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6 OF CONTENTS NUMBER I'--~ ~ XXXVII 146 Iff§) ~I February, 193 6 'r:~., ~ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS? . Lester J. Dickinson 129 ~ ~ 0 My GENERATION. Verse Helene Mullins I36 ~ I?'~ JIM CURLEY, Boss OF MASSACHUSETTS Ray Kierman I 37 ~~ ~ TOES. A Story . Jesse Stuart 152 ~ ~ ROGER CASEMENT Sean O'Faolain 160 5 ~~ PROGRESS TOWARD COLLECTIVISM. '. Albert Jay Nock 168 ~~.. PORTRAIT OF A LIFER No. 77260 175 RENO THE NAUGHTY . Anthony M. Turano 183 ~ GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS. Verse .. Margaret Tynes Fairley 189 ~ c.~ MINORITY RULE IN AMERICA . Charles A. Beard 190 r~.), @ FALL OF RAIN. Verse Danie1W. Smythe I96 ~ ~ HOMECOMING. A Story . Edward Harris Heth 197 ..~ m AMERICANA 207 5 \~ KING OF THE LOBBY. . Lewis and Smith 21 I ~.dI ~ A YANKEE LOOKS AT DIXIE. Katharine F. Gerould 217 ~ ~ THE FIRST LIBERAL . . S. K. Padover 221 ~.... c. ~ THE CLINIC: r~.) I?~The New Deal in Stamps Ralph A. Barry 229 ~~ ~ The Walking Laboratory of Dr. Beaumont . John Kobler 232 W ~ The Truth About Shaving . Jerome W. Ephraim 236 .~ @ SWEET GRASS. Verse Robert P. TristramCofl1.n 240 ~ r~~ THE LIBRARY: ~ ~ How to Debunk Abraham Lincoln. Edgar Lee Masters 241 ~ ~ An American Sits in Judgment. . Ralph Adams Cram 244 ~ ~n The Gay 'Twenties. Ernest Boyd 247 r-,.J @ Concealed Savages of Tudor England . Arthur Machen 250 ~ ~ Briefer Mention 252 ~ m THE CONTRIBUTORS . 255 ~~ ~. CHECK LIST OF NEW BOOKS IV . ~ RECORDED MUSIC Irving Kolodin xiv ~ ~ I?~ Lawrence E. Spivak, Publisher Paul Palmer, Editor ~~ ~ Gordon Carroll, Managing Editor ~7 @I Laurence Stallings, Literary Editor Louis Untermeyer, Poetry Editor ,@ ~~{~~~~ij~~~~~®{~~~~®{~~~~

THE AMERICAN MERCURY is published monthly at 50 Printed in theUiiited States. Copyright. 1936, .by The Amei'ican sUbscript~on, Mercury, Inc. Entered as secondclass matter Jan\1ary 4, 1924, at cents a copy. Annual $5.00 in. U. S. and the post office at Camden. N. J.,- under the Act of March 3, Possessions, Mexico, Cuba, SpaIn and. Colomes, and th~ Republics of Central and South Amenca. Ca~~da, $5.50, 1879. Published mOllthlY,on the 25th .Qfthe month preceding other foreign subscriptions, $6.00 : all rag editlon. .$10.00 the date. Five weeks' advance notice 'required for change' of by the year. The American Mercury, Inc.. publ1~hers. subscribers' addresses. Indexed in The Readers'; Guide .to Publication Office. Federal and 19t~ streets, Camden. N. J. Periodical Literature. No reproduction of content allowed Editorial and general offices, 570 Lexmgton avenue, New York. without permission. iii THE AMERICAN MERCURY

BIOGRAPHY

WITH NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA. ties in him is resented by many of his spiritual The Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt. admirers. The incongruity between artist and Edited by lean Hanoteau. William Morrow man, so startling to his contemporaries, has been $3·75 6~ x 9~; 422 pp. New York forgotten. Mr. Gwynn's biography has been Caulaincourt, Napoleon's Master of Horse and written'not for scholars but for the well-informed Ambassador to Russia, was also a painstaking general reader. Its purpose is not to throw new and thorough Boswell to the Emperor of the light on any of the' numerous problems con­ French. In these memoirs, published after a nected with Goldsmith's life, but rather to "fol­ lapse of more than 100 years, a new voice low a very lovable man through the ups and speaks for the cause of history, completing the downs of a life in which his chief desire was to record of the haggard days when Napoleon, give pleasure - in his own phrase, to amuse". having met his first Waterloo on the steppes of As such, it is a highly successful achievement. Russia, turned his back on the Grand Army There are illustrations and an index. and took secret flight for Paris. It is an amazing and extraordinary ,story, a unique biography, covering the diplomatic events leading to the SAMUEL PEPYS: The Years of Peril. invasion of Russia, the early progress of the By Arthur Bryant. Macmillan French spearhead, the occupation of Moscow, $3.50 6 x 8%; 466 pp. New York the ultimate retreat of a disorganized army, and This is the second volume of Mr. Bryant's Napoleon's frantic dash by sled and coach for excellent biography of Pepys. It covers the security. For thirteen days and thirteen nights, period between the close of the first published Caulaincourt was Napoleon's confidant on this Diary in 1669 and the start of the second in ride, and he listened as the Emperor talked. His 1683. The concluding volume is scheduled to book brings back to life the moods, the emo­ appear sometime next fall. With the death of tions, the fears, the hopes, the philosophy of a Pepys' wife in 1669, life in the British Navy great dictator. It is the most important recent Office becan1e very' parlous for the little man. contribution to Napoleonic history; it answers a He was forced to defend his public affairs against thousand questions which have, for more than a widespread charges of corruption; people were century, gone unanswered. beginning to suspect that he had grown prosper­ ous not alone through upright conduct in office. He was soon the butt of an angry Parliament, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. which he courageously defied. He was accused By Stephen Gwynn. Henry Holt of. Piracy, Popery, and Treachery by his political $3 '5% x8~; 32 6 pp. New York enemies who, by opposing him, were to reveal "No man was wiser' when he had a pen in to all England his truly great ability both as his hand," said Dr. Johnson of Oliver. Gold­ orator and statesman. Yet, through it all, he smith. Yet few English writers have been more preserved that illusive, intangible quality which pathetic and helpless in their private lives. Gold­ Mr. Bryant calls, simply, character. The volume smith was ugly, vain, ridiculous in dress, and closes with Pepys off to Tangier in. the service out of place in the brilliant literary group of of Charles II. In preparing this portion of the his day. He was a constant butt for such men biography, the author has made use of recent dis­ as Garrick, Burke, Walpole, and Johnson him­ coveries in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge, self. Yet, for all his shortcomings, he was es­ which throw new light on King Charles' investi­ sentially lovable. Today, even the hint of frail- gations into the affairs of the British Navy Office. iv THE AMERICAN MERCURY ~~~~~~ Check fJft of NEW BOO KS The LITERARY BAZAAR FIRST EDITIONS :: RARE BOOKS' :: AUTOGRAPHS' DIAGHILEFF: His Artistic and Private Life. STAMPS :: LITERARY SERVICES By Arnold L. Haskell. 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(Continued from page v) Paul Valery, Debussy, and Rodin. Only in the more personal, autobiographic passages does the author become tedious,

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=~~~~~~~~~~~~ At all Bookstores ~~~~~~~~~~~~= Ii THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, NEW YORK _ viii VOLUME XXXVII FEBRUARY, 1936 NUMBER 146

The American MERCURY

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS?

BY LESTER J. DICKINSON United States Senator from Iowa

o THE future historian the record of rules reminiscent of the worst days of Czar the first session of the Seventy-Fourth Tom Reed and Uncle Joe Cannon, without T. Congress will make strange reading. evoking protests from the supposed repre­ For that record will reveal that more sentatives of Democracy. An attitude of legislation of far-reaching social and eco­ complete apathy and servility possessed nomic consequence was enacted last year the Congress. The duty of national legis­ than during any preceding session - and lation was neglected and forgotten. yet everyone of the extraordinary new The exultation which had ushered in laws was passed by a Congress which the New Deal less than two years previ­ operated for the most part in a complete ously, expired before the manipulations of fog and without any understanding of a Dictator-President. Instead of the early the ultimate meaning of its own actions. evangelistic fervor for the More Abundant The chief distinction of tue Congress was Life, the atmosphere at the Capitol came the docility with which it played the rub­ to reflect a cynical indifference. Among ber stamp to Franklin D. Roosevelt, a the veterans of politics, the crusading performance never equalled in the history spirit gave place to an almost sullen re­ of legislatures since those rump Parlia­ sentment against the "nlust" program of ments which, under the Stuarts, so seri­ socialistic rather than democratic legisla­ ously jeopardized English liberty in the tion, peremptorily ordered from the White seventeenth century. Bills clearly revolu­ House. These measures, concocted by the tionary in their effect upon future na­ President's militant Brain Trusters, were tional welfare were brought before con­ enacted by a Congress which dt'd not be­ gressional committees for hearings which lieve in them and which, in many in­ were casual and perfunctory. The Senate stances, actually questioned the constitu­ frequently adopted House reports as its tionality of its own acts. As the session own, thus omitting even the pretense of moved on to a bitter and acrimonious consideration for vital legislation. Debate end during the summer's dog days, it be­ was limited in'the lower chamber by gag came more and more evident that the one 12.9 THE AMERICAN ME'RCURY

desire, on the part of majority members, billions and to impose internal taxes upon was to evade personal responsibility for one class of citizens for the direct benefit what was being done. The buck was of another class. passed to Mr. Roosevelt, and the ultimate While this latter instance has been fate of measures enacted in ignominious glibly explained away as a means of cor­ haste was left to the Supreme Court. recting disparities between agriculture and With barely a protest, the most jealously­ industry, the indefatigable Dr. Tugwell guarded of all Congressional prerogatives reveals that the real object of such levies - the control over appropriations - was is to provide an open political subsidy surrendered to the Chief Executive, who through which a permanent farmer­ proceeded to direct the raising and spend­ worker alliance will be created. This frank ing of the nation's resources as if a na­ admission of revolutionary policy is an tional legislature did not exist. More than indication of what is going on behind the fifteen billion dollars - a sum exceeding scenes in Washington. It is an introduc­ the entire cost of American participation tion to the Tugwell theory of a sabotage in the Wodd War - was frittered away in of industry and government, which is to two years on scatter-brain recovery schemes make possible the emergence of a so­ and Utopian federal projects, cO,~1ceived in cialistic collectivist state. When all the the minds of the greatest group of spend­ facts in the case are assembled they will thrifts ever assembled- the Messrs. Hop­ prove conclusively that the chain of events kins, Ickes, Wallace, Tugwell, and their which took place after the Democratic assistant wizards. The actual nature of victory at the polls in. November, 1932, these projects and how they were to be exe­ was deliberately and consciously precipi­ cuted, appeared of small concern to Con­ tated. The nation-wide banking mora­ gress. Its only anxiety was directed toward torium and. the almost complete shutdown the political allocation of the funds, that of industry, which coincided with Mr. is, their division between the various states Roosevelt's inauguration, it will be dis­ and congressional districts. The decisions covered, were more than mere fortuitous of the Supreme Court, holding the delega­ circumstances providing opportunity for tions of power by Congress to the Execu­ shrewd political exploitation. tive unconstitutional, resulted not in an That policy of refusing co-operation to increase in congressional vigilance or a the outgoing Hoover regime was under­ blunt reassertion of authority, but rather in taken deliberately, after frankly counting an intensification of the search by the Ad­ the risk of collapse of the nation's finan­ ministration's law experts for new legal cial and economic machinery. To carry devices and subterfuges by use of which through tpe bold program envisioned the Court's interdicts might be evaded. even then by the New Deal, it was neces­ And as if such abdication were not enough, sary to bring about a public psychology Congress carried its own stultification even of panic and despair. Only thus could further: it conveyed to the President not opposition from Congress to the acquisi­ only its power to regulate the currency tion of those broad powers for the Execu­ and, by revision of treaties, to raise or tive, already determined upon, be fore­ lower tariff duties,but, under the AAA, stalled. The clever and thoroughly ruth­ it authorized the Secretary of Agriculture less advisers of the President foresaw, to draw upon the Treasury for unlimited accurately enough, that only through such WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS? 131 a fait accompli would it be possible to block the suggested legislation." Not only attain that larger sphere of action which was the use of that phrase "however rea­ the Constitution prohibited. By project­ sonable" an improper suggestion to men ing Franklin D. Roosevelt as the nation's equally bound with himself to uphold the savior in a time of national crisis, public nation's fundamental law, but it casts an and congressional acquiescence could be interesting light on Mr. Roosevelt's own won for that dictatorship which was seen mental processes. In effect, Congress was as necessary in establishing the regimenta­ invited to enact measures without regard tion of a system of planned economy. to their constitutionality. It was not to Indeed, when the historian pieces to­ concern itself over what the courts might gether the events which have transpired do, but to follow his leadership implicitly. since November, 1932, he is likely to be The inference would seem quite plain struck by the definite and logical pattern that, when the time came, the President presented. In that carefully pie-arranged himself would handle whatever issues plan formulated by the Brain Trust, such were raised by judicial action. Like the a coup d'etat played a necessary and vital President's famous horse-and-buggy inter­ part. This deduction arises naturally from view, in which the Supreme Court was the recent revelation of Professor Tug­ openly attacked, the letter suggests not well's own close acquaintance with the only that a definite plan of Administration technique of revolution. While reform was strategy was operative but that it has in to be used as a mask, the actual objective view still further objectives which, even sought was the transformation of the now, have not been revealed to the public. American social and economic system into The history of these past three years something close!y akin .to the collectivist will be written in the future as the his­ societies which have emerged in post-war tory of an American revolution which was Russia, Germany, and Italy. engineered and carried on under the un­ Examined in retrospect, even those seeing eyes of one hundred and thirty vague phrases in the President's message million citizens. In the guise of a More to Congress two years ago do not appear Abundant Life and a New Deal for the quite as innocuous as they then seemed. Forgotten Man, a collectivist system of They were designed to prepare the public government and economy which com­ for the New Deal's momentous break bines many of the predominant features with the past. Mr. Roosevelt talked of the of both fascism and communism has been need for "permanent readjustment of our introduced as a substitute for traditional ways of thinking" in meeting "revised s6­ democracy. It is unquestionable that, but cial and economic arrangements". His for the growing storm of opposition now "must" legislative schedule that followed sweeping upon the Administration from soon after gave the key to the program, all sections of the country, Dr. Tugwell since disclosed in even greater detail. Also and his fellow revolutionaries would have equally clear now is that cryptic sentence been successful in their scheme. in the President's letter to the chairman To say that the Seventy-Fourth Congress of an important House committee regard­ should have been alert in opposing the ing the Guffey coal bill: "I .hope your revolutionary aims of the Roosevelt putsch committee will not permit doubts as to is only to define the constitutional duties constitutionality, however reasonable, to of a legislature. The principal reason for THE AMERICAN MERCURY

the existence of a Congress as the chosen tive, one has only to recall, in contrast, representative body of the people is to the bitter contests waged during the Wil­ protect the public interest against usurpa­ son administration between Congress and tion of power from any quarter. To plead the President. Those' "wilful men" who a temporary emergency which supposedly opposed the War President's program, forced the American people into such a first on armed neutrality and subsequently desperate condition of mind that they were on the League of Nations issue, were de­ . willing to accept a transfer of autocratic nounced from the White House almost as power to· the President (which under any if they were public enemies. Yet it is other circumstances they would have re­ generally conceded now that they per­ sisted vigorously), is to beg the question. formed a genuinely patriotic service. The Supreme Court refused to counte­ Likewise, this spirit of congressional in­ nance the plea of emergency; such appeals dependence was kept alive during the have been denounced as dangerous and Coolidge and Hoover administrations by subversive by every competent patriot the activities of the Western Republicans from 1775 to the present day. It is a truism who were condemned as "sons of the wild of democracy that liberty is most pre­ jackass". Nevertheless, their determined in­ cious to a free people just at that moment sistence upon relief for agriculture is now \vhen a usurper pleads emergency as an belatedly recognized, even in the industrial excuse for oppression. East, as having been based upon sound In the face of the present crisis, Con­ economic grounds. But these excursions gress has been supine. And it has paid into the past provide no explanation for the penalty for dereliction in duty: Amer­ the present nadir of congressional influence ican history offers few parallels of a nor for the impairment of legislative au­ legislature held in such low· esteem by the thority which has taken place. The com­ public and the. press. Not only did it sac­ plete eclipse of the Congress behind that rifice all standing as a deliberative body, effulgent, thirty-billion-dollar Roosevelt but it ceased entirely to assert that tradi­ smile, has now assumed such dimensions tional spirit of independence against at­ as to threaten seriously the very· founda­ tempts at dictation from the opposite end tions of representative government. of Pennsylvania Avenue. This sensitive­ Many political observers, commenting ness of Congress when its own preroga­ upon the current supineness of Congress tives are threatened has always been one - particularly in its callous indifference of the most wholesome safeguards for to those open breaches of Democratic our constitutional government. While the platform pledges - usually place the Chief Executive may advise concerning blame upon two correlated causes: un­ legislation he thinks desirable, by means of wieldy Democratic majorities in both messages to Congress, any effort to sug­ House and Senate, and the breakdown, in gest specific phraseology or fornl has in consequence, of the two-party system. the past created such resentment on the While it is well to point out that minority Hill as to prejudice seriously the pro­ opposition to unsound legislation is thus posed measure's chances of passage. It is unquestionably handicapped, such obser­ a sadly different story today. vations ignore a factor of even greater In calculating the completeness of pres­ importance. This is the shifting and dis­ ent legislative subservience to the Execu- tortion of that balance of power between WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS? 133 the legislative, executive, and judicial position has been recognized even by Sen­ branches of government which has reached ator Glass, who fought courageously in such dimensions as to constitute one of committee and on the floor against the the leading issues of the 1936 campaign. Roosevelt monetary and banking meas­ The past three years have provided sharp ures, only to find virtually no support from illustrations of how tyrannical the major­ his colleagues. The President's control of ity can be, imperiling, as it always does, senators and representatives has been lit­ the safety of democracy by nullification 'of tle short of the power wielded by Hitler, those restrictions which the Constitution Stalin, and Mussolini over the puppet sets upon its power. legislators of their own innocuous assem­ The plain duty of the Congress, its legal blies. and moral responsibility, is to maintain a co-equal status with the Executive. The II proper functioning of what is called the American system of government depends Until recently a belief in the permanency upon a vigorous and alert legislature, al­ of American institutions and a faith in the ways concerned in protecting its own Constitution have been so universally ac­ rights. Yet, when there arose the neces­ cepted that any report of attempted subver­ sity for finding solutions to the most press­ sion is received by the public with scep­ ing economic problems in history, requir­ ticism and incredulity. Business and po­ ing the exercise not only of specifically liticalleaders who have sought to warn defined duties but of the highest critical of impending danger, and of the under... intelligence, Congress failed completely in mining of the social order that is now its constitutional functions. In contrast to under way, have been dismissed as unnec­ that searching and careful analysis of Ad­ essary alarmists or condemned as Tories ministration proposals made by Demo­ fearful of the loss of special privileges. cratic congressional leaders during the Even the conservative Democrats in Con­ Wilson regime, there is now revealed an gress, while thoroughly conscious of the unexampled and almost fawning servil­ sinister influences at work, have more or ity to the White House. less deliberately shut their eyes to the ex­ The present docility, it is necessary to tent of revolutionary tendencies within emphasize, is only a surface subservience the Administration. Defense of principle to the power of the Dictator-President. has had to wait upon the more imme­ For behind the seeming unanimity, en­ diately important business of satisfying a forcing this strict discipline, is the full horde of constituents seeking jobs, or the power of the party caucus as well as the more practical consideration of sharing in potent authority of rules committees in an unlimited bounty dispensed by the orgy both House, and Senate. Upon recalci­ of government spending. Held out for trants has been brought to bear an over... those who were "regular" and went along whelming and secret pressure which has on the New Deal program, have been never before been experienced in the halls rich spoils of office undreamed of since of an American Congress, and which so the days of Andrew Jackson. far has been only faintly glimpsed by the The debauching of Congress reached its public in the minor revelations of Ad­ final culmination \vith the passage of the ministration lobbying. The futility of op- $4,800,000,000 Work Relief Bill. This 134 THE AMERICAN MERCURY measure may serve historically as a classic vented by Mr. Hopkins, is it any wonder illustration of the methods by which de­ that Congress found virtue an embarrass­ mocracies destroy themselves.. By its terms, ment and, under the prevailing philosophy millions of the unemployed were regi­ of spending, cut itself a piece of pie? Hav­ mented into a class of indigents who are ing opened Pandora's box and become a rendered dependent upon the uncertainties victim of its own cupidity, what was of politics - and whose votes may be pur­ more natural than that Congress should chased with money from the federal Treas­ accept those lesser collateral applications ury. In Europe the dictators refer to their of New Deal philosophy? The projected minions as Black Shirts, Nazis, or Com­ regimentation of the nation's economic rades: the Roosevelt fascist state, if it is life provided vistas of still more jobs for successful, can call its supporters by a sim­ the ever-expanding federal bureaucracy. pler name - Reliefers. The potential power . That the potato-control act or the Guffey of this solid bloc of bought votes has not coal measure were but logical extensions as yet been completely comprehended. But of this doctrine of collective control, Con­ the indications have been numerous: Huey gress comprehended only when it was too Long's militant organization, Father late. Nor did it realize the viciousness of Coughlin's eight-million-member associa­ the principle involved under a nationally­ tion, and, more recently, the preposterous administered relief program or under the Townsend clubs boasting an enrollme'nt AAA, where the beneficiaries of a sys­ of twenty-five million, suggest a picture of tem of subsidy are' permitted to vote on what may come. Americans, while alert to the continuance of such aid from the gov­ the progress of dictatorships abroad, have ernment. been ignorant of events transpiring in The practical effect of these so-called their own country. And the Seventy-Fourth referenda is to increase greatly the power Congress is to blame for the existence of of self-interested groups over Congress. this ignorance. If the legislature had done Thus, members standing for re-election its duty in Washington last year, the posi­ are put on notice that only at their peril tion ot democracy today would not be so can they ignore the large and influential desperate. blocs which, in many states and congres­ It was greed for the lush gifts of an open­ sional districts, tod~y hold the balance of handed Administration that proved the un­ political power. But it has been one of doing of this Congress. Senators and our unwritten traditions that government representatives who might have been agencies, as such, should take no part in bewildered by such an incomprehensible political campaigns. In preparation for the amount as $5,000,000,000, rushed to ap­ national elections in November, however, prove an appropriation of $4,800,000,000, we are already witnessing the mobiliza­ because by simple arithmetic the sum rep­ tion of the' entire group of alphabetical resents one hundred million dollars for agencies as units of the greatest propa­ each state. The pressure from constituents ganda machine ever constructed on earth. was terrific. It became a case of every man We have the spectacle of the government for himself. Visioned in terms of the fa­ itself, rather than the party in office, seek­ miliar pork barrel for post offices, river" ing to persuade the people to accept as harbor, and highway improvements, plus permanent a benevolent autocracy for the all the new boondoggling devices in- conduct of their affairs. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS? 135

It is fortunate that the cumulative effect cratic government in the world," declares of these developments, which parallel only one of their leaders, "if American progres­ too patently the, technique developed in sives cease to understand and to stand by the American conception of government Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, has be- l~m.ited ~rant gun at- "last- t-o Iegi.s~eI -upon. Coug~e"",<>. '""the as a of Qower to public of­ menace to representative government has ficials. What is the good of denouncing served to focus fresh attention upon the the despotisms of Europe if here at home vital importance of the Constitution in the we cultivate the idea that anything may American system of government, with the be done which at the moment seems good result that this year's national elections to those in office?" will have a deeper significance than any But the Constitutional question has a held since the Civil War. still graver implication. Many important New Deal measures are, at this writing, III before the Supreme Court to be decided this winter and spring. What are the possi­ From this atmosphere of glib promising bilities should the TVA be denied its an­ and easy spending, with the specter of in­ nounced function of serving as a yardstick flation always hovering in the back­ to the public utility industry, should the ground, from this extension of govern­ processing taxes be declared invalid as re­ ment policing of industry and agriculture stricting internal commerce between the until all enterprise is strait-jacketed, two states, should the Wagner industrial dis­ strong political currents have been set in putes bill, the Guffey bill, or the Social Se­ motion. The first and most menacing re­ curity act be held unconstitutional exercises lates to the Constitution itself. Since the of Federal power? What is the Administra­ Administration seemingly has embraced tion to do under such circumstances? Will the doctrine that the end justifies any it permit the issue to be joined between means whatever, it follows that those legal Utopian dreams and the actuality of eco­ safeguards which place definite curbs upon nomic law? The implications from such federal authority are viewed with a grow­ an impasse between the Executive and ing impatience. This attitude reaches its the judicial arm of the government would extreme expression in various types of be grave enough under any circumstances. share-the-wealth movements, which would How much more serious must they be use the taxing power to level off the na­ when the Administration, so challenged, tional income, or envisage the government is seeking re-election; when it asks, as it o possessed of a magic spring of credit must, public ratification either upon its which need only flow to produce a re­ record or by excusing that record through turn of prosperity. Congress itself, judged attacks upon the Supreme Court? The by the staggering total of its appropria­ strain so placed upon the Constitution is tions, seems to have embraced this latter plainly evident. view. More recently, however, even the The other outstanding political develop­ former supporters of the Administration ment is that, for the first time in our his­ have become alarmed by the extravagant tory as a nation, American citizens, Amer­ claims now being put forward by enthu­ ican businessmen, and American farmers siasts for all-inclusive government pater­ have actually become afraid of their own nalism. "It will be a bad day for demo- government. There now exists an atmos- OMY GENERATION phere of fear more like that of Russia few years ago. They are threatened, if they than of America. Punitive measures are have borrowed from government agen­ to be employed against the slightest cies, with the calling of loans, or with the breaches of bureaucratic regulations im­ cancellation of government contracts. They .posed by the New Deal commissars. are cracked down upon by the SEC, the There has been set up the utterly un­ FTC, the Treasury income tax bureau, American principle that to have knowl­ or are subject to investigation by senatorial edge ofa so-called crime, and not to in­ committees. Under such harassments, is it form against a fellow citizen, is to make any wonder that great numbers of busi­ oneself guilty as of the original crime nessmen try to play safe? Is it any wonder itself. The intent of such laws is not to that they succumb to the same influences gain information but to use such power which have reduced Congress to impo­ for purposes of intimidation, to muffle tency? Or that the granting of amnesty in criticism, and to make the individual wary the form of a "breathing spell" brings of expressing his own views as a citizen great rejoicing? But what a commentary lest he too suffer from reprisals. The upon the Bill of Rights! American fascist state as contemplated by These questions pose the problem not the militant Dr. Tugwell is already well only of what is the matter with Congress, under way. but a deeper and more searching inquiry: Businessmen today are placed at the What has happened to that spirit of lib­ mercy of government to a degree that erty which we had thought was part of would have been regarded as incredible a the American birthright?

o MY GENERATION BY HELENE MULLINS

MY generation, could you do no more Than change the nature of man's stupidities; O Did you gain your freedom only to close a door Between life and yourselves forever; rise from your knees To become as the blind that grope for understanding? Afraid to love, you give your hearts to lust, Afraid to hope, you spend your strength demanding Facts and statistics. With what impetuous trust You ventured into experience! Now lost And bewildered, try if you can to justify The rebellion that has given you nothing, but cost You blood, and left you without courage to die. JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS

BY RAY KIERMAN

HE distance from Charles Street jail bedlam and excitement of the longest leg­ to the State House on Boston's Bea­ islative session in history, out of the con­ T con Hill isn't more than a few hun­ fusion of endless hearings and confer­ dred yards through a surveyor's sight, but ences, out of an extraordinary series of for James Michael Curley it was a hard, removals speciously explained and ap­ bitter trail, thirty years long. Young Jim pointments so timed as to escape public placed a tentative foot on it at 6:30 o'clock notice, a virtual dictatorship has been es­ of a cold foggy morning in January, 1905, tablished in the sovereign Commonwealth and three decades later, almost to a day, of Massachusetts by James Michael Cur­ walked through the Bulfinch portals to ley. take oath as Governor of the Common­ A man with an amazing background wealth of Massachusetts. He had stepped of crushing failure and swift success, a out through the jail gates a youth who man who has turned each defeat into a had already tasted the sweets and the greater victory, Curley has in his short wormwood of politics: he entered the span as Chief Executive changed a Re­ State House a rugged man, the most loved publican stronghold into a meek Demo­ perhaps, ·and the most feared surely, who cratic state, and without the vote of the ever took the Governor's chair. people - even contrary to .the vote of the Swept into office at the height of the people. Personality, force of character, dis­ Roosevelt hysteria as a 100 per cent New regard of precedent, ruthless use of power Dealer, on the honest argument that no - these are the elements the Governor has man had done more to promote and as­ used throughout his amazing career in sist the candidacy of the President, Curley performing such political miracles. The promised to parallel the policies of the conservatives, the folk whose homely faith national Administration. He has kept his in government by the people and for the promise with a vengeance: Massachusetts people quailed before the explosive success has had her Brain Trust; social security of Huey Long, have turned a worried gaze has been dangled before her hungry lips; toward Beacon Hill, only to find the late work and wages have been loudly dis­ Louisiana dictator's twin, swinging the cussed and to some extent provided; and whip over their dazed heads. Jim Curley the customarily ambitious New Deal pro­ holds Massachusetts in the palm of his grams have been bellowed from the hand. housetops, with the concrete accomplish­ The people as a whole saw and heard ments, of course, still to come. But now many things startlingly new during 1935, it is beginning to penetrate the intelli­ and, to judge by their reaction, agreeably gence of Bay State citizens that, out of the new. For the bulk of the citizenry likes 137 THE AMERICAN MERCURY the Governor, and believes that he is ca­ ture. His mastership of English, his power pable of handling the power he has ob­ of oratory, his skill as an expert in civil tained. N ever in the history of the state government, make up if they do not over­ has the man in the street taken such keen come his lack of formal education. He interest in proceedings on Beacon Hill. quotes Shakespeare as readily as the com­ Never before has there been such wide­ mon man quotes baseball statistics. He spread curiosity about a politician and his confounds ecclesiasts by his knowledge of job as there is at present about Curley Scripture. Whatever his beginnings, Jim and his doings at the State House. The has achieved culture of a sort, culture eas­ people are forever anxious to know what ily swept away in the passionsof the mo­ the Governor is going to do next: they ment, but always regained in dignified look forward to the coming events of explanation of his dereliction. 1936 much as they might anticipate a The Governor is a fighter who has al­ headline prizefight or a football game. The most always fought alone, usually with fact that Jim is in the contest is enough the opposition not only of his natural to guarantee a sell-out show. enemies, the Republicans and the organ­ For.·Curley is an impressive figure. He ized righteous, but of his own party as is big, standing about six feet tall and well. In the face of concerted and almost weighing well over 200 pounds. His face continuous opposition, in the face of end­ is heavy, lined, and rugged, and he has less charges of political and executive a majestic crop of graying hair, hair that chicanery, confronted by situations that once was jet black, matching his eyes. would have spelled quick doom for any His flesh is ruddy and he is always the other man, Curley has spent most of the picture of good health, accentuated by a last thirty-eight years in public office.. He winsome smile and a virile manner. He has served the people of Boston as alder­ can bow over a lady's hand with the as­ man, councilman, congressman, and surance of a Chesterfield, or· with equal mayor, and in each office has invariably ease swing a fist to an opponent's chin been the focal point of strife. He has met in a street brawl. defeats which seemed overwhelming, and And Jim has a heavy leaning for the at times he has slithered into office by spectacular. For instance, he decorates the margins so narrow as to leave his sup­ lackeys of his military staff with uniforms porters gasping. But his political legerde­ suggestive of old Mexico, so gaudy that main has thrilled the people and startled they have startled weary Washington and his opponents so often that even his bit­ even blase Miami. Perhaps he admires terest enemies have at last come to accept the fascist touch to the spectacle of his him as one who cannot be beaten. military staff, flanked .by state police in So, for thirty-eight years, the people of their French and electric blues, taking part Massachusetts have known that James Mi~ in state ceremonials. Jim is a showman chael Curley is a political power. The even in such unimportant matters. But he newer generations, born with his Ox­ is also, on casual acquaintance, a charm­ fordian accents ringing s~Teetly in their ing and apparently cultured person. He ears, have grown up to vote for him as has a sound background of knowledge their fathers and mothers did before them. when it comes to such matters as the But a large part of his appeal is·. to Bible, the classics, music, art, and litera- be found in the organized opposition. JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS

Curley is invariably the underdog, and the It was early in his political career that underdog is always popular with the Curley suffered the blow which would masses, particularly when he is one of have blasted the aspirations of an ordinary them and plays that point from both ends man. While serving in the Legislature in to the middle and back again. For Jim 1903 he was indicted, and later convicted can make the term "blueblood" sound like in the Federal Court at Boston, on a the vilest epithet known to man. He lifts charge of conspiracy to violate the federal the lowbrows from their ditches with it, civil service laws by impersonating a less and elevates their very souls to new able man in an examination for letter car­ heights by his own peerless example. He riers. Jim maintained he was punished for shows them why it would be a catastrophe his kindness in trying to help a friend; to permit the "Brahmins", as he terms the for trying to get a job for a man who wealthy and socially prominent, to obtain needed it. He served sixty days in Charles a foothold in politics. What then would Street jail for the offense, but characteris­ become of the masses? Jim lets the lowly tically turned the blight of criminal con­ peek into the mysteries of Success and viction into political material so potent Accomplishment; and they duly reap­ that while in jail he was elected Alder­ point him their ambassador to the Prom­ man, and took oath of office at City Hall ised Land. the day he was set free. From that low ebb Jim surged forward with such com­ II pelling force that he stood proudly, seven years later, in the halls of Congress. Curley's career really started at the age of During his second term at Washing­ ten when his father died, leaving the sup­ ton, Jim found his thoughts wandering port of the mother to James Michael and back again to the lush political field in his older brother John. Jim was then a Boston. So in 1913 he announced that he pupil in the sixth grade of grammar school would contest for the mayoralty with any in Roxbury; by the aid of part-time jobs candidate who 111ight care to accept the he was able to continue on and gain his challenge. The Good Government Asso­ diploma; two years of night high school ciation, self-appointed guardians of Bos­ completed his formal education. While ton's righteous, chose Thomas J. Kenny working at various catch-as-catch-can jobs to defend the faithful. When the smoke through his early youth, he found him­ of battle cleared away, 1\1r. Kenny was self drawn irresistibly into politics. He still running second. It was Curley's first stumped his neighborhood for others and vital contact with the Goo Goos, as the finally sought office for himself, an effort association was known, but it was not his that gained him, in 1900, after three years last. The group opposed him consistently of effort, a seat on the Boston Board of for. years. But after it had wilted and died, Aldermen. He served there with distinc­ Jim lived on. tion, then on the Boston City Council that Failure to defeat Curley at the polls, took its place, and later in the State Leg­ however, did not dampen the hope of his islature. The first phase of his political foes that he might yet be tripped up and career ended in 1910 with his election to driven out of politics. They campaigned Congress as representative of the Tenth against him night and day, and finally Massachusetts District. effected a vote for his recall. But the vote THE AMERICAN MERCURY served only to clinch the mayoral robes ily, always heretofore within his home for Jim: though a majority voted to re­ district of Roxbury. For some time the call him, the city charter demanded a public had been complacent about his pere­ percentage vote, a percentage that was grinations. But his sudden severance of not achieved. The irrepressible Irishman relations with the past in a sharp shift had survived his first great fight for po­ from Roxbury modesty to Jamaicaway litical life. affluence brought a crossfire of criticism. Curley's initial term as Mayor of Bos­ His new home, overlooking beautiful ton was typical of his two later terms. The Jamaica Pond, was a palace, magnificently personnel of the cast changed from time. furnished. As former Mayor John F. Fitz­ to time, but the leading man played al­ gerald remarked: ways the same part. For instance, his ad­ ministrations in 1914, 1921, and 1929, each A few years ago, lames M. Curley was of four years' duration, were all marked working as a corporation inspector for $3 a day. The year before he was elected by lavish spending of money for civic mayor he paid nothing except a poll tax. beautification, which brought down on his Now he has a beautiful home on Jamaica­ head the condemnation of taxpayers who way, with furnishings from the home of had to foot the bills, and inquiries by Henry H. Rogers, who died worth $100,­ the Boston Finance Commission into the 000,000. He recently disposed of a fine summer residence at Hull, bought since he intricacies involved in providing the peo­ became mayor. pie. with municipal luxuries. But Jim has always had a ready answer for his critics, But the Finance Commission investiga­ whether taxpayers, Finance Commission tion to determine the source· of some of members, or political opponents. And his the money that went into the mansion, in answers, apparently, have generally satis­ particular $10,000 spent for the land on fied the voters. During his first term, which it was built, came to no definite Mayor Curley often felt the searing conclusion. A later inquiry to discover lashes of the Finance Commission whip. whether Mayor· Curley had paid for· floor And for the next twenty years he was covering laid in· the mansion by a favored rarely to be free of its criticisms, inquiries, contractor who had installed a similar and reports. The Commission was cre­ covering at City Hall, resulted in Curley ated in 1907, to keep an eye on the finan­ paying the bill, belatedly, on the eve of cial morals of Boston city officials. As the investigation. The contractor's books early as 1911, when Curley was on the had carried the notation "NC" opposite highroad to Washington as congressman, the Curley job, according to the report of it was questioning him as to an allegedly the Finance Commission, which inter­ unpaid bill at the city hospital. It has preted the entry as meaning "no charge". since questioned him on much graver mat­ The Commission's biggest guns, how­ ters. But never with success. ever, were turned in 1917, near the end of One of the first inquiries undertaken the Mayor's four-year term, on alleged by the Commission concerned the erection control of the bonding of city employees of a palatial new home for the Mayor. and officials by his personal friends. The Jim's successes in political life had been Commission charged that Jim gave the reflected in his home life,· as he had moved city's bonding business to hitherto inex­ from place to place with his growing fam- perienced men, one of whom had operated JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS a plumbing supply firm in which the tivities against him·are highlights of his Mayor had been a partner. The bond in­ second term in office. One of them was quiry was but one of several issues which Martin Lomasney, local ward boss and furnished the Goo Goos and their can­ political leader, at the time a member of didate, Andrew J. Peters, with ammuni­ the Legislature. Lomasney had been a tion in the 1917 campaign. And Curley Curley supporter, but like other former was' defeated for re-election in a knock­ friends had turned bitterly against him. down and drag-out fight. From Lomasney now came one of the Forthwith Jim swung his attention to most brutal attacks Curley has ever had the chair in Congress occupied by his suc­ to face. Denouncing the Mayor on the cessor, James A. Gallivan, and 1918 saw House floor as a "common and notorious him contesting for the seat. He met with thief, the dirtiest crook ever to be elected another crushing defeat. His opponents to public office in Boston", Lomasney de­ saw in this double discomfiture the po­ manded that the Legislature take cog­ litical death of a man they hated. They nizance of the Finance Con1mission re­ sang a mock requiem over Curley's po­ ports concerning Curley's administration litical corpse and buried it with a sigh of during his first term as Mayor, and the relief. House, after listening to Lomasney's bit­ But Curley wasn't dead. He was merely ter attack, passed an order that the re­ waiting.for Peters to get out of the way ports be published. so that he might resume control of things Another who wasn't afraid to attack at City Hall. He was back in the fight in Curley was Frederick W. Enwright, edi­ 1921, contesting the mayoralty with John tor of the Boston Telegram, a journal R. Murphy, an old campaigner. As usual, which has since suspended publication. Jim fought alone, and against the opposi­ But Enwright's anti-Curley enthusiasm tion of practically every political power in landed him in jail. Day after day he at­ the city. The fight was one of the most tacked the man whose candidacy he had vicious and vituperative Boston has ever once supported, until one crisp October known. When it was over, Curley was morning when Mayor Curley met Editor Mayor again, having squeezed in with a Enwright on State Street, not far from the plurality of only 2696 votes out of 157,000 scene of the Boston Masacre. There was a cast for the four candidates. The Boston scuffle, and Enwright, standing six feet Herald, ahvays a Curley opponent, pro­ four inches tall, hit the pavement. There nounced the victory "the greatest upset in were conflicting stories as to what hap­ the history of the city". It marvelled at his pened. Enwright asserted he was struck success "without the assistance of a single from behind; Mayor Curley stated bluntly political leader of either party, and with that he had punched Enwright on the jaw. every machine of· recognized standing Whatever the facts, the ensuing publicity against him". The Boston Post said: "No landed Enwright in jail for criminal libel. man who ever ran for public office in Curley's political fluctuations are al­ Boston has excited such chilling, uncom­ ways difficult to explain, but his defeat by fortable dread in the hearts of the oppo­ Lieut. Gov. Alvan T. Fuller in the 1924 sition." contest for the Governorship proved sim­ There were men in Boston, however, ply that the people of the state were not who had no dread of Jim; and their ac- yet ready to accept the sort of administra- THE AMERICAN ·MERCURY tive ability demonstrated by Curley. as his great fights within the· party have oc­ Mayor of Boston in his two terms. Essen­ curred in primary contests. The state tially conservative, they heartily approved leaders, of course,. have sufficient political of the Coolidge administration, and Fuller sense to bury internal differences during had been part of it. Curley suffered a crush­ the elections. ing defeat after fighting a carefully-planned But it was this state group which de­ battle, a battle based on the hope that his nied Curley any prominent place in the plurality in Boston would be large enough Smith campaign of 1928. Having been to overcome the adverse state vote which free of his influence for a few years they he expected. But the Boston vote failed to did not relish any renewal of it. Thus materialize, and Curley disappeared from frozen out by the organization, Jim the political arena for four years. His promptly took matters into his own hands. enemies, of course, hoped he had gone He hired quarters in Young's Hotel on forever. . Court Street, not twenty feet from the City Hall annex, and opened what he III called his "bull pen". He plastered the building with signs calling for the elec­ For a time it seemed that James Michael tion of Smith, and daily held open forums had accepted his political death certificate. before great crowds attracted by his virile He became inactive, devoting his time to oratory. The Democratic bandwagon had real estate and to his duties as president been denied Curley, so he built one of of the Hibernia Savings Bank. His po­ his own, providing it with such power litical silence lasted until 1928, when he and energy that the state organizers were espoused the cause of Alfred E. Smith hard put to make the public realize that as a candidate for the Presidency against they too were taking part in the cam­ Herbert Hoover. paign. Now Massachusetts is normally a Re­ In this fight for Smith, Curley built publican state. Boston is its only great himself a new and powerful organiza­ Democratic stronghold, the hinterland, tion. Concentrating on registration of with the exception of· a few large cities, slothful citizens, he brought out the Bos­ being obedient to the G. O. P. If a Demo­ ton vote. Smith's majority in the city was crat seeks state-wide office he must count around 100,000; in the state it was only on the Boston vote to overcome the nor­ 17,000. The victory gained nothing for mal Republicanism of the 316 towns com­ AI, but it meant a great deal for Jim, for prising "the sticks". For this reason Demo­ it was a political blood transfusion which cratic tickets have, until recently, been revitalized the Curley "corpse" and topheavy with Boston candidates. Through planted it, looking just the same as of the years Curley, as Mayor and political yore, in the Mayor's robes. Jim was elected leader, virtually controlled the Boston in 1929 for still another term at City wing. There has been an unremitting Hall, defeating Frederick W. Mansfield. struggle for control of the state party be­ During this period the elements were tween the Hub and the rural factions. forming for a real battle between the Bos­ Curley's vicious attacks, and his defiance ton and rural party divisions for control of party leaders in and out of Boston, of the state Democracy. The actual fighting have definitely placed him apart. Most of commenced in 1930 when Al Smith's JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS 143 friend, Joseph Buell Ely - termed by The fight roared on until, at its height, Curley "The boy from the sticks" - an~ Curley suffered a shocking blow. Fitz­ nounced his candidacy for the governor~ gerald, apparently sickened of the whole ship. It was an open defiance of the Boston affair, withdrew his candidacy, leaving faction, and the battle lines were drawn Curley stranded. But if Jim hesitated, it immediately. Former Mayor Fitzgerald was only for a moment. He renewed the became the Hub candidate for the Demo~ fight, demanding that the people nom­ cratic nomination, and Curley promptly inate Fitzgerald despite his withdrawal. supported him. Better a hated Bostonian On the eve of election the situation than an uncertain quantity from the hills reached a new low. Curley, at the WNAC in a primary fight which was to become broadcasting studio awaiting his turn on one of the most ferocious ever seen in the the radio, listened while Chairman Frank Bay State. Both sides took to the radio, J. Donahue of the state committee, now and the air was odorous with their com~ a superior court judge, made a blistering ments. Daniel H. Coakley, former friend attack, disputing Curley's loyalty to Al and legal counsel for Curley, broadcast his Smith. Curley's face flushed as he listened. support for Ely. The state committee did By the time Donahue had concluded, Cur­ likewise. Curley stepped to the microphone ley was in a towering rage. As Donahue on behalf of the Fitzgerald candidacy. left the broadcasting chamber, Curley, But the real fight was between Curley and surrounded by a substantial group of fol­ the state group. Fitzgerald was a mere in~ lowers, charged at the state chairman. cident. Donahue, a slight man and no physical Coakley's air attacks seared Curley's match for Curley, fled. Curley attempted soul. He answered in.kind, and the pub­ to pursue, but was impeded by friends of lic was vastly entertained. Coakley charged the escaping chairman. Then he was con­ that Curley had adopted the Fitzgerald fronted by Gael Coakley, son of Daniel. candidacy as part of a scheme to re-elect Gael went down, and it was charged pub­ Governor Frank G. Allen, Republican, as­ licly that the boy had been fouled. The serting that Curley intended to turn elder Coakley described the alleged assault against Fitzgerald and "slaughter him at in brutal language on the air later that Jhe polls". Fitzgerald, Coakley said, was same night, being quoted as calling Curley a "setup". A trace of the venom that a "bully, a bravo, a thug, a masquerading marked the campaign may be found in mayor, a moral and physical coward, a the fQIlowing quote, typical of the Coak­ blackleg and a jailbird". The comment is ley attacks: interesting in view of the fact that Coakley When Jimmy finds things going against is now a member of the Executive Coun­ him, when the city-paid scouts tremblingly . cil and perhaps the closest friend the Gov­ .tell him part of the truth, when he learns ernor has on that obedient body. •.. there's revolution in the ranks, when re­ bellion breaks out at City Hall, when the Ely was nominated, and in the election usually tractable near-leaders refuse to defeated Allen. The "boy from the sticks" obey, then Jimmy reverts to type. The thus became Governor, and rural De~ brass knuckles and the blackjack are taken mocracy had won its fight to end domina­ from the safe. He bursts out in the lan­ tion of the Commonwealth by the Boston guage of the old Ward 17 d~ys. His vo~ce is raucous, and he takes the hIgh road wIth group. With Senator David 1. Walsh of the old cap and sweater. Clinton as solidly seated as ever, and Sen- 144 THE AMERICAN MERCURY ator Marcus Coolidge from the western Walsh and Coolidge, and other persons of part of the state safely planted at Wash­ like political importance. ington, the rural forces had just cause for Thus once more Ely and Curley were complacency. But not for long. Curley lined up on opposite battle-lines - Ely for took care of that little matter four years Smith and. Curley for Roosevelt. Jim defi­ later. nitely placed himself outside the state In the Smith campaign the state had Democratic ranks by his espousal of watched Curley, the politician. In the Roosevelt and was forced to carryon his Roosevelt campaign it saw Curley, the ad~ fight alone, creating his own organiza­ venturer.· Inspired by some second sense, tion within the state and fighting furiously the insight of political genius, Curley for the cause. Unquestionably an out~ in the summer of 1931 climbed aboard standing contribution to the Roosevelt the Roosevelt bandwagon, long before the campaign was Curley's Western speaking Roosevelt candidacy had been announced. tour, during which he traveled thousands He stuck to it despite the fact that the of miles, and spoke in scores of cities to people of Boston idolized Al Smith and tremendous crowds. could be depended on to annihilate any­ And on the outcome of the presiden­ one who opposed him~ Curley's espousal tial contest in Massachusetts hungCur~ of the Roosevelt cause eventually tore the ley's political fate. Wearied from the ter~ Democratic forces wide open, and once rific strain of daily campaigning over a more the Bay State hopefully believed that period of weeks, he came home to await he faced political obliteration. the outcome. Al Smith swept the state. Jim's conversion to the holy crusade of Roosevelt did not gain one delegate from Franklin D. was accomplished with amaz­ the Berkshires to Cape Cod. He was ing speed upon his return from a trip to blotted out. And Curley was annihilated Italy, where he had been received by both with him. Thus the Smith supporters had the Pope and Mussolini. Boarding a Bos~ double cause for jubilation when the final ton train at New York, he learned that returns came in: the vote had stripped Roosevelt was also a passenger, bound for Curley so bare that he did not even possess the Magnolia, Massachusetts, estate of a means of entry into the convention hall Colonel House, "Maker of Presidents". at Chicago! Jim was politically dead, once The train had hardly passed 12sth Street again. He had met the most overwhelm­ before Jim was in the Roosevelt drawing­ ing defeat of his career. He was so far room and embarked on his greatest out of the picture that his enemies clean political adventure. Exactly what passed forgot him as they gloried in the com­ between Roosevelt and Curley on that train ing nomination of Smith and turned their is not known, but it took them only two faces joyously to a Chicago pleasantly hours to reach an understanding which free from the hated Curley influence. led Jim into the farthest corners of the nation to fight for Roosevelt and the For­ IV gotten Man. It is safe to say that Curley's name had not hitherto been on the Col. But when the Democratic Convention con~ House guest list for the gathering at Mag~ vened, several weeks later, there appeared nolia. But the Roxbury boy was on hand on the floor as a member of the delega­ when the party started. So were Senators tion from Porto Rico one Alcalde Jaime JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS 145

