The Contributors' Column

H. M. Tomlinson (p. 397) is England’s preeminent essayist. Better than any journalist he depicts the atmospheric pressure which is concentrated upon Britain as she awaits the Second Armada. Born in 1873, Mr. Tomlinson began his apprenticeship as an editorial writer in 1904, was an official correspondent at General Headquarters of the B. E. F., 1915-1917, and literary editor of the Nation and Athenaeum, 1917-1923. His collected essays and early volumes, The Sea and the Jungle, Old Junk, London River, and Gallions Reach, are recognized as classics of our time.

In 1913 Francis Vivian Drake (p. 404) studied aerodynamics under the British designer, Handley Page, and from 1915 to 1917 he served as a pursuit pilot in the Royal Flying He was attached to the United States Signal Corps upon our entry into the war and was chief instructor, first at the training field near Fort Worth, and then in the formation of the Canadian Air Force. After the Armistice he resigned his commission, went into business in New York City, was married, and became an American citizen. Mr. Drake has followed the rise of the American air transport from its beginning and knows whereof he speaks, even though he has no official or business connection with the aircraft industry.

The Atlantic has invited Paul P. Cram (p. 410), a member of the Harvard faculty, to make an analysis of undergraduate opinion as it has been expressed in the many letters written in response to Arnold Whitridge’s article, ‘Where Do You Stand?’ (August 1940), and to trace the influences that account for the serious rift between the older and the younger generation.

A poet revered wherever English is read aloud, Walter de la Mare (p. 422) is a living example of that fortitude with which an Englishman carries on his work despite the bombs and blackouts.

Author of Sweden— The Middle Way and They Hate Roosevelt,Marquis W. Childs (p. 424) is the Washington correspondent of the St. Louis PostDispatch. He says, ‘For a year and a half I have been working on a novel of the Mississippi River and the great days of the lumber barons, but I find that a W ashington newspaper job in the midst of a defense crisis and an unprecedented national campaign leaves me very little time. Add to this the fact that when I discover people like Hu Shih I have to write about them — people who I think are so rare they shine like torchlights.'

Editor of the Freeman in its heyday, and biographer of Thomas Jefferson and Rabelais, Albert Jay Nock (p. 430) is a peripatetic philosopher who thinks it is high time we stopped our loose thinking about Collectivism in the United States.

In reply to our letter of acceptance came this disarming note from Robert Ellis Standen (p. 436): ‘Your acceptance is, of course, flattering to one who has one of the most complete galleries of rejection slips in the world. So, if you are sure you want it, I will not place any obstacles in your way. How - ever, since the title, “So Softly Walked the Lady,” is about the only thing in the story in which I can take any deep and abiding satisfaction, I entreat you that you liquidate anything else, even to the cat, but allow the title to stand. ‘I was horn in Bedding, Shasta County, California, July 22, 1905. Whatever formal education I have had was thrust upon me in the public schools of Altoona, Wisconsin. Since 1922 I have been at large, usually managing to scratch up a living in one wayoranother. Just now I am a carpenter. I am not a very good carpenter.’

A graduate of Rugby and Balliol, George Allen (p. 443) is a young Englishman who first came to this country as the recipient of the Commonwealth Fellowship. He spent one year at Western Reserve and a second at Harvard, then went home to a country preparing itself for war.

An American diplomat par excellence. W. R. Castle (p. 445) has served the State Department with distinction for fourteen years. He was chief of the Division of Western Europe Affairs from 1921 to 1927, Ambassador to Japan during the period of the Naval Arms Conference in 1930, and Undersecretary of State from 1931 to 1933.

It takes a Southerner, David L. Cohn (p. 453), to catch the full flavor and native exuberance of that capital of the New South, Dallas, Texas. Southern papers from Dallas to Richmond please copy.

Hazel Hendricks (p. 461) was born on a cattle ranch and educated in Colorado and California. After college she married, went through the World War, taught rural school, and then came to New York for postgraduate work in psychiatry. For three years she served as State Director of Mental Hygiene in Colorado. Thereafter she was appointed to her present position as Field Consultant to the United States Children’s Bureau.

A New Yorker by birth, Donald Moffat (p. 469) was sent to a New England boarding school and there came to know the loneliness, the special set of problems, and the consoling friendships which await every ‘new’ boy. His paper will be read with particular relish by those who know Middlesex.

How will the Negro vote affect the coming election? In 1932 and again in 1936 the shift of the Negro vote in the North and the Border States from traditional Republican to strongly Democratic presented a phenomenon without parallel in American politics. Will it happen again, or has there been a reaction? Lawrence Sullivan (p.477). one of the ablest correspondents in Washington, has the answer.

The author of three novels and a collection of short stories, John Collier (p. 485) was born in England in 1901. His life, he tells us, ‘has been mainly devoted to country pursuits and pleasures.’ He cares for nothing but old houses and good land, a little shooting, a great deal of gardening, flower shows, fireworks, and the perfection of the simplest forms of good food.

In the poem she has dedicated to France, Florence Converse (p. 488) expresses the hope which most Americans have kept in their hearts as they witnessed the prostration of that country.

Barbara Rex (p. 489) is a Philadelphia parent who believes in asking for what she wants. Music means much to her and her family, and she wished it to mean more to those who are schooling her children. So she began her crusade. Mrs. Rex has taken up the violin after a lapse of fifteen years. Her husband plays the piano and her son the cello. Together they form an enthusiastic trio — and the neighbors don’t object!

At a time when our position in the Pacific is none too secure, no one can afford to pigeonhole the plea Ray Lyman Wilbur (p. 494) makes lor tile statehood of Hawaii. President of Leland Stanford University and Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Hoover, Mr. Wilbur has taken a particular interest in race relations on the Pacific Coast and in our territories. The issue which he clarifies for the Atlantic will be decided in a plebiscite on November 5.

Canadian born and bred, Douglas Bush (p. 498) is Professor of English at Harvard, and a scholar who would like to see a higher degree of accuracy in the popularizers of our day.

The courage to be a free lance, and the talent to live by his pen, were possessed in full by Richard Aldington (p. 509). Poet and novelist, he was born in England and traveled the world to see. In his autobiography he tells of that decision which every writer must make for himself — the decision to put aside lucrative (but non-literary) employment in favor of ‘nearly every thing that has made life valuable — freedom of living, thinking, and utterance; the exercise of a natural aptitude and talent; disinterested friendship, passionate love, travel, the arts, idleness.’

The judging of the essays on ’Citizenship’ could not be completed in lime for publication in this issue. It is expected that the prize winner and a survey of the more important contenders will he printed in November.