The Contributors' Column

WHEN the University of Pennsylvania conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws upon A. Edward Newton (p. 1) he responded by conferring upon the University a rare copy of Blackstone’s Commentaries, together with some salty observations about the legal fraternity into which he had just been initiated. Seldom has the pot had more fun in calling the kettle black. Mr. Newton’s essay will be published in book form by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

It has become conventional for white men to skip off from civ ilization to seek their heart’s content in the South Seas; it is certainly unconventional for one of them to exchange his island paradise for a slice of ’North Vmcriea. The reasons that led Robert Dean Frisbie (p. 10) to desert his home on Puka-Puka and the extraordinary circumstances of his return to the United States are delightfully recorded in three papers, the first of which appeared in our December issue.

Licensed pilot and newspaper editor, Malcolm B. Ronald (p. 20) foresees the time when even our grandparents can be trusted to drive themselves through the air.

A Parisian, Raoul de Roussy de Sales (p. 28) makes his headquarters in New York City, where he scrutinizes the American scene as correspondent for that great French daily, the Paris-soir.

Graduate of a famous Boston hospital, Helen Dore Boylston (p. 34) has lived the intense life of a trained nurse. These are her own words: ‘Was in three Balkan revolutions. Once made Albanian Prime M inister carry my trunk off boat, and tried to tip him, not knowing who he was. Was shot at for two hours in ditch in southern Albania, owing to mistake in identity. Broke two ribs in France during the war, by sliding downhill on an army tea trav. Polish peasant once set large dog on me. Was forced to shoot it to save my own life — the dog, l mean, not the peasant. Was lost for a day in Italian Alps. Was once pursued by a groaning pillow case in an Albanian garden at midnight.’ In 1925 the Atlantic published excerpts from Miss Boylston’s War Diary. Her pen has been active ever since.

Those who are worried about the present state of Democracy, those who are seeking for an American way in which to avoid the high pressure of the extreme Bight or of the extreme Left, will do well to listen to Walter Lippmann (p. 39). In the September Allantic Mr. Lippmann opened up his discussion of the Good Society, a discussion which will he sustained through seven successive numbers. Each chapter is an entity in itself; taken together, they compose an alert and authoritative survey of modern government.

Theodore Roethke (p. 47), who sends us a poem singularly prophetic of the new year, is an instructor in the Departmen t of English Composition at Pennsylvania State College.

A literary man to whom words are the breath of life, Wilson Follett (p. 18) feels it his duty to arouse certain teachers — and users — of English.

For more than a quarter of a century Richard F. Fuller (p. 58) has been president and owner of the Old Corner Book Store in Boston, a bookshop which is responsible for approximately one per cent of the nation’s book business.

Alan Devoe (p. 61) is a bibliophile who retired from selling books in order to write some of his own. He spent several years in New York City dealing in autographed manuscripts and rare books. Then came the call of the pen.

A Bostonian of an inquiring mind, Allen H. Wood, Jr, (p. 63) gets out into the New England country whenever his duties permit.

One of the ablest of American historians, Henry Osborn Taylor (p. 66) occupies many inches in any good library. College men the country over pay their respects to his great trilogy: The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, The Mediaeval Mind, Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century.

An economist in close touch with large industries, Arthur Pound (p. 73) speaks with sagacity about his native state, Michigan.

Isadore Luce Smith (p. 79) has lived in India and on many occasions has compared notes with those who travel and those who lecture.

Maxine Davis (p. 82), the author of The Lost Generation, motored thousands of miles in this country and in England gathering statistics to show what has happened to underfed children during the depression.

While in her early twenties, Lola Kinel (p. 89), a Russian by birth, was asked to serve as interpreter and private secretary to Isadora Duncan and Essenine. Miss kind’s autobiography, This Is My Affair, from which these chapters are taken, is to be published on January 15.

Sir Arthur Willert’s (p. 96) long connection with the British Foreign Office enables him to speak clearly and with authority for the Empire.

