The Contributors' Column

Katharine Fullerton Gerould, an old Atlantic contributor, brings to her study of the Byron-complex sound psychological insight, and a flair for controversy. She writes, however, ‘I do not, of course, pretend to keep my head about Byron, but... I have been as moderate as woman could!’ We refer our readers with satisfaction to the new volume of Byron letters, letters among the very best in English, recently edited by John Murray, and—with a vigorous caution not to read it — to the reissued edition of Astarte, wherein Byron’s grandson spits upon his grandfather’s grave in order to champion his grandmother’s wrongs (both published by the Scribners). George W. Alger is a New York lawyer who drafted the New York Employers’ Liability Act and many amendments to labor and child-labor laws. Upon several occasions E. Barrington, who is a British scholar, has given stories to the Atlantic with authentic and entertaining eighteenth-century backgrounds. This romance will form a chapter or two of a volume to be published in the autumn. George Moore, the English author and lover of life, in conversation with Joseph Husband, talks with Chicago in this number of the Atlantic. We are not permitted to disclose the writer of ‘The Jungle of the Mind,’ but regarding the remarkable mental experience, we quote the following letter from a physician of reputation: —

I am greatly interested in the author of this paper, not only personally but from a scientific standpoint. According to all our textbook symptoms of dementia prœcox, she was surely that. For a long time the condition looked hopeless, but we took some desperate chances with her in the way of freedom and occupation, and gradually she gave up one symptom after another until at the last there seemed to be a very rapid readjustment.

Amory Hare is a poet well known to Atlantic readers. She sends us ‘The Lifted Latch’ from her home in ‘ The Little House,’ at Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. The paper on Bret Harte and Mark Twain has been edited by M. A. DeWolfe Howe from the letters of Mrs. James T. Fields, the wife of a former editor of the Atlantic Monthly. The paper is part of a book to be published October 1. From his own experience Ivan Ostroshki tells the human story of the German occupation of Serbia. He is now a student in an American university. Atlantic readers will remember Joseph Fort Newton as the author of ‘Preaching in London.’ He is the pastor of the Church of the Divine Paternity in New York.

Edgar J. Goodspeed, who contributes ‘The New Barbarism,’ is a professor at the University of Chicago, and the author of many volumes of Biblical lore. Emma Lawrence is Mrs. John S. Lawrence of Boston. The Atlantic has printed several of her stories, among them, ‘The Floor of Heaven,’ in the August issue. Florence Converse, poet, novelist, and member of the Atlantic’s staff, gives us this month the poem, ‘Merlin Met Morgan-le-Fay,’ ‘The Strange Mind of India ’ is illumined by J. A. Chapman, who has devoted twenty-odd years to the sympathetic study of Bengalee character. He is librarian of the Imperial Library at Calcutta. Madame Ponafidine concludes her terrible story of sufferings under the Russian Revolution and after, by setting down the details of her escape.

E. T. Raymond is a British editor and student of political forces and personalities. He is the author of Uncensored Celebrities, and contributed ‘The Future of Mr. Lloyd George’ to the April, 1921, Atlantic.Evans Lewin, who is Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Librarian of the Colonial Institute, is an eminent authority on contemporary Africa. Claude Halstead Van Tyne, head of the Department of History in the University of Michigan, continues his story of ‘ The Indian Ferment ’ which he began for Atlantic readers in July. He has recently returned from India, where he has been studying at first hand the chaos of political and social upheaval. The Westminster Gazette was represented at the Peace Conference by Sisley Huddleston, whose dispatches won him wide recognition. In this number he discusses the relation of French problems to the present chaos of Europe.

Southerners from half-a-dozen states have written to us confirming the absolute authenticity of Eleanor C. Gibbs’s ‘Plantation Chronicles.’ To be able to speak or write real ‘nigger’ is an accomplishment; for unfortunately the comedians of our press have succeeded in corrupting this most interesting of American dialects almost past recognition. A correspondent writes us the story of a Southern girl abroad, who when told of the advantages of a polylingual education, exclaimed, ‘ but I speak four myself! ‘ Indeed,’ said her friend, ‘and which are they? ‘Good English, bad English, baby talk, and nigger.’

