New York City Hotel Wentworth

59 West 46th St., New York City

The hotel you have been looking for which offers rest, comfortable appointments, thoughtful cuisine. In the heart of theatre and shopping center, just off Fifth Ave. Moderate. Further details, rates, booklets, direct, or Outlook Travel Bureau.

Hotel Judson 53 Washington Sq.,

New York City Residential hotel of highest type, combining the facilities of hotel life with the comforts of an ideal home. American plan $4 per day and up. European plan $1.50 per day and up.

SAMUEL NAYLOR, Manager.

HOTEL BRISTOL

129-135 W. 48th St., N.Y.

ROOMS WITH BATH
Single $3--84--$5
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New York

Hotel LENOX, North St., west of Delaware

Ave., Buffalo, N. Y, Superior accommodations; famous for good food. Write direct or Outlook's Bureau for rates, details, bookings.

North Carolina ASHEVILLE, N. C. Pleasant lodging with

every convenience at moderate prices in well-appointed home, Hotwater heat, open fireplaces, running water. Mrs. GUYTON, 36 College Park Place.

Melrose Lodge Tron, N. C., beautifully

situated, offers real comfort, excellent food. Capt. T. D. JERVEY. Details, rates, direct or Outlook Travel Bureau.

South Carolina SUNNYSIDE 1518 Fair Camden, S. c. Comfortable home, steain heated. Pleasant rooms with or without bath. Golf, polo, tennis. Persons with pulmonary trouble not accepted. Write for rates. Mrs. G. H. Lenoir, Proprietor.

A

N honest speeder had just hit a dog and had returned to settle the damages. He looked at the dog a moment and addressed the man with the gun: "Looks as if I'd killed your dog." "Certainly looks that way." "Very valuable dog?"

"Not very."

"Will five dollars be enough?" "Well, I guess so,” accepting the bill. "Sorry to have broken up your hunt." "Oh, I wasn't going hunting-jest going out in the woods to shoot the dog."

In the past movie studios have used salt to attain snow effects in pictures. Through experimentation it has now been proved that crushed marble brings about a more realistic touch.

"I represent a society for the suppression of profanity," said the stranger. "I want to take profanity entirely out of your life" Then Farmer Jones shouted indoors: "Hey, mother! Here's a man that wants to buy our car."

A tourist just back from England says that travel is very broadening to the a's.

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Social

By the Way

Chicago is now trying out rubber "Stop" signs on the streets where motor traffic is heavy. They will stand in only one way-upright-and if hit by a speedy driver will just bounce up again and go on signaling.

A Chinese laundry sign:

"We most cleanly and carefully wash our customers with cheap prices as under-Ladies $2.00 per hundred; gentlemen, $1.75 per hundred."

The New York tabloids' habit of putting everything in A B C form for their readers led one of them to make this news statement recently: "They have one son, a boy."

An official notice posted up in a New Hampshire village reads: "By order of the Selectmen: Cows grazing by the roadside or Riding Bicycles on the Sidewalks is Hereby Forbidden."

AMERICAN nursery governess, thoroughly experienced and refined. 8,165, Outlook. CHAUFFEUSE companion - attendant. Refined Protestant woman, 40, desires position. Experienced chauffeur. Strong, capable, handy with tools. Willing travel. References. 8,166, Outlook.

COMPANION-ASSISTANT in family, middle-aged American, knowledge of music, languages, experienced with young people. 8,167, Outlook.

COMPANION or COURIER. University man, traveled extensively, as companion to California, West Indies, anywhere, or would act as courier abroad. 8,144, Outlook.

LADY wishes responsible position in private home with servants. Household manager, companion, charge of children. Would go South. Excellent references. 8,152, Outlook.

REFINED American woman would accept position in motherless home, or be companion-housekeeper to elderly ladies, teacher, or business woman where careful management and personal interest is required. Good home, moderate salary. 8,169, Outlook. UNIVERSITY graduate desires position companion-secretary. French. Excellent references. 8,171, Outlook.

