The Contributors' Column

WOMEN’S colleges are nearing a crisis. They must attain equality with the colleges for men or be condemned to permanent inferiority. So serious are the facts, so pressing the situation, that the heads of the seven most famous women’s colleges in the country make in the Atlantic a combined appeal to thinking men and women.James Truslow Adams is a ceaseless traveler, a student of history, and the author of a standard work on New England. He thinks his own thoughts and speaks out loud. ¶At the risk of a superlative, and in full cognizance of our partiality, we venture to say that the present story of Margaret Prescott Montague is one of her very best — a peer to her prize-winning ‘England to America.’ Miss Montague writes that she has been flying daily this summer, but only vicariously, and, as it were, on the wings of the morning newspaper. Williams Haynes tells us that silk is cotton, furs are cat, wool, shoddy, pearls, synthetic— and, as a prominent New York chemist, he ought to know. ¶For more than eleven years Lieutenant Commander Bruce G. Leighton has been actively engaged in flying. A member of the Bureau of Aeronautics at Washington, he has also been closely associated with aeronautical engineering development. We have not seen elsewhere so informal or so sagacious a discussion. Mark Barr, who is at present acting in an advisory capacity with the Harvard Business School, had the good fortune to take a trip with William Beebe.

The status of Christian Missions is under question to-day, not only in China, but in India, Persia, and Turkey. Dr. R. C. Hutchison, Dean of the American College of Teheran, faces the problem of proselytism and frankly gives us the opinion of a worker in the field. Humbert Wolfe is an English poet who has found steady satisfaction in civil service. Between poems, as it were, he is Principal Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Labor. Incidentally, his latest volume is reviewed in this number. ¶Those who are about to die should salute Raymond Edwards Huntington, who gives generously of his counsel as one of the leading tax experts in New England. ¶The countryside is an open and delightful book to Henry Williamson, a young Englishman who is carrying on the tradition of Jefferies and W. H. Hudson. ¶Joseph Husband is the author of Americans by Adoption, and a series of studies of the industries of the country.

Virginia Woolf, perhaps the most accomplished woman novelist of to-day, pays tribute to the genius of her countryman, E. M. Forster. Amy S. Jennings has had several years’ practical experience on the Hollywood ‘lots.’ Morris Gray, Jr., made himself welcome with his first story, ‘ Off His Beat,’ which appeared in the Atlantic for August 1926. ¶The Atlantic is nothing new to Roderick Morison. On a Cunard liner he crosses it every month as the editor in charge of the wireless edition of the Daily Mail. ¶Few men living know more about the Mississippi than Arthur E. Morgan, President of Antioch College. In earlier days he made raft trips on the river (as recounted in his diaries, My World and Finding His World) and for many years he has given intensive study to the major problem of its control. The engineering company of which he is the head has planned and supervised the building of between two and three hundred miles of levees on tributaries of the Mississippi in the flooded region, all of which are still holding, and has engineered about two thousand miles of drainage canals in the same district, as well. Men think of him as the president of a pioneer college, but when Dayton was overtaken by disaster in the flood of 1913 it was to Mr. Morgan that the helm was given. In the course of his career he has had an active hand in the planning and construction of seventy-five watercontrol projects. Here is an authority to be consulted.

Francis Bowes Sayre is Professor of Comparative Law at the Harvard Law School. Granted a leave of absence in 1923-24, Professor Sayre served as adviser in foreign affairs to the Siamese Government, and both there and in Europe was called on to make such a single-handed fight for Siamese sovereignty as has no counterpart in modern diplomacy. ¶Writer and economist, Arthur Pound lived for many years in the Middle West, where his book, The Iron Man in Industry, took shape. Nora Waln, an American by birth, and the wife of an English Civil Servant, has been at her husband’s side through all the late turbulence in China.

The real story of insurance.