Miquel Curleo, pledged to vote for Frank­ said little. He simply stood before the lin Delano Roosevelt. And the Smith dele.. cheering thousands and let them gaze in gation from Massachusetts ruefully rec­ awe at one selected by the gods of politics ognized Alcalde Curleo as James Michael to touch the highest spots. Curley, Mayor of Boston. Reactions to the It required only Roosevelt's election to shock of this discovery are not a matter of clinch Curley's new-found leadership in record, but the recognition must have been the state. Riding high on the tide of this a severe blow. Investigation proved that success, he confidently expected the nom­ Curley had traveled to Chicago, and, with ination as his party's candidate for the the aid of the Roosevelt machine, had been gove'rnorship. Being a Democratic year, designated to fill the place of a missing it seemed evident that any first-class man Porto Rican delegate. He took a promi­ might be swept into office against almost nent part in the Convention, not only in any Republican opposition. Nomination public but behind the scenes as well, and would be tantamount to election. But the there have since been rumors that he state party, none too fond of Curley despite played a large part in finally turning the his exalted status with the national Admin­ vote toward Roosevelt. It is a matter of istration, was intent on registering its dis­ record that he had more than one long approval of his desertion of Al Smith. It distance telephone conversation with Wil­ ignored him, and gave the nomination to liam Randolph Hearst; and it is known Gen. Charles H. Cole, N. G. that Hearst's influence was thrown pow­ Curley was furious. He stalked from erfully into the boom that swept Roosevelt the Worcester convention with gall in his to victory. The Roosevelt nomination sent soul and vengeance in his heart. And in Curley's stock soaring to a new high, and, the primaries, he won hands down. inversely, the Smith delegates from Mas­ Announcing a Work and Wages, New sachusetts found the sands swept from be­ Deal platform, Jim then set out to clinch neath their feet by the New Deal tide. the election. Opposing him were Lieut. And so the people of Boston turned out Gov. Gaspar G. Bacon, Republican nom­ on the night of July 4 to greet the home­ inee, and Frank A. Goodwin, former coming Jim Curley with a grin and a Registrar of Motor Vehicles, a political roar. They appreciated the humor of the nondescript, running as an independent situation. Pro-Smith as Boston is, the peo­ candidate. Yet Goodwin's candidacy ple love a fighter, particularly a fighter proved vitally important to Curley's suc­ who wins. The streets were flanked with cess: he sopped up 94,000 votes, and banners. The crush of uncounted thou­ probably cut heavily into Bacon's strength. sands on Boston Common was terrific. Vehement denials that Goodwin was run­ The delegate from Porto Rico, a beaming ning at Jim's behest came from both Cur­ smile wreathing his rugged countenance, ley and Goodwin. And when the votes fought through the mob to the Parkman were counted, Curley had 109,000 to spare bandstand. It was an inspiring reception. over Bacon; he had chalked up one more The crowd cheered him, a political David smashing defeat of opposition which at who had faced a dozen Goliaths and slain the outset had seemed overwhelming. As them all. He had come back triumphant Governor, one of Jim's first acts was to from the political morgue. Once again he re-appoint Goodwin Registrar of Motor had accomplished the impossible. But Jim Vehicles.... THE AMERICAN MERCURY

But, with the state now in his vest pointed to the vacancy and designated pocket, Curley still lacked the complete chairman. Two anti-Curley members were control he desired, for there was a nu­ ousted from the Commission after hear-:­ merical Republican majority in the Execu­ ings to which Jim devoted practically his tive Council, the Senate, and the House. full time for many days immediately fol­ And the Boston Finance Commission had lowing his inauguration. Satisfactory ap­ been unduly active during the campaign, pointments to fill the vacancies were inquiring into Curley's latest term as made. The removals created a great sen­ Mayor with unwonted zeal. The Commis­ sation, it being openly charged in the sion wanted to know just what rela­ press that Curley had cleaned out the tions existed between the Governor's close Commission to avoid its impending probe personal friend, City Treasurer Edmund of his regime as Mayor. L. Dolan, and the Legal Securities Com­ No Curley sensation lasts long, however, pany through which the city had been -Jim provides new ones too rapidly. making most of its bond purchases. There Soon there were other startling develop­ is a proviso in the city charter which ments to overshadow the operation on the makes side-line profits for city officials a Commission. And Dolan came back to serious offense. Dolan was basking in the Boston from Florida and offered to tell Florida sunshine at the time, and stayed the new Commission anything it· wished there until the new Governor was safely to know. All was well. seated on the throne. Next the Governor began to swing the The Commission likewise was engaged axe on the Ely appointees. Ely had made in an inquiry to determine who, if any­ several last-minute appointments, appar­ body, had made money out of land pur­ ently to embarrass his successor, and some chases for the North End Prado, a of them still embarrass him. One of these Curley-inspired beauty spot in the slums. was the appointment of Eugene C. Hult­ And the Commission also showed uncom­ man, Boston Police Commissioner, as head monly keen interest in the problem of fi­ of the Metropolitan District Commission, nancial gains, if any, in the land-takings which, through collateral responsibilities, incident to building the approaches for supervises the spending of millions of dol­ the new East Boston traffic tunnel. The lars. One current project within its con­ Commission, to put it bluntly, was mak­ trol involves $65,000,000. ing a damned nuisance of itself - that is, Curley set out to remove Hult.man, a from some points of view. And it had quiet, self-confident soul who simply sat even loosed its least pleasant reports at tight and refused to resign. A prominent various psychological· moments during the criminal lawyer was obtained to conduct Curley campaign. The Commission, said an ouster proceeding against him - with the Governor, had "degenerated into a the Governor and his Council sitting as political nuisance". judge and jury. The Council had not then But Jim didn't abolish it. He spayed it. been tested, and the outcome was a bit in Joseph A. Sheehan, a member of the doubt, there being a Republican majority Commission, resigned, and was appointed of five to four. Before the hearing opened, a superior court judge by the Governor. charges of moral turpitude were hurled E. Mark Sullivan, former Corporation against Hultman, whose history and per­ Counsel under Curley as Mayor, was ap- sonal record had never before been as- JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS 147

sailed. It developed during the hearing papers were free to continue their com­ that the turpitude involved "vas utilizing ments on the Hultman, and other ousters. Boston police department manure as fer­ And the Republican councillor later got tilizer at Hultman's summer residence in his reward from Curley. Duxbury.... Ousters and removals cleared up, Cur­ When the hearing got to the manure ley turned his attention to his Work and stage, with Hultman still sitting tight and Wages platform. Fully expecting the co­ saying very little, the public's sense of operation of the Administration at Wash­ humor defeated the removal effort, and ington' which was preparing its four­ the case was laughed out of court. It never billion-dollar boondoggling fund, Jim set came to a vote. Curley gave up the fight, about carrying his campaign slogan to a making the gesture of turning over to the happy and successful conclusion. He called District Attorney of Suffolk County a on every department head to suggest complete transcript of the testimony­ needed improvements. Imitating Roosevelt, some 1000. pages. The D. A. apparently he appointed a Brain Trust to advise and has not yet finished reading the document, assist. (The Brain Trust enjoyed weekly for nothing has since been heard from luncheons until someone suggested an in­ him. And Hultman still holds his job. vestigation as to the expense involved.) But a more serious issue arose during Department heads began to speak in the Hultman hearing from which Curley terms of millions. A single department, shaped a noose which for a time threat­ Mental Diseases, turned in a $24,000,000 ened to throttle the press in Massachu­ spending program. Others did the best they setts. William G. Gavin, a Boston news­ could to equal the outlay, and, in the en­ paper editor, printed a story indicating suing free-for-all, dollar signs and ciphers how a Republican member of the Execu­ rolled from adding machines in a general tive Council would vote in the Hultman mad scramble for cash. When the total ouster. The Governor thereupon amazed reached the staggering figure of $600,000,­ the newspapermen of Boston with a decla­ 000, the Governor, Ranked by his gaudy ration that he and the Council, when con­ military staff, invaded Washington. ducting hearings of the Hultman type, But the official reception was chilling, were a judicial body, not an executive despite the warmth of the uniforms. His body, and that criticism or comment of Excellency was given what is popularly the Gavin sort was punishable by a jail known as the "run around". He an­ sentence for contempt. Gavin was called nounced great progress and fine promises Q upon to explain, with the jail threat ring­ on his return home, however, and braced ing in his ears. himself for other forays on the Capital. Press and public watched the battle From then on, it seemed, the Governor with keen interest. Gavin was questioned, spent as much time in Washington as he but refused to divulge the source of in­ did on Beacon Hill. The treatment ac­ formation on which he based his story. corded him was at times heartless. He From week to week the issue was con­ cooled his heels at one official doorstep tinued, but no judgment was ever passed after another, and accepted cancellation on the editor. He did not go to jail. Fi. of appointments or the refusal of ap­ nally, when the case became too hot to pointments with a stolidity that concealed handle, the Governor dropped it. The his fury. Massachusetts eventually got its THE AMERICAN MERCURY share of the four-billion-dollar fund, but of thousands of guests whose names were without regard to the Governor's demand plucked from every rank. The wedding that one-eighth of the national sack be presents, including tributes from the Pope dumped into his lap. and the Roosevelt family, were valued at Frustrated at Washington, Curley tens of thousands of dollars. The bower turned to the state till, to find what that of orchids under which Mrs. Donnelly might yield in work and wages. It received her guests was said to have cost wasn't much. His Excellency filed in the $8000. The two tons of lobster which the Legislature the so-called "bond bills", call­ Donnelly guests consumed, and the other ing for state issues of $35,000,000 to defray items of a ceremony at which police offi­ the cost of public works. The Legislature cers appeared in full dress suits, brought finally allowed him about one-third that the total cash involved, according to those sum. But Jim still holds to the New Deal who have a bent for statistics, to well over creed of any kind of work at the pub­ $100,000. lic's expense: recently he suggested that It was some weeks later, after the happy $10,000,000 might well be spent for lilacs couple had left on a trip around the to border the road from Boston to Provi­ world, that a bill, whipped into shape with dence. the assistance of the Attorney General, was filed in the Legislature; a bill pro­ v viding changes in the law for the regu­ lation of billboards along the highways At the height of the legislative session, a of Massachusetts. The public was dis­ session which had kept Curley's name mayed in the face of the fact that the vividly before the public, came the wed­ state had but recently concluded a ten­ ding of his daughter Mary to Lieut. CoL year battle, costing nearly $1,000,000, in Edward C. Donnelly of the Governor's successful defense of the current billboard military staff. Donnelly, whose business control. statutes.. Opponents declared the concern is chief among the billboard in­ new bill would open the highways to ex­ terests of Massachusetts, was a reputed ploitation by advertising concerns, with millionaire and .one of the most eligible none but trick regulations left to stem the bachelors in the state.. The Governor had tide. Critics of the administration promptly previously met rebuffs, even from the linked Curley's interest in the affair with clergy, in his effort to outlaw marriages the recent marriage of his daughter to the by justices of the peace; he now indi­ head of the Donnelly Outdoor Advertis­ cated his own ideals concerning marriage ing Company. One .legislative opponent rites by inviting William Cardinal of the bill declared in the House that it O'Connell to perform the Donnelly cere­ should rightfully be entitled "A Grant to mony. the Royal Family of Massachusetts." The The wedding, so the newspapers said, phraseology caught the public fancy, and, rivaled in splendor anything of its kind in the face of organized and intense op­ ever seen on earth. It was marked by lav­ position, the usually controllable Legisla­ i~h expenditures of money, the co-opera­ ture turned down the bill. tion of the military forces of the state, an But it bounced right back again from elaborate reception which followed at the the Governor's oflice, accompanied by a Copley Plaza hotel, and the participation special message urging its passage. Again JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS 149 it was refused. Compromises were offered bestowed by Mayor Mansfield of Boston: in succeeding Executive messages, but "The Hit-Run Governor". they failed to sway the Legislature. Four Throughout the summer the legislative times the bill was tossed back and forth session roared on, while senators and between the Governor and the House be­ representatives, sweltering through a par­ fore Jim gave up the fight. He declared ticularly hot season, struggled with the that, after all, the current law was suffi­ greatest number of bills ever filed in a ciently elastic to permit of all the changes single year. Their departure for home was that the new law sought~ It took several stayed time and again by the Governor, weeks of legislative anguish to produce whose special messages demanding pas­ that nugget from the are of fury. sage of this piece of legislation or that, Following rapidly on the billboard bat­ prevented the docile body from bringing tle came a typical Curley strange inter­ the session to a close. On one occasion lude. His career has been marked by such Curley declared he would keep them in occurrences; issues of vast consequence session until 1936 unless they took a stand raised from happenings of mustard seed favorable to the legislation he wished en­ importance. In 1935 it was the now fa­ acted. The political maneuverings behind mous Noone Incident. On July 4 the the scenes occupied almost as much time Executive automobile, travelling at high as the open sessions, and it was charged speed along the Worcester turnpike at by political leaders that· renegade Repub­ Newton, a Boston suburb, skidded 100 licans in the Legislature were listening feet and struck a tree, snapping it off at with cupped ears to whispers of reward the ground. The machine had been thrown for the obedient. The public was amazed into the skid in an effort to avoid strik­ as the session grew older to see men, ing State Trooper Noone, who had been hitherto stanch Republicans, taking the thrown from his motorcycle while at­ floor and pressing for passage of legisla­ tempting to open up holes in the traffic for tion which had the opposition of inde­ passage of the Executive car. Noone was pendent Democrats. Prophecies were badly injured. Felicitations on the Gover­ made that high reward would come to nor's escape were going the rounds when those who crossed the party line to stand Curley made the startling announcement at Curley's side. The President of the that he hadn't been in the automobile at Senate became the storm center of Repub­ all. And this despite the fact that a Good lican castigation when he stepped from Samaritan automobilist had been credited his chair on one occasion to break a tie with driving the Governor and one of his and vote in favor of an important piece of military staff from the "scene of the acci­ legislation urgently sought by the Gover­ dent to the Executive Mansion in Jamaica nor. Other Republicans who had shown Plain. After a formal inquiry, Mayor Sin­ more fealty to Jim than to their own col­ clair Weeks of Newton, ignoring the leagues were later read out of the Party Governor's denials, reported that nine wit­ amidst the catcalls of their former asso­ nesses had placed His Excellency at the ciates. The Governor wanted the 48-hour scene of the accident. To this day Curley bill passed; he wanted the $35,000,000 denies he was any nearer the scene than bond issue bills passed; he wanted the Framingham, a good ten miles distant. billboard bill made into law; he wanted The incident earned him a new title, a score of things, most of which he got. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

He swung the whip without mercy when all governors by forefathers who no doubt lashing was necessary, and he handed out anticipated that someday an ambitious the lumps of sugar when expediency in­ man might occupy the Executive chair. dicated that course. Within a week of his But they, like many present-day statesmen inaugural the Legislature and the public in the Bay State, reckoned without James learned that a man had taken charge on Michael Cutley. He has outmaneuvered Beacon Hill, a man who knew what he them all. The Governor once -termed the wanted and who intended to have it. Council a "glorified pawn shop", but it Significance attaches to the fact that his remained for' Jim himself to hang out the Executive Staff and the state personnel three brass balls and publicly pawn Re­ generally refer to Curley not as the Gov­ publican souls. ernor but as The Boss. He is the boss, Completing his seizure of power in the and indications at the outset of 1936 are state, Curley called before him all depart­ that before the end of his incumbency he ment heads and announced his concep­ will be more than ever the boss. He tion of the relationship that should exist achieved mastery over the Legislature in between them and the Chief Executive. the 1935 session, despite Republican nu­ Jim told them that there was but one merical supremacy in both Senate and executive in the state and that executive House, and, no sooner had the members was Curley. Such has proved to be the adjourned and turned their backs on the fact. Those who have failed to perceive State House, than he set out to seize con­ it have been called sharply to account, trol of the Executive Council. The Legis­ particularly in the matter of appointments. lature prorogued shortly after four o~c1ock Few jobs are given out without the ap­ one sultry morning in mid-August after proval of the Governor. Each depart­ the longest session in state history; within ment head is told whom and how many ten minutes the Governor had appointed to appoint. On orders from the Execu­ an obedient' Republican Council member tive chambers, hundreds of employees have to a much-coveted position and nominated been placed on the state payroll even a Democrat in his place. The sudden though in some instances there have been move for control of the Council created no vacancies. "Make vacancies," is the a sensation, and the departing'Legisla­ curt instruction. ture, disbanded and scattered, looked back In gaining control of the Legislature, at the tarnished golden dome with grim the Executive Council, and the state de­ foreboding. partments, Curley has finally built up a Curley's Democratic nominee was dictatorship' which in many ways resem­ promptly confirmed by the Council, and bles Huey Long's ill-fated regime in not long aftervvard another RepUblican Louisiana. The situation affords a strik­ member of the same body resigned to ac­ ing parallel. Like Long, Curley was elected cept the Governor's tender of a place on in spite of the opposition of political the Superior Court bench. He too was re­ powers. Like Long, he immediately under­ placed by a Democrat. Thus, in two swift took not only to safeguard his past but moves, Jim had shifted a Republican to solidify his political future. In reorgan­ majority of five to four on the Council izing the Boston Finance Commission to a Democratic majority of six to three. at the outset of· his term, he was. able The Council was created as a check upon to hold a powerful political weapon JIM CURLEY, BOSS OF MASSACHUSETTS against the head of a hostile mayor. Ap­ Following up his campaign, Mansfield parently reaching out for broader influ­ has caused the Corporation Counsel to ence beyond the confines of Beacon Hill, file equity proceedings in the State Su­ he lent his support in the fall of 1935 preme Court against Dolan and others, to candidates for mayoralties in various charging that they made illegal profit5 of strategic points in the state. One Curley more than $250,000 at the expense of the candidate got the gift of 1500 state public­ city in bond transactions involving mil­ works jobs to distribute among his con­ lions of dollars. The bill of complaint stituents a few days before election. Plans alleges a "fraudulent and corrupt scheme". are already made, observers say, to see that The formal records show Dolan and a candidate favorable to the Governor is others as defendants, but the public be­ elected mayor of Boston to succeed Mans­ lieves the real objective of the action is field, and that Lieut. Gov. Joseph L. Hur­ not only dle recovery of funds for the ley, the Governor's close associate, succeeds city of Boston but the discomfiture of Jim Curley on Beacon Hill. For himself, Jim Curley. They recognize it as a counter­ has announced his candidacy for the move to offset the Governor's reorgani­ United States Senate on a platform of so­ zation of the Finance Commission, which cial security, Roosevelt· brand. Already the was engaged in a siu1i1ar quest when Cur­ Townsendites have declared war on him ley took office. The situation is the one for heresy. Already opposition to his latest black cloud on the Governor's present ambition is heard rumbling in various horizon; but he is accustomed to bigger corners of the state._ One Republican ones and is busily going on his way, the source sums up the sentiment with the re­ reins of government firmly gripped, the mark: "Social security for James Michael bullwhip in one hand, the sugar bag in Curley has always been his platform." the other. Concrete opposition of a particularly Jim rode into office as Mayor of Bos­ potent kind is coming from Boston's City ton behind the brown derby of Al Smith, Hall, where Mayor Mansfield, the Gover­ and swung himself into the State House nor's avowed enemy, lays plans for his on the coat-tails of President Roosevelt. downfall. Mansfield has attacked on two With the state now fully under control, fronts, publicity and the courts. Recently save for Boston's City Hall- another he took to the air and begged public co­ parallel to Huey Long's career - he plans operation in a holy war against Curley, to barge into the Senate on the com­ after making the declaration that Jim had fortable lap of social security. His future asked him to drop a proposed new inves­ is open to little doubt as 1936 dawns. But tigation of the activities of City Treas­ the future of the Commonwealth of Mas­ urer Dolan during Curley's last term as sachusetts. under its first dictatorship is Mayor. In his first radio appeal in the the problem that disturbs the "Brahmins" Curley crusade, Mansfield said in part: at whom Curley likes to scoff, the conserv­ The fight to end misrule in Massachusetts ative folk who have found pride in the has just begun. I shall continue it unceas­ quotation, C'Massachusetts, there she ingly until the people have retired this stands!" They see her now standing sub­ man, who would outdo Hitler, to private dued beside her master, James Michael life.... He is not only vindictively cruel and absolutely ruthless, but wholly unre­ Curley. They wonder with dark misgivings liable and unscrupulous. what the outcome will be. TOES A Story

BY JESSE STUART

ARSIE lives right across the road from only decent looking man in this neigh­ me. She moved there last spring. borhood. I'd like to see a woman who PHer man, Peg-Leg Jake Mullins, could love Peg-Leg or Timothy. Peg-Leg's rented the place from old Bill Syzemore. got a fine fuzz on his face where he never I think Bill is wrong in the head to rent shaves. I always say his face is poor ,as to Peg-Leg Jake. He's the laziest man some old land that we got that won't in the world. When he was burning brush bring weeds and sprouts. His face won't' last March he went to sleep close by a grow whiskers. He's not got a tooth in brush pile on fire. The fire burnt the his head that I've ever seen. His thin leaves out around the brush pile. The jaws blab-blab and blubber when he talks, fire slipped up like a mouse in the kitchen­ like the wind going in and out of a bee­ safe and caught Peg-Leg's wooden leg on smoker. Then he's just got one good leg fire. It popped and burned like dry-shoe­ and it's not any bigger than a hoe handle. make. It was locust wood. It burned right I don't see how Parsie can stand him. off his body before he could get the strap Parsie's a right good-looking woman to unbuckled. Peg-Leg hobbled on a stick have six brats. I could see last May she to the house. Another time he went out was going to have a baby. She went out to plow and fell asleep when the day got and worked in the fields a little. That up. The peckerwoods drilled in his wooden didn't matter. She couldn't hide it from· a leg for worms. That's the God's truth. woman. Parsie is as· pretty a woman as Old Bill Syzemore must be wrong in the there is in these parts of the country. head to rent a farm to him. He'll run old Parsie, Timothy, and Peg-Leg call my Bill in debt instead of making money to husband Duck-Foot Blue. I never did like pay the taxes on the place. that name. But there's not anything I can I could tell Parsie was going to have a do about it unless it would be to take a baby. I knowed it all the time. I remem­ pair of scissors or a butcher knife and cut ber last Spring how my husband used to Blue's toes apart. He's web-footed like a hunt with Peg-Leg and Timothy. Say, duck. His toes, the two next to his big that Timothy Muscovite was a man I toe on his right foot, are growed together; never did like. I never did like that name. and the two next to his little toe on his Timothy is a big hairy man, with big left foot are growed together just about hands and a face like a monkey. He looks half-way up. The two on his right foot funny beside of my man, Blue. My man are growed together out to the end. And looks more like somebody. I've got the people call him Duck-Foot Blue Scout. 15 2 TOES

They call me Mrs. Duck-Foot Blue Scout. ahead like I do. She ain't worked like I Law, how I hate that name! If I'd cut have. I live right here across the road Blue's toes apart now it wouldn't matter. from her and know. She's never done it He's already got that name. Then it might since she's lived over there in old Bill's set up blood pizen. A body just can't tell house. She's never done the work I have. about them things. Better to leave them That's the reason she's held her shape. as God made them. God marked the Scout If she'd a worked like I have! But she family for a sin way back yonder in the ain't. I don't see for my life how she Scout line. An old man by the name of lives with that thin-lipped ugly Peg-Leg Jim Frailey got two of his toes mashed man of hers. Pan my word if I was choos­ flat in the log woods. Blue's great-grand­ ing between the two men I'd rather have mother laughed at his toes. That was old monkey-faced Timothy Muscovite. right before Blue's grandfather was born. He would provide for a woman and treat When he was born he come with two her half-way decent if he'd a been good­ toes on each foot growed together. When looking enough to a-got hisself a woman. he married and had children the seventh He wouldn't a worked her like a horse child had toes growed together on both nohow. feet. That was Blue's father. When Blue's I used to stand up there by the· draw­ father married, his seventh child was· Blue. bars and watch Parsie going out there to He's got toes just like his Pap and his the sand-bottom to hoe corn. She would Grandpap. It runs in the Scout family. be barefooted walking along the path I never was one to speak jealous of Par­ dodging the saw briars. Peg-leg would sie. I know she's a better looking woman be in front with a mule hitched to a plow. than I am. I'm not a good-looking woman. He'd let the mule drag the plow along I used to be when I was young. When and scive up the grass and the saw briars. I walked down the church aisle men riz He was too lazy to lift the plow by the to their feet and watched me pass. But handles. He just let it drag. Parsie would they don't anymore. Hoeing corn and walk behind with her hoe on her shoul­ bearing babies for the man I love has der and her lap done up down to her took all that out of me long ago. So much petticoat with pumpkin seed and bean housework to do. So many cows to milk seed that Parsie would stick in a hill of and· hogs to slop. So many chickens to corn in the rich spots of ground around feed. A big house to keep clean. It's a the old rotted stumps and rock piles. I pine-log house and for God's sakes, used to just watch her pass. I would say women, don't ever let·your man make you to myself, "If my hair was just black and a pine-log house or move you into one. pretty as hers, I wouldn't begrudge every­ They're too bad for bed bugs. They've thing I got including the old cow Gypsy. nearly et us up since we've been here. She's got the prettiest blue eyes. Just like If I didn't scald twice a week all the beds, two blue bird eggs. She has got the whitest the slats and the cracks, they'd eat us skin and the longest fingers. Her teeth's up. Then I keep my bed casters a-setting white as chalk. She's pretty as a doll." in a tin can of coal oil. So it's work around Then I would say to myself, "I am a liar. here besides having a baby every couple of Parsie is not pretty. She is not pretty as years. That takes some time. I am. My hair is light. My eyes are blue. Parsie's had to work out. She don't go My teeth are fairly good. I am prettier THE AMERICAN MERCURY

than Parsie. I have four children. I don't to God old Peg-Leg would get his hair want to have the seventh if I can dodge filled full of bed bugs from the pine-wood it. But I can't. I am just twenty-six years floor. It's bad to do that, but I did. I old. I don't want a duck-footed youngin. don't deny it. I never liked that no-count I don't want a marked baby just because man. I don't see how any woman could. Blue's great-grandmother laughed at a I am a woman. I know about a woman. man's mashed toes. That's too much pun­ She wants a man all the other women ishment for God to put on any person. like. She wants to walk right in and take It's not fair. I can't help what she done. him by the arm and say, "Look, women. Why should I suffer for her sin? I am I got him. He's my man." And after she not a ugly woman. I am a prettier woman gets him if some other woman doesn't that Parsie. I am not a liar." want him, then she wants to dump him But I was a liar. Parsie is the prettiest and get her a man they all want. That's woman I ever saw. I used to watch Blue the way it is here. I knowed sure as God when Parsie and Peg-Leg come over on made the grass that Parsie would like to Sundays to eat dinner with us. I used have a man like Blue. That made me to watch Blue to see if I could catch· him want Blue more than ever. I had him, looking like a man looks at a woman he but I wanted more of him since I felt likes. I never could see a thing myself. like Parsie wanted him. I couldn't help it. I would fry the meat on the stove. Parsie would be in the kitchen helping me. We II would talk and the meat would sizzle in the pan. I would keep my eye on Parsie. Well, we used to eat Sunday dinners to­ I would glance around to see if Blue was gether. We borrowed meal and sugar and looking through the front room door into coffee from one another. We was the best the kitchen at Parsie. I never could catch neighbors you ever saw. But I always him looking at her. I would be nice to watched.. I always thought if you had a Parsie because she was so good-looking. man worth anything he was worth watch­ I was nice to her because I couldn't be ing and worth having. So many men as good-looking as she was. She didn't these days are no-count. Not worth pow­ know she was good-looking. And just der and lead it takes to blowout their think, her married to that thin-lipped, brains. I used to watch Parsie close, even toothless, peg-legged, no-count, good-for­ though she was ready to bring a baby nothing man of hers. She ought to a mar­ any time. I was listening for a call from ried Timothy. Just us three families in our Peg-Leg every night, too. I was listening neighborhood. Two women and three to hear him come out in the yard and men. And something ugly ,about all the stand under that bare walnut tree and call, men but mine and he had his toes growed "Oh, Amanda Scout, come over h~re together. I watched him around the other quick to Parsie!" And I was looking to woman. We would cook dinner for the see all six of their children come streak­ men laying in the front room on the floor ing in over here carrying them infernal smoking their pipes and talking about bed bugs on their clothes to stay all night the crops. I could see the smoke going anytime. I just thought every night I'd up toward the ceiling in little blue clouds. see them coming. It was fall time here. And under my breath I hoped and prayed Leaves dead on the ground and a body TOES so sad that time of year. All the trouble all them little babies around her asleep. and all the weary. It worried me just to Pan my word, I just didn't have the heart think about it. to do it. I could just see my man Blue Last summer during crop time when in her. I knowed it was Blue. I just felt we were a warking so hard in the fields it. God knows I did. God knows it's and would come in dog-tired and do up the truth. A woman just feels-that's all. the work, I'd go to bed and I couldn't get She can't help it. Men never understand to sleep for thinking something. I didn't like a woman. think it. I felt it. A woman feels like a Parsie would lay in the bed and snore. dog that raises its bristles when it smells Her babies would cry and wake her. where another dog has been. That's just When she would rouse up, I'd snore like the way I felt. I just raised my bristles I was dead asleep. But I couldn't sleep in when I thought about Parsie. God knows the room with her knowing she was going I liked her in away. God knows I hated to have a baby. When she would go back her in a way. If it just hadn't been for to sleep I'd set up in the bed and look Blue. I felt like she felt the same way to­ out the window. I'd see the summer moon.. ward Blue that I felt. My bristles would light on the green corn. I'd hear the raise. I could just feel a feeling coming whippoorwills so lonesome. Then I'd hear in all over my body that Parsie liked the hounds bringing the fox around the Blue same as I did. I just couldn't stand piney-pint. I could hear old Skeeter, Blue's to think about it. God, I cried. God, I blue-tick hound, leading the pack. He's rolled and tumbled in the bed. I done got a bark like beating in a rain barrel everything. But I couldn't forget. with a plow point \vhen he's leading the Last summer Peg-Leg, Blue, and Tim­ pack, and when he's behind he squeals othy would take the hounds. They would like a pig. I'd lay in the bed and listen leave me and Parsie here together and and think. I couldn't help it. Why was go fox-hunting. Parsie would sleep in I like I was? Maybe I just thought things. one bed with her little youngins and I Then I'd think that I was crazy and I'd would sleep in another with mine. I was have to be sent to the asylum. I'd seen filled with the very devil. I could see my­ one man go there. They used to put him self pulling out Parsie's coal-black hair in the corn-crib and feed him bread and and throwing it to the ground i.n handfuls water every day. A county man come out like sheep wool. I could feel my fingers and found him. They hauled him off going into her eyes. Law, how I \vanted handcuffed in a spring wagon. The last to put my hands on her. But I was afraid. words he said to me were: "Put my shoes She's a stout woman with her hands. I down by the fireplace. I'll not get any thought about getting a scythe blade and more shoes." I didn't have his shoes. I'd, whacking her across the face. Then I never seen his shoes. He was just riding thought that was not the way to do it. I past in the wagon. What a terrible thing could get a sickle and sickle her neck like it is to be crazy. It's not anything to I would a bunch of.planting in the yard. laugh about. Was I crazy as the man I But a better way still was to get a garden saw in the wagon, barefooted with the hoe off the palings and just chop her hair as long on his face as it was on his good like chopping weeds. I can fight head? with a hoe better anyhow. But here was Then I \vould think: "No, I am not THE AMERICAN MERCURY crazy. I just feel like something is going lieve that I trusted like a lot of women. to happen that I don't want to happen. But I can't. I just can't lie about it when The wind told me. God told me. I feel it." I feel a thing. You can trust the earth but When we'd come in from work I'd pitch not its seasons of drouth, rain, snow, and and tear in the bed till twelve o'clock sleet. You can trust a hunting dog but many a night. Blue would be beside me not when she comes in her season. Women snoring. I'd think to myself: "Wonder if are like a dog. They have their seasons." Parsie loves him. Wonder if she has ever I could smell the wet weeds that bor­ told him that she loved him, and them dered the corn - the ragweeds and the lips that trembles in snores - wonder if pusley. The wind from them smelled sour. words come from between them to Par­ God, I thought of women and their sea­ sie: 'Yes, and I love you too.' That silent sons. body of a man. It is like a child. It cries And as the moon rolled along in the to get things. It gets them. Then it is flying fleece-clouds I thought about man through. It is quiet like a child. A woman and woman. If I could only have Blue is not like a man. A woman feels things. just so I could hold him in my hand like A woman understands." he was a piece of money. If I only owned The days passed by last summer. We him like he was a quarter or a half a planted the corn. We plowed it the first dollar, I wouldn't mind. But no woman time and chopped the weeds out of it. We can own a man like that. No man can plowed it the second time and the third quite own a woman like she was·a pound time. It was soon over the mule's back. of salt or a dime's worth of soda. There's When it got that high we quit plowing something else to a man or a woman be­ it. I'd lay in my bed at night and look sides that. And there's nothing in the at it. I'd look at the moonlight on the corn­ world - not even marriage vows, lovers' field bright as day. I would think: "The vows, God, churches, or anything above night is pretty. The night was made for the sun or under the sun, for keeping man man and the fox. The night was made and woman from loving one another. for silence. The stars in the sky. The silver-like dewdrops on the corn. The III night is pretty, whoever made it and whatever it was made for. I like the It happened just as I expected. It was night. I love the night." cold as blue-blazes. I'd sent my .children I watched the moonlight flicker on the to school, all but my little ones. Parsie'd corn blades as the night wind blowed sent her children to school, all but her them this way and that way. And I two little ones. The cold November wind thought: "The night is so pretty. The was blowing across the cornfield where God that made the night made me. I· am we worked last summer. It was an awful not pretty. I am such a fool. If I was ugly day. Wind blowed the rags out of the as a hill I would be pretty. Quiet, ugly windows where the lights had been busted people are pretty. But I can't be quiet­ by the hail last summer. And I trembled as trustworthy as the earth. I am such a when I saw Peg-Leg coming across the fool. Some women are such fools. I am road running on that wooden leg. I one. But the reason I am a fool, I can't knowed something must be wrong or he trust. If I could only make myself be- wouldn't a got such a move on him. TOES 157

Wooden leg was sinking in the soft ground When the baby come - a wee thing of where it had got sharp on the end. He'd cries and a bundle of nerves -I didn't pull it out and run and it would sink want to see it. But I had to see it. The again. He said: "Amanda-come quick! water was hot. I poured in some cold It is Parsie. She is sick-come quick1" He water and made it lukewarm. I washed took back towards the house. I let my the baby. I just couldn't believe before I work go and took out toward the house. saw it that it would look like Peg-Leg I knowed what ,vas up. I left my little Jake. I wanted to think that it would look children in the house. I \vas afraid they like old Timothy Muscovite. But then I'd might get burnt up. I hollered to Blue. hate to see a little baby brought into the He was out at the barn. I told him to world and have to go through the world stay with my little youngins till I went ugly as old Timothy - so ugly he looked over to Peg-Leg's and Parsie's a minute. like pictures of the Devil. I just didn't Blue understood. He took to the house want to look at the baby at all. But I a-running and left the mules'harness that had to look at it. Before I washed it, I he was punching holes in. thought about Blue over at the house with I was nearly out of. breath when I got my two little children. I thought that Blue in the house. I put water in the tea kettle was just a child. I was his mother and and hetit. God knows just how much his wife. He was one of my children. there is to do when a woman is having The baby cried. Parsie went off into a a baby and there ain't no doctor. But doze. She closed her eyes. Her lips were I've delivered many a baby. I knowed purple. She was bad-off, I could tell. She just what to do. I done it. had been too long bringing the baby into It was a lot of pain for Pisie. No the world. I had to wash the baby. I had woman wants the pain of bringing a baby to care for it. Peg-Leg ,vas out of the into the world. She has to go through a room. I looked at the baby's ears to see lot for the sake of a child that just grows if it had little lettuce-leaf ears like Blue. up and spits in his mother's face and I looked at its lips. I thought I could see flies off like a wild quail. But they bring cut in the upper-lip beneath the nose a them in just the same. Woman has her trough, just like it was on Blue's lip. I season. She was made to bear children. could see Blue's eyes in its head. Surely She is happier lots of times with children I was dreaming, but I could see the image and never happy unless she has them. But of Blue in the baby more than in any child I'm telling you it's a lot of trouble and a I had bore for him. It was a boy. It was lot of pain. Woman pays for her pleas­ Parsie's seventh child. And I thought: ure. I never sa'" a woman suffer like "Could it be Blue's baby? It looks like Parsie. I done the best I could. I hated him. No. It does not look like him. I am to see her suffer so. Cattle suffer the pain dreaming. This is a world full of trouble of birth, and dogs and horses suffer. But and dreams. It has some joys. Not many. not any living being suffers like a woman. I cried over this before. I felt it. Is it a Men don't understand. Women soon for­ lie? Is it the truth? It doesn't matter. Par­ get and are ready to bring another baby sie is dying." into the ,,,arId. They soon forget all about Parsie had wilted like a rose throwed childbirth pain. I couldn't think for hear­ in the fire. Her eyes were set in her head. ing Parsie suffer. I was sorry that I had hated her and THE AMERICAN MERCURY wanted to hook her white neck with a going to die anyway. Her down there sickle and rip her eyes with my fingers suffering so, and me standing up with a and fight her with a hoe. I was sorry. But hoe to kill her like I'd kill a snake. That I had to wash the baby. It felt like it was was not fair. I couldn't do that. So I mine. walked over and raised the window. I And then its toes! I thought: I'll look pitched the hoe out. The dead leaves at its toes. I looked - My God - Oh, blowed in when I raised the window. No­ God! The two little pink toes on the right vember winds and them as c,old as all get­ foot next to the big toe was growed to­ out. gether plumb to the end. The two toes I got the wash rag and I finished wash­ next to the little toe on the left foot was ing the baby. I hated them toes. Just to growed together half-way up to the end. think! The baby belonged to Blue. You It is Blue's baby! Oh, my God! It is are not fooling me. God don't prank with Blue Scout's baby. It is a Scout! I tore people for the sins of their people. They my hair. I screamed. carry the mark. Now if I lived to have Parsie was quiet. She didn't hear me. my seventh child it would have duck­ She didn't bat a eye. I thought she was foot toes. It is a mark of Blue's people. playing possum on me. I thought she un­ The children come in from school. Peg­ derstood. I dropped the baby down on Leg sent them all over to the house for the cloth. It moved its little pink hands Blue to keep. Blue never· come about. He and wiggled its little toes like toes and acted like a whipped dog. That is a man hands of the young mice a body finds in for you. He doesn't pay for his pleasure the corn shocks in the spring. The baby like a woman. If he could have only seen cried like a little pup~ I couldn't help it. Parsie suffer like I saw her. Now her I ran out of the house. I wanted to kill eyes set. Surely she was dying from child­ Parsie. Blue couldn't help it. It was not birth. What an awful death. Only a his fault. I ran to get the hoe off the woman can understand. Only a woman palings. knows. I couldn't kill her with a hoe or I took the hoe and ran into the house. a sickle. Poor woman Was dying. I could I thought I would kill Parsie. There she hear her breath come and go and sizzle. was in the bed. Her face was white as She just looked up at the bro,vn-ringed snow. Her eyes was set. She wasn't get­ paper on the ceiling where the rain had ting her breath right. But I just couldn't leaked through. Her eyes were about half­ kill her. She was down. I couldn't kill open. She said: "I know it ain't mine. It a person down, not able to help herself. ain't mine. It is Amanda's baby. It be­ I don't care what she's done. Here was longs to her. She will have it. I won't blood in the room. I thought of that sour need it." And when she said that, I said: smell of weeds last summer when the "Sure the little thing is mine." I pulled wind blowed in across from the fields into it up and kissed it. The baby was Blue's. the open window where I was sleeping. The baby was mine. I'd take it. It was That sour smell. I held to the hoe handle. Blue's child. I love Blue. All that is him I thought once I'd chop her head off right is me. We are together. We are one. His where her neck was, the least to chop child was mine. I held the baby in my through. That was Blue's baby. Then I arms. I couldn't love Parsie. I just felt thought I wouldn't kill her, for she was fer her. Her there on the couch a-dying. TOES

The winds played around the house as I had the baby in my arms. I saw Par­ night come on and the sun sunk down on sie go. I can't forget. I called Peg-Leg. the other side of the pasture. The bare He come running in. Timothy come in limbs of the trees looked like they was with him. I took the baby and walked growed into the white patches of the sky. out. I took it to the house. I started mak­ " I could see them betwixt me and the ing clothes for it before its mother was moon. The baby cried. I nursed it with laid out to bury. I was glad she died. I peppermint tea that Peg-Leg found by the had to be glad. I didn't want to kill her old Daughtery gate. I told him right where with a hoe. The baby was mine. He is to nnd it. Women have got it there be­ dear to me as my own. He is a seventh fore for their babies. All the men in the child. I call him Blue. He looks more like county has come there to get it for their Blue than airy one of the children I have wives. I never told Peg-Leg about the had by him. baby's toes. I told him I wanted the baby They buried Parsie back by the edge if Parsie died. He told me I could have of the sand cornfield where she used to him. I told him I would raise him right hoe corn before the baby was born. She and under the eyes of the Lord. Peg-Leg is buried under that hickory at the fence shed some tears. So did old Timothy, who corner. Timothy Muscovite has moved in was there too. I felt sorry for him - him the house with Peg-Leg. He loved little so ugly a-crying when he walked up with children so. They ain't afraid of him any­ Peg-Leg and saw Parsie on the couch. more. I ain't said a word to Blue about I remember the moon that come up. the baby being his. I think he under­ It looked to me like it had a spot of blood stands. I take care of the baby. It belongs on it. I saw blood, maybe. It was on to me. Man doesn't understand. It takes the bed. It was on the floor. It was on a woman to feel and understand. Man is the moon. Blue was in the house with fickle as the wind. The wind will blow all the children. He didn't know Parsie the ragweed seeds over the earth. They was dying. Her breath got shorter and will gro\v here and there. Man is not par­ shorter. Then it kinda sizzled and she ticular. He will leave his seed to grow crossed her hands on her breast and she here, or there. And in awful poor soil, went out of the world. sometimes. ROGER CASEMENT (Born, Dublin, Sept., 1864. Hanged, Pentonville Prison, London, A~g., 1916) BY SEAN O'FAOLAIN