A native of the Empire State, still in his thirties, Carl Carmer (p. 105) is the author of Stars Fell on Alabama and, more recently. Listen for a Lonesome Drum.

The ballads and friendly verses of Nancy Byrd Turner (p. 109) have long been prized by Atlantic readers. We still think her ‘Ballad of Lucky Lindbergh’ the most poetic salute to his great flight.

Since his graduation from Harvard ten years ago, Joseph Barnes (p. 111) has had his fling in Wall Street, watched the Russian experiment in Moscow, studied at the London School of Economics, and served as the Secretary of the American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations. He is now on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune.

George W. Gray (p. 117) is the author of New World Picture, an admirable exposition of the physical sciences.

Atlantic readers whose business it is to follow the trend of finance will welcome, we believe, the series of articles by H. B. Elliston which will appear in the pages directly following the Column. Now resident in Boston, Mr. Elliston is Financial Editor of the Christian Science Monitor, and American correspondent of the London Observer. A Yorkshireman, he served at the front during the war. With a solid foundation in economics and a hard-headed scrutiny which was part of his heritage, he has made a name for himself in the more serious side of journalism. Having familiarized himself with conditions in New York City, he was then sent to the Orient, where for seven years he was the China correspondent for the Manchester Guardian and the London Observer.

By way of apology. Because of an unfortunate editorial excision, the responsibility for the error cited below lies with us, not with the author of ‘A Billion?’

Dear Atlantic, —
Speaking of billions, ‘if a billion editors who cannot add were laid end to end, it would be a very good thing.’
I do not know what kind of rubber dollar was used in the November Atlantic in calculating that a billion dollars laid end to end would stretch l,167,000 miles. As yet, however, it does not seem to have reached Boston, where our dollar bills are only six inches long. According to my calculation, one billion times six inches equals 94,696 miles. To get the mileage up over a million one would have to use a six-foot, dollar, and that would be some dollar even in these days.
CHARLES C. LUND
Boston, Massachusetts

In further elaboration.

Dear Atlantic, —
We can visualize a million, but hardly a billion.
Take an engineer’s sheet of cross-sect ion paper one (1) meter square ruled into millimeters. It contains 1000 x 1000 or a million tiny squares. Stand away from it and you can see a million squares.
Now for a billion (or a thousand million) we should need a thousand of these sheets placed end to end. This line would be a kilometer or sixty-two hundredths (.62) of a mile in length.
J. PARKE CHANNING
New York City

Pie cut ‘four ways.‘

Dear Atlantic, —
‘ An Apple a Day’ in the November issue was quite enough to wreck the peace of mind of a woman born and bred in a small Southern Michigan town — one whose mother made the brand of apple pie described so perfectly by Della Lutes and who after years of living away from that best of all States can see the procession of apples named and crowned by another Wolverine.
We, a family of three, cut our pies ‘ four ways,’one for mother, half for father, the remaining piece for the Only child. The extra, in the form of a turnover tart, crimped on the edges, was safely slowed away in the pantry for the bedtime snack.
Can Della Lutes stand to know that I owned and operated a red Astrachan tree, played in its broad and comfortable branches, ate its greenest fruit as well as the last wormy red one? Two large Baldwins in the chicken yard were second in my affections. They were not exciting; the Astrachans were, and never a pain did they give.
She is right, there are no more apple pies, but Della Lutes, thank you, it is nice to be sad in such a cause.
GERTIE ELLEN CHICK
Asheville, North Carolina

The way to eat dried apples.

Dear Atlantic, —
What Mrs. Lutes writes is all so entertaining and interesting that one dislikes to take any exception; but I do think she is a little hard on dried apples. On our Southern Michigan farm we dried them and ate them, and liked them, and there was one dish which we all looked forward to and coaxed Mother to prepare.
It was named ‘Suits und Knapp,’ which is Pennsylvania Dutch for dried apples and dumplings. From observation, this is how it was made:
In a good-sized iron kettle, put a ham end to boil; when it is about three fourths done, drop into the kettle a couple of handfuls of dried sweet apples which have been dried with the rind on, and some raised wheat-flour dumplings. Let all cook together. When done, serve from a large platter, giving to each a dumpling, a large helping of the apples, and a slice of ham, all covered with some of the liquor in which it was cooked.
Good? I wish I had some for dinner to-day!
MARTIN LUTHER FOX
East Lansing, Michigan

Attention, city dwellers!

