_Special to our Readers_
Those of you who have not received your REVIEWS on time will probably now
find a double interest in the article in the last number, on _Our
Government Subvention to Literature_. In conveying periodicals so cheaply,
not only is Uncle Sam engaged in a bad job, but he is doing it cheaply,
and consequently badly, and he has more of it than he can well handle. _He
is at length carrying them as freight_, and most of you know what that
means. We are receiving complaints of delay on all sides, and an
appreciable part of the unwelcome subvention Uncle Sam is giving us, goes
in sending duplicates of lost copies. We don't acknowledge any obligation,
legal or moral, to do this; but we love our subscribers--more or less
disinterestedly--and try to do them all the kinds of good we can. Partly
to enable us to do that, as long as the subvention is given, we follow the
example of the excellent Pooh Bah, and put our pride (and the subvention)
into our pockets. Even if we did not love our subscribers so, we should
have to do the pocketing all the same, because our competitors do.
Competitors are always a very shameless sort of people.
We wish, however, that Uncle Sam would keep his subvention in his own
pocket, and so lead to a higher plane all competitors in the magazine
business, including some of those who don't want to rise to a higher
plane. The best of such a proceeding on his part would be that he would
also, through the complicated influences described in the article referred
to encourage up to a higher plane those who write for popular magazines.
Those who write for THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW are, of course, on the highest
possible plane already. This remark is made solely for the benefit of
readers taking up the REVIEW for the first time. To others it is
superfluous, and if there is anything we try to avoid, it is, as we have
so many times to tell volunteer contributors, superfluities. Even
popularity we do not try to avoid, but--!
The foregoing paragraph was written with little thought of what was coming
to be added to it. You and we have something to be proud of. Our REVIEW
has been doing its part in saving all Europe from the waste of hundreds of
millions of money, and the literatures of all Europe from a degradation
like that through which our own is passing. Read the following letter:
Dear Mr. [Editor]:
I have already sent a line through ---- thanking you for the copy
of THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW, which you were good enough to send me,
but I should like to repeat my thanks to you again direct, and at
the same time, tell you how the REVIEW has been of service to
European publishers.
The article in the last number entitled _Our Government Subvention
to Literature_ naturally interested me very much from a personal
point of view, but the statistics you give showing the effect of
second class matter rate on book sales was very valuable to me as
the representative of the English Publishers on the Executive
Committee of the International Publishers Congress.
At the Congress held at Budapest last June, a resolution was
adopted instructing the Congress to press for a reduced rate of
postage on periodicals, and an international stamp. The steps to
be taken in order to carry out this resolution were discussed at
the meeting of the Committee last week held at Leipzig, when I
produced the copy of your article, and gave the Committee a
summary of the statistics. The result was the unanimous decision
to take no further steps in the matter.
I tremble to think of what might have happened if I had not had
your article before me, for the point of view which you have put
forward was one that had not occurred to anyone else connected
with the Congress, and if the resolution had not been cut out at
this last meeting of the Executive Committee, it would have gone
before the Postal Conference which is to be held in Madrid this
autumn, backed by practically every European country.
I feel we all owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing out the
facts so clearly, and believe that you will like to know what has
taken place.
While we are not slow to take all the credit that our supporters and
ourselves are entitled to in this matter, we should be very slow tacitly
to accept the lion's share of it, which is due to Colonel C.W. Burrows of
Cleveland, who supplied all of the facts and nearly all of the expression
of the article in question, and who has for years, lately as President of
the One Cent Letter Postage League, been devoting himself with unsparing
energy and self-sacrifice to stopping the waste of money and capacity that
the mistaken outbreak of paternalism we are discussing has brought upon
the country.
Demos is a good fellow--when he behaves himself, and that generally means
when he is not abused or flattered; but how supremely ridiculous, not to
say destructive, he is when he gets to masquerading in the robes of the
scholar or the judge; and how criminal is the demagogue who seeks personal
aggrandisement by dangling those robes before him.
* * * * *
Our modesty has been so anesthetized by the preceding letter, that it
permits us to show you, in strict confidence of course, a paragraph from
another. A new subscriber, apparently going it blind on the recommendation
of a friend, writes:
"I am told it is the best gentleman's magazine in the United
States."
Now, somehow, "gentleman" is a word that we are very chary of using. We
couldn't put that remark on an advertising page, but perhaps there is no
inconsistency in putting it here, and confessing that we like it--and that
we even suspect that we have always had a subconscious idea that it was
just what we were after--that it includes, or ought to include, about
everything that we are trying to accomplish. In any interpretation, it is
certainly an encouragement to keep pegging away.
