Albert Jay Nock (‘A Word to Women’) is a Professor in the Faculty of Literature at Columbia University. In collaboration with Catherine Rose Wilson he has recently published a handsome two-volume edition of The Works of Francis Rabelais. In January he will issue another volume containing the PageBarbour Lectures which he delivered at the University of Virginia last spring. Herbert H. Lehman (’A Business Man Looks at Politics’) has enjoyed phenomenal success in combining statesmanship with his business career. He is a partner in the banking house of Lehman Brothers, a director of several large companies, and is now completing his second term as Lieutenant Covernor of New York, where he has been the right-hand man of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Friedrich Ritter (‘Satan Walks in the Garden’) is actually living the Robinson Crusoe life which he describes. Formerly a practising physician in Berlin, he is a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Freiburg, and a veteran of the World War.

Caroline A. Henderson (‘Bringing in the Sheaves—1931’) is both the daughter and the wife of wheat farmers. She lives in Oklahoma, and writes: ‘We are now busy preparing ground for another year — whatever it may bring.’ Leonard Ormerod (’Arms and the Mind’) saw service in France with the Twelfth Field Artillery, Second Division, of the Regular Army. He is now Assistant to the Vice President of the Bell Telephone Company at Philadelphia. ∆ As an officer in the British Army, A. W. Smith (‘Between Gentlemen’) had many exciting adventures in the Far East. Later he became general manager of a large lumber organization in Rangoon, and has since taken up residence in America. Ernest Weekley (‘Walter Scott and the English Language’) is head of the Modern Language Department at University College, Nottingham, England. He has published numerous philological studies. Derrick N. Lehmer (‘The Harvest’) is that rare combination, a poet and mathematician.

George W. Gray (‘Measuring the Divine Spark ’) is a free-lance student of science who has made it his hobby to explain the mysteries of the laboratory to the lay public. Edgar J. Goodspeed (‘The Uses of Adversity’) is Professor of Theology at the University of Chicago. Josephine Johnson (‘His Children’) is a gifted and versatile young poet who, while still a college student, has had several of her verses published in the Atlantic.Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (’Remedies for the Third Degree’), is a member of the faculty of the Harvard Law School. Eugenie Courtright (‘Two Insurgents’) travels about from one Indian reservation to another accompanying her husband, who is in the Indian Service. Bernard Darwin (‘The Perils of Golf’) is an amateur golfer of international renown. He is a grandson of Charles Darwin, and for many years has been a correspondent of the Times. ∆ Although everybody knows that Norman Thomas (’Puritan Fathers’) was the Socialist candidate for the Presidency in 1928, many will now learn for the first time that he is the son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers and that he himself preached from Presbyterian pulpits for seven years. Louise N. Trueblood (‘A Plague of Birds’) lives at Dobbs Ferry, New York. Sidney Hillman (‘Unemployment Reserves’) is president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and established the Unemployment Insurance Fund in Rochester, Chicago, and New York, the workings of which he describes in this issue. F. W. Taussig (‘What the Tariff Has Done to Us’) is Professor of Economics at Harvard and was chairman of the United States Tariff Commission from 1917 to 1919.

In the Shakespearean triumph of Dr. Hotson, which we published in the October issue, the Guggenheim Foundation should have its essential share. That singularly enlightened corporation is doing work for American scholarship whose value may be literally limitless. Without the support of the Foundation, Dr. Hotson could not have spent his years in the British archives, and his selection as a Guggenheim Fellow is a striking exemplification of the skill with which these selections are made. It’s not so easy to pick the colt that is going to win the Futurity.

Apron strings and purse strings.

Some readers of Mr. Albert Jay Nock’s article in this issue may be startled by the figures he cites to show that American women now control almost half of our national wealth. The editors of the Atlantic, curious to learn more about the matter, instituted an independent inquiry and obtained additional evidence which is conclusive enough to convince even the most incredulous that Mr. Nock’s information is accurate.

