II&ee! A Nickel Lelt lar Candy" OYS, lamp bulbs, or bathtubs-when­ The same has been true of hundreds of T ever the cost of an article is lowered other manufactured articles. Because the through economies in production, more scientists, engineers, and workmen of indus­ people can buy it. And those who can buy try have developed hundreds of new prod­ the article anyway have money left to buy ucts, have improved them, have learned other things. how to make them less expensive, more Take the case of the elect~ic refrigerator. millions of people have been able to buy In 1927, when the average model cost about them. And by this process, industry has been $350, only 375,000 people bought refriger­ able to provide the American people with the ators. Ten years later, when improvements highest standard of living in the world. in manufa turing had brought the price In this progress, General Electric, by down to $170, six times as marry people bought applying electricity to the wheels of industry, them. And thousands who, perhaps, could has played an important part. By contin­ have paid the higher price, were able to uing these efforts, it is helping today to use the difference to purchase other comforts provide for America still MORE GOODS and conveniences. FOR MORE PEOPLE AT LESS COST. G·E research and engineering hafle saped the public from ten to one hundred dollars for every dollar they have earned for General Electric GENEBAL~ELECTRIC

NEW YORK - VISIT THE G-E "HOUSE OF MAGIC" AT THE FAIRS - SAN FRANCISCO Curr@nt History WiDe AMERICA IN MIDPASSAGE of by CHARLES A. and Good MARY R. BEARD Hope Probably the most ambi- . tious, expert and thorough­ ABICR going effort ever made to A.ND POWERFUL write the history of the NEW NOVEL BY immediate past of a popu­ DAVID KAME lous nation. It covers so­ cial, literary and artistic' Here is fiction which combines every history, as well as political quality that makes for universal ap­ and economic. Although peal: an absorbing drama, big in the complete in itself, it might number of pages and in theme, with a form a third volume to the new setting and replete with stirring epochal "RiseofAmerican action. Civiliza~ion." $5.00 The multiplicity .of·vital characters, the vigorous style expe:r;tly fusing subtlety and strength, the skillful blending of tender rOlnance and Biography thrilling adventure, make it a story MY WIFE to be long remembered.. $2.50 AND I by SIDNEY HOMER Theil W tlDtetl to Live Not an ordinary prima by CECIL ROBERTS donna biography, but the Author of " VICTORIA 4:30 " intimate, human story of The thousands who bought and read Madame Louise Homer's Mr. Roberts' previous novel will find musical career, and her here the same unique design and dra­ life at home. A volume which provides a pano­ matic suspense. Paris, Vienna and ramic view of development Budapest figure in the plot, with of American music over recent actual incidents adding to the the past four decades. absorbing realism. $2.50 $3.50 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY At All Bookstores 60 FifthAvenue, New York ~eeeee2e82ee,;eaa8i22a8: 2222::ste::::::S22SSS:S:::228222223:: ::eeaaa~ Commonest ofAll Excuses,' HI'm sorry-I never got around to reading that!"

Why miss this year-as you did last year-so many new books you would deeply enjoy'

HE self.;.examination provided' on the In other .. words, instead of limiting your Tnext page·will show the degree to which reading, this system widens it. You can you may have allowed procrastination to browse among the books as always, but now keep you from reading new books which do it intelligently; you know what to look you want very much to read. Over 200,000 for. . families - persons like yourself - have Once and for all this system really keeps you found a subscription to the :eook-of-the· from missing the new books you want to read. Month Club a really effectual means of solving this problem. You do actually buy and read those you want, instead of confessing sadly to friends, You are not obliged, as a member of the "I never got around to reading that!" Club, to take the book-of-the-month its In addition, there is a great money saving. judges choose. Nor are you obliged to buy Time and again our judges' choices are books one book every month from the Club. you ultimately find yourself buying anyway, Publishers submit all their important because they are so widely talked about. books to us. These go throqgh the most (Outstanding examples of these in 1938 were careful reading routine now in existence. At THE YEARLING, WITH MALICE TOWARD SOME, the end of this sifting process, our five THE -HORSE AND BUGGY DOCTOR, and a list of judges choose one book as the book-oE-the­ others too long to include here.) For every two month. hooks-of-the-month you buy you receive, free, one of You receive a, carefully written report our hook·dividends. about this book in advance of its publication. If you decide from this report that it is a Free Books You Get book you really want, you let it ~ome .to These book-dividends represent a unique you. Ifnot, you merely SIgn and matI a shp, system of ~aving through quahtity produc­ saying, "Don't want it." tion. The resulting economy is extraordi­ nary. For every $1 you spend for a book-of­ You Still Browse in Bookstores' the-month you actually receive over 7Sc Scores ofother recommendations are made back in the form of free books. to help you choose among all new books with Some of the actual book-dividends dis­ discrimination. tributed within recent months is the best If you want to buy one of these from the indication of what can be done by this sys­ Club, you can get it by merely asking for it. tem: they included BARTLETT'S FAMILIAR Or you can use these reports (we find that QUOTATIONS (a special $6 edition); JOSEPH IN most of our members do) to guide you in EGYPT (2 vols., $5); the Pulitzer Prize edi­ ,buying ,these miscellaneous recommended tion ,of ANDREW JACKSON, by Marquis James books from a favored bookseller. ($5);'MADAMB CURIE, by Eve Curie ($3.50);

ii ~:ee§:e<§ee e:::::CCe:C:::::::::::8:8:::::::::::::::::::39:;:!!:. -Continued Irom-preceding page THB ARTS, by Va.n Loon ($3.95). These books Book-of-the-Month Club. You pay nothing, were given' to members....-.; not sold~ mind except for the hooks you huy. yo.u! Your only obligation as· a member is to What'~ Oblig~tion? agree to buy four·books-of-the-month a year Your from the Club. These may be either current You pay no yearly sum to belong to the or past selections.

IN 1938 DID YOU READ EVEN TWO 'OR THREE OF THESE BEST SELLERS-GOOD BOOKS NOT TO BE MISSED? Check those you have not read

THE YEARLING ••••••• i •••••••••••••••••••••••• 0 ANDREW JACKSON••••••••••••••••••.•••••••• CI Marjorie Kinnan RAwlings Marqui.r ]amt.r JOSEPH IN EGyPT•••••••••••••••••..••••••••.• 0 THE PROMISES MEN LIVE By 0 Thomas Mann Harry Scherman BENJAMIN FRANKLIN•••••••••••••••••••.••••• 0 THE FIGHT FOR LIFE...... a Carl Van Doren Paul de Kruij MADAME CURIE••••••••••••••••••••••.••••.•. ; 0 HELL ON ICE 0 Eve Curie Commander Edw. BUsherg THE HORSE AND BOGGY DOCTOR.•••••.•.• 0 THE FOLKLORE OF CAPITALISM a Arthur E. Hert~.ter Thurman W. Arnold FANNY KEMBLE.~ •••••••• ; •.•.•.•.•••.·•.•••.•• 0 A SOUTHERNER DISCOVERS THE SOUTH... CI Margaret Armstrong Jonathan Daniels PHILOSOPHER'S HOLIDAy 0 DRY GUILLOTINE 0 Irwin Edman Rene Belbenoit LISTEN! THE WIND•••••••••••.••••••••••••••• 0 THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVING 0 Anne Mmow Lindhergh Lin Yutang OUT OF AFRICA •••••••••• ,; ••••••• , •.•••••••••• 0 MY SISTER ·EILEEN... •••.•••••••.•••••••.•••. •• 0 bak Dinmn Ruth .McKenney RED STAR .OVER CHINA 0 THE GENERAL'S LADy••••••••••••••.•.•.•••.• D Edgar Snow Esther Forbes THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS •••••••.•••.••• 0 MAN'S HOPE•••••••••••••.•••••••••. ," ..••• ~ •••• i:J Alhert Einstein ,and Leopold In/eld Andre Malraux THE SUMMING Up·: •••••••.•••.•••••••••.•.••• 0 TESTAMENT•••••• it ~ ••••••• d W. Somerset· Maugham R.. C. 'Hutchituon WITH MALICE TOWARD SOME 0 Margaret Halsey - and many others no less worth THE COMING VICTORY OF DEMOCRACY••• 0 reading, too manyto be listedhere Thomas Mann

Ifyou decide to join the Book·of.the.MQ"nth Club ,now. we will give you free. as a new member. a novel which has beeQ FREE •••TO NEW MEMBERS acclaimed as "perhaps the greatest creative work of the twentieth century" --JOSEPH IN EGYPT. by ThomaS Mllnn (two volumes. boxed. retail price $5.00). This was JOitpb in egppt,byThomas Mann one of the recent book·dividends of the Club. Or. if yolt -oran, ojthe'olher Boo!4.Dividendllillea in CfJllpDn prefer, you may choose one of the other rec.ePt book. dividends listed in the coupon..

BOOK·OF·THE·MONTH CLUB, 385 Madison Ave.,"New YorkA134 Please enroll me as a member. It is understood that I am to receive, free, the book checked below, that I am also to .receive, without expense, your monthly mag;tzine which reports about current books, and that for every two books-of-the-month I purchasefrom the Club., I am to receive the current book­ dividend then being distributed..For my part, I agree to purchase at least four books-of-the-month a year from the Club. Chec" tille Y01l prelwlD receive as yourIree enrollment book (J JOSEPH IN EGYPT 0 THE ARTS 0 MADAME CURIE o BARTLETT'S QUOTATIONS 0 ANDREW JACKSON Name H~; \ · ·_ ·_..·..·..·..··..;~~~;·;;~;;·;Z~;;~;···· __ __ . Add"ss ______City State _ .._ __ .. Please ch.eck whether you would like us to ship- the'Curre,nt book-of-the-month with the free book above YESD NOD. Book••hlpped to Canadl"" ....mb.1'II Dutt PAID. throUll'h BoOk-of--tb.-Month qlgb (Oal\adal Ltd.

iii THE AMERICAN MERCURY· ~~®~+~~~~+~~®~+~~~~+~~®~+~~~~+~~®~+~~~~ ~ '~ @ vOiEME TABLE OF CONTENTS NU~~ER ~ ~ April, .1939 ~ ~ ~ Our Totalitarian "Liberals" Editorial 385 ~~..J We're Blundering Into War Charles A. Beard 388' ~ The Puritan Mathers Ernest Sutherland Bates 400 ~ Broadway Tries God .. ,, , Joseph T~ Shipley 403 +~ ~~ Move England To Canada! H. W. Seaman 410 ~ l"~~ America's Number One FooL Clay Osborne 418 , M Muckraker: Model 1939 S. Burton Heath 421 -..:n~~+ Portrait Of a Literary Critic. A Satire Thomas Wolfe 429 ~ Shall We Drown the Unemployed? Fred C. Kelly 438 ~~..J Underground Germany Heinz Liepmann 441 ~ ~ Thoughts On Current Discontents ...... •...... H. L. Mencken 447 ~ Cj Decline of the Newspaper Souse Stanley Walker 449 ~f~ ~ Escape From Loyalist Spain William G. Ryan 456 ~~ Montana Picks a Fight. Eric Thane 463@ The Well-Tressed Man ...... ••.•.•....•...... John T. Winterich 468 The T-Men Will Get You ...... ••••••••••••••...... Upton Close 471 ~ ~::R~~~::~~'T~~ U~~~~;·· 477 ~~ ~ Culture Migrates to the USA•••••••••••••••••••...Albert Jay Nock 481 DOWN To EARTH: m Life And Death of a Worm .•••••••••••••••••...... Alan Devoe 487 ~ ~ POETRY: ~ ~ I. Anonymous as Dust ...•..•••.••.•...... V. F. Calverton 491 ~ ~+ II. Street Co~ner College ..•...... Kenneth Patchen 491 +.u::-. III. Two Alabama Wildcats Julian Lee Rayford 492 ~b)n:::.-w THE LIBRARY: ~~..J ~. We've Paid Our Debt to Lafayette John W. rhomason, Jr. 493 ~ THE CHECK LIST...... •.••.••.••••••••••••••...... •..•..•...• 498 ~ Cj OPEN FORUM .••.•••.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.•.••'...... 502 ~f~ ~.~ CONTRIBUTORS. .•.••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• 510 ~ INDEX .•...... •.•.•••..•••••••••••.•••...••.•••••••••••••• '.•••.••• 511 ~+ RECORDED MUSIC...... xiv +~ ~ ~ . m, Lawrence E. Spivak ' Eugene Lyons J. W. Ferman @ ~~ Publisher Editor Business Manager ~ ~~~~$~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Published monthly by The American Mercury, Inc.• Mercury, Inc. Entered as second-class matter at the at 25 cents a copy. Annual subscription, $3.00 in U. S. post office at Concord, N. H., under the Act of March and Possessions, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Spain and 3, 1879. Five weeks' advance notice required for Colonies, and the Republics of Central and South change of subscribers' addresses. Indexed in The America. Foreign subscriptions, $4.00. Publication of­ Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. The Ameri­ fice, Concord, N. H. Editorial and General offices, 570 can Mercury, Inc., accepts no responsibility for sub­ Lexington Avenue,' New York City. Printed in the mitted manuscripts. All rights reserved. No article United States. Copyright, 1939, by The American may be reprinted inwhole or partwithout permission.

iv FREMONT Pathmarker of the West BY ALLAN NEVINS The distinguished biographer, twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has made a remarkably revealing study o( one of the most daring and complex characters in American history. Mr. Nevins is the first to give adequate representation to Fremont's many activities and an accurate evaluation of the man and his accomplishments in one of the most readable ahd important biographies of the year. Illustrated. $5.00 STEAM CONQUERS THE ATLANTIC BY DAVI'D.BUDLONG TYLER This saga of the men whose ideals·and courage laid the foundation of today's steamship traffic is "an absorbing story, full of life and' strife incident to one of the world's greatest triumphs of mechanics; full of disaster, perseverance, and heroism." - Captain Felix Riesenberg. Illustrated. $5.00 I TRAVEL BY TRAIN BY ROLLO WALTER BROWN An outstanding writer, who has seen the United States' from end to end on many lecture engagements, presents in panorama and close-up the life and spirit of the United States. It is a book that gets close to the ways oflife and the thought A famous classic now of the people as they have been ,in new edition observed by one keenly interested in what it is to be an American The Life of today. Illustrated. $3.00 NAPOLEON THE OLD BONAPARTE FAITHS PERISH BY WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE BY JAY WILLIAM HUDSON New two-volume compact library An impartial and absorbing eval­ edition including all the text and illustrations of the previous four­ uation by a famed American volume edition .acclaimed by critics thinker of the crisis religion is "the greatest history of the greatest man of modern times." Introduction now facing, .with a carefully con­ by Hendrik; Willem van Loon. ., Illustrated. Two volumes. $7.50 sidered solution to the dilemma. $2.'00 D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY, 35 West 32nd St., New York

v The Prodigal Parents is packed with exciting, enter­ taining reading. Groverman Blake says, in the Cincin­ nati Times-Star: llltls the first novel I have read in months that I didn It put down until I had finished. And I didn't skip pages, either."

Fred Cornplow, motor car dealer of Sachem Falls, N. Y., is a memorable char­ acter. Lewis Gannett writes, IlFred Corn plow is superb;'1 and the Boston Transcript says, liTo his famous gal­ lery of American portraits, including Babbitt, Dods­ worth and Arrowsmith, Sin­ clair Lewis now adds the fictional picture of Fredk.

Wm. Cornplow. It

Have You Reael Sinclair Lewis' Latest Best-Seller?

If you haven't, this is your opportunity to get a copy for twenty-five cents in the Mercury Book edition.

The Prodigal Parents in this new edition will 1be on sale at your local newsstand on April 10th. But it won't remain there long. The supply will be limited. Better place your order for a -copy now with your dealer or with us.

MERCURY BOOKS · 570 Lexinlton Avenue, New Yorlc., N. Y. vi YOU CAN'T TELL HIM 'THERE'S NO FISHIN'

Let the Weather Man talk. Let the experts scoff. Youth goes fishing for the fun of it ••• in all kinds ofweather ••• in all kinds of waters. The man who has lost the spirit of youth is too busy with gloomy fore­ casts to gather bait, much less go fishing. Men with the spirit of youth pioneered our America ... men with vi­ sion and sturdy confi­ dence. They found con­ tentment in the thrill of action, knowing that suc­ cess was never final and failure never fatal. It was cour~ge that counted~ Isn't opportunity in America today greater than it was in the days of our grateful forefathers?

ANHEUSER.BUSCH ••• ST. LOUIS Makers of the World-Famous BUD WEI SER King of Bottled Beer

COPII. 1939. All HEUSER-BUSCH, IIIC.. ST. LOUIS, MO. vii Big tn 1ft/tiC,

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The American ME::RCURY

OUR TOTALITARIAN rrLIBERALS" An Editorial

HE standard .reproach against headquarters of Fritz Kuhn, Silver Tliberals is that they are unable Shirt Pelley, or Earl Browder. to make up their minds in time of From a political philosophy, liber­ stress. It is charged that they fiddle alism has been converted in recent on· their moral scruples and mental years to just another orthodoxy, reservations while Rome burns. with a calendar of demi-gods That complaint is implicit in the headed by Stalin, and a calendar of celebrated definition of a liberal demons that includes every critic, as a person with both feet firmly however mild, of Soviet Russia, planted in mid-air. Whatever va­ Loyalist Spain, and the New Deal. lidity there rnay be in the reproac;h The feet of these liberals are no in general, however, it certainly longer floating in mid--air, but no longer holds for the official firmly imbedded in the muds of to­ American liberalism: for the ele­ talitarian thinking. ments roughly represented by the Once the basic virtue of the lib­ Nation, the New Republic, and lat­ eral approach to public affairs was terly also the New Masses. The its application of independent rea­ traditional liberal attitudes ofscien­ son to all problems and to the tific skepticism toward all dogmas, claims of all contending parties. civilized distrust ~f those in power, Small trace of that approach can open-mindedness and fair play, are be discovered in the fashionable as rare in those precincts as in the liberalism which flourishes today 385 THE AMERICAN MERCURY in Hollywood and on college and the Mikado. Likewise for years campuses, in certain penthouses to come it will probably be heinous and editorial offices. It is blindly treachery among these liberals to sectarian, and as intolerant as the allude to the seamy side ofStalinist most intractable Calvinism. Its deportment in Loyalist Spain. faithful scream "Heretic! Fascist! What to believe at a given junc­ Reactionaryl" at the first faint sign ture, whom to hate, whom to honor, of non-conformist thinking on the a complicated lingo of praise and sacred subjects. Certain ideas are abuse - it is all rigidly prescribed respectable - others verboten. It is for the faithful "liberals," pre­ a fantastic liberalism that sees a cisely as for other totalitarian sects. "higher type of democracy" in the There was a time when a man's Kremlin's one-man show; that social outlook, his philosophy of demands boycott of Germany by life, was his most private and inti­ other nations while applauding the mate possession. It was the sum­ sale of Russian oil to the Berlin­ total of his own experience, think­ Rome axis; thatattacks imperialism ing, and reading, filtered through but clamors for defense of "our in­ his own character. An honest con­ terests and investments in China"; servative defended a set of estab­ that has not yet noticed Stalin's lished values which he had come to curious refusal to allow any refugees cherish through the years. An from Nazi terror into his realm. honest revolutionary reached his We submit that this fashionable radicalism through a long, and liberalism is not only illiberal but often painful, process of doubt and hypocritical when it draws fine study. The liberal came slowly, by distinctions between different brands the use of his free intelligence, to of brutality, instead of damning accept certain humane and rational them all; that it promotes the very guiding principles. Read any true lunacies it pretends to combat, autobiography - whether theEdu­ when it reasons on their level. We cation of Henry Adams or the life submit that liberalism yields to the story of Lincoln Steffens - and totalitarian trends ofthe time when you follow the slow maturing of a it refuses to face unpleasant facts. personal philosophy under the For years anyone who even alluded impacts of living. to the Russian famine of 1932­ But that was long long ago. To­ 33 (now glibly admitted) was in­ day, it would seem, a nice new stantly branded an agent ofHearst shiny political religion can be ac- OUR TOTALITARIAN "LIBERALS" quired as easily as a ready-made though they disagree on programs, suit of clothes, and cheaper. No are remarkably unanimous on hu­ need to invest years in study and man fundamentals. They refuse to searching of conscience. Fascism, be stampeded by the shouting communism, Naziism, in uniform sloganeers ofany camp into justify­ colors, complete with the latest ing mass slaughter and bloody intol­ gadgets, standard quality guaran­ erance with high-minded excuses. teed by the swastika or hammer­ Murder remains horrible in their and-sickle seal, are being sold over eyes, even under the most euphe­ busy propaganda counters. Ameri­ mistic label invented by any fascist cans just can't resist the bargain or communist messiah. Persecution prices for factory-made faiths. remains abhorrent to them whether In one blinding flash of revela­ it transpires in Germany, Russia, tion, perhaps while listening to or the USA. They believe there some self-appointed savior on the is a vast middle ground between air, a decent-minded, reasonable swallowing every New Deal gadget American suddenly feels himself and being swallowed by the Lib­ transformed into a "crusader," erty League. They believe it ready for the business of extermi­ wholly consistent to criticize one nating his neighbors. In a moment type of horror without falling for of miraculous enlightenment, per­ another type. They are convinced, haps at a liberal cocktail party, a in brief, that all the black-and.. Hollywood clothes-horse is trans­ white, angel-and-devil patterns of muted into a flaming revolution­ thought are so much snake-juice ary, ready to "liquidate" millions for political i11iterates. for The Cause. And the current The transformation of American liberalism is of the .same caliber. liberalism into another variation Its faithful are in the main new on current lunacy makes it that converts who have acquired a full much more important for those equipment of ready-made views in who have not been swept into one mad leap from apathy to the maelstrom to oppose - as THE enthusiasm. In reckoning the forces AMERICAN MERCURY intends to do ofsanity in our land - fortunately - all totalitarian ways and totali­ still dominant - that bogus liber­ tarian thinking, whether home­ alism cannot be counted. grown or imported, no matter how But there are millionsof genu­ beguiling the colors and labels. inely liberal-minded Americans who, -E.L. WE'RE BLUNDERING INTO W AR

By CHARLES A. BEARD

N HER column recently Dorothy world's billions ofpoverty-stricken I. Thompson, after speaking of people economic goods sufficient the riches of the United States, to satisfy them? To see that the said, "No country with such eco­ present distribution of territory nomic power can avoid interna­ and resources is altered only by tional political responsibilities." "negotiation" in a manner to bring In the same column she said, "In justice to all? What justice? Who practically each American heart are to be the judges of the justice there is a timid soul pursuing happi­ or equity? ness and wishing to avoid the bur­ Responsibilities to whom? To den and the headaches of power." the peoples of the fifty-odd na­ These two sentences, so noble in tions possessing independence? To emotional urge, express the vague the peoples of the British, French, sentiments which make difficult Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese, and realistic thinking about foreign Italian dependencies? To the Ne­ policy for the United States and groes of British South Africa? To tend to drive the country in the Nationalists in India? To the na­ direction of war. tives of Zululand as well as the The first sentence is an empty natives ofEthiopia? truism. Ofcourse the United States And how much responsibility? has "international political respon­ Responsibility equivalent to the sibilities." But at the very touch full economic and military power of exploratory questions the flimsy of the United States? To the utter­ structure ofthe aphorism falls into most limits of physical and moral meaningless dust. capacity? Responsibility equal to What responsibilities? To help the ability of the upper and lower France, Britain, and Russia police income groups in the United States the world? To take part in sup­ to pay the bills? And who is to fix pressing all disturbers of world the limits of capacity and ability? peace, everywhere? To give the Besides uttering a Peter-the- 388 WE'RE BLUNDERING INTO WAR

Hermit cry, Miss Thompson tries suing their national interests. But to spur Americans on by shaming when it is proposed that the United them. Americans are timid souls. States look to American interests They are selfish. They love their and security, this is denounced as happiness. They shrink from the cowardly, selfish, ·and immoral­ dreadful task she has laid before before the world of moral nations. them. They are, in short, a cow­ According to this strange ethic, it ardly crew. is indecent for the United States to President Roosevelt is appar­ take advantage of its geographical ently Miss Thompson's flaming position and seek to maintain peace knight ready to lead embattled and security in its sphere, where it hosts. In other places she has por­ is able to accomplish its purposes. trayed him as a man in a mess at How can this strange state of home, and yet in foreign adven­ affairs be explained? Why is it that turism she makes him the hero loose-thinking and passionate cries competent to straighten out the evoke loud echoes? whole world by assuming "interna~ One clue to the anomaly is the tional responsibilities." Who, in fact that the United States is such circumstances, wants to be a treated by resident foreigners as a coward? The psychological trick is' boardinghouse, not as the perma­ simple and telling. The fact that it nent home of a people engaged in draws such cheering crowds indi­ trying to make a civilization in cates that a lot of American think­ their own land. These foreigners in ing about international complica­ letter or spirit are actuated byemo­ tions" is no more realistic than the tional interests in co-nationals in apocalyptic visions of a backwoods other countries and yet look with camp meeting. ' contempt upon Americans whose Ifwe look less ecstatically on the primary affections are attached to world's nations and governments ties of their own. and consider their practices, as dis­ When a British-born American tinguished from their general pro­ delivers an oration on the duty of fessions, we do not find them the United States to join Britain wholly controlled by noble con­ in saving democracy in Europe, he ceptions of their international re­ is acclaimed as noble in motive, sponsibilities - responsibilities to high-spirited in morals, and gen­ other peoples and governments. erous in outlook - by one crowd. On the contrary, we see them pur- When an American of German or 39° THE AMERICAN MERCURY Italian origin argues against serving ing and pursuing an American pol­ notice on Germany and Italy that icy is staggering in its proportions. the Monroe Doctrine applies to A few figures illustrate the fan.. them, he is greeted as heroic - by tastic situation. Ofthe 130,000,000 another crowd. When an American people in the United States, about of whatever national strain refuses 40,000,000 are either foreign-born to have anything to do with either themselves or are the offspring of of these crowds and insists upon foreign-born or mixed parents. In protecting the American sphere of this class are 7,700,000 Germans interests against all alien interven­ and 4,5°0,000 Italians, 3,3°0,000 tion and upholding democracy Poles, 7,600,000 British and Can­ here, he is condemned by members adians, and 3,100,000 Irish. About of the boardinghouse and home­ one-fifth of the total American grown missionaries as ignoble, nar­ electorate is potentially composed row, and greedy. of men and women from this Between the boarders and the group. And what a din they can missionaries it has become well­ make about an American policy nigh impossible for the United for the United States as distin­ States to follow any realistic for­ guished from a British or German eign policy based upon its geo­ or Italian policy for the United graphical position and its demo­ States! cratic ideals. No other government in the world is compelled to the II same extent to shape its foreign policy under the pressure of pow­ But putting aside for the moment erful interests whose hopes and all the conflicting domestic inter­ passions are linked with the fate ests which make American foreign of foreign governments and na­ policy a muddle and granting that tionalities. If to aliens in fact are the United States has unlimited added missionaries hell-bent on responsibilities in Europe, it seems spreading the American brand of proper to inquire a little about democracy from Rhodesia to For­ the responsibilities assumed by mosa, and the communistic dream­ the European powers themselves. ers dedicated to saving Russia at What are they doing to bring any cost to America or making a peace, security, prosperity, a fair world conflagration, it becomes distribution of the world's goods, painfully clear that the task offram- and stability in Europe? What are WE'R~ BLUNDERING INTO WAR 391 they doing to brighten up the of France and Russia, have about corner where they are? 80,000,000 inhabitants, and surely Judging by all the weeping, they are directly and immediately wailing, and hand·wringing in the interested in escaping German and United States, the poor, little Italian domination. Their com­ peace-loving countries of Europe bined population is equal. to that are threatened by two monster of Germany, counting Sudetens powers, Germany and Italy, and and Austrians. Their combined could not, if they would, defend armies, including trained reserve themselves against these frightful troops, number nearly 6,000,000 Leviathans. The truth of the rnat­ meo. According to the estimates of ter is far different. The countries Col. Frederick Palmer their pres· threatened by Germany and Italy ent armed forces are nearly double outnumber them in population by those of Germany. at least three to one. For every In other words, the countries soldier that Germany and Italy immediately, directly, and palpa· can put in the field, they can put bly interested in preventing Ger­ three or more. These menaced na­ man and Italian domination are tions far outstrip the two foes in Great Britain, France, Belgium, wealth, natural resources, metals, Poland, Russia, Yugoslavia, Ru­ and war materials of every kind. mania, Turkey, Greece, the Neth­ They have command of the seas erlands, the Baltic States, and and can impose an iron blockade Scandinavia. By their side we may on Germany and Italy. also place the British Empire, the And this reckoning leaves out of French Empire, and the Dutch account all the man-power and Empire. And they have over­ material-power of the natives in whelming power in men and ma­ the British, French, and Dutch terials. Empires. Even if Japan should These are the helpless pygmies throw herself on the side of Ger­ that must be saved from the men­ many and Italy in a new world acing Leviathans by the blood and war, the overbalance of power for treasure of the United States. Here war would still be on the side of is the American responsibility I the opposing nations immediately Such are the ponderables. Then affected. there are the imponderables to be Poland, Yugoslavia, Rumania, considered with reference. to the and Turkey alone, to say nothing formulation of American foreign 392 THE AMERICAN MERCURY policy in this relation. What are point ofview ofFrench and British the secret wishes, hopes, and ma­ imperialism, nothing short ofscan­ neuvers of Great Britain and dalous. They were greeted by France, so immediately concerned noble words about self-determina­ with the doings of Germany and tion while France and Britain Italy? I do not refer to any hints, carried off German colonies in notes, and friendly communica­ Africa, under the high-sounding tions that they have sent to the phrase of "mandates in sacred State Department at Washington trust for civilization." Now Italy or that have been revealed to the demands her share of the loot. I do Olympian columnists who daily not say that France should sur­ instruct the people of the United render it, but I do say that the pres­ States. I refer to the real intentions ent quarrel between Italy and and preferences, cherished by the France is openly, without palaver governments ofGreat Britain and and hypocrisy, a quarrel over im­ France. On this point we have no perial spoils. authentic information. Not for Should the United States pour fifty or a hundred years will the out blood and treasure to help archives of London and Paris be France hold Tunisia or Djibouti, open to our children or grandchil­ or even Corsica? dren. For the government of the And what has the Tory govern­ United States to operate on the ment of Britain really been doing ostensible fiction that a mere test' in the past few years? I do not pre­ of despotism and democracy is at tend to know. I suspect that its hand would be nothing short of primary aim is to let Hitler liqui­ childish. date Soviet Russia. Should the Some obvious facts run counter United States pour out blood and to the fiction. As to some real or treasure in support of that British pretended issues the obj ectives are Tory policy? clear. The quarrel between France If the countries of Europe that and italy is plainly over the spoils are directly and immediately in­ of empire in Africa. Italy demands volved in preventing German and more loot. The Italians were not Italian domination are primarily given their "share" of the German or even fundamentally interested spoils at Paris by the Treaty of in that operation they can call the Versailles. In fact the treatment of bluff and stop the peril within the Italians in 19 I 9 was, from the forty-eight hours. They can estab- WE'RE BLUNDERING INTO WAR 393 !ish solidarity, if that is their real ately and directly interested and and secret wish. They have the that they have the men, money, men, the materials, the money, and and materials to do the work,if the power. But they do not estab­ that is what they really want to lish solidarity. And my guess is that accomplish. they do not for the reason that For the United States to rush in other hopes, fears, and ambidons and do what they obviously do not enter into their designs. want to do seems tome quixotic Convinced that this is the truth beyond anything Cervantes ever of the business, I come to the con­ imagined. clusion that the intentions and en­ terprises which the United States III is asked to underwrite with blood and treasure are only incidentally What, then, should the Govern­ related to the fear of German and ment of the United States do in Italian domination. The business is this situation? First of all, its offi­ far more complex than any such cials, high and low, should stop simple hypothesis. The internal preaching, lecturing, and hectoring conditions ofthe countries affected, the governments of other coun­ as well as their external relations, tries. They have done enough of are involved in their various that. Far from checkmating the maneuvers. egomaniacs of Berlin, Rome, and In saying all this I do not me~n Tokyo, this tongue-lashing merely to condone in any way the recent inflates their importance, gratifies conduct of the German, Italian, their egotism, flatters their vanity, and Japanese governments. It has swells their self-importance, and been, in most respects, barbaric, evokes retaliations. It defeats· its indecent, cruel, and inhuman. professed ends. What I do say is that the under­ Ofall the crazy institutions ever lying issues accompanying their established in the United States, conduct cannot be reduced to a the press conference on foreign re­ single issue: democracy against lations is the worst. On its face it is despotism, humanity against in­ preposterous for the President of humanity. And I insist that the the United States or the Secretary business ofpreventing German and of State to allow himself to be Italian domination in Europe is the heckled by twenty-five or thirty business of the powers immedi- newshawks bent on snatching sen- 394 THE AMERICAN MERCURY sations even out of burning homes maintain a correct, formal, and re­ and new~made graves. There is dig­ served attitude. He should put his nity - and power - in silence es­ personal likes and dislikes aside pecially about ticklish matters, when speaking to the public about when light words may be seized foreign affairs. If he feels duty upon and twisted and slips ofspeech bound to tell the minister of a for­ are sure to be made, even by the eign government something un­ coolest President and Secretary. pleasant, he should call that minis­ The press conference on foreign ter to the White House, look him affairs should be abolished. If the straight in the eye, give him the President or the Secretary of State message in terse English, and .let . has anything to say of importance him guess as much as he likes. If on foreign affairs, let him write it the President is convinced that out in measured words and give it peace with any country is impossi­ to all newspapers, without fear or ble, he should formulate his case, favor. lay it before Congress, and call for As to the passion of underlings action - for war, if he deems that for ego~inflation through criticizing necessary. In my opinion this is other countries, that should be the only way to make the United suppressed immediately. No sub­ States respected and feared in all ordinate in the national adminis­ matters in which respect and fear tration has any business thunder­ redound to the national interest. ing at foreign· governments in the Any other procedure is both un­ press. It would be well, too, if the dignified and dangerous. chairmen of congressional commit­ If the Roosevelt administration tees in charge offoreign affairs held had really wished to put the screws their tongues and confined their on Germany, at a cost far below sermonizings to the floors of their that of any war, it could have respective chambers. stopped the sale ofwar materials to The President of the United Germany long ago by applying States is the official channel of pre~existing law and without re­ communication with foreign gov­ sorting to any hostile acts under the ernments, save in such matters as laws of war. Lawyers have argued, he chooses to delegate to the Sec­ and with force, that the sale of retary of State. Toward all coun­ certain munitions to Germany has tries with which the United States been in contradiction to express is at peace, the President should treaty obligations and that the WE'RE BLUNDERING INTO WAR 395 State Department ,has winked at eluding cotton, and the influence these ... obligations. However that of farmers and planters with the may be, the State Department Administration is immense. Al­ could have interpreted the law in a though it would be cheaper for the way to stop the sales of airplane Government to buy up the farm materials and other specific articles produce and cotton than to pre... of war demanded by Germany. pare for and get into war, the Buttt has refused to take advantage Administration pursues the policy of this power, while clamping the of cursing Germany publicly and embargo on Loyalist Spain in clear allowing private interests tosupply violation of treaty.obligations and her with the sinews ofeconomy and the established rules of interna­ war. tionallaw. So much for official· procedure. A still more important power be... On the other hand, citizens and longs to the Administration under newspapers are free to express their ourown tariffacts, which have been opinions on foreign as well as do... oil the books for years. The anti... mestic affairs..And foreign govern­ dumping provisions ofthose meas'" ments are to be informed that such ures are drastic and the Administra... is the situation in the United tion has wide authority to retaliate States, if they are so. foolish .as to against any country that engages in protest against private utterances. such practices. Germany has flaunted Now as to policy: in my opin.. her defiance of these legal barriers ion, the United States should and by dumping goods in the United can stay out of the next tvar in States and .the Administration has Europe and the wars that follow the winked at it. Only by violating next war. The countries. immedi~ auti"dumping rules can Germany ately and directly concerned have buy necessary raw materials in the the power to prevent German and United States. By applying these Italian domination if they want to rules the Government can stop this do it. If they do not want to do it, life"stream that flows into Ger... then it is certainly not the business many, without committing any of the United States to take On acts of hostility. the job. All the reasons for failure to act If, as assumed at the outset, it is in this manner are not known, but the duty of the United States it is known that Germanyis also a Government to promote, protect, buyer of agricultural products, in... and defend the security and weI... THE AMERICAN MERCURY fare of the American people, then ability. They will not be able to its foreign policy should be deter­ shirk their own responsibilities and mined with reference to that ob­ in a pinch shift an enormous· bur­ jective. It should maintain correct den to the shoulders of the Ameri­ diplomatic formalities with all can people. Nor will they be de­ governments which it recognizes ceived any longer by the American as de facto and de jure. It should practice of lecturing and eating take no notice of the fulminations crow, threatening and scuttling, made by the reptile press of dic­ boasting and writing letters of hu­ tatorships or the roaring speeches miliation, asserting and denying. of their tyrants. It should deliver no sermons against them and make IV no threats that are not to be backed up by deeds. It should not Can the Government ofthe United dabble in quarrels and squabbles in States pursue a policy ofnon-inter­ Europe or Asia, about the origins vention and stay out of the next and intentions of which it knows European war and the subsequent little or nothing. It should make European wars? "Can" is an elu­ known to the world clearly and sive word. Legally this policy can positively that it does not propose be followed. No treaties of alliance to take part in any European or commit us to upholding any status Asiatic war over any European or quo in Europe. The Constitution Asiatic interests. It need not say permits the President and Con­ any more about the exclusion of gress to formulate and maintain alien interests from this hemisphere such a policy. In respect of eco­ under the principles of the Monroe nomic necessities, the policy is Doctrine. Enough has been said. possible. Another war in Europe Naval preparations adequate to would no doubt materially disturb this purpose are more important American economy but appropri­ than words. They tell their own ate domestic measures could miti­ story and call for no verbal em­ gate the difficulties and internal bellishments. adjustments could even raise the Under this American policy the level of American production and countries that may want to prevent consumption. It would be foolish German and Italian domination to minimize the task but, judging will know what they must depend by the experiences of the World upon; that is, their own power and War, the perplexities, strains, and WE'RE BLUNDERING INTO WAR 397 burdens connected with neutrality at Washington, Republican or would scarcely equal the costs, dis­ Democratic, a foreign adventure in locations, and explosions inevita­ war would be a temporary godsend bly associated with participation in -after us the deluge. All the a European war. politicians, as well as business men Legally and economically, ab­ and the rest of the people, are stention is possihIe. Will passions bewildered, befuddled, and. baffled permit it? Is the prospect ofa tem­ by the economic crisis thathas con­ porary escape from the impasse in tinued practically unabated since American political and economic 1929. They talk bravely about low­ life too great for politicians to ering trade barriers and other po­ endure? There is nothing in hu­ litical thimblerig but they know man knowledge that permits un­ that they have no answer to the equivocal answers to these ques­ problem ofbusiness stagnation and tions. If and when war comes in unemployment that has stared Europe, the emotional explosion in them in the face for nearly ten the United States will be immense years and still stands there before and frightful. Missionaries and them, stark and brutal in its reality. members of the great American Are there any politicians in Amer­ boardinghouse will seek to bend ica as courageous as Lincoln in American policy to fit their ideo­ 1861? The Government of the logical or national or racial pas­ United States was then in a fright­ sions. The difficulty ofmaintaining ful jam. It confronted a major any reasoned policy will be in­ domestic crisis. The slick and creased by the fact that Germans sinuous William H. Seward saw a and Italians in the United States way out for his crowd in a war will be shouting for "peace." When with Great Britain. Lincoln would it is remembered that man has not have it. He insisted on facing been and is a warlike animal­ his domestic crisis and applying none more warlike than most peace his talents and energies to it. The advocates - then we can easily analogy is suggestive and readers foresee an emotional storm of the can make their own applications first magnitude, and a sacrifice of and deductions. nationaI welfare to the violence No less important for thought stirred up by sentimental attach­ about American policy than the ments to the belligerents. posture of our own domestic econ­ To any Administration in power omy and politics is an inquiry THE AMERICAN MERCURY into the nature ofpolicy itself. The cate that the United States would very essence of great statecraft, at merely become a tail to the coali­ home and abroad, is a sense for the tion kite, would receive lip praise, limitations of power and for the would have to supply more and consequences that may flow from more men and materials to the the exercise ofpower. Theoretically bitter end. the sovereignty of the State is Beyond victory, immediately absolute; practically it is limited. and at a distance, would be the As a matter of cold fact - men, consequences. Practice under the guns, ships, and equipment - the Wilson Administration makes it as United States cannot "whip crea­ certain as death and taxes that civil tion" and police it. Nothing is liberty would perish in the United easier than to get into a war and to States as soon as war is declared. hurl armed forces into a war. But We are not yet rid of the persecu­ participation in any war likely to tion mania let loose by the last break out in Europe would be par~ world war and the prospects ofan­ ticipation in a coalition as an other emotional rage are alarming "associate" if not an "ally." What to contemplate. Nor are the almost the United States could do and certain effects of a war upon our would be called upon to do would domestic economy, now deranged depend on the posture, designs, and debt-ridden, to be contem­ demands, and intentions of the plated with any less anxiety. Even associates or allies. a victorious army, on its return In a coalition the very attributes home, will not accept the misery of sovereignty disappear. The will of unemployment and destitution of the State must be bent to other such as we now have and which is wills and purposes. On this point likely to be augmented after the the experiences of Woodrow Wil~ war speed~up and let~down. Why son are illuminating. And what should it? Merely to authenticate guarantee is there now that so~ the speeches of the war cheer­ called "democratic purposes," if leaders? actually espoused by the United And what ofthe consequences in States, would prevail in any coali~ Europe and Asia? Far more than tion with which this country the last world war, the next one might be associated in a war against would be for the avowed purpose Italy and Germany? No guarantee. of making internal revolutions in On the contrary experiences indi~ enemy countries. Immense propa- WE'RE BLUNDERING INTO WAR 399 ganda efforts would be directed to in advance, allowing them to count that end - revolutions in Ger­ upon the aid of the United States many, Italy, and Japan. But would in whatever hidden schemes they the revolutions to follow the defeat may be pursuing, seems to me to be of these powers be to the liking the policy ofreckless gambling, not of the United States and its asso­ of reason or idealism. No better ciates? (Remember the Allied and illustration of the follies inherent American intervention in Soviet in such underwriting can be found Russia!) Could the revolutions be than the action of the United confined to the introduction of States government in imposing an Sunday School methods and the embargo on the republican gov­ moderation of the New England ernment of Spain - presumably town meeting? If not, what will to aid the beautiful non-interven­ the associates do after the war has tion policy of Great Britain and nominally closed? Assuming, with­ France which may help to bring out warrant, the best of will on Germany and Italy into the At­ their part, could they assure to the lantic. It is one thing to underwrite defeated countries an economic Great Britain and France in their underwriting that would sustain tortuous diplomacy. It is another representative democracy in poli­ thing to prepare to meet the possi­ tics? Experiences after 1919 and bility that German and Italian knowledge of the economic condi­ navies may acquire dominance in ditions of Italy, Germany, and the eastern Atlantic. Japan make the very idea ridicu­ To entangle ourselves in the lous - as ridiculous as the com­ mazes and passions of European munist idea that out of a universal conflicts and tie our hands to conflagration Utopia will spring in British and French manipulators full panoply. on the remote contingency of a No, the United States could not German and Italian domination in hold the war to any alleged demo­ the Atlantic seems to me to em­ eratic purpose, and a rational brace immediate calamities when adjustment of the consequences the possibility of·security and would be beyond the power ofany peace in this hemisphere is clearly government, in Washington or open to us. If this be immorality, anywhere else. the foreigners now boarding here In these circumstances, under­ and the home-grown missionaries writing Great Britain and France can make the most of it. In this MERCURY MINIATURE the editor ofan ultra~modern version of The Bible presents

