II IIDh, if Frank Ever Sees These •• • " ••. he'll cut my allowance! Why, today I wouldn't dream of paying prices like the ones on these old bills!" o you remember things you bought, ucts, learned to make them less ex­ D say, ten years ago-how inferior they pensive so that more people can own were to today's goods in looks, in the service them. That is why the American worker's they gave? But do you remember, too, how real wage-his ability to buy the things much more those articles cost then? he wants-is higher today than in 1929. ince 1929, the average price of an elec­ Each reduction in the cost of the products tric refrigerator has come down from $310 to $175, an electric washer from $112 to he buys is, in effect, a "raise" for every $72; a 100-watt lamp from 35 to 15 cents. purchaser. And hundreds of other manufactured General Electric scientists and engineers, articles today perform better and cost less by finding new ways for electricity to serve to operate than the older models. the needs of industry, are helping to pro­ Why? Because during these ten years vide us with still MORE GOODS FOR American industry has improved its prod- MORE PEOPLE AT LESS COST. G·B research and engineering have saved the p"blicfrom ten to 07le h"rJdred dollars for every dollar they have eartled for General Electric GENERAL.ELECTRIC THE AMERICAN MERCURY ~)k!ID~J(§Ji!:@~~~J(§J_£t~J)k!ID!~(Jl£t~)k!ID~(Jl£t~ ~ V~tWl TABLE OF CONTENTS NU~~ER ~ ~i August, 1939 ~ ~. Beware The Third Termites! . , .. ~ ',Eugene LYOnS, 385 ~ Shall We Annex Texas? Owen P. White 392 ~,J ~ The Headmaster Murder Mystery Harland Ma~ches:er 401 ~ m::L Our State Lawmakers John T. Wmtench 408 ~ ~f~ m How Strong Is Russia? Erich Wollenberg 410 ~"1 Elegant Life of the Steel Barons........•..........Stewart H., HO,lbrook 418 ' '~ Capsule Wisdom. ................................................ .. 424 ~+ Sex Under the ~wastika S. L. Solon and Albert Brandt 425 ~ E. t~an,A,llen,: PIOneer Realtor Nathan Schachner 433 ~ ThiS Is War. Charles Rumford Walker 437 ~~,J ~ Mystic Happiness i~ Harlem ~ Claude McKay 444 ~ ~+ In The Black Morlllng. A Story Ira Wolfert 451 .,u:::-. m My Home Town's A Democracy Charles E. Hewitt, Jr. 459 ~n::- ~ Utopia Comes to Canada StuartShaw 464 ~, ~ Group Medicine At Work Frank J. Taylor 472 ~ ~:~~:::. ~~ 'T~t U~~~~; ....... .............. ..................... 476 @ ~ America's Too-Public Libraries... , •.•• _•••••......Albert Jay Nock 479 ~, DOWN TO EARTH: ~~.;;l ~ Shape and Size In Nature .........••••••.•...........Alan Devoe 483 ~ ~ furr~: ~ ~~ I. Faces Glenn Ward Dresbach 487 ~ II. The Witless Heart Louis Stoddard 488 III. A Man Must Lie John Russell McCarthy 488 ~,~ THE LIBRARY: ~ ~ Dos Passos and the Critics James T. Farrell 489 ~,J (~ 'CHECKLIST ....•............••..••••••••••••••.••................iv, 494 ~ ~+ OPEN FORUM ..•.•..••.•..•••.•.....•..•••••••..•.•.•.. ; •........ .. 500 +~ ~ CONTRIBUTORS..................... ••.•••••..•...•••••••......... .. 510 @ ~ ~:c::~~~'M~"I~:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 51: ~ Q!~~~~~~y~~~~~~~J~~y~rE~~~~~~~ Published monthly by The American Mercury, Inc., Mercury, Inc. Entered as second-class matter at the at 25 cents a copy. Annual subscription, $3.00 in U. S. post office at Concord, N. H., under the Act of March and Possessions, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Spain and 3, 1879. Five weeks' advance notice required for Colonies, and the Republics of Central and South change of subscribers' addresses. Indexed in The America. Foreign subscriptions, $4.00. Publication of­ Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. The Ameri­ fice, Concord, N. H. Editorial and General offices, 570 can Mercury, Inc., accepts no responsibility for sub­ Lexington Avenue, New York City. Printed in the mitted manuscripts. All rights reserved. No article United States. Copyright, 1939, by The American may be reprinted in whole or part without permission. Lawrence E. Spivak, Publisher Eugene Lyons, Editor Allen Churchill Managing Editor Mildred Falk Associate Editor J. W. Ferman Business Manager ~~~~BORZOI BOOKS~~~~ This great new novel by the autli,.or of Young H cnry of By N avarrc is perhaps the finest work of literature you will HEINRICH read this year. It is the superb narrative of a king - reck­ MANN less, brilli~nt, cynical, but essentially an idealist - and his , fight to weld into one people a nation torn by religious ,strife and paralyzed by Spanish tyranny. 790 pages. $3.00 An unusual book about a little-known phase of the old West By - the first account -of the writers who began a new kind of FRANKLIN American literature there in the days between -the Gold WALKER Rush and the coming of the -railroad: Rret Harte, Mark Twain, Joaquin Miller, Ambrose Bierce, Henry George and scores of others. Colorful, exciting, full-flavored - based almost entirely on sources hitherto unexplored. 