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explain how this trap is avoided. It is very simple. I never indulge a matter-of-fact person with a sheer piece of imagination, however elementary. For example: our grocer, though honest, writes an illegible hand, and all his I clerks have been trained likewise to concentrate upon the figures in the right hand column of his slips to the utter neglect of the appearance or legibility of the items for which the figures stand. I discovered once that an article of our extremely simple diet that happened to end in a 'y' was charged to us and added to our account as if the 'y' had changed into a '6' in the figure column, and this winning indifference had cost me six dollars.

So I said we would have to cut from our diet all foods ending in 'y' and we must try to avoid any that might be written with a terminal flourish. The response I got was genuine but disappointing. It was: 'What foods end in y?'

JUNK

THERE was junk on my lot. How it sucks into empty spaces! Despite my glaring and inhospitable sign, a rusty bed spring arrived between dark and dawn. A heap of rubbish gathered around the nucleus. I saw nothing arrive, but the heap grew silently, like a crystal. Bottles, palm leaves, and old water tanks added themselves to the ensemble and gave it character. An automobile body topped the mass: it was without seats, without leather, without hardware. It had been efficiently and ultimately plundered and abandoned.

Neighbors complained. I telephoned to the City, to the County, to the Garbage Commission. My junk heap was an outlaw; no government would recognize it. I inquired of friends. There was a public dump, I learned vaguely, somewhere by the Bay.

Fortunately I had a conveyance: a trailer. I loaded the trash and drove over crooked, cobbled streets, the junk swaying and clashing behind me. It was a district of smokes and smells, foundries, can factories, glassworks, machine shops. Spur tracks cut across the streets, and dusty dumpy switch engines pushed freight cars by twos and threes.

I had wondered about junk, and now I began to see. All these things I was carrying away had once come out of a factory, new, bright, and shiny; had been carefully shipped and sold and paid for. It was alarming. How much junk there must be! Here were a half-million people, consecrated to junk. Some sweated, in grimy overalls, to make it. Some nailed it up in boxes, adding to its bulk. Some drove locomotives, pushcarts, lorries, drays, or three-wheeled motorcycles to separate it, for the geometry of space would otherwise choke off its production at the factories. Then there were the sailors, trainmen, and vegetable-peddlers who brought it in from outside. And all of these people, every one of them, help to consume it. Consume? What a foolish word! What of the conservation of energy? Are we not taught that nothing can be created, and nothing destroyed? Soon or late, all these things become junk, and must be laboriously carried away.

True, there are exceptions. There are cigars, for instance, that practically take care of themselves. And there are gasoline and flash-light powders. But on the other hand, there are yeast, and dried apples

The evening grew dark; one-armed men at the railroad crossings changed their discs of tin for red and green lanterns. The gas works spouted fire. An admirable commodity, gas. I had lost my way.

How wide a district this was, how

many factories! And this process had been going on for fifty years. Even before that, Yankee traders had come in with shiploads of 'notions,' junk these many years. Where did it go to? Why was the city not buried in it, with only here and there a clock tower or an electric sign looming up out of chaos?

Before me was a high wagon with tubs behind. I slowed to the pace of the horses and followed. I looked over my shoulder, and behind was another, and another. I was in a procession, a slow-moving, serious, silent procession, with a mighty purpose, a pilgrimage to an economic sacrament.

The city glowed dirty red in the sky behind. Before me was darkness, punctured by an occasional street-lamp. Far ahead, a wagon turned, and the next and the next followed.

Irregular cluttered hills lined this side road. They were the great terminal moraine that the city pushes ahead of itself. Fires burned and smoldered, and heavy smoke hung in layers. Ragged men climbed slowly through the wreckage, heads bent attentively downward. Occasionally one stopped, picked something up, examined it, and dropped it. There were no quarrels over a prize. Who would quarrel where there is so much?

A hand was raised in front of me, a voice cried 'Stop!' and I stopped.

