VAK NEV^ RSGI0NALI3M: THE 3CUTHV.^;':T RKVIM* 1950-1960

by

STELLA PBAJTE SI-'ITH, B- A.

A THESIS IK ENGLISH

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Technological College in ^*artial Fiafillment of the Requirements for the Degree of JUSTER OF ARTS

i\ pproved

August, 1962 ^. ^ PREFACE

The central purpose of this thesis is to show that ^^® Southwest Review has through its years of existence de­ veloped into a channel for the expression of a new concept of regionalism, usually called the New Regionalism, and to show how the decade from 1950 to I960 in a sense climaxes this development. The thesis begins with a survey of the historical development of regionalism as a literary move­ ment. This discussion, which comprises Chapter I, is fol­ lowed in Chapter II by an account of the history of the Re­ view, with particular attention devoted to the evolution of regional theory as the editors have interpreted it through the years. The next two chapters analyze the content of the Review during the decade beginning with 1950: Chapter III dealing with material that is purely regional as to subject matter and—for the most part—as to the authors* backgroundjujiijiijuu and Chapter IV with v.a*iting which is non-regional in empha­ sis (although approximately half of it comes from southwest­ ern writers) . Chapter V sunimarizes the pattern of the con­ tributions during the 1950's with regard to origin and pro­ fessions, discusses the editorial policies revealed through editorial comment and in the total content of the magazine, and offers conclusions for regarding the Review as a voice of the New Regionalism in the Southwest.

ii iii It should be noted that Chapters III and IV are con­ cerned almost entirely with essays and articles, rather than with fiction and verse, because the New Regionalism is most cogently and succinctly revealed through critical discussion rather than literary genres. One exception in this respect is made, however, since the current attitude of the Review toward the minority races of the region is so well revealed in some of the stories; these are examined in the portion of Chapter III considering this problem.

The writer wishes to acknowledge the helpful direc­ tion of Dr. Everett A. Gillls, as well as the valuable assist ance of the other members of her committee, Dr. Kline Nail and Dr. Charles Qioalia. She would also like to express her thanks to Dr. Seymour Connor, Director of the Southwest Collection of Texas Technological College, to Ir. R. S. Dunn, the Archivist of the Southwest Collection, and to the Secre­ tary-Curator, Mrs. Mary Doak Wilson, for their help when she was collecting material for the thesis, and for their cour­ tesy and kindness during the time she spent there. Finally, she thanks her family for bearing with her during the months when she was preparixng and vriting this tihesis, and for maintaining an atmosphere of cheerful cooperc tion in the home. t/^lZ OF COhTJiSTS

PRKFACS 11 Chapter Pago I. LiTERAHi Ri::oictiAiiaH IM Tim mmd BTf^tm ... 1 Definition ••••••••• 1 Ba«kgro\iiuie of Aisaerlcan Rugionalism • • • . 3 Thtt ^li«w Mgionmlimi . 13 Th« Regional M&gmzin^B ••.•.»..••• 20 The Southweat and the ^Kew Regionaliesi • . • 25 II. HISTCK.i OF THE SO0TH1S3T EWIE¥8 1915-1960 . . 32 T^e Texas Ee,yieitf • . • . 32 The ,a?u,^h^sl^ H^Ylgw 3^ larly Mitors, 1924-1927 3B The ^cOinnia ^xa, 1927, 1943 42 Later Miters, 1942*1960 57 III. TH^ 50UTmvE:jT EKVIi::v- 11^ THE Ls>CAD^ OF THK FIFTIES — tHii. ^n*;:V. KSGlC.I-iAL« FCCU3 59 Articles on Regional Culture 59 ii^aminatioB of the Past • • • • 74 The Regional 3cene 80 Racial Minorities • . • . • 82 IV. Ir^iIa^lIC^^•> OF THK vurjms^kh 95 European -.riters ^.n^d ^^riticism 96 ;\i3erican writers and Criticism • 9^^ Assays on General Criticism ••.••••• 102 Eeligion 106 !^ucation 107 I>conoi&ic« 109 Intem.ational f;ri.,drs • • . • • Ill Vorld Feder-ri^tion •...•.«••....• 115 Civil Libc^rties 116 Liberalisii: and the i-cw ^"onservatis?, .... 118 V. 'X'uOlMSKJ- 121 hlhUA.C'U^rm 132

iv CHAPTER I LITSRARY RSGIONALISM IM THE UNITED STATES

Definition

"Regionalism," according to the dictionary, is "con­ sciousness of and loyalty to a distinct sub-national or supra national area, usually characterized by a common culture, background or interests," or "the theory or practice of se­ lecting a particular locale or region for subject matter and stressing its characteristic aripects in art or literature." Mary Austin, a remarkable and dedicated interpreter of the Southwest, once defined a regional culture as "the sum, ex­ pressed in ways of living and thinking, of the mutual adapta- 2 tions of a land and a people." The United States is a natio composed of regions, each having characteristics that make it unique: the Northeast and its New England; the southeast and its "Old South"; the Middle States and their "Kiddle hest"; the Far West and its Oaiiiornia; the Jiorthwest ana it6 Great r'lains; the Scutirv/est anci its iexas.3 ;i constant pnenomenon in our literatur'e since the American ]:evolution, literary

•^Viebster *5 Third hea Internatior:al Dictionary, In- abridged, G. & C. ^8^riam Co., pub. (Sprin^^fieid, lass., 1961), p. 1912. IVary Austin, 'Vre^ional Culture m the '^ouLi'.Vvest," Southvvest Review (iuinaarj 1929), pp. 474-47a. Hereafter the Southwest Review will be cited as 3^R. hoiard V. Cdum and Harr;, hstilj. hoor.:, iu eri c a'l i e- jTionalism (lew Yorl;, 193^), P* 3« Her'::, fter cited aa whujr end b\oore y Anierican ae/;ionali3n.. regionalism is important as one of the prime sources of crea­ tive inspiration. Musing upon man^s attachment to his native soil, J. Frank Dobie wrote: As rural life gives way to urban life and as mobility overcomes stability, human attachments to certain patches of the earth*s surface become less common. Yet the potentiality of such attachment remains uni­ versal. ... It is behind much of patriotism. Ivith some people it goes deeper than principles and embodies the profundity of life.^ Because regionalism springs from a kind of state of mind brought about in the writer by the effect of the cli­ mate, the lay of the land, and its past history on the indi­ vidual spirit, a regional writer would be one who attempts to impart these colorful qualities to others through his writing—one who is affected by theaa himself, and whose basic values are in turn associated with them. A writer need not necessarily be born in a region in order to interpret it, but he must feel a sense of kinship with it; he must, ii order to be able to interpret it with any degree of sensi­ tivity, be affected by it. >;hether a native or not, a writer must be sympatico with a region in order to grasp tao truths about it. Regions do, as a matter of course, prociuce their own interpreters, who find that the very marrow of their thought is derived from the lar • that nurtured them. Dobie, for example, speaking of the ranch where he vvas born, says that, although he did aot know at at the time, he began liste ing to that piece of land talk when he was the mej-est chil: ,

^J. Frank aobie, "A riot of ..rth," o R (Coring, 1953), p. ^9. and that until his death his roots in it, invidible and un- material, will be ineradicable.^

Backgjrounds of American Literature

The regional impulse has been a noticeably active force in American letters for one hundred and fifty years. The interested scholar can trace its development from the romantic sectionalism of the first half of thie nineteenth century, through the realistic localism of the second half, to the "local color" and "counterromanticism" prevalent dur­ ing the last decades of the century. Localism did not lead into a particularly significant literature, and American writing during the first decade of tlie nineteen hundreds v.as weak and inferior. About 1912, a "loving localism," tran­ scendental in emphasis, made its appearance. This movement did not necessarily lead tov/ard regional interpretation, but rather toward universal insight. JuFt before 1920, re­ gie nalisiu returned, but vdth new conceptions,

American literature in the period i.naaediately follovv-- ing the Revolution and for the first h:If of the nineteenth century was mainly romantic in spirit. The v.orks of ".'aching- ton Irvirie,, Jai'^es Fenimore Cooper, and v^illiaa Culler, ryant gave imerican romanticism characterization by just a few simp traits. It follov/ed in general the tendencies of the urcpf^

^Ibid., p. 90. movement, but reflected native characteristics that gave to the literature a distinctive American flavor. There was in it no profound passion, no philosophy nor revolt, especially no morbidness. The American writers apparently wished to establish a national literature upon the basis of American self- reliance and independence by virtue of which the colon­ ists had carved a civilization out of a virgin wilder­ ness, had freed themselves from foreign domination, had founded a Union from diverse creeds and peoples, and had pushed expansion westward into a new prindtive area.^ One feature of American romanticism was that ... a major portion of American romantic writings directed the characteristic romantic sm^ge of pov/ei ful emotion and passion tov/ard the expression of individual pride and patriotism, thus maki:]g the writing highly national, full of local color and the folklore elements of the times.'

Litarary nationalism, growing out of the Romantic Movement, spawned the first phase of regionaliam in the Unite( Gtates—sectioraiism. That the nuvr nation had no single uni­ fying cultui^e, but v-.as a composite of the cultures of its different sections, hah soon become apparent to thuse hi.ari- can i:ritera 'v/ho were eager to express the spirit of their nsv; nation, but i,/ho, in attei-ptinr to do so, al^^ays fouiiu tnSii.- selves interpreting that particular portion of it with Lvnich they were individually iamiliar.

^Edwin hilliTiar Gaston, Jr., "The Carly I^ovel of the Southwest; A dritical Stac:/'' (unpublished host oral disserta­ tion, English hei^artraant, Texas Technological College, 195>) , pp. 19-20. "^Ibid., p. 20. The cultural sections of the United States at that time were hev England, hew York, the South, and the West. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the New i^ng- land writers were inclined to regard their work as being re­ presentative of America as a whole, and to ignore the fact that theirs was but one of several voices comprisii.g a na­ tional harmony, although I'largaret Fuller and Ralph waldo Emer- son recognized the possibility of literary value in the re­ gional history and pioneering experience of the other section; For the most part, Kew England writers aid not consider their own v/ork as "New England literature," but were rather inter­ ested in glimpsing the oversoul in any object or in creating an American literature through any native media. The most distinguishing feature of hevi England literature was its con- nection with religion and scholarship. l^ev; York writers were more amenable to the concept of sectionalism, but they sometimes deplored the tendency in western ana southern auth­ ors to attach undue iuiportance to matters of local origin. Irving, Cooper, and Bryant were all associated vvita Mev. York. The West and the Sout^^ produced more material reflect int sectioralism than did the other regions. Is Ohio, in the pages of his Vvestern hlonthly hevievv (1827-1^30), llmot y lin expressed the conviction that a nationality was a u..;tter of

^Benjamin T, Spencer, "Rep;.; onadis:: in irieric..n Litera ture," he ^'d.o rial ism in Aiuerica, ed. Rerriil Jensen •^adi;-on: Universitv^'cf Wisconsin ^ress, i9:;l) , ?p. 223-2d4. Hereafter cited as Spencer, "Repionalism in ..mcrican nateroture." one*s instinctive affection for that part of the country one regarded as home, and that there was no conflict between such an attachment and love for the Union as a whole. Daniel Drake, in a speech at Transylvania College in Lexington, Ken­ tucky in 1^33, said that the West (in which he included westei Pennsylvania and western Virginia) could best serve the Union by becoming united with itself, and that the people in the re­ gion should "foster western genius, encourage western readers, 9 and create a western heart." In the eighteen fifties, John Pendleton Kennedy, of Maryland, in writing of the South narrowed his interpretation of that section to the Virginian, in whom he found most of its virtues. William Gilmore Simms, of Charleston, South Carolina, was probably the outstanding spokesman in the effort to reconcile sectionalism and nationalism in American letters, Following Cooper in scale and manner, he undertook to depict the settlement of the southern territory and its Indian and revolutionary history. In Richmond, Virginia, Edgar Allan Poe took care to distinguish between "nationalism' and "sec­ tionalism," and to point out in what sense a v/riter might ' e local anc yet rise to the universal. .Centimentdlity is a marked feature of the liter, turc of this early peri on, and continued to he so until the time of the Civil .ar.

^Ibid., p. 222 In considering the theoretical backgrounds of con­ temporary regionalism in the United States, Odum and Moore point out that the develojwnent of sectionalism is basic to the evolution of regionalism, but that it does not necessarily coincide with it. Inherent in sectionalism, they think, is the idea of separatism and isolation, of separate units with 11 separate interests. Certainly, by the middle of the nine­ teenth century, there was discord among the sections. The South was becoming extremely wary of the material published by New England abolitionists, and southern writers felt that their vjork was being arbitrarily discounted by northern pub­ lishers. New York authors complained of New England discrimi- nation, and ^vesterners resented being snubbed by the East.1 2 •Sectionalism, as a literary tenet was shattered when the Civil Var broke out. After the Civil Var, sectionalism as a literary tenet had suspicious tinges of treason about it, and vjas avoided. It was succeeded by a realistic method of interpretation called "localism," v,rhich dealt with facts that could be proved and seen. Localism soon bred "local color"; great care v^as given to reproducing local aialects, and writing became re- pertorial in style. James Whit comb Riley and Edward %glLesto. whose works portrayed the dialect and nanners of the Hoosiers

•^^Odum and Poore, American Ke,,xQnnlisi J, p. 35. l^Ibid., p. 39. l^Spencer, ''he.LUonalism in in^ieric n Literaturs," p. 2; of the Central West, were typical local colorists of the clos­ ing decades of the 1^0»s, although Eggleston's work held sug­ gestions of regional context. Writers produced a mass of dis­ parate provincial and local utterances which they felt were typical of the voice of America. The dominant figure of Ameri can literature during the l^iSO's and 1^90*3 was William Dean 13 Howells, -^ who favored the trend toward local realism because he thought this decentralization of American letters would ultimately lead to a more authentic national literature. Since publishing centers had always been situated in the north, southern writers after the Civil War had the prob­ lem of finding publishing outlets. Kot wishing to secede from United States letters, southerners such as Joel Chandler Harris and George W. Cable managed to get published by observ­ ing a sort of gentleman's agreement not to keep any controver­ sial issue alive. They carefully disassociated themselves from the suspicious principles of sectionalism. Harris, feel­ ing that sectionalism, as the most observable feature of modern politics, should never intrude into literature, ad­ vised the southern v/riter to capture the flavor of localism.. Ironically, the local color realists provided many of their

•J r\ •^-"'Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds (Garden City: Doubleday &.• Co., Inc, 193^), p. viii. Kazin says that Howells was the first f_;reat recorder of the ii:or 1 transformation of American life, thought, and manners under the impact of in­ dustrial capitalisiii and science. Book is hereafter cited as Kazin, On hative Grounds. readers with a romantic respite in the Great Smokies, or in 14 a pioneer village, or in a Maine fishing port. However, early nineteenth century sectionalism did not vanish entirely. That portion which held that inter­ pretation of a region is achieved through an experienced understanding of the country (and this is basic to true re­ gionalism) survived. In the l^BO's, for example, the West­ ern Association of Writers was formed, and it met annually for twenty years, discussing and defining the common inter­ ests and points of view which continued to give cultviral co­ hesion to the Ohio Valley. Its primary aim was to stimulate an indigenous regional literature, free from eastern critical domination and eastern thought.

There were, also, some critics who thought that Ameri­ can literature would be stronger if it were a composite, not of the infinite diversities of localisn, but of the virility of the North, the audacity of the West, the breeziness of the 15 Pacific 3 and the languid sensitiveness of the South. ^ Sarah Orme Jewettj Mark Twain, Ellen Glasgow, and Prank horris vere among those writers speaking out for an experienced (or rooted and grounded) regionalisi;, as op:;^osed to an applied ai d self- conscious local color. At the turn of tne century, there occurred a aecided return to romanticism: ^Spencer, "Regionalism in •.r.erissn Literature,'' p. 2^

^^Ibid., p. 235. 10 • • . the Spanish-American War, so minor a war and so major in its consequences, had helped to make the dif­ ference; it showed with what carefree romanticism and self-aeeurance a country beginning to feel its power could embark on the great new adventure of imperialism. This mood of proud restlessness, of yearning for romance and adventure, became the dominant mood of the time; and it helps to explain why the period that saw the rapturous apprenticeship of so many young writers to European natu­ ralism and decadence also witnessed so striking a passion for the synthetic romanticism of the historical novel. . . . The countiy had become rich too quickly, had leaped too suddenly from the old frontier life; and if it could afford the romance of foreign travel, it also needed nos­ talgic delights. Just as the popularity of historical novels reflected the itch for social distinction and ancestor worship,, so the writers who now invaded Europe were looking for the romantic splendors—if only in French decadent poetry—that they missed at home. The contemporary scene could afford romance and exoticism, but could not supply them. . . . And the young writers • . . felt a . . . desire to escape--into a swirl of the European fin de siecle.^^

The third phase of regionalism was "counterromanti­ cism," whose spokesmen wished to understand the present through a study and interpretation of the past. Charles God­ frey Leland, in Maine, was urging contemporary Americans to learn more of the language and customs of the first Americans, the Indians, in order to come to a truer knowledge of the country. (He antedated by a generation such later advocates as Charles F. Lummis and Idary Austin.) Counterromanticism was not an anti-regionalist movement; it sinply sought a broader and better means of understanding the region ti^ian the veritism of local color. It "extended regionalism vertically; it did not so diffuse it horizontally as to dissolve it."^

^"Kazin, On Native Grounds, p. 39. ^^spencer, "Regionalism in American Liter,-ture, p. ?42 11 There was at the close of the nineteenth century some opposition to the regional literary emphasis, coming from the traditionalists such as Ambrose Bierce, who insisted that American letters must Tl?e disciplined by European literary experience, and from nationalists, who insisted that America's young literature needed to reflect the dteracter of the entire national development. As the end of the century approached, this opposition to local and regional focus was intensified because of the renascence of romantic nationalism, whose most ardent spokesman was Theodore Roosevelt. William Dean Howells and Hamlin Garland, both of whom had regarded the decentrali­ zation of American letters as a healthy phenomenon, became popular targets for adverse criticism.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a writer who wanted to deal with rural life could use either the rom.an- tic "local color" formula, which would show that the frontier people had beneath their rough exterior hearts of gold and un­ accountable moral virtues, or he could use the embittered realism of Hamlin Garland and H, L. Piencken. Both methods failed to describe truthfully the pioneering effort, and /imeri- can literature as a whole becanie weakened and confused. To find a better answer, many American authors moved to Europe in a search for meaningful values; others returned to the areas of rural life. There became more and iuone apparent a deep consternation on the part of writers and critics about the barrenness of an increasingly mechanised sojiety. • 12 A second American literary renascence appeared around 1912, but it did not reflect the regional consciousness as strongly as had that of the nineteenth century. Instead, the emphasis became local again—but this time w-ith a difference. The local, paradeicically, became the universal. Leading writ­ ers, such as Sherwood Anderson, Vachel Lindsay, and Sinclair Lewis, turned to this transcendental localism which underlies the fourth phase of American regionalism, and which was called by Harold Stearns a "loving localism." There was great stress on the necessity of establishing roots before attempting com­ prehensive regional expression. As was the case with section­ alism, this type of localism did not necessarily insure the regional; and transcendental localism, as preached by Rachel Lindsay, for instance, did not lead toward regional or nation­ al interpretation, but toward universal insight. These writ­ ers were concerned with "transcriptions of the average experi­ ence, with reproducing, sometimes ^xirodying, but alv/ays parti- IB cipating in, experiences which make up the native culture."

^^ Winesburg, Ohio (1919)» Sherv/ood Anderson tried to give "a sense of infinite things" in the co7s:anplaoe Plid- 19 western world, and Sinclair Lewis said that !%in d'treet (1P2C was written to reveal not just the heart of Gopher Prairie, bul ten thousand tovms from Albany to San Dieno.^^ In Taxas, in

^%aain. On I^^ative Grounds, p. 163. •^^Ibid., p. 246. on Fred Lewis i-attee. The hew x.oric.'n litsrature 1^90-1930 (hew York: The Century Co., 193^1, p. 342. 13 an editorial written for the first edition of The Texas Re­ view, Stark Young expressed a lively distrust of narrowly 21 focused and self-conscious localism. Few authors grasped the regional concept well enough to attempt to make it a controlling factor in a novel. Still, • . . young, and, at the time, obscure vvriters and crit­ ics already had begun in the South and v^est a revalua­ tion of American literature which was to reaffirn the need for the man of letters to relate himself to a cul­ tural area larger than the village and smaller than the nation. The organic cultural relation which the ante­ bellum author had found pre-eminently in New England, but also in the Middle States, the South and the Ohio ^Valley, was being sought in the beginnings of the "new regionalism."22

The New Regionalism

New Regionalism is an emphasis upon a regional cul­ ture within a region such as the South or the Southwest which is characterized by the following traits: (1) it uses the past to interpret the present and improve the future; (2) it concerns itself with every phase of a re^^ional culture— economic, religious, educational, sociological—in order to understand the whole through the sum of its p^^rts; and (3) it holds that "rooted" and experiential regionalisi;. leads to an understanding of the universal. The third fact is probably its most distinguishing feature xith respest to oLa-r concepts of regionalism. The spokesmen of the New Regicnadisin have

^••'•Star. k Young, "On Reeking of the doll,'' The Tex::.s Review (June, 1915), p. BO. ^^Spencer, "Reglonalisi:. in American Liter^tiu-e," p. 2/^.'^ 14 searched for the basic truths in their region, as well as stressed the purely regional environment, and have dis­ covered that these truths, as they are in Shakespeare's London, are universal. This "transcendent" element is per­ haps the most unique feature of the New Regionalism, and its chief contribution to the history of regionalism in the Unit- ed States.

