The Contributors' Column

FROM time to time inquiries reach this office concerning the ‘sale’ of the Atlantic. In any and every case we should like to state that such rumors are utterly without foundation. We ask our readers to deny upon our authority that there is a vestige of truth in any such report.

THE casualties among the artistic conventions of the stage in the last few years have been enormous. Soliloquies have been replaced by the choppy speech of the subway; real rain, real horses, real Chinamen have invaded the stage. For some time a tide of reaction has been causing critics to cry out that in ‘ Realism ’ there is no real life. No one can dissect the realistic movement and the present streams and eddies in the stage world better than George Arliss who began his professional career in the days of the soliloquy and has witnessed the rise and fall, perhaps the culmination, of realism on the American stage. He remarks, ‘The art of the actor is to learn how not to be real on the stage, without being found out by the audience.’ The Very Reverend W. R. Inge, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, one of the most incisive thinkers on social as well as Church problems in England to-day, takes up from a different point of view the subject of Catholicism and the AngloSaxon, treated in the March Atlantic by Hilaire Belloc. George Moore, author of the Confessions of a Young Man, Esther Waters, The Brook Kerith, and many other books that lovers of good writing know, talks to Mr. Gosse in this number of the Atlantic.

formerly professor of economics and sociology in Smith College, and later at Leland Stanford Junior University and at Cornell, H. H. Powers is best known as a lecturer and publicist. His last Atlantic paper, ‘The Drug Habit in Finance,’ appeared in January of this year. Alice Hegan Rice is the much loved author of Mrs. Wiggsof the Cabbage Patch. She proves she has not forgotten the art of telling a story in this number of the Atlantic. George Villiers, a new English poet, now appears in America for the first time. ¶ To Americans, the life of the man who built that ubiquitous institution, the Saturday Evening Post, must be of keen interest. Edward W. Bok, for many years editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, continues his intimate biography of Cyrus H. K. Curtis in this number. Jean Kenyon Mackenzie has become so familiar to Atlantic readers as a poet, that some have perhaps forgotten that she began as a missionary in the African Cameroon, and wrote perhaps the most penetrating and alluring letters ever penned by a missionary. Later readers will remember her as a biographer of her own father who came as a boy to America from Scotland with but a shilling or two in his pocket. (The Fortunate Youth.) In this number of the Atlantic she is an essayist.

A missionary and the daughter and granddaughter of missionaries, Charlotte Chandler Wyckoff was born in South India and has spent all her life there except for nine years in school in this country. George A. Gordon, pastor of the New Old South Church of Boston, is the author of Humanism in New England Theology, and other books dealing in a very human way with religion and theology. ¶ A wellknown British scholar, E. Barrington, is known to Atlantic readers as the author of romances with authentic and entertaining eighteenth-century backgrounds. A late volume, The Ladies! has recently been published by the Atlantic Monthly Press. Joseph Auslander, the young American poet, is now teaching English in Harvard University. John Sterling, New England born and bred, desires to avoid biographical attention. Elizabeth A. Drew was graduated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with First Class Honors in English Language and Literature. From 1919 to 1921 she was head of the Women’s Staff of the Department of Education of the British Army of the Rhine.

Langdon Mitchell, son of the novelist, S. Weir Mitchell, is a member of the New York bar, but the profession he has practised for many years is that of author and playwright. Theatre-goers will remember especially ‘Becky Sharp’ and ‘The New York Idea.’ He has just returned from extensive travel in Europe. He writes the editor: ‘I am interested in the new Europe — the younger Europe — Europe in the bud. Not so much touching politics, as culture, ideas, and art.’ ¶ It is of especial interest to Americans to learn how other nations are dealing with their color problem. We have already published a paper by Pierre Khorat on French relations with the Negro in North Africa, and a companion article appears in this number on Britain’s Negro problem. John H. Harris is a wellknown English student of ‘Colonial Mandates’ and of Britain’s Negro affairs in Africa. For many years in English public life, he recently contested a seat in the House of Commons with a Cabinet minister. H. E. Wortham, a British student of the Mohammedan situation, formerly on the staff of the Times is now a correspondent of the London Outlook.

America is not the only country that has her problem of seditious literature. News reaches us from a subscriber that both the Atlantic and the Living Age are ‘ disallowed ’ in Soviet Russia.

There was no false emotionalism in Joseph Fishman’s attack on ‘ The American Jail ’ in the December Atlantic, and there is none in this refreshing comment of a man who has been in jail himself.

DEAR ATLANTIC,—
I’ve been in jail and prison too — not that I’m proud of it — and am one of the few outstanding men who have ‘come back,’and I know that Mr. Fishman ‘hits the nail on the head’ when he calls attention to the marked improvement in the prisons of the land, and states that the jails have not kept pace with them. Our reformers of all breeds and brands should take hold of this jail business and pour a beautiful flood of sensible publicity into every nook and corner of it.