* * * * *
Most of our readers probably remember a letter on pp. 432-3 of the
_Casserole_ of the April-June number, from an individual who thought we
were trying to humbug the wage-receiving world into a false and dangerous
contentment with existing conditions. This inference was probably drawn
from our insistent promulgation of the belief that a man's fortune depends
more upon himself than upon his conditions.
As a contrast to that remarkable letter, it is a great pleasure to call
attention to the following still more remarkable one. It is from a
printer--not one in our employ.
I wish to congratulate you on the excellence of the REVIEW, both
from a literary and mechanical standpoint. As a "worker," "a
member of the Union," it might be inferred that I endorse the
views of the critics given on page 432 of the second number. Not
so. It is such views as his that harm the unthinking--those who
think capital is the emblem of wickedness.
I believe that individual merit and worth are the only things
worth while. The workman who puts his best efforts into his labor,
and takes a personal pride in making his productions as nearly
perfect as possible, will be recognized, and his individual worth
to his employer will raise him above the "common level." All this
rot about a "ruling oligarchy" "grinding down the poorer class" is
dangerous. The man who has no ambition above ditch digging, and
who endeavors to throw out as little dirt in a day as he possibly
can, will always be one of "the submerged." It lies with each
one--outside of unavoidable physical or mental
infirmities--whether he shall rise or sink.
Again I must congratulate you on the stand you are taking in THE
UNPOPULAR REVIEW. I "take" and read twenty to twenty-five
magazines and for over forty years have been trying to educate
myself to a right way of thinking, and the result is I believe as
above briefly outlined.
Especially good is _The Greeks on Religion and Morals_, also _The
Soul of Capitalism, Trust-Busting as a National Pastime_, and _Our
Government Subvention to Literature_.
* * * * *
Possibly some of you are disappointed at not finding this number as full
as the daily papers of wisdom on War and the Mexican situation. In one
sense we are disappointed ourselves: for we had made arrangements for at
least one article of that general nature from one of our best qualified
contributors; but when it came time to write it (speaking by the
calendar), he showed the excellence of his qualifications by saying that,
considering the situation and the function of this REVIEW, it was _not_
time--that the situation had not yet become mature enough or broad enough
for any general conclusions--for any treatment beyond that already well
given by the newspapers and other organs of frequent publication, and that
they were giving all the details called for. We will wait, then, and try
to philosophize when the time comes.
We find, however, that with little deliberate intention on our part, this
number has turned out "seasonable" in another sense, and hope you will
find it so. Witness the articles on _Chautauqua_, and _Railway Junctions_,
and _Tips_ (entitled _A Stubborn Relic of Feudalism_) and several others.
_Philosophy in Fly Time_
In the old days, before the destruction of the white pines removed the
chief source of American inventiveness--the universal habit of
whittling--every boy had a jackknife, and also had boxes, sometimes of
wood, sometimes of writing paper, in which he kept flies. Now he has
neither flies nor jackknife.
Then, when he wanted a fly, nine times out of ten he could catch one with
a sweep of the hand. That was before the fly was charged with an amount of
bad deeds, if they really were as bad as represented, which would have
destroyed the human race long before the plagues of Egypt; or if not
before the fly plague, would have caused that plague to leave no Egyptians
alive to enjoy the later ones. With these new opinions of the fly, began a
crusade against him; and now the boys can't have any more fun with
him--that is, only good boys can--the kind that catch him with illusive
traps, for a cent a hundred. The other kind of boys may occasionally be
sports enough to hunt him with the swatter; but it's pretty poor hunting:
for the game is so shy that generally before you get within reach of him,
he is off: so swatting him is difficult, while catching him by hand, as we
boys used to, is virtually impossible.
Now for some questions profound enough to befit our pages. (I) Have only a
select group of very alert and quick flies survived? or (II) Have the
flies told each other that that big clumsy brute with only two legs to
walk on, and two aborted ones which do all sorts of foolish things--the
brute with only one lens to an eye (though he sometimes puts a glass one
over it) and a pitifully aborted proboscis--the brute that has no wings,
and can't get ahead more than about once his own length in a second--that
this clumsy brute had at last got so jealous of the six legs,
hundred-lensed eyes, proboscis, wings and speed of the fly, that he had
started a new crusade against him, and must be specially avoided?
