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THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



THE 



Exposition of Ideas 

BY 
BAXTER HATHAWAY 

Department of English, Cornell University 

AND 

JOHN MOORE 

Department of English, Montana State University 




D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 
Boston 



Copyright, 1948, by D. C. Heath and Company 

No part of the material covered by this 
copyright may be reproduced in any form 
without written permission of the pub 
lisher. 

Printed in the United States of America 




BOSTON CHICAGO NEW YORK 
ATLANTA DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO LONDON 



Those who have handled sciences have been either 
men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of 
experiment are like the ant; they only collect and 
use: the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cob 
webs out of their own substance. But the bee takes 
a middle course; it gathers its material from the flow 
ers of the garden and of the field, but transforms 
and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this 
is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies 
solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does 
it take the matter which it gathers from natural his 
tory and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the 
memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the un 
derstanding altered and digested. 

From FRANCIS BACON S Novum Organum 



Preface 



FROM all sides we are deluged with words: in newspaper articles, 
radio broadcasts, lectures, and advertisements, on billboards, in maga 
zines, in the speech of friends. Words swarm upon us and fuse with our 
thoughts as they have done in no other period in history. The tech 
niques of influencing men by suggestion and by appeals to the emotions 
of fear, pride, and ambition and to mass prejudices have never been 
more fully employed than they are today. In the midst of this flood of 
words the college student tries to keep his attention fixed on the words 
that communicate honest thought, on the words by which sincere men 
and women attempt to bring order out of chaos and make valid com 
ments about the shifting patterns of experience. At least this is what 
the ideal college student should attempt to do. His main object is learn 
ing, and learning necessarily involves contact with reputable thoughts of 
others as they are expressed in words. He does not want his instructors 
to fool him by the use of the irrational methods of the advertiser or the 
propaganda devices of the demagogue. His interest, for the present at 
least, is in words that make sense, that is, words that can be tied down to 
the realities they name. 

In turn, the college student must learn how to use words so that 
they will make sense, for he must express his thoughts about his own 
experiences so that others will understand what he means. His natural 
instinct is to imitate the models that he finds on all sides, to cast his 
thought into the molds established by his predecessors and contem 
poraries. His problem is to choose the form best suited to the ideas he 
wants to express. 



x PREFACE 

Within the limits of honest thought there are many kinds of prose, 
and one of the major requirements in learning to write well is to 
understand the nature of thought and the prose structures that cor 
respond to the several kinds of thinking. The intention of a writer 
should determine the structure of his writing. Knowledge of sound 
structure is one of the goals toward which every writer should aim. 

If we are concerned with sense, we are not concerned with words 
as detached entities, nor with writing problems as devices for decorat 
ing the substance of thought. The thought itself is of prime importance 
and must determine the words used to communicate it adequately. 
Clever writing which divorces words from thought may temporarily 
tickle the reader s fancy, but the writer who falls into the habit of 
striving for temporary effect is going in the wrong direction if he 
wishes to learn to write well. 

It is with the expression of ideas which he has thought out for him 
self that the writer faces the full problem of organization. When he 
duplicates the ideas of another writer, his attention is really upon the 
words rather than upon the ideas they represent and much of his 
work has thus been done for him by another. Even in writing an 
account of a process or a description of a mechanism, the student 
writer is relying upon the thought and the organization of another on 
the inventor of the process or mechanism. For this reason this book 
avoids discussion of the kinds of prose that go by the names of 
"Exposition of a Process" or "Exposition of a Mechanism" and limits 
itself to original perception and thought. 

The student is asked to work with the expression and substantiation 
of ideas, and, more particularly, with the kind of ideas that can be 
substantiated. He must not generalize wildly nor use words without 
regard for the communicable meanings that the words should carry. 
The standards used in this book for distinguishing among different 
kinds of thinking and writing are: (1) the subjectivity or objectivity 
of data, and (2) the level of particularity or generality, that is, con- 
creteness or abstractness, of statements based upon data. By analyzing 
writing in terms of these standards, the student can come to know 
better what ideas are and what makes them sound or unsound. 

An understanding of the differences between levels of generalization 
is important. A generalization is a statement not about individuals 
doing particular things about classes of things. The statement "My 



PREFACE xi 

brother fed his dogs at six o clock this evening" is a relatively concrete 
statement. It concerns one person doing a certain thing at a certain 
time. The statement "He is fond of pets" is more general since it is 
not limited to one particular time or to one particular pet. The state 
ment "Human beings like pets" is far more general. The best test for 
the level of generalization of any statement is to ask how many particu 
lar actions or perceptions it comprises. Before accepting a general state 
ment, we might ask ourselves how many separate experiences the writer 
must have had to be absolutely certain of the truth of his conclusion. 

When a writer wishes to make statements which the reader can 
recognize as valid, he must speak from concrete experiences that have 
a bearing upon the point he is making. As readers, we cannot be sure 
that we are dealing with sense unless we can translate the general 
izations made by the writer into concrete experiences and test them 
against these experiences. If a writer tells us that "Politicians are a heart 
less race of men with no care for the well-being of society" we test the 
truth of his statement by referring it to politicians we know. We must 
beware of the generalization based upon little or no concrete ex 
perience. 

It is true that by inference we can often make certain sound general 
izations about large classes of things upon the basis of experience of 
a few instances only. When a biologist has explored the anatomy of a 
few lobsters and has found similar intestinal tracts in all of them, we 
do not ask that he examine the intestinal tracts of all lobsters before 
drawing conclusions about them. Here, however, the reasoning in 
volved is partly deductive; that is, it is based upon larger general 
izations already accepted. We already believe that lobsters are animals 
and that other animals have intestinal tracts. Likewise, we have learned 
to rely up to a point on the constancy of nature. The experiences out 
of which we generalize are, indeed, often not our own; provided that 
we have faith in the reliability of the statements others make about 
their experiences, we accept them and can base our conclusions upon 
them as well as upon our own experiences. 

But something is seriously wrong when adult minds readily accept 
generalizations that come fully manufactured in the form of whisper 
ings from the world about us, when they trust these generalizations 
without inquiring into the experiences upon which they are based or 
into the trustworthiness of the person doing the generalizing. Often 



xii PREFACE 

no set of concrete experiences does in reality exist, and usually the 
identity of the original generalizer is unknown. The generalization is 
merely a "fairyland" statement, a part of a world of words that does 
not correspond to real life experiences. Writing that contains unchecked 
generalizations of this kind is likely to be bad writing or worse, 
dangerous writing. It is not aimed at truth. By its aid, groups in society 
continue to believe what they want to believe, ignoring the real world. 

Many well-intentioned writers commit errors of faulty generalization 
by writing on subjects about which common sense should tell them 
that they lack a sufficient fund of concrete experiences. The high school 
orator who knows just what the Security Council of the UN should do 
about, say, Yugoslavia is usually making this error. Without having 
been to Yugoslavia, without knowing much about the economic con 
ditions there or how they affect individual men, women, and children, 
without knowing who controls those economic conditions, without un 
derstanding the emotions of the people or the causes of those emotions, 
often without even reading carefully firsthand accounts of reporters 
on the scene, he somehow feels capable of solving Yugoslavia s prob 
lems by applying a few elementary principles of political science 
learned in the classroom. Perhaps he will find, if he attempts to get to 
the bottom of politics in his own home town, that human problems are 
a little more complex than he thinks. 

Arriving at sound generalizations is, then, a difficult task. Neverthe 
less, sound ideas are manufactured by human beings essentially like 
ourselves. How do they do it? First, they turn to matters about which 
they know something, matters with which they have had experience. Or, 
if they have not had a sufficent number of experiences relating to their 
idea, they devise means of having more. Finally, they use methods of 
observation and thought which should carry a reasonable degree of 
reliability. The average student is capable of following these procedures. 

This book does not, for the most part, contain the sort of essay, 
full of high level generalizations, which is often put before the college 
student of composition as a model to imitate. True, most of us should 
read, during the years when we are coming to maturity, the writings 
of men of wide learning and deep insight, of men who face the difficult 
questions of the significance of life on our planet. But if we hope to 
arrive at that same point of experience and wisdom, we should serve 
an apprenticeship nearer the base of the pyramid. The selections in 



PREFACE xiii 

this book often deal with important problems, but they deal with them 
in such a way that the student can see the methods by which the 
authors have reached their conclusions. The student is thus able to un 
derstand how to embark upon investigations that will enable him to 
duplicate the models set before him. 

The arrangement of the articles in the text is from the concrete to the 
abstract. The first section is concenied with the reporting of concrete 
fact. The student will learn how good writers have a knack of seeing 
particulars accurately and clearly. The second section presents essays 
that arrive informally at generalizations. The writers of these essays per 
ceive related facts and draw conclusions without embarking upon the ex 
tensive research necessary for scientific accuracy. The third section 
presents secondary source papers typical of the kind of "library paper" 
that has proved valuable in college courses. The articles in the fourth sec 
tion are based on primary source materials. These articles differ from 
those in the second section in that the approach to the material is more 
formal. The fifth section, comprised of case histories, once more shows 
clearly the relationship between the concrete and the abstract, the gen 
eral and the specific, in the creation of ideas. The sixth section gives 
examples of numerous kinds of organization useful in the orderly presen 
tation of ideas. The seventh section, consisting of "appreciations," illus 
trates human value judgments, subjective and often personal. The eighth 
section, refutations, has obvious utility in providing models for student 
writing. The final section, which gives an example of high level general 
ization, offers the only form which the student cannot expect to dupli 
cate well. 

BAXTER HATHAWAY 
JOHN MOORE 



Contents 



PREFACE IX 

Section 1. OBSERVING AND REPORTING 1 

WILLIAM FAULKNER: Wagon on the Road 6 
FREDERIC PROKOSCH: After the Crack-Up 7 
JOHN DOS PASSOS: The Camera Eye (14) 13 
GEORGE SESSIONS PERRY: Night in the Woods 14 
FRANCIS PARKMAN: The Buffalo 17 

HENRY DAVID THOREAU: Ice 22 

FAIRFAX DOWNEY: The Last Days of St. Pierre 24 
Sample Theme Subjects 34 

Section 2. INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 35 

LOUIS ADAMIC: Thirty Million New Americans 38 
LOVELL THOMPSON: How Serious Are the Comics 56 
MRS. TROLLOPE: An Englishwoman in Ohio 63 
BERGEN EVANS: I Pick Em Up 70 
w. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS: The Negro Scientist 76 
BRUCE BLIVEN: Westchester Women 87 
PHILIP RAHV: Paleface and Redskin 91 
Sample Theme Subjects 96 

Section 3. SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 99 

A. GRENFELL PRICE: The Causes of Failure of White 

Man in the Tropics 107 
FRANK LUTHER MOTT: Popular Sports in America, 

1850-1865 125 
Sample Theme Subjects 129 



xvi CONTENTS 

Section 4. PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 131 

GEORGE GALLUP AND SAUL FORBES RAE: Thirty Dollars 

a Week 135 
EDWARD JENNER: An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects 

of the Variolae Vaccinae, Known by the Name 

of the Cow Pox 143 
MADGE M. MCKINNEY: Training for Citizenship in the 

Secondary Schools of New Yor/c City 149 
BERTRAM B. FOWLER: Sharecroppers of the Sea 162 
PAUL FATOUT: Yarning in the Eighteen Fifties 171 
Sample Theme Subjects 184 

Section 5. CASE HISTORIES 187 

KIMBALL YOUNG: Projection of Parental Ambitions 

upon Children 191 
JOHN BARTLOW MARTIN: The Ring and the Conscience 194 

EDWARD A. STRECKER AND FRANCIS T. CHAMBERS, JR. : * 

Psychology of Alcoholism 206 
RUTH L. PORTERFIELD: Women Available 213 
KIMBALL YOUNG: A Case Study of Intracommunity 

Conflict 222 

WELLSON WHITMAN: Three Southern Towns 226 
DONALD DAVIDSON: Brother Jonathan and Cousin 

Roderick 242 
Sample Theme Subjects 252 

Section 6. TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN 

ORGANIZATION 253 

FIRST PATTERN: Enumeration 

WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING: The Changing World 258 
HOMER CROY: You Wouldn t Know the Old Farm Now 261 
JAMES BRYCE: The Results Democratic Government 
Has Given 272 

SECOND PATTERN: Classification 

CHARLES TODD AND ROBERT SONKIN: Ballads of the OklBS 276 

JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON: On Various Kinds of Thinking 284 



CONTENTS xvii 

THIRD PATTERN: Component Parts 
TACITUS: Germania 298 

BRUCE WINTON KNIGHT: How to Round Up Cannon 
Fodder 312 

FOURTH PATTERN: Cause 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: Rumor 326 
JULIAN HUXLEY: Mice and Men 327 

FIFTH PATTERN: Concession 

CLIFFORD BARRETT: Mans Moral Responsibility 342 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON: The American Scholar 348 

SIXTH PATTERN: Analogy 

DOROTHY GRAFLY: Art Criticism for Human Beings 352 
WILSON FOLLETT: Are Children Vegetables? 354 
HAMILTON BASSO: Italian Notebook: 1938 356 
PAUL PARKER: The Iconography of Advertising Art 359 

SEVENTH PATTERN: Comparison 

JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS: Jefferson and Hamilton Today 367 
ALDOUS HUXLEY: America and Europe 378 
Sample Theme Subjects 387 

Section 7. APPRECIATIONS 389 

JAMES HUNEKER: Night and Its Melancholy Mysteries: 

The Nocturnes of Chopin 393 
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET: The "Conquistador" of 

Archibald MacLeish 395 
E. B. WHITE: Once More to the Lake 399 
Sample Theme Subjects 406 

Section 8. REFUTATIONS 409 

THOMAS PAINE: The French Revolution 412 
THEODORE DREISER: If Man Is Free, So Is All Matter 423 
MAX WYLIE: Washboard Weepers 431 
Sample Theme Subjects 439 

Section 9. HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 441 

EDWARD M. MILLER: A Westerner Views the U.S.A. 444 



THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



1. OBSERVING AND REPORTING 



Observing and Reporting 



A LTIIOUGH it is possible to reason logically upon false assump- 
jLjL tions, the ideas and conclusions which are the result of a thought 
process are only as sound as the facts which set that process in motion. 
If the facts are not to be trusted, the conclusions drawn from them are 
not to be trusted. Therefore, the first principle of sound thinking and 
good writing is accuracy of observation. 

Unfortunately, habit is one of the most dangerous enemies of ac 
curacy of observation, for we often look at things without seeing them 
at all. When we look at familiar objects what we see is determined 
largely by what we expect to see. It is true that if these commonplace 
things have undergone a sudden change since we last saw them, we 
are jarred out of our mental lethargy and look at them afresh. If the 
change is gradual, however, we fail to notice it. 

Sometimes we accept a formula for an object or situation without 
troubling to check it against our own original observation. For example, 
the society around us tells us that a girl coming home from a dance is 
always "starry-eyed." For years students have written in themes that 
girls coming home from dances are starry-eyed. Perhaps we can legiti 
mately ask if they really are. Are all of them starry-eyed? Is the ob 
server really looking at them as individuals or is he merely taking for 
granted that they look like that because the stereotype tells him so? 

A writer whose work contains such stereotypes may be called de 
ductive minded. He applies to each situation a neat set of reactions 
and ready-made formulas without bothering to check them against 
the actual facts. The inductive minded writer, on the other hand, is 



4 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

constantly aware of the changeability of the world around him. He 
knows that no two objects or situations, however familiar, are exactly 
alike and that no set of principles can be applied, untested, truthfully 
more than once. He looks directly at the situation he wishes to de 
scribe or evaluate and reports what he sees as accurately as he can. 
The deductive minded person has the simpler time of it but he is not 
the better writer. 

Stereotyped writing is not good writing. The writer bores his reader 
because he does not tell him anything new. He is not looking at the 
world through his own eyes and consequently has little to say that is 
worth the saying. Stereotyped thinking, upon which such writing is 
based, is more dangerous. In this kind of thinking the writer arrives 
at judgments that are based upon stereotypes upon preconceived no 
tions of what, for example, any individual in a class is like. The rich 
woman is arrogant and selfish; the Negro janitor is lazy, light-hearted, 
and irrepressibly fond of singing; the old professor is lovable but absent- 
minded and pedantic. Judgments about individuals based upon such 
stereotypes can cause trouble because often they are not based upon 
reality. We do not see at all what is in front of us. Instead we see, as 
if in a mirror, the picture that is already in our minds. Too often we 
do not know how the picture got into our minds in the first place, but 
when we analyze our reactions we realize that we did not consciously 
put it there. Instead, we absorbed it from the people around us; they 
absorbed it from others; and on and on the chain goes. 

Writing and thinking both come hard when the writer cannot see 
for himself. Observing is his first step toward having ideas of his own 
that are worth communicating. The nonobserver usually tries to hide 
the poverty of his observing by writing about something with which 
he can have had few contacts; he frequently denies the possibility 
of originality of thought and expression because he supposes that every 
body else borrows ideas just as he does. He forgets that men make ideas 
by looking at the world around them and telling what they see there. 

The observer who looks for himself soon finds plenty of ideas in his 
head. Because he has built up for himself a mass of material of his own 
about which he can say something, he no longer belongs to the class 
of student writers who have nothing to say. Most of us need to orient 
ourselves by looking at the world around us. It is the dulling force of 
habit that leads us to believe that the world is brighter and more ex- 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 5 

citing somewhere else. Brightness and excitement are made by the 
minds of men who see meaning in what they touch upon. 

All reporting, even of simple sense perceptions, reflects somewhat 
the individual doing the perceiving. It is impossible to be entirely ob 
jective. For purposes of discussion, however, we may say that a writer 
is being objective when he describes sensations as they are immediately 
apparent to his five senses. As soon as he makes a judgment or describes 
the train of thought started in his own mind by these sensations his 
reporting becomes subjective. 

The selections that follow present the kind of writing in which few 
judgments are made. The writers are coming to few conclusions; prin 
cipally they are looking at the world and telling what they see there. 
They are presenting scenes, attempting to communicate to the reader 
concrete experiences. As will be noted elsewhere in this book, one of 
the best ways to create good writing of any kind is to keep vivid this 
sense of concrete experience. The student should begin here observing 
how the writers of these passages obtain their effects. 

The observations presented in this section fall into two main cate 
gories. The first, of which the selections from Faulkner, Prokosch, Dos 
Passos, and to a lesser extent Perry are examples, exhibits considerable 
subjectivity. The things and events described are seen through the eyes 
of a particular observer and colored by his state of mind. The second 
kind the group comprised by Parkman, Thoreau, and Fairfax Downey 
represents greater objectivity. These writers distinguish more clearly 
what is outside themselves from what is inside. 

Paradoxically, objective reporting is the more sophisticated or arti 
ficial of the two kinds of observation. The child divides a perception 
into its subjective and objective parts less readily than an adult does. 
For many special purposes the growing child gradually learns to make 
the distinction. The adult writer must sometimes relearn the art of 
infusing objective reporting with the subjective at those times when 
it is desirable to do so. It must be remembered, however, that in many 
kinds of writing newspaper writing, for instance any admixture of 
the subjective is undesirable. 



THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



WAGON ON THE ROAD* 

By William Faulkner 

1. THE WAGON mounts the hill toward her. She passed it about a 
mile back down the road. It was standing beside the road, the 
mules asleep in the traces and their heads pointed in the direction 
in which she walked. She saw it and she saw the two men squatting 
beside a barn beyond the fence. She looked at the wagon and the 
men once: a single glance all-embracing, swift, innocent and pro 
found. She did not stop; very likely the men beyond the fence had 
not seen her even look at the wagon or at them. Neither did she 
look back. She went on out of sight, walking slowly, the shoes un 
laced about her ankles, until she reached the top of the hill a mile 
beyond. Then she sat down on the ditchbank, with her feet in the 
shallow ditch, and removed the shoes. After a while she began to 
hear the wagon. She heard it for some time. Then it came into sight, 
mounting the hill. 

2. The sharp and brittle crack and clatter of its weathered and un- 
greased wood and metal is slow and terrific: a series of dry slug 
gish reports carrying for a half mile across the hot still pinewiney 
silence of the August afternoon. Though the mules plod in a steady 
and unflagging hypnosis, the vehicle does riot seem to progress. It 
seems to hang suspended in the middle distance forever and for 
ever, so infinitesimal is its progress, like a shabby bead upon the 
mild red string of road. So much is this so that in the watching of 
it the eye loses it as sight and sense drowsily merge and blend, like 
the road itself, with all the peaceful and monotonous changes be 
tween darkness and day, like already measured thread being re 
wound onto a spool. So that at last, as though out of some trivial 
and unimportant region beyond even distance, the sound of it 
seems to come slow and terrific and without meaning, as though 
it were a ghost traveling a half mile ahead of its own shape. 

* From Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner. Reprinted by courtesy 
of Random House, Inc. 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 7 

ANALYSIS 

1. At first reading this selection may well appear to be the simple, perceptive re 
porting of a static scene. Is it really that? , t , , , A< , 

a. What is the difference between the scene reported in the first paragraph^ and 
that in the second? t ^ 

b. From whose point of view is the whole scene seen and heard and felt? 

2. Consider particularly the use of verbs in this selection. 

a. What do you notice about the time element as indicated by the verb tenses? 
What are the significant changes and why are they made? 

b. Has the problem of time any bearing on the larger one of perception, of re 
porting what one sees? 

3. a. Is the girl who appears in the first paragraph still the central person in the 
second? 

b. Is she experiencing the thoughts and sensations recorded in the second par 
agraph? 

4. Are there any evidences of subjective reporting in this selection? If so, what 
are they? 

5. Is there any point to this selection, any generalization which the reporting leads 
up to? Or is the writer presenting a scene for its own sake? 

6. a. What words or phrases in this passage have precise, literal applications? 
What ones do not? 

b. List the figures of speech in this passage. 

c. Which of the following phrases are used literally? Which are used figura 
tively? 

"The sharp and brittle crack and clatter" 

"Dry sluggish reports" 

"Hot still pinewiney silence" 

"Mules plod in a steady and unflagging hypnosis" 

"Like a shabby bead upon the mild red string of road" 

"Like already measured thread being rewound onto a spool" 

"As though it were a ghost traveling a half mile ahead of its own shape" 

d. Do figurative expressions aid in making the reporting more subjective? 

e. If some other person were looking at this scene might his perceptions be dif 
ferent from the ones given here? 

/. How important are figures of speech in the communication of the exact "feel 
ing" of a perception? 



THE CRACK-UP* 
By Frederic Prokosch 

i. THE CLOUDS parted, the sun appeared once more. In less than a 
minute all the moisture seemed to have been sucked back out of 

* From The Asiatics (1935), by Frederic Prokosch. Published by Doubleday 
and Company, Inc. 



8 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

the earth. The wet glimmer faded from the rocks, the grasses grew 
sere and mottled again. 

2. And it was hot. Unbearably so for a few minutes, until the air 
grew dry and light again. Even after the sky had become solidly 
blue once more, some faint oppression remained hanging in the air. 
High overhead I saw three hawks circling. I could see their shad 
ows in the hollow declivity at my side, twisting and turning like 
strange creatures under water. 

3. I sat down on the brown gravel. Alone in the middle of enormous 
Asia. But, thought I, this isn t solitude; this isn t real loneliness at 
all. The whole sun-stricken country seemed alive, each pebble 
shone with vitality. 

4. I walked toward a small mound not far from the plane. I didn t 
want to be near the plane itself. It terrified me. It looked like a 
great clumsy bird shattered upon the rocks, its tiny head folded 
forward, nothing left to it at all, dead and hollow with fright. 

5. I felt very thirsty. I stood upon the hillock and looked all around. 
To the north, the haze of the hills and the remote forests; to the 
south, the glistening salty stretches; to the east, endless brown 
earth; to the west, endless brown earth. Below me on my right a 
serpentine path ran through the mounds and the boulders. It was 
a dried-up river bed, cracked with the spring sunlight, shimmering 
like copper dust. 

6. I walked down toward the tufted shore. Everything was dry. Not 
a drop. 

7. But then I saw in a dark hollow a little red gleam. Yes, there 
among the shadows of the rocks a few drops of water were still 
waiting. Waiting to be sucked into earth and air until nothing was 
left. 

8. I lay down flat and leaned over the little red pond. The water 
smelled like corroded lead. I drank, and I could feel it gliding all 
the way down into my belly like a slim warm snake. I looked at the 
water again and I could see tiny red animalcules floating in its 
hairy recesses. I began to feel sick again. 

9. I started to rise, but a delicate weariness tugged at me and held 
me back. So I turned back and lay down upon the smooth brown 
river dust and closed my eyes. 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 9 

10. Physical uneasiness can instill odd thoughts into the mind 
thoughts frilled up in all their elaborateness, in all the bizarre in 
tuitive fullness of a dream. I thought for a few seconds that I was 
dying, was on the very verge of death, was almost dead. "Are you 
afraid of death?" I could hear the old countess whimpering through 
the perfumed curtains: "What do you think of death? When do 
you want to die?" Dimly I could hear her voice continuing. "Think 
about death/ she whispered, "think of these thousands of creatures, 
here in Teheran, here in Persia, here in Asia. Moving across the 
sand, living in mud, crawling through the alleys of the dark neg 
lected cities, dying in the reeds beside a river without a name, liv 
ing and dying with nothing, not even a scrap of paper to state that 
they existed; dying and living, living and dying, the two processes 
growing faster and faster as our world grows older and staler, 
now almost as indistinguishable as the colors in a revolving wheel. 
Where s the one? Where s the other? Here s a living one that s 
dead, here s a dead one still alive, a living one s dead life slowly 
dying, a dead one s living death slowly dying. What can you make 
of it? Anything? Anything at all?" 

11. I was feverish, of course. This is what I thought that for a brief 
while I actually had died, that for a few seconds I was dead, had 
entered the darkness, was experiencing the first throbs of a dis 
solution about to spread inside me as at the sound of a gong. And 
then, there was a confusion of signals. Something went wrong at 
the switches, some misunderstanding occurred, some slight error 
on the control boards. By the merest accident I slipped back into 
life. I was alive. 

12. But everything exists forever, nothing ever vanishes completely. 
Each second goes off into space and is held there forever, traveling 
and spreading with unalterable speed, the sight of it now reaching 
Betelgeuse on an unbelievable arrow of light, the tiniest ray of it 
now filtering through the circles around Saturn. Somewhere now 
is flashing the sight of Hannibal crossing the Alps, of Xerxes passing 
into Asia Minor, of the first apeman rising out of the green twi 
light of the swamps. And somewhere, I thought, I am still dead. 
At some point in space a million miles away a flash of light is now 
carrying me outward caught in the momentary state of death. And 



10 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

now ten thousand miles farther. And now still farther. Somewhere 
I am still dead, thought I, and 111 carry the thought of that with 
me for the rest of my life. 

13. I opened my eyes. It was growing dark already. A mile away 
across the waste I could see the plane leaning upon the rocks like 
a huge moth, wings brittle in death. Now I felt really and pro 
foundly alone. It was a new thing; I could never have imagined it. 
It was as if I were wearing a mask, or were made out of wax, or 
were growing scales instead of skin. My body was beginning to feel 
unreal. The fading light on the dead stalks two feet away might as 
well have been the gleam of a star in the deep heaven. 

14. I turned and looked at the dry river bed. High above it, passing 
slowly through the gathering dusk, I could see faint shapes passing 
westward. The shapes of the newly dead. A regular caravan of 
them. There they were, the dim astonished spirits moving out of 
their old life. To hell, or to heaven? There was no telling. Some 
looked stiff and virtuous, others limp and degenerate. Some appeared 
to be overwhelmed with delight, others bleak with detestation. 
Most of them surprised me; they were people of a kind whose 
existence I should never have suspected. People who had spent 
their life in some sort of hiding. But now they had to move into 
the open; they couldn t hide any longer: women with their hair 
shaved, hands clasped in prayer; others without eyes, horribly fat, 
the capitalists of the spirit; others dead of starvation, with faces 
like lamps in a forsaken alleyway; others hideously, exhaustingly 
insane; a few with faces made wonderfully expressive by lust, re 
vealing every possible variety of degradation and decay; the un 
employed ones, dead without hope, eyes not knowing where to 
look for mercy and mouths wide open in a voiceless, grief -stricken 
shriek of accusation; several quite rigid with solitude, men like 
dried trees, arms raised in supplication cripples and suicides; 
those dead in battle, lips pressed together with a sudden devastat 
ing understanding, eyes bleeding; four or five with eyes exquisitely 
tender there were the protected ones, the stupid ones, the lucky 
flowerlike ones whom life hadn t touched; and finally the children, 
with hard malicious eyes and bodies beautiful as ferns. More and 
more of them, more and more thickly they seemed to pass, now 
like a herd of dark slender animals, now like a great funnel of fog 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 11 

swiftly expanding. Then they grew hazy. The sky grew darker. 
Soon they would be gone, soon it would all be over, none would be 
left. None at all, nothing, not a trace. 

15. When I opened my eyes again the sky was dark, the land was 
hidden in a strange flickering shadow. Firelight. And high above 
me, the usual stars. Then I felt my body moving gently, and when 
I looked again I saw that I was lying on a couch and that a dark 
bare-chested man was gently massaging me. 

16. When he saw that I was awake he stopped and looked at me 
questioningly. He murmured in a rich low voice something that I 
couldn t understand. I stared blankly. He murmured something 
else. Still I didn t answer. Then he said, in a broken almost in 
comprehensible accent, "Perhaps Englishman, speaking English?" 

17. I nodded. He looked pleased. 

18. I raised my head and glanced around. I was lying on a rug out 
side a tent, and beside this tent stood another tent, and beyond this 
a third one, large and elaborate. I could see slender tree trunks 
shining in the firelight, and lying on the grass in front of the fire 
four great spotted dogs, jowls resting between their paws. 

19. "Very sick," said the big brown man, "very sick." He shook his 
head sadly. "But better now, much better." He nodded his head. 

I breathed deeply. "Did you find me?" I asked him. 
He looked puzzled for a moment. Then he smiled and nodded 
again. 

"And you brought me here?" 

He thought for a moment. "No, camel brought you here." 

I pointed at the tents. "Your home?" 

20. He smiled again, a great white-toothed rich-lipped smile. Sweat 
was dripping from his bearded chin and his eyebrows. "No, not 
home." He nodded toward the largest of the tents. "Prince Ghura- 
guzlu he go hunting here." 

21. I could see naked, sweating boys passing back and forth in front 
of the fire, carrying pots and dishes in and out of the tent. A fierce- 
eyed old man in a huge white turban was squatting beside the fire, 
stirring and stirring away in a big black bowl. 

22. "Do you serve Prince Ghuraguzlu?" said I. He nodded. "What is 
your name?" 

23. He looked embarrassed. "Rama Singh," he replied, gazing down- 



12 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ward. His eyelids shone like satin, his lashes cast long slanting 
shadows on his cheek bones. 

24. He must have brought me several miles, thought I. We were in 
the hills, the earth smelled rich and mossy, the larch trees were 
rustling in the hot night wind. 

25. Presently Rama Singh rose and walked into the big tent. A min 
ute or two later he reappeared. He leaned over me. "Feeling bet 
ter?" 

I nodded. 

"Prince Ghuraguzlu desiring to see you." 

26. He put his strong male-smelling arm under me and helped me 
to my feet. Then he led me slowly into the tent. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Make an outline of this selection. 

a. What are the main divisions of your outline? 

b. Are they based on chronological sequence? On the distinction between hallu 
cination and sanity? 

2. a. When you are trying to describe the sensations you have had in an hallu 
cination or a dream can you express your experiences in the same way that you 
would if you were describing a real-life situation? 

b. To which of the five senses do you refer most in describing a dream? 

c. If you can trace the component parts of your dream back to experiences you 
have had in real life, do you find that your memory of these real experiences 
is more or less vivid than your memory of the dream? How do the elements 
of your description compare with those in this passage? 

3. a. At what point does the first part of this selection end? 

b. Has the observation up to this point been primarily objective or primarily 
subjective? 

c. Might any observer be expected to note precisely the same objects and to 
have the same feelings about them? 

d. Is it clear at all times which of the observations given here are objective and 
which are colored by the narrator s feelings? 

4. List the metaphors and similes used in this selection. Compare these figures of 
speech with those used in the Faulkner selection. 

5. Underline the particular words and phrases that indicate to the reader the tran 
sitions from observation of the external world to observation of the world of the 
narrator s mind. 

6. Note that during his hallucination the narrator is expressing many generaliza 
tions that would normally be made only after much observation. Some of these 
generalizations are translated into concrete form, as when he sees people repre 
senting problems of morality rather than the problems themselves. 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 13 

a. How does this reporting of sensation and perception differ from the report 
ing in the first part? 

7. a. Are more figures of speech in the part concerned with the narrator s mental 
wanderings than in the more objective parts? 

b. Are the figures from the first part similar to those in the second? How do 
they differ? 



THE CAMERA EYE (14)* 
By John Dos Passos 

i. SUNDAY NIGHTS when we had fishballs and baked beans and Mr. 
Garfield read to us in a very beautiful reading voice and every 
body was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop because he 
was reading The Man without a Country and it was a very ter 
rible story and Aaron Burr had been a very dangerous man and 
this poor young man had said "Damn the United States; I never 
hope to hear her name again" and it was a very terrible thing to say 
and the grayhaired judge was so kind and good and the judge 
sentenced me and they took me far away to foreign lands on a 
frigate and the officers were kind and good and spoke in kind 
grave very sorry reading voices like Mr. Garfield and everything 
was very kind and grave and very sorry and frigates and the blue 
Mediterranean and islands and when I was dead I began to cry 
and I was afraid the other boys would see I had tears in my eyes 

2. American shouldn t cry he should look kind and grave and very 
sorry when they wrapped me in the stars and stripes and brought 
me home on a frigate to be buried I was so sorry I never remem 
bered whether they brought me home or buried me at sea but 
anyway I was wrapped in Old Glory 

ANALYSIS 

1. Compare this selection with the one by Frederic Prokosch. 

a. How are they alike? How do they differ? 

b. Are the similarities and differences determined by the kind of reporting or 
observing in each? 

2. How much of this selection deals with concrete material? How much of it 
does not? 

* From The 42nd Parallel ( 1930), by John Dos Passos. Published by Houghton 
Mifflin Company. Reprinted by permission of the author. 



14 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Is there any evidence in the organization or the writing in this passage to in 
dicate a "point," a judgment that the author is making? If so, what is the na 
ture of the judgment? 

Examine the words Dos Passos uses here and comment on their effectiveness in 
aiding or obscuring the land of reporting and observing the author is doing. 



NIGHT IN THE WOODS* 

By George Sessions Perry 

1. LATER, there being two axes and Harmie having a cold, Sam went 
with Mamma to cut some wood and was beaten at it and proud of 
Mamma. Then, near dark, the wind lay and Sam ate a couple of 
sweet potatoes, called the dogs, and went to the woods. 

2. Now he was a tall man striding through the naked woods, which 
were clothed only with falling night, to hunt down the furred ani 
mals; following Zoonie and the cur, who were busily reading and 
editing the tangle of trails on the woods floor, disregarding the field- 
mice and rabbit trails, the bird tracks and those of the domestic 
stock that had wandered here, and the faint, lingering traces of 
squirrel musk. 

3. The dogs were transfigured. They were no longer winners after 
buttermilk or fire heat, were no longer slinkers or sluggards, but 
were roaming the dark woods with the strange dignity of things 
doing what they were born to do, of things afire with mastery and 
fierce intention. 

4. Now Zoonie was chipping the brittle night to pieces with his 
small, fast, sharp bark, and Sam knew an animal was marooned in 
the night there above the little dog. It proved to be a possum, and as 
Sam climbed the blackjack tree, armored as it was with toothed 
bark, he was full of the hot flush of the chase and the haunting 
minor dissonance of sympathy that goes out to a thing that is 
alone and is doomed and that knows it. 

5. Sam could not push it out on the ground because the dogs would 
slash it and ruin the fur. So with a stick and the light he toyed 
with the beast until it began to play dead. Once it began the pre 
tense, Sam knew it would continue that all night. 

* From Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. Copyright 1941 
by George Sessions Perry. Reprinted by arrangement with The Viking Press, 

N. Y. 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 15 

6. Soon he climbed down the tree with it, holding onto its hairless 
tail, and fought off the dogs, though the cur was so fierce in his 
determination to get his teeth into the possum that Sam was for 
a moment afraid of him. Even so, Sam pretended not to be, and 
beat him away with a heavy stick. 

7. When the dogs were launched again and Sam had walked 
two hundred yards, he heard a rattling in the leaves nearby and 
went to it. Suddenly the light fell on a skunk, all shining and black 
in the radiance of the lantern, perfectly confident that whatever 
manner of creature was approaching, that creature would know 
what would happen to him if he came any closer. 

8. As Sam set the lantern down, the skunk, with thrilling poise, 
turned his stern to Sam and eyed him critically over his shoulder, 
sure of his weapon. 

9. Sam was afraid that the slight but abrupt noise of cocking the 
gun would startle the skunk and launch him on his offensive of 
chemical warfare. But Sam also knew that in any conflict the 
worst thing of all is to be afraid. Firmly his right thumb drew back 
the hammer which would drive home the firing pin. At the re 
sultant clicking sound, which seemed sharp and loud in the tense 
silence, a tremor ran over the skunk. Then through the notch in 
the rear sight and just above the lump of darkness which was the 
front sight, Sam could see the skunk s left eye, bright and calm. 
Slowly, so as not to spoil the aim, Sam s trigger finger closed, and 
in a single instant the skunk was a dead thing. 

10. Where a moment ago it had been all loveliness and calm cer 
tain threat, it was now a lump of meat to be denuded with great 
care, to be robbed of its shining coat and left in nakedness to 
freeze and thaw and rot. 

11. And now the dogs were barking somewhere off in the night, far 
ahead, to be reached before the quarry should run through the 
intermeshing treetops and escape. Sam picked up his things and 
began running to them. 

12. When Sam came in next morning just at dawn, having taken a 
sight on the north star which was the only one he knew defi 
nitely, since the two stars that form the front of the cup of the 
Big Dipper point outward toward it he had the hides of seven pos 
sums, one skunk, one coon and one ring-tail, and an amount of 



16 . THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

respect for Mamma s yellow cur that was Mamma-big. In the first 
place, to tree a ring-tail is not a sorry dog s job, and the coon, which 
had made his final stand on a log in the middle of a creek, had 
fought that yellow dog magnificently and shrewdly, had half 
drowned him several times. But the yellow dog had never yielded an 
inch, oblivious of everything except his driving desire to fight and 
kill, while Zoonie attacked from the rear, until Sam had been able 
to shoot the coon. 

13. There had also been some pretense made at a fox race when 
the dogs happened on one, but he was out of their class when it 
came to speed and soon convinced them. 

14. Now Sam was coming into the yard and the kids ran to meet 
him and he let them take his burdens. Mamma, who was standing 
in the kitchen door, said come tank up on breakfast and then get 
some sleep and she d wake him up later for a big roast-possum 
dinner. Sam had brought home four, it being out of the question 
to carry more, and Mamma said she d just roast them all and use 
the left-overs for sandwich meat for the kids. 

15. After breakfast he got out of his clothes and went to bed, falling 
almost immediately into that exotic, delicious daytime sleep that 
waits for those who have hunted hard, who have not slept through, 
but lived through, the raw violence of the night. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Study the author s methods of describing feelings and large, complicated per 
ceptions. 

a. Mark off the outstanding descriptions. 

b. Rewrite four of these descriptions and try to give the same meaning in terms 
of precise detail, rather than through figurative language. 

a. a. Point out the passages where the author has carefully put in details; for ex 
ample, "the skunk s left eye* instead of simply "the skunk s eye"; "Firmly his 
right thumb drew back the hammer which would drive home the firing pin." 

b. Rewrite these sentences by using summary phrases; for example, "He cocked 
the gun." 

c. How important are the details to the effectiveness of the whole selection? 

3. Note where the detailed account of the night s actions breaks off and the sum 
mary begins. Note also that the author describes in some detail two or three 
other adventures in the middle of the summary. 

a. Why did he not proceed to these before starting to summarize? 

b. What would the effect have been if he had described in detail all the events 
of the night? 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 17 

4. Note that two incidents are described in detail in the first part of the selection: 
the killing of the possum and the killing of the skunk. 

a. How many paragraphs are devoted to the possum incident? How many to 
the skunk? 

b. Would one paragraph have been sufficient for each of these incidents? 

c. What is gained or lost by treating these incidents so fully? 

5. a. How many major divisions can you find in the entire selection? Or to ask 
the same question in another way: the paragraphs can be reduced to what 
number without undue violence to customary principles of paragraphing? 

b. Why has the author made many more paragraphs than this minimum 
number? 

6. To what extent is the paragraphing based upon logical divisions of thought? 
To what extent upon chronological divisions? 

7. Is this selection primarily subjective or objective reporting? Defend your de 
cision. 

THE BUFFALO* 
By Francis Parkman 

i. THE GROUND was none of the best for a race, and grew worse 
continually as we proceeded; indeed, it soon became desperately 
bad, consisting of abrupt hills and deep hollows, cut by frequent 
ravines not easy to pass. At length, a mile in advance, we saw a 
band of bulls. Some were scattered grazing over a green declivity, 
while the rest were crowded together in the wide hollow below. 
Making a circuit, to keep out of sight, we rode towards them, until 
we ascended a hill, within a furlong of them, beyond which noth 
ing intervened that could possibly screen us from their view. We 
dismounted behind the ridge, just out of sight, drew our saddle- 
girths, examined our pistols, and mounting again, rode over the 
hill, and descended at a canter towards them, bending close to our 
horses necks. Instantly they took the alarm: those on the hill de 
scended, those below gathered into a mass, and the whole got 
into motion, shouldering each other along at a clumsy gallop. We 
followed, spurring our horses to full speed; and as the herd rushed, 
crowding and trampling in terror through an opening in the hills, 
we were close at their heels, half suffocated by the clouds of dust. 
But as we drew near, their alarm and speed increased; our horses, 
being new to the work, showed signs of the utmost fear, bounding 

* From The Oregon Trail (1920), by Francis Parkman. Published by Little, 
Brown and Company. 



18 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

violently aside as we approached, and refusing to enter among the 
herd. The buffalo now broke into several small bodies, scampering 
over the hills in different directions, and I lost sight of Shaw; 
neither of us knew where the other had gone. Old Pontiac ran like 
a frantic elephant up hill and down hill, his ponderous hoofs 
striking the prairie like sledge hammers. He showed a curious mix 
ture of eagerness and terror, straining to overtake the panic-stricken 
herd, but constantly recoiling in dismay as we drew near. The fugi 
tives, indeed, offered no very attractive spectacle, with their 
shaggy manes and the tattered remnants of their last winter s hair 
covering their backs in irregular shreds and patches, and flying 
off in the wind as they ran. At length I urged my horse close behind 
a bull, and after trying in vain, by blows and spurring, to bring 
him alongside, I fired from this disadvantageous position. At the 
report Pontiac swerved so much that I was again thrown a little 
behind the game. The bullet, entering too much in the rear, failed 
to disable; for a buffalo requires to be shot at particular points, or 
he will certainly escape. The herd ran up a hill, and I followed in 
pursuit. As Pontiac rushed headlong down on the other side, I saw 
Shaw and Henry descending the hollow on the right, at a leisurely 
gallop; and in front, the buffalo were just disappearing behind the 
crest of the next hill, their short tails erect, and their hoofs twin 
kling through a cloud of dust. 

