# The Conservative (Lovecraft)/October 1915/In the Editor's Study

​William J. Dowdell, in transforming his Bearcat into a 7X10 journal of high and conservative ideals, is demonstrating very forcibly the fine quality of truly ambitious youth. Let the National rail about our young members if it so chooses; they are certainly doing better than most of the National's old members! Mr. Dowdell's new policy is one of sense and soundness, and his paper will soon attain an envied position through the dignified tone of its contents, both contributed and editorial. During the present year Mr. Dowdell has printed articles by some of our most gifted members. This condition will undoubtedly continue, and the improved aspect of the publication will attract even more amateurs of prominence to its pages.
The Conservative desires very sincerely to felicitate Mr. William T. Harrington on his latest Coyote. The transition from the March standard is almost startling, and the whole present atmosphere of the periodical prophesies future improvement at no tardy rate.
Having learned of the adoption of amateur journalism by an inmate of the Columbus penitentiary, the Conservative is impelled to reflect that a good many other amateurs, particularly in the National, ought to be in gaol as well.
The editor of The Tryout, a National paper, takes issue with The Lake Breeze concerning the status of "the small boy with a printing press" in amateur journalism. Mr. Smith declares that upon this same boy the whole past, present, and future of amateur journalism depends; but the Conservative is of a different opinion, being unable to see why the typesetter or pressman is so essentially affiliated with the art of literature. True, some of the best amateurs have also been printers, as attested by Messrs. Dowdell, Sandusky, Porter, Macauley, ane the formerly active genius Edward Cole, but these cases by no means prove that the pen and ​the type-stick are kindred implements. If the claim of Mr. Smith be true, why does not his beloved National choose eminent master printers for Laureate Judges in Poetry?
When Victor L. Basinet's new paper, The Rebel, whall appear, the amateur public will have an opportunity to behold the workings of a very extraordinary mind. Mr. Basinet is in some respects a true genius, blessed with an almost instinctive perception of the delicate and the artistic, and possessing a rhetorical style of remarkable vigour. But superadded to these qualities is such a strange point of view on social problems and systems, that the rational reader will stand aghast at the thoughts revealed. How Mr. Basinet became successively a socialist and a confessed anarchist is more than the Conservative can say, though he has met the gentleman personally. Utter disregard of the fundamental failings of humanity seems to be the keynote, however, since this dreamer refuses to believe that mankind cannot live forever in brotherhood under the Golden Rule, once that happy state of affairs is established. But his own arguments ought to correct his beliefs. He tells us that capitalists should be dethroned, since they abuse their privileges and oppress their brothers, etc., etc. But, he adds, all men are equal. Then how can he say that his proposed earth-wide brotherhood will not be marred with strife more hideous and universal than any yet known? It is all in the education, he says. But are not his hated capitalists taught the Golden Rule also? The world would like to live just as Mr. Basinet would have it, but fortunately most of us are conservative enough not to tear down our present system of society when we know of no better one to supersede it.
Another amateur whom the Conservative has met several times in person is Mr. John T. Dunn, the Irish Patriot. Mr. Dunn is a man of undoubted talent, being now editor of The Providence Amateur, yet his anti-English views are such that they call for correction. The Conservative has no particular antipathy toward the Green Isle and its people, yet he must protest at the rebellious, seditious and treasonable attitude which some maintain toward that stronger race which governs them. England has admittedly been neglectful of Ireland's interests in the past, but that such old scores should be transmitted to the present well-treated generation of Irish and Irish-Americans is anomalous. Through Britannia will come Hibernia's greatest days of glory, yet an ungrateful, revengeful few will do their best to obstruct progress, bite the hand that feeds them, and calumniate the loyal Irish People who are faithful to England. Ireland is now an equal and integral part of the British Empire, and he who slanders that Empire indirectly slanders Ould Oireland herself.
​That metrical precision is still appreciated by the sounder school of criticism is well shown by the awarding of poetical honours in the United this year. Our new Laureate, justly enough, is Mr. Rheinhart Kleiner, supreme master of perfect rhyme and metre, and the poem on which the award was based is "The Evening Prayer", a chastely lustrous gem of thought whose devout and delicate atmosphere is adorned with a technical finish beyond reproach. What radical is so extreme, that he would wish to see this faultless jewel marred by irregular cutting or splintered by the mallet of "liberalism"?
The inferior award, proudly flaunted by the Conservative, is certainly a triumph of technique, since his "poem" in the Offiical Quarterly contains little merit indeed beyond having exactly ten syllables in each line.
The August United Amateur is indeed a credit to our new Official Editor. The list of members shows considerable chance, and reveals the regrettable fact that our two latest ex-Presidents have retired to honorary membership, leaving the Official Editor himself as our only active ex-President. If this is to happen in the future, and the Presidency is to be considered only as a step toward retirement, we shall be tempted to become a monarchy, with our present Executive as King Leo I.