New Regionalism is not new in the sense of coming into sudden existence in the twentieth century. It is, rather, the most recent stage of development in the region­ al movement in American literature. It is an evolutionary prod\ict rather than a revolutionary one. It is not divisive in character, but "assumes first, last, and always a totality composed of the several areal and cultural units, a great national unity and integrated culture in which each region 23 exists as a region solely as a component unit in the whole." ^ In essence, the proponents of New Regionalism con­ sider this movement a science and assume that it can provide an economiy, technique, and concept through which new stages of development are evolved and through which impending crises are met. ¥here sectionalism is mechanical and is basic to specialized and temporary ends, these writers continue, re­ gionalism is organic, basic to the evolution of all culture. o^->

-^Odiom and Poore, American Fe.,iona ..isiu, p. IS. 2^Ibid., p. 9. 25lbid., p. 43. 15 In addition to the evaluation and understanding of the past. New Regionalism places importance on the entire life of the present as a region. Its advocates believe that not only history, but politics, economics, education, religion and sociology can all be better dealt with through the regional approach. In such a sense, then, the Mew Regionalism may be used as a tool to solve current problems. New Regionalism is concerned with the creation of a meaningful culture. Unless the culture of a people is indige­ nous to the region where lie their roots, it will be acquired from alien sources, and hence will be only a veneer, and as such will not provide the people with the confidence and in­ sight which a true cult tire always gives. New^ Regionalism rejects alike the sentimental!sm and divisiveness of section­ alism and the barren narrowmindedness of localism. As a part of New Regionalism there has been a renewed and constructive interest in pioneer history and in folklore. In the South­ west, many writers have turned to research on the Indian and the early Spaniard in order to understand these cultures de­ rived from early history which have survived, in a starved sort of way, irto the present. ¥\xQh. of the culture of the Anglo in the Southwest is derived from these people. It is found in our dress, our food, our methods of acclimatizing ourselves to the region, our speech; but until the last three or four decades of the twentieth century, very little effort has been made to understand this apparent fact. 16 The New Regionalism has been of varying import in the different regions. In the older areas (New England and the Mddle Atlantic states), there is the least reliance upon organised and explicit regionalism. In the Midwest, regional literature reflects a temperate faith in the liter­ ary substance to be found in a realistic representation of both manners and codes in the past and present. The Rocky Mountain area has seen a revival of many of the tenets of the early nationalists who tried to design a unique literature for a land with magnificent scenery but very little human association, and writers' conferences are being held frequent­ ly both in that area and in the Northwest to find answers to that problem. But regionalism has found its most vocal out­ let in the South with the Agrarians, who, declining to accept as definitively regional the elementary use of local color, have insisted instead on a Southern tone and style and point of view as the touchstones of Southern literature. Mext to the South in volume of regional output has been the Southwest, where regionalists have encouraged not only an exploitation of the traditionally vital aspects of the life of the region, but also an absorption of rhythms and values as indigenously fash­ ioned by centuries of Indian and Pexican experietiee with the land itself.^^ In the instances where v.riters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries realized the vai..ue of an experienced

^^Spencer, in "Hegionax isui ia Aiiierican Literature," page 251, suggests that it might more accurately be tcraad the hew Regionalisms. 17 and deeply«rooted knowledge of interpreting the areas they dealt with, there lay the basis of regionalism. Lawrence Clark Powell, of California, in a recent issue of the South- wi^at Review, speaks of "that wedding of a writer and a re­ gion from which no divorce is possible, and which produces such literary children as Walden» Huckleberry Finn. The Re- turn of the Native» and Ulysses.^^ An understanding of the contributions of minority races is important in the New Regionalism. The Anglo ag­ gressor has always had the tendency to ignore the people who were already living on the land when he arrived. Yet he has been deeply affected by them, and until he grasps the signi­ ficance of this impact, what culture he has will necessarily be shallow and incomplete. Erna Fergusson writes that "in a century the conquering Arkglo has met the Southwest and been 2B conquered." To strengthen her point, she quotes Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychiatrist, v/ho, after visiting the Pueblo Indians and studying their culture, spoke of "the mysterious 29 Indianization of the American people." Henry Nash Sm.ith, in 1929, suggested the cultural value of a cross-fertilization 30 between American and Indian cultures.

^^Lawrence Clark Pov.ell, '"P.-ndscape v;ith hooks," SWR (Summer, 1959), p. 252. ^°drna Fergusson, Cur SoutiiV/est (Pew York: dlfrc.d Knopf, 1952), p. 151. ^%bid., p. 34^. ^^Henry Nash Smith, "r.ote on the douth(/:est," d..R (Spring, 1929), p. 27^. la New Eegionalism, unlike localism, is inclusive enough to reflect and clarify pertinent social issues, i^o facet of life in the regioa lies outside the interests of its inter­ preters. Loft Tinkle suggests that it is possible that re­ gionalism is an imperishable mode of existence—one that lo­ cates man so that he can operate in the abstract and univer- 31 sal. One Southwesterner, Dudley Vynn, says: (here isj one truth that the Regionalists have al­ ways insisted upon even when they have not acted upon it: that a culture is rooted in economic and social conditions; it is a %*iole way of life and not an ecfi- bellishment paid for out of surplus eamirigs and pro­ vided by Suropean muficians and American authors ex­ patriated in Pari®.3* An apparent distrust of, and distcste for, the older concepts of regionalism as practiced by the exponents of sectionalisrs and localism during the latter part of the nine­ teenth and early part of the twentieth centuries is expressed today by many regional writers. For example, J. Franh dobie has alvays shunned the attempt to define regi, naiism, but he speaks out clearly on what it is not. iiographics of regional characters, stories on losal cus­ toms, novels, books of history and fiction will go on h-- ing written ard publislied. Put d do not believe it fossi- ble that a good one will henceforth ficr.-e fron. a mind that is regional"in outlook, a rind that does not in outlook transcGJ.d tne region on which it is focused.33

^^Lon Tinkle, "Pilestone for a ..'.aga.lne," Sv^K (Autumn, 1955), P» 2vn. *^ Dudley wynn, 'The aouihAcstern /^egioii^j. Straddle," South we sterner 3 '*rite, ed. T. ^i. Pearce and A. P. Thc.apsen (Albuquerque: The Dniverait, of Mev 1 exico --ress, 19du), a.221 ^^J. Pranl Dobie, "The v^r'^ter and his hegion,' g. U (Spring, 193c), p. ^2. Also in laie's hife v s Liter^ •-? -c of the Southwest (aallas: douthei; i-otholist iilversity" Press, 1952) p. o. 19 Going on into particulars, Dobie continues: Nothing is too trivial for art, but good art treats nothing in a trivial way. Nothing is too provincial for the regional writer, but he cannot be provincial- minded toward it. Being provincial-minded may make him a ty^pical provincial; it will prevent him from be­ ing a representative or skilful interpreter.34 Amusingly enough, Dobie engaged in heated discussion through the years with the editors of the Southwest Review about their tendency to publish material which did not at first glance seem relevant to the area it was serving, though the years had mellowed him considerably before he coaimented, concerning the Southwest Review's policy of publishing articles that had at times seemed to him heretical in their surface non-regional matter, I began to become a contemporary of my own times. Be­ fore that, the pageant of the past and the flavor of the present derived from the past were all-sufficient for me. . . .1 never did vvant the Review to express the country mind; I have always felt a distriast of regionalism as a cult; my ideal regionalist has all along been Shakespeare. . . . It seems to me that the Review's concern during these latter years with what Allen Max^^ell calls "the condition of intellectual freedom." in Texas and else- v^here has been a highly proper form of regionalism. I shall go on honing for flavor ana color and lusty life— and I salute, with profound gratitude, intellectual integ­ rity and the stand for liber.^lism that goes Wxth enlighten­ ment by the present editorial direction of the Southwest Review.-'5

Ibid., p. B3. Also in Life end Literature of the Southwest, p. 7. ^^Dobie, ''As the Pioving Finger Writ," dWR (Auturrm, 1955), PP- 297-29a, 20

The RegjionaX Ma&azlne

The New Regionalism was first apparent in the numer­ ous "little magazines" that sprang up in the different re­ gions in the years Just before World War I. Some of these magazines were avowedly regional in emphasis, and these are the ones which will be considered in this chapter. The auth­ ors of The Little Magazine had these coHanents to make about regional magazines and their writers: LTheyH serve as the primary, advance guard force in the sturdy demand that the writer analyze realistically the life which he best knows. ... In his insistence that the artist acknowledge his "roots," that he write of the life that he truly understands, the regionalist is simply talking common sense—the common sense upon which all firm artistic structures have always been reared. It is only from such a foundation that an enduring Ameri­ can literature can be constructed.36

The history of the regional magazines begins early in the nineteenth century. The North American Review (Bos­ ton, 1^15-1940), which was to become the most distinguished 37 and long-lived of all American magazines,^ aimed to achieve a greater national scope than any previous publication. From the same region came the Nev/-SnF,land Magazine (Boston, 1^31- 1835), and, later, The Dial (1^40-1844), edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sarah l^iargaret Fuller, which was the voice of nineteenth century transcendentalisia, and, because of its

^Frederick J. hoffman, Charles .xilen and Carolyn F. Ulrich, The Little Magazine (Princeton: -rinceton Pniver- sity Press, 1947TT P- 140. Hereafter cited as Hoffr.an, The Little Plagazine. 3/Robert 2. Spiller et al.(editors), Literary History of the United StatesTiMew York: The dac illsn Co., 1946)$ p. 104. Hereafter cited as Spiller, Literary history. 21 consistently high literary standards, the parent of the modern 3d little magazine. New York had its Knickerbocker Ma^aalne (Id33*li65)* Publishing outlets for southerners included 2M Southern Review (1828-183^), and the Southern Literary Journal and Monthly yiagazine (Richmond, 1835-183$), which Edgar Allan Poe edited for two years (1835-1837). In the West, Timothy Flint edited the Western Monthly Review (Cin­ cinnati, I827-I83O). From San Francisco came the Golden Era (1852-1893) and the Overland Monthly (1868-1875; 1883-1933). John T. Frederick's Midland (Iowa Gityi 1915*1933) was the first modern regional magazine, and embodied the twentieth century^s first coherent insistence on the author's right to present as he honestly saw it the spirit of the vast region between the Alleghenies and the Rockies. The chief importance of the magazine lay in its encouraging writers of the Plidwest to stay at home and write, and to cut themselves loose from the genteel tradition of iiastern literature. The right to interpret truthfully the cultural entity which the writer knows best, according to The Little ^lagazine, . « . became the ideal of several other little magazines in the Piidwest, the Southwest, and the Far hest. Such quarterlies as The Frontier (1920-39) , The Texas Re­ view (1915-1924T7"The Southweet Review TI924- 77 The Prairie Schooner (1927- ), and The hew Pexico Quarterly Review ^1931- ) derive their insairation from The PIidland.>9 -^.8 Hoffman, The Little dJiuh;drid^>P« 7. ^^'^Bbid., p. 8. On the basis of her investigution oT the history of the Pouthwest Review, this writer disagrees with these authors th..rt The Teyas -eview had any .artio: lar interest in interpreting Its region. 22 In 1933, Thjt Midland was absorbed by The Frontier. A great deal of thought was being given in the little magazines to the adverse effects of the machine on modern society. Three literary reactions were obvious: the region­ al, the proletarian, and the expatriate. According to Spencer: Through such spokesmen as Donald Davidson in the South and Rutji Suckow in the Midwest and Mary Austin in the Southwest, the regionalists contended that sustenance for American letters can best be found in the values of a deep-rooted and homogeneous culture. This cultural unity they, like Hawthorne, could scarcely define in national terms. As the regionalists sought to renew organic ties not only with an area of the land but with the human values which had accrued upon it, concurrently the proletarian authors insisted that American literature must accept and help codify an inevitable machine economy, and the expatriates, revolted alike by the crassness of bourgeois capitalism and by the barrenness of the pro­ vinces, fled for a few experimental years abroad. . . . Of these three divergent but related responses to the machine in America, only the regionalist has any commanding vitality today. Yet the other tv^o in a mieasure have augmented and colored the current of miodern regional literature. Finding foreign soil uncongenial, many of the temporary exiles, like Allen Tate and Louis Bromfield and John Gould Fletcher, returned to become apologists for their respective regions. On the other hand, the prole­ tarian movement, withering on the rocky soil of ideologi­ cal cliches, scattered seeds of class and racial conscious­ ness which took root in the regional fiction of such authors as Caldwell and Stein.beck.40 The authors of The Little ^^agszine state that the clear­ est revelation of the major issues involved in regional theory and practice is found in the pages of the little magazins. The following description of regionalism is tsken fror this book, and is one, perhaps, on i^hich critics may be uniteJ: . regionalism is synonyi'ious .1th ruralisi::., tnough ther. . e is no very g^od reason for ruling out larpj urban

Spenc'.r, "RegionaJism in American Literature," o I r» en 23 areas as distinctive regions, or at least as one kind of region. . . . Any work is regional that consciously attempts to stress the distinguishing geographical, human, and cultural patterns of a regional area such as the Great Plains region or the Southwest desert re­ gion. Any artistic work is regional if the artist's primary intention is to reveal the natural and social structure of a particular, clearly definable region as it is distinguished from the natural and social structure of any other clearly definable region. Regionalism self­ consciously strives to portray the all-inclusive reality of a region; it strives to show the lay of the land, the flow of the rivers, the drift of the clouds and the winds; but above all, it labors to reveal the htiman beings who work and sweat and die on the land, and to reveal how these human beings have built their social institutions, especially their particular colloquial language. Thus the regionalist's first interest is rarely in htiman psycho* logy in its typical or "universal" aspects, and to the de­ gree that a regional work approaches the borderline of the universal its regional emphasis becomes less notice­ able .41

The same authors would add two further points to this description: (1) regionalism inevitably, since it seeks the truth about the region, employs the method of objective, factual realism; (2) regionalism is marked nearly always by 42 an intense consciousness of nature. As the new concept of regionalism becamie more clearly delineated, the flaws and traps of the earlier kina became more obvious. New Regionalism began to be expressed as a basic ingredient in the values of modern literature. Parold G. Perriam, the editor of The Frontier, wrote, in 1934: I should like to have vriters unoersoavd regionalisia not as an ultimate in literature but as a first step, as the coming to close knoi-ledge about the life of the region in which he lives as a first necessity for sound writing, even a knovledge of oneself—'*knov, th^-

41Hoffman, The Little Ka.azine, pp. 128-1P9. ^^Ibid., p. 129. 24 self"--.Is also a first necessity. The "universal," when healthy, alive, pregnant with values, springs inevitably from the specific fact. This conception of the Interpretation of life I would oppose to the idea of cosmic-minded people that understanding springs from abstract ideas and images in the giind—in the soul. To such an extent regionalism in ray judgment, is earth- minded. 43

The authors of The Little Magazine think that it is not the theory of regionalism, but the literary practice, the value of the fiction produced, among other things, that leads to dispute, and they find that the shortcomings of regional­ ism rest in the following factors: in its pedantic and self- conscious preoccupation with the region; in the stress it plaees on outward appearance^—not limited to naturalistic fiction, but also characteristic of optimistic pastoralism; in the frequent drabness of style (found also in nonregional realism); in evidences, carried ovar from nineteenth century local color, of such flaws as sentimental romanticism and humorous exaggeration; and in its toadency to relive a "color­ ful" past or to entertain a nostalgic v/ish to preserve an out- standing cultural pattern.^^ Joseph 4. Brandt has saia of the douthwest Keviev: > "To this magazine we o^.-e the first cle^r defir.ition (and under- standinc-) of regionalism in the United States."^^ C^-rtainly

/'3 ^Harold G. Perriam, ' a.pression of Northwest Life," The r^ew f-exico Quarterly (Kay, 1934), ,^^p. 128-129. ^^Poffman, Thg Little 'd.j:dPPP^» ?• 134. ^^Joseph A. Brandt, ''A Pioneerin- Reg-ional ••'rass,'' SWR (Autum-n, 1940), p. 27. ' r. Brandt ohviously rn^ant "Nev; Regioralism," since isgional L-Hi as a literary ii.cve;T:ent liSr} been evident since the beginning of United States history. 25 it is an outstanding voice of the New Regionalism today, and considering the demise of most regional magazines it has been remarkably long-lived. Possibly this is because its editors have been extremely sensitive to the shortcomings of previous regional movements, and have taken great pains to avoid them.

The Southwest and the "New Regionalism"

The Southwest is the youngest of all the regions in the United States, excepting Alaska; yet in the "pre-Anglo" sense it is much older than the cultures of the Old South or of New England. Santa Fe, founded as a Spanish colonial capital more than three centuries ago, is older than New^ York or even Boston. One distinguishing feature of the Soutiiwest is that it nourished two cultures, the Indian and the Spaniard, before the fairly recent advent of the Anglo-American, and that these have remained stubbornly rooted in modern life. Actually, the Southwest is priii^rily the land of three peo­ ples—Indians, Spaniards or iiexicans, ana iinglo-amtricans—• who still live there together, and of a blenc.mg of ola civili­ zations arid new. Geographically, there are many opinions as to its boundaries. Henry Kasxi di. ith's opinion, given belov: (in which he inserts his strong feelin^ that t;:e dontiiwest Is not just a p£^rt of one .;outn; , seeiL^, ii.ost ^.acapt..uie, dtJioagn southern California, because of its .Spanish tradition, migiit also be included.

... if the Southwest is not part of the Old South or of the New, it is decidedly not lacking either in geographical ixnity or the centripetal force of a re­ gional past. It is bounded on the east by the western edge of Mississippi and Red River bottom land; on the north, roughly, by the line of the Missouri Compromise and the Santa Fe Trailj on the west by the Rockies and the Arizona desert; and on the South by Mexico and the Gulf. These boundaries enclose a district largely made up of plains: more arid to the west, being watered to the east, merging perhaps into mountains or pine forest, but in the main presenting a uniformly level horizon and scanty vegetation. The Southwest is a land of dis­ tances, of empty spaces. The South is not.4o

Long before the arrival of any Europeans, the Indian of the Southwest had achieved a poetic and productive har­ mony with his land: •^His life was^i preeminently esthetic and religious, though these activities were so intimately organized with the industrial life and the social order that the result was a completely integrated culture.47 The Indian was never materialistic—a fact that neither the Spaniard nor the Anglo could ever quite understand. Today, a new respect has resulted from the widespread acknowledge­ ment of the Indian's marvelous one-ness with his land—as in, for example, his art symbols of cloud, lightning, rain­ fall, birds and flowers. The Spaniards and the Mexicans also fashioned a viay of life in the Southwest that was based upon

^^Henry hash Smith, "A Note on the Southwest," SwR (Spring, 1929), p. 269. Edgar L. Hewett, "The Humanizing of a Continent: the Americanizing of a Race," America in the Southwest, ed. Thomas K. Pearce and Telfair HendoiTTAlbuqaerque: The Univer­ sity Press, 1933)I P* 4. 27 integration with the region. Although retaining marks of Spanish origin, their art and architecture adapted itself to the new land. The Anglo at first, typically, tried to make the land adapt itself to hpa—but in the end, the land won. Now, although the three groups have not for the most part achieved a satisfactory understanding of each other, they share traits and qualities that make them more mutually akin than any of them are to people from other regions. Their personalities have been shaped by the terrain they share The chief problem, as far as modem southwestern cul­ ture is concerned, has been to discover and interpret the true values of the region. Archeologists and historians have con­ tributed a great deal of information concerning the first in­ habitants, and pioneer students like Charles F. Lummis and Mary Austin have studied the modern descendants and have been able to prove the validity of their peculiar sensitivity to the rhythms of the region. Mary Austin declared that "any­ body can write facts about a country, but nobody can write

truth who does not take into account the sounds and swings 48 of its native nomenclature." Another problem relating to the achieverrient of south­ western culture is the lack of interest in it (or dovmright distaste for it) that many educated southvjesterners displayed. John Lonax was told finvly by professors at the University of

^ Mary Austin, The Land of Journey's hndinr, (New York: The Centur,, Co.,'T5'24) , p. vii. 28 Texas for whom he had the greatest regard that the cowboy song was not suitable for consideration by cultured people. Note, for example, the following: Dr. Callaway told me that my samples of frontier litera­ ture were tawdry, cheap and unworthy. I had better give my attention to the great movements of writing that had come sounding down the ages. There was no possible connection, he said, between the tall tales of Texas and the tall tales of Beowulf.^9 J. Frank Dobie, about three decades later, was at first denied permission to teach a course at the University of Texas on the life and literature of the Southwest because there was no suitable literature. His retort, now famous, was to suggest that he be permitted to teach a course on life in the South­ west, because no one could deny that that existed. As Henry Smith viewed the situation. The task of Southwestern writers is first the rudimentary one of making an inventory of the region, and then of interpreting it—not that all the interpretations will agree, but that from a variety of interpretations, gradu­ ally emerges a coherent view of the past and some sense of direction for the future.^^ Encouraged by Professors Barrett Wendell and George Lyman Kittredge of Harvard, Lomax resumed his search for cow^- boy songs, and with the publication in 1910 of Cowboy Son^s and Other Frontier Ballads, "the serious and widespread study of folk literature in Amxerica had its beginning."^-^ The Texas

^^John A. Lom.aM, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter (New York: The MacKillan CoiTi.any, id47) , p. 32. 50Henry Nash Sioith, "The Southvast: An Introduction,': Saturday Review of Literature (Idn; 16, 1942), p. 6. ^^Spiller, Literary History, p. 192. 29 Folk-Lore Society has been issuing its Publications since 1916. In 1929 B. A. Botkin, a Harvard graduate who was teaching at the University of Oklahoma, began editing Folk- ISZ* A Regional Miscellany, which ultimately consisted of four volumes, and contained "significant folklore, many examples of the creative use of folk material, and essays by distinguished folklorists and writers."^^

The region, then, produced its takers of inventory. It has now produced its interpreters. The result has been extr«nely gratifying. International recognition has been given many Southwestern writers—among them Mary Austin, J. Frank Dobie, Harvey Fergusson, Stanley Vestal (penname of Walter Campbell), Oliver La Farge, Dorothy Scarborough, Walter Webb, Katharine Anne Porter, Roy Bedichek, and Lynn Riggs. One book is so completely unique that it deserves special comment—Wah' Kon-Tah, written by John Joseph Piathews of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, a natural-scientist educated at the University of Oklahoma and at Oxford, and a member of the Osage Indian tribe. As one critic points out: "Because of its literary excellence as well as its unsurpassed under­ standing, this is one of the few books dealing v/ith the Indian 53 which may be expected to endure."

^^Ibid., p. 193. ^3Joseph A. Brandt, "A Pioneering Kegional Press," SwR (Auturrm, 1940), p. 32. 30 Lon Tinkle, a Southwest Review editor, feels that "the birth or development of serious and sincere and genuine artistic talent in fiction and poetry (long the least active of the region's creative activities) since 1940 may be re- gaz*ded as the major manifestation of cultur-l maturity that the region has most recently revealed."^^ Certainly the Southwest can be justifiably proud of the novels of Paul Morgan, Conrad Richter, Laura Krey, and George Sessions Perry; or the regional verse of Witter Bynner, John Gould Fletcher, and Glenn Ward Dresbach; or the significant plays of Lynn Riggs and the sensitive dramatic criticism of John Rosenfield.

G. L. Sonnichsen, a Texas professor and critic, writes: "We have seen the growth here in the Southwest of a body of significant writing closely related to the special types of people who have lived here and the special conditions under which they have had to exist."-^^ He con­ cludes that— It is worth noting that our literature so far has been largely a literature of action. Fiction and history are what w^e do best. Poetry has not really arrived, though little magazines and poetry societies do exist. And philosophy and criticisiu are still in their infancy. The literature of contemplation is still to come, but, as Pr. Dobie said long ago, no one can doubt that

^^Lon Tinkle, "hilestone for a Magazine," S\^R (Autuirji, 1955), P» 2^7. Hereafter cited as Tinkle, "Illestone." ^^C. L. Sonnichsen, "An Introauction," The Southvjest In Life and Literature (hew York: liie Pevin-Adair Co., I90d), p. T* 31 we have had a tremendous amount of life here, and that is the beginning of literature.56

There are cogent manifestations of a maturing south­ western culture in other realms, also. Concerning them, Lon Tinkle writes: "Note that this bursting of creative energy is manifest not only in literature; it is present in paint­ ing, in architecturet in theatrical experiments, in medicine, 57 in scholarship, and in journalism, not to be exhaustive." Perhaps the outstanding evidence of the New Region­ alism in the Southwest today is the magazine under considera­ tion in these pages, created imder the aegis of such people as John McGinnis, Mary Austin, Joseph Brandt, Henry Nash Smith, John Chapman, John Rosenfield, John Avery Lomax, and 58 J. Frank Dobie, who, it has been said, served as "midwives" at the birth of southwestern culture; who would not tolerate artificiality, hypocrisy, or sentimentality. In the Midwest, regionalism is pessimistic in tone, and in the South it is, so to speak, merely another museum. New Regionalism in the Southwest, on the other hand, is forward-looking, optimistic, sure of the possibility of greater things ahead, and more than any other single organ, its voice is that of the South­ west Review.