NA letter to Cunningham Grahame, Childers. He had been through the South Joseph Conrad once spoke of landing African War with the Honorable Artillery I at some African port of small dimen­ Company, and later through the WorId sions and, as he strolled around the out­ War, and fought in the naval attack on skirts of the town, seeing a man with two Zeebrugge: yet when he was with the Irish bulldogs and a walking stick and a Loanda Republican guerillas on the hills in 1922, boy go off into the bush. He was a finely­ tough ragged-breeches who looked the part, built man, around forty, dark-bearded, deep he, too, had the air of the country gentle­ and gentle of eye, with a beetling brow man out for a stroll- with his flat cap, his like an Irish terrier - a handsome fellow, a stiff linen collar, his long raincoat, and bit of a conquistador. A few months after, sometimes a walking stick. One never saw as he happened to be looking into the dusk a weapon on him. There was another friend of the bush at the same spot, Conrad saw of his, also with the guerillas, who had the same man, with his stick, his pack, his been in the Tank Corps in France. Once boy, and his two bulldogs, walk out as when we were, under his leadership, about calmly as if he had been for an afternoon to start a surprise morning attack on the stroll. "He could tell you thingsI Things garrison of a little mountain village, he I've tried to forget; things I never did froze us by asking to be instructed in the know." That was the British consul at use of an ordinary .45 Colt revolver, ex­ S. Paola de Loanda, in Portuguese West plaining that he knew nothing of such Africa, one Casement. things. The attack deliberately fizzled out There are men like him in Conrad's because our fellows, who were bristling books. They move in a cocoon of indiffer­ with weapons, simply could not believe in ence that one might mistake for the absent­ that sort of man. mindedness of a poet, or a dilettante, or the Yet such men are of a type common incompetent grace of a country gentleman, enough, although it takes wars and ad­ if there were not a slightly troubled or ventures to disclose them. Far from being brooding look behind the heavy eyes. Case­ the dilettantes for whom one might mis­ ment's only protection in the jungle, for take them, they reject not merely all pre­ instance, was that walking stick and the occupation wit~ self but all worldly human two white and brindled· bulldogs. Another values as well; instead of being dedicate to man like that (and he also was executed egotism they are dedicate to sacrifice. They for treason against the state except that in have the air of old soldiers home on fur­ his case it was an Irish state and his loyalty lough, carrying themselves with the aloof was to an older Irish dream) was Erskine but friendly air of men resting, looking at 160 ROGER CASEMENT everything with the casual and slightly dis­ The prisoner, blinded by a hatred to this tinguished glance of men for whom all life country, as malignant in quality as it was is either an adventure or a sequence of sudden in origin, has played a desperate hazard: he has played it and lost it: today periods between one adventure and an­ the forfeit' is claimed. other. Men of action,' their minds move swiftly when they are in action: when they In his last speech from the dock, the man are not they become a little tormented and who was about to be hanged replied to tangled, and yet not even then are they the man who had in his time led the Ulster self-engaged, but concerned rather with a rebels against the British Government: teasing out of the values inherent in the The difference between us was that 'my adventures to which they have given their treason was based on a ruthless sincerity support, which are imposed on them by that forced me to attempt to carry out in more clever men, and which could never action what I said in words, whereas their treason lay in verbal incitements.... be brought to success except by their own particular brand of conquistador enthusi­ What would Dwight Morrow have said as asm. There is something dedicate about between these men? He would probably them all, something of the martyr or the have said that neither of them was as good saint~, as if they had indeed come out of a citizen as he ought to have been and a world of inveterate rebels against the that both had been foolish. But he would despotism of fact. Note the deep-set eyes, not be echoed by the majority of men, and or the gentle lips: note in Casement the in fact the cynical Birkenhead was right lifted eyebrow, as if he were asking of - they had both gambled and Casement the world that had suddenly impinged on had lost: that was all. his dreams - "Hello! Still carrying on just There is a sense in which all history is the same? How do you manage it?" I feel bunk, and these three or four careers an­ sure that Sir Galahad ,vore that lifted brow, notate it. Had Casement died in 1914 he and Francis, and Dominic. It is a brow would be on the roll of England's splendid that more worldly men should fear.... dead. T. E. Lawrence, it is said, was will­ The truth is that these men are rebels by ing, after the waf, to come over to his na­ nature, aberrants and solitaries. That is tive Ireland and fight with Michael Collins clear if you compare a man, like Casement for Sinn Fein. Had he done' so he would with a man, let us say, like Dwight Mor­ be no\v, quite possibly, on the roll of those row. Here are two lives of dedication, im­ who bowed their heads under Traitors' mutably inconsonant, and not to be com­ Gate. Glory is a gamble and the definitions pared because the one worked only partially of history go to the winning side. History within the world's code and the other can never deal with men as men because it worked wholly within it, to support it even has to start from the premises laid down if, also, to amend it. Or put between them by victory and consolidated by ·power. Its another type of man, either the man who values are the values of the fait accompli. prosecuted Casement at his trial for high Occasionally, very occasionally, as with a treason,' Sir F. E. Smith, K.C., M.P., later Joan of Are, a great power like the Church Lord Birkenhead, or his friend and com­ of Rome can redress a wrong; or a vast panion in another kind of high treason, revolution can rehabilitate, though even the late Lord Carson. Smith closed his then only for some, the reputation of a speech for the prosecution with the words: prophet. But with little nations like Ire- THE AMERICAN MERCURY land and a great Empire like the British him that the Foreign Office must have the Commonwealth, there is small' hope for truth about that private .cozenage of old gallant losers such as Roger Casement. His Leopold II, he knew what he must endure bones still lie in Pentonville under the to get it, and he had some idea what it quicklime, while men like Dwight Mor­ would be like when he got it. row or Lord Birkenhead can have justice But he had only the very vaguest idea, done to them because their countries were and not even in a nightmare horror could victorious in a great war. Casement's little he have imagined it before he went. He war was won too late to save him. So the must have had many nightmare horrors judgments remain for all time, simply be­ after. Out of that vast insect-buzzing si­ cause-to paraphrase Macaulay's famous lence, that welter of hot rottenness under­ fantasy - the future African tourist, sketch­ foot, porous branches, fallen leaves, crawl­ ing the ruins of Manhattan, will not be ing life, and overhead submarine gloom; bothered to remeasure them by new values. out of the long endlessness of parched grass Men should be measured as men, not as ten feet high, an endlessness of what Eng­ part of social trends. Lawrence knew that lishmen would call "damn-all," he must and so measured himself. Casement knew come in two months with his story of how it and lived accordingly. WeaIth can make a beast of itself. Even before he went he knew how easily any­ II thing at all can happen in a place - if such a region could be called a place - so empty Yet, in and out of their cocoon of scorn, that one sees with a passionate delight a these aberrants do dally with worldly af­ hill a hundred miles away, across the fairs. Though it was young Casement's glittering, murmuring scrub. Anything ambition to be an explorer (and he was that a white man wished to have or do in one for a time and toured America to tell the heart of that oozy disintegration, he it what an' American expedition had di$­ could have and could do and nothing covered along the track of Stanley's march would reply but the unbroken chirruping to the source of the Congo) he later en­ of the globules of obscenity that one some­ tered the British consular service. Then times squashed underfoot. ... from the day he took the boat to Akassa Casement knew the shy native ,life, and on the Niger coast he came to know Africa had come to have a great liking for it. He as few men have ever known it. He was struck oil alone into the bush to question in the French Congo, in Nigeria, in it, and he found whole villages gone, dis­ Angola, in Mozambique, working for the appeared, since his last visit to the same British Government as trade commissioner region a few years before. There had been or consul, so that when he found himself mud huts and savages then. Farther up at in 1903 at Kinshassa in the Belgian Congo the junction of the Lulanga there had been he had lived north, south, east, and west of cannibals and pygmies: and slaves had that seventh wonder of the world, the loop been driven in herds. But now, they were of river that cuts Africa like a reaping gone - and he felt lonely. He was one hook. Already the stories had begun to man against a whole system and he was seep down to him out of the oily and on the side of the natives and the flight of slumbrous darkness of the Upper Congo's these natives made him feel isolated. A jungle-gloom, and when Lansdowne told new silence was added to the inexorable ROGER CASEMENT silence of Africa. The solitary was ma­ native he may have to answer for it to the rooned. commissioner. For his work Casement was Such loneliness is never kind, but it is made a Companion of the Order of St. terrifying when it is a man's direct enen1Y. Michael and St. George. For the thing that makes the gorge rise Eight years later he was Consul Gen­ about the Congo brutalities is the impene­ eral at Rio de Janeiro, and was inquiring trable secrecy of the place where they oc­ into similar evils in the Putamayo rubber curred. The natives were safe once by industry, 3000 miles up the Amazon. He reason of the darkness of Africa: it was reported things that were not even printed now their foe. If they fled they knew that in the Blue Book subsequently issued; for their taskmasters would follow them as here he dealt with men who were not implacably as the little cloudlets overhead, merely brutal but perverted, men whose moving endlessly across the hot sky. l'he "civilization" suggested to them ingenious deeper they went into the glaucous dusk forms of torture. A man named Jimenez of the jungle the more did secrecy wrap took an old Indian woman, strung her their helplessness. In some clearing, be­ naked between two trees, and lit a fire of cause they had not brought in rubber forty leaves under her. The Barbados man who times the value of what they were paid gave this evidence admitted that he saw their black fellows would fall on them, the great blisters rise on her thighs while worn out and tired as they were, and she screamed with pain. They did other then.... women were shot.... a white things to women that one would not wish man used to put six natives in a row, belly to recall. The voyage went on for months. to back, and kill them with one bullet. When it was over Casement's fight to ef­ ... or they were tied up, even the chief­ fect real reformation continued for more tains, to a post in the settlement and than a year, for he and the British were flogged and made to swallow the defeca­ thwarted constantly by the sloth or in­ tions of the white man. ... soldiers were difference or graft of the Peruvians. In the told to unman their victims, and the hu­ end it was largely through Taft and the man parts were brought back as the sign of British ambassador at Washington that the kill. . . . a youth was tied to a tree the report was published. For his work, all night until the thongs of his wrists cut the last work he did as a British servant, to the bone: in the morning soldiers bat­ Casement was made a knight. There is a tered off the hands with rifle butts. ... certain irony in the admission. He had Casement saw the hands.... he saw always been a knight. the stumps of arms. Day after dGl:Y he wrote down the details, names, dates­ III saw missionaries who told him in heart­ breaking voices of this frustration of all So far Casement had devoted himself to they taught. And he was back at the coast the magnificent ta'sk of upholding all that under two months of the date he set out, was best in the code of a great country. with his mass of documents. It is thanks Now, forty-eight years old, he retired from to him and the energy of the British Gov­ the consular service on a pension. ("I ernment that today Leopold-Kinshassa is served the British Government faithfully ten times its size, that the natives have and loyally," he wrote in 1915 to Sir Ed­ come back, that if a white even strikes a ward Grey, "as long as it was possible for THE AMERICAN MERCURY me to do so.") At his trial the Crown Now, six years later, he was back again Prosecutor was to speak of a hate for in Antrim, free of all avocations that England "as malignant as it was, sudden". might distract him from dedication to his I do not believe he ever hated England, own people. And he was back at a time but I think he never believed particularly when "King" Carson was already beating in the code, and his disbelief in it was not the big drum of Ulster and threatening sudden. As early as 1905, between the the Liberal Government with civil war. Congo and Brazil, he had been back in But it was only a few years to the outbreak Ireland in the glens of Antrim, and like of the European war and Casement had all these adventurers, brooding between long seen it coming; and if the fight for their adventures, he had begun to brood Home Rule had reached that stage when, on Ireland. He was ,a wanderer, however, as in a drawn-out boxing match, the an­ and he was a Protestant Irishman, one of tagonists were so weary that it seemed a the minority; and he had left Ireland as a matter of chance which would win, Case­ mere boy. It was in the worst period of ment had no belief in the Liberal Govern­ Nationalist politics, the doldrums after ment, and less belief in John Redmond, Parnell's fall that he came, far from home, the Irish leader, and he could understand to his maturity. It took him a long time to Carson's deliberate defiance and the weight work his way back, out of the tangle of his it would pull with the English Tories. In equivocal connection with the Empire, to Coleraine, in September, 1912, the autumn a clear understanding of his own country's of his return to Ireland, he could have relationship to that Empire. But, even in heard that saturnine, ruthless, and fearless 1906, after he had left Ireland for Santos, man cry, as he fought for Ulster's right to had the British secret service been more remain within the Empire: "I do not care alert, it would have been shocked to peruse whether it is treason or not!" So that the letters of one of its apparently most de­ when, in a back room of a Dublin hotel voted servants. less than a year later, a few Southern Irish For Casement had (he said so himself founded the Irish National Volunteers, in his diary) in the nineteen months he Casement felt it was the only proper reply, spent so happily among the simple Ulster and at once gave his name as one of the folk, and in conversation with the young trustees. men and women who were already laying After that things moved quickly. On the the mine of the 1916 rebellion, sown in night of April 24, 1914, 35,000 rifles were his heart the seed of all his subsequent ac­ landed for Carson's army at Larne from tions. I have seen letter after letter, sent the Norwegian steamer Fanny out of from. South America to his devoted friend, Hamburg. On Sunday afternoon, July 26, Bulmer Hobson, one of the most active Erskine Childers and his wife appeared off and persistent of the secret society of the Dublin with a yacht. containing 2500 rifles Irish Republican Brotherhood, in which and 125,000 rounds of ammunition. Gun­ he writes as an Irish Nationalist, pure and running was the order of the day. Then at simple. He contributed to their revolution­ midnight on August 4, the whole Irish ary papers over a pseudonym; he even crisis was blown to bits by the outbreak of helped to write a pamphlet against re­ the World War. A month later, Casement, crUiting; and, as always, his hand was ever now in New York City plotting with the in his pocket to help with hard cash. Irish revolutionaries, wrote in an Open ROGER CASEMENT

Letter to the Irish People enough treason ment, his loyal friend, Captain Robert to hang any man. He had taken the last Monteith, and a Sergeant Beverley of the step. His journey to Berlin via Christiania, Brigade, a trained machine-gunner, in a where he landed in October, 1914, was submarine. The plan was that the dis­ merely the implementing of what he said guised trader, the Aud, was to be off the in that letter. His last adventure was the Kerry coast after ten o'clock at night, on effort to form in Germany, from among either April 20, 21, 22, or 23. The Irish Irish prisoners of war, and bring to Ire­ revolutionaries were to station a pilot boat land, a brigade of troops to be called the off Innistusket Island from that hour to Irish Brigade. For that, precisely, they dawn on each of these nights. The pilot hanged him. should bear two green lights that would flash at intervals, and so meet and guide IV the gunrunner into Fenit I-Iarbor. Casement, Monteith, and Beverley left Casement was already worn out when Helgoland in the U-19 on April 14, and he reached Berlin and, like Wolfe Tone for five days they battered their way with the French Directory in 1796, found around the north of Scotland and Ireland, it trying and wearying day in and day out and down the west coast towards T ralee to argue with the German General Staff, Bay. Not once did they sight a British and the Foreign Office in the Wilhelm­ warship. Monteith was able to spend most strasse: for not merely were they troubled of the day in oilskins on the conning by doubts of their own, but even from .left­ tower. Casement was too ill and weak to wing Irish-American sources doubts were climb up into the cold air through the tiny being instilled into them about Casement. manholes. On April 20, after dark had And he was not a young man, now, like fallen, they throbbed past the Shannon, Tone with his merry" 'Tis but in vain for and as they had sighted the gunrunner soldiers to complain" that runs all through two miles to starboard a few hours earlier, that most vivid and amusing diary of his; they had good reason to feel that things or Lord Edward; or Emmet. He was fifty­ were proceeding according to plan. It was one, and he was a worn man. a dark night. There were no stars. The sea The organizing and the persuading and moved in a slight swell. They crowded the the plotting went on into the spring of conning tower and stared and stared for 1916, and then, in March, the Irish revolu­ the two winking green lights of the pilot. tionaries informed the Germans that they They never came. Either Stack, the local had decided to rise on Easter Sunday, commandant, or Dublin headquarters had April 23. They .. asked for a shipload of made a fatal error. arms, and officers. The General Staff, after At last the commander of the V-boat the usual haggling, agreed to send 20,000 wou:ld wait no longer. He turned and rifles, well over a million rounds of am­ steamed swiftly into the bay. Casement munition, some machine guns and ammu­ was informed that they would all three be nition; but no field guns, and no officers. put ashore. They do not appear, any of The arms would be loaded on a steamer them, to have questioned the wisdom of disguised as a Norwegian trader, under a this, and in any case they were so ashamed layer of lumber. They refused to provide and appalled at the disaster of the missing an escort, but finally decided to send Case- pilot and the abandoned Aud that they 166 THE AMERICAN MERCURY seem not to have been able, poor devils, to and answered smilingly, "Yes, Captain think at all. The, submarine wallowed Monteith, we've had a little adventure, and are much nearer the end of the chapter." slowly inshore, a big gray fish of the night. ... Had I known what the end of the They were put into a little cockleshell of a chapter was really going to be, I would boat - it was produced later at the trial have let him sleep into eternity in the and looks rather like a big basin with a foaming water of Banna Strand, the water fat tube for gasoline around it, for an out­ that had tried to be kind to one of Ire­ land's heroes. board motor could be attached - and then the submarine vanished into the night, They hid Casement - ill, stiff, discour­ and they began to rise and fall on the aged - in an old fort while they pushed Atlantic waves. on into Tralee to give warning and get They rowed. It seemed to take hours, help. Unknown and suspected as they although they could see the beach with its were, it took time; and before a car could long line of foam and hear the dull sound reach the fort Casement had been arrested of pounding breakers. The waves threat­ by police. Eve~ in his misery he kept some­ ened them continually and once tossed thing of his urbane sense of humor, for he them upside down into the sea; but they told the police he was an author. "What were wearing lifebelts, the boat did not book did you write?" they asked. "A life sink, and with effort they righted it. They of Saint Brendan," he said. As he sat in rowed again; they stuck· on a sand bank; the ancient fort, with his teeth chattering and in trying to push off, Monteith fell and his body feverish, he must have been overboard once more. At last they felt the ruminating on all the Irish voyagers he beach grate under them and they tumbled, knew, for Brendan's Voyage, a ninth­ soaked to the skin, utterly exhausted, waist­ century legend, is one of the most famous deep into the sea. Monteith's description of the sagas of the old Celtic church. It of this landing, in his splendid book Case­ ~a~ a voyage in which there were many ment's Last Adventure, is one of the most VISIons of Heaven and Hell, and its aim moving things I have ever read: was to reach the Happy Otherworld, or I found my companions stretched on the Land of Promise whose allure has so often sand, weary and exhausted. I do not think inflamed the imagination of the Irish race. that Casement was even conscious. He was The Rising broke out on Easter Monday. lying away below high-water mark, the It was crushed in a week. By May 13 sea lapped his body from head to foot, his e~es were closed and in the dim moonlight many men had been sentenced to death or hIS face resembled that of a sleeping child. to life imprisonment, and about 2500 had I dragged him to his feet and chafed his been deported. Among them was a young hands and feet as best I could, while the man named Michael Collins who, on his water ran. from his hair and clothing: then release, began to organize at once for the I made hIm move about to restore his cir­ culation.... r~volutionary years to follow. But by then When we had warmed up a little we Str Roger Casement had been tried, found wrung out our clothing and felt a little guilty, unknighted, and hanged. more comfortable. I said to Casement, with There it is, then. Casement is dead, and as much cheerfulness as I could muster Carson is dead, and Birkenhead is dead, "Well, Sir Roger, we've had the little ad~ venture and got through it alright." He and every Irishman thinks Casement a patted me on the shoulder as was his way patriot, and nine out of ten Englishmen ROGER CASEMENT believe him a traitor, and legally and by ion's questioning glance. "Paddy is a good all the forms that govern human relation­ fellow. His wife is getting on well now, ships he was one. He was a traitor to Brit­ and the baby is fine." For within ten min­ ish prestige, to the British code, to British utes he seemed to know more about people history, to the long and truly admirable he met casually, and who liked him on the traditions of England - admirable for spot, than others might find out in ten England, that is - a traitor to Elizabeth, years. Or they recall that although he and Peel, and Clive, and the Industrial would always arrive with, maybe, half a Revolution, and Cobbett, and Tennyson, year's salary, he would, before he left, be and Rudyard Kipling: in brief, to the living on an overdraft - the whole thing status quo. He was, possibly, not a very gIven away. clever man as cleverness goes, and of But it is the penalty of fame that men be­ worldly wisdom he had little. (It might come symbols, whether for good or ill. even be thought by some that because he One passes no final judgment on Case­ belonged to a small nation he should have ment because one knows that all human devoted his talents to a big nation: which beings read these symbols out of the past, is much like saying that there should be no according to their own ambitions, their small towns only big ones, no small farms own desires, their own hopes or their own only collective ones, no private ambitions fears as to what life ought or ought not only communal ones.) But we Irish revere to be. him because, quite simply, he was that rare As I write, they are laying Carson's body thing - an integrated man. in reverence in the Westminster Abbey of I do not believe his friends think of him Belfast. As I write, Roger Casement's bones entirely .as that. They see him in some lie under a prison wall, marked by a num­ Dublin hotel and he is talking with the bered brick. It is a strange world, one chambermaid or the boots like an old thinks - and having thought it, one real­ friend. "Ah, yes," he smiles to a compan- izes that there is no more to say. ~~~~~SC~::~.Ki~~~~~~~n~~J~~~ ~ THE STATE OF THE UNION I~ ..J BY ALBERT JAY NOCK

Progress Toward Collectivism

N CONVERSATION with me not long ago, row and get itself out of its own messes I one of my friends was speculating on as best it might. what might have happened in 1932 if the . I did not agree. My belief was, and is, government had taken a stand directly that the business world would have acted opposite to the one it did take. "Suppose, like a herd of drug-addicts whose rations for instance," he said, "that in his inaugu­ had been suddenly cut off, for in its rela­ ral address, Mr. Roosevelt had said: 'The tions with the government that is precisely banks are closed, and you are all looking what the representative business world of to the government to open then1 again America has always been and is now - a and get them going. You will look in herd of addicts. It has always believed vain. You think it is the first duty of a that the one governmental function which government to help business. It is not. dwarfs all others to insignificance is to The only concern that government has "help business". Let any kind of industry with banking or any other business is to get itself into any kind of clutter, and it see that it is run honestly, to punish any is the government's duty to intervene and and every form of fraud, and to enforce straighten out the mess. This belief has the obligations of contract. This govern­ prevailed from the beginning; it has ment has .no concern with the present seeped down from the business world and plight of the banks, except to see that any pervaded the general population so 'thor­ banker who acts dishonestly goes to jail oughly that I doubt whether there are five - and to jail he shall go.'" hundred people in the country who have My friend thought that a good many any other view of what government is people in the business world would have really for. It seems to me, therefore, as I drawn a long breath of relief at the an­ said, that the abrupt announcement of a nouncement of such a policy. They would change of policy would have merely cheerfully have said good-bye to their dol­ thrown the people en masse into the im­ lars that had been impounded or embez­ becile hysteria of hopheads who are bereft zled, for the sake of hearing that the gov­ of their supplies. ernment proposed thenceforth to keep This belief being as deeply rooted as it hands strictly off business, except to see is - the belief that the one end and aim of that it was run honestly; or in other words, government is to help business - the his­ that as far as business was concerned the tory of government in America is a history government would limit itself strictly to of ever-multiplying, ever-progressive inter­ making justice costless, accessible, sure, ventions upon the range of individual ac­ swift, and impartial. Aside from this it tion. First in one situation, then in another, would leave business free to hoe its ovvn first on this pretext, then on that, the gov- 168 THE STATE OF THE UNION

ernment has kept continually stepping in merely to put it into mine, as in the case on the individual with some mode of co­ of the processing taxes, for example - that ercive mandate, until we all have come to is a positive intervention. These two kinds think that invoking governmental inter­ of intervention answer to two entirely dif­ vention is as much the regular and com­ ferent ideas of what government is, and monplace thing as turning on water at a what it is for. Negative intervention an­ tap or throwing an electric-light switch. swers to the idea expressed in the Declara­ Professor Ortega y Gasset gives a good de­ tion of Independence, that government is scription of the American attitude towards instituted to secure certain natural rights the State. The ordinary man, he says, "sees to the individual, and after that must let it, admires it, knows that there it is. ... him strictly alone. It is exactly the idea Furthermore, the luass-man sees in the attributed to the legendary King Pausole, State an anonymous power, and feeling who had only two laws for his kingdom, himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the first one being, Hurt no man, and the the State is something of his own. Suppose second, Then do as you please. that in the public life of a country some Positive intervention does not answer to difficulty, conflict, or problem, presents it­ this idea of government at all. It ansvvers self, the mass-man will tend to demand to the idea that government is a machine that the State intervene immediately, and for distributing economic advantage, a ma­ undertake a solution directly, with its im­ chine for you to use, if you can get hold of mense and unassailable resources." This is it, for the purpose of helping your own what America has always done. Moreover, business and hurting somebody else's. Pur­ apart from any public difficulty or prob­ suant to this idea of government, the ma­ lem, when the mass-man wants something chine is manned by a sort of pr~torian very much, when he wants to get an ad­ guard, a crew of extremely low and ap­ vantage over somebody, or wants to swin­ proachable persons who are not there for dle somebody, or wants an education, or a their health, but because they are beset by job, or hospital treatment, or even a hand­ the demons of need, greed, and vainglory. out, his impulse is to run to the State with Then when I want an economic advantage a demand for intervention. of some kind, I join with others who have The thing to be noticed about this is that the same interest, and thus accumulate State intervention in' business is of two enough influence to induce the machine­ kinds, negative and positive. If I forge a crew to start the wheels going and grind check, break ~ a contract, misrepresent my out a positive intervention - a subsidy, assets, bilk my shareholders, or sophisticate land-grant, concession, franchise, or what­ my product, the State intervenes and pun­ ever it is that I and my group desire. ishes me.. This is a negative intervention. This latter idea of what government is When the State sets up a business of its for is the only one thatever existed in this own in competition with mine, when it country. The idea expressed by Mr. Jeffer­ waters down the currency, kills pigs, plows son in the Declaration, expressed in the under cotton, labels potatoes; when it goes clearest and most explicit language by in for a Planned Economy or when it uses Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, its taxing power to redistribute wealth in­ did not last as long in the consciousness of stead of for revenue - that is, when it America as a pint of whisky in a lumber takes money out of other people's pockets camp. When Cornwallis disappeared from TI-IE AMERICAN MERCURY public view after the surrender at York­ trenchment of a larger and larger bu­ town, this idea also disappeared, never to reaucracy, it became steadily more indif­ return. Before the new government took ferent, subservient, and corrupt, until it its seat in 1789, the industrial interests were developed into the moral monstrosity that fully organized, ready, and waiting with a it now is. One hundred and thirty-five demand for positive intervention; and years ago, Mr. Jefferson said that if the from that day to this, the demand for this, American government ever became com­ that, or the other positive intervention has pletely centralized, it would be the most gone on incessantly. This is what is actu­ corrupt on earth; and the single instance ally meant by "helping business". None of of the Maine campaign in 1934 is probably the groups which dickers with. the ma­ enough to show that it is now entitled to chine-crew for an intervention to help busi­ that distinction. ness really cares two straws about helping The perversion of the idea that govern­ business. What they want is an interven­ ment exists to help business is responsible tion to help their business; and since posi­ for this. All a government can properly tive State intervention cannot help them and safely do to help business is what the without hurting somebody else - for Declaration says it is supposed to do­ obviously no positive intervention can be maintain individual rights, punish any good for everyone - it follows that they trespass on those rights, and otherwise let want that also. the individual alone. This would be a real Thus it has come to be accepted on all help to business, and a great help. But this sides that government exists mainly for is not the idea and never has been.· The just this purpose. The securing of human idea, as I have said, is that the government rights, the che~p, prompt,·and effective ad­ should help some special business to the ministration of justice - all this is re­ detriment of others, according as one or garded as secondary. In fact, we now see another person or group is able to influ­ governments everywhere notoriously dis­ ence the machine-gang to work the State regarding justice and human rights. Na­ machine for a positive intervention; poleon on St. Helena said that in fifty It is easy to see how serious collisions of years all Europe would be either repub­ interest are thus provoked. First, say, the lican or cossack - well, here you have it. steelmakers want an intervention. They They show no concern with justice, but run to the government about it. Then the only with law -law which they them­ textile people want one, then the glass­ selves manufacture, mostly by irresponsible makers, then this-and-that type of indus­ decree, or what in this country is called trialist follows suit. Then the shipping "executive order," to suit their own pur­ concerns and the railroads want interven­ poses. The American government has al­ tions. They run to the government. Then ways been conspicuous for its indifference the farmers want one, organized labor to justice, its disreputable subservience to wants one, the ex-soldiers want one, the expediency, its devotion to a corrupt and unemployed want one, the hoboes want corrupting legalism. It started out that one, and when each of these interests way, and with its steady progress in ceIl;­ thinks it can muster force enough - force tralization, its steady accumulation of co­ of numbers or of money or of political in~ ercive power over more and more of the fluence - to make an impression on the individual citizen's activities, its steady en- machine-crew, it runs to the government. THE STATE OF THE UNION 171

The technique of procedure is always State had never made any poSItive inter­ the same. The machine-crew is a purely ventions upon the banking business or any professional organization; it is interested other business, a perfectly competent bank­ in helping no business but its own. It does ing law could be set up in ten lines, non­ not care to listen to considerations of the pareil. The action of the State in trying to general welfare of business or of anything check exploitation of one positive inter­ else. Dealing with it is a pure matter of vention by making another and another in quid pro quo. It is interested in votes, in a series of ever-increasing particularity, is campaign funds, and in patronage. It is like the action of a horse that has stepped governed mainly by fear; therefore it is in quicksand - each succeeding step only especially interested in colorable threats of sinks him deeper. opposition - in other words, blackmail. It The State, however, is always glad to is easy to recall how horribly it was har­ take advantage of these collisions of inter­ ried by the lash of the Anti-Saloon League, est, because each positive intervention and we are now seeing it kept awake widens the scope of its own jurisdiction, nights by dread of the Townsendites, Sin­ enhances its prestige, and adds to its ac­ clairites, Olsonites, La Folletteites, share­ cumulation of power. It cuts down the in­ the..wealthers, and other irreconcilables. dividual's margin of action, and pushes up Therefore the seekers after. State interven­ the State's margin. These gains are all tion must propose satisfactory terms of made at the expense of society, so it may brokerage in one or another of the fore­ be said that, in the social view, the State's going ways, and if they are able to do so, positive interventions are a mechanism for the intervention is forthcoming. converting social power into State power; The employment of this technique the reason being that there is no other brings about a condition that invites source from which State power can be unscrupulous exploitation. Consequently, drawn. All the power the State has is what whenever the State makes a positive inter­ society gives it, or what under one pretext vention, it is at once urged to make an­ or another it confiscates from society; and other one to regulate or supervise this ex­ all the power thus transferred which is ploitation in behalf of persons or groups spent on expanding and maintaining the which are unfavorably affected. This sec­ State's structure is just so much out of ond intervention is found in turn to be what society can apply to its own purposes. exploitable, interested persons proceed to This can be illustrated in terms of exploit it, and the State makes another money. There seems to be an impression intervention at the request of influential in some quarters that the State has money groups who are being squeezed. Then of its own. It has none. All the money it further exploitation, another intervention, has is what it takes from society, and so­ then another and so on indefinitely, pyra­ ciety gets money by the production of miding set after set of exploitable compli­ wealth; that is, by applying labor and capi­ cations, until the whole structure falls to tal to natural resources. There is no other pieces at a touch, as our banking structure way to produce ,,,ealth than this, and did three years ago. I was interested to see hence there is no source but production that the new banking bill proposed last from which money can be got. All the summer by the Senate covered almost four money that the State takes by way of taxes, pages of the JVall Street JournalI If the therefore, must come out of production, THE AMERICAN MERCURY for there is no other place for it to come II from. All it takes, then, leaves society with that much less to go on with. In the foregoing I have tried to show a few The same thing is true with regard to of the signs and roadmarks on the way to the rest of society's resources. We.all know collectivism, and to give an idea of the that certain virtues and integrities are the distance America has already gone along root of stability. Wealth has relativelylittle that way, and also to show what the stimu­ to do with keeping society's head above lus is that is driving us continually further. water; the character and spirit of the peo­ Collectivism means the absorption of all ple is what does it. Every positive inter­ social power by the State; it means that vention of the State tends to reduce the the individual lives for the State. As an margin of existence which the individual individual, he ceases to exist; he can think is free to regulate for himself; and to the of himself, as so many millions of our extent to which it does reduce it, it is a people now do, as only a creature of the levy on character. Independence of mind, State. The free, intelligent exercise of those self-respect, dignity, self-reliance":-' such virtues and integrities which are the capi­ virtues are the real and great resources of tal resources of society is replaced by a society, and every confiscation of them by wholly irrational and canine obedience to the State leaves society just so much the minutice of coercive State control. poorer. For instance, in 1932, when Mr. Collectivism is the orderly and inevitable Roosevelt announced the doctrine that the upshot of the course we have taken from State owes every citizen a living, the State, the beginning. The country is committed under his direction, took advantage of an to collectivism, not by circumstances, not unusual contingency to bring about a by accident, not by anything but a pro­ wholesale conversion of social power into gressive degeneration in the spirit and State power. As we all know, it made a character of a whole people under the cor­ prodigious levy on social money-power, rupting influence of a dominant idea­ but that is relatively a small matter. So­ the idea that government exists to help ciety will never get it back - the machine­ business. I have already several times said crew, operating under whatever political publicly - and I have been much blamed label, will see to that - but further levies for saying it, when I have not been merely may for a time be somewhat checked, ridiculed - not only that I firmly believe though probably very little. What America America is headed for out-and-out collec­ does not realize is that the intervention of tivism, but that the momentum we have 1932 put a levy on the character of the peo­ gained in a century and· a half is now so ple which is beyond any estimate and be­ strong that nothing can be done about it, yond any possible hope of recovery. There and certainly nothing can be done about are millions of people in the country today its consequences. In saying this I have been who not only believe that the State owes guided only by observing the dominance them a living, but who are convinced that of this one idea throughout our history, they will never get a living unless the State by observing the marked degeneration in gives it to them. They are so despoiled of character and spirit which I speak of, and the moral resources that alone keep society by perceiving the natural necessity where­ in vigor that one may say they look to the by the one must follow upon the other. It State to validate every breath they draw. strikes me that any thoughtful American THE STATE OF THE UNION 173 may well and prayerfully take notice of business world. I can not imagine that where we have come out on the deal by there are a baker's dozen in that world which we got the thing symbolized by the who would regard a government that stars and stripes and E Pluribus Unum in really kept its hands off business - which exchange for the thing symbolized.by the is what some of them pretend to want - as rattlesnake flag of the horse-and-buggy anything but an appalling calan1ity, worse days, with its legend, Don't Tread On Me. than the earthquake of Lisbon. We can An acquaintance said to me the other almost hear the yells of horror that would day that he did not believe the country go up from every chamber of commerce, could stand another four years under Mr. bankers' conference, and Rotarian lunch­ Roosevelt. I said I had no opinion about table, if they were suddenly confronted with that; what I was sure of was that no coun­ a governmental announcement that the try could stand indefinitely being ruled by policy of positive intervention was hence­ the spirit and character of a people who forth and forever in the discard. Suppose would tolerate Mr. Roosevelt for fifteen the next President, whoever he may be, minutes, let alone four years. I was of should say in his inaugural address: "No course speaking of the· generic Roosevelt; more positive interventions of any kind. the personal Roosevelt is a mere bit of the The Department of Commerce and the Oberhefe which specific gravity brings to Department of Labor will shut up shop the top of the Malebolge of politics. He tomorrow. No more concern with any does not count, and his rule does not form of business except to see that it is count. What really counts is the spirit and run straight, and no more legalism·about character of a people willing under any that, either. Beginning tomorrow, the De­ circumstances whatever to accept the partment of Justice will cease being a De­ genus, whether the individual specimen partment of Law, and become a real who offers himself be named Roosevelt, Department of Justice." Would the busi­ Horthy, Hitler, Mussolini, or Richard Roe. ness world welcome a statement of policy A republic is adjusted to function at the like that? Hardly. Thus it would appear level of the lowest common denonlinator that the level of the lowest common de­ of its people. I take it that among many nominator is in this respect pretty low. pretty clear indications of where that level In other words, practically no one wants stands in America, one is the fact, if it be the uniform policy of positive State inter­ a fact, that twelve million signatures have vention changed for a uniform policy of been subscribed to petitions for the Town­ purely negative intervention. Each would send Plan. I have only a press report as probably be willing enough to see that authority for this, so let us discount it fifty policy vacated in the case of all the others; per cent for journalistic enterprise, and say but to see it vacated for him is simply six million. Here then, apparently, is a something that will not bear thinking good share of the population which not about. only does not want the government to Very well, then, the question is, how stop making positive interventions upon can America insist upon a policy of tak­ the individual, but is urging it to multiply ing all the successive steps which lead di­ them to an extent hitherto unheard of. rectly to collectivism, and yet avoid col­ Then on the other hand, there is what in lectivism? I do not see how it can be done. the popular scale of speech is called the Nor do I see how' it is possible to have 174 THE AMERICAN MERCURY collectivism and not incur the conse­ Rome in the third century, when there was quences of collectivism. The vestiges of simply not enough production to pay the many civilizations are witness that it has State's bills. never yet been done, nor is it at all clear I repeat that I can see no better prospect how the present civilization can make it­ than this as long as .the tendency to col­ self exempt. lectivism goes on unchecked, and as I have Crossing the ocean last year, I struck up shown, there seems to be no discoverable an acquaintance with a lawyer from New disposition to check it - the prevailing York. Our talk turned on public affairs, spirit and character of the people, on the and he presently grew confidential. He contrary, seem all in its favor. Well then, said: "I could work five times as hard as I I should say agreement must be made with do, and make more than:f1ve times the the conclusion of Professor· Ortega y Gas­ money I do, but why should I? The gov­ set, that "the result of this tendency will be ernment would take most of my money fatal. Spontaneous social action will be away, and the balance would not be broken up over and over again by State enough to pay for the extra work." intervention; no new seed will be able to One can generalize from this incident, fructify. Society will have to live for the insignificant as it is. The cost of the State's State, men for the governmental machine. positive interventions has to be paid out And as after all it is only a machine, whose of production, and thus they tend to retard existence and maintenance depend on the production, according to the maxim that vital supports around it, the State, after the power to tax is the power to destroy. sucking out the very marrow of society, The resulting stringencies, inconveniences, will be left bloodless, a skeleton, dead with and complications bring about further in­ the rusty death of machinery, more grue­ terventions which still further depress pro­ some than the death of a living organism. duction; and these sequences are repeated Such was the lamentable fate of ancient until production ceases entirely, as it did at civilization". PORTRAIT OF A LIFER

BY NO. 772.60

HAVE been a criminal for twenty-five in life is of reaching to a store counter and years. I have had the benefit - if it helping myself to a package of dates. My I was a benefit - of all known methods mother grabbed my arm and I dropped the for treating maladjusted youth. I have been loot. But the grocer insisted that I keep it. institutionalized, hospitalized, ostracized, My parents were active church people. and disfranchised, and here I am;..- a lifer. My dad was a Sunday School superintend­ Why? Obviously something was wrong ent, and my mother belonged to the Ladies with the treatment, or with me, or with Aid Society. We children certainly had both. sufficient religious training. Preaching al­ This isn't written in an attempt to find ways had a profound effect on me - while excuses for a sordid life. Society regards I was being preached to - but no sooner me as a monster; my former friends con­ did I leave the church than I felt an urge sider me a scoundrel; perhaps I have a to rebel. I resented the many "Thou shalt worse opinion of myself. Yet I am suf­ nots". Staying home of a Sunday after­ ficiently sane to know that criminals often noon, or going to the children's meeting have only themselves to blame. I confess while the neighborhood kids were at play, that we are quick to exaggerate any injus­ did not appeal to me. I began staying away tice, while prone to disregard the conse­ from home. quences of our vicious acts. And I realize I was ten years old when I got to playing that when a convict attempts to review the truant from school, stealing trifles, having past, the audience is likely to suspect that fistfights, and so on. When caught, I ,vas his reasoning consists largely of angling punished severely, and made to kneel with for arguments in extenuation. But some­ my parents while they prayed for me; yet times even the criminal wonders. ... I went right out and repeated the offense. A few days ago, in this Eastern prison Caught once more, my dad would try buy­ where I must remain for the rest of my ing me a football or some other desirable days, we received ten new convicts. Eight possession. No matter, I was soon into mis­ of them came by way of Truant School, chief again. Training School, and Reformatory. Most An air rifle caught my fancy. With an­ of them were. very young. An old-time other youngster, I broke into a store and prisoner remarked to me: "People nowa­ stole several of them. I was arrested· and days must be throwing guns into the cra­ placed on probation. My mother then dles instead of rattles." bought a rifle for me. But in a day or two Well, I was a tough kid, too; as soon as I tired of it. Thus, although I could have I could get about·I evinced a desire to steal what I wanted by simply asking for it, I whatever I fancied. My earliest recollection preferred to steal. Finally, after being 175 THE AMERICAN MERCURY scolded, petted, whipped, and rewarded, I I drove my foot into his body. He sank was packed off to Truant School. into a quivering, agonized heap - and I On the first night the dormitory monitor went to the cooler. - one of the older boys - offered to en­ As I recall it, I was amazed at myself, lighten me on subjects for which I had and yet I was scared, too. I had not known only an instinctive revulsion. My protesta­ I was capable of such an act; I had never tion brought the nightwatchman. The before been brutal. In any event the cooler monitor told him that I had created the held me for five days. They were inter­ disturbance. The watchman whaled hell minable days; there is no punishment out of me with a bamboo cane. A smolder­ more severe than solitary confinement. ing rage was fired in me that night. I don't My exhibition of savagery had both think the pain of the whipping affected me good and bad effects.·The bully gave me a as much as did the injustice, the sense of wide berth and the submissive kids looked being powerless, and the wounding of my up to me as a tough guy. I wasn't, really, childish ego. For years thereafter anyone but so they told the new boys and some of representing authority was an enemy, to be them tried me out. I lost many fights, and fought blindly. Perhaps, being a cantan­ the more I lost the more I had. Appar­ kerous kid, I was seeking an excuse for an ently everyone wanted to fight the fellow active dislike of my guardians; because who was not so tough as he seemed. I many times in later years I opposed kindly fought so often that it was only natural efforts in my behalf, injuring myself but for me to learn the psychology of the first soothing a strange internal hatred. punch. Let that one be hefty; let a savage For weeks, after that first night in snarl go with it, and the fight was half Truant School, I was moody and sullen. won. One boy taught me something by I brooded over the licking and the moni­ sneaking up from behind to lay me flat tor's treachery, and encouraged myself to with a crack on the ear. Later, I conquered do what I knew would harm me more others by the san1e method. Then I was than my intended victim. I punched the sent home. (Of the one hundred Truant monitor on the nose. It was not much of School inmates, I later found at least a punch, yet it earned me savage punish­ seventy in the reformatory or the state ment. Really a kicking; he booted me. prison.) This was a new experience. I saw the same Looking back now on that return home, method used to subdue many obstreperous it seems that I failed to click with the boys. It never failed, and I wondered if neighborhood youngsters. They went to the system might not be used in subduing the beach or to the ball games with8ut me; the very fellow who so generously took I was one of them, yet a barrier had been advantage of it. In a few days I had fos­ raised by my trip to Truant School. Too tered enough courage to make another bid nearsighted to be proficient at athletics, I for revenge. In the playground we per­ continuously thought up some deviltry in formed an exercise called "Bend the order to win more plaudits from the gang. Crab", raising the arms over the head, in­ Often my schemes scared the boys, and clining backwards until the palms were always frightened the girls. I could not flat to the ground and the body arched. understand that what I considered plain I watched the monitor bend back. As soon daring was to others an indication of as his hands touched the earth behind him viciousness. For instance I recall the day PORTRAIT OF A LIFER 177 when some of the other boys had won swinging a mop handle at his head. The fifty-cent prizes at a Democratic club iron attachlnent struck his temple. The athletic meet, and were going to Coney matron said I had killed him. But he didn't Island for the evening. die. (Ed Winans, have you much of a "Too bad you didn't win something so scar today?) you could come," said one of them. That incident put me in the punishment An elderly woman was walking down squad, where we stood in rows all day the opposite side of the street. From her doing exercises. Some of the boys fainted hand dangled a pocketbook. after the first hour or so, but a couple of "I'll get mine, don't worry", I laughed, kicks in the ribs usually restored them. and cut across to follow her. My heart The squad was under the command of pounded; this was something new, some­ Guinea Frank. Now, gentlemen, I've seen thing exceptionally daring. If I could get some brutal men during my career; I've away with it just once, I'd show the boys seen men stab and shoot the life out of who was the McCoy. As the woman each other, yet behind their acts there ap­ turned the corner I slipped behind her and peared to be some reason, no matter how snatched the purse. I fled across the street, vicious. But Guinea Frank- there was a through a vacant lot, into a church, and true sadist! He had an actual passion for down to the lavatory. There I emptied the snatching a razor strop and flaying the pocketbook, threw it into the water box, hide, head, and back of us. You should took off my cap and jacket, and strolled have seen Frank snorting, shouting in his back to where the boys were standing wide broken English, roaring with maniacal eyed. I stuck out my chest and looked laughter, and wading into that crowd of around for a few compliments. But the kids. He was such a terrifying animal that gang promptly ran away; ran away and we actually feared him. All we could do left me. was grit our teeth, curse, and bide our It happened, however, that I knew a time. We promised ourselves that some couple of other Truant School graduates; day .we would splash red murder across I'd take them to Coney Island. And I did, his leering face. I even remember lying bragging about how I had come into my awake at nights, picturing myself tying wealth. Some weeks later, I was showing Guinea Frank to a railroad track. them how easy it was to steal when a When I was discharged from this insti­ policeman collared me. This time I was tution I am sure I was filled with greater sent to the Juvenile Corrective Institution. meanness than even before. At once I sought out institutional friends, and in II order to be considered acceptable, tried to outdo them in everything that seemed dar­ At the institution I scrubbed floors, tended ing. My folks fortunately do not enter the sheep, worked in the central kitchen, picture. If the lad who was sent away scraped pigpens, and got into more could not be controlled, the brat who re­ trouble. Some of the boys were bigger than turned could not even be spoken to. My 1. One in particular was a bully. I felt his father would become so angry with me fist so many times that at last I kicked that he trembled all over. Of course he him on the shin. He slapped me across the whipped me (between periods of praying back with a broomstick. I retaliated by and pampering), but parental lickings are THE AMERICAN MERCURY not much to a chap who has been hard- When I was finally discharged from the ened by the lash of a Guinea Frank. . Reformatory, the authorities secured work Later on, several of us broke into a beach for me at a rubber mill. Two other lads home. We were arrested, and I was put went with me. There was a skkening odor in the hands of a court psychiatrist. "The of gasoline and rubber in the place that got boy is gentle, moody, but emotionally irre~ into my mouth,my nose, my throat. It be­ sponsible." I was placed on probation and came a foul, nauseating taste. The heat ordered to report weekly to a hospital was intense. That first evening, I and my where the psychiatrist gave me tests, ex~ two companions were too ill to think about ercises, and medicines. I said to myself: our newly~acquired liberty. We said very "He's taking up a hell of a lot of my play~ little, but we probably all had the same time." So I wandered off. Within a week thoughts. Toward noon of the next day I burglarized a meat market, and was one of the boys fainted. He was carried nabbed again. This time I landed in the outside. The boss said something about his Reformatory. getting back to work as soon as he felt We new boys were marching across· the better. I put up an argument. My friend recreation yard. A dog ran towards us, should return to the boarding house, I and I snapped my finger to encourage him. said. Between the smell, the heat~ and my A guard cracked me alongside the ear, anger, I also passed out. Those first two sending me sprawling. I looked up at the days I lost several pounds. In the evening blue uniform-reason, if I had any, left we held a council, and declared war. me. I flew at him. When I came out of "Damn them and their job and their the hospital, I was classed as a tough fel~ parole! We go to another department to~ low. That reputation followed me from morrow or else...." institution to institution, and certainly in~ The next afternoon we followed the boss fluenced the attitude of officials. as he went into the compound room. The I was put to work in the plumbing shop. door closed behind us. The man in charge had a fondness for "We want other jobs," said 1. "This catching the boys at some mischief, then place has got us sick." making us bend over to take five raps on "Get back to work!" he snapped. the buttocks from a broomstick. He was Ralph was the biggest of the·three - a particularly pleased if one of us squirmed raw-boned farmer boy from Watertown. on the floor after a well~laid swat. The Always an easy~going chap, now he bris':' boys detested him, and we planned to tied. "We ain't gain' back. And I want my kill him, but were deterred by one inci~ pay - six dollars for the three days." dental- we could never think of any good The boss sneered. "I'm going to lock you way for disposing of the body. Today, I three in this room and send for your parole can recall the little clique which was in­ officer to take you back to the reformatory. volved in the plans to bushwhack that We'll see. .. ." guard; JIm hanged himself in Danne~ He got no farther. Ralph smacked him mora; Tony was electrocuted in l'renton; - a wallop that came right from the heels. Joey got twenty years in Sing Sing for his We were all upon him as he fell. Strips of part in the murder of a West Side police­ cloth bound him. He had more than the man; Mike got fifteen for robbery; only eighteen dollars that were due uS r He had Ray is unaccounted for. a watch, a chain, and a ring. PORTRAIT OF A LIFER 179

