­ to Statistical Data. tative Sources, illustrative of WPA. Juvenile Delinquency Story ("We Movie Scenario. Pay the Fiddler"). (Added Data). Article on Question of Handing Back Diets on School Lunches. Control of Relief to States. Salvaging the White-Collar Worker. Consumer Study Project - In co~op­ State Insane Asylums-Improve- eration with Bureau of Household ments and Service to. Economics and Bureau of Labor Federal Recreation Projects and Their Statistics. Effects on Juvenile Delinquency. Farmers' Market Construction - Ar­ Household Aids. ticle on projects in co-operation "Stitch in Time Saves Nine" -An with Agricultural Extension Serv­ article on repainting, etc., of ex­ ice. isting construction to prolong life. "Are They Rejecting Jobs?" - Article The idea is to show that repair on the various studies made of work is of as much permanent those on Relief rolls refusing' work value to the community as new in private employment. construction projects. Small Town Trade Expansion Due Sewage Disposal. to Farm-to-Market Roads - Sam­ Eradication of Traffic Hazards (Gen- ple story. HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES 201

Collecting Photographs for Photo being carried on by agents of the News Service. (Writing Captions). Works Progress Administration is Collecting Material on·Recreational Program in Michigan. solely for the purpose of bringing Re-employment and the White-Collar into power in this country a col­ Worker. lectivist regime under the perpet­ Speech for New York State Demo­ cratic Organization. ual domination of Dr. Roosevelt's personal political party. Now it may be argued, by ad­ vocates of the Good Life, that work II such as that enumerated above is distinctly of an"informational and Having examined certain policies educational" nature. No doubt it of the WPA headquarters inWash­ is. But a close readingof the topics ington and the manner in which will indicate that the bulk of the they are promulgated throughout educational broadside is aimed at the country, it is pertinent now to emphasizing. how the downtrod­ turn to the vociferous field agencies den American can be rehabilitated which have been created to push and re-financed by the Roosevelt the so-called WPA Education Pro­ Administration. Throughout such gram. A few months ago, an esti­ literature also runs a note of class­ mate on the progress of this civic consciousness, of collectivism, of crusade was made by Mr. Hopkins anti-capitalism - all of which is for the benefit of the House Ap­ foreign to the tenets of democracy. propriations Committee. The fig­ Even the most obtuse of DOr. Roose­ ures were highly encouraging­ velt's underprivileged voters will from the Rooseveltian point of not fail to absorb some of this view - for Mr. Hopkins disclosed thinly-disguised propaganda, just that during the past three years, as the inhabitants of Gertain Euro­ more than700,000 men and women pean countries have absorbed (all of voting age) had been taught similar propaganda from theirdic­ how to read newspapers and write tatorial lords and masters. Hence, letters. In March of this year, the question here is not so much nearly 250,000 persons were en­ whether New Deal publicity is rolled in WPA literacy classes, and "educational and informational", more than 6000 teachers were but rather with what ulterior pur­ drawing pay-checks for their pro­ pose it "educates and informs". In­ fessional services. This record, so dubitably, the indoctrination now to speak,. appears to confound THE AMERICAN MERCURY cntlcs of· the WPA: that is, no ers in every State of the Union. In right-thinking citizen should chal­ Michigan, for example, the Edu­ lenge sucha noble effort in the field cation project co-operates joyously of worthwhile sociology. But oddly with the United Auto Workers enough, the WPA's educational union, the spearpoint of John L. program covers a number of topics Lewis' attack on the motor indus~ which do not rightly belong in any try. Each month, $1000 in federal campaign against illiteracy. As the funds is expended in the Detroit New York Times puts it, the cru~ area to teach Uncle Sam's under.. sade "goes far beyond fundamen­ privileged how to Beat the Bosses tals", resulting, in many instances, -with a lead pipe if necessary. in a blatant emphasis on the prin.. The UAW organizes "The Work­ dples of collectivism. ers" and their wives into classes Among the various propaganda for the WPA teachers to instruct agencies in this nation-wide literacy in the art of Revolution. Merlin D. campaign is the Workers' Educa­ Bishop, a leader of the Radical tion Division, which is held in high shock-troops in Michigan, is par­ esteem as a medium by which to in­ ticularly active in such organiza~ doctrinate proletarian voters with tional work; at the same time­ the dogma of the Roosevelt Abun­ another New Deal "coincidence"? daat Life, as well as to explain to - his wife, Dorothy Hubbard, is the Downtrodden Worker just the director of WPA teachers. how New Deal legislation will Eight hundred proletarians, mostly double his wages. In this connec­ employed in the motor factories, tion, "How to Organize Labor attend classes each week, and are Locals" is one of the most popular told how they can do their bit in subjects in the curriculum. During the fight to destroy Capitalism. the past three years, the Division The most intensive propaganda has enrolled some 60,000 educa­ of the Adult Education program is tional students under the direction naturally distributed in urban of Hilda Smith, the director of centers, where the most voters can Workers' Education and a co­ he reached with the minimum ef­ founder of the "I Am Not a Com­ fort. Thousands of citizens in every munist, But -" Club. State WPA large American city have received officials, energized by her Left­ their baptism of Roosevelt collec.. wing philosophy,conduct"schools" tivism during the past four years; and open-forum sessions for work... thousands more are slated to get HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES attention between now and N 0­ dinary importance: the sample list vember, 1940. As an example of the of speakers availablefor the preach­ manner in which this work is ment of New Deal dogma includes carried on, and of the plausible the names of eight leading Social­ guise in which it is offered·to the ists and Communists, as well as a public, THE MERCURY reprints in baker's dozen of professional part a letter distributed by the "Liberals", whose fervor for Rus­ WPA in Manhattan on June 10 of sian collectivism is only equaled this year: by their denunciations ofAmerican "Fascism". WPA Adult Education Program This same note of Radical propa­ of the Board of Education, City of New York ganda, intermingled with Dr. Roosevelt's personal publicity, is During the past two years, the Works Progress Administration, through the discernible in many other divisions Board of Education, has been spon­ of WPA work, particularly in the soring a city-wide movement of pub­ so-called Federal Arts Projects, lic forums.. .. Our Speakers' Bu­ reau, servicing about 140 forums which include Theater, Arts, monthly, is called upon to provide Music, and Writing. Thousands of volunteer speakers in practically words have been written in the every field of public interest. ..• past three years about the manner Development of the Forum Movement in New York City to Date in which the Comrades have taken Number of Meetings...... 2252 over these projects as open or covert Number of Speakers...... 2098 Attendance...... 201,070 mediums of Soviet dogma; an Personnel...... 87 Number of Centers Served...... 343 equal amount of wordage has been ground out by the Project workers Speakers: A. A. Berte, Jr. Clarence Hathaway themselves in defense of their Stephen Vincent Benet Sidney Hillman "artistic" activities. The tenor of Dr. Hansu Chan Elan Huntington Hooker Frederic Coudert, Jr. James G. MacDonald this defense is that the Left-wing­ Henry Pratt Fairchild T. S. Miyakawa Robert H.Jackson Walter Pach ers, while numerous on the payroll, Messmore Kendall James C. Rorty William H. Kilpatrick Dr. Kurt Rosenfel are not in control; and that an Emil Lengyel Rose Schneidermann analysis of their creations, partic­ Eduard C. Lindeman Benjamin Stolberg James W. Gerard Norman Thomas ularly in the theater field, will re­ Hayim Greenberg Ira Wile Matthew Woll veal that the bulk of their time is actually spent in whooping up This official letter from W'pA American democracy. But this de­ headquarters in New York City fense is as specious as thejobholders contains one item of more than or- who write it. In the case of the THE AMERICAN MERCURY Theater Project, under the leader­ ideological score by Oscar Waltzer. ship of Mrs. Hallie Flanagan, a To the kiddies of New York, the bat­ tle of the laboring classes.against the superficial glance at the record will sleek and obese chieftains of property indicate that scores of plays of a may be a little·too remote; unformed non-political nature are being pre­ minds accustomed to innocent play in the streets may not grasp the Marx­ sented daily to the gullible Ameri­ ian dialectic. But the colorful little can masses: but what the unin­ fable which the WPA has· produced for their entertainment and educa­ formed person fails to comprehend tion portrays the struggle playfully in is that the real efforts, the real tal­ terms of oppressed beavers. "Beav­ ents, and the real propaganda of ers of the world, unite!" is the un­ the Theater Projects are concen­ spoken sense of the drama. By unit­ ing and shooting down the chief's trated only on those opuses ~hich company police with revolvers and are distinctly Communist in flavor. machine guns concealed in their The non-political efforts of Mrs. lunch boxes, the hungry beavers joy­ fully overthrow their industrial op­ Flanagan's Left-wing wards con­ pressors. The newest adventure of stitute mere window-dressing to the WPA theater ought to improve confound unwary critics. our diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia.••• It is unnecessary to recapitulate . This first lesson in labor warfare is here the far-flung activities of the staged against some whimsical set­ tings and in imaginative costumes de­ Theater Project. Two excerpts signed by Samuel Leve and to an from the public prints are sufficient abstract score of music played by a to disclose the actual political ob­ WPA orchestra. It is acted with any jectives of the ham actors and hack number of capricious capers by a com­ petent cast of child entertainers. The playwrights who now clutter the style is playful; the mood is gravely Flanagan payroll. The first is gay and simple-minded. Many chil­ dren now unschooled in·the technique taken from the New York Times of. revolution now have an oppor­ of last May, and comprises a tunity, at government expense, to dramatic criticism written by Mr. improve their tender minds. Mother Goose is no longer a rhymed escapist. Brooks Atkinson: She has been studying Marx; Jack Believing that plays for children and Jill lead the Class Revolution. should.have a moral significance, the The secondexcerpt is taken from Federal Theater. has conscientiously produced a revolutionary bedtime a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, dis­ story, T he Revolt of the Beavers, patch to the New York Herald which was acted at the Adelphi yes­ Tribune of last July: terday afternoon. In the form of Mother Goose fantasy, it is a primer A troupe of seventeen Works Prog­ lesson in the class struggle, written by ress Administration actors from New Oscar Saul and Lou Lantz, with an York, their expenses paid by John L. HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES 2..°5 Lewis' Committee for Industrial Or­ sading legions. But the picture is ganization, presented at a picnic of still not complete; skeptics will in­ steel workers here this afternoon a performance of The Cradle Will sist that this magazine has based Rock, Marc Blitstein's opera in which its attack on partisanship. There­ citizens of "Steel Town, U. S. A.", fore, as a piece de resistance, THE are urged to form a united front for a closed shop. John G. Ramsay, pres­ MERCURY presents the following ident of the Star of Bethlehem Lodge, excerpts from a manual of propa­ No. 1409, of the SteelWorkers' Or­ ganizing Committee, said that the ganda technique of the Works union presented the show in the hope Progress Administration, as pre­ of educating potential members.... pared last year by one of Mr. Hop~ The pro-union thesis of the piece found a sympathetic audience in the kins' high-rankingexecutives. This CIO officials, who, after the show, historic State paper, marked "Con­ said that Will Geer's portrayal of fidential", was prepared for the the character) Mister Mister, domi­ use of Information Directors nant factor in the government of "Steel Town, U. S. A.", "reminded" throughout the country, as a bible them of Eugene G. Grace, president for them in their feverish efforts to of the Bethlehem Steel Company. The performance came in the midst ensure the political future of the of the SWOC effort to have the Na­ Democratic (Party. It establishes, tional Labor Relations Board here beyond dispute, the thesis that Dr. order a poll of workers in the Beth­ lehem plant. Roosevelt is the world's No. I propagandist, and bulwarks the Enough, then, has been shown contention of this magazine that of various WPA educational and the New Deal publicity trust over­ cultural activities to' indicate that looks no opportunities of selling collectivist propaganda is a major America on the Fuller and More objective of Harry Hopkins' cru- Complete Life.

"CONFIDENTIAL" The activities of the Works Progress Administration are public business and the general public is entitled to adequate and accurate information con­ cerning the entire progress. ... The need is to report on this work through all such modern avenues of presentation as will make it more clearly and readily understandable to everyone. It is proposed that motion pictures, charts, models, and other forms of visual representation shall be employed as well as the printed and spoken word (newspapers, radio, and other simi­ lar media) in giving to the people the full and complete story of WPA. •.. Each State Administrator is directed to survey his facilities for the dis.. tribution of information in the light of the above, and to supplement such 2.06 THE AMERICAN MERCURY facilities sufficiently to provide an adequate information service.•.. The Washington office will lay down basic policies, indicate a minimum of pro­ cedure, and offer a number of suggestions, which may be used at the dis­ cretion of State Administrators. .• ••

I. GRAPHIC INFORMATION A. Camera Records I. Still Photography The camera should be utilized as one of the most helpful aids in the work of the Information Service.... The old Chinese saying, "A picture is worth 10,000 words", is very applicable here. Therefore, a photographic unit is essential to each State Information Service. Photographs in quanti­ ties are needed for records of progress on projects, to accompany reports to Washington, and for other information purposes. •..

2. Moving Pictures All arrangements for moving pictures shall be cleared through this of­ fice. B. Project Vt"st"tatt"on Nothing in the whole field of information - newspaper, stories, pho­ tographs, exhibits, moving pictures - is as convincing, or will be remem­ bered as long, as actually seeing the project. It is therefore one of the most important responsibilities of the Information Service to encourage personal inspection, by the citizenship, of projects, whether in operation or com­ pleted. One effective method of bringing this about is to have a dedication cere­ mony when an important project is begun, and a completion ceremony when it is finished. This has the added advantage of enabling those who· attend to visualize the "before and after" viewpoint of the community benefits arising from· the employment of large numbers of destitute people, and from the carrying out of the project. High· administrative officials should attend all such ceremonies and take part in them. Also, one of the workers, as their representative, should be on the program. ..•

I. Workers and their families Employees on projects have a personal interest in the progress and success of WPA op~rations. They should be informed not only about their· project but about other projects in their community and State. This may be. accom­ plished by bulletins to workers, verbal explanations by administrative offi­ cials, project supervisors and foremen, and other suitable means.... The HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES aim of all this should be to give the workers a fuller understanding of the principles which underlie the Works Program.... Every opportunity should be taken to impress on the workers and on all other citizens, the fact that under the Works Program the primary responsibility for the initiation of all projects rests with the sponsor - that the WPA is in general only a mechanism for supplying to a community the .public work which was se... lected by ':ts own respons':ble officials.

2. The public A plan of operation for this has been well worked out by L. E. Harwood of the Texas WPA Information Service. Following is a letter he sent to all Texas District Directors: "Now that the Texas quota of 120,000 workers is employed on WPA projects, and the program is at peak operation, district directors should take steps to acquaint the public with the work we are doing. "In this connection, may we earnestly commend to. your attention the suggestion of J. P. Henderson, director of the EI Paso district, who says: ... I am going to invite a committee from the Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, Committee of One Hundred, Chamber of Commerce, County Commissioners, and City Aldermen (to visit with me the outstanding projects here), because I think, in justice to themselves, they should have someone of. their nurflber see just what is being done in their district. .. .' "If you should decide to sponsor such a visit, the following suggestions are offered for planning the tour: "I. Try it in your home town (the city in which the district office is lo­ cated) first. Note the reaction. If it works well there, similar visits may be made in other principal communities of the district. "2. Suggest to officials of each club that they designate committees ... to go on the inspection tour, with the understanding that the com­ mittee report what they saw as a part of the club's next weekly meeting. "3. Don't wear the guests out by trying to visit too many projects. Three or four projects, each illustrating a phase of the program, should be ample..•• "4. Assemble complete information of projects to be visited beforehand and have a spokesman explain salient features of the projects as they are inspected.... "5. The visiting group should by all means include representatives from the leading women's clubs. For their information, a woman's project, such as a sewing room, should he on the list of projects visited. "6. Suggest to one of the leading club members that he tell the local news- 2.08 THE AMERICAN MERCURY paper about the proposed visit, so that a reporter and photographer may accompany the party." District Directors can vary this plan, and keep it still more informal, by merely calling up three or four influential citizens and saying to them in effect: "~ want to show you something. Come out and run around to some of our projects this afternoon." If this process were repeated once a week for four or five weeks or longer, a number of men whose words have weight in the community would know the value of the Works Program for the first time since it began. Publishers, editors, and reporters should be included - but only one in each car, so that they may hear what the others say. .•• On all project visits, the fact that local government officials initiated the projects should be brought out, so that due credit may be given them for their 'share in providing employment fordestitute employables and in pro­ d~cing useful public works. In Delaware, newspaper opposition to the Pro­ gram melted away'after newspaper editors and reporters were taken on such tours.••• c. Archives Material I. Posters The techniques of poster treatment are well known .but only the, surface possibilities of this method have been explored so far in the Works Program. ••• In most Art Projects, or in Writers' or Recreation projects, someone who has had experience in poster design can be found. 2. Exhibits Both fixed and traveling exhibits' are useful and one may easily be con­ verted into the other.... The most widely-used element is photographs in various ~izes from 8 x 10 up to blow-ups as large as life size. The standard size for department-store window display blow-ups is 28 x 44 inches. Other elements include animated maps and posters, charts, maps, miniatures, sketches, paintings, cartoons, pamphlets, and articles produced on projects (dresses for Relief children made in sewing projects, products of Relief gardens).... Exhibits in such'places as Home Complete Expositions, road shows and automobile shows (especially for farm-to-market road-building exhibits), theater lobbies, bank lobbies, hotel lobbies, county fairs and State' fairs, will be seen by more people than in municipal buildings, post offices, or State Houses. In small towns and villages the post-office lobby is the best place.... Every exhibit item which is not fully self-explanatory must be accom­ panied by an attractively designed placard, with all lettering large enough HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES to be read easily at a distance of ten to twelve feet, identifying the project and explaining its benefits. In the text of each placard somewhere should be the words "WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION" (Not WPA) in letters large enough to dominate the placard. 3. Cartoons When a good cartoonist can be found, in the administrative staff or else­ where, his services should be utilized in making cartoons for intra-depart­ mental and similar publications, for exhibits, and for reproduction in mat form for newspapers.••• 4. Maps Maps aremost useful (a)when they visualize in graphic form a particular public improvement, .perhaps linking it up with other public improve­ ments of the same character in progress in the community; (b) when they visualize a particular project as part of a long-time program of public im­ provements of one kind in a community (flood control, boulevards); and (c) when they visualize the entire WPA program in a city, county, or State. They should be used as frequently and in as many media as possible­ newspapers, periodicals, WPA house organs, exhibits. 5. Slides A number of commercial adaptations of the old-fashioned lantern slide are available for exhibits, window displays, lectures, etc. ...