At that moment I heard Shaw and Henry shouting to me; but 
the muscles of a stronger arm than mine could not have checked 
at once the furious course of Pontiac, whose mouth was as insensi 
ble as leather. Added to this, I rode him that morning with a snaf 
fle, having the day before, for the benefit of my other horse, un 
buckled from my bridle the curb which I commonly used. A 
stronger and hardier brute never trod the prairie; but the novel 
sight of the buffalo filled him with terror, and when at full speed 
he was almost incontrollable. Gaining the top of the ridge, I saw 
nothing of the buffalo; they had all vanished amid the intricacies of 
the hills and hollows. Reloading my pistols, in the best way I could, 
I galloped on until I saw them again scuttling along at the base 
of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. Down went old Pontiac 
among them, scattering them to the right and left; and then we 
had another long chase. About a dozen bulls were before us, scour- 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 19 

ing over the hills, rushing down the declivities with tremendous 
weight and impetuosity, and then laboring with a weary gallop 
upward. Still Pontiac, in spite of spurring and beating, would not 
close with them. One bull at length fell a little behind the rest, 
and by a dint of much effort, I urged my horse within six or eight 
yards of his side. His back was darkened with sweat: he was 
panting heavily, while his tongue lolled out a foot from his jaws. 
Gradually I came up abreast of him, urging Pontiac with leg and 
rein nearer to his side, when suddenly he did what buffalo in such 
circumstances will always do: he slackened his gallop, and turn 
ing towards us, with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, low 
ered his huge, shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac, with a snort, 
leaped aside in terror, nearly throwing me to the ground, as I was 
wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I raised my pistol in a 
passion to strike him on the head, but thinking better of it, fired 
the bullet after the bull, who had resumed his flight; then drew 
rein, and determined to rejoin my companions. It was high time. 
The breath blew hard from Pontiac s nostrils, and the sweat rolled 
in big drops down his sides; I myself felt as if drenched in warm 
water. Pledging myself to take my revenge at a future opportunity, 
I looked about for some indications to show me where I was, and 
what course I ought to pursue; I might as well have looked for 
landmarks in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I had run 
or in what direction, I had no idea; and around me the prairie was 
rolling in steep swells and pitches, without a single distinctive fea 
ture to guide me. I had a little compass hung at my neck; and ig 
norant that the Platte at this point diverged considerably from its 
easterly course, I thought that by keeping to the northward I 
should certainly reach it. So I turned and rode about two hours in 
that direction. The prairie changed as I advanced, softening away 
into easier undulations, but nothing like the Platte appeared, nor 
any sign of a human being: the same wild endless expanse lay 
around me still; and to all appearance I was as far from my object 
as ever. I began now to think myself in danger of being lost, and 
reining in my horse, summoned the scanty share of woodcraft that 
I possessed ( if that term is applicable upon the prairie ) to extricate 
me. It occurred to me that the buffalo might prove my best guides. 
I soon found one of the paths made by them in their passage to 



20 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

the river: it ran nearly at right angles to my course; but turning 
my horse s head in the direction it indicated, his freer gait and 
erected ears assured me that I was right. 

3. But in the meantime my ride had been by no means a solitary 
one. The face of the country was dotted far and wide with count 
less hundreds of buffalo. They trooped along in files and columns, 
bulls, cows, and calves, on the green faces of the declivities in front. 
They scrambled away over the hills to the right and left; and far 
off, the pale blue swells in the extreme distance were clotted with 
innumerable specks. Sometimes I surprised shaggy old bulls graz 
ing alone, or sleeping behind the ridges I ascended. They would 
leap up at my approach, stare stupidly at me through their tangled 
manes, and then gallop heavily away. The antelope were very 
numerous; and as they are always bold when in the neighborhood 
of buffalo, they would approach to look at me, gaze intently with 
their great round eyes, then suddenly leap aside, and stretch 
lightly away over the prairie, as swiftly as a race horse. Squalid, 
ruffianlike wolves sneaked through the hollows and sandy ravines. 
Several times I passed through villages of prairie dogs, who sat, 
each at the mouth of his burrow, holding his paws before him in 
a supplicating attitude, and yelping away most vehemently, whisk 
ing his little tail with every squeaking cry he uttered. Prairie dogs 
are not fastidious in their choice of companions; various long, 
checkered snakes were sunning themselves in the midst of the 
village, and demure little gray owls, with a large white ring 
around each eye, were perched side by side with the rightful in 
habitants. The prairie teemed with life. Again and again I looked 
toward the crowded hillsides, and was sure I saw horsemen; and 
riding near, with a mixture of hope and dread, for Indians were 
abroad, I found them transformed into a group of buffalo. There 
was nothing in human shape amid all this vast congregation of 
brute forms. 

4. When I turned down the buffalo path, the prairie seemed changed: 
only a wolf or two glided by at intervals, like conscious felons, never 
looking to the right or left. Being now free from anxiety, I was at 
leisure to observe minutely the objects around me; and here, for the 
first time, I noticed insects wholly different from any of the varieties 
found farther to the eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered about my 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 21 

horse s head; strangely formed beetles, glittering with metallic luster, 
were crawling upon plants that I had never seen before; multitudes 
of lizards, too, were darting like lightning over the sand. 
5. I had run to a great distance from the river. It cost me a long ride 
on the buffalo path, before I saw, from the ridge of a sandhill, the 
pale surface of the Platte glistening in the midst of its desert val 
ley, and the faint outline of the hills beyond waving along the sky. 
From where I stood, not a tree nor a bush nor a living thing was 
visible throughout the whole extent of the sun-scorched landscape. 
In half an hour I came upon the trail, not far from the river; and 
seeing that the party had not yet passed, I turned eastward to meet 
them, old Pontiac s long swinging trot again assuring me that I was 
right in doing so. Having been slightly ill on leaving camp in the 
morning, six or seven hours of rough riding had fatigued me ex 
tremely. I soon stopped, therefore, flung my saddle on the ground, 
and with my head resting on it and my horse s trail-rope tied loosely 
to my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the party, speculating mean 
while on the extent of the injuries Pontiac had received. At length 
the white wagon coverings rose from the verge of the plain. By a 
singular coincidence, almost at the same moment two horsemen ap 
peared coming down from the hills. They were Shaw and Henry, 
who had searched for me a while in the morning, but well knowing 
the futility of the attempt in such a broken country, had placed 
themselves on the top of the highest hill they could find, and picket 
ing their horses near them, as a signal to me, had lain down and 
fallen asleep. The stray cattle had been recovered, as the emigrants 
told us, about noon. Before sunset, we pushed forward eight miles 
farther. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. How does this selection compare with the two preceding as to the subjec 
tivity of the reporting? 

b. At what points do the writer s feelings color his perceptions? 

c. Does this subjectivity affect the tone of the selection as a whole? 

2. Does the fact that the author is taking part in the action described affect the 
nature of the reporting of the action? 

3. The paragraphs are long here. Could they be broken into smaller paragraphs 
without change of wording? 

a. Examine especially Paragraph 2 in this connection. Note that the order is 
almost entirely chronological. 



22 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

b. In what respect do Paragraphs 3 and 4 violate the strict chronological 
pattern? 

4. In Paragraphs 3 and 4 Parkman is generalizing upon perceptions. He is not de 
scribing each perception as it comes to him, but is making general statements 
about groups of perceptions. His generalizations are, however, so close to single 
perceptions here that we would call the passage highly concrete. 

a. Examine these two paragraphs closely to see exactly what is meant here. 

5. What metaphors and similes can you find in this selection? 

ICE* 
By Henry David Thoreau 

i. THE POND had in the meanwhile skimmed over in the shadiest 
and shallowest coves, some days or even weeks before the general 
freezing. The first ice is especially interesting and perfect, being 
hard, dark, and transparent, and affords the best opportunity that 
ever offers for examining the bottom where it is shallow; for you can 
lie at your length on ice only an inch thick, like a skater insect on 
the surface of the water, and study the bottom at your leisure, only 
two or three inches distant, like a picture behind a glass, and the 
water is necessarily always smooth then. There are many furrows 
in the sand where some creature has traveled about and doubled on 
its tracks; and, for wrecks, it is strewn with the cases of caddis worms 
made of minute grains of white quartz. Perhaps these have creased 
it, for you find some of their cases in the furrows, though they are 
deep and broad for them to make. But the ice itself is the object of 
most interest, though you must improve the earliest opportunity to 
study it. If you examine it closely the morning after it freezes, you 
find that the greater part of the bubbles, which at first appeared to 
be within it, are against its under surface, and that more are con 
tinually rising from the bottom; while the ice is as yet compara 
tively solid and dark, that is, you see .the water through it. These 
bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch in diameter, 
very clear and beautiful, and you see your face reflected in them 
through the ice. There may be thirty or forty of them to a square 
inch. There are also already within the ice narrow oblong perpendic 
ular bubbles about half an inch long, sharp cones with the apex up 
ward; or oftener, if the ice is quite fresh, minute spherical bubbles 

* FiomWdden (1854). 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 23 

one directly above another, like a string of beads. But these within 
the ice are not so numerous nor obvious as those beneath. I some 
times used to cast in stones to try the strength of the ice, and those 
which broke through carried in air with them, which formed very 
large and conspicuous white bubbles beneath. One day when I came 
to the same place forty-eight hours afterward, I found that those 
large bubbles were still perfect, though an inch more of ice had 
formed, as I could see distinctly by the seam in the edge of a cake. 
But as the last two days had been very warm, like an Indian sum 
mer, the ice was not now transparent, showing the dark green color 
of the water, and the bottom, but opaque and whitish or gray, and 
though twice as thick was hardly stronger than before, for the air 
bubbles had greatly expanded under this heat and run together, 
and lost their regularity; they were no longer one directly over an 
other, but often like silvery coins poured from a bag, one overlap 
ping another, or in thin flakes, as if occupying slight cleavages. The 
beauty of the ice was gone, and it was too late to study the bottom. 
Being curious to know what position my great bubbles occupied 
with regard to the new ice, I broke out a cake containing a middling 
sized one, and turned it bottom upward. The new ice had formed 
around and under the bubble, so that it was included between the 
two ices. It was wholly in the lower ice, but close against the upper, 
and was flattish, or perhaps slightly lenticular, with a rounded edge, 
a quarter of an inch deep by four inches in diameter; and I was sur 
prised to find that directly under the bubble the ice was melted with 
great regularity in the form of a saucer reversed, to the height of 
five eighths of an inch in the middle, leaving a thin partition there 
between the water and the bubble, hardly an eighth of an inch 
thick; and in many places the small bubbles in this partition had 
burst out downward, and probably there was no ice at all under the 
largest bubbles, which were a foot in diameter. I inferred that the in 
finite number of minute bubbles which I had first seen against the 
under surface of the ice were now frozen in likewise, and that each, 
in its degree, had operated like a burning glass on the ice beneath 
to melt and rot it. These are the little air guns which contribute to 
make the ice crack and whoop. 



24 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



ANALYSIS 

1. Is Thoreau s report of Walden Pond in winter subjective reporting or objective 
reporting? What evidence can you find in support of your opinion? 

2. a. What order does Thoreau follow in examining the ice? 

b. Does he follow some clearly marked path from general or over-all picture to 
one that is more minute? 

c. Does he merely assemble details that seem to him to be significant; or does 
he allow the picture of the pond to grow on the reader through the accumula 
tion of the details? 

3. a. Is Thoreau trying to make a "point" or "points" in this selection? 

b. If so, what is the relation between his points and the details of observation 
that he makes? 

4. Study the words used here the adjectives, the verbs, the images. 

a. To what extent does word choice indicate objective or subjective reporting? 

5. a. What is the function of time in this selection? 

b. How does it help the kind of reporting Thoreau is doing here? 

6. Thoreau wrote this passage as one long paragraph. 

a. Into how many main parts can this paragraph be divided? 

b. Mark off the places where one subdivision ends and the next begins. 

c. Which of these divisions receives the fullest treatment? 

7. Note the places where Thoreau attempts to give precise measurements for ice 
and bubbles. 

a. Does this accuracy influence perceptibly the effect of the piece on the reader? 



LAST DAYS OF ST. PIERRE* 
By Fairfax Downey 



THE PLANTER 

1. How GRACIOUSLY had fortune smiled on Fernand Clerc! Little past 
the age of forty, in this year of 1902, he was the leading planter of 
the fair island of Martinique. Sugar from his broad cane fields, mo 
lasses, and mellow rum had made him a man of wealth, a millionaire. 
All his enterprises prospered. 

2. Were the West Indies, for all their beauty and their bounty, some 
times powerless to prevent a sense of exile, an ache of homesickness 
in the heart of a citizen of the Republic? Then there again fate had 

* From Disaster Fighters, copyright, 1938, by Fairfax Downey. Courtesy of 
G. P. Putnam s Sons. 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 25 

been kind to Fernand Clerc. Elected a member of the Chamber of 
Deputies, it was periodically his duty and his pleasure to embark 
and sail home to attend its sessions home to France, to Paris. 

3. Able, respected, good-looking, blessed with a charming wife and 
children, M. Clerc found life good indeed. With energy undepleted 
by the tropics, he rode through the island visiting his properties. Tall 
and thick grew the cane stalks of his plantation at Vive on the slopes 
of Mont Pelee. Mont Pelee Naked Mountain well named when 
lava erupting from its cone had stripped it bare of its verdure. But 
that was long ago. Not since 1851 had its subterranean fires flared up 
and then but insignificantly. Peaceful now, its crater held the lovely 
Lake of Palms, whose wooded shores were a favorite picnic spot 
for parties from St. Pierre and Fort-de-France. Who need fear tow 
ering Mont Pelee, once mighty, now mild, an extinct volcano? 

4. Yet this spring M. Clerc and all Martinique received a rude shock. 
The mountain was not dead, it seemed. White vapors veiled her 
summit, and by May second she had overlaid her green mantle with 
a gown of gray cinders. Pelee muttered and fumed like an angry 
woman told her day was long past. Black smoke poured forth, il 
lumined at night by jets of flame and flashes of lightning. The gray 
ish snow of cinders covered the countryside, and the milky waters 
of the Riviere Blanche altered into a muddy and menacing torrent. 

5. Nor was Pelee uttering only empty threats. On May fifth, M. Clerc 
at Vive beheld a cloud rolling from the mountain down the valley. 
Sparing his own acres, the cloud and the stream of smoking lava 
which it masked, enveloped the Guerin sugar factory, burying its 
owner, his wife overseer, and twenty-five workmen and domestics. 

6. Dismayed by this tragedy, M. Clerc and many others moved from 
the slopes into St. Pierre. The city was crowded, its population of 
twenty-five thousand swollen to forty thousand, and the throngs that 
filled the market and the cafes or strolled through the gorgeously 
luxuriant Jardin des Plantes lent an air of added animation, of al 
most hectic gaiety. When M. Clerc professed alarm at the behavior 
of Pelee to his friends, he was answered with shrugs of shoulders. 
Danger? On the slopes perhaps, but scarcely here in St. Pierre down 
by the sea. 

7. Thunderous, scintillant, Mont Pelee staged a magnificent display 
of natural fireworks on the night of May seventh. Whites and Negroes 



26 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

stared up at it, fascinated. Some were frightened but more took a 
childlike joy in the vivid spectacle. It was as if the old volcano were 
celebrating the advent of tomorrow s fete day. 

8. M. Fernand Clerc did not sleep well that night. He breakfasted 
early in the household where he and his family were guests and again 
expressed his apprehensions to the large group of friends and rela 
tives gathered at the table. Politely and deferentially for one does 
not jeer a personage and man of proven courage they heard him 
out, hiding their scepticism. 

9. The voice of the planter halted in midsentence; and he half rose, 
his eyes fixed on the barorr^eter. Its needle was actually fluttering! 

10. M. Clerc pushed back his chair abruptly and commanded his car 
riage at once. A meaning look to his wife and four children, and 
they hastened to make ready. Their hosts and the rest followed them 
to the door. Non, merci, none would join their exodus. An revoir. A 
demain. 

11. From the balcony of their home, the American Consul, Thomas 
Prentis, and his wife waved to the Clerc family driving by. "Stop," 
the planter ordered and the carriage pulled up. Best come along, 
the planter urged. His American friends thanked him. There was 
no danger, they laughed, and waved again to the carriage disappear 
ing in gray dust as racing hoofs and wheels sped it out of the city 
of St. Pierre. 

THE GOVERNOR 

12. Governor Mouttet, ruling Martinique for the Republic of France, 
glared up at rebellious Mont P^lee. This peste of a volcano was de 
ranging the island. There had been no such crisis since its captures 
by the English, who always relinquished it again to France, or the 
days when the slaves revolted. A great pity that circumstances be 
yond his control should damage the prosperous record of his ad 
ministration, the Governor reflected. 

13. That miserable mountain was disrupting commerce. Its rumblings 
drowned out the band concerts in the Savane. Its pyrotechnics dis 
tracted glances which might far better have dwelt admiringly on the 
proverbial beauty of the women of Martinique. . . . Now attention 
was diverted to a cruder work of Nature, a sputtering volcano. Par- 
bleu! It was enough to scandalize any true Frenchman. 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 27 

14. Governor Mouttet sighed and pored over the reports laid before 
him. He had appointed a commission to study the eruption and get 
at the bottom of I affaire Pelee, but meanwhile alarm was spreading. 
People were fleeing the countryside and thronging into St. Pierre, 
deserting that city for Fort-de-France, planning even to leave the 
island. Steamship passage was in heavy demand. The Roraima, due 
May eighth, was booked solid out of St. Pierre, one said. This would 
never do. Steps must be taken to prevent a panic which would scat 
ter fugitives throughout Martinique or drain a colony of France of 
its inhabitants. 

15. A detachment of troops was despatched by the Governor to St. 
Pierre to preserve order and halt the exodus. His Excellency, no man 
to send others where he himself would not venture, followed with 
Mme. Mouttet and took up residence in that city. Certainly his pres 
ence must serve to calm these unreasoning, exaggerated fears. He 
circulated among the populace, speaking soothing words. Mes en- 
fants, the Governor avowed, Mont Pelee rumbling away there is only 
snoring soundly in deep slumber. Be tranquil. 

36. Yet, on the ominous night of May seventh, as spurts of flame 
painted the heavens, the Governor privately confessed to inward 
qualms. What if the mountain should really rouse? Might it not then 
cast the mortals at its feet into a sleep deeper than its own had been, 
a sleep from which they would never awaken? 

THE CHIEF OFFICER 

17. Ellery S. Scott, chief officer of the Quebec Line steamship Rora 
ima, stood on the bridge with Captain Muggah as the vessel bore 
down on Martinique. A column of smoke over the horizon traced 
down to the 4500-foot summit of Mont Pelee. So the old volcano was 
acting up! Curiosity on the bridge ran high as anchor was dropped 
in the St. Pierre roadstead about six o clock on the morning of May 
eighth. But all seemed well ashore. The streets, twisting and climb 
ing between the bright-colored houses, were filled with crowds in 
gay holiday attire. 

18. Promptly the agents came aboard. The volcano? But certainly it 
was erupting and causing inconvenience. But there was no danger, 
regardless of the opinion of that Italian skipper yesterday who had 
said that had he seen Vesuvius looking like Pelee, he would have de- 



28 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

parted from Naples as fast as he was going to leave St. Pierre. Al 
though the authorities refused him clearance and threatened penal 
ties, he had sailed in haste, with only half his cargo. 

19. By the way, the agents continued, the passenger list was to be 
considerably augmented: sixty first-class anxious to leave St. Pierre. 
Here they were boarding now with bag and baggage. Could they be 
humored, and the Roraima sail for St. Lucia at once, returning to 
discharge its Martinique cargo? the agents inquired of Captain 
Muggah. 

20. Chief Officer Scott, ordered below to inspect the stowage, thought 
of his boy in the forecastle. A good lad this eldest son of his. Used 
to say he d have a ship of his own some day and keep on his father 
as first mate. No, his father planned a better career than the sea for 
him. The boy was slated to go to college and be a lawyer. This 
would be his last voyage. 

21. Stowed shipshape and proper as Scott knew he would find it, the 
cargo plainly could not be shifted without a good deal of difficulty. 
The Martinique consignment lay above that for St. Lucia, and it 
would be a heavy task to discharge at the latter port first. Scott so 
reported. 

22. The agents hesitated briefly. To be sure, sixty first-class passengers 
were to be obliged if possible but ah, well, let them wait a little 
longer. The Roraima would sail as soon as the upper layer of cargo 
was landed. 

23. Ship s bells tolled the passing hours. Pelee yonder growled hoarsely 
and belched black smoke. A little before eight, Chief Officer Scott 
apprehensively turned his binoculars on the summit. 

THE PRISONER 

24. It was dark in the underground dungeon of the St. Pierre prison, 
but thin rays of light filtered through the grated opening in the 
upper part of the cell door. Enough so that Auguste Ciparis could 
tell when it was night and when it was day. 

25. Not that it mattered much unless a man desired to count the days 
until he should be free. What good was that? One could not hurry 
them by. Therefore Auguste stolidly endured them with the long 
patience of Africa. The judge had declared him a criminal and 
caused him to be locked up here. Thus it was settled and nothing 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 29 

was to be done. Yet it was hard, this being shut out of life up there 
in the gay city hard when one was only twenty-five and strong 
and lusty. 

26. Auguste slept and dozed all he could. Pele*e was rumbling away in 
the distance each day the jailer bringing him food and water 
seemed more excited about it but the noise, reaching the sub 
terranean cell only as faint thunder, failed to keep the Negro 
awake. . . . 

27. Glimmerings of the dawn of May eighth filtered through the grat 
ing into the cell, and Auguste stirred into wakefulness. This being a 
fete day, imprisonment was less tolerable. What merriment his 
friends would be making up there in the squares of St. Pierrel He 
could imagine the sidelong glances and the swaying hips of the mu 
latto girls he might have been meeting today. Auguste stared sul 
lenly at the cell door. At least the jailer might have been on time 
with his breakfast. 

28. The patch of light in the grating winked out into blackness. Ail 
Ai! All of a sudden it was night again. 

II 

29. On the morning of May eighth, 1902, the clocks of St. Pierre ticked 
on toward ten minutes of eight when they would stop forever. 
Against a background of bright sunshine, a huge column of vapor 
rose from the cone of Mont Pel6e. 

30. A salvo of reports as from heavy artillery. Then, choked by lava 
boiled to white heat by fires in the depths of the earth, Pelee with a 
terrific explosion blew its head off. 

31. Like a colossal Roman candle it shot out streaks of flame and fiery 
globes. A pall of black smoke rose thousands of feet in the air, dark 
ening the heavens. Silhouetted by a red, infernal glare, Pelee flung 
aloft viscid masses which rained incandescent ashes on land and sea. 

32. Then, jagged and brilliant as the lightning flashes, a fissure opened 
in the flank of the mountain toward St. Pierre. Out of it issued an 
immense cloud which rushed with unbelievable rapidity down on 
the doomed city and the villages of Carbet and Le Precheur. 

33. In three minutes that searing, suffocating cloud enveloped them, 
and forty thousand people died! 

34. Fernand Clerc, the planter, watched from Mont Parnasse, one 



30 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

mile east of St. Pierre, where he had so recently breakfasted. 
Shrouded in such darkness as only the inmost depths of a cavern af 
ford, he reached out for the wife and children he could not see and 
gathered them in blessed safety into his arms. But the relatives, the 
many friends he had left so short a while ago, the American consul 
and his wife, who had waved him a gay goodbye them he would 
never see alive again. . . . 

35. In that vast brazier which was St. Pierre, Governor Mouttet may 
have lived the instant long enough to realize that Pelee had in truth 
awakened and that eternal sleep was his lot and his wife s and that 
of all those whose flight he had discouraged. . . . 

36. Down in that deep dungeon cell of his Auguste Ciparis blinked in 
the swift-fallen night. Through the grating blew a current of burn 
ing air, scorching his flesh. He leaped, writhing in agony and scream 
ing for help. No one answered. 

37. Leaving a blazing city in its wake, the death cloud from the vol 
cano rolled over the docks, and the sea, hissing and seething, shrank 
back before it. Aboard the Roraima, Chief Officer Scott lowered his 
glasses precipitately from Pelee. One look at that cloud bearing down 
like a whirlwind and he snatched a tarpaulin from a ventilator and 
pulled it over him. The ship rolled to port, almost on her beam ends, 
then back to starboard. Her funnels and other superstructure and 
most of her small boats were swept off by the mighty blast laden 
with scalding ashes and stone dust. Badly scorched, Scott emerged 
from his refuge to catch a glimpse of the British steamer Roddam 
plunging by toward the open sea, her deck a smoking shambles. Of 
the other sixteen vessels which had been anchored in the roadstead 
there was no sign. 

38. Staggering toward the twisted iron wreckage of the bridge, the 
Chief Officer beheld the swaying figure of Captain Muggah. From 
the hideous, blackened mask that had been his face a voice croaked: 

39. "All hands! Heave up the anchor!" 

40. All hands! Only Scott, two engineers, and a few members of the 
black gang who had been below responded. In vain Scott scanned 
the group for his son. He never saw the lad again. 

41. The anchor could not be unshackled. "Save the women and chil 
dren," the captain ordered. During attempts to lower a boat, the 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 31 

captain disappeared. Later he was pulled out of the water in a dy 
ing condition. 

42. Now the Roraima was afire fore and aft. Amid the shrieks and 
groans of dying passengers, Scott and three more able-bodied men 
fought the flames, helped by a few others whose hands, burned raw, 
made it torture to touch anything. Between dousing the fire with 
bucketfuls from the sea, Scott tried to give drinks of fresh water to 
those who begged pitifully for it, though their seared, swollen throats 
would not let them swallow a drop. Tongues lolling, they dragged 
themselves along the deck, following him like dogs. 

43. When the French cruiser Suchet steamed up to the rescue, the 
only survivors among the passengers were a little girl and her nurse. 
Twenty-eight out of a crew of forty-seven were dead. 

44. The eyes of all aboard the Suchet turned toward shore. There at 
the foot of a broad, bare pathway, paved by death and destruction 
down the slope of Mont Pelee, lay the utter ruins of the city of 
St. Pierre. 

Ill 

45. Not until the afternoon of May eighth did the devastation of St. 
Pierre cool sufficiently to allow rescuers from Fort-de-France to 
enter. They could find none to rescue except one woman who died 
soon after she was taken from a cellar. 

46. "St. Pierre, that city this morning alive, full of human souls, is no 
more!" Vicar-General Parel wrote his Bishop. "It lies consumed be 
fore us, in its winding sheet of smoke and cinders, silent and des 
olate, a city of the dead. We strain our eyes for fleeing inhabitants, 
for men returning to bury their lost ones. We see no one! There is 
no living being left in this desert of desolation, framed in a terrify 
ing solitude. In the background, when the cloud of smoke and cin 
ders breaks away, the mountain and its slopes, once so green, stand 
forth like an Alpine landscape. They look as if they were covered 
with a heavy cloak of snow, and through the thickened atmosphere 
rays of pale sunshine, wan, and unknown to our latitudes, illumine 
this scene with a light that seems to belong to the other side of the 
grave." 

47. Indeed St. Pierre might have been an ancient town, destroyed in 



32 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

some half-forgotten cataclysm and recently partly excavated an 
other Pompeii and Herculaneum. Cinders, which had buried its 
streets six feet deep in a few minutes, were as the dust of centuries. 
Here was the same swift extinction Vesuvius had wrought. 

48. Here was no slow flow of lava. That cloud disgorged by Pel6e 
was a superheated hurricane issuing from the depths of the earth at 
a speed of ninety miles an hour. Such was the strength of the blast, 
it killed by concussion and by toppling walls on its victims. The fall 
of the fourteen-foot metal statue of Notre Dame de la Garde Our 
Lady of Safety symbolized the dreadful fact that tens of thousands 
never had a fighting chance for their lives. 

49. But chiefly the death cloud slew with its lethal content of hot 
steam and dust. So swiftly did it pass that its heat did not always 
burn all of the light tropical clothing from its prey, but once it was 
inhaled into the lungs that was the end. Some had run a few 
frantic steps; then dropped, hands clutched over nose and mouth. 
Encrusted by cementlike ashes, corpses lay fixed in the contorted 
postures of their last struggle, replicas of the dead of Vesuvius pre 
served in the Naples museum. Fire had charred others or incinerated 
them to a heap of bones. A horrible spectacle was presented by 
bodies whose skulls and abdomens had been burst by heat and gases. 

50. People who had been indoors when the cloud descended perished 
where they stood or sat, but the hand of death had marked most of 
them less cruelly. They seemed almost still alive, as each shattered 
building disclosed its denouement. There a girl lay prone, her arms 
about the feet of an image of the Virgin. A man bent with his head 
thrust into a basin from which the water had evaporated. A family 
was gathered around a restaurant table. A child held a doll in her 
arms; when the doll was touched, it crumbled away except for its 
china eyes. A clerk sat at his desk, one hand supporting his chin, the 
other grasping a pen. A baker crouched in the fire pit under his 
oven. In one room of a home a blonde girl in her bathrobe leaned 
back in a rocking chair. Behind her stood a Negro servant who ap 
parently had been combing the girl s hair. Another servant had 
crawled under a sofa. Not far away lay the body of a white woman, 
beautiful as a Greek statue, and like many an antique statue 
headless. 

51. Mutilated or almost unmarred, shriveled in last agony or seeming 



OBSERVING AND REPORTING 33 

only to have dropped into a peaceful sleep, lay the legions of the 
dead. After the finding of the dying woman in a cellar, the devasta 
tion was searched in vain for survivors. 

52. Then four days after the catastrophe, two Negroes walking through 
the wreckage turned gray as they heard faint cries for help issuing 
from the depths of the earth. 

53. "Who s that?" they shouted when they could speak. "Where are 
you?" 

54. Up floated the feeble voice: "I m down here in the dungeon of 
the jail. Help! Save me! Get me out!" 

55. They dug down through the debris, broke open the dungeon door, 
and released Auguste Ciparis, the Negro criminal. 

56. Some days later, George Kennan and August F. Jaccaci, American 
journalists arriving to cover the disaster, located Ciparis in a village 
in the country. They secured medical attention for hfe severe burns, 
poorly cared for as yet, and obtained and authenticated his story. 
When the scorching air penetrated his cell that day, he smelled his 
own body burning but breathed as little as possible during the mo 
ment the intense heat lasted. Ignorant of what had occurred, not 
realizing that he was buried alive, he slowly starved for four days in 
his tomb of a cell. His scant supply of water was soon gone. Only 
echoes answered his shouts for help. When at last he was heard and 
freed, Ciparis, given a drink of water, managed with some assistance 
to walk six kilometers to Morne Rouge. 

57. One who lived where forty thousand died! History records no 
escape more marvelous. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. Examine carefully the divisions of this selection and try to determine why 
the author organized his material in this way. 

b. What effect on die whole pattern of the reporting does the account of dif 
ferent individuals and their actions have? 

2. a. Why did the author choose the particular persons he did? 

b. Is his choice intended to be representative? 

c. Is it intended to cover, by specific and typical instances, what might have 
been covered by a more generalized reporting? 

3. a. Is there any evidence in the passage that the author was present and that 
he is therefore giving an eye-witness account of the disaster? 

b. What changes in organization and approach seem to indicate that the ma 
terial here has been gained through other than first-hand sources? 



34 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

4. Can you find any places in this selection which might be classified as subjective 
reporting? 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

An Indian stick game 

An evening spent at a wake 

A native village in New Guinea 

The last day of fishing on the Blackfoot 

Old men watching an excavation 

A sorority tea 

Hayrakers 

A family of immigrants 

A race-track tout in action 

Children buying candy 

Women in a hat shop 

Men on the production line 

A game of bridge in the afternoon 

On the subway 

Circus people 

A library reading room 

Sensations on regaining consciousness 

Sensations in a dentist s chair 

Gloomy Sunday 

Homesickness 

These are subjects that do not involve generalizations. In handling them, 
simply present a scene that would correspond to action shots taken by a 
movie camera. If more than one paper is written here, make one objective 
and one subjective. 



2. INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 



Informal Inductions 



AT THIS POINT we begin to concern ourselves with making gen 
eralizations and arriving at conclusions. When we generalize, we 
have in mind not one situation but many situations that are related in 
some way. We think of many situations having certain elements in com 
mon, and we arrive at conclusions we consider true about these elements. 
Consider, for instance, the article "I Pick Em Up" on page 70. The 
writer is in the habit of picking up hitchhikers. He is not writing about 
one experience only; he has had many. He is trying to express his gen 
eral attitude toward picking up hitchhikers. Again, W. E. 13. DuBois, 
in "The Negro Scientist," is acquainted with the life stories of several 
Negro scientists. By examining somewhat closely the case of each, he 
attempts to determine whether or not Negroes can become competent 
scientists. This process of arriving at conclusions about a class of peo 
ple, objects, or ideas is what logicians call induction. 

Suppose you notice that your neighbor s Siamese cat has a kink in 
its tail. At first you assume that the kink is merely a peculiarity of the 
single animal. Perhaps it has had an accident. But later on you come 
across another Siamese cat with a kink in its tail. Your interest now 
aroused, you check on other Siamese cats and find that each has a 
similar kink. You have by now become thoroughly convinced that 
Siamese cats as a class have kinks in their tails. In arriving at a conclu 
sion about the class of animals, you are making a generalization or in 
duction. 

An informal induction is one in which the writer does not endeavor 
seriously to make a thorough study of all the members in the class 
about which he is writing; or, as the case often is, does not set up any 



38 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

research machinery by which he can reasonably expect to arrive at 
a demonstration that should satisfy every reader. Although the line 
between informal and formal inductions l is sometimes hard to draw, 
the distinction can be made practically by using the writer s method 
of approach to his material as a measuring stick. If he has noticed 
somewhat at random or from his chance experiences with his subject 
some related phenomena and has drawn conclusions from them, the 
result is informal induction. It is not implied here that informal in 
ductions are inferior products; some of the ideas that govern our 
lives were arrived at informally. The formal induction, however, is an 
investigative job. The writer of such a piece outlines his problem and 
determines what he needs to do to arrive at sound conclusions; he 
devises methods for gathering his material and maintains scientific or 
objective control of it. 

In writing articles that carry informal inductions, the student should 
turn to his own experiences. He should go not to the unusual experi 
ences he has had but to the ones that recur constantly. There is a 
knack to the discovery of subjects for these papers but mastery of it 
is not at all difficult, and when the student has achieved his mastery 
he should no longer have trouble in finding subjects to write about. 
The key to the knack lies in the act of turning away from the unusual 
to the usual as subject matter, in the act of turning away from the one 
striking experience to the little experiences which do not amount to 
much individually, but which taken together amount to an idea of 
more significance than strange happenings or violent accidents can 
ever give. 



THIRTY MILLION NEW AMERICANS 

Louis Adamic 

i. WITHIN its population of slightly less than one hundred and 
thirty million, the United States has today over thirty million citi 
zens the overwhelming majority of them young citizens who 
are the American-born children of immigrant parents of various 

1 For formal inductions see Section IV, Primary Source Papers. 
* From My America ( 1938), by Louis Adamic. Published by Harper and Broth 
ers. Copyright, 1938, by Louis Adamic. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 39 

nationalities: German, Italian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Cro 
atian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Jewish, Russian, Carpatho-Russian, 
Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Hungarian, Norwegian, Swedish, 
Danish, Dutch, French, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, 
Armenian, Syrian, Lett, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, and, of course, 
English, Scotch, and Irish. The country as a whole is but dimly 
cognizant of this fact arid its implications which, in my opinion, 
are of fundamental and urgent importance in America s contem 
porary social and cultural scene. It should perhaps particularly in 
terest those Americans who consider themselves of the old Anglo- 
Saxon stock: for here is a tremendous new element what will it 
do to the old stock? to the country? how will it affect the de 
velopment of civilization arid culture, of racial types on this conti 
nent? 

2. These questions had vaguely interested and perturbed me al 
ready in the late 1920 s and the earliest 1930 s, but I did not really 
go into them till 1934. I have told that in the spring of that year 
I went on a lecture tour. It took me to the great industrial centers 
of New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, 
Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, where the population 
is preponderantly "foreign." Actually, however, my trip was not 
so much a series of speaking engagements as an attempt a device 
to get some clear idea, if possible, of this immense mass of so- 
called "second-generation" citizens, numerically predominant in 
some of the most important cities and towns, whom I choose to 
designate the New Americans. I spoke, or rather tried to speak, 
more or less on the subject of this chapter, to about fifty audi 
ences of anywhere from one hundred to twenty-five hundred men 
and women and young people, in big towns like Pittsburgh, Cleve 
land, Akron, Detroit, Chicago, South Bend, Milwaukee, St. Paul, 
and Duluth, and smaller communities like McKeesport, Canons- 
burg, Ambridge, Farrell, Sharon, and Strabane, Pennsylvania; Lo- 
rain, Ohio; Flint, Michigan; and Hibbing and Eveleth, Minnesota. 
Some of my audiences were almost wholly "foreign," others mixed 
"foreign" and old-stock American. At the time I knew very little 
about the subject; I merely sensed its importance; and, to keep go 
ing for an hour or so, I discussed things more or less akin to it 
and at the end, admitting my ignorance, invited my listeners to 



40 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

get up and say anything they liked in relation to my remarks. 
Those who were too diffident to talk in a crowd, I asked to speak 
to me after the lecture or call me at the hotel or write me a letter. 
Many of them, both old-stock Americans and New Americans, re 
sponded to this invitation. Some of them then asked me to their 
homes. Others wrote me long letters. And the result was that be 
fore my tour was half over I began to think that these New Ameri 
cans twenty-six million of them in 1930 and increasing at the 
rate of perhaps more than a million a year constituted one of the 
greatest and most basic problems in this country; in some respects, 
greater and more basic perhaps than, say, the problem of un 
employment, and almost as urgent. 

3. This problem has existed, in nearly the same proportions that it 
exists today, for a long time, but few people have shown eagerness 
and ability to deal with it in a broad, fundamental way, or even 
to discuss it. Much attention most of it, as already suggested, ill- 
focused has been paid to the problem of the foreign-born; but 
not to that of their children, the American-born seconcT generation. 
There is no acute or intelligent appreciation of it. Very little is 
being done about it; and the longer it is neglected the worse it 
will become, both for the New Americans and in the long run for 
America as a whole. 

4. In this chapter it is not my ambition to present the problem in 
all its details, ramifications, significances, for it is a vastly compli 
cated one and different in every locality and in every racial group; 
and, frankly, I still have a great deal to learn about it. My purpose 
here is merely to give as strong and broad a general suggestion 
as I can of its character and what I think might be done concern 
ing it. 

5. The chief and most important fact (the only one I shall stress 
here) about the New Americans is that all too many of them are 
oppressed by feelings of inferiority in relation to their fellow-citi 
zens of older stock, to the main stream of American life, and to 
the problem of life as a whole; which, of course, is bad for them 
as individuals, but, since there are so many of them and their 
number is still rapidly increasing, even worse for the country. 

6. These feelings of inferiority are to some degree extensions of 
their parents feelings of inferiority as immigrants in a country so 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 41 

drastically different from their native lands. The fathers and 
mothers of these millions of New Americans were naturally at a 
disadvantage even in the most friendly surroundings, and the sur 
roundings were seldom wholly and continually friendly. As for 
eigners, in many cases not speaking the English language, they 
occupied inferior positions in the country s social, economic, and 
political life. Most of them were workers, performing, by and large, 
the meanest tasks and receiving meager wages. All too often in one 
form or another, they bumped up against racial or general anti- 
immigrant prejudice. Old-stock American workers looked askance 
at them. When work slackened, they were laid off, as I suggest in 
the first chapter of this section, before native employees. Many of 
them lived in the worst districts of their cities and towns, and were 
called Hunkies or Bohunks, Squareheads, Dagoes or Wops, Polacks 
or Litvaks, Sheenies or Kikes. They were frequently and unavoid 
ably discriminated against. And in the face of all this, they in 
evitably felt, as individuals and as members of their immigrant 
groups, somewhat inferior in their relation to America and to other 
people here, and their tendency was to segregate themselves and 
mingle as much as possible only with their own nationals. And, just 
as inevitable, that feeling and that tendency were extended to the 
children, these New Americans, who shared their parents lives and 
experiences, and who too were (and still are) called Hunkies and 
Dagoes by children of Anglo-Saxon origin, and whose names 
names like Zamblaoskas, Krmpotich, and Wojiezkowski were (and 
are) subjects for jokes on the part of ignorant teachers, at which 
the whole school laughed. 

7. But in this respect the majority of New Americans, as individuals, 
are in an even more unfortunate and uncomfortable position than 
were (or still are) their immigrant parents. The latter, even if 
they were uneducated peasants or laborers, living here on the 
lowest social-economic levels, had in them a consciousness, or at 
least a powerful instinctive feeling, of some kind of racial or cul 
tural background. They knew who they were. They remembered 
their native lands. They were Italians or Croatians, Finns or Slo 
venians; and that meant something to them. Many came from coun 
tries which culturally and perhaps in some other respects were 
superior to the United States, which as a new country had not 



42 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

yet had time to develop along those lines; and when oppressed by 
feelings of inferiority induced by their circumstances in America, 
could take partial refuge in their racial and cultural backgrounds. 
Some of the better educated ones, who did not have merely in 
stinctive feelings about the culture and history of their old coun 
tries, but were also intellectually conscious of their heritage, could 
even look clown upon America and consider themselves superior to 
old-time Americans, thus counterbalancing or compensating them 
selves as persons from time to time for the unpleasant feelings 
about their immigrant status in the New World. This was unhealthy 
socially in the long run, for it was not reaching out toward an 
understanding with America, real or basic, but it did help indi 
vidual immigrants to stand up as men and women. 

8. Unlike their parents, who are (or were) aware not only of their 
European background but of having made the transition from 
Europe to America and gained a foothold here, most New Amer 
icans have no consciousness or instinctive feeling of any racial or 
cultural background, of their being part of any sort of continuity in 
human or historic experience. Some of them seem almost as if 
they had dropped off Mars and, during the drop, forgotten all 
about Mars. I know this to be so; I talked to scores and scores 
of them in more than a dozen different cities and towns, not only 
during that tour in 1934, but on several occasions and in various 
connections since then. In the majority of cases, the immigrant 
parents uneducated working people or peasants from the vari 
ous European countries were too inarticulate to tell their sons 
and daughters who they (the parents) really were, and thus trans 
mit to them some feeling or knowledge of their background. 

9. The average Slavic peasant, for instance, who came to this coun 
try during the last twenty or thirty years in nine chances out of 
ten is unable to inform his children adequately who he is, what 
his old country is like, what his background (which, ipso facto, is 
his children s background) consists of. He tells his numerous sons 
and daughters that he is a Pole, a Croatian, a Slovak, a Slovenian; 
but that is about all. The children do not know what that really 
means. The man acts as if he were proud of being what he is, 
at least in the privacy of his home; for his instincts and his memo- 
lies of the old country occasionally make him act that way. To 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 43 

his children, however, who are growing up under anything but 
the best influences of American life and who do not know that 
behind their father s pride is a rich and vital past, he very often 
seems not a little ridiculous, certainly not worthy of their respect. 
To them he is just a Hunky or Polack, a "working stiff," a poor, 
pathetic creature constantly at somebody s mercy and repeatedly 
stepped upon, and as such not much according to American stand 
ards standards which they pick up in the movies and from 
other powerful agencies in American life. Often they are half 
ashamed of him. The immigrant mother frequently finds herself 
in the same situation. There is a mutual lack of understanding; 
the children as they grow older have begun to grasp at superficial 
and obvious American realities, and sink themselves in America 
as far as they can by adopting the easiest, most obvious ways of 
the country of their birth. And the results arc unsatisfactory fam 
ily life, personal tragedies of all sorts, maladjustments, social per 
versities. 

10. It is not unusual for boys and girls in their late or even their 
middle teens to break away from the homes of their immigrant 
parents, and eventually to repudiate entirely their origin and to 
Anglicize their Polish, Croatian, Finnish, or Lithuanian names, 
which old-time Americans find so difficult to pronounce and so 
amusing. But that, of course, does not solve their problem. In most 
instances it only makes it worse, though as a rule they do not 
realize that. I met New Americans of this type; they were invari 
ably hollow, absurd, objectionable persons. 

11. However, the situation of many of those who do not break with 
their parents, change their "foreign" names, and wholly repudiate 
their origin is but little better than of those who do. They were 
born here and legally, technically, are citizens of the United States; 
but few even in the most fortunate homes have any strong 
feeling that they belong here and are part of this country. For, by 
and large, the education which is inflicted on them in public 
schools and high schools and in parochial schools, or in colleges, 
fails to make them Anglo-Saxon Americans or to give them any 
vital and lasting appreciation of the American heritage, while their 
Anglo-Saxon schoolmates, purposeful ly-by-accident stumbling over 
their feet and calling them Hunkies and Dagoes, and their teachers, 



44 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

making fun of their names, increase their feeling that they are not 
indigenous Americans, but outsiders who are more or less tol 
erated. Their instincts, if they have any, are at cross-purposes. 
They are bewildered persons, constantly oppressed, as I have said, 
by feelings of inferiority. Their personalities are faint, lopsided, 
out of focus. 

12. These feelings of inferiority manifest themselves variously. Some 
of the New Americans turn themselves inside out and become 
chauvinistically patriotic; only their chauvinism has no basis in 
any vital feeling. It is insecure, empty, mere lip-service, intended 
only to impress the dominant Anglo-Saxon element, with which 
they have to cope; and hence worse for the development of their 
own characters than chauvinism that has some basis in convic 
tion or feeling in racial or national background. And where there 
is any sincerity in this sort of "patriotism" it is based solely on 
shallow materialistic concepts, which they have picked up in school 
and elsewhere. "This is the greatest country . . . we have the big 
gest buildings . . . the best ice cream . . . more automobiles, 
more bathtubs than all the rest of the world," etc. Without realiz 
ing it, these New Americans are ready for any sort of shallow, 
ignorant nationalist or fascist movement which will not directly 
attack the new racial strains in America s population; and thou 
sands of them perhaps would have no great trouble in bringing 
themselves to deny their parents, pose as old-stock Americans, and 
serve even a movement which would terrorize the immigrants and 
their children as the Hitler movement in Germany terrorized the 
Jews. 