"Now, now," protested Ralph, "don't The next Saturday found us broke in an take no more'n what we got comin'." Eastern city. "Let's pick out a good place But I failed to hear him. and hold it up just before it closes. What d'you say?" I asked. III "Okay," declared my partner. "I'll stick 'em up, you get the dough." For several months I drifted. I could not We tramped around the city until we go home for fear of being taken back to chanced on a wine store from which sev­ the reformatory. A fight here, a petty rob­ eral customers were departing. As the door bery there, and a bit of deviltry on the side opened, we could see many other patrons began to reveal that I had become a vicious inside. hooligan. If violence were necessary to en­ "Looks like the goods," said the lad sure the success of whatever I attempted, from Ohio. I did not hesitate. Bleeding bodies made "I'll go in and get the layout," I said. no impression on me, awakened no sym­ "Take my cap and coat, and wait down pathy, left no remorse. the street." In a freight car one day I met a youth With my shirt collar open and my of about my own age. sleeves rolled up, I ran into the store. TVIO "Where you from?" I asked. countermen were serving the customers. "Ohio." "Is my father in here?" I asked, and be­ "I'm from all over." fore anyone could answer I ran and looked "All over?" into the back room. Appearing to be. dis;. "Yeah. I just ramble around." appointed I said, "No, he ain't," and left. "What's the matter? Cops after you?" "It's a cinch," I told Ohio. "Only two "You're pretty keen. Must'a had a couple guys. There's a back room with a lot of of run-ins with 'em yourself." she1ves and a counter, and a cash register. "They ran me out of town." There 're counters on each side of the front "I'm hungry. Wish I had something to store, with a cash register on the right. eat." There's a roll of twine on each counter. "Let's drop off down here a ways. We'll All we gotta do is make sure we get both mooch a handout, or we'll get it another of 'em together. If one's in the back room, way - if you're game." don't shout when you tell the other guy to "I'm game for anything. Too bad we throw up his hands. I'll turn him around ain't got a cannon." and start him toward the rear. Keep both "What does this look like?" of 'em covered while I tie their arms and He drew out an old frontier-model Colt. legs. Shoot if you have to." It really did look like a cannon. We sat down on some porch steps across But we did not have to steal for supper the street to wait for a lessening in the that night. A motherly woman took us in stream of customers. As we waited, I tried to a royal feast. We washed and dried the to weigh the courage of my companion. I dishes, chopped wood, swept the yard, and had taken it for granted before, but now received a quarter each, along with her his nerve was important; it was the force blessing. After we left one of us said: which would get this easy money, would "Let's go back and rob her." I am glad perhaps lay the foundation for more. now we didn't. "How d'you fee1- nervous?" I asked. 180 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

"No, not me. I've been on jobs before." punishment was a two-year term in state "Sure you want to handle the gun? prison. Maybe I better take it?" "Leave it to me. Come on, let's go." IV We crossed the street, tied handkerchiefs over our faces, and stepped into the store. Well, here I was at last in the Big House. I felt shaky as I saw that only one of the Many of myoId pals from the Truant, men was in sight. He was leaning on the Juvenile, and Reform Schools were on counter reading a newspaper. Ohio said: hand. In fact most of us had come right "Put up your hands!" The man paid no at­ up the line together. We had some inter­ tention. I walked behind the counter and esting sessions as we discussed the old reached for a bottle of wine to intimidate places, and the big hauls we planned to him. Ohio stuck the gun against the man's make in the future. 1 was put to work in nose and snarled, "Stick 'em up, quick!" the pine tree conservation gang, but when When the fellow realized what was hap­ winter came we went to the stone quarry. pening, he put his hands up, but he kept The prisoners around us were sordid char­ cool. acters - degenerates and stool-pigeons. I "Walk into the back room," I whispered felt that the Big House was lacking in to him. "You won't be hurt if you do what heroic proportions; my idols weren't what you're. told." they were cracked up to be. We marched him into the rear room. With good time off for proper behavior, No one else was around. I was paroled the following year. The day "Where's the other guy?" I asked. before I was released the Warden said: "He's gone upstairs with the money." "I'm sorry you aren't going to some other "Hold him here while I get the cord," I type of institution instead of· home. You said to Ohio. can't understand that, son, and you won't I walked to the front of the store, and agree with me, but I know...."I won­ was reaching for the twine when a police­ dered: what the hell is he talking about? man with drawn revolver came in. He What does he know about me? aimed at me, and I raised my hands. The World War was raging; wages "All right, you've got me," I said as were high; I was on parole; I decided to loudly as possible, hoping Ohio would be get work. I went to a shipbuilding com­ put on guard. He was, and in a· panic he pany in Brooklyn and told the boss I was turned to see who was talking with me. an ex-convict. "I don't give a damn if you The store owner slugged him. just got oft Devil's Island. If you want to While we were being taken to the patrol work, we'll give you a chance." So I went wagon, a woman in a window on the sec­ inside to become a plumber's helper. Then ond floor of the house opposite called down I discovered a peculiar state of affairs: one abuses on us. We knew then who had had to know something in order to be of called the cop. service. I knew nothing; I lasted two My folks were so happy to locate me and weeks. to learn I was still alive that for a moment I met a couple of local lads who were the shock of my arrest was diminished. pickpockets. They needed another fellow They went to influential friends who' in­ for their mob. Stalling for them - cover­ terceded for me, with the result that my ing up the wire, or operator, shielding him PORTRAIT OF A LIFER 18t from interference - was simple, and I "Yeah. All kinds of blues." picked it up quickly. There was a good "I know how to chase them away - if deal of thrill and excitement to the racket, you can get a buck." but little else. "I've got it." A man gave me a tip on a collector. I "Here's a little God's medicine. It cures watched him and timed his movements all aches of the heart and the mind. Just a for two successive weeks, then I waylaid little in each nostril. .. ." him. It was a good touch. I gave ten per My blues were gone. ... cent to the tipster, and told him to get me I floated across the surface of many another. He put the finger on a brokerage things during that six-year term. Heroin office. With two other men, I went after wrapped a wet blanket around my mind. it. There was some shooting but we es­ Was it Tuesday, or Friday, or Sunday? caped. A week later, I was arrested. Some­ Who knew? Who cared? One serious one had put the finger on me. I was con­ thought: get a deck for the next day. victed. For a while I seemed to be in for a Decks were a dollar each. One sufficed for stiff sentence. But I swore I was innocent, a day. I could depend on my mother for and I believe the judge had some doubt. five dollars every month. Beaded bags, eas­ He gave me six years. ily made, were sold at ten dollars each to In that prison there was an old-timer wealthier convicts. Most of my money named Soapbox Hardy, and I liked to lis­ went for drugs, and there was never a ten to his stories. He had moody moments, scarcity. Keepers sold heroin or morphine though, and during them he said some at one hundred· dollars an ounce to trusted queer things. One day he told me I was a convicts. They in turn split an ounce into sap and a sucker. "You should have gone two or three hundred decks, adding a to work, kid. A sawbuck a week would be filler of sugar of milk. Life was pleasant. better than blowing your life in these I enjoyed those dreamy, drug-filled after­ joints." noons, lying on the prison lawn listening "Yeah? What the hell do I know that to tales of stick-ups, bank jobs, and other I can work at?" deeds of the daring - or dopey. Did they "What does anyone know when he be­ get fifty G's? Well, I'd get a hundred.... gins ? You can start at the bottom, for small wages." v "Nuts!" "The trouble with you is that the re­ Homeward bound! How quickly the years formatories have taken so much out of had speeded by! A stop to change trains; your life that you can't wait for the good a dash up a side street to a drugstore for things. When you get near them you want an ounce of paregoric; back to the train; to grab them all at once. You're just a then to the Big City, under the soothing damn fool. If the public had any sense influence of a grain and seven-eighths of they'd have you shot. You'll wind up doing opium. And in the city: Where the devil a life stretch." is that address? Did I lose it? Panicky for One day I was in an evil humor. My a moment. No, here it is. God, let me get world seemed to be screwier than usual. to Curley's for a little of the old mahoska! "Got the blues, Bud ?" murmured a "Hello, Curley, 'Lo, Flo. Just in, and I'm man at my elbow. hooked. Heroin is what I want- a lot of THE AMERICAN MERCURY it. I'll have dough as soon as I can rob a Transferred from the death house, I was joint." put at clerical work in one of the offices. Cleaving through the laws and customs The assignment was easy and pleasant; of society as if they did not exist, I went the surroundings were as congenial as one my hopped-up way. A burglary today net­ could expect; I settled into the routine. ted a few hundred dollars; a couple of But as a year passed, the monotony be­ weeks around an opium layout saw it go. came depressing. Such an existence for I staggered over to myoid home two or years and years to come promised insanity. three times. The old folks stared at me I decided to acquire outside interests and with frightened, questioning eyes. hobbies. A picture album kept me busy for A tipster sent me to a nearby state on a a couple of years. A scrapbook occupied big job. The victim was not willing. He the next two. I began a stamp collection. decided to fight. Then he thought he Somehow I picked up a correspondence would run.. I could think of only one· way school course. The years rolled by. of stopping him. I pressed the trigger. ... And, as so many convicts do, I tried jot­ I landed in the death house awaiting elec­ ting down experiences and observations. trocution. I sent an article to a magazine editor. He I do not think I realized just what had returned it with the notation: "This would happened until I heard the dry gasp of a be fine if you were not partial. A true doomed man who was being led to the. delineation of prison life must show con­ chair. A priest had murmured with him victs for what the greatest majority really all that day, and the man had answered in are: cowardly, treacherous, cheap fellows a hollow, tired voice. Evening, and the who would shoot a storekeeper or a home­ guards came through the doorway from owner in the back." the death chamber. The key grated in the He touched something. The great ME lock of the condemned man's cell, and he was included. I went into a huddle with gasped - a short, high-pitched gasp that myself and all my aliases. As I arraigned shook me with horror. Slowly, so slowly the many persons that I had been, I found that eternities seemed to pass, he dragged that each one of them was classified by his shambling feet along the road to obliv­ some part of that editor's description. I ion. He paused to offer me a feeble hand. have spent sour nights thinking about it. His tongue rubbed across parched lips; Lying on my bunk now, I try to retrace wells of terror were in the depths of his those early steps that led me so far astray. eyes; he managed to murmur goodbye Is there something lacking in the chemi­ Then he was gone. In a moment, there cals that compose me? Have I an inflated was a soft purring sound. ... ego that required stormy years for deBat.. Many times, at night, I saw that man ing? .Do I think as I do because I am in die. Often I died with him. Sometimes he prison? Would things have been different went first; sometimes I did; at other times had I been given a stretch of solitary can.. we went together, hand in hand, dancing, finement instead of Truant School com­ running, being carried on the points of panionship with boys who were well-cal­ flaming swords. I died until I no longer culated to develop the viciousness within felt that it would be difficult to die. me? Would early vocational training have Then the reviewing authorities decided helped? Or would nothing have mattered? I should be given life in prison. I can't answer these questions. Can you? RENO THE NAUGHTY

BY ANTHONY M. TURANO

REEK legend tells of Psaphon, the munity that propounds more questions or father of Ballyhoo, and how he crowds so many incongruities within such G lifted himself from obscurity to a small space. The first teaser, for instance, fame by capturing migratory birds, teach­ is that Reno chooses to thrive, contrary to ing them to pronounce his name, and re­ all reasonable expectations, as a patch of storing them to liberty. With some vari­ green, at the western end of a ten-hour ations in detail, the formula has been stretch through a depopulated waste of effectively used ever since, whether the sand, alkali, and stunted sagebrush. En­ thing to be put over was a can opener, a closed in a bowl formed by the wooded mouth wash, or a political candidate. That Sierras on the west, and bald, desert hills it also works in the case of ambitious mu­ in every other direction, in a locality that nicipalities in need of outside capital, is sees no rain for the eight warmer months especially proved by an extraordinary place of the year, and very little snow during known as Reno, Nevada. To be sure, its the remaining four, the only natural force name has not always been pronounced the that keeps the oasis from being a mirage same by all articulate birds: a few pious is the Truckee River. As a Chamber jackdaws have qualified it with glossaries rhapsodist points out, this thin ribbon of like The Wicked Sodom, and The Gam­ mountain water "cuts the city in twain, as bling Gomorrah. Less malicious fowl have it were, and beautifully so, if you please". whispered it with tongue in cheek, adding According to local legend, it also serves as such. snickering verbiage as Love's Purga­ a depository for discarded wedding rings. tory, and The Great Divide; while the No less paradoxical is the fact that there grandilo·quent orioles roosting at the local is nothing "Western" about the place, ex­ Chamber of Commerce have warbled it cept its geographical location, unless one with such arpeggios as The Land of mentions the squaws, carrying papooses on Charm, and The Biggest Little City in the their backs, who sometimes come in from World. Nevertheless, the collective result a nearby reserv.ation. By 1868, when the is that a small town in the Far West, townsite was laid out and given the name whose population has never reached 20,000 of a Civil War general, the glamor of the souls, counting the wicked, enjoys the Nevada gold rush had begun to wane. fame of a world capital. Although the permanency of the commu... As one of its honored home guards, I nity, as a division point on the transcon­ am the first to affirm that the place that tinental railroad, was assured, its real can call forth such an assortment of brick­ growth did not begin until two decades bats and nosegays is no common village. later. Consequently, its modern buildings Indeed, it is not easy to fi,nd another com- give it the appearance of a newly-built 183 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Eastern suburb or summer resort with When gaming was made legal by state seven or eight blocks of congested traffic, law in 1931, there were those who hoped surrounded by prosperous bungalows, that Reno would become the Monte Carlo broad lawns, and well-paved streets, in an of America, with huge sums brought in atmosphere kept smokeless by. the total by outsiders to make up for the lack of absence of factories. The general aspect industrial enterprise. The treasure ship of the business district is that of a diminu­ failed to anchor; but the legislation proved tive village hell-bent on ignoring the cen­ to be an effective method of extending sus. Most of the buildings on Virginia police control to a human instinct that is Street, the main thoroughfare, are two sub-legally gratified, in one form or an­ stories high; the tallest is only six. But this other, in every part of the country. Most hick-town impression is immediately con­ of the players are either habitues who were tradicted by the' preponderance of white previously indulging surreptitiously, or collars on the well-peopled sidewalks, and thrill-seekers from neighboring common­ the displays of the latest Fifth Avenue wealths. In both cases, the stakes are small swank in the shop windows. And when it and the plungers few; while the average comes to real metropolitan news, the street citizen continues to regard the business as yields more of it per block than the aver­ a pastime of dubious respectability. It is age state capital gives in its entirety. For true that the activity tends to attract drift­ in Reno, social1ionsand lionesses are thick ers and riffraff, as well as good spenders; by necessity, and tame for fear of ennui; but such inconveniences are deemed suffi­ and the humblest native may boast of his ciently counterbalanced by the license fees golf tournament with a count, his drive yielded by the games to the city govern­ with a maestro, his crap game with a ment, and the fact that certain classes are marchioness, or his spree with a munitions supplied with variegated and generally maker. harmless amusement. Of course, a wide-open town that at­ Another Reno spectacle that strikes blue­ tracts so many golden-fleeced fugitives noses as the very essence of brimstone is from domestic justice is alsolike1y to en­ a brothel on the European plan, known as tertain an occasional black sheep who is The Stockade, where about 100 girls oc­ simply running.away from the police. On cupy .cribs on each side of an enclosed the whole, however, the place commands courtyard, and' carryon the ancient pro­ small attention as a crime center, simply fession under police and medical surveil­ because it has no slums or tenements, and lance. Of course, the same' system pre­ the desert is not the best hiding place for vailed, until two decades ago, in many felons. Reno's forte lies, rather, in what the other parts of the Republic.· When total pious call immoral and naughty. In this abatement became the fashion, Reno fol­ category, of course, is wide-open gambling. lowed suit by passing the usual ordinance Through the uncurtained windows of sev­ against the biological urge. But, unfortu­ eral casinos, in the busiest part of the busi­ nately, the legislation failed to overrule the ness district, the casual passerby may see peculiar vital stat,istics of the state. The crowds of men and women gathered preponderance of the malepopulation over around wheels of fortune, roulette and the female is nearly two to one. faro tables, games of dice, keno, poker, Since hundreds of unmarried transients, chuck-a-luck, and blackjack. mostly lumberjacks and miners, refused to RENO THE NAUGHTY

live in total abstinence, the only effect of pack an unconventional wallop for broad­ abatement· was to scatter the trade into the casting purposes, its share of the stipulated most respectable quarters of the town, virtues would do credit to any New' Eng­ without the earlier safeguards against in­ land town several times its size. Indeed, for fection. It was finally agreed that the best a short interval about 1913, the godly ele­ way to deal with this unpleasant fact of ments became powerful enough to invoke civilization was by segregating it to the a dark age of piety and hard pickings, by most inconspicuous place available, and dickering with the divorce law and repeal­ further hiding it behind a high board ing all other liberal legislation. But as the fence, so that only the seeker and the effect was no less unfavorable on the col­ moralist would know of its existence. lection boxes than the profane purses, Now there is much to be said for such Lucifer was soon allowed to reclaim his a realistic compromise of a difficult ques­ own; and the enfant terrible of the Amer­ tion. But the subject is disagreeable enough ican municipal family has been at its ro­ to drive the sincerest advocatus diaboli bust pranks ever since. toward the more respectable hues of the Reno kaleidoscope. I hasten to record, II therefore, that the town boasts ofa public school system that "stands third among In the limited area of a small town, the the very best" in the Republic. Besides, it conflicting missions of St. Michael and the is the .home of the University of Nevada, Dragon are necessarily pursued shoulder a state-supported institution with 900 stu­ to shoulder. Thus The Stockade flourishes dents. Strangely enough, it provides no de­ about three blocks from the Y.M.C.A., and partment of domestic relations or any other most of the money-changing casinos are branch of jurisprudence. But it has an ex­ within shouting distance of the temples. cellent School of Mines, which is the en­ An even closer concurrence of virtue and dowed pet of Clarence Mackay of the iniquity prevails in the much-traduced Postal Telegraph Company, whose father legal department of the town. Ever since got his start near Reno, in the early days the neighboring state of California enacted of the Comstock Lode. a law requiring a three-day notice of inten­ Another point on the side of goodness tion to marry, thousands of altar-minded should be scored by the fact that the two couples have been taking excursions .to divorce judges are church-going deacons. Reno. Consequently, the courthouse steps Additional evidence of the town's basic are invariably strewn with rice, and the holiness is afforded by a veritable forest of divorce Mecca is really a Gretna Green church steeples, indicating the presence of that unites twice as many pairs as it sepa... every important route to Heaven, Mor­ rates. This is statistical atonement with a monism included. The most prosperous vengeance. But such are the accepted prin­ concerns, however,are the Baptist chapel ciples of conjugal behavior that the begin­ whose parson once made a soul-saving ning of the sex life is holy and its cessation record in the Bowery; the Catholic mosque a dirty scandal. with a bishop, several assistants, and a Accordingly, the chain of domestic parochial school; and the Methodist cathe­ events destined to make the village by the dral, whose trustees recently burned the Truckee a household word of threat or church mortgage. So that while Reno may promise began during the late 'Nineties, 186 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

when it was discovered that the Nevada Of course, the sensational character of six-months' divorce law, originally enacted the subject tends to exaggerate Reno's for the convenience of a migratory popu­ financial dependence on domestic litiga­ lation, could be used by outsiders in con­ tion. After all, the number of decrees nubial distress. As the largest community granted in 1934 was less than 3000, which ina state with only 90,000 inhabitants, is only two-thirds as many as .were ob­ Reno naturally became the chief bene... tained in Manhattan, and about one-tenth ficiary. Among its first legal guests was of the number issued in Los Angeles. Mabel Corey, the wife of a Pittsburgh mil... Nevertheless, it has been estimated that lionaire. Then came men and women of the divorce business brings the town some.. equal prominence from all parts of the thing like $2,000,000 a year in outside world. So that, by the time the Jeffries­ money. Thanks to this artificial payroll, Johnson fight Was staged in 1910, the little Reno was scarcely aware of the Depression town was already well-known for its shift... until 1932, when the total collapse of the ing group of matrimonial convalescents. Wingfield .fortunes caused three of the In 1927, it was resolved that the finan­ four Reno banks to close their doors. And cial possibilities of quick divorce could be even then, the recovery was very speedy, better exploited if the residence require­ largely because the wise men and women ments were cut in half. Particularly inter­ of the East continued to arrive, bearing ested in the . change was "King George" gifts. Wingfield, a man of vision who had begun For it must be remembered that the his career by grubstaking prospectors with contributions of the divorce colony are by his roulette winnings, and had finally be... no means limited to legal fees: the busi­ come the only homemade millionaire, as ness of providing these visitors, seventy.. well as the political and financial boss of five per cent of whom are women, with the state. The immediate effect of the neW methods of escaping boredom during their law was to double the number· of matri­ ordeal of solitude among strangers, is a monial cases; and Mr. Wingfield's newly... home industry no less important than the completed Riverside Hotel helped to meet divorce mill itself. Some of the sojourners, the emergency by providing luxurious for instance, insist upon "going Western", apartments next door to the court house. despite the fact that Reno's cattle haciendas The town as a whole experienced a major were divided into small farms at least fifty boom. But unfortunately, its jingle of silver years ago. To profit from such horsey de­ was loud enough to dissolve the old prej­ terminations, enterprising. natives have udices of some other states against bidding provided dude ranches where the jaded for outside divorce trade. Arkansas re­ divorcee may enjoy the primitive life, duced its residence provision to sixty days; dressed as· a cowpuncher. This means that Florida and Idaho enacted similar changes in addition to private bath and dainty later. The hysterical reply of the Nevada food, she has daily access to steed and legislature was the six-weeks' divorce law saddle, together with the services of a that has been in force since 1931. This last vaquero in full regalia. Of course, such amendment brought no increase in the cowboys are usually synthetic; their chaps number of cases. In fact, the hotels and and bandannas are more redolent of cheap boarding houses suffered some losses; but perfume than the realistic scent of the cor­ the divorce monopoly was preserved. ral. Very few of them know the difterence: RENO THE NAUGHTY between a saddle horn and an automobile person's life. The method of deadening siren. But they are all competent gigolos, pain, pending emotional readjustment, respectful listeners, and reliable consolers should be a private problem. of unhappy bitter-halves. The choice of pastime is naturally a Another favorite refuge from loneliness matter of temperament, previous training, is found under the rococo and tinsel of and pecuniary equipment. The great ma­ several night clubs. One of them, known jority of those who "take the cure in as The Cowshed, was operated until re­ Reno" spend their time neither danger­ cently by a hostess no less distinguished ously nor sensationally. Some of them are than Belle Livingston of New York. If guilty of no greater iniquity than going the matrimonial doldrums are not dis­ to the movies or meeting the trains to pelled by dancing and smoking, the sad watch the "tied come in and the untied one may sip cocktails while the dice roll go out". Others, seated on the benches in and the roulette wheel spins. Additional "Alimony Park", opposite the court house, forgetfulness may be induced by toast­ find no greater mischief for their idle masters even more vulgar than the best hands than marking off each day of resi­ in Manhattan, slick-pated crooners direct dence on a pocket calendar. At the board­ from Hollywood, and outspoken ventrilo­ ing houses, the prevailing time-killing quists, known as torch singers, who as­ device is the exchange of matrimonial his­ semble their notes between the midriff and tories. I was recently present at a typical the spleen. To be sure, it sometimes hap­ bridge party given by a landlady in honor pens that when Demon Rum enters the of a departing boarder. The other guests mouth, discretion beats a retreat through were ten sets of husbands and wives with­ the ears. A few unfortunates, finding out their respective legal mates. Yet the themselves lonesome and depressed, thou­ conversation never strayed from the sub­ sands of miles away from the social re­ ject of marriage except to touch upon the straints of their home towns, use the Reno blessings of divorce as a prelude to more interlude for a final fling at highballs and marnage. sex, in anticipation of their return to solidity and inhibition. I know several III local cicisbeos whose intimate love life is a succession of six-week affairs, each ending Generally, the social attitude of the Reno abruptly on the whistle of the Eastbound native toward the visitor ranges from limited. warm business courtesy to kowtowing, de­ I have sometimes officiated in· the group pending largely on the importance or custom of "pouring a divorcee on the spending ability of the client or customer. train" after the convivialities of a farewell But it is not seldom that six-weeks' friend­ feast to celebrate the granting of a "liberty ship will survive all legal purposes. Many bond". Stolid moralists may chalk such visiting divorcees have married their capers in favor of the Devil a.nd immoral­ lawyers or doctors, while male applicants ity. But my own partial liquidity on these have re-mated with native stenographers or occasions rather disables me as a stone­ hairdressers. An English lord who recently thrower. Besides, I suspect that beneath the stopped over to discard his noble mate, simulated wickedness was the memory of finally built himself a desert ch£teau, and a broken home, the central tragedy in the made a second trip to the altar with the 188 THE AMERICAN MERCURY hatcheck girl from his favorite Reno night to what the parties themselves have al­ club. Another imposing castle in the town ready brought about de facto; and that if is occupied by a New York heiress, it be bad manners to accept monetary. re­ wedded to a local automobile salesman; turns from domestic. affliction, the same and a third belongs to an Eastern utility offense is committed by every hospital in magnate and his former nurse. the land when it accepts fees from patients. What is more, such marriages have Yet beneath these plausible justifications, shown an extraordinary resistance to judi.. Reno manifests the self-consciousness of an cial convenience. And this is exactly as it unjustly rebuked but well-meaning child. should be, because the permanent resi­ About two years ago a woman writer dents generally regard easy divorce as a favored the place with a legal call, and specialized activity that should be re­ then set forth her puritanical reactions· in spected for revenue only. This double a magazine article. Its effect on the perma­ standard is peculiarly demonstrated by nent residents was like the ludicrous Catholic members of the bar. No less than calamity of Chicken Little. Wires were their co-religionists elsewhere, they are sent to the publishers; lawyers and mer­ firmly committed to the dogma of indis­ chants considered themselves personally soluble marriage; but the fact does not slandered; the local papers protested edi­ prevent them from competing keenly with torially that the lady's Parthian shot was their Protestant brethren in the Satanic like biting the judicial hand that had business of sundering the strangers whom given her a certificate of freedom. To be God hath joined. Equally insulated against sure, the town is willing enough to scour the wicked influences of the city are the the dirty linen of the Republic for a hand­ residential environs of the University. some consideration; it is more than grate­ Theoretically, most professors are con­ ful if such chores are mentioned; but vinced that badly-mated Easterners should when it comes to actual criticism, it will have legal relief; yet a divorce by a mem­ accept nothing less than a panegyric. ber of the faculty would be no less scan­ Such sensitiveness is hardly expected dalous than if the offender were discovered from this sophisticated, shock-producing in a downtown gaming hall, or grossly little city of the tabloids. But the real Reno intoxicated during a classroom lecture. of the shopkeeper and the housewife re­ In brief, what fulminating parsons are mains true to its provincial size, despite wont to call naughty is· nothing more than its long list of passing celebrities. If it has a liberal realism that .recognizes social discarded some of the smug moralities of facts, and fashions the law accordingly. Gopher Prairie, its intellectual and cul­ To be sure, whatever the origin of tural ambitions have never transcended the Nevada's divorce statute, its latest amend­ salubrious inanities of Zenith. Thus, the ments were carefully aimed at the purses test of personal excellence is to know one's of matrimonially unhappy outsiders. To business well, and make money from it. this charge of cupidity the average Reno The approved source of current opinion resident enters a plea of guilty; but he is the newspaper, supplemented by such points out that under the laws of his state, infallible reservoirs of public information advertising or soliciting for divorce busi­ as Liberty and the Saturday Evening Post. ness is a criminal offense; that· the Reno The proper avocation of a college dean is courts merely extend de jure approbation to promote the heavy civic concerns of GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS

Rotary and Kiwanis. The devotion of the the arts can be gleaned from the minutes Reno graduate to his alma mater is usually of the local Penwomen of America, and manifested by rooting for the football similar records of serious thinking. At a team, achieving success in politics, or win­ recent meeting of such a society, literature ning sonorous titles in the fraternal orders. was besieged by maS'S attack, and four­ The tallest family tree in the place has no teen major subjects were completely sub­ more than two autochthonous generations jugated within an hour. to its credit. Nevertheless, the Society It should not be surprising, from the game is played in the typical village man­ foregoing, that the town has never pro­ ner: a group of the older and more com­ duced an artistic, musical, literary, or scien­ fortable residents lend each other tone by tific figure whose name was known outside dining together, exchanging pedigrees, the parish. But there is sound consolation counting each other's servants, and snub­ in the fact that the same verdict is equally bing the parvenu until he makes the true of many other communities several proper financial showing. times larger; and that Reno at least man­ According to another provincial custom, ages to import, at a substantial profit, a few the cultural chores are left to the women­ samples of what it fails to produce by folk. Their organized efforts in courting cultivation.

GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS

By MARGARET TYNES FAIRLEY

A ND this, then, is the garden which we planned: ..Ll.. Instead of fruit trees heavy against the wall, And the fountain's fall, And the sun of our wills forever at noonday-stand, Here is an acre the winds have turned to salt; So open to alien sky the sound of speech Is beyond mind's. reach. Only the coiled snake in the grass will halt Wanderers who once were quick to note The gray snail climbing a spar of green, And quicksilver sheen Of light that played when the mocking bird titled his throat. Yet fruit that was hurled like stone is still as right To the touch as wind is hot on the bitter mouth. There is no drouth In hearts that live for more than the hours that smite. MINORITY RULE IN AMERICA

BY. CHARLES A. BEARD

LONG time ago, in the .. eig. hteenth profound influence on the· course of po... century, a strange person by the litical development. Before a hundred A name of Jean Jacques Rousseau an... years had passed it became so entrenched nounced in France a startling doctrine. in the West that denial of the creed was It is that for political purposes all heads unsafe for anyone with political ambitions. are equal and alike, and that anything As the years passed the voices·of scoffers decided by a rnajority of· these heads is and doubters sank lower and lower until rightful law. To be sure, the idea was not they almost reached a· whisper. At the end entirely new. Some plaintive hints of it of the nineteenth century, the creed of had been heard from time to time in equality and majority rule seemed on the history, but Rousseau formulated it posi... point of universal acceptance, even in dis­ tively, and just at the right moment in tant places of the Far East. human affairs to make an uproar. But, although it has been the fashion To kings, nobles, and bishops, well en... for uninformed writers to attribute to trenched in power, the doctrine was Rousseau both Jefferson's ideas and the idiotic. They were enjoying the privileges democratic theory in America, there is no of government, with all the emoluments support for it in the records of history. thereunto attached, and naturally did not No doubt French levelism exerted some want anybody to question the constitu... influence in the United States, particularly tionality of their special position. Besides, after the outbreak of the French Revo­ the idea flew in the face of known facts: lution and during the popular disturb­ heads are not equal, and to entrust gov­ ances of the nineteenth century. The doc­ ernment to majorities would be to set out trine of the Declaration of Independence, on a stormy sea of popular passions. however, stems from John Locke rather Nevertheless, the idea was taken up, espe... than from Rousseau. And it was not taken dally by the bourgeois and other plain too seriously by many of the men who people who enjoyed neither the privileges signed or cheered that immortal procla- nor emoluments of government. To them ,mation of freedom and equality. It was the novel doctrine seemed fairly sound­ a good stick with which to beat George at all events, useful in unhorsing kings, III, and was so widely read and cherished nobles, and clergy. that many who first laughed Were com­ So, caught up by the commonality in pelled to pay at least tip service to it. revolt, Rousseau's doctrine set fire to the Like most great theories, there was some­ old order of classes, and spread through... thing in it, at all events for operating out the world. Perhaps no other idea in purposes in the United States. After in­ the armory of propaganda has had a more dependence was won, government by a 19° MINORITY RULE IN AMERICA

king or military dictator seemed out of majority rule, if any such there were in the question. Sovereign authority could be 1787, would not surrender their local vested only in "the people". And if in privileges to win equality and head-count­ the people, why not in all the people? ing for the nation at large. For example,

~, When government by classes was'repudi­ the voters of Connecticut might elect hog ated, the cat was out of the bag and no­ reeves by majority vote, but they would body dared to take the risk of trying to never consent to having the United States put it back again. John Adams, Alexander Senate based on the principle of equal Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Fisher heads. Far from it. Each state must have Ames, and other Fathers of the Republic two Senators. There were' 59,000 people never accepted the pure creed of equality in Delaware in 1790 and 747,000 in Vir­ and head-counting, but in spite of their ginia; thus in the Senate one Delaware misgivings and warnings, it got into gen­ voter was equal to twelve Virginians. eral circulation, and, like strong wine, Many Fathers from the big states, such went immediately to the heads of the as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, did masses. not like this arrangement. They were not If on the surface, however, the idea ap­ madly in favor of equality, but they did peared simple, its ,practical application not want such evident inequality. Yet they proved to be difficult. According to the had to take the bitter with the sweet, if strict logic of the creed, in each geographi­ they were to form a closer union at all. cal area, from the township to the nation, As John Sharp Williams once remarked, all adults are equal; each officer chosen no gentleman ever makes an ass of him­ for the area must be elected by a count­ self in an effort to be logical. The Fathers ing of heads and by majority vote; and were determined to have a new govern­ each representative in the legislature, ment endowed with certain powers over chosen by majority vote, should represent finance, commerce, and matters of com­ an equal number of heads. This is the mon interest, and they took what they theory of equality and majority rule car­ could get - being sagacious persons. In ried to its extreme limits. the 'shuffling and dealing, trading and Now the men who framed the Consti­ compromising, they put together a Con­ tution of the United States had scant re­ stitution which, on examination, proved spect for such an idea. Certainly their to be fearfully and wonderfully made, chief concern was not to put it into effect. from the point of view of the equalitarian, On the contrary, they were particularly head-counting democrat. There were some interested in preventing the actual real­ parts that indicated a gesture toward ization of any such theory of equality equality of heads, mainly for the purpose and head-counting in the Government of of preventing the little states from run­ the United States. Nor could they have ning over the large states: members of put it into effect if they had so desired. the House of Representatives were appor­ In nearly every state the right to vote tioned roughly on the basis of popula­ was restricted to property owners or tax­ tion (counting three-fifths of the slaves); payers, who would not have ratified a and the number of presidential electors to constitution depriving them of their privi­ be assigned to each state was to be equal leges. And' there was another powerful to the number of its representatives and consideration. Even stanch advocates of senators combined. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

But these concessions to equality and If the large states were to be proportion­ head-counting did not guarantee a realiza­ ately represented in the House, that was a tion of the perfect scheme of Rousseau. rough and ready way of attaining the end. Far from it. There was no, assurance that In truth, if the constitutional. Fathers a majority of the presidential electors had wanted a perfect system of popular would represent a majority of the popular equality and head-counting they could not vote cast for electors, if the choice were have wrung it from the small states, for vested in the people by the state legisla­ the vested interests of those corporations tures. Nor was there any guarantee that and of the local politicians were too the majority in the House of Representa­ strong. If the Fathers had insisted upon tives would, in fact, speak for a majority it, they would have broken up the Union. of the voters, taking the vote throughout In one respect, at least, they were like Ed­ the country as a whole..And as for the ward Harriman, Theodore Roosevelt, and Senate, it did not represent heads anyway; V. 1. Lenin. They were practical men and it represented states without regard to ready to. make a compromise if they could population. There was some majority gain something·in the trade. mathematics in the Constitution, but And as a matter of fact they feared nothing precise and accident-proof. equality and head-counting even more Moreover, in apportioning members of than they feared original sin, for many the House of Representatives among the of them were Deists. Elbridge Gerry, later states according to their respective num­ a great Jeffersonian Democrat, doubtless bers, the Fathers took total population, not summed up their philosophy when he said the number of voters, as the basis. It is that the less the people have to do with easier to take a general census; for how government the better - for others and shall the number of voters he determined? themselves. Their principal problem was By the total number of persons entitled how to frame a government on a popu­ to vote under the various qualifications lar base, and at the same time to prevent imposed by state law? As most states had a majority from getting immediate pos­ property restrictions in 1787, the discovery session of it. They looked forward, with of the number actually entitled to vote James Madison, to the time when the would have meant a minute survey of all majority of American people would have property. owners and taxpayers. The diffi­ no property at all and might cut loose culties of such a survey are obvious. Shall from their mentors and play havoc with the number of voters be fixed on the basis the prudent, thrifty, and fortunate pos-­ of the actual number who go to the sessors of good things. polls at the election immediately preceding the census? There are numerous and valid II objections to this method. The number of voters who go to the polls varies with It was to forestall and postpone, if not issues, 'personalities, excitements, tempers, to prevent for all time, any such outcome distempers, and especially the sharpness that the Fathers constructed a compli­ of the political campaign. So it must be cated five-story government. They sought conceded that the Fathers took the easiest to check, balance, and refine. the passions way out when they counted all free heads expressed on the hustings and at the polls. and added three~fifths of all slave heads. Only the House of Representatives was to MINORITY RULE IN AMERICA

be elected directly by the voters. The Sen­ President may be confronted by a Demo­ ate was to be chosen by the state legisla­ cratic House, or, indeed, a Democratic tures. The presidential electors were to be Congress. Or the position may be reversed. chosen as the state legislatures might de­ If the latest popular majority means any­ termine, and the electors were to elect thing, then many an administration in the President. Then there was to be a mid-term has been utterly repudiated by Supreme Court holding office for life and the country at the polls in a congressional completely removed from contact with any­ election. In this case a minority continues body elected directly by the voters. The to rule .in its place of entrenchment. If judges were to be selected by the Presi­ the Republicans win the Presidency and dent and Senate - authorities removed the House of Representatives in a general one or two degrees from the polling places landslide this year, it will be 1940 or 1942 of the multitude. As far as political ma­ before they can capture the Senate, unless chinery is concerned, this was the Fathers' something extraordinary happens. Thus, supreme piece of artistry. under the American system, it must be Besides introducing inequalities in the said of the majority that it rules only in representation of heads in the federal gov­ the long run, if at all. That is, it must be ernment and setting up a system of checks a compact, determined, coherent majority and balances, they took due account of capable of common action over a term of the time element. Since there were no from four to twenty years, or longer. Fly­ kings, nobles, and clergy to found gov­ by-night majorities do not count. This is ernment, the people had to come into the another feature of majority rule often picture, and the federal government had overlooked by proponents of mere head­ to rest on the elective principle. But there counting. was peril in sudden actions at the polls. All these features of the federal system In the midst of a great excitement the were well known to the early leaders of voters might do something disturbing to the American Republic. Federalists had society - or at least to those persons who slight respect for majorities. But Jeffer­ imagined themselves to constitute society. sonians professed great confidence in the Hasty decisions must be prevented. So people and paid high tribute to the idea. ingenuity provided an effective scheme. There was something vital and necessary All members of the House of Representa­ in the theme, given the social scene in the tives were to be elected every two years. United States. Jefferson formulated it in Senators were to hold office for six years, his first inaugural-"absolute acquiescence

{ ) and one-third were to be renewed every in the decisions of the majority, the vital two years. The term of the President was principle of republics, from which there fixed at four years. Judges were to hold is eno appeal but to force, the vital principle office during good behavior. Hence it is and immediate parent of despotism". This impossible for any majority to get posses­ is government within the framework of sion of all· branches of the federal govern­ law, by proposition, discussion, and popu­ ment at a single election. lar decision. This is the system character­ Again and again in American history, ized by fascist and Nazi writers as liberal, the President and Senate have been of bourgeois, outmoded, and contemptible. one party and the House of Representa­ For this system, with its inconveniences tives controlled by another. A Republican and weaknesses, the fascist substitutes what THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Jefferson called "force, the vital principle the polls. Examples are scattered through­ and immediate parent of despotism". out American history. Though Washington and Jefferson had The House of Representatives is appor­ never heard of Hitler or Mussolini, they tioned according to population, without had heard of government by "the sword~ reference to the number of voters. In the bearing elite". In fact, they were rather states which have a large alien population, familiar with the idea. After studying the number of voters is smaller in pro­ various systems of government tried again portion to population than in states with and again in history, the Fathers came to few alien residents. In the states which the conclusion that force was the parent restrict the suffrage by one device or an­ of despotism and that despotism was 00 other, the proportion of voters to popula­ guarantee of order, security, Jor anything tion is smaller than in the states which else in the long run. They were fully confer the vote on practically all adult aware of the role of force in human af­ citizens. It must be remembered that the fairs, but they refused to bow before it. literacy test applied in several Northern They were not "pure rationalists", but states works a reduction in the number they rejected the cult of irrationality. So of voters quite as automatically as the they insisted on giving the people a voice various ~ests applied in Southern states in government, refining that voice, and to exclude Negroes from the' polls. Then, limiting the power or force of govern­ within states, congressional districts are ment. Such is the background of majority gerrymandered, so that the number of rule in the American system. When Jef­ voters per district will vary even within ferson spoke of acquiescence in majority the same state. Hence the conclusion: decisions, he merely· meant "in accordance While the House of Representatives is ap­ with the forms of law limiting and con­ portioned according to population, the trolling the application of the principle in number of voters per thousand of popu­ practice". lation varies widely from -state to state. In practice, popular rule in most state Thus, in one congressional election, 2217 and local elections is plurality rule. The votes were polled in a Georgia district, candidate who receives the highest num­ and 79,782 votes in an Illinois district; in ber of votes is declared victorious and this case one Georgia head was worth elected. The two or three candidates en­ about forty Illinois heads. In addition, listed against him may together receive each state has one representative in Con­ two-thirds of the total vote. His vote may gress, no matter how small it is. Nevada be a minority vote; yet he is the victor had 91;000 inhabitants in 1932 and Nevada according to law. In some cases an abso­ had one representative, although the aver­ lute majority is required, but exceptions age quota of population for each repre­ merely prove the rule. Nothing but the sentative throughout the country was fair1y even balance of parties, therefore, about 280,000. prevents the almost continuous rule of the As a result of this system, a party that minority in many communities. In prac­ has cast a majority of the popular votes tice, under the forms of .the Constitution, in a national election may have a minority we frequently have minority rule, if we of the representatives in Congress. Indeed, use as our point of reference the latest seldom, if ever, is there a close relation aetual expression of national opinion at between the number of representatives MINORITY RULE IN AMERICA 195 controlled by a party and the total num­ majority by about 2,000,000 votes, al­ ber of its popular votes. For instance, in though his plurality was more than 2,000,­ the congressional election of 1932, a pro­ 000 above the vote cast for his nearest portionate distribution of representatives competitor. Two Presidents, Hayes and on the basis of popular votes would have Harrison, did not receive even a plural­ given the Democrats 268 seats instead of ity; that is, they stood lower in the scale the 313 they captured, and would have of the popular vote than their two prin­ correspondingly increased the number of cipal rivals. Republicans. In the Senate there is no pretense at III equality in head-counting. Each state has two senators. Nevada with 90,000 inhab­ Why do the people and practical politi­ itants has the same weight as New York, cians continue a system which so often de­ with 12,5°0,000. It takes eighteen of the prives the majority of the fruits of vic­ less populous states, with thirty-six sena­ tory? Many answers to this question have tors to their credit, to equal New York been advanced. State in population - New York with only In the first place, under the Constitu­ two senators. Ten states have within their tion, no state can be deprived of equal borders about one-half the inhabitants of representation in the Senate without its the United States, and yet command less consent. Imagine the task of making than one-fourth the senators. Delaware, Rhode Island, or Nevada give Nor does the equality-and-majority up its equality! Besides, the "practical in­ principle govern presidential elections. conveniences" of the system are not so The President is elected by electors. Each glaring. In interest, Rhode Island is· fairly state receives two electors corresponding well assimilated to its larger neighbor, to its senators, and an additional num­ Massachusetts; the interests of Delaware ber of electors corresponding to the num­ are not exactly opposed to those of New ber of its representatives. As we have York and Pennsylvania. In fact, the sen­ seen, neither the senators nor the repre­ ators from the small states are never lined sentatives are apportioned among the up together against the large states. So the states according to the number of voters. economics of politics does not run against Besides, in each state the electors are minority rule in the Senate. No change is chosen on a general ticket, and the party in prospect. that carries the election gets all the elec­ Under the Fourteenth Amendment, tors of the state, no matter how large the Congress can reduce the representation of minority or minorities. any state that deprives adult n1ale citizens Hence a victorious candidate for Presi­ of the right to vote; and the reduction dent may not receive a majority of the shall be "in the proportion that the num­ total popular vote cast in the national ber of such [disfranchised] male citizens election. If there is a party split, the sys­ shall bear to the whole number of male tem may create an extraordinary situa­ citizens twenty-one years of age in such tion. In 1860, Lincoln was elected Presi­ state". This rule applies to Northern states dent by a popular vote of 1,868,000, as which restrict the suffrage as well as to against 2,815,000 polled by his opponents. Southern states. Some attempts have been In 1912, Woodrow Wilson fell short of a made in Congress to enforce this pro- FALL OF RAIN vision; that is, to apportion representation nomic interests of the populous .states. according to voting population, but all Even then the establishment of anything have failed, and for reasons that call for like equality of representation among all no enumeration here. states and regions could not be accom­ Once in a while, loud complaints are plished without constitutional amend­ made against the system of minority rule. ments, and one-fourth of the states plus When the sparsely-settled agrarian states one can always block such changes. In threaten· the populous states with a tariff other words, as a matter of practice, com­ reduction, the glaring inequalities of the plete regional equality cannot be brought American system are sure to be exposed about by constitutional means. - without results. So, too, when the in­ Still more to the point, is anybody likely come tax is discussed, bitter references are to get excited about free and equal heads usually made to the unequal representa­ and absolute majority rule - at least, ex­ tion of the aforesaid agrarian states in cited enough to move the mountain of the federal government - without bring­ constitutional barrier? It would take ing about results. something more than devotion to logic From historical experience it seems and mathematics to stir the nation to such reasonable to infer that no material a titanic constitutional effort. It seems, changes will be made in the American then, that nothing short of a long-time ob­ system unless minority rule disturbs more struction of some clear majority resolve profoundly than hitherto the basic eco- can ever effect the change.

FALL OF RAIN BY DANIEL W. SMYTHE

STRUCK out into it; above me the cloud was gray shadow. I splashed the water that once was in the air. I Think of it! All the brooks that have found the meadow, Above my head in the darkness - they have been there.

These are on lips to taste - to yearn for and follow: The upper air is a moisture that comes with a sweep Loosening the stone, caving the side of the hollow; And the tree is dark whose caress it could not keep.