Recently the statistical department of Lawrence Stern & Company, investment bankers of Chicago and New York, made a study, based on data from governmental and private sources, which led them to announce that ’41 per cent of the individual wealth of the country is already controlled by women.’ The Atlantic secured a copy of their report, and the following significant facts are quoted from it:—

Women are beneficiaries of 80 per cent of the $95,000,000,000 of life-insurance policies in force in the United States.

Women pay taxes on more than three and a quarter billions of individual income annually.

Women comprise the actual majority of stockholders in the largest corporations in America.

Women constitute from 35 to 40 per cent of investment-bond-house customers.

Women millionaires, as indicated by individual income-tax returns, are as plentiful as men.

Women are receiving 70 per cent of the estates left by men.

Women are also receiving 64 per cent of the estates left by other women.

Women to the number of more than 8,500,000 are gainfully employed.

If women should maintain their present rate of financial ascendancy, one statistician has calculated that all the wealth of the country would be in feminine hands by 2025. Of course, no one believes that such a financial matriarchy is coming, but this calculation strikingly illustrates the rapidity of the present trend.

Letters addressed to several of the largest American corporations produced further confirmation of these facts. The two which follow are typical instances.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company submits the analysis of its stockholdings made on June 20, 1981 :—

NUMBER OF HOLDERS

Number Per cent

of Total

Men. 231,947 38.5

Women 324,761 53.9

Trustees. 14,836 2.5

Corporations, Private Firms,

and Joint Accounts. 29,956 5.0

Brokers. 557 .1

Total. 602,057 100.0

NUMBER OF SHARES

Number Per cent

of Total

Men. 7,237,361 39.1

Women. 6,698.173 36.2

Trustees. 1,221,402 6.6

Corporations, Private Firms,

and Joint Accounts 2,375,559 12.8

Brokers. 986,718 5.3

Total. 18,519,213 100.0

The Westinghouse Air Brake Company reports: —

‘On March 31, 1931, the last date on which we compiled these statistics, we had 8211 women stockholders holding 1,078,517 shares, as against 7687 men stockholders with 1,332,286 shares. Our total number of stockholders on that date was 17,470, the difference being represented by stock standing in the name of banks, trust companies, etc.’

It will be noted that the women stockholders of both of these corporations actually out number the men, although the men are ahead of the women by a small margin in the number of shares held.

Chimney swifts.

Dear Atlantic, —
I am writing this letter at the request of my sister-in-law, Mrs. L. N. Trueblood, who recently sent you an account of an invasion of her house in Dobbs Ferry by chimney swifts. (See ’A Plague of Birds’ in this issue.)
I witnessed the events she has described, and can corroborate her statements, which are not in any way exaggerated. I presume the birds were seeking a place to roost. The chimney swift regularly sleeps in flocks, clinging to perpendicular interior walls, such as are found in chimneys, open buildings, or large hollow trees. CHARLES K. THUEBLOOD
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island

The fallacies of economic isolation.