^^Ibid.. p. 5. ^"^dinkle, 'hmilestone," p. 2d8. '^ Here the writer is referring to a coivir.ent made by John HcGinnis to John Rosenfield, as quoted in "The Resi­ dent Arts," SWR (Autuim, 1955), p. viii. CHAPTER II

HISTORY OF THE SOUTHWEST RgVIEW: 1915-1960

The Texas Review. 1915-1924

In June, 1915, a little magazine called Jhe Texas Re- vi^w made its first appearance. It wae subsidized by the University of Texas, and edited by Stark Young, who was asso­ ciated with the English department as Professor of Comparative Literature. Its managing editor was Percy Houston, of the same department. It was backed by such outstanding Univer­ sity of Texas professors as W. J. Battle, Edwin h. Fay, and D. A. Penick (all classicists), K. M. H. Woodbridge and Lila M. Gaels (modern languages), Lindley M. Keasby (social sci­ ences), Thad W. Riker (history), and almost all of the Eng­ lish faculty. Mr. Young was a cosmopolitan gentleman, originally from Mississippi, who had been educated at the University of Mississippi (A.B., 1901) and abroad. (Later, in 1921, he was to receive a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University.) A regional magazine, as such, was the last thing in the world that Ir. Young hoped to see his fledgling become. He had asked for advice concerning what type of material he should publish, and was frankly aghast that the strongest feeling expressed was that the subject luatter be such that it v.ould absolutely reek of the soil. He rei^iarked dryly in his first 33 essay for the magazine that no doubt the term was fine, espe- 1 cially when used by literajry experts who never knew the soil," but that personally he had ho use for anything that reeked, and doubted the merit of reeking, which he considered "a mod- em affair, conscious, heavy with journalistic sweat." He felt that Texans had the same propensities and qualities as people anywhere else in the world, and that presently Texas would reek, if reek it must, of the whole world, which would be splendid, since "that is what true literature has done 3 forever." However, Young confessed that there did seem to be one unusual thing about Texas: . • . the opinion at home and abroad th^at there is some­ thing quite unusual about us. There are doubtless nuances of experience, varieties of condition, that may appear in our arts, and if the soil of Texas happens to colour finely some literary flower, it will be a fine thing.4 At any rate, Young and Houston gave the Review a christening that was overwhelming in the stature of its con­ tributors. Because he was a personal friend of many well- known writers. Young was able to publish in the first two issues, "among other items, a congratulatory letter by Sir Edmund Gosse; articles by Tucker Brooke of Yale, Carl Van Doren and Max Eastman; and poems by dunice Tietzens, Maurice

^Stark Young, "On Reeking of the Soil," The Texas Review (June, 1915), p. ^0. ^Ibid. 3Ibid., p. 81. ^Ibid. 34 Hewlett, John Erskine, Sir Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, and Julian Huxley, then a teacher of biology at Rice Institute."^ In the opinion of J. Frank Dobie, who has been con­ sistently an enthusiastic and faithful contributor to the Southwest Review, the most brilliant and prophetic piece in the new magazine was an essay on "Wealth and Its Vi^ays," by 6 Lindley M. Keasby. Dr. Keasby, of the University of Texas's Department of Institutional History (which had been especially designed for him), was greatly admired by Dobie and, by Walter Prescott Webb, who said that Keasby was the only professor 7 who ever made him think. (According to Dobie, Keasby was later driven from Texas by the anti-German flavor that accom- 8 panied America's entry into World War I.

There is, of course, no way of knowing what could have happened to the Review if Young had remained its editor. However, after editing only two numbers he left the Univer­ sity of Texas to teach at Amherst College, and later on to become the dramatic critic on the New Republic. Houston ac­ cepted a position in an eastern college at the same time.

^Thomas F. Gossett, "A History of the Southwest Re­ view, 1915-1942" (Unpublished Piaster's Thesis, i:.nglish De­ partment ^ Southern Methodist University, 1946), p Hereafter cited as Gossett, Thesis. 6 J. Frank Dobie, "As the I^'oving Finger Writ," South­ west Review (/iutuinn, 1955), p. 289. Refers to The Texas Re­ view (June, 1915)I pp. 51-70. Dobie's srticle is hereafter cited as Dobie, "As the Poving Finger Writ." "^Ibid., p. 289.

^Ibid., p. 290. 35 The Review was therefore faced with the first of the many crises it has survived. No one seemed willing to take over the orphan, and the editorial board at last sim.ply drafted Dr. Robert Adger Law of the English department against his better judgment and personal wishes, as he plaintively com­ mented .

Resigned to the task with which he was confronted. Dr. Law set to work, feeling something like a "lone rider 9 on the prairie." Dobie says that "Dr. Law doggedly kept the magazine going through the difficult years of World War I and on; he built a solid foundation, but could not 10 magnetize writers of vitality." Dobie further states that the contents were often fitted for interment in the Publica- tXons of the Modern Languag;e Association, and as such could not quicken either the quick or the deadd^ Law, while not discouraging writers from any quarter, regarded the Review primarily as an instrument for fostering thought and criticism in Texas and the Southwest. He felt that the purpose of its founders was "to provide hospitality to Texans who could express thoughts of cultural interest to other Texans, vjithout, to use Mir. Young's phrase, 'reeking

^Robert /uger Lav;. "From 'The Texas Review, 1..-15- 1924.'" Soutnwest Review (Autumn, 1955), p. 373. Hereafter cited as'Law, "From 'The Texas Review.'" Douie, "AS tne Pioving Finger Vfrit," p. 291.

^•^Ibid. ^3 6 12 of the soil.'" Occasionally there were essays whieh Law felt were in some sense real contributions to American liter­ ature; of these he thought the most valuable was "Wordsworth at Blois," by George McLean Harper, of Princeton. Eventually a few editorials and articles on social issues began to appear (the first departure of the magazine from the realm of pure literature), but under Law's editorship the discussions were neither militant nor even particularly critical of the status quo. With regard to the problems of the Negroes of the region, for instance, he felt that lynching, while deplorable as a violent gesture, did not often result in the murder of inno­ cent victims. Thomas F. Gossett has the following comments on the Texas Review's manner of dealing with the subject of Negroes: There may seem to be little connection between ^^® Review's attitude toward Negroes and its re­ gional policy. But no literature, regional or not, exists in a vacuum—it will always suffer if it is written in a spirit of bigotry. Especially is it likely that a vigorous regional literature must in­ clude a mature interpretation of all races and ele­ ments which are a part of its culture. The appear­ ance of contemptuous references to Negroes indicates how far the Tex;, s Review was from escaping its pre­ judices.-^3

However, in spite of the Review's declining the role of a regional magazine in the sense of serving as an inter­ preter of the region or as an agent for pinpointing social ills, there were signs of an undeveloped but promising native

•^•^Law, "From 'The Texas Review,'" p. 373. "^3Gossett, Thesis, pp. 10 and 11. 37 literature. The first indications were in the appearance of poems dealing with the region. Then there were a few essays dealing with southwestern subjects. Gossett feels that per­ haps the most significant event, in teiros of the future, was a review by J. Frank Dobie of John A. Lomax's Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Gamp, which appeared in the January, 1920 issue. Dobie was stirred to recollections of his own boy­ hood on a south Texas ranch by Lomax's book, and he felt that there was definitely something of value in so poignant a feel­ ing as his own for the peculiar, and certainly regional, emo­ tions that the songs evoked.

Regardless of any merit the Texas Review might have had, its fortunes seemed precarious. For nine years very little effort had been made to interpret the life of the region, and almost no attention had been paid to the contem­ porary world. By 1924 there were only sixteen subscribers, and Law was weary of the labor involved. The University of Texas administration at that time cheerfully turned the maga­ zine over to a group of men at Southern Pethodist University for legal adoption. It was to receive an insubstantial and even grudging backing from the admirJ.stration of that school. Its new sponsors changed its name to the Southv/est Review, and set ahout the long task of getting it thsrough adoles­ cence and into a productive and mera:ingful maturity.

I' dossett. Thesis, pp. 12 and 13. 3a

Th^ Southwest Review

Sarly Editors. 1924^1927

Jay B. Hubbell and George Bond, both members of the Bnglish department at Southern Methodist University, were the men primarily responsible for bringing the Review to that school. Hubbell served as editor from October, 1924 to October, 1925. Bond edited the magazine from October, 1925 until 1927. At that time, Hubbell left for Duke University, and Bond for apposition with a publishing company in New York City. The work of these two m%n as editors was really a con­ tinuous sort of thing, and it is hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. They did not want the magazine to be confined just to material of regional importance, but they did realize that the life of the prairie needed interpreta­ tion by writers who could feel the special and peculiar qual­ ities of the land and the people who had lived on it. They were determined to avoid mere provincialisn. They hoped to find the writers they needed among the rienbers of the younger generation of Southwesterners--those x-d^o were in protest against ready-made values. It was during Hubbell's and Pond's editorship that the Sonthv/est Review bccaiae recognizably siTTill.-r to the magasin-D Vv-sLoh it is tor;f:.y. It -v^as trc^nsfoi'i .ed from an orgctn of acaaeixdc specialties which it htid been under Robert Adger Law's editorship to a magazine reflecting conten;porary intcllecta.ril and socisl issues, especiciliy those v^hich related specificdly to the dauthv/est .15

15'.:c;;>sett, Thesis, p. 37. 39 J. Frank Dobie wrote: "No single item in the new Review would have been exactly foreign to the old one, though the contrary was not true. It had a new emphasis, a new per­ spective, a new vitality."-^^ John Chapman felt that under the new editorship the Review "became one of the small, ad­ vance-guard literary Journals that were then breaking out 17 all over the country." ' Robert Frost wrote: "Count me as a friend and backer. You may see me down there on your staff before all is said and done."* The Galveston Daily News reported that the Southwest Review compared with the old Texas Review as ". . .a diamond compared with a lemon. "^^ As an undergraduate student at Southern Methodist University in 1922, George Bond had won all three prizes in 20 a iiniversity-sponsored poetry contest. Guided by his "sure taste for poetry,"^^ the editors printed work that they ac­ quired from such outstanding poets as Conrad Aiken, John Gould Fletcher, John Crowe Ransom, hitter Bynner, Mary Austin,

^^Dobie, "As the i\oving Finger hrit," p. 291. ^^john Chapman, "Afterthoughts on an Anniversary," SWR (Summer, 1956), p. 2^7. Hereafter cited as Chapman, "Afterthoughts." Id Gossett, Thesis, p. 21. "^^Ibid., p. 22. ^^Hilton Ross Greer and Florence dlberta Barns, New Voices of the Southwest (Dallas: Tardy Publishing Company, 1934), P- 22^- ^•'-Henry Nash Smith, "i'dcGinnis and the Southwest Re­ view," SWR (Autumn, 1955), p. 302. Hereafter cited as dnith, "McGinnis." 40 Robert Graves, John Drinkwater, Harriet Monroe, John Hall Wheelock and Lizette Woodworth Reese.^^ The April, 1925, issue was devoted entirely to poetry and the discussion of poetry.

There were also occasional articles on scholarship (a carry-over from The Texas Review), and essays dealing with international affairs, with occasional ventures into political discussion. The articles that attracted the most attention were'those that dealt specifically with the South­ west: for instance, in the first issue, which came out in October, 1924, Andy Adams's "Western Interpreters," in which he developed the thesis that the West cannot be interpreted from mere observation, an idea to which Mary Austin was de­ voting herself; Jay Hubbell's review of Dobie's Legends of Texas; and Charles IV. Ferguson's article attacking Governor Jim Ferguson (no relation). During Hubbell's and Bond's term, contact vas first made with the group of writers and artists in Santa Fe and Taos. From time to time since through the years special "hev. Kexico Numbers" have been brought out. Steps were also taken to communicate with other sympathetic groups in the douth and the douthwest. PiventuaJ.ly it becai e clear that Texas was far more western than southern. Although the Review had proved that At could be an amazingly fine ^'little ir.a,';,azine," its financial situation

'-•'Gossettoo , Thesis, p. 23 41 not only did not improve with its new stature, but became more precarious than ever. Hubbell wrote in June, 1925, to Dobie to say that the subscriptions, at $2.00 a year, had in­ creased from sixteen to four hundred and thirty—but that Southern Methodist University could not afford further sub- 23 sidy, and that money had to be raised somehow. The editors went to some of the citizens in Dallas who they thought might be interested in seeing the Review survive, and managed to get some more or less regular donations. Hubbell becam,e so irritated by the University administration's complaints about expenses incurred by the publication that he finally resigned the editorship, although he continued to be of what assistcince he could to Bond, who succeeded him as editor for the remaining year before they both left Dallas, hond had to cope with a subsidy reduced from .;i54,000 a year to j 1,600. In 1927, Hubbell joined the faculty of Puke University (vdiere, five years later, he established as editor the scholarly jour­ nal American Literature), and Pond went to New York. Their departure left the doathwest Review again in an orphaned con­ dition. Vi'ith some reluctance, John PcGinnis consented to be­ come its new custodian.

'3l)obie, "As tne Povii:^, Pin.^er hrit," p. 29d. 42

The McGinnis Era, 1927-1943

2.L. For the next sixteen years (1927-1943), McGinnis guided the editorial policy of the Southwest Review. A pro­ fessor of English at Southern Methodist University, he had also for many years conducted a weekly book review page for ^^® Dallas News. "He had a wide acquaintance with southwest­ ern writers, and his interest in contem.porary affairs was 25 inexhaustible•" One of the major stumbling blocks in getting the maga­ zine out was that the University administration never light­ ened the teaching duties of the men who edited it. KcGinnis's time was already filled with conducting his classes and getting out his book review page, but he found his way around this problem by finding through the years young men who vie re vill- ing to devote countless hours of vork (usually nocturnal and always unpaid) to reading and editing manuscripts and doing the endless bits of drudgery involved in getting the iviagazine to the publishers. John Ghapm.an, Henry hash dirith, Lon Tinkle, S. D. Myres, Jerry Bywaters, Herbert Gambrell, Allen i ax\ ell— McGinnis captured ana taught all of them.

i-cGinnis was born in darmichaels, Pennsylvania, and he received an A.B. and a Litt. P. degree from lissouri Valley College, and an A.?':, froii CoIu:.:hia University. Ha hac taught English at .iouthv^estern University in Georgetown re- fore going to Southern Kethodist Univeisity. 25sruith, 'hcr.innis," p. 301. 43 Henry Nash aaiith wrote, of this era: ... it may well turn out that the Review's greatest importance during McGinnis's editorship lay in the fact that it was a sort of super-graduate seminar, an Institute of Higher Studies, in which were enrolled his older students, younger colleagues, and even con­ temporaries, on the faculty or not, who were writing or reading proof or merely running errands for the Southwest Review. Certainly the University has re- ceived its money's worth from the project in this fash­ ion alone. At least three members of its faculty came up through this curriculum, besides others who later went into journalism, publistiing, teaching elsewhere, or writing.20

Of McGinnis's editing methods, Smith commented: A perfectionist like PcGinnis could not bring him­ self to O.K. a single page of proof until he was con­ vinced that it was as good as he could make it. He was therefore perfectly willing to reopen any issue of syntax, punctuation, euphony, rhythm, or any of the other aspects under which style may be discussed, at any time, including three o'clock of the morning before the last forms were to go to press. Indeed, more thian once he stopped the presses to correct errors so appalling to him that even this drastic expense could not be allowed to weigh in the balance. For the apprentices, this was learning the hard way, and sooner or later they dl experienced a secret im­ pulse to hide the proofs from I cGinnis until the magazines were in the mails.^7

The first of KcGinnis's student victims v/as John Chap- man, a pre-med student vdio was vaorking tc/ards a d.aster of Arts degree before going on to Galveston. Smith, gives the following account of Chapman's initiation:

^^Smith, "P:cGinnis," pp. 302-303. •^^ibid., p. 304. ^%r. Caaomar is today the dean of postgraduate studies at the University of Texas's South..astern ^aaical Scaool in i.iallas. 44 As McGinnis tells the story, he procured a key to the dingy and littered Review office in the basement of Dallas Hall I took Chapman almost by the ear, opened the door, shoved him inside, and locked the door from the outside. Chapman survived and even throve under the treat­ ment. He discovered a battered typewriter half-covered with manuscripts submitted but unread, and arming him­ self with a handful of letterhead sheets, began accept­ ing and rejecting materials for an issue of the magazine. When the office was cleared out and he had put together a tentative table of contents, he respectfully approached McGinnis for final approval. It was only at this point that McGinnis went into action, but we may be sure that the Chapman who finally took the copy to the printer was a considerably wiser and more seasoned editor than the one who had emerged from his period of seclusion in the Review office. As Chapman's successor, I speak fromi ex- perience. The cowards never started on this job, and the weaklings died on the way.29

Financially, the situation was always bad. Towards the end of 1927, the Review found an angel, if only briefly, in the guise of the P. L. Turner Publishing Company, of Dallas, which offered to assume financial responsibility for it. This happy stat*e of affairs lasted for just a year, but it helped to tide things over, and also added to the staff Lon Tinkle, a recent graduate of Southern Methodist Univer­ sity, and for a time an employee of Turner's. After Chapmxan's depart'ore (about 1930), Henry Nash Smith30 took over until 1937, when he went to Harvard to worh on a doctorate in American civilization. J. Frnk Dobie says

^^Smith, "KcGinnis," p. 301. 3^3mith was born in Dallas, and took a B.A. degree at Southern Methodist University. In 1929 he receivea an r.A. froiT: Harvard, and in 1940 a Ph.P. froi; .arvard. In 19hl he joined the English departn;ant of the hnivsrsity of Texas. He was one of the first interpreters of the ere. tive values and njaterioJs in the Southwest. 45 that in the thirties the magazine would certainly have died had Smith not given up everything else but his teaching to keep it going.3^ Smith returned from Harvard and rejoined the English staff at Southern Methodist University in 1940, and began editing the Review again; however, in 1941 he moved to Austin to teach at the University of Texas. McGinnis continued the Review's association with the writers and artists in New Mexico, and himself wrote what Lon Tinkle called "probably tlie most charming and incisive informal essay ever to appear in the magazine, a study of the civic mentality of Taos."3^ Tinkle further comm.ented that anyone who reads the essay will see "how this ferocious­ ly independent and original (yet Thoreauvian) mind was en- 33 chanted with the New Mexico life-style," McGinnis has said that his own interest in the possi­ bilities of southwestern literature came suddenly as he read Kit Carson, Stanley Vestal's biography which came out in 192^. (Erna Fergusson calls Vestal's book "the best of the Carson books,"^^ and Lon Tinkle says that it seems to invent a new style and a new diction for writing about the Southwest.3^) \^hen he finished reading it, PicGinnis "irrj^ediately walked from

3lDobie, "As the loving Fingar iArit," p. 293. -"^'^Tinkle, ••Pilestone," p. 2^3. 33lbid., p. 263. ^4Fergiisson, Our SouUiv/est, p. Jo5* 3$Tinkle, "Milestone," p. 2^5* 46 *^® Delias News building to the Union Depot and bought a ticket to Norman, Oklahoma, where Stanley Vestal lived."^^

In the fall of 1932, the Southwest Review announced its decision to form a partnership with Louisiana State Uni­ versity. The principal reason was financial (Louisiana State agreed to match the subsidy from Southern Methodist), but there was also the attractive prospect of intellectual adven­ ture through an exchange of thought and experience. Reminis­ cing, John Chapman wrote: During the first few years after PcGinnis had set its course, there was little change in the dir­ ection or intention of the Review. But the depression eventually produced its effect. S.M.U. found it in­ creasingly difficult to support its position of patron of art and thought. A solution had to be discovered. I doh't know who was responsible, Henry Smith or Lon Tinkle or both—certainly not McGinnis. The result in any event was a resounding mesalliance with Louisiana State University. It may well have been argued that since the geographic limit of the Southv^est was uncertain, it was possible it might extend toward New Orleans as flex­ ibly as toward Santa Fe. ^Moreover, there were writers and money in Baton Rouge.-^^

The fact that Robert Penn Vvarren and Cleanth Brooks were to be contributing editors caused PcGinnis to become a bit fretful and suspicious, since they were outstanding spokes­ men for Agrarianism, a school of thought that amounted to a rejection of industrialism in the South and a return to the solid social and economic virtues of tlie old plantation. Me

3^Goss6tt, Thesis, p. 37. 37Ghapman, "Afte-tin>aghts," p. 2S9. 47 "was determined that the Review should not be made into an organ for the propagation of what he considered vile here- sies." Ifowever, his fears were never realized, because neither of these southern writers gave any indication of us­ ing the pages of the magazine as vehicles for carrying forward the discussion of Agrarian economics. Actually their most im­ portant work was found in the book reviews. The only open skirmish, however, came about, interest­ ingly enough, over a book review. Albert Russel Erskine, Jr., a teacher at Louisiana State, reviewed Stark Young's So Red the Rose, praised it highly, and emphasized some of the impli­ cations that were in harmony with the Agrarian philosophy. Henry Smith was chosen to write to the Louisiana editors that the review seemed poorly done, not consistently worked out, 39 not written with any consistent point of view." karren re­ plied for Louisiana, politely but definitely disagreeing with the Dallas editors. The upshot of the matter was that one sentence vdiich had been especially offensive was changed a bit. At last PlcGinnis and Smith decided to go ahead and publish the review, but with definite reluctance. Smith later commented: Brooks and Varren, as the Southern Review x^as to show, had purposes so remote from the traditional policies of the Southwest Review that no real collision was possible. It was evident to all concerned that the Southwest Review could not be made to serve these purposes without under­ going a complete transformation.40

3*Smith, "PcGinnis," p. 306. 39 Gossett, Thesis, p. 96. ^^Sraith, 'i^cGinnis," p. 30^. 4d John Chapman said of this time: The rapprochement between the group at Dallas and a small contingent of young writers and critics at Baton Rouge produced for a time a significant devia­ tion toward something like, say, the Sewanee Review. Readers of the Southwest Review began to see more fiction, more poetry, and quite a bit more literary criticism. The combined effect was not bad, but it certainly was not McGinnis. As time went on the attitude of the people at Baton Rouge began to change. Regionalism on the bayou became agrarianism anywhere one could establish squatter's rights. Praise of the siiiple country life, songs of the charm of the country, began to appear. At this McGinnis seems to have snorted and pawed the earth. Rustication was a bad word; senti­ mentality was worse than profanity. I gather.that spiritually he lowered his head and charged.^-^

Shortly after the So Red the Rose incident, an editorial conference was held at Shreveport. At that time, McGinnis t

^^Chapman, "Afterthoughts," p. 2^9. ^'^v'/ossett. Thesis, p. 101. ^•^^Ibid., p. 102. 49 celving upwards of $10,000 a year to be used to back what was shortly to become the Southern Review. Smith wrote a cordial congratulatory letter, and the collaboration 44 ceased. The Review found itself once more proudly inde­ pendent, and painfully poor. As Chapman has wi&Ly pointed out, "the finer things of life again lay abandoned on the doorstep of S.M.U."^^ The period of alliance with Louisiana served to make the Dallas editors more certain than ever that Texas was far laore closely aligned with the West than with the South. It also taught them a great deal about how to re­ concile regional and non-regional interests in the magazine Gossett comments: They came increasingly to believe, in their discuss­ ions with the Louisiana editors, that regionalism means inevitably a concern with politics and econo­ mics—that it cannot survive if it is thought of exclusively as an affair of literature and art.4o After Henry Smith left for Harvard in 1937, the magazine simply did not come out for a year. George Bond AV worked temporarily with it.^' There were bleak rumors that it was dead. J. Frank Pobie, to whom by now the Re-

^^A wry aftermath of all this was that the douth- ern Review was iim:.ediately able to pay its writers v.ell, and consequently began receiving articles uhich v.ould other- wd.se have been practically given to the douthwest Review. ^^dhapjTiaa, "Afterthoughts," p. 289.

