Contributors' Column--February Atlantic

The break between Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, and the subsequent formation of a Coalition Cabinet, composed of Unionists, with a mild admixture of Liberals, and a Labor member or two to give it popular appeal, constitute the most important parliamentary episode of the war. The details have been obscured rather than clarified by innumerable chronicles of these events. The few persons qualified to speak kept silent, from various motives, during the hubbub; and the documents which alone can guide the historian in his judgment of these matters have never been made accessible. The correspondence between the principals, however, has been shown to a favored few in London. Copies have been lent and returned; and, in one instance at least, given away. In the opinion of competent British judges the time has come when these letters can be printed—if not in England, at least in America; and after consideration the Atlantic (which has had an opportunity to satisfy itself of the authenticity of the correspondence) assumes the responsibility of publishing them.

William Beebe, who described in the Atlantic last summer some of his experiences in the aviation service during the war, is still Curator of Ornithology at the New York Zoölogical Park. The further record of the bravely borne trials of Madame Emma Ponafidine and her blind husband, on the latter’s ancestral estate in the Tver Government in Russia, is a continuation of that contained in the letters we published in July last. They are first-hand historical material, of real value, and it is interesting to supplement them with the record of Benjamin W. Van Riper, who was as his diary tells us, working in Moscow under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A in the autumn of 1917. He is now connected with the National War-Work Council of Y.M.C.A.’s, with headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia.

Miss Lucy H. M. Soulsby has for thirty years been well known in the educational world of both Oxford and London. Her position on the chief Councils — Religious, Educational and Social — has given her a personal acquaintance with the leading men and women of England, so that she has seen America, where she has lately spent much time, with eyes trained by a broader experience of the Old Country than any purely school life could give. Miss Soulsby’s paper was in its original form a Christmas letter to Brondesbury, the well-known school for girls in London, of which she was at the head for a generation. John Finley is President of the University of the state of New York, at Albany—an old contributor and friend. It is a pleasure and a privilege to print this striking poem, which celebrates the conclusion of the war, in the same pages to which Dr. Finley contributed ‘The Road to Dieppe’ at its beginning, in December. 1914. H. T. Avery, a member of the New York bar, is Vice-President of the Surety Coupon Company. His first contribution to the Atlantic was a ‘legal’ story, ‘Caveat Emptor,’ in the issue of November last. With regard to the somewhat unusual incident of the defendant in a criminal case being called as a witness by the government, Mr. Avery writes; —

This case actually occurred in Chautauqua County in 1868. The lawyer who defended Hankins told me the story years after, as one of the most ridiculous legal episodes in which he had ever engaged; also as the most extraordinary ease of perjury. The so-called prosecutor was not an attorney, but an old farmer who had been justice of the peace and was wholly ignorant, and for that reason proceeded as he did. He was so sure of himself that he thought he would be smart and make Hankins himself admit the facts; so he actually called the defendant. I am sure no attorney in regular practice would do so ridiculous a thing. In this case, it was done.

The concluding chapters of Marcel Nadaud’s novel of aviation, which was written especially for this magazine, will be printed in March. Joseph Husband, whose thrilling narrative of his experiences as a coal-miner (’A Year in a Coal-Mine’ ) was first published in the Atlantic, and who afterwards achieved success as an advertising agent in Chicago, enlisted in the navy upon our entrance into the war. This is the third of the papers in which he has described his life as an ' ordinary seaman, U.S.N.’ (May, 1918), and as an ensign (‘Students of the Sea,’September, 1918), at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. ‘On the day the armistice was signed,’he writes, ‘was transferred to the flag office, where I am writing “A Short History of the U.S. Naval Forces in France,” with the full approval and coöperation of Admiral Wilson.’ Thomas H. Dickinson is connected with the United States Food Administration. He contributed ‘Bread and the Battle’ to the July, 1918, Atlantic.

O. W. Firkins, poet, essayist, and critic, and professor of English at the University of Minnesota, is also the author of a highly considered life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He has been an occasional contributor of thoughtful verse to the Atlantic. ‘A Mother’ is the fifth in the series of unusual stories drawn by the Elderly Spinster from her experience of many years as a volunteer worker in a hospital in Northern India, where she was thrown into relations of peculiar intimacy with Indian women of all castes and kinds. George W. Alger, a practising lawyer in New York City, is well known as a vigorous writer on social questions. He is the author of Moral Overstrain and The Old Law and the New Order.