II. ORAL INFORMATION ... If possible, Works Program speakers, especially radio speakers, should be persons who have had some training in delivery, voice modulations, etc. If no trained persons are available, effort should be made to have those who do most of the speaking trained in at least the elements of successful oral presentation. Presentation by speech has one great advantage over the majority of methods of presentation by the printed word, especially in the case of news­ papers and periodicals. The advantage is that in speeches before assemblies and speeches over the radio it is permissible, without violating any of the canons of good taste, to editorialize - express opinions - much more than is possible in articles for newspapers and other publications....

A. Radio Information It is not difficult for an Administrator or his representative to obtain free time from radio stations in his State for talks about the Works Program, 2.10 TIlE AMERICAN MERCURY for news broadcasts, radio skits, question-and-answer interviews, and other programs....

I. Talks Except on matters of extraordinary importance. and wide public interest, radio speeches should not require more than five or six minutes for delivery. The best time is between 6:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M•••• The responsibility for the preparation and writing of all.radio talks should be placed on one person, to insure uniformity of treatment, good style, and variety of subject. A good "ghost" writer is best.

2. Other A number of devices may be used to give variety and interest to the radio program. Perhaps the most effective is the combination program plan used in Minnesota. It consists of (I) music to open and close the program; (2) skit, or playlet, depicting in dramatic forms some phase of WPA;(3) talk by administrative official or sponsor about a particular project. This in.. volves the co-operation of (I) the administrative head of the Information Service, who is in administrative charge; (2) the director of the music sec­ tion of Federal Project No. I (or the recreation department of the State WPA) to supply good music; (3) the director of either the Drama section or the Writers' section of Federal Project No. I, to have some competent per­ son assigned to produce the scripts; (4) the administrative head of the Drama section, to have competent actors assigned to rehearse and present the skits; (5) the "ghost" speech writer of the Information Service; and (6) the speaker....

B. Assembly Information Each State Administrator gets many requests for speakers. The Admin­ istrator should select from his staff a group who can speak well, train its members to talk on various parts of the program, and accept all invitations to speak before reputable groups. ... Do not fail to take full advantage of the "tie-in" opportunity afforded by speeches before assemblies. Copies of all important addresses, both in full and in news summary form, should be given to newspapers and press associations well in advance of delivery. ..• Another "tie-in" opportunity, this time by radio, is open whenever a high administrative official, especially if he is from Washington, comes to a city to make an address before a convention or other assembly. The radio station will usually be glad to give him ten to twenty minutes for a talk.... HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES 211

I. Public Invitations to speak at public gatherings of any reputable character should always be accepted and the best possible presentation made.

2. Semi-public The reference here is to the wide variety of groups of people of more or less common interest -luncheon clubs, women's clubs, parent-teachers associations, civic and community associations, Leagues of Women Voters, business and trade groups, farm bureaus and granges, organization of fed­ eral, State, county, municipal and township officials and employees, and many others. ••• 3. Debates and panels The forum discussion method seems to be growing in popularity. Speak­ ers who appear before such groups must "know their stuff", however, and must be able to keep their tempers, for they are likely to be subjected to some severe though good-humored heckling. 4. Professional groups The results of the Works Program in providing appropriate employment for specialized workers should be brought to the attention of their societies. This can well be done by addresses at their meetings, as well as by informa­ tion supplied to their professional journals. Engineering, architectural, nurs­ ing, school, social service, and public health groups are examples.

III. PRINTED INFORMATION. A. Newspapers The American public gains most of its information and therefore formu­ latesmost of its opinions from daily and weekly newspapers. News, partic­ ularly localized news, about policies and projects of the WPA will always have ready access to newspaper·columns, simply because it is news. There­ fore the newspapers are the standard medium for reporting to the public on what WPA is doing. At least one capable, experienced newspaperman, preferably one who has had extensive managerial experience and preferably one who has worked in the State WPA headquarters city and knows the personnel of the news­ papers and press associations, should· be in every State Information Service. If it is not advisable for administrative reasons or because of his lack of the right temperament for leadership, to make him the head ofthe Information S~ryice, he should have· such rank and salary as will enable him to meet the editors and reporters on equa1 terms. ••• 212 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

I. Urban Beyond current news to dailies and press associations, as well as the nec­ essary blanket mail releases, some States are successfully directing more and more effort toward feature stories, properly illustrated, and toward localizing both straight news and features. ... Lo~alized copy, given to one news­ paper in a city, to all newspapers in a city, or to all newspapers in one area of common news interest, will always command more attention from edi­ tors than general mimeographed blanket-coverage.... If the series is of­ fered to small city dailies and weeklies, mats and proofs of the layouts should accompany the copy. This could be done in one district or news area after another until the entire State had been covered. •••

2. Rural The suggestion about localizing copy for city papers applies with equal force to weeklies, semi-weeklies, and tri-weeklies. But curiously enough, al­ though· their appeal is wholly local, they will often use stories of general State-wide interest (it saves writing copy, always a problem to a man who is the entire editorial and advertising staff) so they should be on the mailing list for all blanket stories. ••• 3. Foreign Language Press Papers printed in foreign languages are very influential among their readers, and wherever they are published they should receive attention. B. Periodicals and Pamphlets ... Includes farm, labor, education, religious, professional, business (trade papers for particular groups, Chamber of Commerce publications, financial journals), governmental publications, and the big class known as general magazines. ... In order to avoid wasting time preparing material that might be unsuitable for the particular publication, it is advisable to consult the editor in advance regarding the right "slant" to be taken in the article. ••. Washington will gladly give any assistance possible along this line. Pamphlets - "one-shot" publications - are effective if well done and if distributed judiciously to people interested in the subject. New York State recently compiled a thirteen-page mimeographed pamphlet entitled WPA -Its Fundamentals, Accomplishments, and Purposes which is an excellent statement of the whole situation. (Sample copies may be obtained from Washington or Albany.) This pamphlet was. sent to a mailing list of 7°°0 women's, service, fraternal, and other organizations, including 930 county divisions of the New York State Grange.... HOW THE WPA BUYS VOTES 2. 1 3 C. Production and FiHng 1. Clippings It is especially important that all articles and editorials expressing criti­ cisln of the Works Program be clipped and analyzed. Sometimes a weakness in administration may be discovered. If the writer is in error, a polite letter or personal call, presenting the facts and assuming that the error was based on misinformation, may help to prevent a repetition of the statement....

2. Mail Careful preparation and·constant revision of all lists of addresses are es­ sential to prevent waste. New York City, for instance, has forty-two separate lists of publicity media. A release may be sent to one list, to a combination of lists, or to all of them, as necessary. •••

IV. CORRESPONDENCE Replies to letters offer one of the few means ofgiving information about the Program to specific persons, and moreover persons who have already shown interestenough to write concerning it. Newspapers, radios, and signs are addressed to the general public, whereas the appeal of a letter is per­ sonal. If careful attention is given to the mail normally handled by each State Administrator and District Director, much information about the Program can be given out and much goodwill be created for it. •••'

The cry of partisanship will not In the concluding article of this lessen the significance of this propa­ series, to be published next month, ganda manual, nor will the plea THE MERCURY will offer informa­ of "education and information" tion concerning other propaganda excuse it. The facts are plainly techniques of the Administration, written. They reveal how the New particularly those employed in the Deal, by exploiting the masses un­ magazine, motion picture, and ed­ der sentimental shibboleths, has ucational fields. There will also be spent billions of dollars in those presented a brief description of strata of society where votes are publicity functions in the White most easily bought. Their funda­ House itself, where Dr. Roosevelt mental import is that .Dr. Roose­ and his .hand-picked confidential velt and his army of promoters are aides preside in person over the determined that the Democratic activities of the greatest propa­ Party shall rule in perpetuity. ganda trust on earth. THE ROAD TO HELL A Story

By JOHN FANTE

HEN you go to Confession As soon as a fellow is coasting W you must tell everything. along smooth, here comes the Anyone who hides a sin gets into Devil, meaning Temptation. Even trouble right away, for though you a good Kid like this one had plenty fool the priest it is not so easy to of it. Sister Mary Joseph said one fool God. In fact, it can't be done. day this Kid was walking along Every Friday at St. Catherine's we downtown, minding his own busi­ have instructions on the Confes.. ness, when he came to a window sional. Our teacher is Sister Mary full of baseballs and catcher's Joseph, and she is the one who told gloves. He was a poor Kid. He al­ us about God's omniscience, which ready owned a catcher's mitt, but means knowing all things. She it wasn't much good. Well, he'd proved it with the story of the Kid always wanted a new one. In the who actually tried to hide a sin in window he saw a honey, and right the Confessional. away he wanted it bad. If you want Sister Mary Joseph told us this a thing bad, specially something fellow was a pretty good Kid. He you can't get, it's called Tempta­ studied hard and got good grades. tion. He wanted that mitt, but he He obeyed his father and mother, knew he couldn't buy it, and so he and said his morning and evening should have forgotten about it. But prayers. He didn't cuss, and all his no. He stood in front of that win­ thoughts were pure. Every Satur­ dow, and sure enough, along came day he went to Confession, and the Devil. I know how that Kid every Sunday morning he received felt, because I have listened to the Holy Communion. As you can see, Devil plenty, and it seems he is al­ there was nothing wrong with a ways in front of store-windows Kid like that. waiting for a fellow to come along, But it was like everything else. specially a fellow who wants a new THE ROAD TO HELL 215 glove, or a gun, or anything that The girls were on one side of the costs lots of money. room, the boys on the other. We The Devil said to the Kid, "My could hardly wait for the story to boy, don't be a sap. You want that go on. Sister Mary Joseph folded glove and it costs five dollars. Now her hands and smiled. tell. me where you'll get five dol-­ "And now," she said, "who can lars! It's a cinch your father hasn't tell me what that boy did? Were got it. So use your head. Go into the words of Satan more powerful that store and swipe the glove. It's than the words of his Guardian a sin, but so what! You've been a Angel? Did the boy steal that good boy right along now, but glove, or did he remain in the state what have you got from it? Noth~ of sanctifying grace by resisting ing! Get smart!" temptation? Who will venture an The Kid stared at the glove and answer?" saw himself making sensational Every hand in the classroom one-hand catches with it. He saw went up and waved like a flag. We all the other Kids in towncrowd~ were all given a chance to say ing around, feeling the soft leather, something. Then a strange thing asking him a lot of questions, beg~ happened.. All the girls said the ging him to play on their teams. Kid didn't steal that glove, and all Then the Kid's Guardian Angel the boys said he did. We argued stepped up. Sister Mary Joseph said back and forth. It was going hot the Guardian Angel was very and heavy with the boys winning soothing and patient with that Kid. all the way because we figured the The Guardian Angel said, "My Kid in the story was like us, and sweet child, remember that you nearly all of us had stolen things. are a good boy, and God is well Clyde Myers said, "Sure he stole pleased.. All the baseball gloves on it! He's a funny guy if he didn't." earth, and all the baseball bats, are "Why Clyde Myers!" Sister not equal to one second of the bliss Mary Joseph said. in Paradise. If you steal that glove, Then my turn came. My folks God will be very angry. He will were poor people, so I knew what punish you, for nothing can be hid­ to say, because I'd swiped a lot of den from our Blessed Lord." things in my life, things that cost Suddenly Sister Mary Joseph money. What I mean is this: I stOpped. Our whole class was lis­ never did have enough candy he­ tening with mouths wide open. cause it was so expensive, so I al- 2.16 THE AMERICAN MERCURY ways swiped it from the Ten-Cent were losing the argument. It got to Store. But there were a lot of things be a kind of a fight. Then the girls I never even thought of stealing, got sulky and mean. After awhile because we had plenty at our house. they yvouldn't raise their hands. Like spaghetti. Well, my folks were They pretended they weren't even poor but there was always plenty listening. of spaghetti, so I never even And Sister Mary Joseph went on thought of swiping spaghetti. But with the story. "Unfortunately," if spaghetti was as good as candy she said, "the boys are correct in and as hard to get, I would have this case. The hero of our little swiped it plenty. story did succumb to temptation. "He went in and stole the glove," Heedless of the warnings of his I said. "He was poor, and that's Guardian Angel, he entered the what he did." store, and when the proprietor's Clyde Myers and I were pals. eyes were not upon him, he gave His folks were not poor, but they himself to his temptations, thereby wouldn't buy him a ball glove be­ committing a flagrant violation of cause they were afraid he would God's precept in the Seventh Com­ break his neck or something play­ mandment. Despite the anguish ing baseball. So what happened and protestations. of his beloved was, Clyde had swiped a glove, not Guardian Angel, despite the tor­ a new one out of a store but an old ture of his own conscience, he fell one out of the gym. before his own weakness, and Clyde said, "No. The reason he spurred on·by the coaxing of Luci­ swiped it was because his folks fer, he fell into grievous sin. .. ." .wouldn't let him have one." By all of that Sister Mary J0­ So what happened was, the boys sephmeant that the Kid walked put themselves in the Kid's shoes, into the store, saw that the coast and everyone had a different rea­ was clear, shoved the glove under son why the Kid swiped the glove. his·belly next to his sweater,.and But they were all very good rea­ then ran for it. Next day he showed sons. The girls didn't have a up on the school grounds with a chance. They didn't want the Kid swell, brand-new catcher's glove. in the story to be a thief, s~ they Just as he figured, all the boys were just said he wasn't. But it didn't nuts about it. The trouble began cut much ice. The girls didn't like when they asked him where he it at all, because they knew. they got such a swell glove. He told THE ROAD TO HELL 2. I 7 them his father had got it.,That hall rushing downhill, gaining was Lie Numb~r One. Somebody speed at every turn. There was no asked him how much it was stopping him. He was on the Road worth. The Kid said he didn't To Hell. know. That was Lie Number Two, for the glove had been priced at II five dollars. Lie Number Three followed immediately: the Kid When Saturday arrived, the Kid now saw his chance to make the had a chance to go to Confession, boys green with envy, and he told tell his sins, and return once more his friends· the glove was really a to the Road To Paradise and present.to his father from Joe Di sanctifying grace. Sister Mary J0­ Maggio. This led the boys to ask seph paused again. Everyone in the Kid how come his father knew that· class was worried about the a great ball player like Joe DiMag­ Kid now. We felt better when Sis­ gio. The Kid gave them Lies Num­ ter said he did go to Confession ber Four and Five by saying his that Saturday. Ah, but something father and Joe had gone to school terrible happened. He had been too together in San Francisco, .where long a companion of Lucifer. they played on the same team. Lie When he entered the Confessional, Number Six was even worse. The a great fear came over the Kid. Kid told his pals that Joe Di Mag­ He simply couldn't tell the priest gio considered his father good he had swiped a ball glove. He enough for the big leagues. Lie was under the Devil's spell. He N umber Seven was terrible. The coughed and stammered, finally Kid·said that, as a matter of fact, giving up. The priest didn't know his father had once been a big the Kid was holding back, so he league ball-player with the Boston pronounced Absolution and made Red Sox. the Sign of the Cross. The Kid By the end of the week the Kid left the church bathed in sweat, had told so many lies that only and Satan laughed like a fiend, for God, who knows all things,had Satan knew he had pulled a fast any record of their exact number. one on the priest. The Kid had learned that the fate­ But not on God, .because that ful way to fame and the things of can't be done. All· night long the the.flesh was in stealing and then Kid thought of what he had done. lying about it. He was like a snow.. His conscience gnawed like a· fat 218 THE AMERICAN MERCURY rat, and he couldn't sleep a wink. and went to Communion, he Before him yawned the jaws of would fool his folks· and still have Hell, and far behind him flickered the glove. Oh yes, but could he the bright lanterns on the path fool God? That was the question. to Eternal Bliss. Was this Kid And it was here that the Kid doomed, or wasn't he? Sister Mary made his big mistake. So far he Joseph took off her glasses and had deceived his friends, the priest, wiped them, and her face was set and his parents. Drunk with and kind of sad. From that we power, and deep in the spell of knew something awful was com­ Satan, he now challenged the Su­ ing. She put on .her .glasses and prelne Being. And there, kneeling spoke. It was tough on the Kid. beside his humble parents, he made Concealing a sin in the Confes­ the decision which was to prove a sional is bad enough and a mortal fatal mistake. Sin or no sin, God sin, but actually to go to Holy or the Devil, he loved that ball Communion afterward is the worst glove. He decided that no matter sin possible - a sacrilege. Sunday what happened, he would go· to morning the Kid got up and Communion. walked bleary-eyed to Mass with After the Consecration he his parents. They were pious, hum­ walked down the aisle and knelt ble folks who always received Holy at the Communion rail. Side by Communion on Sunday morning. side with his humble parents, he Now the great test arrived. Would awaited the Blessed Sacrament. the Kid brave the shocking disap­ Would the priest know the black pointment of his parents and not horror of that Kid's soul? Would go to Holy Communion, or would a miracle happen?Would God in he sink deeper into the grasp of his wrath· strike down this sinner Lucifer? The Kid was in a tough who had sold out to Lucifer? N 0­ spot. If the Kid didn't go to Com­ body in the class could guess. It munion, then his folks would was Sister Mary Joseph's story, know something was wrong, and and we couldn't guess the end. But after services they would make him it certainly looked bad for the Kid. come clean. That would mean the The priest came down from the loss of his new ball glove, plus a Altar and gave Holy Communion shellacking from his father, who to members of the congregation. was a pious man with a horror of The Kid's mother and father re­ Evil. But ifhe kept his mouth shut ceived, bowing their heads in hu" THE ROAD TO HELL mility and piety. Then it was the III Kid's turn. He lifted his face, and the priest placed· the Communion After school, Clyde Myers and I on his tongue. Nothing happened walked downtown. We fooled except that Lucifer snickered, and around, staring into shop windows. the Kid bowed his head. That is, The Hardware Store window was nothing happened right away. chuck full of baseball supplies, But after he got back to his pew, balls, bats, and gloves. a slow change came over the· Kid. "Let's go in," Clyde said. "We'll He felt a stiffness in his bones, say we're just looking around." starting at his feet. It moved up­ Clyde walked down one aisle ward. It reached his knees. Then and I walked down the other. The his waist. Gradually it crept to his clerks didn't pay any attention to shoulders. Now it was in his. neck us. There was a whole basket full and heading for his eyes and ears. of baseballs. I could have got plenty On and on it moved. Finally it but I didn't feel like it. At the back covered·him all the way. God had of the store we passed each other, answered the €hallenge of Lucifer. and Clyde walked up my aisle and The Devil didn't sneer any more; I walked up his. Then we met at he fled. For the Kid had turned the front door and walked out. to stonel "Did you get anything?" Clyde When we heard that we were said. like stone too. The whole class was "No," I said. dead quiet. Then we realized Sis­ "Me neither." ter Mary Joseph's story was over. For quite awhile we stood out She sat up there and smiled. front and stared at the baseball "And the moral of that story is supplies in the window. this," she said. "Always tell the "Do you think that Kid was truth, whether it be in the Confes­ really turned to stone?" Clyde sional or out of it. AvoidTempta­ said. tion. Never harbor thoughts of "Nah," I said. "It's a lot of ba­ stealing. Never tell little lies, or big loney." lies, or any kind of lies. Be truth­ "Yeah," he said. "It's a lot of ful to the very end." bunk." The class sighed. Some of us "Well," I said. "So lang." said pheeeeew! We were sure glad "So long," he said. "See you to­ that story was over. morrow." Why All Politicians Are Crooks