40 r • T ^ Gossett, iriesj-s, p. It'/,.. ^^Dobie, "AS tho i ovir g Pinger vrit,'' p. 295. TEXAS TECHNOLOGICAL COl,l,EQE LUBBOCK, TEXAS I IQDADX/ 50 view had become one of life's worthwhile causes, suggested that it might be transferred back to the University of Texas, but McGinnis did not like the idea, and said that if it went anywhere else it would taore probably be to the University of Oklahoma, since interest had already been expressed from that school.

Southern Methodist doubled its subsidy to make up for the part Louisiana State had contributed, giving the Review a total of $1,600 a year. Somehow it survived, with McGinnis, Tinkle, and a young man named Allen Maxwell keeping it on the 48 "quite uneven tenor of the southwestern way." In the sum­ mer of 1938, the subscribers received four numbers, one right after another, beginning with the Autumn, 1937 issue. By this time constant hardship and occasional triumph seemed to have welded editors and subscribers together into something like a close family relationship. Even during relatively mild times the Review tended to be chronically late. Most of the delays, of course, were the easily under­ standable results of a shortage of money and time— the thousand petty annoyances of trying to carry on a complicated enterprise vith inadequate funds, hever- theiess, some sort of magazine could usually have been brought out on the date set (rather rashly) in advance, if hcGinnis had been disposed to go to press v.ithout this or that superior article that was delayed in arriv­ ing, hut he was not so disposed. He vas not editing for a deadline; he considered it vulgar to be willing to sacrifice excellence to mere routine. She attitude proved

^^Chapman, "Afterthoughts," p. 289. 51 annoying to some subscribers, mainly the periodical rooms of libraries, but the bound volumes show the re­ sults. And no one enjoyed more than PcGinnis the pun made by one loyal reader: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind7f49

J. Frank Dobie had earlier complained of the maga­ zine's erratic appearances. It was most important to bring the Review out at fairly regular intervals, he wrote. "You can never hold a membership by sporadic printing. You have 50 got to publish the magazine on schedule."'^ The editors respected his opinions, which, however, were of no help at all in getting the magazine out on time.

McGinnis and his colleagues never attem.pted to pro- 51 duce "a theology of regionalism,"^ although they had every intention of finding the way to a valid interpretation of the Southwest. KcGinnis once remarked to John Rosenfield, as the two were struggling to formulate the overall purpose of Rosenfield's department of criticism of the lively arts, "V/e are all present at the birth of culture in the Southwest, but only as mddwives."^ The enthusiasm of such well-known writers in the Southwest as Mary Austin, J. Frank Dobie, and Stanley Vestal was enlisted in an attempt to interpret the life of the region. They hoped to keep the ;• agasine open to

^9Smith, "PicGinnis," p. 304. 50 Gossett, Thesis, p. 111. 51 Ihia., p. 43• ^2John Rosenfield, "The Resiaent Arts," P_Tv (Autum.n, 1955), P- viii* 52 new ideas. Eventually the reader of the Review could begin 53 to detect the distinguishing features of an editorial policy. The editors shared the prevalent belief of many that American life is deeply unsatisfactory because it is rootless and traditionless. They felt that this cultural dilemma was partly the result of the machine age, but they thought that a complete repudiation of industrialism was neither desirable nor realistic. Not all of the causes for dissatisfaction stemmed from the machine. Part of it lay in the absence of a rooted cultural affinity'with environment. As a remedy, the editors suggested that more emphasis be placed on a gener­ al education in the humanities. They evolved an interpretation of regionalism from these convictions: (1) works of art depend upon the environ­ ment that produces them. (2) Our basic task is to look at the lands and people around us, and discover what is true of them. (3) People in the Southwest iiave an envirorjiient and a tradition which are in important respects different from thie environment and traditions of other parts of the Unitea ..^tates. (4) Historical factors are important in understcnaing a region. (5) Problems coimected with the moaern economic development of a region must be understood, as must pi'oblams dei:l±r\g with all other facets of regional deveio:.>nant--ecucatio/i. 1, relig­ ious, political ai:a sociological. (c) The three racial rdnority groups of the houthwest region must be sympathoticall:/ n/uaiea.

^3xhe folloving suniHiation of euitorial policy is condensation of Gossett's co.jients. 53 Increased attention was also given to art criticism, and two excellent art critics were acquired in the process- Alexander Hogue and Jerry Bywaters. Architecture caught the interest of the editors, and a series of articles appeared dealing with the central question of what kind of houses best served the requirements of the region and were at the same tine the most beautiful. After literature, if not before, McGinnis loved painting and after painting he loved architecture. He was for­ ever commissioning painters and architects to write of their specialties for the magazine. Any form of con­ struction, since he considered man as primarily a con­ structing animal, interested him.H In 1955, writing for the Southwest Review's Fortieth Anniversary Issue, Lon Tinkle said that he felt that the major overall merit of the Review lay in its being the cul­ tural conscience of the region it served, and that this sense of conscience, combined wdth enlarged consciousness, prevailed as a magnetic center for the Southwest Re vie v.- editorial policy. "In a i/ay," he wxites, "save for a brief vartime interregnum of a year or tv/o, the Southwest Review has had an almost con­ tinuous and single editorial policy since it moved to Dallas thirty years ago, a single policy aaiainistered hy only two editors: John H. PcCinnis, folloxad hy tho Yoiir.i editor vPom 55 he tiad trained, Alien Paxw^ell.""

•^^inkle, "hdlestone,'- p. 2o3. ^^Ibid., p. 284. 54 In the spring of 1942, the editors of the Saturday Review o£ Literature decided to publish a series of issues dealing with the national literary scene in terms of regions, and chose to start with "The Southwest—Inventory and Sampling." They explained their motives as follows: The series ... is projected in the belief that one of the most significant developments in recent years has been the growing importance of regional America, using the word "regional" in the sense of the numberless in­ fluences—geographical, traditional, economic, and all the rest—which, like soil deposits, leave their traces if not distinguishing characteristics upon a people and their self-expression. As such, regionalism has always been important in toerica, but one of the retarding factors in its growth and recognition can perhaps be traced to the fact that many American writers and artists have been in the habit of looking outside America for much of their subject matter and even their intellectual nourishment. In recent years, however, especially under the pressure of its struggle for the preservation of all that its democratic creed holds precious, America seems to have become introspective. On the one hand,it has become aware that its affairs could never be considered apart from those of the rest of the v/orld, and on the other hand, it has begun to examine its resources ana liabilities with a nev/ sense of appreciation and responsibility. The approach of The Saturday Reviev/, in keeping with the spirit of a general stock-taking and sampling, will be through a series of special issues focusing on our regional resources. Pe thinP the people best capable of editing such issues are the regional x/riters and critics themselves, much as they dislike the word "regional" (it will he noted that there is almost a conscious effort to avoid the word in the follovang pages *j5o

^^The Saturday Review of^ Literatnre (I ay 16, 19T?) 55 John McGinnis and Allen Maxwell were invited to be the guest editors of this special issue. Elizabeth Stover, who had been the Review's sales manager, handled the details. Maxwell helped with the advance thinking and planning, but he had to leave for the navy (and ultimately to wartime ser­ vice in the Pacific) before the Southwest Issue appeared. Lon Tinkle took over the unfinished chores, and he and McGinnis were named as the editors when it came out on Bfeiy 16, 1942. The cover, by Jerry Bywaters, depicted the Old South­ west and the New in symbols. In the foreground, stuck on a fence pole encircled by a strand of barbed wire, was the skull of a Longhorn. Over the right horn was hung a gun belt, with a pistol in a scabbard. Behind the fence pole was a cactus, and lying on the ground were a plowshare, and a large Spanish cross and an arrowhead. In the background were a windmill and water tank, oil derricks and oil storage tanks, and, in the sky overhead, military planes (symbolic of the / many military installations in the Southwest)< Southv/estern writers who contributed features to the issue were: Henry Nash Smith, John A. Lomax, Oliver Lalarge, Stanley Vestal, John Lee hrooks, Rebecca U. Smith, J. Frank Dobie, V.'alter Prescott Webb, Ivitter Bynner, Lewis T. fordyke, Joseph A. Brandt, John Joseph Mathews, George Sessions Perry, Fanita Lanier, Paul Horgan, P. L. DeOolyar, and John ^lillian Rogers. Book reviews were contributed ly Oliver LaP.rge, 56 Herbert Gambrell, Lon Tinkle, Alfred B. Thomas, Sam Acheson, Albert N. Williams, Frank G. Lockwood, Phil Strong, T. N. Camp­ bell, Wayne Gard, Floyd Stovall, and Claude C. Albritten, Jr. All of these writers were contributors to and supporters of the Southwest Review.

The nineteen-forties saw some change in the content of the magazine. Henry Nash Smith wrote: As things went from bad to worse, on the eve of the Second World War, the magazine paid more and more attention to the unpleasant outlines of the American dilemma. This was not so much an innovation in policy as a perceptive response to the flow of thought in the region. >>'

With the outbreak of horld V/ar II, McGinnis found him­ self alone. Through one cause or another, all of the young men he had depended on for help were gone. "Perhaps by that time even for KcGinnis the recurrent quarterly crisis of publi­ cation, had. begun to lose some of its charro," WTrote Chapman.^° There were certain trends associated with the New Regionalism discernible in the Review during the McGinnis years. For one thing, local writers had become aw^are of the Southwest as a proper subject for literature. There was an increased amount of m.aterial about the range country (the foremost contributor being J. Frank Pobie). Therv?^ was a notice­ able attempt to relate 3outhv:est histar:' to the contemporary

^'^Smith, "i cGinnis," p. 309. 58 Chapman, 'h-^fterthou, hts," p. ?J^9. 57 period. Also, there were Bywater's articles on Southwest art, critical articles on contemporary American literature, and more good fiction. Along with an increased disposition to include discussion on world affairs, a special concern was evidenced about the particular economic problems con­ fronting the South and the Southwest. There were indications of a developing attitude of the magazine towards Negroes as a people, although "... nowhere was it suggested that anything should be done to im­ prove the social status of the Negro, or that there was any- thing unjust in his present condition. Gossett writes: Keeping the magazine alive was, especially in the lean years of the depression, a feat of considerable magni­ tude, but KcGinnis's contribution is a great deal more positive. The people of the Southwest are permanently indebted to this man who has done more than any other to develop an awareness of the factors on which an hon­ est interpretation of this region must rest. Other writers—Mary Austin, J. Frank Dobie, Palter P. Webb— will urobably live ,li»nger in terms of literary achieve­ ment, but it was PcGinnis who brought the diverse strands of Southwestern culture into a coherent whole, develop­ ing a movement toward essential honesty in our litera­ ture.^

Later Editors, 1942-1960

In 1942 Donald Pay, a friend of Henry hash Smith and J. Frank Dobie, came, highly recoimended, fron Austin to edit

59 Gossett, Thesis, p. 129 ^^Ibid., p. 133. 56 the Review. Chapman comments concerning this period: I don't know the details; certainly there was striking incompatibility. McGinnis resigned from his position as editor. The next thxree years saw the Review change in style, format, and flavor. It ceased to be particu­ larly southwestern or to have particular meaning in the area. Circulation increased, though, and some prominent names appeared in the table of contents. It would be grossly unfair to say that the periodical deteriorated, however much it may have changed. Perhaps it would not be incorrect to say that it seemed to model itself upon Harper's.^i

In 1945 Day left to work on the Reader^s Digest, and Allen Maxwell returned from the war to become the Review's editor.62 His training by I'cGinnis is apparent. However, a new emphasis is evident on political and socio-economic problems. Vmre poetry and fiction appears, a characteristic that makes it more akin to the George Bond period. "Perhaps," suggested Chapman, "the present-day Review may almost be siim- marized as an attempt to blend judiciously the Bond, the Mc- 63 Ginnis, and the Day varieties.

^•^Ghapman, "Afterthoughts," p. 289. ^^IaxT/:ell is still the editor (August, 1962). ^3Ghapman, "Afterthoughts," p. 290. CHAPTER III THE SOUTHWEST REVIEW IN THE DECADE OF THE FIFTIES—THE "NEW REGIONAL" FOCUS

In the decade of the 1950's, particularly in the purely regional articles and fiction published in its pages, the Southwest Review illustrates fully the "New Regional" outlook. All the basic tenets—the past as an index to the present and future; concern with all phases of regional cul­ ture; the belief that a "rooted" and experiential regionalism sponsors an understanding of the universal—may be seen when one reads systematically through the decade. The first two are clearly evident in the present chapter. The third is most obvious in Chapter IV. The following pages represent a brief survey of the regional article of the ten-year period, grouped under pertin­ ent headings. Since it is impracticable to sumn^arize complete articles, only an indication of their salient feature is given in each case. Almost all the essays discussed in this chapter are written by authors who are southwesterners either by hirth or adoption. The many approaches they take offer some idea of the great diversity of the interests that enter into the con­ tinuing study of the region.

Articles on Regional Culture

One point the t the .ditois of the Review^ are quite positive about ia that, although the Santh is very definitely 59 60 a region, it is not their region, although it should be men­ tioned at the same time that a good amount of material in the fifties deals with the literatiire and the problems of the South in general.

The South and the Fugitives

A strong bit of evidence of the New Regionalism in t^e Review is that during the fifties the editors carry no torch for the romantic myth of the Old South. There is no­ where any hint of nostalgia for the old days before the Civil War. Actually, only two articles during the 1950»s touch upon that war at all. One is an entirely unemotional adcount of the Confederacy's attempts to carry on trade through Matamoros, Plexico, in which the author says that the failures of the effort present another clear example of the 1 confusion and lack of unity within the Confederate ranks. The other article is built around the amusing theory that the South through its trained historians has out-manuevered the North in this century and is therefore at last winning the v/ar, while the North is losing the peace. This has been accomplished by taking the vmr out of the realm of the noral crusade, rejecting the iaea that slavery was the primary cause of the conflict, and bringing out other equally important eco­ nomic ar^c politi :.. 1 causes. In th.jir discussions, the southern

Vltchell Smi'i], "The '" outral' 1-atainoros Trade, 1861-65," SWR (autumn, 1952), pp. 319-324. 61 historians have spotlighted a new American folk hero—the 2 Noble Confederate. G. P. Lee takes a more serious point of view and writes of the disappearance of the "southern gentleman" prototype in literature, mentioning Thomas Nelson Page as perhaps the chief creator of southern gentlemen, their ladies and their slaves. By 1910, he points out, two Virginians, James Branch Cabell and Ellen Glasgow, both to the manner bom, were implying that if the virtues described by Page had existed in their ancestors, they had not been inherited. To the general reading public of 1910, however, it seemed both untrue and unfair that southern literary heroes were subject to normal passions and were as likely to succumb to tem^pta- tion as anybody else. Cabell and Glasgow reached only a smiall audience. In 1922, Lee continues, the "Fugitives" in Nash­ ville (John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren) voiced their discontent with the present, using criticism and poetry as their chief instruments. They felt that, incabandoning the old economic pattern, the south­ erner had sterilized its inherent virtues. Lee feels that their instruments, focus, and timing were all wrong. ^Yoceed- ing to a consideration of another southern \riter, Lee dis­ cusses hilliam Faulkner, v/ho, he believes, feels that of all the southerners the Negro is the least gxiilty—indeed, that

^P'rank 3. Vandiver, "How the Yankees Are Losing the War," SaR (vJinter, 1955), PP. 62-b6. 62 he is blameless—and that he has been more faithful than have the whites to the verities of tradition. Younger southern writers are not free of the legend; they universally record its death and uselessness. Lee concludes that new no/els clinging to the old myth still come out, but he finds them to be the literary equivalent of Hadacol, and designed for the same intellectual level."^

Faulkner and his works were considered in other essays, as well. Walton Litz, a native of Little Rock, Ark­ ansas, a graduate of Princeton, and a former Rhodes scholar, contributed a study of William Faulkner's moral-apocalyptic view of histoiy and his formal use of visual imagery. In this article, Litz thinks that the approach to Faulkner's moral vision should be made through the Biblical themes, which are its inspiration and formal representation, and which give it authority and implication. Sartoris (1929), he feels, contains most of Faulkner's later themes in an unde­ veloped form, but Litz does not believe that Faulkner was consciously aware of these themes when he wrote the novel. In accord"with this idea is hilliam Van O'Connor's investigation of Faulkner's earliest writing up through Sar­ tor! s, which show that the products of Faulkner's period of

3G. P. Lee, "The Decline and Death of the Southern Gentleman," ShR (Sunui.er, 1951), Pp. la^-iPO. Walton Litz, "Williai- Faulknar's Mor< 1 Vision," SWR (Summer, 1952), pp. 200-209. 63 apprenticeship contained, along with much self-consciousness and amateur rhetoric, promises of the full genius of his 5 mature prose. Further evidence of New Regionalism is found in arti­ cles in which the present condition of the South is discussed in a realistic way. In one essay, for instance, Wllma Dyke- man asserts that the South has, for some years now, been liv­ ing one way of life and thinking another. The fundamental reality of the Old South, she thinks, was agrarianism, while 6 the New South is rapidly becoming industrialized. George Pope Shannon, in an evaluation of the conditions under which southern scholars live and work, says that good southern scholarship is nine parts scholarship and one part southern. Further, he insists, scholarship is a single realm whose citizens speak a common tongue—with, perhaps, slight region­ al accents; the bounds of Western culture itself are the community the scholar serves. For decades to come, warns Shannon, southern scholars will be playing with the highest of stakes—nothing less them the destiny of a region and a 7 culture. The problems of today's South in the areas of agri­ culture, health, and education are candidly presented in an article that originated as a speech made at Tulane by a vice-

^hilliaiTi Van CConnor, "'hilliam Faulkner's Apprentice­ ship," SWR (Pinter, 1953), Pi-. 1-14. ^Wilma Dykeman, "" i:aAt Is tho Southirn ay of Life?" SV:R (Spring, 1959), pp. lb:-166. '^George Pope Shannon, "The Southern vcholar in 'Con­ text," 3PK (Spring, 195C), pp. 93-100. 64 president of Dallas's Neiman»Maraus, Joseph Ross. Prevail­ ing tenant, farming methods, he maintains, have brought erosion and exhaustion to the soil. In World War II one of each two southern boys was unable to meet the minimtun physical or mental requirements for military service. The school system of the South suffers from the agrarian charac­ ter of the region, from the high costs of a biracial cultural pattern, and from multiple dichotomies of education in higher education. The future of the South, says Ross, depends on the development of regional technology in engineering, science, and business. A society such as the one Ross calls for was precise­ ly what the B\igitives had decided to flee from. The editor­ ial policy-makers of the 1950-decade of the Southwest Review are apparently as wary of agrarianism as PcGinnis and his associates were during the years when they collaborated with Louisiana State University. In 1951, h. P. Frohock exaciined the fiction of Robert Penn warren, who, Frohock thinks, is one of the few first-rate novelists to euerge in the United States recently, and who be­ gan his writing cariSer as one of the iMashville Fugitive poets.'

Joseph Ross, "Of Human Resources and the South," Svmv (Autumn, 1950), pp. 276-288. ^WT M. Frohock, "fj:*. warren's Albatross," 3uR (Win­ ter, 1951), pp. 48-59. 65 Warren's novels, according to the critic, grow out of a dynamic background provided by the clash of agrarian and urban cultures vAiich has plagued the South for over a cen­ tury. Warren's hero is trapped between conflicting loyalties. His career follows an almost mythic pattern: (1) he assumes the suffering of a group (i.e., the agrarians); (2) he descends into criminality; (3) he incurs condemnation; (4) he becomes a fugitive. He is helpless. Symbolic of his general frustra­ tion is his inability to establish a satisfactory sexual re­ lationship; this failure foreshadows the tragic atmosphere of betrayal in which he lives, where treachery is the rule. Frohock thinks that in a sense Warren's trouble stems from the fact that he is a "southern regionalist." The particularly exacerbated form of regionalism which developed among southern intellectuals during the de­ pression was as curiously unrealistic a resistance to events as American cultural history has seen in a long time. It resolutely turned its back upon the problems which confronted the country as a whole and tried to make a separate peace. Critics have tried now and then to align the mentality behind it with the varieties of extreme conservatism, prevalent at the moment in Europe. The parallel does not hold, because these southerners were not, as the Europeans were, engaged in protecting economic and social privilege. Instead, they were pro­ tecting a dream. • . . Agrarian realism as literal fact is on its way out. Fast transportation, mass production, and other such blessings are finishing it off. The radio, the movie, the syndicated editorial, the chain store, the large central factory with long lines of distribution, all conspire to kill out the differences between people of various regions. Rochester dresses us, Hollyv/ood en­ tertains us, Detroit flashes us around the country. V^hat is left of the old regional differences is the psy- 66 chologioal reality; the region is a state of mind. And the state of mind that Warren's novels reflect is a singu­ larly unchanging one.^^ Frohock concludes by saying that there are southerners who wear the South about their necks like an albatross. They assume all of the much discussed "weaknesses" and "faults" and "guilt" of the South. Warren will cease to be merely very good and become excellent, Frohock prophesies, when and 11 if he decides to get rid of the carcass of a dead bird. In an essay discussing the Fugitive group, John T. Westbrook, a Louisianan, says that Robert Penn Warren was 12 the only member of the group who showed real genius. In a 13 previous article, Mr. Westbrook had pointed out that, ex­ cept for the weather and the scenery, there is nothing region­ al about present Louisiana. He thinks that both Warren and Faulkner produce books that are removed from reality, remote from present Southern concerns, and deep in a fictive yester­ day. Further, he believes that the South has lost its re­ gional integrity. Regionalism, he feels, should have some­ thing to do with a recent or a present region. Agrarianism as a practical influence and as a problem of reality is now

•'"^W. P:. Frohock, "Mr. barren's Albatross," SPR (Winter, 1951), PP* 57-58. ^^IMd.. p. 59. '''^John T. Pestbrook, "The Pugitives Overhauled,'^ ahR (Autumn, 1959), PP. 340-343. •^•^Ibid., ''Twilight of Southern Regionalism," S\ R (Sur.imer, 19571, PP* 231-234. 67 as gone with the wind as the problem of slavery. He does not think that new southern regionalists of the old type will appear.