And this immensity I love. ... It finds me leaning To the rain-wind over the wet-blown leaf and root. The ground slips, the air fills with eternal meaning, And what we have craned to in space runs underfoot! HOMECOMING A Story

BY EDWARD HARRIS HETH

OME of them got there before the ris­ anything I'm your Uncle Henry. You're ing sun had really dried the dew one of Bertha's kids - I'll bet a dollar you Sfrom the long grass. The brothers arel" and sisters came back home again, back "I'm Edna Birchard," the girl said. to the grove. They were all there, all ex­ "You're Henry Dousman? Are you the cept one. Ernestine, the mother, waited first son?" She was making a Family for them on the porch, rocking over the Tree, a whole sheaf of names inscribed creaking boards almost from the first mo­ under the heading of GOTTLIEB ment the sun rolled across the hill, wait­ DOUSMAN - ERNESTINE DOUS­ ing for them to come with their children MAN. Gottlieb had been dead twelve and children's children, bending her years, up on the hill. withered cheek forward for them to kiss Then Henry spied his sister Bertha, as they arrived. tall and corpulent. "Why Bert, you old Henry, the eldest, came all the way -I" he roared, and rushed up to her, from Ashtabula, Ohio. "Why, Ma, of all gripping her firm thick shoulder with things ... I" he cried, still parked in his loud enthusiasm. "Say, it's been fifteen Buick before the porch, as though he years I'll bet since I saw you - since Pa's hadn't expected to see her. He turned to funeral. Why, you old - ! Well, you his family (except his wife who hadn't haven't grown any smaller." come, saying she wasn't crazy, driving Bertha looked at him mournfully. He God knew how many hundred miles just was surprised she wasn't happier to see to see a lot of Dousmans) sitting in the him. rear of the car. "Baby," he said to his "Twelve years," she said. grandchild, "here's your great-grandma. "You haven't told me which son you You never saw her." are," Edna, the young girl, said, follow­ Ernestine looked at the child strangely ing him with her watery eyes, her pencil but without any recognition. poised diffidently but concentratedly on "Dreat-dramma," the child repeated. the tablet. Henry guffawed, hitting his thigh. "Why, the eldest," he said. "The first.. A thin girl of thirteen, wearing glasses, born, the Eldest - I'm head of this whole came toward his car diffidently with a darn family," he shouted. "This your kid, tablet and pencil. "Who are you?" she Bertha?" he asked, patting the young asked in a ,vatery voice. girl's small round head. He shook mer.. "Who am I?" he asked. "Why, I'll bet rily with laughter. 197 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

"She's my youngest daughter," Bertha fleshy limbs, or the peculiar dull brown said quietly. hair, though his own was already white. All the Dousmans were there, gathered He laughed loudly, talked loudly, shak­ together again. Ernestine, the mother, ing hands. He asked everyone how the looked at them dispassionately. old homestead looked to them, and had "Well, Ma, you don't seem overjoyed many anecdotes ready on his lips for the to see us!" Henry cried. But then he heard children. He recognized every scene of his the hum of another motor behind him childhood: where the dishwater used to and saw Edna, with her tablet and pencil, be poured over warm yellow rocks under already hurrying to greet the new car. an apple tree; where Annie used to hide He craned his neck to see through the her gold hairpins in a rip in the parlor windshield, opaque with a Bash of sun. sofa; where Fred and Herb used to stand He squinted, wondering. Fred? .. their muddy boots; with a boyish soft Annie? ••• Adolph? ... "Why, Annie, chuckle - OJ kennst du das Land? you old -I" he roared, dashing across the lawn. II The young scrawny girl with shoulders as thin as paper was already there, lean­ Down in the grove, sweltering now under ing solemnly against the front fender. the heat of the risen sun, seeping a bril­ "Who are you? Your name Dousman?" liant green through the leaves of maples she asked, blinking. and elms, the women laid long tables Henry was snorting like an animal, his with white cloths and jars of potato salad face red and bursting with good spirits. and hams baked in a rich crust. Most of He gripped the door of the sedan with the Dousmans were heavy and strongly his heavy butcher's hands and stuck his built, save Annie and Fred. Adolph, the head through the open window, scanning third son, with great shields of sweat on the rear seat where three grown-ups and his striped shirt under his arms, watched two children were jammed between the women. lunch-baskets and satchels. Annie was "By God, Bertha," he said, "you haven't very frail, with wisps of yellow hair flap­ changed· any." ping against her white forehead. He re­ "You have," Bertha answered. "You're membered the hair - it used to be pure twice as fat." gold, and so long she could sit on the He laughed in a high squeal, his face braids. He had given her ,a box of gold wrinkled like a damp wad of cloth. Only hairpins one Christmas. "Hello, Henry," the Dousman nose was left in all this fat. she said mildly. "This is my daughter and "Still sassy?" he chortled, his eyes lost you know my husband, don't you? And in his cheeks. "Still the old bulldog? Say, here's my son and his ..." I thought your man could take that out They nodded curtly, unacquainted. of you." They were sullen and embarrassed. "You ought to be careful· about your­ Henry glanced elatedly around at the self," Bertha said, eyeing him dryly with crowd of people, all of similar blood a bunch of forks in her fist. "It's not though not many of them looking alike. healthy being so fat. Did everyone bring Sometimes he glimp~ed a familiar feature enough forks?" - the broad straight Dousman nose, the Adolph's wife, a plain woman from up- HOMECOMING 199 state, was laying the plates. "I guess he's lunch table begin to smile softly at the healthy enough," she said, but not smiling. sight of four generations having their pic­ "I· think he can take care of himself. Or ture taken together, and one of the women maybe I can." got tears in her eyes until the. thick slices Bertha flushed and quickly began drop­ of ham she piled on the platter were one ping the tin forks beside the plates. "I reddish blur. The other men, uncles and didn't mean -" she began, keeping her cousins and nephews and in-laws, coming eyes downward. "My lands, he's my own from the hot pasture where a ball game brother - There won't be enough forks." had ended, grunted and nudged each Adolph squealed, and turned his broad other. Henry plucked a blade of sweet­ bull back to them. grass from the ground and put it between Ernestine, the mother, sat with her his teeth, chewing it and recalling the same eldest daughter Annie and Annie's daugh­ sugary taste of thirty years ago, as he ter and grandchild - the four generations glanced around the green unchanged grove from three to ninety-one - stiffly under the of his childhood. He felt sorry that the hot sun in the middle of the grove, blink­ cow who wasn't Bess had switched away ing at the town photographer cautiously when he called her Bess. "You're real placing his tripod in a small space clear of pretty, Ma!" he called. "No one could guess dung. The herd of cows, turned from the you were the great-grandma-you look no grove into a neighboring treeless pasture more'n a girl!" for this one Sunday, watched morosely The women, making a loud clatter with over the fence, their glossy hides broiling cups and plates, laughed nervously. from the sun and twitching from flies. Ernestine, sitting erect, looked at him Henry squinted at them from the shade and said nothing; her ninety-one-year-old of a high elm tree, his hands locked be­ face was more wrinkled than ever as she hind his back. He even strolled a short sat in the bright patch of sun, her eyes way toward them, suddenly oblivious to blinking, her thin mouth locked in a the noise and shouting around him, and scowl, and her emaciated hands, the skin thought how they could not be the same stretched taut over the knuckles like old cows· he had tended thirty years ago. He freckled leather, folded in a knot in her laughed at this, still feeling pleased with lap. this reunion. "Bess?" he called softly. One Annie disrupted the pose by leaning cow - the one who might have been Bess, forward to pat her mother's scrawny shoul­ with a similar black patch over her moony ders with her own frail hand. "You're all left eye, though he knew it couldn't be right now, Ma? This sun isn't too much Bess-switched her tail and moved away. for you?" she asked weakly. Henry turned back toward the photog­ "Just one little minute, £olks," the pho­ rapher and saw him fumbling his way tographer said, raising his head from under under the black hood that draped the the hood. camera. He liked hearing the old sounds, "Grandma's all right," Annie's daughter the brook, the' crows, the old voices. He said dryly. saw Adolph coming toward him, his big But still Ernestine made no answer, her feet planting themselves unsteadily on the hands an angry bony knot in the pouch little muggy hillocks that filled the grove. of her skirt. Both of them saw the women at the Wearing a wreath of field daisies around 2.00 THE AMERICAN MERCURY the gray felt hat shoved back on his head, "Doris May!" Annie's lank daughter Fred, the second-youngest son, tall and called to the child and reached out a long lean, broke suddenly into hidden laughter. arm, encircling the child and drawing her "What a picture, what a picture!" he kept back into the lens's focus. saying, smacking his hands together. For "What we need is a moving-picture ma­ a moment a cloud passed over the sun chine!" Adolph squealed, and then for a and then the grove lay green and dark moment the four generations sat stiffly and sibilant. Fred snapped a daisy from and everyone held his breath and with a his hat brim and twirled it in his fingers little sigh the photographer clicked his until the sun came back again. "Say, this'll shutters. be a gem," he laughed quietly. He looked And they were immortalized. youthful and eager, though he was past forty. "Why, we ought to send one of III these pictures to Herb." Bertha glanced at him sharply, the blade Tossed a few feet away from the table, of her knife flashing blue in the sunlight the thick white bones of the hams lay as she curtly stopped her slicing motion. gleaming in the sun. Up the hill an expedi­ "Herb?" Henry said, the sweetgrass ar­ tion of women climbed almost bent rested between his teeth. "Someone talk­ double, their broad buttocks catching the ing about Herb?" sunlight, to put flowers they had gathered "Who's Herb?" the thin girl making from the fields on the grave of Gottlieb, the Family Tree asked. the father. In the pasture the sun fell in Fred heard the women at the long table a merciless sheen. The herd of cows stop their chatter. "Why, what's the mat­ shoved close together and stared soberly ter?" he asked in· a hurt whisper. "Why toward the grove, now deserted save for can't I talk about Herb if I want to?" His a few children napping on blankets. The dark soft eyes shot from one person to younger men, coatless and some of them the next, his forehead furrowed as he stripped to the waist, played baseball again; looked at Henry. "Why, what's wrong, the ball flew over the sunny pasture like a man?" he asked, as though he didn't know shining meteor. At the side of the field, what was wrong, his voice strained and the wreath of daisies in a shrivelled band false like a guilty child's. around his hat, Fred and one of his "Herb - Herb coming?" Ernestine nephews served free beer to whoever asked. wanted it. He watched Henry get up from "Just a minute now, folks," the photog­ the stone on which he had been watching rapher said, bobbing again from under his the ball game, and saunter toward him. black hood. "You don't want to go talking about "No, Ma, Herb's not coming," Henry Herb like that in front of everyone," said. "And if he did-" Henry said. "Makes Ma feel bad." "Herb?" she asked, and made a slight "Why, what's the matter, man?" Fred motion forward in her chair. asked in a little wail, pursing his lips. He "Ma, sit stillI" Annie said. raised his eyebrows, his dark gentle eyes Then the three-year-old great-grandchild morose and wounded. He was only a year began to whimper because of the heat and older than Herb. "What's the matter with tried to break away from the posing group. Herb? He's all right." HOMECOMING 201

"You been seeing him?" Henry asked, seen the spring ceaselessly churning inside glancing abruptly in Fred's eyes with sus­ the trough, and his father, Gottlieb, used picion. to tell him how it had been running like "Why, no more lately than you, I sup­ that for forty years; and now he won­ pose," Fred whispered, frightened. "Not dered whether the spring was still running for years. I never get to Chicago." - shading his eyes, he could see the trough Henry looked down at the hot cracked still standing, its tin sides ablaze with sun. ground. But Fred could remember much All around him the younger men, some of their youth together, his and Herb's of them only boys, waiting their turn to and Henry's - the treks from the barn to bat, were talking about this Uncle Herb the grove at dawn and back again at night they had never seen. and how once .Henry had got his foot "I'll bet he's living the right kind of life, crushed by an unruly cow; the hunts in though -" the marsh for witch-fires at night; Henry's "Uncle Herb? Jesus, I'd like a look at first girl, and how he came back late at him. I never saw a gambler." night to the attic to tell them what it had "I wouldn't mind if he remembered his been like, down beside Mecklesberg's relatives." Creek. "Is he that rich?" "Why, say -" Fred began, his eyes sud­ "Oh, my God, did you ever see a gam­ denly lighting. bler that wasn't?" Henry turned from the ball game and "He's .got a woman, you get it? A looked at him questioningly. jump-" "Why, nothing," Fred said. "Oh, my God,no-" "Just the same, besides Inaking Ma feel From the ballfield Adolph suddenly bad," Henry said, "think of the girls­ roared like a bull. His once-genial face Annie and Bertha-" was distorted in the merciless sunlight, his

itBier her, Bier her, oder ich fall urn ..." lips flabby and wet. "Well, you kids, is two of the younger men came singing, one of you gain' to bat soon? Washer­ Adolph's son and Bertha's son-in-law, women!" rapidly becoming acquainted over swift Then one of the young men stepped to draughts of beer. the home plate, grabbing the bat swiftly From the ballfield in the hot sweltering and waiting with nervous tenseness for afternoon came loud feverish cries of vic­ the ball to be flung at him. tory or defeat. Adolph, with sweat rolling Henry went up to one of the youths re­ down the caverns of his cheeks, was maining on the sideline, a young boy with umpire, standing solidly under the bright a lean chin on which hair was just begin- sun, patches of wet under his armpits like ning. to grow. "Son,"he sal,"d"we d'on t great dark wings. Henry watched, feeling talk about Herb around here." less cheerful than when he arrived from The youth looked at him and blanched. Ashtabula early that morning. He wished "Okay, Uncle-" he said and started to now that his wife had come along. He add a name, but could not remember felt he did not know any of these people. which uncle this was. At the far end of the pasture there used Henry moved up slowly toward third to be a spring welling into a horse trough; base, his strong butcher's arms locked be­ for the first twenty years of his life he had hind his back. "Adolph," he called. "How 2.02. THE AMERICAN MERCURY about quitting this game and taking. a little it," Ernestine said suddenly, still walking stroll? Like to see if that old spring's still ahead of all of them. running?" And, he added a snort of laugh­ "Saw what?" Bertha asked. ter, by way of offering his affection. "The grave." Adolph wiped his flabby hands under But she was not speaking to her sullen, his armpits but kept one eye on the batter. unsisterly daughters; she spoke to the hill-, "Why, hell no," he haH-chortled, and then side, the burning sun, the ground under roared wildly, like a drum struck, "BALL her quick feet. ONE!" The heat made the unacquainted women ' Henry thought of going down to the irksome and weary; all of them wondered spring alone, but the sun was too blister­ vaguely why they had troubled to come ing; he started toward the beer-stand but all this way back home, from upstate, felt he could not go there. He wondered Ohio, Montana. Each of the younger girls what had happened to his reunion - this thought the other girls were dressed shod­ was only a group of strangers having a dily. On the way up the hill the two picnic. He wished again fiercely that his sisters spoke to each other sweetly though wife had come with him. His only com­ distantly, but on the way down they fort was that Herb wasn't here - Herb dabbed their foreheads and wiped their could run away from home if he wanted throats with their handkerchiefs and to and not settle down like the others, plodded in silence, remembering nothing could become rich, become a gambler. and of their childhood together. doubtless a crooked gambler (they all be­ The w,omen had scarcely reached the lieved he had), keep a woman, and live a bottom of the hill when they heard an high and wicked life in Chicago; but he uproar from the ballfield, angry voices couldn't come back home. Henry sat growing fierce as they hurtled through the down again in the shade of an overlapping hot still air, furious shouts and obscene tree from the grove, where the cows hud­ cries. The ball game had abruptly ended dled nearby, in one monstrous tangle of in a quarrel; the men were pressing beef. around Adolph on the diamond and wav.. ing fists, their faces convulsed in the IV blinding sunlight. They swung bats and called each other bastards and two of the Coming down the hill from their pilgrim­ younger boys began walloping each other age, the garland of women grew silent, until they rolled in a cloud of dust over mopping their brows with folded hand­ the pasture. The women saw Henry jump kerchiefs. They had little to say to each from a stone alongside the field and rush other and puffed and looked wretchedly with grotesque waving arms to separate toward the cool grove at the foot of the them, his mouth wide open in revolted hill. The younger women, scarcely ac­ rage. All the men, brothers and cousins quainted, spoke politely and tried to make and uncles and nephews, were roaring at good impressions but soon said nothing. one another. The sound of the many women's dresses The women rushed aghast toward the brushing the foliage as they descended the pasture and each woman took the side hill made a murmur like distant wind. of her husband, screaming in high voices "Herb's the only one who never saw and pushing angrily at each other. They HOMECOMING 2.°3 watched Henry trying to separate the men "He says, 'Arriving at four o'clock'." and quell the row. Annie's pale head "How'd he know? ..." twitched and she kept pulling her hand­ "Why -I-I just sent him a post card," kerchief through her nervous wiry fingers, said Fred, whose memories were freshest, her dry impotent body erect. Bertha in a hurt whisper, his lips pursed and dry. breathed heavily and glowered at her. Each He switched his eyes guiltily, drops of believed the other's husband had begun sweat standing on his lean forehead. "Well, the fight. what's the matter with that?" he cried, his So that very few saw the car come into voice louder than he intended it to be, the driveway up at the old house. But the when no one spoke. young girl of thirteen dashed up the path "Herb?" Ernestine said, looking up. with her tablet and pe,ncil, returning, after Many people unthinkingly glanced at the car had sputtered away again, with the their watches and Henry's tired eyes telegram in her hand. Then the murmur squinted up·at the sun but no one said of the telegram's arrival spun through the anything. grove and pasture and, as quickly as it had "You wouldn't think he'd have the begun, the row subsided. nerve -" Adolph said at last, and shook "It's for Grandma," the girl said. all his fat in a snort. A moment later he Henry came swiftly from the ballfield, squealed curtly in his high, feminine still trembling, his face grimy with dust laughter. and sweat, his throat raspy as he breathed. "I'll take it, girlie," he panted. v "She said it's for Ma," Bertha said, glow­ ering. "Edna, give it to Grandma. Ma, When the beer was gone, the two young shall I read it for you?" men who had become rapidly acquainted, "Never mind-" Henry said, wiping his Adolph's son and Bertha's son-in-law, took damp hand over his mouth. up a collection of quarters and half-dollars "Edna, give it to me," Annie said from the men and went for more. They sweetly, though ashen-faced. took Henry's Buick, without telling him. "Maybe Ma could read her own tele­ Adolph's son threw the car in gear and gram," Bertha said. reversed so swiftly that they grazed the Edna looked from one to the other with oak tree on the lawn; they guffawed and the telegram crushed in her hand and did shot forward, the gears shifting from sec­ not know which way to turn. But before ond to high with silky smoothness. They the others could reach her, Henry strode grew still drunker from the brilliant glare forward and took it from her hands. of sunlight on the fenders and hood. But Ernestine stood silent in the middle of this Adolph's boy, intoxicated by this easy alien group and looked very small, her speed, was driving too swiftly. Only a dark .wrinkled face seeming childish. hundred rods from the house, unaware of Henry let the envelope flutter to the hot the bend in the road, he plunged his broad green floor of the grove. He was still foot with all his drunken might on the trembling. brake, but could not halt the terrific speed "Herb's coming." of the Buick, and ran headlong into the The fifty pairs of eyes darted and glinted great shining black Cadillac as it rounded like bees under the elms and maples. the curve. 2.°4 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

The Buick joggled and toppled at the But he did not come home alone. On thunderous impact and came to a dead the seat beside him, slipped forward on stop without turning over, its front fenders her knees as though she were praying, but and headlights smashed and one wheel unconscious, they found a young woman rolling weirdly fifty feet down the road; of thirty, dressed in blue with a string of but the Cadillac lurched into the air like blue beads around her neck, her hair a hurt black bull, turned turvy with a tumbled forward over her eyes and her shatter of glass, leapt upright again, then head hanging to one side as though the tumbled sidewise into the ditch. It lay on neck were broken. As they started to lift its side, its engine whirring. her out, she revived, looking about her They waited paralyzed inside the Buick, wildly with her mouth opened as though stricken at first only by the defeat of this she wanted to scream. "What's the matter great Cadillac by the smaller car, then re­ - what are you doing?" and she began lieved and limp at their own escape. There swinging her arms, hitting the men who was no sound from the big car, shining, were lifting her out. Abruptly she fainted yet crushed like paper, in the glare. But again, loose in their arms. suddenly Adolph's son gave a short choked Herb came home like this: he weighed cry and jumped from the car, followed by almost two hundred pounds but he was Bertha's son-in-law, rubbing his bruised so limp he sagged in the middle like a knee. And abruptly they both understood rolled-up carpet as the five men carried who was in the smashed silent·Cadillac. him to the house, a whole procession of Then almost before they could reach relatives following slowly and whisper­ the overturned car the throng of people ing to one another, one of them bringing came hurrying up the road from the grove, his soiled panama hat. The girl, reviving men with distorted faces, and gasping again, followed behind with her lean hand women, surrounding the car like flies held up to her head, supported by Adolph around something dead, pushing the two and Bertha's husband. young men out of their way as a dozen No one ever mentioned his name. hands reached out to wrench open the door Ernestine waited alone on the front of the sedan. porch, her hands locked under her apron. Herb was richly dressed in a flannel Annie rushed up to her, white~faced, her suit and a thin silk shirt with the initials eyes suddenly tired and red-rimmed. HD embroidered on the pocket, and ex­ "Now, Ma," she began, "you come into pensive kid shoes, with bright socks on his the house - you don't want to see this-" feet and a gay tie round his neck. He had But she stood silent on the porch that a large diamond on his thick finger and slanted a little to one side with age, wait­ another smaller diamond in his tie. He ing with curious, cold, child's eyes. They was crushed between the front seat and came staggering under his weight, breath­ the steering wheel, slipped down from the ing heavily and calling whispered com­ seat though with his bloody hands still mands to each other; and his eyes seemed gripping the wheel. He wasn't dead; his conscious and he kept the comical grin on eyes were open and looked alive and they his mouth, as though this were a very could hear his rasping breath. He was funny deal of the cards. grinning comically as they lifted him out They took him into one of the little of the car. blue-walled bedrooms. The woman who HOMECOMING 2.°5 came with him did not go into the bed­ the brothers and sisters and the woman room but sat outside in the kitchen on an who came home with him, remained. old plush sofa, her fingers absently tug­ There wasn't any sound in the room. Sud­ ging at pieces of horsehair which pro­ denly the woman who had come with truded through a tiny hole. The men who him, her. tousled hair still falling over her had carried him in grunted, and mopped eyes, a small scratch on her lean young their necks and hands, and looked stupidly cheek, looked up; her body was slim and at each other. They stared stupidly at eel-like. "What?" she asked, staring at Ernestine, who sat quietly on the edge of everyone around her. "Who are you?" the bed with her worn brown hand over They were all watching her, except Herb's, this son of hers who had come Fred who stood against the door jamb back. She kept opening her mouth trying with the startled hurt look in his eyes. to speak but no words came. Henry, hold­ Henry coughed. "He was our brother," he ing .fast to the foot of the iron bedstead, explained. somehow had expected Herb to come "What?" she muttered again. home looking as he had when he ran "He died." away one night twenty years ago; he kept "For Christ's sake," she said quietly, and squinting down at the big broken body then gaped at the bare boards of the with puzzled eyes, unable to recognize his kitchen floor, and looked abruptly sick brother. and older. After a few moments he went quietly They were all startled when Annie gave back to the kitchen, crowded as though a soft whimper and burst into tears, rush­ for a party. "He died," he said, and ran ing into the bedroom where her mother his tongue over his lip. "Just now." was alone with Herb. She stayed there Fred, leaning against the door, raised only a minute and came out weak and his frightened hurt eyes, pursing his dazed. She threw herself into Bertha's mouth. "Why, what are you talking about, arms, sobbing but without any sound man?" he whispered and went white. whatsoever. The two ashen-faced young men who Adolph tried to comfort her, patting her had killed Herb shot' each other frenzied back. "Hey, now -" he began, but ended glances and one of them, Adolph's son, by repeating deep and dry in his throat, broke into loud sobbing like a child and "I'll be - I'll be - I'll be-" rushed into his father's arms. Some of the "Cigarette," Herb's woman said, hold­ younger children, unacquainted with ing out her open hand but still with her death, kept trying to see through the bed­ eyes fastened to the floor. She did not even room doorway but were afraid to get too blink. close. Both Adolph and Henry went to her "Herb?" the thin young girl asked, look­ with cigarettes and matches but Fred stood ing at her Family Tree tablet. "Which unmoving, letting his hurt questioning one is he? I can't find his name-" eyes rove from one to the other of them, Then all the children were swiftly bus­ unable to understand. The girl held the tled out of the room and those who were cigarette in her mouth, her hands droop­ not closely related, the younger people and ing between her knees. "You feeling all the in-laws, and a few others who were right?" Henry asked, more softly than he afraid of death, left too. Only the family, expected to. She did not answer but after 2.06 THE AMERICAN MERCUlty a few puffs stood up, raising her bare arms ting the sofa, but the girl would not lie as though she were only going to stretch down. "Give us that pillow, Henry." herself and even parting her lips as though Surprised by the familiar ring in for a yawn, but then rushed her hands Bertha's voice as she said his name, Henry swiftly over her eyes. bounded quickly to the rocker near the They forgot .to resent her .cigar~tte. window and brought the pillow for her. Adolph made a sound like coughing, puff­ "No thanks," the girl said, but tried to ing his flabby big cheeks, and went into smile. the bedroom. Annie left Bertha's arms and Adolph came out of the bedroom with went over to put her own arms around his mother. Her eyes were red-rimmed. the girl, who had begun to sob with her She saw the girl for the first time. "Who hands over her eyes. Suddenly the girl is that?" she asked. fainted, slipping from Annie's frail arms "Why, it's Herb's friend, Ma," Henry with a quiet thud to the floor. said.

Annie was helpless. U Ach, du Zieber Gott, They all looked older and tired and 's ist schrecklichl" she wailed and was on Ernestine looked timeless. She looked very her knees, tugging ridiculously at the girl small, too, surrounded by her children. to pick her up, slipping into the German "Well, take her in the bedroom," she said. they had often. used years ago. For the first time that day, she spoke and Bertha and Henry picked her up. looked at her children directly, as though Bertha sat beside the girl on the sofa, she had them back again. The daughters quickly loosening the belt tight around helped Ernestine cover the girl with quilts her slim waist. "Get this lady some even though the sun shone hotly, and water I" Henry cried to Fred, but Fred Henry rushed down the road to see where looked at him dumbly. "Water!" he re­ the doctor was, and Adolph silently ordered peated. All Annie could do was drop on the peering face of his youngest child away the sofa and rub the girl's hands. from the bedroom window. Then they all Fred brought water from the pump out­ stood close to the bedstead watching the side and gave it to Henry blankly. girl, a tight circle o~ them around Ernes­ The girl revived, her face becoming a tine, except Fred, the second-youngest, little green, then white. who still stood by the kitchen door, his "There, you all right now?" Bertha eyes sunken and frightened as he watched asked. She took the water from Henry the waiting gr up in the bedroom. Soon and held it to the girl's lips. "You lay he raised his hurt startled eyes, going in down here. You'll be all right. There's a to join them. doctor coming any minute." Henry thought how after the burial,. up The girl let her eyes glance jerkily on the hill, they would all return to the around the kitchen, as though she were new homes they had made upstate, in trying to recognize it. Ohio, Montana, forgetting again. He won.. "You'll be all right," Bertha repeated. dered what it was that had happened to "We're all his people. You, can lie down all of them, that only a death could re­ snug here." She stood up' and began pat- unite them. ~~~~~~~~x!~~~~n~~~~~ ~ AMERICANA· ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CALIFORNIA SWAMI BAIRD T. SPALDING reports strange doings in India, in answer to a palpitating THE New Literary Criticism leaps to the question in Mind Magazine: defense of American womanhood in the Los Angeles Times: Questz'on: Will you tell us about trying to sing, "Hail, Hail, the Gang's all Here," This -book "Europa" is a great novel but when you were in the temple? it fairly oozes sex. It covers the periods Answer: We were told that an inhar­ between 1900 and the World War and monious sound could not be uttered in the one point in common between those the temple. We tried to sing, "Hail, Hail, various periods was that the men always the Gang's all Here," and no sound came seemed to be discussing sex potentialities forth. We then just said, "Hail, Hail, Hail," of their women friends. For them, women and the words rang out as though ampli­ seemed to have no other significance. This fied a thousand times. may be true in the shot-out civilizations, ?ut it is emphatically not true of Amer- Ica.•.. KANSAS I think I can honestly say that I am a GRATIFYING literary trend as noted in a man's man. I have lived my life mostly with men - and mostly with young men. United Press dispatch from the thriving Believe it or not, I have never but once metropolis of Girard: heard a man discuss a decent girl in a A marked increase in the sale of Shake­ dirty way.... This one exception was a speare's plays was noted in the last 60 public official and I am glad and happy days by E. Haldeman-Julius, publisher, he to say that circumstances made it possible for me to reduce him to a pitiful wreck said today. "A check on the sales revealed that a - financially, politically and socially. I good many people believed a certain kept picking the ground under him for years in spite of his bellows for mercy. Notre Dame athlete was an author as well It turned out to be about the most ex­ as a halfback," Haldeman-Julius said. pensive remark ever made. He used to sue for peace but I was ruthless. The girl MASSACHUSETTS never knew.... I know a very beautiful Chinese girl, HARBINGER of returning prosperity and who - being marooned between two races plenty in East Concord, as reported by the - has spent much of her life in the treaty esteemed Springfield News: ports and the international diplomatic colonies. She says that it is her experience The latter part of last week Mrs. Lillian that an American is the only man with Wiser was feeling good but Sunday there whom a defenseless 'girl- especially if she was so much company they even stayed has been unwise enough to drink - is to eat 2 or 3 tables full of them, mostly completely and absolutely safe. If a little from Lackawanna and Buffalo they "crocked," her peril increases with most laughed and joked and kept a racket going other men but her position becomes all the and bring children to keep things stired safer with the average decent American. up till this week she is so nervous and He hurries her hon1e to her mother. .. worn out, she don't know what to do with 1.07 208 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

her self can't eat and keep it down not sprung from America, was turned down good at all. by one organization after another - of our own people. ...I assure you it will be NEW JERSEY many a year before another such play springs from a writer's pen. ••• SAD news for the communists, as reported by the ever-truthful Daily Worker: POSSIBLE successors to The Star Spangled Banner, from a list of Songs of Struggle Recruiting generally is slow in District suggested, for fireside singing in the New 14, and worse, when we figure· the aver­ age of recruits as against the average of America, by the same happy-go-lucky pub­ fluctuation, we find that workers are leav­ lication: ing our Party faster than we are getting them in.... In Bayonne alone, where we Banker and the Boss Barricades, The recruited, roughly, 100 membeis for the Comintern last two years, we lost 120. Dixie (with new words) Hallelujah I'm a Bum NEW YORK Hand Me Down My Union Card THE distinguished publishing firm of G. P. Hunger March Internationale Putnam's Sons describes, on the jacket of Into the Streets May First A Natural Bridge to Cross, by Eva Bur­ Lenin's Favorite Song (0 Tortured and ton, the recent trip of the author: Broken in Prison) On the Picket Line In February, 1935, she returned from Paint 'er Red (Marching Through Geor- seven months abroad, having gone to gia) Palestine especially to see persons con­ Poor Mr. Morgan nected with the coming rebirth of Christ. Preacher and the Slave (Pie in the Sky) Red Army March PIE in the sky as presaged by the shrewd Red Flag (tune of 0, Tannenbaum) forecasters of the clairvoyant New Re­ Rockefeller Round public: Scottsboro Boys Siberian Partisan Songs If the Soviet Union is preserved from at­ Song of the Red Air Fleet tack for another five years, it will dominate Soup Song the world situation. The influence of its We Are the Guys example upon the workers of the rest of We Shall Not be Moved (Lenin Is Our the world will be decisive. There will be Leader) no need whatever for the Soviet govern­ When Revolution Comes to Town (Yan­ ment to utter a word of propaganda, still kee Doodle) less to lift a finger in aggression against Workers Funeral March any capitalist government. THE idealistic Herald Trib1{tne rushes to COMRADE Albert Bein, author of Let Free­ attack the vile canard that there may dom Ring, discusses his own handiwork be some connection between thedispensa­ with becoming modesty in the wealthy tion of vast AAA funds and the election Daily Worker: to be held next November: •..• this militant trade union play, cast To say that the votes of the farmers can to perfection and directed well- this play, be bought is to insult the intelligence as probably the soundest, most uncompromis­ well as the integrity. of the people of the ing and yet alluring one that has yet Middle West. AMERICANA

EMBARRASSING moment for a Great Amer­ TEXAS ican, as described by the ever-observant A NOBLE civic pride surges· through an edi­ Times: tor's breast, as per the distinguished Breck­ Postmaster General James A. Farley sang, enridge American: spoke, and sold the first stamps yesterday when the new postoffice hranch was offi­ Our city of Breckenridge has the honor cially opened in Bloomingdale's depart­ of being mentioned in the famous one­ ment store. The program started when volume Columbia Encyclopedia, said Su­ Weldon H. Stott, a shoe salesman and part­ perintendent N. S. Holland Tuesday. The time radio crooner, jumped on a counter volume contains over 900 pages, 55,000 and led the singing of three verses of "The titles, 125,000,000 words, and two towns Star-Spangled Banner," the words of which by the name of Breckenridge. Three lines had been passed out at the doors to each are devoted to our city, Mr. Holland said. employe as he entered the store. Mr. Farley The Columbia Encyclopedia was written joined inthe first verse in a rather cautious by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of baritone. Somewhere in the second he Columbia University. dropped out and he· stood through the third with his hands behind his back; no WISCONSIN one had thought to give him a copy of the words. DELICATE interpretation of a New Deal edict is managed successfully, according to FATE of a Japanese good-will offering of the alert Green Bay Press-Gazette: presents to the mayor of New York City Shipments of a consignment of Northern when horde of hungry job-holders were a Tissue to Ethiopia was announced this turned loose on them, as noted by the morning by the Northern Paper Mills. Sun: Mill officials explained that they did not feel this shipment violated the president's Like a swarm of locusts, members of the embargo against selling "munitions of Board of Estimate descended on the recep­ war" to combatant nations. tion room. With a faultless eye for the finest pieces, they scooped up costly etch­ ings, delicately carved fans, musical instru­ WYOMING ments, and Oriental jewelry. Assistants ANOTHER giant stride forward is taken in helped Aldermanic President Bernard S. Deutsch pile armfuls of plunder into his the advance of American scholarship, as limousine. James J. Lyons, Bronx Borough evidenced by an announcement from the President, grunted under the weight of a Animal Production Department of the Japanese harp. University of Wyoming: Having in mind the many abilities and spe­ PENNSYLVANIA cial training exacted from the dude rancher, as well as the increasing personnel problems, A WORD to· the wise from the ironic but the University of Wyoming, located in the business-like editor of the alert Bala-Cyn­ very heart of the dude ranching country, wyd News: has launched a four-year course in recrea­ tional ranching as a part of its regular cur­ White's Sweet Shop closed again this week. riculum. Speaking in the vernacular, the ar­ ... For years an advertiser in this paper rangement "is a naturalI" ... Through and a consistent money-maker, the shop the cooperation of various departments in has in the past. year or so, under various the University a student may earn a de­ ownerships, consistently neglected the im­ gree in Recreational Ranching in four years portant function of advertising. • .• These young people will have pre- 2.10 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

pared themselves for a wider and fuller He has the people in the palm of his understanding of the things which make hand. It is marvelous. They just worship life worth living. him. Every man you see is armed. It is a perfectly marvelous situation. IN OTHER NEW UTOPIAS RUSSIA CANADA HAPPY family life in the roseate land of THE Higher Education makes its influence the Soviets, as cabled to the New York felt across the border, according to the Times: celebrated Vancouver News~Herald: Found guilty of murdering her I3-year... "Cooties, cooties everywhere ..." may old stepson, Peter Parfenoff, who had be... well be the theme song of the Phrateres trayed his grandmother to the authorities (Friendship) Society this afternoon. With when she stole from a collective farm, the college gym the setting for their un~ Christina Parvenova, a peasant woman, usual party at which a cootie-game contest was sentenced to death before a Soviet will be the main feature, members of the firing squad by the Supreme Court of the Society are in for a couple of really hilari­ White Russian Republic at Sekno. The ous hours. The cootie idea will be carried grandmother, as an accomplice in the out throughout, painted representatives of murder, was sentenced to eight years' im~ the species being hung about the athletic prisonment.... Peter ParfenofI, as a hall, and nonsensical prizes being given to member of the Young Pioneers, children's the contest winners. Doughnuts and coffee communist organization, had been taught will be used to revive the exhausted par~ that loyal Soviet children must report ticipants. Dean Mary L. Bollert, honorary thefts from collective farms, even if the president of Phrateres, will act as patroness. disclosures implicated nearest and dearest relatives. ••. The crime was committed ENGLAND July 28, the defendant testified, when she sent the lad to the cellar to sort potatoes. THE Churchman's Magazine comes very She crept up behind him and crushed his close to making a nasty crack: head with a rock. ... The woman ad­ mitted she had disinterred the body after Though death and disaster come to all ~nd manner of persons in whatever walk of a first burial, hacked it to pieces, life, yet we cannot help remembering that attempted to burn it in the kitchen stove. The corpse of a newborn baby was found the Queen [of the Belgians] who was Protestant before her marriage, changed in the garret of the Parfenoff house, and it was established that, shordy before mur­ her faith to that of Rome, as did Queen dering her stepson, Christina Parvenova Ena of Spain, to please the powers-that-be. Whether there is any significance in that had given birth to the baby, smothered it and concealed the body in the attic. fact, it is not for us to speak rashly, but we have for some time past observed what MUNIFICENT rewards to Comrades lucky a large number of Papists who have re­ enough to be working on the Trans~ ceived the special blessing of the Church of Rome have almost immediately met Siberian railroad, as reported in a Mos­ with disaster. cow dispatch to the New York Herald Tribune: GERMANY All workers get what is described as good THE Princess Braganza, according to the food, but it is rationed according to the work each individual accomplishes. The New York City News Service, brings best "shock workers" get special rations home this glowing picture of Reichsfuhrer and some are even allowed to order meals Adolf Hitler: according to taste. KING OF THE LOBBY

BY LLOYD LEWIS and HENRY JUSTIN SMITH

o HIS dying day it was Sam Ward's frowning upon the fripperies of society, he boast that he had never paid a con­ raised his children to be worthy of a puri­ Tgressman a cent for his vote. "The tan heritage which contained a couple of way to a man's 'Aye' is through his stom­ colonial governors of Rhode Island and ach," Sam would say, patting his own with various religious leaders. He filled his pride and affection. With devilish skill he house, at the corner of Bond street and served unpronounceable European dishes Broadway - far uptown i,n the 1820'S­ to agrarian politicians 'and through their with paintings, but there his worldliness appetites won their votes for the higher stopped, for he gave far more money to the tariffs and financial laws which their ene­ building of churches on the godless West­ mies, the corporations, wanted, and which ern frontier, and to the New York tem­ they themselves had so lately vowed to kill. perance movement. His religious scruples Sam Ward's table, and his table talk, were delayed, long past her time, the social debut fragrant with the romance which ambitious of his daughter, Julia Ward, and indeed Americans wove about anything foreign or shaped her so that she fell readily in with aristocratic in the period of Sam's heyday the reform passions of the man she mar­ - 1865 to 1880. Outside of Virginia ham, ried, Dr. S. G. Howe, the abolitionist of which he carefully boiled in champagne Boston. with a wisp of new-mown hay added at cer­ But old Ward had less luck with his eld­ tain intervals, Sam was not known ever to est child, Sam. The boy, born in 1814, was have devised anything particularly Ameri­ his sister's idol, "master of childhood revels, can in all his epicurean career. Many trips handsome, quick of wit, tender of heart, to Europe, where he was a favorite of fash­ brilliant in promise", and the father de­ ionable society, kept him posted on what cided to educate him as a scholar as well as the finest foreign chefs were up to, and it banker. After an expensive preparation in was largely with new salads,' mixed by his American private schools, the youth was own hands, that he seduced the antimo­ sent to Heidelberg where he developed an nopolistic senators of the Republic. amazing facility in language, mathematics, An overdose of puritanism in his youth, and .beer-garden song. Then to Paris he a titanic draught of Bohemianism in his wentto astonish Laplace by translating that adolescence, and the Civil War in his adult­ genius' Mecanique Celeste, and to capti­ hood combined to make Samuel Ward the vate Victor Hugo with his wit and charm. "King of the Lobby". His father, another Jules Jaurin, the reigning critic of the city, Samuel, was a great ,banker of New York, made him his companion. The cafes knew the middleman in Prime, Ward & King, him and embraced him. The writers and financiers of Wall Street. An austere man, scholars introduced him to dukes, the dukes 211 2.12. THE AMERICAN MERCURY introduced him to premiers, and the pre­ house in San Francisco, made a fortune, miers to princes. Sam came home in 1835 lost it in a fire, and by 1851 was roaming with a thing to delight his father, a mag­ again. The Indians intrigued his linguistic nificent library in boxes, but with a hedon­ genius, and to win a wager he learned the ist's love of the Latin Quarter in his heart. Piute language in three weeks, residing Around the grim American home he sang with tribesmen while he studied. He liked Heidelberg songs until his two sisters and a certain chief and invited him to take a younger brother nearly lost their senses trip to San Francisco. At a steamboat land­ dreaming of romance. ing the chief disappeared, and Sam, return­ Then Ward, Senior, took him down to ing to the village to report the loss, speed­ the office of Prime, Ward & King, and as ily found himself trussed while a fire was relatives afterward said, "his brilliant and lighted at a handy stake. Just before the effervescent spirit was forced into the Wall redskins' death dance was done, in came Street mold with disastrous results". The the chieftain, admitting that he had made boy's mind was still in Paris that first day a fool of himself. He said that he had never when, at evening, his father summoned been on a steamer ,before and that its in­ him and said, "You'll play the very devil ternal noises had convinced him of dan­ with the checkbook, sir, if you use it in ger. "He sick - he groan so," he had said, this way." and popped quickly over the side.. A little And later that same year, young Sam later he had seen, from the cliffs, how was further off· from the long, mad eve­ comfortable everybody was on deck, and nings of Montmartre, because he was that the big canoe was evident!y in good marching down a church aisle with Emily, health. Then he had walked home·feeling the daughter of William B. Astor, on his very small, and now turned Sam loose arm. Nearby, his sister Julia was noting with apologies. how "on the forehead of the bride shone Sam went on, went chasing gold mines a diamond star, the gift of her grand­ in Mexico and in South America, and in father", John Jacob Astor himself. 1862 represented the United States Govern­ But Emily was soon dead, and, in 1839, ment in renewing rights to cross Nica­ Sam's father too. The brakes now were off ragua. Then he came home. But New York and Sam let fly at society with both barrels, was no longer the place for an ex-banker feasting and dancing with abandon. He or even a banker. Washington now was was trying to recapture Paris. Another the center of everything. A war was on. fashionable marriage came his way in 1843, Sam's sister, Julia, was famous. The past the bride being again an heiress and a November she had visited the army camps queen of fashion, Medora, daughter of the in Virginia with her husband, who was a New Orleans aristocrat, John R. Grymes. leader in the Sanitary Commission, the Sam left his father's firm, set up his own medical relief auxiliary of the Federal brokerage office in Wall Street, played the army. One day while Dr. Howe and the of­ very devil with the checkbook, struggled, ficers rode horses, Julia and her Boston pas­ wriggled, finally let the devil have every­ tor, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, had thing, and in 1848 struck off for California followed in a carriage. All day a river of and gold. blue-dad soldiers flowed past them. Julia Too gently bred to bend all day over a had sung the newly popular song, 'ohn sieve in a creek, Sam set up a mercantile Brown's Body, to the boys, and they had KING OF THE LOBBY taken it up to make it roll and echo among perous with self-sufficient farms or small the Virginia hills. Dominie Clarke finally factories. Also Jeiferson had endangered said to her, "You ought to write some new the government credit,"squandering" words to that tune." money on purchases of vast wilderness That night, the tune had gone on swing­ tracts west of the Mississippi for the use of ing, clashing, swinging in her mind. She farmers. Sam had heard his father de.. could not sleep. One grandsire, far back, nounce Jefferson's follower, Andrew Jack­ had ridden and sung with Cromwell, and son, for similar radicalism when Old Hick­ he rode again that night up and down the ory had refused a new charter to the floor boards of Julia's tent in Virginia. Sud­ United States Bank. With many institu­ denly, as Julia afterward told Brother Sam, tions, and some states, going bankrupt in she "found the wished-for lines arranging the resultant crash, .Sam's father had ob­ themselves in her brain". She bounced out tained from England the loan which saved of bed, seized a candle, a pencil, the back New York State's credit. of an envelope, and let The Battle Hymn The long reign of the Democrats had of the Republic write itself. been filled with talk about the people rul­ The Atlantic Monthly gave her $S for ing, but all that this implied to the fin­ the song. It was an immediate success. anciers was that the politicians ruled; whereas all sound and conservative men of II affairs knew that with inventions increas­ ing as they were, and with machinery im­ But no Covenanters disturbed the sleep proving so rapidly, the nation needed the of Brother Sam. He was forty-eight, a lit­ rule of business. By the time Sam reached tle past the military age for private soldiers, Washington, the Republican party had and he was not equipped to be an officer. been in office for a year, and already the Furthermore, his eyes had never seen the businessmen had discovered that the ad­ glory of the Coming of the Lord. Once, ministration supported the gospel they had indeed, he had sighed to Julia as they had always preached. The era of the politician walked from church after a very long ser­ was ending: soon millionaires would be mon by Dr. Clarke: tiLe pauvre Dieu!" regarded by an altered electorate as the What Sam Ward did when he came to right men to sit in Senate seats where Washington in 1862 was to witness a phe­ small-town la'vyers once had dreamed nomenon which many of the banking-bred their grandiose dreams. Fittingly enough, class already had noted: namely, the ar­ it was the new administration itself which rival in American government of a new introduced Ward to the fresh dispensation. dispensation for the businessman. All his An Indiana banker, .Hugh McCulloch, life Sam had seen bankers and brokers was Controller of the Currency, and he treated with what they thought was insuf­ needed someone to court, woo, and charm ficient respect by the Democratic hierarchy. congressmen, especially the Democrats who In early times, they had grieved for the were prone to oppose the war and what the nation's future because that demagogue war was doing to old American institu­ Thomas Jefferson had taught simple folk tions. Sam accepted the job, receiving what that cities and bankers and large-scale busi­ the newspapermen of Washington under­ nesses were dangerous, and that everybody stood to be $12,000 in annual salary and would be not only happier but more pros- "dinner expenses". The hour of the lobby- 2.1 4 THE AMERICAN MERCURY ist had come. There had been contact men not in him to humiliate men. His way was galore, in the long Democratic regimes to get them to like him so much they from Jefferson to Buchanan, to influence would do what he wanted them to do. A legislators, but the profession had not been newspaper editor sounded what was prob- established in the form which now ably the average correspondent's view when emerged. he said, at Sam's death, that the man had Joe Morrisey, a tetrarch in the twilight "lived by arts which nobody ca~ respect," world of lotteries, wanted Congress to tax but that he had "adorned a questionable his business. Every business should do its life with amiability, refinement and breed­ part in war times, he remarked. But pri­ ing". vately, Joe desired a tax to kill off his less Charles Sumner,.the august and lofty powerful competitors so that he, in his abil­ reformer-senator, said: "I disagree with ity to pay, might secure a monopoly. He Sam Ward on almost every human topic, hired Sam Ward - and Sam's art flow­ but when I have talked with him five min­ ered. From his Lucullan feasts, starry-eyed utes I forget everything save that he is the congressmen staggered down the streets, most delightful company in the world." feeling their paunches with pleased won.. And Julia Ward Howe, who, as a battler der. And quickly Morrisey was able to for abolition, women's rights, and high spread the word to rich men that this was morals, could not condone Brother Sam's the way to do it. Ward's reputation was profession, stood loyally by him, for she did made, and he soon was known far and love him endlessly. "I'm the gastronomic wide as King of the Lobby. War contracts pacificator," Sam said of himself, and were wanted, contract-scandals needed to would contend, with some evidence to sup­ be hushed, subsidies were being handed port him, that his principal business had out, the habits of a nation were changing, been to cement the rickety friendships of an industrial revolution was on - the lid big men in Washington. The enmities was off. that died among the champagne bottles on his tables were reputedly without number, III for he was always at his pacificating, and his reign lasted for twenty years. Since Sam so quickly grasped the nature A bitter feud between Generals Garfield of his new profession, there was no way and Schenck terminated at one of the small, of recording the exact identities of hiscli­ elegantly-appointed, exquisitely-dished din­ ents. He always denied emphatically hav­ ners which were Sam's specialty. "Uncle ing helped any of the concerns which Sam", as he came to be called in the early swindled the government on war orders. 1870'S, invited the two hostile politicians to He would have no part of any fraud, he dinner without letting either know of the said, and never passed money. Even some other's presence. He allowed them to meet of the most cynical newspaper correspond­ in his hallway and exchange glowers for ents thought he had never given a cash a few moments before he made his urbane bribe, for if Sam were not above it mor­ entrance. Seating them, he held their atten­ ally, he was at least too intelligent for tion with anecdotes until his excellent im­ methods so crude. Also there was this to ported vintages could take hold. And when be said for Sam: he was a genius at mak­ Sam's exotic foods were melting in their ing people comfortable and happy. It was mouths, Garfield, the former towpath boy, KING OF THE LOBBY