N THE day the All-Star baseball would be mean enough to be­ O game was played in Washing­ grudge a hard-working Senator a ton, the Senate was discussing the couple of hours off wherein to Judiciary Bill, which is the most sweat and holler beneath the burn­ important measure that this body ing sun, and perchance eke out his has had to consider in the whole livelihood by putting a little money century and a half of its existence. on the victorious team. Senators The bill contemplated changing are nominally our employees, of the entire theory and structure of course; they are our hired men and American government; as Mr. presumably should more or less Nock has said, it was simply a pro­ keep union hours. Still, as a rule, posal to add a kept judiciary to a when an extra-fancy ball game is kept Congress; its effect .would scheduled, decent employers do not have been to convert the govern­ too closely question the office-boy ment into a strictly one-man show. about the historicity of his grand­ This issue would seem highly im­ mother's demise. But quite aside portant merely for its novelty, if from law and morals and the right not for anything else. Nevertheless, to lapse occasionally into.frivolity on this particular day, a motion was under ordinary circumstances, such made and carried without opposi­ a lapse under those circumstances tion, that the Senate should put the has a very bad 100k.N0 doubt base­ issue on ice overnight and adjourn, ball is in a sense a national institu­ so that the members might go to tion, and there is no harm in its the ball game. being officially recognized on occa­ Now there is nothing actually sion, but this was distinctly not the sinful about this performance, and occasion; and moreover, such men certain!y nothing illegal. We may as our Senators are popularly sup­ take it that morally as well as le­ posed to be.would have felt most gally the Senate acted quite within strongly that it was not the occa­ its competence. Moreover, no one sion.

2.20 EDITORIAL 2.2.1 Thus the incident presents an in­ together almost of itself. The diffi­ teresting puzzle. In the crucial culty of these puzzles is that the hours of a military campaign, the key-piece may be staring you in the officers of the General Staff do not face for hours before· you find out knock off for a day's fishing. They that it is the key-piece. In that case do not even think of such a thing, you laboriously build up the puz­ even though under other circum­ zle all around it, matching the stances· they might rather fish than pieces by repeated trial and error, do anything else. If they went fish­ until finally you discover the one ing while the fate of a campaign piece which, if you could have was in the balance, or· if they even identified it to begin with, would thought of fishing, they would con­ have solved the puzzle for you at travene the opinion which the pub­ once. lic had of them. Whereas if the The puzzle presented by the be­ public took for granted that they havior of the Senate is like that. were able, responsible, :lnd digni­ There is one key-fact which, if you fied men, they would prove them­ get it well into your head, will re­ selves temperamentally incompe­ solve any puzzling anomaly which tent, irresponsible, and frivolous presents itself in the political life of with a frivolity that comes pretty any country on earth. Abraham close to treason.. Now, in the Lincoln, himself by far the ablest present instance, what are we to politician we ever produced, put say when we see a body of men his finger firmly on this key-fact whom the public regards as able, in saying that "the way of the responsible, and dignified, deliber­ politician is a long step removed ately walking out on the gravest from common honesty". That is to issue that the country has ever say, all professional politicians, confronted, and going to a ball without exception, are by profes­ game? sion common rogues. Wherever At first sight it is, as we say, a they are found, and by whatever puzzle. There are certain puzzles test of ordinary honesty they may of the jig-saw type which are al­ be· judged, they are indistinguish­ most impossible to solve without able from a professional-criminal first discovering a small key-piece, class. and discovering that it,is the key­ If, therefore, the Senate be made piece. When this is done, you have up of able, responsible, and disin­ no further trouble; the puzzle falls terested men, according.to the gen- 222. THE AMERICAN MERCURY eral popular view of its composi­ Diddlebury no rogue, but ·a tion, then its action in shutting up thoroughly honest man. What do shop at such a time to see a ball you say about that?" game is utterly unaccountable. You say simply that it is not so. Such men in such circumstances Under the system of government have no mind for baseball; it is in­ by party, the moment a man enters conceivable that they should have. politics his party instantly con­ If, on the other hand, the Senate fiscates his character. If anyone be made up of professional politi­ doubts this, the.best way to find out cians - that is to say, of venal, self­ is to try going into politics, and see seeking, and dishonest persons, the what happens. It is notoriously im­ kind of person whom one looks at possible - everyone knows it ­ and passes by - then its indeco­ for a man to become a President or rous action is logical, consistent, Governor or Senator or a pound­ and presents no difficulties what­ master in a country town, without ever; it is quite what one might putting his character as well as his expect. abilities at the beck and call of his Hence one who wishe:J to clear party. If he does not himself par­ up in his own mind the apparent ticipate in all the rogueries - the anomalies of politics must accept iniquitous trades and deals, the the key-fact that, first, all profes­ malversations, blackmailings, brib­ sional politicians, without excep­ eries, collusions - which are inci.. tion~ are common rogues; and dental to his party's success and.his second, that they are by profession own promotion, he must inevitably common rogues. The moment you participate in some of them and admit the possibility of an excep­ acquiesce in the rest. He must, as tion to this rule, you lose your grasp we say, "play politics"; we have of the situation. One often hears this special name for that special the superficial saying that "politics mode of conduct; and this selling... is a filthy trade, I know, but you out of character marks him as a can't bring a blanket indictment knave, and makes his general against the whole race of politi­ semblance of a sound character cians. There is Senator Squirt­ only the more odious and revolt­ water, for instance, who has been ing. It is a true instinct which in politics for years and is honest as makes the general run of mankind the day, a fine man and no rogue. feel a sneaking regard for> the I know him well. So is Governor Platts, Quays, and Penroses of poli EDITORIAL 223 tics, who did not pretend to be any.. With regard to minor crime, it thing more or better than they issues bonds, for example, with its were, and which begets a corres.. promise to pay in gold at the then­ ponding distaste for those of the current rate, and shortly goes back reforming or uplifting type who on its promise; and this is fraud. think they can successfully com... It levies a special tax· for a special promise with evil in order that purpose, say a tax on motors and good may come of it. When a man motor-supplies for the purpose of is found playing the piano in a building and maintaining roads, brothel, one naturally thinks that if and then devotes one-fourth of the he is not a procurer he ought to be; proceeds to this purpose and di­ and if he frankly says he is, one can verts the rest; and this is obtaining at least have ·some small measure money under false pretenses, or of respect for his candor. else it is embezzlement- take Herbert Spencer cites with ap'" your choice. The notorious activi­ proval the saying that "wherever ties of our political almoners in dis­ government is, there is villainy". tributing public money "where it This is true; and when we try to will do the most good" are directed account for it, we must bear in either toward securing votes or in­ mind that government is the only fluencing judicial processes; and in human enterprise which offers·a the one case this is bribery, and in sure immunity for crime; it is the the other it is embracery.. only institution which assumes no Furthermore, government ad... responsibility for any mode of ministers law without the slightest honorable and· decent behavior. regard to justice,reason,or decency. Every day we live brings us irre· Mr. Gerald W. Johnson has cited futable evidence that government the recent instance of a woman is not interested in abolishing who worked ten years on a best­ crime, but only in maintaining its selling novel which brought her in own monopoly of crime. With re<4 half a million dollars; and because gard to major crime, gov,ernme'llt this pay for ten years' work was not only sanctions the committing received in a lump, so to speak, of murder, robbery, arson, rapine, within the. space of one year, the in its own interest, but it also or... Federal Government and the State ganizes them on a grand scale and of Georgia between them took keeps up a prodigious standing ap­ away nearly half of it. Again, the paratus for their perpetration. other day we had the confession of THE AMERICAN MERCURY an. assistant Attorney-General, Mr. the point where society becomes Jackson, that when a dispute about exasperated and reaches down the interpretation of the income-tax shotgun. Precisely so will govern­ law is brought into court, the gov­ ment push its interests as far as they ernment regularly takes the side can go without stirring up the pub­ which will bring in the most lic to rebellion; and this means money; and hence it may be found that it must always be the worst it arguing both ways in two different dare be, as we find it always is. courts at the same time. One has Government has created for it­ to have a good lively imagination self a great prestige which, more to think up anything more despic­ than anything else, stands in the able than such behavior. The Bal­ way of a general understanding timore Evening Sun has this to say and acceptance of these three facts, about it: even though we have an instinctive In short, whoever has to deal with the knowledge of them. Our very Government has to deal with a sinu­ phrase, "Oh, that's politics", when ous, tricky, and unscrupulous cus­ some notable piece of rascality is tomer, who is to be trusted not one inch. It has always been so, and as brought to our attention, shows long as the Government is run by how far our instinct has run ahead politicians, it will continue tQ be so. of our intelligence; and this is Lastly, to account for the fre- chiefly because our intelligence has quency and flagrancy of such mis­ been hamstrung by the mythical doings, it is necessary to keep in prestige which government has mind a third fact which owes its built up for itself in all sorts of existence to the two justmentioned. ways and by all kinds of means. Because professional politicians are No doubt the great majority of our what they are, and because their citizens would resent the idea that unsavory calling gives them the a President, Senator, or Governor immunity it does, it therefore fol­ should ipso facto be regarded as a lows that a people always gets the common crook, and if a demonstra­ worst government it will put up tion were offered they would not with. It is natural for anyone to care to listen. They would probably /make the most of his opportunities, deny.that their judgment was at all and if you issue a letter-of-marque affected by a mythical prestige; yet to safe-blowers and porch-climbers, we i all remember the Coolidge you must expect these gentry to myth, the Boover myth, and in­ push their operations right up to numerable others, and we have no EDITORIAL 225 difficulty about remembering the terferes with an acceptance of the means employed to build them, or three facts by which alone the the sleazy materials out of which anomalies of modern politics can they were constructed. be competently interpreted and Four hundred years ago, for like fully understood. The key-fact is reasons, it was equally hard for the that all professional politicians are, average European toget the social and in virtue. of their profession character of the Church and its must be, common rogues. The functionaries through his head; second fact is that government, far and this was bad for him. If he had from wishing to abolish crime and made a disinterested effort to un­ rascality, is concerned only with derstand it he would have been a safeguarding its own monopoly of good deal better off; but prestige them. Finally, the third fact, which interfered. Prestige likewise inter­ proceeds logically from the other fered with a clear view of the post­ two, is that every people must medieval governing classes, the necessarily always have the worst royalty and nobility. So now it in- government it will tolerate. ~~~~~~m~~~~+~mH~mH~~+~m~~~ ~I . AMERICANA· ...... ·I~ ~~~~~:~~~Xm~~~~ii~H~

CALIFORNIA and Forei,gn Relations; and Harry Houdini for head of the Secret Serv­ EFFECTS of the higher education ice. The co-operation of those minds, upon West Coast civilization, as through President Roosevelt as pres­ chronicled by the Associated ent mediator, will gradually do away with large salaries, the millions spent Press: because of having to resort to the Berkeley won't see red as often here­ Supreme Court, and the elimination after. The city administration today of graft would be achieved at once. ordered all fire trucks, which now Congress and the Senate would be bear a color closely approximating entirely eliminated, as well as their the cardinal red of Stanford Uni­ salaries and upkeep, and instead, a versity, painted blue and gold, the patriotic Seer from each State would hues of the University of California. be placed in Washington. It is of course understood that only tried and AT LAST there is evolved a sound true Seers would be employed· along with their secretaries and typists, and and fool-proof plan for governing they, the Seers in Washington, would this unhappy Republic, according contact these past great men who to a press release: would constitute the head of our gov­ ernment, and from these tried and At a meeting of the Los Angeles true Seers and Prophets, bring the Scientific Psychic Research Society, laws, wishes, and the upbuilding Inc., the following question was of­ plans as the past great men should fered as a subject: "Of What Value and would designate. Is Telepathy in the Education of the This plan, of course, is elastic and Youth of Today?" The subject was would probably take several years or open for discussion, and Dr. Edward more to make acceptable and worka­ Saint, a fellow member and investi­ ble, but the groundwork has already gator, presented a revolutionary idea. been laid. Every town and city of Taken from the stenographic notes any size or importance, has already of the Society, the plan, in condensed their Psychic Circles with their tens form, is this: of thousands of active members. To nominate as candidate for There are well-known educational President, George Washington; for books and inspirational writings on the Vice-Presidency, Thomas Jeffer­ the subject, and by their uniting in son; Alexander Hamilton, as Secre­ every community, combining as a tary of State; James Monroe, Secre­ whole, could recognize the Invisible tary of the Treasury; Admiral Dewey, Force to further this plan to its ulti­ Secretary of the Navy; Theodore mate realization. Once in power, laws Roosevelt, Secretary of War; Abra­ favorable to this growing psychic ham Lincoln, Secretary of Domestic organization would be passed and

2.2.6 AMERICANA

present great men, such as'Hoover and continuing until eleven at night artd Roosevelt, would have the pleas­ when they close the day with a hymn. ure of looking forward to joining After dark, floodlights will illuminate forces with the past great men once the shaft like a jewel set in velvet. they,· themselves, have passed into the The lights will come on gradually ten Great Beyond. Naturally, the same seconds before the song of the set-up would be formed as to the chimes, and thirty seconds after the governorship of each State, and like­ last note has been lost in the night, wise, carrying this same· idea as to the the light will be dimmed to extinc­ mayor of each city. tion. The Los Angeles Scientific Psychic Research Society has gQne on record FLORIDA as favoring this far-reaching arrange­ ment, and hopes through publicity THE celebrated St. Petersburg and controversy that a workable plan Times chronicles the first intima­ along these lines can be evolved. Let it be further understood that inaddi­ tion that the Royal Family is in the tion to the names mentioned for the White House to stay, in reporting sake of explaining the plan, that remarks of the Hon. Ed. H. other great minds even of centuries past, if they can be contacted, could Becket, County Commissioner at readily be incorporated into the gov­ Tarpon Springs, who bolstered his erning body. opposition to a cut in the Dole by stating: COLORADO I just know President Roosevelt POETIC report on the progress of never intended for one moment for a great American memorial, as is.. his subjects to be treated ~ike this. sued by the ubiquitous publicity wizards of the Broadmoor Hotel: ILLINOIS The beautiful Will Rogers Shrine of THE New Aesthetics, as dutifully the Sun is to become one of the most reported by the cultured Chicago unique singing towers in the world. Spencer Penrose, who has built the Herald-Examiner: granite memorial on Cheyenne There's just as much beauty in a two­ Mountain, half a mile above the dollar machine-made cocktail shaker Broadmoor Hotel, is now having in­ as there is in some of the hand­ stalled an elaborate system of West­ wrought, pre-Christian vases of minster chimes and vibra harp which Greece, the Rotary Club was told at its can be operated automatically or Hotel Sherman luncheon Tuesday. through a console on which con­ Maker of the statement was Dr. certs can be given. James Selby Thomas, president of The silvery notes will be amplified Clarkson College of Technology and and sent out over the entire Pike's director of the Chrysler Institute of Peak region. Westminster chimes will Engineering. He credited the. tech­ be heard on the hour and each quar­ nological advances of American in­ ter-hour' starting with the songs of dustry with enriching the lives of the birds at dawning of each new day • workers. 2.2.8 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

SOCIO-BIOLOGICAL notefrom the col­ complaint against the Clover Fork umns of the ever-wholesome Chi­ Coal Company of Kitts, Harlan County, Ky., alleging it imported cago Tribune: dancers to lure employees from union All-time records of the Cook County meetings. Phillips said he was told by marriage license bureau were broken representatives of the United Mine yesterday when 793 couples took out Workers Union that the union, able licenses in a last week-end rush be­ to offer only business matters, "found fore the State venereal-test law goes it had to meet the competition of the into effect. free exhibitions" staged by the com­ pany on meeting nights. NEW YORK PHILIPPINE ISLANDS GENEROUS offer to the rising young A PROGRESSIVE merchant of Manila literati of the Republic, as adver­ takes the public into his confidence, tised in the columns of the distin­ as noted in the advertising col­ guished Readers' World: umns of the Daily Bulletin: WRITERS ... We are seriously thinking of opening I.am a selling author. Have several up a LINGERIE and GOWN department complete, unpublished stories, not in our Store, which is something quite suitable for mags I write for. badly needed in Manila - not a place Will sell-3 for $1. where one can get a distinguished Arthur Gage gown to fit the figure and with so Brooklyn, N. Y. many good figures. Our dresses will be sold with a pedigree starting from OHIO our own original designs and they will naturally be copyright. This will NOTE on the passing of the great be an exclusive feature for the future, American race, as broadcast hy but for the present, our plans are not the office of Toledo Associates: mature. Meanwhile we continue to sell HARDWARE and the future will Homesite of the last full-blooded In­ take care of itself. dian to live in Northwestern Ohio PARSONS HARDWARE Co. is now a green at the Chippewa Coun­ try Club. Mrs. Victoria Cadaract was TEXAS the squaw who died in 1915 at the age of 105. NECESSARY steps are taken to pro­ tect a Christian audience from SINISTER capitalist conspiracy is temptation, according to the Com­ uncovered· by one of Dr. Roose­ merce Iournal: velt's· traveling missionaries, ac­ "The Fall of a Woman" will be the cording to the Associated Press: subject for Sunday .evening at the The "strip-tease" entered America's First Baptist Church. Real facts and Labor picture yesterday as Philip G. truths will be revealed. The eleven Phillips, regional director of the Na­ fans have been reconditioned and tional Labor Relations Board, filed a they will help to cool the building. ~Hro~.~~~ro~]m~~ro~.~m~~rom~~~ ~ THE STATE OF THE UNION ~ ~ By ALBERT JAY NOCK ~ ~~~~W~~W~~~W~~~W~~~