HARTFORD, CONN.
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
We life-insurance men are certainly indebted to the Atlantic and to Mr. Calkins for a view of ourselves as the advertising man sees us, and he sees us as a poor customer. We learn that ‘no important industry is so archaic, so remote from modern life,’ that we do not insure our own business ‘against the destructive power of silence,’ and that we ‘have no right to withhold from the public the real story of insurance.’ As Mr. Calkins correctly states, the advisability of advertising has been brought before the insurance companies frequently. We have had it talked to us day in and day out for twenty-five years, and I would like the privilege of shyly stating a few of the considerations which have deterred at least one insurance company from entering into a general advertising campaign.
Mr. Calkins’s theory, if I correctly understand it, is that if we spent enough money on what he calls advertising we could spend less on other forms of what I call advertising, and that the result on the whole would be beneficial.
I am reminded of a story that was told me some years ago of an effort which was made in a certain city by some of the leading citizens to raise a guarantee fund which would enable them to procure the services of a high-grade orchestra. There were business men of various branches on the committee, and each man was given his own branch to canvass in any way he saw fit. When the committee met, the general reports indicated a response in the neighborhood of five per cent of those who had been called upon to help. There was, however, one tailor who reported that out of seventy prospects he had secured sixty-seven, and they asked him if they might see the letter that he wrote. He looked at them in some surprise and stated, ‘I called on every man once, and those that I did n’t get the first time I called on a second time, and those that I did n’t get the second time I called on a third time, and the three men I did n’t get are going to receive another call from me.’
Of course that was n’t advertising, because advertising, as I take it from Mr. Calkins, is only in the printed word put in the pages of a periodical, or possibly on unsightly billboards. I don’t know just what to call what the tailor did, but, in spite of Mr. Calkins, I suspect it was advertising. Certainly his prospects did not suffer from ‘the destructive power of silence.’
Now, without disputing the great advantages there are to some kinds of business in mass production (and a certain amount of mass production, of course, is necessary in insurance), I can hardly see that insurance companies would benefit in the same way by growth that an automobile factory might benefit.
Upon what does the cost of life insurance depend? First of all, upon the mortality table. The mortality table is the same for a hundred thousand as it is for a million lives. The same proportion are going to die this year and next year and the year after. The second thing to consider is the rate of interest to be received this year and for years to come on the funds in the possession of the insurance company. It is certainly no easier to keep a billion dollars invested safely at a remunerative rate of interest than it is to keep ten millions. In fact, it is not as easy, and, speaking generally, the smaller companies have had in the past on the whole a higher rate of interest returns than the larger ones. Thus we are brought down to the expense of selling as the only place where advertising might make a difference in the cost if we, for the purposes of the argument, assume that the home offices and the expenses thereof are being reasonably economically handled.
I do not think that any insurance man would take issue with Mr. Calkins on the theory that it would be easier for the agent to sell insurance if in some way the mind of the public could be made more receptive to the insurance idea. His article virtually admits that we could not sell insurance direct by advertising. This has been tried in the past, and I do not think I am in error in stating that it has not been found to be an inexpensive way of selling insurance, or a method by which large amounts of insurance could be sold. People stand in line to buy postage stamps or railroad tickets because they have got to have a postage stamp or a railroad ticket. It is not habit, as Mr. Calkins says. It is necessity, and they have got to have it now. If we persuaded them through advertising that they would have to have insurance, they would n’t have to have it now. They would have to have it at a more convenient season. Insurance is, as he says, an intangible, an idea, a service. There is never a time, except when it is too late, when you can’t do without an intangible. Insurance makes a high appeal — that is, an appeal toward providing for the future of yourself and your family. But the average young man is much more confident than the circumstances warrant of the continuance of his health and strength and ability to earn money.
We have a great deal of printed matter over which infinite pains has been taken to make it readable, attractive, human — in other words, to make it tell the story of insurance as Mr. Calkins would have it told. We have newspaper advertisements which we furnish to our agents, and which, when conditions seem favorable, we encourage them to use and to pay for; and we believe in advertising, but we have got to put our advertising where we think it will bring the greatest returns per dollar spent, and it would be suicidal, not only legally but actually, for us to embark on any great campaign of national advertising, because it would in our case raise and not lower the price of insurance. And if we charge more for insurance than other people do, we are lost. So we have got to advertise in a way that will really come home to the average young man, and the way we do it is sometimes by sending him printed matter through the mails and following it up by a call from a man who can tell him about insurance, and who can fit him with insurance, and do it now. Unlike Mr. Calkins’s company, we try to keep, as well as we may be able to, the human touch with this young man after he has taken insurance with us. We do send him a little advertising matter with the notices of his premium due. We do try to be polite. We do congratulate him when he has made his last payment, and, incidentally, try to sell him some more insurance at this time. We do try to get him, through our agents, to tell us of more men who he thinks might be interested in insurance. We believe that this is the way to sell insurance.
We are not in a conspiracy of silence. In fact, it has sometimes seemed to me that we were in a conspiracy of talk; only our talk does not happen to be through the particular channels which interest Mr. Calkins, but it is a great deal more effective, and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it costs less in the end than it would if we followed Mr. Calkins’s notions. There is n’t any body of men who are more interested in furnishing widely the product which they have for sale and in furnishing it at the lowest possible price than the life-insurance men. There is n’t any body of men who are more enthusiastic about what they are selling, to whom the human part of it is more appealing. I don’t know a single life-insurance man who is not enthusiastic over his calling, not because of the statistics, and the algebra, and the calculus, and the adding machines, and the Hollerith machines that he uses, but because it is filling a real need, because it is something that helps the civilized world to keep together, something without which it would n’t keep together. We want to sell insurance largely and cheaply more than Mr. Calkins wants to have us. We are investigating all the time with the one idea in our minds of doing our business more economically and efficiently. We are not any different from Mr. Calkins, or from the automobile manufacturers, or from any other class of business men, but it just happens that his kind of advertising is expensive for most insurance companies, and so we do not use very much of it.
Very truly yours,
R. W. HUNTINGTON
President, Connecticut General Life Insurance Co.