had beamed upon Schenck, and Schenck, was a sight of the Patent Office". The em~ forgetting the hardtack he had eaten in bassies missed him, for diplomats had war, smiled upon Garfield. Late that night found him a European oasis in a strange the two guests departed, leaving their land. He might well have lobbied for them, hatchets buried in the dinner debris. too, since there was no question of his "The incarnation of European luxury" friendship with such influential foreigners was what fashionable folk said of Sam's as the Prince of Wales, Bismarck, the Czar, way of life, as he darted back and forth Lord Tennyson, Cardinal Newman, Hux­ between America and Europe. And so ley, Daudet, Robert Browning, and Sarah skilled was he in the technique of the per~ Bernhardt. Gladstone often entertained feet dinner that he ate nothing himself at him, and Gladstone's secretary, Lord Rose.. his functions, devoting his whole time to bery, was one of his closest friends. table talk that would amuse his guests. Sam departed from his haunts leaving This did not mean that he went hungry, behind a story which he had told so often for it was his practice to fortify himself, that it had become legendary - of how before company came, with a large lamb he had saved Andrew Johnson's presiden­ chop and a stimulating glass of Burgundy. tial chair for him. He said that through Uncle Sam, in his sixty-eighth year, gave his many friendships, he had learned of a dinner to Oscar Wilde, during the Amer­ the Republican pIotto impeach Johnson, ican lecture tour of that twenty-eight-year­ and had rushed to his original benefactor, old British poet -.a dinner which gave McCulloch, now risen to be Secretary of the "King of the Aesthetes" lessons in what the Treasury. Together they had gone to was beautiful. "The aesthetics of the kit­ drag Johnson from a diplomatic dinner and chen" was what Sam Ward had been say­ tell him to move fast. Out of his long ex­ ing that he practiced, and when the long­ perience, Sam had given him the plan haired apostle of the sunflower and the lily which saved him, the plan of hiring the came in 1882 to the home Sam had set up in most eminent counsel, half of them Repub­ New York, at 84 Clinton Place, he found licans, half Democrats. the dinner table surrounded with calla All the money Unele Sam had earned at lilies, with lilies of the valley at each plate, lobbying passed swiftly through his fin­ and a singer delivering a song The Valley gers, for he had lived grandly even when Lily, which the host had written. The din­ not supplied with expenses. It was on a gift ner passed into New York lore as one of from James R. Keene, the Wall Street the" most brilliant, however small, to be plunger, that Sam was living, in 1882, given in the metropolis. when he retired to New York. Once Keene Sam Ward by then had vacated his post had been desperately sick and lonely when as King of the Lobby. With the coming of Sam had called. With his own hands Ward Garfield to the Presidency, Sam's star had had taken such care of the stock-gambler waned, causing some observers to surmise that recovery had been rapid, and ever af­ that Garfield feared Sam would make him ter Keene believed that only this samari­ forgive all his enemies as he had once for­ tan treatment had saved his life. Quietly given Schenck. Washington was not the he bought a block of Northern Pacific Rail­ same with him gone, for, as one newspaper road stock, laid it away, and when a observed, "a sight of Sam Ward was as chance came, ran the price up, sold it, and much a part of every tourist's routine as gave the profit to Sam. 216 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Another friendship, that· with Henry Ledger paid me $4000. When I first men­ Wadsworth Longfellow, had often stood tioned the existence of such a poem to Bon­ Sam in good stead during his career. Long­ ner, he offered me $1000. Longfellow de.. fellow was not backward in telling people, clined the price. "Sam Ward is the most lovable man that "Longfellow was a noiseless sewing ma­ I have ever known", and there could be no chine in his work. He translated the In­ question about the sincerity of their mutual ferno by ten minutes' daily work, standing affection. The Boston poet either did not at a desk in his library while coffee was know, in his innocence, of Sam's profes­ reaching the boiling point on the break­ sion, or if he did, he held Sam's own view fast table." of it, for they exchanged letters on classic Sam wrote verse himself, and had, in his literature even while Sam was fattening younger days, published a book of poems, congressional calves and leading them to Lyrical Recreations, written to tease his the abattoirs of the robber barons. It was sister Julia when her first collection, Pas­ Sam's boast that his business acumen had sion Flowers, appeared anonymously. greatly advanced the fortunes of the gray­ "I can do as well," he had said, and in a bearded Longfellow. few weeks turned out his book. "We first met in Heidelberg in March, With Longfellow gone, and with so 1856," Sam announced, soon after the old many of his generation passIng, Sam did poet died in the spring of 1882. "We were not weaken. His nephew, F. Marion Craw­ great friends. I used to go up to Boston to ford, living at the home of Julia Ward spend Sunday with him. Howe in 1882, was putting his Unde Sam "I'll tell· you how he wrote Skeleton in into a novel, Doctor Claudius, and, naming Armor, one of his greatest poems. In 1839, him "Henry Bellingham", was accurately I think it was, he rode with my sister, Mrs. picturing him as "perfectly bald... Howe, and a gay party from Newport to sweeping moustache and imperial ... su­ Fall River, where there was a skeleton in perb diamonds in his shirt ... priceless armor, exhumed at Taunton and brought sapphires sparkling on his broad hand to Fall River for exhibition. Longfellow ... the only man of his time who can challenged my sister to write a poem about wear precious stones without vulgarity it. She didn't. He kept it in his mind for ... he moves like a king with a youth a year, then wrote it. that bids defiance to age". "He showed it to me, said his Boston ad­ Two years later Uncle Sam, bankrupt mirers thought he ought not to publish it. again, came to Crawford's home at Pegli, They said it was not up to his standard. I Italy, to die, and Julia Ward Howe was read it, took it to Lewis Gaylord of the writing in her diary: Knickerbocker Magazine, and had him "What must he not have suffered in give Longfellow $50 for it. That was a those lonely days of wandering and priva­ large price for any poetical production in tion. ... Here was a man with many those days. faults on the surface and a heart of pure "About ten years ago, when paying gold beneath.... He is in the heaven ac­ Longfellow my usual Christmas visit, he corded to those who loved their fellow men, read me The Hanging of the Crane, for for who ever coined pure kindness into which Robert Bonner of the New York acts as he did?" A YANKEE LOOKS AT DIXIE

BY KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD

T IS many years since, a tenth-genera­ Hopkinson Smiths - to say nothing of I. tion New Englander, 1 emerged from the lesser people - were too sentimental that bleakness into the more tepid air to be documentary. I doubt if the true of the Middle Atlantic states. 1 remember Southerner can ever have appreciated the the experience well. Every inch of me effect produced on the Northerner by the seemed lapped in a soft surrounding fiction of my youth and early middle­ warmth. 1 had the keen sense of behold­ age. (1 am sure he would have been ap­ ing a different kind of native American, palled to know that it read precisely like even a different order of things. For the the more romantic pages of Harriet first time I saw men and women frankly Beecher Stowe's Dred.) A book like preoccupied not only with life and liberty, Balisand rang true; but it dealt with an but with the pursuit of happiness. Good eighteenth-century scene. As soon as a food, good figures, good complexions, writer approached contemporary Southern good clothes, all seemed to be involved in material, he seemed to walk in the false their norm of life. (Those were the days, day of a Lost Cause. The heroes had a my friends, when the brakemen on the theatrical nobility which made Corneille Pennsylvania Railroad looked like Greek look classically austere; as for the women, gods.) For the first time, too, Negroes in "Was a lady such a lady?.." one quantity sprawled across my vision, giving quoted helplessly under one's breath. a certain laxness and lushness to the daily Southern chivalry, as revealed in these scene. 1 knew, even then, that the South pages, verged on the comic strip. Did those did not begin until Virginia began; yet moldy walls, those tattered hangings, those 1 could not but wonder if this warmth and bayoneted portraits, those dishevelled softness crept up from the land of cotton gardens, really exude so malarial a sweet­ and Cape jasmine. I began to long for ness? a living report of the South of my own When I asked my Southern friends why day. In a spirit of inquiry, I became Dixie­ the South had no contemporary literature conscious. worth considering, they made various an­ The honest Yankee, seeking enlighten­ swers. Often, they referred the dearth to ment about that proximate yet unknown the Civil War. I gathered that the dam­ land, naturally turned to Southern fic­ Yankees had stolen the family ink along tion.But in those days, it must be con­ with the family silver. Sometimes 1 was fessed, fiction gave little help. Even George permitted to infer that few pens were w. Cable, who was truly an artist, had qualified to deal with the only true civili­ his periods of saccharinity, and the James zation the United States had ever known. Lane AlIens, the Owen Wisters, the F. All of them admitted the dearth, and most 2. 1 7 2.18 THE AMERICAN MERCURY of them found one reason or another for Unde Tom can, with an effort, be swal.. being proud of it. Certainly I do not re­ lowed, whereas the most Gargantuan call ever having heard a Southerner praise imagination would retch at Mose.) A lot that literature. Meanwhile, the Yankee of the books, however, are highly realistic waited in vain for fiction that should and fairly unpleasant. The lesser whites show him a credible South. of Dixie have been thoroughly exploited. In the last fifteen years the situation Mr. T. S. Stribling has for a long time has changed amazingly. The literary fer­ been documenting the economic degenera­ tility which, in my youth, had passed tion of a conquered community. Even we from New England to the Middle West, Yankees have learned that the "deep" has now moved south of Mason and South is something quite different from Dixon's line. The South has become our Virginia. Mr. Erskine Caldwell has pre­ most articulate section. There is a vast sented the natives of Georgia to us with amount· of Southern fiction, fresh every competent and devilish terseness. Stars month. Yet Southerners still do not like have fallen on Alabama, and Mr. William it. New Englanders who can impersonally Faulkner has been busy, for years, tak­ applaud a book like James Gould Coz­ ing away any reputation Mississippi may zens' The Last Adam cannot quite under­ ever have had. Louisiana has been let­ stand this unreconstructed touchiness. If ting the late Huey Long do its talking; magnolias are not what they used to be, but I hear that there is a new novel about neither are Old Stone Faces. Is not this Florida. The South, we may say, has been unaffected frankness perhaps better than pretty well covered. Now, to know what the old posturing? At all events, the a strange land looks, feels, sounds, smells Yankee dives into the crowd of books and like, we must still go to literature; and the emerges, I confess, bewildered. Yankee, though confused, cannot be with­ The confusion is natural. What was out his book-induced impressions. once the Confederacy is composed of many human groups, and all the groups have II started to speak at once. In that babel, the harsher voices prevail. There is still, The alien reader, after a long bout with to be sure, some of the old sentimentaliz­ modern Southern novels, rises not only ing. So Red the Rose, for example, is as confused but depressed. He suspects that sugary and unconvincing as the Southern Dixie is. in a bad way. Perhaps he exag­ fiction of the nineteen-hundreds. Miss gerates the badness of that way. Possibly Glasgow's later utterances vibrate with a the true flavor lies. between the old sick­ sustained transcendental sweetness that has ening. sweetness and the new sickening little to do with the modulations of reality. sourness. At moments, recalling the earlier The fashionable emphasis on the Negro fiction in which all Southern whites were has been as pronounced in literature as in aristocrats, the perplexed Yankee wonders other fields of art. We have had our whether the aristocrats are all dead, or Porgys and Black Aprils and Scarlet Sis­ only debunked. However much he may ter Marys, and now, in Deep Dark River admire Mr. Caldwell's craftsmanship, he we have our Mose Chadwick who, some knows that Georgia cannot be wholly critic has said, is a second Unde Tom. populated by Jeeter Lesters. Though he (Rather hard on. Mrs. Stowe, that; since has been told by bona fide Mississippians A YANKEE LOOKS AT DIXIE 2. 1 9 that Mr. Faulkner has only to walk out his English counterpart, by the problems of his own front gate to encounter all his of agricultural laborers who were of his characters in the· flesh, he still believes own stock, and freemen. He was neces­ that Sanctuary and A Rose for Emily de.. sarily as superior to, as alien to, his slaves rive to some extent from Mr. Faulkner's as to loam and livestock. If the upper personal morbidness. Perhaps he casts classes, in this more or less disillusioned back to the fiction of his own region for fiction, give evidence of callousness, of a helpful analogy. If he is a New Eng.. naivete in the realm of ideas, of inapti­ lander, he knows that the characters of tude for mental progress, are not these Hawthorne and Mary Wilkins never really traits that have always been characteristic existed. Yet, even as he is forced to admit of agrarian regimes - accentuated in that those characters incarnated actual Dixie by the false morality and false eco.. New England "humors", that the traits nomics of slavery? Even in ante-bellum reduced to absurdity are themselves real, days there must have been as many Squire so he wonders if there is not more warrant Westerns as Sir Charles Grandisons in for the Miltiades Vaidens, the Jeeter Les.. that legendary world. Since the Civil War, ters, the Lucas Burches, than his Southern conditions must have been far less favor­ friends admit. Are the dimness and dull.. able than before to the making of Gran.. ness and ineffectiveness of the "nice" peo.. disons. The reflective outsider, trying to be pIe portrayed in Southern fiction a matter fair, attributes fifty per cent of the un.. wholly of bad art, or were the originals pleasant characterization to cynicism ~nd of the portraits perhaps rather dim, dull, fifty per cent to history. ineffective folk? Undoubtedly, when the We Yankees sometimes shock our romantic heightening stopped, certain Southern friends when we take the new crudities emerged. On reflection, he sus.. fiction seriously. Weare willing to believe peets that those crudities have always been them when they say that they and their there. kind are not well represented, or South­ He sees, that is, through the parti..col­ ern civilization quite fairly dealt with, in ored medium of books, an "aristocracy" that fiction. In like manner Northerners not too well educated, limited in culture, know that New England and the Middle and partaking to some extent of the hard­ West have not been fairly dealt with by ness of nature itself - resembling, one most novelists. Yet we do not deny, as I may say, all agricultural squirearchies. have said, that the exaggerations of North.. Whatever one may think of the brutaliz.­ ern fiction are based on fact; that writers ing effect of machines, no one, I believe, have but made more salient, more dom.. will .deny that a certain callousness has inant, more picturesque, traits that are always gone with cultivation of the soil. actually there. If fictional reports from Humanitarianism, one suspects, was born Dixie agree in making callousness, bigotry, in towns. Agricultural civilizations, the and stupidity outstanding traits of the reader considers, have never tended, in Southern white, we need not believe in themselves, to foster psychologic sensitive.. their dominance, but we must suspect their ness. Neither the growing of crops, nor presence. It is no doubt the South's bad the hunting of foxes, nor the breeding of luck that the novelists who would paint horses encourages it. Nor was the South.. the South flatteringly are still hampered ern planter helped to sensitiveness, like by a sentimentality that makes them in- 2.2.0 THE AMERICAN MERCURY capable of honest exposition. It is no doubt is no "aristocracy" fitted to lead the folk the South's bad luck that the disillusioned out of ignorance, sloth, and bigotry. The write better than the mystics. When my kindly, honorable people seem not only Southern friends complain of Miltiades too few but too weak or too indifferent, Vaiden and Jeeter Lester, 1. sympathize.. too stiffly corseted in provincial prejudice, Yet the Yankee who knows the South to make their counsels known. Indeed, only through literature is forced by Mr. even they are too often tainted by sloth, Stribling and Mr. Caldwell to believe in bigotry, or ignorance. Miltiades and Jeeter, because Mr. Stribling This, then, is our dilemma. Weare and Mr. Caldwell have fulfilled the novel­ given sentimental portraits of which the ist's duty: they have created convincing only convincing quality is a certain des­ characters. If the South wishes to impose uetude. On the other hand, the degener­ its legend again on the rest of the coun­ ated upper classes, the hillfolk, the tenant try, it must insist on its romantic novelists' farmers, the Negro ne'er-do-wells, seem learning their job. real. If the Southerner wants the North­ The result, at all events, is that the white erner to forget the child labor and lynch­ citizen of Dixie emerges thus cloudily ings and sharecroppers and chain gangs from fiction, a pathetic yet curiously un­ of the news columns, let him look to his appealing figure. Pathetic, because no one fiction. At present, literary evidence is to can. refuse to admit that, what with the the effect that citizenship in Dixie is on War, and Reconstruction, and the climate, a lower level than elsewhere. When charm and the Negro, he has had a terrible set and breeding appear, they are nearly al­ of conditions to deal with; unappealing, ways mitigated by moral defeatism and because he shows an almost willful in­ tribal vanity - an unfortunate combina­ aptitude for dealing with them. The upper tion for they seem to isolate the man in classes, throughout the fiction, manifest an impermeable container within which an unwillingness to face facts that sug­ eventually he, most unintelligently and gests a positive incapacity for facing them. unconstructively, dies. They show an indifference to disturbing I have not, of course, read all the South­ events that looks like real callousness. ern fiction the last decades have produced; Thought, that great vivifier, seems not to but I have faithfully experienced, I be­ be at work in Dixie. lieve, a fair cross-section of it. Moreover, I have read it wishfully.•.• In far Mas­ III sachusetts, I turned mugwump at the age of ten. A slavish admirer of the great It is perhaps, strictly speaking, only by Virginians of history, I have wanted noth­ minorities that one can test a culture. ing so much as to be "shown" a people When, searching these novels, one tries to still stamped with their seal. For their lay a respectful finger on the individual sake I have been patient, all my life, with who is able to represent a regional ideal, mocking birds, okra, and Southern ac­ one tries almost in vain. We can only cents. It is with a sickening disappoint­ hear him faintly scuttering behind the ment that this particular Yankee turns leaves, between the lines. We get, inescap­ at last from the fiction in which the mag­ ably, the impression that ignorance, sloth, nolias rot and smell to heaven. It is a and bigotry prevail precisely because there very depressing literature, my friends I THE FIRST LIBERAL

BY S. K. PADOVER

T IBERALISM today is apologetic and reproachfully: "Thou mightest have re­ L democracy is on the defensive: in membered, 0 God, what I have done for Europe the reaction of the Right theeI" Young Arouet, never on intimate and the upsurge of the Left have, between terms with the Deity, was always to re­ them, derided the one with contempt and member the frightful effect of a despotism destroyed the other with violence. The suc­ based upon divinity. cess of the extremists has been so complete, When Voltaire was nineteen, the Sun liberal-democracy has collapsed with such King departed to the glory of another total ignominy and lack of resistance, that world, and Paris, celebrating the royal de­ the defeated cause arouses scorn. For the mise, "breathed again in the hope of some psychology of the victors has infected the liberty". The crowd got drunk on wine Continent and spread the virus of political and joy, and the ambitious young poet violence even in the midst of long-estab­ joined, not the drinkers, but .the pam­ lished democratic societies. phleteers. Flattered as a wit and spoiled as Thus, dictatorship becomes a serious a genius, Voltaire had had no chance to menace: for democracies are, in times of learn political realities and did not know crisis, susceptible to demagogic appeals, that what was peqnissible to the Regent, the masses being easily flattered by crude who was "very fond of liberty", was not lies and reckless promises. If a democracy accorded to the mocking young rascal of has any regard for its values and its phi­ a notary's son. As. a result of some irrev­ losophy it must, ceaselessly and confidently, erent verses, Voltaire was consigned to the defend its position and not depend upon Bastille where he spent eighteen fruitful force, either of tradition or of ammunition. months, writing an epic poem. Liberalism, if it is to survive, must once "Monseigneur," said Voltaire to the more become a fighting creed, as it was one Regent after his release, "1 should be well 'and two centuries ago. Hence it may not pleased if His Majesty deigned to provide be amiss at this time to review the bold for my keep, but I beg Your Highness to career of the foremost exponent of liberal ma'ke no further provision for my lodg­ doctrines in modern times. ing." He was a frail little Frenchman, who as But even the Bastille did not teach the a boy was known to his Jesuit teachers as ebullient poet to control his lively tongue. Fran~ois Marie Arouet, but whom pos­ The upper-class Paris of Voltaire's time terity remembers by the name Voltaire. seethed with intrigues and cabals; women He was born near Paris at the time when poisoned each other with gossip and men the pious Louis XIV, having lost many of killed with rapiers, either of steel or of wit. his teeth and some of his battles, exclaimed Voltaire, the center of a gay circle, spent 22.1 222 THE AMERICAN MERCURY his time rhyming and love-making. For­ the fiscal regime under which no one was tunately for posterity, he never failed to exempt from taxation. The English peas­ joke, and the sting of his barbs aroused ant, Voltaire observed with delighted sur­ fury in his high-born victims. This was his prise, "eats white bread, is well dressed, is salvation, for the ill-deserved punishments not afraid to increase his livestock, nor to brought him back to reality. cover his roof with tiles". Compared to "Who," the Chevalier de Rohan once France, this was an earthly Utopia. "At asked haughtily, "who is this young man the bourse of London, Christian, Jew, Mos­ who talks so loudly when he contradicts lem, treat each other as if they belonged me?" to the same religion and call infidels only "He is a man," Voltaire replied, "who those who go bankrupt." does not drag a great name behind him, Much that was admirable in this new but does honor to the one he bears." country was due to the British constitution The Chevalier thereupon resorted to and British rationalism. Reared under an cudgels, commanding his Hunkeys to give arbitrary monarchy, as inefficient as it was the poet a sound thrashing in public. bigoted, Voltaire, like Montesquieu, assid­ "Don't hit his head," the Chevalier calmly uously studied the British constitution, advised his henchmen, "something good which guaranteed liberty without resort­ may come out of that." ing to force. Through his literary friends­ Voltaire's aristocratic friends laughed at Bolingbroke and Swift, Pope and Con­ the incident. Compared to a Rohan, a Vol­ greve - Voltaire came to know the best in taire was after all but an amusing clown. English thought, especially the discoveries And when the infuriated young man an­ of Newton, whose magnificent burial he nqunced that he was going to challenge witnessed, the dramas of Shakespeare ("a the aristocrat to a duel, he once more fine but untutored nature"), and the phi­ found himself in the Bastille. This was the losophy of Locke. "Mister Loke" made a turning point in Voltaire's life: he, the profound impression on the eager French­ pampered wit of the Paris salons, had ex­ man who digested the Letter on Tolera­ perienced on his own skin the effects of tion (1689), with its cogent arguments for feudal justice. He was now thirty-two­ liberty of conscience. After two exciting the period of clowning was over. years of reading and observing, Voltaire Supplied with letters of introduction returned to France, ready for the lifelong from the English ambassador to France, fight against unreason and injustice. Voltaire went to England, the land of lib­ "From the moment of his return," Con­ erty and tolerance, where, presumably, dorcet relates, "Voltaire felt himself called poets were not caned in public. He quickly upon to destroy every kind of prejudice proceeded to· master the language, to study which enslaved his country." conditions, and to make friends. "Eng­ land," he wrote upon his arrival, "is a land II where the arts are honored and rewarded ... where it is possible to use one's·mind Remembering the pride and power of the freely and nobly, without fear or .cring­ English middle class, Voltaire, now acutely ing." He marveled at the absence of reli­ conscious that wealth ensured independ­ gious persecution, admired the dignity and ence, set about to make himself rich. He culture of the middle classes, and praised invested his small inheritance in specula- THE FIRST LIBERAL

tive business ventures and was lucky consistently ignored man's glorious enough to amass a fortune of more than achievements in science and art. Voltaire half a million livres. Possessed of rare busi­ decided to shatter this conspiracy of ness acumen, Voltaire not only kept what neglect, to tell of things that really mat­

< he had won but also, by wise investments tered-"the truly great men, those who and generous gifts received from friends, have excelled in the useful and the agree­ cantinued to increase his. wealth over a able, who have worked for the good and period of fifty years. He became the rich.. pleasure of posterity: the great artists, in­ est, and freest, literary man in Europe. ventors, the scholars". He needed his money, for he was rarely For years Voltaire worked on The Age on amicable terms with the authorities. of Louis XIV, sending sections of the book His successful plays delighted the public to his friends for approval. Frederick the but annoyed the police, and his Philo­ Great, who "devoured" the manuscript, sophie Letters, a book praising England kept begging for more; "it is," the king to the discredit of France, was burned by wrote from the battlefield, "my sale con­ the public executioner. In imminent solation, my amusement, my recreation". danger of arrest, Voltaire fled from Paris At the same time the King of Prussia' and settled at Cirey in Lorraine, at the warned his friend that the work was too chateau of the Marquise du Chatelet, a dangerous to publish. "Be careful about remarkable woman who became the poet's printing it. The priests, that implacable mistress and companion for fifteen years. race, will never forgive you the little shafts At Cirey, Voltaire planned and executed which you hurl at them. A history written two of his most important works, The Age in a philosophic spirit ought never to leave of Louis XIV and the Essay on Manners, the circle of philosophers." Frederick was both designed as heavy artillery with right. A copy of the manuscript fell into which to bombard the priest-ridden the hands of a printer, and the French po­ regime. For, following the example of the lice were warned. Once more Voltaire had Protestants in the sixteenth century, Vol­ to flee from France. "I love the French, taire realized that only ammunition drawn but I hate persecution," he said. from history (if used philosophically) Voltaire did not immediately seek refuge could blast away the foundations of despot­ in Prussia, whose king had been shower.. ism and obscurantisnl. ing him with flattering letters for four The underlying philosophy of Voltaire's years. Their correspondence, begun in "history of human stupidity" was that 1736 when Frederick was still Crown religion and war were the twin enemies Prince, inaugurated a strange friendship of mankind, the breeders of fanaticism and between the two most sparkling minds of cruelty. History, Voltaire never failed to the age. Frederick's first letter began in point out,was a "list of human cruelties this fashion: and misfortunes, an almost continuous succession of crimes and disasters". Hither­ Sir: Although I have not the satisfaction to, clerical scribes, in order to keep the of knowing you personally, you are none people in darkness, had fed them with the less known to me by your works. They are treasures of the mind.... I feel I have fabulous tales and written pious chron­ discovered in them the character of their icles full of "squadrons and battalions con­ ingenious author, who does honor to our quering or being conquered"; they had age and to the human mind. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Voltaire was too good a bourgeois not generals and princes. I could not get used to be overcome with joy at this mark of to being always opposite a king in state, princely attention. He replied: and to talking in public. I sup with him and a very small party. ...I should die at My self-love was but too flattered; but that the end of three months of boredom and love of the human race which has always indigestion if I had to dine every day with existed in my heart and which I dare to a king in state. say determines my character, gave me a I have been handed over, my dear, with pleasure a thousand times purer when I all due formalities, to the King of Prussia. saw that the world holds a prince who The marriage is accomplished: will it be thinks like a man, a philosophical prince happy? I do not know in the least: yet J who will make men happy. Suffer me to cannot prevent myself saying, Yes. After tell you that there is no man on earth who coquetting for so many years, marriage should not return thanks for the care you was the necessary end. My heart beat hard take in cultivating by sane philosophy a even at the altar. soul born to command. The "marriage" proved disastrous. Each, The king who wanted to be a phi­ the king and the philosopher, was sharp, losopher and the poet who wished to be a vain, malicious - at the other's expense. statesman were henceforth, for some forty­ Gradually the weather at this peculiar odd years, bound by indestructible ties of court of backbiting males became "cold interest, self-interest, and vanity. Some­ and frosty". Impatient at having to correct times they quarreled; often they traduced Frederick's poor verses, Voltaire sneered at each other; always they managed to be the king's "dirty linen". Frederick had complimentary. Their friendship was not something to say about "squeezing the unlike that of a cat and a woman. The orange and flinging away the peel". The feline Vol..aire would purr when tickled, Frenchman who loved money then began but never failed to scratch when annoyed. to speculate in shady transactions and the In 1750, after the death of Mme. du king accused him of being a swindler. Chatelet, of whom Frederick was jealous, Voltaire, remembering that Frederick had the lonely Voltaire took the hazardous step clipped the coin of the realm, retorted that of making his home in Prussia, unable to His Majesty was a cheat. Probably neither resist the king's urgent invitations. Fred­ was wrong. The final explosion canle over erick gave his friend a royal reception, dec­ a question of mathematics. Maupertuis, orated him with a glittering order, and the French scientist whom Frederick ap~ granted him an allowance of 28,000 livres. pointed Director of the Prussian Academy, Voltaire was full of misgivings: he detested had disagreed with Koenig, a Swiss mathe­ chains even when they were forged of gold. matician, over an algebraic formula, and Frederick's character disquieted him, the Voltaire, whose quarrel it was not, wrote king's French friends annoyed him; above a devastating satire on the French savant. all Voltaire feared the royal malice, backed The infuriated Frederick made a savage at­ as it was by a sharp sword. tack on Voltaire - "if your works deserve statues, your conduct deserves chains". Vol­ Potsdam [Voltaire informed his niece] is taire left Berlin under a cloud which burst grena~ full of moustaches and helmets of at Frankfort, where he was thro~n in jail. diers; thank God, I do not see them. I work peacefully in my rooms, to the ac~ Upon his release, the French exile of companiment of the drum. I have given sixty had at first nowhere to turn. He set­ up the royal dinners: there were too many tled at Geneva, hoping to find tranquillity THE FIRST LIBERAL in the aristocratic Protestant city; but the Consider this puny and ailing man of Calvinists proved to be no less intolerant seventy and eighty who, single-handed but than the Catholics. Voltaire, however, had equipped with marvelous wit, set himself not speculated on the bourse for nothing. to blast away the whole intellectual basis With sufficient money to live like a lord, of the ancien regime. "Twelve men sufficed Voltaire, to make certain of an impregna.. to establish Christianity, and I want to ble refuge, purchased two adjoining estates, prove that it needs only one to destroy it." Tournay and Ferney, one on the French Lest it be assumed that his anti-church side of the frontier and the other on the bias was an obsession, it must be made Swiss. It was a stroke of genius, this hav­ clear that Voltaire, like Karl Marx a cen­ ing a nimble foot in each land. "In this tury later, fully realized that religion is the way I creep from den to den, escaping from keystone of any social system: to demolish kings and from armies." the latter, one must discredit the former. He had been on the move for almost All eighteenth-century reformers - Joseph thirty years, making friends, enemies, and II of Austria, Frederick II of Prussia, Pom­ sarcastic comments. His renown had bal of Portugal - were anti-clerical. Vol­ spread across two continents: he was read taire knew that what made men contented and discussed from Philadelphia to St. in their misery was religious consolation, Petersburg. Wealth was his, and glory and' and that so long as the church was power­ genius. What more could a man ask? The ful there was no hope for progress, as he world was full of cruelty and fanaticism; conceived it. there was little an elderly invalid could do Situated in the heart of Europe - "my about it. Did he not himself advise that one left flank on the Jura, my right on the should be content to cultivate one's own Alps" - this extraordinary phenomenon of garden? "In this world one is reduced to a poet turned evangelist became a colossal being either hammer or anvil." generator of ideas, supplying all Europe Perversely, the irrepressible little man with intellectual ammunition and making chose to be the hammer. Now that he had a veritable cult of Reason. A stream of acid a home of his own and had lost many of was poured over the heads of the fanatics the illusions of youth, he was determined and obscurantists, dissolving what had to devote the afternoon of his life to propa­ hitherto been held sacred. Fools were gating light and throttling superstition. laughed to scorn and bigots lashed with For a quarter of a century, during which whips. Nothing - no injustice, no cruelty, time he pretended to be dying, he let loose no absurdity - escaped the mocking eye upon Europe a flood of books, pamphlets, of the sage of Ferney, and what the eye saw satires, and letters, which, sooner or later, the nervous hand executed with the deft­ reached practically every literate person ness of a surgeon. True, he was helped by in the Western world. Endowed with the "light troops of the party", but, with the prodigious energy, he found time, among possible exception of the odd Rousseau, other things, to write so prolifically that none commanded so wide a hearing, none today his printed works fill approximately was possessed of so implacable a purpose. one hundred volumes. And the tenor of his More astonishing still, the champion of latter-day compositions was: Ecrasons l'in­ Ferney soon found himself without a fame. The infamy - religion, church, su­ worthy opponent; for the sapping work perstition - must be crushed! of the philosophes} headed by Voltaire, 2.2.6 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

was so thoroughly executed that the ancien meantime one must fight against intoler­ regime, like dead Caesar, was left without .. able conditions and help to diffuse reason, a defender. And when, a little over a dec­ especially through the instrumentality of ade after_Voltaire was buried, the Revolu­ "enlightened" monarchs. "The happiest tion (of which he would have disap­ thing that could happen would be a prince proved) broke out, the foundations of the who is a philosopher." Frederick the Great old system were so undermined that the and Catherine the Great and Joseph II structure collapsed even before it was seri­ were all "philosophers": but they also were ously assaulted. despots, sometimes as intolerant as priests. The aged Voltaire was losing his royalist III illusions. Democracy was not the best con­ ceivable form of government - Voltaire The doctrines which Voltaire propagated always kept the theocracy of Geneva in may be summarized in two words: liberty mind - but at least it was not brutal. "No and justice. Not the liberty of the privileged St. Bartholomew, no Irish massacres, no to wear ruffles and dance pirouettes, but Sicilian vespers, no inquisition, no con­ .freedom of speech and of press, freedom of demnation to the galleys for having taken worship and of conscience, freedom of some water from the sea without paying assembly and of petition; in short, the ten­ for it." ets of modern liberalism. He passionately I admit [he confessed in his old age] that advocated justice for all citizens, regardless I would accoll?modate myself easily to a of birth or position, and· protested against democratic government. ...I love to see the inhuman legal code and judicial pro. free men themselves make the laws under cedure. Men, he said in words made which they live.•.. It is a pleasure to me that my mason, my carpenter, my black­ famous in the American Declaration of smith, who have helped me build my Independence and the French Declaration house, my neighbor the farmer and my of the Rights of Man, possessed certain friend the manufacturer rise above their fundamental and inalienable rights: "Com.. business and know more about the public plete freedom of person, of property, of interest than the most insolent Turkish bureaucrat. No laborer, no artisan in a thought, of religion, of the press; the right democracy need fear any vexations or con­ to be, in criminal cases, judged only by a tempt.... To be free, to have only equals, jury and according to Jaw." such is the true life, the natural life of Despite his humanitarianism, Voltaire man. was too much of a sceptic to believe in The wealthy poet drew the line at economic equality or complete democracy. economic equality. The burning problem Utopias belonged· in the future. At present was to abolish tyranny and introduce rea­ man was incompetent and greedy. An son, not to distribute wealth equitably. egalitarian republic, Voltaire said, may Man should be free to work, free to possess function until "there comes a voracious and property, and not be hampered by anti­ vigorous man who takes everything for quated restrictions or crushed by unjust himself and leaves. them [the people] the taxation. "Why do those who enjoy the crumbs". Shades of Napoleon! Some day, greatest privileges, and. who are sbme­ the unconquerable optimist hoped, science times useless to the public good, pay less and reason would destroy prejudices and than the worker who is so necessary?" Ex­ make men fit to lead a decent life. In the cessive wealth, Voltaire realized, was THE FIRST LIBERAL socially dangerous, but, except for advo­ error." Shall a reed, the poetic philosopher cating confiscation of the huge ecclesiasti­ asked, crushed in the mud by a wind, say cal properties, he treated the problem in to another reed in the same tragic position: cavalier fashion. "Crawl as I crawl, or I shall petition that Every man [he said] is born with a rather you be torn up by the roots and burned?" violent propensity for domination, wealth I shall never cease [the seventy-year-old and pleasure, and with a strong taste for Voltaire wrote to a friend] to preach toler­ idleness; consequently every man would ance from the housetops - despite the like to have the money and the wives or groans of your priests and the outcries of daughters of other men, to be their mas­ ours - until persecution is no more. The ter, to subject them to his every caprice, progress of reason is slow, the roots of and to do nothing, or at least to do noth­ prej udice lie deep. Doubtless, I shall never ing but what is most agreeable. It is easily see the fruits of my efforts, but they are seen that with these handsome propensities seeds which may one day germinate. it is as impossible for men to be equal, as it is impossible for two preachers or two professors of theology not to be jealous of IV each other. Equality is therefore at the same time most natural and most chimer­ In March, 1762, Voltaire heard a strange ical. story. Mark Anthony, the son of Jean Sometimes the bright and polished pen Calas, a Protestant merchant of Toulouse, of Voltaire was employed in malicious was found dead, apparently a suicide. But trifles, but it was nevertheless used con­ a fanatical mob, in lynching mood, accused sistently in the service of one dominant the father of having killed his son in order ideal: toleration. Herein, perhaps, lies Vol­ to prevent his conversion to Catholicism, taire's best claim to immortality, especially and the no less bigoted court, by a vote of today when intolerance has become, in eight to five, found the white-haired parent most of Europe, a cardinal principle of guilty. Jean Calas, murmuring "I die inno­ state. Intolerance, Voltaire argued, begets cent", mounted the scaffold, accompanied cruelty, and cruelty leads to persecution by· a priest, a magistrate, and an execu­ and war. "The individual who persecutes tioner. The executioner crushed one of a man, his brother, because he is not ofthe Calas t arms with an iron bar. Fainting, same opinion, is a monster." Persecution Calas was revived by the magistrate and and war had been, for seventeen hundred had his other arm broken. Again the vic­ years, the twin plagues of Christendom, tim lost consciousness, was revived, and causing untold misery. Why, Voltaire had his limbs separately shattered in four asked, are there no sects of geometers, alge­ places. Then the wielder of the iron bar, braists, arithmeticians? Because, he an­ with a mighty blow, caved in Calast chest; swered, "all the propositions of geometry, the crushed heap of bone and flesh was algebra and arithmetic are true". Could bound to the wheel and torn to pieces. one say the same for religious tenets or Finally, flames consumed the fragments. political prejudices? No, since man was This French holiday lasted two hours. formed of "frailty and error". Therefore Voltaire heard the story in amazement. the first law of nature was for men to par­ He thought it was improbable - even in don each other's follies. "We ought to be France - that "Calas' judges should, with.. tolerant of one another, because \ve are all out any motive, break an innocent man on weak, inconsistent, liable to fickleness and the wheel". Immediately he began an in.. 2.2.8 THE AMERICAN MERCURY vestigation, first inviting Calas' younger the battle, three years in which, he said, a son, then an exile in Switzerland, to his smile never escaped his face but that he house. "1 found a simple and ingenuous reproached himself as for a crime. Contri­ youth, with a gentle and very interesting butions for the victims poured in from countenance, who, as he talked to me, Germany and England, for the case had made vain efforts to restrain his tears." become the talk of Europe. At last, in More and more convinced thathere was a 1766, the Parlement of Paris reversed the deliberate crime cornmitted by fanatics, a decision of the court of Toulouse and the "judicial murder", Voltaire interviewed king granted the widow of Calas a com­ witnesses, wrote letters, and asked search­ pensation of 36,000 livres. Paris celebrated ing questions. Discouragement met him the victory of justice; Voltaire was a na­ everywhere: the writer was told to mind tional hero. his own business. "Why do you mix your­ The "defender of Calas", the "universal self up in such things?" a friendly priest man", became the court of appeals for asked him. "Let the dead bury their dead." every brutal crime committed by the "1 found an Israelite in the desert," the French authorities. "A philosopher," he deistic philosopher quoted in reply, "an said, "is not to pity the unhappy - he is to Israelite covered in blood; suffer me to be of use to them." Voltaire gave unspar­ pour a little wine and oil into his wounds: ingly of his time, his money, and his un­ you are the Levite, leave me to play the matched talents. The victims of judicial Samaritan." crime whom he could not vindicate -·La In the midst of Voltaire's investigations Barre, Montbailli, Lally-Tollendal- he came the news, again from Toulouse, of avenged with scathing irony. He was no the Sirvens case, almost identical with that longer a playful wit but a grimly deter­ of Calas. Murder was loose; the public fury mined apostle. His ideas reverberated far grew daily. The families of Calas and Sir­ and wide; .they became a noble tradition vens came to Ferney to appeal to him. for Europe, for America, for every area Implacably, Voltaire proceeded to obtain where men fought to "succor the needy justice and to rehabilitate the character of and defend the oppressed". The concepts the murdered Jean Calas. All his qualities he forged -liberty, justice, toleration­ as a superb propagandist now came to the the causes he. championed, these possess a fore. He mobilized public opinion in permanent value to civilization, transcend­ Europe against the infamous court; he ing time and class. deluged the judges, the royal court, the Thirteen years after Voltaire's death, zealots with facts and appeals, with argu­ during the French Revolution, one hun­ ments and sarcasms. He wrote a series of dred thousand men marched in solemn terribly somber pamphlets, masterpieces of procession toward the Pantheon, where the restrained passion. He hired lawyers and poet's ashes were being transferred. The kindled the flame of indignation in the sarcophagus (which mysteriously disap­ hearts of the mighty. Every friend Vol­ peared during the Bourbon restoration) taire had in France and Europe was made contained the epitaph: to serve the cause: dukes like Richelieu, "He avenged Calas, La Barre, Sirvens, statesmen like Choiseul, beautiful women and Montbailli. Poet, philosopher, his­ like de Pompadour, monarchs like Fred­ torian, he gave a great impetus to the hu­ erick. For three years Voltaire conducted man mind: he prepared us to become free." T he New Deal in Stamps

By RALPH A. BARRY

HEN Franklin D. Roosevelt was Department. For the record, all the facts W elected to the Presidency, the stamp in the case are set down here. collectors of America saluted the elevation Regarding stamps, Postmaster General of a well-known philatelist to high posi­ Farley understood that they were affixed tion. It was believed that his love for, and to letters, and perhaps he had an idea that knowledge of, the hobby could not but certain people collected them. In fact, he react favorably toward collecting in gen­ knew that Roosevelt did, for he had auto­ eral. He had long been a member of the graphed for the President's collection the New York Collectors' Club and the Amer­ first sheet of stamps commemorating the ican Philatelic Society, the two leading or­ 150th anniversary of the Proclamation of ganizations of the country; his own collec­ Peace at Newburgh, issued soon after the tion, started by his mother when, as a girl, 1933 inauguration. The sheet was ready for she lived in Hong Kong, is almost as old dispatch to the White House when Far­ as philately itself. It does not rank with the ley's attention was called to its lack of greatest exhibits of the country, but it con­ perforations. He was advised that the sheet tains an excellent representation of Hong must be punched, as it was against depart­ Kong stamps, the stamps of Haiti, with mental custom to release unusual stamps. which country Roosevelt was in contact The Newburgh sheet then was duly per­ during his term as Assistant Secretary of forated; but the incident impressed upon the Navy, and those of North, and South Farley the knowledge that there was high America. value indeed in rare varieties. Now the Thus, with a philatelist in the White Postmaster General is nothing if not prac­ House, the collectors waited expecta.ntly tical. The Bureau of Engraving and Print­ for a New Deal in stamps,-just as millions ing is a contractor to the Post Office De­ of other citizens were waiting hopefully on partment. Farley could order what stamps Dr. Roosevelt's promises. Now just what he liked, and the order would be filled. If this philatelic New Deal was to produce he desired rare varieties, he could have has never been made clear; but when it ar­ them, precedent notwithstanding. Of rived shortly after Inauguration Day, it course, face value must be tendered by him was found to be even less satisfactory than in order to satisfy bookkeeping, but upon the administration policies in other direc­ this payment the stamps were his property. tions. Collectors at first held their breath, Thus did the New Deal become produc­ then they began to grumble; and finally the tive of numerous stamp varieties, and as grumble rose to a roar which culminated new issue followed new issue, collectors in demands before the House and Sen­ asserted that special sheets of each were ate for an investigation of the Post Office being autographed by Farley for presenta- 2.2.9 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

tion purposes. At first, the sheets were re­ next was discussed with postal officials at ported as going to President Roosevelt the society's national convention in Atlantic alone, but as time passed the name of Col. City the following month, but no satisfac­ Louis McHenry Howe, the White House tory conclusion was reached. Farley had secretary, was added. Then Farley's own done nothing illegal. He had paid for the name, one sheet at first and later one for stamps. The government had not been de­ each of· his three children; then the name frauded. So what of it? The case of the of Secretary Ickes, the Billion-Dollar Wiz­ collectors vs. the presentation sheets was ard; and finally those of the assistant post­ not yet strong enough. The philatelists masters general. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt would have to mark time until one of the was credited with receiving a special sheet sheets was placed on public sale. of the Mother's Day issue when ~he rep­ They did not have long to wait. Appar­ resented the mothers of America at the ently not all the sheets had been presented ceremony attendant upon the first press as souvenirs to officials; at least one, as was run of this stamp. The names of all the revealed later in testimony before the Seri­ recipients may never be learned, but the ate, was given for other reasons. This sheet statement made later by Clinton B. Eilen­ of two hundred Mother's Day stamps came berger, third assistant to Farley, contained to New York from Norfolk, Virginia, in­ in a letter to Congress defending the Post­ sured for $20,000; it was deposited with master General's action, asserted that a the Scott Stamp and Coin Company, pend­ total of ninety-eight sheets, comprising ing the owner's proof of title. Hugh M. twenty varieties, had been quietly pre­ Clark, treasurer of the firm, showed the sented to New Deal officials. sheet to a number of collectors and news­ To one not familiar with the worth of papermen. It bore the signature "James rare stamps, the whole affair may seem of A. Farley" on the margin, but strangely slight importance, but when it is appre­ enough it was dated May 18 instead of hended that most of the special sheets con­ April 13, the day of the printing ceremony tained, two hundred stamps, and that many in Washington. While this sheet was in of these stamps were valued at $100 or New York, a newspaper reporter located more apiece, the significance of the hand­ another in Philadelphia. outs becomes apparent. To collectors Early in Jap.uary, 1935, the Norfolk Phil­ throughout the country, the situation was atelic Society learned of the sheet in that serious. Accustomed to a Post Office De­ city, and of the price asked for it. The so­ partment that had jealously guarded ciety thereupon filed a protest with Presi­ against errors in printing or unusual issues, dent Roosevelt, calling upon him to halt they had not expected the New Deal to favoritism. To make certain that the pro­ sanction rarities which would some day test did not miscarry, a copy was handed come on the market at high prices. But, as to the Associated Press. Here, at last, everyone knows now, money means noth- was a break in the news. From coast to ing to the Brain Trusters. , coast the newspapers took up the cry. Far­ The first organization to act publicly in ley, worried now, issued several ambiguous the matter was the Westchester County statements concerning the Norfolk stamps: (New York) Chapter of the American one declaring that he personally filled a Philatelic Society, which approved a resolu­ request from someone in Norfolk for a tion of protest on July 20, 1934. The m,atter sheet bearing his autograph, and had uti.. THE CLINIC lized an unperforated sheet so that his pen Blanton of Texas, the department's prin­ would not catch in the holes; another say­ cipal defender: "There is nothing unusual ing that the sheet had been dispatched to about a man in government service want.. Norfolk by error. Meanwhile, as was ing to keep as a memento s'omething inci­ learned later, Farley was making desper­ dent to his service. .. ." ate but futile attempts to recover the sheet The Norfolk sheet was held by an offi­ through the same channel which had car­ cial of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the ried it to Virginia. facts regarding it were revealed during one The newspaper publicity had been so of Huey Long's attacks on Farley in the great that a clarifying explanation was ex­ Senate on May 13 and 14, which had no pected from the government. But as none connection with previous action in the came, the matter was placed before Con­ House. The Senate voted down the Long gress. At the behest of collectors, Repre­ resolution by a vote of 62 to 20 before the sentative Millard, Republican of New close of the session. Immediately after the York, asked that the House authorize the vote in the House on February 5, the Post Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads Office Department declared that duplicates to summon Farley. The resolution called of all stamps privately presented would be attention not only to the Mother's Day printed in sufficient quantities for collec­ stamps from Norfolk, but to other recent tors' demands, and that thereafter no sheets issues held by dealers at prices as high as would be allowed to leave the Bureau of $250 a copy. Engraving and Printing except in the While the question was pending, Ickes, form necessary for public sale. a well-known collector and member of sev­ While the collectors thus had won a eral philatelic societies, in a statement to great victory in preventing further presen­ the press, asked Farley to call a meeting of tations, it was a Pyrrhic one, as they now those who had received the presentation had to purchase a number of useless sheets, and to request each individual to stamps. Herein it appears that the New produce the stamps. The sheets could then Deal scored; for, if the Brain Trusters be properly perforated, or called in and could not have these rare stamps them­ destroyed. Such a meeting was never held. selves, they could at least make their op­ Whenthe Millard resolution came up for ponents pay. The reason given unofficially final vote on February 5, it was tabled by for the necessity of re-issuing the stamps 275 to 101. Touching con1ments during was that some had gone into private hands the debate were reported as follows: and could not be recovered. This did not Kleberg of Texas: "1 do not think the apply, however, to all varieties, and there Postmaster General did wrong in giving was no reason why these could not have out a few unperforated, ungummed, un­ been recalled, except that politicians never marketable stamps to a few gentlemen admit a wrong. worthy of high trust who are his friends." The re-issues, quickly dubbed the Far­ Dobbins of Illinois: "I think the philat­ ley stamps, were placed on sale on March elists of the country concede to the Post IS at Washington, in sets of twenty full Office Department a very efficient manage­ sheets at $190.30 each, or in blocks of four ment of its stamp service, and I know that stamps of fifteen varieties at $3.32. The those who do not concede it ought to con­ first day's sales brought $528,000, and the cede it." total for the three-month period, March 15 232 THE AMERICAN MERCURY to June IS, during which the stamps were face value stamps to show for their money, available, was $1,663,717. This last figure nevertheless they were forced unnecessarily is what the New Deal cost the stamp-col­ to spend this amount. And even with this lecting public, and has been cited as a fair expenditure the re-issues are not in many measure of the value of the stamps Farley cases identical with the originals, as originally gave his friends in and out of months afterward it was impossible to the government service. The re-issued match colors. Thus the "presentation" stamps included the special delivery air­ sheets are still rare, of great value, and re­ mail, Mother's Day, Newburgh, Little main at large. Farley's little hand-out was America, Wisconsin, Century of Progress, as unnecessarily costly to stamp collectors and National Parks. as the whole New Deal has been to the Although collectors have $1,663,717 in taxpayers of America.