THE PURITAN MATHERS

By ERNEST SUTHERLAND BATES

HERE were four Mathers­ sixteen years the authorities dis­ Tthree big Mathers and one lit­ covered this damning fact, and he tle Mather. The three big Mathers was suspended from the ministry. were Richard, Increase, and Cot­ Coming to America in 1635, he ton; the one little Mather was obtained a pulpit in Dorchester, Samuel. They loom large in the which in lilac-time was not so far early history of American litera­ from Boston, and there "his loud ture, yet most people are vague and big voice, uttered with a de­ about them. It is not very difficult, liberate vehemency ... procured however, to find out about them, unto his ministry an awful and for Increase Mather wrote a bi­ very taking majesty." ography of Richard Mather, and Being learned in Greek and Cotton Mather wrote a biography Hebrew, he was commissioned, of Increase Mather, and Samuel along with John Eliot, the mission­ Mather wrote a biography of ary who tried to teach the Indians Cotton Mather. the sense of sin, and a certain Perhaps Richard wasn't so very Thomas WeIde, to prepare the big after all. The chief thing that Bay Psalm Book, said to have been he did for the Mathers was to get the first work published in Amer­ them started. If he had never had ica. It was a doggerel translation of any children we would never have the Psalms which the Puritans heard very much about him­ substituted in their worship for which, if there were no evidence the Psalter. But for tUlS precedent for the other side, would be a in sectarian hymnology, Sunday powerful argument for progeny. mornings might have been less He was an English clergyman in raucous throughout America. Rich­ the reign of James the First. The ard Mather's last work of note was Mathers did not like to wear what a second marriage which united other people wore, and Richard him with the widow of John Cot­ would not wear a surplice. After ton, the foremost of Massachusetts 4°0 THE PURITAN MATHERS 4°1 clergymen, and also united the or, to put it more simply, he made Mathers with the clerical oligarchy his step-mother his mother-in-law. which ruled the colony. Extra-maritally, he became pas­ Mr. Mather's little boy Increase tor of the North Church and pres­ began badly, refusing to look at ident of Harvard, and managed, books until he was 14, but then in one way or another, to have an he soon made up for lost time. He aristocratic finger in every colonial graduated from Harvard at the pie. Phrases give the man: it was age of 17, the occasion being en­ said of his pulpit eloquence that livened by a mettlesome wrangle it had a "tonitrous cogency"; it with· the president in Latin. In was said of him, "the uncrowned college he had been influenced king of New England." He wrote chiefly by his tutor Michael Wig­ many books; among them his Re­ glesworth whose poem, The Day markable Providences Illustrative of of Doom, is still remembered for the Earlier Days of American Col­ its single line humanely consigning onization, which saw a devil in unbaptized infants to "the easiest every bush and God's hand out­ -room in Hell." A visit to Ireland stretched above and did much to brought out the rebel blood in encourage a growing enthusiasm Mather. At Trinity College, Dub­ for witch-baiting. He went to lin, where he went for his Master's' England to fight for the colonial degree, he refused, following the charter, didn't get what he wanted, Mather principle of not liking to and so took what he could get. wear what other people wore, to He was ousted from the presidency don the customary cap and gown, of Harvard in 170I, which marked and hence, at the taking of his the passing of the theocratic order, degree, he was, as he recorded, but the old man soon became inter­ "hummed" - whatever that was ested in the founding of Yale as a - by his fellow-students. new citadel oforthodoxy. His death Two years later the exiled from "hickets" - hiccups? rickets? Charles the Second returned from - was hastened by the news that idle wantoning in France to Eng­ Yale, too, had gone, alas, heretical. land, and Incr~ase Mather hastily re­ Increase begat Cotton, and Cot­ turned from laborious preaching in ton was a prodigy. He entered England to America. He then mar­ Harvard when he was 12 years old, ried the daughter of the man whose and mastered all the languages and widow his father had married, science of his day. But one does 402 THE AMERICAN MERCURY not have a famous father and two crusade. By giving notoriety to famous grandfathers without pay­ certain witch-haunted children in ing a price. Cotton early developed Boston,· he inflamed the envy of a morhid self-consciousness, ex­ the little ones in Salem to such an treme vanity, and an ineradicahIe extent that no adult who fell under pomposity. He wrote incessantly, infant disapproval was safe from piling up in prose and verse over the chance ofexecution. The hang­ three hundred works, which, if ings, and even the pressing of one their contents had been as fascinat­ who denied the possession of su­ ing as their titles would he hest­ pernatural power and seemed to sellers today. Who could resist prove it by succumbing to pres­ The Right Way to Shake off a sure, delighted Cotton Mather, Viper, A Warning to the Flocks who prepared an official defense against Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, of the merry-making under the Boanerges: a Short Essay to Preserve title Wonders ofthe Invisible World. and Strengthen the Good Impressions On the credit side for Cotton must Produced by Earthquakes, Hor­ be mentioned that he was a staunch Hagidgad: an Essay upon a Happy champion of inoculation for small­ Departure, Elegy on the Much-to­ pox and that he had his house be-Deplored Death ofthat Never-to­ bombed for his pains. He survived be-Forgotten Person, Mr. Nathaniel his father only five years, which Collins, or Elegy upon the Deaths were long enough for him to ofSeven Young Ministers? write his Parentator: Memoirs of . But more important to poster­ Remarkables in the Life and Death ity was his Diary, an amazing rec­ ofthe Ever-Memorable Dr. Increase ord of personal ambition masked Mather. as religion; altogether a Freudian The family tradition of self­ treasure. And for scholars, his pe­ laudation was carried on by Cot­ dantic, unreadahIe Magnalia Christi ton's son Samuel, who wrote The Americana, a history of the New Life of the Very Reverend and England churches, is a mine of Learned Cotton Mather. Samuel information. was, however, the last prig on the Cotton Mather was largely re­ family tree. Nobody wrote about sponsible for the children's witch Samuel, and neither shall we. BROADWAY TRIES GOD

By JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY

HE Great White Way has been virtue; they have never ventured Tcelebrating what may become to seek out new ideological gods. knownin theannals oftheNewYork But the sophisticate fringe which theatre as God's own year. Songs of hatches playsmiths was tempted salvation have turned the electric for a time into other pathways, and haze over Broadway into halos over the theatre has dramatized their the dramatic stars. At any moment wandering .quests. "Comes the we may expect Actors' Equity to revolution" ~ modeled on Rus­ form a united front with the min­ sia, or on Italy, or on some other isters' league. The theatre has the vision of economic beatitude ­ devil by the tail and is pulling hard became the theme song of one for the Lord. In every way ~ as a shrill play after another. central subject, as a question to But now, in a sudden season, we argue, as a taken-for-granted back­ find the artificers of drama hot­ ground ~ religion has been the footing for heaven. Run down the dominant theme of most of the list. The Pulitzer Prize winner, prize-winners and the hits of the Our Town, with its last act beyond season. the grave. Shadow and Substance, If the living theatre, and in voted the best play from abroad, America that means flood-lit Broad­ with all sorts and conditions of way, is a mirror of men's minds, it clergymen in its dramatis per­ is evident that we are in the midst sonae. Murder in the Cathedral, ofa period frantically searching for Many Mansions, Father Malachy's a faith. The average American may Miracle, On Borrowed Time, Susan have lost the comforting certainty and God. Those are from 1938. that this is "God's own country," The 1939 season has not merely but he has not lost God. The continued the flood, but has wid­ movies, catering more directly to ened the range of religious refer­ this box-office average, have never ence. It flows into musical-com­ deviated from the paths of formal edy fantasy with 1 Married an 4°3 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Angel. It shines through in mani­ Broadway did not wake up one fest and homely piety in that night to find itself religious. No pageant of patriotism, The Ameri­ Billy Sunday surged upon the can Way. It brings back several theatre and smote it with fist of generations of ancestors in Elmer righteousness to repentance and Rice's American Landscape. A col­ prayer. The crowding plays of the oratura variation sways in the last two seasons are the climax ofa revival scenes of Mamba's Daugh­ fairly long and quiet growth. No ters and the Federal Theatre pro­ theatrical season since the WorId duction The Big· Blow. Religion War has been without one or more rides into the theatre. in triumph dramatic attacks on the enemies of in The White Steed. Judgment Day religion, upon crass materialism is· the final scene .of Outward and soul-starving mechanization. Bound. And what a surprise awaits For two decades, in desultory cam­ the out-of-town customer who paigns, this undeclared war was judges only by the title when he waged. In 1931 the enemies came buys Here Come the Clowns! out into the open, when Eugene One or two in this list may seem O'Neill's Dynamo erected the ma­ at first sight irrelevant. Not all are chine into a consuming idol. By pious. Not all are consciously reli­ 1934 Days Without End (likewise gious in their intentions. Yet taken by O'Neill) and Philip Barry's The together they attest a new aware­ Joyous Season lifted high upon the ness of the things of the spirit. stage a radiant cross. There were Either explicit in their subject two brief interludes of whimsy, matter or implicit in the handling Green Pastures and the Bible story is a recognition of forces beyond of Noah, from the French. Then, our earthbound frame. Even the in 1938, the tide was suddenly at plays about democracy, though flood, and Broadway was trying political in purpose, have clear God in earnest. spiritual overtones. Whether they In earnest. The shifting empha­ evoke thedeep-rooted goodness of sis that returned to the soul is Abe Lincoln or the humble virtues neither a fad taken up in boredom of a few generations of simple nor a passing vogue. The growing Americans, these dramas empha­ disillusion of the ignoble peace that size elementary and eternal values followed the noble Wilsonian con­ related to the religious cast of secration undermined fai tho In heart. many a country men clutc:hed at BROADWAY TRIES GOD straw substitutes for older faiths. returnings of daylight arise. This In the United States, prosperity European orientation, mentally, centered many minds upon ma­ was reflected in books and plays. terial possessions. The notion of a Then the growing horrors of chicken in eV'ery pot and an auto fascist-bolshevik destruction, fam­ to every chicken seemed no longer ine, brutality, evoked a revulsion a cheap bourgeois ambition but a wherever totalitarian policemen national ideal. In years when any did not exist to drive it back. In Wall Street gambler was on the America, too, there was a shrinking winning side, people forgot all else away from the spiritual collapse of and hustled after "the things that the European continent. It is one are Caesar's." No wonder that a thing to glorify doctrines of blood sawdust Caesar took them in! and force thousands ofmiles away; The first reaction to the Depres­ quite another when Brown Shirts sion was a sharpened hunger for the begin to drill in our back yards and vanishing prizes of the earth. In imported "Party lines" promise disappointment or anger or panic liquidation on the Kremlin model. American writers grasped for the Now our intelligentsia, bewildered slogans and solutions offered by to the edge of fear by a dictator­ fascism and bolshevism. They be­ driven world, are themselves seek­ gan to dramatize their discovery ing shelter. that the soul is located in the stomach. The fascist man ruth­ II lessly takes what he wants by force and rejects any god that stands The doubts about merely mechan­ for love, pity, or mercy. In Russia ical progress and technological sal.. the moujiks are assured that God vation were apparent even in the is a capitalist invention overthrown boom days ofprosperity. Plays like at last by the laws of Marx and The Belt uttered scorching denun­ economic' necessity. Between the ciation ofunrestrained materialism. upper millstone of Stalin and the Capek'sRUR and his The Insect nether stone of Mussolini~Hitler, Comedy, though brought from God is squeezed out. The founda­ Europe, expressed our inner fear of tions of their smug certainties the mechanical man that conquers, washed away by economic dis­ all but annihilates, the human race. aster, Americans looked to Europe, In O'Neill's Dynamo a minister's to the East, where all faiths and son created a monster more de- THE AMERICAN MERCURY structive than Frankenstein's. Its we have been constantly warned, whirring maws soon devoured the since the War, that propaganda is a young man - representative of his deadly poison, no matter how generation - who worshipped the valid the cause it pleads. Those wonder-working machine. Then, pIays were therefore more success­ as'I have said, in one season, in one ful that approached God from month - January 1934 - Eugene roundabout. They looked with·a O'Neill and Philip Barry leaped to sidewise smile at religion, as some­ the attack. thing quaint that we still may In Days Without End O'Neill tolerate, especially in a more child­ showed the evils that befall a man like people. The best-kno\vn of during his years of denial· and of these dramas was Marc Connelly's doubt. His loved ones, his worldly The Green Pastures, an amusing yet treasures, fall away. But with be­ tender and truly devout picture of lief comes spiritual joy, and more: religion as the simple Negroes in the play's climactic spell, as he might "walk all over God's heav­ kneels in renewed faith before the en." Gabriel blowing the trumpet shining cross, the believer hears , of the Lord to summon the angels that his dying wife will live. to a fish-fry belongs in a paradise Barry's The Joyous Season, while where dice are as valid as harps. not quite so bald a presentation of Both this drama and the Theatre the power of fai th, made much the Guild version from the French of 'same point. It centers around the Obey's Noah (1935) showed the visit of a nun to her relatives, and love - and the wrath - of God, the influence of her quiet faith touched with the tender humor of upon their thoughtless lapse of those who do not quite believe, or spirit. Once more, mountains are are not quite ready to confess that moved. Both plays were financial they believe, but look down as fl@ps. upon children at innocent play. Their failure is no sign that the Not until 1938 did Broadway public was not groping for reli­ confront God without apology. gion. The very fact that they The most obviously religious drama could be staged, that producers in subject lastseason wasT. S. Eliot's (who are always practical, even Murder In the Cathedral, presented though seldom astute) could be earlier by the Federal Theatre, persuaded to put them on, shows then commercially on Broadway. that the subject was in the air. But It begins as a poetic presenta- BROADWAY TRIES GOD tion of the death of Thomas a of the Church became the central Becket, in the Twelfth Century; point of the fullest religious argu­ but after the killing, the characters ment, as well as the most discussed suddenly step forward and address play, of last season, Paul Vincent the audience, explaining their ac­ Carroll's Shadow and Substance. tions in terms of spiritual conflicts Being a foreigner's work, it was not today. eligible for the Pulitzer Prize, but Wholly in terms ofour own time the Drama Critics' Circle voted it were the problems presented in the best play from abroad. Many Mansions, where the life in a Shadow and Substance runs the religious seminary is made to fol­ gamut ofreligious attitudes. At one low the patterns of hypocrisy and end is the teacher, to whom clean truth, of sham and sincerity, of hands and good food for his chil­ doubt and faith, that crowd the dren seem more important than world around. sustenance for their souls. At the The case for religion was more other stands the stern archbishop, directly presented in Father Mal­ a man of aristocratic culture, who achy's Miracle, an entertaining understands the true essence of the whimsy in which a Protestant and Church's faith, but who feels that a Catholic argue over the active compromise is the first yielding presence of God in the modern to Satan. As he would never have world. If faith can move moun­ phrased it, Grant the devil an inch tains, there's little jounce to a and the rest is a cinch. But his tavern; and at the Father's prayer priests come in daily contact with the local dance hall is transplanted ordinary men and women; they to a rock in the Irish Sea. It's off know both human hope and human the shore and on again; but though frailty. They would have little the miracle itself is not serious, the sympathy, perhaps, with the cynic point of the play is reverent. Smil­ who on his deathbed remarked: ing at the parable, one may accept "God will forgive me; that's his the thought beneath. job!" but they do feel that God The strictness of the higher will be lenient when the dread clergy was suggested, in Father hour comes. Malachy's Miracle, by the Papal Three other successes took reli­ legate who comes to investigate gious belief for granted, as essential the story of the dance. hall's pere­ background for their stories. Susan grination. This unbending attitude and God, it is true, directs its satire THE AMERICAN MERCURY against the woman who takes up Barry and Carroll have both religion as she might adopt nudism come directly to the charge again. or the five-foot path to beauty or Many prefer The White Steed to whatever fad becomes the current Carroll's earlier drama, because fashion; but in its basic mood, as it cloaks the religious theme in a in her loving husband, there is a more realistic story. Its allegory strengthening backbone of belief. is almost entirely in the title: the On Borrowed Time literally gets white steed whose mystic rider will death up a tree; but behind the rescue Ireland, so long as the little fantasy ofan aged man who refuses black people cannot draw him to die, who will not relinquish his from the saddle. The action itself, grandson to unworthy hands, is an however, is a battle between those assured belief that they will all be who (honestly or hypocritically ­ reunited in heaven. And the last usually the latter) set too high and minute of the play actually depicts rigid standards for their neighbors, this heavenly reunion coming true. and those who know that the spirit, In the whole final act of Thornton however willing, is clad in weak Wilder's Our Town, the main char­ flesh. acters are the souls of those dead Barry's Here Come the Clowns and gone. And the chief spirit that suffers - both financially and artis­ animates the Iittle town is godli­ tically - from being once more ness in action. too wholly religious. The public can take, and enjoy, The White III Steed just as a story; it cannot make sense of Here Come the Clowns un­ The season now with us, far from less it reads the symbol C?f the stage­ showing any slackening of religion hand who blunders through the in the drama, indicates a widening play seeking God, and the magi­ hold. This is deemed a propitious cian-devil who cannot quite de­ time for the revival of Sutton stroy the other's soul. Vane's Outward Bound, the char­ The out-and-out class war plays acters in which are journeying are fewer and less sure of them­ across the Styx to Judgment Day, selves. Even the most-advertised and the play is selected for the "proletarian" dramatist, Clifford "command performance" in Wash­ Odets, in his latest offering, Rocket ington, as part of the President's to the Moon, is concerned with the birthday charity fete. dignity of an individual life rather BROADWAY TRIES GOD than Marxian formulas ofsalvation. cle confounding the plotters and Another recent play, The Primrose working toward man's salvation. Path, a gaudy picture of prosti­ Another, by now through re­ tution, shows how times have hearsal, is a straightforward pic~ure changed. A few years ago the of the life ofa simple pious family, week-end lady would probably with one brother who is a black have stumbled upon the theory of sheep - only that brother's name economic determinism and gone happens to be Jesus. forward to the barricades. Today The world is sick. Quacks of all she turns down wealth in favor of sorts have clamored, are clamoring, humble goodness, her soul having with spurious relief. Totalitarian been touched by God. medicine-men present surcease There is, of course, no.guessing from uncertainty on the points of how many manuscripts now going bayonets. But the feeling thateco­ the rounds, destined to production nomic and political medicine is not or to the graveyard ofplaywrights' enough, that the malady is not dreams, are built upon religion. alone of the body but the soul, as­ One, at least, pictures a new Mes­ serts itself above the clamor. The siah born of lowly folk in America, theatre offers impressive proof of intended as a fraud but by a mira- this fact.

1792- AND 1939

By THOMAS PAINE

Government ought tb be as much open to improvement as any­ thing which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world? MOVE ENGLAND TO CANADA!

By H. W. SEAMAN

ODAY, six months after Mu.. ceived many inquiries concerning T. nich, millions of my fellow cabins in Ireland. But most sig.. Englishmen are still talking of the nificant of all was the overwhelm.. crisis and blaming it for their trou" ing demand for accommodation in hIes. Trade is bad: the crisis. Chil.. westbound ships. Thousands ofpas" dren wet the bed: the crisis. Influ.. sages for Canada and the United enza: the crisis; it lowered our States were booked during those vitality. All my neighbors have anxious days and canceled later. gas masks, and some use them in If any leader of opinion had peeling onions. Our parks are still come forward at that time with a closed and our golf courses criss.. concrete and practical proposal for crossed by water-logged trenches. shipping the whole British popu­ It was the most horrible scare that lace to Canada, lock, stock and has been thrown into a great na" barrel, he would have been hailed tion since 999 A.D., when Chris.. as a deliverer. Such a scheme tendom got ready for the end of the would not have seemed fantastic world. then, however it may be regarded As in all the great scares of his'" today. We shall have more scares tory, those who were scared turned - indeed, there may easily be an" westward. London businessmen other before this gets into print. brought sudden prosperity to the Now, between scares, is the time stricken valleys of the coal dis'" to decide how we shall meet the tricts of South Wales by renting or next. The solution that I now sub­ buying derelict cottages and stock.. mit for the examination of the ing them with canned goods. All experts is surely no less dignified, roads leading west from London practical, and reasonable than the were jammed with cars. Cornwall, measures which the people of this almost as thinly peopled as Ari.. island were called on to take for zona, was warned to be ready to their protection at the time ofthe receive millions. Estate agents re" nation's urgent peril.

410 MOVE ENGLAND TO CANADA I 411 Twenty-five years ago, when I But today a problem arises that first saw Ottawa, I was told, not by transcends economics. We have one but by dozens of its most re­ seen the island race thoroughly spected citizens, "Ottawa is the scared - and with justification. future capital of the British Em­ When the radio, the newspapers, pire. Within a quarter of a century and those who do our thinking for the Empire's center of gravity will us told us that the Hun was at the have moved from England to Can­ gate, that we were unprepared to ada, and Ottawa will have taken meet him, and that the only thing the place ofLondon." At that time, to do was scram, is there any immigrants from the Motherland wonder that we got ready to were arriving in Canada at the scram? London was to be wiped rate of thousands a week, and to out in the first onslaught. It was me, one of them, the prophecy the most vuInerahIe city on earth. seemed by no means far-fetched No less an authority than Lord but almost obvious. Twenty-five Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, years of migration at the rate then told us that the Germans could current would certainly have shifted loose 3000 tons of bombs on us in the Imperial axis. one day, and that in the first week Alas, nobody then foresaw the or two of war the Germans might series of events which was to lead damage London to the extent of to the stemming of the westward £500,000,000. The Government, it tide ofmankind and the corking-up was said, was planning to abandon of Europe. After the war, migra­ 'Vestminster and set up shop on tion of British people to Canada the west coast; Blackpool, the almost ceased, while unemploy­ Lancashire Coney Island, was men­ ment in England mounted. In tioned as a likely spot. Westward, 1924, when Lloyd George, having ever westward was the cry. announced that' he had a cure for So why should we English con­ unemployment, drew from the hat tinue to live next door to a Con­ the old, moth-eaten rabbit of emi­ tinent that may blow up at any gration, the nation groaned. That moment, and take us sky-high with game was up. Canada as well as it? Because we love England? the United States had put up the That, of course, may be a good bars, and from end to end of the reason. We have a deep affection Dominion the word was, "No for this dim, damp, and misty English need apply." island. Even we who do not own a 412 THE AMERICAN MERCURY square foot ofEnglish soil are proud the Canadian landscape, with all to hold that it is better soil, with a its beauty, is lamentably without. sweeter smell, than any other piece Millionaires have bought famous of loam, sand, gravel, or tertiary English buildings and transported conglomerate on the rind of Major them bodily to American soil. Planet NO.3. But if we have to Surely the transplanting of West­ leave it, then leave it we must. minster Abbey from London to Such a move might be embar­ Ottawa is not beyond modern en­ rassed by the reluctance of the gineering. I suggest for it the Dominions to accept us, it is true. present site of the Victoria Mu­ But I believe that the time has seum. Drury Lane Theatre would come for this reluctance to be look well on the site of the van­ turned to an enthusiastic welcome. ished Russell Hotel and Theatre, For what we can offer Canada to­ facing the Parliament Buildings. day is not merely our horde of Just round the corner, halfway be­ unemployed and unemployable, tween the offices of the Ottawa but the whole biling ofus - King, Citizen and the Ottawa Journal, I Queen, Princes, Princesses, Dukes, should plant the Cheshire Cheese, Duchesses, Earls, Viscounts, Bar­ Johnson's chair, steak and kidney ons, Baronets, Knights, and Com­ pudding, bottle-glass windows, and moners, with as much of the furni­ all, brought from Fleet Street for ture as we can bring with us. If the comfort of the press-gallery there is any doubt that we shall be boys in their hours of ease. welcome, let any Canadian imagine the blessings that would accrue II from the presence of a real Royal Family at Rideau Hall. I submit These are only suggestions, tim­ that for such a regal boon, and all idly presented, and open to modi­ the glory that goes with it, the fication. Others no doubt will Canadians, if I know them, would present themselves as the scheme be willing, nay eager, to put up unfolds. We can spare enough with the rest of us; especially if we castles, in fair working order, to came bearing gifts. plant one on each of the Thousand And what gifts we could bring! Islands and so make the St. Law­ Castles, abbeys, ancient inns, his­ rence more glamorous than the toric monuments, all the decora­ Rhine; and enough Cathedrals, tive and romantic features which with Deans, Chapters, Bishops, MOVE ENGLAND TO CANADA! and satellite clergy, to make every transplanting of Englishmen has Canadian town of 50,000 popula­ never been difficult. We can make tion an episcopal seat, thus lending ourselves at home anywhere. Since stability to a social system which at the war nearly 4,000,000 English present is in constant danger from men, women, and children have Republican influences from the been turned out of their homes south. Imagine a Cathedral bang under town-planning schemes, gen­ in the middle of Saskatoon, Sask., uine or bogus, and sent to new or Fort William, Ont., populated slums on the outskirts of the cities. by rentiers hand-picked for their Thousands 6fproperty owners have respectability and separated from been deprived of their houses and the rest of the townsfolk by a then have been billed for the cost high wall, and the benefits at once of demolition. The one virtue­ become apparent. apart from our incomparable mod­ Here and there objections to the esty - on which we of the island movement will be heard. Old race pride ourselves, is our steadi­ gentlemen writing on club note­ ness in the face of·disasters and paper to the Times will complain of upheavals that would throw lesser vandalism and desecration, just as breeds into screaming panic. It they complain now every time a served us well during the General London terrace is torn down to Strike of 1926, the economic crisis make room for a block of flats. As of 1931, the Abdication crisis of none of these estimable objectors 1936, and the war crisis of 1938. As was ever known to dig down into all the best-regarded newspapers his pocket to save an ancient observed on each occasion, we kept building, no attention will be paid our heads. to such objections. Besides, by the And we shall keep our heads time the scheme has gone so far the when, in obedience to established Rev. Times itself will be thinking authority, we set off for Canada's of moving from Printing House shores. Arrival there will .be for Square to St. James Street, Mon­ many of us a period of discomfort treal, or possibly to Yonge Street, until we have adapted ourselves Toronto. The Times, as always, to the new and strange conditions. will be thinking imperially, as I But for the hardships we do en­ am in presenting this plan. counter we shall find compensation There will be some opposition in the discovery that in Canada from the populace at large. But the we can walk, within reason, where THE AMERICAN MERCURY we please, shoot birds and squirrels late; our British magazines (except and even foxes, fish in the lakes, those which contain stories by and climb mountains without ask~ Damon Runyon and jokes stolen ing permission of the owners and from the New Yorker) are unread~ without being shot by gamekeep~ able, and our British radio stations ers or searched by constables. are too far away for their uplifting We shall of course take our pubs influence to be felt. As things are, with us, with dart boards, shove­ it is hopeless for our radio announc~ halfpenny boards, and pianos; and ers to attempt to impose on the some of our breweries - for there lumberjacks and cattlemen the is nothing more harrowing for a elegant Cockney which our rulers man who is accustomed to one and preceptors insist is standard brew than to be made to adapt his English speech. throttle and jet to another. Every The proposed exodus will put an town will have a greyhound~track end to this state ofaffairs. We shall and a dirt~track, night-clubs, and bring our culture with us, Oxford bottle-parties. All our professional and Cambridge and all. It will cost soccer teams will be brought over, little more to waft the British and in May every year the King Museum Library over the bound~ will journey from Ottawa to ing main than to make it bomb~ Toronto to witness the Cup Final proof in Bloomsbury. Eton, Har~ and hear 100,000 football fans, full row, and the rest of the great pub­ of beer· and sporting enthusiasm, lic schools will be taken over to sing Abide with Me, the traditional provide the Dominion .with the hymn for these and other solemn governing class it sorely needs. occasions. The Dominion will be Within twenty years Winchester enriched in many other ways. will have recognized the existence There are not more than a score of of Amherst, Dartmouth, and per­ fish-and-chip shops in Canada. haps Exeter. By the close of the We can bring 30,000. century Harrow may even unbend At present there is a great deal of so far as to invite the snootiest of protest in Canada against the en~ the New England academies to croachment of an alien cuIture drop over to Winnipeg for a spot of from the south. American books, cricket and some tea - on the magazines, and radio, it is said, are strict understanding that no down~ leading Canadian youth astray. right muckers be included in the Our British newspapers arrive too party. MOVE ENGLAND TO CANADA!

