The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-28
Cuff.

In the summer of 1914 Alan Seeger, gifted
young American writer, was living in Paris. When
the war broke out he joined the French Foreign
Legion. Paris was in peril, the old haunts were
desolate, the boon companions gone; it was un-
thinkable to leave the danger to them and accept
only the pleasures oneself" Thus, writing to
American friends. he made his profession of faith
and thereafter died in the trenches for the faith
that was in him.
All of which, explains Miss Harriet Monroe is
"nediaeval CUFF" Who then is Miss Harriet Mon
roe and why does it matter what she saysi Miss
Monroe is the high priestess and dispenser of emo
luments to the Chicago Mutual Admiration School
of Poetry, the editor-in-chef of Poetry, monthly
periodical that exists solely by virtue of the fact
that it is spoon-fed by number of misguided Chi
cago philanthropists who imagine that they as
sisting worthy cause. Into the pages of this
trifling publication Miss Monroe and her coterie
of hand picked feminiss pour their feeble strains
at $40 per page. Through its we'll endowed medium
they hand each other bouquets and hundred dollar
prizes, thereby GLIDING the ribbon counters and
gang plows that they would better adorn. At
present their paramount claim to distinction is that
they have discovered kind of poetry which
they call "Vers Libre," though in the presence of
the really elect they call it by other fancy names
such as "Imagisme," "Vorticisme," "Polyrhythme"
and Lord knows what else.
The essence of Vers Libre is that it neither
rhymes scans. it has all manner OF saving
graces-in the eyes Of the elect. If you do not
happen to affect it yourself you are not likely to
apprehend its delicate nuances. Several PhilIistine
periodicals have rudely characterized Vers Libre"
as Cuff" fraud on the public, a manifestation
of the great American ambition to give less for
more money-to sell prose (cut up into deceptive
segments) as poetry. 1t is certain that amount
of barking" has caused the coming of the
poetry to town TO inspire more than the feeblest
interest in the world of letters.
We are not much concerned with the merits of
the New Poetry. We think it is meretricious
fad that will die, that the Chicago philanthropists
will presently cut off the juice and turn it into the
Belgian relief fund where it should have gone long
ago, that Miss Monroe, Miss Lowell, Mr.. Aiding
ton, Ezra Pound and the rest of the footing
apostleshp will either have to emit real poetry
which we do not believe them capable of doing
or retire into domesticty and manual labor. What
moral, do we desire to point? Simply this, that
the acknowledged head and front of American
poetry of today, the prime directrcss OF its des-
TIMES, thinks that to die for ideal is medieval
CUFF" AS she thinks SO many flaccid souls think
today many more will think tomorrow. That
the organs of the nation should SO think is irri-
bad, of the nation should so think is a dreadful
calamity. Must we insult our mothers by calling
this feminism? If we must. if Miss Monroe and
her friends are really marching to victor. In the
age-long struggle between the sexes, then thank
God for the Prussians, for the two-6sted ward
heelers that of their elemental sagacty tramp
led women's suffrage in the mire. If the women
and the spineless creatures that go among US as
men thus declare honor and glory and
manhood and valor and idealism and all the things
that help nation to survive, that entie it to
vive, then will declare war on them. To the
nursery with them to the Chautauqua lecture and
the sewing bee, the cookstove and the sanitary
tub They have the souls of slaves. Let them re-
main the slaves of man. But if the real women OF
the United States have nobility and courage and
the will to be the great mothers of great race, If
with the sublime heroism of the women of France
and Germany and all the warning nations they too
are ready to bear unflinchingly the of spirit
ual agony that is the divine but bitter lot of
womanknd then we will honor them beyond all
honoring, humble in the knowledge that in their
hearts alone lies the soul of the race the destiny
Of mankind, the spirit of God.