13. Other New Americans turn their inferiority inside out in another 
way. They become loud and tough, sometimes actively anti-social. 
But let me hasten to repeat that this last group is not so numerous as 
generally imagined by those who occasionally glance at crime and 
the juvenile-delinquency statistics, or who read the headlines. The 
surprising thing to me is that there is not more delinquency among 
the New Americans. And I should add too that the chauvinists 
mentioned above are not very numerous either. These categories 
together include less than five per cent of the New Americans. 

14. The majority of the grownup New Americans just hang back 
from the main stream of life in this country, forming a tremendous 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 45 

mass of neutral, politically lifeless citizenry; while their younger, 
fellow New Americans, boys and girls in their teens (about twelve 
million of them), now in 1938 attending public and parochial 
schools and high schools, show dangerous signs of becoming the 
same kind of neutral, unstirring citizens unless something is done 
about it. There is among them little aggressiveness, little spirit of 
any sort. Most of them merely hope to get along, to get by, some 
how. Without a vital sense of background, perennially oppressed 
by the feeling that they are outsiders and thus inferior, they will 
live outside the main stream of America s national life. This is 
especially true of groups which linguistically and culturally are 
farthest removed from the Anglo-Saxon, and still more of groups 
which, besides being unrelated to the Anglo-Saxon, are (or till 
lately have been) suppressed or subject nationalities in Europe. 

15. And these widespread personal inferiority feelings are producing 
in large sections of this New American element actual inferiority in 
character, mind, and physique. There is no doubt, by and large, 
in bodily and personal qualities many of the immigrants children 
do not favorably compare with their parents. They cannot look one 
in the eye. They are shy. They stutter and stammer. If an old- 
stock American, or anyone of some standing, is due to come to 
their house, they fuss and fret with their parents. They force their 
peasant mothers to go to the hairdresser, to put on American ladies 
dresses and high-heeled shoes which often make the mothers in 
congruous figures. Then, when the visitor arrives, they tremble 
at what the old lady or old man might say, or that he might mis 
pronounce English words even worse than usually. Their limp 
handshakes gave me creepy feelings all the way from New York 
to the Iron Range in Minnesota. Those handshakes symbolized 
for me the distressing tendency on the part of this vast and grow 
ing section of America s population toward characterlessness, lack 
of force and spirit, and other inferior personal qualities. 

16. From whatever angle one looks at it, this is a serious matter for 
the New Americans as individuals and for America. Thirty million 
or even fifteen or twenty million, a probable number to which 
most or all of my generalizations here are directly applicable 
are a lot of people, and this "second generation" will be (many 
already are) the fathers and mothers of the third generation, and 



46 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

it is not impossible that in two or three decades half of the popu 
lation of the United States will be of these new cultural and na 
tional strains. 

17. What then should be done what can be done about it? 

18. In going about the country in 1934, and subsequently, I met 
several New Americans of whom most of the things I say above 
are not true. None of them was totally free of personal inferiority 
feelings (in fact, I find that even very few old-stock Americans 
are entirely free of them), but they were, nevertheless, fine-look 
ing young men and women, boys and girls, keen and alert, ar 
ticulate, ambitious, personally charming. Some were still in high 
school, one or two in college, and doing well as students; in fact, 
rather better than old-stock American students. Three or four of 
the boys were locally prominent football and baseball players. 1 
Their handshakes were firm and they looked me in the eye. A few 
had a lively sense of humor which they could apply to themselves. 
Their laughter had a healthy ring. They knew something of what 
was going on in the country, in the world. Some of them", although 
still very young, seemed to know what they wanted from life. 
Two or three had literary ambitions. One told me he would try 
to get into politics "in a big way," by which I understood that 
the United States Senate was not beyond his gaze; and his name 
was Wojciezkowski. Another, attending the University of Pitts 
burgh, thought he would get a job in a steel mill and become a 
labor leader. In a bleak iron town in Minnesota I met a pretty 
girl of Slovenian parentage who was the best student in her school, 
had a vivid personality, and seemed entirely normal in all her atti 
tudes. And so on, and so on. They impressed me as real, solid per 
sons who would be an asset to any country. 

19. Nearly all of them, in their childhood and later, had been un 
pleasantly affected by their parents humiliating experiences as 
immigrants and industrial workers, and had had disagreeable ex 
periences of their own which touched them vitally. They had been 
called Hunkies, Polacks, Litvaks, Dagoes. Many of them had had 

1 Athletes with "foreign" names, as generally known, are not unusual. But 
most of them, in high schools and colleges as well as in more or less profes 
sional sports, are New Americans who are exceptional in the sense as stated in 
this and the ensuing few paragraphs. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 47 

(and were still having) difficulties with their names. A young 
man of Lithuanian parentage in Pittsburgh, and attending the 
university there, who was attractive, "clean cut" in the best Ameri 
can sense, but whose surname was Lamblagoskas, told me that 
when he was a young boy in McKeesport the teacher had been 
too lazy or too indifferent to take the trouble to pronounce his 
name, so she had called him only Johnnie, while all the other 
children in class had both a first name and a surname. Then the 
two-name children had begun to call him "J ust Johnnie" or "John 
nie the Litvak," which annoyed him very much. As in hundreds 
of thousands of similar instances, this, in conjunction with other 
experiences of that nature, produced in him an acute inferiority 
complex which oppressed him for years "until," as he put it, "I 
sort of worked myself out of it." 

20. A young man of Slavic origin, whose surname also was difficult 
for Anglo-Saxon tongues, told me that in his boyhood he had 
suffered a great deal because old-stock American boys called him 
"Sneeze-it," because in school one day the teacher had said that 
his name could not be pronounced but thought that perhaps she 
could sneeze it. "But now," he said to me, "things like that don t 
bother me very much." 

21. Others in this category with whom I came in contact had had 
and were still having inevitably, let me repeat other troubles 
on account of being immigrants children; but these troubles were 
not seriously affecting them, were not preventing them from de 
veloping into balanced, strong and healthy, charming human be 
ings. 

22. Why? There are at least two explanations. One is that most of 
them lived, during at least part of their lives, in comparatively 
favorable economic circumstances, and their parents managed to 
give them some schooling in addition to the legal requirement, 
which helped them more or less to work themselves out of their 
various second-generation complexes. The other explanation (prob 
ably not unrelated to, but I think more important than, the first) 
is that, in all cases without exception which came to my atten 
tion, their fathers and mothers were wise and articulate enough to 
convey to them something of their backgrounds in the old countries; 
tell them what it meant to be a Finn, a Slovenian, a Serbian, a 



48 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Croatian, a Slovak, a Czech, a Pole, or a Lithuanian, and inspire 
in them some respect for that meaning; make them conscious of 
their backgrounds and heritage, give them some sense of con 
tinuity, some feeling of their being part of America, in which im 
migrants like themselves played an important role part of some 
thing bigger and better than the bleak, utterly depressing existence 
led by them and their neighbors in the grimy steel mill and iron and 
coal mining towns where they lived. 

23. During my 1934 trip and later I met, as I say, scores of these 
New Americans. Among them were some of the most attractive 
people I have encountered anywhere. Some of these I already have 
mentioned. Another was a girl born and still living in Cleveland 
whose father and mother were Slovenians; and there is no doubt 
in my mind that much of her charm issued from the fact that she 
was keenly conscious of her parents native land and culture. Two 
years before they had taken her on a visit to Slovenia, and she 
had discovered a tiny country which is physically as lovely as 
anything she had seen in America, with an old, mellotv culture, 
a rich folklore, a considerable modern literature, and interesting 
folkways behind which there are centuries of wisdom and a long, 
unbroken chain of experience on the part of a quiet, peace-loving 
little nation that has lived there for a thousand years. 

24. Still another of these exceptional New Americans was a young 
six-footer of Finnish parentage on the Iron Range in Minnesota. 
He had never been to Finland, but knew a good deal about the 
basic cultural qualities of that country from his mother s word- 
pictures of it. He also had a fluent command of the Finnish lan 
guage which did not interfere with indeed, enriched his Eng 
lish. He knew dozens of Finnish folk ballads and lyrics and sang 
them well, and had read and reread in the original the great Fin 
nish epic poem "The Kalevala." He was quietly proud of his peo 
ple s achievements on the Iron Range both in the mines and on 
the land, and thought that Minnesota was his country. Despite 
the bleakness of the region, and the hard life led there by most 
of the people, especially the Finns, he loved the Iron Range. His 
people had worked and suffered there for decades and converted 
great parts of it into farming country, although before they came 
nobody had thought it could ever be made suitable for anything. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 49 

25. In short, he was conscious of his background; he had a sense of 
continuity, of being part of a great human experience, which was 
part of the still greater American adventure. Largely, I think, in 
consequence of this, a strength of character was discernible in his 
every move and utterance. 

26. I could give several more such cases of exceptional New Ameri 
cans, but that would be, in the main, repeating what I tell of the 
girl in Cleveland and the boy in Minnesota. All of them repre 
senting, however, but a small minority were conscious and, in 
a greater or lesser degree, proud of their racial groups back 
ground in the old countries, and some also of their racial groups 
background and history in this country. They had a sense of con 
tinuity, a feeling of being a part of something. And they, I think, 
are the answer to the question: What should be done about the 
problem sketched in this chapter? 

27. The answer is that the New Americans, whose inarticulate and 
otherwise inadequate through no fault of their own parents 
have been unable to give them much along these lines, should be 
helped to acquire a knowledge of, and pride in, their own herit 
age and makeup; and this help should come, in very large part, 
from already established and functioning social and cultural in 
stitutions and agencies schools, libraries, settlement and com 
munity houses, newspapers, lecture forums, and so on in co 
operation with a central organization which should be formed for 
the purpose of devising ways to disseminate information about 
the several racial or national groups represented among the thirty 
million "second generation" citizens, of studying the problem and 
working out programs of action for its gradual solution or ameliora 
tion, from the point of view of honest, intelligent concern for the 
country s future. 

28. By now it is obvious to many people interested in the problem 
that it is impossible and, what is more, undesirable to make the 
offspring of Lithuanians or Serbians into Anglo-Saxons; that the 
aim should be rather to help them become real men and women 
on the pattern of their own natural cultures. There should be recog 
nition of the fact that America is not purely an Anglo-Saxon 
country; if only by virtue of numbers, it is also something else. 
A new conception of America is necessary. There is no doubt that 



50 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

in the few places where no attempts have been made by "patri 
otic" old-time Americans to force immigrants children into the 
old-stock American mold as, for instance, in the Bohemian com 
munities in Nebraska and Texas, where Bohemians already are in 
the fourth generation; in the little city of Hamtramck near Detroit, 
where the public school system consistently encourages the large 
Polish group there to keep its individuality; in O. E. Rolvaag s 
Norwegian settlements in the northwest; in some of the foreign 
"colonies" in New York City, notably the Ukrainian one on the 
Lower East Side; or in several small Polish, Italian, and Finnish 
rural communities in New England, upstate New York, and else 
wherethe development of character, mentality, and physique in 
the New American element has been vastly more felicitous than 
where such attempts have been made. 

29. Social and cultural institutions and agencies in various cities and 
towns where the problem stares them all in the face wherever 
they turn already are beginning to do things to help New Ameri 
cans develop more or less on the pattern of their backgrounds. 
To give a few examples: in Cleveland the excellent public li 
brary organization, with its scores of branch libraries, has begun 
to help the New Americans to learn something about themselves, 
their parents native lands and their national groups* history in 
this country, particularly in Cleveland. All three of the big news 
papers there have special reporters covering the "foreign sections" 
of the city, and print feature articles about the various foreign 
groups contribution to the growth and development of Cleveland. 
Public school and high school teachers in Cleveland, as in one or 
two other cities, whose classes are anywhere from forty to eighty 
per cent "foreign," are becoming eagerly interested in "second- 
generation problems" which face them in the form of numerous 
neurotic and backward or "problem" children who, for no ap 
parent reason, burst out crying in the middle of a lesson. Of late 
teachers nearly everywhere, I am told, have advanced so far that 
they take the trouble to learn the correct pronunciation of diffi 
cult Polish, Yugoslav, Lithuanian, Czech, Finnish, and Slovak 
names, and to caution the old-stock American boys and girls not 
to call the New American children Hunkies, Wops, and other such 
names of derision. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 51 

30. In more than half of the cities and towns which I visited in 1934 
and since I found the so-called International Institutes, some of 
them part of the Y.W.C.A., which with their clubrooms, reading 
rooms, lectures, social affairs, exhibits of European peasant arts, 
and printed matter are beginning to attempt to do something 
for the second generation, especially the girls. In Flint, Michigan, 
in Toledo, Ohio, and in one or two other places, I came upon 
purely local organizations, some of them officered and run by such 
exceptional New Americans as I have described above, aiming to 
help the general run of New Americans to fight their feelings of 
inferiority. 

31. I came upon professional social workers who were doing re 
search in certain phases of the problem and knew a great deal 
about the local departments thereof. The directors of most of the 
settlement-houses in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee 
were more or less awake to the situation as it existed locally and 
in most cases, however, without having any real understanding 
of it were also trying to do something about it. The same could 
be said of various settlement-house workers, teachers, a few min 
isters, and other agencies elsewhere. 

32. All these efforts or, rather, beginnings of efforts are local, how 
ever; usually honest enough but very restricted in scope, The In 
ternational Institutes, for instance, appeal largely to girls. There is 
no central or national organization interested in the thing as a 
countrywide problem, which it undoubtedly is, and, as I have tried 
to show here, a tremendous and important one important to old- 
stock Americans and to Americans of the third and fourth gen 
eration no less than to these New Americans, and to America as a 
whole. 

33. The organization I have in mind, which let us designate here as 
XYZ, would have, during the next twenty or thirty years, a vast 
and complicated task to perform namely, to give these millions 
of New Americans a knowledge of, and pride in, their own makeup, 
which, to some extent, would operate to counteract their feelings 
of inferiority about themselves in relation to the rest of the coun 
try; and, simultaneously, to create a sympathetic understanding 
toward them on the part of older Americans, so that the latter s 
anti-"foreign" prejudice, which is partly to blame for inferiority 



52 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

feelings in the new racial groups, would tend to lessen and ulti 
mately be reduced to a minimum. 

34. It would be a great educational-cultural work, the basic aim of 
which would be: (i) to reach, in one way or another, almost 
everybody in this country with the fact that socially and culturally 
the United States, as it stands today, is an extension not only of 
the British Isles and the Netherlands but, more or less, of all Eu 
rope; (2) with constant reiteration and intelligent elaboration of 
that fact, to try to harmonize and integrate, so far as possible, the 
various racial and cultural strains in our population without sup 
pressing or destroying any good cultural qualities in any of them, 
but using and directing these qualities toward a possible enhance 
ment of the color and quality of our national life in America. 

35. Probably the first group to be reached by XYZ are the public 
school and high school teachers in communities with large "foreign" 
populations. They should be helped to find out who these young 
sters filling their classrooms and responding to such names as 
Adamovicz, Kotchka, Zamblaoskas, Hurja, Balkovec, and Pavelka 
really are. They should be informed that the children of Yugoslav 
Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian parents, for instance, have, by 
virtue of their birth, a great heritage which reaches a thousand 
years into European history and almost five hundred years into 
American history that there is good reason for believing that 
Yugoslavs were on Columbus ships when he discovered this con 
tinent that Yugoslav marines touched this continent in their own 
ships only a few years after Columbus that Yugoslavs were in 
California before the Yankees arrived there, and were pioneers in 
two of California s now most important industries, fruit-growing 
and fishing that in the last fifty years Yugoslavs, hundreds of 
thousands of them, have been among the competent workers in 
America s most important industries, mining and steel-making, and 
as such have contributed enormously to the upbuilding of this 
country that Nikola Tesla and Michael Pupin came from Yugo 
slaviathat Henry Suzzallo, one of America s most important 
educators, was a second-generation American, born in California, 
of Yugoslav parents that Ivan Mcstrovich, the sculptor, whose 
works are to be seen in Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, 
and elsewhere, is a Yugoslav; and so on. I mention here what the 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 53 

teachers should be helped to find out about the Yugoslav strain, 
because I know more about it than any other; but they should be 
informed also about the Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian, Hun 
garian, and the other strains so that occasionally, preferably at 
some dramatic moment, as, for instance, after a clash between an 
Anglo-Saxon boy and a "Hunky" boy, they could talk about them 
in class. 

36. The XYZ might develop a special literature on the subject of 
New Americans, addressed to teachers; it might have competent 
speakers able to address teachers conventions, college student 
bodies and faculties, women s clubs, and other groups. 

37. It might start a campaign for the revision of history textbooks, 
giving recognition to recent immigrant groups from Eastern Eu 
rope, the Balkans, and elsewhere for their contributions to the 
upbuilding of America as she stands today. Such revisions should 
mention, perhaps, that in this upbuilding of modern America at 
least as many "Hunkies" and "Dagoes" died or were injured as 
early American colonists were killed in subduing the wilderness 
and in the War for Independence. The part played by the newer 
groups should be fitted into the history of the American adven 
ture as a whole. This revision of textbooks might, indeed, be among 
its first and most important tasks. 

38. It might start a press service for English-language newspapers 
published in cities and towns whose population includes a large 
proportion of "foreigners" and for English pages of foreign-lan 
guage newspapers. This service should include vividly written, au 
thentic material on the backgrounds, history, culture, and con 
tributions of the different "foreign" groups to the upbuilding of 
America, and stories of individual and group achievement. 

39. It might publish pamphlets in English dealing with various 
phases of the problem; start a library of all available literature and 
material on the subject; make special efforts to stimulate interest 
and participation in the folk arts. 

40. It might utilize the radio for this work, with special programs in 
cluding, let us say, music and folksongs of the various nations. 
It might try to draw the motion picture industry into its enterprise. 
Eventually it might arrange essay contests dealing with the his 
tory and contribution of the different "foreign" groups and other 



54 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

appropriate topics, open to New Americans in high schools and 
colleges, with suitable prizes such as scholarships or trips to the 
native countries on which New Americans could discover their par 
ents old countries. 

41. But enough of these suggestions. I make them largely to eluci 
date the problem further. Perhaps, if the national XYZ organiza 
tion is not formed in the near future though I feel certain that 
eventually something like it will be formed local groups already 
interested in the matter possibly will find them helpful. 

42. I realize, of course, that the problem I sketch here is closely tied 
up with the socio-economic system under which we live; that, next 
to their being more or less strangers here, the worst factors behind 
the inferiority feelings of these millions of New Americans are 
poverty and its sister-evil, ignorance, both of them brought over 
by the immigrants and then fostered by conditions here; and that 
the cure for most of the second-generation ills lies, ultimately, in 
the solution of our socio-economic problem. I doubt, however, 
whether the latter problem will be quickly and satisfactorily solved 
in this country if we permit to develop in our population a vast 
element, running into tens of millions, which is oppressed by acute 
feelings of inferiority and, largely as a result of those feelings, is 
becoming actually inferior human material bewildered, politi 
cally neutral, economically unaggressive, culturally nowhere. If this 
element is left alone in the face of its growing economic difficul 
ties, and in the face of the organized and unorganized prejudice 
against it on the part of "patriotic" older Americans, there might 
eventually be no help for it. I imagine that hundreds of thousands 
of New Americans already are hopeless as potential constructive 
elements in any sort of vital, progressive civilization and culture; 
and if their number is permitted to increase, they will let me re 
peatprofoundly affect the future of this country in a way that 
no one would want to see it affected. 

43. On the other hand, if something is done about the problem in 
the spirit of the above general suggestions, I believe that the ma 
jority of the New Americans and the generation that they will 
produce will have an opportunity to become a great body of self- 
respecting, constructive citizenry; and that, with the diverse racial 
and cultural backgrounds they inherited from their immigrant 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 55 

parents, they will enrich the civilization and deepen the culture of 
this New World. 



ANALYSIS 

1. This essay is subject to more formal controls than are most informal induc 
tions. The problem was defined and a device created to enable the writer to 
arrive at his answers before the journey was begun that was to provide the 
material. 

a. Analyze carefully Paragraph 2 to determine how rigidly controlled the in 
vestigation actually was. Do you come to the conclusion that Mr. Adamic kept 
careful tab on his findings throughout his trip? That he put each of his human 
guinea pigs through the same routine of questions so that he would be sure of 
having constants to work with? That his problem allows for exact conclusions 
of the kind that can be tabulated on a chart? Is this, in other words, an exact 
analysis of a controlled investigation, or is it the purposeful but uncontrolled 
gathering of material in the course of a lecture tour? 

2. a. If Paragraph 2 tells the reader how the problem has been set up, what does 
Paragraph 1 do? 

b. Would it be wise to reverse the order of these paragraphs? 

3. Show how Mr. Adamic narrows the scope of his inquiry in Paragraphs 4 and 5. 

4. In Paragraphs 6-11 the writer gives a somewhat detailed explanation of the 
conditions that exist and their causes. 

a. How often in this extended passage does he refer to specific cases? 

b. Do we have confidence that he has specific cases in mind while he is mak 
ing his analysis? 

c. What techniques does he use to bring his discussion down to the concrete? 

5. Note the partition of " feelings of inferiority " into the principal subclasses in 
Paragraphs 12-15, and the paragraphing that devotes one paragraph to each of 
tlie first two subclasses and two to the third. 

a. How is the topic of each of these four paragraphs developed? 

b. Why is the third class given two paragraphs? 

6. Why is Paragraph 17 so short? 

7. Paragraphs 18-21 give us an insight into the exceptions, into the part of the 
evidence that Mr. Adamic has not explained as yet, since it runs counter to the 
main body of his evidence. 

a. How is he using this material? Explain the logic of his procedure here. 

b. Is his use of the material an example of the saying that the exception proves 
the rule? Note the more extended use of cases from his experience in this 
section. 

8. Paragraphs 22-26 attempt to explain why these exceptional cases are excep 
tional. 

*z. Go back to Paragraph 17. How is Mr. Adamic s development answering the 

question asked there? 

b. How can you describe this method of development? 

9. Note the development given to the two causes. Why is so little space devoted 



56 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

to the first (one third paragraph) and so much to the other? Note again the 
use of examples. 

10. Note how Paragraph 27 once more shifts our attention to the main body of 
evidence. How does it follow naturally after Paragraph 26? 

11. Paragraph 28 describes a goal to be reached. Paragraphs 29-32 show the ef 
forts being expended to reach this goal. In what sense are the final concluding 
paragraphs 42 and 43 necessary? 

HOW SERIOUS ARE THE COMICS?* 
By Lovell Thompson 

I 

1. EVER SINCE the turn of the century when the Yellow Press was 
named after Outcault s Yellow Kid, the war of the comics has 
been savagely fought. It has been a bitter civil war with parents 
on one side and their children on the other. Under leaders like 
Charles W. Eliot and Kate Douglas Wiggin, and publications like 
the New Republic and the Chicago Daily News, the parents have 
been winning the battles but losing the war. That is because the 
elders find themselves regularly reading the comics and have to 
fall back on that old line: "We read them to see how bad they 
are." After half a century of successful attack by the comics we 
ought to be considering the terms of surrender. We should rise 
above the battle and take the cold long view. 

2. The newest outrage of the enemy has been the comic magazine. 
It is only a few years old but it is deeply entrenched. The best 
evidence of this is the fact that it has forced out the marble as 
childhood s medium of exchange. 

3. The child s marble, curving, pellucid, used to carry a mystery in 
its center. The alley, impenetrable, unyielding, self-contained, had 
in its depth an answer such as no jewel ever gave. When you had 
it in your hand, you knew it was a sphinx s eye. The future that 
children sought beneath the marble s surface has for a moment 
almost become explicit in the comic magazine. 

4. If you have ever found yourself guiltily reading one of your 
child s comic books and exchanging it hastily for the Times Book 
Review as someone enters the room, you know that there seems a 

From the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1942. Reprinted by permission of the 
author. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 57 

sinful unreality about this superworld. It is too easy and too in 
human. There are no real problems and no real answers. It is a 
long procession of tawdry Charles Atlases accompanied by a mini 
mum of reading matter of no distinction whatever. It is the world 
of the Batman and Captain Marvel, of Superman and the Phan 
tom. It is a criminal world and an idealistic world; it is sadistic 
and romantic. In it time and space are reduced to secondary 
nuisances. You may have the career of Jimmy Doolittle and that 
of Michelangelo side by side and Flash Gordon s rocket ship not 
much more than a stone s throw from Jimmy. Can a mind nurtured 
on this predigested wood pulp hope to have form or direction when 
it grows up? 

5. Thinking back in search of an answer, I have often wondered 
why our parents forbade us such comics as Buster Brown, who 
lived in the days of Alexander s Ragtime Band and the leg-o - 
mutton sleeve. He was a moral if misguided little boy. His virtues 
are clear when you compare him with a modern killer of fiends 
such as the Batman, a fiend s fiend. Whatever may be the vices 
of Superman, Buster was hopelessly good. In retrospect he looks 
like Little Lord Fauntleroy. 

6. There are many strips which look similarly harmless. Moon Mul- 
lins still devotes himself exclusively to the simple old vices of 
wine, women, and song; and the improbabilities of Orphan Annie 
are lost in the flow of refugee children. Will our children in their 
turn look back and find Superman as far short of reality, and are 
we repeating the error of our parents? Did our parents forbid 
us Blister because they knew that Batman follows Buster? (And 
what could follow Batman I know not. ) They said that the funny 
page was bad training for the grown-up world. It was not a way 
to nurture the habit of reading and study. That was what they 
said, but it wasn t quite what they meant; the comics are not a 
bad preparation for Life magazine or the "Roto" section. 

7. Today only a library will yield forth Buster and his blacksheep 
brother the Yellow Kid, but if you look back there you will find 
that they represent the two sides of the industrial revolution. Times 
changed, but not the soul of Buster. Annie, too, has her fixed pe 
riod. Hers is the generation between wars the lost generation. 
Sad, wise, humorless little Annie is the child of Farewell to Arms. 



58 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

8. Only on December 7 did the world catch up even to such comics 
as Terry and the Pirates. Terry had been Far East-minded since 
his beginning in the middle 1920 s. He is a transfigured boy scout 
learning to cope with the wisdoms and cruelties of the East. He 
seems to grow at half-speed, and even at this leisurely pace it has 
taken us half a generation to catch up to his time by putting an 
army of Terries in China. Being Terry-minded hasn t done any of 
those soldiers any harm, and some are likely to read Terry nostal 
gically for many years. When you read Moon Mullins you re back 
three decades to the era when father carried his shoes in his hand 
if he came in after midnight. When you exchange Moon for An 
nie you move from the old prewar world to the newer postwar 
world. When you read Terry you have moved on from the era 
of the lost generation into today. And when you read a really re 
cent strip like Superman? Do not doubt it, you read a caricature 
of tomorrow. 

9. The tendency of the comics is to prolong a period by anticipat 
ing it before it arrives, sustaining it during its brief passage, and 
maintaining its illusion after it is gone. 

II 

10. Man has always feared change. When he has been shown the 
future he has resented it. When he finds it in the comics he resents 
it no less and he forbids his child to have anything to do with 
it. That is why our parents were instinctively against Buster. For 
us the problem is the same as it was for our parents, and it is 
really our problem, not our children s. 

3.1. There are only two ways to meet this problem: one is to shut 
your eyes to it, and the other is to open your arms to it. In terms 
of their generation, all that is said about the comic magazines by 
parents who confine themselves to the daily or Sunday funnies is 
true. It was bad enough when four pages became eight and when 
all eight came out in color. But to be able to sit down and read 
sixty-four pages of colored comics for ten cents and then read 
sixty-four more on a swap, and finally become a child with a li 
brary of this feebly vicious material, certainly seems the goalless 
excess of decadence. This is a sub-hell where the devil himself is 
disciplined. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 59 

12. True or not, this is true for you. In Buster our parents felt a 
new, picture-minded world and they resented it. Like our parents, 
we scent a changed world in the comics that our children read 
and we stick with Moon, with Orphan Annie, and with Terry, find 
ing there a refuge from the front page and from the Batman. 

13. Do not let a tempted eye which has strayed out of the lost world 
of Mutt and Jeff and Gasoline Alley into the present of Terry and 
the Pirates and Smilin Jack Martin go into the world of tomorrow. 
There you are afraid. There only the men of tomorrow can take 
it. Do not try to deal with the world of Flash Gordon. Don t try to 
get around with Zatara the magician, with Captain Marvel, or 
with the Shadow, or the Flame, or the Torch, or the Phantom, or 
Toro, or Lightning, or Captain America and Bucky, or Spy Smasher, 
or Magno, or Bullet Man and his flame Bullet Girl. Don t slip into 
the new dark age with Prince Valiant. Even Superman can hardly 
take that stuff. Leave the world of tomorrow to the men of to 
morrow, but remember that the men of tomorrow are the children 
of today. 

Ill 

14. That is how to shut your eyes to the menace. If you are to open 
your arms to it, you must look more deeply into your own guilty 
reading of the comics and into that of your child whose guilt you 
have cultivated. Suppose that you wish to look into the sphinx s 
eye. How can the nightmares that you see there come true? 

15. For one thing, when you look at the comics you read and the 
comics your child reads, you will realize and perhaps nobody has 
ever had such a chance to realize it before how different is your 
child s stake in the world from your own. Before your eyes, and with 
the dime that he chisels off you, that child is planning the new 
world, searching for new strength to deal with the old evil which 
has found wheels and wings. He has already discounted your 
world the old world. 

16. His search is not without effort and discrimination. You will find, 
for example, that a few of the thoughtful people interested in child 
education have begun to point out that the children who read 
comics are also the children who read books. They are, in fact, 
simply children who read. It s even thought that the comics tend 



60 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

slightly to make readers of children who might not otherwise get 
the reading habit. Children develop definite patterns of taste in 
comics: some like it hot, some like Mickey Mouse, some prefer to 
dwell even in the familiar old, old world of their grandparents 
with the Katzenjammers. A "good" child will select what at first 
glance%will look to you like the worst comics. Each child s selec 
tion will give you something of a glimpse of his particular world 
problem. If you know the gamut of the comics, there can be for 
you a terrifying pathos in that pile of magazines in your child s 
life. For there are the dangers he accepts, which you, as you cling 
to Annie and Terry to escape the headlines, try not to foresee. 

17. Not all comics deal with imaginary men of tomorrow. There is 
a comic magazine called True Comics. It is intended to be up 
lifting and is a fight-fire-with-fire sort of tactic, started by Parents 
Magazine. It was bad to start with, but now it is full of hard fact 
in a Superman package. Your child reads it and he thinks that 
everyone knows that Chiang Kai-shek was a stockbroker who got 
wiped out in a depression in 1920 and that he divorced a first 
wife to marry Mayling Soong. He has a method of learning certain 
kinds of information far more efficient than any you encountered. 
The picture-caption-diagram-caption never was put to really ef 
fective use in the days when our minds were open, the clays when 
we learned the things we remember. In the comics this most ef 
fective technique works overtime, and the things that it teaches 
are very far from the trivial misdemeanors of Buster Brown. This 
is the making of 1960, for that is when some of these children will 
find themselves in power. 

18. As you go yet more deeply into the pile of comics, you will see 
how, under the stimulus of the comic horror of tomorrow, this 
same child begins to turn to the practical side of miracle making. 
Next the shelf that holds the comics you will find a shelf of maga 
zines with titles such as Mechanix Illustrated and Modern Design. 
You will find them amongst the mess of model airplane parts not far 
from the discarded streamlined train. With the same affection that 
you learned to spot an Overland or Maxwell these children iden 
tify a P-40 or a B-26. They live in a world of strange machines, 
a less social world than ours more lonely; a world where the 
law is likely to fail and a man must be able to look out for him- 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 61 

self. Those are a few of the ways by which the comic is trans 
mitted into fact. And there are other more contemporary ways in 
which you can watch this unreal world of tomorrow being con 
verted into the real world of today. 

IV 

19. Our comics are on the noses of our fighting planes, and do you 
remember where you met the Jeep? He was sent to Olive Oyl from 
the heart of Africa by her Uncle Ben Zene. He was almost Segar s 
last gift to the world before he died and Thimble Theatre passed 
into other hands. In 1936 Olive would have sold you that Jeep 
his name was Eugene for five bucks. The Jeep was a magic little 
animal who looked to be by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi out of Krazy Kat; 
he had a very red nose and all the answers. He had to be fed 
orchids. Well, there are a lot of Yankee mechanics concocting 
spare parts for jeeps in a land where there are plenty of orchids 
and no spare parts. 

20. In the comic world a top-flight German official flew secretly to 
England from Germany only a short time before Hess did. To a 
comics-reading child the Hess flight would seem a thing to be 
expected. Finally, I know a little girl who wears her cardigan 
sweater buttoned once at the neck and flung back over her 
shoulders, the arms hanging free like dislocated wings. That s 
Superman style and it will be a mode in ten years when that little 
girl is grown. 

21. When I was a child, my friends and I fought a war with lead 
soldiers that lasted nearly a year. It outstripped the war of 14 
then in progress. It became by spring a war with a fluid front 
based on strong points, a highly mechanized force, and enormous 
fire-power concentrated in the hands of one man. A few of our 
tactics still grimly await fulfillment. 

22. So, as the war of 39 has always been my War and Terry s War 
and perhaps even Daddy Warbucks s War, the struggles of 60 
are those that go on now in the comics which we wisely denounce. 
Like all men in the storybooks and out of them, when we are 
shown the future we scoff with our minds and with our souls we 
fearfully await fulfillment. Meanwhile, however, if you have stom 
ach for tomorrow, don t feel guilty about adding the Phantom to 



62 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

your repertoire. You can have the Twentieth Century all at once 
instead of day by day. Between Puck, the comic weekly founded 
around 1900, and Planet Comics you have time on a map. You can 
determine your progress and know what s around the bend. 
23. It s all, all right with me. I can take it if the children can; there s 
only one thing that worries me, and that is: How will those chil 
dren face their children, who will be the men of the day after 
tomorrow? After Captain America what? 

ANALYSIS 

1. An understanding of the thought process behind this article may not be easy to 
arrive at. The following suggestions should be of some help: 

a. The main idea of the article is to be found in the single sentence that com 
prises Paragraph 9. 

b. The author had, no doubt, arrived at his main point in his own mind, in part 
at least, before he thought of the specific examples mentioned in Paragraphs 
5-8. These specific examples he then cited first to carry the reader with him to 
his main point. 

c. In Paragraphs 19-21 the author gives four more concrete examples. These 
he could not well have thought of unless he had first had in mind the idea that 
they support. 

d. The other parts of the article contain little concrete evidence. They contain 
speculation upon the evidence given elsewhere. 

e. Therefore, we will conclude that the author first framed a question for him 
self the question stated at the end of Paragraph 4. The second step in the 
thought process was to arrive at a hypothesis, a tentative answer after a pre 
liminary examination of the evidence at his command. The third step, an im 
portant one, was to check this hypothesis by bringing to bear upon it all the 
items of evidence that he could think of. 

/. This process, though informally used here, is roughly the scientific method 
of procedure in induction. 

Go through the article carefully with these items in mind. At what points does 
the reasoning fall short of the scientific method? 

2. Of what use is the introductory material that precedes the framing of the ques 
tion at the end of Paragraph 4? 

3. a. What kinds of comics does the author use to illustrate and support his gen 
eralization? 

b. Has he left out any significant groups? 

c. Is he under any obligation in an informal article to cover the whole field? 

4. a. Are there any places in the article where the conclusions are stated along 
with a specific body of particulars? 

b. Do any other articles in this chapter employ the same technique? 

5. a. lias Paragraph 11 been given any concrete foundation or is this thought 
unattached? 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 63 

b. Why are there only two ways? Is the author convincing us here? Note that the 
topic sentence of Paragraph 11 is also the topic sentence for the section includ 
ing Paragraphs 11-18. 



AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN OHIO* 
By Mrs. Trollope 

1. MOHAWK, as our little village was called, gave us an excellent 
opportunity of comparing the peasants of the United States with 
those of England, and of judging the average degree of comfort 
enjoyed by each. I believe Ohio gives as fair a specimen as any 
part of the Union; if they have the roughness and inconveniences 
of a new state to contend with, they have higher wages and 
cheaper provisions; if I err in supposing it a mean state in point 
of comfort, it certainly is not in taking too low a standard. 

2. Mechanics, if good workmen, are certain of employment, and 
good wages, rather higher than with us; the average wages of a 
laborer throughout the Union is ten dollars a month, with lodging, 
boarding, washing, and mending; if he lives at his own expense he 
has a dollar a day. It appears to me that the necessaries of life, 
that is to say, meat, bread, butter, tea, and coffee (not to mention 
whiskey), are within the reach of every sober, industrious, and 
healthy man who chooses to have them; and yet I think that an 
English peasant, with the same qualifications, would, in coming to 
the United States, change for the worse. He would find wages 
somewhat higher, and provisions in western America considerably 
lower; but this statement, true as it is, can lead to nothing but 
delusion if taken apart from other facts, fully as certain, and not 
less important, but which require more detail in describing, and 
which perhaps cannot be fully comprehended, except by an eye 
witness. The American poor are accustomed to eat meat three 
times a day; I never inquired into the habits of any cottagers in 
western America, where this was not the case. I found afterward 
in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other parts of the country, where 
the price of meat was higher, that it was used with more economy; 
yet still a much larger portion of the weekly income is thus ex- 

* From Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832). 



64 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

pended than with us. Ardent spirits, though lamentably cheap, 1 
still cost something, and the use of them among the men, with 
more or less of discretion, according to the character, is universal. 
Tobacco also grows at their doors, and is not taxed; yet this too 
costs something, and the air of heaven is not in more general 
use among the men of America than chewing tobacco. I am not 
now pointing out the evils of dram-drinking, but it is evident, that 
where this practice prevails universally, and often to the most 
frightful excess, the consequence must be, that the money spent to 
obtain the dram is less than the money lost by the time consumed 
in drinking it. Long, disabling, and expensive fits of sickness are 
incontestably more frequent in every part of America than in Eng 
land, and the sufferers have no aid to look to, but what they have 
saved, or what they may be enabled to sell. I have never seen 
misery exceed what I have witnessed in an American cottage 
where disease has entered. 

But if the condition of the laborer be not superior to that of the 
English peasant, that of his wife and daughters is incomparably 
worse. It is they who are indeed the slaves of the soil. One has 
but to look at the wife of an American cottager, and ask her 
age, to be convinced that the life she leads is one of hardship, 
privation, and labor. It is rare to see a woman in this station who 
has reached the age of thirty, without losing every trace of youth 
and beauty. You continually see women with infants on their knee, 
that you feel sure are their grandchildren, till some convincing 
proof of the contrary is displayed. Even the young girls, though 
often with lovely features, look pale, thin, and haggard. I do not 
remember to have seen in any single instance among the poor, a 
specimen of the plump, rosy, laughing physiognomy so common 
among our cottage girls. The horror of domestic service, which the 
reality of slavery, and the fable of equality, have generated, ex 
cludes the young women from that sure and most comfortable re 
source of decent English girls; and the consequence is, that with 
a most irreverend freedom of manner to the parents, the daughters 
are, to the full extent of the word, domestic slaves. This condi 
tion, which no periodical merrymaking, no village fete, ever occurs 

1 About a shilling a gallon is the retail price of good whiskey. If bought whole 
sale, or of inferior quality, it is much cheaper. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 65 

to cheer, is only changed for the still sadder burdens of a teeming 
wife. They marry very young; in fact, in no rank of life do you 
meet with young women in that delightful period of existence 
between childhood and marriage, wherein, if only tolerably well 
spent, so much useful information is gained, and the character 
takes a sufficient degree of firmness to support with dignity the 
more important parts of wife and mother. The slender, childish 
thing, without vigor of mind or body, is made to stem a sea of 
troubles that dims her young eye and makes her cheek grow pale, 
even before nature has given it the last beautiful finish of the 
fullgrown woman. 

4. "We shall get along," is the answer in full, for all that can be 
said in way of advice to a boy and girl who take it into their 
heads to go before a magistrate and "get married." And they do 
get along, till sickness overtakes them, by means perhaps of bor 
rowing a kettle from one and a teapot from another; but intem 
perance, idleness, or sickness will, in one week, plunge those who 
are even getting along well into utter destitution; and where this 
happens, they are completely without resource. 

5. The absence of poor-laws is, without doubt, a blessing to the 
country, but they have not that natural and reasonable dependence 
on the richer classes which, in countries differently constituted, 
may so well supply their place. I suppose there is less almsgiving 
in America than in any other Christian country on the face of the 
globe. It is not in the temper of the people either to give or to 
receive. 

6. I extract the following pompous passage from a Washington 
paper of February, 1829 (a season of uncommon severity and dis 
tress), which I think justifies my observation. 

7. "Among the liberal evidences of sympathy for the suffering poor 
of this city, two have come to our knowledge which deserve to be 
especially noticed: the one a donation by the President of the 
United States, to the committee of the ward in which he resides, 
of fifty dollars; the other a donation by a few of the officers of 
the war department to the Howard and Dorcas societies, of seventy- 
two dollars/ When such mention is made of a gift of about nine 
pounds sterling from the sovereign magistrate of the United States, 
and of thirteen pounds sterling as a contribution from one of the 



66 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

state departments, the inference is pretty obvious, that the suf 
ferings of the destitute in America are not liberally relieved by in 
dividual charity. 

8. I had not been three days at Mohawk-cottage before a pair of 
ragged children came to ask for medicine for a sick mother; and 
when it was given to them, the eldest produced a handful of cents, 
and desired to know what he was to pay. The superfluous milk of 
our cow was sought after eagerly, but every newcomer always 
proposed to pay for it. When they found out that "the English 
old woman" did not sell any thing, I am persuaded they by no 
means liked her the better for it; but they seemed to think, that 
if she were a fool it was no reason they should be so too, and ac 
cordingly the borrowing, as they called it, became very constant, 
but always in a form that showed their dignity and freedom. One 
woman sent to borrow a pound of cheese; another half a pound of 
coffee; and more than once an intimation accompanied the milk 
jug, that the milk must be fresh and unskimmed: on one occa 
sion the messenger refused milk, and said, "Mother only wanted 
a little cream for her coffee/ 

9. I could never teach them to believe, during above a year that I 
lived at this house, that I would not sell the old clothes of the 
family; and so pertinacious were they in bargain-making, that 
often, when I had given them the articles which they wanted to 
purchase, they would say, "Well, I expect I shall have to do a turn 
of work for this; you may send for me when you want me." But 
as I never did ask for the turn of work, and as this formula was con 
stantly repeated, I began to suspect that it was spoken solely to 
avoid uttering that most un-American phrase "I thank you." 

io. There was one man whose progress in wealth I watched with 
much interest and pleasure. When I first became his neighbor, 
himself, his wife, and four children, were living in one room, with 
plenty of beefsteaks and onions for breakfast, dinner, and supper, 
but with very few other comforts. He was one of the finest men I 
ever saw, full of natural intelligence and activity of mind and 
body, but he could neither read nor write. He drank but little 
whiskey, and but rarely chewed tobacco, and was therefore more 
free from that plague-spot of spitting which rendered male col 
loquy so difficult to endure. He worked for us frequently, and often 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 67 

used to walk into the drawing-room and seat himself on the sofa, 
and tell me all his plans. He made an engagement with the pro 
prietor of the wooded hill before mentioned, by which half the 
wood he could fell was to be his own. His unwearied industry 
made this a profitable bargain, and from the proceeds he pur 
chased the materials for building a comfortable frame (or wooden) 
house; he did the work almost entirely himself. He then got a job 
for cutting rails, and, as he could cut twice as many in a day as 
any other man in the neighborhood, he made a good thing of it. 
He then let half his pretty house, which was admirably constructed, 
with an ample portico, that kept it always cool. His next step was 
contracting for the building of a wooden bridge, and when I left 
Mohawk he had fitted up his half of the building as an hotel and 
grocery store; and I have no doubt that every sun that sets sees 
him a richer man than when it rose. He hopes to make his son a 
lawyer, and I have little doubt that he will live to see him sit in 
Congress; when his time arrives, the woodcutter s son will rank 
with any other member of Congress, not of courtesy, but of right, 
and the idea that his origin is a disadvantage, will never occur 
to the imagination of the most exalted of his fellow citizens. 