Dear Atlantic, —
Mr. Flanders’s article, ‘The Tariff and Social Control,’ in your September issue, is a welcome indication that serious thinking is now being done about American commercial policy by laymen.
The writer recommends for the United States a policy of isolation. We must, he says, ‘avoid unnecessary and fruitless entanglements with world economy,’and ‘concentrate on the wellbeing of our own citizens as the prime requisite of a healthy and profitable state of our industry as a whole.’ The instrument of this policy is to be ‘a moderate and judicious use of the tariff.’ The Tariff Commission is to draw up a bill ‘to regulate the whole desired flow of business on a self-contained basis, proper account being taken of the volume of needed imports . . . and those of our exports which would be welcomed by other nations.'
It would make interesting reading if Mr. Flanders would tell us in some future article more exactly what imports America needs. Doubtless he would include articles now on the free list, such as rubber, bananas, and coffee. But on what basis would he or the Tariff Commission decide how much, if any. Czechoslovakian porcelain, Belgian cement, or Russian manganese is needed by American consumers? And by what method would the Commission discover what exports would be welcomed by foreign countries. Does Germany welcome American lard? What is the French or the Italian attitude toward imports of American automobiles? Has it occurred to Mr. Flanders that foreign producers of competing articles may well differ from loreign consumers in the cordiality of the ‘welcome’ extended to American goods?
And how about the poor Tariff Commission? Its present problems would be as simple arithmetic when compared to those your contributor so light-heartedly thrusts upon that long-suffering body. Can anyone imagine a bipartisan board ever reaching agreement, except by the familiar method of logrolling which Mr. Flanders justly abhors, in the interpretation of his formula?
Like other writers of protectionist leanings, Mr. Flanders seems not to be able to visualize the present position of the United States in international affairs and consequently he fails to appreciate the necessity, nay, the inevitability, of a change in our commercial policy to bring it into harmony with our new situation. In urging that we Americans should ‘isolate our problem as much as possible from world-wide disturbances’ he seems to be thinking in terms of his own profession, that of the mechanical engineer. It is one of the advantages which engineers enjoy to a larger extent than economists that they can isolate their problems. When, for example, in a cotton mill, because of disturbing atmospheric conditions yarn does n’t spin properly, the textile engineer by closing the factory windows shuts out the disturbing conditions, and in the isolation of an artificially pure and damp atmosphere successfully accomplishes his task. But because economists deal primarily with people, their problems admit of no such mechanical treatment. We can, indeed, close our ports to foreign goods as the textile engineer closes his windows, but only at the cost of cutting the thousands of lines of international interest and coöperation which are so vitally connected with the import and export of commodities.
Whether we like it or not, America is involved in world affairs, and the logic of events is that we shall witness an ever-increasing interlocking of American economic interests with those of foreign nations. Our extraordinarily rapid transition from a debtor to a creditor country foreshadows in the not -distant future a readjustment in our balance of trade with a considerable increase in imports. The change may be gradual, or it may be so sudden as to precipitate a major business crisis.
How shall we prepare for the new situation? Shall we try to sweep back with our futile tariff brooms the waves of foreign goods, or shall we, recognizing the turn of the tide, lead the imports by selective, gradual downward revision of tariff duties into channels least disturbing to American industries and most beneficial to American consumers?
PERCY W. BIDWELL
The University of Buffalo
Buffalo, New York

Money goes to work.

Dear Atlantic, —
Allow me to compliment you on the timeliness of the article entitled ‘Money Must Work,’by Jonathan C. Royle, in your September issue. ! believe it was within a week after I had read the article that the Treasury Department of the Federal Government decided to give some eight hundred million dollars a chance to go to work. Perhaps this action may go a long way in the concerted effort to end the depression.
WENDELL, C. THORPE
Washington, D. C.

A plea for the victims.

Dear Atlantic, —
In the September Atlantic Mr. Ernest Jerome Hopkins, in his article, ‘The Lawless Arm of the Law,’writes convincingly about the poor, misguided underworld character, and his reception at the hands of our police. It is the fashion to-day to criticize courts and detectives because they are severe towards criminals. Sympathy for the victims is well-nigh absent. Most malefactors are not stupid, and one may visualize with what grim satisfaction Mr. Gunman reads of his particular case — inferiority complex, improper habitat, abnormal lust of gain, etc.
Thus, when Mr. Victim has been robbed, shot, or abducted, he may console himself. The poor criminal must not be forced to disclose his accomplices or disposition of the plunder. On the contrary, gentleness should prevail because of that inferiority complex. Mr. Victim may not purchase a revolver, save through a long process of official procedure, yet the favored gangsters obtain shotguns, revolvers, and even machine guns with ease.
How should police examine gunmen? Should they be very apologetic — something like this: ‘Pardon, but will you please inform us just how and why you relieved Mr. T. of his money?’ Too much force? No, not enough. The remedy? Simple. A return to the successful vigilance committees of the old West. Racketeers and gunmen do not fear our courts. Smooth, persuasive lawyers and frequent appeals render justice ineffective.
Abolish the third degree and you render evidence very difficult to obtain. Do criminals follow the golden rule? Our crime record, compared with that of Germany, France, or England, is disgraceful. There, ‘Thou shalt not’ is obeyed.
They do things better down South. I used to deplore the chain gang prevalent in Dixie. After four winters in the land of cotton I have changed my opinion. In our Southland they compel the criminal to suffer for his evil. With us the victims bear the burden. Not until our people rise against the entire underworld class will these increasing outrages cease.
CALEB CABOT
Andover, Massachusetts

