The Contributors' Column--March Atlantic

John Rickman is an English physician, who has lived for more than two years in the villages of the Buzuluk Department of the Samara Government in East Russia. Through his intimate contact with the peasants, as a country doctor, he has had opportunities of observing the people from a point of view seldom reached by foreigners. The following paragraph borrowed from Dr. Rickman’s notebook gives some idea of the life he has been leading: —

A refugee [writes the doctor], whom we had known intimately for over a year, told us that that morning a soldier of the Red Guard had been wounded in the chest, and had crawled into the refugee barracks to die. He was coughing blood and his shirt was drenched with it. The refugees, after careful consideration, told him that he could not stay in their barracks, as he would jeopardize their lives; so with their help he staggered out of doors and remained propped against the steps. When the Czecho-Slovaks came into that street, they asked him who he was. He replied, ‘I am a Bolshevik.’ They shot him. This story I believe to be true because it was verified by about half-a-dozen witnesses.

Cornelia Stratton Parker is the widow of Carleton H. Parker, whose interpretation of the I.W.W. movement, in the Atlantic for November, 1917, aroused widespread comment. A career of brilliant promise was cut short by Professor Parker’s untimely death last year. To us Mrs. Parker’s papers represent far more than the story of an interesting and useful life. They give an impression of an unspoiled freshness of outlook almost unknown to the older civilization of the Eastern states, and of an animated and intense delight in living and working which would do any man good — or woman either, for that matter. Willard L. Sperry, a former Rhodes scholar, is minister of the Central Congregational Church of Boston. His paper, ‘The Gulf,’ to which his present contribution is in natural sequence, appeared in the June, 1918, Atlantic. Miss B. K. Van Slyke sends this first contribution to us from Philadelphia.

Simeon Strunsky, a cheerful friend of the Atlantic, is representing the New York Evening Post at the Peace Conference. Captain Charles Johnston, also a frequent contributor, is now connected with the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department. Frederick W. Parsons, a major in the Medical Corps, is doing a most useful and interesting work at Base Hospital 117, devoted to the treatment of ‘shell-shock’ cases. In this number we bring to a close, with the reluctant return of Chignole to civil life, Marcel Nadaud’s humorous and moving serial. The story will be published shortly by Doubleday, Page & Co.

Edgar J. Goodspeed is Professor of Biblical and Patristic Greek in the University of Chicago. His last contribution to the Atlantic (in October, 1918) discussed, as our readers will remember, the question whether one and one really make two. J. L. Hammond, an English professor, drafted for the common good into the service of the Reconstruction Board, is peculiarly qualified to write this article, sent at the editor’s request. William Charles Scully at last accounts was at Lobatsi in the British Bechuanaland Protectorate, South Africa. Our readers will recall his paper on the African Ostrich, and the friendly discussion thereanent initiated by the late Colonel Roosevelt. The name of Margaret Prescott Montague needs no comment. Grace Fallow Norton is an American poetess, whose Little Gray Songs of St. Joseph’s and other occasional verse have frequently given distinction to our pages.

William Oliver Stevens, long connected with the United States Naval Academy, where he is now Professor of English, was the author of the much discussed article, ‘Democracy in the Navy,’ printed in the November issue of this magazine. Arthur D. Little, by profession a chemical engineer, is president of Arthur D. Little, Inc., and other corporations; chemist to many large corporations and to the U.S. Internal Revenue. His professional work has been extraordinarily wide and varied. Mrs. Charlotte Kellogg, wife of Vernon Kellogg, has the distinction of having been the only woman member of the C.R.B. working in Belgium. How fitting that she should have the reward of seeing with her own eyes the return of the King and Queen and of Burgomaster Max! René Pinon is a French scholar and publicist who has been for years a frequent contributor to the Revue desDeux Mondes of authoritative articles on topics analogous to the one here discussed. J. D. Bourchier, of the staff of the London Times, is a veteran authority on all questions relating to the Balkans and the Near East generally. Herbert Wilson Stanley is the pen name of a popular lecturer who lives in St. Louis.

