A WORD ON TEMPERANCE

Many people who regard the Atlantic as an American institution have written to inquire into our policy regarding the advertisement of liquor.

Our friends have a right to know where we stand.

In its policy tow ard liquor, the Atlantic’s single goal is temperance. It is our informed belief that beers and wines are not only an aid, but an essential aid, to the temperatelife of the nation. We have, therefore, opened our advertising pages to beer and wine.

In regard to liquor, we believe that so long as it is demanded by a large public it cannot be suppressed, but that every artificial stimulation of this trade is clearly against public interest. The Atlantic has therefore refused, and will continue to refuse, all advertising of whiskey, gin, and brandy.

A journalist since the turn of the century, Frank H. Simonds (‘Consequences’) has risen from the reportorial ranks to the top of his profession. For years the study of military tactics had been an absorbing hobby with him, and when the World War broke out he found himself in the enviable posit ion of being almost the only newspaper man in New York who could make the strategy of the opposing armies intelligible to the layman. During the war period he served as associate editor of the Tribune, and after the Armistice his interests naturally led him into the broader field of international relations. ▵ While he was a student at Yale, William Harlan Hale (‘The Men and the Moment’) founded that sauciestsounding of undergraduate publications, The Harkness Hoot. After graduating, he served his journalistic apprenticeship on the staff of Vanity Fair; later he went into newspaper work and, until recently, conducted a semipolitical column in the Washington Post. He is the author of Challenge to Defeat, published in 1932. ▵ in March 1933, the cables from the Orient hummed with the sensational news that ruthless Manchukuo bandits had captured and were holding for ransom four officers of the British coastwise freighter Nanchang. Shortly afterward one of the captives was released to carry back a message containing the bandits’ demands. From then on, reports were meagre. The remaining three officers were supposed to be still alive, and negotiations were under way to effect their release, but nothing could be learned definitely of their whereabouts. Weeks passed, and then months. Not until early September, 163 days after their capture, was their freedom won. Exhausted by hunger and ill usage, they returned to civilization, bringing with them a unique record of hardship, endurance, and resourcefulness. On cigarette packets and such odd scraps of paper as they could procure, Chief Officer Clifford Johnson and his two companions had kept a diary of their adventures from day to anxious day — and this is it (‘Captives on a Junk’). Sir Arthur Salter (‘Toward a Planned Economy’) is regarded by competent authorities as probably the greatest economist of our times. Though many economic reputations have shrunk spectacularly under the strain and stress of recent events, Sir Arthur’s star shines brighter now than ever. His career has been notable. He was Secretary of the British Department of the Supreme Economic Council in 1919. For a decade he was Director of the Economic and Finance Section of the League of Nations. He is now a member of the Economic Advisory Council in Great Britain and Gladstone Professor of Political Theory at Oxford. Among his books, the one which seems to be best known in America is his last, Recovery: The Second Effort.

In ‘Change Comes to the East Side,’ Lillian D. Wald compresses forty years of active experience in social-welfare work at the Henry Street Settlement. ▵ In preparation for his career as a psychologist, B. F. Skinner (‘Has Gertrude Stein a Secret?‘) was educated at Hamilton College and at Harvard. He is now a member of that group of hand-picked young scholars wliom Harvard has brought together as the nucleus for her newest educational experiment — the Society of Fellows. Elsewhere in these pages we quote several excerpts from Tender Buttons, which served as the starting point of Mr. Skinner’s concern with Gertrude Stein as a psychological problem. ▵ Visitors to the nation’s capital will remember the weather stains on the Washington Monument which mark the point where the original work on the structure was halted and not resumed until twenty-two years later. Literary collaborations are apt to reveal their joints with equal clearness, but this story by Dorothy and Cenethe Thomas (’The Girl from Follow’) is a notable exception to the rule. If the reader wants to test, his perspicacity, let him read the story carefully, taking note of those passages which seem to him to show evidence of having been done by different hands; then turn to the last page of the Contributors’ Column, where the riddle is answered. ▵ A graduate of New York University, Edwin Morgan (‘At the Shore’) has had verse published in many periodicals and several anthologies. ▵ Though under thirty, Alan Devoe calls himself a ‘retired bookseller.’ At one time he worked in New York as a dealer in autograph manuscripts and rare books, but he is now a free-lance writer. His experiment in outdoor shopkeeping (‘Books by the Roadside’) took place at the tip of Cape Cod, in Provincetown. ▵ This second chapter in the autobiography of an ex-feminist (‘A Feminist Marries’) explains why Worth Tuttle has come to think of herself merely as ’a suburban matron.’