The Wa/king Laboratory of Dr. Beaumont

By JOHN KOBLER

HE strange saga of Dr. William Beau­ Mackinac, where the waters of Lake T mont and "The Man with the Iron Huron and Lake Michigan mingle. The Lid on His Stomach" is to the American War of 1812 had been over for seven years medical student what George Washington and the fort was occupied by United and the cherry tree is to the American States troops, whose principal business schoolboy. If Washington was the father was policing the frontier. The island it­ of his country, Beaumont was at least self was a base of operations for employees the step-parent of American physiology. of the American Fur Company, a number Modern clinicians acknowledge a certain of whom were just now back from a long debt to Beaumont's crude pioneering trek, laden with pelts. Among them was through the digestive tract with chart and the young French-Canadian, Alexis St. thermometer; but the garish splendors of Martin, who already, at the age of 18, was the man's temperament have never been something of a legend in the district. He fully appreciated. None of the sciences was a squat, brawny lad, a Gargantuan has produced a more fantastic relation­ eater of food, a drinker of fiery spirits. ship than that which existed between He· was straddling a barrel in the com­ Beaumont and "that fistulous St. Martin," pany's store, yarning, when the accident as the doctor called him in one of his rare occurred. A member of his audience be­ moments of jocularity. There was some­ came so hilarious that he dropped his thing mildly crackbrained about the whole shotgun to the floor. It fired, sending a affair. charge of wadding and buckshot into St. The two men - the young, bewildered Martin's stomach, and fragments of 'cloth­ fur-trapper and the army surgeon con­ ing into his chest. His garments took fire sumed by the heat of his ambition - met and with a scream he toppled off his perch. for the first time on June 6, 1822, under A moment later he was pale and still. The strange circumstances. The locale was Fort first man to regain presence of mind was THE CLINIC an officer of the company, G. G. Hubbard, ing his interesting patient stimulated it. who remembered the young army surgeon In any event, the resulting proposition at Fort Mackinac. He ran from the hushed was startling. It must be remembered that room, and located Beaumont at the bar­ the functions and nature of the human racks. stomach were then profound mysteries. Beaumont at this time was 37. Despite Virtually nothing was known about the his obscure medical position, he came digestive process, the gastric juices, or the of an important Connecticut family. The physiology of hunger. A number of specu­ war had roughened him and given him lations had been ventured, such as the excellent field work, it being nothing for theory that the digestive agent was "a him to dress as many as 300 wounds in myriad of small worms that attacked food a day. As he put it: "I cut and slashed and reduced it to a uniform, pulpy mass". for 36 hours without sleep." After the The Englishman, Dr. Hunter, an eminent war, he had accepted the post of surgeon at physiologist of the day, had solemnly de­ Fort Mackinac. What Beaumont was wait­ clared: "Some will have it that the stom­ ing for was the Opportunity which knock­ ach is a mill; others a fermenting vat; eth but once. It knocked loudly on that others that it is a stew pan; but in my Spring morning when Hubbard gasped view it is neither a mill, a fermenting out details of the accident at the company's vat, nor a stew pan - but a stomach, store. In a few moments Beaumont was gentleman, a stomach!" at St. Martin's side, palpating the wound. In contemplating the orifice in the un­ It was just under the left breast. A large happy St. Martin's torso, Beaumont part of the side had been blown away; thought he saw the solution to the whole the ribs were shattered and cavities gaped business. As he expressed it: "No human in the chest and abdomen. Beaumont being was ever given my opportunity." managed to extract some of the shot and He offered the boy board and lodging bits of clothing. "He can't live more than plus $150 a year, in return for which he a few hours," he said. "I'll come and see was to lease himself as a living test tube. him by and by." The terms of the contract specified that But when he returned two hours later St. Martin was he was baffied to find St. Martin breath­ ing and conscious. The boy had suddenly to serve, abide and continue with the said become a real responsibility. Beaumont William Beaumont, wherever he shall go or travel or reside in any part of the world assumed it, and for ten months he treated his covenant servant diligently and faith­ him and restored him to health. St. Mar­ fully . . . that he, the said Alexis, "vill at tin was, in fact, as good as new except for all times during said term when thereto the hole in his stomach as big as a man's directed or required by said· William, sub­ fist. His economic position, however, was mit to, assist and promote by all means in his power such philosophical or medi­ lamentable. He was broke and still too cal experiments as the said William shall weak for work. The state declared him to direct or cause to be made on or in the be a "common pauper", and ordered him stomach of him, the said Alexis, or other­ to be deported. wise, and will obey, suffer and comply Now it is impossible to say just when with all reasonable and proper orders of or experiments of the said William in the Great Idea illuminated the doctor's relation thereto and in relation to the ex­ brain. Undoubtedly the prospect of los- hibiting and showing of the said stomach THE AMERICAN MERCURY

and the powers and properties thereto and At I P.M., withdrew them and examined of ~he appu~tenances and the power, prop­ them - found cabbage and bread about ertIes and sItuation and state of the con­ half digested: the pieces of meat un­ tents thereof. changed. Returned them to the stomach.

What made St. Martin a peculiarly valu­ As the schoolboy of today knows, any able clinical property was the nature of large quantities of undigested matter are the fistula created by the wound, affording apt to produce fever, headache, and acute an unparalleled opportunity for observing discomfort. After observing St. Martin for at first hand the functions of the stomach. twenty-four hours, Beaumont was con­ It was two years, however, before St. Mar­ vinced of it. On August 2 he noted: "The tin was strong enough to undergo the lad complaining of considerable distress experiments Beaumont had in mind. and uneasiness ... dropped into the Meanwhile he lived an easy life, dining stomach half a dozen calomel pills." on delicacies and sharing the doctor's The experiments continued for six days. every comfort. Nothing was required of Beaumont lowered nearly everything into him but a little housework, and when the boy's stomach from a thermometer to Beaumont was transferred to Niagara,he a dozen raw oystersand port wine. Now, took St. Martin with· him. Altogether the St. Martin happened to be very fond of boy .was beginning to congratulate him­ oysters and port, and this process of abat... self. He was renowned through the N orth­ ing his hunger at secondhand was ex­ west as "The Man with the Iron Lid on tremely unsatisfactory. Although the doctor His Stomach". Actually,· he had no such would pass the· most palatable foods under thing. Beaumont had merely fashioned an his nose - boiled chicken, fresh peas, roast adhesive flap which fitted over the fistula. beef, .fruits, and liquors - he withheld It was only necessary to depress it slightly them from the usual orifice. St. Martin to gain access to the stomach. was obliged to walk, run, lie on his side) In May of 1825 the experiments began, and digest all manner of things such as and it is doubtful whether St. Martin tripe and pigs' knuckles. On August 8 ever forgot the date. Beaumont kept a he cracked. He slipped out of the barracks day-by-day record. His clipped style fails and vanished into the Canadian wilder­ to give a fulsome picture of what the ness. The doctor's chagrin was moving. patient suffered; but the reader can easily He was far more hurt than angry, and recorded in his casebook a naive surprise. guess. Under the entry for August I, 1825, the doctor wrote: The young man who was subject of these experiments left me about this time and At 12 o'clock, M., I introduced through went to Canada, the place of his former the perforation into the stomach the £01­ residence. The experiments were conse­ lo~ing articles of diet, suspended by a silk quently suspended. stnng, and fastened at proper distances, so as to pass in without pain - viz.: - a St. Martin stayed in Canada four years, piece of high seasoned a la mode beef' a resisting the doctor's every ruse. Due to piece of raw, salted pork; a piece of r~w, his physiological peculiarity he was now salted lean beef; a piece of salted beef' a national oddity, a fact which displeased a piece of stale bread; and a bunch of him. He wanted to forget everything con­ raw, sliced cabbage; each piece weighing about two drachms; the lad continuing nected with Beaumont and his painful his employment about the house. experiments. But pickings were thin and THE CLINIC economic pressure finally persuaded him of experiments, lasted one year, during to accept the doctor's terms. The salary which period the subject was shunted had been raised to $4°° a year and Beau­ around from Plattsburgh to Washington mont agreed to receive St. Martin's newly­ and back again. Matters progressed un­ acquired wife and children. The reunion evenly, being frequently upset by St. Mar­ must have been touching. Beaumont was tin's unruliness. Then the doctor was overjoyed to find that the fistula was the forced to record sadly: "He became in­ same and in 1829 St. Martin once more toxicated in the afternoon, and interrupted was on the doctor's operating table. The the experiments." menu was better than ever, but he was Inevitably, there were a number of un­ given practically no chance to enjoy it. pleasant incidents. There were days when St. Martin was stuffed with "raw, ripe, At 3 P.M., dined on bread and eight ounces sour apples" to produce the symptoms of of recently salted beef [Beaumont wrote] four ounces of potatoes, and four ounces colic. Another stage of the experiments of turnips, boiled. In fifteen minutes took was enlivened by Beaumont's efforts to out a portion. ... sting him to fury that he might study the Ate a full dinner of roast beef, potatoes, effects of passion on the digestion. It was beets, and bread. Removed a portion. ... probably at this time that he hit upon the Breakfasted on venison steak, cranberry jelly and bread, drank a pint of coffee. epithet, "that fistulous St. Martin", a taunt Took out a portion. ... which never failed to infuriate. That the powerful fur-trapper did not tear the doc­ This sort of thing went on for three tor to shreds with his hands is a miracle. years, until 1831. It might have gone on But above all there were the long hours forever but for the protests of Madame of starvation. These were the wnrst. In St. Martin, with whom it is impossible November, 1833, the walking laboratory not to sympathize. A husband who passes kept walking - out of the barracks. Beau­ most of his waking hours submitting to mont never saw him. again and had to the ghoulish experiments of a fanatical conclude the experiments, being naturally doctor is hardly able to fulfill his con­ averse to shooting anyone else in the nubial obligations. Furthermore, Madame stomach. St. Martin was homesick. With a sigh of St. Martin's history from this tim.e on pity for woman's inability to take the was varied. He was an orderly stationed larger view, Beaumont let them go on at the War Department in Washington for leave. It is an interesting commentary on awhile. When this palled he traveled St. Martin's physical vigor that he was around the United States and Canada ex­ strong enough to paddle his entire family hibiting his unique wound in sideshows up the Mississippi in·an open canoe. and before medical societies. He made The doctor was almost frantic with im­ considerable money, most of which he patience until St. Martin got back in 1832. squandered on drink. In the autumn' of From a kindly, genial youth, the doctor his life he settled down on a farm with had become a fierce, single-tracked mono­ his wife and children. All this time he maniac. Without as much as a "How have maintained a correspondence with Beau­ you been, my dear Alexis?" he went to mont; and only once did St. Martin waver work on St. Martin for the third and in his determination never to return. This last tinle. This, the most important series was when Beaumont offered $500. But THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Madame St. Martin forbade it. So Beau­ came to him in April of that year. St. Mar­ mont, resigned at last to the fact that he tin's troubles, however, did not end with could learn no more about the stomach the doctor's passing. In many respects they from St. Martin, published his famous had only begun. Badgered by Beaumont's thesis, Experiments and ·0bservations. It would-be imitators, his constant fear was was a brilliant and stimulating book, pre­ the possibility of an autopsy upon his senting fifty-one revolutionary facts about stomach when his time came. He finally the stomach. Such excitement was created succumbed on June 24, 1887, at Joliette. that the world beat a path to St. Martin's His family kept the body at home much door, driving him to distraction. It was longer than is usual, so that decomposition suggested to Dr. Beaumont that he should might forestall the resurrectionists. In this take the trapper to Europe and submit they succeeded so brilliantly that it had to him to tests by more skilled physiologists, be left outside the church during the fun­ for Beaumont never pretended to be any­ eral ceremony and was buried eight feet thing more than a medical reporter. The deep. London Medical Society offered St. Mar­ The circumstances of the two men's tin £400, more money than he had ever deaths had a certain irony which could had in his life. But Madame St. Martin .not have failed to strike St. Martin in his was not to be persuaded. last moments. Here he was dying at the In ~853 Beaumont was living in St. age of 83 in a gentle alcoholic stupor, Louis, a silver-haired old gentleman, hon­ without so much as a pain in his stomach; ored by the community, still making futile while Dr. Beaumont, the man of science, attempts to lure St. Martin back, and en­ had passed away thirty-four years before, joying a lucrative .practice when' death after contracting a boil on his neck.

The Truth About Shavzng

By JEROME W. EPHRAIM

EMOSTHENES condemns an opponent as It is small solace to know that our re­ D unsocial because the gentleman in mote ancestors and similar primitive peo­ question "never visits any of the barber ples had an even worse time of it- they shops". To have uttered words such as usually yanked out the hairs. This they these, the Greek orator must have been did because the face, when smooth, could public relations counsel to the Peloponne­ be artistically tattooed in the prevailing sian Master Barbers Association, for he mode. Oftimes pulling out the hairs or erred greatly in calling unsocial anyone some equivalent was quite practical, for who sought to avoid shaving, be the idea in combat a beard was a liability. "Shave ever so inviting. The task, each new, off the handle by which an enemy can bright day, of ruthlessly cutting the freshly­ seize you," Alexander ordered his Mace­ grown stubble (and part of the face as donians. Even today, natives of British well) is a bane, a scourge, an abomination New Guinea take two long fibers from - the true Curse of Adam. the husk of a coconut and attach them to THE CLINIC 237

a string. Holding the fibers flat with the durability, not only among blades of a left hand against the area to be depilated, single brand but among blades in a single they twist the string with the right hand, package, and even the two edges of the ultimately pulling out some five hairs each identical blade. In part this is due to man­ time. A smooth face is said to result. ufacturing and mechanical difficulties, al­ To millions of harassed males, shaving though a much higher level of quality can is the morning chore, and an evening one, be reached, as evidenced by the better too, for the doubly-accursed tribe of black­ wafer blades made in the past and the oc­ beards. At best the operation is time-con... casional good ones to be found today. suming; at worst a painfulaffair. In any One difficulty in producing a genuinely event, to obtain a clean, quick shave with fine cutting edge is the quantity produc­ the least possible irritation is not a simple tion manufacturing methods now in use. matter. But since it is our prevailing mode Formerly wafer blades were individually to be clean-shaven, we may as well recon... sharpened and honed, but today it is gen­ cile ourselves to it and inquire, what is eral practice to make them in reels of the best way to shave? What razor should thousands. They are not only carried be used? What shaving preparations? through the hardening steps in this form, How can we avoid irritation and possible but on to the name-stamping, sharpening, infection? and honing processes as well. They are only The most essential element in the process broken up into individual blades before is a good razor. In this respect, civilization packing. Frequently the sharpening is has made no recent progress - the old... poorly done; this accounts for the "rough" fashioned hollow-ground razor is still the blades that cut the face so badly - the edge most efficient shaving instrument devised may not even have been honed, with the by man. It has, of course, great potentiali... result that a number of minute projections ties for damage, and requires considerable remaIn. practice. to use properly. For years, at... Another factor that makes for a poor tempts have been made to overcome these blade is the comparatively soft steel fre­ disadvantages, ,vith the result that all man... quently used in manufacture. (Open raz­ ner of contrivances have been developed. ors are made of harder metal.) A softer In the main, such devices have been open quality is employed because the blade must razors with guards, blades that are essen­ be made to flex in its holder, but such steel tially sections of such razors, and the fa­ cannot be sharpened, nor will it hold its miliar hoe-type razor with the double-edge edge, as well as the harder metal. Yet it is wafer blade. It is the last named - the possible to make a blade so that it will hoe-type razor - that is most widely used. flex and still retain a fairly durable edge. Compared with the open razor, it is an This can be done by running a soft streak inefficient shaving instrument, but it is through the middle, accomplished by a relatively safe and easy to use, and this special annealing of the center of the blade. accounts for its popularity. At least the But this process is of no great advantage cuts are not as deep nor as serious as those when the blades are made in reels. Added received from an open razor. The blades to these difficulties is the lack of satisfac­ themselves, however, leave much to be de­ tory testing methods to determine the sired; it is not necessary to recount here worth of individual blades. Of course, it is how widely they vary in sharpness and possible to know in a general way how THE AMERICAN MERCURY good a blade will be from the quality of fore the use of several razors in rotation is steel used in manufacture and the care recommended. taken in processing it, but there is a varia­ The need of a sharp razor to obtain a tion in the finished product. "None of the good shave is obvious, but preparations to many sharpness tests now in existence can facilitate its use are of equal importance. A be successfully correlated with actual shav­ razor cannot be satisfactorily employed ing experience," says Peters, a competent simply with water - it would pull the investigator. In other words, despite all the hairs, irritate the face, and be quickly "electric eye" contraptions and what not, dulled. To prevent this, agents must be there is no positive way of knowing if a employed to: (I) soften the hairs so that blade is actually good until it is used­ they can be cut more easily; (2) soften the and then it is too late. skin and lend it pliancy so it will give Other types of so

Edges, by Peter N. Peters (Metal Progress, as Soap, American Perfumer, and Drug November, 1933), may be of interest to and Cosmetic Industry. A dermatologist the layman concerned with the subject. · discusses shaving methods in Care of the Articles on shaving preparations are fre­ Skin and Hair (Appleton, 1930), by W. A. quently found in trade publications such Pusey.

SWEET GRASS

BY ROBERT P. TRISTRAM COFFIN

T HAPPENED every year. An Indian came And walked the meadows they supposed were tame, I The fields which they had hayed time outof mind, And found the sweet grass they could never find. He wove this secret of his into sweet Baskets that were full of Summer's heat And brought it back next Summer to their wive~. They spied· on him, but could not for their lives Find out the place, nor could their bright-eyed sons; The fields, for them, were ordinary ones.

They knew that they were missing something rare, Something like a poem hidden there In the very midst of common ways. And yet it gave a glory to their days To have a man who was still half a child Find something there so precious and so wild Where they had mowed and thought they gleaned it all. It was like hearing the faint trumpets call And seeing their wild geese going over high Between their houses and the evening· sky. How to Debunk Abraham Lincoln

By EDGAR LEE MAsTEllS

THE LINCOLN LEGEND, by Roy P. two pairs of trousers to his name.) Further, Basler. $3.50' 5~ x 8~; 336 pp. Boston: and as bearing upon the Lincoln nature, Houghton Mifflin. one may look at the long letter he wrote HIS book, first of the annual crop of to Mrs. O. H. Browning in which he TLincoln tributes, falls between the made boorish and cruel mockery of Mary stools: it cannot be of serious interest to Owens when she would not accept his people informed in the Lincoln literature; tenders of affection. The truth is that Lin­ and yet, because it accepts many deflations coln loved no woman. of the schoolbook myths, it will offend Basler also spikes the Nancy Hanks those who still believe that Lincoln's heart myth; he accepts the fact that she was il­ was broken by the death of Ann Rutledge, literate and could neither read nor write. and that he cast himself upon her grave at But to this day, no one knows what Nancy midnight to weep and pray. Basler has Hanks, who died when Lincoln was nine been convinced by Beveridge's accurate years old, was really like. It is known that researches that the Ann Rutledge idyll she was the daughter of a "fancy woman" originated in the neighborhood prattling of Kentucky, whose name was Lucy of old men and women around New Hanks, and that Lucy was indicted by the Salem, and, having got into print through grand jury of Mercer County, Kentucky, the grace of Herndon, became fixed in the on November 24, 1789, for "unbecoming uncritical mind. After all, it is to the conduct." According to what Lincoln told honor of the common people that they Herndon in 1850, Nancy was Lucy's nat­ often love what is beautiful: and this tale ural daughter by a Virginia planter, Lin­ of the backwoodsman, who later became coln supposing that it was from this President, who loved the lovely daughter planter that he inherited his mental activ­ of the farmer-innkeeper and lamented her ity and ambition. But, instead of looking death always, has indisputable beauty. But back to his mother with affection, he was at the same time that this invention got extraordinarily reticent about her. When currency there was in Herndon's book his father died, Lincoln journeyed to Coles ample evidence to show that it was fiction, County and put up a monument at his i.e., the letters which Lincoln wrote Mary grave: his treatment of his mother, how­ Owens offering himself as her husband. ever,was very different. Buried though For while Ann was alive at New Salem, she was in the woods of Indiana under Lincoln was looking with hopeful eyes circumstances that might have moved the upon Mary, the daughter of a Kentucky heart of a boy with pondering pity for­ banker. (At the same time he didn't have ever, Lincoln paid no attention to her mem- 241 THE AMERICAN MERCURY , ory. When he went to Washington to take getting ready for war, he was feeding the the oath of office, he stopped at Indianap­ "irrepressible conflict" which would have olis to make a speech. He was then within pined to death save for such words. When a hundred miles of his mother's grave in he became President, twenty-one states at­ the woods, yet he did not visit it. Nor did tended a peace congress and tried to pre­ he put up. a monument as he had to his vent war. The new Republican party father's memory. The myth of Lincoln's wanted war. Its leaders knew that war tenderness, his brooding pity, and his mag­ meant offices and money. The wiser ones nanimity, suffers by these facts, wherever knew that the time had arrived to destroy there is a mind to weigh human char­ state sovereignty and thus realize the hope acter. of Alexander Hamilton. Lincoln himself Basler also recognizes the fact that Lin­ said that the states were nothing but coun­ coln was not an opponent of slavery from ties. Later he formally denied that the his youth up. He gives the evidence avail­ states had ever been sovereign. And so able to show that Lincoln did not say at Lincoln and Chase broke up the peace con­ New Orleans when he was about twenty­ gress. Lincoln made war. He sent armed two, upon seeing the slaver's auction block, ships against Charleston to feed soldiers that if he ever got a chance to hit slavery in Fort Sumter who were already being a blow he would give it a deadly sock. He fed by the citizens of Charleston. The war even goes on to show that Lincoln was the cost billions of dollars, and 700,000 lives. attorney for a slave-catcher in Illinois in a There never was a more unjust, a more suit prosecuted to reclaim a runaway needless war. Sweden and Norway wisely Negro at the very period of his life when demonstrated a few years ago how need­ he was taking up with the agitation against less and foolish the Lincoln war was. We the extension of slavery, and doing that in are living now amid its miseries and its away to provoke war. For Lincoln was ineradicable evils. That the war had to be, after a political office. that Lincoln prosecuted it justly and is to The myths which Basler does accept in be given eternal thanks for it, is one of the his book are the myths of Lincoln's un­ main myths that needs to be exploded. selfishness, his kindness, his honesty, and The truth is that Lincoln acted as he did his lack of vindictiveness. All this in the because he was not fitted to lead the peo­ face of Lincoln's anonymous journalism ple of the Republic. He didn't know the in which he bitterly attacked men who history of his country, he didn't know the stood in his political path; and in the face Constitution and the institutions of his of Lincoln's hatred of Douglas and his, country. He was an ignorant man and, as slanders of him; and in the face of his George Bernard Shaw recently said, he stump speech at Bloomington in 1856, in didn't know what he was talking about which he savagely twitted the South by very much, of the time. saying: "We won't go out of the Union, As to Lincoln's honesty, Beveridge's and you shan't." Later, on September 17, work tells the story. By remitting promptly 1859, he made an elaborate speech at Cin­ any money he collected for clients, he got cinnati in which he mercilessly satirized the name of "Honest Abe": but as an Douglas, in which he told the South there honest intellectual, enlightened and capa­ were more soldiers in the North than in ble of thinking, his second inaugural fur­ the South and more resources. He was nishes the material for a judgment. Yet THE LIBRARY

Basler thinks that the second inaugural but on the stump, and to miscellaneous allies Lincoln with God! I should say that audiences. His crafty way of stating the it allies Lincoln with the desert Yahweh matter was that he was not saying aught who set bears on the children and butch­ to overthrow the Constitution, he was only ered the first born of the Egyptians. For trying to overthrow those who had per­ the implication of the second inaugural is verted· the Constitution. Lincoln went far­ the myth that the war between the North ther: .he said that if he were in Congress and. the South was unavoidable, that God he would vote for a bill which was in the sent it upon America as a punishment for teeth of the Court's decision. That is, such sin. Lincoln did not bear with the wrongs a law having been declared unconstitu­ of the South with a sad, beautiful pa... tional by the Court, he would vote as a tience; he did not have to make war; his congressman to reenact it. And this is not freeing of the slaves was a war measure all. When he became President and the and was intended to terrify the South into Chief Justice held that the executive under capitulation by turning loose among its the Constitution had no power to suspend people Negroes who would enter upon the writ of habeas corpus, he rode right race butchery. These are the myths that over the decision, thus following Seward's need laying to rest. "higher law" with arbitrary vengeance. In The truth is that Lincoln was sprung these days when some people are appealing from the bitterest Puritan roots of New to the shades of Lincoln to save the Con... England. He was not a "good old feller" stitution and its orderly processes of lib­ from whom anyone could borrow a dollar. erty, they need to be told .that they are When the delegates got to Chicago and appealing to an apostolic myth. If this looked Lincoln over they learned that he country accepts monopoly and war, and was as good a tari.ff man as Seward, and all sorts of "higher laws," as it has ac.. as .sound on the banks as Seward, and as cepted them for seventy years, then it ac­ to slavery he had never used the disturb­ cepts that myth in its most deadly form. ing term "the irrepressible conflict," but Basler's book speaks of Lincoln as a had quoted Jesus Christ instead. The can.. n1ystery, and he was that. His friends in vention .therefore acted with great shrewd... Illinois did not know him. His homely ness in nominating Lincoln. In him they face masked a reticent, a devious, and a had a candidate who could··· appeal to the self-contradictory mind. His religious con­ Pennsylvania iron men, to the New York victions were not known definitely. Some bankers, and to the Christian community. who knew him called him an atheist or Lincoln's works are full of letters and an infidel; some said that he was really a speeches advocating law observance and Christian; some, like the sentimental New­ the support of the Constitution; and one ton Bateman, reported that Lincoln wept of the myths concerning him is that he and confessed in their presence that he upheld the law and saved the Constitu­ accepted Jesus as God and as his savior. tion. He thus furnishes an exemplar for We have his inaugurals, however, in breaking the law and destroying the Con­ which he sounded the vengeances of stitution, while the pretense is advanced Yahweh, the god of the Sinai desert. And that both are being sacredly respected. Lin­ in letters he sometimes spoke feelingly of coln attacked the Supreme Court for the "our heavenly father." The late Col. Inger... Dred Scott decision, not in legal forums, solI claimed Lincoln as his own as an THE AMERICAN MERCURY infidel; but any rural pastor can quote of which were given to personal friends, Lincoln's own words and give serious dia­ the book was at once recognized as a lectical trouble to the best controversialist work of singular < distinction. Henry who makes Lincoln out as an atheist. Adams did not agree with this opinion, To Hawthorne, Lincoln was just a coun­ his keen critical judgment and· his habit try store character. To Emerson he was of depreciating his own work making badly mannered. But gradually as Lincoln's him dissatisfied with its form, if not with state papers came forth, nearly everyone its content. While the matter of publica­ who could judge of such things saw that tion was pending, and at my urgent solici­ Lincoln had a gift for words. It was not tation, he gave me permission to publish known then that he had practiced with an edition of Mont-Saint-Michel and words from his youth, and that he had Chartres for public sale. "I give you the written poetry, and not such inferior po­ book," .he wrote me in a letter that de­ etry at that. So -it came to pass that· he serves to become an historical document, wrote the inaugurals, that he wrote telling and further said I was to consider it as letters to Greeley, and that he composed my own, to do with as I liked. I there­ the Gettysburg address. It is his poetical fore arranged that it should be issued by flashes that have stayed his fame against Messrs. Houghton Miffiin and Company attack. It is Apollo who has saved his under the imprimatur of the American fame, and made him more important in Institute of Architects, the royalties, at American history than William McKin­ Adams' suggestion, being paid over to this ley; while a considerable body of biogra­ organization. This was in the year 1911 phy lifts him even above Thomas Jeffer­ and the book was published in 1913. son. But be it remembered that while The Education was in a sense a contin­ Apollo sided with the Trojans, Athene, uation of Chartres (as Adams always called the goddess of wisdom, favored the it); therefore, in spite of the author's dis-' Greeks, and even Zeus at the last. There satisfaction with its state, it was also pub­ is much time ahead in which myths can lished for general sale by the Massachu­ be pounded to dust and blown away. setts Historical Society in 1918. At once it took its place with the Chartres as one of the most fascinating, brilliant, and orig­ inal works within the range of American An American Sits tn Judgment literature. This was real history, vital, illuminating, poignant, and couched in a By RALPH ADAMS CRAM prose style that was as original and capti­ vating as Adams himself. I do not think THE EDUCATION OF HENRY it an exaggeration to say that these two ADAMS. An Autobiography. $2.50' volumes, together with the Letter to 5~ 8~; x 51 7 pp. Boston: Houghton Mif­ American Teachers, stand easily at the flin Company. front of all philosophical-historical works HE appearance of a new edition of hitherto issued in this country. T. this unique and most notable book is So enthusiastic was the reception ac­ an event of high importance. Privately corded the Education and so unanimous printed by the author in 1906, the edition the chorus of admiring praise that fol­ being limited to one hundred copies, most lowed its appearance, there would seem THE LIBRARY to be little or nothing to be added on the tation to act except as a choice of evils, the welcome occasion of a new edition. There ,shirking of responsibility" (this self­ is, however, one point that may be used as judgment is rather harsh and largely un­ a text, and one that has never been defi~ deserved), tended to make him-insofar nitely determined. I have always been un­ as it was operative-a looker-on, an der the conviction that the Education was amused and tolerant spectator of the proc­ essentially a record of disillusionment. esses of "progressive evolution ... from With this deduction, some of those near­ Washington to Grant", which was est to Henry Adams, and most closely in "enough to confound Darwin". Hence he his confidence, in no wise agree, and yet came rather definitely to realize that the conviction persists. Perhaps the word "average human nature is very coarse and "disillusion" is not the one to use; it may its ideals must necessarily be average. The be that "disappointment" would be exact. world never loved perfect poise. What the Born and bred in the most aristocratic world does love is absence of poise, for it circles of mid-nineteenth-century New has to be amused". Adams had something England, Adams inherited the highest closely approaching perfect poise, yet he ideals from his two President grandfath­ could find a gentle amusement-if not ers and his equally notable father. He be­ education-in the progressive lack and gan by seeing humanity as noble, and he loss of poise in the world about him regarded it, at the start, with confidence. which, as it was then in process of becom­ He was disposed to take men at their own ing, he declined to make his own. The valuation; he even conceived a passionate wonder suggests itself what would have admiration for Charles Sumner, a senti­ been his estimate had it been possible for ment that in later years he regarded with him to have lived another fifteen or twenty a certain amused amazement. years f In this case, at least, the word "Amused" is a word not undescriptive "disillusionment" could have been used of the attitude he preserved in the last with propriety. These are the last words years of his life, when the shock of suc­ of The Education of Henry Adams: cessive disappointments had merged into a "Perhaps some day-say 1938, their mellower shape. As he says in the Educa­ centenary-[he is speaking of himself and tion: "All experience since the creation of his two dearest friends, John Hay and man, all divine revelation or human sci­ Clarence King] they might be allowed to ence, conspired to deceive and betray a return together for a holiday to see the twelve-year-old boy who took for granted mistakes of their own lives made clear in that his ideas, which were alone respect­ the light of the mistakes of their succes­ able, would be alone respected." Realizing sors: and perhaps then, for the first time, with time the fact of this betrayal and ac­ since man began his education among the cepting it, "as a matter of fact he never carnivores, they would find a-world that got to the point of playing the game at sensitive and timid natures could re­ all: he lost himself· in the study of it, gard without a shudder." watching the errors of the players." As he The sentiment testifies to the basic opti­ says, "The habit of doubt: of distrusting mism of Henry Adams but, considering his own judgment and of totally rejecting the date he chose for his desired avatar, the judgment of the world; the tendency it is less flattering to his faculty of pre­ to regard every question as open: the hesi- vision. At present writing, the year 1938 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

does not seem to hold out high hopes of It is not easy to see how any man with being what he had anticipated. As a mat­ Henry Adams' ancestry and inheritance, ter of fact, in Adams' case, "hindsight his high ideals and his sensitive and artis­ was better than foresight." Cherishing his tic soul, could have escaped disillusion­ high ideals in spite o~ everything, he, so ment-or disappointment. His brother to speak, "hoped for the best but expected claimed that all subsequent members of the the worst", and so somehow believed that family have been fatally earmarked by good would come. As one dream after John Quincy Adams because of his hor­ another dissolved, he harked further, and ror, dismay, and disillusionment occa­ further back into past history; through the sioned by the fact that the people of the thirteenth century to the twelfth and so to United States could have chosen Andrew the eleventh, where, as he said to me once, Jackson for the Presidency. It is not neces­ were to be found the beginnings of all the sary to accept this argument to explain great forces and agencies that were to cre­ Henry Adams' sensitiveness and his com­ ate the Middle Ages; that period he made plete lack of sympathy with his world as his own as none other has done, and by he saw it going on. Adams happened to his curious power of re-creating the real be a convinced Republican of Federalist past through a sort of supranatural vision. lineage, as well as a very high-minded "During these so-called Middle Ages [he gentleman (as he says, of the eighteenth says] the Western mind reacted in many century, born out of due time), who saw forms, on many lives, expressing its mo­ the original Republic, as well as its so­ tives in modes, such as Romanesque and ciety and its personpel, slipping faster and Gothic architecture, glass windows and faster into an inchoate and unattractive mosaic walls; sculpture and poetry, war democracy. and love, which still affect some people On top of this easy descent towards, if as the noblest work of man"-and. by his not into, Avernus, came a long series of own admission, Adams was one of these. baffling and, to any other, disheartening Together with the philosophy of St. events. College in America, law schools Thomas Aquinas and the other School­ in Germany, proved useless so far as real men, and the cult of the Virgin as, for ex­ education-the thing he sought for all ample, this showed itself at Chartres, this his life-was concerned. Nor was this mediaeval art, of every kind, made up his failure to be attributed in any measure to deepest interest in the latter part of his ineptitude on his own part, for this did life and served as a sort of City of Refuge not exist. It was the system itself that was for him in what appeared to be the pro­ at fault. The preposterous and calamitous gressive dissolution of the world of his Franco-Prussian War was a shock, and time. Unity versus multiplicity; the oper­ the War Between the States was a devas­ ation of the centripetal against the centrif­ tating shock, although by inheritance he ugal force, was the idea behind the two had to be as strongly anti-slavery as he books, the Chartres and the Education. was anti-State Street-the then synonym How far this ever-increasing tendency in in New England for the Wall Street of a the progress of multiplicity through the generation later. Worse still was the po­ operation of centrifugal force would have litical Walpurgisnacht of Reconstruction proceeded by his chosen year of 1938, he and the post-war corruption and inde­ mercifully could not know. cency of the Grant· adrninistrations-and THE LIBRARY 247 indeed of much of the period that fol­ times even to bluntness, and, though not lowed until the tin1e of his death. Sup­ in his o\vn case, to incivility. When he posed friends, like Sumner, for example, wrote this in the Education7 it was not as showed their true character of meanness a pose but as a cry from the heart, veiled and treachery. Then came the supreme (he never wore his heart on his sleeve) domestic tragedy that, humanly speaking, by a certain whimsicality: seemed so gratuitous, and that completely Pascal and all the old philosophers called shattered that unity in his own life he had this outside force God or Gods. Caring but striven so hard and so long to ,encompass. little for the name, and fixed only on trac­ The wonder is not that he lost faith, but ing the force, Adams had gone straight to that out of this sequence of great disap­ the Virgin of Chartres, and asked her to pointments he could have gone on to show him God, face to face, as she did for St. Bernard. She replied, kindly as ever, as build up what is really a vital and con­ though she were still the young mother vincing system of philosophy, the power of today, with a sort of patient pity for and virtue of which it is probable that he masculine dullness: "My dear outcast, what never fully realized or appreciated. He is it you seek? This is the Church of ChristI If you seek Him through me you thought (or said he thought) himself a are welcome, sinner or saint, but we are failure, whereas he did, in actuality, one. We are Lovel We have little or noth­ achieve more along the line of creative and ing to do with God's other energies which revealing thought (I speak under correc­ are infinite, and concern us· the less be­ tion), than any other man of his century. cause our interest is only in man, and the infinite is not knowable to man." But did he lose faith? ~ doubt it. Per­ haps it would be more nearly true to say So he had at least learned, through the that he was well on the way to achieving strange and devious processes of that sys­ a luore real and dynamic faith. Through tem of education that seemed to him so natural science, history, philosophy, art, fruitless, the two fundamental truths of baffling and often bitter personal experi­ the life of man on earth: the motive ences, and even through the partial in­ power of life itself, and the wholesome adequacy of these to give an answer to his limitations of the human mind. As a phi­ questioning, he is always going forward in losopher he could hardly have asked for search of a clearer vision of reality. more. There are those, strangely enough, who suggest that Henry Adams, by reason of his uncanny power of projecting himself back into dead periods of history and The Gay ~Twenttes actually making himself, for the moment, a part of them, wrote some things under By ERNEST BOYD this influence that he did not, in fact, be­ lieve. 1 think anyone who has read his THE STREET I KNOW, by Harold three last and greatest books, and also his Stearns. $2.75. 5~ x 8X; 4I1 pp. New York: Lee Furman. poem to the Virgin of Chartres, or known him intimately (I wish I could claim this N 1917, when Harold Stearns became benefit for myself), will resent and re­ I editor of the Chicago Dial, which pudiate this imputation. Henry Adams, shortly afterwards· moved to New York, I like all his line, was at least honest, some- was startled in far-oft Dublin by the dis- THE AMERICAN MERCURY covery that, for the first time since the very book which I can never open without re­ early issues of the New Republic, America reading a chapter or two, entitled Civiliza­ had a journal of opinion which was stimu­ tion in the United States, in which thirty lating and entertaining, as well as in­ Americans and three foreigners demon­ formative. This is a combination which strated with unprecedented gusto that seems to come easier to the English, for there was practically no civilization in this with the passage of time the American country and that it was, for that very rea­ journalistic scene is just as forlorn as it was son, one of the most pleasant places in the when Stearns made his innovation. The post-war world. The whining aesthetes Freeman, one of the finest papers of its were all in Paris squabbling with waiters kind·anywhere, lasted but a few years, and at the Dome and imagining themselves as the New Freeman was just getting into its part of the now dead and forgotten Sur­ stride when it had to cease publication. At realist movement. New York was full of the time I was not sure that I should ever activity, intellectual and convivial, and all see America again, and I certainly did not of us who wrote for the Freeman and con­ foresee the birth of the two subsequent tributed to Stearns' symposium, except the papers. I simply decided that the Dial editor himself, thoroughly enjoyed our ought to have a regular Irish letter. I com­ good fortune, to be alive and well, before municated with Stearns, and supplied that the city became inundated with techno­ letter until the paper changed hands and crats, fanatical Marxists, and earnest com­ fell among the aesthetes who controlled its pilers of labor atrocity and unemployment destinies as a monthly. statistics. Soon THE AMERICAN MERCURY One night in 1920, shortly after my came to enliven the scene even more, and return to New York, I was absorbing ille­ for ten years or so New York was the gal alcohol in an emporium on West liveliest center of literary life, publishers Third Street, when a man who was pal­ were expanding and innovating, the stage pably and deeply engaged in the same pur­ was still unbesmeared by propaganda, and suit came up and! said: "I am Harold Prohibition was shedding its benign and Stearns. I liked thatIstuff you used to send civilizing influence over men and women the Dial." Thus began an association alike. which was constant until the restless Harold Stearns missed a lot of this, de­ Stearns started upon the hegira, of which spite my warnings that he would sooner The Street I Know is an account. As the or later tire of the small town virtues of volume itself candidly admits, wine and the French, and that a prolonged course of women (but never song) were no small the Deux Magots aesthetes would drive part of his life, and for the life of me I him to acute alcoholism. That, by his own could never discover that he was deprived confession, is what happened to him, and of either. Yet he railed ceaselessly at the it is a sad tale of hand-to-mouth scraping cold, drab, puritan civilization of these and borrowing, interspersed with strokes States, and declared that there was nothing of luck on the race course, which he here for a young man to do but to take flight to relates. His sordid existence as a writer of Europe. Which, as is well known, he pro­ racing tips finally came to a tragic stand­ ceeded to do, after issuing his farewell still when he was threatened with blind­ testament. ness. He pulled himself together and re­ Before doing so, however, he edited a traced his steps, determined to prove that THE LIBRARY

life can begin again at forty-four. For a which was as respectable in its atmosphere man of his undoubted attainments, there as the house in Jones Street was not. Just is no reason why it should not, save that, as Albert Jay Nock always referred in its as I see it, opportunities for minds of his pages to Jefferson as Mr. Jefferson, so none type are fewer in New York coday than of us ever dreamed of calling him any­ t.hey ever 'Were, and. t.he cont.rast. between thing but Mr. Nock. Stearns, however, the scene he left and that to which he has electrified us on several occasions by call­ returned is far from encouraging to any ing him Albert, a name by which, I fancy, man, much less to one who has gone nobody knew him~ The editorial lunches through the sufferings and trials which at the Liberal Club, with Suzanne La Fol­ Stearns describes. lette gay, sparkling, and a mine of energy, I should like him to have given us more Mr. Nock drawling vaguely, but never of his associations before he departed for failing to turn in his quota of pungent France. He is unnecessarily reticent and prose, Van Wyck Brooks, shyly smiling modest about the achievements of the Dial. and going through the weekly agony of He refers too briefly to that ramshackle having to write his charming literary house in Jones Street where he used to causerie. It was the only consistently first­ sit in the uncertain light, always flanked rate paper of its kind which New York by two flagons of hot, sweet, and not very has had in my lifetime, and Stearns might potable wine, which most of us did not well have given to it and to his other lit­ consume. Mencken and Van Loon, Van erary associations some of the space which Wyck Brooks and Lewis Mumford, Elsie he wastes on accounts of French race­ Clews Parsons and Katharine Anthony, meetings. John Macy, Ring Lardner, Deems Taylor He has preferred, however, to take as his - a distinctly heterogeneous gathering­ text two lines: were received with debonair bohemianism by our always mellowed editor, who never, The wind blows cold down every street, I think, could fathom our abstemiousness, But coldest down the street I know. save in the case of Van Loon, who was and so we hear little of those streets down permitted to preach an almost fanatical which the winds of doctrine and argument teetotalism. I remember our astonishment blew warmly and pleasantly. Lewis Mum­ when Lardner turned in his chapter on ford sees him tragically as symbolizing "the sport in schoolma'am English, instead of bitter emptiness, the bewildered despera­ his own incomparable vernacular. I re­ tion of the generation that had survived member being in Baltimore when Mencken the war only to face a world bent on for­ and I were writing our chapters, and getting its major political sins in lust or how we raced with each other and against liquor or whatever anodyne the moment time to see· who could get finished first. might bring". Stearns has evidently forgotten the hopes It is true that, at the time we first met, he pinned on a favorable review by San­ a deep personal tragedy had crushed tayana, and how that, to my mind vastly­ Stearns badly, but he had brains and abili­ overrated pedagogue, turned and slew a ties upon which to fall back, and which he number of his devoted Harvard disciples. used in such fashion as to show up sharply I wish, too, that Stearns had enlarged the pretensions of some of the more melo­ upon the subject of the New Freeman, dramatic members of that group which \ 2 0 THE AMERICAN MERCURY 1 5 I IGertrude Stein did not have wit enough have not been fitly rewarded; we are, very Ito call the well-lost generation. For my naturally, sure that our bad luck has come lown part, much of this book brings back through no fault of our own, and are very years which I shall always regard as happy, ready to believe that under a juster order relative as that term may be. Down some of things our merits would be amply,re­ of the streets we knew, Stearns, the cold­ warded. And so the reformer's· gospel goes est winds did not blow. slowly sinking down through the strata of society, till at length it reaches the savages, who proceed to translate the new theory of Humanity into blood and burning, Concealed Savages of Tudor slaughter and destruction, without under­ England standing anything or caring anything for the theorems and conclusions of the philo­ By ARTHUR MACHEN sophic gentleman in his study; he, likely enough, is horrified at the effect of his THE GREAT TUDORS. Edited by Kath­ schemes of reform. Thus, the Parisians arine Garvin. $3.75. 5~ x 8*; 658 pp. who captured the Bastille had no relations New York: Dutton. or friends imprisoned there. Among the R. INGE, the late Dean of St. Paul's, No-Popery rioters there were, as Charles D once uttered a singular speculation. Dickens relates, Roman Catholics. The There are, he said in effect, in every nation people who tried to .burn down Bristol a considerable number of people who are because the House of Lords had thrown concealed savages. Their savagery, ,very out the Reform Bill would not have re­ likely, is not apparent to their friends, per­ ceived votes if the Bill had been passed. In haps not even to themselves; it may never none of these cases was there any logical be manifested in all the course of their motive or self-interested motive for the lives. But in their hearts there is the burn­ destruction that took place. Simply, a doc­ ing desire to defile, to degrade, to destroy trine right or wrong, had reached the everything seemly, ordered, and beautiful, stratum of savagery, and savagery had·an whether it be material or immaterial. And excuse for the destruction which was its here, said the Dean, you have the physical delight. basis of all revolution. The philosophic Such, I think, is Dr. lnge's theory, and theorist, the reformer, the man of relent­ there is, no doubt, a great deal to be said less logic finds out that things in general for it. But I should say, before we go any are not at all what they should be; he dis­ farther, that I feel it is unjust and inac­ covers that his country is being·managed curate to the true savages to bestow their as if it were England or America, Italy name on those dark and hidden hordes or France, not as if it were Utopia or which are always in waiting to take ad­ N ephelococcygia; so he writes his book or vantage of troubled and difficult times. We makes his speeches .exposing the vileness should not divide men into savage, and that is, and preaching the perfection that civilized; but rather into makers and there can and should be. He finds, ready breakers. The deadly people are not sur­ prepared, a big congregation: for everyone vivals into civilization of early brutality, of us has his complaint to make, his quar­ bestiality, and hatred of beautiful and rel with fortune, his sense that his merits comely things of body and spirit; they are THE LIBRARY