The Packing of Hugo Black

R. BLACK'S appointment to it shows up more truths and shows M the Supreme Court will be them up in a hrighter and clearer very stale news by the time these light than any other single turn words get into print; but there are which our public affairs have taken a few things to be said about it in the lifetime of the present gen.. which will be as much worth say.. eration at least, and probably much ing ten years from now, or fifty longer. It shows up the kind of years, as they are now. They will President we have. It shows up the no doubt be said so often fifty years Senate. It shows up our newspa­ hence that nobody will miss them pers. It shows up organized Labor. or misunderstand them; but that Finally, it shows up the kind of will not do this month's readers people we have, who would elect of THE MERCURY much good. At such a President and such a Sen­ present it is unlikely that any com­ ate, and who would accept such mentator on public affairs will say newspapers and tolerate an organi­ them, and still more unlikely that zation of Labor which avows such any publication could be found to principles and employs suchmeth. print them if he did. Nevertheless ods as those to which our present they ought to be said, because the organization seems to stand com­ kind of people who read THE mitted. Mr. Black's' appointment MERCURY would already naturally shows up all these discreditable have an uneasy sense that some.. matters in one motion and so com­ thing of the sort is true, and that pletely that the dullest eye can sense ought to be backed up by make no mistake about any of seeing these matters set forth in them. print. What it shows about the Presi.. The incident of Mr. Black's ap.. dent's personal character may be pointment is the most exhibitory passed over with no more than a incident that has happened in this word. He has often alreadyre.. country for years. That is to say, vealed himself as just the kind of 2.2.9 THE AMERICAN MERCURY man, as far as personal character velt misses the mark of being a goes, who might be implicitly great politician. trusted to make just that kind of It is a bad miss, too, for if a appointment. One need say no politician in a fit of temper makes worse than that, and one could not a ghastly break and still wins his say better. Apparently, however, point, he is little, if any, better off this incident shows something than if he had lost it; for the con­ about his political character and sequences of his victory return to qualities that is worth remarking. plague him. At the present time,. We have all seen good evidence of for example, it is a safe bet that the it before, but nothing so com­ Senators who are especially tickled pletely and strikingly exhibitory as by the egregious Mr. Black's ap­ this. Mr. Roosevelt has, up to very pointment and who voted with lately, been regarded as a first-class most gusto for his confirmation, politician; probably many people are those of a cynical turn of mind still so regard him. This opinion is who secretly or openly detest Mr. mostly justifiable. He is a first-rate Roosevelt. It is those who are politician in every essential respect friendly to him and at the same but one, and that one is a killer. time intelligent enough to see be.. A really top-notch politician has to yond their noses, who must be have his temper always in hand. feeling a little blue at the moment. He must always be able to "take. The job of a Supreme Court jus.. it"; and this Mr. Roosevelt cannot tice is not quite the same thing as do. He has all sorts of political the job of a police magistrate in ability, but that is not enough; he Alabama or the job of investi­ has not the politician's tempera.. gating congressional lobbies; and mente The test'of a really great poli. some, at least, among Mr. Roose­ tician is not how he behaves in velt's friends must be intelligent smooth water, but in rough water. enough to know this fact, andto be Lincoln, Quay, Platt, and Penrose rather anxious. about its repercus­ had not only the politician's pecu­ sions. liar ability, but they also had the But editors and correspondents politician's temperament. They are busily building up a myth for never let annoyance, irritation, Mr. Black as a great lawyer, and a sulkiness, or vindictiveness run myth of his appointJUent as a great away with their good judgment; stroke of political shrewdness on and right here is where Mr. Roose- the part of Mr. Roosevelt. We need THE PACKING OF HUGO BLACK 2-3 1 not concern ourselves with ex­ who is also on record as a plenty ploding the first myth; the mere good-enough New Dealer for any­ lapse of time will take care of that. body, always on the Liberal side, With regard to the second, the edi­ always willing to stretch the Con­ tors and correspondents do not tell stitution to the ripping-point in be­ us just what political purpose half of the greatest good to the this' unconscionable appointment greatest number. Mr. Roosevelt serves, or can be made to serve. could have found such a man; They do not even make a respect­ there are two or three of them able fist at telling us anything around. This would have put a that normal intelligence can get powerful weapon in the hands of down .without retching. Will it his supporters. They could have strengthen Mr. Roosevelt's sup.. said, "There, you see what all the porters? One would suppose, on con1motion about Court-packing the contrary, it must embarrass amounts to. You have had your them dreadfully. Will it tend to fears for nothing. The appoint­ reunite the Party? Will it herd ment is perfectly respectable, as back disaffected Southern senti.. we knew it would be. It shows that ment into the fold? Will it attract Mr. Roosevelt can be trusted to do and reassure the wavering? Only the right thing, just as we always a pretty hardy believer could give said he could be." Such an appoint­ an affirmative answer on any of ment would have gone a long way these points; and so, if the thing is to reassure the hesitating, buck up such a great stroke of politics, one the doubtful, and best of all, it may fairly ask just what will it would have put the burden of do? apology on Mr. Roosevelt's critics It will, of course, put another instead of on his supporters, those New Dealer. on the bench, but unhappy gentry who even now then the inconvenient question in­ must be saying to themselves, "One stantly comes up, why go out of or two more such breaks as this, the way to pick on one so thor­ and that man will be up Salt oughly discredited? There was no Creek, and we will be rip Salt need of it. Suppose Mr. Roosevelt Creek with him." had picked another Cardozo; an It would seem that a really first.. able lawyer, an experienced judge, class politician would have seen a man of unimpeachable character this chance to take the wind out of and very high culture, and one his enemies' sails, and would have THE AMERICAN MERCURY acted accordingly. The fact that pass a perfectly con1petent juqgI Mr. Roosevelt did not do so makes mente Pawing over other people's it fairly clear that he had no special private correspondence is some"; political end in view, but merely thing that a decent person not only made the appointment in a fit of does not do, but does not counte­ swaggering bad temper. It was the nance; and the members of the Su­ act of a man who conceives him­ preme Court are decent persons. self challenged to do his very filthi­ One could hardly imagine any of est, and says, "I'll show 'em." No them purposefully opening any good politician ever lets any such message not addressed to himself, incentive throw him off the rails; or one who would not regard the you simply cannot imagine a high­ act as distinctly low and offensive, grade political artist like Matt by whomsoever done.. The Presi­ Quay cutting up the petulant.an­ dent and the Senate, however, ap­ tics of a spoiled brat. Hence it ap­ parently never entertained the no­ pears that the myth of Mr. Roose­ tion of any serious incongruity in velt's great political acumen must placing Mr. Black in such com­ shortly go the inglorious way of pany; and thereby, as I say:, they other myths that have been built give their own measure. They are up. around his person. probably capable of understanding Hence also the incident is clear that a legal point sustained against evidence of what the President and a candidate might make him ob­ the Senate think of the Supreme jectionable to the members of the Court; and by providing that evi­ Court; but they are incapable of dence, the President and the Sen­ understanding that the fact of a ate give the country an accurate candidate being a vulgar dog who measure of their own sense of pro­ rifles other people's correspondence priety and decency. One of the ob­ could possibly make him objec­ jections alleged against Mr. Black tionable to them. . is that in raiding the files of the Finally, in considering the way telegraph companies, he contra­ Mr. Black's appointment has been vened not only the Bill of Rights, received by the people, and espe­ but the common law as well. The cially by organized Labor, it legal aspect of Mr. Black's proceed­ should be said that there is a great ings may properly be left for law­ deal of culpable ignorance ~float yers to deal with, but on the de­ concerning the Court's functions cency of his conduct a layman may and duties. One hears it said, for THE PACKING OF HUGO BLACK 2.33 instance, that there should· be a posed to be equal to tackling one~ good· economist on the bench. ninth of the business; he is ex­ Well, perhaps it would be nice pected to pull his weight. Now, enough to have a good one there, imagine an opinion of Mr. Black's or a good poet, musician, taxider­ in a tough admiralty case, or a mist, anything you. like. But as knotty patent case, or a horri­ Mr. Justice Roberts explained the ble tangle concerning mechanics' functions of the Court not long liens - imagine that opinion be~ ago, a knowledge of economics ingpassed around among the eight would be no more practical use to a justices for concurrence or dissent, justice than a knowledge o·f San­ and imagine what it would look skrit - perhaps not so much. Like­ like when the eight got through wise also there seems to be a very commenting on it. hazy popular conception of a jus­ The Supreme Court, by and tice's duties. Those who are pleased large, has always been a pretty able by Mr. Black's appointment,for body, but there are a few instances instance, appear to think that all in its history - one in particular, he will be expected to do is to sit I remember - where a member around and smoke until a New could not pull his own weight, and Deal case comes on, and then say, his fellow-justices, tired of cleaning "Well, I can't understand the argu­ up his ~ork for him, finally ment and I don't know anything brought pressure on him to resign. about the law, but I'm for the New This may not be necessary in the Deal, so you can put me down in case of Mr. Black. He may be the affirmative." found legally ineligible. On the A member of the Court bar, day I write this (the nineteenth of however, tells me it does not go August) I see that a suit has been quite so easy as all that. Cases · started to determine his eligibility. even remotely concerning the New But whatever happens, three facts Deal do not come anywhere near will remain. First, that he has been to one per cent of the Court's busi­ appointed; second, that the ap­ ness. That business comprises pointment has been confirmed; cases taken from anywhere and and third, everyone concerned in everywhere in the vast realm of these misfeasances has indelibly the law, and each justice is sup- marked himself contemptible. Notes on an Economic Royalist l

By JOliN W. Tl!OMASON, JR.

HE past May, at his Winter although you never really know. Thome in Florida, John Davi· Our son Jack, aged eleven, was a son Rockefeller died, having lived keen Scout, and he transferred his a hundred years less two. For he membership from the Washing· was born in 1839, when Martin ton troop to the Dragon Patrol, Van Buren was president and the as soon as we arrived in Peking. voice of General Andrew Jackson The Dragon outfit possessed fea· still echoed mightily across the tures of unusual interest. Its land. The century through which Scoutmaster was a vigorous and he was to live has been perhaps the clever young American mission· most eventful in recorded history, ary, and the rank and file were and he set his impress large upon American, English, Japanese, it. Much has been written of him, Chinese, French, and German; and and much more will be written. there was one authentic Red Rus· Of this literature, the latest item is sian, Master Leo Lenin Artimev, a suave and concise summary of smart as a whip, the sonof the only his life and works, from the ffuent 'accredited member of the Com­ pen of Mr. B. F. Winkelman. But munist Party, in North China: the'vital essence of·the man is pub... they all attended the fine Ameri­ lished more enduringly in such can School in the East City. things as the Rockefeller Founda· This day, a Saturday, the Scout­ tion. master was hiking them out So that, if I may, I will tell you through Chien Men and the Chi­ a story.... nese City to the open spaces * * * around. the Temple of Heaven, We always thought it was the and Jack had to go: if he didn't, February hike that brought it on, he pointed out, he would be called

1 John D. Rocke/cliet, by B. F. Winkelman. $1.50. Winston. 2.34 THE LIBRARY 2-35 a sissy and lose much face. AI­ where for their chow arrange­ t~ough he is prohe to respiratory ments, which invariably included afflictions, and the dusty North alfresco cooking. She had driven China Plain, its air laden with the out in the forenoon and observed filth of centuries, is not kind to them doing evolutions i~ a sys .. weak throats, he appeared to be tem of Chinese practice trenches free of sniffles and sneezes and per­ near the old execution grounds fectly well. His mother and I ex­ (trenches probably in furious use tended permission, insisting merely as I write this, in August, '37), that he wear breeches and·puttees and had from the Scoutmaster the instead of the shorts and wool time of their return march. She stockings which are regulation in said she would send the car to the hearty Dragon Patrol. He bring him home, if the day grew stood my formal inspection after colder. The car went as ordered, breakfast, straight and slim under about three, when the short Win­ service kit: canteen filled with ter day was thickening. down to chow-water, sandwiches and such twilight and the wind had turned in haversack, knife and coil of rope northeast and raw: but Yang re­ correct, and sweaters and muffiers . turned alone, reporting to us that to the limit of his carrying ca­ Young Master declined to ride. pacity. For pure swank he had Maybeso more better, commented a curved Mongol bow and a quiver the Number One Boy, translating of arrows slung across his back. Yang's crackling Shansi dialect: He departed by motor for the ap­ young Master Jack lose much face pointed rendezvous,. and I went with other boys if he ride motor off to the Guard, where my Ma­ car and they walking. To lose face chine-Gun Company (the 38th) is terribly serious in China. About would shortly turn out for the tea-time Jack was at home; we re­ weekly review. stored him with hot milk and all It was just above freezing and a the sandwiches he would eat, vile bad day, with low clouds while he sat by the sea-coal fire and threatening snow and an unaccus­ said he'd had a fine day and was tomed dampness in the air. Peking just pleasantly tired: got cold only is very cold and very hot in season, once, when they sat for an hour in but rarely damp. At lunch, Leda the trench and listened to a lec­ and I spoke of the Son, and hoped ture with demonstrations on some the patrol waS sheltered some- important feature of scoutcraft. THE AMERICAN MERCURY Leda hoped, anxiously, that he sat unusual lines of temple archit~c:"; on his poncho - not on the bare ture. The W este~n Hills were blue ground. Of course he sat on the and silver in the sun, with every . bare ground, he told her severely detail hard and clear; and the drab -like everybody else. And he de­ ugly nakedness of the Winter manded that, in future, he be fields was' sheeted in white, spared the. embarrassment of hav... against which the dark ever~ ing a car sent for him, Yang, that greens of the tombs showed almost monkey, running slow along the black. From the Long-Life Tem­ column and honking at him. My ple which the Old Dowager raised goodness, he complained, it was on the ridge above the Summer awful. Yang wouldn't leave us­ Palace grounds, we could see right just wouldn't! He was flushed and out to the curve of the earth. The handsome in the firelight. We told radio towers Tungcho-way were him we hoped he hadn't caught distinct on the skyline, miles be... his death of cold, and regarded yond the long mass of Peking; him with great pride. and southwest, where the West- Late that night, when we came . ern Hills run down to the river, home, his mother looked in on him we made out the graceful tracery and thought his sleep restless and of Marco Polo Bridge. (They are his head a little hot. Over-tired, fighting today over that country, maybe; his breathing was all right. and I hope no shells fall upon the Jane Cates and young Clifton frail and unearthly loveliness of were .visiting us from Shanghai, the Old Dowager's pleasance.) In and next day there was snow on the photographs we took, Jack the ground and no paper-chase looks sick. His face is thin and in consequence; and we went out pinched. But we did not see what . to see the Summer Palace, which the camera saw. is one of the sights of the world. The scarlet fever struck right I will always remember the after that. In Asia, all diseases are beauty of the countryside that violent and hit with the sudden­ Sunday. The sky had cleared, and ness of thunder. You sit at dinner it was bitter cold, and little gusts beside some pretty girl, and miss of wind blew the snow like sand her at cocktail parties the next from the golden tile of the dragon­ few days, and ask somebody crested roofs, leaving enough of it where she is. Oh, they tell you, in crack and crevice to point the we've just heard she's in the has,. THE LIBRARY 1.37 pital, not expected to live. Or, drawn to mastoids when he was likely as not: She died last night. house surgeon in a Boston hospi­ That sort of thing. All at once, tal, the year of Spanish Influenza; Jack had a temperature: he had a that would· be 1918, and he oper­ very high temperature. The Medi­ ated on hundreds· of the things. cal Officer came from the Guard, He was a quiet-spoken, courteous and stayed. Presently he sum­ doctor, who talked in simple lan­ moned a nurse, a plump English guage. His hands had symmetry lady with never an haitch to her and strength, and they were the ton.,gue and interminable reminis­ most beautiful hands I have ever cences of having seen the Dear seen on a human being. He oper­ Queen, but abounding in kind­ ated. Then we were learning the ness and good works. Our house­ word streptococcus, which is also hold, which was in ordinary a a very bad word. cheerful place, went into shadow, In a week, the other mastoid and the shadow lay for a long process, the left one, fired up, and time. The Medico brought other he operated again. And the third doctors, specialists: Jack said'that week, the right one had to be re­ his head hurt: he had, he con­ opened. Jack's fever chart, those ceded, an ear-ache, and his eyes days, resembled an engineer's pro­ were bright with fever. In an after­ file of the Bolivian Andes: charac­ noon, through the brown gloom of teristic of the malady, they told a dust storm, we took him to the us. Then the infection involved his hospital. kidneys: I think the word is ne­ Of the next three weeks we have phritis: and he turned yellow, and mercifully forgotten much, but one afternoon we thought he was when they were over, I was not going to die. I walked in the corri­ young any more. The days,as one dor and reviewed the years since remembers, ran together. Almost the June evening in Camaquey immediately they were saying, "vhen he was born, and tried to ad­ "Mastoid", which is a dreadful just myself to not having a son~ word. The head surgeon in the My service in the Marine Corps eye, ear, nose, and throat depart­ has been extensive and various, ment was a Chinese gentleman, and I have seen much of human America- and Vienna-trained, misfortune, but nothing to pre­ with a worldwide reputation. The pare me for this. When I could story ran that his attention was stay away no longer, I returned THE AMERICAN MERCURY to his room, and he was not dead; there if you say, simply, "TH~ and while I looked, I saw the life Fu". Otherwise, you can say "'Fhe eome back·into him, and the doc­ Peking Union Medical College"; tors straightened up by his bed for it houses a very comprehensive and nodded to each other; and medical school. But more accur­ Doctor Lui suggested, gently, that ately it is known as the Rockefeller my wife step out and take a breath Foundauon,and so far as Leda and of air. Jack and I are concerned it is He was a long time getting the greatest hospital In the wc;l1, and Leda and I became habit­ world.... uated to. that hospital, and to the tides of human misery that flow * ** through it. Among the patients I am a person of limited outlook, were Marines of our guard, ill be­ and my views are, I fear, hopelessly yond the sirriple resources of our colored by my own observations sick bay; and tourists, stricken be­ and experiences. It is the fashion tween sailings, and Old China nowadays to regard with cold Hands, and diplomats. There were suspicion the ethics and morals of Cantonese merchants and Chi­ those individuals of us who ac­ nese war lords, and coolies from cumulate wealth. But, at the risk Paomachang and Shantung Prov­ of being held outmoded, I con­ ince, and Hunan; and Mongols sider the world to be a better place from the high plateau Ghengis because John Davison Rockefeller knew. There were farmers who lived in it. Certainly it is a better had walked a thousand miles, car­ place for me. My tall boy is sun­ rying their sick in their arms; and ning himself yonder on the Rhode magnates who brought their gall­ Island shore, in conversation with stones and stomach ulcers in char­ a young person whose brief bath­ tered transport planes. And the ing costume discloses that Jack swift efficiency of the place, its has a sure eye for good looks. If complete equipment, its immense it were not for John D. Rockefel­ and specialized staff, assembled in­ ler, I think he would not be here ternationally, were there for all of with us. And there are, .scattered them. They paid according to over the world, numerous fathers their means; and if they had noth­ and mothers, black and white and ing they paid nothing. brown and yellow after their kind, The richsha coolies will take you who will agree \vith me. ~~~~m~~~~~m~~~~+~m~~~~.~mH~ II .. ·THE OPEN FORUM • . I~ ~~~~~~~~i~~~~~i~~~~~~~~~