I see no obstacle to the transpor­ London. I never leave England tation of all the best bits of Strat­ without a pang, but I can face with­ ford-on..Avon to Stratford, On­ out dismay the prospect of Ot­ tario, except that such a counter­ tawa's becoming the heart of the attraction may put five little Empire. French-Canadian noses out of That the time is ripe for the joint. All that is genuine and worth resumption, on a grand scale, of seeing at Stratford-an-Avon can be the westward migration that was got into one boat, and all the halted by the War is clear from worthwhile contents of the Shake­ events and utterances that have fol­ speare Museum into one fair-sized lowed the crisis of last September. trunk. Not far from Stratford, "Canada is crying for immi­ Ont., is the thriving city of grants," wrote Christopher Stan­ London, Ont., whose thorough­ lake in a letter which the Daily fares are wistfully named Fleet Mail displayed importantly. "Can­ Street, Strand, and so on. I should ada is worried because so large a present London, Ont., with the proportion of the actual immi­ _principal features of the original grants are from Central European London streets. countries. This country has an enormous number of unemployed. III How can these two facts stand un­ recognized and unrepaired?Is there Sentimental objections to the no one to get things moving?" scheme, though they may do credit As if in answer, Mr. Crowder, a to the hearts of.those who raise staunch Conservative and Imperi­ them, can hardly be called patri­ alist, rose in the House ofCommons otic in the widest and noblest sense and said, ''Now is the time to take of the word. The true patriot, as I drastic action for the safety' of the have been told from boyhood, British Empire," and he moved a thinks imperially. "What do they resolution urging the Government know of England," asked Kipling, to promote "the early resumption "Who only England .know?" The of migration to the Dominions." Dominions are as British as Eng­ Instead of groaning as in I 924, the land itself, and in some ways more House applauded.. And then none so. There are more Union Jacks to other than Malcolm MacDonald, the acre in Toronto, on any ordi­ Secretary for Dominions and Col­ nary day, than to the square mile in onies, with all the authority of the THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Government behind him, spoke as Some of the immeubles we shall follows: leave behind. The Albert Me.. Increasing populations, prosperity, morial, Broadcasting House, the and power in the Dominions are the new County Council .0f11ces, the best way ofall to augment the strength Shell-Mex building, the Battersea of Great Britain herself. In thinking of emigration to the Dominions it is ofno Power station can stay, and so can use to think in terms of hundreds of the Daily Express building, unless thousands; the ultimate objective must Lord Beaverbrook wishes to take it· be the settlement ofmillions. over to show the boys at home There are only forty-odd mil­ what he did for London. lions of us in England. Less than I suggest shipping a few of the the £500,000,000 which, according older hotels, as museum exhibits, to the Lord Chancellor, a few days' but none of the new ones. Whether air bombardment would cost will Buckingham Palace shall remain pay for the waftage of all of us or be moved naturally will depend across the Atlantic to safety. I have on the wishes of the Royal oc­ gone from Swansea to Montreal in cupants. Their preference for a reasonably comfortable freighter smaller houses, especially at Christ­ for £12, and there is little doubt mas time, is well known. Heated that the steamship companies will by gas fires and other makeshifts, make a substantial reduction for Buckingham Palace cannot be the large parties. For much less than cosiest of homes, and would be the cost of three months of actual uninhabitable in the Canadian war, and with the Royal Navy winter. Unlike that Eighteenth hitching up its slacks with a Yo­ Century barrack, Rideau Hall has heave-hoI and a double rum-ration, every modern convenience, and we can. ship all the furniture and besides is more beautifully situated fittings. than any of the present Royal At first the unavoidable mingling residences, with the possible ex· of the classes may seem to present ception of Balmoral. difficulty, but as Englishmen we We can leave in situ·a castle or shall know our places, and sahibs, two, a cathedral here and there, a pukka sahibs, white men, cads, few pubs and clubs, and other bounders, muckers, stout fellows, amenities for the comfort of citi­ hearties, right-sorts, outsiders, and zens who refuse to shift. Those who rank outsiders will sort themselves own land will be allowed and even out easily enough. invited to stay behind and look MOVE ENGLAND TO CANADA! after it, with His Grace the Arch... defending. An invader would have bishop of Canterbury to look after to reckon, not only with the garri­ their souls. They can enjoyhuntin', son, hut with the whole embattled shootin', and fishin' as never be.:. Empire. I do not believe that any fore. No longer will they have to nation would be so foolhardy as to complain ofthe industrialization of contemplate such an invasion. Only the countryside, of the unsightli­ we English and our near relatives ness of filling stations and housing are tough enough to live in Eng­ estates, and of farmers who put land. Frenchmen, exposed to our wire· in their fences. England will fogs and vapors, would be ex'" be again the sweet, pastoral land terminated in one generation. which, as many of us believe, God Italians would drop off like flies. intended it to be. As for the Germans, if the climate It will be more than ever worth did not finish them, the Irish would.

THE AMERICAN WAY: A Fable

By JOSEPH REICH

NCE upon a time there was a Manufacturer of Chromium O. Plated Blobbets who sorrowfully announced: "Business Conditions aggravated by Government Interference force us to reduce our workmen's wages by ten percent." The workmen had wisely foreseen such an eventuality and had, for the sum of five per cent of their wages, provided themselves with An As­ sociation.fully equipped with An Official Spokesman. So insist­ ant was the outcry of the Association that the Manufacturer of Chromium Plated Blobbets closeted himself with the Official Spokesman and, withal, did even witness a Pact reducing the workmen's wages but five per cent. Thus it came to pass all parties rejoiced and loud was the praise of Public Opinion. AMERICA'S NUMBER ONE FOOL

By CLAY OSBORNE

ALL FOOL'S DAY should be na~ ton a heaven~sent opportunity to £l- tionally dedicated to the take New York. memories· of certain men whose But among the myriad dolts who epic foolishness helped to make our contributed to the march of Amer­ country great. There should be ican empire, one man deserves spe~ solemn thanksgiving that Fremont cial honor on this day dedicated to was the kind of dunderhead who the breed. He may well be desig~ would dare raise the Bear Flag at nated as the Number One Booby Sonoma; and that Commodore ofAmerican history. Sloat was zany enough to commit This imbecile was the beetle~ the magnificent blunder of hoist~ brained Englishman who handed ing the Stars and Stripes at Mon~ us the Oregon Empire on a silver terey. Bells should be rung to pIatter. And he did this only be~ Napoleon's folly in signing away cause of an idiotic outburst of his greatest empire, the Louisiana petty peevishness. territory, for a paltry $r8,000,000; The enormity of this gentle~ and to the Grand Duke Constan~ man's folly can be perceived only tine and Minister Stoeckl, those by remembering that the old Russian dizzards who threw at us Oregon country today comprises Seward's icebox of frozen wealth the states of Washington, Oregon, for the pittance of $7,200,000. Also Idaho, and a portion of Wyoming; a salute should be fired for the thatits wealth of natural resources pirate Laffite, the simpleton who and scenic wonders is immeasur~ turned patriot and saved us New able; and that its worth to Ameri~ Orleans only to flee to an unknown cans of this and. of fu ture genera~ grave; and to the English Admiral tions is almost beyond estimate. so goofy about his mistress as to The man who gave us this vast defend her ship with his whole fleet empire is Capt. John Gordon, com~ while her child was a~bornin', mander of a British ship~of~war, thereby giving General Washing~ and brother. of the Earl of Aber~ 418 AMERICA'S NUMBER ONE FOOL deen, England's Prime Minister one way to obtain reliable informa­ during the time of this story. tion about the Oregon country, and thus determine whether it was I t will be recalled that the worth a war. England decided to United States and Great Britain send a spy to .the Pacific - and trembled at the brink ofwar when, who was better fitted for this deli­ in 1844, James K. Polk was elected cate mission than the Prime Min­ President on the slogan: "Fifty­ ister's own blood brother? four-forty or fight I" While strong­ Summoned before England's tempered Britishers were demand­ statesmen of the 1840s, Captain ing all of Oregon, hotheads in Gordon was given the facts. He America were clamoring not only was told that if he found· Oregon for the Oregon country but for all valuable, as claimed by the Hudson ofthe British Columbia coast up to Bay Company, England would SitkaI British conservatives had fight for it. If it were worthless, as shown a willingness to compromise so many were saying, the United by accepting the north bank of the States could have it, and welcome. Columbia River as the interna­ His report, based upon personal tional boundary. Cool heads in our inspection and observation, would own nation counseled proposing . determine Great Britain's policy theforty-ninth parallel-our pres­ for war or peace with America. ent boundary - as the interna­ Aboard his flagship - named, tionalline. peculiarly enough, America ­ However, in electing Polk the Captain Gordon and his British American electorate virtually de­ marines arrived at Puget Sound clared, "We'll have all of Oregon harbor in 1844, maintaining loudly ifwe must go to war to get itl" On that they would "drive every last the other hand, the Hudson Bay Yankee back over the mountains Company was frantically appealing in short order." The Captain sent to the mother country for ships-o'­ two lieutenant spies to Fort Van­ war and marines to repel the in­ couver on the Columbia while he vasion of the Far West by a tide of himself proceeded to the Hudson American pioneers. Bay post at Victoria. England had ·learned that pol­ There the anxious inhabitants iciesrecommended by the world's did their utmost to make the pom­ greatest monopoly were not always pous Gordon at home. Fatted the best. There was, palpably, only calves and swine and poultry were THE AMERICAN MERCURY killed. Hunters were sent out for Gordon had learned enough. He game. Fishermen brought choice stormed aboard his ship andset sail salmon and trout for his table. for England, away from this grim But the high-born gentleman was land fit only for savages and smelly pleased with none ofit. Half-breed trappers, and full of hardships too, servants didn't attend his wants too severe for gentlemen! with the skill and servility of Eng­ . Called before England's leaders lish butlers; he groaned with the for his report, when he arrived discomfort of sleeping in rude, home, Captain Gordon declared frontier bunks; he was disgusted sulphurically that he "wouldn't when he learned that deer were give the bleakest knoll on the '.'still hunted," instead of run with bleakest hill of Scotland for all of dogs, as in Merrie England; he was Oregon's mountains in a heap," displeased by the frantier's lack of and the word of this magnificent sportsmanship in fishing with grubs, dim-wit was accepted without worms, and other "bait," instead question. How much of Oregon he of dry flies. On'the few occasions had actually examined; how much when he ventured into the wilder­ of the 'wilderness he had pene­ ness he returned physically and trated'; how well he had inspected ~entally sore, bruised, and sod­ potential resources; how little he den, complaining endlessly of the had considered the ultimate needs ','savage, inhospitable land" and of of England, and how much he was the barbarous inhabitants who influenced by his personal discom­ lacked all the graces of civilized fort in making his report - these living. The last, brittle straw of his questions remained unasked. patience broke when he asked for a On the strength of Captain bath ~ and was courteously led to Gordori's misinformation, England the shore of the Pacific and invited abandoned all thought of war. The to walk in! demand of the Hudson Bay Com­ When, in time, the Captain's pany for armed protection for Eng­ two spies returned from Vancouver lish settlers in the Oregon Country reporting that the Americans' there went unheeded, and Great Britain were only a scattering of buckskin­ accepted the forty-ninth parallel clad, barefooted, tobacco-spitting boundary compromise. settlers living in a region offorbid­ CaptainG'ordon had given us ding mountains, roaring rivers, and Oregon· because he couldn't get a awful, distances - then Captain bath! Pressdom's ace muckraker, who tracked down Judge Manton, analyzes the

MUCKRAKER: MODEL 1939

By S. BURTON HEATH

, AN ANONYMOUS POSTCARD made ness and corruption in public af­ Il. a muckraker out ofme. Every fairs. "There is filth on the floor," day newspapers receive tips like he said; "and it must be scraped up that. Most of them prove worth­ with the muck-rake." But the job less. Very occasionally the stone in of raking up anti-social practices the oyster turns out to be a pearl. has changed vastly since the Stef­ I followed the suggestion penciled fens-Tarbell-Baker era that popu­ on that card, and it led to a jour­ larized the expression. It may be nalistic pot of gold. It introduced the dirt is so much more expertly me to an investigating technique concealed nowadays that new and which .then was rather new in sharper instruments are required to general and almost unknown in pry it loose. In any event, the fine journalistic procedure. Because I courage of an enthusiastic exp()ser carried on, two judges have left the and the talents of a good· observer bench by resignation under fire; no longer suffice. Those qualities three of the largest insurance com­ are needed, but they must be sup­ panies stand condemned in the ,plemented by others. public conscience; cheap equitable The technique which I was to insurance is available to more than learn calls for the combined quali­ 12,000,000 in New York state; the fications of analytical accountant, taxpayers ofNew York were saved mathematician, chess master, cross­ more than $3,000,000 on a few fou1, word-puzzler, and jigsaw addict. sewage-swept acres ofunused ocean It needs also a smattering, at least, bottom. ...I could extend the ofcurbstone law. The process is one list, but these items are enough to ofcalm analysis ofcold records: the suggest what a muckraker rakes up collection and tabulation of facts when luck is running. and figures~ their meticulous sifting It was Theodore Roosevelt who and evaluation, and eventually originally applied the word "muck­ their organization into a syllogism raker" to those who expose unfit- in which both premises are indis-

421 THE AMERICAN MERCURY putable and the conclusion is in­ detailed analytical work, of course, escapable. the muckraker should have a wide The modern muckraker no more circle of gregarious friends, who resembles his progenitor of thirty know the confidential gossip in years ago than the G-Man of today most fields of public activity,who resembles the furtive, unconvinc­ can obtain access to normally in­ ingly disguised sleuth ofyesteryear. accessible sources, and who can dis­ I believe that some newspapers still tinguish between fact and hearsay. have their reporters arrested on Bar associations, public officials, phony charges or stowed away civic and professional organiza­ through illegal entry, so that they tions, and individuals have helped may gather the dirt incognito. I me in the many campaigns of ex­ am· told, occasionally, of evidence posure that I have conducted. acquired by methods which savor Successful campaigning is never a of the illegal. I wouldn't know. I one-man job. What I did, what believe those methods are out of any muckraker does, was to collect date. the ingredients, combine them into The information that I use is high explosive, put it where none obtained legally and without de­ could fail to hear the explosion, ceit. If I choose, I can lay it before light the fuse, and stand by for a grand jury, a district attorney, developments. or the Supreme Court without shame as to how I obtained it. The postcard came six years ago. Moreover, when my case is laid Its scrawl merely said, "Why don't before a court of law or before the you check the judgments against jury of public opinion, no item of Harold Kunstler?"Kunstler was proofdepends upon my own verac­ one of forty-eight justices in New ity. I am prepared to say, "In this York City's "poor man's court." public office you will find such a He had never attracted our atten­ record; such a folio of Jones' ledger tion particularly. I investigated as has an entry, of which this is a a matter of routine. Court files photostatic copy." showed eight docketed judgments Present-day muckraking is thus against him, for a total of $32,­ an exacting vocation. It is no career 240.40. That, in itself, meant little... for 0 the indolent, the inert, the Reputable men mayhave bad luck. superficial, the impatient, the scat­ But I checked every individual ter-wit. Beyond the capacity for judgment. I found that some law- MUCKRAKER: MODEL 1939· yets and some litigants, whose suc" that Tammany was making the cess before Kunstler had aroused Iittle home-owner pay for tax cuts our· interest, were involved in his which capable attorneys were win" personal financial affairs. I learned ning for the big property owners. also that one Charles Leef, who had I analyzed city finances, kept a graciously subordinated his own day-by-day record and demon" $1°,962.5° garn~sh1nent upon the ~trnted thgt while Comptroller judge's salary to a later claim of the Berry was proving by· hired ac­ State Banking Department, was countants that New York could not known among lawyers as "Kunst~ . possibly operate in the red, the 1er's fixer." Proceeding along these city was doing nothing else. I lines Islowly amassed a wealth of showed that when the budget material. We took it to the lead.. was reduced by Depression condi" ing bar association, and began pub" tions, Tammany chieftains and lication. Thomas E. Dewey was their braves were kept on the pay­ just leaving the office of United rolls with money taken from vital States Attorney for private prac" social services. tice. The bar association asked The campaign illustrated by him to prosecute removal charges these isolated examples put the against Kunstler. He discovered Tammany Tiger in the doghouse that in three years this judge, in 1933, and placed a new lock on on a salary totaling $40,000 had the doghouse door in 1937. banked $166,660. Dewey prose" In raking muck there must be cuted. Kunstler· resigned; later he well-defined objectives, specific so" was disbarred. cial purposes to be attained. There And a reporter on the N ew York is no purpose in turning over filth World- Telegram was launched on a from one corner to another merely career. My first taste of the blood that the carnal may revel in its of corruption proved a heady draft stench. That's another thing which, - and habit-forming. I believe, distinguishes the latter.. Soon I was the unofficial scourge day practitioner of the art. Sensa­ of Tammany Hall, with a roving tionalism for its own sake no longer commission from my paper to tell is the vogue. The public is inclined Father Knickerbocker those things to resent it. which his Tammany government Ida M. Tarbell did a marvelous would rather have concealed. I an'" job of research in her study of the alyzed tax assessments, and· showed Standard Oil trust, and put her THE AMERICAN MERCURY I facts together cannily. Lincoln When a bench is weakened by Steffens wrote a devastating series undesirable judges, so that public ofarticles about the "Shame of the confidence in the administration Cities," and another about the of justice totters, the wise modern "Shame of the States." Ray Stan­ muckraker does not, as he might nard Baker exposed capably the have a quarter of a century ago, prostitution of unions by employ­ write a generalized article on "The ers. Any reporter, today and to­ Shame of the Courts," and then morrow, would be proud of such move on to new fields. Rather, he reporting and such writing. But selects the most vulnerable judge. none of these, so far as I have He goes over that judge's record learned, did what a modern muck­ with a fine-toothed comb. He raker does. None of them set out, builds up an indictment before with a limited but attainable ob­ which that judge must resign or be jective, to remove one at a time removed. He presents that indict­ those individual evils which, in the ment coldly, dispassionately, factu­ aggregate, contributed to the ma­ ally. Consider the case of Judge jor shames which Steffens, Baker, Manton, which made front pages. and Miss Tarbell excoriated. The shame of a city or ofa state II consists of an infinite variety of relatively small flaws which, merg­ Six years ago Judge Martin T. ing one into another, rot the entire Manton of the Second Circuit body politic. One does not destroy Court of Appeals, tenth ranking a Tammany Hall in one fell swoop. judge in the Federal hierarchy, It is a process of attrition, killing assumed jurisdiction over a receiv­ off one source of graft after an­ ership of the Interborough Rapid other, closing avenues ofcorruption Transit Company, the nation's one at a time, substituting an hon­ greatest subway-and-elevated sys­ est man for a crook wherever and tem. It was a receivership "ar­ whenever occasion permits. The ranged" on a $25,000 debt while muckraker oftoday who sets out to the company had a couple of mi1~ defeat a vicious organization does lion dollars in the treasury. As one not hope or try to win everything receiver Judge Manton appointed in one gesture. Selecting the weak­ a member of the hiw firm headed est link, he keeps at it until he has by the late Thomas C. Chadbourne, broken the chain. large owner of rapid-transit securi- MUCKRAKER: MODEL 1939 \ ties. The law firm.of Chadbourne, law firm was counsel. They showed, Stanchfield, and Levy was named moreover, that the loan came from counsel to the receivers. a source having business relations One day last summer a stranger with the American Tobacco Com~ brought me apparent evidence pany, which was Mr. Levy's client that, when Judge Manton took in the suits in which Judge Manton over this receivership, he was acted. closely associated in business with That one paragraph shortcuts Mr. Chadbourne and his partner, more than two months of grueling Louis S. Levy, and was obligated to research. I studied a.large number Mr. Levy for a valuable indirect of documents, checking and cross~ financial favor. abviously this, if checking through dozens of public true, might ultimately warrant and private sources. In one place publication of the facts, with a the record showed the $25°,000 specific public service to be ac~ loan, its source, its negotiator. In complished. I took up the trail, and another place it showed check by the end-product - one of the ma~ check how the judge's partner had jor judicial scandals of recent years used most of the proceeds of the - is by this time public property. loan for the benefit of certain real The story of the trail, which I estate. Still other portions indi~ summarize here in this detail for cated that these properties were the first time, is not. distressed financially. Here and The evidence about the IRT re~ there were hints that Judge Man~ ceivership was contained in Judge ton was principal, owner of the Manton's own sworn testimony, in properties, and that the interest of court records upon which any his partner, James J. Sullivan, was newspaperman might have stum~ negligible. It was like fitting to~ bled, but none had. These records gether a jig-saw puzzle which had indicated further that soon after many key pieces missing, while Mr. Levy had arranged for Judge other key pieces were intermingled ,Manton's business partner a $250,­ with the parts ofanother puzzle of 000 loan (from which most of the similar type. proceeds were used for the benefit Then, from other evidence ga th~ 'of distressed real estate of which ered all over the city, I proved the -JudgeManton was principal owner) facts and circun1stances of the the judge sat and wrote decisions $250,000 loan; I obtained photo~ _in three cases in which Mr. Levy's stats of every check by which THE AMERICAN MERCURY

$228,000 was spent from it for the Then I traced down the fact that benefit of Manton properties; I three months after Chadbourne, traced the financial history of the big utility stock owner, and his many corporations involved; I partner acquired beneficial inter­ proved that the properties had est in this stock of the Manton cor'" been in danger of foreclosure when poration, Judge Manton sold $10,­ the money was used for them. 000 worth of Interborough Subway Weeks of work were involved in bonds and sat in a case of tremen­ each of these steps. dous financial import to the sub­ I went to court records, and ob­ way-elevated systems -- writing a tained evidence that this loan ante'" decision by which, but for the dated by only a little the Inter­ Supreme Court's intervention, the borough receivership, and the ap­ Interborough could have increased pointment of Mr. Levy's law firm its fare per ride by 40 per cent. and his law partner to receivership That much established, and docu.. posts. I established the large poten... mented with the utmost complete... tial value of those appointments to ness, I turned to other interesting the recipients. In other records I aspects of the Judge's business and located the proof that, shortly be­ bench career. fore the $250,000 loan was negoti­ Thus the panorama of Manton ated at Judge Manton's request, operations unfolded. I plucked a two cases involving the American piece from a Federal court record, Tobacco Co. and its major officers another from one of several state had been appealed to the Circuit courts, others from the files of the Court and that Mr. Levy's firm SEC and the RFC, in Washington; represented· the defendants. from two county registers' offices; It took time and effort to obtain the files of the Surrogates' courts proof that the largest outside sub­ in two counties; various public scribers to the stock of National offices in Syracuse; the Secretary Cellulose Corp., when Judge Man­ of State's office in Albany; the city ton and Mr. Sullivan organized that departments of taxes and assess­ enterprise - identified by Judge ments, finance, and law; the state Manton only as "Knapp and Mc­ departments of banking and of Laren (sic) $75,000" - were Frank taxation and finance; the Federal F. Knapp and Jessie McLardy, Comptroller of the Currency; the employees of, and dummies for, records ofmore than a score ofcor'" Chadbourne and Levy. porations; the financial reports of MUCKRAKER: MODEL 1939 perhaps a dozen accountants cov~ gathered in six months - ofall the ering some two dozens of corpora~ incidents which I had built up pains­ tions and individuals over a period takingly in preparation for publi~ of nineteen years. cation - that one story was all that has ever been printed. Sunday, One day last January we were District Attorney Dewey notified convinced that we had enough Chairman Hatton Sumners of the evidence. We were ready to print House Judiciary Committee, which our findings on the Manton in~ is charged with initiating impeach­ quiry. We knew that District At­ ment proceedings, that he could torney Dewey·had been working supply full information about six with his own material and with actions of Judge Manton. Two of voluminous records that· we had these I had not known about. made available to him, or whose Monday - seventy-two hours af~ pertinency had been shown by terI brokethestory-JudgeManton our data. We did not know what resigned. A special Federal grand Mr. Dewey had established,~ :b>e~ jury was impaneled to devote itself yond what we had, or 'whether his exclusively to his affairs and those findings would warrant indictment ofthe Federal judiciary in the New or presentment by the special York area. John Edgar Hoover grand jury, which, for months, took personal command of the had been quietly hearing evidence G~Men assigned. Attorney General about Judge Manton's affairs. Frank Murphy maintained con~ We printed a first article. It tinual contact with the prosecutor's had been written and re~written, office. At this writing the pot is arranged and re~arranged, edited boiling. Already another judge is and re~edited, with a lawyer check­ being probed by the official inves~ ing every word, every phrase, ev~ tigators. And the end is not yet. ery sequence, and every innuendo. The reading public, having re­ Printed on a Friday, it described ceived the information in a com­ the relationships that existed among plete, orderly, well~balanced chunk, Mr. Chadbourne, Mr. Levy, and could not even surmise the magni­ Judge Manton at the time the tude of the job - the loneliness judge sat in the higher~fare case in and weariness of the trail I had 1928, and when he took the Inter~ covered. There were pitfalls at borough receivership in 1932. And every step, disappointments at ev­ of all the mass of material that I ery turn, and always the possibility THE AMERICAN MERCURY of utter failure waiting at the end. remotely with the matter under The whole effort had been closer in investigation, and check every in~ spirit to meticulous surgery than to dividual whose path crosses that guerrilla warfare.... And that, of the quarry. And having arrived indeed, is the essential difference at conclusions, we don't print them. between the new muckraking and The facts are printed; the provable the old. facts, and nothing else. The con~ Today we gather in provable elusions are not the business of the form every fact, no matter how present-day muckraker. Those are 'trivial it may seem, connected even, for the proper legal authorities.

CAPSULE./WISDOM'

Bosoms heave under stuffed shirts as die"flood of diurnal wisdom gushes from the larynxes ofleaders and mentors. Our experts in fustian, bathos, flummery, and other precious matter seek to rescue a few gems before they're carried to sea. The Stuff and Nonsense Award of the month, by general acclaim, goes to Herr Doktor Paul Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, with the others as runners-up: Herr Dr. Goebbels: "In no European country does such true joy reign supreme as in the Third Reich." Rev. S. M. Smith, Pittsburgh: "What if you are underpaid? Know the joy of being worth more than you get - the pure joy of un­ recognized superiority." Liam O'Flaherty, Irish novelist: "The praise of a civilized French~ man is the greatest compliment in the world." Mahatma Gandhi: "If India carries out Prohibition, it may well hasten the return of Prohibition in the United States." Carter Glass, Senator from Virginia: "1 don't care a tinker's dam for patronage." Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi foreign policy chief: "National Socialism is always ready to try to understand the traditions and characteristics of other nations." PORTRAIT OF A LITERARY CRITIC A Satire

HE personality of the cele­ happy medium; the pOSItIon' of T brated Dr. Turner - or Dr. The Cycle might be best classified Hugo Twe1vetrees Turner as he as a middle-of-the-road one, and was generally known to the reading Dr. Turner himself might be de­ public - was not an unfamiliar scribed as the nation's leading one to Joseph Doaks, the novelist. ctitical practitioner of middle-of­ Dr. Turner's wider reputation had the-roadism. Here, really, lay his been well known to the public for greatest contribution. fifteen years or more. And for ten It is true that there were certain years he had been the guiding spirit skeptics who stubbornly·disputed ofthe splendid journal he had him­ Dr. Turner's right to such a title. self established, the Fortnightly These critics, instead of being re­ Cycle ofReading, Writing, and the assured by the broad yet sane liber­ Allied Arts. alism of the Doctor's views, were The establishment of· the Fort­ seriously alarmed by it: they pro­ nightly Cycle marked, as one critic fessed to see in Dr. Turner's critical says, "one of the most important opinions a tendency towards a dis­ literary events of our time," and turbing- nay dangerous! - radi­ life without it, another offered, calism. Such a judgment was simply would have been "simply unthink­ ridiculous. Dr. Turner's position able." The Cycle came into being at was neither too far to the right nor the time when the critical field was too far to the left, but "a little left more or less divided between the of centre." To such a definition he somewhat prosaic conservatism of would himself have instantly agreed; the Saturday Review of Literature the phrasing would have pleased and the rather mannered preciosity him. of The Dial. Between the two, Dr. True, there had been a period in Turner and The Cycle struck a Dr.'Turner's rich career, when his THE AMERICAN MERCURY pOSition had been a much more This was even better! For a pleas .. conservative one than it now was. ing image was thus conveyed to the But to his everlasting credit, let it readers of Dr. Turner's Fornightly be said that his views had grown Cycle that brought much unction broader as the years went on; the to their souls. For what could be years had brought increase of toler~ more comfortable for a devoted ance, depth ofknowledge, width of reader of the Fornightly Cycle than, understanding; ripeness with this the reassuring sense that just as he valiant soul was all. was settling comfortably to attend There had been a time when to one of the most inevitable of the Dr. Turner had dismissed the natural functions, he might look up works ofsome of the more modern and read with an amused and toler~ writers as being the productions of ating eye certain words that vari~ "a group of dirty little boys." ous dirty little boys like Anatole Indeed the first use of this delight­ France, George Bernard Shaw, fully homely and pungent phrase Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood An~ may be safely accredited to Dr. derson, and D. H. Lawrence had Turner himself; people on Beacon scrawled up there with the inten.. Hill .read it with appreciative tion ofshocking him. chuckles, gentlemen in clubs slapped If Dr. Turner had made no the Fortnightly Cycle on their thighs further contribution, his position and cried out "CapitalI" It was would have been secure. But more, just the way they had always felt much more, was yet to come. For about the fellow themselves, except even at this early stage one of the that they had never found quite salient qualities of Dr. Turner's the words to put it so; but this man talent had revealed itself. He was now, this What' s~ His~Name, this always able to keep at least two Turner - oh, Capitall Capital! jumps ahead not only of his own Itwas evident that a fearless, new, critics, but of his own admirers. It and salutary force had come into was Dr. Turner, for example, who the Nation's Letters! first made the astonishing discovery A little later on, however, Dr. that Sex was Dull. The news at Turner's dirty little boy had been first stunned the readers of the qualified somewhat by the adjecti~ Fortnightly Cycle, who had begun to val words, "Who scrawls bad words be seriously alarmed about the which he hopes may shock his el~ whole matter, shocked, appalled, clers upon the walls of privies." and finally reduced to a state of PORTRAIT OF A LITERARY CRITIC 43 1 sputtering indignation by "This, seriousness of the fellow about the this Sort of Thing, now; Sort of Kind ofThing they had themselves Thing. they're writing nowadays; forgotten since their Sophomore this, this, why, this Filth! This days.,....,.. would really be quite amus" fellow Lawrence, now J" ing ifhe did not contrive to make it Dr. Turner put these perturbed 50 abysmally Dulll spirits to rest. Dr. Turner was neither appalled, shocked, nor in.. II censed by anything he read about sex. He didn't get indignant. He But there was more, much more, knew a trick worth six ofthese. Dr. to come. The whole tormented Turner was amused. Or would have complex of the 'twenties was upon been amused, that is, if he had not good Dr. Turner. People every~ found the whole business so ex" where were bewildered by the cessively boring. Even as early as kaleidoscopic swiftness with which 1924, he was writing the following things changed. It was a trial that in comment on a recent book of might well have floored a less D. H. Lawrence: valiant spirit than that of Dr. This preoccupation with Sex -- really Turner. Hardly a week went by not unlike the preoccupation of a but that a new great poet was di5~ naughty little boy with certain. four~ covered. Scarcely an issue of the letter words which he surreptitiously scrawls upon the sides of barns­ Fortnightly Cycle appeared but that (observe how the earlier exuberances of a new novel to equal War and Peace the Doctor are here subtly modijied)­ was given to the world. And not a would on the whole be mildly amusing to an adult intelligence who had pre~ manth passed but that there was a sumed that these were things that one new and sensational movement in had lived through and forgotten in the bewildering flux of fashion: one's salad days, if it were not for the fact that the author contrives to make Charles Chaplin was discovered to the whole business so appallingly be not primarily a comedian at all, dull.... but the greatest tragic actor of the The readers of the Fortnightly Cycle time (learned adepts of the arts were at first amazed, then simply assured the nation that his proper enchanted by this information. role was Hamlet). The true art­ They had been dismayed and sore expression of America was the perplexed ~ but now! Why, ah~ comic~strip (the productions of the hah~hah, the whole thing was very Copleys, Whistlers, Sargents, Bel~ funny, wasn't it? The extreme lowses, and Lies could never hold a 4.F THE AMERICAN MERCURY candle to it). The only theatre that Joyce as "that encyclopedia of truly was ·native and was worth filth which has become the bihIe of preserving was the burlesque show. our younger lntellectuals"; in 1925, The only music that was real was more tolerantly, as "that bible of Jazz. There had only been one our younger intellectuals which writer in America (his name was differs from the real one in that it Twain, and he had been defeated manages to be so consistently just because he was - American; dull"; in 1929 (behold this man!) he was so good just because he was as "that amazing tour deforce -American; but if he had not which·has had more influence on been American he could have been our young writers than any other - so good!). Aside from this the work of our generation"; and in only worthwhile writing in the land 1933, when Justice Woolsey handed was what the advertising writers down the famous decision that wrote; this was the true expression made the sale of Ulysses legally of the Yankee clime - all else had permissible throughout these States failed· us, all was dross. (in a notable editorial that covered The madness grew from week to the entire front page of the Fort­ week. With every revolution ofthe nightly Cycle) as "a magnificent clock the Chaos of the Cultures vindication of artistic integrity grew. But through it all, the soul of ... the most notable triumph Dr. Turner kept its feet. Turner over the forces of bigotry and in­ hewed true and took the Middle tolerance that has been scored in Way. To all things in their course, the Republic of Letters in our in their true proportion, he was just. time...." True, he had lapses. In culture's Similarly, when one ofthe earlier armies, he was not always foremost books of William Faulkner ap­ to the front. But he caught up. peared, Dr. Turner greeted it with He always caught up. If there were an editorial that was entitled, errors sometimes in his calcula~ "The School of Bad Taste." He tions, he always rectified them wrote: before it was too late; if he made One wonders what our bright young men will do for material now that the mistakes, like the man he was, he supply of four-letter words and putres­ gallantly forgot them. cent situations has been so exhausted It was inspiring just to watch his that further efforts in this direction can only rouse the jaded reader to a growth. In 1923, for instance, he state of apathy. Is it too much to referred to the Ulysses of James hope that our young writers may grow PORTRAIT OF A LITERARY CRITIC 433 tired of their own monsters and turn new and strange were always their talents to a possible investigation of-- dare we hope it? - normal life? well-hedged round by flanking guards of reservations. Upon more A few years later, however, when familiar ground, however, . the Mr. Faulkner's Sanctuary appeared, Doctor would go the whole hog in the Doctor had so altered his a way that warmed the soul. His views that, after likening the praises of the Joyces, Faulkners, author to Poe in "the quality of Eliots, and Lawrences were always his brooding imagination .•. his fenced in by a parenthesis ofsafe sense of the Macabre ... his reserve; even the Dreisers .and power to evoke stark fear, sheer the Lewises had their moderating I horror, as no other writer of his checks; but when the Millays, time has done," he concluded his Glasgows, Cabells, Nathans, and article by saying darkly to his Morleys were his meat,he spoke out readers, "This man may go far." of the fullness of his heart - in Thus; although Dr. Turner was vulgar phrase, the Doctor went to occasionally out of step, he always town. fell in again before the Top .Ser­ And curiously enough, it was geant perceived his fault. More­ just here, when Dr. Turner was on over, once he got into the fore, he what he himself was fond ofclassi­ had avery brave and thrilling way fying as "safe ground," that his of announcing his position to his judgment was likely to. grow giddy readers as. if he had himself b~en in and was prone to err. This exuber­ the crow's nest and cried "Land ance caused him some embarrass­ Hal" at the very moment when the ment; at various stages of his edi­ faint shore of some new and'brave torial career he had described America was first visible. Christopher Morley as being. the These then were among the possessor of "the most delightful Doctor's more daring discoveries; prose style that the familiar essay some of the more conservative of has known since the days ·0£· his his following were made uneasy true contemporary and, may I say, by such risky venturesomeness, almost his equal, Charles Lamb. but they should not have bee~ Aside from Lamh there is no other alarmed. For, if the Doctor ever essayist since Montaigne's time to stuck his neck out, it was only match him"; of Ellen Glasgow: . when he had it safely armor-plated: "Not only our greatest Jiving his bolder sorties out among the novelist, but one of the greatest 434 THE AMERICAN MERCURY novelists that ever lived"; and the dreary and degrading realism of that lady's many works, as that disfigures the work of most of " ... in their entirety comprising our younger writers, is so essen­ a picture of a whole society that, tially, splendidly American ... for variety and scope, has no as American as Washington, Lin­ parallel in literature except the coln, or the Rocky Mountains, Comedie Humaine, and that, in· the since in its story are implicit perfection of their form and style, the two qualities that are most achieve a faultless artistry that Bal­ characteristic of our folk: Democ­ zac's cruder talent never reached"; racy through Love; Love through of the whimsy-whamsy of Robert Democracy....." Nathan as " ... sheer genius. The world being the grim place There's no other word for it; it's it sometimes is, it is sorrowful but sheer elfin genius ofa kind that not not surprising to relate that there even Barrie has attained and that were a few wicked spirits who took has no rival in our language unless a cruel delight in unearthing these perchance it be the elfin loveliness lush phrases years after they had of the Titania-Oberon scenes in first been uttered, and after they A Midsummer Night's Dream"; had lain decently interred in old of the baroque pilgrimage of Mr. copies of the Fortnightly Cycle for Cabell in his Province of Cock­ so long that presumably they were aigne " ... our greatest ironist. as dead as most of the books that ... The greatest prose style in the had evoked them. Then the worthy language. .. Perhaps the only Doctor had to pretend he did not Pure Artist that we have"; and of know that they were there, or else a young gentleman who wrote a eat them, and of all the forms of book about a Bridge in South diet this is the toughest and least America: "A great writer. ..• palatable. Certainly the greatest writer that But on the whole the Doctor the Younger Generation has pro­ came through nobly. The sea at duced. And the book! Ah, what a times was stormy and the waves book! A book to be treasured, ran very high but the staunch ship cherished, and re-read; a book to that was Turner weathered through. put upon your shelves beside War Among his followers, it is true, and Peace, Don Quixote, Moby there are some whose tendencies Dick, Candide ... and withaI a were so conservative that they de­ book, that, without one touch of plored the catholicity of the Doc- PORTRAIT OF A LITERARY CRITIC 435 tor's tastes. And among his ene'" for the meagre figure that sup­ mies, there were some who were ported it. In its other qualities it cruel enough to suggest that he resembled somewhat the face ofthe wanted to be all things to all peo­ Iittle man one so often sees in po'" ple, that Turner was not only the lidcal cartoons, and which bears the proper, but the inevitable, name caption ofThe Common People. It for him, that the corkscrew shaped was such a face as one might see his course, and that if he went upon the streets a hundred times a around the corner he would run day, and never think of later: it into himself on the way back. may have belonged to a bank clerk, Doctor Turner's answer to both a bookkeeper, an insurance agent, these groups was simple, dignified, or someone going home to Plain­ and complete: "In the Republic of field on the 5:15. Letters," said he, "ofwhich I am a Doaks himself was· one of. the humble citizen, there are, I am good Doctor's more belated dis­ glad to say, no factions, groups, or coveries. When the author's first class distinctions. It is a true book, Home to Our Mountains, had Democracy, perhaps the only one appeared some years before, Dr. that now exists. And as long as I Turner had not been favorably am privileged to belong to it, in impressed. The review in the Fort~ however modest a capacity, I hope nightly Cycle had been a very gem I shaH be worthy of it, too, and of bland dismissal : "No doubt broad enough to see all sides." the thing is well enough," said Turner, "but after all, old Rabelais III is really so much better" - a con­ clusion which the unhappy author In appearance, Dr. Turner was was by no means minded to·dis­ scarcely prepossessing. He was so pute. much below middle height that at Five years later, upon the pub­ first sight it seemed that one of lication.of Doaks' second book the Singer's Midgets had enjoyed a good Doctor was still undecided run of extra growth. His little just what he was going to do about bread... crumb of a body, for in ap'" it or him. Three weeks before the pearance he suggested nothing so hook was released for general sale, much as a piece of well-done toast, in fact, the Doctor had met Doaks' was surtnountedby a head of nor'" publisher and, after confessing that mal size which appeared too large an advance copy of the new work THE AMERICAN MERCURY had. been sent to him, had added "Darling," said Dr. Turner to grimly: "I haven't made up my his wife, "I want you to meet mind about Doaks yet. But," said Mr. Doaks. By George! I can't he bodingly, "I'll make it up get used to all this 'Mister' stuff, within a week or two." Within the I'm going to call you Joel" cried next two weeks, however, Dr. Dr. Turner with an air of bluff Turner apparently felt the telep~ heartiness that was simply irresisti~ athy of moderating influences­ ble. "I know so many people that "You can always tell," as he was you know and I've heard them call wont to say, "when Things are in you Joe for years, no other name the Air" - to such a degree that seems possible." when his critique 'ultimately ap~ Doaks murmured that he was peared, it was much more favor~ enchanted to be thus addressed, able than Doaks or his publisher meanwhile feeling a little helpless had dared to hope. Not that the and confused under the hypnotic Doctor was thoroughly persuaded, influence of Mrs. Turner who, still but I he took a more conciliating holding him by the hand, was tone. The book, he averred, "could looking steadily into his eyes with a hardly be called a novel" - he did slow, strange smile. not trouble to explairt what could "You," she said at length, very - it was really "a Spiritual Auto~ slowly and decidedly, "You! You biography," and having arrived at wrote the book," she concluded this sounding definition, he dis~ simply. cussed the volume freely in spir~ He felt definitely vague about itual~autobiographical terms, and this, but managed to mumble that on the whole was pretty favorable he had. The lady's answer to this about it, too, having neatly fur~ was to continue to hold the author nished forth a special Iittle nest for by the hand, to regard him steadily Mr. Doaks, without in any way with a fixed smile that seemed to impinging on the jealous precincts harbor some dawning mirth to of more splendid birds on more which no one else was a party. important boughs. , "You," she said presently again. Theway for arapprochementwas "I don't know, but somehow you thus opened gracefully and when make me laugh. You amuse me. the author met the Doctor some There is something about you that months later their greetings were is like - is like - an Elfl" of a friendly kind. "Yes," said Dr. Turner quickly PORTRAIT OF A LITERARY CRITIC 437 and, meeting Doaks' bewildered "And like an - Elf," said Mrs. eye, he went on with an air of Turner at this point, never for a hasty explanation in the manner of moment relinquishing her grasp on people steering away .from well· the author's hand, and continuing known reefs: "My wife was aw· to smile steadily at him in a slow, fully interested in that book of strange way - "So· like- an- Elf," yours. Awfully. Of course, we all she said and laughed deliberately. were," he went on rapidly. "Mat· "And, of course," said Doctor ter of fact, I wrote three full Turner rapidly, "there's the Moby columns on it," he went on with Dick influence too. I know I told just a tinge of nervous constraint, my wife at the time that there as if he hoped this would make were passages, magnificent pas· everything all right. "I believe it sages," cried Doctor Turner, "that was the longest review I have done were very much like Herman since An American Tragedy. I was Melville -" awfully interested in it," said the "And- like- an- ElfI" the wife Doctor, now like Yser, rolling said. rapidly. "Did you see my review, "And very much like Moby by any chance?" he asked, and then Dick!" the Doctor said decidedly. quickly before the 'Other had a "And very, "Doaks, whose mind chance to answer, "I was really at last was beginning to work awfully interested; I called ita slowly, thought, "oh, very, very, kind of spiritual autobiography," like a whale!" he went on. "I mean," he said Meanwhile the critic's lady con" quickly, as the other opened his tinued to hold him by the hand, mouth as if to speak, "it really looking steadily.at him, smiling a made me think of Wilhelm Meister. slow smile. Not," the Doctor quickly cried, as Doaks started to open his mouth In this way, after so long and again, "not that that was all of it perilous a voyage, the storm-tossed - of course there were passages in mariner, Mr. Doaks, came to port. it that were very much like War And if he was not berthed among and Peace - I remember saying to the mighty liners, at least he now Mrs. Turner at the time, 'You had anchorage in the slips where know, there are times when he is some of the smaller vessels in the very much like Tolstoi.' " Turnerian haven were. SHALL WE DROWN THE UNEMPLOYED?