Friends of Hilda Rose, the last installment of whose letters appeared in the September Atlantic, will be interested in this cheery letter from our northernmost contributor.

FORT VERMILION, ALBERTA
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Have just received your good letter and check. We will get through the coming winter in good shape. The check finished up what was still needed for the grubstake. That means food ahead for one year. I wish everybody in the world could say the same.
I counted the years that are left if I live to be seventy, and find there are twenty-two. I wonder how many hopes will come true in these precious years. Daddy reached the Promised Land — that dream came true. Brain food — the pile of books in the corner of the cabin. Friends — a box full of letters to read over this winter.
Daddy’s favorite song Used to be ‘There’s a long, long trail awinding, To the land of my dreams.’ Here is the song he sings now, to the tune of ‘ Where the River Shannon Flows ’: —

How contented and happy he is. It’s no wonder. Every seed he puts in the ground grows. It may be a long time before you get this letter. May I send a Christmas message to your readers?

Thank you for your kind wishes and sympathy. It gives me a happy feeling, and the winter won’t seem so cold nor long.
Faithfully yours,
HILDA ROSE

In the words of Bairnsfather, ‘Well, if you knows of a better ’ole, go to it!’

FRESNO, CALIFORNIA
DEAR ATLANTIC, -
It is interesting to note that your glutton for punishment, Hilda Rose, has gone into new pastures where the hardships are really abounding.
If, however, she finds the life up there too soft, I might suggest a new line of endeavor — growing table grapes for the Eastern market in Fresno County, California. Here she will find a rich field, beset with all the hardships and disappointments to satisfy the most exacting readers of the Atlantic Monthly — intense heat, bitter toil, harassing labor troubles, scarcity of water, no remuneration, and plenty of wolves in the form of fresh-fruit dealers.
Sincerely,
HAZEL FARMER STITT

A friendly reader draws our attention to an omission in Willis Sharp’s much discussed paper which we are glad to correct.

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
DEAR ATLANTIC, -
I desire to express my very great appreciation of Mr. Sharp’s article in the August Atlantic entitled ‘President and Press.’ He presents a much-needed rebuke both of the attitude of the President and the newspapers. It is a public service of great value in a period when, as a result of the war and prosperity, the value of criticism and opposition seems to have almost ceased to be recognized.
The statement of the attitude of the press is, though, too broad. The Scripps Howard newspapers have taken issue with the President’s attitude. I feel quite sure that you will find much the same view that Mr. Sharp expressed appearing in the Cleveland Prcs-s, Deliver Evening News or Rocky Mountain News, San Francisco News, and other Scripps Howard newspapers. In fact, my understanding is that the President’s address before the I’nited Press Association last April was because of the critical attitude that the United Press and the Scripps Howard newspapers had taken toward the Administration’s course in Nicaragua and Mexico. I am sure you will find in the Scripps Howard newspapers a protest against the President’s view as expressed in that address, as well as his attitude on previous occasions.
I thought you would be glad to have your attention called to the unintentional error which you made in dealing with the attitude of the press.
J. C. HARPER