11. This is the only feature in American society that I recognize as 
indicative of the equality they profess. Any man s son may become 
the equal of any other man s son, and the consciousness of this is 
certainly a spur to exertion; on the other hand, it is also a spur to 
that coarse familiarity, untempered by any shadow of respect, 
which is assumed by the grossest and the lowest in their intercourse 
with the highest and most refined. This is a positive evil, and, I 
think, more than balances its advantages. 

12. And here again it may be observed, that the theory of equality 
may be very daintily discussed by English gentlemen in a London 
dining room, when the servant, having placed a fresh bottle of 
cool wine on the table, respectfully shuts the door, and leaves 
them to their walnuts and their wisdom; but it will be found less 
palatable when it presents itself in the shape of a hard, greasy 
paw, and is claimed in accents that breathe less of freedom than 
of onions and whiskey. Strong, indeed, must be the love of equal 
ity in an English breast if it can survive a tour through the Union. 

13. There was one house in the village which was remarkable for 



68 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

its wretchedness. It had an air of indecent poverty about it, which 
long prevented my attempting an entrance; but at length, upon 
being told that I could get chicken and eggs there whenever I 
wanted them, I determined upon venturing. The door being 
opened to my knock, I very nearly abandoned my almost blunted 
purpose; I never beheld such a den of filth and misery: a woman, 
the very image of dirt and disease, held a squalid imp of a baby 
on her hip bone while she kneaded her dough with her right fist 
only. A great lanky girl, of twelve years old, was sitting on a bar 
rel, gnawing a corn cob; when I made known my business, the 
woman answered, "No, not I; I got no chickens to sell, nor eggs 
neither; but my son will, plenty I expect. Here, Nick" (bawling 
at the bottom of a ladder), "here s an old woman what wants 
chickens." Half a moment brought Nick to the bottom of the lad 
der, and I found my merchant was one of a ragged crew, whom I 
had been used to observe in my daily walk, playing marbles in 
the dust, and swearing lustily; he looked about ten years old. 

14. "Have you chicken to sell, my boy?" 

"Yes, and eggs too, more nor what you ll buy." 

15. Having inquired price, condition, and so on, I recollected that 
I had been used to give the same price at market, the feathers 
plucked, and the chicken prepared for the table, and I told him that 
he ought not to charge the same. 

16. "O, for that, I expect I can fix em as well as ever them was, 
what you got in market." 

"You fix them?" 
"Yes, to be sure, why not?" 
"I thought you were too fond of marbles." 
He gave me a keen glance, and said, "You don t know I. When 
will you be wanting the chickens?" 

17. He brought them at the time directed, extremely well "fixed," 
and I often dealt with him afterward. When I paid him, he always 
thrust his hand into his breeches pocket, which I presume, as be 
ing the keep, was fortified more strongly than the dilapidated out 
works, and drew from thence rather more dollars, half-dollars, 
levies, and fips, than his dirty little hand could well hold. My 
curiosity was excited, and though I felt an involuntary disgust 
towards the young Jew, I repeatedly conversed with him. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 69 

18. "You are very rich, Nick," I said to him one day, on his making 
an ostentatious display of change, as he called it; he sneered with 
a most unchildish expression of countenance, and replied, "I guess 
twould be a bad job for I, if that was all I d got to show." 

19. I asked him how he managed his business. He told me that he 
bought eggs by the hundred, and lean chicken by the score, from 
the wagons that passed their door on the way to market; that he 
fatted the latter in coops he had made himself, and could easily 
double their price, and that his eggs answered well too, when he 
sold them out by the dozen. 

20. "And do you give the money to your mother?" 

"I expect not," was the answer, with another sharp glance of 
his ugly blue eyes. 

"What do you do with it, Nick?" 

His look said plainly, what is that to you? but he only answered, 
quaintly enough, "I takes care of it." 

21. How Nick got his first dollar is very doubtful; I was told that 
when he entered the village store, the person serving always called 
in another pair of eyes; but having obtained it, the spirit, activity, 
and industry, with which he caused it to increase and multiply, 
would have been delightful in one of Miss Edgeworth s dear little 
clean bright-looking boys, who would have carried all he got to 
his mother; but in Nick it was detestable. No human feeling seemed 
to warm his young heart, not even the love of self-indulgence, for 
he was not only ragged and dirty, but looked considerably more 
than half starved, and I doubt not his dinners and suppers half 
fed his fat chickens. 

22. I by no means give this history of Nick, the chicken merchant, 
as an anecdote characteristic in all respects of America; the only 
part of the story which is so, is the independence of the little man, 
and is one instance out of a thousand, of the hard, dry, calculat 
ing character that is the result of it. Probably Nick will be very 
rich; perhaps he will be president. I once got so heartily scolded 
for saying that I did not think all American citizens were equally 
eligible to that office, that I shall never again venture to doubt it. 



70 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



ANALYSIS 

1. a. What is the relationship between the comparison of the peasants of the 
United States with those of England and the whole purpose and conclusion of 
the article? 

b. Where does Mrs. Trollope state her conclusion? 

2. a. Explain the function and purpose of the first five paragraphs. 

b. Are there any particulars in this part of the essay that support the frequent 
generalizations ? 

c. Did Mrs. Trollope, however, have concrete evidence in mind? 

3. a. Point out the number and kinds of particulars Mrs. Trollope uses in the 
essay. What main kinds are there? 

b. Does she use material wholly substantiated by personal experience or does 
she rely on occasion upon more indirect evidence? 

4. a. What do you think of Mrs. Trollope s reasoning and conclusion? 
b. Does it seem justified in view of the evidence she uses? 

5. Why is this passage called " informal " induction? Explain. 



I PICK EM UP* 
Bij Bergen Evans 

1. WHEN A BOY of high school age was sentenced in St. Louis last 
year for the murder of five different people from whom he had 
begged rides along the highway, a hundred tales of horror were 
substantiated. 

2. You hear them everywhere: X had his pocket picked by a hitch 
hiker, Y was sued, and Z now sleeps in the old churchyard! And 
when the wind cries in the chimney and the lights burn blue, we 
are told even more eerie things. There is the seductive girl in 
sables who said that her Duesenberg had broken down and begged 
a lift to the next town. Overpowered by her charm, the simple 
Samaritan forgot that the next town was just across the state line 
and just under the Mann Act, and now he is the haggard and 
bankrupt victim of blackmail. Then there is the fragile old lady 
from beneath whose petticoat peeped the cuffs of a man s trousers 
or from whose knitting bag protruded the muzzle of a machine 
gun I forget which. At any rate, the kindhearted motorist who 
was about to let her get into his car saw it in the nick of time and 

* From Scribners Magazine, February, 1939. Reprinted by permission of the 
author. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 71 

stepped on the accelerator. She s become quite a legendary figure, 
this dear old menace. She flits in the dusk on the outskirts of Chi 
cago and appears in the dawn southwest of Denver. Late revelers 
have passed her on the Boston Post Road and the winter visitor 
sees her in Florida, where her artillery is sometimes hidden under 
Spanish moss and sometimes wreathed in orange blossoms. 

3. She proves that "You never can tell." And the narrator of her 
exploits has an unfailing warning: "Don t pick em up! Don t pick 
any of em up!" 

4. Still, I go on picking them up. 

5. There is an element of danger in picking up a stranger along 
the highway. Not all of the stories are myths. People have been 
robbed, people have been sued, and people have been murdered 
by chance passengers. 

6. Even so, I believe that for every instance of murderous ingrati 
tude on the part of those who have begged rides there could be 
cited many instances of sincere gratitude. 

7. I have picked up scores of vagrants. They have driven for me, 
have helped me with the tires and have fixed things about the 
car, and not one has ever threatened me. 

8. That is, I think not one. There is one experience about which I 
am still uncertain. It was in California, south of Salinas on the way 
to Los Angeles. The man was standing by a railroad crossing, 
and I was too intent upon the possibility of an approaching train 
to examine him carefully, or I would never have stopped, for he 
was one of the toughest mugs I have ever seen. Tough in every 
way his appearance, his manner, and his speech. There was an 
alarming friendliness about him too, a tendency to thwack me on 
the back or dig me in the ribs at critical moments on hills and 
curves. But as the day wore on, my concern vanished; he seemed 
to be a simplehearted bear, boisterous and boastful but innocent 
enough. After dark, however, he became silent, and my first impres 
sion of him revived a little. Beyond Ventura we had to make a 
detour. It was spitting rain, and the dirt road twisted through an 
impenetrable blackness. After about half an hour of complete si 
lence, in which time we had passed no houses or ears, he suddenly 
said, "What d you do if somebody stuck you up, some guy you d 



72 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

picked up maybe?" Startled, I could think of nothing but the 
truth: "I would try to stop the car," I said, "but I would probably 
be so scared that I would step on the gas and go over the cliff." 
And then, having regained my composure a little, "There s a lot 
of insanity in my family." 

9. He didn t say a word, simply kept as far over on his side of the 
seat as he could get, with his hands plainly visible and motionless 
in his lap, until we came to the first street lights of Los Angeles; 
then he seized his paper parcel and, asking me to stop, scrambled 
out. 

10. Safety, one way or the other, though, hasn t very much to do 
with it. I pick them up because I am sorry for them. Their appeal 
is elemental; they are footsore, tired, and hungry, and it s a little 
thing to let them sit in the car for a while. 

11. But chiefly I pick them up because they are amusing and in 
teresting. Strangers have none of the middle ground of talk; there 
is nothing between the weather and the stuff they live by. 

12. You ll find everything, if you pick enough of them "up, from re 
bellious boys ("Anything to get outa that dump!") to quiet, be 
wildered men reduced to vagabondage by some swift change in 
the methods of production. They have spent their best years learn 
ing a trade and cannot believe that they are no longer wanted; 
somewhere in the world there must be use for a man who can 
blow glass or work in wrought iron. They plead their cases with a 
tired persistence while the tires whine the miles away. 

13. In contrast are those who are wanderers because they like the 
life and who support themselves by various ingenious occupations. 
The most bizarre member of this group that I ever encountered 
was a tattooed sword swallower. The tattooing, he told me, was to 
hold the interest of the crowd until enough people had collected to 
make it worth his while to swallow the sword. He allowed me to ex 
amine the short, dirty saber and the dirtier poker which he was 
accustomed to thrust into his vitals, and on my expressing the 
proper degree of astonishment, he even offered to teach me the art. 
Since it required, however, years of practice with polished ivory 
rods on an empty stomach, I declined with thanks. You got used 
to it in time, he urged; he could do it on a full meal. But I still 
declined. Later I had the queasy satisfaction of watching him per- 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 73 

form. He recognized me in the audience, honored me with a ges 
ture of salutation, and insisted that I was not to contribute. 

14. More pleasant to remember is a little boy I picked up one sum 
mer evening in Utah, between Nephi and Moroni, where the road 
turns east and south to pass between the Nebo and the San Pitch 
ranges. I had been crawling all afternoon at about five miles an 
hour through great herds of sheep that were moving north towards 
Provo. The air had been acrid and choking with dust, and the 
bleatings and patter of hoofs at first pleasant had become 
highly irritating after three or four hours. One of the herders told 
me that I would find a clear road twenty miles to the east, and 
so at Nephi I cut over to it. 

15. And it was on the connecting road, on the brow of a rise be 
tween the mountain ranges, that I came on this boy, a child of 
about ten, trudging along with a lamb in his arms. He did not 
ask for a ride, but he seemed so tiny, so alone in the vastness of 
the hills and the twilight, that I stopped and asked him if he would 
like to get in. He said, yes, thank you, he would like it very much 
because it would get him home in time for supper; he had ten 
miles to go and was hungry. Seated in the car with the lamb in 
his lap, half-hidden under his jacket, he explained that it was a 
lostling, one whose mother had died. Ordinarily, he said, the 
shepherds feed them from bottles or find a sheep whose lamb has 
died and tie the dead lamb s skin around the orphan for the 
ewes, though they will not feed a strange lamb, seem to know their 
own solely by smell. But during the annual migrations there is no 
time for such attentions and the lostlings, too weak from lack of 
food to keep up with the herd, are left to die. 

16. The sheepherders will gladly give them to anyone who wants 
them. And so he had taken to walking along behind the herds, 
waiting for a chance stray. It was hard work for a child. The day 
that I picked him up he had followed the herds fifteen miles and 
had carried the lamb five on the way home. He had started, he 
told me, early in the morning, carrying a lunch, and if I had not 
given him a ride he would not have reached home before mid 
night. The possibility did not alarm him; he had often walked that 
far before. His father, a farmer, staked him to skim milk to feed 
his lambs. The year before, he had acquired a flock of thirty-four 



74 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

and this year already had eighteen. At the mention of such num 
bers I became more respectful; I had picked up a man of sub 
stance. 

17. I don t generally pick up boys in their teens, but I make an 
exception of CCC boys. I like their energy and cheerfulness and 
their enthusiasm for the camps. I have picked them up by the 
dozens, in all parts of the country, and have yet to find one who 
was disgruntled or bitter. They are proud of being members of 
their camps. Many of them are beginning to be conscious of so 
ciety, its benefits and responsibilities, and are thrilled at the dis 
covery. 

18. One CCC boy whom I picked up in western Pennsylvania only 
a few months ago asked me if I would stay and have supper with 
him at the camp. I was astonished to learn that he was allowed 
to have a guest, and he was astonished that I was astonished. And 
a little hurt. Why shouldn t he have a guest? What did I think 
it was, a prison? Ashamed, I made some floundering apology and 
stayed for a very good supper. 

19. College boys, on the other hand, are rarely interesting. A college 
sticker on a suitcase is as good as a green light to me. They ve 
all had too much psychology and spoil the natural charm of their 
ignorance by trying to be charming. They are little Dale Carnegies 
and proceed to put you at your ease. 

20. They are too anxious to find out your interests. Whereas it is the 
man with overmastering interests of his own who makes the way 
seem short. Give me a crank or a crackpot every time, a fellow 
who can t wait to get into the car before he starts to expound or 
argue. Communism or some crazy diet, it s all one with me so 
long as he is excited about it. 

21. One of my most vivid recollections is of a man whom I did not 
pick up. His name was Brother John, and I saw him in Prescott, 
Arizona, one morning several years ago. A rodeo was scheduled 
for the afternoon, and the streets were gay with ten-gallon hats, 
fleecy chaps, bright shirts, brisk little cow ponies, and all the other 
paraphernalia of the professional West. A microphone had been 
set up on the steps of the courthouse, and through rumbling am 
plifiers ballads and ballyhoo came in intermittent thunder. Now 
and then the man at the mike would ask some local celebrity to say 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 75 

a word or two. Several politicians had assured the crowd of their 
undying devotion to its interests when a more interesting possi 
bility presented itself in the form of Brother John. He was a 
prophet, he said, and his ruddy face, magnificent white beard, and 
flowing locks bore him out. He was barefooted and dressed in a 
sort of toga of white samite or percale, or whatever it was that 
prophets were wearing that season. In his hand he held a staff 
to which a banner was attached, and around his neck was hung on 
a red cord what seemed to be the nozzle of a fire hose. 

22. The announcer asked him if he would care to address the peo 
ple, and he said that he would. Thrusting himself through the 
crowd, he mounted the courthouse steps with solemn dignity and, 
applying the small end of his fire nozzle to his lips, blew into the 
microphone a blast which when amplified, almost tore away the 
cornice. And then in a voice scarcely less terrible, cried out 
the single word "Repent!" 

23. That were a man to pick up! I never round a curve without look 
ing eagerly down the road to see if he is not striding before me. 
And someday I will overtake him and offer him a ride. And then 
with his bare feet on the dashboard and his trumpet clearing 
all before us what brave things I shall learn! He will tell me of 
God s wrath, of Judgment Day and all the hardships of a prophet s 
life. He will speak of Beulah and of Signs to Come, lay bare 
the mystery of Mormon underwear, and justify the Amish Breth 
ren because they use no buttons! 

24. What a poor tiling is safety compared with this! 



ANALYSIS 

a. What is the conclusion or generalization that the induction points to in this 
article? Is it clearly stated? Where? 

b. Could such a conclusion be arrived at through other sources of information 
than those the author uses? What are they? 

Note carefully the way the article begins. 

a. Is this beginning a clear part of the inductive pattern? 

b. How does it fit in with the rest of the article? 

c. Where in the text does the author turn from the beginning to the actual body 
of the article? 

d. Point out the writing devices he uses to make this and other transitions be 
tween parts of his organization. 



76 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

3. a. How many specific or particular incidents does the author use to support and 
clarify his conclusion? 

b. Do these incidents follow a clearly arranged and logical order, or a rhetor 
ical order, one that is used merely because it has interest and creates emphasis? 

4. a. Does Evans state his conclusion more than once? 

b. Does he relate directly his conclusion to each incident used to support it? 

5. What changes would have to be made in this article to " formalize " the induc 
tion, that is, to shift die pattern away from infonnal induction? 

6. Note the concessive pattern of the organization of the article as a whole, with 
the break coming at Paragraph 10. Note also the pattern of classification that is 
to be found from Paragraph 10 to the end. 



THE NEGRO SCIENTIST* 
By W. E. Burghardt Du Bois 

1. I WAS on a dining car in Ohio last November when a little brown 
boy and his mother stopped at my table. She said he wanted to 
meet a man who had known his grandfather. I soon learned who 
the boy was. He had passed an intelligence test in Cincinnati lately 
and scored an I.Q. of 170, one of the highest in the city. I also re 
membered his grandfather. A always represented to me a trag 
edy in science. He was thin, brown, had close-curled hair, was 
ill-dressed and excessively shy. This man, a born student, was 
graduated from the University of Z in 1891 and became as 
sistant in the Department of Biology. There he began his study of 
insects. His chief was called to the new University of Chicago 

when it was organized in 1892 and invited A to be his assistant. 

But unfortunately the chief soon died and no one at Z or Chi 
cago desired a colored assistant. 

2. A became a teacher in a small colored Methodist school in 

South Atlanta which had at the time about a dozen college stu 
dents, no laboratories and few books. He received inadequate pay 
and a heavy teaching load. Nevertheless he stuck to his work. Be 
tween 1908 and 1933 he published nine interesting studies of in 
sect behavior in Psyche, the Biological Bulletin, and the Journal of 
Animal Behavior. He watched the dance of the mellissodes and 
the habits of the mud dauber, the bees and the ant lion. These 

* From The American Scholar, Summer, 1939. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers and the author. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 77 

brought him notice and attention among scientists in both America 
and Europe; but the only appointment carrying a living wage that 
he was able to get was in the Negro Sumner High School in St. 
Louis. There he stayed until he died of overwork. He was a prom 
ising scientist; with even fair opportunity he ought to have ac 
complished much; but his color hindered him. 

3. Some time ago a great American scientist noted in public print 
how few Negroes had made their mark in science. They were heard 
of in music and literature, on the stage, in painting and in some 
departments of public life, but not often in exact science. I called 
his attention to the fact that it was not easy for an American Negro 
to pursue science and he admitted that there might be difficulties. 
But I think that along with most Americans his private belief was 
that the exact and intensive habit of mind, the rigorous mathe 
matical logic demanded of those who would be scientists is not 
natural to the Negro race. 

4. I believe he was wrong and for that reason I am going to point 

to the careers of several Negroes, in addition to A , who seem 

to have had the mental equipment requisite for scientific accom 
plishment and who have done work of a high order, but who never 
had the best facilities or even a good opportunity to accomplish 
first-rate work opened to them. To avoid unpleasant notoriety I 
have substituted letters for the names of persons and institutions. 
Judgment here is of course not infallible and it is quite possible 
that in some cases difficulties of temperament and personality, in 
ability to fulfill the earlier promise of a career and a number of 
other things hampered these men rather than a mere matter of 
color prejudice. But I do not think so and to show the reasonable 
ness of my thesis I want to set down the main facts of their careers. 
There are twelve Negro scholars listed in American Men of Sci 
ence. Of these, eight were teaching in Negro colleges; three were 
teaching in white institutions and one was in a museum of Natural 

History. Two or three men, like B whom I mention below, 

were omitted although they deserve inclusion. 

5. Dr. B entered medical school just as S. Weir Mitchell gave 

the hospitals for the insane that bitter drubbing in which he ac 
cused them of simply incarcerating the insane while they did noth 
ing to further the study of insanity. Out of this attack arose a new 



78 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

movement in American psychiatry. Dr. B was one of the earli 
est workers in the new field. He was graduated at the Y 

Medical School and given a place on the staff of X Insane 

Asylum in New England. There he became in succession intern, 
assistant pathologist, pathologist and director of psychiatry from 
1891 to 1920. He began systematic and laboratory experiments, 
from time to time read the results of his findings before the Ameri 
can Medico-Psychological Society and other organizations, and was 
a member of the chief psychiatric societies of the United States. 
He was regarded as one of the leading authorities on psychiatry 
in the United States evidenced by the fact that as work in psy 
chiatry was organized in various points throughout the nation, 

Dr. B was time and again asked to join the new staff being 

brought together. As soon, however, as it was learned by cor 
respondence or interview that he was colored the invitations were 
withdrawn or the matter was allowed to drop. 

6. Between 1909 and 1931 Dr. B was connected with the med 
ical school of Y University and taught there for ^twenty-two 

years as Instructor in Neurology, Lecturer in Neuropathology, As 
sistant Professor and Associate Professor of Neurology. During his 
last five years with the institution he served as the actual head of 
the Department of Neurology, a position which was vacant, but 
he never received the title. Finally a white assistant professor was 
made professor and placed at the head of the department. Dr. 

B resigned. He refused to complain. "I thoroughly dislike 

publicity of that sort and despise sympathy. I regard life as a bat 
tle in which we win or lose. As far as I am concerned, to be van 
quished, if not ingloriously, is not so bad after all." He docs, how 
ever, admit that "with the sort of work I have done, I might have 
gone farther and reached a higher plane, had it not been for my 
color." 

y. Another case is that of C . C is an instructor in the 

W Medical School and chief of the Wassermann Laboratory 

in the State Health Department. His test for syphilis is said to be 
better than the Wassermann test in some respects. Yet this man, 
who is one of the foremost authorities on syphilis in the United 

States, has received no promotion at W , occupies no assured 

position and recently refused a distinction conferred upon him by 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 79 

a Negro organization for fear that emphasis upon his color would 
handicap him even more than it has already. 

8. D is professor of zoology at a Negro university. His work 

in the biology of the cell surface is outstanding. He has contributed 
a chapter to Cowdry s General Cytology and to a similar German 
work. His own volume, The Biology of the Cell Surface, has just 
been published. For twenty-five years he has worked during the 

summers at the celebrated laboratories at V . As the leading 

authority in methods there he was consulted by staff and students 
alike. Contrary to almost invariable precedent, however, he has 

never been named an instructor at V and has never but once 

received a call from a leading university. That came in his earlier 
career and was an offer of an assistantship. Although he was a 
friend of the greatest American scholar of general physiology, a 

man who admired him and his work, D was never invited to 

occupy a research position. Finally he ceased going to V be 
cause of the treatment which his wife had to endure one summer 

when he took her with him. D was once vice president of 

the American Society of Zoologists but he never became president, 
a quite usual promotion. There seems to be no explanation for the 

treatment of D but his color. Personally both he and his wife 

are modest, pleasant and unassuming. 

9. E was professor of chemistry at a colored university but 

was forced to resign for reasons which the president and many of 
the trustees did not regard as adequate. There was no question 
as to his training and his ability in chemistry. He became Gradu 
ate Research Counselor at U , a well known Western univer 
sity. From 1934 to 1937 his course in chemistry was currently re 
ported to be the most popular in the institution and despite his 
Negro blood he stood well with the president and the administra 
tion. But any chance for continuing his work there or for securing 
promotion was frustrated by the propaganda of the American Le 
gion. He resigned and became the head of the Research Depart 
ment of the T Company where he has twelve white chemists 

working under him. Commerce welcomed what the educational 
world rebuffed. 

10. F is Associate Professor of Pathology at S University. He 

was a long time in getting his promotion and according to latest 



80 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

information has never had any classes assigned him. Yet he is said 
to know his subject well. 

11. Discrimination has also been evident in the social sciences. For 

years O University had a Negro librarian. He was a man of 

training and ability, was handsome and alert, held office in the 
state organization and stood high among librarians. But he told 
me he was convinced his library would not be developed and 
would get no adequate appropriation so long as he remained in 
charge. The authorities would not oust him but they would not 
foster the library or follow his recommendations. He believed that 
there he was at the end of his career and he resigned to become 
librarian of a colored college where he felt he was at least wanted 
and needed. 

12. It has been difficult for Negroes to become fellows of the Ameri 
can College of Surgeons. Many years ago a Negro from Chicago 
was elected. Since that time there have been several others who 
according to general report deserved election but could not get it. 

H had done excellent work in research, had had several papers 

published and was head surgeon in one of the greatest hospi 
tals of America but it was a hospital that served a Negro neigh 
borhood. After many rebuffs he was elected to the College re 
putedly because he was backed by white colleagues who belonged 

to N , one of the most powerful political organizations of 

America. Without their determined assault it is very doubtful that 
despite his outstanding work he would have been accepted on his 
merits. 

13. As I have said, it would not be possible for an outsider to prove 
that in all these instances the scientific work was flawless or that 
difficulties of personality did not in some cases hinder promotion. 
Yet certainly, taking them all together and examining the work 
done and the character of mind and technique, it seems fair to 
conclude that had these men not been of Negro descent they would 
have been offered a broader and better chance to carry on scien 
tific work. 

14. For a young man a career in science depends almost entirely 
upon academic appointment and promotion. Even persons of in 
dependent means need the academic atmosphere, the use of labora- 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 81 

tories, scientific collections and other facilities and the inspiration 
of intercourse with scientific men. What usually happens, therefore, 
is that a young man of ability in any particular field is during or 
after his college years picked out by a department and given an 
appointment as laboratory assistant or instructor. After that his rise 
to a permanent position and to an opportunity to do first-class work 
depends in large part upon his own capacities. 

15. In the case of Negroes, however, these gates to selection are 
usually closed. One president of a leading New England college 

said of G (a cream-colored young man with curly hair) that 

he was the "most brilliant student of a generation." In addition he 
was handsome, healthy, well-bred and had pleasing manners. He 
was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, led his class and was valedictorian. 
He was never offered a position at any first-class institution. Instead 
he became an instructor at a Southern Negro institution but was 
unhappy in his work. He changed his specialty from English to 
anthropology and studied abroad. His work on blood groups is 
quoted with approval by Huxley and Haddon. He is now on a 
fellowship at R University. 

16. White instructors throughout the country testify that they have 
had in their classes Negroes of unquestioned ability to pursue ca 
reers in science. One of them says: 

Nineteen of the leading professors of chemistry in the great univer 
sities of the country were questioned as to their experience with the 
Negro graduate student in chemistry. Their replies were highly gratify 
ing to one interested in the advance of the Negro in higher education. 
. . . One biochemist of international reputation speaks of a Negro stu 
dent who, to his mind, "is one of the most promising young physiological 
chemists in America. He has a keen, analytical mind, remarkable re 
search technique, and in spite of the fact that he was the only Negro do 
ing major work in our department, he was accepted as an equal by the 
forty or more graduate students majoring in this division/ . . . Profes 
sors W. A. Hopkins, W. A. Noyes, and J. H. Reedy (by quotation) of the 
University of Illinois, listed nine Negro chemists (all but two of them 
former students at Illinois) who have done outstanding work or give 
great promise of productive careers in chemistry. A chairman of a great 
university department of chemistry, himself known internationally for his 
work in analytical and physical chemistry, writes of a Negro student and 
doctoral candidate, who, in a class of ninety in organic chemistry "easily 



82 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

held his own with the best white students. In all of his chemical work, 
he has shown the same proficiency." l 

17. It is probable that similar testimony might be gathered from 
other areas of the scientific world. Nevertheless most institutions, 
even those of first rank, shrink from facing this matter of color 
discrimination and appointing a man of ability despite his color. 
For instance, one president of Q during his three years in 
cumbency simply refused to admit Negro students. A professor at 

A objected to granting a fellowship to a colored man. The 

student s ability and desert were unquestioned but "what could 
he find to do after he pursued such a course" and consequently 
"would he not become bitter like Du Bois?" Fortunately he was 
overruled and the fellowship was granted. 

18. I once received from the Department of Economics at W 

College, one of the oldest and greatest in the land, very flattering 
testimony of the work in economics done by a Negro graduate stu 
dent, H , and a request to use my influence to have him placed 

in a colored institution. The matter was brought to the attention 

of the president of Atlanta University and he went to W . He 

was told that H was a student of marked ability and had done 

first-class work. "Indeed," said the head of the department who was 
talking to Mr. Hope, "if he were not a colored man we would give 
him an appointment here." Mr. Hope looked so white it is possible 
the speaker did not realize to whom he was speaking. 

19. At certain universities there has been evidence of discrimination 

in granting the Ph.D. degree to Negroes. At S University, for 

example, it is said that because of the unbending prejudice of one 
professor the doctorate in history is almost never granted to a 
Negro. In a recent comprehensive examination passed by a Negro 

candidate, M , the secretary of a national scientific association, 

said to me, "I am glad Professor was not present or he would 

never have passed!" 

20. From all this it is obvious that if young colored men receive 
scientific training almost their only opening lies in the Negro uni 
versity of the South. This in itself has much to commend it. It 

1 S. W. Geiser, Fellow of the A.A.A.S.; head of the Department of Biology, 
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas; author of "Lecture Outlines 
in General Biology/ Opportunity, February, 1935. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 83 

should mean that some of the best-trained Negroes are going to 
teach their own youth and give them the advantage of superior 
education. But the difficulty here, of course, is that very few of 
these institutions have the facilities for research, nor can they 
grant teachers the time to devote to it. The young scientist who 
goes to such an institution is usually given a heavy load of teach 
ing covering several branches of scientific work. If he can find 
any time for research he not only has few facilities at his disposal 
at the institution, but he has a body of college students handi 
capped by restricted high school and elementary school training. 
Few of them have seen laboratories before coining to college or 
have been used to rigorous scientific methods. Their English and 
their mathematics have suffered from poor teachers and short 
school terms. 

21. Not only docs the young Negro scientist find difficulty in pur 
suing scientific research in a Negro institution. He lives usually in 
an intellectual desert so far as the surrounding world is concerned. 
State libraries will lend books to colored students but usually the 
reader must be segregated in separate and often inconvenient 
rooms. Even in the Federal State Department in Washington, 

K (the dean of a colored college who was working in the 

archives) was placed in a room by himself. The libraries of col 
leges for white students will often lend books to colored institu 
tions. Throughout the South some social study gatherings and some 
learned societies admit Negroes, but with various discriminations. 
In general the libraries, museums, laboratories, and scientific col 
lections in the South are either completely closed to Negro in 
vestigators or are only partially opened and on humiliating terms. 

22. Of course those colored graduates of Northern colleges who live 
in the South are never affiliated with the local alumni groups. This 
even goes so far as to discrimination against colored members of 

Phi Beta Kappa. One man (L ) writes me, "Some years ago 

I refused to make the full payment on my pledge for the construc 
tion of the new Phi Beta Kappa building at W , because I had 

heard that Negroes were not to be admitted to the exercises at 
the opening." 

23. In the matter of scholarships and prizes difficulties are often 
raised in the case of colored candidates. Today it is practically in> 



84 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

possible for a Negro in the South even to enter the Rhodes Scholar 
ships examinations. The Institute of International Education long 
hesitated to send colored men abroad as exchange students but 
lately has been prevailed upon to change its policy. In the high 
schools, through vocational advice and the general direction that 
teachers exercise over students, Negroes are repeatedly turned 
from contemplated careers in science. When a boy or girl wants 
to specialize in physics or biology he is asked, "Why do you choose 
this subject? What career will there be for you in it?" I have had 
many letters from students telling me of such advice and asking if 
it is true that there would be no chance for Negroes in certain lines 
of scientific work. 

24. In the semiscientific, technical field, Negroes have a fair repre 
sentation. The National Technical Association, as their society is 
called, has a membership of three hundred, made up of one hun 
dred thirteen mechanical and electrical engineers, thirty-eight ar 
chitects, twenty-three chemists and five men engaged in physical 
and biological research. It is interesting to remember *that Lewis 
H. Latimer, a colored man, was one of the original Edison Asso 
ciates. 

25. One may say in answer to all this: so what? After all there are 
plenty of white men who can be trained as scientists. Why crowd 
the field with Negroes who certainly can find other socially neces 
sary work? But the point is that ability and genius are strangely 
catholic in their tastes, regard no color line or racial inheritance. 
They occur here, there, everywhere, without rule or reason. The 
nation suffers that disregards them. There is ability in the Negro 
race a great deal of unusual and extraordinary ability, undiscov 
ered, unused and unappreciated. And in no line of work is ability 
so much needed today as in science. 

26. I can remember the disappointment I myself met with in pursu 
ing a scientific career. I started to work many years ago in soci 
ology, a science then so new that Harvard would not recognize it 
and gave me a Ph.D. in history instead. Nevertheless I intended 
to use social science for the solution of the problems of the Negro 
and in November, 1897, I submitted to the American Academy of 
Political and Social Science my plan for an inquiry into that diffi 
cult area of social relationships. In 1899 I followed that up with a 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 85 

book, The Philadelphia Negro, in which I pointed out that the 
study of the Philadelphia Negro had been made along the lines 
laid down in 1897, and was "thus part of a larger design of ob 
servation and research into the history and social condition of the 
transplanted Africans." I went on to say: 

It is my earnest desire to pursue this particular form of study far 
enough to constitute a fair basis of induction as to the present condition 
of the American Negro. The department of history and economics of 
Atlanta University, where I am now situated, is pursuing certain lines of 
inquiry in this general direction. I hope that funds may be put at our 
disposal for this larger and more complete scheme. Finally, let me add 
that I trust that this study with all its errors and shortcomings will at 
least serve to emphasize the fact that the Negro problems are problems 
of human beings; that they cannot be explained away by fantastic 
theories, ungrounded assumptions or metaphysical subtleties. They pre 
sent a field which the student must enter seriously, and cultivate care 
fully and honestly. And until he has prepared the ground by intelligent 
and discriminating research, the labors of philanthropist and statesman 
must continue to be, to a large extent, barren and unfruitful. 

27. I then went to Atlanta University where for thirteen years I 
worked at the carrying out of the plan. During those years I pub 
lished fourteen monographs on the Negro problem. In the mono 
graph of 1912 I said: 

There is only one sure basis of social reform and that is Truth a care 
ful, detailed knowledge of the essential facts of each social problem. 
Without this there is no logical starting place for reform and uplift. Social 
difficulties may be clear and we may inveigh against them, but the 
causes proximate and remote are seldom clear to the casual observer and 
usually are quite hidden from the man who suffers from, or is sensitive 
to, the results of the snarl. . . . The study is, therefore, a further carry 
ing out of the plan of social study of the Negro American, by means of 
an annual series of decennially recurring subjects covering, so far as is 
practicable, every phase of human life. This plan originated at Atlanta 
University in 1896. The object of these studies is primarily scientific a 
careful research for truth conducted as thoroughly, broadly and honestly 
as the material resources and mental equipment at command will allow. 
... In this work we have received unusual encouragement from the 
scientific world, and the published results of these studies are used in 
America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Very few books on the Negro prob 
lem, or any phase of it, have been published in the last decade which 
have not acknowledged their indebtedness to our work. 



86 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

28. But to my great disappointment the work had to be given up. 
We asked only $5000 a year for its continued pursuit and out of 
that was paid my salary of $1200. The work was not of first-rate 
importance. It was handicapped by lack of funds, lack of trained 
personnel and faulty scientific method. The astonishing thing about 
those Atlanta University publications was that from 1896 to 1910 
we were the only institution in the world to make a social study 
of the results of the contact of the white and Negro race in Amer 
ica; and no matter how poorly that work was done it was recog 
nized as important and unique by leaders of thought in practically 
every country in the world. For a quarter-century no study of the 
Negro or of race conditions in the South could be published with 
out reference to and quotation from our work. Some of the best- 
known students of social science of our day Frank B. Sanborn, 
Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, Walter F. Wilcox, Florence 
Kelley, J. H. Dillard, Franz Boas attended our conferences and 
cooperated in our work. Yet we were unable to rais* thfi $5000 a 
year necessary to keep it going. 

29. For twenty-five years I had to turn my attention to a career of 
propaganda, in an effort to convince the people of this country that 
Negroes ought to be given chances as men. In the last few years 
large sums of money have been given to Southern institutions, 
white and colored, and to departments of Northern institutions 
for pursuing under more favorable circumstances, with larger re 
sources, with better technique and with better-trained people the 
same program of work we had begun in 1896. It is perhaps too 
much to say that our work failed solely because Negroes were do 
ing it, but certainly America was not disposed to help until white 
folk took it up. 

ANALYSIS 

i. The following gives you, briefly, the organization of this article: (1) intro 
duction, (2) statement of the problem, the thesis maintained, and discussion 
of the method used, (3) examination of cases, (4) general causal analysis, 
with two principal subdivisions, (5) conclusion, (6) author s own case. 
a. Go through the article carefully with this organization in mind marking off 
the division points. 

a. What is the effect of introducing the selection with a concrete scene? Is this 
device a common one? Is it one that you might well use in writing of your 
own? 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 87 

3. Note that the author also states his problem in terms of a concrete situation: 
the public statement by a great American scientist. Student writing all too 
often is in a vacuum, unattached to any particular body of ideas or events. 
Most students, consequently, need to learn how to give their papers focus by 
using a reference similar to the one made by the author here to the great 
American scientist. 

4. The structure of this selection is quite formal. There may be some doubt about 
the Tightness of including it in this section on informal induction. In Para 
graph 5, for instance, the author takes considerable space to discuss the limita 
tions of his study, his methods of procedure, and his omissions. These are 
usually features of a formal research paper. Some of the selections in Section 
IV may actually be less formal. 

a. Can you discover the reasons for its inclusion here under informal induc 
tion? Is the author claiming demonstration, or is he proceeding somewhat 
carefully in showing what he means? 

5. Is there any pattern behind the order in which the cases appear? 

6. Note the topic sentences in Paragraphs 11 and 12. 

7. a. Why has the author not used his case material that appears in Paragraphs 
15-20 in the earlier presentation of cases? 

b. What is the main point of the section comprised by these paragraphs? 

c. Study the pattern of the causal reasoning involved. 

8. a. How does the subject matter in Paragraphs 21-24 differ from the subject 
matter in Paragraphs 15-20? 

b. Does Paragraph 14 prepare for discussion of all the material in Paragraphs 
15-24? 

9. If Paragraph 25 is the real conclusion, what is the author doing thereafter? 
What effect has this continuation? 



WESTCHESTER WOMEN* 
By Bruce Bliven 

1. I HAVE been talking lately to my friend Beatrice, whom I have 
known for many years and of whose reliability as a witness I am 
certain. Beatrice, patting her permanent delicately with two fingers 
and smoothing down her neat tan uniform, with its white pique 
collar and cuffs, deposes and says: 

2. "I am a member of the sales force in one of New York s big smart 
stores. I work in the branch up in Westchester County. Never 
mind the exact name of the town; let s not get personal. Sure, I m 
a college graduate: Wellesley 9 33. Lots of the girls are college 

* From the New Republic, July 27, 1938. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers. 



88 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

women, nowadays. Some of them don t have to work, and do it 
for fun. I need to, like most of the others. 

3. "Our customers in the branch store are drawn exclusively from 
the upper-middle-class women of Westchester. The poor people 
who are within buying distance are afraid to enter our door, on 
account of the high prices. In three years I have learned plenty 
about wealthy women: plenty to turn your stomach, I mean. Don t 
get me wrong; I don t suggest that Westchester is a bit worse 
than any other place in the whole country where the average in 
come in normal times is $10,000 a year and up. The women I see 
are good typical specimens of what happens when a lot of people 
don t have to work for their livings, have never had any real edu 
cation, and exercise power that outruns the limits of their char 
acter. 

4. "The most striking thing about these women is their amazing 
rudeness. I don t mean that they deliberately set out to hurt your 
feelings. I mean that they are so naively selfish and egotistical that 
it never occurs to them to respect the wishes, or to have considera 
tion for the sensibilities, of people whom they class as servants 
which means everyone they meet, except their own circle. Girls 
in the beauty shop tell me that two of these women will come 
in together and loudly discuss the most horrifyingly personal details 
of their own lives and those of their friends as though they were 
being served by robots instead of human beings. If there was 
ever anybody who believed in the divine right of royalty, it is the 
American upper class, thinking about itself. Maybe this is why 
they hate Roosevelt so terribly because he is the only person who 
ever said boo to them and said it in such a way that they had to 
listen. 

5. "Another impressive thing about them is that so many are dis 
honest. Our store, like all others in its class, has charge accounts 
and permits the return of unsatisfactory merchandise. The way 
Westchester women abuse this privilege is a disgrace. I am con 
fident that our prices could be a good deal lower if it weren t for 
the financial burden caused by this kind of business. 

6. "One of these women will come in and spend the morning shop 
ping when she has no intention of buying anything. It gives her 
somewhere to go while her husband is in town, and she likes to 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 89 



look at the new merchandise. She will iDuy* hundreds of dollars 
worth, taking up hours of the time of one or more sales people. 
It will be delivered next morning, and the following day, back it 
all comes. She knows she doesn t intend to keep it, and the sales 
girl knows, but we re not allowed ever to hint at this knowledge, 
though we may try gently to discourage her from sending home an 
unreasonable amount. 

7. "Perhaps even worse is the woman who buys far beyond her 
husband s ability to pay. She simply tries to blackmail him into 
permitting her an impossible degree of extravagance. You d be 
surprised if you knew how many Westchester women have had 
their charge accounts in all stores closed, on orders from their 
husbands. 

8. "Many of them, regardless of their financial status, will abuse 
the charge-account privilege in another way, by ordering goods, 
using them and then sending them back to the store. Even if they 
have plenty of money, they think it is smart to trick the store in 
this way. A woman who is going to an important social affair will 
buy an evening gown, have it altered and sent home, and then a 
few days later she sends it back on the ground that she did not 
like it. The gown shows conclusively that it has been worn for 
many hours, perhaps several times. They will do the same thing 
with hats, coats and even household equipment. Our chinaware 
department will tell you of women who have sent home a com 
plete set of dinner ware and then returned it for credit without 
even having it washed thoroughly, so that remnants of food are 
still on the plates. 

9. "An all-time record for this kind of thing, in my experience at 
any rate, was a woman who came into the shop wearing, under 
her dress, a bathing suit she had bought a few days earlier. She 
went into a dressing room, peeled off the suit, said calmly, This 
suit just simply didn t work out/ and asked for a credit on her 
account. Only the other day, an important customer came in with 
a coat that she had had for a week, announced she didn t like it 
and asked us to take it back. We found in one pocket a very dirty 
handkerchief, and in the other a lipstick. It will cost dollars to 
have that coat made presentable again so that it can go back in 
stock. Much of the merchandise sent back for credit has been so 



90 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

badly used that it can never be sold again, at least to our clientele 
at our prices. 

10. "The customers don t seem to know it, but they do a salesgirl 
harm if they order merchandise through her that afterwards comes 
back. The girl is of course penalized by having the amount de 
ducted from her total sales; that is only fair. But more than that, 
if an unusually large percentage of her sales don t stick, she is likely 
to be discharged, on the ground that there must be something 
wrong with her selling ability or she wouldn t have so many dis 
satisfied customers. 

11. "One thing I must say is that older women are usually the worst 
offenders. If the daughter of one of these wealthy families goes 
to college and then takes a job of any kind, she seems to absorb 
some feeling of business ethics. Some of these younger women 
buy the way a man does walk in, say what they want, look at 
a couple of choices, make a selection, and are out and away. No 
man ever returns anything he has bought for himself, and busi 
ness women are pretty good about it, too. The only complaint I 
can make about the men who come into our store, trailing behind 
a Westchester woman, is that about sixty per cent of them will 
make a pass at you if they get a chance. Well, I m not complaining 
exactly; I would feel worse if they didn t, I guess. 

12. "I don t want to go philosophical on you, but I must say that 
looking at the kind of women I meet makes me a little gloomy 
about the future of our civilization, and whither are we trending, 
and all that. These women and their husbands and fathers are 
supposed to be the finest flower of American civilization. Some of 
them, certainly, are swell; I m not talking about the exceptions, 
but the averages. If all the money and advantages leave the average 
with very few morals or manners that will bear inspection, what s 
the answer?" 

13. To which the reporter can only echo, What, indeed? 

ANALYSIS 

i. In talking about the structure of this selection, we are, of course, talking about 
the long quotation. The first and last paragraphs merely provide a framework 
for the quotation. The second and third paragraphs introduce the idea. Note 
that Paragraph 2 (like Paragraph 4 of The Negro Scientist) discusses limita- 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 91 

tions, scope of the problem, and exceptions, and gives the speaker s creden 
tials. 