420 pages. Illustrated. $5.00 rOUN'DATI s ~B:N[OC:RA.CY A book for every thinking American ~ the already famous By series of thirteen debates on government in the United T. V. SMITH States, in the light of the major issues now before the Rep. from Illinois and nation, which were _recently broadcast over the _C.B.S. national network. It was one of the great and hopeful events ROBERT A. TAFT of the year, for it represents the return of political leader­ Senator from Ohio ship to a democratic tradition established by the Federalist Papers and the Lincoln-Douglas debates. $2.50 IGA:DE A remarkable cross section of men's feelings and actions By under bitter adversity is revealed in this stirring auto­ EMILIO biographical narrative of one year of spectacular Alpine LUSSU fighting during the World War. "A noble book," says Dorothy Canfield, "moving and timely to the lastdegree." $2.50 "The experiences both sacred and profane, that befall a. By woman's doctor ... set down with literary skill." - N cw' FREDERIC York Post. Embarrassed lovers, puzzled brides, worried LOOMIS, M.D. couples, expectant parents, hopeful "past-forties" - all have brought to Dr. Loomis problems that involved ethics and morals almost as much as medicine. No wonder his book about them is now a best seller, read and discussed by thousands! $2.50 ~~ ALFRED •A• KNOPF • NEW YORK ~~ ~)}k~~m)}k~~@m)}k~~~+~m)}k~~~+~~)}k~~ ~ITHE CHECK.LIST· .I~ ~~t5~®1¥t5~®1¥t5~~iit5~~ FICTION THE OPEN SKY, by L. A. G. Strong. $2.50' the stupidity of generals and the agony of Macmillan. David Heron, a writer who has their cannon fodder trapped in the dilemma suffered a nervous breakdown and a rupture of a reason which cries "enough!" and an with his wife, is sent by his friend~physician emotional impressment which has trained to a wild Irish island to recuperate. There a men to stoical acceptance of useless deaths. peasant lass Sheila helps him back to strength. The author is an anti~fascist who escaped Much additional stress and strain ends in from Mussolini's dreaded Lipari in 1929, crisis which sends David back to his wife. The after three years there. peasant girl gets a gramaphone from David as her wedding present. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST, by Nathan~ iel West. $2.00. Random House. A bitter little THE GLADIATORS, by Arthur Koestler. book with those weird, authentic characters Translated by· Edith Simon. $2.50' Mac­ that West draws so effectively, but it doesn't millan. An ingenius and heartening story come off as well as Miss Lonelyhearts. woven about Spartacus 73-71 B.C. The LET ME BREATHE THUNDER, by Wil~ author introduces a good deal of philosophy liam Attaway. $2.00. Doubleday Doran. A relevant to modern times. The character of Spartacus is uniquely defined as that of a junior OfMice and Men. Very junior. naive gladiator who only later becomes in­ THE HORSE THAT COULD WHISTLE spired with a mission to free the slaves. "DIXIE," by Jerome Weidman. $2.50' Simon & Schuster. An uneven collection of short PRIDE AND PASSION: ROBERT stories by the author of I Can Get It For You BURNS, 1759-1796, by DeLancey Ferguson. Wholesale and What's In It For Me? Clever $3.00. OxforiU. Press. A meaty, albeit school­ where Mr. Weidman sticks to the New York~ flavored, portrait of the Scotch bard, with a ers he knows so well and the uncharted idiom tendency to drastic generalization. Thus, they speak. Stuffy outside his preserves. "Burns's attitude toward women of his own age was the elemental possessiveness which IN POLISH WOODS, by Joseph Opatoshu. regards sex primarily as a ribald jest." The $2.50' Jewish Publication Society. This novel, evidence for this statement is hardly con­ published in Yiddish in 1921, is the first part vincing. More characteristic of Burns is his of a projected trilogy. The religious tur~ remark that writing poetry was "downright moils which engulfed the lives of the Jews of sodomy of soul." Poland three~quarters of a century ago are presented with considerable force, but the SARDINIAN BRIGADE, by Emilio Lussu. characters, especially the protagonist, Morde­ $2.50' Knopf. A cool and penetrating·record cai, are at best shadowy. Early chapters indi­ of one year of World War fighting on the cate that had the author set himself a more Alpine front written by a former Italian modest task he might have produced a first~ officer with machine~gun terseness. Revealing rate work. THE CHECK LIST A BOOK OF MIRACLES, by Ben Hecht. Storm9ameson'5 $2'75. Viking. Mr. Hecht who wrote Count Bruga and A Jew In Love has returned THE from a prolonged leave of absence in Holly~ wood to write seven long stories. He still CAPTAIM'S WIFE wields a sharp-and witty pen but he has be~ come glib, glamorous and even a trifle self~ important..The.