Dear Atlantic, -
Surely no article was ever more happily named than ‘Wings in the Moon’ in your October number. The mere words paint an unforgettable picture, delightfully intensified by the tale that followed.
For the last three seasons I have myself become a watcher of migrations, but my vantage point is a little park on a small hilltop in New York City, and my time broad day. The Tudor Gardens, a strip of green about a hundred feet wide, lie between Fortyfirst and Forty-third Streets at the foot of Tudor City’s frowning towers. Evidently they have become a regular stop-over on the airways of the birds, in spite of the tiny area, the rude, resident sparrows, and the crafty cats that prowl in the shrubberies — to say nothing of loitering humans. Each day during the migrating season brings one or more arrivals. It is pleasant enough to see robins, catbirds, thrashers, and jaunty chew inks hopping about the law ns in search of tourist meals, but when the visitors prove to be shy songsters of the Northern woods — hermit and olive-backed thrushes, white-throated sparrows or knights - the chase becomes very exciting to an unwilling city dweller who pines for the great open spaces.
It has been a strange experience to find that rare birds may be belter seen in a roaring city than in a murmuring forest.
Y our failhful reader,
ANNA C. MELLICK
New York City

The illantic has affection for young Glanville Smith, who earns his bread by carving tombstones. So evidently have our readers, who continue to respond to his latest essay, ‘Young Mortality.‘

Dear Atlantic,
On reading Glanville Smith’s meditations on tombstones I was reminded of an incident which occurred some years ago among the Indians of the Pacific Coast.
Upon the West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, there are still large numbers of Indians who depend for their livelihood principally upon fishing. They still adhere to their aneienl custom of piling some of the most valued possessions of the dead man upon his grave at burial. One of their number, however, bad the misfortune to be drowned at sea. Here was a difficulty! What was to be done? His dngout would immediately float away. Some of them, however, had observed the custom of the while men, who placed a large stone to mark their graves. This, they decided, they could also do. Accordingly they selected a boulder of suitable proportions, for the dead man had been a chief among them, loaded it into their largest boat, sailed out into the ocean with it, until they reached the place of the wreck and dumped it overlmard!
A. M. STEELE
Lynden, Washington

Dear Atlntic, —
Will Glanville Smith be interested in this epitaph which was found on a stone in an old cemetery near Hoosick, New York?
HER BODY DISSECTED BY MORTAL MEN
HER RONES ANATOMIZED
HER SOUL HAS RISEN TO GOD WE TRUST
WHERE FEW PHYSICIANS RISE.
MARJORIE M. BIGELOW
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

And here is another epitaph found for us in Bermuda by Mrs. Donald Moffat.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE GOOD GOVERNOR ALLURED POPPLE WHO DIED AFTER NINE DAYS ILLNESS OF A BILIOUS FEVER, AGED 46 YEARS 1744

OF THE MANY STRANGERS WHO RESORTED THITHER FOR THEIR HEALTH THE OBSERVINO EARLY DISCOVERED IN HIM UNDER THE VHIL OF MODESTY AN UNDERSTANDING AND ABILITIES EQUAL TO A MORE IMPORTANT TRUST. THE GAY AND POLITE WERE CHARMED WITH THE UNAFFECTED ELEGANCE AND AMILABLE SIMPLICITY OF HIS MANNERS AND ALL WERE CHEARED BY HIS HOSPITALITY AND EFFUSIVE BENEVOLENCE WHICH STEADILY FLOWED AND UNDISTURBED FROM THE HEART. TO PRAISE ACCORDING TO HIS MERIT THE DECEASED WOULD BE BUT TOO SENSIBLE A REPROACH TO THE LIVING.