I bid the Atlantic ‘Godspeed’ in the fine work it is doing in publishing such articles as Fishman’s. Frankly, that’s the best and most genuine thing you’ve published. Tannenbaum was too one-sided; his prejudices were all with the prisoner, and between you and me they do not all deserve such consideration. Fishman says truly that some of them would literally murder their own mothers for a few coppers, and there are a greater number of such ‘ cattle ’ in jails and prisons than the public is allowed to believe by some lopsided writers. It’s only the minority in any jail or prison that’s worth saving, and of whom any sane man can entertain any hope whatever. But, even the guilty man is entitled to a square deal; and, no matter what he has done, we (the Public) should have too much self-respect to allow our servants — the police, the jailer, and the sheriff — to abuse, cuff, mistreat, or beat him up.
Sincerely,
A READER.

It is always interesting to us to know ‘Who reads the Atlantic?' — and where. The following might be entitled ‘ Literature vs. Rubbish.’

DEAR ATLANTIC,—
Last fall, while traveling through the South, our train was detained in a small city of Kentucky, either to wait for another train, or to change engines. Our coaches were switched on to a track which overlooked a piece of low land that was being filled in with all the rubbish that the town could collect. There was already a hard gray tableland on which the wagons moved to throw over their contents.

It was late afternoon and the day’s work seemed finished.

Suddenly my attention was drawn to a young boy coming across the fiat surface, pushing a wheelbarrow. He was, prematurely, in long trousers. Something around the waist held them in, and something across the shoulders held them on. They were rolled around the feet. He came to the edge of the débris and looked down. He found a stick and fished up the clothing. There was only one piece that he considered — this he shook and held up to the light. It was a shirt. He turned it slowly over several times, and looked at it carefully. Then he threw it behind him.

The removal of the clothing had uncovered a pile of magazines. Their gayly colored covers caught his eye. He cautiously took a few steps down and pulled them up to him.

He gave these a little more consideration than he had the clothing but, in the end, there was only one he shook (as he had the shirt) and held to the light.

It was the Atlantic Monthly! There was hard climbing back, but he had done it before and knew how. He settled himself in his wheelbarrow and on his raised knees he rested the magazine. When we left, his one overhanging foot was wagging contentment, just as we have seen Mary Pickford’s do in her happiest moments.

Because I fear you may think the dump yard a likely place for a mirage, I am taking this occasion to ask the gentleman who sat behind me to verify my story — the gentleman who said, ‘Well I’ll be d—d!’
N. FISHER.

Here is an added chapter to Lucy Furman’s stories of the Kentucky mountaineers. It tells of a twentieth century belief in witches!

HAZARD, KENTUCKY February 10, 1923
DEAR ATLANTIC, —
An experience I had, just last spring, shows that the belief in witches did not die in Salem, but continues to have life in the minds of these simple folk, living at the ‘head o‘ the holler.’

In such a community, I found only one book, aside from the Bible—a paper-backed volume entitled Hell’s Commerce or The Drunkard’s Reward. To take the place of this I carried in, for the children, beautifully illustrated stories of Red-Riding Hood, Snow-White, etc. In a few weeks’ time the attitude of the community changed, decidedly, toward me, becoming noticeably hostile. Finally I discovered that these stories had been read aloud to the older folk, who ‘’lowed they was witchcraft ’ and, ‘ seein’ as how ’ I had brought them into their midst, I must have the power of a witch.

Finding that old Uncle Hiram, a Hard-ShellBaptist Preacher, was leader in this movement against me, I decided to visit him. Calling at his cabin gate, I was told by his wife, a frail little old blind woman, that ‘him an’ Delphie is up yander drappin’ corn.’ Upon my arrival he carefully placed the felt hat in front of his face, lest I catch bis eye to practise my witch-power.

Coming direct to the point, I said, ‘Howdy Uncle Hiram. I came to talk over my work with you.’

’Delphie, keep right on a-drappin’an’a-kiverin’ while I hear this Stranger bust out.’

’I won t take but a minute of your time, just to tell you what I hope to do.’

‘I kin tell yo now, I’m agin hit.’

‘But do you know what it is?’

‘No, but I ’m agin hit.’

‘Do you realize it is work backed by Uncle Sam?’

‘Let me tell yo, Stranger, there is some allpowerful wicked folk mixed up in this here governmint o’ ours.’

‘But, Uncle Hiram, do I look wicked?’

At that he risked one eye over the edge of the felt hat with, ‘I ain’t a-judgin’ nothin’ by looks, Stranger.’

Knowing that he could neither read nor write, I had with me some illustrated bulletins showing different phases of our work. When these were offered he said, ‘Yo need n’t leave me nary a one o’ that air printed stuff, cause I can’t read without specks, an I ain’t got no specks. Come on Delphie, let’s drap an’ kiver.’ With that he turned to his slow, primitive method of corn planting, and I was left to slide out of his field, still a witch in his eyes.
ELIZABETH ROBERTS.