WIDOW desires position as housemother or companion to adult or child. Pleasant home desired. Salary no object. 8,162, Outlook.

YOUNG American couple with business training going to South Africa end of December will perform commissions. Best references. Box 205, 303 Fifth Avenue, New York. YOUNG college woman, nursery governess, near New York. Reference. 8,170, Outlook.

MISCELLANEOUS

PEDIGREED PERSIAN CAT (neuter). Wonderful pet. For particulars write 8,164, Outlook.

TO young women desiring training in the care of obstetrical patients a six months' Durses' aid course is offered by the Lying-In Hospital, 307 Second Ave., New York. Aide are provided with maintenance and given a monthly allowance of $10. For further particulars address Directress of Nurses.

"Tid-Bits" prints the story of the little girl who was put in an upper berth of a Pullman sleeping-car for the first time. She kept crying till her mother told her not to be afraid, because God would watch over her. "Mother, you there?" she cried. "Yes." "Father, you there?" "Yes." A fellow-passenger lost all patience at this point and shouted: "We're all here! Your father and mother and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. All here; now go to sleep." There was a pause; then, very softly, "Mamma!" "Well?" "Was that God?"

Though dust, your fingers still can push

The vision Splendid to a birth, Though now they work as grass in the hush

Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

There are, of course, passages of good verse throughout the book, but there is a woeful amount of false writing, imitation of various schools of poetry, some of which have not been reputable in themselves.

J

ESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE contributes her third anthology this year (Houghton Mifflin). The jacket claims for this volume that it includes the best work since 1919 of about one hundred and fifty outstanding poets, making, with its companion volumes, a permanent record of the choicest poetry written in our time. There are, to be sure, many true poems in Miss Rittenhouse's selection, but in numerous instances the authors have been noticed on their least happy utterances. Miss Rittenhouse includes a good many examples of the kind of verse which is written because the poets felt like writing something. Most of the well-known contemporary poets are included and a healthy score of names that claim scant eminence.

There are new books this season by John Hall Wheelock, Jean Starr Untermeyer, Lola Ridge, and a posthumous collection of Amy Lowell's last verses. From England we have a poetic play by John Masefield, an offering from Edith Sitwell, a book of rhyming by De la Mare, and a book by Humbert Wolfe. This is an assorted production affording change but no great sustenance.

Of the English books the volume by Wolfe, "Requiem," published in this country by Doran, seems the most momentous. It is an interweaving of verse in an integral design. There is height to thewring and there is passion in the expounding of the themes. The poems suffer somewhat from a use of overworked phraseology and a rather too academic substance, but there is a substance and an absence of the barrenness which makes much formal verse tiresome. One may read this book and not flag for want of support from the author himself. There is an elevation here and a body to the work.

Masefield's play is a version of "Tris

It is

tan and Isolt" (Macmillan). arresting for its simplicity and tranquil inspection of the characters of the legend. It is not inspired and makes few transmutations of lyric force.

The De la Mare book, "Stuff and Nonsense" (Henry Holt), will probably strike those who are always struck by De la Mare. It is assuredly one of his most casual publications.

Edith Sitwell persists in the attitude she has held since her appearance as a contriver of tenuous diversions. She eschews banality as assiduously as possible, but she repeats her tricks with deadly frequency. Her confections in this volume, "Rustic Elegies" (Knopf), are a succession of airy fabrications woven of unworked words and textile allusions. A sample of the quality may serve for comment:

.. hooded belles are seen

In the Phoebus and the Suttan pelerine,―

All kinds of watered silks those gray

sprays wet,

The gros de sidon, foulard pekinet. There is much of this.

John Hall Wheelock in "Bright Doom" (Scribners) valiantly speaks his unmodernized poems. Certainly he is sincere, his feeling is convincing, but his diction is uncompromisingly old-school. The effect of this is to smother his emotion and inspiration in the most unprepossessing kind of rhetoric. He clings to archaic contractions and ejaculations. He is undaunted by a metaphor's age. It is a curious instance in which the poet, paradoxically, is appealing and his manner of speech is unengaging. If he would consent to whittle away the atrophied surfaces of his poems, we should have the reward of a genuinely humanistic singer, moving in his sincere compassion.