How the creator of Mr. Squem would have enjoyed the satisfaction of reading the following response to his intelligent sympathy ! —

DEAR ATLANTIC,—
I am very sorry to be so tardy in remi tt ing, especially this year when the ways of publishers are hard, at best, and they need the businesslike cooperation of their subscribers. But nearly two months ago all the ordinary currents of my life were suddenly stopped by very tragic circumstances, which have continued until now, and I am just, beginning to get back to normal conditions, looking over mail, doing business, etc.
Now, wliat I have plucked up courage to tell you is that the casual reading of the last Squem sketch, ‘ It is up to the Good Man,’came as literally near saving my soul alive and being a message from heaven as anything that has ever come to me. I was in a strange city, under the deepest anxiety for one dearer to me than life, bewildered, tired, facing a complexity of sadness and problems which were too much for me. Then, one evening I happened to read that! And I lived on i t thereafter! I am so glad that it was my beloved Atlantic which brought me such help, and some way I could not help wanting you to know, too, for it must seem like your child, and when it is beloved by others, your heart must be warmed with thankful pride.
Sincerely yours,
JULIA M. WHITTLESEY.

From the U.S. Flying Field at Benbrook, Texas, comes another comment, breezy and pleasant:—

CARRUTHERS FIELD, BENBROOK, TEXAS,
January 4, 1919.
DEAR ATLANTIC,—
When, in ‘The Satisfied Reflections of a SemiBostonian,’ I read the contempt of Alice-fromChicago for the boy who considered an irregular Atlantic a hardship, my first reaction was antagonism toward Alice, accompanied by the inward remark that Chicago is a good place to be from — Chicago with its Carl Sanburgian noises, ArmourSwiftian smells, less fragrant Thompsonian politics, and criminally commercialized Western initiative and energy. I never have liked Chicago — vast, sprawling, dirty-faced, heavy-handed, vice-smeared Chicago. Its very name is raucous. Especially do I object to its being called ‘a typically Western town,’ I who live in the fresh, free, beautiful West. Nor do I like the women of C hicago. I can image them now, clad in the latest one-hundredor five-hundred-dollar Paris models, with monstrous pork-packing-purchased diamonds on their French-maid-manicured fingers, sneering at everyone who is not sympathetic with the Chicagoan theory of life and living. Of course, there are many admirable people in Chicago, but I’m sure a goodly percentage of them are Semi-Something and do not scoff at the Atlantic.
The ‘Satisfied Semi-Bostonian’ also piqued me by her calm appropriation of the Atlantic as an exclusive adjunct to Boston. I am a non-satisfied entire-Oregonian, but I claim the Atlantic is as much mine as anyone’s else on earth, whether he hail from Boston or Bangkok. In fact, I have long since ceased to think of Boston as the Hub of the Universe. I know I am.
Unlike the lady’s son in France, I am not a hero of the war. All my campaigning has been done in the dust-filled air of Texas instead of in the blood-mixed mud of France. For the past six months I have been waging what we call the ‘Bloody Battle of Benbrook’ — learning to fly, and having learned, teaching others. Though we say it in jesting satire on our part in the war, our ‘Bloody Battle’ is not so far from the literal truth. Since this field was opened about a year ago, there have been over forty men killed in crashes, and probably five times that many wounded. Of the sixteen men who came here with me to learn to fly, four are dead; six have crashed and been hurt more or less seriously. There are not many outfits which have contended for democracy on the shell-whipped fields of France that can show as high a percentage of killed and wounded as my class in the ‘Terrible Battle of Benbrook.’ In justice to the Air-Service, however, be it said that few classes have such a tragic record. There is a remarkably small number of men killed and injured in training.
But what I started to say when I so rudely interrupted myself, was that while we fellows who ‘never got across’ know we will not get, and perhaps do not deserve, much consideration where real soldiers are concerned, still we have done some work and have endured some inconveniences, if not hardships.
One of my greatest inconveniences has been an irregular and absent Atlantic and the things for which it stands; lack of time and opportunity to read it and enjoy the associations and activities that make a cultured man. (Laugh, if you will, my Chicago Lady Alice.) Result; the harmonies of my soul have become discord; the value of my citizenship in the world is greatly lessened; my joy in life, within me and without, is tarnished and deadened; my intelligence and my emotions are cob webbed and musty.
It is my hope to get out of the army soon. I like to fly, but I know if a man stays at it long enough, some day he is likely to stop most suddenly-and messily. There are other sports that thrill me more than ‘teaching the young idea how to fly.’ In this game, it is seldom that we are allowed the privilege of making more than one serious mistake. If I should make one myself, well and good; but I do not like the thought of being an innocent sitter-in-the-front-seat when some raw rookie of the air makes his first, and perhaps his last, blunder. If he makes it, I have to rectify it before we hit. Some day I may be too slow, or he may freeze the stick, or something else may happen. Then his mistake becomes mine, so far as funerals are concerned. I gave up my chance to fly in France for him. That is all I want to give up, now that the ‘military necessity’ for turning out flyers rapidly is over. For his sake, I always will have to endure the ignominy of not having been in the ' real scrap ’; have to content myself with the dubious glories of the ‘Bloody Battle of Benbrook.’ That is a great enough sacrifice for the ‘genus cadet,’ I think, So I want to get. out.
And when I do, I shall seek some place where the ocean comes up in curling lines of foam; where steady ships crawl along the meetingpoint of sea and sky; where the pungent salty wind stirs the green, God-pointing firs; seek some proud promontory on the sun-and-rain-soaked coast of Oregon; prop my lazy back against a stone and read my Atlantic, indulging the while in the ‘Satisfied Reflections of an All-Oregonian.’
READ BAIN.