The Atlantic’s discussion of the Ku Klux Klan has stirred discussion and brought us many letters. Here is one from Klan territory : —

DEAR ATLANTIC,
I read with much interest the article in your magazine on the Ku Klux Klan. As a resident at the centre of their operations I have had plenty of opportunity to study the workings of this organization. I perfectly agree with you that, although the Klan proclaim their innocence of many of the crimes committed in the name of Law and Order, that, if the Klan had not begun it, the others could not have followed.
A Klan parade was staged here last winter and it was openly announced that the Klan paraded only where law enforcement was lax. Of interest during the parade was a solitary negro who took a position of vantage on a corner and watched the whole affair unmoved. 1 later sought an interview with this negro and found him to be a native of one of the New England states. He was born in the North and held much the same idea of the Klan as most sensible people, namely that it is ridiculous in its methods, ritual, dress, and language. The older negroes and most of the real Southern negroes, however, are afraid of the Klan for the same reasons stated in the article: because they have no idea what the Klan desires when they say that they ‘will not bother any negro who behaves himself,’ and so forth and so on.
So far as I can see there is no need for all this mumbo-jumbo to aid the Law, and the idea of each Klansman being a detective to watch his neighbors is hardly in keeping with the three rights of man — Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Sincerely yours,
LESLIE G. CUTLER.

AN important commentary on the attitude of certain officers of the law toward tile Klan comes to us in a letter from Nebraska : —

DEAR ATLANTIC,
Some three months after the murder of the negro woman mentioned in the Atlantic’s article on the Ku Klux Klan, two policemen attempted to arrest a negro suspected of auto-stealing in the same city. One of the officers was shot and killed. The usual mob formed, killed the negro, and burned the body. The significant thing is this: at the burial of the dead officer, a delegation of white-robed, hooded figures appeared and deposited the usual tribute in the grave, indicating that the officer was a member of the Klan. Their action explained fully what I heard repeatedly during several weeks spent in Texarkana, that no police officer would interfere with the Klan, no matter what it had done. It is easy to understand why, if the officers had taken the oath quoted by Mr. Percy.
WALTER H. RILEY.

We are glad to correct an error which appeared in the name of one of our contributors in the July Atlantic, by printing this kind letter of the author: —

DEAR ATLANTIC,
It is very sad, when one has finally achieved the great ambition of every true daughter (and granddaughter) of New England, and got into the Atlantic,—albeit it was only in the Contributors’ Column, — to do so under the wrong name. Many times since my marriage,half a century ago, have I wished that either my husband’s Dutch patronymic did not look so much like Sharp, or else that my writing were more legible. The name is not Sharp — it is SHOUP.
Sincerely yours,
(Mrs.) SAMANTHA WHIPPLE SHOUP.

Professor Herman T. Frueauff of Allentown, Pennsylvania, writes us that he recalls his excitement when the first issue of the Atlantic came to his house in November, 1857. He wonders whether any of our other readers have such long memories. We wonder, too.

We have received a number of letters critical of Dr. Channing Frothingham’s article in the July Atlantic, from chiropractors, osteopaths, and their patients. We have no hesitancy in saying that we believe Dr. Frothingham’s position essentially sound and we were at some pains to verify the correctness of his facts. But because, like him, we believe there is useful truth to be found in the other schools as well, we are glad to publish two carefully considered letters from a chiropractor and an osteopath which state their positions more fully: —

DEAR ATLANTIC,
I have always felt that the motives of this magazine are to give the truth to its readers, regardless of its own, or the opinion of any group. Believing this to be true I wish to call your attention to several statements appearing in Channing Frothingham’s article on ‘ Osteopathy, Chiropractic, and the Profession of Medicine’ in the July issue of your worthy magazine.
Who but a medical doctor would hold it a grievous fault that the chiropractor is given a course in the fundamental principles of advertising? Two years ago this course was not given. Since, it has become a part of the curriculum, not by crowding out some other subject, but by adding more time to an already long course. This was instituted at the insistence of a single man, it being his idea that a person is only half equipped who is given something to sell and is not taught how to sell it. The chiropractor is of necessity an educator. Where is he going to learn how to educate anyone if not in his schools?
He says that chiropractic is only a theory, but only states half enough when he fails to say that medicine is only a theory. Two theories in fact, and opposing ones at that. Theories which after years of trial are no nearer a scientific basis than the day they were founded.
Likewise the statement, ‘the chiropractor claims a misplaced vertebra is the cause of disease,’ places us in an unfair position, for it only states half enough. A chiropractor believes that disease is always caused by an abnormal expression of the vital forces within the body. He is interested in the spine because it is practically the only structure in the body that can interfere with the distribution of mental impulses from the brain to the tissue cells.
The chiropractors are criticized for not conducting more research work. It must be remembered that chiropractic is a new science, and that most of its energy has been utilized in fighting for its life. It has recently established the National Chiropractic Research Society. It has been conclusively proven by animal experimentation that spinal pressure can and does bring about functional and structural changes in the periphery. The spinographic plate proves definitely the universality of abnormal spines. The clinical results are such that many people are becoming boosters in spite of their own natural prejudice.
Dr. Frothingham seems sincere when he is alarmed that many patients may fall into the chiropractors’ hands, and so much valuable time be lost that they may become hopelessly incurable. He is unduly alarmed, for he must remember that practically all of the patients that come to the chiropractors do so after they have made the rounds of the medics. Usually, if they have been to five doctors, they have been treated for five different conditions. It’s not through the chiropractors that the patients are losing so much time, but through self-medication — an evil that can hardly be laid at the chiropractors’ door.
There would be no chiropractic problem if the present health methods were efficient. People do not try a new health method if they are satisfied with their present one. The way to deal with the situation is for the medics to give service to those that come to them, but not through the legislative halls. Whether chiropractic is going to succeed medicine is no concern to the chiropractor, for he knows that medicine has the happy faculty of succeeding itself every decade. He does know that chiropractic shall stand as a separate science. On this issue he is willing to die.
These problems are to be solved, not by one group writing diatribes about the other but rather by each group knowing its own sphere, and doing its work honestly and efficiently. It does seem to be the height of egotism for one group to think that the world can look only to them for help.