Southwestern Literature

*^^® Review, during the fifties, consistently sponsored interest in the literature of the region. For example, M^dy Boatright, in an article analyzing Owen Wister's literary creation of the cowboy, concludes that the western cowboy, historically, possesses the qualities of which folk heroes are made: prowess said cleverness. Wister was the first writer to win a national hearing of the cowboy, and to make him acceptable as a hero, putting his chief emphasis upon chivalry—his cowboys are natural gentlemen and triumph by cleverness more often than by force. Wister's cowboy ex­ emplified the American version of the myth of the faithful apprentice, the Horatio Alger story. According to Boatright, Wister shared the contempt for the masses that is inherent in the doctrine of social Darwinism, and subscribed wholeheart­ edly to the myth of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority. Again, Max lAestbrook asserts that it is a ndstake to consider Western fiction merely a product of regionalism. Perhaps, he says,the Western writer is faced not so much with the problem of giving broader significance to a local genre as with the problem of transliterating traditional

Slody Boatright, "The American • yth Rides the Range. Ov/en Ulster's ihan on Horseback," SWR (Summer, 1951), pp. If^l- 163. 68 American themes into artistic form. The revolt-search motif, basic in American fiction, is basic to the cowboy story.^^ Conrad Richter's fiction is the subject of an essay by John T. Flanagan, who compares Richter's books with those of Willa Gather and Hawthorne. Richter's settings are usu­ ally in New Mexico, witji minor extensions into Texas and Ari­ zona, and the time is generally the nineteenth century. Flanagan finds his work atmospheric, dramatic^ and episodic. A former editor of both the New Mexico Quarterly and the Arizona Quarterly, and the present editor of the Stanford University Press, Charles A. Allen, submitted an article deal­ ing with the psychological technique of Katharine Anne Porter, in which he states that in the best of her work is the subtle humanistic implication that man's first duty is to understand 17 himself rather than to try to save the world. Other articles in the Review in the decade continue the interest in regional writing. Charles E. Eisinger ex­ presses the opinion that despite all the evidence some critics have compiled showing Walter Van Tilburg Clark's affinity with the so-called new fiction that has flourished since Vorld War II, 18 Clark would not ordinarily be identified vdth the new fiction.

^^Max Westbrook, "The Themes of Western Fiction," .a\ (Summer, 1958), pp. 232-238. ^^Conrad Richter, "Romancer of the Southxvest," S\ R (Summer, 1958), pp. 189-196. •^"^Charles A. Allen, "Katherine Anne Porter; Psycho­ logy as Art," SWR (Summtcr, 1956), pp. 223-230. Chester E. hisinger, "The Fiction of Halter Van Tilburg Clark. Fan and hature in the Uest," S^>vP (.iui.^.er, iQ«iQ) . DD. 21A-226. 69 Eisinger thinks that Clark is a regional writer, and that in order to understand him, one must determine in his work the meaning and relationship of man and nonhuman nature against the background of the West. Eisinger says that although re­ gionalism had appeared in American fiction before 1940, the quality and concentration of it during that decade exceeded any that had gone before. Clark's view of men is pessimistic, and Eisinger thinks that henceforth Clark will localize his search for morality in individual man, especially in man's relationship to nature. Clark, in the 1940's, became one of the earliest figures to turn his back on the social pre­ occupation of the 1930's.

Norreys Jephson 0'Conor nominates for a place among British and American writers who have recorded successfully the life of the western frontier an Englishwoman, Isabella Lucy Bird, who in 1873 wrote A Lady's Life in the Rocky Moun­ tains . Her book described her journey across the plains, and 19 was issued on both sides of the Atlantic. Other essays concern earlier examiples of southwest­ ern culture. Two essays focus upon Edmund lontgomery, the brilliant husband of Elisabet Ney, who, vith her, left .Europe to settle in Texas during the nineteenth century, hawin H.

'Norreys Jephson 0'Conor, "Intrepid Lady," SWR (Spring, 1951), PP- 123-129. 70 20 Conklin wrote a brief biography about him. Another essay, by William H. Burke, discusses Charles Alva Lane, an Ohio turn-of-the-century poet, who created an entire body of work ^ ^ 21 based upon Montgomery's philosophical theories. J. Frank Dobie contributed an essay giving a resume of the life of Helen Hunt Jackson and discussing Ramona. Dobie feels that Miss Jackson idealized the efforts of the Spaniards to 22 Christianize (or "Spaniard!ze") the Indian. He says that the book may still be read with interest as a story, but he does not feel that it should be regarded as a communication bearing truth. Yet, he concludes, "Ramona is authentic. No more authentic chapter exists in the gr^at American deter- 23 mination to get away from reality than the Ramona legend." A literary skirmish that occurred between Eugene Manlove Rhodes and StUart Henry concerning Emerson Hough's North of 2.L, J[6 is a subject discussed by W. H. Hutchinson. ^ Henry had dealt fairly with the book as a fine piece of thrilling fic­ tion, and then made fxin of it because of what he considered

20 Edwin H. Conklin, "Edmund Pontgomery: Neglected Genius," SWR (Autumn, 1951), PP. 315-322. ^William H. Burke, "Poet Philosopher and Hermit Philosopher," SWR (Spring, 1951), PP. 111-122. 22 Dobie, "Helen Hunt Jackson and Ramona," SV^'R (:Dpring, 1959), pp. 93-9^. 23ibid., p. 96. ^W. H. Hutchinson, "Gra^-afire on the Great Jlains," SWR (Spring, 1956), pp. lhl-185. 71 several regional inaccuracies. Rhodes rushed to Hough's de­ fense. The final result was Henry's Conquering Our Great American Plains, without which, according to Hutchinson, our heritage would have been so much the less. Roy Temple House writes of the southwestern experience of Erwin Rosen, the bad boy from Munich who became the idol of youthful Ger­ man readers throughout the first quarter of the twentieth cen- 25 tury. The mythical Texas hero of the Alamo appears In two articles in the Review in the decade. Joseph Leach expresses the opinion that all the world-wide notions of Texans stem essentially from the fame of Davy Crockett. He believes that the Crockett almanacs were the m.ost popular comic series of their times, and that the Crockett stories are the founda­ tion stones in the structure of the Texan Tradition. A Nash­ ville publisher started the Crockett series in 1835, a year before Crockett's death at the Alamo, and nowhere was he more clearly defined as a mythical hero of American folklore. Leach says that Texas's own special folk heroes—Pecos Bill and Bigfoot Pallace—are essentially reincarnations of the original Davy. In another essay, J. Prank Dobie discusses Davy Crockett's autobiography and pronounces it to be undiluted regionalisn, provincial not only in subject, but in point of

'^^Roy Temple l-ouse, "blind Baggage, Brenham to Guthrie," SVm (Autumn, 1951), PP. 277-280. ^^Joseph Laach, "Crockett's Almanacs and the Typical Texan," SWR (Spring, 19>0), pp. 88-95. 72 view. It seems most unlikely to Dobie that such a work is any longer possible. He thinks that from our time onward the regional mind will transcend the provincial point of 27 view, and the region on which it is focused. A pioneer popularizer of the region, Mary Austin, provides the topic for two artieles. A re-evaluation of her as a writer appears in an article by Vernon Young, of New 28 Mexico, and T. M. Pearce points to her as a prime example 29 of a poet as an artist. Lawrence Clark Powell, in listing ,the novels he would recozmsend to one who wanted the essence of the Southwest with a minimum of reading, speaks of her 30 view of the region as a romantic one.

Economics, Health, Culture Seymour V. Connor, at that time state archivist, in an article that was initially a paper delivered before the Texas State Historical Association, discusses historical and 31 economic aspects of land speculation in Texas. T. J. Cauley,

^"^Dobie, "The Writer and His Region," SWR (Spring, 1950), pp. 81-87. 2%emon Young, "Mary Austin and the Earth Perfonnance," SWR (Slimmer, 1950), pp. 153-163. ^^T. M. Pearce, "The Poet as Artist," ShR (Smmner, 1950), pp. 206-210. 3%awrence Clark Powell, "Landscape with Books," SWR (Sumnier, 1959), PP- 251-255- ^Seymour V. Connor, "Land Speculation in Texas," SWR (Spring, 1954), PP. 138-143. 73 in an article in the same issue of the Review, poses the in­ teresting thought that a constant surface area does not mean a constant amount of land. Farm land, he says, has three dimensions rather than two, and depth may be fully as im­ portant as length or breadth. Dr. Gilbert B. Forbes, P.D., urges the readers of ^^® Heview to realisse the shortcomings of our region with regard to a health program, and to plan for a better health 33 future for our people. '^ The editors of the Review were interested in estab­ lishing regional museums in the Southwest. John Chapman, in a discussion of the matter, says: One logical idea would be a collection deter­ mined* by place. To some people this means what used to be called by critics "regionalism." But regionalism as I knew it called for a certain attitude as well as a preoccupation with locale. Not so the kind of restriction placed on the little museum.34 George Williams, of Rice Institute's English depart­ ment, states flatly that there was not a first-class public museum of natural history in the Southwest at the time he was

^^T. J. Cauley, '*How Much Land Do You Have?" SWR (Spring, 1954), PP. 144-148. 33Gilbert B. Forbes, "The Facts of Life in Texas," SWR (Winter, 1954), PP- 59-65. 34john Chapman, "Little I useums—Their Means and Ends," SWR (Autumn, 1954), PP- 357-360. 74 35 writing. He thinks that the best solution to the financial problems lies in cooperation between the universities of the Southwest and the large municipalities in v/hich some of them are located.

The City of Dallas and its citizens was considered by Boyd McDonald. He points out that as the term is used in his essay, "decadent" means neither good nor bad, and 36 that aesthetically it can mean either.

Examination of the Past

All of the historical material published in the Re­ view during the 1950's is regional in subject matter, proba­ bly because the editors do not wish to preempt the domain of the historical journals, and therefore confined the magazine to matters that would fit into a cultural interpretation of the Southwest.

Historical Essays

Everett DeGolyer writes of Coronado's route during his search for Quivira, disagreeing with Herbert Bolton's identification of certain geographical sites visited by Coronado. In DeGolyer's opinion, it is not possible to iden­ tify unmistakably any single spot on the entire uivira jour-

George Williams, "I useum Stereotypes in the South­ west," SWg. (Winter, 1954), PP. 44-51. ^ Boyd McDonald, ''Dallas an. Decadence," gj^Ji (Win­ ter, 1950), pp. 1-6. 75 ney, once past Cicuye, but he thinks that the farthest point south reached by the expedition was fifteen miles south of Lubbock."^' In an essay on the Battle of San Jacinto, Andrew Forest Vtatr pointed out that it has been the most controver­ sial event in all of Texas history, and that there is hardly any statement that can be made about the Texas amny at San 38 Jacinto except that it overwhelmed the Mexican army."^ An­ other Muir essay deals with the second Battle of San Jacinto— a humorous account of Mrs. Peggy McCormick's skirmish with Sam Houston over the matter of getting the rotting bodies of the Mexicans off her land, on which the battle had been fought.39 The illustrated letters of an eighteen-year-old Scotsman were edited by his great niece for the Review. The young man journeyed to Texas from Scotland to ascertain for his parents the well being of an older brother. He fell in love with the people and the land, although he did not remain. His letters to his parents tell a great deal about pioneer life in Texas, and the illustrations are done with a keen eye for detail. One pertinent remark he made was that, just as in old baronial castles many tedious hours were v;hiled away by

3'''DeGolyer, "Coronado's Northern Expedition," SWR (Spring, 1950), pp. 115-123. 3^Andrewr Forest Muir, "The T ystery of San Jacinto," SWR (Spring, 1951), PP- 77-84. 39p;uir, "The Lady has for Burning," ShR (Spring, 1959), pp. 166-169. 76 minstrels, so telling stories served the same purpose in Texas.^0

Mildred Scott Adler furnished a contemporary's thoughts about the Custer massacre.^"^ PIrs. Henry Swift, the author, and her husband were Episcopal missionaries at the Sioux Cheyenne River Agency, Dakota Territory, both be­ fore and after Custer's campaigns. She pointed out that the Black Hills, which were considered sacred by the Sioux, had been invaded by gold prospectors, and that the Sioux nation was stirred up. Some traders had exchanged high-powered rifles for furs, unlawfully, and so the Indians were much better armed than anyone knew. Mrs. Swift felt that the Sioux were outrageously treated through the whole affair, and blamed the entire bloody mess on Custer. Two of the contributors to the Review of this decade were nuns: Sister M. Agatha and Gister M. Francis, O.S.U. Sister M. Agatha tells of hov/ she went to teach the fifth grade at Frauenburg, a little German coiununity in Texas, in the early days. There were tiiree nuns running the school, which was established for the benefit of the children of the German or Bohemian settlers. She recalls the children as being sturdy, intelligent, and absolutely reliable.^ Sister K.

^^IVilliam Alexander Bowie, "The Cow ^ alks Peatly: Texas in 1876," ed. Ellen Bowie Holland, Sh^ (Winter, 1959), pp. 20-35. ^H'rs, Henry hrnith, "The Custer hassacre," ed. ?'ildred Scott Adler, SVi^ (Autumn, 1959), pp. 318-326. ^^Sister K. Agatha, ''Three Nuns on a Pill," h A (\^in- ter, 1955), PP. 73-79. 77 Francises three articles all deal with the Ursulines on Gal­ veston Island. The first tells of the arrival of the first group of nunej^^ the second deals with a yellow fever epi­ demic on the island and how the Ursulines coped with it;^^ the third gives an account of the Galveston Storm.^^ (A story by Gene Schulze is built around the famous storm, also.) Edith H. Parker, of East Texas State Teachers Col- lege, reports that William Graham S\Mmer anticipated by sev­ eral years Frederick J. Turner's frontier hypothesis and Walter V/ebb's expansion of the theme.^' Sumner's writings were so widely scattered, she thinks, that it was unlikely that Turner would have seen them, so he probably had no in­ fluence on Turner. Webb knew of Sumner, but did not run across his collected writings until 1938, after setting up at the University of Texas a seminar on the Great Frontier.

^3sister M. Francis, "St. Ursula Comes to Galveston Isle," Sm (Autumn, 1957), PP. 324-329. ^^Pister II. Francis, "Yellow Fever and Galveston's Ursulines," SWR (Spring, 1958), pp. 154-159. ^Sister P. P'rancis, "St. Ursula Against the Sea: Galveston, 1900," SWR (Pinter, 1959), pp. 74-79. ^^Gene Schulze, "The Storm,' Sv^ (Autumn, 1950), pp. 251-257. 47jE(lith H. Parker, "William Graham Sumner and the Frontier," SWR (Autumn, 1956), pp. 357-365. 7d Autobiofiraphv

Dobie published in the Review a good bit of autobio­ graphical material during these years. He speaks with deep feeling of the land on which he was born./fc 8 He says that in his childhood on the ranch Christmas was always a time of oranges and books—Ivanhoe. Swiss Family Robinson, fairy tales, Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe. The Scottish Chiefs, the Bible, the Leatherstocking Series, and Pilgrim's Progress— and he also writes of how the president of Southwestern Uni­ versity, Dr. R. S. Hyer, later influenced his life through books.4 9 In the same article, he does not resist calling our modern Education departments the Departments of Banality, presided over by Professors of Banality, who cast aside such splendid vehicles of learning as McGuffey's readers. Writing of his education, Dobie says that he went to high school for two years in Alice before going away to college. His parents were determined that he have a college education, although the idea did not appeal greatly to him; however, once arrived there, he found to his astonishment new worlds opening before

himuA . 30

4dDobie, "A Plot of Earth," SWR (Spring, 1953), pp. 89-100. ^^Dobie, "Books and Christmas," SWR (Winter, 1951), PP. 1-6. ^^Dobie, "Poetry and Prose at Georgetown: I, SWR (Win­ ter 1957), PP- 1-10. Also "Poetry and Prose at Georgetown: II, SWR'(Sprin,, 1957), PP- 97-103. 79 Another Dobie article memorializes Dr. P. H. Pickard, a Ruasian-born scholar, who became a surgeon in this country and who made a great impression on Dobie because of his vast knowledge. Pickard»s insatiable appetite for reading led to his acquisition of over fifteen thousand titles.^^ Ruth Dodson also contributed an article about the books she had read when she was a child living on a ranch fifty miles from Corpus Christi.^'^

The Old West

The cowboy, says Paul Horgan, is the last of the clearly original types of western Americans to draw his gen­ eral tradition and character from the kind of land he worked in, and the kind of work he did. His forerunners were the trappers of the mountains and the traders of the plains. Horgan discusses the cowboy's work, his knowledge of the nature of animals, his clothes, his diversions after supper, 53 his equipment, food and talk. If he saw himself as a simple creature, and if tradition so accepted him, both were wrong. His tempera­ ment and character were full of tempestuous contradic­ tions and stresses. The life he chose resem.bled the

5lDobie, "Dr. M. W. Pickard and His Books," SWR (Spring, 1952), pp. 157-161. ^^Ruth Dodson, "Books Beyond Barlow's Perry," Pi^p (Autumn, 1959), pp. 347-351. ^^Paul Horgan, "The Cow Boy Revisited," SkR (Aut­ umn, 1954), pp. 285-297. 80

Indian's more than any other, but it lacked the sustain­ ing spiritual power of the Indian's nature—mythology, end so it could not really hold for him the unquestioned dignity of a system that tried to explain—in whatever error—the whole of human life.54 In an article on food on the cattle trail, Wayne Gard 55 tells how it was secured, prepared, and served. He men- tions the fact that most of the trail men preferred the rough cow-camp fare to that of town restaurants, whose "wasp-nest" bread they rated a poor substitute for fluffy sour-dough bis­ cuits. In another issue, Gard relates several yarns about buffalo hunting.^ Dobie iwrites of an old folk remedy for 57 rabies: the madstone.

The Regional Scene

Birds, Odors, and the Vinegarone

Roy Bedichek probably knew more about Texas flora and fauna than any of the other southwestern writers, and habitually related what he knew about them to civilization and human values. He discusses Texas's birds in a general essay of the fifties, pointing out that of all the states.

^^Ibid., p. 292. ^^Wayne Gard, "Grub for the Trail," PAR (Summer, 1952), p. viii. ^^Qard, "Tales of the Buffalo Hunter," SWR (Spring, 1959), PP- 156-.162. ^^Dobie, "Madstones and Hydrophobia Skunks," PAR (Winter, 1958), pp. 1-9. 81 Texas is the richest in the species identified within its borders. Also, he says, no other state entertains so many tourist species.-^58 In another essay he gives an amusing account of the telephone company's futile war against the white-necked raven, which has started using wire to construct its nest, and telephone and power transmission lines and cross-arms as nesting locations. Metal placed on these lines often shorts out the electric current. The service companies have devised ingenious methods of discouraging the birds (such as fastening toy snakes to the top of the cross-arms), 59 but so far nothing has worked permanently. Bedichek once contemplated writing a Book of Smells, but never got it out, perhaps because of the lack of words to describe precisely the world of odors, which is the cen­ tral point of an essay dealing with the difficulty people 60 have in communicating odor-experience. Lloyd N. Jeffrey discusses folk beliefs about the vinegarone (a whip scorpion) and different forms of insect and animal life it is frequently confused v/ith. He reveals the fact that all of these creatures are shy and innocuous and pose no possible threat to man except perhaps to his

mental composure.

3%oy Bedichek, "Texas Birds: A documented Brag," SWR (Winter, 1953), PP- 24-33- ^^Bedichek, "War of the wire," p^vPt (Saring, 1952), pp. 110-115. ^^Bedichek, "Nose of a laturalist," SWR ('/inter, 1958), pp. 30-36. 61 Lloyd N. Jeffrey, "The Vinegarone: I yth and Reality." 82 Character Sketches

There were several character sketches of regional interest dtiring the decade. Jerry Bywaters discusses Otis 62 Dozier. Senator Tom Connelly is the subject of an article it •* written by David Botjter. William A. Owens gives an ac­ count of an interview he had with a famous Negro fortune teller who lives in Corsicana. Fred Gipson relates some 65 of the adventures of a cowpuncher from Arizona. From Centenary College, in Shreveport, Arthur Marvin Shaw writes of the first impression he got of Huey Long, before Long 66 gained fame as a demagogue. An attorney tells about Col­ onel William Corner Greene, and how he amassed fantastically 67 huge ranch holdings in Mexico just below the Arizona border.

Racial Minorities

The Southwest Review in several of its editorials and articles deplores the existence of racial antagonisms. In

^^Jerry Bywaters, "Otis Dozier, Growth and Maturity of a Texas Artist," SWR (Pinter, 1957), pp. 33-40. ^3David Better, "Practical Mr. Connally," SWR (win­ ter, 1952), pp. 38-45. ^^William A. Owens, "Seer of Corsicana," S^.R (Spring, 195^), PP- 124-134. ^^Fred Gipson, "Show-Off Aopcr," AVyx (Winter, 1954), pp. 77-79. Arthur P^arvin Shaw, ''The First Time I Saw Huey," SWR (Winter, 1950), pp. 59-6^^. A. Frederick Piignone, "A Fief for .ioico," ShR (Autumn, 1959), PP. 332-339. ^3 1957, Don Wolfe, in an article dealing with the matter of race, states that one of the decisive contributions of anthro­ pology has been its painstaking analysis of so-called racial characteristics, which has produced the information that color is no criterion of intellectual power, and that there is no such thing, scientifically speaking, as Negro blood, Italian blood, Jewish blood or Chinese blood—it is all human blood, 68 with all blood types represented in most races. After long and deep analysis, says Wolfe, Dr. Margaret Mead has con­ cluded thiat the central significance of social anthropology is that the nature of man is malleable and plastic to a de­ gree never fully visualized or measured. This anthropologi­ cal conclusion, however, has not won wide acceptance, . • • even in the scientific world, much less in the mind of the average citizen still deluded by the prejudices of color and nationality learned at his mother's knee. The incredible persistence of anti-Semitism, of national paranoia, the assumptions of racial or national superior­ ity, can be accounted for only by a tenacity of custom not yet measured.°9 John Chapman writes that he considers anti-Semitism as a variety of paranoia, with an unmistakable aura of sad­ ism. Somewhat sadly, he remarks: It has seemed to me for some time that there is detectable in the southwest area a slow but unmdstakable increase in anti-Semitism. . . . Vve in this region have already so large a set of prejudices against minorities that we hardly need to acquire a new group against whom 68 Don V^/olfe, "Anthropology and Man's Changing Image," SWR (Spring, 1957), pp. 133-141- ^9ibld.. p. 140. 84 to direct our hate. \e have behaved badly enough to­ ward both Latin-Americans and Negroes that we really need no further opportunity to distinguish ourselves for intolerance. Yet it seems that some would like to add the Jewish group to our list.70

The 1952 Spring Issue spotlights the problem of racial hatred, and proposes two approaches to it: (Da positive accentuation of the ideals of our heritage, which in them­ selves combat the race-hate concept, and (2) a direct and close and assuredly negativistic examination of the roots 71 and results of race hatred itself.

The Ne^ro

There was a marked increase in the amount of material devoted to a synpathetic treatment of the Negro during the 1950's. PlcGinnis had never wanted the Review to become em­ broiled in the racial struggle in an obvious way, but Allen Maxwell and his collaborators apparently regard this strug>le as one of the significaxt phenom.ena of the times and conse­ quently feel that the Review should reflect some opinion with regard to it. There is also evidence of the Peview's wishing to make the Negro better understood hy white people. One of the most arresting articles in tie Review .\is written by a hegro about the trial of txvo white men in ouiijier, I'^ississippi, •••ho haa been charged v.ith the lyncmag of Pr.jnett

70 John Chapman, ''The /nti-^emite: '; rsychiatric Problem," Sj^ (Sprin,., 1952), pp. I6l-la2. 71 "The hoPtor's Notebook," ^hh (.Spring, 1952), p. vi. 84 Till, an afflicted fourteen-year-old Negro boy. The two men were acquitted. Frank London Brown, the author, reports his experiences in the South during his coverage of the trial. Brown is a Chicagoan, and a graduate of Roosevelt University.