Grace Adams (‘The Rise and Fall of Psychology’) has a doctor’s degree in psychology from Cornell, and for several years was engaged in psychological work with problem children in New York. She is the author of Psychology: Science or Superstition? ▵In ‘Pioneering on Peace River,’ Hilda Rose brings down to date the chronicle of a twentieth-century frontierswoman which began with ‘The Stump Farm’ in the Atlantic for February 1927. Nancy Byrd Turner (‘High Water at London’) is a well-known poet whose most recent volume is Magpie Lane. ▵ Of Wo Ho Chong (‘Letters of an Unwise Son’) there is little to record beyond what he himself makes manifest. That he did eventually come to America we know, for it was his arrival and examination by the immigration authorities that brought his letters to light. Whether he was admitted, or whether his fond wish to own a gold watch was gratified, we cannot say. Isadore Luce Smith (‘Last of the Giants’) is the wife of another Atlantic contributor, A. W. Smith. She is well acquainted with the Far East, having formerly lived there when her husband was manager of a large lumber organization in Rangoon. ▵ For all his seventy years, A. Edward Newton remains as spry in body as in mind, and his continual gaddings about the globe make him a diflicult fellow to keep up with. Not long ago he made his first trip to (lie Pacilie Coast and discovered so many things west of Philadelphia that he had to write four papers to cover them. But before the last one could be published — presto! he turned up in Vienna, then in Budapest, and finally in England, where he went in a whirlwind to at tend the Grand National, and from each stopping place he dispatched us a new article. Breathless, we had to cut. corners to keep in step with him. and thus it happens that the concluding chapter of his Western odyssey (‘A Tourist in San Francisco’) is only now finding its way into print.

A last word from Peace River.

September 2, 1933
Dear Atlantic, —
Your good letter came at the busiest season of the whole year — haying time. We now have some new neighbors, and they have been helping our boys put up hay in ret urn for similar help on their place. I have had my hands full cooking for a hungry crew, and could not write sooner.
The new neighbors are two boys about the same ages as Joe and Karl, and their grandmother came with them to keep house. It will certainly be a treat to me to have a good old lady to visit with during the coming winter.
There was great excitement in the barnyard one day when they were stacking hay there. A large buffalo wandered in, and then, seeing where he was, tried to get out. The fence is made of close-set poles, and though the buffalo lowered his head and looked everywhere for an opening, he could not find one. But he was a good old buffalo and did not attempt to break through. Daddy told Karl to jump on his pony and drive him out, which he did, slowly heading him round the pigpen and through the lane to the range.
These large animals are increasing, and when the snow is deep they eat the farmers’ haystacks on isolated sloughs across the river. Herds of them are often to be seen on the range. This one was so large that Daddy thought he must be a cross between a woods buffalo and those the government sent in from the plains.
Our new neighbors will have to have more dogs or the hears will get them. One hear tore a hole through their screen door and tried to break into the cabin; then he went to the spring and carried off a pail of cream that had been set there for the next day’s churning. Later Grandma found the pail, jammed out of shape, and with a large hole in it where the bear’s teeth had bit through. She won’t stay alone in the cabin any more. ’Be a sport,’ the boys tell her. ’There’s a limit to sportsmanship,’ answers Grandma.
That’s about, all the news now. One thing is certain—we never lack tor adventure.
HILDA ROSE
Fort Vermilion, Alberta

From another Chicago teacher.