This joyous communication refers to a recent outbreak in the Contributors’ Club.

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON, January 10, 1919.
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
For a long time I have had trouble with Prepositions. (Does n’t that sound like a patentmedicine testimonial?) That there is such an emotion as ‘Pleasure of Prepositions’ I am now well aware; but it is a joy which does not come easily — at least, not to the amateur. It is like the joy of gardening or the joy of training children — it comes only after a knowledge of their difficulties has been acquired; a reward for your labors, as it were.
I have only to go back a few months to live over a trying evening when I struggled with a balky ‘from’ and an obstreperous ‘into,’ and my mind resorted unpatriotically to the old rule for an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, and zwischen!
I had Proper Nouns coupled with well-behaved Verbs, traveling in an harmonious company of tuneful Adjectives; but the Prepositions struck a discordant note, to offend the sensitive ear. They jarred and jangled and would n’t keep step with their partners on the right. They upset my nerves and ruffled my temper and even got me a one hundred per-center — threatening them with the German rule for marking time! Who would have thought that little things like Prepositions could be so upsetting?
But we can claim no experience exclusively for our own, and it was only a few weeks later that I ran across the following in a letter from J. R. Lowell (dated February 2, 1886, and emanating from 68 Beacon St.) to W. D. Howells: —
‘But I won’t let you say (when you reprint) as you do on P. 5, 1st col. “bring us in closer relations”; for that is n’t what you mean. You don’t mean “bring in to us” but “bring us into” — that’s what you mean. I am going to get up a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Prepositions. Animals have a certain natural means of defence. They can bite and Prepositions can’t. The society will be immitigable. It will spare neither age nor sex, and will be happiest when dancing a war-dance on the broken ties of friendship.’
If he is not already familiar with it, the above extract may be of interest to your recent Contributor, and to any others who have experienced pleasure (or pain) from acquaintanceship with that highly gregarious (and consequently impossible-to-ignore) part of speech.
Yours very truly,
MARY M. JAYNES.

In justice to a much-respected branch of our army, we are glad to print the following letter;—

FRANCE, December 17, 1918.
DEAR SIR, —
With reference to the article in your magazine of September, 1918, under the heading ‘ Contributors’ Column’ [Club], entitled ‘Us Angry Saxyums,’ allow me, as a member of the organization referred to, to say, that not only myselt but all others to whom I showed the article declare that it is a gross injustice to the regiment. . . .
The statistical records of every unit in the entire organization have been carefully checked up and no ‘Babe,’ or anyone with a similar nickname, has been found. As for the language this so-called ‘ Babe’ and his tormentor used, it would be very hard indeed to find men as illiterate as the two mentioned in the article in the entire regiment.
I have had the opportunity to soldier with many young colored men from all sections of the United States (including Boston and New York), and from an intellectual point of view, the troops of the 8th Illinois compare favorably with any I have ever met, and I have met some troops of every combat, organization in France and America.
Publicity that is based on facts is a credit to any organization, but articles of the type of ‘ Us Angry Saxyums’ are actually slanderous; it is entirely without foundation, contradicts itself, and can be justly termed a fizzle, and articles of the kind referred to above are not the kind we need or seek. The writer could have used his time more advantageously if, while on that imaginary troop-train bearing the 8th Illinois to the war, he had gleaned some true facts about the organization. The regiment has n’t been near Chicago, Illinois, since the early part of October, 1917