Dear Mr. Cabot,
Your sympathy for the victims of gunmen is admirable, but you seem to have missed the essential point of Mr. Hopkins’s article. You say, rightly enough, that racketeers do not fear our courts. Mr. Hopkins demonstrates that one reason for this is the prevalence of the third degree. Our police put so much faith in their ability to extort confessions from suspects that they neglect to develop scientific methods of crime detection by which they might secure more convincing evidence. A forced confession, if the fact of force can be established, will not be admitted in court, and many criminal cases are lost for lack of real proof. In England, on the other hand, where the third degree is forbidden, the police have perfected independent methods of detection, and it is no accident that the English record of convictions puts ours to shame. For a more detailed consideration of these matters, see ‘Remedies for the Third Degree,’ by Zechariah Chafee, Jr., in this issue.
THE EDITORS

Farewell, foolish twenties!

Dear Atlantic, —
An interesting article in the June Atlantic, entitled ‘Halfway’ and written by a man, has started me thinking on the same subject from the woman’s point of view. Arriving at thirty next week, I rather regret leaving the foolish twenties, and I am trying to face the responsibilities of ‘middle youth.’
Many women lie about their age, remaining ‘twenty-nine’ as long as they think it plausible. This appears to me foolish. I shall admit my age and take the consequences.
Being ‘halfway,’ there will be no time for going to endless dinners just for the sake of going somewhere. This winter I shall seek my acquaintances more among men and women who are doing things, and discard the smart set when they bore me.
Eighteen holes of golf, plus several sets of ping-pong, tire me, and in future I shall say so, despite the challenge of: ‘Come, on! Be a good sport! You are not going to back out!’ Eight hours of sleep make me a much pleasanter mother and mistress of the house. I shall endeavor to get that much, frankly stating the reason instead of giving my husband’s early business hours as an excuse.
It is time for me to read up on children’s education. The latest novel will have to wait. Also, the British crisis interests me. I shall find others who want to discuss it, even if a few cocktail parties must go by the board.
I am sorry to leave the twenties, but the thirties promise compensations of their own.
FLORENCE H. DUNLOP
Chevy Chase, Maryland

Sight versus hearing.

Dear Atlantic,—
I was much interested in the contributions of Mr. Calkins and Mr. Lathrop to your July number, and in the letters they called forth in the Contributors’ Column in September.
My wife, who has lost her hearing, is quite sure that she prefers her deafness to loss of sight. But I have the statement of a friend which seems to bear out the opinion of Mr. Race. When, in discussing my wife’s handicap, the usual remark was made that deafness was not nearly so bad as blindness, this friend replied that he was not so sure of that. He then told the experience of a close friend of his who lost his sight, but later had it restored by an operation. Stilt later be became entirely deaf. His testimony was that he had tried both and that he much preferred his blindness to the loss of hearing. When sightless, he said, he could still converse with his friends and keep in touch with his fellows to a degree that was impossible in his deafness. The late Mr. H. W. Collingwood also seems to stress this greater ‘aloneness’ of the deaf, and the lack of sympathetic understanding of their plight, in his book, Adventures in Silence. I am wondering, however, if in this discussion of the question of preference the determining factor would not in each case be found in the individual bent or personal idiosyncrasy ol the afflicted. FRANK T. CLAMPITT
New Providence, Iowa

P. S. My wife suggests that she would like the opinions of some of the women who are blind or deaf!

Our baby picture from an old album.