Abbé Ernest Dimnet, Professor at the College Stanislas, Paris, well known to Atlantic readers, has done much by his writings during the war to strengthen the bonds of international friendship. His concise, yet complete and lifelike sketch of the great French Premier and War-Minister was written at the personal request of the editor, preferred during his recent, journey abroad. Raymond Garfield Gettell is Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. Out of the fullness of his experience as Recorder of the United States Shipping Board, he has written this article in response to the Atlantic’s invitation. This second paper on the ‘Idea of a League of Nations’ in its general aspects, concludes the preliminary survey of the subject by the group of leading Englishmen under the chairmanship of Mr. H. G. Wells. W. P. Crozier is a British journalist. on the staff of the Manchester Guardian, perhaps the best training school for journalists which Great Britain affords.

Professor Fite’s recent paper on the Scientific Prepossession seems to have stirred many emotions in the psychologists of the country, he have received a very large number of letters, of which the following, from Professor George M. P. Baird, is not uncharacteristic.

According to the best literary traditions, a message from the tomb should be grim, grisly, and stern, or, at least, properly mournful and tearcompelling; but the latest bruit from among the bones, which issues via the December number of the Atlantic, brings only that hearty laughter which is the physic of man’s spirit. ‘The philosopher who views life under the aspect of eternity ’ (sic) probably has no desire to tickle our intellectual ribs with antique reactionary wheezes; but, whatever his intent, he has succeeded admirably and is entitled to the meed of the joymaker.

This writing is in no sense a reply to ‘The Human Soul and the Scientific Prepossession.’ There can be no reply; one cannot argue a joke or unleash a syllogism at the tail of a jest. When Pantaloon strikes Pierrot with a bladder-bauble, the obvious return is not a carefully considered and well-phrased rejoinder. Humor, even when unintentional, should be met with humor. However. — we blush to admit it,— since there are a few psychologists who are as solemnly Malvolian and impervious to the risible as are the philosophers, we hasten to warn them against any sober effort to ruin a delightful bit of fantastic fiction by crushing it beneath the bludgeon of ill-humored fact. Let psychologists keep their unhallowed hands from the philosophic prepossessions; there is all loo little fun in life as it is. Those of us who have been ensnared by the Freudian heresy may interpret Professor Fite’s picture of the failure of modern science as the dream expression of a suppressed desire, but, in the name of Billiken and all the gods of laughter, let us keep it to ourselves.

For the paper properly entitled ‘Prussianizing Wisconsin,’ in the January Atlantic, we have received many letters of praise and blame. The facts given in Mr. Stewart’s letter have not, however, been impugned, and the case is for the American people to consider. It is worth while to print this collateral testimony to‘American’ activities in a section of California.

You are entitled to the highest praise and the deepest thanks of true Americans for the publication of the brave article on ' Prussianizing Wisconsin’ in the current issue.

Equivalent things, differing only in detail, are happening in this community, with the same results in resentment and bitterness. I too could tell you things, in the manner of Hamlet’s ghost, to chill your young blood. But the spirit of Blackmail hovers too close above me. God help America!

The campaign to prepare by terror the way for the fifth loan has already begun.

Cannot the press cry loud enough, and in advance, to check this incredible system, and avoid the inevitable and costly resentment and bitterness that, are sure to follow? Is it not sufficiently incredible that I dare not even sign my old American name?

And here is an example of the testimony of the contrary-minded: —

DEAR SIR, Your recent issue is a very great disappointment] to me; I have read the Atlantic for some time with increasing pleasure, and my wife has also become a firm friend of the Atlantic; now you spoil it all with the tacit acceptance of Deutscher Stewart’s impudent claim that coercing a Pro-German into investing his money in Liberty Bonds is on a par with the mob rule which dominates Russia and threatens the rest of the world.
As a member of most of the war-activity committees in this bailiwick. I consider this an insult to all of us.
I am a newcomer in the field of the Atlantic Monthly and had looked forward to a long and pleasant relationship; now I am going back to my beloved Kipling, and am done with ‘ Brittle intellectuals’ — whatever that may mean. Suggest your reading the Butte Bulletin of
December 23,1918.

