Putnam patriot., 1926-05-14

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 The Patriot recently printed an edit .rial protesting against Miss Doro- try Gilman's recent appellation of a5reary as printed in book review i, the Boston Transcript. The editor If the column printed daily under me pseudouym of The Listener" com mented on Miss Gilman's use of the word dreary in connection with Put nam as follows;
 4 Transcript book review in which the dreariness of Putnam, Conn" 1as referred to. as purely
 terary figure. has called out H.em the editor of The Putnam Fatriot an entirely natural and
 moderate protest Putnam does not think it Is dreary enough to war rant it's choice as an example for all mankind. The Listener Is not acquaint ad with Putnam, but he has seen enough of New England industrial towns to convince him that no one of f1em can justly be taken as a repre- sentation of utter dreariness. We have dreariness enough. heaven knows Yet there is generally something iu every town Co relieve t. And some =.her place is probably worse. We uav say. perhaps. Putnam IS dreary. But since there are undoubtedly other rlaces that are more so. it may not be Eair to promote Putnam te the head snip of the list.
 This seems to be a remarkable state meut. Yet We all. in writing, need il Ilstratious of such public conditions. and the illustrations tend to pass into common use. As dead as Chelsea. As If Chelsea were the only place that Is dead! As black as Pittsburgh. And Pittsburgh. they say, has cleaned up. For squalor and ugliness, Jersey City has become representative. And Jersey City is no worse than some parts of Boston. (Never mind what parts) The small town stuff" was once hitched upon Kalamazoo. on Osh- kosh. on Skowkegan. The first two of these places at least have become pros porous and progressive cities; they have been "beautified." Perhaps Skow- began has been. too. The illustration does not apply any more. Each writ CT works off a grudge on some town by trotting it out for ignomny in this way. But fl one yields Co the tempta- ton to do that, 1t is best to choose a place as distant as possible. That k less likely to get Us into trouble. The Listener. recalling a tedious wait be- tween trains, once. has occasionally used Parsons, Kansas, as hls idea of a typioally dreary place But Parsons, they say, ls looking up wonderfully. We rail al Potsdam Junction. and White River Junction, and Manhattan Transfer. But that is merely because We have been terribly bored in those places. Why engraft our fleeting mis= cries upon an otherwise innocent town3 We eseaped-we don't have t0 live at Potsdam Junction. Forget about 1t. Let Potsdam and Putnam work out their own salvation.
 And really an imagined name for civic dreariness is just as good for the purpose of illustration as a real one. Sinclair Lewis has bestowed Gopher Prairie on us for this purpose When Arnold Bennett set out to depict the dreariness of the Five Towns. he in- vented false names for each of the real places. Here in Massachusetts. we once spoke of Podunk as the repre- sentative social limbo. The Springfield Republican proved that there really is such a place as Podunk, but 1t seems that no one lives there any more. and so there is no one to resent the insult. The timid author or critic may thank heaven for Gopher Prairie and Po- nFlnk Dg h.a turesque names, having always m his own mind some absolutely real and heart-breaking place. We have so many dreary apparently more ot that kind than any other-tnat 1t is really lnyldious to cal any one of them by Us real name. To come right out and say Jersey City" or "HoDoken, or Parsons or 'Ioombstone. Is to bestow upon these places form of distinction that belongs as righttully 10 seven hundred other towns.
 
 Somewhat more intimately the edit of O. the coIumn enutied "CatenalI," appearing in the Lowell "Courier-C Citi- Zen had the following to say regard ing Miss Giimans classification of Putnam:
 am mildly entertained by the quo- tatlon m the Boston Transcript of long editorial in which the Putnam. Conn.,, Patriot resents somebody's ref erenee 10 the ''dreariness of Putnam" A town down below Worcester, south Of our Massachusetts lake with the un- prOnouneeabie name, Tn which town 1 once spent peaceful if not exciting tvehlas, aas came, II appears to be cIt- ed as typical abode of the Main Streeters. Miss Dorothy Gilman. Rev. Bradley Gilman's hteral-mlnded uaaghter, has written iu the Trans crlpt something about the main streets of dreary little towns like Ble- dina, O., Putnam, Conn, or San Jose. Calu. To sum up the accusations of alsmaley, If l may coin a Harding esqae word, the Patriot man also palis out ot the morgue a year-Old clipping from the survey Graphic in wnien there IS reference co the reading hab- lts of the inhabitants of Chelsea, of the Bronx, of Putnam. Conn, of West Liberty, 0. Evidently among scrib- biers futnam has become d typical boghole oi the sticks.
 Yet from pergonaI recollection