Then, after it is ascertained whether the timidity of the flies is because
this story has been passed around among them, or only because men have
already killed off all but the specially quick and timid ones; we hope our
investigators may find an answer to the farther question: (III) How, if a
tenth of what some folks say against flies is true, the human race has so
long survived?
To avoid misapprehension, it should be added that despite the
availability, in our boyhood, of flies as playmates, we don't like 'em,
especially when they light on our hands to help us write articles for this
REVIEW.
_Setting Bounds to Laughter_
That there is even a measure of personal liberty on the earth, is one of
our most pointed proofs that the universe is governed by design. For
liberty is loved neither by the many nor by the few; its defense has
always been unpopular in the extreme, and can be manfully undertaken only
in an age of moral heroism. The present is no heroic age, and hence our
personal rights fall one by one, without defense, and apparently without
regret. The losses thus incurred must be left to future historians to
weigh and to lament. There is, however, one of our natural rights, now
cruelly beset by its enemies, that is too precious to surrender to the
threnodies of the future historians. This is the right to laugh.
It is scarcely a quarter of a century since the first appearance of
organized efforts to curb the spirit of laughter. All good men and women
were hectored into believing that one should weep, not laugh, over the
absurdities of men in their cups. Next, we were warned that it is unseemly
and unChristian to laugh at a fellow-man's discomfiture--an awkward social
situation, a sermon or a political oration wrecked by stage fright, or a
poem spoilt by a printer's stupidity. Under shelter of the dogma that to
laugh at the ridiculous is unlawful, there have recently grown into vigor
multitudinous anti-laughter alliances, racial, national and professional.
Not many years ago a censorship of Irish jokes was established, and this
was soon followed by an index expurgatorious of Teutonic jokes. Our
colored fellow citizens promptly advanced the claim that jokes at the
expense of their race are "in bad taste"; and country life enthusiasts
solemnly affirmed that the rural and suburban jokes are nothing short of
national disasters. A recent press report informs us that the suffragette
joke has been excluded from the vaudeville circuits throughout the
country. And the movement grows apace. Domestic servants, stenographers,
politicians, college professors, and clergymen are organizing to establish
the right of being ridiculous without exciting laughter.
But what does it all matter? What is laughter but an old-fashioned aid to
digestion, more or less discredited by current medical authority? It is
time we learned that laughter has a social significance: it is the first
stage in the process of understanding one's fellow man. Professor Bergson
to the contrary notwithstanding, you can not laugh with your intellect
alone. An essential element of your laughter is sympathy. You can not
laugh at an idiot, nor at a superman. You can not laugh at a Hindoo or a
Korean; you can hardly force a smile to your lips over the conduct of a
Bulgar, a Serb, or a Slovak. You are beginning to find something comic in
the Italian, because you are beginning to know him. And all the world
laughs at the Irishman, because all the world knows him and loves him.
When Benjamin Franklin walked down the streets of Philadelphia, carrying a
book under his arm, and munching a crust of bread, just one person
observed him, a rosy maiden, who laughed merrily at him. As our old school
readers narrated, with naïve surprise, this maiden was destined to become
Franklin's faithful wife. And yet psychology should have led us to expect
such a result. The stupidest small boy making faces or turning somersaults
before the eyes of his pig-tailed inamorata, evidences his appreciation of
the sentimental value of the ridiculous. When did we first grant some
small corner in our hearts to the Chinese? It was when we were introduced
to Bret Harte's gambler:
For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
The natural history of the racial or professional joke is easily written.
At the outset it is crude and cruel, wholly at the expense of the group
represented. In time the world wearies of an unequal contest, and we have
a new order of jokes, in which the intended victim acquits himself well.
This, too, gives way to a higher order, in which race, nationality or
profession is employed merely as a cloak for common humanity. The
successive stages mark the progress in assimilation, induced, in large
measure, by laughter. There is no other social force so potent in creating
mutual understanding and practical fraternity of spirit; in establishing
the essential unity of mankind underneath its phenomenal diversity.
Setting bounds to laughter: why, this is to indenture the angel of charity
to the father of lies and the lord of hate.