OUR CUSTOMERS DISCUSS STERILIZATION

SIR: Once more our mighty Mencken, dity brought on from alcohol and high forsaking destructive criticism and glowing living (see "Utopia by Sterilization", by with creative impulse, trumpets a definite H. L. Mencken, AMERICAN MERCURY, Au­ plan for Utopia. Attend, Ye Powers! Let gust, 1937) decline the requested service? many males be sterilized without reference What then? Being rebuffed, the determined to race, color, or previous condition of Amazons might resort to the ministrations servitude. But, though stated under a for­ of the smelly oyster men, and the unwashed instance .heading, his main thesis is that hay-and-tomato yokels of the Old Line the spermatozoa of the Bible Belt, share­ State. In this event, small chance for yelp­ cropping hill-billy is well-nigh the sale ing Lincolns, Constantines, and .William cause of the flourishing state of Moronia. the Conquerors, don't you think? He holds the ova of the hill-nanny abso­ LLOYD E. PRICE lutely guiltless. Whether this last from Fort Worth, gallantry or scientific differentiation is not Texas. made clear. But in support of the gallantry theory it is remarked that he does not SIR: Mr. Mencken's article, "Utopia by descant on the possibility that the egg it­ Sterilization", is, as always, pungent and self may be the direct and proximate cause thought-provoking. I happen to be an em­ of certain Mendelian recessives even though ployer of some thirty-three of the share­ a biological aristocrat is particeps criminis croppers it is proposed to sterilize, about in an eugenic adultery. Thumbs down on a dozen white families, and some twenty poor hill-billy Juxes, but heil their women­ negro families. After reading Mr. Menck­ folk in collaboration with Jonathan Ed­ en's contribution, I explained the proposal wards' seed, heirs, and assigns forever. to about a dozen of my negro tenants who But Brother Mencken, suppose the moun­ happened to be together at the time. With tain men should, in virtue of your laudable the strict provision that the pleasures of and benevolent plan, be rendered totally the sexual relationship were in no wise to and permanently hors de combat for pro­ be diminished, they were unanimously in creative purposes; suppose that the moun­ favor of the plan, at $1000 per emascula­ tain women should, after a well-earned res­ tion. Said one of them, a preacher: "Gov­ pite, conclude that their race should not 'ment sho fixin' to spend itself a lot of take the count? Suppose, for instance, after money now." the manner of the Greeks' Amazons, they However, if an increase in the sum total should seek adequate sources of fertiliza­ of human happiness is what is aimed at, tion? Suppose they should, breathing united then I doubt the wisdom of any sort of force, trek toward Baltimore yearning for birth control; for surely happiness directly romance with the blue-blooded blades of decreases as intelligence and complexity of that celebrated city? Suppose the effete mental processes increase. My sharecrop­ blades aforesaid should from satiety, so­ pers are far happier than 1. They have so­ phisticated taste, or from lack of fecun- cial security, in that they have houses to 239 THE AMERICAN MERCURY live in, a sure source of food, and unlimited ing: 74 ($50 mo.) if 74 is my numbei".oIf opportunities for .procreation. Th~y want I can successfully proselyte, give me credit no land, because they want none of· the by listing the new members I get, 74a, cares and responsibilities· of property own­ 74b, etc. ership. Almost since time began, one-tenth Brief hunches: Pick a city rather than a of our population has thought for and di­ rural district to start, so privacy of persons rected the other nine-tenths, and I .suspect sterilized can best be guarded. A fair­ this is going to continue to be true. Fur­ sized office building on the edge of a col­ thermore, this mentally inferior nine-tenths ored section would be ideal. Keep the doc­ will be happier to have their thinking and tor separate, making payments in the office direction done by others. of a "society" on receipt of a form state­ B. L. Moss ment signable by any doctor, even though Soso, it will probably be necessary to plant a doc­ Mississippi. tor. Age limits, 2.5-40. Summing up, I hope you don't let the SIR: The extraordinary possibilities and whole idea drop as a mere intellectual ges­ implications of Mr. Mencken's idea of ture. After all, regardless of how we poke "Utopia by Sterilization" justify my asking fun atscience and its gadgets, we have new, your serious consideration of my anony­ important and positive information regard­ mous letter. First, I take your suggestion ing heredity bestowed on us by science. Ad­ seriously. Second, I would contribute in a mitting political and educational efforts fair way to a practical project for carrying may be doomed to failure in breaking the out your plan. Third, I would like to sug­ bonds of the Spenglerian cycles, a shot· at gest a secret group plan which might serve heredity might do it. It would be worth the function of your "rich philanthropist" trying. With all respect to what Mr. who might not materialize. Mencken has accomplished as a writer along Secret support is necessary, because the many lines, why does he not concentrate spirit of William Jennings Bryan still per­ his undivided time, for at least a year or vades the land to an extent which would two, on this idea as a definite project?· damage most of those (who would other­ It would be a joke on everybody if Mr. wise openly support your plan) through Mencken turned out to be the real Up­ financial and social connections. Let us as­ lifter of humanity for all time. Why not? sume it will be possible for you to locate "74" a thick-hided and reputable surgeon willing Seattle, to join you in public dodging of the bomb­ Washington. shells of the righteous. The two of you, aided by small staffs and moderately sup­ SIR: In an unorthodox manner, I would ported financially by ~ubscription, could like to reply to you on the perplexing prob­ attempt to put the scheme in operation on lem of birth control and eugenics which a trial ground. I could go along to the ex­ you merely scratched in your sterilization tent of $50 per month for at least a year. article. Being in the opposition, I'm natu­ In discussion, I have located a prospect rally ignorant; but despite this I would like for a $50 or $100 lump contribution based to present my views on the matter. My sug­ on second-hand hearing of your article. gestion to round out· the incomplete ar­ Presuming your plan might actually be ticle on eugenics is to mention the grave tried, I would suggest that anonymous po­ possibilities contained therein, in marking tential supporters like myself be allowed to cases fit for sterilization. As you no doubt assign ourselves numbers and see printed agree, it would be decided to sterilize those in THE MERCURY a serial list of other. po­ whose scores are low in ill-devised LQ. tential (later actual) support. Thus, my list- tests. That would be a laudable method if THE OPEN FORUM t4e truly undesirables were segregated into nished by the toiling masses and at the groups and then prohibited from procre­ finish each recited Casabianca with tre­ ating their progeny. At this point, however, mendous effect and accordingly were I was shocked by the gross ignorance of counted brillant candidates for high school, supposed-omniscient Mencken, the one who which they found ready-made by the work­ appeared as a powerful critic and formida­ ers of the community. From· here, like ble foe of New Dealism. He failed to no­ Columbus, .they sailed on and on into the tice the weapon which he would forge university built and equipped by farmers, for these demagogues. Doesn't his analyti­ sharecroppers, laborers, ditch-diggers, cot­ cal brain carry him far enough in this case tagers, industrial operatives, and artisans. to realize that sterilization may become a They took a course in reporting and jour­ political weapon? Some of the questions on nalism because it didn't make heavy ex­ the test could run in this vein: "Why are actions on their gray ganglia and in due the alphabetical agencies created by N.D. time secured jobs on the Weekly Rash. a benefit to the nation?" "Who saved the They wrote up old Mr. and Mrs. Poobah's country in 1932?" "Which party belongs golden wedding in such a racy style it at­ to the 'pepul'?" etc., etc., to that point tracted the attention of the chief of the where even Mencken would be classed as Daily Stooge down in the city and from a low grade political moron and hurriedly thence they became editors of a periodical sterilized so that he may not bring forth known as the Scarlet Crab. They were then Republicans and critics. Thus, if this sup­ in a position to spew venom on all pro­ position were to materialize, Mencken ducers of material wealth. They had cul­ would be permitted to write his experience tivated an utter contempt for the man who on the operating table. "How I, Mencken, works with his hands, which made them Reacted to Operation" would be the cap­ eligible for the Catch'em and Skin'em tion to the article. Club where they absorbed mental stimu­ En SROKA lus. They now take the degree of Doctor of Hammond, Snobbery. Indiana. If H. L. Mencken doesn't belong in the above category it is his fault, not mine. SIR: Reading H. L. Mencken on propa­ The picture is a candid camera of his fifty­ gation of the species, et al., and enjoying his seven years as I visualize them from his wit and cynical style and also trying to writings. He has sponged liberally on so­ penetrate beneath wit and style to "a few ciety and has returned to society. infinitely plain principles and a few simple rules", I less than the sharecropper whom he ma­ wonder if H. L.'s father shouldn't have ligns. His income from literary effort is an been sterilized. That would have saved indirect dole from Congress via the na­ th~ world from something and solved at tional copyright law. If every man has his least one problem. price, which is the implication of "Utopia WILLIAM WORTHINGTON by Sterilization", he should quote the mar­ Seattle, ket on his own virility and the virtue of his Washington. household. \Vhat ill-fated star prevailed at his birth to make him a misanthrope? SIR: Tommy, Johnny, and Henry were Perhaps he had no birth in the tradition of bright babies. They demonstrated this by mortals. It is charitable to classify him as soiling their blankets ten seconds after an animated afterbirth, soulless and irre­ their navels were tied. They soon learned sponsible! to coo for rich milk, gypped from impov­ P. T. ANDERSON erished farmers by city sharks. They passed Hogeland, through the primary grades in schools fur- Montana. THE·AMERIOAN MERCURY

BRITISH FAIR PLAY jority of the· British, believing in. a certain kind of Kingship as an Empire necessity, SIR: As an Englishman I raise my Brit­ honestly felt that Edward VIII would not ish high hat to Katharine Fullerton Gerould, be doing his job properly if he married not. for· her contribution "The British Fair­ Mrs. Warfield. This majority does not care Play Myth", but for her delightful courage two cents now whether she calls herself and feminine audacity in submitting it to H.R.H. or not. Edward VIII wisely left, you. As a bit of a writer myself I have no failing to see eye to eye with his people business in your letter pages, since I object and regarding his personal happiness as to writing for nothing, but like the gentle­ a human being more important than any­ man who found his wife breaking the oft· thing else. forgotten commandment, I am a trifle irri­ A simple analogy is that of a married tated; byGad, sir! man with children (his Empire in minia­ Katie knows little about logic and damn­ ture) deserting them for what he believes all about the British. She says: "In spite to be happier pastures. The basic question of our (i.e., American) sense of superior­ is whether the individual considers that ity to all non-Americans, we still expect the he has a right to happiness regardless of British· to behave according to our notions any inconvenient obligations standing in of what is reasonable", and then adds that his way. Judging from the high divorce the sooner the illusion that John Bull and rate in the U. S. A., it is clear how Amer­ Unele Sam belong to the same elan is lost, ica reasons about that. British sportsman· the better. While I have nothing but af.. ship, which Mrs. Gerould is at such pains fection for the U. S. A., apart from your to attack, leads to reasoning in an opposite appalling matriarchal system, I agree with direction. the latter part of her statement; but,. in The fact· that Edward VIII removed view of that, beg leave to ask why Great himself, or was removed (if you reason Britain should be expected to behave ac­ that way), shows the force of public opin­ cording to America's notion of what is ion here. It is no less powerful (probably reasonable? Does America seriously claim more so) than public opinion in the to be infallible in matters of reason? Or is it U. S. A., for you are able ultimately to merely Mrs. Gerould's little feminine remove your President if he fails in what whim? Since we are not of the same dan you collectively reason to be his duty. And it is reasonable to suppose that our defini.. you will damn him and dissect him in your tions of reason may be dissimilar. We do press for a long time afterwards. You may not even speak the same language, as I be wrong, since majorities so often are, but have· discovered with my shocking errors Kings have lost their thrones- (and for­ of speech from coast to coast --:- I hesitate merly their heads) and Presidents their to quote them lest Mrs. Gerould should pants all because their peoples reasoned col­ charge me with indecency; but, as Soph­ lectively. ocles or Mencken said, one lives and tries I could elaborate, but I am not getting to learn. any dollars for my time, as Mrs. Gerould 1£ your contributor sincerely believes that undoubtedly did. Besides, I must go and the Edward VIII incident should be po­ dress for dinner, and as I shall not have litely dropped, why does she impolitely my high hat on while I am at table I shall say so much about it at this stage? The raise a glass to her instead and give the Church of England mayor may not have toast of "faraway ladies who· ought to instituted the abdication. That is beside know better". the point, as only a comparatively small CLARENCE WINCHESTER. part of our populations belongs to that London, sect. What is significant is that the ma- England. THE OPEN FORUM