By FRED C. KELLY

HE other day one of our Sena~ million gainful workers in the Ttors proposed exporting 2,000,~ United States, out of a total popu~ 000 Negroes to Liberia, on the lation of 123,000,000. The average theory that the government would number of dependents for each then have 2,000,000 fewer recipi~ gainful worker is thus about 1.5. If ents of PWA and Relief money. we assume that the 11,000,000 Thus an old fallacy persists in our workers currently unemployed have august Congress, as it does else~ the average number of dependents where. If, say those who currently (of course, many are ahead of the encourage this fallacy, everyone average) about 27.5 million per~ now on public works, Relief, and sons may be classed as unemployed so on were banished (or persuaded or dependent on the unemployed to drown themselves, as so many - about 21 per cent of the total have) the government would be population. So if the unemployed able to stop the huge Relief and workers were drowned, their de~ public-works payments, balance pendents would still remain. We the budget, and, most important should have to dispose of these of all, lighten the tax load on John dependents, too, or else the cost Citizen, Esq. This notion, for all of Relief would decrease only its beauty, is sheer nonsense. Facts slightly, and the government would and figures show that removal of lose the compensating value of the present unemployed would only those now on public works. create a new batch requiring care. About 2,5°0,000 are on Federal Here are a few figures statisti­ work projects; another 1,500,000 cians have prepared, proving that families and single persons are unemployment is not an independent receiving Relief from State and problem, but one which has inter­ local agencies. In addition 1,5°0,• relationships with other aspects ofour 000 are receiving aid under Social whole national economy. According Security. Since 1933, government to the 1930 census, there were 48.8 expenditures for Relief and secur-

438 SHALL WE DROWN THE UNEMPLOYED? 439 ity have been more than $13,000,­ 000 new unemployed had 1.5 000,000. Of this, .more than·$9,­ dependents apiece, and we con­ 000,000,000 went for wages, direct tinued to deport everybody who Relief, or Social Security pay" was unemployed, we might then ments, and the rest largely for rna" have a score something like this: terials such as iron, steel, lumber, Millions of cloth, paint, cement, and tools. Persons If the unemployed had all been United States Population deported or drowned, those ex" (1937)...... 13°. 0 Less: Unemployed deport~ penditures would no~ have been ed or drowned...... II .0 made. Thirteen billion dollars would not have trickled in various 119. 0 directions and no part of it would Less: Dependents...... 16.5 have reached the local grocer or Revised United States Pop~ hardware dealer. Indeed, total re­ ulation ...... 102.5 Less: New Unemployed... 5.0 tail trade in 1937 was only a little more than three times that amount. 97·5 It begins to look as if business Less: New Dependents. .. 7.5 might suffer a substantial loss if all Revised United StatesPop~ the unemployed were eliminated. ulation...... 9°.0

Statisticians say that for every Thus we have eliminated 16,000,­ man employed on public works, an 000 unemployed and 24,000,000 average of 2 to 2.5 are kept at work dependents. At first glimpse, the behind the lines. In other words, unemployment problem should millions of workers in factories or now be much simplified. But new on farms supplying materials and difficulties might arise. With only food have jobs only because mil.. 90,000,000 customers, instead of lions of other workers have jobs on 13°,000,000, business would haye Relief paid for by the government. difficulty in making profits. There It is estimated that if we deported would be such excess of both fac..­ all the unemployed, including the tories and dwelling houses that 2.5 million on work projects, about rents would decline; landlords 5,000,000 new unemployed would would be delinquent in taxes and lose their jobs. That drastic cure unable to pay mortgages; property for unemployment would cause values would naturally fall; banks more unemployment! Ifthe 5,000,- and insurance companies would 44° THE AMERICAN MERCURY have a tough time of it trying to culty in maintaining dividends. liquidate their foreclosed proper­ They would have to retrench and ties. Business and industry would make every possible saving. Every discharge workers and widespread employee not actually needed unemployment would raise its ugly would be dismissed. Another mass head once again. If public works deportation or "liquidation" might today provide indirect employ­ follow. Assuming once more the ment for from 2 to 2.5 other men, ratio of one worker indirectly em­ surely the income of a privately ployed for each one directly em­ employed worker provides a job ployed, the last deportation of for at least one other worker. 5,000,000would create a new set Assuming that to be true, then of 5,000,000 out of work. Deport­ the 5,000,000 thrown out of jobs ing them along with their depend­ by the elimination of the original ents, the new score would be: unemployed would put 5,000,000 Revised United States Pop- more people out of work and these ulation...... 77.5 Less: New Unemployed would doubtless have the average eliminated...... 5. 0 number of dependents. If we got 72 .5 rid of· all these, the score would Less : New dependents got be, in millions: rid of " 7.5 Revised United States Pop- Revised United States Pop~ ulation ...... 65.0 ulation ...... 90.0 Less: New Unemployed de~ Our population is now getting ported...... 5.0 down toward that of England or 85. 0 France, but England and France Less: New dependents de.. have unemployment and so would ported...... 22 we. A new crowd would be thrown Revised United States Pop· ulation...... 77.5 out of work because it was no longer needed to supply goods used With our population now down by the last group we got rid of. to only 77,5°0,000, we are getting But before we went that far back to the good old days and all maybe even the most conservative should be well. But with 52.5 mil­ among us would quit worrying lion fewer customers, many busi­ about deporting or drowning peo­ ness institutions would have diffi- ple as a solution for our problem. UNDERGROUND GERMANY

By HEINZ LIEPMANN

. CITIZEN of Munich, where the No more than samples, these, A Nazi movement got started, of the melodramatic, persistent, put a coin. into a slot machine dis­ ineradicable political underworld pensing chocolate, pulled the lever, in Nazi Germany - a nether world and out came - a compact, neatly that lives always in the shadow of packed anti-Nazi booklet. Thou­ torture and death. Risking life sands of Munich residents thus more surely, more dangerously paid for sweets and received some than any soldier in war, men and bitter truths. women of the old Germany before In Cologne subscribers of an Hitler - of the new Germany impeccably Hitlerite newspaper after Hitler - continue to keep complained that inside the paper opposition alive in the hearts and they had found, in place of the minds of their countrymen. They regular second section, an illegal lead quiet, unobtrusive lives; hold pamphlet. government jobs; may even make A Berlin or Hamburg or Vienna Nazi· speeches if their open lives burgher, having purchased a rou­ call for it. But their real interest, tine Guide to one of the teem­ their real consecration is under­ ing patriotic expositions, finds it ground opposition. crammed full of anti-fascist in­ I was in one of the first under­ formation and exhortation. The ground units in the unequal, first few pages contain the original tragic, but heroic, war conducted text, but bootleg text fills the rest by a small group of outlaws. I am of the book. still in discreet contact with that A Brown Shirt dignitary turns embattled group. The facts and fig­ on his radio, seeking some good ures cited in this article I use with relaxing Bierhaus music. A strange the express authorization ofthe ille­ phrase freezes. his fingers as he gal underground movement in my turns the dial. Denunciation of the native land. They are therefore Fuhrer! A powerful secret radio strictly limited; only those that station has crashed through. betray no secrets. The last thing I

44 1 THE AMERICAN MERCURY should care to do would be to leave paralyzing victory of the Nazis, no the mis·impression that the politi· organized opposition remained in cal underground is vast or, at the Germany except those small, ro­ present moment, a real threat to mantic groups of intellectuals. the Hitler regime. But I can attest The one I belonged to was in that it exists, closely·knit, recon­ Hamburg. We met in twos and ciled to the almost inevitable price threes in subway stations, churches, of death for the cause of German hospitals, and such places.We freedom; and that the German could not trust anybody; the whole population is acutely aware of it. country was intoxicated with en· Millions of Germans know that, as thusiasm for the new regime. long as the underground lives and Everywhere hung large posters: labors, the memory of human "Fellow citizens, listen to the conver· liberty, and the hope ofa new day, sation ofyour neighbor. He may be a cannot be utterly snuffed out. traitor to the new Germany ofyour Fuhrer." Every waiter who saw II someone whispering, every hys­ terical old woman who had read The illegal underground movement too many detective stories, every in Germany started as the idealistic small business man hoping to rid and rather romantic enterprise of himself of a competitor, ran to the students and intellectuals in the Secret Police with an accusation. spring of 1933, a few months after Suspicion sufficed - from the be­ Hitler's triumph. Of course, a year ginning, as now. Everywhere little before Hitler became chancellor careerists were eager to climb to the great Left parties, the com­ power over the bodies of those munists and Social Democrats, had whom they denounced. How many already prepared illegal groups in thousand innocent men and women the event that the Nazis should were herded into concentration come to power. But the Nazis camps in that hysterical summer of have always been underestimated 1933 we shall never know. But by their foes. From the very begin· there were also "guilty" people ning, Nazi spies joined these illegal among them, members of the un­ groups as members, and as soon as derground units. HitIer took over power these The. Germans are great organiz­ Left organizations were betrayed ers, and the Nazis carried that and destroyed. Thus, after the talent to a new level of effective- UNDERGROUND GERMANY 443 -ness~ .-NQt a single printing press in Inembers, the· movement was re~ the whole country remained un~ organized and began to operate registered. Every German was with considerable efficiency. The turned into monitor and spy over membership was arranged into his· neighbors, his 'fellow-workers, groups of three, and three only, so his own friends and family. That in that none of the newer recruits, spite of this we succeeded in one those not absolutely dependable, dramatic coup seems in retrospect could know more than two others. a kind of miracle. How many The Berlin organizatioo did not miracles desperation has achieved at first attempt any anti-fascist in these yearsI In a deserted factory propaganda, but concentrated in.. we mobilized the raw materials and stead on educating its own mem~ the machinery for making phono~ bers. At the same time as many as graph records. On a certain day, at possihIe were put into. various a specified hour, 40,000 phonograph branches of the government, par" records were sold on the streets of ticularly the police, storm troopers, Berlin, Hamburg, and other cities. army, and Gestapo. In .Berlin, one hundred men and This Berlin organization, un" women each disposed of forty connected with any past political records. When the buyers brought party at the time, became the the bargain home, they heard a foundation for the underground few bars of an overture, then a movement of to-day. Trained voice denouncing Hitler and Hit.. members were sent into other ler's policies. towns, especially to the ports and But that first romantic under.. to the industrial cities of the ground did not develop into a real Rhineland and Saxonia. The Nazis opposition. Too many of us were tried to find t,he new leaders, but caught. We had no means of without success. On April 24, 1934 communication with each other the government, clearly alarmed, and with similar groups elsewhere. promulgated a· law that has few In Hamburg, I recall, we could parallels for ferocity in any modern only wonder desperately how many civilized country. It made any of our units were still extant. attempt to organize an unauthor~ We had no experience and no real ized political party, to maintain plan. In February, 1934, however, a party ofthat sort, or influence the shortly after the wholesale arrests masses through unauthorized printed took off at least half the Berlin matter, punishable by death. 444 THE AMERICAN MERCURY At the same time the Ministry That is the only figure on which of Justice prescribed.· a new pro­ any guess as to the extent of the cedure for the execution of po­ movement may be predicated. My litical prisoners. While other na­ own estimate, based on careful tions seek more humane ways of study, leads me to believe that the executing prisoners, the Nazi gov­ undetected underground member­ ernment sought and found a form ship is at least 90,000. ofcapital punishment more diaboli­ In the first year or so the under­ cally cruel. It ordered that political ground had no affiliation wi th any offenders sentenced to death be political party. It could not, be­ guillotined lying on their backs, cause the leadership of those parties facing thefalling ax. was scattered - dead, imprisoned, For all the boasts of 99 per cent or abroad. The members came support in "elections," there has together because they were against not been a week since Hitier took fascism, rather than because they control that foreign correspondents were for this or that political have not been able to report one or grouping. On August 10, 1934, for more political executions. From the first time, delegates from fifty­ April I, 1934 to November 30, four local underground groups in 1938, although only twelve ordi­ all parts of the Reich succeeded in nary criminals were put to death meeting secretly in Paris. They on the guillotine, 912 political compared notes and arranged for offenders were executed in the new more regularized mutual contacts style, facing the ax. Nobody knows inside Germany, including month­ how many others have met their ly meetings of key people. The end in prisons and concentration authorized delegates at the same camps, "accidentally," or while time established connections with "attempting escape," or simply as sympathetic foreign groups: liberal a result of unbearable conditions~ and progressive organizations, as Of the concentration-camp popu­ well as religious societies, in France lation (conservatively estimated by and other countries surrounding the European Trade Unions Coun­ Germany. Promises of financial cil last December as 102,000), at assistance and propaganda materi­ least 30,000 to 36,000 (again als were obtained. Finally, the according to the Council· estimate) meeting agreed to publish an infor­ are there because they joined the mation bulletin out ofGermany for illegal -underground movement. members outside the country. UNDERGROUND GERMANY 445· ,This conference brought many to-day. Four more or less distinct benefits to the movement, but also organizations make up the hunted serious disadvantages. Returning to political underworld: communist, their local groups, the delegates Social Democratic, religious, and brought, for the first time, a fairly liberal. They still work together connected picture ofthe opposition locally and exchange experiences. nationally. They brought, too, They still protect one another new educational and propaganda against arrest and extermination rnaterials. On the other hand, the whenever possible. If a Social conference introduced political dif­ Democrat, let us say, working -as ferences that had been in abeyance assistant to a local storm-troop until then. By the spring of 1935 leader, should learn of a plan to the underground was infected with raid a meeting of the Liberty party politics. The communist group, he would instantly tip members in the larger cities dis­ them off. And vice versa. agreed on methods of propaganda and "attack, and proceeded to III establish their own groups through­ out the country. A few months Obviously it is impossible to do later, the Social Democratic faction more than indicate the- kind- of also' pulled away and established activities carried on by the under­ its own headquarters in Prague. ground. Numerous pamphlets,-leaf.;. , As.- to _ the original- non-partisan lets, and books are printed in idealistic movement, it had dwin­ neighboring countries and smug­ dIed. to extremely small propor­ gled into the country. The distribu­ tions. But even this now split into tion of such illicit political litera­ two distinct elements, so far as ture is far more risky than its political methods were concerned. transportation. The amazing thing One consisted of the underground is how few victims there have been, oppositionists with strong religious in relation to the volume of anti­ interests: Protestants, Catholics, Nazi printed stuffdistributed. New and Jews. The other, the so-called devices must constantly be in­ "Liberty group," included chiefly vented; no trick will work for long. intellectuals, students, working­ The message ofprotest has reached men, liberals, primarily concerned German citizens in minute print with reviving democracy. on cloth, in packaged goods bought That's how the situation stands in the shops, at the bottom of THE AMERICAN MERCURY their tooth-paste tubes. Always efforts of the police to find it have the traces of such efforts must be thus far been futile. In Berlin, three eradicated, always there is danger illegal daily newspapers appear of a leak, a slip-up, a sudden raid. regularly and at least one is pub­ I was witness myself to a raid in lished in each of sixteen other which 2000 policemen and storm German towns. troopers, at four in the morning, The German illegal movement surrounded an entire district in has three great aims. First, the edu­ Hamburg. If there had been any cation and training ofits own mem­ illegal printing machines or other bers. Second, the distribution of telltale equipment in this district, true and reliable news to the Ger... when the raid came, they had man people who would otherwise disappeared. The ambitious police know only what the Nazis tell chief, however, had promised a them about national and inter­ show to some· foreign newspaper­ national affairs. And third, prepa­ men, and so he had a hundred ration for .the day on which they revolvers transported secretly from must be ready to take over the police headquarters to a deserted government. The day, they believe, house. When he led the reporters cannot come without revolution. to his "discovery," he found only Two conditions are always neces­ sixty-six of the revolvers left. sary for the success ofa revolution: Members of the police force one is· the disillusionment of, and affiliated with the underground discontent among, the masses, movement had recognized an op­ usually the effect of food shortage, portunity to swell the arms supply war fear, andinflation hysteria. The of their illegal groups. other is the existence of a small Both the Liberty group and the group of well-trained men and communist group possess illegal women with the necessary quali­ broadcasting stations, both of fications for leadership. The Ameri­ which have been operating for can Revolution, the Russian Revo­ over a year in Germany. The lution, the French Revolution all Liberty station is of real impor­ support this generalization. Under­ tance and tremendously popular. ground Germany is preparing for It is apparently transported from the moment the masses break village to village, and the frantic through the totalitarian bonds. THOUGHTS ON CURRENT DISCONTENTS

By H. L. MENCKEN he New Logic: It would be nice The lunatic fringe has begun to if it worked. Ergo, it works. wag the underdog. * * Unquestionably, there is prog­ IfWall Street really wants to dis~ ress. The average American now pose of John L. Lewis, let it invite pays out almost as much in taxes him to a swell feed, hand him a alone as he formerly got in wages. fifty-cent cigar with a torpedo in it, ;* and so burn off his eyebrows., The most dangerous of all follies * is to believe in the palpably not The Reform ofthe Supreme Court: true. It is the chief occupation of We have got rid of a flock of buz­ mankind. zards and put in a flock of poll­ * parrots. A metaphysician is one who be­ * lieves it when autotoxins from a Congress consists of one"third, dlIapidated liver make his brain more or less, scoundrels; two-thirds, whisper that mind is above liver. more or less, idiots; and three­ * thirds, more or less poltroons. There are no institutions in * America; there are only fashions. It takes only one drop of Oleum * tiglzi· to turn a respectable hooker I like the man without a collar, ofrye into a Mickey Finn. It takes but the fellow in a dirty collar I only one communist to ruin a can't abide. labor-union. * * Any defeat, however trivial, may There are now only two .classes he fatal to a savior of the plain of men in the United States: those people. They never admire a mes­ who work for their livings, and siah with a bloody nose. those who vote for them. 447 THE AMERICAN MERCURY Every decent man is ashamed of To believe that Russia has got the government he lives under. rid of the evils ofcapitalism takes a * special kind of mind. It is the same Men are the only animals who kind that believes that a Holy devote themselves, day in and day Roller has got rid of sin. out, to making one another un­ * happy. It is an art like any other. In Russia, everything is owned Its virtuosi are called altruists. by the people. Similarly the prison'" * ers own the House of Correction. The war on privilege will never * end. Its next great campaign will be A social worker is a broker be'" against the special privileges of the tween two kinds ofhuman delusion. underprivileged. He (or she) collects money from * those who believe that they are .. Dispatch from Reno: The rich generous, and disburses it (less a leap from the bed to the altar fair commission) among those who almost as fast as the poor leap from believe that they are deserving. the altar to the bed. * * Always there is that world.. The most valuable ofall boons on shaking triumph of liberty, equal­ this earth is privacy. Neither the ity, and fraternity - but always rich nor the poor have it. It is the a' Katzenjammer follows after, with exclusive luxury of,the middle class. another triumph to come, and * another Katzenjammer. The only difference between * communism, fascism, et cetera, on Government is the most impu-: the one hand, and theology on the dent and oppressive of all natural other is the difference between sur'" monopolies. It is a public service realist painting and painting. company ten times as extortionate * as anyotherpublic servicecompany. Democracy tries an endless suc'" * , cession of arcana as a movie gal God must love the poor,' said tries an endless series of husbands, Lincoln, or he wouldn't have made hoping against hope for one who is so many of them. He must love the sober, self~supporting, faithful, and rich, or he wouldn't divide so much not too watchful. mazuma among so few of them. . DECLINE OF THE NEWSPAPER SOUSE

By STANLEY WALKER

HERE is no great mystery about genuity.Resentful toward all au­ Thow newspapermen acquired thority and discipline. A touch of the reputation of being heavy dandruff on his coat collar. A mind drinkers. They earned the reputa­ crammed with inside information tion on honest and sometimes spec­ on all manner of hair-curling .. top­ tacular performance. They drank. ics. Able, by some curious freak of Not quite so much, perhaps, as metabolism, to write just as well on popular legend had it, nor was the twenty highballs as on nothing. profession filled with souses from Fond of insulting tycoons and top to bottom, but there was a statesmen and even bishops. A solid basis ofliquid fact back of the rapscallion, but lovable. general opinion that newspaper-' Now it must be remembered men as a class were unduly fond of that this fabulous monstrosity was the bottle. not altogether a piece of fiction. Indeed, the term ,"newspaper­ He was a plausible character be­ man" would evoke the mental cause he really existed. No one re­ picture of an individual with most porter may have boasted all these "or all, of the following distinguish­ characteristics, but a good many ing marks: a personable sort of came pretty close. Literature, cll~p, but inclined to be slovenly. Hollywood, and the stage' did the From.a pretty good family, but rest. Ben Hecht .and Charles more or less an eccentric or a black MacArthur's The Front Page, in sheep. Unreliable in his private which a reporter was described as life. Romantic as any Don Juan, having a bot;de in one pocket and a but not a sound person to marry. copy of THE AMERICAN MERCURY Always broke. Always expecting to in the other, merely verified, and write a great novel or a play, the solidified~ the impression already ideas of which he already' sa,,, held' by the public. From then'on clearly. Capable of tremendous a newspaperman had to take a feats of stamina, daring, and in- drink every few minutes, in, a film 449 THE AMERICAN MERCURY or on the stage, or the production statistics are gradually replacing the was hooted off as lacking verisimili~ red corpuscles in his blood stream. tude. Latterly the radio script Even in the foreign field, once writers have been following the reserved for newspapermen of the tradition with a vengeance. Their do-and-dare breed, correspondents newspaper heroes swagger drunk~ ofsad and scholarly mind are oust· enly on the air waves as they plead ing the scoop-hungry sons of ad~ with hard-boiled city editors to venture. Richard Harding Davis hold the front pages for that big and Floyd Gibbons are being re~ scoop. And the path of that news~ placed by experts in economics, paper man of fiction might lead in sociology, and contending isms. one of two directions: (1) a sad This is not to say that there has death eventually of cirrhosis of the been a revolution. It really never liver, or (2) regeneration and hap~ was considered good business for a piness through the influence of a paper to have a staff made up of good and beautiful woman, pref~ rum-pots. And, in all sense, there erably one with a lot of money. never was anything particularly Now it's risky to generalize attractive about an intoxicated about· newspapermen, at least for reporter; he can be almost as ob~ anyone who knows so many un~ jectionable as an intoxicated ad~ generalized members of the species. vertising man or unfrocked c1ergy~ One case history may be used to man, and those are among the refute another, and doubtless will worst types when they put vine be so used. But one thing does leaves in their hair. Thirty, forty, seem to be true: the newspaperman and fifty years ago it was sound of today drinks much less than his practice for a new ownership, or a brother ofa generation or two ago. new managing editor, to get rid of He is of a "higher" type (though the superannuated lushers who had the adjective depends on the point been cluttering up the place. By ofview from which the specimen is sheer inertia, or a disinclination to observed), better educated, and fire anyone in any circumstances, more "steady." With every year it is easy for a newspaper after the he seems to be farther removed space of a few years to accumulate from the guzzling, swearing, life~ a staff of bibulous and fuzzy,;. loving, hell-raising reporter of the minded leeches who are no good dramatic legend. With every year for any purpose in a civilized he seems to grow more earnest; community. DECLINE OF THE NEWSPAPER SOUSE 451

Everything that the lovers of II sobriety (the late Frank Munsey, John Roach Straton, Morris Shep­ A few years ago, at a small meet­ pard, Ella A. Boole, et at) ever said ing in aNew York hotel, some of about the evils of strong drink is, the newspapermen present were in the main, perfectly true. Booze called upon late in the evening to is capable of befuddling the brain, contribute their views to the dis­ weakening the will, clouding the cussion at hand. One of the news­ memory, dissipating energies. No papermen prefaced his somewhat doubt about it. It can be particu­ incoherent remarks with, "I don't larly bad in the newspaper busi­ know that I can add much to what ness, which at its best requires the has been said, but, speaking simply highest sort of alertness and intel­ as an ordinary drunken news­ ligence. Most newspapermen know paperman -" There was, ofcourse, this perfectly well. a titter about the room. The guests The newer sobriety in the busi­ nodded knowingly. But the odd ness is hardly to be attributed part ofthe performance came later, to any sudden or widespread when the other newspapermen awakening of a feeling of pride in denounced their colleague for tak­ the profession; the better journal­ ing an apparent pride in being an ists always have felt that pride. arrogant and sodden spokesman for In almost any period, moreover, the press. It may be a still small the American journalist has been a voice, but it is true that these days more· honest man, more sure of the over-exuberant newspaper himself and the integrity of his drunk does get the pointed con­ paper or news service, than the demnation of his fellows - on journalist of almost any other occaSIon. country. But it was his custom to It is probable that, in New York shrug off the derelictions of his alone (and certainly in Washing­ drunken and incompetent brethren ton)} there could be rounded up at as merely something unfortunate, least one hundred able newspaper­ something to be ignored, forgiven men who are out ofjobs principally if pos~ible, and forgotten. And yet because so many city editors and the idea that there is something in­ managing editors around town are herently "cute," and even ad­ familiar with their reputations as mirable, about the orey-eyed bum, boozers. These men have killed dies hard. themselves as effectively, so far as THE AMERICAN MERCURY their profession is concerned, as if serious-minded, supposedly social~ they had blown out their brains. ly-conscious, immature moppets. In the old days their plight was They would rather cover a labor not quite so serious. One reason convention than the most gory why things were softer in former and romantic murder imaginable. times is that there were so many They know Marx and Engels, but more newspapers. If a man didn't they have trouble getting gen~ like it on one paper, or got into a uine feeling into what they write. jam there, or objected to the way Some of them (and this seems the managing editor parted his miraculous) are passable experts on hair, he could quit and walk over foreign affairs, economics, and to another paper and get a job. various theories of social trend, But today papers are fewer; jobs but, more's the pity, they turn out are. terrifyingly scarce. Once a man to be complete bores. Maybe it's gets a job he usually hangs on to it, all for the best - this is merely an and, unless he is a complete fool, he observation. They are learned takes few chances on drinking him~ young fellows, even if they can't self out of it. When he is sent out spell, but they are the dispirited on a story, he doesn't fall into the and sober eunuchs of the Fourth traditional pattern of failing ·to Estate. show up for several days; no, he Offhand there comes to mind reports back to the office on time, only one New York reporter who maybe with .nothing very good, has been known openly, publicly, but he protects his job. and unashamedly to laugh in the The foregoing remarks, it is sub~ course of the last six months. That mitted, are as sound as gospel, and, man is Lucius Beebe, the dude like the gospel, open to. certain journalist, peasant-baiter, and con­ grave questions and dissent~ Ad~ genital Tory; his raucous, but mitting that reporters are rather booming and somehow heart­ soberer, and that the papers have warming guffaw, rising about the less tolerance for the inveterate patter of ideological small-talk in toss-pots, is anybody, really, better taverns from New York to San off? A soul-searching question. Francisco, from Boston to Fort With certain exceptions the new Worth, is a reminder to students of generation of newspapermen, par~ journalism that, after all, there is ticularly in the larger cities, are an more to life than car loadings, soil extraordinarily dull collection of erosion, embargoes, boycotts, and DECLINE OF THE NEWSPAPER SOUSE 453 the third party movement. Mr. Martin Green, Walter Davenport, Beebe, usually with well-bred con­ W. O. McGeehan, Edwin C. Hill, descension, has put up with the "Spanish Jack" O'Brien, Ben­ gibes of a great many high-minded jamin De Casseres, Charles E. young thinkers who resent the fact Still, Larkin G. Mead, Martin that he has a good time. It may not Casey, "Deacon" Terry - the be pertinent, but Mr. Beebe will glamorous list is all but endless. All take a drink any time, and at any of them were men of intelligence place, if the mood is upon him. It and character; moreover,. and this is probable that, in some happier somehow seems important, they time in the far-distant future, had a quality which is virtually when the sour-faced young pip­ unknown today, and that quality squeaks oftoday are living off their is feeling. They knew a truth that social security income and spending was enunciated long ago: that the their old age writing their dreary fonts of tears and laughter lie very memoirs, the journalists of Amer.. close together. ica will do something handsome by O. Henry once wrote a story Mr. Beebe as the one man who about a young author who knew all kept the faith during the dark the technique, had all the surface days. knowledge, but who still could not become a successful writer; and O. III Henry compared that man's work with a symmetrical pile of clam­ Do we lie? Have we heen trapped shells from which all the vital and in sop;histry? Is nostalgia getting succulent substance had been re­ the better of us? We think not. moved. Many of the youngsters of Consider the men who were the today seem to lack the sense of the ornaments of journalism in -New juices of life. By this ignorance, to York twenty and more years ago; be sure, they probably will miss a some have survived to greater great deal of heartache, and even glories, some are dead, and some tragedy, but they will also have plod on at about the same pace. missed a vast amount of pleasure. Some drank much, some little, but One young man, when asked not one was a teetotaler, and all of why he regarded newspaper work them had a good time. On such a today as preferable to that of, say, list, to name only a few, would be twenty years ago, remarked that such men as Frank Ward O'Malley, the five-day week alone, now iq. al.. 454 THE AMERICAN MERCURY most universal practice, was a soundest and most penetrating ideas tremendous boon in itself. But of in journalism have come from the what use is an extra day, or an ex­ mind of an editor who had, by all tra two days, to a dullard? It ordinary standards, imbibed justa merely gives him that much more little too much. Of course such an time to allow that gelatinous organ editor can have some pretty bad which he fondly calls his brain to ideas when in his cups, hut he can solidify. Does he work on that always discard these duds when he book, does he get pleasantly gets to his office the next morning; squiffed, does he do research into the pure gold residue is sometimes some abstruse but fascinating sub­ worth the experiment. ject, does he engage in profitable The upshot of all this disquisi­ amours? Alas, he rarely does any of tion? Well, it would seem to be these things. The five-day week, as that liquor is bad, killing potential applied to daily journalism, has genius and wasting time and mak­ only served to accentuate the al­ ing unreliable bores out of other... most unbelievable torpor of the wise valuable fellows, and that, so general run of present-day news­ far as that is true, the general de­ gatherers. cline of the souse newspapermen This is not to suggest that it is has been a good thing. But, to necessary to drink to be a good balance that gain, there has been a newspaperman, or that all the con­ loss ofcamaraderie, ofimagination, sistent drinkers in newspaper his­ of the comic spirit, and of the sense tory were drinkers because ofsome that, in a myriad intangible ways, obscure but compelling love of the the newspaper profession is a good good things of life. Far from it. profession for a man who is alive. Newspapermen, like other classi­ Perfectionists in the newspaper fica tions of men, drink for a business will hope that some day variety of reasons. No one ever we can combine the best features drank in order that he might write of the two schools of thought and a great news-story; he may have have a breed of newspapermen told himself that he did, but he who will laugh a little, but not too would have been wrong. Liquor in loudly; who will drink some, but excess is invariably bad for writing. never get riotously or violently On the other hand, it can be a great drunk; who will be gentlemanly help to the man who is merely within reason, but never cloddish groping for ideas. Some of the 12rudes, and who, while sensible to DECLINE OF THE NEWSPAPER SOUSE 455 the grave matters with which the ages, for which their bosses, of modern world is grappling, are not course, would pay. It would either bowed down by them. This is a (r) accentuate their stupidity and utopian notion, and impracticable. boorishness and thus give ample A suggestion for immediate use­ grounds for firing them; (2) lift we offer it gratis to the Newspaper them out of their lethargy and in~ Guild - would be to force the flame them to deeds of a no hIe and solemn young men to go upon a inspired nature; or (3) kill them. fixed, and rather heavy, ration of In any event, journalism would malt, vinous, or spiritaus bever~ profit.