2. The charges against Westchester women fall into two classes. 

a. Mark off the places in the text where these occur. How many paragraphs 
are devoted to each? 

b. Are any actual cases cited to support the first of these? Is the support 
adequate? 

c. Are any actual cases cited to support the second? Is the support adequate? 

3. In outlining this selection, what do you do with Paragraphs 11 and 12? 

4. Where is the main point stated? Does it arise from the secondary generaliza 
tions or directly from the cases cited? 



PALEFACE AND REDSKIN* 
By Philip Rahv 

1. VIEWED historically, American writers appear to group themselves 
around two polar types. Paleface and redskin I should like to call 
the two, and despite occasional efforts at reconciliation no love is 
lost between them. 

2. Consider the immense contrast between the drawing-room fic 
tions of Henry James and the open air poems of Walt Whitman. 
Compare Melville s decades of loneliness, his tragic failure, with 
Mark Twain s boisterous career and dubious success. At one pole 
there is the literature of the low-life world of the frontier and 
of the big cities; at the other the thin, solemn, semiclerical culture 
of Boston and Concord. The fact is that the creative mind in 
America is fragmented and one-sided. For the process of polari 
zation has produced a dichotomy between experience and con 
sciousness a dissociation between energy and sensibility, between 
conduct and theories of conduct, between life conceived as an op 
portunity and life conceived as a discipline. 

3. The differences between the two types define themselves in 
every sphere. Thus while the redskin glories in his Americanism, 
to the paleface it is a source of endless ambiguities. Sociologi 
cally they can be distinguished as patrician vs. plebeian, and in 
their esthetic ideals one is drawn to allegory and to the distilla 
tions of symbolism, whereas the other inclines to a gross, riotous 

* From The Kenyan Review, Summer, 1939. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers and the author. 



92 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

naturalism. The paleface is a "highbrow," though his mentality 
as in the case of Hawthorne and James is often of the kind that 
excludes and repels general ideas; he is at the same time both 
something more and something less than an intellectual in the 
European sense. And the redskin deserves the epithet "lowbrow" 
not because he is badly educated which he might or might not 
be but because his reactions are primarily emotional, spontane 
ous, and lacking in personal culture. The paleface continually 
hankers after religious norms and tends toward a refined estrange 
ment from reality. The redskin, on the other hand, accepts his en 
vironment, at times to the degree of fusion with it, even when re 
belling against one or another of its manifestations. At his highest 
level the paleface moves in an exquisite moral atmosphere; at his 
lowest he is genteel, snobbish, and pedantic. In giving expression 
to the vitality and to the aspirations of the people, the redskin is 
at his best; but at his worst he is a vulgar anti-intellectual, com 
bining aggression with conformity and reverting to the crudest 
forms of frontier psychology. 

4. James and Whitman, who as contemporaries felt only disdain 
for each other, are the purest examples of this dissociation. In 
reviewing Drum Taps in 1865 the young James told off the grand 
plebeian innovator, advising him to stop declaiming and go sit in 
the corner of a rhyme and meter school, 1 while the innovator, snort 
ing at the novelist of scruples and moral delicacy, said "Feathers!" 
Now this mutual repulsion between the two major figures in Ameri 
can literature would be less important if it were mainly personal 
or esthetic in reference. But the point is that it has a profoundly 
national and social-historical character. 

5. James and Whitman form a kind of fatal antipodes. To this, in 
part, can be traced the curious fact about them that, though each 
has become the object of a special cult, neither is quite secure 
in his reputation. For most of the critics and historians who make 
much of Whitman disparage James or ignore him altogether, and 
vice versa. Evidently the high valuation of the one is so incongru 
ous with the high valuation of the other that criticism is chroni- 

1 In A Backward Glance Edith Wharton relates that in his old age James 
liked to recite Whitman s poetry. But if he changed his mind about Whit 
man he certainly kept it a secret so far as any public expression is con* 
cerned. 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 93 

cally forced to choose between them which makes for a breach in 
the literary tradition without parallel in any European country. 
The aristocrat Tolstoy and the tramp Gorky found that they held 
certain values and ideas in common, whereas James and Whitman, 
who between them dominate American writing of the nineteenth 
century, cannot abide with one another. And theirs is no unique or 
isolated instance. 

6. The national literature suffers from the ills of a split personality. 
The typical American writer has so far shown himself incapable 
of escaping the blight of one-sidedness : of achieving that mature 
control which permits the balance of impulse with sensitiveness, 
of natural power with ideological depth. For the dissociation of 
mind from experience has resulted in truncated works of art, 
works that tend to be either naive and ungraded, often flat, repro 
ductions of life, or else products of cultivation that remain ab 
stract for the reason that they fall short on evidence drawn from 
the sensuous and material world. Hence it is only through inten 
sively exploiting their very limitations, through submitting them 
selves to a process of creative yet cruel self-exaggeration, that a 
few artists have succeeded in warding off the failure that threat 
ened them. And the later novels of Henry James are a case in 
point. 

7. The palefaces dominated literature throughout the nineteenth 
century, but in the twentieth they have been overthrown by the 
redskins. Once the continent had been mastered, with the plebeian 
bourgeoisie coming into complete possession of the national 
wealth, and puritanism had worn itself out, degenerating into 
mere respectability, it became objectively possible and socially 
permissible to satisfy that desire for experience and personal 
emancipation which heretofore had been systematically frustrated. 
The era of economic accumulation had ended and the era of 
consummation had arrived. To enjoy life now became one of the 
functions of progress a function for which the palefaces were 
temperamentally disqualified. This gave Mencken his opportunity 
to emerge as the ideologue of enjoyment. Novelists like Dreiser, 
Anderson, and Lewis and, in fact, most of the writers of the 
period of "experiment and liberation" rose against social con 
ventions that society itself was beginning to abandon. They helped 



94 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

to "liquidate" the lag between the enormous riches of the nation 
and its morality of abstention. The neo-humanists were among the 
last of the breed of palefaces, and they perished in the quixotic 
attempt to re-establish the old values. Eliot forsook his native land, 
while the few palefaces who managed to survive at home took to 
the academic or else to the "higher" and relatively obscure forms of 
writing. But the novelists, who control the main highway of lit 
erature, were and still are nearly all redskins to the wigwam born. 

8. At present the redskins are in command of the literary situation, 
and seldom has the literary life in America been as intellectually 
impoverished as it is today. The political interests introduced in 
the nineteen thirties have not only strengthened their hold but also 
brought out their worst tendencies; for the effect of the popular 
political creeds of our time has been to increase their habitual hos 
tility to ideas, sanctioning the relaxation of standards and justify 
ing the urge to come to terms with semi-literate audiences. 

9. The lowbrow writer in America is a purely indigenous phenome 
non, the true-blue offspring of the western hemisphere, the juvenile 
in principle and for the good of the soul. He is a self-made writer 
in the same way as Henry Ford is a self-made millionaire. On the 
one hand he is a crass materialist, a greedy consumer of experi 
ence, and on the other a sentimentalist, a half-baked mystic lis 
tening to inward voices and watching for signs and portents. Think 
of Dreiser, Lewis, Anderson, Wolfe, Sandburg, Hemingway, Stein 
beck, Saroyan: all writers of genuine and some even of admirable 
accomplishments, whose faults, however, are not so much literary 
as faults of raw life itself. Unable to relate himself in any signifi 
cant manner to the cultural heritage, the lowbrow writer is always 
on his own; and since his personality resists growth and change, he 
must constantly repeat himself. His work is ridden by compulsions 
that depress the literary tradition, because they are compulsions 
of a kind that put a strain on literature, that literature more often 
than not can neither assimilate nor sublimate. He is the passive 
instead of the active agent of the Zeitgeist, he lives off it rather 
than through it, so that when his particular gifts happen to coin 
cide with the mood of the times he seems modern and contem 
porary, but once the mood has passed he is in danger of being 
quickly discarded. Lacking the qualities of surprise and renewal, 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 95 

already Dreiser and Anderson, for example, have a "period" air 
about them that makes a rereading of their work something of 
a critical chore; Faulkner s horror stories do not always retain any 
recognizable value; and one suspects that Hemingway, that peren 
nial boy-man, is more accurately understood as a descendant of 
Natty Bumppo, the hero of Fenimore Cooper s Leatherstocking 
tales, than as the portentously disillusioned character his legend 
makes him out to be. 

10. As for the paleface, in compensation for backward cultural con 
ditions and a lost religious ethic, he has developed a supreme talent 
for refinement, just as the Jew, in compensation for adverse social 
conditions and a lost national independence, has developed a su 
preme talent for cleverness. (In this connection one might recall 
T. S. Eliot s description of Boston society, as "quite uncivilized, 
but refined beyond the point of civilization.") Now this peculiar 
excess of refinement is to be deplored in an imaginative writer, 
for it weakens his capacity to cope with experience and induces 
in him a fetishistic attitude to tradition; nor is this species of re 
finement to be equated with the refinement of artists like Proust 
or Mann, as in them it is not an element contradicting an open and 
bold confrontation of reality. Yet the paleface, being above all a 
conscious individual, was frequently able to transcend or to devi 
ate sharply from the norms of his group, and he is to be credited 
with most of the rigors and charms of the classic American books. 
While it is true, as John Jay Chapman put it, that his culture is 
"secondary and tertiary" and that between him and the sky "float 
the Constitution of the United States and the traditions and forms 
of English literature" nevertheless, there exists the poetry of 
Emily Dickinson, there is The Scarlet Letter, there is Moby Dicky 
and there are not a few incomparable narratives by Henry James. 

11. At this point there is no necessity to enter into a discussion of 
the historical and social causes that account for the disunity of 
the American creative mind. In various contexts a number of critics 
have disclosed and evaluated the forces that have worked on this 
mind and shaped it to their uses. The sole question that seems 
relevant is whether history will make whole again what it has 
rent asunder. Will James and Whitman ever be reconciled, will 
they finally discover and act upon each other? Only history can 



96 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

give a definite reply to this question. In the meantime, however, 
there are available the resources of effort and of understanding, 
resources which even those who believe in the strict determination 
of the cultural object need not spurn. 



ANALYSIS 

1. State in as simple a sentence as you can the generality, the final judgment or 
conclusion, that Mr. Rahv reaches in this article. Underline sentences in the text 
that express this conclusion. 

a. Is the conclusion stated at the beginning, end, or in both places? 

b. What is the value, for an article of informal induction, of the position in the 
article that the conclusion occupies? 

2. a. Point out in the article the place where the author begins his assembly of in 
stances that make up the inductive procedure. 

b. How many specific incidents or illustrations does he use? 

3. Consider the first sentence in the third paragraph. How does the author demon 
strate the validity of the statement? Is this a pattern of induction? 

4. What, basically, determines the "informal" nature of the induction in this 
article? 

5. a. To what extent does the author rely on the use of James and Whitman as 
"typical" illustrations of his point? 

b. Can you name others that might also illustrate much the same thing, other 
writers you are familiar with unmentioned by Mr. Rahv? 

c. Could illustrative instances be used from fields other than writing and liter 
ature? What are some? 

6. Explain the nature of the last paragraph in the article, its relationship to the 
rest of the selection, its importance as a conclusion to the inductive process. 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

Is it worth while for children to take music lessons against their wills? Think of 
as many examples as you can, analyze them, draw conclusions, explain. 

I notice in this morning s paper that Superman says "Thisaway" for " This way." 
Can a casual search through one set of comic strips give you enough evidence 
for some analysis and generalization upon the nature of the language used by 
comic strip characters? 

Are high school teachers better teachers than college professors? Your experi 
ence with college teaching techniques may be limited as yet, but you should be 
able to draw some tentative conclusions. 

Have you read many detective stories? If so, what can you say about them? Are 
detective stories today as good as they used to be? Is it true that the murderer 
is always the character from whom you least expect evil action? Are the plots of 
detective stories becoming more intricate? In what ways does one detective story 
differ from another? 



INFORMAL INDUCTIONS 97 

Do you know a number of people who read detective stories? Why do they do 
it? Does their reading harm them? Are they wasting their time? Can you marshal 
evidence from your experiences to support whatever assertions you choose to 
make? 

Why do we speak only of detective stories? About what other kinds of reading 
matter are you an authority or semiauthority? Western stories? Love romances? 
True Story magazines? James Joyce ( Ulysses communicated important meanings 
but Finnegan s Wake is too experimental)? Magazine verse? Do modern novels 
contain too many "four letter words"? The number of possible subjects here is 
almost infinite. 

Did art classes in grade school help those students who had no natural aptitude 
for drawing or modeling? Think of examples, several of them, before you come 
to rigid conclusions. 

Do athletics prove harmful to classroom work? Here again, as with the rest of 
these suggested subjects, think of as many instances as you can. Are athletes 
"dumb"? 

What are the effects on college freshmen of being away from home for the first 
time? 

Do college students have as much "school spirit * as high school students? ( Note 
the difference between this subject and the hackneyed subject, "School Spirit." 
An essay on "School Spirit" usually involves many borrowed generalizations, un 
checked, subjective, and unoriented to actuality, and it can usually be written 
without reference to actual experience. This subject demands specific analysis 
of actual behavior.) 

The hitchhiker s point of view (the opposite face of the article by Bergan 
Evans ) . 

Can you arrive at any generalizations about the food served in restaurants? To 
what extent do the restaurants of your region specialize in the kind of cookery 
that is peculiar to the region? What can you say about tipping from your ex 
periences? 

The manners of customers ( for anyone who has clerked in a store ) . 
Are businessmen, in general, honest or dishonest? 

Is it true that teachers, generally, have certain favorites and give them better 
marks than they deserve? 

Is there a caste system in the army? 

In Chaucer s day, if we can judge by Chaucer s testimony, one could tell a man s 
occupation by his dress and by his mannerisms. To what extent is this true today? 

How religious is the average man today? 

Tastes in furniture, in pictures over the mantlepiece, in domestic architecture, in 
bric-a-brac. 

What comments can you make, from your own observation, about the prevalence 
of certain species of game, birds, or plants in your region? One may notice that, 
in many of these suggested subjects, two lines of development are possible: (1) 



98 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

to work out a new, rather specific idea, applicable often to a limited territory; 
(2) to handle an old, more general subject from the fresh point of view of your 
own experiences with it. Of the latter kind of development here, you might try 
to determine how well cats, dogs, possums, or any other kind of animal with 
which you are acquainted, can think. 



3. SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 



Secondary Source Papers 



A KIND of writing with which every college student is faced sooner 
or later is the secondary source paper, or, as it is often referred to, 
the library investigative paper or the term paper. It should be clearly 
understood at the beginning that this kind of writing differs radically 
from most kinds in that it frankly involves the use of facts, interpreta 
tions, and opinions that are the property of other writers. Papers of 
this kind are original in a different sense from most papers. Because 
the materials are borrowed, it is necessary to indicate by means of 
footnotes the extent and the source of all borrowing even though the 
footnotes occupy a large amount of the space on each page. The chief 
originality of such papers lies in the blending, or putting together of 
information, interpretations, and authoritative opinion taken from many 
different sources, together with the organizing anew of these materials 
and the sound interpretations that bind the materials together. 

Even if English instructors in their weaker moments say that they 
can tell the value of a library paper by examining the footnotes it 
contains, the student should not be led to believe that he has only to 
get together a loose string of quotations. Quotations appear frequently 
in most library papers, but they must be well integrated into the paper. 
The student must remember that he is still the writer of the paper 
and must control his material. His is still the brain that fits the pieces 
together and fabricates the unity which every good piece of writing 
should possess. Quotations or paraphrased passages he must use as he 
would use other material more clearly his own, 



102 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

The library paper is a compilation of materials that have already 
been sifted from raw material by other writers; henee it is called a 
secondary source paper. The writer is collecting and arranging facts 
and judgments from other writers. He may discriminate between true 
and false data as he finds them treated by other writers, but he does 
not undertake an extensive search for primary data himself. In theory, 
the student should be able to write a primary source paper more easily 
than a secondary source paper; in practice, the opposite is true, 
since in his scholastic experience he has been required more often to 
put together the thoughts of other writers than to create thoughts 
from raw material. For this reason, the progression in this book is 
from secondary source papers to primary source papers. 

The library paper is, then, the kind of job that entails work with 
secondary sources, with articles, chapters of books, compilations of 
material that deal with the subject of the student s choice. Usually he 
picks a topic for investigation, goes to the library, familiarizes himself 
with the bibliographical guides that should prove useful to him in 
finding the available material on his subject, uses the card catalogue of 
the library to find what pertinent books it has, and checks with the 
Readers Guide to Periodical Literature to discover what recent maga 
zine articles touch upon his subject. While he is working with these 
bibliographical aids, he assembles a list of books, articles, and news 
paper items that appear to have bearing on his subject. This list is the 
working bibliography. It is wise to assemble this bibliography on 
three-by-five cards, one bibliographical item on each card, so that 
some of the cards can be rejected and the whole alphabetized, with 
some cards separated from the others as more important. The stu 
dent who tries to keep lists of references on standard notebook or 
typewriting size sheets of paper will soon find himself confused by 
the tangled mass of materials he possesses. 

After he has achieved a promising looking bibliography, and not 
until then, the student should collect the volumes he needs from the 
library stacks and begin his reading. As he reads he should take notes. 
Since note-taking is an art in itself, some further comment will be 
made on it later. Notes also should be taken on cards, not on full-sized 
pieces of paper. The notes all taken, the student is then ready to be 
gin his writing, provided his bibliographical references have uncovered 
a sufficient amount of pertinent material. By organizing his notes tQ 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 103 

make them correspond to the outline he has decided upon for his 
paper, he has his materials at his side and can start to write. 

Footnotes acknowledging the source of all borrowed ideas, informa 
tion, or opinions arc inserted at the bottom of the page on which the 
material is used (for form of footnotes, see below). Quotations less 
than three lines long are inserted normally into the text and are sur 
rounded with quotation marks. Quotations longer than three lines are 
single spaced and slightly indented. In manuscripts a line is drawn 
across the bottom of the page between text and footnotes. A bibliog 
raphy is made up, and, except for necessary revisions, the job is done. 
The student who follows this process step by step will find that the 
task is not so difficult as it may at first appear, but he should not put 
off beginning work until shortly before the paper is due. He will find 
himself overwhelmed if he does. lie will be wise to follow directions. 

Since a few special problems require fuller treatment here, these 
will now be taken up separately in more detail. 

FINDING A SUFFICIENTLY SMALL SUBJECT 

Most students try to tackle massive problems, problems which, if 
handled properly, would call for the writing of a large book. The first 
job, then, is to find a limited subject. Say the student is interested 
in Indians. That is a big subject. Consequently, he must limit it. He 
narrows his subject to the Navajos. The subject is still too big. He 
cuts it down to "The Economics of Navajo Life." That is better but 
perhaps still too big. He finally settles upon, "Changes in the Patterns 
of Navajo Economic Life Due to the Introduction of Modern Agri 
cultural Machinery." Now he has a subject that he can exhaust, 
that he can fully develop in the time and space at his disposal. If, 
by using his ingenuity in the library, he cannot find enough material 
on this narrow subject, he may need to broaden it again somewhat. 
But if he can find the material scattered in many places, he should 
have a good paper as a result of the narrowing. 

A special caution here is to avoid the subject already fully handled 
in some work available in the library. The average student is incapable 
of resisting the temptation to rely too heavily on a job that is already 
well done and even tries to hide the fact of his dependence somewhat 
dishonestly. If he is well along in his work and suddenly discovers 
an article that does just what he is doing, he should try to change 



104 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

his subject so that he can still use the material he has gathered but 
with emphasis on a different point. 

LEARNING WHEN TO USE FOOTNOTES 

You should use footnotes whenever you use ideas, information, or 
opinions that are not your own, whether you quote this material or 
paraphrase it. At times, when you use extensive material from one 
place in one source, you can make one footnote reference to all the 
material. In such cases, you should usually let the reader know at the 
time when you begin your borrowing that you are going to embark 
upon a large-scale borrowing. The single footnote reference then ap 
pears at the end of the passage. More commonly, however, you will 
use materials from several sources on each page. In these more typical 
cases, you insert the number referring to the footnote after each seg 
ment of borrowing. A footnote referring to a very small borrowing 
comes after the first mark of punctuation following the borrowing. 

LEARNING TO MAKE FOOTNOTES IN PROPER FO&M 
Although forms used in footnoting vary considerably from journal 
to journal or department of human inquiry to department of human 
inquiry, most journals and departments of human inquiry are sticklers 
for consistent and intelligible form. Consequently, the student should 
learn one system so that he can handle it well. It is not practicable to 
describe all variants, but one form is presented here. It is recom 
mended that the student learn to use this form accurately for immedi 
ate use. If he discovers later that the department within which he is 
working specifies a different form, he can without much difficulty 
learn the new form simply because he has come to understand the 
main principles. 

A. References to books in one volume: 

1 John Brown, The Casablanca Conference (New York, 1945), p. 62. 

2 C. D. Abrams, Europe Today (Boston, 1941), pp. 37-46. 

B. References to books in more than one volume: 

1 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edinburgh, 
1787), II, 377. 

2 Wilson Williams, Aspects of Sociology (Boston, 1910), III, 227. 

8 Adam Protheroe, "Remarks on Junius" (1785), British Essayists of the 18th 
Century, ed. J. M. Markham (London, 1866), VII, 97-99. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 105 

C. References to periodicals: 

1 Raymond B. Ball, "In Defense of Women/ Scribner s Magazine, CLXXXV 
(1942), 677. 

2 Richard Johnson, "The World We Live In," Colliers, XCI (June 5, 1933), 87. 
8 "How Magnesium Is Made," Fortune, XXVII (September, 1940), 82-87. 

D. References to newspaper articles: 

1 Martin S. Lewis, "Senator Lodge Attacks Tariff Bill," Chicago Tribune (July 
7, 1919), p. 17. 

2 "More Grass in the Parks," Lewiston Journal (May 10, 1940), p. 2. 

3 "Truman Attends Wheat-Growers Convention," New York Times (November 
20, 1946), p. 18. 

E. References to standard editions of plays and poetry: 

References are made to plays by author, title, act, scene, and line; 
to poems by author, title, canto (if the poem is divided into cantos), 
and line (abbreviate to v. or vv. for "verse" and "verses"). 

1 William Shakespeare, King Lear, V, iii, 17-22. 

2 Thomas Otway, Venice Preservd, II, i, 46. 

3 John Milton, Paradise Lost, VI, 66-71. 

4 Robert Frost, "Mending Wall/* vv. 17-18. 

5 Alexander Pope, "Windsor Forest," v. 216. 

After a reference has once been made to a certain work, future foot 
note references to that work are often shortened: 

17 John Brown, The Casablanca Conference, p. 64. 

18 Ball, "In Defense of Women/* p. 680. 

19 Williams, Aspects of Sociology, II, 79. 

Sometimes, instead of this shortened form for later references, stand 
ard abbreviations are used. These are: 

a. ibid. an abbreviation for ibidem, meaning "in the same place," 
underlined to indicate italics since it is a Latin word. Ibid, can be used 
if the footnote being made refers to the same work as that described 
in the footnote just preceding it. If a new page in the same work is 
specified, the page number follows: 

20 Ibid., p. 80. 

b. loc. cit. meaning "in the place cited/* usually used with author s 
name. 

c. op. cit. meaning "in the work cited," likewise usually used with 
author s name. Op. cit. will take the place of the title. It cannot be used, 



106 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

of course, if more than one work by one author has already been re 
ferred to. 

21 Lewis, op. cit., p. 37. 
Other abbreviations often used are: 
cf . compare this with 
passim scattered throughout these pages 
ff . and the pages following 
ed. edited by 

It should prove interesting to the student to compare this suggested 
form in the construction of footnotes with the forms used by the 
writers of the two research articles given in this section. 

LEARNING How TO TAKE NOTES 

In your reading it is well to take notes on cards that are approxi 
mately four by six inches. Only one segment of material should be 
put on one card. If the student has any notion that he may use the 
material he is gathering from the page in front of him in^more than 
one place in his own paper, he should take his notes on more than 
one card, so that he can shuffle the notes around to fit his own or 
ganization. This is an important principle in note-taking. When a stu 
dent has to use material on one card in more than one place, he is 
likely to lose sight of part of his material. 

The student should avoid taking too many notes. It is a waste of 
time to attempt to copy out whole articles. The proper taking of notes 
involves a certain amount of guesswork in deciding what material is 
essential and what is not. Long passages can often be summarized so 
that later reference can be made to them if necessary. Any material 
representing direct quotation should be transcribed with utmost fidel 
ity, and the original author s words other than key words should 
not appear in paraphrases on note cards. If paraphrase is called for, 
the student should use his own words. Furthermore, he should mark 
off distinctly quoted passages from paraphrased passages on his note 
cards. A good system to use is to surround quoted passages with clear 
quotation marks, surround one s own thoughts or comments with 
brackets, and leave paraphrased material with no distinct marking. 
Notes should be full, in complete sentences, legibly written, so that 
they remain clear when cold. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 107 

THE CAUSES OF FAILURE 

OF 
THE WHITE MAN IN THE TROPICS* 

By A. Grenfell Price 

1. Excellent research on the West Indies by British and American 
historians makes it possible to enumerate and examine some of 
the reasons for the failure of a number of these settlements. 1 

2. The discovery of the West Indies by Christopher Columbus in 
1492 was followed by a great burst of Caribbean colonization, 
so that by 1502 there were 12,000 Europeans in the island of Haiti. 
But Spain was not left for long in her monopoly. France was in 
the field before the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1562-1563 
John Hawkins brought England into the slave trade, and from 
1586 onwards Dutch and Flemish ships traded in the Caribbean. 
Colonization followed. In 1607 the French attempted to grow to 
bacco in Cayenne. English efforts to settle Guiana failed, but in 
1623 Thomas Warner established in St. Christopher the first Eng 
lish colony in the Caribbean. In 1625 an English expedition occu 
pied Barbados. The deluge of northern whites had begun. 

3. The following years, 1625-1637, were vital in West Indian his 
tory. "Swarms of English and French colonists poured like flies 
upon the rotting carcase of Spain s empire in the Caribbean/ 2 By 
1643 there were 37,200 whites in Barbados, a population of more 
than two hundred to the square mile. The whole island was di 
vided into plots of from five to thirty acres, upon which small 
white planters and their white servants raised tobacco or cotton. 
St. Kitts and Nevis were densely populated by small planters, each 
holding a few acres and cultivating them with the help of white 
servants. 3 The north European settlement of Jamaica came later, 
but events moved on similar lines. When the English captured 

From A. Grenfell Price: White Settlers in the Tropics, published by the 
American Geographical Society of New York. 

1 See, for example, Lord Olivier, Jamaica: The Blessed Island (London, 1936). 

2 A. P. Newton, The European Nations in the West Indies, 1493-1688 (Lon 
don, 1933), p. 149. 

3 C. S. S. Higham, The Development of the Leeward Islands under i\ie Res 
toration (Cambridge, 1921). 



108 



THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



the island in 1655 it was estimated that the population of the capi 
tal was "half Spanish and Portuguese or their descendants, and 
half slaves." 4 Owing to deaths from yellow fever and dysentery, 
the English had difficulty in populating the island, but, according 
to Bryan Edwards, there were, by 1673, 7768 whites as contrasted 
with 9504 Negroes. 5 

For reasons to be discussed in detail the ensuing period saw a 
fall in white population. In some islands this fall was absolute, 
and in all islands ruled by north Europeans it was relative to the 
number of Negroes. The table below of the white and black or col 
ored population in Barbados, St. Kitts, and Jamaica, illustrates the 
decline. 

BRITISH WEST INDIES POPULATION TYPES: HISTORICAL * 





BARBADOS 


ST. KITTS 


JAMAICA 




IT/? M Black or 
White r, 7 i 
Colored 


TI77 ., Black or 
White r, 7 -, 
Colored 


White Black or 
Wmte Colored 

* 


1640-1643 


37,000 6,000 


20,000 . . . 




1667-1678 
1786-1791 
1807-1809 


20,000 40,000 
16,167 62,115 
15,566 69,119 


to 
30,000 
1,897 1,436 
1,900 20,435 


8,500 9,500 
23,000 260,093 
15,000 356070 


1911 




1,348 24 935 




1921-1922 


15,000 180,000 




14476 817,643 











Statistics mainly from V. T. Harlow, History of Barbados (Oxford, 1926), Ap 
pendix B, p. 338; C. S. S. Iligham, The Development of the Leeward Islands 
under the Restoration (Cambridge, 1921), p. 145; L. J. Ragatz, The Fall of the 
Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833 (New York, 1928), pp. 30, 
124. 

A great mass of evidence indicates that the experiment of estab 
lishing north European workers in the West Indian tropics failed, 
at any rate in the British islands, partly through the poor quality 
of the workers and their inadequate numbers. The period of the 
"Great Emigration," 1618-1648, saw many Englishmen of good 
type cross the seas to avoid the tyranny of the Stuart kings; but 
when the Civil War broke out in 1642, the tide ceased to flow. 

4 F. Cundall, Historic Jamaica (London, 1915), p. 6. 

6 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies 
in the West Indies (London, 1793), I, 244. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 109 

Further, North America proved more attractive to the best English 
immigrants than did the Caribbean, to which flocked adventurers 
and persons of low character who were anxious to make money 
rapidly by any legal or illegal means. In the words of Ragatz: 

No considerable body of persons inspired by motives higher than the de 
sire to extract the greatest possible amount of wealth from them in the 
shortest possible time ever reached the smiling shores of the Caribbean 
colonies. Save during the civil wars of the sixteen hundreds, no haven of 
refuge from persecution was sought there. Few landed to establish homes 
and to raise their station in a new world. Instead, the islands became the 
goal of spendthrift bankrupts, eager to recoup their wasted fortunes, of 
penniless younger sons of gentility desirous of amassing means sufficient 
to become landed proprietors in the homeland, and the dumping-ground 
for the riffraff of the parent cotmtry. 

6. Like the Spaniards, the English on some islands at first attempted 
to utilize Indian labor, but the Caribs soon died out under slavery, 
and the estate owners turned to white labor and to Negroes. White 
servants came from three sources rebellions, kidnapping, and 
indentures but in almost all cases these servants were little bet 
ter than slaves. It was a disgraceful policy, shamefully executed, 
and it filled the British West Indies with undesirables from the 
motherland, with foreigners from any European country that would 
offer a supply, and with Negroes. "As could only be expected in 
such a community, all ideas of a decent colonial society, of a bet 
ter and greater England overseas, were swamped in the pursuit 
of an immediate gain." 7 To quote Whistler s "Journal of the Bar 
bados" (1655), "This Illand is the Dunghill wharone England doth 
cast forth its rubidg." 8 About the same time Venables described 
the planters as "fearful, prophane, debauch d persons." Later writ 
ers, such at Pitman, Higham, Harlow, and Ragatz, drew sad pic 
tures of a selfish, ill-educated, and cruel planter aristocracy tyran 
nizing over a poverty-stricken mass of enslaved white servants. 

6 L. J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763- 
1833 (New York, 1928), p. 3. 

7 J. A. Williamson, "The Beginnings of an Imperial Policy," in The Cambridge 
History of the British Empire (New York and Cambridge, England), I 
(1929), p. 236. 

s Henry Whistler s Journal, March, 1654-55, in C. H. Firth, ed., Narrative of 
General Venables (London, 1900), pp. 145-147, quoted in F. W. Pitman, 
The Development of the British West Indies, 1700-1763 (New Haven, Lon 
don, 1917), p. 6. 



110 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

7. Nor were many of the officials and military much better. During 
the administration of Governor Ricketts in Barbados a comely Ne 
gress reigned at Government House and enjoyed most of the privi 
leges of a wife. 9 The rank and file of the West Indian regiments 
consisted of the lowest grade of men wearing the British uniform. 
Governor Valentine Morris of St. Vincent wrote in 1777 that "those 
which have been sent out these last twelve months, are in general 
the very scum of the earth. The Streets of London must have been 
swept of their refuse, the Gaols emptied ... I should say that 
very Gibbets had been robbed to furnish such Recruits . . . lit 
erally, most of them fit only to fill a pit with," 10 

8. While the character of the white workers in the West Indies was 
so unsatisfactory as to render failure likely, the treatment that many 
received was sufficiently scandalous to render that failure almost 
assured. Contemporary eyewitnesses, such as Ligon in Barbados, 
give examples of the most barbarous undernourishment, cruelty, 
and overwork. 11 Governor Russell, writing from Barbados in 1695, 
stated that the whites were "domineered over and used like dogs, 
and this in time will undoubtedly drive away all the commonalty 
of the white people and leave the Island in a deplorable condi 
tion." 1L> Harlow, Pitman, and others who have used the original 
documents, consider that "brutal treatment and miserable condi 
tions were prevalent" and sketch a ruinous labor regime. Condi 
tions seem to have been been similar in the French islands. Du 
Tertre (1667) notes that the French, who colonized Guadelupe 
and Martinique, experienced a heavy mortality owing to famine, 
sickness, and the cruelty of the overseers who treated the en 
feebled colonists "worse than the slaves in Barbary," driving them 
"by blows and by severity to work in clearing the woods in all 
weathers." 13 

9. Returning to the subject of the British islands, one finds that 
there was a general agreement among contemporary writers that 

9 Ragatz, op. cit., p. 33. 

10 Ibid., pp. 31-32. 

11 Richard Ligon, A True 6- Exact History of the Island of Barbados (Lon 
don, 1657), pp. 43-45. 

12 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies (Lon 
don, 1693-1696, No. 1738), p. 446. 

13 R. P. du Tertre, Histoire generale des Antilles (Paris, 1667-1671), I, pp. 
78-81, 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 111 

the European servant was in a less favored position than the Ne 
gro. 14 A slave was a permanent possession, and it was to the ad 
vantage of the master to preserve him. On the other hand, a white 
laborer was available only for a restricted period, during which a 
master might work him to death in order to avoid paying him the 
stipulated amount of sugar at the end of his time. Contemporary 
records show that cases of murder and torture were not infrequent 
and that sick servants were turned off and left to perish miserably. 
10. There were, of course, good masters and conditions, and diet 
improved when the governments and planters became alarmed at 
the growing preponderance of Negroes and attempted to increase 
the ratio of whites to blacks by the so-called Deficiency Laws, 
which compelled every master to keep a proportion of white serv 
ants. Yet, as late as 1695, Governor Russell noted that there was 
a great dearth of white servants owing to neglect and sickness. 
Servants received no encouragement, as they were paid only forty 
shillings when their time expired. In contrast, the other colonies 
offered much greater inducement, and servants left Barbados as 
soon as they were free. The Governor advocated that white peasant 
proprietors should receive votes in the Assembly, in the belief that 
planters would "sometimes give the poor miserable creatures a 
little rum and fresh provisions and such things as would be of 
nourishment to them ... in the hopes of getting their votes." 16 
But matters were beyond remedy. As Jeaffreson wrote from St. 
Kitts, the terms offered failed to attract "a sufficient number of 
honest immigrants," for, whereas the early planters had had a 
superabundance of European recruits of the best quality, the rage 
for adventure had by then diminished, and petty tradesmen and 
peasants of the old country had received discouraging reports of 
the insecurity of life in islands "infested by pirates, destructive 
fevers and bloody wars." 16 Hence, the planters had to look for 
labor to African slaves or to English convicts, while the free immi 
grants went to New England, where life was more orderly, de 
cent, and devout than in the unhappy West Indies, from which 
one governor could write that for forty orthodox parishes he had one 

14 V. T. Harlow, History of Barbados (Oxford, 1926), Chapter 7. 

15 Calendar of State Papers, 1693-1696, p. 447. 

10 J. C. Jeaffreson, A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century (London, 
1878), Vol. I, Chapter 7. 



112 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

drunken orthodox priest, one drunken sectary priest, and one 
drunken parson who had no orders. 17 

11. From circumstances such as these, the Deficiency Laws failed 
to raise the ratio of white to black. Even when groups of white 
settlers were brought in, as after emancipation (in 1834), they re 
ceived no preferential treatment over the Negro and were quickly 
absorbed. On the whole, one can fully agree with Harlow that 
"generally speaking . . . the weight of evidence proves incon- 
testably that the conditions under which white labor was procured 
and utilized in Barbados" (and one could add other islands) were 
"persistently severe, occasionally dishonorable, and generally a dis 
grace to the English name/ 18 One can, perhaps, go further and 
say that under such a policy and treatment it was almost impossible 
fqr white workers to succeed. 

12. ^/A third cause of the white decline was international warfare and 
private buccaneering, which ruined several of the islands and as 
sisted in giving the West Indies their bad name. Higham, for ex 
ample, writes: 

The French War of 1666-67 marks a turning point in the history of the 
Leeward Islands; before the war the islands had progressed steadily, and 
had been largely settled; by the French successes the islands were prac 
tically ruined, and had to start their economic life anew. The exodus from 
St. Christopher is estimated by Du Tertre at 8000, but probably the num 
ber was about 5000 exclusive of slaves. 19 

At this time, Barbados, "the principal pearl in his Majesty s crown/ 
was almost bankrupt of men and money, while Surinam had fallen 
to the Dutch. Buccaneering also discouraged good immigrants and 
induced the bad to take up that profitable profession. A contem 
porary wrote of the Scottish Jacobites sent to the West Indies in 
1716: "The greatest part of them are gone and have induced 
others to go with them a Pyrating . . . the few that remains 
proves a wicked, lazy, and indolent people/ 20 Jeaffreson s remarks, 
quoted above, indicate how greatly warfare and buccaneering con 
spired together to give the West Indies a bad name. 
13. " / A fourth cause of the failure of the whites lay in the administrative 

17 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series No. 7, 1669-1674. 

18 Harlow, op. cit., p. 306. 

19 Higham, op. cit., pp. 143-144. 

20 Pitman, op. cit., p. 55. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 113 

mistakes, both of the island authorities and of the English govern 
ment, which controlled their destiny from outside. In Barbados 
and the Leeward Islands the rapid increase of white population 
quickly exhausted the soil and forced out the small white settlers 
who could not afford expensive fertilizers. 21 The same thing oc 
curred in Jamaica, where small planters were driven off the land 
cattle and sheep appearing in their place. Heavy taxes, costly pro 
visions, high risks, and the low prices for produce accelerated a 
process under which the large proprietors gobbled up the small 
planters, and many families emigrated to North America to avoid 
debt. The class of big planters, which then arose, consisted in many 
cases of absentees who frequently left their servants to cruel and 
extravagant bailiffs. Even the sons of resident planters were es 
tranged by education in England and comparatively few returned. 
Nor was the English government sympathetic or helpful to their 
white subjects in the Indies; for the motherland crippled them by 
a 4/2 per cent duty on exports and other taxes, by the Navigation 
Acts, by the slaving monopoly of the Royal African Company, by 
the engrossment of all patronage by the king s ministers, and by 
the quartering of troops. 22 

14. Harlow s research on the documents of Barbados emphasizes the 
importance of economic and administrative factors in causing this 
decline. 

The decrease in the white population was chiefly attributable to the con 
centration of land into the hands of a few great landowners and the oust 
ing of white labor by black. 

A writer of 1667 gives a striking picture of the tide of emigration from 
Barbados: "At least 12,000 former landholders and tradesmen have gone 
off, wormed out of theire small settlements by theire more suttle and 
greedy neighbours between 1643 and 1647 to New England 1200; to 
Trinidad and Tobago, 600; between 1646 and 1658 to Virginia and Suri 
nam 2400; between 1650 and 1652 to Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie- 
galante, Grenada, Tobago and Curazoa 1600; with Colonel Venables to 
Hispaniola and since to Jamaica 3300." More than 5000 left Barbados on 
the various expeditions to the Leeward Islands during the wars with the 
French and Dutch, very few of whom ever returned. After 1667 the 
exodus of time-expired servants and others to Carolina and elsewhere 

21 Ibid., Chapter 2. 

22 J. A. Williamson, "The Colonies after the Restoration," in The Cambridge 
History, I, p. 243. 



114 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

consistently outnumbered the arrivals in Barbados from the Mother 
Country. In 1670 no less than 2000 colonists left Barbados for other 
plantations. 23 

15. Other islands experienced the same drift. Governor J. Hart of 
Antigua wrote in 1724: "The real cause why there are so few White 
People is, that the wealthy Inhabitants of this Island have Ingross d 
such vast Tracts of Land that there is not Room for a Number of 
poorer Inhabitants to invite them to Settle amongst You."-* 

16. The same trend appeared in Jamaica, although at a later date. 
Richard Harris told the Board of Trade (March 20, 1724-25) "The 
decrease of Small Freeholds, was by reason of the greater Eating 
up or buying out all the lesser planters and keeping vast tracts of 
Land unoccupied." - 5 The rural aristocracy of the West Indies came 
from the class that created a similar depopulation in England. The 
small white landholders gradually disappeared, and in their place 
came cattle and sheep pastures, vacant land, or great sugar es 
tates. 26 

17. While servants faced conditions of life and labor that almost en 
sured failure, the upper classes showed a calamitous inability to 
meet the tropical environment in vital matters of housing, clothing, 
and^diet.^ Most of the settlements were located so as to fulfill the 
agricultural and shipping requirements of the planters and, con 
sequently, stood on the hot coastal plains. In the early years nearly 
all the houses were of wood, and fires were frequent and destruc 
tive. Even as late as the latter half of the eighteenth century many 
of the buildings were miserable, thatched hovels, hastily put to 
gether with wattles and plaster, damp, unwholesome, and infested 
with every species of vermin. 27 

18. Then again, the planter s table was one of rude plenty and con- 

23 Harlow, op. cit., pp. 339-340. 

24 Address to Assembly December 5, 1724, Leeward Islands, 1691-1782, "Orig 
inal Correspondence with the Board of Trade," Colonial Office Papers, 
Class 152, XV, R. 130 (quoted from Pitman, op. cit., p. 100). See also 
Ragatz, op. cit., Chapter 2, for evils of " large estates, monoculture, ab 
senteeism and antiquated methods." 

25 Jamaica, 1689-1782. " Original Correspondence with the Board of Trade," 
Colonial Office Papers, Class 137, XVI, R. 8 ( quoted from Pitman, op. cit., 
p. 108). 

26 Pitman, op. cit., pp. 108-109. 

27 Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (London, 1774), II, p. 22. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 115 

trary to every law of modern tropical diet. Drunkenness was preva 
lent and gambling a consuming vice. 28 Many a young West Indian 
immigrant of good family drank himself to death. Friends notified 
his parents that he had died of "fever," and that good old whipping 
horse, the tropical climate, took the blame. Clothing was equally 
unsuited to the tropical conditions. In the words of one writer, 
"Our English Belles ... do not scruple to wear the thickest win 
ter silks and satins; and are sometimes ready to sink under the 
weight of rich gold or silver brocades. . . . The winter fashions of 
London arrive here at the setting in of hot weather. . . . Surely 
nothing can be more preposterous and absurd than for persons 
residing in the West Indies to adhere rigidly to all the European 
customs and manners which . . . are certainly improper, ridicu 
lous, and detrimental in a hot climate." 29 

19. While the diet and clothing of the planter class were excessive, 
the poor suffered from the reverse. Ligon states that the Barbadians 
of 1650 worked their white servants from 6 A.M. to 11 A.M. and 
from 1 P.M. to 6 P.M. on potatoes mashed in water, or on loblolly, 
which consisted of crushed Indian corn. "The servants," he wrote, 
"[had] no bone meat at all unlesse an Oxe dyed." He paints a sad 
picture of their housing: "Their lodging at night [is] a board, with 
nothing under, nor any thing a top of them. ... If they be not 
strong men, this ill lodging will put them into a sicknesse: if they 
complain, they are beaten by the Overseer; if they resist, their 
time is doubled." 30 Some of the planters, of course, were more 
humane, particularly in later years. Yet, inadequate housing, cloth 
ing, and diet continued to produce great harm. 

20. A fundamental cause perhaps the main cause of the failure 
of white settlement in the Caribbean was the importation of the 
Negro. It is usually said that the introduction of this race was due 
to the necessities of the environment and that the Negro was a 
hardy exotic, admirably equipped for the tropics, whereas the 
white was a tender, unsuitable plant. Yet other factors enter the 
picture. The planters could force the Negro to work at an economic 
and social level that entailed the degeneracy of emigration of white 

28 Ragatz, op. cit., pp. 7-8. 

29 Ibid., p. 13. 

30 Ligon, op. cit., pp. 43-44, 



116 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

workers, and for the first few centuries the black was sufficiently 
backward, weak, and docile to suffer this exploitation. 