SIR: Since THE MERCURY is such an ex­ pageantry in which American beauty plays ponent of fair play I shall expect to see the leading role" - "For the first time in this in THE OPEN FORUM. England's history". How they love to In· "The British Fair-Play Myth", Kath­ write - "Her Grace" - "Her Grace" this, arine .Fullerton Gerould states that Ed­ that, and the other. Rolling it off their pens. ward Windsor was not allowed to state his Savoring it. What a pity she was not case. Edward's case was fully stated (and crowned. She might have had for her train­ supported) by the powerful Rothermere bearers Mrs. Earl Spencer, the Second; Mrs. and Beaverbrook press, and anyone who Earl Spencer, the Third; Mrs. Ernest Simp.. knows anything at all.about the abdication son, the First, assisted by a couple of her knows this to be true. He was constantly predecessors in the affections of her pres­ supported by these two important pub­ ent husband. Perhaps Mrs. Dudley·Ward lishers and in fact he still is. Young Ran­ and Lady Furness, to name only two. Com­ dolph Churchill has recently gone over to mander Spencer and Mr. Ernest Simpson one of Beaverbrook's publications in or­ could have brought up the rear, adding a der to write anything and everything of in­ touch of modern pageantry to the scene. terest concerning Edward. This young man Rudy Vallee might have played in the also. covered the wedding of Edward and Abbey. The Coronation coach could have Mrs. Warfield. Surely a publishing firm been decorated with Camel ads and such as yours is in possession of this knowl­ Johnny Walker signs. Americanize the edge when every man on the street knows whole thing. What a wasted opportunity! it. Only sheer ignorance could prompt such But what is the use? You Americans are a statement as the one made above. It also the poor sports. You can't and won't ac­ smacks of deliberate and malicious ~on­ cept the fact that Wallie did not get on the tortion of the truth. (Incidentally, I am not throne. Not only that, but because of her a "Hinglishman" getting papers from over and of her alone we have a really wonder­ 'ome. I was never in England in my life and ful King and Queen. And we like them. haven't a drop of English blood in my veins, These last four words are what really get but I'm a British subject.) you down. Stanley Baldwin had nothing to do Yours, brass-knuckly, with depriving Mrs. Warfield of the title R. MACDONALD of H.R.H. Seventy years ago, during the Calgary, Alberta, reign of Queen Victoria, there being so Canada. much royalty around in those days, Let­ ters Patent were taken out by which it was SIR: Wasn't it Lord Melbourne who decreed that the title of H.R.H. was to be said of Macaulay that he wished he was as used only by those related to the sovereign sure of anything as Macaulay was of every­ in line of succession to the throne. Is Wal­ thing? I feel that way about the author lis Windsor in line of succession to the of "The British Fair-Play Myth". As to the throne? Not according to the abdication alleged B.ritish hypocrisy of which she bill signed by Edward. After the abdica­ speaks, I refer her to the old doctrine of tion she has taken his status. He is no attainder; because Edward was in effect longer in a position to have a title of H.R.H. attainted. Attainder used to be in England given to her. He is not in line of succes­ the legal consequence of judgment of sion and neither is she. death or outlawry, involving forfeiture of And if Wallis Warfield had been crowned estate, real and personal, and corruption Queen of England we wouldn't hear any­ of blood. Used extensively in feudal times, thing about the Coronation being a "me­ it gradually fell into disuse, though not dieval mystery play". Oh, no! Then it officially abolished, I believe, until 1870. would have been "solemn, magnificent Attainder was thus a punishment meted 244 THE AMERICAN· .MERCURY out to persons convicted of treason. No· of his power to place the woman of his body, of course, contends that Edward was choice on the Throne. How? By the method a traitor, as defined by the Criminal Code, of attainder - f6lrfeiture of estate and cor­ but there was a general feeling that he ruption of blood, the latter involving as a had let us down pretty badly. We felt that necessary corollary that his wife be not en­ he was, whether consciously or not, en· nobled by marriage. How does fair play deavoring to destroy, with his father come into the picture when a sentence has scarcely in the grave, the high prestige of been passed? What other penalty meets the the Crown which the late King ·had built case? Do we speak ofa judge who im­ up in an arduous reign of a quarter of a poses a sentence as a hypocrite for so do­ century. (It's no· pleasure to me to say ing? Questions of hypocrisy and fair play these things: I feel as though I were talk· have as little to do with the case as the sec· ing aloud in a church service - but ap­ ond law of thermodynamics. parently somebody has to say them.) It is W. P. MACKAY difficult to explain to people who have not Simcoe, Ontario, been born and bred in the monarchic tradi­ Canada. tion the nature of our feelings toward the Crown's prestige. I did think at the time SIR: For sheer ignorance of affairs Brit· of the late King's death that judging by ish, contempt for things Christian, and your newspapers, the people of the United relish for the spirit of discord, one would States had an inkling at any rate of what not need to search further than the article a good King meant. (I have been set right in your August issue by Katharine Fuller­ on that point as far as your contributor is ton Gerould. concerned: she says bluntly that "she knows Only antipathy for a Christian moral nothing about Kings".) standard could lead the writer to attack The nationality of Edward's wife had the Archbishop of Canterbury for doing nothing to do with the case: there were his Christian duty; and only sectarian no aspersions on her character. Nor did schoolbook learning could inspire her to her rank make any difference. But she had say that English dissenters are taxed to sup­ already been twice married and had two port the Church of England - an allega­ living ex-husbands - that was all and that tion without a vestige of truth in it. was plenty. Even Henry VIn never married From several other articles in the same a divorced woman. issue, I should say that MERCURY dips An illustration from French history will rather low just now. serve me here. Six years after the death THOMAS JENKINS of Queen Marie Antoinette, one Count Reno, Axel Fersen was delegated by. the Swedish Nevada. Government to attend the· Congress of Ras­ tatt. Napoleon Bonaparte, then to all in· SIR: Having visited thirty-four States of tents and purposes the ruler of France, re­ the Union, we are now on our return jour. fused to deal with him for the reason which ney to England. My wife is an American he stated to Baron Edelsheim, "Fersen s'est citizen while I hail from Sydney, Aus­ couche avec la reine". Foe to monarchy as tralia,· and therefore we are not English he was, the influence of the tradition under but absolutely neutral. We both like Amer­ which he was reared showed itself in his ica immensely and are, therefore, at the vehement reaction. We were brought up in eleventh hour, dismayed to read· an article that same tradition: hence our reaction to in your very fine publication, leaving us the divorcee with two living ex-husbands. with a nasty taste. I refer to "The British As Edward refused to alter his plans, Fair-Play Myth". what was to be done? Obviously put it out We, as pro-Americans, if anything, feel THE OPEN FORUM that not only is it a great pity that such style, and appearance. Gradually this and incorrect information should be pan· other weaknesses are being corrected by her handled, but also the fact that your fine mother and me in agreeing to train her journal should see fit to publish such an effectively in mental balance. article, which even supposing it were true, Our reading and our experiences have can hardly be calculated to foster friend· demonstrated the horrible results of the ship. Today, with Hitlerism, Fascism, Bol.. sacrifice of children by the parents and shevism, and the Yellow Peril so close at daily impress us with our duty. to our hand, is it not imperative for all British and daughter and our protection to ourselves. American people, all who speak the Eng. I am convinced that our children, be they lish tongue, to shelve their troubles and rascals or angels, are the products of our unite in a common front to protect our handiwork and, when they turn out not to shores? our liking, we have failed most miserably KILIAN E. BENSUSON in fully meeting society's most sacred moral s.s. Queen Mary, obligation. At Sea. ANONYMOUS FATHER California. SIR: Hurrah for Katharine Fullerton Gerould and her article, "The British Fair· SIR: By this time you must have hun­ Play Myth". Well done and not one whit dreds of letters protesting the article "1 overdone. Echo! .Echo!! Echo!!! Do Not Like My Children" by A Mother CHRISTINE MEEK in the August issue. May I add my little Garden City, two cents' worth! New York. Either this mother is a mentally sick woman who should be pitied rather·than condemned or else she realizes she has been FOND OF CHILDREN a flat failure as a mother and is easing her conscience by admitting it indirectly, but if SIR: The unfortunate mother who wrote so, why blame it on her children? The very the purposeless article, "1 Do Not Like My title of her article admits defeat on the Children", is surely a sad parent, despite bringing.up of her family. I, too, am a her contrary testimony. She deserves the mother and I do like my children. community's most abject sympathy and MARY W. BARTON pity as do many other such unfortunate Amsterdam, parents. As the father of a sixteen-year-old New York. girl, I desire to express very briefly my ob­ servations on children, gleaned at·home SIR: There is just one remark to be and abroad. There have been occasions made about August's Little-Mother-Who­ when I could have willingly unlimbered Likes-Not-Her-Children. Did she ever hear my ex-service Colt and done bodily injury of a thing called environment and heredity, to or dispatched our young hopeful. But and is she herself. faultless or lacking in after the passing of these brief emotional idiosyncrasy? spasms, it usually became clear that the Your magazine, and· I do not say this cause of her difficulty often was not an lightly, is one of the two best now pub­ inherent weakness but an implanted one lished' in the country (the other is For· for which we parents were responsible. tune). I read each issue from cover to For example, superprimping before mir· cover, and dwell on your excellent Mr. rors and shop windows; this is the direct Nock. May his audience grow. result of an overemphasis by one of us, ROGER PAUL GEIGER her mother perhaps, on the subject of dress, Netv York City. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

SIR: I hope the anonymous article "I Do OPEN FORUM PERSONALS Not Like My Children", is a hoax. I have no sentimental, Hollywood attitude toward SIR: On glancing through your July· is­ motherhood, nor do I .consider it every sue I happened to read a letter in THE woman's right to "express herself" (whatever OPEN FORUM from a Mr. Paul S. Singer, that means) by having a child. But I do who deplored in no uncertain terms the stand aghast at any woman intelligent fact that THE AMERICAN MERCURY is "a enough to see people as objectively as this magazine of stubborn, arrogant opinion" author sees her children, but stupid enough because· it chooses to print articles that not to know that she is at least seventy-five have a definite viewpoint which the au­ per cent responsible for their personalities. thors maintain throughout. Mr. Singer ad.. She says they are "not fundamentally vised you to read Dale Carnegie's book on generous, appreciative, stimulating, respon­ influencing people and by so doing to learn sive, necessary - to me"; not one of those how to handle them. On the very strength qualities is part of their biological inheri­ of this advice Mr. Singer shows himself tance and therefore out of her control. to be a man who probably has not been Everyone of them is dependent on environ­ able to handle even his office boy and there­ ment, and any woman not willing to make fore has allied himself with Dale Carnegie herself three-quarters responsible for the as a last hope of salvation for his battered environment of her children's earliest (and ego. most impressionable) years, has no business I have tried hard to imagine what type to have children. of magazine would appeal to Mr. Singer. It is hard to see how the writer herself No doubt it would be one which adheres can have a personality which makes her so so closely· to "the norm of literature" that attractive as she seems to think to her it says almost nothing and proves even husband and friends, now that her chil­ less - a few facts, perhaps, provided they dren are lucky enough to have escaped her be unquestionable, but aside from that vicinity. If the article really is genuine, one mere padding of the most inconsequential hopes that the children realize what poor kind. It is a pity that Mr. Singer does not service their mother has done them. realize that the true zest of reading comes HELEN MONTAGUE MILLER from the intellectual conflicts it arouses, fVellesley Hills, wherein the author states one side of the Massachusetts. case and attempts to prove his point, and the reader forms his own opinion. Yet SIR: Our mother cat gave birth to six your honorable detractor, Mr. Singer, would kittens. She wasn't a writer so we never do away with this intellectual adventure. knew why she ate them up. Perhaps she Let me suggest to him the dictionary, just wanted to be alone. Anyway we which affords a chance for some nice fac­ couldn't stand her around after that and tual, un-opinionated reading. put her under a washtub with ten cents I see that Mr. Singer used the words "ar­ worth of chloroform. rogant" and "moron" twice in his con­ That was before we read Mencken's ar­ tribution. It is gratifying· to note that he ticle, "Utopia by Sterilization". He's really is conversant with two words which so got something there. Too bad ,he's too late typify his letter. to catch the author of "I Do Not Like My NORMAN G. HICKMAN Children", but I'll buy the chloroform if New York City. someone will hold the tub down. RUTH H. LANE SIR: That "pellucid" Harvard thinker, Los Angeles, L. Foster, who congratulates you on your Califor11ia. editorial sanity during "this hapless era", THE OPEN FORUM should learn the score himself -- ins~ead of New York whose modern apartments occa- trying to prescribe for all America from sionally fall in on them. . his$atrosanct study. Toryism is expected Hoping you are the same - as you and forgivable in Mr. Mencken and in doubtless always will be-I am THE MERCURY. But it is painful to see in Cordially yours, Harvard lame-brains.· Mr. Foster had ·better o. B. KEELElt join. the secession of Maine and Vermont Atlanta, or else learn what the hell is abroad in the Georgia. America of 1937. BERKELEY J. STANFORD SIR: If in 1918, General Sherman could EZ Endz'no, have returned from - I believe it Was Califarnia. Texas be rented out - and seen some of the destruction in Picardy, like Lord Clive SHERMAN STILL MARCHES he might indeed have been "astonished at his own moderation" in his March SIR: I gather from the article, "Why the Through Georgia. South Hates Sherman", that the author's Mr. Peveral H. Peake says Sherman principal peeve is c1ouble-barreled, con­ taught the South to think. In that case it's sisting of two Southern gals who lately now up to some good Southerner to teach have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, one Mr. Peake to do less thinking and more of them also setting something of a rec­ studying of facts. ord, I believe, in the matter af book sales. C. C. PINCKNEY This must be awfully, awfully tough fOr Birmingham, you fellows north of· the Smith & Wesson Alabama. Line. Me, I'm a dam' Yankee myself, born in Chicago; and the uncle for whom I SIR: In "Why the South Hates Sher.. was named, Captain Oscar Fitz-Allen man" the author has only said what I have Bane, was an officer (we had a few of­ wanted to say for many years. I am not a ficers in the North, too) in the 123rd Illi­ journalist so nobody would pay any at­ nois, Wilder's Brigade, Sherman's Army, tention to me. And there was another tend­ and assisted in the devastation referred to ency which has been a subtle influence to as the March in your piece. I had many destroy the effectiveness of the South. It conversations with him, but he never let was teaching them they were gentlemen me in on any Army gossip to the effect and should not work. I have heard a great that W. T. was in any way pedagogical. deal about Southern chivalry and I can The Old Man, considered the boys, was assure 'yeu that the article is an interesting out to win a war by making the other side and truthful one. I am sorry mOre of the sick of it, which remains a sound war Gone. With the Wind readers haven't hacla. policy, I believe. However, it may be easier chance to read more stories of the South to laugh off a Myth than a Best-Seller, and more particularly of the war. My father especially for ~ chap specializing in dis­ came from England after the Civil War. gruntling at so much (but not so much) a I should be pro-South. I am pro-nothing, disgruntle. but I think a sensible article like y<;mrs Some way, living in the South nearly clears away the cobwebs. half a century, I've never heard a whole C. L. HORN lot about the erstwhile quality down heah, Minneapolis, suh; and while I see little of the share­ Minnesota. croppers and the rugged mountaineers (with hairy ears) I like them a lot better SIR: The author of "Why the" South than the tenementeers of the East Side of Hates Sherman" inserted the query whether THE AMERICAN MERCURY

General Sherman's use of the words "Talk spondence discevered a not-unexpected fact: thus to the marines" was the origin of the pro-wife supporters were male, while the expression. According to the New English antagonists were predominantly female. The Dictionary (VI, 164), the first record of husbands praised and applauded; the wives the expression is in Byron's Island (II, defended monogamy in furious counter­ xxi) in 1823: "Right," quoth Ben, "that attack. As a normal, well-sexed male, I'd will do for the marines." A note explains: like to state my personal and professional "'That will do for the marines, but the reactions and only regret that I can't find sailors won't believe it', is an old saying." words sufficiently devastating to portray my Other early records are in Scott's Red-Gaunt­ utter disgust of the fallaciousness of the let (Ch. 23) in 1824 and in Jerrold's authoress's reasoning. Black-Ey'd Susan (Act I, near end of As a physician, I spent some time with Scene V) in 1829. one of our better-known psychiatrists doing PAUL P. KIES special study on the sexual problem. Having, Depm-tment of English, during that period, interviewed hundreds of Washington State College. sexual misfits and their intimates, I realize Pullman, that sex is indubitably a problem. In a few Washington. exceptional cases, extra-marital amorous ad­ ventures could be condoned on the grounds SIR: This evening there came to my that the wives of these men had been com­ door the August issue of the ever delight­ mitted to mental hospitals or were hopeless fuIMERCURY. "Ah!" I exclaim, "my ad­ invalids. In such extreme instances, a man mired Mencken!" "This," said I, "I shall can be allowed some latitude in his personal read in the still hours of the night while life. But, when a wife is normal in her Dixie's feather-like dew is falling on moon­ physical and mental qualities and is well-· kissed green velvet lawns, and after that balanced sexually, she has in her power last furlong through the sunflowered path sufficient stamina to serve more than one of necessity where I shall sit for the nonce well-sexed male. "A Wife" complains that gazing through the crescent-shaped aper­ no one woman can "handle this extravagant ture at the star-studded sapphire sky, all energy" and assumes that the male libido the while dwelling on the frustration that evolves from the "billions of boisterous has undoubtedly been the lot of that son of spermatozoa constantly clamoring for re­ Revere Beach who wrote 'Why the South lease". Where she received this information Hates Sherman'." is of no concern: important is the fact that Breaking my thought chain I shall sigh it is erroneous. Male desire rises primarily hopelessly as the torn pieces of Peveral from the prostate gland and seminal vesicles, Peake's prose flutter downward through when these organs become distended by their stygian darkness to be refused in the end own internal secretions. The spermatozoa the companionship of pages from an hon­ arise in the testes and, being transmitted to est mail-order catalogue. the afore-mentioned glands by means of the COL. H. JAMESON MOONEY, C.S.A. vas deferens, become "passengers" in the Memphis, fluids of these organs. Evolutibn, ever pro­ Tennessee. lific, has provided man with billions of spermat?zoa, not to make a sexual athlete of him,but to give a better chance for one SEX, AGAIN of the myriad male germ-cells to contact the SIR: Since reading "I Believe in the Dou­ single female cell which is liberated monthly ble Standard", I've been plagued with the at ovulation. temptation to write a reply to "A Wife". "A Wife" smugly prates of"surprises and Careful culling of the subsequentcorre- diversions" which her male proudly brings THE OPEN FORUM heme to her. ~he fails utterly to realize that of more intelligent sex education. From the these "surprises and diversions" are being present revolution in morals resulting from enjoyed by thousands of happily-married our changing economic standards, we can couples without necessitating any "post­ expect a more enlightened attitude toward graduate" work on the part of the husbands. this all-important problem of marriage. In By modern, liberated psychologists these the meantime, the world will be full of things are considered as quite normal and blundering couples. who are as misguided decent. She succeeds in clothing them with as your "child-authoress" and her "delight­ the air of hushed secrecy generally reserved ful child-husband". May they well enjoy for the illicit and abnormal. their smartness and modernity before the

Quite naively, "A Wife" admits having flimsy superstructure topples around their 0 all that it takes to hold a man yet she con­ thoughtless heads. fesses to failure. To explain her lack of suc­ DR. D. V. J. cess, she rationalizes to the extent that she Philadelphia. childishly convinces herself that she is not to blame. Her ratiocination allows her to SIR: I think you are right in sponsoring avoid the responsibility and blames Nature the discussion provoked by "1 Believe in the for compelling her man to cheapen himself Double Standard".·Although sexual inter- . and her by his extra-marital interludes.· In course is the highest expression of love this case, it would seem that not only has known to man, whereby we are even given she failed but her husband is very imma­ the supernatural privilege of creating a soul, ture, sensually. Neither of them seem to ap­ Man has sadly abused this Gift of Gifts. I preciate that that which is common cannot mean Man and Woman jointly, by estab­ be beautiful or soul-satisfying. To be as lishing such as the Double Standard. physical as this husband seems to be is to Woman has belittled herself by her simper­ sacrifice the most important feature of the ing and denial of urges that are both holy sex-relationship; namely, the psychological and healthy - and yes, enjoyable. Again, aspect. by her hypocrisy, so-called pure woman Her answer to the question of venereal has not been able to enjoy the love of man, disease is pathetically ludicrous. She blithely thereby sinning against her health, as seX­ announces that "nice girls" are not averse ual repressions induce many neurotic com­ to a little erotic adventure and that men no plaints. Admittedly, man sold her on these longer need to resort to red-light districts. ideas, because·quick to sense sexual enjoy- In making this. statement she seems to sug­ . ment, he was selfish enough to keep the gest that "nice girls" are immune to social entire pleasure ~f it from his mate, in order diseases. Is it not more sensible to assume that he might have more than his share. that prostitutes are more aware of social And the fallacy was started that polygamy dis~ases and their prevention than the was essential to men. He often violated that dilettantes ? Yet, two-thirds of all prostitutes which was not his and the "good" woman show positive Wasserman reactions. It is belittled herself and her sex by acquiescence true that diseased men aren't as likely to to his lordly rule and looking down upon consort with "nice girls", but this class of his extra companions. And what has the females has. by no means a clean medical roving of man brought him? Nothing, only record. Syphilis and gonorrhea know no discontent. In the first place, man has no social boundaries. Friend husband, for all more right to polygamy than woman, and his worldliness and medical knowledge, successful intercourse cannot be achieved in may yet surprise "A Wife" with an unex­ a succession of polygamous unions. pected present! The successful "art of intercourse" can be In future generations, problems of this achieved ~nly by habit, effort, affection, and nature will undoubtedly be absent because real understanding between both parties. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

