Evening star., 1938-04-10
LATEST MAGAZINE
Ken Has Commendable Ambition to Put
New Style Before Public-Paris
Contributes to Prices.

puiuy UcCduSc weekly magazines are
cut of date by the time her Sunday
copy appears, but it has also been
she confesses it-because her feelings
were hurt. She had been q New
Yorker fan since the New Yorker
made its first shrill infant cry. She
had bought it all that time with
touching faithfulness To be treated
as If she were a beegarly poor rels-
ton. therefore. wounded her most
cruelty. She almost developed q CONF
plex. And now, the New Yorkers
editors have written her, suggesting,
very af1ably, that she make some
mention of their publication in her
forthcoming columns. Hastily she
rushes for her shovel to do this long.
deferred heaping on OF fiery Goals.
Well, what the New Yorker's editors
particularly wanted her to mention is
poem by Mr.. Stephen Vincent Benet
entitled Nightmare for Future Refer
ence..' 1t appeared in the April 2
issue. 1t is about what will happen
TO the humankind if wars do not stop.
And that, says Mr. Benet, Is simply
that no more babies will be born. Ba-
oies, he predicts, will just stop being
born and nothing will be possible to do
about it. Wars will stop, in other
words, but 50 will the human race.
That is, unless the race stops wars.
1t Is all going to be taken out of our
hands, says Mr.. Benet.
Well, all right Judged as a poem,
Mr.. Benet's effort is not much. The
reviewer could do as good a one and
so could you. 1t is just prose. a
little more jerky than anybody but a
poet would dare to write But Of
course the idea is perfectly sensible.
1t has probably occurred to all of us
at times. There is only one line in
1t that impressed the reviewer as
arresting and that was as follows.
they tthe women smashed
every government in the world.
Like a heap of broken china, within
two days 1"
And. Of course, the women could do
that. So could any other sizeaple
group that made up its mind to and
would not be subject to policies. But,
IN all likelihood, they would bring
lortn something just as bad after
ward, or even the same old folly.
So, why write poem-or an article.
or story. or book. or tract-about
war and peace? Unless, that is. Vol
write a good one. There has alvays
oeen reason in good poem. There
has never been reason in massed hu.
man behavior.
HE reviewer wishes to report to her
readers that her recent assault on
the picture magazines. in which she
exonerated Life from the appallinglv
bad taste which governs the rest of
the tribe, brought her a letter from
LIES editors. They expressed interest
in her estimate of the case of the pic
ture sheets, and inclosed, somewhat
to her dismay, an eight-page mimeo-
graphed statement of Life's own ma.
ture. aim and purpose This is OBJ
Viouslv too long to publish in full, but
the reviewer. in order to make it quite
clear that she excepted Life from ths
hard verdict which she gave its COM
petitors, offers the following excerpt:
Devoted to objective reporting Of
the American and international scene.
Life is essentially dedicated to a
junction OF informative journalism,
Every Life story is designed to increase
the sum total of the readers knovl.
edge Of the world about him, not ths
things merely heard, the things read.
nor the things seen, but the things
known. Each story seeks to increase
the readers understanding OF why
things happen and what they mean.
In this devotion of dominant space to
world affairs. science. art, industry and
medicine, Life has sought to draw its
material from the normal rather than
the abnormal happenings of contem-
porary society"
1t is in the particular of its concern
for normality, of course, that this
magazine differs from the other pic
ture periodicals. They seem to seek
out the abnormal deliberately. 1t is
a practice which would be bad enough
If treated only in printed matter.
When. however. 1t is given pictorial
treatment, it is utterly outside the
bounds of proper liberation.
The reviewer repeats that she has
no quarrel whatsoever with Life. 1t
seems admirable in intent and execu-
ton.
THE Infantry Journal for March and
April has been sent the reviewer
and, while most of its material. being
intended for professional soldiers, is
somewhat over her head. she notes
with interest a piece given over to
discussing the civil war in Spain from
its purely military standpoint. There
has been a plethora of writing about
Spain and its troubles, to be sure. but
most OF 1t has been in terms Of what
is wearily called 'ideoloey" Not
"idiocy." you -"ideology."
1t doesn't mean much unless you hap
pen. in advance. to agree or disagree.
II you are just looking around for
some facts, 1t gets you absolutely no
where.
But in this magazine for profess
sional soldiers Capt Wendell G.
johnson of the United States Army
sizes up the action of all Spanish
fronts to date and comes to the hard.
realistic conclusion that. militarily
speaking. the Loyalists do not have
much of a chance.
THE reviewer acknowledges with
pleased complacence the receipt Of
the following verses by an anonymous
local author. They are called Lin.
cries for q Reviewer.
1T would tighten the work Of reviewer
II authors and poets were fewer;
Or drove trucks instead,
Or baked pies and bread,
Or threw their works into a seVer