The following account, written to the Atlantic, of the reception of the news of the cessation of hostilities in far-away Tientsin will, we are sure, be of interest to our readers.

TANGKU, 16th Nov., 1918,
I wish you might have seen Tientsin this week, and taken part in the tremendous celebrations of Victory and Peace. Practically up to the last, the Chinese believed Germany invincible; hence the Allied foreign communities did, and still are doing. all in their power to impress on them the enormous significance of November 11.
French, British. Italian, American, Japanese — all celebrated together and separately; and the Chinese celebrated too! They had 20,000 in a grand parade on Wednesday. All Victoria Road was a mass of bunting, flags, and colored lights. Wednesday morning a Grand Parade of Allied I troops was held, while solemn minute-gunssaluted Victory. Battalions of French veterans in grayblue, with their wicked bayonets fixed, marched past, followed by Sikhs. Japanese, British, Americans (15th Infantry), and Chinese. Each nation’s anthem was played in turn. . . . Very few foreigners in Tientsin have not given of their dear ones to make this Victory possible. Hence a note of solemnity and of seriousness colored the week. ’We owe this joy to our holy Dead’ was the watchword of all. The evening of the 13th, an Allied Victory Ball was held in Gordon Hall. I was touched to note that the decorations at the British Consulate included only British flags and our own Stars and Stripes. . . .
Faithfully yours,
ROPER D. WOLCOTT.

Sometimes wisdom dwells in secret places and sometimes she does n’t. Perhaps no further introduction is necessary to the following analysis sent to the Atlantic by the ‘Sunshine Library of Resurch’ (sic) of California.

FOOD CAUSES OF INFLUENZA

A gentleman who has examined a large number of cases of influenza and pneumonia, tells us that, apparently people very seldom have influenza unless they have eaten very freely, very freely, very freely of one or more of the following foods: Eggs, mushrooms, dill pickles, carrots, turnips, mustard, radishes, horseradish, cabbage, celery, parsnips, rabbits, squabs, or rye bread, or else coffee made of rye; or else have eaten meat freely two or three times a day.

And secondly, that they very seldom seem to have pneumonia unless, in addition to these ’influenza foods,' they have also eaten too freely of: Onions, garlic, tripe, lettuce, eggs, or greens.

This gentleman may, in his enthusiasm, have been utterly misled; but even if what he says is only half true, or has in it a dim, clear hint of truth, it is certainly worth looking into. And he suggests a very simple way in which you can do it. Find out what the ten or fifteen favorite foods were before being sick, of those of your friends, living and dead, who have had influenza or pneumonia; and find out definitely just how freely and how often they ate each of these favorite foods. And little by little you will get a hint as to whether eating too freely of one’s pet foods ever helps in causing serious sickness.

Our correspondent, who is certainly an enthusiast, also informs us that great dullness in children, excessive tallness, excessive shortness, the shape of the ear and nose, heart disease, inflammatory rheumatism, weak eyes, rotten teeth, quarrelsomeness, miserliness, and hair turning white at the age of thirty, these and many other ailments do also quite often reveal at sight what a person’s favorite foods are, and prove that he has eaten some of them too freely.

We cannot endorse such extraordinary statements, but they are certainly worth looking into.

To us also the statements seem out of the ordinary, but to readers suffering from excessive tallness, uncomfortable shortness, miserliness, or youthful whiteness of hair, we extend the gleam of hope.

We are glad to adduee this testimony to our entire respectability.

I am moved to tell you an incident which happened to me in a small Texas town last winter. We were stranded there for a week with nothing to do, — for in Texas one is not allowed to play cards in public places,nothing to read except East Lynne, Mary J. Holmes, and Lucile, so that when I saw coming into the dining-room a lady with an Atlantic, which she opened by the side of her plate as she sat at her dinner, I thought perchance that she would know of some place where I could get our Atlantic and other long overdue magazines. When I met her I said, ‘I see you are interested in the Atlantic. Where were you able to get the January number? We have tried everywhere but have not found it.’ To which she replied, ‘This is not the last one; indeed. I have not read it, but I always feel that in a strange place being seen with the Atlantic really places one.’