'You can't dump that here,' said the voice. Take it away.'

'But the policeman told me

"That's all right, he is the policeman; what he tells you is his business. I am Master of the Dump. Get out.'

The man spoke as one having authority, and my heart sank. Were all men's hands against me? Was I to be turned away from every resting place, to wander the earth forever, with a wagonload of junk tied to my rear spring? I was awed at the man's power, his withering scorn of policemen. He transcended

Government. He was economic. Policemen might quit, there would be a few murders until we adjusted ourselves, but no serious derangement. Even a mayor might go on a year's vacation. But the Master of the Dump

let him once lift his hand against the scavengers, and disease and death would stalk into the city overnight.

A desperate, bold thought prompted me. I had heard of wickedness in high places. Aldermen were unprincipled, even judges took bribes, and a Master of the Dump?

'For fifty cents, now

His manner instantly changed. 'Anywhere,' he suggested graciously. "Wait - don't unhitch that trailer. Come around here; you can turn and save you the trouble. Don't unload it, I'll attend to that. One minute!'

He shouted. A bearded gnome arose as from the earth and came to help. The two lifted off the bed spring, the water tanks, the bottles, carefully scrutinizing each article as they set it down. Last came the automobile body. The bearded man set it down gently and stroked the rotten upholstery with affection. I paid the fee and was forgotten. I contemplated the empty trailer with a deep sense of relief.

On a low mound, silhouetted against the dull red of the fires, stood the two men, one short, grave, and bearded, the other ragged, powerful, and austere. They were bent over the old automobile body.

'Nice little buggy, nice little buggy,' said the bearded man lovingly.

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THE CONTRIBUTORS' COLUMN

It was in 1864 that Joseph Pulitzer, an eighteen-year-old Hungarian, ‘jumped ship' in Boston Harbor and swam ashore to a new world. After serving in the Federal Cavalry until the end of the Civil War, Mr. Pulitzer became a reporter on the Westliche Post of St. Louis. With hardihood he made his own way as a journalist, lawyer, and politician. In 1878 he bought the St. Louis Dispatch and united it with the Evening Post as the Post-Dispatch. In 1883 he bought the New York World which, under his direction, rose to prominent popularity. In 1887 his health was irrevocably broken by over-work. He died in 1911. Mr. Pulitzer was particularly successful in the selection and the loyalty of his assistants. With him for fifteen years served Don C. Seitz, as Business Manager of the World an office which Mr. Seitz has maintained since his old Editor's death. For more than a decade, Mr. Seitz has been gathering material for the biography of Mr. Pulitzer from which this portrait is taken. ¶In this and his other recent paper, 'London -Forty Years Later,' A. Edward Newton proves himself the most brightly comparisoned of American travelers. He has always been the most brightly caparisoned.

***

William L. Chenery, until recently editor of the New York Telegram-Mail, will quell many diatribes with his fair-minded consideration of Tammany. Mr. Chenery wrote us:

I have long believed that journalism — in New York, at any rate would be much sounder if editors or, better, owners, understood why it is. Tammany has never been divorced from the affection of the people. Stuart P. Sherman is enjoying Continental relaxation before assuming his critical habit on the New York Herald Tribune. We know of no friendship that has achieved so happy an expression as that of Cornelia and Professor Sherman. A volume of their conversations - many of

which have never been overheard in the Atlantic are to be published in October by the Atlantic Monthly Press under the title My dear Cornelia. That a spectre and a bad joke have been ridiculed to death by such a humorously wise Philosopher will be a comfort to every mother of married children. William Sidney Rossiter, president of the Rumford Press at Concord, New, Hampshire, and President of the American Statistical Association, knows a man who lost an umbrella. Alice Brown, long an occasional contributor of ours, is an accomplished novelist, essayist, poet, and playwright. ¶To fathers who pay bills and their college sons who run them up, a graduate of '90 speaks in mellow appreciation.