Charles Glicksberg analyses the use of symbolism by ^he Negro writer—specifically Ralph Jillison, author of In- 73 visible Man. When the Negro resorts to the use of symbol­ ism, suggests Glicksberg, it is because only by employing that medium can he hope to convey some notion of the life that Negroes are forced to lead in the United States. Elli­ son has chosen the symbol of vision to provide motivational insigjit and the resolution of conflict. His thesis is that it is not enough to become and remain, as the Negro has done, an invisible man. The true darkness, the worst darkness, he seems to say, dwells in the mind and heart of man. David Hotter reports on recent progress made toward securing civil rights for Pegroas in the South, especially in the field of education. "If the poovle of good will in the South work out their sound program of mut lal respect," he concludes, "they can yrovide leadership for tha lasting soln- 74 tion to misunderstanding throughout tne country. In anotn-r

7'*-' Frank London Prown, ''In the Phaco\; of a P:.'-in^_ Pol- dier," AM (Autumn, 1959), PP. 292-30^^. '^3charl';s I. Piickshor,_,, ^'Txic Syihoxisn! of ^'^i:i..r," SPR i^miner, 1954), PP. 259-265. "^^Davin Better, ••Talsc l;.tio/: Povr. .>oi;tii,'' SI' ix (Autuj.a., 1951), pp. 2^7-290. B5 plea for granting civil rights to the Negro, Margaret Hartley mentions five Jim Grow laws in Texas.75

She is also the author of a comparison of their neigh­ bors' treatment of Lillian Smith and Hodding Carter."^^ In Greenville, Mdssissippi, Carter, although argued with, fought with, and shouted down, is a recognized part of the mental content of his region. His thanking is som.ething that his fellow southerners can cope with. But in Clayton, Georgia, although Lillian Smith is treated with courtesy and affection, her life's work is ignored as if it did not exist. Piiss Hart­ ley finds the answer to this peculiar state of affairs in the contents of Carter's Southern Legacy and Smith's Killers of the Dream. Both writers look on the South's past as a tremen­ dous force in the minds of today's southerners. Carter thinks that some day in the future the "southern legacy" of resent­ ment over the Civil War will wear itself out, and the tv;o sides will be able to unite again through a "shared past." However, to Lillian Smith the past holds more terrible things than a divisive war. It ^he shared past] contains the suppressed and poisoned smotions of a race, fundamentally generous and kind, which has betrayad itself in oppressing another race and has felt continuously in every aspect of Its life, the re­ sults of that betrayal. "We southerners," she says, "have identified with the long sorrowful past on suah deep Ij.el.

75 Pargaret L. Hartley, "Black Poundarics in Pig SWR (V.inter, 1952), pp. 6c-71. Hartley, "Strange Legacy," SUR (Paring, 1950), pp. 145-148. 86 of love a JIG hate and ^ailt that we do not know how to ^reak old bonds without imUlng our lives down. . . . 4 "«•• Known guilt without understanding it, and there is no tie that bends mt^n closer to the past aiac each other than that.. . . The guilt is a complex one. It involves the white child's love for his hegro "second mother" and the conflicting requirement that, as he grows older, he cheapen that love and withdraw from it the element of respect that gave it dignity.77 Miss Hartley points out that to Hodding Carter, segregation is a way of getting along, although he does not think that it is necessary for white southerners to strike at human dig­ nity as a means of maintaining separation. To Lillian Smith, segregation represents a withdrawal from life, and the effort to bring about a compromise between segregation and the tenets of Christianity has produced an almost schizophrenic division. An Alabaman, Babs H. Deal, is the author of a story 78 poignantly illustrative of this guilt feeling. A boy from a southern college is called home by his parents to attend the funeral of the family's "m.ammy." Tiiere is obviously deep love in the family for the dead hegress, ana when he retur'ns to the campus he feels '^a soreness deep in him scmew^here that he couldn't bear to touch yet."'^ let, he pulls hiiLself together and addresses a student rally at v/hich he urges harrassr^er.t

'^^xbid., pp. 140 and 147. '"^Babs H. Deal, ''Journey to SoiueW'tare,^' pAP;: (Autumn, 1958), pp. 296-303. '^^^Ibid., p. 301. 87 of a Negro girl who is going to register as the first of her race at his college.

The fiction,in the Review about the Negro actually contains the most material revelatory of the editors' atti­ tude toward the Negro-White situation. Again and again the injustice of the situation is pinpointed in poignant little stories, the main point in them seeming to be that discrimina­ tion against the Negro, whether in the North or the South, is immoral in a nation founded as an idealistic democracy. Several stories interpret the thought processes of the modem Negro. The best of these are William A. Owens' sketches of events withxn a particular h'egro family, where the children are affected by the conflicting attitudes of their mother, who is a simple and primitive plantation Negress, and their father, who has accepted as superior the white man's culture, and is trying to see that the children are brought 80 up to live as educated people in a modern world.

The Spanish-Mieri can

Henry Smith once rar;arkea that perhaps th- most vivid of the traditions whian lAnd the Aouthv.ast Logecher is thaL of Spanisn oocupation, ana thcit thxs Ppan.^s.. tinge has -een kept fresh by the close touch af P'exico. The prinj.ri' concern of the Review during the fifties with tne Spanisi'-.\iiierican seu-ns

^S'illiar;: A. Oveivaj "Somebody Touched Pe," ^-^pR (Spriig, 1950), pp.99-l''4; "In Thine Cv/n Plood,'^ 3jiR (Paring, 1934), no. 121-130. BS to be in exploring his past in order to understand him as he ia today. In doing so, of course, the southwestern Anglo learns more about Spanish customs which he himself has adopted, frequently unconsciously, which have undoubtedly affected his own mores. E. Boyd, of Santa Fe, an authority on santos, contributed a historical discussion of these primitive reli­ gious images of the Spanish 8olonial Southwest, and included 81 a bibliography of santos literature. Until recent times, the santos have been treated rather scornfully, and, from an artistic point of view, with justification. Today they are regarded as having value because they represent spiritual accomplishments. An article by Lysander Kemp deals with the Mexican corrido, an authentic folk ballad descended from the Spanish romances, which first cane to Pey.ico with Cortes's soldiers, and with the rancheros—son^s written in the spirit of folk- 82 songs. In Kemp's opinion, the corrido has nevei' achieved the beauty and. the power of the great Pnglish and Scottish "romances," but it is oOL.etimes poetry, of its own, it has a crude vigor, a/.P it is a living folk art.

^"^A. Boyd, "The Literature of the Santos," SAP (Spring, 1950), pp. 128-140. ^"'Lysander Aanip, 'fPly Away, Little ^ove," S "P (sunjaer, 1958), pp. 2l::-219. ^lor further L.aterial about thcise foli^ bailads, see Aurora Lucero-White Lea's Literary Polklore of the hispanic Southwest (San Antonio: The !aylor Co., 1953T. d9 John Haller tells of how, in order to get more in­ sight into the psychology of the wetback, he helped a Mexi­ can man get across the Rio Grande without a passport, kept him in the United States for five weeks, and returned him 84 to Mexico. ^ During that time, Haller comments, the wetback acquired enough material for conversation to last him for the rest of his life, and Haller learned more about wetbacks than if he had read a thousand books on the subject. Ramon Sender, Professor of Spanish language and litera­ ture at the University of New Mexico, relates a delightful story about an old Mexican who had lived illegally in this 85 country for sixty years. Sender is also the author of a one-act play dealing with a Spanish couple on their twentieth wedding anniversary. His was the only play to appear in the Review in this decade. Roy Rosen, a writer who has adopted the Southwest as his home, captures the kinship of a man and his land in a story about a Spanish American family living in Nambe, a val­ ley community north of Santa Fe. The story contains a good account of ancient planting rituals still used by these peo­ ple. It is illustrated by Margaret Lefranc. Paul Partlett

^John Haller, "El i ojado Americano," .AAi (hinter, 1955), PP- 66-73- ^^Ramon Sender, "The Old Aetback," PAP (Autumn, 1933), pp. 311-322. ^^Sender, "The Photograph," PAR (Apring, 1953), pp. 136-147. ^"^Roy Rosen, "Pusic for the Night," S^Ai (Spring, 1953) pp. 102-114. 90 contributes two stories with Mexican characters and settings— one giving insight into the life of a simple Mexican village BB woman whose baby has died, and the other relating the death of a wife whose relationship with her husband had been ex­ ceptionally beautiful.^^ Elnora Wright,^ Charles Ramsdell,^"^ 92 and Ted Dealey"^ each submitted stories dealing with the psy­ chological qualities of Mexicans. Tom Lea, of hi Paso, translates a charming story from Sli'as L. Torres's Vida x Hazanas de Pane ho Villa. ^-^ concern­ ing a beautiful young girl, fifteen years old, the daughter of a widow in whose home Pancho Villa chose to dwell when he happened to be in their village. Frank Goodwyn, who spent the first twenty-five years of his life on the King Ranch, writes a kind of profile sketch of Euvence Garcia, a Texas Mexican who was the foreman of Cow Camp Number Two of the ranch when Goodwyn was a boy. Goodisjyn's deep affection and respect for Garcia color the entire article."^^

^^Paul Bartlett, "The Good Pother," SWA (Soring, 1955), pp. 100-106. ^^Bartlett, "^ait for the Day," &M (Spring, 1952), pp. 102-109. ^^Slnora Aright, "The Chicken Thief," SjvR (Autumn, 1958), pp. 356-362. ^"^Charles Ramsdell, "The Good life," SWR (Autumn, 1956), pp. 332-344. ^^Ted Dealey, "The neer He^^u," Sv»P (o^'ring, 1959), pp. 150-153. ^^Tom Lea, "The Affair of the Fifteen Aprils,'' SUK (^^dnter, 1951), PP. 9-12. ^^Frank Goodwyn, "King Ranch Ca^or:,!," SA' (,-winter, 1951), pp. 13-17. 91 The Indian

In 1929, Henry Smith said: "Southwesterners are coming to believe that Indian ciilture has found the secret of the adjustment to the Southwestern environment which they themselves will have to make." When Mary Austin died in 1934, the Indians of the Southwest lost their most sensitive and persistent interpreter; but there are still people, prompted sometimes by her theories, who devote serious thought to the Indian and his culture, and their number seems to increase through the years. T. M. f^earce is one of them, and in one of the issues of the fifties he discusses the psychomatic use of poetry. Poetic chants used in curing ceremonies are mien- tioned, and the intonation of Indian tribal chants.^

John Chapman rode on horseback to the mysterious cliff dwellings of Kiet Siel, in New Pexico, and writes of 97 the journey and of his thoughts. The flatness of the heads of the skeletal remains of the prehistoric inhabitants pre­ served in the museum at Santa Fe had intrigued him, and on this trip he reached an answer in his o\m mind. Aejecting cosmetic or religious causes for this artificial flattenin.g, since his studies had led him to believe that primitive r.aoi was eminently practical, he concluded that the leads were

95 Henry hash -rlth, SvAx (Spring, 1929), p. 269. ^ T. h. Pearce, "The i^oet as artist,'' SAR (Summer, 1950), pp. 20L.-210. 97 John Chapman, ''i^on^' hide to Kiet diel," A. A (,>ii - ter, 1959), PP. 65-71. 92 first flattened quite naturally by the use of headbands to support whatever had to be carried daily up the steep cliffs. After that, he thinks,

. . . they acted like human beings in general. If one's tribe does something in a particular way, that must be the right way. If everyone in the tribe has a head of a certain shape, all other shapes roust be ugly. And it would be worth a small wager that their descendants con­ tinued lambdoid deformation long after they left Kiet Siel and Betatakin and no longer had to inch their way up the face of the cliff.98

Margot Astrov came to New Mexico from Germany, and in her work combines international erudition with regional curiosity. Her study and synthesis of American Indian poetry. The Winged Serpent, established her as a responsible student of the Indian. She contributed to the Review an article which is part of a larger study of the Indian's relation to death. In the article she describes ceremonies on Hopi fUrst Pesa which have never before been reported. Concerning the atti- tmde of the North American Indian toward death, she finds that on the whole he displays little interest in details of the other world, but is much more concerned about the ques- 99 tion of how death came into the world. The decay of the Indian pueblo commiunities of the Southwest is discussed by John B. Jackson, v/ho points out that, although the American Indians gave more than half the

9^Ibid., p. 71. ^-^^argot Astrov, "Death the Life Maker," A_.j^. (Spring, 1953), pp. 115-123. 93 agricultural wealth of the modern world to the rest of man­ kind, the gifts we bestowed upon them, in return (tools with cutting edges, the wheel, and livestock) had devastating re­ sults as far as the pueblo was concerned.^^^ Writing of Texas Indians, Roy Bedichek describes the habitat and habits of the Karankaway Indians, who refused to accept the white man's culture, and eventually became ex- 101 tinct. J. Frank Dobie wrote two articles about Indian horses. The first deals with different types of horses used by the Plains Indians—among them the Nez Perce horses, some of which were what we call Appaloosa today. Dobie says that the Pawnees probably had better horses tIrian any other tribe on the eastern flanks of the Plains, because they understood 102 breeding. The second article is about the Comanche Indians and their horses. Dobie feels that the dominance of the Coman­ che s as horse people is unquestioned; their horses were ex- 103 tensions of themselves. There were tw^o stories during the decade that shov/ed sympathy with the Indian point of view. One, by Douglas •^^^John B. Jackson, "The Pueblo .as a Parn," SWR (Spring, 1950), pp. 107-113. 101 Roy Bedichek, "Karankaway Country," gaSH (Autuuj^i, 1950), pp. 259-264. •^^^Dobie, "Indian Horses and Horsen.arsi ip," S.PR (Autumn, 1950), pp. 265-275. ^^^Dobie, "The Comcaiches and Their Horses," ^WR (apring, 1951), PP. 99-103. 94 Woolf, is about a white man and his Indian wife, and shows 104 a commendable knowledge of Indian mythology. The other, by Paul Bartlett, whose spiritual and creative home seems to be Pexico, gives a sensitive and moving account of a Mayan 105 Indian's journey towards faith.

l^^Douglas v.oolf, "Slayer of tha .lien Gods," n* p (Summer, 1957), PP- 177-1^4. ^^^Paul Bartlett, "Ancient Seeds," ^^Jl, (Winter, 1958), pp. 37-46. CHAPTER I? BiPLICATlCKS OF THE UNIVERSAL

Although by its title the Southwest Review might appear merely another regional magaaine, it published during the 1950»s a considerable bulk of articles of a non-regional nature, approximately half of which is the work of southwestern writers. Although the Review has maintained its literary in­ terests and devotes many pages to criticism and discussion of writers, books, and literary trends, there are at the same time many articles concerned with non-literary matters in the fields of religion, education, economics, international af­ fairs and polities. It is interesting and gratifying to note that the Review attracts non-regional writers of national and even international fame—Albert Guerard, for instance, and W. M. Frohock and Charles I. Glicksberg. Throughout the decade it reflected its concern for the preservation in this country of civil liberty. Shades of this concern may be found in all areas—'including religion, education, and eco­ nomics. Ai^ examinaticm of these articles Is valuable and relative to the topic of New Regionalism because they reveal clearly the interest in the fundamental life values w^hich rise above the concerns of a narrow regionalism.

95 96 European Writers and Criticism

For an increasingly educated reading public within the region, the Review offered penetrating analyses of the work of significant European writers. During the fifties, seven such essays appeared.

William Van O'Connor, of the University of Pinnesota, in an essay about the philosophical and moral tenets of the Bloomsbury group in England, points out that they revolted against the Victorian world not as bohemians, but as intel- lectuals. A member of the University of Rochester's Ijig- lish faculty, William D. Ellis, Jr., explores the frame of thought in Graham Greene's work, with particular reference to the novel Brighton Hock, and conduces tiiat the relation- 2 ship of good and evil v^itn love is Greene's grand theme. Paul Dinkins, of the LnglisP, departruent of Texas Christian University, deals with the last months of the life of Katha­ rine Mansfielc, \.hen she soupl.t desperately' for spiritual re­ birth, living in an atmosphere of a]:artan discipline as a stuaent of a Russian v/ho ^ ruclaimeu hinself able to teach "cosmic consciousness" to those capable oi' learning it.-^

V.illiam Van C 'Connor, "To;.ard a History of Plooms- bury," SPR (Winter, 1955), PP» 36-32. •^•^illiaii, P. ..His, Jr., "Tho Grr.aa Ther;:e of Grai:aii; Greene," SWR (,>vUi er, 1956), pp. 239-'-50. ^Paul Dinkins, "Katharine r-ansiieih: Tho tnding," p.p (Suttu^or, 1953), pp. 203-210. 97 A British author, Derek Stanford, discusses the relsh poet, Dylan Thomas, cautioning the reader against mistaking the myth of the man for the man himself. Thomas, he submits, was a man of what George Santayana temed "animal" faith (as contrasted to moral faith), in whose poetry both doubt and belief are manifest together. Three of the essays concern French existentialism. Albert Fowler, a Pennsylvanian and the editor of Arnold Toyn- bee*s Waj" and OiYillsation. finds that in some of Jean Paul Sartre*s earliest writing he linked together the world of emotion, the world of dream, and the world of madness as 5 magical manifestations of consciousness. A critic from the English departments of Brooklyn College and Kew School, Charles I. Glicksberg discusses his theory that a new kind of existentialism, poles removed fror Sartrian criticism, is making itself felt in literary criticism. One existen­ tialist critic, George Whaley, for instance, rejects the be­ lief that science embraces the totality of knowledge, saying that, although intellectual activity Is pre^^ent in the makir^, of a poem, the poet does not rely on the intellect, but rather works percGitually and through the feelings. In a second ^Derek Stanford, "Pyla:^ Thomas' rinial Faitn," S'^ P (Smmmr, 1957), pp. 205-212. ^Albert Fowler, " artre's World of Uream," SV^P (Summer, 1956), pp. 264-269. ^Ph^rles I. Glicksberg, "P^istantialist ^riticisr ," VPR (Pummer, 1957), PP- 187-195. 9^ essay» Glicksberg discusses Albert Camus's quest for God, and concludes that before his death Gamus*s concepts had be­ come very close to those of Christianity (in his insistence on the merit of Truth, for instance, and on the importance 7 of being one*s brother's keeper).

American Writers and Griticism

The vast majority of the non-regional literary es­ says are concerned with American literature and criticism. Here again ve find evidence of ^jev/ Regianal theory: that through a deeply rooted regional understanding one becomes more aware of and is better able to comprehend matters be­ yond the region. Post of the essays in this section deal with writers who are either contemporary or of fairly recent importance. W. M. Frohock, of Harvard University's romance lan­ guages and literatures department, discusses Ezra bound's Cantos, and expresses the opinion tmt Pound oar. best be understood from the point of view of the French revolte tra­ dition, and thcit the Cantos carnot be open to American read­ ers unless they understand the i eanirgPal discontinuity or / _ • 8 incohei*ence of the revolte.

^Glicksberg, "Camas's wuest for Goo," fPR. (t;Uia ar, 1959), PP* 241-T50^ W. ^:. Frohock, "Ihe Revolt of v/ra Pound," 3VP; (^uBi«er, 1959), pp. 190-ly9. 99 Several of the essays are about T. S. Eliot. A mem­ ber of the English department at the University of l^ebraska, Jaii46s.£. Miller, Jr., finds some provocative parallels in the work of Whitman and Eliot in spite of the seemingly vdde 9 divergence of their poetic careers. A friend of Pilot's, the Arkansas poet John Gould Fletcher, is the subject of an essay written by ^iorreys Jephson CConor, of Santa Barbara, California, who feels that the two poets shared a common con­ cern for their fellow man and, despite differences of out- look. . 3i«il.r mfgrlty and indep.nd.nc.PO An article by W. !'U Frohock deals severely with Russell Hope Robbins's The XJ. §JL ^l^Q^ j^th, saying that i^ ^3 ^9^ ^^® book long needed, but instead a pamphlet in which one dogiaatist attacks another with a relertless uncon- 11 corn for fairness. In another essay, Charles I. Glicksberg, in a consideration of Eliot's religious convictions, finds that Eliot is concerned with the spiritual exploration o£ 12 reality, as well as with its social diiuensions. Dealing with a more stanuardly American type of American i^riter, Paul Schmidt, of Kansas State College's

9 James h. Plller, Jr., "hhitr-an and Kliot: The Poetry of Mysticism," 5wR (Poring, 1958), pp. 113-123. Korreys Jephson C'Conor, "Irripression of John Gould Fletcher," 3hR {Suuvrii^r, 1953), Pp. 23 ^243. "^'^Frohock, "The Morals of Pr. Uiot," 3^£ (String, 1952), pp. riii-xl and l63-lt>6. "^^Glicksberg, "The Journey That Kuot Be Taken," ppR (SuffiHier, 1955), PP* 203--10. 100 Snglish faculty, interpret^s Mark Twain's "The Famous Jump­ ing Prog of Calaveros County" as a burlesque satirizing romantic preconceptions.^

Midwestern authors are the subjects of several es­ says. Claude M. Simpson, Jr., a native Texan on the Hinglish staff at Ohio State University, discusses Theodore Dreiser's first novel, Sister Carrie, from the point of view of Dreis­ er *s mechanistic outlook.^^ An evaluation of Piasters's work is undertaken by John T. Flanagan, Jr., of the University of IS Illinois. (Mr. Flanagan had earlier taught Snglish at Southern Methodist University.) Sherwood Anderson and his writing are considered in another essay by Flanagan. H. Wayne Morgan, at the time a Teaching Fellow in history at the University of California in Los Angeles, analyzes the 192O-I93O period of Thornton Wilder's work, and finds the most important theme to be love—wholly transcendent, selfless and Platonic love. Porgan thinks that Glider's chief weakness is that in his effort to gain perspective by portraying mod­ ern man in ancient settings, he loses contact v/ith the world 17 around him.