21. The English were interested in the Caribbean slave trade from 
the time of John Hawkins voyage of 1567-1568, but they delayed 
the wholesale introduction of black slaves, owing to the scarcity 
of Negroes and the hope of securing white labor. When, for ex 
ample, the French captured and ruined the Leeward Islands in the 
war of 1666-1667, the slaves on the English part of St. Christopher 
numbered only about four hundred, although the English occupa 
tion had lasted more than forty years. 31 As early as 1651, however, 
Barbados contained 20,000 Negroes, for the planters visited Brazil 
to learn sugar planting from the Dutch and purchased slaves from 
them. Great prosperity rewarded the new economic and racial 
policy, but the result was tragic to the whites. By 1667 no less than 
12,000 "good men" had left the island for other plantations, the 
11,200 small holdings of 1645 had been included in 745 large es 
tates, and the Negroes had increased to 82,023. 32 The sufferings 
of the displaced whites were terrible. Faint echoes reached Eng 
land and Scotland, and men began to realize that the most cruel 
fate for political prisoners was to be "barbadoed." 33 Twenty years 
before, the West Indies had been the goal of hopeful emigrants. 
They were now the dreaded haunts of black slavery, savage cru 
elty, and vice. 34 

22. The Leeward Islands and Jamaica quickly followed the Bar 
badian example, with the same results. The usual evils of latif undid 
appeared in absenteeism, a decreasing white population, a fluctu 
ating one-crop industry, and the growth of a class of degenerate 
poor whites. In the past the small planters and their time-expired 
servants had formed a sturdy yeomanry, which increased the white 
population and provided a valuable militia and a variety of crops. 
Now the islands were devoted almost entirely to the one-crop sugar 
industry, worked on large estates for absentee capitalists by over 
seers and Negro slaves. As the proportion of blacks increased and the 
Deficiency Laws failed, the planters inevitably became more op 
pressive. Slave rebellions were crushed with fiendish cruelty. In 

31 Higham, op. cit., p. 144. 

32 Harlow, op. cit., p. 309. 
sa Ibid., p. 295. 

34 Newton, op. cit., p. 197, 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 117 

many cases Negro leaders were burnt alive. Nevertheless, the slave 
trade continued on a vast scale. In a report to the Privy Council, 
Liverpool merchants estimated that British ships carried 38,000 
Negroes annually. Between the years 1744 and 1760 Jamaica alone 
purchased more than 100,000 slaves. Owing to the low cost of up 
keep the planters began to train the Negroes as artisans, so that 
slaves invaded the field of skilled labor. In the words of one ob 
server, "I have scene thirty, sometimes forty Christians, English, 
Scotch and Irish at worke in the parching sun without shoe or 
stocking while theire negroes have bin at worke at theire respective 
Trades in a good condition." 35 

23. The growth of the plantation system brought two customary 
but damning evils: a half-caste element in the population and a 
class of poor whites. In a few striking sentences Edwards traces 
the tragic position of the browns social outcasts, hated and en 
vied by the natives and lorded over by the dominant race. "Their 
spirits," he wrote, "seem to sink under the consciousness of their con 
dition." The whites forced good-looking women to be their mis 
tresses and then, refusing to marry them, accused them as a class 
of incontinency. "The unhappy females here spoken of, are much 
less deserving reproach and reprehension than their keepers, . . . 
excluded as they are from all hope of ever arriving to the honor 
and happiness of wedlock, insensible of its beauty and sanctity; 
ignorant of all Christian and moral obligations; threatened by pov 
erty, urged by their passions, and encouraged by example, upon 
what principle can we expect these ill-fated women to act other 
wise than they do?" 30 

24. We cannot tell how soon the Negro immigration produced a 
typical poor white stratum, but later occurrences show that the 
evolution is usually swift and inevitable, even when the whites 
are not debased by semislavery, cruelty, and neglect. In most of 
the island communities white men of the upper classes ravished 
the slave women, while the lower class of whites came into eco 
nomic competition with the Negroes, were riddled with Negro 
diseases, and sank rapidly to the Negro standard of life. Here and 
there white groups, such as the "Redlegs" of Barbados, the "Cha 
se Harlow, op. cit., p. 309. 

* Edwards, op. cit., II, pp. 21-22. 



118 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

chas" of St. Thomas, or the British-Dutch of Saba, refused to min 
gle and maintained their racial purity, but miscegenation and ab 
sorption went on in almost every community and is gradually 
coloring the white groups that still survive. The "Black Irish" of 
Montserrat and of Jamaica are typical communities in which the 
"negrodation" of the whites is complete. The German community 
of Seaford, Jamaica, is an excellent example of the process in op 
eration and indicates how far it can proceed in less than a hundred 
years. 37 

25. It is the basic argument of Gorgas and other apologists for 
tropical climates that the white failures have been due to tropical 
diseases and that, with the progress of scientific medicine, the white 
man can thrive as strongly in the tropics as in the temperate zone. 
This vital problem has received little attention from West Indian 
historians. Nevertheless, there peeps from the pages of their his 
tories a story of tropical sickness, which was undoubtedly an im 
portant cause of the British decline. 

26. The whites introduced many diseases to the tropics, either from 
Europe or through the importation of African slaves. How terrible 
could be the mortality among nonimmune persons when confront 
ing exotic diseases two examples will show. In 1520 a sick Negro 
in the train of Narvaez introduced into Mexico an epidemic of 
smallpox so appalling that it broke the resistance to Cortez. 38 In 
St. Louis, Mauritius, an epidemic of malaria killed 22,231 persons 
out of 80,000 in 1867-1868 and might easily have depopulated the 
island in the same way that the disease is believed to have devas 
tated ancient Greece and large tracts of Italy and Spain. 39 Among 
white immigrants to the West Indies the mortality was very grave. 
When, in 1635, the French colonized Guadelupe and Martinique 
with pauvres, engagez from Dieppe, they experienced a heavy 
mortality from the sickness that followed upon famine and over 
work. 40 The British, too, complained greatly about health. Ligon 
wrote that in Barbados, about 1650, the inhabitants and shipping 
"were so grievously visited with the plague, (or as killing a dis- 

37 See pp. 92-94, above. 

38 H. R. Carter, Yellow Fever: An Epidemiological and Historical Study of Its 
Place of Origin (Baltimore, 1931), p. 53. 

S9 Ibid., p. 72. 

40 Du Tertre, op. cit. t I, pp. 78-81. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 119 

ease,) that before a month was expired, after our Arivall, the living 
were hardly able to bury the dead." 4l The voyage, said the same 
author, "takes many passengers," as did "ill dyet" and "strong 
waters," through which many brought diseases on themselves. The 
men suffered particularly. Ten men died for every one woman, for 
the men were "the greater deboystes [debauched]." Barbadian dis 
patches in the "Calendar of State Papers" contain numerous la 
ments such as the following: "Sickness and bad weather have been 
very prevalent, and we have lost many from small-pox and violent 
fevers." 42 

27. Among the military forces in the tropics the mortality was noth 
ing short of frightful. Of 19,676 men sent to the British West In 
dies in 1796, no less than 17,173 died within five years, and de 
parture for Caribbean service was viewed as a voyage to the grave. 
To this many factors contributed. Physically the soldiers were of 
poor stamp. Primary laws of hygiene and diet were ignored. Bar 
racks were generally located on waste land near marshes, and yel 
low fever took its toll. Quarters were neither roomy, airy, nor 
clean. Bathing was infrequent. The authorities forced men to 
wear the traditional scarlet, designed for use in European climates, 
and issued salt meat five times a week under the standard Old 
World rationing. Lastly, new rum, a veritable poison, formed the 
customary drink. Under such conditions the home governments 
were appalled by shocking death returns and in 1795 sought to 
solve the problem of West Indian defence by organizing Negro 
companies, recruited through purchase from among the best-con 
ditioned slaves. 43 

28. So far we have traced a variety of factors that contributed to 
the failure of the whites in the British West Indies. There re 
mains the fundamental and most mysterious problem of all the 
question of how far the collapse was due to the tropical climate 
per se. 

29* There is a vast amount of evidence in West Indian history that 
appears to indicate that the climate affected the whites unfavora 
bly and prevented them from engaging in hard work. Pitman be- 

41 Ligon, op. cit.y p. 21. 

42 Calendar of State Papers, 1685-1688, Nos. 374, 540, 871; 1693-1696, No. 
1738; quotation from No. 540, 1686, p. 139. 

48 Ragatz, op. cit., p. 32. 



120 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

lieves that the English moral constitution broke down under a 
tropical sun and that by the second generation it became apparent 
that only African slaves could withstand the tropical conditions. 44 
Ragatz considers that "climatic conditions made an economic sys 
tem based on free European workers impossible." 45 Yet, as we 
have seen, the white settlement of Barbados was extensive and 
vigorous before it was ruined by war, capitalism, overcrowding, 
soil exhaustion, and the introduction of the Negro with his dis 
eases. Landowners, such as Christopher Jeaffreson of St. Kitts 
(1676-1686), made no complaint that the white workers were un 
suitable or ineffective, but demanded more white servants, even 
of the criminal class. 46 About the same date Colonel Codrington 
of St. Kitts emphasized the greater superiority of the colonial 
troops over soldiers from England. In his opinion "a hundred disci 
plined men enured to hardships will be worth four hundred of 
mere new-raised men; . . . for we in these parts are generally ac 
customed to a hardy and active kind of life." 47 The island regi 
ments were specially selected for severe mountain work, and they 
acquitted themselves^ well. 

30. One hundred years later, in 1788, when Negro slavery was all- 
important, a Committee of the Lords and Commons made an ex 
tensive survey of the West Indies, in order to ascertain whether 
the sugar industry could be worked with white labor or with freed 
Negroes. As might be expected, the evidence, which was largely 
that of the planters, was strongly against any liberation of the 
slaves. European witnesses stated almost unanimously that under 
such a climate the whites could not carry out the hard labor of 
the sugar industry, however well they were fed. "As far as experi 
ence can determine," they wrote, "the same exposure to the sun 
which cheers the African is mortal to the European. Nine in ten 
of them would die in three years." 48 French planters expressed the 
same belief. 49 

44 Pitman, op. cit. y p. 61. 

45 Ragatz, op. cit., p. 3. 

46 Jeaffreson, op. cit., Chapter 7. 

47 Calendar of State Papers, 1689-1692, No. 977, p. 293. 

48 Report of the Lords of the Committee of the Council Appointed for the 
Consideration of All Matters Relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations, 
1788-39, Part 3, A 37, 39. 

* Ibid., Appendix, Q. 37, 38, 39. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 121 

y 
/ 

31. Yet, amid a welter of condemnation from biased sources comes 
the significant opinion of a small planter in Barbados. It was "very 
possible," he said, that free Negroes could cultivate canes, while 
Europeans, inured to common labor and not unduly proud, "might 
also cultivate their lands well," especially for cotton, where the 
labor was much lighter than for canes. "The constitution of the 
human body, when brought up to hard labor, soon accustomed it 
self to the climate by opening the pores to easy perspiration, but 
men of debauched habits of mind or body would seldom live to 
a second year." 50 

32. As previously indicated, a number of communities of north Euro 
pean peasant workers have survived in the West Indies until the 
present time, and some of these show less deterioration than one 
would expect, considering their fight against isolation and other 
factors not purely climatic in type. 

33. Writing about 1793, Bryan Edwards, the Jamaican historian, 
gives some views on West Indian planters that are extremely im 
portant for the light they throw on the evolution of tropical whites. 
Edwards thought that the West Indian climate displayed its influ 
ence more strongly on the persons of the native-born than on 
their manners or on the faculties of their minds. They were obvi 
ously a taller race than the Europeans but in general not propor 
tionately robust. They were all distinguished by freedom and by 
suppleness of joints, which enabled them to move with ease and 
agility and gracefulness in dancing. They also excelled in pen 
manship and in the use of the small sword. Their eye sockets were 
deeper than among the natives of Europe, which guarded them 
against the continuous glare of the sun. Their skin felt cooler 
than that of the European, which proved that nature had contrived 
some peculiar means of protecting them from the heat. Possibly 
the climate increased their sensibility, which contributed to cre 
ate an impatience of subordination. On the whole this attitude was 
beneficial as awakening frankness, sociability, benevolence, and 
generosity. Though the method of living differed in no respect 
from that of the European residents, they were rarely liable to 
those inflammatory disorders that frequently proved fatal to the 
latter. The women lived calm and even lives, marked by habitual 
50 Ibid., Paper No. I, Appendix, p. 30, Questions 32, 33, Aug. 18, 1787-88. 



122 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

temperance and self-denial. They took no exercise, except dancing, 
and had no amusement or avocation to compel them to much 
exertion of either mind or body. Their diet was abstemious to a 
fault, and lemonade was their strongest beverage. Their food at 
the principal repast was a vegetable mess, seasoned with cayenne 
pepper. Their mode of life and the hot oppressive atmosphere 
produced lax fiber and pale complexions. They seemed to have 
just risen from a bed of sickness. Their voices were soft and spirit 
less, and every step betrayed languor and lassitude. Eminently and 
deservedly applauded for heart and disposition, no women on earth 
made better wives or better mothers. 

34. Under the climate the children s mental powers developed early, 
exceeding those of European children of the same age in a degree 
that was unaccountable and astonishing. Subsequent mental ac 
quirement did not keep pace with early progress, but that might 
be due to the want of proper objects for exercising the faculties. 
The climate undoubtedly encouraged early and habitual licentious 
ness, which was against mental improvement. Among snch of the 
native-born as escaped the contagion and enervating effects of 
youthful excesses were found men of capacities as strong and 
permanent as among any people whatever. Edwards strongly de 
nied that the Creole whites in general possessed less capacity and 
stability of mind than Europeans or that they had less quality of 
heart. Frank, kindly, and truthful, they treated the slaves far bet 
ter than did the adventurers from Europe. Indolence was too pre 
dominant, but it was rather an aversion to serious thought and 
deep reflection than due to slothfulness and sluggishness of na 
ture. When the springs of the mind were set in motion both sexes 
had warm imaginations and high spirits. 51 

35. Although Edwards is describing a planter aristocracy which ob 
viously suffered from isolation, insufficient exercise, and contact 
with a substratum of Negroes, we shall see that his description is 
applicable in certain respects to the present generation of north 
Queensland whites, and that here, too, a tendency to conserve 
muscular, heat-producing energy is appearing, which possibly fore 
casts some decline/ 2 

51 Edwards, op. cit., II, pp. 10-14. 

52 R. W. Cilento, The White Man in the Tropics, Commonwealth of Australia, 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 123 

36. The history of these British West Indian Islands has been closely 
examined in order to enumerate and examine the complex con 
trols that caused the failure of most white settlements in the west 
ern hemisphere. In Barbados, St. Kitts, and Jamaica the British 
established for a considerable period flourishing groups of white 
workers, which were ultimately destroyed by war, faulty economic 
policy and administration, bad housing, diet and liquor, cruelty, 
the influx of workers of a lower economic standard, the plantation 
system, the exhaustion of the soil, diseases, and possibly climate 
per se. The historical method, ably applied by experienced stu 
dents, has listed factors that produced the British failures, but 
what scientist would dare to evaluate from this evidence the rela 
tive importance of the various controls? Nevertheless, two out 
standing and incontestable factors deserve emphasis. First, the pre- 
scientific invasions showed that white races, both northern and 
Mediterranean, could survive in favorable parts of the tropics for 
many generations in the face of stupendous difficulties and without 
modern scientific aids. Second, there were very few examples of 
the white man s successful resistance in the tropics to the compe 
tition of races of lower economic and social status. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Study first the organization of the article. The body of the article lists causes for 
the failure of white settlers in the West Indies. With what paragraph does this 
listing begin? 

2. a. If we assume that the introduction has the task of preparing for the listing of 
causes, what are the main subdivisions in the introduction? 

b. How arc facts arranged in Paragraphs 2 and 3? 

3. In a research paper of this kind it is customary for the author to state near the 
beginning the scope of his undertaking and the conditions that exist or that 
have been created to make discussion possible and sound conclusions probable; 
in addition there is usually a distinct marking off of the limits of the inquiry. To 
what extent does Paragraph 1 satisfy these demands? 

4. In the body of the article seven distinct causes are listed. 

a. What are these causes? 

b. Mark off the areas devoted to the discussion of each one. 

5. What is the topic sentence in Paragraph 5? Study the development of the dis 
cussion beginning this paragraph. 



Department of Health, Service Publication (Tropical Division), No. 7 
(1925), pp. 73-74. 



124 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

6. Paragraphs 6-10 form one division of thought. What has the author done by in 
serting Paragraph 7 into the middle of this section? 

7. In Paragraph 7, why has the author made reference to conditions on French 
islands, when he is primarily concerned with British islands? 

8. Is Paragraph 9 an explanation of Paragraph 8? 

9. Note the concessive pattern of paragraph development in Paragraph 10. Note 
also how the last half of Paragraph 10 picks up the idea expressed in Para 
graph 5. 

10. What is the internal organization of Paragraph 13? Of -which of the subdivisions 
of Paragraph 13 are Paragraphs 1416 an amplification? 

11. How is the general conclusion of the article foreshadowed in Paragraph 17? 

12. Note the division into rich and poor in Paragraphs 18-19 for purposes of anal 
ysis. This may be called the partition of a problem. 

13. How important is Paragraph 20 in the scheme of the whole article? As summary? 
As statement of the principal thesis? 

14. How is the discussion of the slave trade that begins with Paragraph 21 slanted 
toward the thesis expressed in Paragraph 20? Trace out carefully the lines of 
the causal reasoning found here. 

15. Note the causal pattern of paragraph development in Paragraph 27. 

16. Note the concessive pattern of the argument in Paragraphs 29-32. 

17. What principle has been used in the division of material in Paragraphs 33-34? 

18. Note that Paragraph 35 provides a conclusion for the discussion of climate as 
a factor and that Paragraph 36 summarizes the findings of the whole article. 

a. Is the author too careful in his concluding remarks? 

b. Has he actually convinced us of more than he claims to have done? 

C. How satisfactorily docs this concluding paragraph pull together all of the 
parts of the article? 

19. Much of this article is summary of generally known historical facts. Some of the 
facts are less known and require special documentation and reference. 

a. Make a study of the author s principles of documentation. Does he primarily 
quote opinions of historians, generalizations made by historians, evidence from 
first hand observers, or statistical evidence? 

b. Does he expend disproportionate energy in attempting to find support for 
certain points he wishes to make? 

20. Study the forms of the footnotes and explain why each form is used. 

21. Explain the use of footnotes at the end of paragraphs in which the footnote does 
not follow quotations. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 125 

POPULAR SPORTS IN AMERICA, 1850-1865* 
By Frank Luther Mott 

1. HORSE racing and prize fighting were the spectacular sports of 
the day. Physical culture exercises made gains in some educational 
institutions, but the total effect was not impressive. "Physical cul 
ture is on the top of the wave," wrote one of the leaders of the 
movement, Dr. Dio Lewis, in the Atlantic in 1862, "but it is as yet 
in the talk stage. Millions praise the gymnasium; hundreds seek 
its blessings." 1 Harvard, Yale, and Amherst built gymnasiums in 
1859 the first of any adequacy in the country. 2 

2. About sports in which people in general could participate one 
reads comparatively little in the magazines of the times. There 
were some beginnings, but the wave of popular sport interest did 
not break over America until after the war. The Autocrat wrote 
in the Atlantic Monthly just before that conflict: 

I am satisfied that such a set of black-coated, stiff-jointed, soft-muscled, 
paste-complexioned youth as we can boast in our Atlantic cities never be 
fore sprang from the loins of Anglo-Saxon lineage. . . . We have a few 
good boatmen, no good horsemen that I hear of, nothing remarkable I 
believe in cricketing; and as for any great athletic feat performed by a 
gentleman in these latitudes, society would drop a man who would run 
around the Common in five minutes. 3 

3. Interest in horse racing grew almost to a frenzy at some of the 
meets during the war, when money was plentiful. The sport may 
be followed best in the Spirit of the Times. Flora Temple trotted 
a mile in 2.19% in 1859; and Dexter, for which Robert Bonner of 
the New York Ledger later paid $33,000, beat that mark in 1865 
with 2.18/1 Bonner and Commodore Vanderbilt were rivals among 
nonprofessional drivers of fast trotters: at an exhibition contest 
between them (no money being wagered, as Bonner never bet 
on a horse race ) Bonner drove a team two miles 4 in 5.01/4. 

* Reprinted by permission of the publishers from Frank Luther Mott, A His 
tory of American Magazines, Volume II, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard 
University Press, 1938. 

1 Atlantic Monthly, X (August, 1862), p. 129. 

2 Science, VIII (July 2, 1886), p. 1. 

s Atlantic Monthly, I (May, 1858), p. 81. 

* Science, XXI (May, 1868), p. 523. 



126 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

But the greatest popular excitement in sports was aroused by 
certain prize fights of the period. The outstanding hero of fisticuffs 
was the "Benecia Boy" John C. Heenan. The Morrissey-Heenan 
bout in 1858, the drawn battle between Heenan and Sayers in 
England in 1860, and the Heenan-King fight in 1863 were the high 
points of the period. When Heenan lost to the Englishman King 
after twenty-five rounds, there was as much mourning in some 
quarters as over a lost battle in the Civil War. When Heenan left 
for England in 1860 to encounter Tom Sayers, Vanity Fair pub 
lished "The Benecia Boy s Farewell," ending: 

111 wind our colors round my loins 
The blue and crimson bars 
And if Tom does not feel the stripes, 
I ll make him see the stars 1 5 

Leslie s Lady s Magazine printed a picture of two boys caught 
fighting and explaining their black eyes to their mammas: "We ve 
only been playing at being Tom Sayers and the Benecia Boyl" 6 
There was, of course, much moral indignation vented against the 
brutality of these fights. Leslie s Illustrated began by condemning 
prize fighting as "identified with all the coarsest, lowest vice of our 
cities" and declaring it "the very last subject that should be men 
tioned in a paper which finds its way into decent families"; 7 but it 
ended by sending a special correspondent and a trained artist to 
London to report the Heenan-Sayers battle and by giving many 
pages to affairs of the ring. Religious and other journals generally 
attacked prize fighting, however: the Heenan-King bout was "dis 
graceful to England and not much less so to America," concluded 
the Northwestern Christian Advocate. 8 

Baseball was showing its first indications of popularity. We read 
of games of twenty or thirty innings, with scores of seventy to fifty 
and thereabout. Pitchers are warned against pitching too wildly; 
umpires are commended for firmness. "Carriages surrounded the 
grounds, and the smiles of the fair encouraged the players." A 
Chicago correspondent of Porters Spirit of the Times says: "The 

5 Vanity Fair, I (January 14, 1860), p. 45. 

6 Frank Leslie s Lady s Magazine, XV (October, 1864), p. 288. 

7 Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper, IX (December 31, 1859), p. 66. 

8 Northwestern Christian Advocate, XII (January 6, 1864), p. 6. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 127 

Excelsior is the pioneer ball club of the city; it was organized a 
year ago this Spring [1858]. We have now four clubs that play 
under the New York rules, and one or two in process of organiza 
tion." The same journal, which ordinarily reported baseball games 
alongside cricket matches, recorded the founding of the first im 
portant league the National Association: 

The first convention was, it will be remembered, held last year [1857] 
to devise a new set of Rules and Laws for Baseball. The call originated 
with the old Knickerbocker Club. ... A strong effort will be made [this 
year] to have eleven fielders on a side. 10 

6. The Sunday Mercury, of New York, claimed the title "the Father 
of Baseball," as it had been the first to encourage the sport by re 
porting matches. 11 

7. Boat races, especially in intercollegiate sport, and chess and bil 
liards were followed in the Spirit of the Times and, after 1853, in 
Frank Queen s New Yorfc Clipper. Croquet was a new fad, just 
imported from England. The "stirring, healthful conflict" of this 
game, as played by women in hoopskirts and men in top hats, was 
decidedly picturesque. 12 As to billiards, the Round Table remarked 
in 1865: "There is no more exquisite foolery of our day than the 
mania for playing billiards which has developed itself in this 
country in the last five or six years." 13 The Billiard Cue (1856-74) 
was a modest monthly of four folio pages edited by the famous 
billiardist, Michael Phelan, as a house organ for his manufacturing 
business. The Chess Monthly ( 1857-61 ) was also a New Yorker. 

8- The greatest general sports periodical of these years was Wilkes 
Spirit of the Times, which was begun in 1859 by George Wilkes, 
founder of the National Police Gazette and a former editor of 
Porters Spirit of the Times. Within two years Wilkes s paper, 
aided by the beginning of the war, had put the old Spirit out of 
business. 14 Racing, field sports, and the stage came within the pur- 

9 Porter s Spirit of the Times, VI (June 25, 1859), p. 216. 
1 ibid., IV (March 13, 1858), p. 21. 

11 See Journalist (January 7, 1888), p. 3. 

12 Saturday Evening Post (December 26, 1863), pp. 1, 4. 
is Round Table, II (October 14, 1865), p. 88. 

i 4 See Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741-1850 
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1938), p. 480. But note the following data: 
Porter withdrew from the original Spirit of the Times in 1856 and, with 
George Wilkes as associate editor, founded Porters Spirit of the Times 



128 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

view of Wilkes Spirit of the Times. The California Spirit of the 
Times was a sports weekly in San Francisco. 15 The New York Clip- 
per was founded in 1853 by Frank Queen as a sporting and amuse 
ment journal; but it was very miscellaneous and printed some 
fiction, verse, and music. Eventually it became the great news 
journal of professional performers on the stage, in circus rings, 
and on athletic fields. Its news of all sports and of the details of 
the stage in many cities makes it an invaluable record up to the 
middle eighties. 16 

ANALYSIS 

i. Since this article is taken from a history of American magazines, it is apparent 
that Frank Luther Mott was not attempting to make a complete and inde 
pendent study of popular sports in America during the period between 1850 
and 1865. Had he attempted that task, the article would have been much longer 
and he would have turned to many other sources of information. Instead, the 
area that he is investigating is much narrower than the title given it here 
suggests. 

a. Write a title of your own that more accurately describes what he has done 
in his article. 

(1856-59). Porter died in 1858, and Theodore E. Tomlinson and other 
friends continued to conduct the paper. With these men Wilkes soon dis 
agreed, and he withdrew angrily from association with them and began on 
September 10, 1859, Wilkes Spirit of the Times. Porters Spirit of the Times 
suspended some weeks later, and the original Spirit of the Times ended 
June 22, 1861, leaving Wilkes in command of the field. He dropped his own 
name from the title in 1868, and in 1873 adopted numbering to conform to 
his claim that his was the original Spirit of the Times. (As to numbering, 
see Mott, op. cit., p. 480n. The assumption of that footnote that the Spirits 
were all in one line was owing to Wilkes s own purposely misleading state 
ments.) See New York Clipper, XXX (October 28, 1882), p. 521, which, 
though incorrect in details of the origin of the first Spirit, is helpful. Wilkes s 
paper, from which Wilkes himself retired in 1875, leaving E. A. Buck as 
half owner and editor, was merged in the Horseman in 1902. See George P. 
Rowell and Company, Centennial Newspaper Exhibition (New York , 1876), 
p. 186. 

15 It began as the Fireman s Journal, giving special attention to sports. In 1878 
it became an insurance journal, under the name California Spirit of the 
Times and Underwriter s Journal. The inclusive dates are 1854-94. 

10 Harrison Trent was owner for the first two years, and James Jones was part 
owner 1856-57; otherwise Queen was editor and publisher until his death 
in 1882. T. Allston Brown was on the editorial staff and furnished a series 
of sketches of actors for early volumes. After Queen s death the estate con 
ducted the Clipper for a time, with Benjamin Garno as managing editor, 
after which A. J. Borie became editor and publisher. The paper deteriorated 
and was purchased by Variety in 1923. See Variety, CI (December 31, 
1930), 10, 51; but for its history before the death of Queen, see Clipper, 
XXX (October 28, 1882), p. 521. 



SECONDARY SOURCE PAPERS 129 

b. Is this limitation apparent in the first paragraph? 

c. Are there places in the article where the material is tangential to his main 
purpose? 

2. Since it is a segment of a larger work, this article lacks an adequate introduc 
tion. Supply an introductory paragraph for it. 

3. Because of what condition of authorship in the mid-nineteenth century is Pro 
fessor Mott unable to supply authors names in his footnotes? 

4. To what other sources could Professor Mott have gone for material had he been 
making a thorough survey of sports at the time of the Civil War? 

5. a. How closely does the paragraphing correspond to the outline of the article? 

b. Is any one section given more than one paragraph? 

c. How does the subject matter change in the final paragraph? 

6. Point out the places in the article where Professor Mott draws inferences from 
his evidence. 

7. a. Can you point out places where fuller documentation is possible? 

b. The writer of a research paper usually does not give footnote references to 
material that is common knowledge. Are any of the statements here of this kind? 

8. a. In Paragraph 2, what statement does the quotation from the Autocrat sup 
port? Who was the Autocrat? 

b. What is the topic sentence of this paragraph? 

c. What connection do you find between it and the rest of the paragraph? 

9. Note the development of Paragraph 4, on prize fighting. What are the major 
subdivisions of the paragraph? 

10. What can you say in general about Professor Mott s methods of developing 
paragraphs? 

11. What are the principal features of the sentence construction here? How effec 
tive is the result? 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

The development of jet-propelled aircraft 

South American students in the United States 

The "One Hundred Great Books" concept of higher education 

The Negro and the labor unions 

The effectiveness of youth centers in preventing juvenile delinquency 

The conflict between consumers cooperatives and small business enterprises 

Should TVA be subject to taxation as private utility corporations are? 

Standards of living in coal mining areas 

Freight rates and the development of Western industry ( or Southern industry ) 

The effect of air transportation on city planning 

The effect of the Erie Canal on the settlement of the Western Reserve 

The development of mass production methods in industry 

The breakup of Tory estates following the Revolutionary War 

The biography of Sara Teasdale, Joe Louis, Henry Ford II, or Orson Welles 

The licensing of radio stations 



130 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

The block-booking system in the motion picture industry 

The frontier is still open in Alaska 

The use of airplanes in the forest service 

Uses of the light metals 

American sailing craft of the nineteenth century 



4. PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 



Primary Source Papers 



THE PRIMARY source paper, like the secondary source paper, 
involves direct research or investigation. To see the difference be 
tween these two kinds of research papers it is necessary first of all to 
distinguish between primary and secondary sources. The library paper, 
which we discussed in the preceding section, works with secondary 
sources. 

If, in making a study of the kinds of trees to be found on the 
campus, we go directly to the trees themselves, to identify them, to 
count the number of each species, to note their groupings, or to make 
other observations about them, the trees become primary source ma 
terial in our investigation. If, on the other hand, our search takes 
us to the library where we dig out articles about the trees on the 
campus (if any such articles are to be found there), we are turning 
to secondary sources. The secondary source, in other words, is the 
treatment of the material with which we are concerned, or some part 
of it, by another writer. The raw material has already been passed 
through his mind, and while it is our task when dealing with secondary 
sources to create a unity of our own by putting together evidence or 
details gathered from many sources, we do not then come into direct 
contact with the raw material found in a life situation. 

We should not suppose, however, that library materials cannot be 
used as primary sources. Take, for instance, a paper in which the 
writer is making a study of changes in advertising techniques over the 
last fifty years. Presumably, in gathering material, he goes to maga 
zines and newspapers of the period under consideration and looks 
at the advertisements to be found there. Each single advertisement in 



134 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

that case is as much a primary source for evidence as each tree on the 
campus is for a paper on campus trees. When he turns from a study 
of advertisements themselves to search for articles on advertising, he 
is turning to secondary sources. The article "Yarning in the Eighteen 
Fifties" that appears later in this section deals with primary sources. 
We note that the author is not turning to critical judgments about the 
literature of the 1850 s, even though he could find plenty of them if he 
looked for them. Instead, he is himself going directly to the stories 
and novels, and arriving at conclusions after a study of what he finds 
there. Literary research is often of this kind. Studies can be made of 
the characters created by a novelist, of the verse techniques or the 
figures of speech used by a poet, or his attitude toward women or 
politics or religion as he reveals it in his writings. Although studies 
that take the researcher to animate objects are more commonly found, 
the primary source study that concerns the contents of books, maga 
zines, newspapers, directories, or catalogues must be considered in 
the same broad classification. 

As a research paper, the primary source paper usually exhibits more 
complete research machinery than does the informal induction. This 
machinery may include the formal demarcation of a field for investi 
gation, the setting up of the boundaries within which the writer intends 
to make a thorough study, and the adoption of methods of approach 
to the material by which sound conclusions can be anticipated. Con 
sequently, the writer often devotes some space in his paper to a dis 
cussion of his demarcations and of his methods. 

Several kinds of primary research are open to the student writer. An 
obvious one is the reportorial investigation, in which the writer goes 
to the field, makes inquiries among those who may know the answers 
to his questions, finds leads to other sources of information, and at 
tempts to collect all the pertinent data. Of this kind is Bertram Fowler s 
"Sharecroppers of the Sea" included in this collection. A sample of 
research among books, Paul Fatout s "Yarning in the Eighteen Fifties," 
has already been mentioned. A third kind is the "poll" paper, repre 
senting an attempt to draw conclusions on the state of public opinion. 
In such a paper the writer is not interested in authoritative opinion 
but in discovering what people as a mass are thinking. Since it is usu 
ally impossible to interview all the members of the group in ques 
tion, the writer must devise a satisfactory cross section to represent the 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 135 

whole. The setting up of this cross section often demands careful at 
tention. It also is necessary to formulate questions carefully so that 
clear-cut answers will result. Unless the writer asks several closely inte 
grated questions of each person interviewed or receiving the question 
naire, he is likely to find himself with insufficient data upon which to 
build satisfactory conclusions. 

The average student in a college class in composition will find the 
exercise in writing this kind of paper of considerable practical value to 
him in his later life. The other kinds of writing discussed in this book 
are of equal importance, but they are called for less often in the rou 
tine business of everyday professional life. More important than prac 
tice in the application of the principles involved in this sort of paper 
is the benefit that accrues from the careful, objective often scientific 
analysis of a problem. 



THIRTY DOLLARS A WEEK* 
By George Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae 

1. THE AVERAGE person in any community cannot fail to notice how 
sharply different levels of income and comfort cut across the Ameri 
can social scene. He is aware of the plight of families on relief, 
of the middle-class families struggling to make ends meet, and of 
the people who are well to do and economically secure. Through 
the movies and the daily newspapers he comes to know about the 
Joads and cafe society. How does he react to the economic and 
social differences he sees about him? Is America becoming "class 
conscious," as the proletarian writers of the last few decades have 
confidently predicted? What does the ordinary citizen think "the 
American standard of living" should be? 

2. As America enters a strange new decade, public opinion research 
already provides some tentative answers to these questions. The 
subject will figure conspicuously in future public-opinion studies 
studies which will have weather-vane significance for the kind of 
country America is to be. Let us look at the present indicators. 

3. As far as the economic reality is concerned, the picture is clear. 

* Reprinted from The Pulse of Democracy by George Gallup and Saul F. Rae 
by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc. Copyright, 1940, by George Gallup 
and Saul F. Rae. 



136 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Even in the boom of 1929, only about six million families had in 
comes of $3000 a year or more; the great majority earned far less. 
Eighteen million families more than half the population of the 
United States earned less than $1500. Then came the cataclysm, 
and within two or three years the national income of the United 
States had dwindled to almost half what it had been in 1929, drag 
ging living standards downward all along the line. Especially hard 
hit were the eighteen million families who had been getting along 
on less than $1500 a year. The shrinkage in family income provided 
little chance to build even a small reserve against such hazards as 
unemployment, old age, and sickness. 

4. The economic protest of these sectors of the population was 
translated into political terms in 1932. In the presidential election 
of that year, American voters cast twenty-three million ballots for 
Franklin D. Roosevelt. It just equaled the total Democratic vote 
cast for Al Smith in 1928 together with the total Democratic vote 
obtained by John W. Davis in 1924. It was the largest vote any 
presidential candidate had ever polled, and it announced the be 
ginning of political action among the millions of American families 
with small incomes. Even in 1937 the underlying problem of in 
security among the lower economic levels still existed. Standing 
in the Washington rain to deliver his Second Inaugural, on Jan 
uary 20, 1937, President Roosevelt declared that the need to solve 
it was the greatest challenge to American democracy. "In this na 
tion," he said, "I see tens of millions of its citizens a substantial 
part of the whole population who at this very moment are de 
nied the greater part of what the veiy lowest standards today call 
the necessities of life. I see," he summarized, "one third of a nation 
ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished/ 

5. Many Americans are concerned over the same picture which the 
President painted. But despite the inequalities of life at different 
levels of the economic pyramid, there is little evidence that the 
people themselves are dividing into self-conscious class blocs. If 
there are problems to solve, the dominant attitude is still that they 
will be solved not through the impact of hostile classes, but through 
unified national effort. The historian Charles A. Beard placed his 
finger on the central reason for this when he wrote of the "sub- 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 137 

jective consciousness" of the American people, a consciousness not 
solely of immediate economic surroundings such as unemployment 
and scanty diet, but also of common membership in a "middle 
class" which has a future as well as a past. The extent of this con 
sciousness of belonging to the middle class culturally and so 
ciallywas clearly indicated in an Institute survey conducted in 
1939. 

6. "To what social class in this country do you think you belong," 
voters were asked, "the middle class, the upper, or the lower?" It 
made little difference whether the voter was a Democrat or a Re 
publican, whether he lived in a city or in the country, whether he 
worked in a factory or owned the factory himself. In all cases, 
nearly nine Americans in ten said they viewed themselves as mem 
bers of the middle class: 

Upper Class 6 per cent 

Middle Class 88 per cent 

Lower Class 6 per cent 

7. With the sense of belonging to the middle class goes a whole 
pattern of thought. The average American believes in most of the 
traditional accompaniments of middle-class life. He believes in 
the value of education. If he could have more of it, he would like 
to have more training in business subjects and English. He believes 
in "opportunity" although not quite as firmly as he once did 
and he believes in property and in owning some himself if he can 
manage it. 

8. Side by side with his subjective belief in a middle-class status, 
however, the average American has a sharp realization that his 
life is not secure. The facts here were revealed in another 1939 
survey in which the Institute asked: "If you lost your present job 
(or business) and could not find another, how long do you think 
you could hold out before you would have to apply for relief?" 
The survey found seventeen persons in every hundred already on 
relief or on one of the Federal government s work projects. Nine 
teen out of a hundred said they could hold out one month or less, 
sixteen could hold out one to six months, thirteen could hold out 
six months to three years, and thirty-five thought they could hold 



138 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

out three years or more. // the groups who say they could hold out 
-for six months or less are added to those persons now on relief, the 
total includes a majority of the people of the entire country. 
9. The study showed that, although skilled and unskilled laborers 
suffer from the greatest insecurity, many members of the white- 
collar classes clerks, office workers, and people in the service 
trades fear the future too. Indeed, nearly a quarter of these peo 
ple told interviewers they would exhaust their reserves within a 
month s time. 

10. When the same poll asked to what income group people felt 
they belonged, nearly a third said "the lower class": 

Upper-Income Group 1 per cent 

Upper Middle 6 per cent 

Middle 41 per cent 

Lower Middle 21 per cent 

Lower 31 per cent 

11. It is not strange, then, that American elections have see,n a notice 
able class factor at work ever since the early thirties. Millions of 
lower- and middle-income voters crossed over to the Democratic 
party in 1932 and have remained there since. During this period, 
the Republican party has had its center of gravity in the upper- 
income levels, while the Democratic center of gravity has been 
among the "lower third" and voters on relief. 

12. Simple proof of this growing relationship between economic in 
security and the political alignments of recent years can be 
found in the survey breakdowns of this insecurity question asked 
in 1939: 

For Roosevelt Against Roosevelt 

Persons now on relief 81 per cent 19 per cent 
Those who could hold out 

one month or less 61 per cent 39 per cent 

One month to six months 58 per cent 42 per cent 

Sk months to three years 56 per cent 44 per cent 

Three years or more 55 per cent 45 per cent 

13. The key to why people now vote Democratic or Republican lies 
in the economic stratification of the American people. At the ex- 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 139 

tremes of the economic scale, political positions are coherent and, 
to a large extent, predictable. But between the extremes lies the 
middle-income group which is likely to become an increasingly de 
cisive factor in future elections. 

14. All through the first and second administrations of President 
Roosevelt the Institute has found this middle group holding the 
balance of power on issues as well as in elections. What income 
characterizes this group? If you put that question at random to 
a few well-to-do brokers and bankers they are likely to tell you, 
"About $5000 a year" just as Mr. Morgan identified the middle 
class, before a Senate committee, as those families which could 
afford to have a servant. But actually the middle-income group in 
the United States, numbering nearly one half of the whole voting 
population, averages between $1000 and $2000 a ijear per family. 

15. John Jones is a typical member of this group. He lives in a small 
Eastern city. He works for a hardware store. He has a wife and 
two children. He earns $30 a week. Nearly every dollar he earns 
goes for immediate necessities such as rent, food, clothing, and 
carfare. Yet, whether he knows it or not, he is a "typical" member 
of the middle-income group, and on his vote the course of Ameri 
can political life probably depends. 

16. What is an adequate standard of living for the average Ameri 
can family? The Great Depression first focused attention on this 
vital question, and provoked response from many economists, ex 
perts, and welfare associations. A few years ago the government 
considered that the average family of four required at least $2500 
a year for continued subsistence. Certain New Deal planners like 
Mordecai Ezekiel set an objective of $2400 or $2500 for a family 
of this size. William Green, of the American Federation of Labor, 
has named a goal of $3600 for the skilled workman and his de 
pendents. 

17. The Institute therefore felt it would be valuable to let the people 
express themselves on the question of income standards, and to 
add the view of the general public to the estimates of the theorists 
and social planners. 

18. Five hundred interviewers covered voters in every state and 
every income group in the country and found almost all persons 



140 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

interviewed eager to express their own ideas. People in all walks 
of life were asked: 

19. "What is the smallest weekly amount a family of four must have 
to live decently?" 

20. And: 

21. "How much income a year do you think the average family of 
four needs for health and comfort?" 

22. No sums were suggested. The voters wrote in whatever sums 
they chose. Their aggregate answers to the first question estab 
lished for the first time a nation-wide consensus on what the mini 
mum standard of "decency" should be. The sum averaged $30 a 
week approximately $1560 a year for the typical family of four 
among all those interviewed. 

23. Professional workers, businessmen, and skilled laborers named 
a higher figure for decency than other groups. Farmers, who fre 
quently enjoy a noncash income in farm produce and other things, 
named a lower figure. Similarly, city dwellers named a higher 
amount than residents in small towns and rural districts: 

24. Typical persons living in the "ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nour 
ished" lower third gave $23 as the weekly sum needed, or approxi 
mately $1200 a year. 

25. Here are median amounts named by important population groups 
throughout the United States: 

Median Weekly a 

A . J Same on 
Amount v 7 . 

Bam 



for Decency 
(in Dollars) ( Dollars) 

Professional and white-collar 

workers 35 1820 

Merchants and businessmen 35 1820 

IN THE . laborers 35 



OPINION OF: ,-, ne> ,0 

Farmers 25 1300 

"Lower Third" 23 1196 

U. S. average (median) 30 1560 

26. What would public opinion s idea of the "decency" standard of 
$30 a week mean? Undoubtedly it would continue to mean a very 
modest standard of living. The typical family spends about thirty- 
three cents out of every dollar for food today, and a $30-a-week 
income allows about $10 a week to feed four persons. The next 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 141 

highest amount goes for the home, including rent, light, heating, 
and furniture. The family with $30 a week has about $9 a week 
to spend on its home. This leaves ten or twelve cents out of every 
dollar for clothing and ten or twelve cents for transportation. When 
these slices have been taken out, a family with a $30 income has 
between $4.50 and $6 for everything else for medicine and doc 
tor s bills, for books and education, for entertainment and insur 
ance and savings. When the second question was asked to find 
out what voters thought would be necessary for a "health-and- 
comfort" standard, the median figure set was $38 a week, or $1950 
a year. According to the surveys, almost two thirds of all American 
families in 1937 were living well below the health-and-comfort 
standard set by public opinion. The difference between the two 
standards in real terms would be a difference of quality in food, 
perhaps a bit more for rent and for comforts, laborsaving devices, 
and recreation. 

27. Across the United States there is, of course, the widest var 
iation in cost of living. It is not surprising, therefore, to find 
that voters in the Institute s income-standard survey tended to set 
somewhat different money standards depending on where they 
lived. 