***

With his accustomed understanding, Gamaliel Bradford has interested himself in a mild-mannered poet who had rather be damned than happy. We asked Elizabeth de Burgh to tell us something about her literary experiences. She replied: -

We were a nurseryful of scribblers, spurred on to constant effort by the example of an uncle who was to us, incomprehensibly — actually asked by grave and reverend editors for articles on Burmese life and character, and of a literary nursemaid- a far more dazzling personality - who had once received half-a-crown from Tit-Bits for an anecdote. With some of us the habit has stuck, that is all.

Archibald MacLeish, poet of Boston and Paris, has deliciously described a tea party somewhat different in spirits from the only other tea party that matters. Ludwig Stein, distinguished German professor, philosopher, and publicist, is an associate editor of the Ullstein papers, whose foremost journal is the Vossische Zeitung. ¶Reading A. Cecil Edwards's account of Omar Khayyam's tomb many will envy the stimulating simplicity of the poet's life.

A veteran, Willard Cooper, was formerly a reporter for the Springfield Daily News. On his return from overseas, he joined the executive staff of the American Legion and was one of its publicity experts in the battle of the Bonus. William Henry Chamberlin has been in Russia for the last two years as Moscow correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor. Another traveler, Ralston Hayden, gathered the material for his article during eighteen months' residence and journeying in the Orient as exchange professor of political science in the University of the Philippines. Many important letters, well deserving print, have come to us concerning Dr. Inman's paper, but we have thought best to continue the discussion of our relations with Latin America in articles published in the magazine itself. This month the Honorable Sumner Welles, Commissioner to the Dominican Republic, a man of great experience in Latin-American affairs, writes in sharp disagreement with Dr. Inman's contribution. It is mere justice to add that Dr. Inman's purpose was far other than that ascribed to the demagogue in Mr. Hughes's Amherst speech.

***

A CORRECTION

IN Dr. Samuel Guy Inman's muchdiscussed paper, 'Imperialistic America,' the statement is made that 'the United Fruit Company and other American financial interests have secured control of the railroads, which now become a part of the International Railways of Central America

the largest American-owned railway enterprise outside of the United States.'

The authority for this statement was a detailed article in the New York Times for March 26 last. We are now informed that the United Fruit Company owns no shares or securities in this railroad, nor has a lien upon it in any way whatsoever. We are glad, therefore, to make this correction, and since Dr. Inman's specifications were made carefully and after consideration, to add in response to individual inquiries that, in his subsequent allusion to 'banana interests' in Costa Rica, no reference to the United Fruit Company was made or intended.

It is interesting to note that the fathers of poets are the same the world over. POONA, INDIA.

DEAR ATLANTIC,

Sir Bezenji Mehta of Nagpur, a very old friend of our family, seems to be a subscriber to the Atlantic. He happens to be in Poona for the present and sent us a copy of the May number, which contains my 'A Pianoforte Recital' and that original little notice of yours in which you describe me as an 'East Indian' - and why not? Sir Bezenji sent the Atlantic to my father pointing out my 'arrival' as an event of family interest

almost. It was as if he regarded me as fulfilling the traditions of our family as writers, albeit, so far, in our own language, Gujerati. My father who has hitherto studiously avoided giving me encouragement, moral or practical, in my various literary experiments, was that evening actually moved to read and criticize the poem in our little family public! So you see what the Atlantic can do for a struggling aspirant at this distance overseas! FREDOON KABRAJI.

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I have tried every prescribed 'source of joy' ever printed on paper or shouted from a platform only to find that joy consists in such a number of things. I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings if we could only find the things.

Because 'the victim's' particular hunger-need was filled by giving out to others in the environment in which she happened to live, does not signify that Priscilla Dalton could find the same source of joy in the New England village in which she lives. She is in the wrong environment and can no more find a source of joy there than a sea gull can find a source of joy in a jungle.