_A Post Graduate School for Academic Donors_
At a recent meeting of an University Montessori Club the case of donors to
colleges and universities was reported on by a special committee. The
majority report drew a pretty heavy indictment. It was shown that the
givers to colleges and universities seldom considered the real needs of
their beneficiaries. Donors liked to give expensive buildings without
endowment for upkeep, liked to give vast athletic fields, rejoiced in
stadiums, affected memorial statuary and stained glass windows, dabbled in
landscape gardening, but seldom were known either to give anything
unconditionally or, specifically, to destine a gift for such uninspiring
needs as more books or professors' pay. The result of giving without first
considering the needs of the benefited college or university, was that
every gift made the beneficiary more lopsided. Certain universities were
almost capsized by their incidental architecture. Others were subsidizing
graduate students to whom the conditions of successful research were
denied. Still others were calling great specialists to the teaching force
without providing the apparatus for the pursuit of these specialties.
Others preferred to offer financial aid to students who were poor--in
every sense. Donors apparently without exception had single-track minds.
They saw plainly enough what they wanted to give, but never took the pains
to see the donation in its relation to the institution as a whole. The
majority report, which was drawn by our famous Latinist, Professor
Claudius Senex, concluded with the despairing note _Timeo Danaos et dona
ferentes_. The minority report was delivered orally by young Simpson Smith
of the department of banking and finance. He "allowed" that everything
alleged by the majority report was true, but saw no use in dwelling on
such truths, since donors always had done and always would do just as they
darned pleased.
The Club took a more hopeful view of the case, and it was voted that our
Club should resolve itself into the trustees and faculty of a Post
Graduate School for Academic Donors. Our committee recommended that we
qualify our advanced students by conferring the lower degree of Heedless
Donor (H.D.) every year upon all givers who can be shown to have given at
random. No method of instruction seemed more appropriate than the seminar
plan of practical exercises based on concrete instances. The first
laboratory experiment was performed in the presence of a Seminar of seven
H.D.'s. in a specially called meeting of married professors attired only
in bath gowns borrowed from the crews and base ball teams. Into this
assembly the class of H.D.'s was suddenly introduced. They naturally
inquired into the meaning of the spectacle, and were informed that in no
case did the mere salary of these professors enable them to wear clothes
at all. "But you do usually wear clothes?" inquired a student of a
favorite professor. "How do you get them?" "By University extension
lecturing at ten dollars a lecture" was the quiet answer. Another
professor explained that he got his clothes by tutoring dull students,
another by book reviewing. One somewhat shamefacedly said the clothes came
from his wife's money. One declined to answer, and, as a matter of fact,
his clothes are habitually first worn by a more fortunate elder brother.
On the whole the results of our first seminary exercise were satisfactory.
One student immediately drew a considerable check for the salary fund,
another, who had been planning to give a hockey rink, said he would think
things over. Still a third deposited forty pairs of slightly worn trousers
with the university treasurer, "for whom it might concern." Only one
accepted the demonstration contentedly. He admitted that low pay and extra
work were hard on the Professors, but he also felt that these outside
activities advertised the university and were good business. Of course you
wore out some professors in the process, but you could always get others.
Our second seminary exercise was of a less spectacular sort. The post
graduate donors were each provided with a bibliography. This in every
instance contained the titles of books that a particular professor or
graduate student in the university would need to consult for his studies
of the ensuing week. It was briefly explained by Professor Senex that
original research could not be successfully accomplished without reference
to all the original sources and to the writings of other scholars. The
bibliographies ran from ten titles or so to nearly a hundred, according to
the nature of the particular research involved. The exercise consisted in
going to the university library and matching these titles of desiderata
with the books actually in the catalogue. After varying intervals, the
post graduate donors returned with their report. Nobody had found more
than half the books sought for: many had found less.
The effect of this demonstration was interesting. The donor who had tended
towards the hockey rink, instead transferred his $100,000 to the book
purchase fund. He said he guessed the old place needed real books more
than it needed artificial ice. Others followed his example according to
their ability.
The student who was satisfied with our bath robe faculty meeting, came
back from the library equally pleased. He had not compared his
bibliography with the catalogue, but a brief general inspection had
convinced him that there were already more books in the library than
anybody could read. His intention held firm to give his Alma Mater a tower
higher than any university tower on record and containing a chime of bells
that periodically played the college song. The tower was naturally to bear
his name, which was also his dear mother's.
_A Suggestion Regarding Vacations_
Why wouldn't it be well for the country colleges to shorten their summer
vacations, and lengthen their winter ones? Then urban students would not,
for so long a period in summer, be put to their trumps to find out what to
do with themselves; and, what is more important, in winter both faculty
and students would have increased opportunity for metropolitan experience.
In the summer vacations, the cities are empty of music, drama, and most
else of what makes them distinctively worth while. Intellectually, the
country needs the city at least as much as, morally, the city needs the
country.
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