Evening star., 1938-03-13
PICTURE MAGAZINES OFFEND
The Country Being Visited With Plague Periodicals. Each in
Worse Taste Than the One Before Following the
Spectacular Success of Life.

give them joy in their labors.
Sometime ago the reviewer was very
severely taken to task by an editor Of
a magazine which she had criticized
adversely; 1t was not picture maya.
zine, but belonged to an almost equally
offensive group, that Of the so-called
mems magazines" "a group which Is
likewise slavisfly devoted to copying
successful pioneer, by the way).
This particular editor wrote her, COM
menting in his opening paragraph
that she seemed not to be a con-
scientlous reviewer but probably got
around to more cocktail parties, lee
tured at more ladies' clubs and made
more dough" than If she had used
honest application in her labors.
He then proceeded to attack the
section Of the country from which he
imagined the reviewer to hail, ap-
parently in an amazingly childlike
notion Of getting back" at her, and,
in subsequent correspondence, he dealt
in personalities and profanity, rather
more freely than even a most casual
tnformality would allow to be profess
sional.
THE reviewer held his letters in her
hand long time before consign-
ing them finally to the file marked
Curious Exhibits" They seemed to
her heaven-sent vindication of her
long-held contention that much of our
magazine publication today is no bet
ter than racket, and that it is very
frequently in the hands Of persons
who are devoid Of taste, education or
common instincts toward good usages.
She would have liked very much to
publish that strange correspondence.
But there were other matters more i'm
portant to be covered, and so, finally,
she put 1t away, in the place of which
she has told you.
She mentions this mans scurrility
now, however, since the question of
editorial responsibility naturally comes
up. She recalls that, throughout his
correspondence, he angrily reiterated
that she had to be wrong in her esti-
mate of his periodical (she had called
1t Vulgar) because. said he, it had on
its list Of contributors some very
eminent names.
These writer's published stuff every
where. he implied, and so, he likewise
implied. what they wrote for him must
be irreproachable. 1t was queer sort
Of reasoning. What they wrote for
him was not irreproachable, and that,
to any ordinary reasoning, would seem
to settle the matter. But he fell back
on the old editorial cry (to which the
reviewer referred in these columns last
week., But So-And-So Did It'll" And
he honestly seemed to think that that
answered all possible objections.
1t all appears to get back to our lazy
national habit of accepting any one
who has once arrived as forever after
infallible. BY this habit do We. as
people, substitute hero worship for
thought. The standard of success. Of
course. determines the hero. and once
the hero is made. We seem to have no
other standards to apply to him.
So-And-So has published 20 stories
in highly-thought-of slick-paper mag
azines. So-And-So then writes some
unmitigatedly trashy stuff of level
Of taste which would offend an ordi-
nary undergraduate sheet, and offers
it to one of the pulps. The pulp edi-
tor buys it happily. When a reviewer
elsewhere comments on its complete
nastiness, he is hurt and amazed. 1t
cannot be bad stuff, he cries, for So
And-So wrote it! And So-And-So
makes $50. 200 a year! And So-And-So
is in the Sticks! Ergo: Your reviewer
Is mad, she does not know what she
is writing about.
RUT your reviewer does not give a
tuppenny for So-And-So's income.
and your reviewer does not give a
wooden nickel for the Sticks. She will
grant that So-And-So wrote mastery
stun for them. provided that he did
Though probably he didn't, but she
will not see anything else that he
wrote in the light of that mastery
stun. or in any light, for that matter.
but its own. And she is not mad and
she does. most emphatically, know
what she Is writing about. That is
her business.
She judges writing by the standards
which apply to writing, and not BY
Bradstreet's rating of the writer. And
the more time she spends judging
what appears in current magazines.
the more convinced does she become
that those magazines editors know
nothing of standards of writing-do
not know even that such standards
exist-but use only the one gres:
national standard of hero-worship
Well, this particular reviewer was not
little amused to learn this week
that recent issues of the magazine
edited by her late correspondent had
been banned from sale. Somebodv
seems to agree with her, and, happily.
somebody with power.
Thus it would seem to be, too, with
the picture magazines. They can
point to Life and cry, Life Does It
and, perhaps Though it seems . very
large perhaps at thaD they can hon
estly believe that picture is a picture
and that nothing more enters in.
They are on the trail of success, of a
magazine hero, you observe And their
starry little eyes can see naught else
1t may be, indeed, that such a sweet
innocence governs them. But II it
does, then they, in their enthusiastic
pursuit. are in need Of some kind OF
regulation, for it is not safe to allow
babes to play with poison in the
pantry, no matter how earnest they
may be at their happy games. The
reviewer suggests governing board
composed of literary critics. And now
let her erstwhile correspondent 20