DEAR ATLANTIC,
No one who had investigated the osteopathic colleges could have said, as did Dr. Frothingham in the July issue of the Atlantic Monthly, that osteopaths discard ‘ all the accumulation of facts in the science of medicine.’ The osteopathic colleges give a complete course in all branches of medical science except materia medica and pharmacology and they all include in their curriculum a careful study of some drugs, which all osteopaths consider useful, such as the anæsthetics, antiseptics, anthelmintics, emetics, counterirritants, cathartics. The Los Angeles College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons gives a complete course in Materia Medica and Pharmacology. All the osteopathic colleges give a four-year course; all make a high school education an entrance requirement; some also require for entrance one year of college work in the sciences. The originator of osteopathy himself was very insistent that students be thoroughly trained in anatomy, physiology, and all the allied sciences. He said, ‘Imperfect knowledge created a desire to go out into the world as know-alls and cure-alls who wanted to write and say all and much more than is in osteopathy.’
A brief résumé of what has occurred in California may clarify the situation.
Ever since there has been an examining board in California, osteopaths have taken the same examination in all subjects as the medical graduates. The medical graduates were granted, upon passing these examinations, a license to practice medicine and surgery. The osteopaths were given a license to practice osteopathy. Osteopathy was not defined, and there trouble arose. The medical profession claimed that osteopathy meant manipulation only. Osteopaths claimed it meant all measures studied in the osteopathic colleges of which they had proven their knowledge before the medical board.
Finally, in 1913, the state legislature tried to settle the matter by passing a law which provided that all, whether medical men or osteopaths, who had completed a certain course of study and who passed the physician and surgeon examinations should receive the physician and surgeon license. The state medical board then refused to allow osteopaths to take the regular physician and surgeon examinations. They forced osteopaths who had had four years’ intensive training to take what they called a drugless examination and to accept licenses which allowed them no more privileges than were enjoyed by chiropractors with practically no education. The osteopaths took the matter to court and after two years of expensive litigation won. But the judge warned them that the relief was temporary. That if they so much as changed their janitor the medical board might again disapprove the school.
Can you not see that such a state of affairs endangers the very life of the osteopathic school? Students will not continue to enter a school which can give them no assurance that, after four years’ preparation, they will have the privilege of using their training. Can you not see that under the domination of the medical profession the school will be forced to choose one of two alternatives: either to reduce its standards of education to that of the chiropractic schools and prepare its students only for such work as the drugless license permits; in other words teach only manipulation and drop from its curriculum the other branches of medical science (which Dr, Frothingham says we should, but does not seem to know that we do study), or the school must die. We are forced to conclude that if they must tolerate rivals they prefer ignorant ones.
The California law requires the same educational standard for medical men and for osteopaths. Please note that the bill which osteopaths are sponsoring, and w’hich is to be voted on next fall by the people, expressly states that these educational requirements are in no way changed, that osteopaths shall now and hereafter fulfill any educational requirements which the legislature has imposed or shall impose on the medical profession. The bill simply provides that the medical law be administered to osteopaths by a board of osteopaths chosen and appointed by the Governor, instead of by a board of medical men who do not want to apply the law to osteopaths. If the osteopathic school is to be able to maintain high standards and live, this bill must pass.
Osteopaths are thoroughly educated in all the branches of medical science. But, owing to medical propaganda, they have made slow progress in educating the public to that fact. It is not fair that a magazine of the standing of the Atlantic Monthly should in one unfair article tear down what they have been years laboriously building up.
Dr. Frothingham says that the osteopathic research institutes have published no satisfactory proof of the correctness of osteopathic theories. We suspect that he did not investigate the reports of the institute any more carefully than he did the curriculum of the schools.
Osteopathy was not founded upon a theory as Dr. Frothingham says. It was founded upon observations. Then theories were evolved to explain observed phenomena.
Let us have a thorough and fair investigation.
Respectfully,
MART L. LECLERE, A. B., D. O.