One of the most intelligent comments we have seen on Arthur Pound’s ‘The Farmer and the Factory Hand’ (February Atlantic) comes from a Virginia farmer who, twelve years ago, resigned an officer’s commission in the U. S. Marine Corps, and has operated a stock farm ever since in Oaklands,

Virginia. Referring to Mr. Pound’s belief that farmers’ hours average less than eight hours a day, he says: —

While the hours that his genial friend ‘Hank’ put in on his farm may be usual for that locality, they are certainly not those of the average farmer here. With all unnecessary work stopped during the ‘holidays’ (from Christmas to New Year’s), and with a few days off, during the year, to attend Camp Meeting and some of the nearer local horse shows and county fairs, it is safe to say that the farmer works throughout the year from ‘sun to sun’ and in the winter does many of the chores by lantern light both morning and evening. And these chores—they are just as much work as anything else he does. Feeding, watering, grooming live stock, milking the family cows (if it is not done by his sadly overworked wife), chopping wood, cleaning stables, and the thousand and one repair jobs that are always pressing to be done. Because of this the farmer has practically no time to pick up any dollars from outside jobs. He is not an artisan or day laborer with a farm home.

After all it seems that Mr. Pound has missed the vital point in this discussion of the farmer and his dissatisfaction with present conditions.

If it were to be desired that the farmer should never rise above a modest income — by this I mean just sufficient to pay for food, clothing, a certain education for his children, with never a hope for the most limited travel, for the pleasure of books and some leisure in his older age, for a domestic servant to give his wife at last the doubly earned rest—then perhaps the farming conditions of to-day should not be changed. But such a condition of affairs would really be tending toward the formation of a peasant class so antagonistic to American ideals.

The American farm boy wants a better chance than that. He is brave, thoughtful, and ambitious, and he wants an equal chance with his city cousin, to make farming — his chosen business — a successful business. A chance, for instance, if he starts in as a tenant farmer, eventually to become a small proprietor himself; but not to stop there, but to go on to larger farms, greater undertakings, to less and less manual labor, and more and more nearly to a position of solely managerial and executive responsibility, such as the city offers in industry and trade. Of course, not nearly all will arrive at that eminence, as neither do all in the city; but an equal chance must be on the farm, or the farm boy will not stay there. Only the inefficient and unambitious will remain.

Mr. Pound says: ‘The ideal farming community from the social standpoint, consists of active owners and their families.’ True enough in one way. But if he means that he advocates small farms only, where father, mother, and children all work, — farms so small that they do not produce enough to pay for the employment of additional labor either on the farm or in the home, — then farmers as a class will certainly, positively differ from him.
WILLIAM HENRY CLIFFORD.

It seems there is not only a ‘technique’ of being deaf, but a technique of being ' semideaf.’ Being misunderstood we are told is the worst hardship of the semi-deaf.

DEAR ATLANTIC, —
Some of us mothers, whose chief duties for a dozen years consist of the ‘indispensable nonessentials’ (see Calkins) in which hearing helps most, are seriously handicapped, to be sure. W e must be calm when we are not; we must understand when we cannot; we must discourage the children’s loud voices and yet hear their confidences. So many paradoxes! We must invent new ways for maternal love to reach the children around the seeming self-centredness of the necessary rules of our handicap. Perhaps we should not have the children, or should not have children and the work at the same time; but here we are, and necessity itself must invent new methods daily.

We semi-deaf vary according to health and weather. What is noise one day may be sorted out into intelligible sounds the next. Sounds are a heavenly gift, but noise hurts.

My rules differ a bit from Mr. Calkins’s. They supply a home woman’s need, but the same spirit would pervade a similar set if I were in business.

1. Tell folks you are deaf and need to watch faces. Then usually they will take care to face you squarely.

2. Do not let them shout. It annoys both you and them.

3.Study the peculiarities of your own case, and explain to your family and intimates. You are each other’s problem.

4. Eliminate other nerve strains. For instance, we had a red tablecloth which I hated insanely, but kept using because the boys liked it. When I changed to the buff or the white one I felt better. Next wash day the puppy will tear it to shreds.

5. Take care not to seem too finicky or they will ridicule; but prove your point by actual tests.

6. Contrive short rest-periods, even by setting the children in corners, or sending them out.

7. Choose to avoid crowds — of people, or sounds, or sights.

8. Meet new people whenever you can — but singly.

9. ‘Keep thy heart with diligence’ seems the best rule of all. When you are calm and untroubled you hear better and life flows along smoothly.

Like Mr. Calkins, I see advantages in my handicap. The seclusion is conducive to a wide variety of thinking, to a closer self-understanding, to a wiser choice of effort, to a keener concentration.

Such a type of person is really enjoyable to the most likable people in the world; so our friends are truly select and dear and worthy. Better to be very near to this few than to be merely mixed helter-skelter with many. Being semi-deaf in an efficient and artistic manner is quite a high-class performance. Like exploration or pioneering; like wearing a Phi Beta Kappa key which you have earned — the few who recognize it have probably earned it too, and they are well worth being deaf to find.

A READER.