rather a new race than an old, a race of courage then in his end, and his transla­ maggots bred in the sores of civilization. tions in the Book of Contmon Prayer are, One speaks of one's own country, re­ as some believe, in an even nobler Eng­ membering that most admirable maxim lish than the translations of the Authorized of Confucius: When in a foreign country Version of the Bible. But on the whole it scarcely venture to criticize the decisions is a dismal tale that most of these essayists of the meanest magistrate. And in Eng­ have to tell; for I do not think that there land, the first step on the path which has is any story more dismal, deplorable, mel­ led to our modern civilization, such as it ancholy both in itself and its immediate is, was taken four hundred years ago, effects, and also in its presage and omen when the conscience of King Henry VIII for the future of our race, than a story of began so terribly to burn, prick, and ad­ villainy triumphant. monish him. The whole story of it is writ­ Wehave here not only plain villainy, but ten in the book before me, The Great also villainy complicated with the meanest Tudors, and written in a way which is and most contemptible hypocrisy. I have curiously illuminating and instructive. seen the letter written at King Henry's in­ The great, and detestable, and the few stance to the authorities of Lincoln Cathe­ noble characters of the age that reaches dral, concerning the shrine of St. Hugh of from Henry VIII to Ben Jonson, forty of Lincoln. It first of all expresses the King's them in all, have been treated in brief conviction that the devotion paid to St. biographical and critical essays by forty Hugh was sadly superstitious and dishon­ different writers. Few noble characters, I oring to Almighty God, announces that have said; among them we can number the King's conscience can bear it no Thomas More and John Fisher, now longer, and finally orders that all the gold reckoned by the Roman Catholic Church and silver and jewels that adorned the in the sainthood. These were men who shrine of St. I-Iugh shall be taken down­ really did, in spite of every temptation, and deposited in the King's Jewel House. prefer God to the image which the King A smear of blood and grease on the page had set up, and persist in their choice even of English history, says Dickens: and the to the death on Tower Hill. There were blunt phrase of this unlearned man con­ also the wise and temperate Cardinal Pole, denses and distills all the research of the Edmund Campion, the Jesuit martyr, and scholars. Then, the queens duly decapi­ the noble, exquisite Philip Sidney. And tated, the abbots hanged, and their goods we must not forget the Protestant martyrs given to the rich, the said rich fight and of Queen Mary's reign, ignorant and fa­ scheme and go on thieving and destroying natical enthusiasts most of them, no doubt, through the reign of the miserable little but at least endowed with the great virtue Edward. The gloomy bigot Mary succeeds, of constancy. It is perhaps true that most and tries to neutralize the evil by burning of them were burned, not for disbelieving people, most of whom should have been in transubstantiation, but for violent abuse in mental homes. Finally comes Elizabeth. of those who did believe in it: still, they A glorious reign, indeed, in many ways. were brave enough to die for their nega­ Shakespeare wrote in it, British naviga­ tions. Even Cranmer was brave when at tors sailed all the seas of the world, the the very last he found that there was no Armada was beaten, and the wilder the hope, and they put the fire to him. He had adventure the more it glowed in Eliza- THE AMERICAN MERCURY bethan eyes. And yet, there is this pity. and burned the painted and carved rood­ As Mr. Peter Fleming, in his sketch of Sir screen, and enjoyed the work heartily; Humphrey Gilbert's career, declares, the but at the same time you had the addi­ elements of most of Elizabeth's policies tional enjoyment of believing that both consisted of a mixture of buccaneering and objects were superstitious, and that by de­ humbug. Elizabeth coveted her neighbor's stroying them you did God service. Es­ goods as violently as the late Charles sentially, the dark figures that ran about Peace; but she always declared that her England in those days came from the buccaneerings and filibusterings were done underworld of destruction; but they put for the Gospel's sake. That was the con­ on the masks and disguises of their time. science of the Tudors. Pagan Nero with Thus, once a week they ordained a day of his garden-close of flaming Christians is black gloom and horror, because their de­ a savory object by comparison with these light was in darkness. But they called this people. The Great Tudors tells for the observance "keeping the Sabbath". Nearly most part a dismal story: the combination a hundred years ago my mother lived for of blood and robbery with unctuous hy­ some time in Scotland, and always kept a pocrisy, and all carried out to a most suc­ vivid memory of the blinds being pulled cessful issue: this is a tale to sadden any down and the household sitting in dark­ man. What have we to look for if such ness all through "the Sabbath Day." It is horrible iniquity prospers? interesting to note how the instinctive But there is this to be noted: from horror of the sun and the light of day, of Henry VIII to Elizabeth the ill work was all the sensible beauties of the world, mas­ done by the monarchs and their creatures, querade as religious devotion. The painted and for clearly seen and profitable ends. windows had all been smashed and the The shrines were not robbed and defaced golden statues burnt long ago: but one for the pleasure of destroying beauty, but could still sit in darkness and curse the in order that the gold and jewels might be splendor of the sun. safely placed in the King's Jewel House. When an abbey church fell into ruins, it might be called an accident. The country gentleman, on his way to becoming a great Briefer Mention nobleman by virtue of stolen property, did not ruin the church because it was beauti­ FICTION ful. The fact was that it was roofed with lead, and lead was comparatively valuable. BUTTERFIELD 8. So the roof was stripped off, and winter By John O'Hara. Harcourt, Brace $2.5 0 5~ x 8~; 310 pp. New York weather, aided by the efforts of those who found God's House an easy quarry, did A novel of New York night-life during the happy days of Prohibition, this book manages the rest. to present an amazing number of unattractive Afterwards, no doubt, in the Crom­ characters; which is to be regretted, for there wellian age, the destructive element came is also a good deal of first-rate writing, and more to the surface. It called itself Puritanism, than a little lively wit in its pages. The author and perhaps believed that its fury of de­ manages his realism too well: half-way through, the reader is tempted to give in and admit that struction was due to religious zeal. You such people are too unattractive to be followed smashed a glowing stained-glass window in their seamy adventures. Mr. O'Hara has a THE LIBRARY

considerable talent but, in this instance at least, can find a publisher, if not a market, it seems he has expended it almost entirely on photog­ incredible that verse of such strength and orig­ raphy. inality should have had to wait so long. It is the more regrettable that even now it has to be pub­ lished in an edition so limited and so expensive EXPRESS TO THE EAST. that only a few will be able to appreciate it. Most By A. Den Doolard. of his poems are direct and powerful; even the Translated by David Delong. Smith and Haas pictorial verses, the first effect of which seems to 8'~; $2.50 5* x 400 pp. New York be merely visual, are surcharged with an intensity A current success in Holland and Germany, which seldom fails to communicate its excite­ this is a tragic, heroic, and powerful history ment. Even the metaphysical conceit - a favorite of the uprising in Macedonia against the Turks device of the Fugitives group - achieves a new in 1906 and the long bloody years which fol­ force in his image-crowded lines. "Kentucky lowed. It is a story of death rather than slavery, Mountain Farm" and "PondyWoods" are among enacted with that grim passion which a peasant the most native of recent American poems) and feels for his land. The style is brilliant) some­ no less than half a dozen others attest to Mr. times bringing to mind the prose of Undset in Warren's authority. Kristin Lavransdatter. A complete and satisfy­ ing novel. UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON. Edited by M. D. Bianchi and A. L. Hampson. MEN AND BRETHREN. Little, Brown By lames Gould Cozzens. Harcourt, Brace $5 6 x 9; 157 pp. Boston $2.50 5~ x 8~; 282 pp. New York Emily Dickinson, assisted by her myth; remains This third novel from the hand of an up­ a mystery. Even more mysterious is the "dis­ and-coming young American man of letters covery" of_new poems and their sporadic appear­ neither adds to, nor detracts from, his reputa­ ance in a succession of volumes at this late date. tion. In the main, it is a sound, competent job Here, for example, fifty years after her death, is of reporting the strange goings-on of a group a collection - or, more exactly, a selection - of of New Yorkers during the course of a humid hitherto unpublished material. Much of it is week.,.end in the city. Mr. Cozzens takes to tentative; much of it, indeed, seems to be com­ task a young clergyman whose decisions on posed of impulsive sketches which the poet had manners and lllorais are made from the study not yet completed. But fully half the book is rather than the pulpit. To his downtown parish Emily Dickinson at her most characteristic. The house are brought the problems of many people; reader can only be grateful for more of the and out of his solutions comes a strange con­ audacious images, the astonishing concisions, and flict between tradition and modernism. If the the dazzling communications - even though conflict seems to be based upon trivial matters many of them seem communicated in code­ of human philosophy, it is only because the which make Emily Dickinson one of the three people themselves are made of trivial stuff. Con­ great American poets and, with the possible ex­ sidering their nature, Mr. Cozzens has made the ception of Sappho, whose fame was also aided most out of little. But it may be hoped that'for by her legend, the greatest woman poet of all the locale of his next book, he returns to the time. This edition is limited to 525 copies. country of The Last Adam~ KING JASPER. POETRY By Edwin Arlington Robinson. Macmillan $2 5!1z x 8~; IIO pp. New York THIRTY-SIX POEMS. Robinson completed this poem shordy before By Robert Penn Worren. Alcestz's Press his death, and it seems ungracious to be less than $7.50 6~ x 9!1z; 69 pp. New York cordial to the posthumous work of one who de­ This is Mr. Warren's first book. It is unac­ voted his entire life to his art with an undeviat­ countably overdue. In a period when practically ing integrity. But admiration for the man and any volume of facile and undistinguished verse for most of his poetry cannot persuade one that THE AMERICAN MERCURY this is an important or even distinguished piece of cellent; the author has stIrnng and authentic work. It is not as dull as the one or two lengthy material in the Indians' belief that a Messiah had narratives which immediately preceded it, but it come to them, a Messiah who had been mur­ is, at best, a dubious allegory. Yet the book is im­ dered and rejected by the white race and who portant, not for its parable but for its introduc­ would now lead the conquering redmen against tion. In a characteristic foreword Robert Frost their oppressors. Their delusion was pitiful and says a few of the most penetrating things which complete; it led to the massacre and end of their have ever been written about Robinson. Further hopes at Wounded Knee in 1890. This adaptation than that, he says, with that genius for under­ of the Christ legend in a native American set­ statement which is his, some things about poetry ting has much to commend it. Unfortunately Mr. which always needed to be said, now more than Neihardt's manner is not as good as his material. ever. The long parade of unvaried couplets is monoto­ nous in effect, and when the emotion flags~ he avails· himself of stock poetic properties. THE NEW YORKER BOOK OF VERSE. An Anthology: I925-I935. Harcourt, Brace $2.50 5Y2 x 8%; 3II pp. New York TRIAL BALANCES. From time to time readers have asked if it Edited by Ann Winslow. Macmillan Company were possible to compile a book of light verse $2 5* x 8*; 255 pp. New York that would be modern without being only of the In this.anthology thirty-two young poets, none moment, clever without placing all the emphasis over twenty-seven years of age, are presented, on technique, and "funny without being vulgar". together with supplementary paragraphs by well­ This collection is a definite answer in the affirma­ known poet-critics. On the debit side it should tive. It is gay with a strong infusion of satire; be said that the titles for the poets' groups are lightly (and, sometimes, darkly) lyrical; timely arbitrary and often foolish, that there are in­ in a deeper sense than the air of a weekly publi­ excusable omissions, and that most of the "criti­ cation might indicate; undeviatingly intelligent cal" matter is immaterial and sometimes irrele­ and continuously re-readable. There are more vant - notable exceptions being the brief articles than three hundred verses arranged amusingly by Louise Bogan, Allen Tate, and Horace Greg­ and not too arbitrarily, including several serious, ory. On the credit side the collection allows the even somber, poems· by Louise Bogan, Conrad new poets more space than is usually afforded Aiken, Archibald MacLeish, Frances Frost, Wil­ the newcomer and thus gives a fair idea of what liam Rose Benet, and Raymond Holden. But the recent graduates are thinking. It is plain that more characteristic are the dexterous verses by most of them are nostalgically looking back to the .New Yorker's regular contributors. Here the tradition from which they have reluctantly vers de societe is restored to its exact meaning; freed themselves and dubiously forward to the this is not only social and "familiar" verse, but tradition which they have not quite accepted. A an appraisal of the society it mirrors. It is re­ few ~eem assured and already have attained corded most brilliantly by Ogden Nash, Dorothy something like distinct personalities. Among Parker, E. B. White, the late Jake Falstaff, and those whose verse is not only a promise but Phyllis McGinley. a present performance are Ben Belitt, Helen Goldbaum, James Dawson~ W. R. Moses, Reuel Denney, Lionel Wigga,m, Theodore Roethke, THE SONG OF TIlE MESSIAH. Muriel Rukeyser, T. C. Wilson, Hortense Lan­ By lohn G. Neihardt. Macmillan dauer, and Alfred Hayes. The names should be ~ $1.50 5 x 7%; 110 pp. New York noted; they are worth watching. Among the For some years Mr. Neihardt has been en­ notably missing.,- all considerably under twenty­ gaged on an epic cycle of poems celebrating the eight - are Nathalia Crane, Randall Jarrell, He­ winning of the West. The Song of The MeSSIah lene Magaret, and, particularly, James Agee, who is the fourth of the series, although it will stand is younger than many included and more ac­ as the fifth and final volume. As a story it is ex- complished, fiS well as more original, than most. RALPI-I A. BARRY (The New Deal in for two terms, he was elected to the 66th, 67th, Stamps) conducts a column for philatelists in 68th, 69th, 70th, and 7Ist Congresses, and on the New York Herald Tribune. He is a member November 4, 1930, was elected to the United of the American Philatelic Society, the New York States Senate, his term of service to expire in Collectors Club, and the Royal Philatelic Society 1937. Senator Dickinson was temporary chair.. of London~ man of the RepUblican National Convention at Chicago in 1932. CHARLES A. BEARD (Minority Rule in America), the well-known educator and historian, JEROME W. EPHRAIM: (The Truth About was born in Indiana in 1874, and now resides in Shaving), a resident of New York City, is an New Milford, Connecticut. Among his more re­ expert on drugs and cosmetics, maintaining a cent books are The Rise of American Civiliza­ manufacturing and technical service for con­ tion, Whither Mankind, Toward Civilization, sumer-subscribers. and American Leviathan. MARGARET TYNES FAIRLEY (Garden ERNEST BOYD (The Gay 'Twenties) has for Without Walls) was born in Virginia in 1902 some years been recognized as one of America's and is now a resident of Cambridge, Massachu­ leading critics and men of letters. Born in Dub­ setts, where she is a member of the Cambridge lin, Ireland, in 1887, he served in the British Poetry Forum. consular service before coming to New York City to live in 1920. KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD (A Yankee Looks at Dixie), one of the country's best-known essayists, is a native of Brockton, ROBERT P. TRISTRAM COFFIN (Sweet Massachusetts., She is a frequent contributor of Grass) lives in Aurora, New York. His recent stories, essays, and verse to the magazines. volumes of verse include The Yoke of Thunderl and Ballads of Square-Told Americans. EDWARD HARRIS HETH (Homecoming), a young Wisconsin author, had his first two short RALPH ADAMS CRAM. (An American Sits stories published in THE MERCURY. Since then he in Judgment) is not only one of America's most has become a contributor to a number of Amer­ eminent architects, but is equally well-known ican magazines. He is the author of Some We as an author and critic. With Michael Williams, Loved, published last year by Houghton MifHin, he was one of the founders of the Commonweal. and is at present engaged on his second novel. His autobiography, My Life in Architecture, was published in January by Little" Brown & RAY KIERMAN (Jim Curley, Boss of Massa­ Company. chusetts) has been a newspaperman for many years, retuniing to journalistic harness in Boston LESTER J. DICKINSON (What's the Matter upon his discharge from the Marine Corps at Wt'th Congress?) is the Senator from Iowa. His the close of the WorId vVar. Prior to the war, name has been mentioned with increasing fre­ he obtained his early training in the Boston office quency of late as a possible Presidential nominee of the Associated Press~ At present he is a mem­ of the Republican Party. Senator Dickinson ber of the editorial staff of the Boston Traveler. was born in Lucas County, Iowa, in 1873, a descendant of Nathaniel Dickinson of Hadley, JOHN KOBLER (TIle Walking Laboratory of who settled in Massachusetts in 1630. After Dr. Beaumont) was born in Mt. Vernon, New serving as county attorney of Kossuth County York, in 1910. After graduation fronl \Villiams 2.55 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

College, he engaged in newspaper work, first in State. Mr. Nock's review, The Inevitable Rarely this country, and later abroad. He returned to Happens, appeared in the January issue of THE America in 1934 to write for the King Features MERCURY. Syndicate. He has contributed articles, dealing .:. mainly with criminology, to various magazines. SEAN O'FAOLAIN (Roger Casement), the well-known Irish writer, was born in Dublin in 1900. His books include Midsummer Night Mad­ IRVING KOLODIN (Recorded Music) is a ness, The Life Story of De Valera, and Constanct music critic on the staff of the New York Sun Mar.kievicz, a Biography. and a contributor to the art reviews. His forth­ coming book, The Metropolitan Opera, 1883'" I9357 will be published in March by the Oxford s. K. PADOVER (The First Liberal) was born University Press. in Austria and came to this country in 1920. Since 1933 he has been Research Associate in LLOYD LEWIS (King of the Lobby) has been History at the University of California. His the dramatic critic of the Chicago Daily News recent volume, The Revolutionary Emperor: since 1930. An authority on American history, Joseph the Second7 has been published in New he is the author of Myths After Lincoln and York, London,. Paris, and Berlin. Sherman: Fighting Prophet. In 1934, he col­ laborated with Sinclair· Lewis on a play, Jay~ HENRY JUSTIN SMITH (King of the hawker, which was produced in New York. Lobby), a native of Chicago, joined the staff of the Daily News as a reporter in 1899, and is now managing editor of that newspaper. He is ARTHUR MACHEN (Concealed Savages of the author of The Other Side of the Wall · Dead­ Tudor England) is the distinguished English 7 lines; The Memoirs of a Newsroom, and Chicago: author, critic, and essayist. His last book! The a Portrait. Green Round, was published in 1933.

DANIEL W. SMYTHE (Fall of Rain) hails EDGAR LEE MASTERS (How to Debunk from the vicinity of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Abraham Lincoln), whose volumes, Spoon River He has contributed to Poetry and other pub­ Anthology and Lincoln - the Man7have brought lications. him widespread renown, is a resident of New York City. In September, his most recent volume JESSE STUART (Toes), a young man who of verse, Invisible Landscapes, was published by has gained wide distinction as a poet, has but Macmillan. recently turned his hand to fiction, establishing an immediate success. Born and reared in the HELENE MULLINS (0 My Generation), Kentucky mountains, he prefers to remain there, born in New Rochelle, New York, began to content with the ways of his forefathers. His write at the age of eight and had her first story first book of short stories, Head 0' W-Hollow7 published at the age of eleven. She is the author will be published in the spring by E. P. Dutton of two volumes of verse, Earthbound and Balm & Company. in Gilead, and a novel, Convent Girl. ANTHONY M. TURANO (Reno the ALBERT JAY NOCK (Progress Toward Col­ Naughty), a frequent contributor to THE MER­ lectivism), one of the. foremost writers on past CURY, was born in Italy in 1894, his family emi­ and present problems of American government, grating to Colorado six years later. Mr. Turano will be a regular contributor to these pages hence­ was admitted to the Nevada bar in 1915 at the forth. Among his books are 'efferson; A Journal age of twenty-one, and has since devoted his of These Days7 and, more recently, a particularly time to legal practice in the town which he de­ timely and important work, Our EnemY7 the scribes in this issue.

The winner of THE MERCURY'S $500 essay contest will be announced in the March issue. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

SHB'S A. PARTNBR* IN a GRBaT AMBRICAN BVSINBSS

SHE is one of 850,000 owners of Bell System than 650,000 of these 850,000 security holders securities. They are typical Americans-some own stock in the American Telephone and young, some middle age, some old. They live Telegraph Company-the parent company of in every part of the nation. the BellSystem~ More than 225,000 own five One may be a housewife in Pennsylvania. shares or less. Over fifty per cent are women. Another a physician in .Oregon-a clerk in No one owns as much as one per cent of the Illinois-an .engineer in Texas-a merchant stock of A. T. & T. In a very real sense, the in Massachusetts-a miner in Nevada-a ste­ Bell System is a democracy in business­ nographer in Missouri-a teacher in Califor­ owned by the people it serves. nia-or a telephone employee in Michigan. More than 270,000 men and women For the most part, Bell System stockholders work for the Bell System. One person out of every 150 in this country owns are men and women who have put aside small A. T. & T. securities or stock and bonds of associated companies in the Bell sums for saving. More than half of them have System held their shares for five years or longer. More BELL .TELEPDONE SYSTEM ix THE AMERICAN MERCURY THE N AT ION'S ~~~~~~~~ ECONOMIC FORUM Check JZ.ift of NEW BOO KS

(Continued from page vii) GOVERNMENTS AND MONEY. By Edward Jerome. Little, Brown $2.50 5)1z x 8 ~; 372 pp. Boston Here is a straightforward discussion of the realities of the world's fiscal structure, showing what Mr. Jerome believes to be the basic eco­ nomic errors responsible for present upheavals in the kingdom of finance. Granted that the true function of money is to serve as _a tool for

the collection of taxes I and the fulfilment of contracts, it should be obvious to clear-thinking people that this fundamental purpose has been Irving B. Altman perverted. In this country, for example, we have Editor had four different systems, according to which John Bauer Associate the nation's monetary institutions have been Frank Bohn • Richard T. Elv administered. Each succeeding system, Mr. Jer­ Paul Studenski • William English Walling Contributing Editors ome believes, has been worse than its prede­ Who Answers the Questions? cessor. Yet the United States still has the wealth, Recovery or Crash? War or Peace? power, and stability necessary to establish a Currency Crisis or Stability? standard for commerce among nations. And had the Democratic platform, of 1932 been carried America must know how and when and why­ Weare not prophets. We can't predict chaos or through, we would now be well on the road recovery. But we can continue to present authentic, to the establishment of such a standard. But the timely, and readable articles interpreting the trend prospects for immediate action seem poor, inas­ of the time-guiding you through the thickets of much as the Federal Reserve System, which ac­ conflicting opinion and pointing the way out. cording to the author is by far the weakest of We present a brief list of recent features to illus­ trate our scope and validity 1 the four, has been revised for the worse, and Inflation-A Symposium by Seven permanent checks on inflation' are, apparently, Authorities not to be applied. Mr. Jerome argues for the Losses to Public Utility Investors junking of the entire system, and the setting up N.R.A. and The Great Change of a central bank with forty-eight national banks We Work for Money-What Is It? Social Security Act "Anti-Social" as stockholders. Then, he believes, this country Can We Share Our Wealth? will be in a better position to assume the lead in Rural Electrification Under the New a monetary world. There' is an index. Deal Jenkinism-Chicago's New Ailment Germany and the Ethiopian Crisis THE TWENTIES. Governmental Manipulation ofMoney Distribution of Income By Mark Sullivan. Scribner's How Our Tax System Should Be $3.75 6~ x 9~; 674 pp. New York Reconstructed This is the sixth volume of Our Times; it Restoring Foreign Trade brings to a close Mr. Sullivan's engaging study Regulation of the Holding Company of· America from the turn of the century to the Public Welfare and the PubHc Debt end of its first quarter. Opening with the nOlll­ Special Introductory Offer ination of Warren G. Harding, the work carries SEVEN MONTHS ONE DOLLAR the reader through the days of Teapot Dome, Broadwa~ iH'EproPLE;s MONEY;280 Ne;-York- --- Prohibition, and the rise of gangsterism. Hard­ Please send 7 issues of The People's Money for only $I. o I enclose check 0 or bill me.- ing, we are told, was a man of tolerance, good­ Name .••..•••.••.•.••..•.••.•...... ••••••••••••• will, and broad sympathies; and an example Address .. , ..••...... •...... •.....••••••••..••• of what politics can do to a decent man in •...... ••••....•...M. 2-36 modern America. The entire first half of the X THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Check J:jft of NEW BOOKS "The ship, plus the service, plus book is devoted largely to his career. In the the passenger second half, the author devotes less space to I, list, plus the politics and politicians, and examines in greater I Caribbean-it detail the social temper of the times, and also .~ • all adds up to the literary renaissance which was launched the best vacation largely as the result of the pioneer efforts of I ever had." H. L. Mencken. In all that he writes about the Pleasure travelers invariably approve the Great White Fleet .•. the exotic tropical ports ... and the highly-inflated Sex Age of the 'Twenties, Mr. sports, orchestras and entertainment aboard our spot­ Sullivan reveals the journalist's unerring sense less white liners. Outdoor swimming pools, sound movies, and other cruising delights-plus the famous of news, together with the popular historian's intimate, personalized service that makes "every passen­ faculty for making what is no longer vital seem ger a guest". FROM NEW YORK-A wide selection of real and interesting. The work is profusely cruises of 10 to 18 days-variously to HAVANA, JAMAICA, B. W. I., PANAMA, COLOMBIA, illustrated, and there is an index. S. A., COSTA RICA, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS. Rates from $135 to $200 minimum. Sailings Thursdays and Saturdays. No passports required. MISCELLANEOUS Similar" Guest Cruises" to the WEST INDIES and the CARIBBEAN from NEW ORLEANS, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO. . HISTORIC OPINIONS OF THE U. S. SUPREME Apply any authorized travel agency or UNITED FRUIT CO., COURT. Pier 3, North River, or 632 Fifth Avenue, New York; III Wes. Washington St., Chicago; 32I St.. Charles St., New Orleans. Edited by Ambrose Doskow. Vanguard Press $4·50 6~ x 9~; 537 pp. New York auau- In bringing together these vital decisions of the Supreme Court, Mr. Doskow has, at the same time, presented an epitomized history of ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oo the country. From "Marbury versus Madison" ~ g ~ g to the recent Gold Clause andN. R. A. opin­ <0 Q) ~ BBLLOWS. COMPANY g ions, he has selected such cases as may be can· ~ ./~eFj, ~~ sidered essential to an adequate understanding and en ffme 'fI/ine4- 8 of our constitutional system and its background. ~ !!i?landie&~ m~k~ and o~ g)w~i~ 8 The book covers problems of judicial review, <0 Q ~ BUSIHBSS BSTABLISHBD 1830 contracts, interstate commerce, slavery, federal 8 <0 g power over money, price-fixing and due process, ~ THE GLENLIVET Q) child labor, minimum wages, mortgage mora­ ~ Q) <0 Q) toria, and price-fixing under the New Deal. ~ SCOTCH WHISKY Q ~ g The introductory notes by the editor serve to <0 "Glenlivet it has castles three Q) <0 Q) give a general idea of the background of each (E) Drumin, Blairfindy, and Deshie, Q) controversy, the effect of the decision at the ~ And also one distillery 8 tinie, and its present significance. Mr. Doskow ~ Morefamousthantheca'Stlesthree." 8 has kept his own comments objective through­ (E) Q) out, and as a result has produced a valuable ~ This distillery is "The Glenlivet" g reference book for the student of American <0 Q ~ (George & J.G. Smith). Its product government. 8 ro is a single, unblended whisky, aged Q ~ g <0 ten years in wood. This has long been Q THE MEDICAL VOODOO. g considered the most famous all-malt 8 By Annie Riley Hale. Gotham House B whisky distilled in Scotland and we 8 ~ $2.50 5~ x.8~; 338 pp. New York recommend it without hesitation to 8 (E) lovers of the finest Scotch. g This is another. book that aims to expose the (E) Q) ~ medical profession as an ignorant collection of <0~ y~ .9i~~ swindlers. The author's methods are typical­ rffeut ffr/t;r-J-econd g sensational statements, garbled quotations from ~ ~ty~~~ 3 ~ g (Continued on page xii) ~~~~~~~~~~~QQQQQQQQQ~QQQQQQQQQg xi THE AMERICAN MERCURY •

CHECK LIST of NEW BOOKS

(Continued from page xi) fesslonal naval architect, has spared no pains in medical texts, most of which are decades old, his study; he has collated the experiences of ship and a total disregard of the statistical evidence of designers and builders over a period of .three public health studies. As usual, too, there is the hundred years; he presents them entertainingly, claim of "years of intensive research", though accompanied·by more than two hundred plans, the results of this research are not evident in perspectives, and sketches, prepared by him­ the book. The author's attack is most severe in self, George C. Wales, and Henry Rusk. No the section on smallpox vaccination, which resur­ semi-technical work of modern times contains rects the time-worn bogey of post-vaccinal syph­ better illustrations. As an addition to any library ilis. She quotes repeated cases of syphilis which of nautical lore, Chapelle's book is indispensable. have developed after vaccination: but most of the reports were made in the nineteenth century, NASKAPI. and what the author entirely fails to bring out is By Frank G. Speck. University of Oklahoma that such cases had nothing to do with vaccina­ $3·50 6 x 9; 248 pp. Norman, Oklahoma tion, but were the result of poor septic technique. For all who are interested, scientifically or Such complications are unknown today. It is otherwise, in the American Indian, Professor fortunate that books such as this one are soon Speck's excellent study of the Naskapi tribes of recognized, even by laymen, for the trash they the Labrador peninsula is a mine of information. are. Much of it is new, the result of the author's painstaking inquiries in the field. Alive to the THE CHINESE FESTIVE BOARD. cultural drawbacks inherent in a people who for By Corinne Lamb. Henri Vetch centuries have struggled to wrest a living from $6 5 Y2 x 7 %; 153 pp. Peiping the most desolate of wildernesses, the author un­ For the past twenty years, Corinne Lamb has derstands why the isolated Indian, whose life is been collecting Chinese recipes from all over the a continual struggle for food, places deep faith country. She has partaken of Chinese hospitality in a spirit world of his own imagination. Like with princes, governors,generals, peasants, inn­ many others who have had personal contact keepers, and camel drivers. Now, in this book, with primitive Indians and Eskimos, Professor she presents fifty choice recipes for epicures, stat­ Speck is scornful of attempts to civilize a race ing the length of time required for theprepara­ that is better left to its own simple devices. tion of each dish, and also its sufficiency. She describes Chinese table etiquette, various forms of table entertainment, and. gives the reader a THE SUBMARINE WAR. vivid picture of a typical Chinese dinner party. By David Masters. Holt and Company There are also helpful instructions as to how to $2·50 5 % x 8 %; 287 pp. New Yorl( order a Chinese meal in a restaurant. The book With not a little sense of patriotic preachment is delightfully written, and there are illustrations and propaganda, Mr. Masters presents a group by John Kirk Sewall. of true stories relating to the struggle of the British Merchant Service against the German V-boats during World War days when England THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SAILING SHIPS. faced the threat of starvation. The author has By Howard 1. Chapelle. Norton & Company gone to great pains to collect records concerning IO~; $7.50 7% x 400 pp. New York the feats of individual seamen, and offers some . This splendid volume offers to the marine en­ hitherto obscure details of various duels fought thusiast the first complete history of sailing ves­ between merchant ship and undersea raider. His sels and rigs in America, from the craft of purpose is to convey to the public, and to Amer­ colonial times down to the modern yacht. Closely ica in particular, the perils attendant upon the interwoven with treatises on the development of next World War, insofar as they apply to marine ship types is a saga of America's growth and pre­ trade and the existence of nations. There are eminence as a seafaring nation. Chapelle, a pro- photographic illustrations, and an index. Xli THE AMERICAN MERCURY INFLATION AHEAD­ PREPARE NOW ANY investor' who questions THE FINANCIAL WORLD's repeated predictions I\. of coming inflation should read the article' by Lewis W. Douglas, former director of the United States Budget, in the Atlantic Monthly. We have space for only the following: "Record gold stocks, swollen bank reserves, artificially low interest rates and devaluation of the dollar-all deliberately engineered by the Government-have laid the basis for the greatest inflation the country has ever known."

Thousands of investors have greatly strengthened their investment posItIOn during the past three years by reading THE FINANCIAL WORLD's articles on how to safeguard against inflation. It is not too late for you to study profitably each of our coming issues and to prepare to revamp your own holdings to meet probable developments.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to form better investment habits. At least 90% of all investors follow hit-or-miss methods. We believe that 1936 will afford many profitable oppor­ tunities for informed investors. THE FINANCIAL WORLD can help you to become a better informed and more successful investor. Return this "ad" and $1 for the· next four issues. Besides our next four issues,your $1 will bring all the following:

"WHAT STOCKS ARE ATTRACTIVE NOW?", "A Bull Market?", "1936 And The Utilities", "How Long This Bull Market ?", our stock ratings and data book covering 1300 stocks, "6 Stocks Under $10", "A New Market Factor", "Inflation Looms' Nearer", "Rail Shares In Best Position", 64 "Stock Factographs" and "An Analytical Basis For Selecting Stocks".

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xiii THE AMERICAN MERCURY

An enterprise that American record-collectors have long been admiring at a distance has come nearer to their grasp with the recent release here of the first four volumes in The Columbia History of Music through Ear and Eye, a venture originating in Eng­ land. Though this has suspiciously the sound of one of those travel books entitled Through Borneo with Gun and Camera, it is actually a wholly dignified LOTTE LEHMANN presentation of musical history, in outline, through Records aNew Victor Album of annotated phonograph records. Each volume of eight ten-inch discs is accompanied by a fifty-page booklet containing historic and descriptive material about GERMAN LIEDER the music and its significance, the whole edited by The songs that melt the heart, sung by one ofthe great the distinguished English musician and critic;, Percy voices of today! Madame Lehmann gives to them a Scholes. I have said this is a history "in outline" deepertenderness,a mellower beauty, thespecialwarmth simply because it is an obvious impossibility to of her voice and personality that will bring you back illustrate the contributions to music of Bach, or to them again and again when you own this Album. Mozart, or Schumann, or Hugo Wolf on a handful Thousands ofpeople have gathered in concert halls of record-sides, nor does Dr. Scholes pretend it is in Europe and America to hear Lotte Lehmann sing possible. People, however, who have been baffled Lieder. Now you can have the greatest songs in her by the meaning of "plainsong", or "canon", or repertoire to hear whenever you will .•. and to hear "lied", or other of the staples of the music critic's with all the luscious fullness and rich sentiment of jargon will find both prime examples of these things Madame Lehmann's voice, caught so faithfully by and a clue to their position in musical history in Victor higher fidelity recording. The Album of 5 this set. The artists are all competent, if not uni­ records, 10 sides, includes the following songs: formly of international celebrity. Musical connois­ seurs will find material to interest them, also, in Die Verschweigung-MOZART-Secrecy certain esoterica selected by Dr. Scholes from various An Chloe-MOZART-To Chloe of the periods. The present volumes cover: I to the Ungeduld-SCHUBERT-Impatience opening of the seventeenth century; II to the death 1m Abendrot-SCHUBERT-Sunset Glow of Bach and Handel; III from Bach's sons to Beetho­ Die Kartenlegerin-SCHUMANN-The Fortune Teller ven; and IV music as romance and as national ex­ Waldesgesprach-SCHUMANN-Voices ofthe Woods pression. Additions covering opera and twentieth­ Therese~BRAHMS- Theresa century music are planned for future release. Each Meine Liebe ist Grun-BRAHMS-My Love is Green album sells for $10. Der Tod, das ist die Death is Like the Cool Among the year-end releases of Victor - an annual Kuhle Nacht-BRAHMs-ofNight procedure whereby the shelves are relieved of a Anakreons Grab-HUGO WOLF-Anacreon's Grave large quantity of records not issued during the year In dem Schatten meiner . In the Shadows of Locken-HUGO WOLF-My Tresses - are several items of uncommon interest. The largest group, and the most meritorious, consists of Ask your dealer to play this new Victor Album of chamber music, particularly string quartets. Among German Lieder as only Lotte Lehmann can sing them! them is an outstandingly fine performance of Mozart's The price of the Album is $7.50. C major quartet by the Budapest ensemble (RCA­ Victor, three 12-inch records, $6.50), distinguished both by the excellence of the playing and the realism of the reproduction. The Pro-Arte Quartet offers the first of the Bartok quartets - opus 7 - a task nearer to their best abilities than the classic works in which they have been recently heard. Though this is not RCAVictorDivision,RCAManufacturingCo., Inc.,Camden,N.]. music to which one should be exposed without a xiv THE AMERICAN MERCURY

RECORDED MUSIC Unique Informer , ODAY world affairs are American affairs. thoroughgoing knowledge of the composer's philo­ T Every major event and influence now U sophical outlook, his preference in liquors, and prob­ courses freely and quickly through the nerve ably the color of his eyes, it is, among specialists, fabric of the world and registers its effect held to be an outstanding work in this generation. upon our national and individual lives. In The quartet plays it as though thoroughly convinced politics, and in every phase of economy, the of its exceptional worth (Victor, four 12-inch records, sciences, the arts, religion and philosophy $8.). Also from the same organization is an inter­ the world's progress and decay is our own, esting Concerto aquatre by Vivaldi (Victor, one 12­ and we can be at the best but blind gropers inch record, $2.), which is a remarkable example of so long as we remain uninformed of the ensemble performance, if not possessed of the musical course of events abroad and the minds of values that one ordinarily finds in this composer's other peoples engaged with us in shaping a~l. work. From Artur Schnabel and Gregor Piatigorsky the. destiny of comes a splendid performance of the early G minor Yet, after ninety-one years of continuous 'cello sonata of Beethoven (Victor, three 12-inch publication, The Living Age remains the records, $6.50), which suggests· that the two artists only important journal of high literary cali­ would be well employed in making a complete series ber devoted to the vital purpose of "bring­ of these works. ing the world to America." A revealing glimpse into the heart of a modernist, if the contradiction may be tolerated, is provided by Each issue girdles the earth with its expertly a series of three nocturnes for piano by Francis translated selections of the most timely and Poulenc, contemporary Frenchman. Though Poulenc authoritative articles from the leading peri­ odicals of foreign lands-articles by states­ has perpetrated his share of musical eccentricity, men and journalists whose words carry an these brief pieces display a bias toward the lush and interest and illumination far beyond the sentimental which is probably much nearer to his power of the ordinary "observer" to convey. essential character than all his bright irreverent medioc­ And each month The Living Age reproduces rities. They hardly comprise momentous music, but one short story from Europe, more significant each contains an attractive idea poorly handled. The in some respects than any factual article composer performs them well (Columbia, one 10­ can be. inch record, $1.). Also French in its origin is a complete recording of the Chopin Preludes, with Thousands of the ablest people in America Alfred Cortot as the pianist. Though Cortot has not say that The Living Age is the most interest­ played in America for some years, he has lost ing and important journal ever published neither his technical skill nor his interpretative under­ in this country. Try it, and you will surely standing, and the performance of the preludes con­ agree with them. stitutes a fitting companion set to his earlier version Regularly The Living Age costs of the Ballades (Victor, four 12-inch records, $8.). $6 a year by subscription. You Among recent orchestral recordings the honors still can save $1.50 while acquaint­ belong to the Weingartner version of Beethoven's ing yourself with it by mailing Ninth Symphony, which was briefly noted in this the appended order form with place last month. A closer examination reveals that ONLY $2 to cover a 7-month the quality of recording achieved in the final section subscription. is not matched in the first two movements. These possess neither the spaciousness nor the sonority of the excellent reproduction of the chorus and soloists. But the use of a German text for the Schiller ode THE LIVING AGE, 253 Broadway, N. Y. is a prizeable advantage for a recording possessing Weingartner's exemplary interpretative authenticity For the enclosed $2 please enter my 7-month (Columbia, eighr 12-inch discs, $12.). Richard Mayr subscription at once. is the excellent bass of the solo quartet, whose other members are Louise Helletsgruber, soprano, Rosetta Name Anday, contralto, and G. Maikl, tenor. The chorus is that of the Vienna State Opera,· and the orchestra Street the Vienna Philharmonic. For those who have a tolerance for orchestrated piano music, Piero Coppola City and the Paris Conservatory Orchestra may be heard 2AM-36 in Debussy's Children's Corner (Victor, three 10­ inch records, $3.5°). xv THE AMERICAN MERCURY ~~~~~~BORZOI BOOKS~~~~~~

A biography oj A portrait ojyour neighbor-andyou the "mystery man oj Europe" Zaharoff Modern Man The Armaments King His Belief and Behavior By ROBERT NEUMANN By HARVEY FERGUSSON Dr. Charles A. Beard says: "More fasci­ Here is a portrait of the average nating to me than Sherlock Holmes and intelligent man of today-a study of immense and immediate importance to ofwhat he believes; how he behaves, bewildered mankind." Neumann spent and what his future may be. It grew years tracking down this sensational out of a need felt by Mr. Fergusson and lurid life, a life which has been the to understand the world in which focal point ofthe international armaments he lives-and so universal has been and oil rackets. As Dr. Beard suggests> his experience, so honest his obser­ it is as gripping as a detective story, but vation, so frank his statement of it, . more-it is a significant document. $2.75 that you will probably find yourself in this extraordinary book. $2.75

Two prizes were awarded to

Perish in Their Pride A. novel ojGermany's lost generation By HENRY DE MONTHERLANT the Grand Prize of the French Academy Journey into Freedom and the Heinemann Prize. A novel of three By KLAUS MANN brothers, the last descendants of a French noble family, it is a distinguished work by The son of Thomas Mann tells in this a French 'writer-one of the few-who story how a German girl tried to find a compels translation. $2.50 new life in a strange world. I t is the story ofa briefidyll-oflove in a desperate age­ an age which makes itself felt with all its pain and nobiEty and idealism even in remote and distant places. It is a novel Haven for the which reveals what the idealistic exiles of Germany are feeling and thinking In Gallant these days. $2.50 By THOMAS ROURKE A fine novel by the author of Thun­ der Below, Stallion From the North. For the happy jew­ and The Scarlet Flower. It is a tale of our times which tells how two Maurice Baring's couples responded to the loss of DARBY AND JOAN their fortunes and how they tried to create a new life out of working and A new novel by the distinguished author living close to nature. The scene is of In My End Is My Beginning, The the ShrewsburyRiverin NewJersey, Lonely Lady ofDulwich, Lost Lectures, etc. and· the strange moods and violent The story of a woman who had every­ storms of the old river provide a thing she wanted except what she wanted perfect background for an intensely most-written with Mr. Baring's inim­ dramatic, moving story. $2.00 itable delicacy and urbanity. $2.00

~~~ ALFRED· A. KNOPF· 730 Fifth Avenue· N. Y· ~~~ xvi FIFTY YEARS, OF SERVICE IN NEW YORK The importance of the Fifth Avenue buses as a means of transportation is appreciated by many thousands of New Yorkers and by vi·sitors from all over the country. Since the days of long ago the policy of a seat for every passenger has not been changed. A ten cent fare is charged. ., Known as the motor car for shoppers, the Fifth Avenue buses deliver a large number of people directly to the leading department stores and specialty shops. The figures below, showing the number of passengers delivered directly to the door of various stores, are interesting: Lord & Taylor's 378,000 passengers per year Altman's 423,000 " "" McCreery's Fifth Ave. Entrance 233,400" " Best & Co. 184,500 " "" Franklin Simon & Co. 134,700 " John Wanamaker 284,290"" " Let us send you our presentation and rate circular. An advertising agency commission of 15 %and a 2% cash discount are of course part of our program and have been for 15 years. JOHN H. LIVINGSTON, Jr. Advertising Space in the Fifth Avenue Buses 425 Fifth Avenue, N. Y. Caledonia 5-2151

(Times World Wide Photo) This is the first of 'a fleet of new streamline buses, which will shortly be put into service on rout'!s of the Fifth Avenue Coach Company, as it appeared near City Hall recently. Here it was inspected by city officials and a vast throng, anxious to see this latest, most modern vehicle which will gradually replace the familiar old buses.

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mTH EVERY TURN of the giant lathe, this cylinder in­ creases in value. As unworked metal, it is worth only a few cents a pound. But shaped, finished, as part of an automobile, a refrigerator, or a plumbing fixture, it becorries useful and valuable. Machine tools convert metal into products indispensable to you. In factories, all over the world, G-E motors drive intricate machines. G-E apparatus cCJtrols their operation. The machines are shaping necessities for industry and for the home. Carboloy tools, a G-E development, cut metal with unprecedented speed. Electric gauges touch polished surfaces and accurately measure dimensions less than one ten-thousandth of an inch. Copper brazing and atomic-hydrogen welding join metal parts into a useful whole. X-rays, from tubes developed in the G-E Research Laboratory, in Schenectady, NY., probe the inner secrets of metals and point the way to improvements in material and design. Such advances in manufacturing, made possible, in part, by G-E research, come home to you in better quality and lower cost in the machine-made products that are part ofyour daily life. Not only the electrical industry but every field of endeavor benefits by G-E research­ research that has saved the public from ten to one hundred dollars for every dollar it has. earned for General Electric. GENERALttELECTRIC