Mrs. Untermeyer's book "Steep Ascent" (Macmillan) is simple and unpretentious. Lola Ridge submits "Red Flag" (the Viking Press). There seems to be no revelation in these books. They will be enjoyed by those who are faithful readers of these writers.

Amy Lowell's last collection is called "Ballads for Sale" (Houghton Mifflin). The work in this volume is very like Amy Lowell's previous verse. There has been, perforce, less selection in this book than in any of her others. Miss Lowell did a version of "The Splendor Falls from Castle Walls" for this collection.

TH

'HERE is, as it will be seen, not much exuberance in the reactions of this witness to the autumn poetry production. It is to be hoped that this is but a hiatus in the progress of modern poetry. There is no reason why before a year were out we might not hope for a book to rouse us and make us tolerant toward all those who have rightly or unwarrantably striven to sustain the promise of the poetic renascence. An essentially magic voice might be heard at any moment. Those who believe that the day is unsympathetic to poetry must be heedless of the fact that never has the audience to English speech been more attentive to its meanings, and so in need of real enchantment.

Cohasset, Massachusetts. HAVE read the article entitled "Fear" in your issue of November 9 and your editorial comment on the same.

I view with much apprehension the great number of murders in the United States and the small proportion of these that ever come to trial, and the small proportion of the latter that reach conviction and have the murderers executed or otherwise punished.

I also am aware that the law furnishes a great number of loopholes for the accused, and that our criminal law as a whole favors the criminal altogether too much.

The recent trial referred to in the article exemplifies these delays of the law in favor of the accused in an extreme degree. Every motion, exception, and petition for clemency was entertained in a serious

manner.

To one who followed the legal proceedings it is plain that all investigations and proceedings were for the purpose of ascertaining whether the accused persons were guilty of murder.

Following the slow and careful progress of the case through the courts, the laws of Massachusetts vested in the Governor a further opportunity to pass upon the case. Governor Fuller went into the matter thoroughly and conscientiously and appointed as co-workers a committee of men eminent for character and intelligence, one of whom was the President of Harvard University. The Governor and this committee by independent investigation all found the accused men guilty of murder. I never heard of a criminal case that received so careful and painstaking investigation, and I believe the whole proceedings were impartial. I do not believe the fact that the men were Anarchists was any element in the decision.

C

OLIVER H. HOWE (M.D.).

Columbus, Ohio. ONGRATULATIONS on your courage in publishing Miss Millay's "Fear."

I have read all possible stories of the trial of those "two men," and I suspect she is near the truth. I base this on years of experience as agent of the United States Department of Justice during the war, and acquaintance with criminals, and books like "You Can't Win" and "The 25th Man." The stick-up man is usually a trained operator of some experience. They work in "mobs" like a football team. I have been wounded by them in a bank robbery. Identification, even by a trained sleuth, is very uncertain. After a job they scatter and do not return, like these two men to the garage.

Further, during the war, I recall the race hatred shown in courts. Like that French trial, we tried, not the defendant, but opinions. I recall one "nut" of a preacher sent to Atlanta, where he died (leaving children poor, to suffer), not for any deeds done, but for opinions uttered and stubborn refusal to recant in court his disbelief of the "Belgian atrocity" story. ROBERT E. PFEIFFER.

See Professor Jastrow's article in this issue and our editorial comment.-The Editors.

assumption on which her whole article is based is not justified by the facts nor by the records of the case.

An English journal this summer published a severe criticism of the Massachusetts courts in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. A week or two later, having read the evidence, they had the grace to publish an apology for their former editorial.