COMPLACENCY

By ALFRED KREYMBORG

OUPLES Let them C who merely doze on sit at or sip the hearth their tea, and share quite a common satisfied fate with that: know naught Noone of fire, will know, human when they desire, die down, beyond where it a selfish was they state. sat. The final episode ofan American communist's adventure in Spain.

ESCAPE FROM LOYALIST SPAIN

By WILLIAM G. RYAN

ALENCIA was more crowded surrounded the long bar. All of Vthan usual. Dumpy little street the tables were occupied by officers cars rattled by almost submerged and commissars in trim, creased in swaying brown waves ofhuman­ uniforms, strong boots, and shiny ity. Thick clusters of small, olive­ puttees. Five-pointed Soviet stars skinned soldiers in ragged khaki bobbed significantly in caps set at uniforms blocked the narrow side­ jaunty angles and an arsenal of walks and overflowed into the revolvers nestled cozily against a roughly cobbled streets. They wall of fat thighs. Spain had no shuffled their straw-soled, canvas­ shortage of political commissars. topped peasant sandals over the The heavy, sweetish odor of burn­ stones in short uneasy rhythms. In ing anise seed made me a little the fast riffles of liquid Spanish I dizzy and the thick fumes stung caught a recurrent clear sentence my eyes. Going on two years in -:- "In a little while the war will Spain and I hadn't got used to be over." This time the rumors smoking anise. were true, I felt. It did look like I felt really thankful for the the end. My leave had been can­ three packages of American ciga­ celed along· with that of all the rettes in the lining of my Russian other Internationals, and I had shoddy jacket. There was a severe seen our convalescents loaded into tobacco famine; no one except the big American trucks at Benisa and officers and "comic stars" (as we Albacete to be sent back to the called the commissars) had ciga­ front. "Very good. International rettes. The stop in Alicante had bandits to the front," a wit had been fortunate. My wife had called out to the vast amusement taken advantage of her nurse's of all. uniform to get on board one of the I pushed my way through the British vessels in the harbor and throngs and entered a cafe. A solid obtain a carton of American block of soldiers six. or seven deep cigarettes. As a result I had three 456 ESCAPE FROM LOYALIST SPAIN 457 precious American packs in addi­ Capitan Galigas. The guards con­ tion to the issue packet of Spanish ducted me through the corridors of anti,tanks which soldiers going up a large stone building to a pompous the front usually received. little Italian who sat behind a I took a double cognac into a shiny desk and received me alone corner and thought things over. It except for a scowling commissar was tough having my leave cail­ who strode up and down the room. celed almost before it had started. Capitan Galigas brushed aside my All through the bitter suffering of inquiries about my friend with a the frigid Aragon winter I had quick motion of his plump hand comforted myself with the thought and squealed in bad Spanish, "In' of the few happy days with my ternational, eh? We'11 take care of wife at the hospital, if I survived youI Call the guard I" and went into rest. The promised In answer the guards, rifles ten days had dwindled to a few swinging from their shoulders, hours and. now I was going back to rushed into the room and grabbed the front to fight again for a cause me firmly. Surprised by the sud­ in which I no longer believed. denness of the move I jerked away, Then I began to wonder ifTony, at which the commissar half drew the devout young English com­ his revolver, and one of the guards munist with whom I had marched raised his rifle. I had witnessed across the Pyrenees and discussed casual executions in Loyalist Spain the glorious dawn of a new millen­ often enough to realize that my nium in Spain, was still a believer. position was highly dangerous. I He had an office job in Valencia must not give them an excuse for somewhere. f decided to look him shooting me out of hand. I asked up. At the Soccoro Rojo (Red the captain as calmly as I could to Aid), where I inquired for my examine my papers, which were in friend, the young man behind the order, and tried to impress upon wicket glanced at me sharply and him that I was a volunteer with conferred with a commissar in the long front,line service, a clean rear of the office. They gave me record, and citation for valor; that an address, instructions how to I was returning to the front from reach it, and told me to ask for a leave ofmy own free will; and that Capitan Galigas, who would tell he had no right to treat me in such me Tony's whereabouts. a manner. His answer was to order I had no difficulty in seeing the guards to take me away. THE AMERICAN MERCURY We finally halted in front of a Suddenly I remembered my big iron~studded door at the rear American cigarettes. Taking out a of the building and I was thrust packet I slowly tore off a corner, rudely into a stone~walled cell al~ extracted a cigarette and lit it. ready jammed to suffocation with The guard's nostrils quivered as bewhiskered, verminous men. All the smoke wafted in his direction were InternationalBrigadiers.They and his bird~like black eyes clung were from many lands - France, to the package. Casually I offered Poland, Belgium, Germany, Hun~ him one. His face crinkled into a gary, England, America, Canada. joyous smile. I thought rapidly. There were no toilet facilities ex-­ The corridor was deserted except cept the stone floor. for my guard. IfI could get through When my anger had cooled a that door I would have a chance. Iittle I talked with the English~ I looked at the pack of cigarettes speaking comrades. All the prison-­ in my hand for a long second and ers, sick or well, were going to the then gazed steadily into the guard's front under guard at nightfall and eyes without speaking. He opened I decided that I must get out in the door just enough to.allow me some way. I began to hammer on to pass through, turned sidewise, the door and shout for water. Five and stared down the corridor. The minutes of pounding and the ex-­ palm of his free hand was toward asperated guard opened the door a me, the fingers spread wide. I crack and vouchsafed a surly, slipped the cigarettes into his "Que quiri?" hand and walked down the cor­ With all the eloquence at my ridor. The door closed softIy and command I poured out my story, the bolt clicked. emphasizing my own front serv-­ The guard at the entrance did ice, and the evident fact that not halt me. I turned down the the Italian captain had been do­ Avenida Largo Caballero, a hold­ ing his fighting at the rear. The over name which the commissars reference to Capitan Galigas seemed talked of altering to Avenida Jose to strike a responsive chord. Ital-­ Diaz or some other appropriate ians, even those fighting on the Stalinist appellation. I made up government side, were not popu-­ my mind to find the harbor. I was lar. The guard nodded his head through with Loyalist Spain - or and muttered, "Capitan Galigas is through with life; I didn't know an Italian bastard." which! ESCAPE FROM LOYALIST SPAIN 459 II comrades at the front. He offered to accompany me to his ship. I The ubiquitous hammer·and.. decided then to confide in him. sickle emblems and communist "Yank," he said gravely, "I clenched fists, which had thrilled don't think you have a bloody me so on my arrival, taunted me chance on our ship. Two Inter­ from every wall and post as I went national Brigade blokes are on there toward the harbor. Stalin stared now and the carabineros are almost through the bleak windows of certain to find them when they barren shops with iron ferocity. search." He thought a minute and At the waterfront I spoke to a then said, "Come on, anyhow, and sailor who told me that there were we'll see another fellow on the ship; plenty of ships in the harbor, but he may be able to think of some­ he advised me·not to try to board thing to do." them as the guard was heavy and We boarded without being ob­ deserters were being shot. He served. My guide conducted me wished me luck when I told· him aft to a little cabin in which two of that I meant to have a go anyhow. the crew were quartered apart As soon as darkness came, I crept from the rest. One of them, a by the first guard, but the second muscular fellow called Jimmy, halted me. A pack of cigarettes, seemed to be a man of force and and a promise to return with more, character. He had been in Russia a induced him to let me pass. few times and had made several A long, swinging stride crunched trips to Loyalist Spain. His ob­ through the darkness ahead. Span· servations had left him sour on iards walk with short, quick steps; communists and I saw at once that that fellow must be a foreigner. he would help me. "English?" I called softly, and the I stripped off my uniform, which answer warmed my heart. "Yes, the cabin boy weighted and threw I'm English." He was, he told me over the side, and quickly donned -- Reed, cabin boy.on an English the sailor's garb provided by ship carrying supplies to Loyalist Jimmy. We discussed the situation Spain. 1 liked his voice. We talked a little. They were agreed that my a little and I told him that I was chances of escape on the ship were an American International Brig· slim, but Reed suggested an alter­ ader and wanted to get food and native. "Yank," he said, "I've cigarettes to take back to my thought of.· a way. I've always THE AMERICAN MERCURY wanted to snaffie a boat and go ter another we cut· loose six more somewhere, but it didn't seem boats. The cable blocked all of quite right, you know. Now this them. We had to do something makes it right; I can do it to save quickly; our operations would soon a man's life, a man that speaks my be visible to the guard patrolling own language too, and it won't be the land end of the pier. We took stealing." In his strolls around the the smallest boat, threw in an extra harbor he had noticed a number of pair of oars and a few coils of rope, launches and motor boats tied and shoved off. We cleared the to the big pier and he proposed to cable and rowed silently past the join me and make off with one of end of the pier and out to sea. A those boats under cover of night, mile or two from shore we discov~ heading for Oran in French Al~ ered that the cockpit which we had geria. He assured me that he could supposed covered the motor was navigate by the stars and I agreed merely a place to store rope and to the scheme. The boat Reed had thole pins. We had started a three~ in mind was in another part of the hundred~mile ocean voyage in a harbor and we expected no difli~ ten-foot rowboat! culty in passing the guards. They But it was too late to turn back. did not, as a rule, stop men out of Reed said that our best chance uniform, but Jimmy gave me his was to row out eight or ten pass to display in case we were miles and signal the first ship not questioned. carrying the Spanish or Russian Our pockets filled with dried flag. apples and raisins for the three" A few hours after sunrise a sail~ hundred-mile trip, we made our boat came out of the harbor and way to the pier. We told the guards headed in our direction. She circled that we were going to visit the around us. Fifteen or twenty English ship there. Working quickly Spaniards lined the side and ob.. and silently in the darkness we served us with interest. One of transferred gasoline to the largest, them cupped his hands and shouted cut the ropes and pushed off (we "Donde va?" We did not answer. did not dare start the motor until Finally, throwing up his hands in we were well out), but the pro" the familiar Spanish gesture he peller caught in a steel cable bawled, "Lunatico, locol" The sail~ stretched over the water and we boat swung around us once more were unable to get clear. One af~ and put out to sea. ESCAPE FROM LOYALIST. SPAIN

III Fortune favored us again - we got aboard the ship unobserved. At dusk a French battleship Reed decided to hide me in the steamed out. We hailed her but she storeroom aft for the balance of did not stop. Discouraged, we de­ the night and consult Jimmy later. cided to go. back. Our best hope In the morning they devised a seemed to lie in an effort to slip hiding place for me in an old pile of by the lookouts on the sea end and repair lumber, arranging so it effect a landing in the center of looked like a solid stack of heavy the pier from which we had taken fifteen-foot planks. They had made the boat. We had an outside chance a hollow place in the center, just of making it. Hours of rowing fol­ large enough for me to squeeze in. lowed. It was pitch black by the The plan was for me to remain in time we reached the pier and we their quarters until searchers came slipped by successfully. We could aboard. They would keep a look­ not go to the shore, for· the guards out for this and warn me in time. would be certain to see us, and the I would get into the hole and one waves were slashing fiercely at the of them would lift the planks over concrete side of the pier. Reed got me~ They ate in their own quarters the boat into what seemed a good and there would be. plenty of food position andI jumped for the wall. to spare. The first joints on the fingers of Followed five days of waiting. my left hand caught the top and On the morning of the sixth day clung desperately. For a long the boys boarded me into the hole: second the water swirled me about we were to sail. I could hear the so that I was unable to reach the clanking of chains and windlasses. wall with my right hand. I had a Then two sharp, strangely familiar flash of the boat far beneath me cracks - rifle fire. I wondered. and then way above my head. The Steps were clumping down the smashing water spun me around; I iron stairway. I heard the gurgle caught the wall with my right hand ofrapid Spanish - the carabineros! and drew myselfup. Reed flung me They were searching the sleeping a rope and in a second he was be­ quarters. Now. they were coming side me. "Yank," he said, "I out of the cabin, opening the thought you were gone. And I storeroom door. Closer ... closer wouldn't have gone in after you. ... they must be right against No one could swim down there." the pile oflumber directly in front THE AMERICAN MERCURY of me. I stopped breathing and away without thinking of the door. talked silently to my heart, "Be At Cartegena, the last stop, still, you. Don't make so much Snowball Kennedy, an Irishman noisel" The clang of hob-nails on who had been told of my where­ metal again and then - silence. abouts, stationed himself at a ven~ Jimmy came down and lifted tilator shaft directly over the off the planks. "Yank," he said woodpile hiding place and whis~ shortly, "they found those two pered down words of encourage­ other 1. B. blokes and shot them ment. His brogue came faintly to right on the dock. The bloody my straining ears. "We'll be away bastards 1" soon, Yank. They're casting off. The ship had not taken on a full Kape quiet now, Yank-the cara­ cargo in Valencia and was sched~ bineros are going aft. They'll not uled to stop in three more Loyalist find yeo Kape still now." harbors - Gandia, Alicante, and The hob-nails rattling on the Cartegena. In each 1 must go stairs ... the slow gliding mo­ through the same ordeal. At Gan­ tion ... the engine turning. ... dia the search was perfunctory, We were away. but Alicante almost finished me. Next morning dull gray half­ One day while the ship was taking light was filtering through the port­ cargo and no search was expected, hole when I awoke. I heard Jimmy's the cabin boy burst into our voice calling from the head of the quarters stuttering, "Yank, Yank, companionway. "Come on up, the carabineros! They're searching. Yank, I've got something to show They're coming aft." I did not you." Shielded by the doorway I have time to get into my hiding looked across the smooth water. place, so I went behind the cab~ The dark, shadowy outlines of a in door, a place where the search­ towering cliff reared abruptly from ers had always looked previously. the water's edge into the rapidly Through the narrow crack of the lightening sky - Gibraltar1"You'll door I could watch them making be alright now, Yank," Jimmy the search. They glanced into the said, "that's Gib." The ship moved cabin and under the bunks, and forward slowly. Rows of neat then my heart almost stopped brick houses with clipped green beating when I saw them lift off lawns ... the Union Jack climb­ the planks and examine the hollow ing to the top of a glistening white in the lumber pile. They went flagpole. I was all right now. Shelby askedfor the Dempsey~Gibbons match and still nurses a headache.

MONTANA PICKS A FIGHT

By ERIC THANE

OU'VE managed ham-and-egg­ into existence. The preceding Y. erssO long that you're a cross summer a horde of strangers, between a porker and a henI" a sniffing easy lucre, had descended red-headed lady said one night in upon this dusty huddle ofbuildings February 1923, and because of sprawled in the bottom of a dusty that ill-natured remark Jack Demp­ coulee. Promoters, gamblers, drill­ sey fought Tommy Gibbons for ers, tool dressers, roustabouts, busi­ the championship of the world in nessmen (legitimate and illegiti­ Shelby, Montana. The recipient of rnate), riff-raff, and the usual femi­ the lady's scorn, one Sammy Samp­ nine throng established themselves son, owner of an Army & Navy within convenient distance of the store in Shelby, and occasionally a greasy gold. Winter in Shelby, promoter of local fights, rose to however, means 45° below and the defend his honor. Bolstering him~ migration at its advent had been self with another drink of tarantula practically complete. juice, he hastened across the frosty February 1923 found the oil prairie to the telegraph station, fields congealed and the remaining where he dispatched a message to citizens ofShelby blessed with time, Jack Kearns, suggesting a fight be­ tarantula juice, dreams of millions tween Dempsey and Tommy Gib­ during the coming summer, and a bons on July 4, at Shelby. Pecuni­ yen to break the awful monotony. ary consideration being of small So Sammy Sampson's brainstorm concern at the moment, he offered met with instant approval. The $200,000. The red-headed lady inhabitants backed Sammy toa chipped in to pay for the telegram. man and, thus encouraged, the Thus began as screwy a tale as dreamer of dreams and connoisseur any in the annals of sport. Shelby of redheads dispatched a wire to was a cow-town of some five hun­ Mike Collins, editor of the Min­ dred inhabitants, where a recent oil neapolis Boxing Blade, requesting boom had stampeded big money his services as matchmaker. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Collins decided, naturally, the Calgary, over the line in Canada, whole thing was a publicity stunt. would provide the same number. And he had precedent for this be­ All this suffered a slight check lief- Shelby had sought and made when the actual color of the money news ever since the town consisted needed was distastefully mentioned. of a box-car sidetracked from the Collins decided he needed $110,000 main line of the Great Northern to promote the fight, and thereupon Railway. Indeed, they tell of a a deep silence descendedLBut the drummer who, asleep in his berth people of Shelby were no pikers; ata station·stop at some point down after preliminary moaning at the the line, was roused by a bullet speakeasy bar, they jumped in brushing his nose. The shot had and scratched gravel. With in­ come from two men outside who sufficient money in Shelby, the rest were settling a slight difference in of Montana was called upon. Great the manner of the period. The Falls gave $25,000; various posts of drummer sat up, yawned, and the American Legion contributed groaned, "Good God, are we in $10,000; and another $25,000 came Shelby already?" from Great Falls for Dempsey's With such a reputation, Shelby training camp. After which there was qualified to chew off quite a was a lull. hunk. Mike Collins, still suspicious And then a minor miracle oc­ but lured on by a barrage offollow­ curred. Up stepped a big, blond up telegrams, headed for the prairie man, six feet in height, two hun­ settlement. He stepped from the dred and fifty pounds on the boot train into the arms ofthe assembled - Big Jim Johnson, oil-field figure populace, and such being the and, by his own admission, a sport enthusiasm and persuasiveness of to the limits of the sky. He waved the citizenry, presently found his personal check for $5000, himself not only convinced, but as whereupon other Shelbyites, not to rabidly enthusiastic as .the most be outdone, recalled caches in old optimistic individual present. socks and babies' banks, and shelled Optimism was present in in­ out. The drive went over the top. flationary quantities. One man pre­ About this time someone de­ dicted that Missoula, Montana cided that Gibbons ought to be (pop. 12,000), would send 30,000 notified that he was to·fight. His fans to the fight, and another information to date had consisted matched him with the claim that solely of what he read in the MONTANA PICKS A FIGHT

papers, and official confirmation rented them at $3 a night. Church must have been . somewhat of a pews were filled with sleepers. A shock. He said nothing, but Kane, meal cost $3; ham and eggs brought his manager, demanded a $100,000 $1, with bread, butter, and coffee guarantee, which considerably per­ extra. Coffee was universally 20¢. turbed the promoters, who had The Chamber ofCommerce con- . set his share at half that figure. structed, at a cost ofsome $10,000, Mr. Kane's unwillingness to com­ a tourist·park which they boasted promise might have been fatal was the largest in the .world - to the whole affair, but somehow capable of caring for 2864 cars. A the manager got the impression band of Blackfeet Indians was im­ that Dempsey was trying to duck ported to add color to an already the match. After that, as far as crimson, if somewhat damp, at­ Kane was concerned, neither hell mosphere and solemnly adopted nor high water could keep his man Tommy Gibbons into the tribe. out of the ring. There were more financial diffi-: culties. Shelby and northern Mon­ What followed in Shelby was no tana shelled out until there was boom - it was a paroxysm. The nothing more to shell. The manage­ population jumped to 1500, to ment of the fight changed hands 4000 on July 3d. An arena capable five times. Rumors stampeded of seating 45,000 spectators blos­ everywhere. Fight's on ... fight's somed, hideo'us in its green lumber oJf. .. fight's on .·.· and encircling yards of wire. The And through it all, rain fell. Great Northern constructed a new Rain on the Montana prairie has a depot, with miles of side tracks for peculiarly wet quality, probably the special trains anticipated. Land because there is so little of it. The values skyrocketed 3000, 4000, gumbo underfoot, baked hard by 5000 .per cent. Dance halls and sunshine, but melted to a slimy gambling joints boomed. One cat.. mass at the first touch of moisture, tleman dropped $55,000 in a single churned to mud that had all the night. To a lesser degree, speak­ clinging consistency ofglue. Cham­ easies joined the stampede, though ber maids gave· up in despair; Prohibition at times reared a eastern papers reported that they slightly soiled, admonitory palm. had thrown away their brooms and An enterprising woman filled the taken up shovels.... Fight's on post office basement with cots and •.. fight's off. Finalpayment came THE AMERICAN· MERCURY due - and no money talked. Fight's strong bodyguard, and just outside ojf. Trains from the east were his corner of the ring hovered a canceled; .the big arena, washed by pair of gents whose faces left little dismal rain, squatted forlornly in doubt as to their calling. the mud. Gloom settled on the Fight's qff, the chant ran, but people of Shelby and their empty the promoters prayed hopefully.­ pockets. Indeed, their only conso" and their optimism was· justified. lation was that they had Tommy When final financial arrangements Gibbons in their midst. They struck a snag, Jack Kearns,. whose idolized him as only Americans can insistence upon wealth asa neces'" idolize an underdog. Dempsey sary corollary to the fight branded became the villain of the piece, and him locally as lower than Simon councils ofwar were held in Shelby Legree, refused to let Dempsey for the purpose of devising ways to fight. But the champion vetoed aid Gibbons if the fight did ma" his manager's orders and entrained. terialize. Even psychology was Independence Day dawned dry suggested. "When he climbs in and slightly less hot than a furnace, that-there ring," old Ed Reamer, another miracle considering the ex-sheepherder, suggested, "we-all previous rain. There was not a will jest set still an' look at him. cloud in the blue overhead - an All our eyes will be like an accusin' emptiness matched only by the conscience, an' he won't be able to acres oftracks for the special trains, duck them haymakers Tommy is and the 156 cars in the tourist park. a-goin' to throw at him." Seven thousand people were de" ployed in the arena for 45,000 II when, at 3:30 P.M., Dempsey ap" peared. The two tough gents Meanwhile, at Great Falls, Demp.. whose cactus-pusses struck terror sey trained; took long walks; played even into the Indians quickly took with Mary, his camp kitten and their position, and the champ's Gertrude, the camp cow, and, handlers hoisted a large umbrella according to newspaper advertise.. over him thus provoking the Gib­ ments of the period, ate a local bons supporters (99 per cent of the brand of bread. Reports of his un­ crowd) to the insinuation that Jack popularity in Shelby worried him; was fearful of freckling - a· gross the special train ,which eventually canard, for a man does not freckle took him to Shelby also carried a / through a quarter-inch ofunshaven MONTANA PICKS A FIGHT burr. Five minutes after the cham­ than one. He did not receive a cent pion, .Gibbons was on deck. There of cold cash. His share of the pro­ was the usual prologue, and then ceeds was simply bruises and con­ the fight was on. tusions, though not too many. Gibbons lasted the full 15 rounds For 15 rounds he ducked, danced, but Dempsey won the decision. and dodged, closely watched by The challenger started out to beat One-Eye Connelly, who as usual the champion at his own game of was there, the 96-year-old Black­ slugging, which was an error, for in feet chief Selavis, some of whose the third he was already groggy. 168 legitimate descendants flanked Then, according to ringsiders, a him, and Mae Murray. Nobody in woman's shrill voice cut through the crowd went to sleep, but there the roar of the crowd, "Remember were those who yawned. It was that the kiddies· at home, Tommy!" kind of a fight. and Gibbons began to display re­ markable adeptness for clinching Shelby's boom population disap­ and waltzing. peared at once, and the town From the first, it was evident which had backed Sammy Sampson that the Mauler was scarcely in his found itself with one of the biggest usual form. He missed fire com­ financial headaches on record, ex­ pletely. Perhaps he had at last run tending even unto the present day. into a' fighter who was his match; For many years after that Fourth perhaps the psychology of old Ed ofJuly a dime was rated big money. Reamer had something to do with On July 5, workmen entered the it. Or itmay have been the fear of arena and began ripping up boards. a bullet smashing his ribs. There The executive committee of the were spectators in the crowd, hard­ Arizona state department of the bitten prairie men, who were American Legion passed a resolu­ capable of that, capable and will­ tion regretting "that Gibbons did ing. They hated Dempsey, not in not knock Dempsey's block off." the ordinary way of the prejudiced The Montana conference of the fan, but in a manner more deadly Methodist church denied, with - by way of their pocketbooks. some heat, that a committee had The people of Shelby were flat been instructed to view the battle. broke, and in a dangerous mood. The statement that history is a The fight proved Gibbons' merit headache had found ample con­ as a boxer, but he lost in more ways firmation in Shelby. THE WELL-TRESSED MAN

By JOHN T. WINTERICH

OU have no idea how many that not even rival perruquiers can Y folk, including a few of your detect them on casual inspection. intimates, are bald in privacy, Hollywood is the toupee capital for all the public luxuriance oftheir of America, and therefore of the hair. A list of notable toupee wear­ world. The impelling motive is ers would astonish you, but in the not so much vanity as economics. name of good sportsmanship it Bald actors and musicians are an will· not be offered here. After all, abomination in the sight of·the there, but for the grace of God, go booking-offices; hence the great you and I, and perhaps we go there traffic in "street pieces" - a term anyway. It may only be hinted used in the trade to distinguish the that the list includes certain male workaday wig from the special screen and stage actors whose tug creations required by theatrical on female hearts is enhanced by roles. But many stars and even star­ hair that is genuine enough, but lets of Hollywood have their tou­ grown on other heads. pees re-treaded in New York, Wigmaking today is mainly in where their head measurements are the hands of fine old practitioners on file with some artist wigmaker. - a fussy and clannish. folk, main­ Rudolph Valentino, Hollywood's taining the apprentice system and first great triumph in rigged ro­ regarding their art as a life's study. manticism, would have been bald They inform the writer that nearly had he lived, but was facing the half the American men overtaken prospect with equanimity. He was by baldness wear some sort of arti­ already in the hands of experts, ficial scalp cover. If·the estimate who were keeping pace with his sounds too high, the guild of wig­ desiccating follicles and·stood pre­ makers will accept your doubts as pared to follow through. The a .compliment. The best toupees, ultimate achievement in the per­ whose cost may ·run into hundreds ruquier's art is a whole sequence of of dollars, are so skilfully fashioned toupees designed to make the hair 468 THE WELL-TRESSED MAN

look a little longer every day, until hair has no sex, at least by the presto, the wearer appears among time it is planted in a toupee. The his friends with an obviously fresh impeccable bank president three haircut! Probably Valentino would tables down, the one with the fine have invested in this masterpi~ce. shock of hair, actually owes his crowning adornment to a young The art is not merely in fitting woman doing time in a Bulgarian the scalp and matching colors and hoosegow for pig-stealing. textures. It also involves endless The Musica brothers of recent tricks for obtaining verisimilitude. front-page fame, it will be recalled, For instance, the wig may leave began their careers in higher rack­ bald patches that are not too un­ eteering in the human-hair traffic. seemly, thus diverting attention The business, however, is not a bit from the very possibility of a tou­ less respectable than drugs, finance, pee.Often it simulates thin or thin­ and other enterprises to which ning hair, rather than a full crop these gentlemen applied their tal­ that might arouse doubts. In one ents. The Bank of England itself instance a wigmaker created the is the world's clearing house for impression of artificial tinting of human hair, or at least for the the hair, thus concealing the credits that move it. That may greater artifice by revealing the be one reason why it will be forever lesser. impossible to dislodge the British The hair the perruquiers work tradition of the ceremonial wig __ with may come from as far afield The Encyclopedia Britannica dis­ as China and Africa, and may cost plays a color-plate of the Lord as little as two· dollars a pound or Chief Justice and the Lord High as much as twenty dollars an ounce. Chancellor of England in per­ The source of supply is never (as ruqued magnificence; alongside Samuel Pepys feared) from the them is a "judge of the Supreme dead, but from the living. The Courtofthe United States ofAmer­ inmates of prisons represent one ica"- a mousy little fellow who, of the most important sources. save for a light fuzz above his ears, Monasteries, nunneries, and thrifty is completely bald. peasants supply large quantities. , Contemporary toupees are built Most of the donors are women ­ to stay on. The old-fashioned their hair is not only more abun­ method of affixing them by means dan~ but likely to be finer; and of little wax pellets which melted 47° THE AMERICAN MERCURY into place with the heat of the world. The custodians of this vast scalp has been largely abandoned. hairorium are Adolph Senz and his A toupee is now fitted over a strip son Ira, perruquiers extraordinary. of "lace" which is itself woven of The younger Senz recently ap­ human hair - a fantastically tenu­ peared on a radio program, and ous fabric as delicate as a spider's among the words put in his mouth web, almost invisible, and actually were these: so against human skin. Hair today; gone tomorrow - andTm All kinds of things used to hap­ the man that men come to on the mor­ row. I make and fit toupees; the only pen to toupees. When an English­ business there is where you start at the man ofQueen Anne's day declared, top and work down. The modern toupee, "There'll be wigs on the green" he or lace-piece, is an artistic hair covering so cleverly fitted that it looks exactly signified thereby that two or more like a natural head ofhair. I fit an average ofhis fellowmen must come to fisti­ of fifteen a day, 5000 a year. They must cuffs and that their wigs would be tops. I have fitted many clients so realistically that barbers have tried to come off in the scuffle. But today a sell them hair tonic. One man actually pugilist could carry a toupee straight went so far as to ask me to supply some through a fifteen-round slugfest. salt for artificial dandruff. Those who Joe Louis could, anyway. ' come to me never get hot-headed, for every toupee is ventilated. And men who There is an occasional exception wear toupees never show any fear. Did to prove the rule. During a per­ you ever see one whose hair stood up on formance of Norma at the Metro­ end? politan Opera House in New York, This soliloquy seems to run the Giovanni Martinelli embraced Bruna gamut of wigwaggery. It is not Castagna and then, emerging from typical of the toupee trade, but the clinch, yanked off her theatri­ of the broadcasting studio, certain cal wig in his armor. Thus, for a of whose occupants are looking hideous moment, a tryst in Roman forward with considerable palpita­ Gaul became an American Indian tion to the perfection of television. scalping party J In that day Mr. Senzand his fellow The Metropolitan's 4000 wigs artists will find their doorsteps incidentally make it one of the cluttered with a whole new classi­ great perruque repositories of the fica tion of clients. THE T-MEN WILL GET YOU-····