We could not resist this belated postscript to Wilson Follett’s 4 The Feather Bed,’ a memorable story which appeared in the Atlantic for March 1936.

Dear Atlantic, —
The story of Mint Sylvia and her Feather Bed brought to mind years long past when, on cold winter nights, a beloved aunt would invite a little ailing girl to share her luxurious feather bed. The very feeling of drilling off happily to sleep surrounded by sheltering love, warmth, and comfort returns to rue even now.
I passed the story on to a little old English friend, who, with laughter, recalled an experience of her early married life. She. said. ‘ I hated feather beds and thought that in my own home I could escape them. But finding how much my new husband wanted one, I knew I must try to please him. So I bought the downy goose leathers from a neighbor and with my mother’s help made my feather bed.
‘ I found it warm and comfortable through the cold winter nights, but when summer heat came I could not stand it. One morning I decided to make the bed a new way. I simply folded the feather bed over double. All summer we slept that way, Sam high up on his feathers, and I below on my mattress, and both suited. Each night Sam would laugh and say; —
‘ “Goodnight, Annie. How are you making it down there?”’
M.W.S.
Washington, D. C.

That Barcelona moon!

Dear Atlantic,
I wish you would make your people leave the moon alone. You know that I abstain persistently and appropriately from entangling with the affairs of the Atlantic Monthly. I thus save many people from annoyance. Why do you let your writers annoy me?
For example, on page 544 of the November issue, bottom of the first column: ‘Barcelona as usual, serene and peaceful beneath a small, high-riding moon.’ The observation was made at half-past one on Saturday night. July 18, according to the text, and the writer just eight and one-half hours later jotted down the record concerning the moon and the revolution. Presumably the memory was fresh; certainly the imagination was buoyant.
The latitude of Barcelona is much the same as ours. In midsummer a moon cannot ride high in Barcelona, especially at 1.30 A.M.; summer full moons, even Spanish ones, must ride low in the south, because the sun does its high riding at that time.
Already skeptical, I turn to my calendar, which is identical in basic facts with Spanish calendars, and I find that on July 18 the moon was new. Nowhere on the planet that night was the moon seen riding high or riding low.
Your explanation of course may be that authors use the moon artistically, not factually; Unitil is moved about by the exigencies of dramatic necessity, not by the laws of celestial mechanics. If that is your defense and it makes a mockery of the Astronomer Royal from whose books the Spaniards crib their data for almanacs - let’s not argue; let’s agree father that in the future your chroniclers and romanticists will lay off the moon and we shall lay off the Atlantic.
Heil Veritas,
HARLOW SUAPLEY
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Don’t sweep the forests too clean!

Dear Atlantic,
A hand to Olaus J. Murie, who writes ‘Down Logs’ in the November issue. As one of the great majority of the non-vocal I wish to rise to second his sentiments.
May I add that the CCC programme of forest conservation is not only tending to destroy wild life by destroying the coverts but to counteract and cancel the efforts being made by other groups toward soil and moisture conservation? Underbrush and the usual wilderness litter of dead branches and ‘down logs’ aid materially in checking the ‘runoff’ from forested areas — the melting time of winter snows is measurably lengthened at a time when the bare boughs of deciduous trees east little shade, and the waters of summer shower and cloudburst find their way so impeded down the refuse-strewn slopes that damage from washing is reduced to zero. This slowing-up of the runoff gives the water a better chance to soak in, so that the trees also reap a benefit from this ‘unsightly’ forest refuse.
There are also other values little dreamed of by our ‘conservationists.’ Years ago, back at my old home in ‘ York State,’ many of my neighbors bad a maple grove reserved for sugar making the sugar ‘bush.’ One of these neighbors, with an eye to greater convenience in gathering the sap as well as with the idea of ‘prettying’ up his bush, cleaned out and burned all the underbrush, all the fallen branches, all the rotting logs. For a season it was the admiration not only of himself but of all his neighbors - a place in which to hold picnics and camp meetings galore. But — when sugar-making time came the harvest was meagre indeed. While his neighbors were reaping a golden harvest from their unsightly, refuse-strewn hushes, the sap in his hush refused to ‘run.’ The bleak March winds whistled unhindered over the unprotected ground and around the hare tree boles, drying the ground and chilling the boles, canceling the sap-stirring influence of the thin March sunshine. And it was not merely one season’s loss. The accumulation of years had been destroyed, and the owner was forced to let the grove lie idle spring after spring until another protecting cover could slowly accumulate.
Roy A. WILEY
Santa Rosa, New Mexico

Hopeful signs?