Madame Ponafidine, whose experiences with Bolshevist Russia are familiar to Atlantic readers, sends us the following statistics, which give in numbers some of the terrors she has put in words. The figures appeared in the Paris Gaulois, being the reports of the Extraordinary Commission, which had been printed in Soviet newspapers. Since October. 1917, executions in Russia numbered —

It is interesting to note that these are more than France lost during the World War, and that the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror gave only 17,000. It was reported that doctors in Russia were executed chiefly for finding people incapacitated for service in the army.

Madame Ponafidine has requested us to correct the date of the abdication of the Czar, which she inadvertently placed in May, instead of March, in her paper of the July Atlantic.

Apropos the ‘Food of the Poets.’

DEAR ATLANTIC,
The ‘ Food of the Poets ’ in the June ‘ Contributors’ Club’ needs no gilding. Yet I cannot feel happy that Cowper should have been slighted, not so much for the ‘cups that cheer but not inebriate’ as for the ‘Roman meal,’ —

Eggs are mentioned generously in the essay, to be sure. But is there another radish in all poetry?
L. M. BEATTIE.

Has peppergrass, we wonder, been overlooked by the rural poets?

For the benefit of all Mohammedan readers of Mrs. Gerould’s paper in this month’s Atlantic, and all others interested in the question of whether women have souls, we print the following footnote: —

The assumption that women are denied souls by Mohammedanism is so general and traditional that I may perhaps he excused for having made it; the more, that various books and learned articles on the Mohammedan religion make no definite statement about the matter. But the assumption is apparently incorrect, at least in that sweeping form. See Chapters 3 and 4 of the Koran in Sale’s translation.
K. F. GEHOULD.

Robert M. Gay’s discussion of Noah’s wife in the May Atlantic has brought us further data upon that lady, neglected for many generations. Florence V. Mead recalls an essay she wrote when a Freshman in college, which describes with keen historical imagination the difficulties of wash day in the ark: —

Mr. Gay’s characterization of his heroine quite agrees with mine. I placed her under the most trying circumstances known to femininity since the beginning of Creation, yet she emerged triumphant: the corner grocery store was washed away, the giraffes ate up all the starch, the hyenas drank the bluing water, the elephant calmly packed away Noah’s best shirt and collar in his trunk, the tigers became hopelessly entangled in Mrs. Japhet’s pink Mother Hubbard, yet through it all Mrs. Noah met every emergency and culinary disaster with unvarying patience and fortitude. Finally, according to my vivid account, ‘having washed the dishes and scrubbed the floor, she lay down to take a nap with the morning paper over her face to keep off the two flies, blissfully unconscious that her young grandson, Arphaxad, was tracking up her clean floor with his muddy boots, and that the chilly tiger and leopard from the torrid zone, standing over the register to keep warm, had knocked the clotheshorse on to the wet floor.’

DEAR ATLANTIC,
I might paraphrase the patent medicine testimonial and say: ‘I used to think the Atlantic was terribly dry and uninteresting, until one day I stumbled upon a copy, and from that day I have read no other.’ It would be quite true, however. As lowly kitchen boy in a hotel last summer, I filched a copy from the had rack (I did n’t realize until afterward the enormity of the crime). Since then, I’ve enjoyed the Atlantic thoroughly. But I’ve always felt a twinge of conscience about that first copy. Thoughts of the anguish of the estimable gentleman, when he discovered it gone, have often haunted me, and won’t be downed. Do you suppose he would have felt compensated if he knew the pleasure that and succeeding Atlantics, have given me? One thing I am sure of, and that is that he would have been quite astounded to learn who took it. A bell-hop might have, but a kitchen boy — !
Yours very truly,
A. W. ESTABROOK.