By UPTON CLOSE

OR thoroughness, determina­ Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, and F_.. tion, and tireless persistence, snoop they do. They have au­ take the T ..Men, Unele Sam's most thority that we deny the police, efficient detectives. They were re­ or even the G-Men: the right to sponsihIe for· 67 per cent of all scrutinize books, read files, examine Federal penitentiary convictions bank accounts, quiz employees, last year. They laid Al Capone, watch charge accounts at stores, Waxy Gordon, and Dutch Schultz and keep track of Bingo winnings. by the heels. They have broken up This omniscience has made the the trade in machine guns, smashed T-Men the terror of the under­ smuggling rings, run down dope world; and has made the ordinary kings, and in the past year seized citizen feel that the worst crime he 11,4°0 stills and thirty-two illicit can commit is to be caught in some tobacco factories, run down a ring discrepancy in his tax returns. washing "CANCELLED" from rev­ By recent Presidential order, enue stamps, and garnered $26,­ Elmer Irey was made co-ordinator 000,000 from "criminal" tax dodg­ of all five Treasury sleuthing agen.. ers. But the Intelligence Unit of cies: the Secret Service, the En,. the Bureau of Internal Revenue is forcement Divisions of the Nar­ only the spear-head of 22,000 in­ cotics Bureau, the Alcohol Tax vestigators, collectors, inspectors, Unit, and the Customs Service, and revenuers, and miscellaneous tax his own Bureau Intelligence Unit. agents who know all about you and The Coast Guard co-operates with me, who questioned the returns of this force of 3000. and the whole 1.9 million income-tax payers in set-up comprises the best detective 1938, and assessed $250,000,000 agency under the stars and stripes. additional on us "good" citizens. It's wonderful, but frightening. Their right to snoop was firmly Racketeers, more than 2.nyone established by George Washing­ else, have learned the· scope and ton's forcible suppression of the might of the Bureau of Internal 47 1 THE AMERICAN MERCURY Revenue. Few "good" citizens yet stance, that we are drinking less sense its vastness, thoroughness, hard liquor and less beer but in­ and importance (and its possible creasing our cigarette smoking. menace) although 9,893,000 of us It shows likewise that the number sweat over its Income-Tax forms ofincomes above $25,000 has taken and Social Security· returns. And a decided drop, but that the num­ 42,000,000 of us have bulged its ber of taxable incomes from $10," files with our Social Security cards. 000 down has increased. The Bureau is the greatest col­ Crime without a money angle lection agency in the world. It escapes the tax man's jurisdiction. squeezed nearly 5.7 billion dollars But the profit aspect is so broad from the American turnip last that it includes much. Blackmail? fiscal year. Less than half was in­ Naturally. Kidnaping? As soon as come tax. The Bureau collects ransom is intimated, the kidnaper everything from $5oo,00q,000 on will be owing an income tax there­ tobacco and $400,000,000 on es­ on! Thus, before the Lindbergh tates and gifts to odd sums on Law authorized the G-Men, on pipe lines, electric power, radios, the inter-state theory, to take a theatre tickets, club dues, phono­ hand, Elmer Irey supplied for graph records, cameras, golf sticks, twenty months the only Federal tennis racquets, toothpaste, toilet participation in the Lindbergh water, and soap. Its efficiency is case. It was Irey who persuaded the envy and awe of private busi­ the Colonel to use registered ness. Costs last year were $1.03 money, including many gold cer­ per $100 collected. That was down tificates, for the ransom. It was the 9¢ from the year before; a saving gold certificates that eventually of $5,000,000. But the Bureau is trapped Hauptmann. President far more than a collection agency. Hoover set the tax men hunting It is the financial pillar of the most gangsters. Visiting Miami, he expensive government on earth. was disgusted with the ostentation Its sensitive finger on American and effrontery there of Al buying and .earning informs the Capone. Returning to Washington, Administration of the economic he asked ifthe G-Men were getting health of the nation and provides anywhere near bringing the gang­ the basis for policies and figures for ster to book. The answer was budgets. It is a bargmeter ofchang­ "No." The President then issued ing national habits, showing, for in- the order to the revenue men to THE T~MEN WILL GET yOU- 473 get busy. Two hundred racketeers II thereafter offered to pay income taxes on their "gambling profits," If .you are just an ordinary tax­ as they phrased it. payer you get the attentions of the The Bureau took their money. less spectacular, but no-less-thor­ Our government makes no dis­ ough, Accounts and Collections, tinction between profits licit or Income Tax, and Miscellaneous illicit when taxing. Theoretically Tax Units of the Bureau. You those whom it did not choose to may think your government is pen­ suspect of holding back something ny-wise and pound-foolish when due were permitted to relapse it spends hours to arrive at an into obscurity. Owney Madden additional assessment of, say, $6, chucked it all and became a gentle­ which perhaps may be argued man farmer in Kansas, but not down to $4. That's not the way the many found peace after the pay-off. Bureau looks at it. The penny-ante However, not all the color is extractions sum up to millions of provided by the Intelligence Unit. dollars. The Bureau is making the A 28-year-old deputy collector in American people a nation of book­ Los Angeles, John V. Lewis, out to keepers, and teaching them that the clear up some old items, discov­ old idea that their business is their ered that the mighty Japanese Nip­ own affair has gone with the horse pon Yusen Kaisha (Imperial Mail and buggy. Each year it is easier. Steamship Co.) had become owner If you are a $5000 a year man or of the assets of a defunct little less, making your income tax re" company delinquent to the Bureau. turn on short form I 040A, you are He billed the NYK, was told he cared for by the collectors and in­ would have to go through diplo­ vestigators of one of the sixty-four matic channels - not the Bureau! collection districts. If you make He went down to San Pedro Harbor more than $5000 a year, your re;., and seized a $30,000,000 NYK turn goes -directly to Washington ship on the eve of sailing. The and thenceforth rates the special cables hummed, and Secretary of attention of the Income Tax Unit State Cordell Hull made telephone Agents, a civil-service force that calls to deputy Lewis. Before morn­ handles no money. ing the company settled. "Just rou­ Commissioner Guy Tresillian tine!" said a Bureau spokesman. Helvering has 4600 honeybees "It happens every day!" who work in the t\vo-acre, three- 474 THE AMERICAN MERCURY story Internal Revenue hive be­ modate, first as last. Would the tween Pennsylvania and Constitu­ investigator like to know whether tion Avenues on Tenth Street in you keep a safety-deposit box? Washington. Here came 25,5°0,000 You pay, through your bank, a "informations" on you and me last tax to the self"same Bureau on your year. The "infos" are from our box rent. Bureau men watch our employers notifying every instance sweepstakes and bank-night win­ of $I 000 or more paid us in a year nings. If we win an automobile or a for services, from company treas­ trip in a contest we must pay on urers notifying every dividend of its money value. Bureau men are $I 00 or more paid us, from business informed of large store accounts. rivals or neighborhood squealers They know of our automobile and who envy us (the Bureau may luxury purchases and of our tours award informers 10 per cent of abroad. From security returns they recovered sums for their tips), learn how much we pay our em­ from state-taxing agencies which ployees and how much we receive exchange information with the for our own services. They can find Bureau, from the Bureau's own out what we buy abroad through investigators and, if we own prop­ the customs service, and what we erty or make money in foreign do in any line of business subject to lands, from foreign governments taxation. The Social Security tax with which the Bureau negotiates is "self-policing." Employees are tax conventions. In fair exchange invited to tell the Bureau of de­ the Bureau supplies state-income­ ductions, which are checked against taxing agencies with those tell-tale credits sent by employers. green slips we have to fill out, and Your local collector keeps a gives desired information on us to complete list of taxpayers in his foreign governments. district with the amount to be The Bureau's collectors and expected from each. If you sur­ agents follow society notes, real­ prise him he finds out why. Ifan estate transactions, and news items investigator has placed a case in our local newspapers. "Offi­ against you he gets a statement of cially" they must have court orders your standing with all other taxing to examine accounts in banks, but units. Most important of all, since these can always be obtained collector or agent can demand a it is in practice not necessary. full examination of your canceled Your banker might as well accom- checks and records and books at THE T-MEN WILL GET YOU- 475 any time. If you have no books, much!" As for the Bureau man, if you .accept his judgment (he will, he assists the taxpayer to make however, discuss everything with legitimate savings he gets a com­ you). Failure to keep books is mendation for courtesy. If he sometimes costly. The Bureau can shows himsharp tricks, he faces ruin. slap an assessment on you and you have to show cause why you should III not pay. If you want to fight it in the courts you have to hire legal The big facts about the Bureau aid, as a rule, but the Bureau has for the taxpayer and citizen are: five hundred lawyers. 1. Every man who labors, even at The informations provide only Relief wages, gives 20 per cent of half of the Bureau's check-up. his earnings in multifold, over­ Our returns go through the hands lapping taxes, three-sevenths of of specialists - in. traveling sales­ which is taken by Uncle Sam's men's proper expenses, in motor­ Bureau and four-sevenths by State car maintenance and depreciation, and lesser taxing agencies. 2. So in charity cantributions, in fami!y swiftly and surely does the Bureau dependents, in interest on mort­ crackdown that the average Amer­ gages and installment payments, ican is coming to feel that the and so on. These experts have ideas most serious crime he can commit as to what a man ofyour profession is a tax default. So thorough is its and income should allowably de­ knowledge of all possible sources duct under these items. If you of revenue that Congress, advised deduct more, they attach a query by it, can continuously increase slip to your return. Then you ex­ the Federal government's takings. plain to the deputy collector. The states have no taxing equip­ Both taxpayer and Bureau man ment competent to compete. The walk some fine chalk lines. For the taxpayer can rebel more easily taxpayer, the distinction between against State taxation, and is legitimately avoiding taxes and doing so. No one has yet dared a crookedly evading taxes is some­ tax strike against the Federal times fine. J. P. Morgan hit it Bureau. The result is that the when, asked why he had engaged states become squeezed and are so many tax accountants, he said: progressively forced to throw them­ "To see that I pay the government selves on Federal sustenance. Our just enough and not a cent too entire States-rights system may THE AMERICAN MERCURY vanish under the pressure of the reau was used to whack back at great Bureau. Mellon. Whatever design there There are those who suspect that may be in the present Administra­ such is the intent. A clever man tion's financially-settled-but-crim­ out to make himself dictator of the inally-dropped cases against Huey United States would find the Longites, in its bringing action in Bureau a ready and quite sufficient the Dupont and Raskob cases, in instrument. He could ignore Con­ initiating then abandoning the gress (save for a few more tax laws),~ "pink-slip" publicity given in­ Supreme Court, and Army. By comes, the rank and file of Bureau hogging revenues the Bureau could executives and deputies would not starve the states, by cracking know. They think of themselves as down it could strangle opposition. earnest, honest servants of Con­ Meanwhile by spending, the execu­ gress, executing their tremendous tive could reshape the nation. job with as many short-cuts as per­ The Bureau educates its own mitted, knowing that nobody loves men. In fact it maintains one of the a collector, that all taxpayers are biggest colleges in America, with negligentand few are conscience­ 500 instructors, 7930 correspond­ smitten if they escape. ence students, and local classes The bitterest critics of the Bu­ in Washington and the districts, reau's methods say that considering teaching law, accounting, and the its position as tax planner for Con­ "psychological approach." It oper­ gress, its Supreme Court-like pow­ ates twelve laboratories with ers of interpreting Congress' tax trained chemists to test wood acts and laws, its combined func­ alcohol, dope, oleomargarine, and tion of prosecutor and judge, and motor oil. It employs expert oil, its executive power to -make arbi­ coal, and pipe engineers. trary rulings, to harry and to put While Herbert Hoover is cred­ taxpayers to ruinous expense, and ited with putting the Bureau into in view ofthe temptation that must crime suppression, Andrew Mellon exist to use these powers politically, is credited with initiating it as a the wonder is that they have not major political bludgeon. The been used more. But so far as the crusty Secretary of the Treasury Bureau men are concerned, they sicked the Bureau on Senator would as cheerfully proceed against James Couzens of Michigan. In the an apostle of the current Adminis­ following Administration the Bu- tration's creed as against an infidel. ARKANSAS CONNECTICUT

SHAKESPEAREAN scholars in Con­ THE jubilant news that our Found­ way persevere in pursuit of sweet ing Fathers were "collectivists" Poesy, as reported in the local in spirit· is announced to the Con­ News: necticut Writers Congress in a paper by no less a historian. than Conway Shakespeare Club was en­ tertained by Mrs. H. B. Ingram and Van Wyck Brooks: Mrs. C. E. McNutt at the former's ... do we imagine that collectivism Center street residence. Mrs. J. E. is an alien notion? The Declaration of Sanders was guest speaker and en­ Independence speaks in the name of tertained the members with a talk on "all men." Is there not something anthropology. collective in this conception?

CALIFORNIA FLORIDA

A CONTRIBUTION to the cultural THE Muses have their inning in the wealth ofa great city is revealed by want-ad columns of the esteemed Hollywood press agents: Miami Herald: Dorothy Lamour's sarong has been I am a Celtic optimist, presented to the Los Angeles Museum Although I need a meal; of History, Science and Arts. She said, You see I am not opulent, "Personally, I am glad to get rid of it." But still I will not steal.

A job is all that I desire, COLORADO Entrust me with your wealth; Not much of it do I require, LITERARY note offered as consola­ Content am I with health. tion to disappointed magazine writers by an experienced con­ Whatever you will have me do, I'll do it with good will; tributor in the Denver Author & But ask me not what I can do, Journalist: I am quite versatil'.

Perhaps nothing gives a writer more To find the job that suits me best, deliciously torturing pleasure than to I'll keep my flag unfurl'd; open a magazine he is trying to hit .and So if you want to know the rest, discover a louse. You'll reach me through the Herald. 477 THE AMERICAN MERCURY HAWAII I greatly desire Tenderloins. My dream girl, with whom I should enjoy eating THE blessings of American civiliza­ Tenderloins, should have the lines of tion are transported to Honolulu Mae West, the complexion of a school girl and the singing ability of Kate by missionaries of California cul­ Smith. She should have the lips of ture, as revealed proudly in the Dorothy Lamour and the wittiness of San Francisco News: Mary Livingston. She should also have the hairdress of Claudette Colbert. Today saw the noisiest sailing ever from San Francisco's Embarcadero when 300 Shriners and their families NEW JERSEY and a "noise wagon" left on a special cruise to Hawaii aboard the Matson Two great universities devoted to liner Lurline. the higher arts investigate audi­ Fastened to an automobile chassis, ence reaction to operatic music, the noise machine is a special ear~ splitting device equipped with a according to the New YorkJournal­ siren whose screech may be heard for American: 10 miles, a loudspeaker system, ampli~ Songstress Lily Pons is going to try fiers, microphones and record players. out her high notes on 2,000 cows at the With this gadget the Nobles expect Walker~Gordon Farms in Plainsboro, to break all records for screaming and N. J., it was announced today, and rep~ howling and broadcasting their arrival. resentatives of Princeton and Rutgers At a farewell luncheon the Shriners Universities will be on hand to record pledged to make themselves heard and for posterity the cows' reactions. make Honolulu turn around when the siren gets going. NEW YORK IOWA A NEW alihi for bachelors is offered SELF~PORTRAIT of flaming youth, in Number 206 of the ready-made 1939 model, is offered by the telegraphic messages offered by Senior Class President of the Me­ Western Union for Valentine's chanicsville High School, in the Day: local Pioneer-Press: If you were seven and I were nine, I'd say "Please be my Valentine." I am a boy of five feeteight inches in height and weigh 145 lbs. My hair is brown and my eyes are green, believe THE Child Study Club of Ithaca, itor not. My favorite sport is basket~ as reported by the meticulous ball (incidentally I am a member of the Journal, introduces a humane note team). I like to listen to Henry Busse's into criminology: orchestra. My favorite entertainment is going to shows, my favorite movie Another definition of discipline stated stars being Dorothy. Lamour and was training through suffering. Many James Cagney. I also enjoy bowling. considered capital punishment unwise, My favorite studies are Bookkeeping especially after a· child is three years and Agriculture. For midnight lunch old. AMERICANA 479

AN earnest champion of justice in fined $I 00 and costs and given 30 the New Masses carries his zeal days in jail in each case. rohn Henry Hill plead guilty to as­ into a critique of music: sault with attempt to commit murder, IfAmerican music has a Tom Mooney, and was fined $50 and costs. it is Charles Ives, whose compositions have for many years been imprisoned TEXAS in an obscurity which amounts to SOLEMN proceedings in the cham­ criminal neglect. bers of the State Senate are re­ A PUBLIC~SPIRITED department ported by the AP out of Austin: store mixes the fine arts, business, Two bright, giant oranges reposed on and an ancient joke; announced the desk of each senate member today. through the advertising columns of Senator H. L. Winfeld of Fort Stock­ ton staged a juggling act with his the New York Times: oranges and then engaged in a game of pepperball with Sen. R. C. Lanning of First meeting of the Winsboro, former semi-pro baseball MOTHER-IN-LAW star. ASSOCIATION on the Fourth Floor of VIRGINIA SAKS AT 34TH STREETI IF bigger and better prayer meet­ Come and see the officers elected! Help ings are developed Clintwood will pass the resolutions against harsh and develop them, according to the vulgar mother-in-law jokes! See the ideal mother-in-law picked by this Coal Field Progress: imposing slate of prominent judges: The Layman's club of Clintwood is Rose Bampton, Metropolitan Opera sponsoring a 24-hour prayer and star; Crosby Gaige, well-known pro­ Bible reading effort for members of all ducer; Judge Jonah J. Goldstein, churches on the last night in January former General Sessions judge; Vincent and the first day in February. It is Price, star ofOutward Bound; Vivienne planned to read the New Testament Segal, co-star of I Married an Angel; through without stopping. Walter Slezak, stage and screen star, and Benay Venuta, star of Kiss the A PLAYFUL Iinotypist for the Boys Goodbye. Writer's Digest underlines the im­ portance of hirth in' listing the TENNESSEE Iiterary criteria of the Richmond THE learned Cireuit Court of Southern Literary Messenger: Sumner County establishes price We publish stories by writers who were scales for justice, as duly recorded born in the South, have taken up long in the Sumner County News: residence in the South, or non-South­ erners who write on Southern themes. Ellis Anderson plead guilty to two Authors on any subject should include cases of possessing liquor and was brief biological sketches. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

WASHINGTON IN OTHER UTOPIAS THE Red Cedar Shingle Bureau, ENGLAND in Seattle, champions the Truth in CLASS struggle on the home front, a letter to the press of the nation: as revealed in the London Daily During the past several years an in­ creasing amount of anti-wood shingle Worker: propaganda has been disseminated by Sale. 20 per cent, non-bourgeois the competitors of wooden shingles. furniture. One day only. - Adv. ... If .rnaterial defaming, wooden shingles is offered you for publication, A POLITICAL moral subtly conveyed we would appreciate your checking the by a waggish book club in a London accuracy of such material with us. Daily Telegraph advertisement: \VISCONSIN The Rt. Hon. Neville Chamberlain's authentic and copyright book of THE newly elected Governor of a speeches In Search of Peace specially great state immediately tackles the authorised by the Prime Minister and agrarian problem, as recounted in only available to old and new members of The National Book Association. two citations in the Madison Times: The National Book Association was "If I can do anything for you at any founded in 1937 to give its members time, thedoor to the governor's office important new books that have a will be open when I am governor. I sound, moderate and non-revolutionary just love the farmers and you don't aspect. N.B. - The next choice is have to have any special dress when Hitler's Mein Kampf you come to see me - even if you have a piece of cow manure on your GERMANY overalls, you come right in."­ Speech by Governor Julius P. Heil. THE New Science in Hitlerland *** puts humanity in' its place in this As a farmer, I resent Heil's statement summary by Hermann Gauch in very much. If and when we come to call on him, we'll clean up so the barn­ his New Bases of Racial Research: yard odor won't be embarrassing to Only in the Nordic woman, even with him. We were all barefoot boys once the arm at her side, do we find a firm, but we all couldn't grow up to be rigid semi-circular breast. ... millionaires. The non-Nordic man occupies an in­ - By theway, my wife justspoke upand termediate position between the Nor­ says that Heil's remark doesn't make dics and the animals, next to tl¥e her feel very good, as she spends a lot anthropoid ape. He is not a complete of time every day washing overalls. man. He is really no man at allin true Mostofus farmers wear clean overalls contradistinction to animals, but 'a and change them as often as the "money transition, an intermediary staf~. bags" do their suits. - A Farmer With Therefore apt for him is the appellation Clean Overalls. sub-human. (THE MERCURY will pay $1 for items accepted for Americana. Thiise found unsuitable cannot be returned.) Culture Migrates to the U.S.A.

HE world is full ofevents which nothing new about the kind of Twe believe are making history events we are witnessing; they are and are therefore important. Franco only what has always gone on and is making history in Spain, Roose~ apparently always will. They seem velt in America, Hitler in ·Ger­ doomed to impermanence, and if many, Mussolini in Italy, Cham~ history be defined as a record of berlain in England, Stalin in Rus~ actual human achievement rather sia. Wars threaten, political tangles than as a mere chronology of tighten, armies are shifted about, events, I hardly see how history "men ofthe hour" pop up here and can afford to make much of them. there, the currents of trade are We know, at any rate, that when turned into new channels, exchange history has tried to make much of moves from one center to another; such events hitherto, it has suc­ and all this is important because it ceeded only in making itself as makes history. dull and uninforming as a news~ But does it? I am not so clear paper. Thoreau said that only once about the answer to that question or twice in all his life did he get as others seem to be, but I am any news out of a newspaper. One open to conviction. I know what fire, one murder, one burglary is the immediate effect of these in principle just like another, and events is. I know, for instance, how when you have once established a Mr. Roosevelt's history-making principle, what news is there in a affects me and the people around simple repetition of examples? me, and I have a fair notion .of Suppose lightning strikes a shelter how the other contemporary ef­ and kills a hundred persons; all you forts·· at history~making will affect learn from. a report of the calamity the world for the next few years, is that electricity follows the path say fifty or so at the most. But of least resistance, and you already fifty years is a short time in the knew that - everybody. knows it. life ·of the race. There is certainly Similarly the course of political 481 THE AMERICAN MERCURY rivalries, ambitions, enterprises, Try it by the simple test of a collisions of interest, all that we half-dozen names. Who made his~ classify under the name of "public tory in France after I8SI? Persigny, affairs," follows a set pattern­ de Morny, Maupas, de Gramont, one might put it that political Walewski, Ollivier - how many rascality, like electricity, always of them have you even heard of? follows the line of least resistance Ernest Renan, Delacroix, Gounod, - and is therefore easily predict~ George Sand, Turg~niev, Offen­ able in any given circumstances. bach - how about those? Lump The upshot of it is invariably the together all the nobodies who have same and is arrived at by the same misgoverned France since 1870, methods. What, then, can history and put them against the two make of it beyond a mere catalog? names ofCurie and Pasteur -how It is interesting to observe that, about that? Is it not at least con­ as a matter of fact, the human ceivable that two hundred years spirit, the self~preserving instinct from now the name of Hitier will in humanity, has established this be remembered only as belonging very ground of discrimination be~ to somebody or other who ran tween the persons and movements Albert Einstein out of Germany? that have actually made history, and those which have seemed to be II making it. We look at the catalog - some of us have had it rammed I speak of all this because there is down our throats in school- and taking place in this country a see that it is no true record of pro~ movement which is making real gressive human achievement, we history, and which I think is per~ see that there is nothing in it worth haps not fully recognized as so informing us about, and so we lose doing. We all. know it is going on, interest and forget it. We do not but I doubt that we have taken its forget other men and movements measure as the most important of the same period, because they movement of our time - infi~ are vital to us. No more does the nitely more important than the human race forget them, because whole sum ofintrigues, connivings, they are vital to the race, per~ threats, lies, and general swineries manently so. They bear directly which are the "news" ofthe period, upon the best reason and spirit of and which we regard as making up man, while the others· do not. the history of the period. I refer to THE STATE OF THE UNION

the great westward migration of larger cultural area in Europe has European culture, and the effort to become disaffected. Hardly any­ transplant it in 'this hemisphere. where in Europe can the pursuit of Such a movement is strictly culture go on at the present time, historical; it takes place not once and the prospects are that it must in a' decade or a century,'but once remain in abeyance for quite a in an epoch. At long intervals­ \vhile. In some European coun­ long as the life of men or nations tries, as we all know, culture is goes - the center of culture has officially outlawed; the individual­ regularly shifted from region to ism and intellectual freedom which region, from place to place, in are the primary essentials of its deference to two basic human existence, are proscribed. In 'other wants, one spiritual and one eco­ countries the pressure of pre­ nomic; the proponents of culture occupation with matters of the want to exercise their several arts mOment - poverty, fear, exhaus­ and practices in peace and freedom, tion, discouragement - is so over­ and they also want to eat. In time whelming as to leave little energy past, as now, economic and politi­ for the pursuit of culture. cal pressure has repeatedly de­ CuIture's refugees, therefore, stroyed their centers of activity come from all Europe - to our and squeezed them out to form universities, our press, our urban another center somewhere else. centers of creative activity. They Thus the center of culture moved come out of all peoples, nations, from Babylonia to Assyria, from and languages, bringing their big Asia to Europe, from the Near and little hoards of cultural ex­ East to Greece, from Greece to perience and creative intuitions and Rome, and so on. In the last cen­ artistic energies. In our country tury culture established its head­ they see, or think they see, a refuge quarters on the Atlantic seaboard; where they may be safe from the and now, apparently, its next cruder forms of repression and general establishment will be on persecution, and where they may this side the Atlantic, unless find the chance to maintain them­ conditions forbid its taking root selves. They are aware that the here. USA is vast, rich in nature's re­ This migration is probably the sources, and possesses ,a certain most numerous of all that have factitious homogeneity. If they taken place hitherto, because a cannot come physically, then the THE AMERICAN MERCURY products of their Western culture numbers of Europe's practitioners come to us anyhow, because we of culture - one might say virtu­ have the money to pay for it, a ally all of them who can see their population not only able to read way to get here - are either here but able to buy reading matter, now or are on their way. Hence and margins 'Of wealth for acquiring my belief is that the philosophical pictures and statues, opera stars historian -I am careful not to say and scientific brains. the professional historian, but the Creative European minds are historian of civilization, the forth­ sensing, too, that America has coming Guizot or Henry.Adams numerous centers of commercial who really knows what makes a and industrial activity, each of nation great and its life memorable which may be a potential focus of - will find this wholesale migra­ culture as well. In Austria there tion of culture the most important was but one Vienna - its demise, thing that has happened in our culturally speaking, is almost a time. Contentedly letting the dust symbol of the decline of the Old deepen on the memory of a dozen World. In France, Paris had few Roosevelts, Stalins, Hiders, and and puny cultural competitors. In all their. misfeasances, he will care­ pre-war Germany, true, the geo­ fully examine this most impressive graphical distribution of culture redistribution of culture, and will was extraordinarily wide; there pronounce his judgment on what were many centers, all eminent, all came of it. contributing to make the most highly-civilized country in Europe III - but that seems in a distant past. There is but one Copenhagen, What will come of it is, of course, Oslo, Stockholm, Prague, Buda­ quite beyond prediction. The long Pesth in their respective countries. and short of the situation seems to In the United States, on the other be that we are fast falling heir to hand, there are perhaps as many as a couple of thousand years ofcivili­ twenty cities, all American, and zation, whether we will or no. The each one possibly susceptible of legacy is being dumped in our lap development into a cultural capital without so much as a by-your­ with an extremely long effective leave. We have, then, the responsi­ range of influence. bility of choosing whether we shall For these many reasons, great welcome it "as a windfall or resent it THE STATE OF THE UNION as alien and un-American. The Hoover, and Charles Evans Hughes latter has been our traditional - resourceful, pushing, dogged, attitude, and whether we have matter-of-fact, unscrupulous,·unin­ modified it appreciably remains to telligent, legalistic, grasping. Sim~ be seen. Our whole educational ilarly in England the high culture system stiffens us in this attitude. of many individuals, the culture Our literature, our theatre, our promoted by institutions like Ox..; social life, our system of manners, ford and Cambridge, has not in all reflect it. Our institutional four hundred years succeeded in voices are all .united in a perfect pervading and tempering the essen­ harmony of loud assurance that tially middle-class prejudices, opin­ this attitude is the only one proper ions and ideals of British society; for us to maintain. Under these and· ours, too, is and has always conditions it is far from clear how been, a strictly middle-class society, well this implantation of culture but with Oxford and Cambridge can succeed in taking root in our left out. society, and its chance of ulti­ It seems, then, that the clos­ mately making itself prevail over est historical parallels we can draw our traditional views of life and are hardly encouraging for the demands on life - views and de­ outlook of culture in America. mands .which are essentially bar­ Still, in another view, by show­ barous and therefore inimical to ing us so clearly what must be met culture - is quite unpredictable. and overcome in order to better In the society of Rome, culture that outlook, these parallels may remained always an exotic; it serve as red lights to keep us safe never, as we say, "struck in." It in the road which leads to the remained encysted, like a fly in transformation contemplated by amber, preserved from decomposi­ cuIture, which is nothing less than a tion, but having no effect upon the transformation of the whole man. society around it; and that society, The trouble is that the transforma­ we may well remember, was per­ tion is so difficult, the road to it is haps more like our own than any so steep. . and arduous,. while simply other that ever·existed. The char­ remaInIng as we are IS so very easy. acter and qualities of the average Culture is knowing the best that Roman of the Empire can· best be has been thought and said in the imagined by posing him as a com­ world. Its purpose is to transform posite, say, ofHenry Ford, Herbert the raw and crude individual by THE AMERICAN MERCURY setting up in him an overmastering liberate and glorify la bassesse de feeling for the best; and this not l'homme interesse, and bid it run only in the realm of intellect and rampant? The practical question beauty, but in the realm of morals for us now is whether it is worth­ and conduct as well. In short, the while to apply the solvent of cul­ aim of culture is to transform the ture to this spirit's works and ways. individual by inculcating a con­ The center of culture has moved trolling sense ofall spiritual values, westward once more, and is landing a sense of what is right, just, fair, on uncommonly arid soil; so much honorable, as well as of what is is certain. Certain it is also that beautiful, dignified, graceful, and enabling it to establish itself to any becoming. good purpose here will be grueling Thus culture is opposed to all hard labor; and our immediate that has its root in the spirit which responsibility is that of looking is dominant at the present time. over the prospects carefully and In Renan's great phrase, culture deciding whether the results will has but one enemy, which is ever payout the investment of Ie materialisme vulgaire, la bassesse work and time and patience. Do de I'homme interesse. What else but we really want to be any different this is the spirit which appears in sort of beings from the sort we are? public life as fascism, New-Dealism, - that is the sum of it. If we do, Naziism, communism, "democ­ here is the greatest chance that has racy" - movements which merely ever come to any people.

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN'S UMBRELLA

By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof ... 1t 1S a temporary expedient often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship. Life and Death of a Worm

NA DAMP earth-tunnel under the lessness, such as never infected a I subsoil a minute cocoon stirs mushroom or a sumac-root, and gently with emergent life. Out of which is token of its membership it, presently, there issues a tiny in animal creation. It is blood­ ribbon of pink crawling flesh. An brother, this blind, unhearing earthworm, commonest of all the worm, to the high hawk and the annelids, has been horn. running deer, and is equipped with The human infant, emerging out compulsions even as these are. It is offoetal unawareness, comes into a not exempted from the twin neces­ world bright with colors and clam­ sities which are visited upon every orous with sound. So does a fox­ creature of earth: the necessity to cub, or a new-hatched jay. The eat and the necessity to beget. earthworm's birth is no such transi­ These things being so, the earth­ tion. Out of the darkness of the worm stirs and wriggles in its dark egg, this wriggling fragment of earth-chamber, and sets forth pres­ flesh and muscle emerges into a ently on the great adventure of world that is hardly more fraught existence. with awareness, hardly more in­ In obedience to an inner bidding formed by mind, than was the egg­ it directs its body upward, toward mass from which it came. The the topsoil and the outer air. The earthworm is unseeing, for it has way ofits going is very slow, and it no eyes. It is unhearing, for it has is this: just under the body-skin no ears. The world into which it runs a layer of circular muscles, has been born is only a darkness and just under these a layer of and a silence. muscles that lie longitudinally; But this eyeless and earless alternately the earthworm con­ morsel of blood and skin is sensible tracts the circular muscles at its of inner urgings, responsive from anterior end, rendering the body the moment of its birth to dim extended and thin, and contracts behests. It is stirred by vague rest- the longitudinal muscles, render- 487 THE AMERICAN MERCURY ing the body short again. It is a of hard dry soil through which it slow, laborious way of locomotion, cannot penetrate by muscular and effects· movement at all only effort alone, there comes to it­ because of a curious device. On perhaps out of the misty realm each segment of the earthworm's called Instinct, perhaps out of an body are arranged four pairs of otherwhere never to be plumbed tiny spiny hairs, called setae, under - the knowledge of what must be the direct control ofmuscles. They done. The earthworm begins to extend obliquely backward from eat. the sides and underparts of the Grain by grain it sucks the earthworm's body, and the earth­ hard-packed soil into its muscular worm moves them as though they pharynx, grain by grain reduces were Iittle legs. As the worm the barrier impeding its progress. thrusts upward now, boring blindly Millimeter by millimeter, as the toward that outer other:..world obstructing earth is nibbled away, which it cannot know exists, the the worm ascends toward outer setae press and grip the burrow­ air. It reaches the surface at last, wall and tran~late the worm's thrusting its wriggling way through muscular churnings into a slow but grass-roots and the final crust, and steady movement. when ultimately its tunneling is Unhaltingly the earthworm strug­ completed it deposits on the sur­ gles upward through the soil. Its face, in the form of castings, infinitesimal brain, in an anterior the swallowed earth .which has segment above the pharynx, is passed through its alimentary ca­ incapable of harboring the thing nal. No man wholly understands that men call Mind; a subtler and the worm's earth-eating, or com­ a stranger species of impulsion in­ prehends the chemistry whereby forms the nerve-cords and directs its body extracts from the eaten the muscles in their work. Mind­ soil the bits of humus and vegeta­ less, the earthworm is yet gifted ble matter which will .give it with perceptions and recognitions. nourishment. The feeding-process The pressures and stresses of the of earthworms is a curious thing, soil against its flesh are intelligible and this much is known of it: to it; the sensations ofdryness or of from the pharynx the food goes to moisture are somehow meaningful. an oesophagus, and is there mixed When now, on·its upward voyage, with .gland-secretions which neu­ the earthworm reaches a stratum tralize the acids. Thence it enters DOWN TO EARTH a thin-walled crop, and thence a to detect the presence of these gizzard, where it is ground to bits morsels and to seize on them; and by spasmodic muscular cantrac­ it is able, further, to single out tions - and by the sharp grains of those foods for which it has a spe­ sand that have been swallowed­ cial preference. .. such foods, for and·is rendered ready for entrance instance, as cabbage-leaves and into the worm's intestine. The carrots. network of tiny veins and arteries Slowly the earthworm investi­ by which the earthworm's blood is gates the night, thrusting its blind circulated carries likewise waste­ naked head this way and that. Its products of the digested food, and recognition of the universe is on every segment of the body is a hardly more complete than the pair of organs, called nephridia, recognition possessed by a burdock­ for the excretion of these wastes. leaf or a floating water-weed. The Such is the manner of the earth­ texture of its awareness is scarcely worm's nourishment, and such the more complex. From time to time, processes which have attended its now, as it forages blindly and upward voyage through the earth. deafly in the damp night air, it wriggles suddenly in response to II the glinting of a light or the vibrance ofa tread upon the nearby The earthworm has attained the earth. These are the things to outer world now, although no sight which its delicate flesh responds­ or sound can apprise it of that fact. these the limits of the universe it In the· damp darkness (for the as­ can perceive. Presently, when it cension has been made at night) has taken in a sufficiency of food, the earthworm fastens its tail by it terminates its explorations for the setae to· the top of the burrow, the night and withdraws once and, stretching its soft elastic body more to inner earth. to .full length, explores the neigh­ There is small variegation in the borhood in which it finds itself. It pattern of the earthworm's suc­ is in quest of fallen leaves, of ceeding days. During the sunlit minute fragments of weed-stalks hours the worm stays buried in the and roots and decayed bark. Hav­ cool darkness beneath the surface ing no organs of sight, the earth­ of the soil, for the thin slime of worm is nevertheless able, perhaps mucus that covers its skin would by a dim awareness akin to scent, be dried up by the sun. But when 49° THE AMERICAN MERCURY the nights come - or when the and the briefly animated morsel of sun is hidden and rain falls - the blood and sinew reverts to parent earthworm grows obscurely aware earth. that it is time for seeking the outer world again, and once more An earthworm, I suppose, will the pink flesh thrusts upward. hardly attract the contemplation After this fashion does day follow of the kind of man who can be day, unmarked by any incident stirred by no less gaudy natural but the worm's feeding and breath~ marvel than a Grand Canyon or a ing. Even the breathing is almost shooting star. Charles Darwin, as simple as a plant's. Blind and though, thought earthworms were deaf and unequipped with mind, worth studying for forty years, the earthworm lacks also lungs. and Darwin made some curious It absorbs the oxygen directly discoveries. He found, for in~ through its body-walls into the stance, that in a single acre of sluggish blood, and similarly, im~ ground there may be 50,000 perceptibly, the carbon dioxide is worms, and he found that they expelled. carry to the surface, in a single Some time before it dies, the year, some eighteen tons of earth­ worm must beget young. The in~ castings. The earthworms in an dividual earthworm is both male acre, Darwin learned, would in and female, having the reproduc~ twenty years carry from the sub­ tive organs of each sex, and when soil to the surface a layer of soil the time for egg-laying comes it three inches thick; and it became secretes from a thickened place in evident to him that the honey~ its body - the clitellum - a co~ combing of the earth by its earth­ coon in which the eggs are secured. worms was what aerated the soil This done, the eggs are then fer~ and made it porous and rendered it tilized by the spermatozoa of an­ fit for man's agriculture. other worm, and the most vital of It is good sometimes to be re~ all animal rites has been accom~ minded that the ephemeral shifts plished. A few days or a few weeks of politics and ideologies are not longer the earthworm feeds and the things on which our human forages and pursues its eyeless welfare actually depends. The way, and then the life goes out of ultimate welfare of our tribe de­ it as unknowledgeably as it came, pends on things like worms. ~~m~m~~m~mHmm~~~®~~ ~I .• POETRY .• il~ ~~~®i~~fi~~~®~H~fi~H~ ANONYMOUS AS DUST

By V. F. CALVERTON

EFORE I die I should like to know B That what I've felt, been, was more than sense or sentience, More than color, sound, smell, compacted within my brain, More than the machinery of my own deception, Telling me what is not, is, And what is, is not. To know that I was really I And not some chimera of corpuscles, ligaments, nerves, Anonymous as dust, That I that lived above, beyond, bone and tissue Possessed in my I'ness a secret Unrobbable as light. To know that would mean knowing all: The quiet strength of trees, the warm fecundity ofearth, The sinews of silence, the magic of speech, The whys, the wherefores, the whens. Where knowing would be being, and being knowing, Both without end.