Dear Atlantic,—
May I express my appreciation of the ‘Diary of a Chicago School-Teacher’? To you — conservative as your policy has always been — for publishing it; to her—conservative as she undoubtedly has been — for writing it. It is at once a succinct and moving account of a situation almost incredible.
We of Chicago know its reality, and some of us realize its importance. This article will undoubtedly do much toward awakening and possibly arousing public opinion elsewhere.
Here we seem to be facing disillusion and defeat. There are well-founded rumors that a further crippling of the school system, including new salary cuts, is set for January, and the last payment of teachers’ salaries was for the first two weeks of last February.
Thank you again for an article the clarity and forthrightness of which are equaled only by its excellence of style.
A SCHOOL-TEACHER
Chicago, Illinois

A judge considers school-teachers.

Dear Atlantic, —
I have just read the ’Diary of a Chicago SchoolTeacher’ in your November number, and cannot forbear to send you a line of appreciation for the great public service you have done in publishing it, giving it a place of prominence and vouching for its accuracy. Other communities— Minneapolis, for example have their school and tax problems. How far they parallel Chicago s I do not pretend to say, not knowing; but I do know that this clear and authentic exposure of the Chicago situation is likely to have a good effect everywhere.
EDWARD F. WAITE
Judge, District Court
Minneapolis, Minnesota

The ambidexterity of cats.

Dear Atlantic, —
In my last letter I suggested that the best way to solve the problem of the rightor left-handedness of animals would be to watch the cat, an animal that surpasses others in its powers ol manipulation. I now have some data on the subject in a letter just receiv ed from Mr. F. W. Nordholf, of Auburn, California, He writes: —
‘Lust August I witnessed a fight between my old cal and an eighteen-inch rattlesnake. The cal was in a sitting position. The snake was striking just as rapidly as he could. The cat, in a most blasé way, would box the striking head, with first one front paw and then the other, one box per strike — just enough to deflect the head and cause a most humiliating miss. The cat was incomparably quicker than the snake.
In Mexico we knew a peon whose cat would bring live rattlers home to kill at night, by his bed. To prevent premature gray hairs he killed the cat.’
All this is quite according to cat nature. I think it will be found that cats and other quadrupeds are ambidextrous; in fact, I have determined by recent observation that a cat washes her face sometimes with one paw and then with the other.
CHARLES D. STEWART Hartford, Wisconsin

Bishop Brent on missions.

Apropos of the Atlantic’s recent articles about the missionary problem, a reader sends us the following pertinent quotation from the late Bishop Brent: —

‘The old idea of missionary work has passed away, and passed away forever. No longer does the. missionary go out with iconoclastic hammer to beat down every religion he meets in order to substitute Christianity. He goes, rather, to turn men’s attention to the beauty of native religions in order that he may lift into the fulfilling religion of Christianity all that is good and all that is holy in Oriental cults.‘

A lawyer’s conscience.