The latest and most generous contribution to our Atlantic Box for French Children was accompanied by this pleasant letter from our remotest colony — a place, if ever there was one, to escape the horror of the thought of war.
FLORIDA BLANCA PAMPANGA, P.I., Nov. 12, 18,

DEAR ATLANTIC,Here on a sugar plantation, in a remote section of the Philippines, we are very sheltered from the war. Not even its high prices affect us much. . . . the native market supplies us with eggs and vegetables at very low cost, clothes we require few of on an isolated plantation. But for the everbeloved Atlantic and its faithful lesser brethren we would scarcely know of war.
I think of all this. I look at my baby, so safe, so well supplied: I see my pretty house, my husband busy at Ids sugar-production; and then I think of those other mothers and babies. I enclose a P.O. for $200, to be used for war relief. I wish it were $2000. As you have the latest information as to where the greatest need lies, I leave the use of the money to your judgment.
VERA H. FARNHAM.

An interesting echo of Mias Case’s happy paper in the December Atlantic comes from a California address.

December 10, 1918. DEAR ATLANTIC,Thank you for the Atlantic always, but this month an especial thank-you, because of ‘Music Hath Charms,’Not only the style of it,-the gentle humor, the deep undertone of human sympathy, — but also the personal memory it brought, made me read it through, and then read it through again. It brings this picture first: a far-away Ken-

tucky village in the foothills of the mountains; a plain chapel in an industrial school; faces of mountaineer girls,-pretty, plain, furtive, gaunt, as the case might be, — all gathered there for Sunday vespers. There, too, 148 and 40 were popular -beloved! I can see again Elsie’s far, sombre gaze at the low autumn hills-fiery Elsie, whom music could charm most truly into a more peaceful mood. Like a sharp silhouette comes Ola’s thin, vivid little face, usually so full of jealousy and dissatisfaction, but during singing full of a quiet peace almost too mature for her young years.
But again, and even dearer, is the other picture— a schoolroom in New Mexico, a mission schoolroom, full of dark-eyed girls of all ages, from baby Serafina to our calm eldest, the stolid Teofela. At the organ sits ‘tha museek teechair,’where she can command not only a sweeping view of dark heads, black eyes, and vitally vivid hairbows (oh, the colors those children choose for their bodily decoration!), but also where she can glimpse through the window a bit of peach orchard, flowering pale pink and ‘Japanesey’ against the blue New Mexican sky. Out of doors all is sunshiny, blue, and full of peace — inside, the same quiet spirit lies, even if the colors are too vivid and full of edge. Josephina, at sixteen very womanly and self-reliant, sits at the leader’s desk, conducting Sunday afternoon services, and the only teacher in the room is my humble self, selected because of my ability to ‘read so queek at the sight ! I feel again the worn organ-keys beneath my fingers, and hearing once more the sweet, musical voices rise in full chorus, I smile tenderly at the words’ Da-a-y ees dy-y-eeng een tha West! True, the organ wheezed; Carlota did whisper over often; Julianita would forget to sing, in her envious admiration of Consuela’s new, new hairbow of magenta-and-green plaid; and someone occasionally droned along in weird monotone. But what mattered such mere details? Happiness filled the room like a perfume, and love of singing breathed in every note, shone in every pair of great dark eyes. Afterward, till suppertime, we walked arm in arm, girls and teachers, beneath the big cottonwood trees, watching the brilliant sunset, and the fairy lights of rose and mauve and palest green suffusing the eastern mountainsthat austere range called ‘Sangre de Cristo’ which watches over the little city at its foot-hills, and guards the mission school too. where darkeyed disciples of ‘the blood of Christ’ are gathered from plaza and cañon, from hillside and desert land, to learn the beauty of the song of life.
So. again, thank you for the December Atlantic, and the memories it brought.

We beg to announce that, in compliance with many requests, Mr. Gordon Snow’s ’Reflections of a Draft-Board Man’ has been reprinted from the August (1918) Atlantic, and may be obtained at this office at the rate of 10 cents for single copies, or $5.00 per hundred.