I cannot agree with you that Miss Millay's words are quiet words with no hysteria in them. On the contrary, her baseless accusations, repeated in paragraph after paragraph, directed against all who disagreed with her, calling them ignorant, nervous, cruel, and cowardly, are nothing if they are not hysterical. EDWARD M. NOYES.

will

"FEAR-DEATH-AFRAID-You not sleep easy on your pillow," says Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sprung from the same spray-dashed soil of eastern Maine, sensing the same tang of salt, but lacking in my commonness her sensitiveness of mind, I approach with more than ordinary respect and interest the message which she has for me. For the message is so personally for me, so personally for each of us reading it at this moment. And each of us will answer her. Some in words coinmanding attention in future Outlook pages; some in words futilely written, and as futilely mailed, as this of my own will be; and others will answer on those mental pages of theirs and mail their message in imaginings. But all of us will answer.

I've read it twice-this "Fear" of Edna Millay's. And I've opened that part of my mind again which has been closed in thankfulness these two months. I've taken out my personal ideas and opinions and lined them up against the wall again, and have given them a thorough going over in the shadow of this surging, soul-torn message. But mine is the common mind, the ordinary non-sensitive mind of the majority of people, and, no matter how much I may respect, and countless times in my perplexed non-comprehending searchings I may envy, those who possess the soul immortal, I cannot in all honesty to the only self that my average mind does know believe that, two months ago in Massachusetts, there was committed or carried out anything but justice. And I believe this,

not because I wish to "lie peacefully asleep on the hearth like an old dog," but because I do some time wish to lie peacefully dead as an old dog who has been faithful to the trust of his master-the trust with his pile of blocks in the patch of sunlight on the nursery floor.

I look at this thing from the standpoint of selfishness. I admit it. Selfishness for all the little three-year-olds in America. The older ones, the spot-lighted younger generation, are already bruised by the vagaries of our laws of justice. They realize, with twisted knowing smiles, that the winning case is the one with the smarter lawyer, and that the matter of innocence or guilt lies meekly secondary. They will always remember that hideous crime of two of their own generation, that crime of warped youth against childhood, and, remembering, Joliet prison is but another twisted smile and a shrug of the shoulder to them. This lesson of the business of life, which Miss Millay tells us we have been teaching our children is to "have your own way, and get as much as possible for as little as possible," has been splendidly flourishing in these years since the war. The lesson has shown itself in startling and devious ways. There have been queer "twists" of justice. There have been "cases" and "cases." And then one day the Governor of a New England State went through the torturing mental anguish of decision that three men should meet death in the electric chair. we And then mothers, of tiny lives as yet uncomprehending that there is a lack of beauty in the world, shed tears for the mothers of men, so lately boys, who paid their debt in the chair; but coexistent with our tears there was born relief in our hearts for the Governor who championed justice.

And then this other case. The case that flamed and flared across the world, and, flaring, grew so red that the or viral happening, the murder of a man by men, was all but obliterated. And again we mothers of three-year-olds stood by and wondered -wondered painfully how the scales of justice would swing. For we, in laughingly awkward contrast to this flaming brand of Edna Millay's, this brand with sincerity of soul guaranteeing a literary immortality deserved, we feared that justice lacked a bravery to mete out sentence of death in the face of anarchy! But a Governor went on the mental wrack again, and because we firmly believed that the men were being tried for crime rather than for opinions, we rejoiced at what we termed justice and bravery.

The terrible sincerity of "Fear" commands a deep respect. The world is "ugly," "cruel," and it has, at times, "a lying face." We know these things, we elders, and shamefully youth knows them too. But the tiny ones, the three-year-olds, what is the future for them?

The sun has passed by the window, and the patch on the floor is gone. Now a little child creeps to my side. "Muml you help me build?"

Will I help him build? Oh, please God, yes!

Am I right in the stand that I take? Who can tell? A poetess can frame high words, but a common mind knows a stumbling way. I hesitate. But now there comes to me a vision-a vision of an honest man pacing his way to victory across his study floor.

"Mum, will you help me build?"

With the last wee drops of my strength. And to him some day I shall tell, to dispel some fear, a story of the bravery of a certain Governor of Massachusetts. A MOTHER IN MAINE.

THE OUTLOOK, November 30, 1927. Volume 147, Number 13. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1927, by The Outlook Company.