"^^Paul SchiRidt, "The DeadOvan on Siir.on vvheeler," yp (5uiun;er, 1956), pp. 270-277. Claude M. Simpson, Jr., "Sister Carrie Reconsiuaraa, 3WK (winter, 1959), PP» 44-53. ^John T. Flanagan, Jr., ''The Spoon river Poet," PR (SuBmier, 1953), pp. 226-237. Flanagan, 'The Perntanence of Sherwood nderson," S1^,P (gui^iiaer, 1950), pp. 170-177. ^"^H. v^ayne iorgsn, '" le ..rly Th rnton iia^^r," a.P; (Summer, 195^>), pp. 245-^^53. 101 lft% K» Frohock finds Heaiingway's Old }^ ijaij, tM 5sa to be of superior quality, although he cannot find a name for the kind of writing it represents.^® Prohock also, in another article, evaluates James T. Farrell's documentary IQ fiction.*^ Concerning himself with the same author, Charles Glicksberg discusses Farrell's literary criticism, in which, says Glicksberg, Farrell always maintained complete intel­ lectual independence.^^ The ren^iarkable poetic quality in the fiction of Elizabeth ¥AdQx Roberts interests Harry Kodean Campbell, who finds the most specific evidence in her diction and her 21 sentence structure. W. V, Frohock laments the unkept prom­ ise of James Agee, and charges America today with inviting 22 talents such as Agee's to disperse. In two equally scath­ ing essays, Richard H. Powers, of Southern Methodist Univer­ sity's history department debunks James Cozzen's Bx, Love Possessed.^^ and Antioch College's Louis Filler points out

18 Frohock, ^n^r. Hemingway's Truly Tragic Pones," Sh3 (Winter, 1953), PP* 74-77. ^^Frohock. "James Farrell: The Precise Cor tent," SWR (Winter, 1950), pp. 39-48. ^^Glicksberg, "The Criticism of Jaaies T. Farrell," sm (Suiner, 1950), pp* 189»196. ^"^Hairy roaean Campbell, '"The 'aatic Prose of Mi:.'a- beth Padox Roberts," PUL (Autumn, 1954), PP. 337-346. ^^Frohock, "The :-uestion of ViP.cpt Promise," SVR (Summer, 1957), PP* 221-229. ^^Richard H. Pova-^rs, "^raiso the Fighty: Co;-s:en3 anh the Critics," iPi: ( ur^ ar, 195 0, pp. 203-270. 102 a n\aaber of errors in Kenneth Lynn's 32il I^ream si. Success.^^ K^ry Lund Graham, a Californian, writes about Law­ rence Durrell, who, she says, in order to show the intri­ cate intertwinings of relationships among a small group of 25 people living in Alexandria, has invented a new novel form.

iSsaava oi^ General Criticism

!)iew Regionalism does not confine its interests to provincialism. It seeks meaning from the larger cultural implications. Thomas F. l>!ayo, of the English departcent at Texas A. and K., suggests that, as one age succeeds another, a great pendulum swings between romanticism and rationalism. His article is concerned with the causes and results of this phenomenon. l^alter P. I ebb submits the kind of preface a scholar would write if he were permitted to be quite can­ did. Laura Krey expresses her feeling that there is an 28 imperative need today for capable critics, and P^rtin Staples Phockley, a native Virginiar; who teaches at Perth Texas State College, points out the lack of var poetry in 29 contemporary /iraerican writing.

'^^Louis Filler, "hreaiafrs, and the .in.ericon i.reaii.," ShR (^utomn, 1955), PP* 359-363. 25;viary Graham Lund, "Submarge for PeaPity," p^ (Summer, 1955), PP. 229-:--35. ^^Thomas F. Mayo, "The Great '"er^duluir," Pv.R (huriuer, 1951), PP* 190-200. ^"^Webb, "An Honest arefaca,"' PHI (Autium, I9'l), p. 312. -^^Laura Krey, "V'hat hind?" Pil (Autunm, 1951) ,pp.224-227. ^9partin Staples aho3kle> , "PraL.pets .hich ..Id hot •:.o\.," SIR (Suiiiiiier, 1P32), op. 2:.0-245. 103 Webb also deals with the impact of the G^eat Fz*on- tier on the human imagination as expressed in modern litera- ture* The tone of tales representing life on the Great Fron­ tier, he says, was romantic; there was primitivism (result­ ing in the creation of the natural man of Rousseau and otihers— the "noble savage" concept); there were stories of Eldorados, of Utopias, of civilized man in isolation (Robinson Crusoe)> of man in :^conflict with nature (a gre^^t section dealing with the se^). The tapestry of literature affected by the Great Frontier Is almost complete, Webb thinks; it belongs to a by­ gone era—an era now ending. From now on, the imagination must make its way amidst a different set of conditions. It must operate amon^ men, not beyond them, and with v>hat is well, not vaguely, known, h'ebb believes that this explains why literature is becoming more and more subjective, concerned 30 with sex and psychology. Glicksberg finds a lack of Utopian faith in modern 31 literature, and in another essay says that he finds every­ where, in philosophy as well as in belles lettres, a pervasive mood of futility aii.ong the younger generation of writers.''

30|^bb, "The Great Prontiar and i:odarn Literature,** Sra (S-ring, 1952), pp. 85-100. •'"^Glicksberg, "Anti-Utopianisiri in I^lodern Literature," SV^R (Summer, 1952), pp. P21-P::8. -^^Glicksberg, "The Lost GeneratPj of Liter...ture," 5/K (Sunoner, 1953). PP* 211-218. 104 Margaret L. Hartley, the assistant editor of the gfiu^hvfs^ Review staff, writes one article on the "hate peddlers" of America,^-^ and another tracing science fiction from its infancy in the old mechanistic Buck Rogers days to its present stage of maturity as a legitimate genre of imag- inative literature.

In a report on a writers' conference on the con­ temporary novel, W. K. Frohock says that he has come to be­ lieve that the centrally characteristic tendency of today in the novel is coping with experience.*'^ Mody Boatright explores the nature of myth.-'^ Albert Guerard, a distin­ guished scholar formerly of the Eiee Institute and Stanford faculties, expresses his conviction that the spirit of art 37 could lead the world out of its present tragic situation. Two articles dealing ^/ith the political literatures of the 1930's were written by Louis Filler. The irst is a 38 criticism of the Communist-line writing of that decade.

^^Hartley. "The Sublitersture of ute in America," PWP (Summer, 1952), pp. 177-190. Hartley, "Is Pcience Fiction Subversive?" SV^/R (Summer, 1953), PP* 244-250. ^^Frohock, "A Place for an Ignorant Irishman, ' s^R (Suuimer, 1954), PP* 265^270. ^^Boatright, "On tre Nature of lyth," PU^ (Spring, 1954), PP* 131-136. ^'^Albert Guerard, "nrt for rt's PaPe," SvjTl ( IL; cr, 1953), pp.173-184. -^^Filler, "Politic-l Literature: A * or>t Korten," j,;R (^Jui^i^er, 1954), pp. 185-Iv3. 105 The second is a rather heated retort to those D*O regard the Oononmistic tendencies of the writers and politicians of the thirties as a harmless facet of the past.^^ Two contributions deal with reading experiences. Howard Mumford Jones writes of his reactions on rereading 40 Great Expectations. and Louis Filler writes of the value in of reading.^"^ Three articles have to do with words. One 42 concerns the derivation and history of certain words; another attacks the use of the word "definitive" as it is used to pertain to books, ^ the thiard points out some of the practi- 44 cal uses of cant. There are also a few articles dealing with vriters' problems in writing. Leonard Gasper discusses his own crea­ tive techniques as related to the problems of communication 45 with readers, and the reactions of the critics. George Williams, for many years a teacher of Snglish and creative

^%iller, "The Thirties in Partial Perspective," sm (Winter, 1956), pp. 87-91* ^^lk>viiard j.:UBiford Jones, "On Rerec^din/r. Great Lj.aecta- tions,^^ 3WK (Autumn, 1954), pp. 326-335. Filler, 'Pvhy ^!eaa a look?" P^ (.utumn,1956) ,pi.3^0-•'•o6 ^^Gharles ^. Perguson, "The l^lrir^ament of L..iie-Uages," SW.it (Spring, 1959), PP* 115-124. ^^Joe t. Frantz, "On Baxng Pefinitive," .s^ (vdnter, 1959), pp. 72-74. ^\ilaor P. Clough, "Some Uses oi' Zant,'' PPR (Autun>n, 1956), pp. 345-355. ^%KtflBaard Camper, "Pvery v.all Is a -..ir low,*' .^^^^ (Surlier, 1953). Pp. 250-252. 106 writing at Rice Institute, tells of the problems confront- Ing a person who begins writing when he is past forty-five. William A. Owens, a native Texan, draws from his own eaperi- ence in giving advice on writing a novel.^"^

New Regionalism is not confined to literature, but concerns itself with every area of endeavor. For instance, several articles dealing particularly with religion are in­ cluded in the Southwest Review of the 1950's. William barren Sweet, chairman of the faculty of Southern Fethodist Univer­ sity's Perkins School of Theology, writes of the distinctions 48 betvveen the church, the sect and the cult. The concern of the editors of the Review with the preservation of liberty in America is reflected in Dallas's Rabbi David Lefkwit^:'s article on the ideal and actualities of religious liberty, in which the necessity for the separation of church and state is Stressed. Along the same general line of thought is an article by P'errimon Guninggim, dean of "erkins chool of 50 Theology.

Owens, "Priting a Povel—Problerr, and Polution,'^ sm (Smmer, 1955), PP* 254-261. ^ feiilliafj. t\arren Sweet, "Tne Church, the Sect, aaa the Cult in America," P^ili (Winter, 1951), PP. :^9-38. ^^Davia Lefkowitz, "heligious liberty: Utd and Actuality," PWR (Spring, 1T52), p.. 125-136. ^^Merrimon Cunirggii:), "Freeh:>IL of Belief for All?^ ?KsP, (Autumn, 1957), pp. 290-301. 107 Robert E, Fitch, dean and professor of Christian Ethics at the Pacific School of Religion, considers the in­ adequacies of a humanistic ethic.^^ Departing from the realru of orthodox religion, but involved in a cor.sideration of moral agnosticism, is an article by C. S. Ayrea, of the University of Texas economics department.^^

Mucation

During the 1950's, American educators found them­ selves besieged by detractors. Tncouraged by people like Seiiator McCarthy, who were at be^t erratically irformed, and at worst deliberately evil, a great part fef the public held the teachers either in suspicion or in contempt (since teach­ ers were "eggheads"). The editors of the Review felt that freedom for faculty thirJtir^ was still not an assured thing on southwestern campuses. There were also problei^a related to the shortage of teachers ancL to the best iriethods of teach­ ing, and there v/as the question of wh-ati.er American education­ al systems could coapare favorably with liuropean. In a speech which later became an article in the he- view, James Holladay of the finance dep...'.rt.-ent at the Pniver- sity of Alaistoa talked about why the future of intellectual

^^Robert E. Fitch, "Kora: ity ^^ithout Heligicnr" ^_;__ (Mriter, 1956), pp. 24-38. ^'"a. S. Ayres, "The Pestilence of K.a 1 Agnosticisrj.," Si^^E (^5pring, 1957), pp. II0-I25. lOd freedom is questioned, and made reconimendations on how to safeguard it.^^

J. Frank Dobie had remarked to Allen Maxwell in 1947, when the Review published an article by C. E. Ayres on the right to think ("Are Professors Dangerous?") that the maga- sine would be distinguiihed if it had printed nothing else.^^ He must have been pleased by an article in 1950 in which Ayres, In discussing the loyalty oath, states firmly that teachers should not be asked to sign oaths to the effect that they are not Comiiiunists.^^ His position is that people who have actual mcsRbership in the Comiriunist Party should be dis­ barred from teaching in our schools, and that the finding of Communist Party menibership should be left up to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Pursuing the sanie general subject, Henry l». Wriston, president of Brown University and the head of the Association of American Universities from 1948 to 1950, contributed ax article on the present dangera threatenirg academic freedom.^ Bob G. %ood, of Southern Ptethodist University'L' educa- 57 tion departJTient, discusses the teacher-shortage problem.

^3jaKi0s Holladay, "Responsibilities of tho Free Sc^.cP- ar," aWR (Spring, 1958), pp. 101-104. ^^Dobie, "PJ3 the Koving Fir.-zer V»rit," SVP. (Autumn, 1955), p. 298. ^^Ayres, "t^/hat Should Taactiere wear?" }^ (Autumn, 1950), pp. 240-248. ^^Henxy K. ».ristor., "'^aucation or. the Razor's Edge," PIP (Autumn, 1953), PP* 29€i-309. ^'Bob G. VoorJ, "Tiie Teach, r .^inortcge in th-. United states," Syi (iSpriiig, 1955), pp. 131-142. 109 Roy Bedichek, of Austin, in an essay dealing with the criti­ cism of public education, asks: Is the American public school system doing what it should do? His answer is that, by and 58 large, it is. An English professor at Wayne State Univer­ sity, Mchigan, Richard C. Bedford, explores the possible implications of teleteach.^^ A Los Angeles sociologist, Visiter H. £aton, writes of the current struggle between the advocates of progressive education and those who prefer the more conservative aiethods of teaching, and offers some concrete proposals for better 60 results.^^ Don M. feolff,o f Brooklyn College, gives his attention to another educational problem: the education cf 61 gifted children. In an article dealing with the differences in Ameri­ can and British college sttKlents, Derek Stanford concludes 62 that the two countries have much to learn from each other.

conomics

In the spriDg: of 1953 an Irc^titute on Americ-.n Free­ dom was held on the cai.i ni> of Southern PcthoPist Univeri:ity,

^%oy Bedichek, "Puhlic Paucation and Ita Critics," sm (Spring, 1956), pp. 167-173. ^^Richard C. Bedford, "hill Teleteach TaPe tver?" 3hR (3::.riag, 195^^), PP* 159-162. ^Walter H. i::aton, '^hethodclogi vtrsuo Pent'lity," sn (Spring, 195o), pp* 174-179. ^^Don K. »volff, "The ( if ted Cnild: ^'ronise ca.o Fui- filjf.ert," SWR (Autuirm, 1957), PP* 3K-317. ^'^Ptanford, "iSngliiih Poetry ai)d An;^ai.jan Stutients," ppP (;iui:iriQr, 1939), pp. 2ti0-2v-4. 110 sponsored by the university and a Dallas citizens' committee. As one of the speakers, Paul G. Hoffman exaiained the rela­ tionship between business and freedom in America, and his thoughts were reproduced in article form for the Review. Walter f. I^ebb in 1952 suggests that ^^at is histori­ cally involved in the dynamics of propearty is essentially a vertical motion, and wonders if the prevailing process of 64 wealth-flow determines a country's political system. A native Dallasit®, a graduate of the University of Texas, and formerly a "company man" working in advertising departments of large corporations in Dallas and f*ew York, John G. Bui-nett views with alarm the work-toward-the-norm tendencies of big business. C. £. Ayres debunks as sheer nonsense the supposition that western civilization has won knowledge by the sacrifice of wisdom, and aoserts that all the great achievements of mankind are ixianifestations of slow 66 and general processes.

MiiwiaMii mmn 63p©ul G. Poffrf,an, "mrerican Preaaoa ai^ci i'usiness," 3^ (Autumn, 1933). PP- 290-295. ^^Webb, "Vynaxilcs of Pro^^erty i:"^ the Pouern vorld,^' sUp (^utuR^n, 1952), p?* 296-309. ^^John G. Burnett, "The Coivaany Vie*w. Pelongir^- ness by P'erc(.;ntile," fm, (•^^•^'ing, i:/^'7), PP. ^9-9^. ^Avres, ^'h:^celle^ca in an irhustrial ociety," SVP (Spring; 1959), P?* 139-i'^9. Ill Int^ernational Affair^

Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, an Austrian, concluded a lecture tour of the United States in 1956, and submitted some of his lectures as articles to the Southwest Peview. What he had in mind primarily was to help build a bridge of understanding between Europe and America. As a beginning, he lists eighteen full-grown myths about continental Europe, and points out the fallacies in them.^ In another article, he attempts to enlighten his American readers as to Puropean political ciirrents, with particular reference to "new con- 68 servatism." He thinks that perhaps the l^ev: Conservative in f5urope might assume the role of a rxjediator between the European and American continents to bring about a free, gener­ ous, and humanistic Christian civilization. Anotaer article deals with Germany's present unhapp^^ condition. He concludes that there has not yet been a real meeting of America and the Continent, and places his hoj.e in tliose Americar;s who discover that hurope is theirs 0.3 well a3 hia, and v.ho move t^irough Europe as citisens of our coiir.on Pestern civilization whose homes and more immediate loyaltiea happen to be in .'Ui^erica. ^^' ^"^ilrik \^on Kuehaelt-Iehainn, "i.c-^rica^z P^'tha of hurope," PPii (Spring, 1935), PP. 170-179. Kuehnelt-x.-eodii'in, "The heiv Coriscrvativt'S'^ in ,:ur- ope," i3^ {..inter, 1955), pp. 1-13. ^^Kuehnelt-i-ecdihn, "Genaany Pietween h^ast ana est," • i ('winter, 1956), pp. 40-49. 112 In a lighter vein, Von Ruehnelt-Leddihn discusses the plays of August Jacobson, a Soviet citieen who writes about the South of the United States, saying that they show the exact character of antl-American propaganda, and would be hilarious if they were not shown for the truth.^^ Kurt H. Wolff, who was educated in Europe, but who has lived in this country since 1939, and who formerly taught in Southern Methodist University's sociology depart- 71 ment, contributed an essay on our relationship with Germany. There were two articles with Latin American emphasis. In one, Milton Elsenhower advocates reduced tariff barriers and expanded trade, and also public end private lending on a substantial scale for sound economic developmerit projects 72 in Latin America. In the other, Ramon Muardo Ruiz, of Southern Fethodist University's Spanish faculty, explains why Latin Americans displc'y marked indifference to the his- 73 tory of the United States.

"^^Von Feuhnelt-Leddihn,. ''Ooiarade Jacobr^or ' 3 Curious South," sm (Autumn, 1954), PP* 351-357. ''^'^Kurt H. Polff, "On Germany ana Ourselves," .Pui (Winter, 1956), pp. 50-63. '''^Milton Pisenhower, "Partr^ership for hro£re:3s in the Americas," (m (Spring, 1955), -p. 117-123. "^-^Ramon Eduardo Ruis, "Indifierence '.outn of the Bor- der," SM (-inter, 1958), pp. H-60. 113 Amother article advocating a liberal trade policy came from John S. Coleman, president of the Burroughs Cor­ poration of Detroit. Fr. Coleman also deplores the voices of fear that we hear on every side today: fear of depression, fear of change, and doubt as to our business ingenuity. Along the same lines is an essay by Charles P. Taft, who states that the settlement of the tariff question on a stable, predictable basis must be the keystone of a sound economic policy.^^ Albert Guerard expresses his concern with the matter of colonialism in two articles for the Review. The first deals with the possibilities of cooperative colonialism, and concludes that (1) independence is a slogan rather than a principle, and (2) methods of violence only retard a rea- sonable solution. 76 The second article has to do with the 77 ^ dilemma of French colonialism. In another essay, Guerard discusses certain significant aspect?^ of Charles de Gaule's activities.' How the concern of the Rfview for freedom of thought

"^^John S. Coleman, "America.'y Pital Stake in Inter­ national IVade," SHR (Spring, 1954), P^. 114-120. ^^Chorlea • . Taft, "Irternaticnal Tmde ^na the National Interest," ,^ (Spring, 1955), PP. 107-116. '''^Cuerard, "Toward a Ci^ized Goloni^aiGi;,," SVR (Autimm, 1955), PP* 339-345. ^"^Guerard, 'Pride and Prejudice ir the !'aghreb,** 3\ k (Autumn, 1956), pp. 321-330. "^Guerard, 'Vuivt de Garlic- Fail?" SVR (Autumn, 1959), pp. P77-284. 114 within the region may, within the concepts of the t^ew Re­ gionalism, become involved with the same tenet in other countries may be illustrated in articles by a highly edu­ cated refugee, Ferrugo Clortina (a pseudonym), who writes of his knowledge of Soviet methods of brainwashing in an essay published in two parts. He makes a special examina­ tion of the system of "re-education" which twists even histori­ cal facts to serve the purposes of the Krer^lin.^^

Two authors, Russell Kirk and Don M. Polfe, express opposing points of view about contemporary life in England. Mr. Kirk, of I ichigan State College's department of huirjanities, cou ents in two articles on the defects of the welfare-state concept, basing both articles on Scottish examples studied at first hand. In the first, he says that he has found that in Britain the ''nev/ order" has broken the thread of social continuity which has given the Snglish their basic strength 80 and character over many centuries. In the second he makes cautionary remarks about the towns that are being built under the auspices of the nev^' welfaie-state syotei-'i.'""^ ^x, V^^olfe, to the contrary, feels that the welfare stcte has brought a new view of the coirimon roan's dignity anci potcutiall lies.

'^Ferrugo Cortina, "The Pattern of Soviet Coritrol, 1 and II," iivPi (Autumn, 1951), PP* 257-206; a;.d (.i.tur, 1952), pp. 19-27. 80 Russell Kirk, "Thi; i^roken Jake of litisii Cuotom," Shi? (Autuxai, 1953), PP* 326-332. "•^Kirk, "ho\v Towns :nd Potting Po^-oes in l-ife,'' .3hP_ (Wilder, 1934), pp. 35""43. 115 The German bombs, he thinks, effected a new friendliness; the individual citizen is no longer bound to his father's 82 place in society.

World Federation

In 1950 the editors of the Southwest Review felt that from "every logical and sane viewpoint some sort of workable &nd sturdy federation among nations would seem to be the last and best hope.'^^ Clarence K. Streit evaluates the Atlantic Union movement, and proposes the United States' calling, with Canada, the Atlantic federal convention. Albert Guerard speaks of his conviction thut we should never save freedom by ceasing from mental strife. Freedom, he writes, is not found in nature; it results from the unceasing efforts of man. ^ In a later essay, Guerard expresses his thoughts about the creation of a tribune of the people. He follows this es ay v^ith one in which he warns t.l^iat a certain type of leadersidp has repeatedly headed

82 Don P^ Polfe, "Bread and Freedom in 1ritain ioday," Pi'P (Spring, 1950), pp. 125-132. ''"The ,::ditor's f^otebook," hV.-;». (Autumn, 1950), p. iv. ^^Clarence K. treit, "Ti e Free .h.nnot Federate Too Soon," sm (Autuu^n, 1950), pp. 225-23^. ^^Guerard, "The Coming Victory of Liberty," Pfaip (Autumn, 1951), PP. 249-234. ^^Guerard, "'Inn Tribune of the People,'* ;PR ('inter, 1954), pp. 1-0. 116 for disaster because it Ignored or spurned the self-respect of the led. The world will be ruled by wisdom, he states, only when rational men make the startling discovery that it is not foolish to be wise.^7

Civil Liberties

Throughout this decade, the editors of the Review were deeply concerned with the protection of civil liberties. In an article viritten in 1950, J. Frank Dobie asserts that "guilt by rumor" not only can happen here, but is happening here. He points out that immunity to charges of slander and libel by lawmakers now makes them the chief purveyors of rumor, and that iiardly a politician or a newspaper editor rises up to defend the victims. Dobie names as the worst examples Senators McKellar, Thomas, and McCarthy.^^ The Autumn Issue of 1953 was devoted to the theme oi Freedom in America, and most of the articles originated in "a sort of freedom festival"^^ held in the spring of 1953 on the Southern Methodist University cai.pus. in the laaa arti­ cle, Richard H. hovere confesses tk^t he is ret botPt^red so much about freedom of the presa as he is about certain Arneri-

^'''Cuerara, "The on^^re of Leadership,^' pvji (^iUt>Ji.a, 1954), pp. 308-31f. ^^Bobie, "Guilt by Rumor," 211 (:uri-er, 195'9) , pp. 211-212. ^9'"rhe .uitor': hotebook," 211L ("-um, 1^53), p. i 117 can attitudes toward truth. The attitude toward Truth that is spreading today, writes Rovere, is the Leninist one. As one remedy, he suggests elevating the business of jour­ nalise, to the status of a profession, which would imply professional responsibility and professional ethics.^^ In the same issue, Gerald W. Johnson states his views on the peculiar relation of American freedom and the 91 press. In 1942, Kenneth C. Royall had beer counsel for Ger­ man saboteurs in a case he later described for the Southwest 92 Review. His thesis is that all of our traditional Ai'eri- can freedoms must be preserved, including particularly free­ dom before the law, an ideal which Pussia neither practices nor believes in. Fr. Royall's conviction is that free speech and free thought seem in danger of being curbed far beyor.d what is required for a defense ai.ainat Comtr^unist tactics. In an article warning of a moderTi drift tov.ard com­ pulsory conformity, Herschel Pakcr uiscusse3 freedcr*. of con­ science in Pilton's h;i.iy ana in ours, arni points out that Eor^l- ity means choice, and caj^not e:Kist i!i the greb.rr.ce of cor- 93 formity or compulsion.