How many of our contemporary readers remember the name of Robert Bonner, famous in the days of our youth? The New York Ledger, ‘devoted to choice literature, romance, the news, and commerce,’ paid handsomely in its day for Mr. Bonner’s racing stable. He had a way with him, did Mr. Bonner, in all public utterances. We recall an advertisement placing his estate on Long Island for sale. It began, in display type,

IN THE HEART OF THE MALARIAL DISTRICT

A sale (advertisers please notice) promptly followed.

A friend now sends us a copy of the Ledger for March 15, 1862, from which we extract the following kindly notice of the Atlantic Monthly of that day: —

‘Something in the Eye,’ in the Contributors’ Club for August, has reminded this disillusioned patient of a treatment which she believes to be far too common.

Briefly, one of my experiences was with a skin specialist of St. Louis, to whom I went for treatment of my hands. This same specialist had treated a sister before me for some time. When I reached his office I sat in the waiting room quite a while; then a stenographer entered by one of the three doors in this room and took my name, address, and so forth, and left the room. I sat a while longer and then another door opened and my name was called and I was ushered into a small treatment room, where I sat another while. The physician came, looked at my hands, asked two questions, then handed me a diet list and a prescription. He had given me not the slightest word as to my trouble or even the slightest information, and, feeling I should know what I came for, I asked him a few questions, but got only very brief replies. Next I was told to go into another room for a treatment of the hands and I assumed it was X-ray, but do not know for certain. As I was leaving this room I inquired of the first stenographer I had seen what the charges would be, and she pertly replied, ‘You ‘11 get a statement at the end of the month.’ I said, ‘ Well, I want to know now.’ She advised that I could speak with the doctor again if I wished, so I did and was told after a little wait that if I was a wage earner the charge would be ‘three and five.’ This ended my cull on this specialist, and I left his office feeling I never wanted to seek his services again.
AMALIA KRUMREICH

When the cat’s away —

SOUTH LYME, CONN.
DEAR ATLANTIC, -
Not long ago I was looking over some back numbers of the Atlantic prior to disposing of them; being in a hurry, I stacked them on the floor of a closet. A few days later I Went to get them and discovered small pieces of several of the leading articles strewn about the floor. Peering closely, I found on top of the pile of Atlantics a small mouse, flat on his back, his toes turned up to heaven — quite dead. Too much thought for food?
MARGARET DE R. LITTLE

And some of them can speak English.

HARTFORD, CONN.
DEAR ATLANTIC, -
Are typewriters people? When my little Rem (Remington Portable), first came to me, it was like adopting a baby. He weighed just eleven pounds, he had to have his little mat to play on, he must be carefully covered, he needed new ribbons, he came down with childish disorders. It used to seem to me sometimes that he needed everything but a bottle and a gocart —as it was, I carried him. He has been doing very badly lately, and yesterday he grew worse and worse, so there was nothing for it but to telephone to the Service Office. In an hour or two an automobile drew up, and a young man, with a bag, stepped out and walked briskly to my door. I introduced the patient, described the symptoms, and hung around with all the solicitude of a mother, while the young M.D. (M. can stand for mechanics as well as medicine) poked and prodded, just as it has been done to me a hundred times. Then he did something, somewhere, and the little invalid was a cure. But what made it all so human was that, when I asked anxiously, ‘What was the trouble?’ (I think I said ‘Doctor’) he looked grave and said, ‘It was the lever.’
ALICE GRAY TRUSLOW

You can put your money — or your feet — on them any time.

Not long ago, writes a correspondent, there was a lady in Boston whose job it was in part to drive about town in a Ford car. A friend one day noticed on the floor a stout bundle of Atlantics tied with a string, and asked what it was for. ‘Well,’ the lady said, ‘you see I’m rather short and they make a good foot rest. I used to take any kind of magazines, but they were always stolen, in garages and even on the streets, so I tried the Atlantics and they have n’t been touched. I’ve used these for more than a year! ’