38. In the South, public opinion set a $20 median as the decency 
standard, but the paradox is explained by the fact that the South 
includes millions of Negroes living at depressed standards who ex 
pressed their delight at the thought of getting $12 or $15 a week. 
When the Institute s investigators talked with Negro men and 
women, many of them replied that they could "get along" on four 
or five dollars. The average sum these Southern Negroes named 
was only $12, which is far below the minimum standards set by 
both public opinion and income economists. With Negroes ex 
cluded, the average income wanted by white Southern families 
was $25 a week. 

29. The farm states of the Middle West asked less than the figure 
of the national average, while the Pacific Coast states and the in 
dustrial states of the Middle Atlantic area asked more. States in 
the Great Lakes (East Central) and those in the Rocky Mountain 
section voted for $30. 

30. The following table shows how much money the voters of the 



142 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

different sections considered necessary (1) for minimum decency, 
and (2) for health and comfort: 

^ Oa , 7 Hcalth-and- 

Decency Standard ^ , . c . -, , 

, y 7 x Comfort Standard 
o j.- (per week) / 7 x 

Sections (per week) 

New England states $30 $39 

Middle Atlantic states 35 39 

East Central states 30 38 

West Central states 25 33 

South (excl. Negroes) 25 33 

Rocky Mountain states 30 38 

Pacific Coast states 35 38 

U. S. average (median) 30 38 

Southern Negroes 12 

31. How did this picture of "what ought to be" compare with the 
actual state of affairs? Government research studies on the division 
of the national income indicate that the typical family of four lives 
on far less than the amount which public opinion feels to be es 
sential for a "decency" minimum standard. The research figures 
for income vary with different estimates. But the main lines of 
the income-distribution study conducted by the Brookings Institu 
tion for 1929 still hold good. And in that year the Institution found 
that nearly six million families had less than $1000 and that twelve 
million families, or more than 42 per cent, had less than $1500. 

32. Such studies of income distribution, whether condensed in the 
official estimates or in the stones people tell of their own insecurity, 
acquire profound importance when measured against what public 
opinion thinks the standards ought to be. So long as this chasm 
remains between what people have and what they think they need, 
protest movements and welfare legislation are bound to have a 
real basis in our democracy. The discovery, that, while 88 per cent 
of the American people feel themselves members of the middle 
social class, 31 per cent place themselves in the lower economic 
class, illuminates one of the grave social facts of our times. But 
such discrepancies between aspirations and actualities must first 
be brought to light before they can be solved. The people s own 
story, as told through such surveys of public opinion, may one day 
play a part in the ultimate solution. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 143 



ANALYSIS 

1. a. What do the authors propose to do with the findings of their public opinion 
poll? 

b. Is the formulation of this question made before or after the results of the 
poll are known? 

c. What significance does the position of this formulation have in a primary 
source paper? 

2. a. What restrictions or limitations are placed on the data used in this survey? 
b. What checks are used to assure a reasonably accurate cross section and a 
reasonably accurate conclusion? 

3. Examine the nature of the tabulated results and the means the authors use to 
explain and generalize from these results. 

4. a. Make a brief outline of this article to show the order and organization fol 
lowed. 

b. What is the relation of this order to the pattern of reasoning? 

5. List the similarities and the differences between this article and "Training for 

Citizenship in the Secondary Schools of New York City." Compare especially 
the areas covered in each survey and the resulting chances for accuracy of 
prediction from the findings in the two areas. 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS 
OF THE VARIOLAE VACCINAE, KNOWN BY 
THE NAME OF THE COW-POX * 

By Edward Jenner 

THE DEVIATION of man from the state in which he was originally 
placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of 
diseases. From the love of splendor, from the indulgence of luxury, 
and from his fondness for amusement he has familiarized himself 
with a great number of animals, which may not originally have 
been intended for his associates. 

The wolf, disarmed of ferocity, is now pillowed in the lady s lap. 
The cat, the little tiger of our island, whose natural home is the 
forest, is equally domesticated and caressed. The cow, the hog, 
the sheep, and the horse, are all, for a variety of purposes, brought 
under his care and dominion. 

There is a disease to which the horse, from his state of domesti- 

* Edward Jenner (1749-1823), an English physician, examined twenty-three 
cases under this heading in 1798, from which three have been chosen to illus 
trate his methods. 



144 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

cation, is frequently subject. The farriers call it the grease. It is 
an inflammation and swelling in the heel, from which issues matter 
possessing properties of a very peculiar kind, which seems capable 
of generating a disease in the human body (after it has under 
gone the modification which I shall presently speak of), which 
bears so strong a resemblance to the smallpox that I think it highly 
probable it may be the source of the disease. 

In this dairy country a great number of cows are kept, and the 
office of milking is performed indiscriminately by men and maid 
servants. One of the former having been appointed to apply dress 
ings to the heels of a horse affected with the grease, and not pay 
ing due attention to cleanliness, incautiously bears his part in 
milking the cows, with some particles of the infectious matter ad 
hering to his fingers. When this is the case, it commonly happens 
that a disease is communicated to the cows, and from the cows 
to dairy maids, which spreads through the farm until the most of 
the cattle and domestics feel its unpleasant consequences. This dis 
ease has obtained the name of cow-pox. It appears on the nip 
ples of the cows in the form of irregular pustules. At their first 
appearance they are commonly of a palish blue, or rather of a 
color somewhat approaching to livid, and are surrounded by an 
erysipelatous inflammation. These pustules, unless a timely remedy 
be applied, frequently degenerate into phagcdcnic ulcers, which 
prove extremely troublesome. The animals become indisposed, and 
the secretion of milk is much lessened. Inflamed spots now begin 
to appear on different parts of the hands of the domestics em 
ployed in milking, and sometimes on the wrists, which quickly 
run on to suppuration, first assuming the appearance of the small 
vesications produced by a burn. Most commonly they appear about 
the joints of the fingers and at their extremities; but whatever parts 
are affected, if the situation will admit, these superficial suppura 
tions put on a circular form, with their edges more elevated than 
their center, and of a color distantly approaching to blue. Adsorp 
tion takes place, and tumors appear in each axilla. The system be 
comes affected the pulse is quickened; and shiverings, succeeded 
by heat, with general lassitude and pains about the loins and 
limbs, with vomiting, come on. The head is painful, and the pa 
tient is now and then even affected with delirium. These symptoms, 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 145 

varying in their degrees of violence, generally continue from one 
day to three or four, leaving ulcerated sores about the hands, 
which, from the sensibility of the parts, are very troublesome, and 
commonly heal slowly, frequently becoming phagedenic, like those 
from whence they sprung. The lips, nostrils, eyelids, and other 
parts of the body are sometimes affected with sores; but these 
evidently arise from their being heedlessly nibbed or scratched 
with the patient s infected fingers. No eruptions on the skin have 
followed the decline of the feverish symptoms in any instance that 
has come to my inspection, one only excepted, and in this case a 
very few appeared on the arms: they were very minute, of a vivid 
red color, and soon died away without advancing to maturation; 
so that I cannot determine whether they had any connection with 
the preceding symptoms. 

5. Thus the disease makes its progress from the horse to the nipple 
of the cow, and from the cow to the human subject. 

6. Morbid matter of various kinds, when absorbed into the system, 
may produce effects in some degree similar; but what renders the 
cow-pox virus so extremely singular is that the person who has been 
thus affected is forever after secure from the infection of the small 
pox; neither exposure to the variolous effluvia, nor the insertion of 
the matter into the skin, producing this distemper. 

7. In support of so extraordinary a fact, I shall lay before my reader 
a great number of instances. 

8. Case I. Joseph Merret, now an under gardener to the Earl of 
Berkeley, lived as a servant with a farmer near this place in the 
year 1770, and occasionally assisted in milking his master s cows. 
Several horses belonging to the farm began to have sore heels, 
which Merret frequently attended. The cows soon became affected 
with the cow-pox, and soon after several sores appeared on his 
hands. Swellings and stiffness in each axilla followed, and he was 
so much indisposed for several days as to be incapable of pursuing 
his ordinary employment. Previously to the appearance of the dis 
temper among the cows there was no fresh cow brought into the 
farm, nor any servant employed who was affected with the cow- 
pox. 

9. In April, 1795, a general inoculation taking place here, Merrett 
was inoculated with his family; so that a period of twenty-five 



146 THE EXPOSITION OP IDEAS 

years had elapsed from his having cow-pox to this time. However, 
though the variolous matter was repeatedly inserted into his arm, 
I found it impracticable to infect him with it; an efflorescence only, 
taking on an erysipelatous look about the center, appearing on the 
skin near the punctured parts. During the whole time that his 
family had the smallpox, one of whom had it very full, he remained 
in the house with them, but received no injury from exposure to 
the contagion. 

10. It is necessary to observe that the utmost care was taken to ascer 
tain, with the most scrupulous precision, that no one whose case 
is here adduced had gone through the smallpox previous to these 
attempts to produce that disease. 

11. Had these experiments been conducted in a large city, or in a 
populous neighborhood, some doubts might have been entertained; 
but here, where population is thin, and where such an event as 
a person s having had the smallpox is always faithfully recorded, 
no risk of inaccuracy in this particular can arise. 

12. Case II. Sarah Portlock, of this place, was infected with the 
cow-pox when a servant at a farmer s in the neighborhood, twenty- 
seven years ago. In the year 1792, conceiving herself, from this 
circumstance, secure from the infection of the smallpox, she nursed 
one of her own children who had accidentally caught the disease, 
but no indisposition ensued. During the time she remained in the 
infected room, variolous matter was inserted into both her arms, 
but without any further effect than in the preceding case. 

13. Case XVII. The more accurately to observe the progress of the 
infection I selected a healthy boy, about eight years old, for the 
purpose of inoculating for the cow-pox. The matter was taken 
from a sore on the hand of a dairymaid, who was infected by her 
master s cows, and it was inserted on the fourteenth day of May, 
1796, into the arm of the boy by means of two superficial incisions, 
barely penetrating the cutis, each about an inch long. 

14. On the seventh day he complained of uneasiness in the axilla 
and on the ninth he became a little chilly, lost his appetite, and 
had a slight headache. During the whole of this day he was per 
ceptibly indisposed, and spent the night with some degree of rest 
lessness, but on the day following he was perfectly well. 

15. The appearance of the incisions in their progress to a state of 



PR/MARY SOURCE PAPERS 147 

maturation were much the same as when produced in a similar 
manner by variolous matter. The difference which I perceived was 
in the state of the limpid fluid arising from the action of the virus, 
which assumed rather a darker hue, and in that of the efflorescence 
spreading round the incisions, which had more of an erysipelatous 
look than we commonly perceive when variolous matter has been 
made use of in the same manner; but the whole died away (leaving 
on the inoculated parts scabs and subsequent eschars ) without giv 
ing me or my patient the least trouble. 

16. In order to ascertain whether the boy, after feeling so slight an 
affection of the system from the cow-pox virus, was secure from 
the contagion of the smallpox, he was inoculated the first of July 
following with variolous matter, immediately taken from a pustule. 
Several slight punctures and incisions were made on both his arms, 
and the matter was carefully inserted, but no disease followed. The 
same appearances were observable on the arms as we commonly 
see when a patient has had variolous matter applied, after having 
either the cow-pox or smallpox. Several months afterwards he was 
again inoculated with variolous matter, but no sensible effect was 
produced on the constitution. 

17. After the many fruitless attempts to give the smallpox to those 
who had had the cow-pox, it did not appear necessary, nor was it 
convenient to me, to inoculate the whole of those who had been 
the subjects of these late trials; yet I thought it right to see the 
effects of variolous matter on some of them, particularly William 
Summers, the first of these patients who had been infected with 
matter taken from the cow. He was, therefore, inoculated from a 
fresh pustule; but, as in the preceding cases, the system did not 
feel the effects of it in the smallest degree. I had an opportunity 
also of having this boy and William Pead inoculated by my 
nephew, Mr. Henry Jenner, whose report to me is as follows: 1 
have inoculated Pead and Barge, two of the boys whom you lately 
infected with the cow-pox. On the second day the incisions were 
inflamed and there was a pale inflammatory stain around them. On 
the third day these appearances were still increasing and their 
arms itched considerably. On the fourth day the inflammation 
was evidently subsiding, and on the sixth day it was scarcely 
ceptible. No symptoms of indisposition followed, 



148 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

18. "To convince myself that the variolous matter made use of was 
in a perfect state I at the same time inoculated a patient with some 
of it who never had gone through the cow-pox, and it produced 
the smallpox in the usual regular manner." 

19. These experiments afforded me much satisfaction; they proved 
that the matter, in passing from one human subject to another, 
through five gradations, lost none of its original properties, J. Barge 
being the fifth who received the infection successively from Wil 
liam Summers, the boy to whom it was communicated from the 
cow. . . . 

20. Although I presume it may not be necessary to produce further 
testimony in support of my assertion "that the cow-pox protects 
the human constitution from the infection of the smallpox," yet it 
affords me considerable satisfaction to say that Lord Somerville, 
the President of the Board of Agriculture, to whom this paper was 
shown by Sir Joseph Banks, has found upon inquiry that the state 
ments were confirmed by the concurring testimony of Mr. Dolland, 
a surgeon, who resides in a dairy country remote from this, in 
which these observations were made. . . . 

ANALYSIS 

i. What is the purpose and accomplishment of the first part of this article ( From 

the beginning to "Case I")? 

a. Is the author here reasoning with later evidence in mind or is he proceeding 

from the unknown to the known? 
i. Point out the evidences in the text that indicate Jenner s awareness of the 

scope and the limitations of his subject in each of the "cases * given here. 

a. Why is it essential here that the author place controls on his area of inquiry? 

3. In what ways is this paper similar to "Thirty Dollars a Week"? How do the 
two articles differ? List the points of similarity and the points of difference. 

4. Does it seem to you from the cases given here that Jenner has covered a large 
enough area to get a "cross section" that makes his conclusion valid? 

5. What importance does the last specific experiment explained in the final para 
graphs of the article have on the whole article? 

6. You will notice that this article is dated 1798. 

a. Examine the article and list evidences that you find in the style that seem 
to mark it as having been of an earlier time. 

b. What kinds of words do you find that seem to indicate its age? 
C. What are the dominant sentence patterns? 

d. Read a contemporary scientific account of an experiment and compare the 
methods of writing with those of Jenner. What conclusions do you arrive at 
concerning changes in style? 



PR/MARY SOURCE PAPERS 149 

TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP IN THE SECONDARY 
SCHOOLS OF NEW YORK CITY* 

By Madge M. McKinney 

1. EDUCATORS are justly perturbed that election scandals and ineffi 
ciency in government have not declined with increased educational 
facilities. They are eagerly groping for methods by which higher 
standards of citizenship can be developed. Their points of view 
sometimes diverge; they do not always agree upon what is good 
training or upon what are the best civic attitudes. Their termi 
nology is not always uniform; what one calls patriotism, another 
calls nationalism, but they all seek the same end the development 
of an intelligent, interested, and active citizenry. Many serious ob 
servers believe that until such standards are attained the morale 
of the American government will not be improved. 

2. A knowledge of present conditions is essential to the develop 
ment of new standards. The following article represents a survey 
of the citizenship training in nine of New York City s largest high 
schools. The material was obtained from answers to a question 
naire filled in by three hundred and nine students who had recently 
graduated from these schools, and from statements made by the 
teachers of the social sciences, by the heads of the departments 
of history and civics, by the director of civics, and by the associate 
superintendent in charge of the high schools. Such sources have 
their limitations. The questionnaire was presented to groups of 
college freshmen and sophomores in four institutions of higher 
learning in New York City. They represented a selected group of 
high school graduates; the large number that never attended college 
were not reached. Most of the questions, however, were objective 
in character, and it is doubtful that they would have been answered 
differently by non-college students. 

3. It was intended originally that the survey should cover all of the 
New York City high schools. This undertaking proved to be too 
ambitious, and nine representative schools were selected. They in 
cluded a girls* school, a boys school and a coeducational school 

* From The Social Studies, November, 1934. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers. 



150 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

from each of New York s largest boroughs Manhattan, Brooklyn, 
and the Bronx. Two of them professed to be college preparatory, 
and their students were selected on a scholarship basis; but the 
data obtained from them proved that they were not unlike the 
other schools with regard to civic training. All were academic in 
stitutions; the conclusions are not applicable to industrial schools. 

4. Every effort was made to obtain as accurate information as pos 
sible. The papers of the students who had spent less than three 
years in the high school from which they were graduated were dis 
carded and most of the students whose answers were used had 
spent four years in the same institution. In general, the answers 
checked themselves when thirty-five or forty students from the 
same school answer a factual question in the same way, the chances 
are that their memories serve them well. Where the questions per 
tain to an attitude rather than a fact, the answers are less con 
clusive; but even then group reactions are significant. 

5. The survey can be divided into three fields of inquiry: ( 1 ) Formal 
civic education or classroom work. Most of this information was 
obtained from staff members. (2) The development of nationalism 
outside of the classroom. (3) Political experience obtained in 
school and civic attitudes developed through this experience. 

6. The requirements for graduation from the New York high schools 
include one unit in American history and civics, and an additional 
half unit in civics. 1 The half unit, in community civics, is usually 
given in the first year of high school. The unit in American history 
and civics is generally given in the senior year. The civics in this 
course pertains to our national government and occupies about six 
weeks of the time. This means that in the four years of high school 
training only about thirty classroom hours are set apart for the 
formal study of the problems of the federal government and the 
machinery with which it attempts to solve them. 

7. The textbooks were selected by heads of departments from an 
approved list drawn up by a committee appointed by the associ 
ate superintendent in charge of the high schools. Eight of the 
schools had adopted Rexf ord s Our City New York 2 as a text for 

1 Requirements for Graduation is published in a leaflet issued by the Superin 
tendent of Schools. One unit is five periods per week for one year. 

2 Rexford, Frank A., ed., Our City New York. New York: Allyn & Bacon, 
1924-1930. Dr. Rexford was formerly director of civics in the New York 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 151 

community civics. AH nine of the schools used Muzzy s History of 
the American People 3 for the history course, although some of them 
supplemented it with other texts. There was less uniformity in the 
choice of texts for the course in advanced civics. Magruder s Amer 
ican Government, 4 Woodburn and Moran s The Citizen and the Re 
public, 5 Guitteau s Government and Politics in the United States, 6 
and Mathews Essentials of American Government 7 were variously 
selected by the different schools. One school did not use a text. 

8. A few questions were asked of the students in an effort to dis 
cover what materials, other than textbooks, were used, and what 
special attitudes, interests, and habits were cultivated. In answer 
to the question, Were you required to keep abreast with current 
events in connection with your study of civics and American gov 
ernment? two hundred and fifty-two students said Yes, thirty-two 
said No, twenty-five did not answer. Evidently the majority of 
the classes did spend some time on current events of a civic na 
ture. But where did they get their information? One hundred and 
ninety-three said they subscribed to small current-events papers 
through their school. Classroom bulletin boards were devoted to 
news articles in all the schools, and about one third of the students 
made scrap books of political events. More than half of the students 
said they were tested on this part of the work. These answers in 
dicate that the study of civics was well seasoned with information 
upon current questions, but they do not show how comprehensive 
such information was, nor does it follow that the students were de 
veloping a taste for the longer articles of the popular press. 

9. They were next asked if they were encouraged to read the gov 
ernmental news in the daily papers, and if so to indicate whether 
conservative, liberal, or radical papers were recommended. 

10. The answers to this question are set forth in the following table: 

schools. The first edition of this book was written by high school students. It 
was later revised to conform with the new laws. Civics teachers assisted in the 
revision. 

3 Muzzy, David S., History of the American People. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1927. 

4 Magruder, Frank Abbot, American Government. New York: Allyn & Bacon, 
1927-1932. 

- Woodburn, James Albert and Moran, T. F., The Citizen and the Republic. 
New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1921-1928. 

6 Guitteau, William Backus, Government and Politics in the United States. Bos 
ton: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911-1918. 

7 Mathews, J. M., Essentials of American Government. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1927. 



152 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

TABLE I 
TYPES OF PAPERS THE STUDENTS WERE ENCOURAGED TO READ 



Papers 


Number of 
Mentions 


Papers 


Number of 
Mentions 


Conservative 
Liberal 
Radical 
Conservative and 


52 
21 

Liberal 20 


Liberal and Radical 
All types 
Not encouraged at all* 
No reply 


2 
11 
79 
124 



* These students wrote "No" after all types. 

11. Any interpretation of the answers must take into consideration 
the fact that this question was more subjective than most of those 
included in the questionnaire. The large number that omitted it 
also detracts from its value. Unfortunately it was so framed that 
an omission may have been intended to indicate that the student 
was not encouraged to read any paper probably that was the 
purpose back of some of the omissions. One or two things about 
these answers, however, do seem significant. First, nearly half of 
those who answered it wrote No after all types of papers, or wrote 
sometimes in very large letters Not encouraged at all. Second, 
the type of paper most generally read is interesting. Conservative 
papers lead the list. This may not be so significant as it seems be 
cause of the subjectiveness of the question and because conserva 
tive papers frequently contain more governmental news and are 
therefore more useful in a civics course. That thirty-three students 
said they were encouraged to read more than one type of paper 
indicates that a few teachers are trying to develop the students 
powers of discrimination. The fact that the radical papers were not 
exclusively recommended by any teacher will cause no great sur 
prise among educators but it might be used to contradict the state 
ment occasionally made in the press that New York educational 
institutions encourage radicalism. 

12. In answer to the question, Were controversial questions freely 
discussed in the classroom? the majority of the students in every 
school said they were and that all sides of the questions were pre 
sented. There was, however, more disagreement on this question 
than on most of them, and probably the only conclusion that can 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 153 

be drawn is that the majority of the students questioned were not 
conscious of suppression. 

13. New York students are frequently accused of being provincial. 
Doubtless, students everywhere are inclined to judge the rest of 
the country through the stereotypes of their community, but in 
New York City this tendency is emphasized by the fact that most 
of the teachers are born, raised, and educated within the metro 
politan area. Illustrations of provincialism are plentiful. A gradu 
ate of one of the New York City high schools once said to the 
writer, "How was the eighteenth amendment ever adopted, I have 
never met anyone who believed in it?" Again in 1928 many stu 
dents were sure that Alfred E. Smith would be elected, and, if the 
memories of the graduates are at all reliable, it is still being taught 
in some of the schools that nothing but his religion prevented him 
from becoming President. All other elements that entered into that 
campaign such as Coolidge prosperity, the influence of Tammany 
Hall, and prohibition are given little or no weight in the New 
York stereotype of that election. One question was put into the 
questionnaire to see whether any effort was being made to coun 
teract this tendency. The question was Were you encouraged to 
read the newspapers of other localities? It may not have been a 
fair criterion of the broadening influence that it was designed to 
measure, particularly in a city that has so many excellent news 
papers, and the answers are given without any attempt to evalu 
ate them. One hundred and ninety-eight students answered No, 
fifty-five answered Yes, and fifty-six did not answer. 

14. Still another type of educational activity was investigated. How 
far was the government itself used as a primary source in the 
study of civics? Was its structure and operation a part of the labora 
tory equipment? 

15. All but one of the schools studied had conducted student trips to 
Washington so that those students who could afford to go could 
visit the seat of the Federal government. These trips were care 
fully supervised and could easily be called a part of the formal 
training of those who participated in them. About twelve per 
cent of the students questioned had gone on these trips; probably 
a still smaller percentage of the entire student body had had such 



154 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

an opportunity since those who go to college usually represent 
the more prosperous families. Local trips, more easily afforded, 
might have had a wider influence. These seem to have been neg 
lected. 

TABLE II 
PLACES VISITED IN CONNECTION WITH THE SCHOOL WORK 



Extra 
Places Credit for 
Visiting 


Required 
to 
Visit 


Conducted 
Trip 


Total 
Visits 


City Hall 


11 


38* 


2 


51 


Statue of Liberty 


20 


10* 


12 


42 


Fraunces Tavern 


8 


25* 


6 


39 


Ellis Island 


8* 


9* 


12* 


29 


A Court 


13 


9 


3 


25 


Museum of the City 










of New York 


10 


9* 


5 


24 


Jumel Mansion 


6 


12* 





18 


Museum of the American 










Indian 


7 


7 


3 


17 


Roosevelt House 


6 


5 


5 


16 


Dyckman House 


4 


6 


2 


12 


Van Cortlandt House 


4 


4 





8 


New York Historical 










Society 


2 


5 





7 



* Practically all of these were from the same high school. Note: Seventeen vol 
unteered the information that they were not encouraged to make any such 
visits. 

16. A number of local places of historic and civic interest were listed 
and the students were asked to indicate those they were given extra 
credit for visiting, those they were required to visit, and those to 
which they were conducted by a teacher. The city hall received 
the most visits. Only about one sixth of the students had visited 
it and most of them were from the same school. Approximately one 
eighth of the students had been to Fraunces Tavern, and about 
one seventh had visited the Statue of Liberty in connection with 
their school work. Ellis Island, where it is possible to see a Federal 
agency at work, was visited by less than one tenth of the students 
questioned, and a still smaller percentage had visited the other 
places listed. These numbers seem very small considering the cheap 
and rapid transportation facilities in New York City. 

17. It is only fair to note that at the very time that this material was 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 155 

being collected, Dr. Frank A. Rexford, Director of Education at the 
Museum of the City of New York, was arranging and publishing 
itineraries to many places of historic and civic interest in New York 
City, so that this type of education is now being stimulated, and 
greatly facilitated, by an outside force. 

18. One other question pertained to the method of presenting the 
information concerning the government. This question was: 

Was there any dramatization of the following in your high school? 
A A party caucus 
B A national convention 
c A city council 
D League of Nations Assembly 
E Other governmental bodies 
F A presidential election 

19. According to the answers, the League of Nations Assembly had 
been dramatized in one school. It evidently had made a great im 
pression for nine tenths of the students remembered it. Ten others 
said there had been some dramatization, but their answers were 
so scattered usually one from a school as to make them in 
credible. 

20. A few general conclusions can be drawn from this section of the 
survey. It has been noted that there is considerable liberty in the 
selection of the textbooks. It is significant that three times as many 
hours are spent upon the government of New York City as are given 
to the national government and that only about thirty hours in the 
entire high school curriculum are formally assigned to the latter. 
In spite of the fact that the former director of civics maintained 
that "the city itself is the text and laboratory for the study of Civics 
in the Schools," 8 relatively few of the students who were ques 
tioned in this study had seen the different governmental bodies of 
the city or had visited its historic museums as a part of their formal 
training. Little use was made of newspapers or of other materials 
than textbooks, but with such tools as they had the students were 
given freedom to think as they would, and in most cases to express 
their thoughts. There was little or no evidence that the tools were 
selected for the purpose of developing one particular point of view. 

8 This is quoted from Dr. Rexford in a booklet by Harold G. Campbell, Beyond 
the Classroom^ New York: Herald-Nathan Press, 1930, p. 99. 



156 



THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



21. 



22. 



23. 



TABLE HI 
PICTURES RECALLED BY THE STUDENTS 



Pictures 


Number of 
Mentions 


Pictures 


Number of 
Mentions 


American Pictures 




Foreign Pictures 




Historic scenes* 


128 


Religious pictures 


34 


Presidents portraits 


126 


Famous paintings 


32 


Statesmen s portraits 


29 


Scenic places 


27 


Martha Washington 


25 


Roman scenes 


20 


Government buildings 23 


Authors and orators 


20 


War memorials 


21 


Greek scenes 


17 


American colleges 


20 


Warriors 


12 


American educators 


13 


Cathedrals 


11 


American authors 


11 


Scientists 


7 


Scenic places 


5 


Artists 


6 


American reformers 


1 


Musicians 


3 


American actors 


1 


Others 


24 


Total 


403 


Total 


213 



* Historic scenes included such pictures as WasJiington Crossing the Delaware, 
The Landing of the Pilgrims, The Purchase of Manhattan. 

Much has been written of the nationalistic training in other coun 
tries. We are told that Germany, Italy, and Russia surround their 
youth with national symbols and patriotic ceremonies. An attempt 
was made to find out what influences of this type existed in the 
New York high school training, outside of the classes in history and 



civics. 



The bylaws of the board of education lay the foundation for such 
influences; they require that all teachers either be citizens or have 
made application for citizenship. They also provide that assembly 
periods be held at least once a week which shall include exercises 
of a patriotic nature, a salute to the flag, and the singing of "The 
Star-Spangled Banner." These requirements were generally carried 
out in the schools investigated. Assembly periods were sometimes 
less frequent than the law prescribed but the nature of the exer 
cises followed the spirit of the law. 

Two of the very first questions on the questionnaire were aimed 
at this phase of the student s training. They were: 

What picture do you remember that hung on the walls of either 
the classrooms, the auditorium, or the halls of your high school 
building? 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 157 

What songs do you remember singing most often in (a) the as 
sembly, (b) the music class? 

24. These questions were placed at the beginning so that they would 
be answered before the students were conscious of the nature of 
the study, and the papers were collected too soon for the answers 
to be changed. The response may be judged by the following tabu 
lation of the answers. 

TABLE IV 
SONGS RECALLED BY THE STUDENTS 



In Assembly: In Music Class: 

Songs Numbers of Number of 

Mentions Mentions 

Patriotic Songs 

The Star-Spangled Banner 198 10 

America 56 12 

American Folk Songs 34 74 

America the Beautiful , 28 5 

Others 22 10 

Totals lK8 TIT 

Non-Patriotic Songs 

School Songs** 181 47 

Hymns*** 83 34 

Opera 44 169 

Foreign Folk Songs 24 57 

War Songs 1 18 

Others 48 71 

Totals "381 "396 



* Negro Spirituals and Indian Songs were included in American Folk Son^s. 
* Many school songs were of a patriotic nature, such as "When DC Witt 

Clinton Was Governor of New York." 

* 0<> "God of Our Fathers" was one of the hymns most frequently mentioned; 
many others were semipatriotic. 

25. Almost two thirds of the pictures remembered were distinctly 
American, and seven eighths of the American pictures were defi 
nitely historic or patriotic in character. Nearly half of the mentions 
of songs that the students recalled singing in assembly periods 
had nationalistic themes. If we included in this group the hymns 
and school songs which were semi-patriotic, there would remain 
only sixteen per cent which had no patriotic influences. The spread 
is somewhat different in the music class but even there more than 



158 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

one fifth of the songs remembered were of a patriotic nature. It is 
true that these statements are a little ambiguous; the "number of 
mentions" is not synonymous with the number of songs sung, for 
the same song was recalled by many students. Table III is open 
to the same criticism. It is probable, however, that the songs re 
membered by a large number of students were most frequently 
sung, and that the pictures most often mentioned were hung in the 
most prominent places. In any case the recurrence of the same 
names on many papers indicates that they made a vivid impres 
sion on the students minds. The mentions, therefore, offer a tan 
gible, though a crude way of weighing such influences. 

26. Answers to subsequent questions gave evidence of other nation 
alistic stimuli. The salute to the flag was generally given at assem 
bly meetings. National holidays were usually celebrated with 
patriotic speeches or patriotic music. In two schools, arrangements 
were made so that the students could listen to the President s 
inaugural address over the radio. Armistice Day was observed by 
a few minutes of silence in all the schools. Besides pictures, other 
American symbols adorned the rooms. Two hundred and twelve 
students remembered that American flags were displayed in the 
buildings, twenty-six recalled seeing armor used in American wars, 
and thirteen said other war relics decorated the buildings. Patri 
otic plays or pageants had been given in all the schools. And finally, 
in fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the high 
schools all candidates for graduation had to sign a pledge of loy 
alty to the United States and to the State of New York, unless 
they were excused by the associate superintendent in charge of the 
high schools. As near as the associate superintendent could re 
member only four students had been so excused in the preceding 
six years. One was the son of a British consul; the others were not 
explained. 

27. An attempt was made to find out the extent to which nationalistic 
materials were generally used in the classrooms. It has already 
been indicated that patriotic music was sung during the music 
period. Did other departments use similar material? A list of pa 
triotic speeches, poems, etc., was submitted and the students were 
asked to check once any that they had studied during their high 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 159 

school course and twice any that they had memorized in full or 
in part. Table V shows how they responded. 

28. Since these selections scarcely would have been studied in the 
assembly period, nationalistic material must have been used in the 
classrooms. Some of them must have been studied in connection 
with courses other than history and civics. Other departments 
therefore must be presenting material which tends to produce an 
emotional reaction in the student and helps to develop a nationally 
conscious citizenry. 

TABLE V 
NATIONALISTIC MATERIAL USED IN THE CLASSROOM 



Patriotic Selections 


Studied 

by 


Memorized 
in Full or 
Part by 


Washington s Farewell Address 


153 


15 


Burke s Conciliation Speech 


143 


14 


Lincoln s Gettysburg Address 


130 


118 


The Man Without a Country 


108 


4 


Preamble to the Declaration of 






Independence 


98 


88 


Preamble to the Constitution 


79 


131 


Paul Revere s Ride 


65 


18 


Old Ironsides 


65 


39 


Cooper s The Spy 


50 





Franklin s Autobiography 


49 


1 


Scott s Love of Country 


49 


58 


Barbara Frietchie 


44 


5 


Concord Hymn 


43 


18 


Irving s Life of Washington 


43 


1 


A Perfect Tribute 


35 


5 


Sheridan s Ride 


34 


2 


The Blue and The Grey 


27 


8 



29. One question more objective in character was included. The stu 
dents were asked how many stanzas they could repeat of a number 
of patriotic songs. Their answers make one skeptical of the effec 
tiveness of this type of training. Over three fourths of them thought 
they knew the words of one or more stanzas of the first three songs 
on the list, but it seemed rather surprising that less than half of 
them said they could repeat as many as two stanzas of The Star- 



160 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Spangled Banner. Even this cannot be attributed entirely to school 
training, since these songs are often heard at church, club or 
theatre. 

30. One question was directed at these outside influences. It was 
What patriotic motion picture shows have you seen in the last year? 
A total of three hundred forty-one visits to such plays was reported. 
The picture Abraham Lincoln led the list with ninety-six visits; 
All Quiet on the Western Front came next with fifty-two visits. 
Eighteen students said they had been given time out of school to 
see such pictures. Strictly speaking, the question is relevant to this 
study in their case only. The popularity of these plays, however, 
does point to one more nationalistic influence, and it suggests an 
interest in historic and patriotic things that may have been awak 
ened in the school room. 

31. One other patriotic influence is the Junior Red Cross. There is 
a branch of this society in each of the schools. Its chief function 
seems to be to raise money to help handicapped children receive 
an education. Its nationalistic influence lies in its affiliation with 
the National Red Cross whose patriotic purposes and traditions 
are common knowledge. This organization cannot have a great in 
fluence in the schools, for very few of the students questioned were 
cognizant of its existence. 

32. Lack of space eliminated from the study other nationalistic in 
fluences, among them being the very names of the schools, most 
of which are those of presidents, governors or other statesmen. 
There are also influences which might prove to be nationalistic 
if they were analyzed; among these are the student publications, 
particularly those sponsored by the history departments. An analy 
sis of these sheets, however, would take considerable time, and 
without such an analysis no conclusions can be drawn. 

33. In summary it can be said that New York City does not trust its 
youth to the influence of foreign teachers, that it surrounds them 
with nationalistic symbols and pictures in the school buildings, 
that nationalistic songs are sung and patriotic rites are performed 
in assembly meetings, that patriotic literature is frequently used 
in the classroom, and patriotic plays are presented by various school 
organizations, and finally that the students are required to sign a 
pledge of allegiance before graduation. Thus from matriculation 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 161 

until graduation the student is under the influence of stimuli that 
are intended to arouse a loyalty to his country. 

TABLE VI 
PATRIOTIC SONGS MEMORIZED BY THE STUDENTS 



NUMBER OF STANZAS THEY CC3UIJ) REPEAT Number of 

One or Two or Three or Students not 
None More More More Answering 



The Star-Spangled Banner 2 


284 


131 


66 


23 


America 3 


262 


166 


71 


53 


America, The Beautiful 9 


236 


139 


62 


64 


The Battle Hymn of the 










Republic 24 


142 


62 


29 


143 


Kipling s Recessional 63 


27 


16 


7 


219 


Hail Columbia 29 


130 


26 


19 


150 


John Brown s Body 49 


38 


18 


10 


222 



ANALYSIS 

1. Study the approach to the problem that this article handles. Be able to explain 
clearly how this article differs from those in the section on Secondary Source 
Papers. 

2. What limitations are placed here on the field of inquiry covered? Why is such 
limitation necessary? What is its significance? 

3. Explain the main technique used in this paper to gather the materials that lead 
to the conclusion. Are there any evidences that the conclusion is in any way 
anticipated before the results of the survey are known? 

4. Make a careful study of the kinds of questions asked in the survey and be able 
to explain the nature and function of each. Are any questions asked that require 
more than a brief, easily tabulated answer? Why not? 

5. Study the statistical tables and comment on the significance of such a device 
for clarifying material of this nature. 

6. a. Explain the technique used to generalize and comment on the results of the 
survey. 

b. Are comments placed in a single division or do they follow each parallel 
grouping of the questions? 

c. What significance does the order used have on the clarity and validity of 
this as a primary source paper? 



162 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

SHARECROPPERS OF THE SEA* 
By Bertram B. Fowler 

THERE are a hundred places like the cove in Frenchman s Bay 
where George Bradley has his shack. Some of them are better, 
some worse. The coast is dotted with shacks like George s. Some 
of them, also, are better. And some are worse. The coves and the 
shacks along the strip of coast from Portland to the Canadian 
border represent a new problem. Or, perhaps I should say, the 
sign of a trend. Something has happened to Maine, just as it has 
happened to the farmers of the Middle West. It is the appearance 
of the same evil that has blighted the whole of the South. Tenancy 
has come to replace ownership. It is there, showing the same face 
of ugliness along the Maine coast that one finds in the sharecrop 
pers shacks from Arkansas through the South and East to the 
coastal plain and the sea. 

Let us study more closely the case of George Bradley who lives 
in the cove on Frenchman s Bay. His shack faces the massive bulk 
of Cadillac Mountain and Bar Harbor. He can see the yachts of 
the summer people lifting white wings against the sharp blue of 
the sky. The nearer view isn t so impressive. Waist-deep in the 
tide wash stands an old canning factory. It is several hundred 
yards out from the rocky shore, out where there was sufficient 
depth of water for boats to pull alongside and unload their fish. 

The boats have vanished now. The pier that connected the can 
nery with the shore has rotted away. Here and there a pile leans 
disconsolately, a perch for the scavenging sea gulls. The cannery, 
with its blank windows staring out of the still substantial brick 
walls, stands as a monument to a day that has passed, to a pros 
perity that to George has become like a half-forgotten legend. 

There are thousands of such monuments along the coast. There 
are the wharves, sagging, season by season slipping into the water. 
There are the funereal heaps of lobster pots rotting in the fog and 
bleaching in the sun. There are the fish-drying racks the wreck- 

* From Scribners Magazine, May, 1937. Copyright, 1937, by Bertram B. 
Fowler. Reprinted by permission of the author. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 163 

age of some of them are still there reminders of a day when the 
fishing communities along the Maine coast were communities of 
owners, the prosperous symbols of a democracy that was authentic 
and apparent. 

5. Look at George s shack and you are looking at a segment of a 
pattern that is appearing. The shack is unpainted, unlovely, stand 
ing on high piles just above the high-water line. It has two rooms 
kitchen and bedroom. There are seven in the Bradley family five 
children, George, and his wife. In the two rooms there are no com 
forts or conveniences, only a squalor that is deadening and de 
pressing. 

6. Perhaps, in some of the blighted areas of Alabama or Kentucky 
or Arkansas, George s shack would not rate more than passing 
comment. But this is Maine! And when Americans think of Maine 
they are conscious of a sensation of something like smugness. Maine 
is so sound, so stable. Its people are sturdy, self-reliant, self-respect 
ing. Which was true once. 

7. Americans by the thousands whir through Maine on their wheels 
of air and rubber. The change has taken place beneath their eyes 
without their understanding what has happened. They see for the 
most part the great midway of the filling stations, the tourist homes, 
the We Take You Inns, the clusters of roadside cabins with such 
esthetic titles as "Maine Idyll." These people usually miss the 
shacks of the George Bradleys. The coves they visit are studded 
with summer cottages, hotels, and inns. If they do see the shacks, 
they fail to notice and understand the trend of which they are 
symbols. 

8. The reason is there, in the piled-up lobster pots, in the unpainted 
boats careened on the beaches. It is written in the smudge of 
smoke that the beam trawler traces across the blue of the sky off 
Bar Harbor. The shacks, the rotting wharves, the disintegrating 
fishing gear and lobster pots all these are effects. Cause and ef 
fect pass unnoticed by the summer visitors. To them the grayness 
of the shacks, the fantastic angles taken on by falling wharves are 
picturesque. The tragedy is softened by the esthetic shades with 
which sun and wind and rain paint their damage. 

9. Mass production in fishing, the centralization of ownership and 



164 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

control of the industry, the depredations worked by unsound meth 
ods of fishing, the disappearance, one by one, of the fish by which 
they live these constitute the cause of the change. 

10. Let us look more closely at George Bradley s case. He did not 
always live in a shack on the rim of the cove. There was a time 
when he reaped an abundant harvest from the sea. In a lobster 
season he has made as high as fifty dollars a day. He has made 
twenty dollars a day hand trawling. He has seen the season when 
he and his neighbors cleared thousands of dollars on the herring 
catch. Such figures speak of prosperity. But they shrink a little 
when one stops to figure the hazards of the trade. There are days 
when no boats can go out. There are lobster traps lost in storms. 
There is the wreckage of trawl gear during the season. There is 
the upkeep of boats and motors. 

11. George has always kept the accounts of his fishing. His books 
showed the results of three months lobster fishing this spring. For 
the three months he averaged twenty-three cents a day above ex 
penses. Here are the figures that can be duplicated a thousand times 
along the coast, the figures that show the swift and relentless extinc 
tion of the lobster, the harvest upon which five thousand families 
along the Maine coast depend. Here George s economic problem is 
linked directly to the tragedy of waste that is wiping out one more 
of the national resources. 

12. This spring George, like hundreds of others, turned his back on 
lobster fishing. He admitted, after years in which his catch had 
fallen off steadily, that as a livelihood, lobster fishing was finished. 

13. He started trawling. He got up at three in the morning to start 
in his motor boat for the fishing grounds. He set his two or three 
miles of hook-festooned line and fished for hake. Once it had been 
haddock. But now market catches of haddock by the individual 
fishermen are part of the past. In the past, hake was a despised 
fish, with practically no market value. The inexorable urge of cir 
cumstances forced the markets to sell hake to the consumers, 
even as it had been forced years earlier to popularize the then- 
despised haddock. 

14. Having set his two or three miles of trawl, George waited an 
hour, then hauled the interminable length of line back into his 
boat. An average day s catch was a thousand pounds. He freighted 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 165 

that to the buyer at the fish stand in a neighboring cove and got 
forty cents a hundred for his fish. With his four dollars he went 
home, paid a dollar for the gasoline he had used, a dollar and 
a half for bait for the next day. There were other incidentals, lu 
bricating oil, motor repairs, fishing gear all to come out of the 
four dollars. The result is there for all to see in the shack on the 
rim of the cove, in George s boat that will one day be unfit to 
venture to sea in. It is tragically apparent in George s children, 
who get an insufficiency of milk and eggs. George himself shows 
the result. He works too long hours, suffers from exposure on an 
unbalanced diet, too much fish, not enough of meat and proteins. 

15. Leave the cove in which George lives and go along the coast. 
The problem will be before you as you go. It is there, the hope 
lessness that in some instances is degenerating into shiftlessness 
and chronic despair. For, in all the blighted sections of America, 
the pattern is uniform. First, poverty, destroying self-respect and 
courage. Later, hopelessness, bitter and enervating. The last stage 
is the stage of shiftlessness, the abandonment of hope, a supine 
willingness to accept relief, to lie down when standing upright 
becomes impossible. 

16. In one town I walked on the beach and found a fisherman calk 
ing the widening seams of an upturned boat. I asked him if he were 
getting ready to go fishing. He looked at me and laughed. 

17. "What s the use of goin fishin?" he said, "I fished for three 
weeks this spring. At the end of three weeks I was just four dollars 
deeper in debt than I had been when I started. What s the use?" 

18. I decided to follow the question through. I decided to try to find 
out what had happened to this community. The blight was appar 
ent. It screamed at me from the unpainted houses, the slovenly 
streets, the dour suspicion with which the inhabitants looked at the 
stranger who asked questions. 

19. I talked to a local fish dealer. He sold the fishermen their boats, 
gear, gasoline, and oil. He bought their fish when they came back 
from fishing. He stared sourly out of his window onto the bay. There 
were three wharves immediately below us. All three were sagging, 
falling into the tide. 