^^Richard H. Povero, ^'Truth ^.ili Out—Or .-ill it?" rAsR (Autimr, 1953), P*^* 2hl-2P9. "^-^Oerald P. Johr^son, ''The ''re^n ar.u t...c Spiidt of the 'eople,^' PPli (Ai^tuii'ir, 1953), PP. 31o-324. '^'^Kenneth J. Ro>all, 'Lib r\y Pefore th^^ Lav/," j\^ (.utumn, 1953), pp. 310-314. ^'^•^Herschel Faker, ''\^hei\ Liherty lies," PV>k (winter, 1950), pp. 1-13. iia Liberalism ^id. tjaj, Ijjew Conservatism

We see a clear example of the Kew Regionalism ap­ proach in articles Paul Boiler wrote dwing the decade about historical Anierican figures, with the idea of contributing to the understanding of some present day problems. General Kisenhower's candidacy aroused grave concern among many good Democrats, who were very vocal in ^tn&rnlng the public of the dangers inherent in letting the military encroach upon civil­ ian government. Eioller wrote an article about General Pin- field Scott's campaign for the presidency in 1852, which came to center around the issue of the professional soldier 94 versis the citizen soldier,^ and concluded that a military reputation par se is not enough to carry a man into the Vhite House. Following this article. Poller wrote another to the effect that the Republicans had become extremely irritated about the Oemocrats* viewing vith alarm and harking b< ck to 95 the hinfield Scott defeat. In the next article, roller discusses George Washington's devotion to the civilian p^ir- poses for which tne Revolution "A^as waged, and also the role Ift-ashington played in holpin-., to establish the principle of 96 civilian supreroacy over the military. Pext, 'oiler turns 94Paul Boiler, ''OlP Fuss o.ro .teither:.; aiKi the Fainting Gerv-rU.,'^ SJl (Spring, l';?52) , pp. .-.-li'h. 95 Poller, ''Profeasiorou- holaic^rs if t. e WhPt.^ j-ouse," 5u_ (Autumn, 1952), pp. 2^. --279. ^^Boller, "*a.-irii:ip,tor. anci Civil..an 3upre•:^.cy," SlftP (;uater, 1954), pp* 9-h3. 119 to Thosias Jefferson, and speaks of Jefferson's deep-seated faith in man^s basic capacity for wisdom and goodness."^"^ In another essay, Boiler discusses anticomrjiunist liberalism today as personified by Henry .Steele Cosmiager, QB hortmn Thomas, Bishop 0. Bromley Oxnam, and Granville Hicks, and praises their liberal, democratic faith. He also attacks the idea promoted by the conservatives that ^ranklin O. Roose­ velt and the !v#w Deal deliberately played along with the "Communist conspiracy" by recognising Soviet Russia.

Peter Vlereck and Russell Kirk were the iiiajor voices of the l^ew Conservatism in the Review. In his first article, Vlereck points out that our founding fathers vvere extraordina- 100 rily conservative. Also, he expresses the belief that the concept of civil liberties is by nature aristocratic. Vler­ eck 's solution would be to subordinate economics to cultural values, and to subordinate external coercion to iriternal discipline, ir: order to make all men aristocrats. Vlereck also contributed an article expressing a strong distaste for PcCarthyism, which he says was not a move^/^ent againat the Pew

^"^Boller, "Jefferson's Preori;s of the Future," ^ (Spring, 1959), PP* 109-114. Boiler , "Four for Freedon.," ^^lU ( .ui/^t.er, 1934), pp. 251-259. ^^Boller, "The Great Cons piracy of 1933," ,^il:ii (Spring, 1954), pp. 97-112. Peter Viereck, "The Aristocratic Crijlr. of >aneri- can Freedoru," a.PR (Autumn, 1V52), pt. 331--334. 120 Deal economics, but against the Pisenhower administration, Wall Street, ana Great Britain.^^^ In a third article, Vlereck rejects those who are far to the right, or "nation­ alist right. ""^^^

Russell Kirk expresses the belief that conservatism will dominate American social ttiought for a great while to 103 * come. "^ In another essay, he states that our chief pro­ tection is in a knowledge of the past, and warns tlmt sub­ mitting to the iron domination of Utopia is hard. ^ Edwin Fogelman, of the University of Oklahoma govern­ ment department, submitted a general assessment of hevi Con­ servatism, saying that its most significant aspect is the extent to which it repudiates the conservative tr dition 105 of the American past.

MiDMoNMNiMHaMM ^^•^viereck, "Symbolisir of the Pew Xenophobia," ^y^^ (Autumn, 1955), PP* 353-359. •^^^Viereck, "Vox ^^opuli—Vox Dei or Vox liaboliV" PPE (Spring, 1956), pp. 113-124. 103 Russell Kirk, "Peturn to Principle in Politics," SUl (Spring, 1956j, pp. 142-152. ^^^Kirk, The Path to Utopia,'' ShJ| (opring, lv55), pp. 163-170. •^^'^Edwin Fogelran, "'iiu- Uev Jorservatism and neri- can Values," ^vu (l*Inter, 195-), PP. 1^-27. CHAPT:^-. V COMCLUSIOK

Writers anid Content

Throughout the decade of the fifties, the Review continued the policy suggested in Chapter II of providing a publishing outlet for southwestern 'writers, but not all of the contributors are from the area, and some of the south­ western writers deal with subjects that are in no sense re­ gional. A clue to its intentions may be found in the let­ terhead on the Review's stationery: "Regional Ivriting of National Interest." The essays that are regional in content never indulge in the self-consciousness or narrow provincial­ ism of "local color." Rerraniscences of earlier days are in

"^Durinp; the 1950's the Review published 210 essays, in addition to the regular features such as "The Puitor's Kotebook," John Rosenfield's 'The Resident Arts," aro book reviews. Of these essays, B7 are literary iri focus; B of their; are idstorical. ^he rest dei^l with matters rar; iri£: from a discussion of i;.adseones to the possibilities of v.orld alli­ ance. Houghiy 50 p&r cent of the essays ccrcern literary criticism; the other half, sociology, theolopy, and anthro­ pology, biography ^nd autobiopraphy , •:ovt-irj-v;:-r.t, politics and business. About 50 per cent of the authors are south- westerner:^; about 50 per cont of the r-3 to have been an ur^ eht dei.ire Per security, acccrpanieo by f^ cliipi- l to -oi-vtntior :-l 123 norma, and an insistence upon conformity and a definite trend toward conservatism. Over all there drifted a miasma of fear that seems to have been born of a lack of confi­ dence of the people in themselves and in the world in gen­ eral in avoiding destmiction. Host of the young writers sounded an intense note of pessimism and there was evidence that such values as honor, loyalty, trust, and faith were being discarded. The vriters feutiared in the Reviev/ dis- cerned this atmosphere and resisted it with energy and cour­ age, searching out the culprits and exposing them, pinpoint­ ing modem errors and describing them. Always they insisted that the dignity of man still survives and must be nurtured and respected, for therein, they say, lies the hope of tri­ umph over nihilism and despair. The Surrmer Issue of 1952 is devoted to a considera­ tion of the problems writers face in their individual art and in their relationship with society. The editors thought that they could sen^e on the part of today's w*ritir "an ethical orientation and honest grappling with ^a oblatis of tht v^.lue of good and evil; a g&[v

^"The 'Viitor'-' Potebook," P_P (^ui>:;sr, 193?), p. iv. 124 RSnM!«i?S philosophies of despair, though, by being in ^h^r^^ linked with a call to ameliorltive actioH in the face of all odds.3

Conscience ^ a Region

As mentioned previously, Lon Tinkle felt that the R£- jrisjl's most salutary service has been that it has—

. . . whether through instinctual and intuitive prompt­ ings, or through mere chance or even the use of doctrin­ aire reason, . . , consistently been the conscience l?er an emerging notion of culture as a process, not just as a stock or fund of inherited ideas md classified patterns of behavior. . . . oaitively, and on occasion with rare and inspiring courage, the Southivest Review has in the past turmoiled decade steadily and unobtrusively remained a delicate conscience for the region, trarsEdttifjg its perceptions to its ini'luential and thoughtful readership.4 During the first part of the decade, the Review printed many articles from many different sources pointing out the perils of PcGarthyism and calling the attention of the readers to the precarious condition of freedom in the country, ^aminent spokesmen pled for the preservetior- of free­ dom in America: of the press, in busi'^xss, in education, in religion, and in the law. ir. 1952 they warr.ec. that— ... there are those who cxre tireu and fori^etiul, thooc who have crassly and casually turned froiL concern for their fello^vs to care ofd^v for their ovr: c,cP^ar:tci^^e. ^-.d there are yet others whosa vision has narrowed and cPir.reci — whose full view of the pririciples u^^on ^hich our iL5n^i<^r£>i:t

•^Ibid., p. Iv. Lon Tinkle, "^'ilestone for a Papas ire," ___ (Putiii.n, 1955), P* 2^5. 125 fathers built this republic has become obstructed by r? ?«^^*^«^ct of hate? hate which is religious, hate which is racial,5 In 1954 they commented:

There are plenty of present-day -mericaris who are not in a favcx^ble positio;. to answer official, yet extra­ legal, commentary of a d®roi.;:c;tory nature respecting their honesty or loyalty. .". • Granted t..^t the na­ tional dragnet has draw, in some unKiistakably roseate specimens, th® fact repairs that iinputation of sub­ versive motives has ir; ^cm^ cases rested on insuiTicient evidence, certainly In the legal sense—enough cases to endanger the kmrlam tradition of fair play and the hallowed precept that "a ma:n is innocent until iroved guilty. *»o

In 1955, ^ohn Chapmar;, alarmed at the extent to which anti-commwiist fervor haa carried some of ta^.: Dallas citiaenry, demanded a single standard in the judg^isent of -..•-.:Tk3 of art: 7 the aesthetic standard. However, the cossmentQ he i^ade aid xiot stop "superp.itriot" ^.ttacks on the Pi^llas Pussui:. oi' Pine Arts—attacks which ultimately led to the CAr.C'.illatioi: cf ^n strsliai/-bound exhibit under State Pepartmer-t a^onsoi-ohip on the grounds that pictures by artiati^ cjuajA^ct^d oh" Porr^ui^- ist proclivitiss wtre iucluhed. .'-iso, in Palltis, prlnti^i by

V . V- r\ "^ "t •-, Pablo Picas^G w^^tre deciari'd x;i^Xi>2i^ £JL^ iJ^PJ^- --^ ^-^' i C.t- «i. MI». ^ of tP^:? iJ^llu-s :-'ublic J.ibr^.ry.

•jLn.w • • ' . I " I ••UiijiiM.ia.i'wi !• I n »"-'-U>MUMIV>'<^M»*. '•*—mvf»»'»» nllen Pa^-;vel3^ "The IPrtitor^s lottbcoP/' ^.-.^^ (- rli;^., 1952), p. iv. "^^"The Pdicor's f^ot-'^h'-^oP," Pilt ("^liher, 1954) > Pr- iv-vi. ^John Phaprirai, "Aesthetic JucMiients end Art ^'l.seuiT»,'* v^' (..'•uii»i;.cr, 1955), PP* 2t2-:'o6. !.ditor»s ".otebcoP," _J^ ( int-r, .,.937), p. iii. 126 "The Editor's &^otebook" also carried statements from sources not associated with the Review in order to show that other respectable people were alarmed by the threat to freedom. From the Episcopal Address of the Bishops of the J'^thodist Church to the General Conference at San Francisco in 1952, J'laxwell printed:

But we are succumbing to fear—to a fear that is, in large part, groundless and neurotic. This feeling of insecurity is being aggravated and exploited by reck­ less demagogues. • . , growing cependence upon regi­ mentation and uniformity and a weakening faith in the democratic process by vhich our nation has alvays found that inner security that rests not upon depress­ ion but freedom. . . . F'reedom is the right to choose; vvlthout this right of choice man is not a rsmn but a thing. . . . And yet in at least three of the principal domairs of our natior.al life we are witnessing concerted and often vicious ef­ forts to regiment thought end curb freedom of speech QKJlitics, education, and religion] .9 By the middle of the decade, KcGarthy had been cen­ sured by his fellow members in the Senate, and the Review moved its attention to vihat the editors felt w-as the central factor in most people's thinking on domestic social issues: integration in the public schools. In an ess^p by \dllii^n; A. Cv^er, in \^hich he tells hoK he came to be able to ^.rite so sensitively a novel whose central characters \^ere INegroes, he says: There is r^ot HiUcn Pifferehce bct^^-een blacks and vhdtes in the Pouth - Pritr^r^^ h :.Ye too long ei:.,:>iaci:?:t:^d the differences, v.p.ich are i^^iror £.ra lc^i._ely a r.atter of degx®^ when f^^e consiaer that I^e^'roes CH':. vPiites have 9 Ibid., p. j-V 127 the same religion, language, economic problems. They even share to a great extent the same folklore. The onjiy actual difference is that created by an unnatural division called Jim Crow.iO

The editors debunk the myth of race, and deal with segrega­ tion as a wasteful and degrading system.

The international situation received a share of the editorial attention. Isarly in the decade, in considering foreign relations, the Review stated: As persistent friction heats up what used to be the "cold" war, it becomes more important than ever to examine the root-facts of our relations v.ith the rest of the v'orld to see if any slim chance yet remains for peace in our or anybody's time.^1

Voice of the Hew Reg^Jonalism

The editors of the Review have not only been unwill­ ing to admit a southwestern culture thst is merely a copy of that of any other region; they have also been unwilling to accept the restrictions of previous reg:u.Qnal tenets. Since 1915, when the Texas Review caKie out, the men who nave shaped the policies of the ir.agazine have been suspicious of the merits of th© kind of regionalisfd toi^t ^'reeks of the soil." In today's io^tithveat Review, the ecitors tahe pains to ob­ serve "the distinction betvr>»er the .Lc^rrov-ness of sectionalisia, or provir^cialism, and the breaath anu depth of true reii;ior:ai-

Ov'^ns, "hritir^; u hovel—rr-^bi«i?i an-t :.o.i':tion," T.H.^ (Jurn:r;fer, 1955), pp. 260-261. ThePditor's notebook,'' __;R (.Autumr, lv;o) , p. iv. 12B ism; the difference between self-appreciation, or self-satis­ faction (the myth of the nighty Texan), and self-criticism, self-understanding."^2 ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ editors ever showed signs of wanting to turn bach the clock. They have encour­ aged historical research c-md the intellige.nt compilation of folklore, and have been outspoten in wanting museums set up as repositories of the relics of a meaningful past, but they have never wished to return to live in that pa.-t. ^h^t has happened before i."> important to theK becau-e they are trying to delineate a presert regional culture, and in order to co so, they need to knoiv their antecedents in the region. The Review is interested to know their antecedents in the regior. "^^^ Eeview is interested in the past; it is not tied to it, as are the agrarians. The somewhat neurotic tendency to glorify a varished past that is 30 often found in the regional mat-rial of the South is non-existent in the Review. The Civil War is rarely mentioned, and when it is rentioncu it isusu.lly in an imper­ sonal or sometimes humorous manner. "^^^ He view has helpec its readers to unPerst^iaxi the nature of the regita-; in which they live, cir.d to ap..reciat8 its distinctive flavor, h p:

12 ''"The Pditor's Potebook;" P . (Sprirg, 1950), p.iv. 129 missionaries; from the Indians who first inhabited the land; from the buffalo hunters arcl traders; from the first white settlers—farmers and drifters, preachers &nd educators; from the ranching barons and the cowboys who drove the herds up the old tr^ils«~the Ohisholm, the Goodnight, the Chihua­ hua and the Santa Fe. A part of the flavor comes from the phyjjical aspects of the region: the rolling plains, the great sky, the mountain ranges with names like Sangre de Christo, 3z:d the incredible canyons of the Rio Grande and the Colorado Rivers. A part of the flavor comes from the wild life found in the soutnn-st—the jack rabbit, the coyote, the vinegarone, the chaparrel, the prairie dog, the homed toad, the b^ld eagle, the busssard. In order to und-er-itand himself, the Southwesterner must firet understand his region, becau::-e his regional back­ ground has affected ;u.s religious beliefs, hia historical views, his attitude tov.aarcis economy ana educatior., his socio­ logical patterns, and n.cre deeply, his yS>'cnoio«-ical outloa>:. upon the v.orld. In spfa:^ki!ir cf his particuls^ state v/itP.in the repior, Hft?*ry Ka:fi hr.ith bach in I9':e -.ale thct "tP^^-^ cul­ ture of 'fej.ai:, nuot aeper;d finaPly cr ane thlag: th*.- a'^-i.lit> 3 of Taa<.nE to r.:late thec-.el/aa tc their ;:peciPlc ,i \n.roa?T^ert." If the reader y^x2.1 .:ahatltuta "the .auPawest" a^ d 'a'cuthwe,-1- ternara'' :h.-r ":P,:-c.a'' ai :. "'fei.^rv-,'' i:c via] I., vc th^ h.rsic ' f.ijary T^ash ..juath, ".•/i.it...:c:/* •.. aR (.i:;tar, PV2P;, pp. 253. 130 attitude of the Review regarding the feew Regionalism. Smith felt that "southing must convince the run of those beginning to be attracted to art that Texas [the SouthwestI culture, paradoxical though the statement seem, cannot become univer­ sal until it exhausts the actual, until it sends down its roots where it lives to the center."^^ In its expression of f«ew Regionalism, the Southwest Keview maintains that once the region is truthfully experi­ enced and well understood by a writer, his work inevitably becomes more universal in value. Just as iinderstanding one­ self irsakes understanding others easier, so does a true rela­ tionship with a region lead to universal thinking. ^*^® Review during the 1950's has consistently and intelligently come to grips with current issues. Vriters for ^^® Be view have championed the rights of the individual against threatening forces, have spoken out sti-ongly for the necessity of academic freedom, have dealt with possible solutions to international tensions, ana have focused upon the grievances of racial minorities. The Review never becomes raucous nor embarks upon emotionally overwrought crusades, but it does combat v^hat it sees as threats to the dipnity of man, whether those threats be of southwestern, national, or universal nature.

Ibid., p. 254' 131 It has kept before its readers the problems that must be coped with in order to fulfill the possibilities of the area. Educational needs must be met, and educational standards raised; the transition from a rural society to an urban society must be faced intelligently.; political issues must be understood and evaluated, iiot the least of the prob­ lems is a fairer treatment of the triree minority groups of the region—the Pexicans, the Indians, and the l^egroes. Some critics consider regionalism as fundamentally a protest against the mech^anization and regimentation of modern life, but the editors of the Review neither reject the mach- ine nor despair of the effects of industrialization. The Paohine Age is here, and they feel tl^iat it has brought a great deal of good Kith it. materialism is what they de­ plore. They do not vant a southwestern culture t-hat is a. ply an imitation of that of the older regions, any more thin they want an economy based on the crumbs fron the hall vitreet table. in order for tlie a^odern southwe^sterner in a technological y^i:,^ to be able to kr.oa any true vaiaes in life, he i-.ust understar,d that man is s^at he haa alvrays been—societhirg above the other animalo, ar^d balow the arp els. It is the quest fox- the knov- ledpe of his ovm sairit that has ali.v.y3 bean a ,e moat ampcrtont thing. If n;an loses 3ip;ht of ais spiritual value, anea ae Bii^^ht as well e;>;peet extinction. BIBIIOGEAPHY

Articles

Austin, ^^ry. "Regional Culture in the Southwest," 3outh- WMk SlVl.^w, XIV (Summer, 1929), pp. 474-477*: Brandt, Joseph, "A Pioneering Regional Press," Southwest Hevieif. IXVI (Autumn, 1940), pp. 26-36. Smith, Henry Kash. "The Southwest,*^ The Saturgay Review of Uterature, OV (.%y 16, l9I5), pp. 5I6"; Young, Stark. "On Beeklng of the Soil," The Texas Review. I (June, 1915), pp. aO-g4.

Austin, li^ary. The land of Journey's hnding;. Mew York: The Century Gompany, 1924. Calvin, r:oss. Sky Determines. !^ew York: The racmillan Company, 1934. Campbell, l.alter 3. The Book lover's Pouthwest. horraan: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955. Pobie, J. Frank. "A Preface with ooine Pevised Ideas," Life and Literature of the Pouthwest. Dallas: PoutKern Kethodist University .Press, 1952. Fer^^-'sson, arna. Our Southv/ast. Ian YorP: /.If red A. :nc>nf, 1952. freer, Hilton tioss and Plorence .Iberta harns. Peja Voices of the Southwest, '^ailas: Tard}' ^•-uPiishinr Com- pany, 1934. Hewett, hd^ar P. "The ::uruanizin^ of a Contl,aent: ^he ;a. eri- caniain;^ of a Pace," .•.i-,eripc. ia^ the .j^jjtaa^w^u. P. by Thomas P. Pearce ana Tellair ^;endon. a,hupn.ir a.;e : The Pniver^it)' I'res;^, 1933* 133 Hoffman, Frederick J., Charles Allen and Carolyn F. Ulrich. jM M^le mgasiny, Princeton: Princeton Univer­ sity Press, 1947.

Kazin, Alfred, ga MskUL Grounds. Garden City, Kew York: Doubleday and Comply7 Iiic., I956. Lea, Aurora Lucero-White. Literary Folklore of the Hispanic Southwest. San Antonio: The Baylor 3ompiSy, l95i. Lomas, John Avery. Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, hew York: The Jhacmillan Company, 1947,

^:cWilliams, Carey. The IM He^ionalism M fmerjiyan Litera­ ls®* Seattle: University of V.ashington Chapbooks,

Odum, Howard \u and Harry hstill Moore. American Regionalism. hev: York: Henry Holt and Company, 1938. Sonnichsen, C. L. "An Introduction," TM Southwest in Life and Literaturf. Pevv- York: Th® Devin-Adair Gompaxiy, 1962.

Spencer, Benjairdn T, "Regionalisn in uat^rican Literature," Rej^ionalism in_ ^^eyica. Kd. by Perrill Jensen. ^%dison: University of visconsin Press, 1951. Spiller, Robert K., Willard Thorp, Thomas P. Johnson and Henry Seidel G&nby, editors. Literary History of the United States. Pev/ York: The Placsdllan Com- pany, 1946. Kebster' a Third hev/ International tdetivnary, P^nabridged. Springfield: a. and G. P.erriar, •Zoihp^.iiiy, 1961. ^ynn, Pudley. "The ^outnwastern Pegionai Straddle," Pouth- ^eSterners "rite, hd. by T. P.. Pearce ay-d A. ". Thompson. A1buquerque: Phe univeraity Press, 1946.

•<1JC: fu .•:*-*> l-c i:>

The ^aturnay i;_eyicp; of Literature, 5.:^.V (Pay lo, 1942) . Southwest l^eview, X^a^V-ALIV (winter, 1950-.^uturx, 1.959). 134

Unpublished ^laterial

Gaston, i^dwin V^illmer, Jr. "The arly Kovel of the South­ west: A Critical Study.'' Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Texas Technological College, 1959. Gossett, Thomas F. "A History of the Southwest Review; 1915-1942." Unpublished Master's Thesis, Southern Pethodist University, 1946.