Dear Atlanta,— You and your readers may be interested, as I was the other day, in an excerpt which I found in Peterson’s Magazine of the date February 1858 : — ‘Atlantic Monthly. — This is a new candidate for popular favor, in the shape of a monthly Magazine; and is published by Phillips, Sampson & Co., at three dollars per annum. It resembles what Putnam’s Magazine was in the palmy days of the latter; but is even more ably conducted, the articles generally having more muscle in them. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Holmes, Whittier, Prescott, and Parke Godwin appear to be the principal contributors; and if they continue to give their best things to it, it cannot but succeed. Like Blackwood, The Dublin University, and other British monthlies, it is a magazine not only of literature, but avowedly also of polit ics. It will doubtless, however, find, in so vast a country as this, a circle of readers who cherish its social and political opinions, and who will be proud to have so potent a champion of them.’ BERTHA LOUISE SOULE Brooklyn, New York

Bill Adams’s flicker.

Dear Atlantic,—
In the Contributors’ Column of the August number Bill Adams refers to a red-shafted flicker, locally known as a yellow-hammer, which frequently drummed upon the metal chimney of a neighbor’s house. Mr. Adams evidently regards the drumming on metal as a futile act, and asks for an explanation. On page 161, volume 2, of Birds of New York, published by the New York Museum, is the following: ‘Flickers, like other woodpeckers, are good drummers, especially in springtime. The flicker will select a dry limb, or a conductor-pipe, or old stovepipe, and mounting thereon many times a day, batters away with his quick rolling tattoo.’ It would therefore appear that the habit of drumming on metal is common to flickers.
No reason for this action is given on the part of flickers, but in the same volume it is explained that the drumming of a cock partridge ’is a signal to the hen that her lord is at the accustomed rendezvous.’ This explanation may account for the habit of the flicker as well as the partridge.
A. MOSSMAN
Coaticook, Quebec

Another explanation.

Dear Atlanic,—
I am not acquainted with the red-shafted flicker, but I know that some woodpeckers drum on trees as a challenge to other woodpeckers, this being analogous to the songs of most birds. To explain the song of birds as a challenge to rivals seems to fit the facts better than to say that the song is a hymn of thanksgiving arising from a source of well-being. I could quote many instances to support this view. Many birds have a strong sense of their rights over a piece of territory. The English robin (no relation to the American, which is a thrush) appropriates a patch of orchard or garden and defends it against all comers. His song seems to mean: ‘ Keep out — this means you! This is my feeding ground and I need it all to support my wife and family.’ If an intruder appears, the song increases in intensity; he dashes at the stranger and drives him off, often uttering snatches of song during the flight.
Mr. Adams’s flicker was, I think, warning intruders off its stamping ground, possibly pleased that it had found such a resonant drumming post.
J. d’A. NORTHWOOD
Honolulu, Hawaii

The prize contest for new book ideas.

In the June issue of the Atlantic the editors announced a prize contest for the best suggestions of new books which readers would like to see written. Contestants were required to draw up a list of six titles and authors, with brief descriptive paragraphs about each. Cash prizes of $25. $15, and $10 were offered for the three best lists, the Editor of the Atlantic to be the sole judge of the contest.

Several hundred papers were received, and every entry was carefully read and considered. It was curious to note that certain subjects and authors reappeared upon list after list, thus indicating definite overtones of interest in the minds of a large group of readers. The subjects most often suggested were international finance, popular science, and social problems. There were repealed calls for books by Stuart Chase, Andrew Mellon, Sir James Jeans, Robert A. Millikan, and, of course, George Bernard Shaw. Among the writers of fiction, Willa Cather and Sinclair Lewis were easily the favorites, while the only poet in consistent demand was Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The commonest defect of the suggestions offered — and one which few contestants altogether escaped — was their disregard of practical limitations. Only in that Happy Hunting Ground to which publishers go when they die would it be possible to persuade many of the authors named to write upon the subjects prescribed for them. One gentleman, for example, predicted a sale of a million copies of the following book if we were enterprising enough to get it into print before the next Presidential election:—•

What I Think of Calvin Coolidge, by Herbert Hoover. The President tells all about his famous hair shirt and the silent, canny little Yankee from Vermont who made it to measure for him.