This is what marriage is for. True, it re­ this little silly girl thinks it is right to have quires time, but a real love-mating can ac­ an affair like that. complish· it. In fact, only through the All I can say is some day I hope her heart mediums of habit, affection, and under­ aches as much as that wife's heart must ache standing can stimulating, satisfying inter.. and I hope she gets the just rewards of her course be achieved. Anyone can have an adventure. Maybe she will see the follyo£ episode and what is it worth? Nothing, it all when she is a wife and mother and usually. More often than not it results in some baby doll comes and does the same disgust due to improper knowledge of the thing to her. Or maybe it will be when her physical habits of the parties - mere animal daughter faces the same situation. · passion and insufficient interest in the well.. Why are such girls placed in the world? being of either party. Why not reverse this They make devoted loving wives suffer a order and use this gift in its finest sense? thousand deaths while they are enjoying To promote our general health, to improve something they think is theirs. From her our daily work, sharpen our mentality and wonderful lineage and college education, strengthen our ambitions. Used rightly, it that divine spark of right and wrong is will do all and more. Experience has shown sadly missing. When it is repaid she will that when the sex life is harmonious, all realize there should be no Double Standard. dse is. No really intelligent woman is If God had wanted one he would have pro.. ashamed of normal physical desires. Men vided for one. should take women off the stifling narrow­ FROM A WIFE WHO HAS SUFFERED ness of the pedestals and let them become real partners in every sense of the word. (MISS) ELLIOT LYNCH SIR: For ten years I have taught a course Glens Falls, in this institution on "The Family", and I New York. have read rather faithfully all the leading magazine articles dealing with problems in SIR: I have read and reread the letter the field of the. fami!y and also the new signed "A Fond Foolish Female" in your books on this subject, and have also attended OPEN FORUM, concerning the Double numerous national conferences where these Standard. Being a wife who has experienced problems were discussed, so I am not a a little of the tactics of this "Fond Foolish prude nor an uninformed person iIi· this Female", I would like to voice my opin­ field. Yet I am most vigorously protesting ions. against your article, "The Dangers ~f Sexual Why is it a single girl thinks she has the Abstinence"• right even to dare share a married man's There is much that might be said against love and life after he and his wife have this article and you already know this with­ sacrificed in many ways? Perhaps brought out being told. Many of the views expressed children into the world, suffered misfortunes are untrue and can be refuted by the best· and griefs together, and then at the height medical authority. We have no faultto find of his career after success has made him al­ with being- frank in these matters but the luring, let some little Miss Tompkins come very title of the article, and the view taken into his life and flatter and pamper him. that the cost and danger in avoiding sex Then to think she would even dare to think relations before marriage is greater than the she was playing second fiddle. What do you cost and danger of giving these impulses suppose the wife thinks? Doesn't she have satisfaction in pre-marital relations, are first possession of her husband? She prob­ vicious. The whole article constitutes an ably knows it and is putting up a heroic appeal to the inexperience, impulsiveness, fight, as much of a fight as if fought on any and curiosity of youth to enter such sex rela­ battlefield to gain her beloved again. Then tions. The article really invites and attempts THE OPEN FORUM to .. justify our youth doing the very thing dulgence, and it is this lesson we have yet that parental efforts, institutional education to learn. of church and school, and social and P. BRINKMAN, JR. statutory law everywhere throughout our Portland, land are trying to prevent. The article is Oregon. vicious, brazen, and contradictory to the best teachings of educational and medical PREFERS THE GRAVE authorities. You owe. an apology to your readers. SIR: Our friend who wrote in the July M. R. THOMPSON issue about Cremation hinted at gruesome Head, Dept. 0/ Soc. Science, details, but left much unsaid. Our imagina­ Iowa State Teachers College. tion pictures the horror of the corpse's eye­ Cedar Falls, balls bursting from the intense heat, the Iowa. pitiful brief blaze caused by the hair, the face degenerating into a horrible simula­ SIR: Dr. Hirsch's "The Dangers of Sexual crum of a human countenance, and the Abstinence", despite its manifest intellectual burning clothing dropping in shreds from astuteness, presents nothing new nor does it a nude body which writhes during its dis­ offer a real solution to the problem it raises. integration as if alive and in torment. We The highwater mark of the whole article is cannot regard thi~ sight, even with our found in these words: "They (young folks) mind's eye, without the mournful thought should be taught that the sexual force that what we see before us was once some­ stimulates the creative urge and all forms of body's dear one; that this poor food for the ennobling activity". But this truism can be flames once loved and was loved., said about almost anything from dynamite As for me, after the embalmers are done to money, not to mention sex. Sex in itself with me, I hope to find my last resting is neither good nor bad; it depends under place in the good clean earth from which we what ethic it is made to function. Ostensibly, all sprang. sex, like dynamite or money, can be turned E. J. SHENEMAN to uses good or bad, or purposes high or New York City. low. While Dr. Hirsch did mildly disapprove RED, WHITE, AND SPAIN of promiscuity, a thing which even savages did, he did write in such a tone and quality SIR: As a keen and impartial observer of as might lead to promis~uity by young folks the Spanish situation - impartial because not any too well informed or educated in Fascism, Nazi-ism, Communism, and Social­ the matter. He seems to breathe out the ism all find disfavor in my eyes - and as a same air now so prevalent against· modesty devout reader of dozens of American news­ and abstinence over the whole country. The papers and periodicals among which is the cure is worse than the disease, it seems. I do New York Times, I read the article "Propa­ not believe that this country is afflicted with ganda from Spain" with great interest. abstinence nearly as much as it is with in­ However; why crucify such a noble institu­ dulgence. If Dr. Hirsch decries the high cost tion as the New York Times for its news of abstinence and its psychic desecration of treatment of the Spanish war, especially in the personality, let him remember that in­ accenting Nazi and Fascist aid to the rebels? dulgence .costs ten-fold. Of the two evils, ,Is it not one of the basic policies of a news under present circumstances, abstinence is organization to feature the most important by far the lesser and by far the less baneful phase of a story truthfully? The Times has to society at large. The real solution of the been presenting its war·news as honestly sex problem is self-control and not. self-in- and as completely as the strict foreign cen- THE AMERICAN MERCURY sorshipwill allow. The Fascist aid factor is place in the rear of the -Red's former' front doubtlessly the most important aspect of line. the Spanish situation since it is prolonging Mr. Pratt points out the sins of omission a war which normally, in its original guise and commission of the New York Times; of a mere civil, war, should have ended his indictment is overwhelming and un­ several months ago with the government's answerable. But it might be said that the suppressing the rebel faction, and Spain Times is, in Mr. Pratt's graphic phrase, prej­ would today once again be a normal, peace­ udiced for "racial and sectarian reasons". ful nation instead of being torn to shreds The New York Herald Tribune has no such for the greedy desires of two powerful dic­ excuse; its sins have been equally glaring. tators - representing Nazi-ism and Fas­ Nor can the papers throw the blame upon cism. the censor nor upon the press associations. In a nutshell the situation stacks up The Havana papers carry the story -sent by somewhat like this - the Loyalists who no the same press associations, through the doubt possess certain Communistic ten­ censor: the difference is striking, and some­ dencies which are no worse than the de­ what shameful to our journalists. structive principles of Nazi-ism, are fighting But the chief victim of newspaper falsity to preserve the' integrity of historic old is not General Franco; it is the American Spain, and with this incentive are putting people. Communistic doctrines are being on an heroic stand against overwhelming forced down their throats, Communism and odds caused only by the German- and all its vile allies are being made respectable, Italian-controlled Franco forces. their way to power is being smoothed, by "Propaganda from Spain" was unjustly newspapers that betray their trust. Lenin critical, towards a newspaper which is now said in his testament, "after Russia, Spain". an important American institution and The Third International does not cease whose integrity is seldom questioned. in the Iberian peninsula, not when the' Therefore please accept the above as a con­ door here is opened wide by the most in­ trasting opinion to Mr. Pratt's article. fluential organs of American,public opin­ JOEL GEE. ion. Tucson, The Loyalists have recently commemo­ Arizona. rated the first anniversary of the Civil War with great rejoicing and festivities, because SIR: Both THE AMERICAN MERCURY and of their overwhelming daily victories. A Mr. Fletcher Pratt deserve praise for the recapitulation of Loyalist communiques and timely ,and courageous publication of the Red news would show that General Franco partisan reporting of the current Spanish has lost: 6000 field guns, 13,400 airplanes, civil war in most of the American press. It 80,000 automobiles, and 2,600,000 men; comes as a breath of fresh air amid the and that General Miaja's Loyalist forces nauseating fumes of Red propaganda which have conquered a territory twice as large as we are fed as "news". As a Reserve Officer, both Spain and Morocco combined, and I have clipped the story daily from repre­ captured: Cordoba -5 times; Zarago~a-9 sentative American papers and foreign times; Toledo - 16 times; Oviedo - 20 sources and plotted the gains and losses times; Huesca - 33 times. Not even an in­ upon special large-scale maps, because I finitesimal part of the foregoing statistics have been interested in the military cam­ are true. On the contrary the actual truth is paign and the lessons to be drawn there­ that the greatest losses suffered by the Na­ from. It was early evident, as early as tionalists at the hands of the, Loyalists are: August, 1936, that the Red dispatches could 11 bishops an~ 17~000 priests murdered, by not be relied upon, for often during "ad­ the Reds; and 25,000 sympathizers of Gen­ vances" the succeeding day's victory took eral Franco in Valencia, 50,000 in Bar- THE OPEN FORUM celona, and 60,000 in Madrid, all "liqui· Qut injunction, indeed, with a rather com­ dated" in true Soviet style. placent expression upon my erstwhile hum­ The further truth is that the Nationalists, ble countenance. But, mirabile dictu, one of not the Reds, have captured hundreds of them read it, and passed it around. Six went towns and villages in addition to several together to purchase a copy, and read with Provincial Capitals and other important flowing tears and quivering voices. Here­ cities such as lrun, Pasajes, San Sebastian, after, my name is Cassandra. Merida, Badajoz, Toledo, Malaga, Bilbao, Now that I do stop to think about it, I and many more too numerous to mention, wonder how I. can be so utterly ungrateful. while the Reds, not the· Nationalists, have After all, the New Deal has given us Social lost them, without in turn conquering a Security, and takes only a mere dollar or single town of importance.. Today, of the less from my check every month. What fifty Provincial Capitals comprising Spain, have I against the More Abundant Socially the Nationalists control thirty.five against Secure Life? I pay no income tax, having fifteen in the hands of the Reds. Spain's little income, and therefore need fear no territory covers 504,776 square kilometers, opprobrious cries of "Tax-Dodger" as· I of which Franco controls 63 per ceni, and make my unmolesting way down the main the Reds only 37 per cent. At the above rate thoroughfare of our Capitol City. I am not of victories the Loyalists will be compelled a Supreme Court Justice in danger of being to flee Spain and to commemorate in Russia shoved off my high bench for the crime of the second anniversary of the Civil War. being past three-score and ten or fifteen, And they will be optimistic enough to think nor Senator perspiring under the humidity, that they are still in Spain and masters of not the heat, of Washington in July. In the country! fact, I almost got a job about two years ago As you have undoubtedly noticed, the under this very New Deal, only they looked Red officials and their sympathizers follow up my registration. Their beneficent Labor Nikolai Lenin, who advised his American Laws would prevent me from working over disciples, as to their "duty" in the following forty hours a week, if I were under twenty­ words: "... if necessary, to practice one, if I worked that much anyway. trickery, to employ cunning, and to resort Altogether, I am an ungrateful wretch. to illegal methods ... to sometimes even When I count my blessings o'er, not exclud· overlook or conceal the truth... • ." ing that of hearing Dr. Roosevelt's velvet The Loyalists' attempt to deceive is ob.. voice almost any time on my antique radio, vious to fair minds. Having no victories of I'm overcome with remorse. But the awful their own to celebrate, they are in truth fact remains: The reason why, I cannot tell~ commemorating the victorious march of I do not like the great New Deal. Nationalism under General Franco. CASSANDRA JOHN EOGHAN KELLY Harrisburg, Jersey City, Pennsylvania. New Jersey. ORCHIDS OUR CONSTITUTION SIR: Several years ago I used to read THE SIR: I have been abused, kicked upon, AMERICAN MERCURY at the library, being in mistreated, and bitten, ever since you pub­ no position to buy it. I admired your maga' lished my Amendment to the New Deal zine very much then, with its exceptional Constitution. I was under the impression short stories and articles. Politics was not that few of my New Deal acquaintances given a great deal of space, perhaps an (friends no longer) read THE MERCURY, article or so. How about today? Each and allowed you to publish my letter with- month your magazine contains some five or THE AMERICAN MERCURY six articles knocking the Administration. tion, but not at the forfeiture of faith.or;.:t:s There may be a short story and perhaps one an occasion for retreat. At present I am. sick, or two articles dealing with something other weary, and nauseated - almost ready to than comparing the President's Administra­ implore, "Good Lord, have mercy on us tion to a Communist purge. A stranger upon poor miserable sinners, for there is not a reading your magazine would consider it prophet left in Israel who seems to know or nothing more than an organ for the Repub­ understand!" But I am cheered. My com­ lican Party instead of a magazine of cul­ pliments to the author of "America's Wet­ ture. Nurse Bureaucracy" for the production, and 1£ you were to go back and use the ma­ congratulations to you for the publicity. I terial you used to use, with stories by some wish there were some way to put it in the good writers, I feel sure that you would mail box of every American elector - in have a great many more readers. I have con­ pamphlet form. versed with many regarding your magazine, T. A. HAVRON including some college professors, and they Nashville, feel the same as I do. And if you must have Tennessee. politics in it, an editorial can take care of the whole thing each month. With such a A FISH STORY policy, I would be the first to renew my subscription to THE AMERICAN MERCURY. SIR: I don't know whether an editor has I wonder how many of your present readers any right.to send a letter to himself in care feel that way. Let's have a magazine of of his own OPEN FORUM. But I have· a culture and art in place of a propaganda question that I think some of the OPEN periodical, god-damning this and that and FORUM readers - particularly those living the other thing, without suggesting reme­ on the Pacific Coast - may be able to dies. answer. And I can't find the answer any­ JOSEPH GOLDFINE where else. Superior, At various times I have caught, in the Wisconsin. waters of Puget Sound, a fish which I have always called a salmon trout. It weighs SIR: For some months I have been an from a pound to two pounds and is caught avid reader of THE MERCURY. I like it. I by trolling with a spoon. It lives, as far as like its fearlessness. I like the way Albert I know, only in salt water. Its flesh is red or Jay Nock strips the shame of patriotism and pink and it is the best eating fish I have ever altruism from Roosevelt. I like the fearless tasted in my life. I am trying to find out way in which the writer of "Revolution in what the real name of this fish is. The pur­ Michigan" tells the truth about the unions, pose of my inquiry is to satisfy my curi­ and your article about the so-called "Civil osity, and also to enable me to make ar­ Liberties Union" was a whizz-dinger. And rangements for ordering some of these explaining it all is the one by Pollock: delicacies from Coast shippers from time "America Doesn't Give Damn". to time. Keep up the good work and give more I queried Mr. Stewart Holbrook, the articles like those mentioned. gifted MERCURY contributor who lives in L. A. SHAW Portland, Oregon, about the matter, and he Enid, referred the problem to the Han. Mike Hoy, Oklahoma. Master Fish Warden for the State. Mr. Hoy passed the buck to Mr. Oscar Wirkkala of SIR: I am a Democrat, iconoclast, and the Columbia River Packers Association and rebel. I am patient, tolerant, and sympa­ he, with wonderful generosity, shipped me thetic. I have experienced defeat and frustra- four sockeye salmon, caught near· Astoria THE OPEN FORUM in the lower Columbia River. These fish rent. Two cents will provide supplies and were delicious and I devoured them with repairs; one cent will cover miscellaneous heartfelt appreciation. But they were not expenses. In all, ninety cents have been used my· "salmon trout"..They weighed about for unavoidable and essential expenses. In four pounds apiece, whereas the fish I refer other words, ninety items must be sold out to rarely passes two pounds. of the original 100 before a penny is left Those are the facts in this very unim­ for profit. portant case. Any readers of THE OPEN What about mark-downs? The average FORUM who can help me identify the fish retail store has about ten per cent mark­ to which I refer will be doing this magazine downs, leaving no profit at all. The larger a great gustatory favor. stores, however, are more fortunate and PAUL PALMER show mark-downs of about three per cent. Ridgefield, Taking that figure, there is but seven cents Connecticut. left for net profit. There you have the elements that go to A RETAILER EXPLAINS make up the price of everything you buy at retail. If the agencies and wholesalers SIR: I am a retailer. I believe in retailing who sell at prices below the retailers' were and its future. I believe the article, "Only to expand their business and, as Hannah Saps Pay Retail Prices", was extremely un­ Lees suggests in her article, "drive the other fair to the nation's largest single industry, (legitimate retailing) out of business", they which gives gainful employment to an will have the very same expenses to pay and average of 2,7°3,325 people and part-time will have to raise their prices to include the employment to an average of 73°,327, with items which the retailer must consider. The a total payroll of $2,910,445,000. This in­ only possible way to cut expenses would dustry, for all its importance, is largely inar­ be to lower the items mentioned in the ticulate, and because of this, it is little un­ foregoing explanation. derstood by the vast majority of consumers. It seems unlikely that the sixty-five cents Let us assume that you have paid a dollar which the article cost can be much reduced. for a pair of silk stockings. Where did each The three cents·· for rent and taxes is like­ penny of that dollar go? How much was wise inflexible. Light and heat would still profit to the store, and was that profit ex­ take one cent at ·least. Repairs and supplies cessive? If you wish to follow this explana­ cannot be done without. So where can the tion easily, place 100 pennies on your desk. saving be made? Now take sixty-five cents from the dollar. Perhaps by eliminating all local charities This represents what the merchant paid the and all store services, miscellaneous expenses manufacturer, or the wholesaler, for the might be reduced from one cent toone~half stockings. In other words, when the mer­ cent. By eliminating as many employees as chant buys 100 pairs, he must sell sixty­ possible, the twelve cents for wages might five before he has paid the bare cost of mer­ be cut considerably. But this would be a chandise. Take away an additional three doubtful saving, for the millions of men and cents to represent freight and cartage in­ women who support themselves through .volved in getting the hosiery to the store. employment in retail stores could not find Another cent will be lost through theft or jobs in a world wh~re there are already too shortage. many jobless. That leaves us the three cents Of the thirty-one coins left, twelve will spent for advertising and display. This the go for salaries. Three will go for advertising retail establishment might drop if necessary; and display. Another three, or even more but what of the newspapers and magazines? when the burden of Social Security taxes is What of the radio and the print-shops? placed upon retailing, will go for taxes and Your newspaper would no longer cost three THE AMERICAN MERCURY cents, but perhaps ten or fifteen cen~s. If New Deal is not a pill easy for an honest, wholesalers took over the burden of adver­ self-respecting man to swallow. Why should tising expense, it would still be paid for by he go through the hocus-pocus performance the consumer, wherever and however he of swearing allegiance - an indignity bought the merchandise. which is not demanded of a native? After WILMER EDGAR BREES:S all, the glorious blessings of American Oneonta, citizenship - a legend fabricated for the New York. C'fo.S edification· of school boys - is today the ridicule of all the civilized world. It is better FOREIGNERS to be a foreigner, and be treated as a guest SIR: As a reader of THE MERCURY from and friend, in this benighted republic today. its very birth, I have often wondered by I quote from an unabridged Eskimo dic­ what magical tricks certain articles reached tionary: your pages, especially - as I am told­ "A Foreigner is a man from other shores since they are paid for. In the present case who has left his home. and friends and has I refer to "Why Become A Citizen?" by come to trade his goods with ours. Don Layne. If Mr. Layne had paid more at­ "A Native is a thing like a salmon egg; tention to facts he might have found out just spawned here, it could not help it and what the despicable foreigners of w:hom he does not know why or what for. An ac- complains have meant to "llis" country and cident." . the government whose destruction he so A COSMOPOLITAN nervously fears. But why call up the ghosts Seattle, of Lafayette, Hamilton, John Paul Jones, Washington. and the thousands of sailors who manned our ships from the Revolutionary to the Spanish-American War, rarely bothering THREATENING LETTER DEP'T. themselves about citizenship? SIR: I have been reading your Mercrey Why refer to the Japanese who grow Magazine for some time and I think you our vegetables and fruit on the Pacific are decreaseing its value by letting such slope, the Slovaks, Poles, Bulgarians, and people· as that would be writer· Albert J. Belgians who sweat and die in Pennsyl­ Nock write such abuseive terms against vania mines and steel plants, the hosts of President Roosevelt. You can tell him for Italians who dig our sewers and tunnels, and me that he better wake up to the fact that last but not least the docile Chink who for so he is talking about the President of United many years was the only one whose bony States not one of the same type as himself. hands made it possible for even the author Tell him also if he was asked to prove it he of a magazine article to put a clean shirt might be placed in an embarrising situation. upon his back? Mr. Layne is much con­ I am a strong Democrat and 100% for cerned over some 500,000 foreigners who Frankling D. Roosevelt. I havent any hard entered this country illegally. But who gave feelings against Mr. Nock Pearsonally but permission and visas to the Pilgrims, the he cant get away with saying such things New York Dutch, the ancestors of the about President Roosevelt. Also I have Washingtons, the Franklins, the Wilsons, several friends who are going to quit your and the Roosevelts? I do not recall that they publications if you allow such. slander swore allegiance to the Indians on arrival. against the President to be published. Mr. Layne makes a great fuss about .for­ Yours Plenty Sore, eigners refusing to· swear allegiance to a THOMAS J. MCCORMICK government that is constantly under fire for Billings, questionable activities. Allegiance to the Montana. - BECAUSE CENTER TRACTION MEANS SAFETY I