I do not believe the Bible teaches that the Christian religion is in itself the source of joy. I believe the Bible teaches that the Christian religion is the source of wisdom that will, if understood, bring conditions that produce joy. Does it not teach us to seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added, for the Father knoweth we have need of all these things? Of all these things' none is so important as a knowledge of one's individual hunger-need.

The only thing to do with unhappiness is to solve it, each for himself. The source of Wisdom guides us into but does not give us joy. If Priscilla Dalton would let her Source of Wisdom lead her to Greenwich Village I'll wager her a romp in the snow, and no questions asked, she 'd

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Another wood-alcohol tragedy! S's letter gave this reader the sensation that either he or S had been 'taking something.' One checked the first impulse of resorting to the simple and easy explanation — 'none so blind'- Sober second thought suggested the caution that one should be extremely careful in the selection of his private stock for the five-foot shelf; for 'none so blind' as those who, wittingly or otherwise, absorb an overdose of wood-alcohol. Obviously S's humor is moist, but his wit is not very dry if he considers 'Cornelia and Dionysus' one of the 'most subtle and convincing articles against prohibition'!

Mr. Sherman set such a full table or shall I say such a line of mixed drinks? — with arguments for every taste, wet and dry, and S so enjoyed the arguments for drink, imbibed them so freely, that he had no taste for the cold-water arguments which flowed even more freely. So one may be pardoned for setting these points by themselves:

First: The necessity which put through the Volstead Act was the war the necessity of maximum production . . . the necessity of a workman sober seven days in the week.

Second: The war-necessity having passed, the release of the workmen from ruinous drinkexpenditure has given opportunity for the creation and gratification of other tastes-homebuilding, autos, baby bonds, victrolas, education, which men and their wives are not ready lightly to surrender, in order to return to a state of 'personal liberty.'

cars...

Third: - Drinking and automobiling don't go together. We have fifteen million cars . . one out of every six or seven 'souls' drives a car, is an engineer on the highway. In one city we killed some seven hundred people last year with we are all private engineers nowadays and must submit to the same regulations as governed long since engineers on the railways. And the argument is pointed by the dramatic illustration of the mother and son run down at that very moment by the intoxicated son of the cynical worshiper of Dionysus.

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To what other conclusion could such arguments lead an intelligent man than advocacy of the strictest possible enforcement of the prohibitory law? If S cannot see the point he may

first prize awarded to Paul Green.'

DEAR ATLANTIC,

ALBANY, GA.

I do not know Paul Green as an author, but I want to congratulate you on the publication of a 'true story.' It is seldom that one reads a story of folk-life that rings as true as the 'Devil's Instrument.' I happen to be rather familiar with the author's type of characters and setting, and I find his accuracies in the use of dialect, and in the portrayal of the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of this phase of life to be unusual; and what is still more remarkable is that such events as he describes actually occur now, and not so far from the so-called civilized haunts of men, as some of your readers might suppose.

I have lived in the Georgia mountains and been on friendly terms with many of our mountaineers, and I am sure that the incidents of the 'Devil's Instrument' have happened there many times. I may never have witnessed an actual replica of the 'meetin" scene, but I have seen occurrences that were strongly tinged with the fervor and excitement that he describes. I shall never forget at a revival meeting in a small mountain town seeing a woman mount a bench, wave her arms, and scream at the top of her voice, 'Hurrah for Jesus! I'm saved!'

The dialect too of the story gives Mr. Green away. Some of the expressions that he uses I have never seen before in print. Mr. Green was either formally one of them, or he has sneaked in and played a part at it -no casual observer could get such a slant.

It is a good story, and tells of a phase of American life which is becoming more and more SUSAN FORT REDFEARN.

rare.

From one who knew to 'A Boy Who Went Whaling.'

DEAR ATLANTIC,

The hero of those adventures, Len Sanford, was known to me as a quiet, dignified, elderly man, and the story was told me by his brother a few months after his death.

Mr. Hawes's article left the boy swinging by his arms from the topmost branches of a lofty dead pine-tree, and directly under the eagle's

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