If the writer had used a little forethought and communicated with any of the reliable Chicago newspapers, instead of trying to write one from imagination, he would have received some firsthand information about the 8th Illinois. Merely as a point of information, allow me to state that it was the only organization in the entire U.S. Army that entered the lines with an all colored personnel from Private to Colonel; from this fact alone a blind man could see that it is not a regiment of comedians, as some poorly informed writers would have the public believe, but a truly representative regiment, both of Illinois and of intelligent colored people of the United States.
Should the writer or the editor at any time desire a brief authentic history of the organization, I should be glad to furnish it, as I have been closely associated with it for nearly fifteen years.
Respectfully,
ARMOUR R. HENDERSON, 2D LIEUT.

In this column, not infrequently, Boston i s rubbed the wrong way. We take pleasure in smoothing down the ruffles with this flattering unction: —

BOSTON, January 15, 1919.
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
I smiled in December when reading of the Boston mother who feared for her suffering son deprived by the war of his accustomed literary diet; and may we not have a word from him on his return as to how he stood the deprivation?
I smiled, because, in my cozy bunk in a big transport, I could well afford to. What sailor would not? The big ship was dipping, contentedly and deeply, into its old Atlantic outside, and I into my new one inside. Now by a coincidence we were ordered to dry-dock in Boston, a decided novelty after continually running in and out of New York. Surely, thought I, here is a providential opportunity to test the effect of this farfamed rarefied atmosphere with my mental and moral barometer. Will it register heavy, dry. stormy, or just fair?
Now, one Monday afternoon I made the test. The Public Library was but partially inhabited and very pleasant to cruise about in. After reading my fill, and about to leave, a large sign informed me that a meeting of The Boston Ruskin Club was about to be held in the adjacent lecturehall.
Now, after nearly a year and a half of troops, and trouble, and rush, a bit of Ruskin looked inviting enough. In my town there is no Ruskin Club; we have a thriving grange, which very properly is of the earth and earthy, and a village improvement society which is most improving physically; but Ruskin — no. So with much anticipation I entered the hall.
A charming lady for nearly an hour delighted some thirty-five of us, by reading and reviewing our idealist; and while under the spell, I wondered if just now we do not need this sort of thing more than ever before. I thought of Cobden and Mill, contemporaries of Ruskin, who perhaps had done more than he at that time to alleviate suffering and better conditions. Yet we want for, nor have we any, Cobden or any Mill clubs. I’ll wager, however, that a hundred years from to-day, when we only work six hours, and when the Bolsheviki and N.Y. Times lie down together — there will be as many Ruskin Clubs, or their equivalent, as there are now granges.
There must be! and until then, I don’t know but that I’ll settle down in Boston; and I say so without a smile.
HERBERT NOBLE.

Something there is in Wisconsin which certainly responds to criticism. Our January paper, Prussianizing Wisconsin, brought forth a multitude of letters, protesting, commending, never denying the facts, but refusing the inferences as often as accepting them. Many of these letters are highly interesting documents, and it was the editor’s intention to include in this issue of the magazine a paper woven from the material they bring. The issue, involving as it does the whole vast question of ‘Americanization.’ is large and complex, and we have therefore decided to postpone its final discussion in the Atlantic until the April number.

In response to the requests of a large number of readers who regard this department as an integral part of the magazine, and who wish to have it so placed that it can be bound with the permanent volumes, we propose hereafter to print the pages of the Contributors’ Column consecutively, and immediately after the Contributors’ Club

The much-discussed correspondence between Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, appearing in the February issue of the Atlantic, is, of course, textually accurate. It seems proper to state that the letters were handed to the Editor, while recently in London, by an old friend and conspicuous supporter of Mr. Asquith, with the suggestion that they be published in America. The matter was thoroughly canvassed at the time, and it was the clear understanding of the Editor of the Atlantic that while, for obvious reasons, Mr. Asquith did not wish to be in any way privy to the disclosure, he was entirely willing that it should be made. In the letters themselves, Mr. Lloyd George specifically states that he desires their publication.