Before announcing the prize winners in the contest, the editors wish to give honorable mention to Mr. William Graham Kennedy of Fort Myers, Florida, for his ingenious suggestions which, he said, did not call for the prescribed paragraphs of explanation. Here is his list: —

The Consolations of the Christian Faith, by Clarence Darrow.

The Secret of the Success of the Hoover Policies, by Honorable Alfred E. Smith.

The Golden Age of Greece: A Critical Study, by Henry Ford.

Modesty as an Asset of Personality, by Margot Asquith.

Why We Should Join the League of Nations, by Senator William E. Borah.

Break! Break!! Brake!!! by the President of the American Bankers’ Association.

FIRST PRIZE. Awarded to Mrs. Tom B. Bartlett, Marlin, Texas. Her list is varied, the ideas interesting, the several authors well qualified to write upon the subjects indicated. Moreover, it is conceivable that her six books might actually he written.

Domestic Architecture, by Royal Cortissoz. A history of domestic architecture, explaining the geographical and artistic influences and the historical periods of this most fundamental art.

The Black Year, by Andrew Mellon. The causes and influences that brought about 1929— 1930, by the one man who really knows.

Talleyrand, by André Maurois. A biography and an appreciation of a great statesman.

Now They Can Be Told On, by Lytton Strachey. Biographical and historical estimates of the English statesmen of the World War.

World Trade, by Stuart Chase. An ABC of the world market, explaining the interdependence of nations and the effect of tariff walls.

Psyche, by Willa Cather. A novel showing the religious orientation of a thoughtful but passionate woman.

SECOND PRIZE. Awarded to Elizabeth B. Cowley, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The titles are rather heavy, but the ideas are sound and would make much better books than their captions would seem to promise.

Scientific Research and Everyday Living, by Robert A. Millikan. A great scientist explains that scientific research contributes to our everyday living not only the knowledge that makes material conveniences possible, but also a point of view and habits of thinking and acting — the habit of looking for the facts in a case and using them, the habit of facing every situation squarely and of solving every problem by using the means at hand.

Motivating and Vitalizing Education, by Arthur E. Morgan. The President of Antioch College tells of the notable progress he has made in overcoming the greatest sins of American education - its lack of serious purpose, its inefficiency, and its excessive cost.

Health as a National Asset, by Drs. Charles and William Mayo. Men who are universally recognized as authorities explain to the layman the function of modern medicine and surgery in conserving the health of the nation.

American Diplomacy, by Dwight W. Morrow. An evaluation of America’s participation in world problems since the World War.

The Poet’s Transmutation of the Commonplace, by Edna St. Vincent Millay. A book of essays explaining how the poet discovers law, order, symmetry. Variety, harmony, and beauty in people and things that are ordinarily regarded as dull and drab.

Labor Conditions in the Mines of the United States To-day, by Philip Murray. The Vice President of the United Mine Workers of America gives a fair and impartial statement of mining conditions, with special reference to the soft-coal industry of Western Pennsylvania, where there has been so much trouble.

THIRD PRIZE. Awarded to Harold Johnson, Trevose, Pennsylvania. His first three suggestions are brilliant; the others only fair.

Farmington, U. S. A., by H. M. and R. S. Lynd. A minute report of life in a typical farming community; a survey of wages, profits, working hours, and conditions of farmers, their employees, families, and the community dependent upon them; and a comparison with the pre-Ford era.

Truth in Wartime, by Walter Millis. A study of the means used to promote the martial spirit among the soldiers and civilians in six of the great wars of modern times.

Memoirs of a Banker, by Frank A. Vanderlip. The ‘now it can be told’ story of twentieth-century finance, with observations upon the present situation.

Russian Footnotes, by Harry A. Franck. A close-up of Russia by a veteran observer.

Economics, Modern Style, by L. G. Chiozza Money. Up-to-the-minute views on the theory and practice of economics in a changing world.

The Mid-West Times, by Sherwood Anderson. A novel of the rise and fall of the individual in journalism.

THE EDITORS