STREET CORNER COLLEGE

By KENNETH PATCHEN

EXT year the grave grass will cover us. N We stand now, and laugh; Watching the girls go by; Betting on slow horses; drinking cheap gin. We have nothing to do; nowhere to go; nobody. THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Last year was a year ago; nothing more. We weren't younger then; nor older now.

We manage to have the look that young men have; We feel nothing behind our faces, one way or other.

We shall probably not be quite dead when we die. We were never anything all the way; not even soldiers.

We are the insulted, brother, the desolate boys. Sleepwalkers in a dark and terrible land, Where solitude is a dirty knife at our throats. Cold stars watch us, chum, Cold stars and the whores.

TWO ALABAMA WILDCATS

By JULIAN LEE RAYFORD

CAME ufon two ~la~ama wildcats, I panting, panting In a cage. And they bent upon me all the venom in their flaming, yellow eyes, their spirit no more diminished than fire is tamed within a grate. Two Alabama wildcats, glowering, smoldering, in a rage that Death alone subdues. And I thought, watching those inferno-eyes: "Little brother, little sister, teach me, endow me with this flame that devours all cowardice, all resignation. So many fears imprison me, I need your flame of hatred to burn my cages down."· ~~~~~~ ~I THE LIBRARY I~ ~~~~~~i~~i~~~~j~~

We've Paid Our Debt to Lafayette

By JOHN w. THOMASON~ JR.

REMEMBER one of those freight others, starts with its subject; I cars our doughboys found so which is inadequate, if not wrong. comic. It stood in the railroad Because your subject is more than yards of Brest the raw July morn­ himself. Your subject is heaven ing in 1919 that my battalion of only knows how many generations the Second Division arrived from of ancestors and environments, Germany, on its way home. Some gentle and simple, obscure and rude American soldier had chalked conspicuous, crowding behind him. across it words, as follows: He is this racial impulse crossed .We've paid our debt to Lafayette. with that other blood; he is one Who in hell do we owe now? grandfather's experience, tangled with atavistic recollections ofsome Which was recalled to me by W. E. great-grandmother's· indiscretion. Woodward's vivacious biography He is things adventured, and things Lafayette,! now; presented. The evaded, matters achieved, and question of that debt, loudly raised matters lost, through all the gener­ by patriotic circles during the war­ ations before he was born, but per­ time, has never before been so sisting in his life-stream to come thoroughly examined as by Mr. into focus with his day. So Thomas Woodward, in his presentation of Carlyle approached his Frederick the life and acts of Marie Joseph the Great. But there was only one Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Mo­ Carlyle. tier, Marquis de Lafayette. Mr. Woodward, launching into I don't think the debt is Mr. his tale, tells you little 'about La­ Woodward's basic idea, although fayette's origins. There were, it he is a biographer of the impish seems, Motiers in Auvergne from school. This biography, as most the Twelfth Century onwards, the 1 Lafayette, by W. E. Woodward. $3.50. FarrarE:! Rinehart. males· being soldiers with a talent 493 494 THE AMERIGAN MERCURY for getting killed. By various legal exchange, for he is sharp on such and domestic gambits, the name motivation. . Lafayette came into the family in The,year of Lafayette's marriage the Sixteenth Century. His father, was 1774 - great events making Colonel the Marquis de Lafayette, up across the Atlantic - and in was killed at Minden in July of 1775 he was on garrison duty in 1757, and the son, with whom Mr. Metz, and occasionally about the Woodward is concerned, was born Court, as became his station. Noth~ the September following. ing yet to indicate military apti~ One may remark, however, that tude, and even less to promise a these ancestors of young Lafayette career under the eye of the Most knew how to accumulate, or at Christian King, for the young least how to marry well, for he gentleman was lank, and uncomely inherited estates in Brittany and of body, with a forehead singularly Touraine amounting to a great for~ slanting backwards, and an awk­ tune. His life followed the pattern wardness of repartee, and no part of one so bred and born. At four­ of a courtier's graces. Here Mr. teen, he had a commission in the Woodward indulges himself in a Black Musketeers, a famous regi~ search through obscure intrigues, mente When he was seventeen, a involving the Comte de Broglie, marriage was arranged, and took first soldier of France; Vergennes, place, with Adrienne, of the high minister for Foreign Affairs, a cun~ house of Noailles, which placed ning Anglophobe; and that lean, him in the first magnitude of the ambitious soldier Johann de Kalb, French peerage. Here is noted an called Baron de Kalb; St. Ger­ incident which may have been the maine; and the curious fellow germ ofhis later ardent republican~ Beaumarchais. Offstage, Dr. F rank~ ism; the court genealogist failed to lin, his agent Deane, and the find the Lafayettes in the Diction~ American rebels, all at once occu­ naire de la Noblesse, and in the rou~ pying a gratifying amount of Eng~ tine of his office asked the young lish attention. Of Lafayette, you gentleman to supply his proofs. need remember only that he had a Nothing came of it; you infer that huge fortune, no·particularly ex­ the marriage arrangement was fi~ citing prospects in France, and the nancially robust; but Lafayette temperament that went with his was indignant. I wonder that Mr. narrow skull and ardent red Woodward makes no more of the hair. THE LIBRARY 495 II for the others further commissions, with pay and allowances duly stipu­ The upshot of·it was that, on a lated; and in de Kalb's pocket cer­ Friday, the thirteenth of June, tain obscure proposals involving 1777, the French vessel V£ctoire the Comte de Broglie, and the stood in to North Inlet, up the conduct of the war, not quite clear coast from Charleston in South to this day. Mr. Woodward thinks Carolina, and dropped anchor, Silas Deane issued them in good fifty-four days out of Bordeaux. faith, but the Continental Congress From her there put off the young was not impressed. Since the be­ Marquis de Lafayette and four­ ginning of the American War, teen officers more, de Kalb among they had seen a-plenty of foreign them, eager for the shore. Towards paladins, and were tired of them. midnight, in the scented, firefly­ At first, there had been a defi­ starred darkness of the Low Coun­ ciency of American technicians, tries, they got ashore on the plan­ notably engineers and artillerists; tation of Major Huger, whose but the Continental forces were descendants are still in residence beginning to produce able com­ thereabouts; and, after they con­ manders of their own. A French vinced the famay that they were accent, a Prussian swagger, and an not a landing party from the acquaintance with the professional British frigates on the station, were jargon ofthe European armies were made welcome. no longer to make a man a Colonel. In due time, and after some fi­ The Committee on Foreign Af­ nancial adjustments over the ship fairs treated the young Marquis Victoire, which Lafayette appears with scant courtesy, and de Kalb to have bought or chartered out of with none at all. his own pocket (his ideas about But Lafayette was a stubborn, money were noble all_ his life), the if not a brilliant, youth. He ad­ party proceeded to Philadelphia dressed a letter to Congress, the and presented themselves before meat of which was, he desired to the Continental Congress there as­ serve without pay, at his own ex­ sembled. They had credentials, pense, and to be allowed to serve issued by the Silas Deane afore­ first as a volunteer. This alone put said; for the Marquis a Major him in a class by himself. The Con­ General's commission, for de Kalb gress had never met a foreign offi­ a Major General's commission, cer, of whatever ardor in the cause THE AMERICAN MERCURY of Freedom, who was not quite step towards that formal recogni­ sharp on the matters of rank, pay, tion of the Colonies which gave and emoluments. Further, it be­ them money, munitions, sea-power, gan to be understood that this re­ and, finally, independence. markable young man was extremely More familiar is. the tale of La­ well-connected, in those circles fayette's association with General which regulated French war loans Washington. He became one of the and trade agreements. True, the very few men for whom the austere young sprig was only nineteen, and Commander-in-Chiefshowed affec­ had never been shot over, or tion; called him his son-in-arms. learned English. But, after all ..• He was wounded at the Brandy­ On the last day of July he re­ wine, and starved and froze most ceived a Major General's commis­ honorably through the winter of sion, pure!y honorary, although Valley Forge. He was ofundoubted Lafayette, with his imperfect· un­ value as a liaison officer when the derstandingofEnglish, neverunder­ French Expeditionary Force ap­ stood it that way. A week later, a peared. Given the small light col­ belated letter arrived from Frank­ umn which harassed and hazed lin, recommending him as a noble­ Cornwallis across Virginia towards man of great wealth and high Yorktown, he demonstrated mili­ station, influential at court. This, tary aptitude of a high order. His with Lafayette's own generous ef­ command of Americans had good forts, sufficed to wangle a Major morale, held together, and fought. General's commission for de Kalb, What the tough veterans .bf the who was really a distinguished sol­ Continental Line thought, as he dier, and to procure either appoint­ was promoted over their heads, is ments or passage home for the rest not on record, but they followed of the Lafayette party. As Mr. him loyally. He served four years, Woodward, a man chary of ap- bore his own charges, spent all of proval, points out, Congress did his large income and 750,000 francs well in the affair: de Kalb rendered besides - nobody knows how­ fine service in the field until he died and went home after Yorktown valiantly in action; Lafayette, so to find himself the most .famous far as the French interest was man in France, acclaimed as the concerned, lifted the American Hero of Two Wodds. War into the Social Register, and He had also the thanks of the his interest proved to be a definite Continental Congress, and the gift THE LIBRARY 497 of American citizenship for him­ guillotine to an Austrian prison self and heirs forever. He was still from which Napoleon set him free; rich; he was fortunate, and young; but Napoleon found no use for him and until the disastrous effects of (and he none for the Emperor, itis participation in the·American War fair to add), and he lived in pre­ began to dawn upon the French carious retirement until the Em­ Court, he was admired by persons pire fell. Recurrent crises brought of the highest consideration. It was him out again and again, but never the peak of his long life. to any decisive purpose. He never got along·with kings or dictators. III Undoubtedly, without definitely understanding it, or knowing what That would be the year 1782. to do aboutit, he did love Liberty. Before him were tremendous events, Now, as to the debt. In 1803 his the Revolution, and the Napole­ friend Jefferson was zealous to onic Wars. Mr. Woodward dissects make sure that Lafayette received with his usual ironic skill and pa­ his proper share of the public lands tience the connection with the donated by a grateful republic to Revolution, for which, with in­ its soldiers. He was awarded 11,520 tention or not, Lafayette was one acres in Ohio, and the grant, after of the men who sowed the seed; the Louisiana Purchase, was trans­ but neither temperament nor abil­ ferred to the region around New ity fitted him to direct or con­ Orleans, where property had higher trol revolution. With the French value. Jefferson did it all, because masses, whose information on the the Marquis, characteristically, had American episode was vague, if never entered a claim and proba­ inspiring, his name was synony­ bly never would have. A few years mous to Liberty. later, his creditors pressing him, the Circumstances presently flung sale of part of this land was suffi­ into· his lap opportunity after op­ cient to discharge debts in excess of portunity, everyone of which he 600,000 francs. In 1824, Congress fumbled. The Robespierres fright­ voted him $200,000 and a town­ ened him, and he distrusted the ship. The total, in cash and kind, Bonapartes. His was not one of must have exceeded a million. those figures which diverted and I have not been able to trans­ appalled Europe through the next late· these emoluments into modern thirty years; he escaped from the exchange, but as they stand, they THE AMERICAN MERCURY are impressive in the line ofAmeri... cence of Louis XIV's court, and can soldiers' pay. It seems to me the incredible leaders the Revolu... that some substantial installments tion cast up - he goes into the had already been applied to that Revolution at great length and debt before 1917. I consider him, destroys accepted versions with his in fact, well compensated. customary gusto. Yet he is kinder to Lafayette than to any person Mr. Woodward's work is reada'" who has enjoyed his attention. He ble. He belongs to the backstairs finds him "not too wise and pro­ group of annalists, delighting in found ... not at all oppressive the pimples of the great. It is all . . . a likable human being." The very well to humanize history, but reader, I think, will agree; and as I cannot see that the kleptomania for Mr. Woodward's gossip, per­ of Lafayette's great in-law~ the tinent or not, most of it is spiced. Marechale de Noailles, is pertinent There is an index and a brief to his career or to the study of his bibliography, but the material is character. The author is at his best not documented. Altogether a very in describing the tawdry magnifi... pleasant and informing book.

~~1)~~~m@m~~m~~H~~mH~ ~I THE CHECK LIST .. I~ ~~~~~~ID1vtID!::~;SJ~t~IR~

BIOGRAPHY FROM UNION SQUARE TO ROME, by a radical mind; it succeeds, perhaps even Dorothy Day. $1.50. Preservation of the Faith better, in explaining radicalism to the re­ Press. Whatever readers of this autobiograph­ ligious mind. The compassion for the suffer­ ical, well-nigh confessional, story may 'think ings of the lowly which led Miss Day into the of the author's views they can scarcely doubt IWW and other Left movements, she carried the earnestness and nobility of her spirit. In over into her Catholicism. She is editor of the restrained, unpretentious style Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and active in liberal Catholic tells of her devotion to the faith of radicalism undertakings. which evolved, almost without her own awareness, into a faith in the Catholic religion. EMPEROR NORTON, by Allen Stanley Addressed to an unbelieving brother, the Lane. $3.00. Caxton Printers. The career of book aims to explain the religious attitudes to Norton I, Emperor of the United States and THE CHECK LIST 499 Protector of Mexico, not only amusing side information - of her change of heart. Americana but a fine tribute to the generous Unhappily Miss Dodd seems to have jumped spirit of old San Francisco. Born of poor right out of the Nazi frying pan into the Jewish parents in England, brought up in Bolshevik fire. The whole book is falsified South Africa, Joshua Abraham Norton at the and distorted by a naive faith in the nobility age of 3I came to California during the gold of the Bolshevik type of fascists at home and rush, prospered as a trader, became a promi­ abroad. Her chapter. on Russia, which she nent merchant and civic leader in San visited briefly, is stereotyped propaganda Francisco, and then, through an over·am­ nonsense. bitious attempt to co.rner the rice market, lost his entire fortune. His mind gave way. THE SCANDINAVIAN STATES AND The ordinary mortal died; an extraordinary THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, by S. character was born - Emperor Norton 1. Shepard Jones. $3.00. Princeton University From that day in 1859, when he walked into Press. This learned monograph by a Rhodes the office of the Bulletin with his first royal scholar (the present director of the World decree proclaiming himself Emperor of the Peace Foundation in Boston) was first United States, until his death in 1880, written as a doctoral thesis under the super­ San Francisco paid tender homage to this vision of Sir Alfred Zimmern of Oxford, unique lunatic. which doubtless invests it with ample author· ity. But alas, the scaffolding of its scholarship APOSTLES OF REVOLUTION, by Max was never removed and badly dutters an Nomad. $3.50. Little, Brown. The most otherwise monumental and not unattractive readable book on revolutionary history to edifice. The patient reader will find this a appear in decades. Through the biographies useful reference book on a somewhat recondite of seven outstanding revolutionary types phase of the League's career. (Bakunin, Blanqui, Nechayev, etc.) the author gives not only a summary ofa century THE NEW WESTERN FRONT, by of revolutionary· striving, but conveys his Stuart Chase. Cloth bound, $1.50; paper philosophy of social change. Mr. Nomad bound, 75¢. Harco::rt, Brace. A compact writes well and his ironic wit leavens a serious handbook on the economics underlying work. All revolutions, the author contends foreign policies, prepared in collaboration through his analyses of his seven characters, with Marian Tyler, offering useful informa­ end with the enthronement ofnew exploiting tion in easily assimilable form. After drawing groups. Despite this, he does not consider the a dramatic contrast between virtually self­ struggle for justice to be futile. He succeeds sufficient America and the economically in­ brilliantly in stepping on the toes of radicals sufficient countries of Europe, Mr. Chase and conservatives alike. points out that the stake ofAmerican citizens abroad is inconsiderable and not worth the MISCELLANEOUS risk of war. He therefore recommends with­ drawal of our foreign trade from the Old THROUGH EMBASSY EYES, by Martha World in favor of the Western Hemisphere, Dodd. $3.00. Harcourt Brace. The daughter of the cultivation not only of commercial but of the American Ambassador to Berlin was with genuine friendship with our neighbors on him throughout his incumbency there, from both American continents, adequate naval 1933 to 1937. She was friendly to the Brown and military defense, especially around the Reich when she arrived, but watching the Caribbean, and a lot of intensive home work unfoldment of Hitlerite civilization she came to "stimulate business activity and· reduce to abhor the whole regime. This is the rec­ unemployment, without piling up debts ord - dramatic, .well·written, full of in- which may ultimately be repudiated. H 500 THE AMERICAN MERCURY

STEVENSON AT SILVERADO, by Anne are particularly interesting. The weakness of Roller Issler. $3.50. Caxton Printers. Mrs. the book is in its portraits of the heroines. Issler draws a pleasing picture of Robert Most flagrantly misleading is the author's Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne among portrait of Vera Zassulich, whose character their appreciative neighbors and the natural she greatly underestimates. The sins of beauties of Napa Valley, where they lived omission are striking; no word, for instance, immediately after their marriage in 1880. of Krupskaya, Kollontai, Angelica Bala,­ Sheds additional light on Stevenson at· that banoff, at least one of whom logically belongs crucial point of his career when he emerged in the book. into adulthood. LUNACY BECOMES US, by Adolf Hitler MEN MUST ACT, by Lewis Mumford. and His Associates, edited by Clara Leiser. Cloth bound, $1.50; paper bound 75¢. Har~ $1.25. Liveright. Amusing and amazing selec­ court, Brace. A rousing sermon on the text, tion of utterances of Hitler and his disciples "Fascism is a worse evil than war." Brushing which add up, indeed, to lunacy. There are aside both isolationism and collective se­ nuggets of profound science such as Hitler's curity - the first as futile, the second as revelation in Mein Kampf: "Originally the thoroughly discredited - the author pro­ Aryan was probably a nomad and then, as poses to isolate instead the "three militant time went on, he became settled; this', if fascist states that are actively threatening the nothing else, proves that he was never a Jew." world today: Germany, Italy, Japan" through Or the discovery announced by a Nazi a. "comprehensive non~intercourse Act" leader in Brooklyn that "Justice Brandeis supplemented by a civilianized volunteer wants Negroes to rape white women in the army prepared to resist fascism in war, if South." We also learn from Hitler's own need be. Mr. Mumford also proposes no less mouth that "No European nation has done than "the revamping of our economic sys­ tem" (without saying just how) to solve our more for peace than Germany". But the unemployment problem and the dislocation selection does not overlook solemnity, as incidental to the task of isolating the three when Church Minister Kerrl utters the name main fascist aggressors. While his batting ofthe Lord ofEurope, announcing that: "Der average is impressive as long as he belabors Fiihrer is Jesus Christ as well as the Holy the obvious, slugging fascism, extolling the Ghost of the Fatherland." Most of the quo­ virtues of democracy and discoursing on its tations are so grotesque that only a grotesque shortcomings, his performance sinks far below could have hatched them. that average when, having hit the ball, he starts running around the bases to make the SOUTH OF HITLER, by F. W. Fodor. points of his program of action. $3.50 Houghton MijJlin An extension and revision' of the author's Plot and Counterplot WOMEN AND THE REVOLUTION, by in Europe, published some two years ago. While Ethel Mannin. $3.00. Dutton. A splendid the current work incorporates unchanged introduction to the subject stated in the whole chapters ofthe original book as written title, certain shortcomings notwithstanding. before Munich, new chapters analyze the Ethel Mannin offers no rule-of-thumb social situation since. Replete with interesting program. She merely provides an intelligent anecdotes and flashes into hidden political discussion of woman's. role in the march of motives, the book is one ofthe most complete history, and illustrates it through the stories and up-to-date analyses of the Central of distinguished woman revolutionaries. Her European situation, of the internal struggles speculations on the future position ofwomen, and bickerings ofthe various political factions, and her highlighting of women's changing presenting at the same time a coherent dove­ place in China, Russia, Spain, Ireland, etc., tailing of the various forces at work. THE CHECK LIST 5°1 NAZI SPIES IN AMERICA, by Leon INDUSTRIAL VALLEY, by Ruth McKen­ Turrou. As Told To David G. Wittels. ney. $3.00. Harcourt, Brace. The author of $2.00. Random House. Purporting to be the the highly amusing My Sister Eileen writes a inside stuff on Nazi spies in America and told serious survey of Akron, Ohio, and its rubber by the special investigator of the FBI to a workers under Hoover Depression and newspaperman, this volume outlines the Roosevelt Recovery. Told in the form ofday official yarn concerning the detection, appre­ to day items, largely as reported in the local hension, and conviction of several small fry press, it resembles Mark Sullivan's Our Times, and the escape of the big fish. Americans may with emphasis on the labor struggle and the sleep at night assured that our defense secrets unionization of the rubber industry. Through are safe without benefit of the G-Men, for it all Miss McKenney (staff member of the never were there such inept spies in the history New Masses that she is) would convey that of spying. The Turrou-Wittels' prose is as the Communist Party is the real hero of muddy as the contents. Akron. Ultimately the book may become a textbook on communist subtlety. INSIDE GERMANY, by Albert C. Grzezin­ ski. $2.50. Dutton. A depressingly revealing MY DAY IN COURT, by Arthur Train. story of the gradual suicide of the German $3.50' Scribner's. A very readable autobiog­ Republic, told from the inside by the former raphy of two careers: Train the prosecutor Social Democratic Minister of Interior of and Train the story teller. Pictures New York Prussia and Police Chief of Berlin. Half the thirty years ago, with copious anecdotes, as book deals with events since Hitler's success seen by an assistant district attorney under and provides little that is new. The other half, William Travers Jerome, and really good however, is exceedingly pertinent: a sort of stuff, despite a Peglerish over-emphasis on auto-autopsy. The political grouping to the criminality of the Italian race. When the which the author belonged must share with atmosphere of the Criminal Courts Building the communists and others the blame for the is abandoned in the search for perfumed plot tragedy. Mr. Grzezinski tells how "secret" material, the man and his personal history meetings of communists were reported to become less interesting. Nevertherless, a him by his spies posingas communists; how lengthy excursion on how to write marketable Hindenburg and his clique thwarted every fiction for slick magazines is illuminating. attempt to resist the overthrow of the Re­ public; how the anti-Nazis were left disarmed INSIDE RED CHINA, by Nym Wales. and Hitler's forces retained their arms. But $3.00. Doubleday Doran. The author, wife of "conspicuous by its absence" - a phrase the Edgar Snow (Red Star Over China) was with author uses constantly himself - are the the Chinese Soviets during the final months story of how Minister Grzezinski's subordi­ before they abdicated authority over perhaps nates machinegunned a May Day demon­ 9,000,000 people, and placed themselves and stration, one of the episodes in the debacle; the legendary Eighth Route Army at the and how, at the very start of the Republic, disposal ofChiang Kai Shek. She has compiled Socialist ministers used monarchist force to interviews with all the important communist shoot down workers' uprisings. These, too, leaders. Those interested in the Chinese edi­ were among the reasons why the German tion of the Party Line will find a wealth of masses failed in the long run to defend their material here. With due allowance to the "socialist" government. Discounting such author's pro-Stalinist bias, it would, appear silences and the author's natural bias in favor that, in a primitive agrarian society, Bolshe­ ofhis own party, the book presents a valuable vism heightens the political consciousness of document, easily read, on post-war German the most backward, before canalizing it to history. sectarian and ultimately totalitarian ends. F~!ID~~~~ ~I THE~OPEN FORUM I~ ~~~(5~~i~~(5~@WH5i

TO THE NEW EDITOR

A new editorial broom sweeps up a lot of To these and to others piled high on fhe messages, ranging from congratulations to editorial desk, Our blushing bow. AIhong the condolences, and tapering off in enthusiasm at others are William Allen White; Roy W. One end and verbal mayhem at the other. How~rd; Bertrand Russell; Prof. charles A. Somewhere in this range is the message Beard; Dorothy Thompson; W. E. Wood­ from H. L. Mencken, first editor of THE ward, who invented (and loathes) the word AMERICAN MERCURY: "debunking" which THE ME:RCutty has So well exemplified; Prot. William Ellery Leofi­ "Editing a magazine is a job almost Corn­ ard of Wisconsin University; Harry Scher­ parable to fighting bulls. There is no CUre man, generalissimo of the Book..of..the..Mohth whatever for the constant headaches. You club; Samuel Chotzinoff, well-known music must learn to endure them, but no man will critic, now with the NBC; Whit Burnett, ever learn to love them ... It is a great editor of Story; Bennett Cerf, of Random pleasure to see you take over the bridge, for I House; Robert S. Allen, he of the Washington have a very great liking for Assignment in Merry~Go~Round; Leo C. Rosten, creator bf Utopia •.• I hope you bang away at the K*A*P*L*A*N; Raymond Clapper, Wash­ quacks now flourishing in the USA. They ington commentator; Louis Adamic, author Were never more irnpudent." of My America; John Mason Brown, drama critic; Max Miller, who tovers wa.terfronts; As to the headaches, we have been on the job M. Lincoln Schuster of the Simon &; Schuster only a month, but oh! how true, how true! team.; Arthur D. Pierce of the Philadelphia We begin to appreciate what William 13. Ziff, Record; Max Eastman, poet a.nd publicist; himself an editor (Popular Aviation, etc.), Prof. Irwin Edman of Columbia; Abraham meant in writing "I don't know why I should Epstein, the social security expert; City congratulate anyone who deliberately fash­ Manager Bill N. Taylor of Longview, Texas; ions a rope around his neck" ... Walter Joseph Clark Baldwin, New York City Winchell greets the new editor warmly in his Councilman; Irene Kuhn, leading newspaper column and another columnist, Leonard woman and author of Assigned to Adventure; Lyons, £lashes, "Congratulations on the new radio commentator Linton Wells; James E. job. I hear you're changing your name to Abbe, father of the three little Abbes who H. L. Mlyons"... Simeon Strtinsky of made the world famous in eleven years; The New York Times sends on, "I do hope Ferdinand Lundberg, beloved of the 60 you make a success on THE MERCURY, which American Families; Evelyn Scott, novelist; now has a vigorous editorial pen worthy to be Charles Yale Harrison, author of Generals Die compared with the original Mencken instru­ In Bed; Hatty Weinberger, labor lawyer; ment" ... Warm encouragement comes out Ulric Bell, Washington correspondent; Willi of Washington from Susan 13. Anthony, rela­ S. Schla.rnm, former editor of the Berlin tive and namesake ofa lady who once stormed Weltbuhne; John Dos Passos, a.uthor of USA. that city, and from Congressman Bruce The music, however, is nbt a.l1.$weetness Barton, who is storming it nOw. and harmony. Sour notes were not missing. 502 THE OPEN FORUM

Michael Gold, once a writer, now columning future ages will be this: why did intellectuals in the Daily Worker, writes with the sports­ in America have no intellect? manship for which that journal is celebrated: ROSH WILDER LANE New York City. "Lyons is the right man to do dirty work for the Fascist MERCURY ••• that notorious character who has displayed such remarkable MATANUSKA IN ALASKA ingenuity in Soviet-baiting has been rewarded by a nne job where his talents will find their SIR: Having spent the past summer in the full expression. •• ." Matanuska Valley and knowing considerable about its political, economic, social and edu­ And that, we admit, is the mildest thing Mr. cational set-up, I cannot let go unchallenged Gold said on the subj ect. At the same time the article "Cabbages and Commissars," by letters have arrived from a number of our Ted Leitzell. I should like to present some domestic peanut-Mussolinis, nightshirt-Hit.. facts concerning Matanuska and let the lers, and other political paranoiacs conveying reader judge for himself as to the future inelegant sentiments in words to match. So prospects of this colony. Out of the 200 long as the brickbats come from the lunatic original families selected 86 have departed. camps of both Right and Left, there is no Of the 60 replacements 10 have left. Of cause for alarm. We trust we may merit them these 260 families, 63 per cent remained as of richly as we mature on this job. July I, 1938. Prior to February I, 1937 the

~ development went forward rather uncer­ tainly due to frequent administrative changes. ARE CONSERVATIVES STUPID? Then Leo Jacobs became the manager of the SIR: Your February number asks, "Are Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, Conservatives Naturally Stupid?" The an­ and progress became more evident. Prior to swer is No, but they are college graduates. 1938, buildings for the colonist, his family, Do you realize that American intellectuals and his live-stock had received major atten­ suff'er a cultural lag of more than two cen­ tion. Since then land clearing has received turies? They have not yet joined the Amer­ the attention. ican revolution. Europeans created the politi­ As the land was cleared and crops came up cal philosophy that created this nation. it became evident that a co-operative associa­ American intellectuals have always remained tion would be the most advantageous plan for European-minded. marketing the produce. In September 1936 America has never had its own voice. No the Matanuska Valley Farmers Co-operative American has spoken. the genuine beliefs of Association was formed, and officers were this people; no American has expressed the elected by the colonists. Units operated by American idea. America endures as a blind the co-operative association include the can­ adherence to principles formulated by nery, the hatchery, the creamery, and the Eighteenth-Century Europeans and since meat department. The trading post, the then perceived only emotionally by Amer­ warehouse, and the garage are now operating icans with no pretensions to intellectual for the ac;sociation, independent of ARRC. prestige or scholarship. Do you know that From January 1938 to June 1938 the trading there does not exist in America one single post did a gross business of $62,000 with a 6 college textbook presenting the American per cent profit, and the garage did a business political philosophy? Not one. of$25,000 with a 5 per cent profit. As soon as If America be doomed, it is destroyed by possible other activities of the community the marvelous development and extension of will be purchased by the co-operative asso­ our marvelous educational system. And I ciation, and managed independently. think that the mystery engrossing scholars in In 1938 the farmers of the Co-operative THE AMERICAN MERCURY

Association produced the following: 3000 tons DO WE LIKE WAR? of hay, 12,000 bushels of barley, 10,000 SIR: Being a soldier in the army of the bushels wheat, 50 tons of canning peas, 500 United.States of America, I feel that I have a tons of potatoes, 200 tons of cabbages, 200 right to complain about your artic~e "Why tons ofcarrots, 200 tons ofrutabagas, 200 tons War Is So Popular." The author never of turnips, and 50 tons of beets. In September stopped to think that army men are in reality 1938 the colony was transferred from the civilians in uniform, and that·we are not a WPA to the Department of the Interior. Mr. bunch of drunkards with immoral thoughts, Jacobs resigned and Federal aid has been as he implied. According to him, soldiers had curtailed. But don't let anyone tell you that a merry time of the last World War. To my these colonists are going to quit their farms estimation a man that can eat stale bread, on account of thisl sleep in the mud, fight in the rain, go for days LAURA B. HARNEY without food or water, and have a good time Mount Vernon, is decidedly a super human being. I.have New York. every respect for a man that can go through all that and still smile. Why not give them a SIR: "Cabbages and Commissars," is a lift instead of a kick? masterpiece of distortion, for I saw a wholly PFC. WILLARD O. THOMPSON different picture last summer. What right has Jefferson Barracks, the author, for example, blandly to label the Missouri. colonists"comrades?" I did not hear the term used there. What he leaves unsaid is equally SIR: My disgust with you that you would calculated to mislead. He did not contrast the print such an article as "Why War Is So orderly, decent appearance of the Colony Popular" is absolutely nauseating. Fools we Center with the slattern town of Palmer shall always have, so, I suppose, there may be across the railroad track. Paragraphs might a few who, unfamiliar with history and un­ have been written about the richness of the aware of the ruin we are in from the last war soil, the business-like way of clearing the land, - which no one I know has emphasized more the blooded stock, lucious vegetables, com­ than you. in your denunciation of this Ad­ munity life, up-to-date school, and modern ministration - may think war a great lark. hospitals. The spotlight is focused on mistakes But ask the veterans; consult the nurses..•• made in the beginning, but nothing is said ROBERT J. CALDWELL about how far the colony has already gone to New York City. rectify them. The hero of the piece is one Pipple, rugged SIR: The article "Why War Is So Popular" individualist, who seems to be the only has pleased me so much that I cannot do any­ colonist capable of making a profit. That he thing but write this letter. I have read a great refuses to play cricket is not recorded. Just many articles for and against war. Of all of because the rules of the game don't suit him, them, none have been so clearly stated or and because he capitalizes his nuisance value presented such definite proof as this one~ doesn't make him a Patrick Henry. His farm, LOUISE SCHNEIDER we are told, may be snatched away from him Pittsburgh. at the whim of the "commissars." Yet in another passage we learn that all the king's horses and men haven't succeeded yet in dis· MEDICINE - NAVY STYLE lodging him. It sounds cockeyed. SIR: In the January MERCURY appears an H. E. KLEINSCHMIDT, M.D. article entitled "State Medicine, Navy Manhasset, Style." I write to express a contrary view of New York. medical practice in the Navy. I have been THE OPEN FORUM many months a patient in a Naval hospital there several years and I know I have given where I came in daily contact with numerous here a faithful and true account of the attitude fellow patients of all grades, no one of whom, of the staff and the patients. in his right mind, had· any but appreciative R. P. PARSONS, and grateful comment to offer. Commander, Medical Corps F. B. UPHAM U. S. Navy Rear Admiral, U. S. Navy, Retired Pearl Harbor, Washington, Hawaii. D.C. SIR: As a physician, until recently in the ac­ SIR: Since the hospital the anonymous tive practice ofmedicine and intimately asso­ author of "State Medicine, Navy Style" de­ ciated with recognized affiliates of Organized scribes is obviously a well-known Naval Medicine, I cannot let pass without criticism hospital on the west coast, and since I am very the gross distortions and mis-statements in­ familiar with that institution, you can "come corporated in the article, "State Medicine, with me" (as he invites his readers to do) and Navy Style." It has been my privilege to be a take a .look at the style of State Medicine patient for four months in the Naval Hospital, practiced in that hospital. Philadelphia. While there I have been able to Living in that city are some 20,000 active­ observe at first hand the unequaled physical duty Naval personnel, perhaps 30,000 of their equipment of a thoroughly up-to-the-minute dependents and about 20,000 retired per­ hospital; it's medical and surgical personnel is sonnel and world war veterans, all receiving unsurpassed by any of the many civilian insti­ practically all their medical care from the hos­ tutions with which I am familiar. pital with its 1400 beds, large out-patient de­ J. ALLAN BERTOLET, M.D. partment, 40 doctors, 60 nurses, and about Philadelphia. 200 attendants and lesser employees. It also uses beds at a neighboring hospital, but under the care of the Naval hospital staff. Every­ POINTERS FOR CONGRESS where there is feverish activity and a grim in­ SIR: Ifthe seventy-sixth Congress wishes to tensity of attention to the job. Throughout make a good record it will: Stop supporting theday, you may go into any of the twelve the Dies Un-American Committee. Return departments and see the doctors sweating, Relief administration to the states. Regain worrying, and hurrying. They are all good; control of the public purse. Balance the Fed­ they have to be or they wouldn't be sent eral budget. Cut expenditures to the marrow. there. The department heads are from the top Throw the National Labor Board in the junk flight of specialists in the Medical Corps, heap. Scrap both the CIO and AFL. Amend many of them outstanding in their special the Wagner Act to make it fair to all. Induce fields, and the juniors who work with them Secretary Perkins to resign. Send the Cor­ consider themselves highly privileged. coran-Cohen boys back to their desks. Stop It would be pointless to enter into a de­ the "bleeding" of business by social security scription of the technical phase of the work. taxes. Enact sensible laws and quick necessary The important thing is that thisho~pital is measures toward relieving railroads of their putting out as high a type of medicine, State troubles. Make adequate but not hysterical or otherwise, as one can produce anywhere. appropriations for national defense. Revise Ninety-nine per cent of the patients are in­ the undistributed profits and other taxes finitely appreciative and grateful, which is which affect businessmen. I~duce Roosevelt good pay in any doctor's league. My descrip­ to retract both recent· messages to Congress. tion of the hospital is scarcely in accord with And last, but no means least, make a real start that by your Mr. Anonymous. But I worked toward a return from bureaucracy. 506 THE AMERICAN MERCURY If those who comprise the new Congress ac~ The poet I'd clout complish these points, they can return to the With pleasure folks they represent, knowing full well they Is one who just doesn't give a hang have accomplished much. About measure. HERBERT J. MANCINI Cleveland. The poet I'd brain­ Say whenl- Is one who rhymes again SCHOOLS For again. SIR: I have been reading your recent ar­ And that doesn't exhaust the list of poetic ticles and letters on prep and military schools. mannerisms to which I am allergic. As a cadet at the Valley Forge Military LAURA SILLS BENTON Academy, I feel they are doing a great injus­ New Orleans. tice to military academies. I resent the fact that they call us "Wooden Soldiers" who have not intelligence to see that a Full Dress Parade DEPARTMENT OF wasn't only for its beauty but that it teaches INTROVERSION a cadet discipline, self control, co-ordination SIR: Random thoughts of an unemployed of the body, alertness and keenness of mind, young man on a chilly afternoon sitting in a and poise. The physical education a cadet re­ heatless Greenwich Village flat: business rise ceives at a military academy makes him supe­ predicted for 1939 ... sorry, sir, job's filled rior to most high-school students. You will ••. try again tomorrow... president find that when a man graduates from a good roosevelt asks congress for millions ••• you military academy, he ends his life successfully walk till you feel pavement burning through and not as an usher or bell-hop. shoe soles •.• it's filled ..• sorry ••. so CADET JOSEPH F. MEYERS sorry •.• you can't walk much farther Wayne, • .• miss jones' debut high spot of new york Pennsylvania. society season ••• fifty thousand spent to make gala evening... • champagne flows • . . fat women .•. fatter bellies ••• you - AND SCHOOLS can't spare nickel for beer ••. beer and An advertisement in the Fort Worth Star~ crackers •.. time to go home •.. sunset Telegram reads: on purple sage •.. dirty dusk on dirty man­ SIMS SCHOOL FOR BOYS advises parents hattan ••• subway clatters on like endless and educators to read "College is No Place to chain •.• vacant faces ••• three flights up Get an Education" in THE AMERICAN MER­ ••. musty dingy room ••. cracked dresser CURY for February. We know most of it is mirror .•• cold water... henry ford true. • .' • millions ••• comfort ••. bulging bellies .•• debuts ••• fox hunts ••. dirty smelly waiting rooms ..• come back to­ COMMON-SENSE POETRY morrow buddy .•. try again •.• walk­ SIR: May I thank you for sticking to rhyme walkwalk .•. sleep sweaty sleep. and reason in your poetry? The versifiers who G. CRAWFORD streamline their stuff have driven me to versi~ New York City. fied frenzy. Here's the proof: The poet I'd kill Nor miss, guys RE-PHRASING MR. HOOVER Is one who rhymes syll­ SIR: I wonder if Mr. Guild, your Open Ables this-wise. Forum correspondent who was expectantly THE OPEN FORUM