Dear Atlantic, —
Having for the past year made a personal study of radio programmes. I read with a great deal of interest ‘The Art of Pleasing Everybody,’ by Richard Sheridan Ames, in the October number.
I would not wish to appear as an overoptimistic optimist, yet radio programmes seem to point to the fact that the minds of the people in this America of ours are swinging back to real values, to the things that have been in our hearts all of the time.
Mr. Ames says that the public gets what it wants where radio programmes are concerned. Consider then the programmes that have lasted through the past months: -
‘Ma Perkins,’ w ith her belief that each day should be lived as it comes, and lived well.
‘ David Harum,’ mixing common sense and brotherly love with horse sense.
‘Mrs. Wiggs,’ forgetting her own troubles and hardships to be a neighbor.
‘ Mary Marlyn,’ with her unshakable belief in the Eternal Rightness of things.
‘Joe Emerson.’ who with his choir gives us the hymns of not one church, but all churches.
And ‘Lucy Kent,’ who broadcasts to the homemakers the fact that wifehood and motherhood yet pay the highest dividend’s of any career on earth.
The Amateur Hours and Good Will Courts owe their popularity to the one fact that they seem to be helping somebody.
More and more people are leaning to educational programmes, to things that teach fundamental truths. Are these not hopeful signs in this era of unrest?
LIMA MARGEERITTE LYMAN
Phalanx, Ohio

As a postscript to her comments upon Ellery Sedgwick’s articles, ‘The Fan and the Sword,’ which appeared in the August and September numbers, a friendly reader in Tokyo adds the following.

Now the country is all abuzz with a thousand suggestions as to preparations for ihe Olympics in 1940. One wants to rid the country of all sicknesses. Another says everyone should study English or French or German or Esperanto. One of the newspapers maintains that the most important thing is to teach the policemen politeness. A very fine apartment house has just been built in Tokyo, and several others are to be constructed. And sanitary plumbing is to be the rule-absolute for every house in Tokyo. Just recently Tokyo has taken in some more suburbs, so that now it has 6,000,000 inhabitants and can claim to be the second largest city in the world. I fear that Japan’s liking for the superlative degree is in emulation of America, her much admired neighbor. But my guess is that the year after Ihe Olympics will be the best time for travelers to come to Japan!
FLORENCE WELLS Tokyo, Japan

Another ‘impostor-term.’

Dear Atlantic, —
Mr. Nock’s distaste for impostor-terms must be shared by many. One such term with a flavor reminiscent of green persimmons is ‘client as applied to a recipient of poor relief. As a professional man I may be unduly prejudiced, since clients are closely associated with bread and butler. Nonetheless, a preference for more robust language is defensible.
But in a recent dip into Roman history I stumbled over the word used in its original sense, and was startled to note that the present relationship of the relief client to the Administration is not unlike that of the client to his patron in ancient Rome. In fact, alter the conscript fathers undertook to provide panem et circenses, we may confidently assume that the recipients were sometimes referred to perhaps sardonically — as ‘clients of the state.’
The word ‘client’ has apparently undergone two transmogrifications into impostor-terms. First the lawyers (copied later by other professionals) undertook to camouflage the fact that they were the servants of their employers by converting ‘client into an impostor-term; and in the course of centuries it became accepted in its transformed sense. After its original connotation had been forgotten, it was again distorted into an impostor-term. again to put a belter face on a distasteful relationship, and now has completed a round trip and is back precisely to its original meaning.
TRUMAN P. YOUNG Cincinnati, Ohio