The Contributors' Column

THE country today is responding as it responded in the early days of the NRA to an emergency which is nation-wide. Once again people are willing to shoulder responsibility and to cooperate without question for the common good, but if this determination is to take firm hold we need to be told what is to be done, how big the objectives are, and how vital the necessity for speed and self-sacrifice.

In the First World War, the Honorable Louis Johnson (p. 1) served as Captain of Infantry in the A. E. F. Today as Assistant Secretary of War he is doing his utmost to strengthen our sinews of war and to effect the vital cooperation between industry and our military establishment.

Have we in the United States been living in a fool’s paradise? Have we the unity and self-reliance to defend ourselves against a militant philosophy which threatens to overrun Europe and then reach west? Born and educated in Italy, George de Altovitti (p. 8) saw at first hand the ruthless logic of the Fascist nation in arms.

Finally, where is the money to come from for our new armaments and for the speed-up which is so essential? And what will the effect of such taxation be upon our national economy? Sumner H. Slichter (p. 12), Professor of Business Economies at the Harvard School of Business Administration, has a clear, firm answer.

’How’s business in Hollywood?’ was the question put to a famous producer. He thought for a moment.

‘Colossal,’ he said, ‘colossal. But it’s picking up!’ Morris Ernst (p. 17), a New York lawyer of mark, has made a case history of that word ‘colossal’ with special reference to Hollywood.

We turn to Margaret Deland (p. 29), Bostonian and novelist of distinction, for an understanding of those qualities which made Phillips Brooks a great leader.

Editor in chief of the Baltimore Sun,John W. Owens (p. 38) is a Democrat who has never hesitated to scrutinize the record of the present administration. However we may preach and yearn for normalcy, the signs unclear that we shall have to live in an abnormal world for one and perhaps many years to come. But it will sharpen our thinking if we audit the books as we go.

A graduate of Harvard whose early novels have attracted no little attention, George Weller (p. 50) has caught in action that burlesque which is so characteristic of America. It might he added that Mr. Weller studied at Max Reinhardt’s School of the Theatre in Vienna.

As a roving correspondent with headquarters in Paris, Ferdinand Tuohy (p. 58) has sent us by wireless his hour-hy-hour account of the Trojan horse in action. Mr. Tuohy was formerly the chief of the Paris Bureau of the old New York World.

With poetic license Phyllis MeGinlev (p. 65) pokes fun at those versifiers who have fostered the Cult of the Unintelligible. Here is a revelation of trade secrets.

Humanist, historian, and devoted servant of the Empire, John Buchan (p. 67), Lord Tweedsmuir, endeared himself to America in the course of his many visits and during the time he was Governor General of Canada.

In a few telling strokes Colette (p. 76), the French novelist, tells of the watchful waiting in France today.

Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard, Robert Hillyer (p. 77) is the author of fourteen volumes of verse, including his characteristic Epistles to Robert Frost and others which appeared in the Atlantic in 1936 and 1937. His new selection of poems, Pattern of a Day, will be published this autumn.

Iowa and Vermont have both played a formative part in the education of Edward Weismiller (p.78), a recent recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship who now describes the quiet inspiration to be found in the green hills. He is the author of When the Deer Come Down.

A graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review,Kenneth Culp Davis (p. 85) served as a law clerk in Cleveland and as an associate professor of law at the University of West Virginia. Before being called to Washington as special assistant to the Attorney General, Mr. Davis was engaged in a study of administrative procedure. For the Atlantic he has prepared a survey of the sweeping changes recently effected in our organic law. The influence of those changes on business will be analyzed by Arthur A. Ballantine, in a contribution to the August issue entitled ‘Business without Precedent.’

An English critic now living in Connecticut, Elizabeth Drew (p. 96) is a constant and welcome contributor to the Atlantic. Readers seeking refreshment this summer will do well to turn to the short stories of Saki and Miss Drew’s own books, The Enjoyment of Literature and Directions in Modern Poetry.

In response to Father Johnson’s article, ‘The Catholic Schools, in America,’ in the April issue, we turn to Henry W. Holmes (p. 99), Chairman of the Harvard University Committee on Educational Relations and for twenty years Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

Author, lover of the arts, and farsighted editorial writer of the Boston Globe, Lucien Price (p. 106) is a devotee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who has followed closely the development of the Berkshire Festival and its attendant School of Music.

Although he was too young for the first World War, C. S. Forester (p. 113) knows with singular hindsight the workings of the military mind. His love of ships and water and his lively speculation about the pugnacity of man have attracted him to the writing he loves best, direct narratives like The Gun, The African Queen, The General, and — better yet — his splendid trilogy of the British Navy after Nelson, Captain Horatio Hornblower.

Loyal readers of The House of Exile and Reaching for the Stars will wish to know that Nora Waln is now living in England, where, with Quaker fortitude, she is adding the finishing touches to a new manuscript for the Atlantic. 1