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ix THE CHECK LIST

(Continued from front adv't. section, p. vi) are more impressive than the more im­ portant-'looking sections. POETRY ** BIOGRAPHY FOR TRAMAN, by Win­ FOR FLORIDA, by Patti Broadhurst. $1.50. field Townley Scott. $2.00. Covici-Friede. Dial Press. Free verse, commonplace in Excellent as writing, but bewildering in its thought, careless' in construction. echoes; the tone, as well as the technique, is alternately that of Aiken, Eliot, Putnam, VIOLET RAYS, by Olive Allen Robertson. and Robinson, sometimes a confusion of $1.50. Poet's Press. Dedicated to "Life and them aU. Under the shifting diction a per­ Living that Uplifts, Inspires, and Is Eter­ sonality begins to struggle; it will be inter­ nal",and printed throughout in pretty pur­ esting to watch it - if it emerges. ple ink. Too bad to be true.

*THE TIME OF YEATS, by Cornelius MISCELLANEOUS Weygandt. $2.75. Appleton-Century. A **** THE EDUCATION OF HYMAN resume of recent English poetry from Hen­ KAP LAN, by Leonard Q. Ross. $2.00. ley and Stevenson to Auden and Spender. Harcourt, Brace. Hyman Kaplan, an eager Mr. Weygandt writes with assurance rather student in a night preparatory school for than with authority; his conclusions are adults, is a nonconformist when it comes dubious, and the chapters, instead of build­ to learning the English language. There isa . ing orprogressing, merely slouch along. laugh on every page of this original and delightful book. *ENCOUNTER IN APRIL, by May Sar­ ton. $2.50. Houghton Mifflin. Miss Sarton *** ENJOYMENT OF LAUGHTER,by has some skill with her varying verse-forms, Max Eastman. $3.75. Simon & Schuster. If but her sonnets are like all the tailor-made, you like to have jokes explai~ed, you will' semi-Elizabethan sonnets ever .manufac­ enjoy this book. If you don't, you won't. tured, .and the book itself communicates Mr. Eastman's introduction is brilliant, ar:d emotion without distinction, intellect with­ his examples of humor are extremely well out individuality. chosen.

*THE EMPEROR HEART, by Lawrence ** PRIMITIVE INTELLIGENCE AND Whistler. $1.50' Macmillan. Mr. Whistler's ENVIRONMENT, by S. D. Porteus. $3.00. Four Walls, which won the King's Gold Aifacmillan. Scholarly contribution to the Medal in 1935, was a showy pastiche of prolonged argument as to the relative influ­ modern cliches; this book is a coliection of ences upon the human.race of heredity and more traditional poetic platitudes. The best environment. Doctor Porteus, already noted pages are those decorated by the poet's for field. work among the Bushmen of brother, Rex Whistler. Australia, here extends his researches to the aborigines of the forbidding K~lahari Desert of the Sub-Continent, .and to the *MONTICELLO, by Lawrence Lee. $2.00. primitives of Ngamiland in Africa, estab­ Scribner. Pretty, precise, and colorless; a lishing trends which are· pertinent to the poor exhibit by one who can do (and should study, also,' of Southern sharecroppers and know) better. American slum-dwellers. Incidentally, it is splendid travel-writing, with a rare and *ANNIVERSARY AND OTHER POEMS, grand feel for country and wild game. His by Harriet Maxon Thayer. $2.00. Ralph Africa is .more convincing than Mr. Er,nest Seymour. Unpretentious, but not without Hemingway's. personality. The "Marginals" and "Notes" (Continued on page xii)

y 500,000,000 people each paid him 8 cents a year for 50 years I Chinese coolies - shirt-sleeved Americans - swarthy Latin peons - more than a quarter of the wotld's population helped build the fabulous· Rockefeller fortune! From penniless clerk to the wealthiest and most hated man in America - then back to plain "Neighbor john," the world's most prolific giver - the almost fantastic story of the most colorful figure ofAmerican history's most incredible era. 42 illustrations. At your bookstore, $1.50. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER By B. F. Winkelman

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(Continued from page x) THE GOOD ** DANCE OF THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, by Sacheverell Sitwell. $4.25. Houghton Mifflin. Studies in imagery, con­ SOCIETY cerning a multitude of subjects from Lon­ Walter don's slums to the sweet hells of Australia's t,v nineteenth-century prison camps. Lippmann Twenty years ofstudy, three years *WATERLINE SHIP MODELS, by E. C. Talbot-Booth. $1.50. Appleton-Century. Il­ of writing, have gone into· this lustrated guide book for marine-minded book. It is a· profound analysis of hobbyists. the present order, showing how all existing forms of government * YOUTH AT THE WHEEL, by John J. err in the same way. There is, says Floherty. $1.75. Lippincott. Guide book for Mr. Lippmann, only one way out. teaching adolescents how to drive wisely and well. Certainly they require a lot of An Atlantic Book $3.00 teaching. Perhaps this small volume, pro­

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1837 \ ..: .: J937 * NORTH TO THE RIME-RINGED SUN, by Isobel W. Hutchison. $2.50. Hillman-Curl. How a capable English­ woman went to Alaska on a scientific mis­ sion, and how she overcame certain perils STANLEY and· hardships inherent to the Far North. *LISTENERS' MUSIC, by Leland Hall. $2.00. Harcourt, Brace. Lucid textbook for BALDWIN those persons who like to listen to music, without talking too much about it. A TRIBUTE :t I *EVERY MAN HIS· OWN DETECTIVE, ByArthur Bryant. The story of by George Antheil. $1.50' Stackpole. one of the greatest Prime Min- Plausible attempt to prove that every crimi­ :t isters ofall time-the statesman nal is a victim of glandular disorder, and who in the face of almost un- therefore can easily be identified by a gland­ believable odds made his party, conscious detective. Interesting reading, but 'I formerly· despised·and discred- not likely to solve the Crime Problem. t ited, the most popular in modern Britain. Morethan 30,000copies * SOCIAL SECURITY, by Maxwell S. sold inEnglandwhere critics hail Stewart. $3.00. Norton. An associate editor of the Nation contributes his affirmative it as tt little masterpiece." ~2.00 a views on the subject: Resolved, that the State owes everyone a living. But certain COWARD· McCANN realities of life are overlooked; as is the 2 WEST 45th ST., NEW YORK question of the taxpayers' ability to pay. "Liberals", however, do not consider --- - money when the Uplift is at stake. xii YonwillLIKEthesepopnlar American Ships (and the outstanding VALUESthey offer)

WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBER· LIN (Russia's Goldbrick Constitution) , chief Far Eastern correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in Tokyo, was formerly Moscow correspondent for the same paper. He has published four books on Russia, and a current work, Collectiv­ ism: A False Utopia (Macmillan). RALPH COGHLAN (Missouri Uplift: A Case History) is a member of the editorial staff of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. LAW· RENCE DENNIS (Liberalism· Commits Suicide), ex-soldier and diplomat, now writes and lectures in this country. His latest book is The Coming American Fascism (Harpers). JOHN FANTE (The Road to Hell) lives in California and writes movie scenarios and short stories. EILEEN direct to ALL EUROPE HALL ("lutumnal) lives in New York (Ireland, England, France, Germ.any) City and contributes verse to various maga­ on America's largest,jastest liners zines. SISTER M. MADELEVA (Octo­ s. s.MANHilTTAN ber Birthday) is president of Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Illinois. She is the s. s. WASHINGTON author of several volumes of essays and Cabin Class, $181 up-Tourist Class,$122 up poems. JACKSON MATHEWS (Deeper Or on the more informal s.s. President Roosevelt and s. s. President Harding, Cabin Class, $136 up.· Than Atlanta), born and raised in Georgia, Also" AmericanOne Class" linerseveryFridaydirect now is a member of the faculty of Wash­ to London-fortnightly to Cobh andLiverpool-for ington State Normal School. JOHN only $105, oneway; $199.50, round trip. RUSSELL McCARTHY (Matilda's Glasses) has resided in California since to~ALIFORNIAandMexieo 1920. He has published three books of via Havana, Panam.a Canaland Acapulco verse. CHANNING POLLOCK (tiThe s. s. £aIifornia Workers" vs. The Workers), well-known s.s.Pennsylvania writer and lecturer, is a frequent contributor s. s.Virginia to these pages. FLETCHER PRATT (The Disarmament Hoax) has been a Thesefa:mous "Big3" liners-largest and most popu­ lar in Coast-to-Coast service-are operated by the librarian, reporter, and special feature writer. PanamaPacific Line, an associated service. His newest book is Hail, Caesar! (Random Only $225 up!' IsfClass to California-$195 up House). CHARLES B. ROTH (The to Mexico. Touristfrom $125 and $105 respectively. Myth of the Two-Gun Man), a Denver ad­ Also rail-water "Cruise-Tours", with combination rates from home town back to home town. vertising man, has for twenty years made a hobby of collecting and disproving Frontier ~. See your local TRA.VEL A.GENT shooting yarns. AUGUST A. THOMEN \~ for complete details. (Fallacies About Your Health) is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and United States Lines the author of Don't Believe It! Says the ONE BROADWAY, NEW YORK Doctor (Vail-Ballou Press). Officesinprincip'!Jlcities xiii 12 Beloved American Songs A NEW VICTOR ALBUM BY NELSON EDDY *** indicate an outstanding performance, withorchestral accompaniment ** a competent performance, * an acceptable performance. :t:++ denote exceptional record­ These are the songs ing, +:t: efficient recording, + poor record­ ing. thatAmericarequested again and again to be VOCAL sung on Nelson Eddy's ***+:t::t: Che Gelida Manina (Boheme), radio show...the touch­ Puccini, and Celeste Aida (Aida), Verdi: ing, heart songs of our (RCA-Victor, one 12-inch record, $1.50). age, sung by the bari­ These superb performances by Jussi Bjoerl­ ing, the Swedish tenor who will shortly tone whose· voice has make his first appearance in Americ.a, are thrilledmillions. Now broughtout o:p, Vic­ now available in domestic pressings. Note, tor Higher Fidelity Records, t~ey can be too, that the price is highly advantageous. yours for all time, to hear whenever you Nils Grevillius conducts the good-sized or­ chestra. wish. Album C-27 (4366.4371). Price $6.50. **tt Songs, Stephen Collins Foster: (RCA­ Trees Sylvia A Drea~ Victor, five la-inch records, $7.50). The first representative treatment by the phono­ Smilin'Through At Dawning graph of the balladist who was undoubtedly A Perfect Day Oh Promise Me the richest musical talent yet born on The Hills of Home The Rosary American soil. The selection of ten songs Deep River Thy Beaming Eyes has been made with admirable intelligence, for as well as the inescapable Old Kentucky By the Waters of Minnetonka Home, Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground, Oh, Susanna, etc., the album includes Beautiful Dreamer, Ah! May the Red Rose RCA Victor Ree­ Live Alway, and the most finished of all his ordPlayer,R-93A. inventions, I Dream of Jeanie with the Plays10- and12-inch Light Brown Hair. Richard Crooks sings Victor Records thru the music with appropriate simplicity and any modern AC genuine understanding, and there is assist­ radio ••• with tone ance by a male chorus.in the slave songs. production equal to Frank La Forge is the able accompanist. that of the radio to which it is attached. ORCHESTRAL ***ttt Symphony in D, No.· 2, Beethoven: Listen to "Magic Key of RCA" every Sunday. 2 to 3 (Columbia, four 12-inch records, $6). One P. M., E. S. T., on NBC Blue Network of the classic performances of phonograph The world's greatest artists are on Victor Records literature, Sir Thomas Beecham's concep­ tion of this work here is offered in the im­ proved recording it richly merits. There is no less dash and inspirating vigor in this performance than there was in the version recorded ten years ago; moreover, his treat­ ment of the Larghetto has, if anything, gained in kindliness and warmth. The play­ A Service ofthe Radio Corporation ofAmerica ing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra is wholly expert. xiv • The LiTERARY BA.ZAAR. FIRST EDITIONS :: RARE BOOKS AUTOGRAPHS .. LITERARY SERVICES

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xvi RUMFORD PRESS. CONCORD. N. H. No oth~r book club give~_ you as much as the BOOK LEAGUE OF AMERICA THE A Great World.Famous Classic BESTof CLASSICS WORTH $1i.OO-YOURS FREE ~heOLD In the maze of famous books how is one to know where to begin react­ ing? But what is easier than to read the famous classic selected for you each month by the skilled Editors of the Book League? And what is finer than to see your shelves of these renowned classics - all uni­ formly bound in attractive blue cloth, stamped in gold like a luxurious "set" of books - expand so rapidly and WITHOUT ANY COST TO YOU! Remember, these 12 classics are worth $12 or MORE. .. .uudtM An Outstanding Newly.Published Book RESTo! There is an extravagant way to buy nearly every­ thing - including books - and there is a SEN­ ~heNEW SIBLE, ECONOMICAL way. If you have been buying books on the "hit-and-miss" plan and paying the regular high retail prices of $2.50 to $4.00 or more, why not try this new way that saves you never pay more than $1.39 for any book, and a you nearly 60%? Remember, in the Book League world-famous classic comes along with it FREE-. Note these exclusive BOOK LEAGUE FEATURES 1. You get the ONLY Balanced Reading Program offered year. You get TWELVE free bonus books each ye:ur,.and by any book club. 12 outstanding newly published books they come one each month, beginning as soon as you join each year by authors in the front rank. 12 living classics the Book League. by the geniuses of all time, such as Anatole France, Vol­ 4. Your library of good books grows FASTER and MORE taire, Flaubert, Turgenev, Daudet and Ibsen. The best of ECONOMICALLY than by any other plan. At the end the NEW and the best of the OLD! of 12 months you will have 24 handsome, full library-size 2. You make tremendous savings - a $2.50 to $4.00 book volumes worth at least $45 for which you will have paid each month for only $1.39 and a classic each month FREE only $16.68 - and never miss the money at the rate 01 - two books worth up to $5.00 for only $1.39. You save only $1.39 a month I $2.50 to $3.50 each month. Think what you can do with a 5. Because you get the best of the new authors and the saving of $2.50 to $3.50 on books each monthI best of the old, your literary pleasure and knowledge 3. You don't have to be a member for six months or more progresses steadily in a thorough, well-rounded way with­ to get a free bonus book, and then get only one or two a out conscious effort.

p ••------_••--_. MAil SUBSCRIBE NOW MOl Send No Money THE BOOK LEAGUE OF AMERICA, Inc. Just Mail Card Dept. 10 AM, 15 West 48th Street, New York, N. Y. THE BOOK Please reserve in my name the 12 FREE CLASSICS (full library size) which are to bE sent to me (one each month) with each new selection of The Book League of America­ LEAGUE OF if I decide to join the League after examining the first two books. Also please send me the two current books - the NEW book and the classic. If I return them within 5 days yOll will cancel my membership, and I will owe nothing. Otherwise I will send $1.39 (pTu! AMERICA, Inc. postage) for the new book and each of the forthcoming new selections for a year. Tht Classic comes to me each month free. Dept. 10 AM . 15 West 48th St. Name . NewYork,N. Y. Street and No , ., ., .

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the co~perat YOU SAVE nearly 60%7( -membersillp of 2 000 book lovers in the Book League brings book costs w; down, and the savings and benefits are distributed to membe in the form of MORE and BETTER books for their man Book League savings actually amount to nearly 60% compa to the usual way of buying books. Read FREE this Month's Two great Selectio Just sign and mail the co pon - ~end no money n~ We will send you the t current selections, and if ~ are not delighted "ith th books. return them wit.hi days, cancel your mem ship. and owe nathir Otherwise keep them make a payment of o~ 1.39 (plus postage) I both. You will then b regular member of the B League fOT 12 months, ceiving the two League lections each month ( Classic free) and all ot membership privileges. now - and get the bigg bargain in the book wo today!

See Inside Cover-then Just Mail Car