Dear Atlantic, —
In your September issue Professor John Barker Waite undertook to point out what he regarded as serious flaws in the ethical standards of successful criminal lawyers, and applauded the conduct of a young lawyer who knowingly refused to take advantage of a technical failure, in the presentation of the stale’s ease against, his client which would have assured him of a new trial in the event of an adverse jury verdict. Professor Waite seems to have overlooked the fact that, whatever the lawyer’s obligation to Ins community may be as an individual, once he is engaged to try a lawsuit he is bound to function in his client’s interest if he is to be regarded as the client’s advocate.
Let us suppose that Professor Waite, while driving his automobile, should become engrossed in his own thoughts about the ethical standards of the legal profession to the point where he runs down and kills a pedestrian in a legally culpable manner. Let us assume further that he is arrested and charged with manslaughter, but that on mature reflection he concludes, with considerable logical and ethical justification, that he will be of far more value to society by continuing to leach law at the University of Michigan instead of wasting his efforts on a rock pile. So he pleads ‘Not guilty.’
In pursuance of a natural wish to retain a certain freedom of movement which life in a penitentiary would not permit, he retains a reputable and expensive lawyer to defend him. He then goes to trial, and the stale makes the same technical error that Professor Waite’s ideal lawyer failed to take advantage of. The Professor’s lawyer, suddenly overcome by a similar desire to spare, the state the cost of a second trial, does likewise — with the result that his client is promptly convicted. Would Professor W aite feel that he had been swindled out of the retainer fee paid for his defense, or would he be a willing victim of his lawyer’s socialized conscience!‘
ROBERT LLEWELLN WRIGHT
Chicago, Illinois

Correction.

Dear Atlantic, —
An error in my article, ‘The Counter Attack,’which appeared in the November issue, has been called to my attention. On page 535 the statement was made that ‘during the entire course of the veteran lobby’s dictatorship the pensions accorded to widows of World War fighters killed in action had never been raised one cent.’ This is inaccurate: a five-dollar raise in such pensions was provided for in the World War Veterans Act of 1924. This is the only increase that has been made in pensions to the widows of men actually killed in combat.
ROGER BURLINGAME
New York City

The Gertrude Stein of Tender Buttons.

First published in 1914, and reprinted in transition for September 1928, Tender Buttons is now a work as difficult to obtain as to read. Concerning it Miss Stein said five years ago: ‘It was my first conscious struggle with the problem of correlating sight, sound and sense, and eliminating rhythm; some of the solutions in it seem to me still alright, now I am trying grammar and eliminating sight and sound.’ As a commentary upon B. F. Skinner’s article in this issue — ’Has Gertrude Stein a Secret?‘ — and to assist the reader in forming his own conclusions, we quote the following typical excerpts: —

’A not torn rose-wood color. If it is not dangerous then a pleasure and more than any other if it is cheap is not cheaper. The amusing side is that the sooner there are no fewer the more certain is the necessity dwindled. . . .

’To choose it is ended, it is actual and more than that it has if certainly has the same treat, and a seat all that is practiced and more easily much more, easily ordinarily. . . .

‘Lovely snipe and tender turn, excellent vapor and slender butter, all the splinter and the trunk, all the poisonous darkning drunk, all the joy in weak success, all the joyful tenderness, all the section and the tea, all the stouter symmetry. . . .

‘Seat a knife near a cage and very near a decision and more nearly a timely working eat and scissors. Do this temporarily and make no more mistake in standing. Spread it all and arrange the white place, does this show in the house, does it not show in the green that is not necessary for that color, does it not even show in the explanation and singularly not at all stationary. . . .

‘ A real cold hen is nervous is nervous with a towel with a spool with real beads. It is mostly an extra sole nearly all that shaved, shaved with an old mountain, more than that bees more than that dinner and a bunch of likes that is to say the hearts of onions aim less. . . .

‘It happened in a way that the time was perfect and there was a growth of a whole dividing time so that where formerly there was no mistake there was no mistake now. For instance before when there was a separation there was waiting, now when there is separation there is the division between intending and departing. This made no more mixture than there would be if there had been no change.’

The riddle of ’The Girl from Follow.‘

Dear Atlantic, —
The idea for the story and its first writing were mine. The second writing was Cenethe’s, and the third mine. Genethe lengthened the Story from ton to sixteen typewritten pages, and my final revision brought it to eighteen.
Cenethe contributed the descriptions of the two men on skis, the fording of the stream, the gathering storm, and the coming of the sun after the storm. She also added phrases and sentences here and there throughout. In the final writing I altered little of her work and considerable of my own.
DOROTHY THOMAS
Lincoln, Nebraska