awaltmg the delayed delivery of a Dodge an idea that such readers will really be some­ automobile, might be induced to consider the what abusive and rough in their handling of possibility that the delay, in part at least, Mr. Dennis, but he is on sure ground and his could have been due to the technique intro­ arguments cannot be successfully assailed. duced and popularized in the automotive in­ P. G. INGRAM, JR. dustry by the Messrs. Lewis, Martin, Roose­ Chicago. velt, and Murphy? If Hoover had put it another way and had said, HCobwebs will gather on the assembly line while the assem­ ATTENTION MRS. LUCE blers wear calluses on their fannies," etc., SlR: Australia has so far had little ifany op­ maybe Mr. Guild would grudgingly admit portunity of becoming acquainted with lei­ that our only living ex~President had the sured American women. She is now learning makings of a first-rate seer. from the play The Women, by Clare Booth, at ONE WHO DIDN'T LAUGH present running in Melbourne, that they are Columbus, coarse, amoral, vapid, and vain, and that their Ohio. chief interests in life are midwifery, divorce, and beauty parlors. Those of us who have traveled in England HANGED, NOT BURNED and in Europe, and have had the pleasure of SIR: I've just read "How Pure the Puri­ meeting Americans, distinguished for their tans?" by John W. Thomason in the March culture, frstidiousness, and reserve in matters MERCURY. All I can say is, "How Well-In­ affecting 'marital relations, deplore this sordid formed the Editors?" For his and your infor­ presentation of American womanhood. mation no "silly old women" were ever PHILADELPHIA N. ROBERTSON burned at Salem, or anywhere else in this Melbourne, country, as witches. We Puritans may have Australia. drowned and hanged a few, but we never burned 'em. LAMBERT FAIRCHILD IS SEX NECESSARY? New York City. SIR: Well, after long, deliberate, and serious consideration, I still have no definite ideas on whether sex articles are good or bad, in THE AFTER MUNICH MERCURY or elsewhere. But they do make in­ SIR: Collective security to preserve peace teresting reading when you're 23. by war andbrce of arms is the most idiotic FRED C. ALLEN idea ever conceived, and it is the idea most Schumacher, dear to the hearts of the New Dealers and the Ontario. communists. The communists behind a false front of "peace and· democracy" are resorting to every means to conceal themse1vesas ad.. DANGEROUS HISTORIANS vocates of war, so they agitate for defense SIR: The articles of Nathan Schachner pub­ against dictators as .the surest way to world lished in your publication are not in my opin­ war in which Russia and communism will be ion in the best interest of the people· of this the victors. Even though Mr. Dennis' article, country. Anyone who has a real. love of his "After the Peace of Munich," is the best he country would not write or publish such has written for THE MERCURY, the commu­ articles. nists and their dupes will no doubt berate him It took many years for teachers and others for not confining his remarks to a venomous to build up in the minds ofschool children the tirade against Hitler and all his works. I have thought that the founders and others who 508 THE AMERICAN MERCURY played a prominent part in making this coun· THE STORK try what it was before it went into the World SIR: In the light of your outspoken discus­ War were great, honest, and sincere men. sion ofmotherhood and related problems, and Now we have people like Rupert Hughes and similar candor in American life generally, your Schachner telling us all the faults and weak­ readers should be interested in my plaint in nesses of these men. Their. object in doing verse: this, in my opinion, is to besmirch the charac­ ters of these men and to belittle them in the TO A VICTIM OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS eyes of the youth of today. The Stork, among birds once the busiest, C. W. MITCHELL Now languishes idle in her dizzy nest, New York City. Brooding (not breeding) on glories When everyone, not merely Tories, SIR: Why, please, does Mr. Schachner Had need for her specialized service; think the signals were arranged in the church When parents, inhibited, nervous, tower to tell the messengers which road the And others still steeped in old piety British were taking, if Paul Revere and Wi!· Did add to the bird's notoriety. liam Dawes were both ordered to Lexington *** and Dawes had already set out? Where did he, No more are her talents respected get his version of the st~ry anyhow? It sounds Since youth is no longer protected like one that was current some ten years ago From knowledge of facts anatomical; at a time when for some reason or other there Begetting has grown economical was a propaganda drive against Longfellow. Since days when each girl and each boy meant One charge I encountered in a letter from a For storks some busy employment; Virginia correspondent was that the poet in The infants a stork now hatches are Miles Standish tried to claim for Plymouth Only its own; no more hatches are priority over Jamestown as the first English Required to aid the too-reticent; colony, because in one line Plymouth Rock is In short, the stork is now jettisoned. called "the cornerstone of a nation" - not SALLY DANIELS the nation, notice. Los Angeles. So far as I see, there is no ground for sup­ posing Longfellow a propagandist in the in­ terest of New England; on the contrary he FOR MR. STRACHEY was the first American author to influence his SIR: John Strachey in your February issue readers to adopt something like a cosmopoli­ agrees that under certain conditions, namely, tan point of view and see much that was ad­ ever-declining rates of rent, interest, and mirable in other countries; nor did he show profit, the capitalist system wou~d work for a any bitterness toward the South when many long time yet. h it possible that the well­ of his contemporaries - not by any means all known communist, Mr. John Strachey, is New Englanders - did. - weakening? I think the most preposterous slam at this However, one must disagree with Mr. poet that I saw was a furious attack on him Strachey's contention that with declining for not taking as a subject the ride of Emily rates of rent, interest and profit, there should Geiger ofNorth Carolina instead ofRevere's. be no diminishing of volume of investment That would have been a natural story for the spending. The greater maladjustments or landlord of the Sudbury Tavern to tell, "snags" which have arisen in the functioning wouldn't it? of the so-called capitalist system have been L. LAMBREY due to the directing of too much purchasing Limerick, power into channels for investment and too Maine. little into channels of purchasing power for THE OPEN FORUM the consumptive needs of those who work. man, I believe we should not be so presump­ Mr. Strachey sees imperialist expansion as tuous as to seek to change established times the only course for Nazi economy. But im­ and laws. perialist expansion can only end in the condi­ MILDRED C. BALL tion ofstalemate, that the further investment Rutland, of surpluses in Germany would end, for the Vermont. reason that Mr. Strachey himself gives­ that surpluses are invested in expectation of SIR: As though there were not enough further surpluses, and in this respect the world calamities to plague mankind as a result ofthe is one economic unit. many reforms he has insisted upon, along comes your Mr. Turano with the announce­ Modern economies, whether they are of the so-called communist, fascist, National Social­ ment that "The Calendar Is Out of Date." ist, or capitalist production, are a matter of Well, maybe it is, but the fact remains that definite arithmetical requirements for the we have. been able to shift along with it for purchasing power of· those who work. The several centuries without any great incon­ "dictatorship of the proletariat" ifone wishes venience, and to introduce a new· style of to use this term, is an essential fact ofmodern dates merely means that we would have two production, the essential fact of the definite instead ofone system to carry along. Our con­ requirements for the purchasing power of the tinuous prayer and supplication should be: so-called proletariat. Good Lord, in Thy infinite mercy save us from reformers! A. L. HEWETT Bayside, ROYAL P. JARVIS EIOro, New York. Mexico. SIR: Of course we all agree with Mr. THE CALENDAR Turano that the calendar is out of date and SIR: I have been devoted to THE MERCURY that the World Calendar, as reproduced in his for many years now, and for the first time I article, is the most acceptable proposal. of­ wish .. to raise my voice in protest because of fered. But is there any reason why the year the article by Anthony Turano on the subject should begin, as at present, eleven days after of calendar reform. the shortest day of the year? Could we not I am a Sabbatarian, a Seventh-Day Advent­ close the year with the shortest day and begin ist, and a bit concerned as to how the the new year with the turning of the sun and squeeze-play is to be worked on us, a minority the first lengthening day? This would simply in. a democracy that is progressively denying mean shoving the year around II days and every principle of democratic government. calling January 1st the day which now figures Research proves the weekly cycle has notl as December 21st. This would seem a more been tampered .with. And because the Sab­ logical beginning of the year and was evi­ bath comman:dment is the only one to begin dently so considered by peoples in past ages. with remember, and because the Sabbath is a CONRAD WElL, M.D. memorial of the creation of the world and San Francisco. ~~S{~~+~~S{~~+~~S{~~+~~S{~~S{~ ~I THE CONTRIBUTORS .11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~H~

ERNEST SUTHERLAND BATES (The Puritan Mathers), Ohio born, Columbia trained, edited The Bible, Arranged to Be Read As Living Literature • .. CHARLES A. BEARD (We're Blundering Into War), the most distinguished living American historian, will soon bring out America in Midpassage, a review of the past decade written in collaboration with Mrs. Beard. His numerous works in­ clude The Idea of National Interest and The Open Door at Home ••• V. F. CALVERTON (Anonymous as Dust) is founder and editor of the Modern Monthly .•• UPTON CLOSE (The T-Men Will Get You) writes and lectures extensively on foreign and domestic public affairs. He is the author of Challenge: Behind the Face of Japan, Eminent Asians, and other books ... S. BURTON HEATH (Muckraker: Model 1939), of the New York World Telegram, is probably rank­ ing muckraker among American reporters ... FRED C. KELLY (Shall We Drown the Unemployed?) is a well-known magazine writer ... ALFRED KREYMBORG (Complacency) is the noted poet and author ..• HEINZ LIEP­ MANN (Underground Germany), newspaperman and novelist, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, and has lived in America since 1937. His works in­ clude Murder - Made in Germany, Poison in the Air, and Underground Fires •.• CLAY OSBORNE (America's Number One Fool) was born in Indian Terri­ tory and raised in the Oregon backwoods. He now lives and writes in Gardena, California ... KENNETH PATCHEN (Street Corner College) is a well known poet whose latest book, First Will and Testament, will be published in the fall ... JULIAN LEE RAYFORD (Two Alabama Wildcats) is a sculptor whose verse has appeared in many magazines ... WILLIAM G. RYAN (Escape From Loyalist Spain) lives in Milwaukee, where he is writing a book on his experiences with the International Brigade ... W. H. SEAMAN (Move England to Canada!), an English journalist, has worked on newspapers here and in Canada ... JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY (Broadway Tries God) is an instructor in literary criticism at the College of the City of New York and at Brooklyn College, and author of The Art ofEugene O'Neill ... ERIC THANE (Montana Picks a Fight) lives in Mis­ soula, Montana ... STANLEY WALKER (Decline of the Newspaper Souse), author of many books and articles, is an executive of the New York Herald Tribune . •. JOHN T. WINTERICH (The Well-Tressed Man), was formerly editor of the American Legion Monthly . .. THOMAS WOLFE (Portrait of a Literary Critic), the distinguished author of Look Homeward, Angel! and Of Time and the River, died recently at the age of 38. 510 INDEX TO VOLUME XLVI

Americana 90, 21 4, 351, 477 Holbrook, Stewart H.: The Steel­ Anonymous: State Medicine, Navy Strike War. . ~ ...... 40 Style ...... 35 The Homestead Murders Case . 169 Anonymous: I Picket For a Living. 322 Kelly, Fred C.: Shall We Drown Bates, Ernest S.: The Puritan the Unemployed? • ; ••.. 438 Mathers ...... 400 Beard, Charles A.: We're Blunder- Leitzell, Ted: Cabbages and Com- ing Into War...... 388 missars •...... 1 Lerner, Max: Epistle to the Right. 80 Calverton, V. F.: Anonymous as Lewis, Hobart: The Red Geranium 69 Dust 491 Liepmann, Heinz: Underground Chamberlin, William H.: Karl Germany...... 441 Marx, the False Prophet .•. 60 Livingstone, Tristram: A Gift for Hands Off Japan! 304 Parting ...... 97 Check List. . I05;iv, 232; iv, 367; 498 Lutes, Della T.: Vulgar Vittles .. 314 Cherrington, Edith: The Meek .. 360 Lyons, Eugene: Dictators Into Gods 265 Close, Upton: The T-Men Will Get You 471 McCarthy, John R.: Pennyworth. 98 Collings, Kenneth B.: Annual Re- Mencken, H. L.: Bringing Roosevelt port on Air Safety ...... 22 Up to Date 257 Contributors .... 128,256,384,510 Thoughts on Current Discon­ Cook, Whitfield: Here Comes the tents ...... 447 Bridegroom ...... 335 Miller, Lois Mattox: The Paint and Cormier, Victor C.: High Cost of Powder Racket 298 Lawing 293 Nock, Albert Jay: What Is Democ­ Dennis, Lawrence: After the Peace racy? ...... 85 of Munich ...... 12 College Is No Place to Get an Our Nation of Wishful Thinkers 152 Education ...... 207 Devoe, Alan: The Art of Awaken- The Criminality of the State .. 344 ing ...... 93 Culture Migrates to the USA. 481 Biography of a Skunk ..... 217 Men Against the Trees . 355 Open Forum ... 113,241,370,502 Life and Death of a Worm . 487 Osborne, Clay: America's Number One Fool ...... 418 Editorials ...... 74, 129,385 Patchen, Kenneth: Street Corner Ford, Harvey S.: Why War Is So College ...... 491 Popular ...... 136 Pergament, Lola: Love Me As Friedrich, Ralph: Praise for Night. 223 Light 359 Frost, Frances: Oath...... · 97 Pifia, Roberto: Mexico's Runaway New Deal 176 Hall, Frances: Needle In Flesh .. 224 Pollock, Channing: I Am a Re­ Hay, Sara Henderson: On Contem- actionary ...... 282

plating an Open Fire 1 • • •• 223 Post, Isabelle: The Truth About The Two·Gifts 359 Southern Cooking ..... 30 Heath, S. Burton: Muckraker: Pratt, Fletcher: The Million-Word- Model 1939 ...... 421 a-Year Man 161 511 THE AMERICAN MERCURY Rayford, Julian Lee: Two Alabama Thomason, John Wo Jr.: TheMan

Wildcats. .. 0 0 0 0 0 • • 492 Who· Knew Everything 0 0 0 99

Recorded Music 0 • • • • • x, x, x, xiv America For Americans? . 0 • • 225

Russell, Oland Do: King James I of How Pure the Puritans? 0 • 0 0 361

Michigan...... 0 • • • 273 We've Paid Our Debt to Lafa-

Ryan, William Go: Escape From yette .. 0 ••• 0 0 0 0 • 493

Loyalist Spain 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 456 Turano, Anthony M.: The Calendar Schachner; Nathan: Jefferson: a Is Out ofDate 0 • 0 o. 144 Slippery Politician...... 49 Seaman, H. W.: Move England to Walker, Stanley: Decline of the Canada! ...... 410 Newspaper Souse 0 0 449 Shipley, Joseph T.: Broadway Tries Weir, Harriet: How to Beat the God .. 0 ••••• 0 •• 403 Landlord 0 0 0 • • • 0 • • 56 Stevens, James: The San Francisco Winterich, John T.: The Well- Disturbance . 0 • • 0 • • • 329 Strachey, John: The Future of Nazi Tressed Man 468 Wolfe, Thomas: Portrait of a Liter- Germany. . 0 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 200 Stuart, Jesse: The Judge Takes a ary Critic . 0 0 0 • • • 0 • 429

Holiday 0 0 0 0 0 0 ••• 0 189 Thane, Eric: Montana Picks a Zeisler, Karl F.: The Saga of Model

Fight ... 0 •• 0 • 0 • 0 463 To ... 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 183 The BetlJeL.etn Steel 2uiz TRY ITON THE FAMILY

This is the season when country (b) By dipping in a strong solution of car- bolic acid. homes and gardens receive special (c) By a coating ofenamel. attention, when the city man feels 2. This is the season for installing woven­ a yen for the outdoors, and when the wire fencing for controlling pastures and o~tdoors man has much work to do~ rotating crops. Clean, bright wire fence is also made for poultry yards and for protect­ In many families one member may ing lawns. Chain link fence, frequently used be an authority on flowers, another as tennis court enclosures, is also used for four of the five following purposes: on radio; a third may be the oracle (a) Around country estates on soil conservation. Here is a (b) As protection for school yards chance to become an authority on (c) In city pm'ks steel in the home and on the range. (d) On sheep ranches (e) In zoos Count 20 paints for each question. 3. Which one of the following statements 40 is the passing grade, anything best distinguishes steel from iron? better is commendable, 60 to 100 (a) Steel is harder than iron. 'gives grounds for an authoritative (b) In general, steel contains less carbon than iron. manner. (c) Steel is a more highly refined product than iron. Carrec/answers on page xiv. I 4. Copper.bearing steel sheets are frequently used for roofing, gutters, rain spouts and I. New homes are being bui!t throughout the land. The carpenter nails the lath' in place, yentilators. The purpose of copper in the traditionally keeping a reserve supply ofnails steel sheets is: in his mouth. To minimi~e possible 'infection (a) for appearance (c) for strength from this habit the steel trade sells sterilized (b) for ductility (d) for resistance to rust lath nails. The nails are sterilized by: 5. What steel company produces a full line (a) Being hestedin a cylinder andthen packed of road steels, such as reinforcing bars, and in paper-lined kegs without human guards used in highways which connect the handling. cities with the great open spaces? ix NOW YOU CAN PUT

BEFORE BUSINESS WH,EN YOU TRAVEL NEW HAVEN In the Streantlined air-conditioned coaches now in service on all principal through trains. In the Streantlined air-conditioned Grill Cars where cafe­ teria prices prevail - for· everything . from a cup of coffee to a complete meal ••• from an ice cream soda to a Scotch and soda! Behind Streantlined locomotives that take you in smooth speed ••• safely over the famous boule­ vard of steel!

THE nEW HAUEn R. R. x "• ••. and Superb Service Is One Reason I Always Go Hapag-Uoydl" 4k tkJlapfllj-iloyd l,r(Jm~ ~

ROM Hapag-Lloyd Commuters you will These ships provide Luxury, Speed, Comfort, in frequent sailings with arrivals of clocklike F learn about the deep and satisfying en­ precision in England, Ireland, France, Germany. joyment ofan Atlantic crossing to Europe. BREMEN • EUROPA • Giant Lloyd Expresses to They form a majority ofHapag-Lloyd Cherbourg, Southampton and Bremen,· with the passengers andthey will tell you that these swift COLUMBUS adding calls at Ireland. lines have thoroughly mastered the art of NEW YORK •. HAMBURG • DEUTSCHLAND • pleasing. This year, go Hapag-Lloyd­ HANSA • Popular Hapag"Famous Four" to Cher­ bourg, Southampton and Hamburg, frequently then you, too, will want to repeat your adding Ireland. ST. LOUIS· BERLIN • Our lowest trip many, many times. rate liners. Germany via Galway-Southampton. The 1939 edition of "Your Trip To Europe" is ~owavailable. Send for this 230-page book of helpful, up-to-date information about European and trans-Atlantic travel. Write Dept. XK-4. YOUR, TRAVEL AGENT, or HAMBURG- AMERICAN LINE ". NORTH GERMAN LLOYD 57 Broadway 669 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Offices and Agencies in P~incipal Cities of United States and Canada ~

xi ~~(Mk~~~~.~~~.~~~ti The LITERARY BAZAAR FIRST EDITIONS :: RARE BOOKS AUTOGRAPHS .. LITERARY SERVICES

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POETRY criticized, marketed by Lucia Trent and Ralph Cheyney, former editors Poetry World, etc. Praised by Dr. Thomas Curtis Clark, "Dean of American Antholo­ gists", as "perhaps the finest service poetry is receiving these days." Also Depts. for fiction, articles, books. Collaboration on percentage. When writing us, describe your material. NEW YORK PUBLISHING SERVICE, Literary Agents, 246 Fifth Avenue, New York City. OUT-OF-PRINT WE SPECIALIZE and are successful in finding promptly the "Out-of-Print" or "Hard-to-Find" books which you particularly desire. Please write us stating "Wants." No *** indicate an outstanding performance, obligation. THE SEVEN BOOK-HUNTERS, Station 0, Box ** a competent performance, * an acceptable 22, N. Y. C. performance. iii denote exceptional record­ THE BOOKS YOU WANT AND CAN'T FIND ­ scarce, unusual, and out-of-print titles on all subjects ing, ii efficient recording, i poor recording. may now be quickly located through our FREE Search Service. Send list of your Wants - no obligation. BOOK RESEARCH BUREAU, Box 53, Madison Square Station, ORCHESTRAL New York City. ***tttSymphonyNo. 102, in B Flat, Haydn: FILEWORTHINESS (Victor Album 529, $6.50). The finest record­ Not all items in the average newspaper ing of the ante-Beethoven orchestra ever are fileworthy. But there are, on the aver­ made. These disks have an importance beyond age, about six items in each issue of a the Symphony they contain; they bespeak newspaper that I find necessary to clip new progress in reproduction. The impetuous and put into properly identified folders in performance is immediately recognized by my Newsclip Filing System. The average good magazine gives me about twice as anyone who has heard the original' as the many fileworthy clippings. It's important work of Serge- Koussevitzky and the Boston to be able to call such clippings back into Symphony Orchestra. use at onetime or another, and it's here that an efficient, handy, simple, filing kit (Continued on page xv) is essential. The H-J Newsclip Filing Sys­ tem is right down your alley. It solves the'------problem of how best to file clippings so they may be available in a few secondsl~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ when wanted for reference purposes. Sendl~ me only $1 (plus 25c for packing, h:.tndling and carriage) and I'll send you the H-J Newsclip Filing System, containing 100 WILL YOU LAUGH? folders, gummed labels, and full instruc­ tions on how to put away 5,000 fileworthy clippings. Address: E. Haldeman-Julius, Box 6, Girard, Kansas. ... Rather-r! From the throats of the musical, the Answers to Bethlehem Steel Quiz tone-deaf, the sophisticate and other­ (See page ix) wise - deep chuckles emanate when 1. (a) The heating process is used. Carbolic they hear acid would not be good on the tongue, and enameling would not be a sterilizing process. 2. (a, b, c &. e) Chain link fence is closely woven ALEC TEMPLETON'S and has strength. These qualities would not Recorded Musical Caricatures be necessary for a sheep ranch which could just as effectively use a lighter, more open Don't miss the TNT in "The Shortest mesh of wire fence. Wagnerian Opera" -- the valiant, but 3. (c) Usually the term iron is understood to slightly sour efforts in "An Amateur apply to the trade product and not to theo­ Performance oj Gilbert" and Sullivan" retically pure metallic iron. Commercial iron is currently a very minor percentage of iron - just two oj eight convulsive numbers! and steel production, as most industrial users 4 Double Discs - 8 Numbers require the better physical properties· to be found in steel. Answer (a) would be incorrect Complete with De Luxe Album - $5 because some grades of steel are softer than some grades of iron. Exclusive with 4. (d) For resistance to rust. Tests at Pitts­ burgh, Annapolis and other points by the ~bt ~ramopbone ~4op American Society for Testing Materials de­ veloped. that under exposure to atmospheric 18 EAST 48th STREET, NEW YORK corrosion copper-bearing open-hearth steel Come in and hear them - or ask us to outlasted competitive steels by substantial send them. We shiP immediately margins. 5. Bethlehem Steel Company. **ttCotillon, Chabrier: (Columbia Album X-I 13, $3.25). Four delightful pieces by one Two Musical of the finest of minor composers, assembled Masterpieces Qfthe Month and familiarized by the Ballet Russe, played here with competent verve by Antal Dorati on and the London Philharmonic Orchestra,· and recorded with a proper combination of Victor Records brightness and solidity~

***ttRosamunde: Ballets No. I and 2, Schu­ Albert Spalding bert: (VictorI2534, $1.50); Corio Ian Overture, Beethoven: (Victor 12535, $1.50). These two disks take rank as the best of their rich com­ ...Vienna positions. A fine Schubert conductor, Bruno Walter, redeems some recent poor work Choir-Boys coincident with a change to the London Symphony Orchestra. His measured pace gives full value to the exquisite Ballets (whose identities are exchanged on the labels). The Corio/an is singularly well-knit, coming from Concerto No.8 (Ludwig Spohr) ,Violin solo byAlbert Spalding with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene this romantic conductor. The recording is Ormandy, Conductor. Album M-544, 4 sides • $4.50 resonant and meritorious, without surprises.. Stabat Mater (Pergolesi) sung by Vienna Choir Boys, with Orchestra, Viktor Gomboz, Conductor. Album VOCAL M-545 (AM-545 for:automatic operation) 6 sides, $6.50 ***:t::t: Excerpts from Parsifal and Lohen­ grin, Wagner: (Victor Album 516, $4.50). Lauritz Melchior, one of the best Wagner­ ian tenors despite the suggestion of coryza in his lower tones, sings two separate sec­ tions (Amfortas! Die Wunde! and the Schlussgesang) from Parsifal; and a mov­ ing Abschied (without the coryza) from the lyric Lohengrin. The value of the records is multiplied infinitely by the thoroughgoing accompaniment of the Phila­ delphia Orchestra under Ormandy.

***:t::t: Sigurd: Le bruit des chants, Reyer; and Mireille: Anges du Paradis, Gounod: (Columbia 9147M, $1.50). The Reyer with its reminder of the Damnation of Faust is not a contemptible item. The control and RCA Victrola U-123 with $17.50 in Victor or enunciation of a pleasing tenor, Georges Bluebird Records CombinesVictor Record and radio entertainment.Has Thill, .are exceptionally good; and the ac­ automatic record changer and Electric Tuning. Price companiment provided by an orchestra un­ includes $17.50 worth of any Victor or Bluebird Rec­ der Eugene Bigot is resonant and full. ords you choose and all Victor Record $12995* Society benefits ..•••••. "~very Feldeinsamkeit, Brahms; Waldein­ Listen to the "Magic KeyofRCA Sunday, 2 to 3 ***:t::t: P. M., E.S. T.,ontheNBCBlueNetwork. *Pricef·o.b. samkeit and Zum Schlafen, Reger: (Victor Camden, N. J., subject to change without notice. 15218, $2.00). Caressing lieder-singing by Maria Mueller, not long ago a soprano adornment of the Metropolitan Opera. The well known Feldeinsamkeit is pleasant as usual; but the surprise is in the beauty of the two Reger songs. A fine record, heartily recommended. - C. G. B. xv ¢ For a Book Reprints of Absorbing Fiction

2 -EVERYTHING IS THUNDER, by 10 -THE GENERAL, by C. S. Forester. J. L. Hardy. "The most absorbing book I've A vitriolic novel of romantic bravery, frankly read in five years." - O. O. McIntyre exposing the inside story of war. 3 - 13 STEPS, by Whitman Chambers. 11 - MANTRAP, by Sinclair Lewis. An A powerful, startling novel paced by breathless exciting story of romance and adventure by action and a strange love story. America's foremost living novelist. ' 12 -I COVER THE WATERFRONT, 4 - COMPANY K, by William March. by Max Miller. "Get the book and read it "An extraordinarily moving and an important ... for humor, good sense, wisdom and enter· book.... "- Sat. Rev. of Literature tainment." - Burton Rtlscoe . 5 - THIEVES LIKE US, by Edward 13 - TO THE VANQUISHED, by Anderson. "The most exciting new figure to I. A. R. Wylie. A novelthrough whose heroic appear in American writing since Hemingway pages sound the drums of histoty. and Faulkner." -Sat. Rev. of Literature 14-DEATH IN THE DEEP SOUTH, 6 - WEEPING IS FOR WOMEN, by by Ward Greene. Mob passion, violence, and Donald Barr Chidsey. What an illicit love under-cover politics in a mystifying murder affair did to the plans of a lifetime. case. 15 - INDELIBLE, by Elliot H. Paul. A 7 - DIAMOND JIM BRADY, by Par­ novel oforiginal humor and strikingtragedy set ker Morell. The robust, scandalous life of America's greatest playboy. against a background ofunforgettable romance. 16 - ONCE TOO OFTEN, by Whitman 8-HOT SATURDAY, by Harvey Fer­ Chambers. A fast-moving novel of romance gusson. A realistic statement ofa youthful and tragedy by the author of "Thirteen Steps. " sex crisis. 17 - THE PRODIGAL PARENTS. Sin· 9 - CRISS-CROSS, by Don Tracy. A clair Lewis' latest best-seller-a story of the hard-hitting novel of love and adventure. revolt of parents against the revolt of youth. Order now while the supply lasts. All 16 hooks $4.00 - any 12 books $3.00 - any 8 hooks $2.00­ any 4 books $LOO. Every order for four hooks or more will be packed in a handsome library case.

MERCURY BOOKS 570 Lexington Avenue, New York Please send me the books whose numbers I have encircled below. I enclose $ in full payment (at 25c per COpy) - no additional charge for postage. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

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City and State •.•..•••.•...... •.•.•••••.•••••.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ~ ••••••••• •••••••••• • This offer good only in United States and possessions AM 4-39 xvi 'Continued (rom Bock Cover) ing powers of concentration trial-in your mind - for five '. ]. Ennever, the author of back into focus - banish self­ days-FREE! II' Mind and How to Use consciousness and feelings of - is world famous as the inferiority - and by doing SEND NO MONEY­ IdeI' of Pelmanism - the these things MULTIPLY your wned system of mind- and earning power and your chances TAKE NO RISK for success! nory-training that has Merely mail the postcard be­ ed more people to conquer, Mr. Ennever shows you low - without payment of any less and utilize their minds HOW TO LEARN. And then kind. When your copy of Your I any other. Now he has REMEMBER what you have Mind and How to Use It ar­ e his tremendous wealth of learned. And then SE what rives (in its plain container)­ :rience available to every you have remembered, with in­ read and test it for 5 days. If, desirous of acquiring the creased effectiveness! rn every after this examination, you do I-power that IS theirs by one of his book's 108 complete not honestly believe it can :- and putting it to work, divisions there is set forth in change your whole life - re­ clear language the easily-mas­ uctively. Step by step his turn it without further obliga­ book reveals the secrets tered processes by which YOU can keep your mental machine tion. Otherwise, after 5 days, give you a lightning-ac­ send only 1 and the balance in memory - bring wander- running at top speed, smoothly, two payments - $1 one month accurately, without exer­ later, and 95 cents one month tion - along the high­ after that. way to a successful, well-rounded life. You take absolutely no risk - yet an entire new world Either the guidance may be revealed to you, if you are seeking is here you mail this postcard now! - or you pay nothing for having made the investigation. Put DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & CO., Inc. Your Mind and Dept A.M.4, GARDEN CITY, How to Use It on New York ~8~~"·························"··" .; FREE EXAMINATION CARD • • DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & CO., Inc. • Dept. A.M.4, Garden City, New York ______•1 Please send me at once. for 5 days' reading Your Mind and How to Use It, by W. J. Ennever. When my copy arrives (in plain container) I will read it for Who Is I 5 days, with the distinct understanding that if I then wish to return it, I may do so and there will be no obligation whatsoever. Otherwise I will send you only $1 w. J. ENNEVER? • as first payment - $1 one month later - and 95 cents one month after that, as DER of Pelmanism­ payment in full. ~tem of mental training I ~~b;:~~:~:t~~~i~~:~~ • Name....•...... •...... • rltries. Used by more than •

)=:I';,{r. Ennever has • Address · .. ·· . this book. from the vast • ~~: ~fr~Ogy~~r::: ~~~~~; I City State , . :;~r~ ~~~Yk:~~:~~~:~ • D Check here if for your own convenienct;: you p~efer mak~ng a single reJJ;littance ,0 profitable daily use. • instead of three. In that case enclose thJS card In an outSIde envelope Wlth your check or money order for $2.95 as payment in full. Same 5-day examination • privilege applies. of course. •I \1"'ft~"'1! UnableCO\tClll1l\lU1ito ')· WEAk IN MEMOR~ ?

SELF-CONSCIOUS?

Ba.nish mind-wandering, day·dre ing, and develop a new capacity CONCENTRATION that enables you to think straig UlHICH of these "Mind­ your work resulting in a stick to the problem at hand. "Weaknesses" are keep­ LACK of results? more done. ... ingYOUfromgettingahead? Overcome the time-waste and e Does self-consciousness Let This Amazins Book barrassment of a "mind like obstruct your every move? sieve," and. aCQ.uire a Help You! MEMORY Does a "memory like a that holds like a steel trap­ sieve" embarrass you? Is Instead of allowing your livers facts, names, words and nUl indecision the handicap mind to hinder you at every bers Quickly and..accurately.. that makes your superiors step of the way - you CAN Shake off the feeling of inferior unwiUing to give you any­ make it a powerful driving and failure that springs from force. SELF·CONSCIOUSNESS thing but routine work? Is and make your mind so confid failure to concentrate on (Continued on other side) that you take your pan in aff'aJ without hesitation.or .timidity.. ~ Free yourself from "weath ...... vane" changeabilih'. certainty and wcakn PiJ'lltCla.. • through greater PERMIT No. 3 STRENGTH OF WIL • that comes from knowLl (Sec. 510 P. L. & R) • your own mind, how Garden City. N. Y. make it help you act • f Olee and decision. • Take a prominent and t spected place in any grou business or social. throll BUSINESS REPLY CARD CONVERSATION No P.....,. SUmp NHded If M.lled In United SUtes that reveals an intcresti well-trained. original mil that has ideas worth list ing to. ... ConQuer any tendency to Postage Will Be Paid By back and let others alw take the lead, by bring,i your DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & CO. INITIATIVE to the fore - giving y mind greater courage. m GARDEN CITY, N. Y. ~~~~~S:i v~~eS:c:tr~~~er~~ own.to Systematize YO thinking, get your ment OMNIBOOKS hou.:4C in order '/.'!5 •