20. "The fishermen are no good!" he said bitterly. "They don t want 
to work. They re shiftless! They re lazy. They d rather live on relief 



166 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

than make an honest living fishing." He said a lot more things about 
the fishermen, none of them complimentary. 

21. "There was a time," he went on, "when you could get them to 
fish. But not now!" He turned away from the window. "Me, I m 
through. I ve made a little money in thirty years of hard work. I m 
going to retire. I m going to get out of it." He brightened while he 
said it. He looked like a man who saw an escape from some sort of 
a nightmare. 

22. I inquired further. I found a merchant who leaned over his dusty 
counter and gave another angle of the problem. He told me about 
the fish dealer. That man owned more than fifty per cent of the 
boats that fished out of the harbor. The fisherman who sold his fish 
to any one but that particular dealer lost his boat. He had to 
sell to the one market at the price offered. The fishermen had thus 
become sharecroppers of the sea. They worked on the owners terms 
or sat in rebellious idleness. 

23. Up on the hill I found the minister, but he couldn t tell me any 
thing. He was new to the community a weary old man who had 
not even been accorded the housewarming customary in the Maine 
of old. Perhaps his treatment was not indicative, but the sagging 
wharves were. And so was the careened boat on the beach. 

24. I traveled along the coast and stopped again. There was a fisher 
man to whom I talked. A baby played in the yard. It was a barren 
yard, devoid of flowers or any touch of an owner s pride. The wife 
came to the door and looked at me with a dull boredom that was 
freighted with the same tragedy that I had seen in the old minister s 
eyes. 

25. "I went out today/ the fisherman told me. "I went out at four 
o clock. I got back at noon. After I got my fish unloaded and my 
trawl baited it was nigh night. I just figured out the day. I made 
just fifty cents over and above bait, gas, and oil. Sure, I ll go out 
tomorrow. Perhaps the catch will be bigger. Perhaps prices will be 
a little better. But I doubt it." 

26. What he said, and his manner of saying it, echoed the cry that is 
so commonly heard along the coast. "Tomorrow, maybe. But I doubt 
it." It is a sort of universal monotone, the accents of hopelessness. 

27. The cause is there on the surface for all to see. There had been an 
era in which these people had been owners of an industry. They 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 167 

caught their fish and brought them to a port where the people 
owned their own units of processing. They split their fish, salted and 
dried them. When they sold they sold a partially finished product. 

28. Then came the change that the modernization of marketing meth 
ods has worked. Iced or frozen fillets began to replace the salt fish. 
The local fish dealers began to buy fish direct from the boats as the 
fishermen came in. The local dealer sold to another dealer in Port 
land, who in turn sold to a dealer in Boston, who sold again to the 
retail outlets. All had to have a profit. Retail prices remained prac 
tically unchanged. Therefore, prices to the fishermen dropped lower 
and lower, until they were swallowed by production costs and pov 
erty swept a whole section of the population into its embrace. The 
fishermen were carrying on their backs a vicious system of distri 
bution. 

29. Prices have not borne any relation to the abundance of the sup 
ply. The lobster dinner at hotel or restaurant, for example, has been 
priced the same for nearly twenty years. Yet, twenty years ago the 
fishermen caught many times the weight of lobsters per trap as he 
does today. He gets practically the same price per pound for his 
twenty-pound catch today as he did for his one hundred-pound 
catch ten years ago. 

3.0. With the change in the marketing methods of fish other than lob 
sters there appeared a new technique in fishing, or rather a modern 
ization of an old technique. The beam trawler appeared on the 
fisherman s horizon and began a system of fishing that today threat 
ens to deplete the fishing grounds and do for some of our most val 
uable food fish what an earlier generation did for the passenger pi 
geon, the heath hen, and the buffalo. The modern, high-powered 
beam trawler drags its net across the bottom, taking whatever is be 
fore it. It kills the young fish by the countless millions. It drags its 
way across the spawning grounds and destroys millions of pounds 
of fish that should be the catch of years to come. It is mass produc 
tion in the fishing industry, giving the consumer the immediate ben 
efit of low prices and quantity production. But, unrestrained by 
laws or regulations, it is wiping out the existing supply of fish. And 
as the fish go, so goes the coast of Maine. 

31. Not all the villages have been ruined by marketing methods or 
the beam trawlers. There are other causes of the prevalent poverty. 



168 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

In out-of-the-way corners of the coast you can find the disconsolate 
clusters of houses slipping into ruin. These are the deserted villages, 
the communities where the inhabitants gave up the unequal strug 
gle and went south to the factory towns. 

32. I found two or three such villages at the mouth of the Kennebec. 
The streets were grass-grown lanes. In front of the villages the surf 
growled on the rocks, and the gulls screamed over the desolation. I 
found an old native and talked to him about what had happened 
here. When I asked him why, he swung his arm toward the river 
and said, "Shad!" 

33. In this particular section every one looked to the spring and the 
annual shad run. The people made most of their livings on their 
tiny farms. The shad came in the spring as a cash crop. Before them 
came the smelts, another cash crop. Now, with the river polluted by 
industrial plants, the shad have vanished. The smelts come, but in 
decreasing numbers. So the villages stand deserted. 

34. The old native I talked with was making hay. He needed help 
and couldn t get any. Some of the unemployed were working on the 
roads under WPA. These fellows didn t care about leaving relief to 
take such a seasonal job as haying. It was too hard to get back on 
relief again. To some of the others haying was too strenuous. But 
that wasn t all the native told me. He was above the average level 
of intelligence. He knew what was happening to the section of the 
country in which he had lived his life. He had thought things 
through. "Even if I could get one of those fishermen, I d have to 
feed him up for three weeks before he d be of any use to me." 

35. This man knew the havoc that unbalanced diets had worked 
among the fishermen. Others do not, and snort derisively about 
shiftlessness and laziness. But the native is right. A whole section of 
the population does not change without cause. There is a reason for 
shiftlessness and inability in Maine, as in any other section of the 
country. 

36. In Maine the trend is clear and well-defined. The rulers of dis 
tribution fit into the picture with the plantation owner of the South, 
with the absentee owner of the Middle West. The pattern is the na 
tional pattern of tenancy. When the primary producer loses owner 
ship, he becomes a sharecropper. In the West and South it is owner- 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 169 

ship of the land that has been lost. In Maine it is ownership of the 
units of individual production, the boats and fishing gear. 

37. In Maine you will find the remnants of what was once an authen 
tic democracy. The town halls are still there, those institutions that 
were so essentially the symbols of democracy. In these town halls 
the citizens gathered to take an active part in the government of 
their social, political, and economic affairs. To my mind, they voted 
intelligently because they voted as property owners, as men in 
whom the interest of the community was vested. They constituted 
the economic foundation which governs the political setup which 
seems fundamentally sound. The owners of the wealth of a nation 
should, in my opinion, control the political destinies of the nation. 

38. Ownership is vanishing along the Maine coast. Therefore, the 
dereliction of old political beliefs. Ownership has gone, and with it 
the self-reliance and responsibility which accompanied it. There 
fore the following of strange banners, the flocking of the old people 
to the standard of the Townsendites. When ownership vanishes, de 
mocracy disappears. 

39. The slide from ownership to tenancy in Maine has been accom 
panied step by step by the disintegration of a section of the popu 
lation. The route of the march from democracy during the past few 
decades is so clearly defined as to allow of no doubt as to the cause. 
The wharves have rotted and fallen into the water, the houses have 
degenerated into shacks, the fish houses and the drying racks have 
tumbled down in exactly the same ratio to the inexorable down 
ward trend of the morale of the people and the decadence of the 
communities. 

40. To the east of Maine lies Nova Scotia, where on a section of the 
coast the same situation existed for years. There St. Francis Xavier 
University carried out a plan of education and action and began to 
salvage the villages. In Nova Scotia, cooperation has proven the 
truth of the theory of democracy. The renaissance of the Nova Sco- 
tian fishing villages has paralleled exactly the return of ownership 
to the people of the communities. 

41. There, the people began to own cooperatively those things which 
a system of modern distribution had made impossible of ownership 
individually. Cooperatively, the people in the Nova Scotian villages 



170 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

began to unite to win back ownership. United, they were invincible. 
They have proved this by remaking a whole section of the coast. 
42. One way or another Maine must do it also. Otherwise, it will con 
tinue to slip until it is just another blighted area, its people chron 
ically hopeless and inherently shiftless. It will slip until Washington 
finds itself facing another area of the nation where a costly scheme 
of resettlement has become vitally necessary. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Study the first paragraph closely. Since the author is concerned with a whole 
region, why does he give the reader the impression at the beginning that he is 
especially concerned with George Bradley and Frenchman s Cove? 

a. How do you characterize this technique? 

b. Does the first paragraph tell us plainly what the article as a whole is about? 

2. a. Does the author really begin to look at George Bradley s case in Para 
graph 2? If not, where does he begin? 

b. Is he merely making concrete references when his eye is on the generality 
all the time here? 

3. What do Paragraphs 6 and 7 add? Could they be left out easily? 

4. Note the insertion of the first attempt to explain the causes for the conditions, 
in Paragraphs 8 and 9. 

5. This is a research study that takes the author into die field to gather material. 

a. How much does he tell us of his movements up and down the Maine coast. 

b. Are we satisfied that he has done all that he should have done? 

c. What are the natural limits of his problem? 

6. a. Where does the study of George Bradley s case end? Why has he looked in 
detail at this one case? 

b. If he had so wanted, could the author have used as well other cases from 
among those he has mentioned? The minister s? The fish dealer s? 

c. Determine what new material the author has gained from each new inter 
view that he reports. 

7. a. Are there any areas in the field of the author s inquiry that are not touched 
in the article? 

b. How does their omission affect the conclusions reached here, if at all? 

8. Note the search for causes again in Paragraphs 27-35. The causal pattern of 
reasoning deserves careful study here. 

9. What is the author doing in Paragraphs 36-39? 

10. Note the comparison with Nova Scotia in Paragraph 40. This is both a. rhetor 
ical and a logical device. Study it. 

11. Does the author propose any solutions that lie beyond the immediate area cov 
ered by his data? What are they? 

12. Note the use of concrete details in the development of Paragraph 7. 

13. Are there any evidences of bias on the part of the author? Point them out and 
explain what they do to the effectiveness and validity of the article as a whole. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 171 

YARNING IN THE EIGHTEEN FIFTIES* 
By Paul Fatout 

The sobbing and sighing is endless. Everybody . . . goes about with 
an enormous sorrow at his heart. 1 

1. When Edgar Allan Poe died in 1849 the stimulus he had brewed 
for American writers died with him. His famous 1842 review of 
Twice-Told Tales, memorable because of its original rules for a new 
genre, the short story, was ignored by his contemporaries. Exerting 
little or no influence during his own time by virtue either of criti 
cism or example, he remained a literary pariah. And after his death 
his life served only as a horrible example for Puritans of polite let 
ters to shudder over. Today, more than eighty years after, time flips 
a gesture of derision at the shades of Poe s detractors. His reputa 
tion, boomerangecl from Europe with the tag of foreign approval 
dear to all good patriots, has grown to a luxuriance tropic enough 
to make him a twentieth century candidate for psychological dis 
section. Fame has reached its apogee. 

2. In the decade following his death, however, Poe was forgotten as 
completely as if he had never lived. These ten years were low tide 
in American letters. The ebb left rank malarial flats breathing a mi 
asma poisonous with affectation and sentimentality. The air was 
loaded with the very germs Poe tried vainly to destroy. Save Haw 
thorne no writer of tales survived the epidemic. To be sure there 
was the brief glory of Fitz-James O Brien but even he, despite the 
valiant aid of an edition of his stories as late as 1925, 2 is almost lost 
in undisturbed dust that mercifully covers forgotten years. There 
are no high points in the fifties. The now dusty landscape was sub 
merged then in a deluge of feminine fiction that flowed to low tide 
in rivers of sticky complacency and floods of enervating tears. As 
Hawthorne testily wrote to Ticknor in 1855: 

America is now wholly given over to a d d mob of scribbling 

women. I should have no chance of success while the public taste is oc- 

* From the American Scholar, Summer, 1934. Reprinted by permission of 
publishers and the author. 

1 Review of Fashion and Famine by Ann S. Stephens. Putnam s. Vol. 4. August, 
1854. pp. 218-19. 

2 Collected Stones by Fitz-James O Brien. Edited by Edward J. O Brien. 1925. 



172 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

cupied with their trash and should be ashamed of myself if I did suc 
ceed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of The Lamp 
lighter, and other books neither better nor worse worse they could not 
be and better they need not be when they sell by the hundred thousand. 3 

3. The success of Harriet Beecher Stowe s Uncle Toms Cabin in 
1852 when one hundred thousand copies were sold in eight weeks 
probably induced many a woman to attempt a novel. Sara Willis 
Parton s first book, Ruth Hall, sold fifty thousand copies in eight 
weeks in 1854. Maria Cummins, author of the lachrymose Lamp 
lighter, "one of the best and purest of its class that has emanated 
from an American mind," 4 Susan Warner who wrote The Wide 
Wide World, very popular throughout the fifties, the polynomic Mrs. 
E.D.E.N. Southworth; and others of their kind must have been glit 
tering examples spurring on platoons of hopeful aspirants. Their ef 
forts so littered the literary scene that even editors, like Hawthorne, 
sometimes viewed them with alarm. A reviewer in Putnam s com 
ments a little fearfully: 

A most alarming avalanche of female authors has been pouring upon 
us the past three months, nearly all of whom are new. 5 

Knickerbocker s is more irritable and brutal: 

We now have women-poets, women-sentimentalists, women-statesmen, 
women-historians, women-preachers, and women-doctors, ct id omne 
genus, and the cry is, "still they come." 

The North American Review, fondly reproachful, waves a chiding 
finger: 

It is apparent to any one who will take the trouble to look over the 
books which make up the burden of a bookseller s counter, that it has 
become a wonderfully common piece of temerity for a lady to make a 
book. . . . We trust the appetite for book-making notoriety is not so 
alarmingly on the increase among our fair friends as from the mere num 
ber of names we might forbode. 7 

4. The fair friends, however, deterred by no such mild reproofs, kept 
right on industriously spreading purple ink. Indeed, women s mania 

8 Letters of Hawthorne to William D. Ticknor 1851-1864. Vol. I, p. 75. 1910. 
4 Godey s Lady s Book. July, 1854. p. 84. 
e Putnam s Vol. 4, July, 1854. p. 110. 

6 Knickerbockers Magazine. Vol. 45, May, 1855. p. 525. 

7 North American Review. Vol. 72, January, 1851. pp. 151-153. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 173 

for bursting into print became of itself something to make stories 
about. 

Isabel Bernard [we learn] was young and an authoress . . . [she] 
could support herself comfortably and look forward to a future that con 
tained the greatest of worldly blessings plenty of well-paid appre 
ciated work. 8 

And Fitz-James O Brien broadly satirized the hysteria by making 
the heroine of Sister Anne a young country girl who goes to New 
York, gets a job on the Weekly Gong, writes sketches entitled 
Lichens, attends literary soirees, and in six months is ready to 
publish a book. For Sister Anne writing is as effortless as breathing. 
An astonished editor says to her: 

"You the author of those charming poems that have appeared from 
time to time in the Aloe? Why it s impossible. You can t be more than 
fourteen/ 

"I m fifteen," answered Sister Anne, ". . . here are ten more poems/ 9 

5. The results of all the frantic turmoil in crinoline were dull, prig 
gish, fearfully soppy books that sold literally "by the hundred thou 
sand" to a reading public, made up almost entirely of women, who 
must have been psychologically similar to tabloid addicts and of the 
same mental age as movie audiences. Novel reading, heretofore re 
garded as frivolous, even morally suspect, became respectable. The 
genteel went in for it provided always the novels were the right 
sort. What the right sort was may readily be learned from the fol 
lowing opinion of the North American Review: 

The popularity of a pure and practically useful style of fiction, recom 
mending itself to the moral sense as well as the sympathetic passions of 
the story-loving public, shows that the standard to which all beneath 
must strive to conform, is continually rising. It is encouraging to reflect 
that the obscene wit and vulgar scenes of the old romances and dramas 
would not now be tolerated in the lowest and least pure of the tales now 
so cheaply offered to the public, and so eagerly read. In many of the very 
humblest of these a good aim is apparent, and even the affectation of a 
moral purpose shows that the public taste demands it. 10 

* "Isabel Bernard s Lesson." Harpers. Vol. XIX, No. CXI, August, 1859. p. 

363. 

"Sister Anne/ Harpers. Vol. XII, No. LXVII, December, 1855. p. 94. 
10 "Female Authors," North American Review. Vol. 72, lanuary, 1851. pp. 
156-7. 



174 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

6. These righteous principles, applied by reviewers to the particular 
yarns that came to them, infect criticism of the eighteen fifties with 
an air of complete falseness. For one thing critics, dazzled by the 
pure white radiance of fragile womanhood, abrogate whatever criti 
cal standards they may possess and approach the shrine with fatuous 
chivalry intent upon praise at whatever cost to art. Thus : 

Minerva s helmet and sword are a joke, and her shield is only useful to 
lean upon. Her fair face softens all manly hearts. He who should put her 
arms to the proof, even in a just cause, would cut but a sorry figure. Who 
ever it may be that she may have broken her lance upon, he can but 
shrug his shoulders, and leave her in possession of the field. 11 

... a charming book by a charming authoress. Gaze on the likeness 
of the fair writer and you see "Living and Loving" written in the sweet, 
happy face, and beaming from the deep, lustrous eye. 12 

The anonymous author (of Busy Moments of an Idle Woman) is a 
lady who writes with the customary grace and facility of expression which 
belong to her sex. 13 

7. Strange words these to the ear of the nineteen thirties! But 
stranger still are the book reviews. Among fulsome notices about 
sad sugary essays prettily entitled Rural Hours or Broken Blossoms 
or Gems by the Wayside or Gathered Lilies., among pious observa 
tions entombed in Summer Gleanings, Stray Meditations, Voices of 
the Heart, and many more by regiments of forgotten divines, one 
comes upon exhibits like the following culled from early issues of 
the blue-blooded Atlantic Monthly: 

Twin Roses: a Narrative, by Anna Cora Ritchie . . . the sentiment of 
the book is so pure, fresh and artless, its moral tone so high, its style so 
rich and melodious, and its purpose so charitable and good, that the 
reader is kept in pleasant attention to the end, and lays it down with 
regret. 14 

Vernon Grove: or Hearts as They Are. ... It is an interesting story, 
of marked, but not improbable incidents, involving a few well-distin 
guished characters, who fall into situations to display which requires a 
nice analysis of the mind and heart, developed and graceful and flowing 
narrative, enlivened by natural and spirited conversations. The atmos 
phere of the book is one of refined taste and high culture. . . . The peo- 

11 "Female Authors/ North American Review. Vol. 72, January, 1851. p. 163. 

12 Review of Living and Loving by Virginia F. Townsend, Godey s Lady s Book. 
February, 1858. p. 187. 

!3 Putnam s. Vol. Ill, January, 1854. p. 109. 

14 Atlantic Monthly. Vol. I, No. VII. May, 1858. p. 892. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 175 

pie in it, with scarce an exception, are people who mean to be good, 
and who are handsome, polite, accomplished and rich ... it is a book 
marked by a high tone of moral and religious as well as artistic and 
esthetic culture ... it embodies many worthy lessons for the mind and 
heart. 15 

The allegedly intellectual North American Review, commenting 
upon the novels of E. P. Roe, joins the aseptic parade: 

. . . his stories have the very purest and loftiest aim, and indicate an 
author mildly conservative, rigidly conscientious, and sincerely devout. 
In fine, Mr. Roe has . . . moral characteristics which would make us 
thankful to have their circulation definitely increased. 16 

A stray note in Putnam s, while expressing the regulation "senti 
ments/ carries with it a neat backhanded slap that damns at one 
stroke the myriad of slipshod sentences that passed over editors 
desks in those sanctified and dreadful days: 

Ida Norman . . . Mrs. Phelps novel ... in addition to the purity 
of its motives . . . has the not trifling merit of being grammatically 
written. 17 

Another succinct note, unearthed from The Ladies Repository, is a 
summary pair of tongs consigning the defiling book to the everlast 
ing bonfire: 

Trumps. A Novel. By G. W. Curtis. Having read "Trumps" on the 
title-page, we went no further. 18 

Finally, Erasers presents a wistaria festoon of sweet thoughts: 

[Light and Shade] may be said to be a religious novel in its spirit, 
which is sweet and full of goodness. . . . The moral and religious tone 
of the story is at once earnest and unobtrusive . . . (it is) pure in 
sentiment, simple and touching in expression, and sound in principle. 19 

8. The foregoing review, in a synopsis of the story, makes plain the 
kind of human misbehavior that made dramatic conflicts in the 
eighteen fifties. The exposition is worth a short digression: 

Ibid. Vol. Ill, No. XV. January, 1859. p. 133. 

is North American Review. Vol. 85. July, 1857. p. 272. 

17 Putnarns. Vol. 4. November, 1854. p. 565. 

18 Ladies Repository devoted to Literature and Religion. Vol. XXI, No. 5. 
May, 1861. p. 315. 

Frasers Magazine. Vol. 47. April, 1853. p. 465. 



176 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Angel Moore [the heroine] . . . gay, young, and charming . . . good 
and kind ... is tempted on a visit to the country house of some fash 
ionable relations, where, surrounded by a crowd of idle admirers, she is 
drawn into a round of private theatricals and frivolous excesses of all 
kinds, including amongst the rest sundry amusements which her severer 
friends regard as a desecration of the Sabbath. 20 

And so on. Her rigidly upright suitor, Templeton, gives her up as a 
lost soul, but she reforms in time for a happy ending. 
9. Criticism in the eighteen fifties was made of just such fantastic 
stuff which is representative of "Literary Notices" fogged with con 
siderations "pure/* "refined/ "elevated," "religious," "good," and 
"moral." They are as musty as the cobwebby old volumes that con 
tain them. Could our ancestors really have been the suffocating 
bores they make themselves out? Whatever they were, in print, at 
least, a virulent piety ruled. Philistines held the field and the intel 
ligentsia had no shock troops. The literary giant of the day, despite 
feverish efforts of authoresses to usurp his place, was N. P. Willis, 
"a poet, a humorist, a man of taste, culture, and travel, and withal 
possessed of many prominent and piquant idiosyncrasies." 21 He 
wrote Hurry Graphs, Dashes at Life With a Free Pencil, The Rag- 
Bag, Fun Jottings, and other profundities, and was praised out of 
all reason. Verbal skyrocketings in his honor were as gaudy as dust 
cover blurbs. Harpers maintained: 

No writer has so unvariedly and so entirely won the admiration of 
readers of the most refined sentiment and daintiest fancy. . . . He is 
essentially the man of genius. 22 

. . . even the dusty roadside grows delightful under Willis s blossom- 
dropping pen, and when we come to the mountain and lake, it is like 
reveling in all the fragrant odors of Paradise. 23 

10. Another prominent ornament of the times was Ik Marvel who 
wrote Fudge Doings and the languishing Reveries of a Bachelor. He 
too entranced swarms of myopic adherents who credited him with 
opening "a new vein of gold in the literature of his country," "al 
most Shakespearian fidelity to nature," and "the most beautiful rev 
elations that can be drawn from the depths of a rich experience." 24 

20 Ibid. 

21 North American Review. Vol. 89. July, 1859. p. 274. 

22 Harpers. Vol. XVI, No. XCII. January, 1858. p. 166. 
a* Ibid. Vol. Ill, No. XIII. June, 1851. p. 140. 

24 Ibid. Vol. II, No. IX. January, 1851. p. 281. 



PR/MARY SOURCE PAPERS 177 

George William Curtis crashed into favor with innocuous stories 
and drowsy ramblings in the Dream Life manner. In view of these 
concepts it is not surprising that the times were fruitful for the 
Fanny Ferns, the Grace Greenwoods, the Fanny Forresters, the 
Minnie Myrtles, and other feminine flora who did not assume vege 
table pseudonyms but nevertheless vegetated. 

11. Though busily writing novels they found time, alas, to dash off 
short stories for magazines which by mid-century had sprung to life 
all over the country. A few editors, like those of Graham s and Fras- 
er s, seemed honestly bent on raising literary standards; more, like 
Mr. Godey, forswore standards in favor of quantity production for 
the benefit of the undiscriminating. Popular magazines were pub- 
lished by the dozen in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Even 
outlandish Chicago had thirteen and the Ohio valley strenuously as 
serted its literacy with ninety different publications. 25 Sprouting 
primly as "Monthlies," "Journals," or topheavy under titles like Mir 
ror and Ladies 9 Parterre and Ladies Repository and Gatherings of 
the West they flourished mushroomwise, for a brief period, and 
died. 

12. Digging into these archeological remains the explorer discovers 
first an array of guileless titles in the best tradition of the Oliver 
Optic books. They might be used without change by the master 
minds of Hollywood. Consider: Twice in Love, Sentiment and Ac 
tion, Love Snuffed Out, How Women Love, Winifred s Vow, Ra 
chel s Refusal, Esther Benners Love and Hate, Head and Heart, 
The Lady s Revenge, Berthas Love, Faithful Margaret, Love s Ven 
ture, Married to the Man of Her Choice, Jessie s Courtship, Nancy 
Blijn s Lovers, The Fair Dona Belle. These, like old melodramas, 
are amusing but the tales they head up are dreary stuff. Strictly 
nonintoxicating, it is poured into trite molds built usually according 
to one of three plans, namely: 

1. Lovelorn maiden pines for man who has died, who has left 
home to make his fortune, who has run off with another woman, 
who is in love with her sister, who has done none of these things 
but whom, for some vague reason, she will not marry. The conflict 
is resolved by: (a) vague removal of the vague difficulty barring 
the marriage; or (b) death of the heroine; or (c) continued pining 

25 Tassin, Algernon. The Magazine in America. 1915. p. 201. 



178 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

of the heroine and absence of the hero; or (d) return, in the closing 
paragraphs, of the presumably dead, wandering, or faithless lover 
as alive and faithful as ever. 

2. Lovelorn maiden marries young gallant only to find that he is a 
brute who makes her life miserable by gambling, by staying out late 
at night, by not going to church. Either: (a) she dies; or (b) he 
leaves her; or (c) he is disposed of by drowning, fall from runaway 
horse, or a tumble off a cliff, the lady promptly marrying the man 
who has been patiently waiting for her all these years. 

3. Haughty, soulless maiden, supremely beautiful and egregiously 
arrogant, consistently snubs the honorable advances of eligible suit 
ors. The snubbing goes on until she gets her comeuppance by: 
(a) shattering of her pride in loss of wealth or position: or (b) mak 
ing a supposedly brilliant match that turns out badly; or (c) deser 
tion of discouraged suitors and last resort marriage with an also- 
ran; or (d) spinsterhood with consequent bitter realization that she 
has allowed the prize male of the lot to escape. 

13. Of course there are variations. Sometimes an ardent ymmg man 
pines for a fair flirt who apparently bestows her smiles promiscu 
ously. But just as the reader becomes interested in this individualist 
he is likely to find that she is smiling at her cousin or her husband, 
both entitled to receive her smiles without damage to anyone s rep 
utation. Occasionally she turns out to be a mild sort of adventuress 
who reaps the just rewards of disrespectability in a bad end; or 
she brings the story back to brownstone tranquility by a sudden de 
cision to marry the young man and to stop all extramarital smiling. 

14. When not occupied with such peccadillos fiction turns to the per 
secuted child. Orphaned at a tender age, rescued from a sordid in 
fancy in which she has been all but beaten and starved to death, 
she is an example of sweetness and light, a super-Pollyanna ready 
to drip scriptural texts pat to any occasion. With angelic soul, con 
fiding eyes, and insufferable self-righteousness she lingers through 
tearful paragraphs and sinks into an early grave. Her sufferings are 
an overwrought motif played forte with the tremolo stop wide open. 

15. So tremulous is the wavering note sounding through the eight 
een fifties that writers must have written with a permanent tear in 
the eye, a permanent catch in the larynx. They threw over all hu 
man behavior the stagey glow of rose-colored sentimentality. Even 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 179 

nature served not as a realistic background but as a splendid op 
portunity to halt the story for a burst of florid emotion. The narra 
tive waits while a sweet essay on sunset, winding river, November 
landscape is daintily penned. It seems that: 

The sea floated its foam-caps upon the gray shore, and murmured its 
inarticulate love-stories all day to the dumb rocks above; the blue sky 
was bordered with saffron sunrises, pink sunsets, silver mooiifringes, or 
spangled with careless stars; the air was full of south winds that fluttered 
the hearts of a thousand roses and a million violets with long, deep kisses, 
and then flung the delicate odors abroad to tell their exploits and set the 
butterflies mad with jealousy and the bees crazy with avarice. 20 

16. Whatever the virtues of the fifties, restraint was not one of them. 
Writers enthusiastically let go in all directions. They overdid hand 
somely by whatever they set their pens to. Pictures of nature, lavish 
enough, are sober compared with resplendent portraits of the mari 
onettes that pass for human beings. Observe a stock model 1850 
heroine: 

Young, beautiful, accomplished, and even learned was Miss Amarynth 
St. Quillotte, when she was deserted by her lover and affianced husband, 
Mr. Emerond, the celebrated philosopher. . . . [She had] a smooth olive 
skin, beneath whose deep hue burned in the velvet cheeks crimson 
roses; eyes large, dark, soft, and yet gleaming; hair long, flowing, silken, 
by the side of whose jetty luxuriance the raven s plumage would have 
looked brown; a form alight, elegant and thorough-bred; a mixture of 
Spanish and quadroon gracefulness; teeth but there, I have no more 
hackneyed similes at hand; pearls will not suffice; ivory grows yellow in 
remembrance of those bright, regular, dazzling teeth, while lighted the 
full crimson mouth, as it were, with a sunbeam. 27 

Miss Amarynth, as it happens, is something of an adventuress; con 
sequently, by definition, she is obliged to be beautiful. But on the 
other hand the truehearted and virtuous, simpering in the noble 
light of their own virtue, are also prodigally endowed by sappy 
creators. Roguishly displaying seventeen-year-old teeth in pearly 
smiles they trip gayly through many a tale like an incomparable 
Broadway chorus every one of which is the most beautiful girl in 
the world. Possessed of natural charms fairer than the best efforts 

26 "Maya, the Princess." Atlantic Monthly. Vol. I, No. III. January, 1858. p. 
263. 

27 "The Lady s Revenge." Harpers. Vol. X, No, LVI. January, 1855. p. 239. 



180 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

of the most ingenious beauty shoppe, the glorified American girl is 
an 1850 institution. 

Miss Hallie was just sixteen and a half. Shall I draw her outline with 
a dash of the pen? Fancy, as our Gallic brethren say, a forest sylph, clad 
in a bright pink dress, defining every outline of a figure, slender, grace 
ful, undulating ... a rosy face full of mischief . . . the lips crimped 
by suppressed laughter . . . add white bare arms a foot "like a moun 
tain deer s" a quantity of raven curls descending at their own wild will 
on the plumpest neck imaginable. 28 

The following choice specimen is only a fragment of a rhapsodic 
eruption of dazzling fireworks that shower stars of rhetoric over al 
most a page of Godeifs fine print. Like previews of next week s talk 
ies it leaves no more superlatives to conquer. 

A lady entered. . . . She was young, and oh how beautiful, as the 
soft subdued light fell on her spiritual face and queenlike form. . . . The 
perfection of her beauty . . . stood revealed in the feminine curve of 
her delicate nostril and superbly moulded lip, and spoke out in the sym 
metrical eyebrow, in the noble development of her swan-like neck, and 
the meaning grace of her full, rounded chin . . . she was ruled by an 
inherent and spontaneous spirit of native dignity, which taught the be 
holder . . . that she on whom he gazed was a rare and peculiar speci 
men of womanhood, challenging the criticism of the most carping, and 
entrancing the senses of the beholder with that crystal adamant, a maid 
en s pride and purity. She stood before the eyes like a white flower, 
which . . . the roughest fear to touch irreverently . . . because there 
is a majesty in innocence, intellect, and beauty combined which awes 
even vice, while it commands the admiration of virtue. 29 

17. Beaten down by the fierce barrage of incredible pulchritude the 
reader longs mightily for the sight of a homely face. But rarely does 
he find it. If a writer so far forgets himself as to admit that his hero 
ine is a little plain he richly compensates her for her plainness. 

Rachel was a singular compound she was neither beautiful nor pretty, 
but peculiarly attractive . . . [she was] tall, slight, at times haughty; 
yet free and careless in action as a deer; eyes that oftenest spoke the 
soul of softness, yet forever changeful, could burn with passion, flash 
with anger, or crystallize with scorn; a head powerful and noble; a figure 
transfused into gracefulness by the power of vivid emotions; a voice that 
vibrated to every thought within. 80 

28 "The Red Bracelet." Haters. Vol. XVII, No. XCIX. August, 1858. p. 349. 

29 "Charles Maitland." Godeifs Lady s Book. May, 1858. p. 403. 

30 "Rachel s Refusal/* Harper s. Vol. XV, No. XC, November, 1857. p. 797, 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 181 

Brunettes are strong, silent, often sinister; blondes are ethereal, ef 
fervescent, brittle, agog to fall in swoons on convenient sofas. Ever 
and anon occur lyrical references to "resonant" voices, "dark and 
unfathomable" eyes, "sun-tinted, forest-shadowed" complexions, 
"pure, transparent" natures, "flashing orbs," "beautifully rounded" 
forms, "glowing" cheeks, foreheads "white as marble." Or "hand 
some," "gorgeous," "elegant" there is no end. The beauty fixation 
makes queens of uncomely spinsters, jaunty Don Juans of thieves, 
Byrons of actors, Apollos of everything in trousers. 

Turn we now to our traveller. Tall, athletic, and well-formed, with 
laughing blue eyes and clustering brown curls upon his noble brow, he 
was a speciman of manly beauty. 31 

18. Transposed into action the fixation appears as a wholesale grace 
of manner. A favorite mode of doing things is the "dashing" mode. 
People walk with a dashing stride, ride horseback in a dashing way, 
write letters in dashing hands, woo in dashing style, live their whole 
lives, some of them, just so. They are as lissom as deer, as quick and 
airy as birds, as lithe and powerful as lions. And when they open 
their mouths to speak they stalk downstage to fling sonorous sen 
tences in the manner of an old tragedian delivering a soliloquy. Lis 
ten to the turgid words of a young man in love: 

"I know I have been presuming, impertinent, audacious, in thus in 
truding myself upon you, and acknowledge that you would be but se 
verely just in banishing me instantly from your bright presence, and in 
withdrawing from me forever the light of your adorable eyes. Oh those 
eyes," he continued, clasping his hands in an ecstasy of loverlike enthu 
siasm, "those wild, sweet orbs! Can they not quicken even as they 
slay? Oh, gentle lady, be like her of Verona! be gracious, be kind, or, 
at least, be merciful, and do not banish me 

For exile hath more terror in his look, 
Much more, than death; do not say banishment! " 32 

The lady could hardly refuse to applaud such a fine peroration. 
More ante bellum amour: 

"Leon Leon," she whispered. "What madness is this?" 
"Chide me not, dearest," he replied as he clasped her to his breast, 
"could I know that the noblest and bravest in Genoa were this night pay 
ing homage to its fairest flower, nor seek to win one smile for myself? " 

si "Principle." Godey s Lady s Book. August, 1859. p. 126. 

82 "Zelma s Vow." Atlantic Monthly. Vol. IV, No. XXI. July, 1859. pp. 80-81. 



182 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

"But you have enemies here, dear Leon; depart quickly, I pray. You 
need no fresh assurance of my affection." 

"No, lovely one," replied the youth proudly. "I both believe and trust 
you. I know that although the highest in Genoa sighs for her love, the 
daughter of the Marchese Albertini prefers above them all the adoration 
of Leon Carlemonte. And see," he continued, as he took an ebony cross 
of exquisite workmanship from his vest and placed it in the hands of 
Adeline, "I am come likewise to offer you a tribute on your birthday; 
and a suitable one, is it not, sweet, for one so pure and guileless? You 
will prize it, although no brilliants glitter round it, and when you think 
of him who gave it, breathe a prayer for him when he shall be far from 
hence." 33 

A short and decisive dialogue plainly setting forth the penalty for 
skepticism in the eighteen fifties: 

With her whole frame trembling with emotion, Alice lifted a mental 
prayer for strength, and answered gently, but firmly: "Arthur, I have re 
solved, and nothing shall move me. The narrow road I find it hard to 
keep, even in my humble village home. I dare not venture my feeble faith 
amid the gayeties of army life, with him whom I love, neither loving nor 
acknowledging my Maker. Strictly and piously educated I *have been 
taught that 

The meanest pin in nature s frame 
Marks out some letter in His name ; 

and to my faith I will cling." 

"Well, Alice, you have dashed from my lips the cup of happiness, just 
as I was about to taste it. You doom me to despair. Desolate and mis 
erable, I will at once quit this place which I entered a gay light-hearted 
man. My heart and hopes are both alike withered," and the strong man 
in his agony shed tears of bitter sorrow. 34 

An oration evidently charted with notes and gestures: 

"Not attend the most splendid party of the season! Why, Rose Trav 
erse, are you crazy? Stay at home, indeed, and give your famous rival, 
Rose Arlington, a chance to captivate your handsome Ernest? Rose, she 
is perfectly lovely not your noble beauty, darling but a tiny, blue- 
eyed, golden-haired fairy, beautiful as rose-tinted evening clouds, or like 
one of those glorious crimson and gold sunsets we saw last year in the 
land of sunny skies bright Italia. But pshaw! Rose, I cannot be poetical. 

83 "The Promise Redeemed." Frank Leslie s Illustrated Newspaper. Vol. II. 

November 24, 1869. p. 11. 
a* "Principle." Godey s Lady s Book. August, 1859. p. 126. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 183 

I have mentioned the two most beautiful things my eyes ever rested upon 
and now am at the end of my string/ always excepting the beautiful 
slumbrous light in your own glorious dark eyes, darling. What ails your 
eyes tonight, Rose Traverse? Their look is wierd [sic] and unearthly." 35 

19, These are the accents of the bloodless bookish. They engage in 
absurdly romantic goings on that are ridiculously sexless and com 
pletely maddening. Consideration of a few dozen of these pale flow 
ers of the imagination forces the unescapable conclusion that the 
eighteen fifties were in favor not of Poe s unity of effect but rather 
of unanimity of effect the effect of boredom. It is all as safe and 
bland as a cup of weak tea. For the historian and for the casual 
reader willing to be amused by foibles he knows he has comfortably 
outgrown, the scribbling women and accompanying male sissies of 
the feminine decade contribute a museum piece, a literary knick- 
nack to excite momentary curiosity like the whatnot full of carved 
seashells, china figures, yarn mottoes, and wax flowers under glass. 

ANALYSIS 

i. Explain in your own words the author s purpose here. What relationship does 
the mention of Poe have to this purpose? 

a. a. What is the scope of the author s field of inquiry? 

b. Why is it limited to one decade? What particular importance does this par 
ticular decade have to the study made here? 

3. Study the sources the author uses here. Does he make any special restrictions 
on the field that is, does he concern himself with short stories and nothing 
else, novels and nothing else, or what? 

4. a. Be able to explain why the materials used here are "primary" sources. 

b. Are there any "secondary" sources used here? If so, what are they and how 
are they used? 

5. a. Look up Poe s review of Hawthorne s Twice-Told Tales and make a sum 
mary of Poe s definition of a short story. 

b. Explain the importance of this information in connection with the conclu 
sions this article about writing in the eighteen fifties reaches. 

6. a. Point out evidences in the words and phrases and figurative speech of the 
author that seem to show a definite leaning toward his conclusion. 

b. What is the attitude of the author to the kind of writing he is finding cur 
rent in the eighteen fifties? 

c. What seem to be his reasons for his belief? 

7. a. Maxe a study of some of the longer passages quoted here from some of the 
stories of the time. Study the style of writing: the sentence lengths, the sen 
tence patterns, the use of adjectives, the use of cliches and figures of speech. 

88 "The War of the Roses/ Godey s Lady s Book. September, 1863. p. 217. 



184 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

b. Now write a well-developed paragraph that attempts to explain, in the 
light of your findings, how the ways of writing have changed since the eight 
een fifties. 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

Many of the sample subjects listed at the end of the section on Informal 
Inductions can be used as subjects for primary source studies with a shift 
of method. The difference is largely the difference between a random 
collection of materials in an area and a thorough investigation of ma 
terials in the area. The area is also usually more sharply defined. 

Make a study of the use of "fear* psychology in current advertising practice. 
The fear technique is the kind found in ads concerning halitosis, dandruff, or 
"B.O." It makes the public afraid of social ostracism or worse. 

Compare and contrast the make-up of five selected magazines over a fifty year 
period. 

Make a study of the time devoted to "commercials" on your local radio station. 

Pick a limited number of women s magazines of comparable circulation. Study 
the short stories in each over a representative length of time. What conclu 
sions can you reach? 

Consult the Congressional Digest. Determine how your congressman has voted 
over a period of time. 

Pick a news event of national importance. Determine how differently this event 
is handled by a number of newspapers of differing editorial policies. Consult 
also the news weeklies. 

Study the use of "localisms" in Robert Frost s poetry. Is his language distinctly 
New England language? To what extent? 

Dig out the newspaper listings of building permits over a period of time. How 
many of them pertain to new construction? To extensive repairs? To minor 
repairs? What other conclusions can you reach? 

Find a book containing many plates of paintings by artists of the Renaissance. 
Look for portrayals of animals. Are they lifelike? What definite stylistic traits 
do you find in the portrayals? 

Make a study of the operation of student cooperatives on the campus. 

Make a study of the opportunities for recreation in your community. Is play* 
ground space for children adequate? What about facilities for other age groups? 

Investigate housing conditions in the "over the tracks * section. 

Make a study of wages and working conditions faced by student workers on 
your campus or in your community. 

Go to the city health office to investigate records of dairy inspections. 
Study the architecture of the buildings in the older areas in your town. 

Make a public opinion poll study of the amount of money necessary to clothe 
a college girl for a year. 



PRIMARY SOURCE PAPERS 185 

What are the prevalent opinions on campus toward labor unions? 

What is the state of public opinion toward an issue in local campus politics? 

Do most people like or dislike double-feature movies? 

How much money do students expect to earn after they get out of college? Ask 
freshmen, ask sophomores, ask juniors, ask seniors. 



5. CASE HISTORIES 



Case Histories 



THE CASE HISTORY method of presenting material and arriving 
at conclusions is commonly encountered in the social sciences and 
in psychology. The reasons why this is true should be apparent, for the 
social sciences and psychology deal with human beings and with human 
problems in precisely those areas where one human being differs from 
another. The physiologist who studies the glands, the liver, or the stom 
ach of human beings looks at objects that remain more constant than 
do the minds of human beings. Variations he finds, surely, but fewer of 
them. Change he finds also organs grow old, become diseased, or are 
modified by environmental conditions but the sociologist and the psy 
chologist are faced constantly by phenomena in a state of flux. In the 
social world everything is always changing, and the writer about social 
affairs must take his generalizations as he runs. 

Consequently, causal factors are more important in sociology and psy 
chology than they are elsewhere. In determining the meaning to be 
found in any situation, the sociologist and psychologist have to spend 
more time than the natural scientist does in looking at the history, the 
growth of the situation. The features that they see in it have to be un 
derstood in terms of their origin and the conditions that they have en 
countered. The case history method is valuable in getting at phenomena 
in a state of flux or change. 

Let us consider a typical problem juvenile delinquency. Several ju 
venile delinquents who are in jail together may react in approximately 
the same way. The writer who is attempting to tell what they are like 
and how they got that way may make inaccurate generalizations if he 
considers them only as they are today. He may be fooled into thinking 



190 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

that he can solve their problems by concerning himself with them as 
end products. Should he, on the other hand, examine the process by 
which they have arrived at their present plight, he will probably dis 
cover that their cases are not all alike, that the real meaning may be 
found in the process and nowhere else. However, he may also discover 
certain similarities in the processes and arrive at generalizations about 
careers of juvenile delinquents or about the forces which usually cause 
juvenile delinquency. 

In this text, the term "case history" is used in a somewhat broader 
sense than it is usually used by the psychologist and the sociologist. 
Simply stated, the case history method, as it is here defined, is a way of 
presenting generalizations by analyzing at length a typical instance, by 
mirroring the generalization in the particular case. Such cases may be 
either "natural" or "artificial." An artificial case is one that is manufac 
tured by the writer in order to illustrate his point or to show how the 
principle he is describing actually operates in human life. An illustra 
tion of this kind in this section is Donald Davidson s "Brother Jonathan 
and Cousin Roderick." Instead of writing always in generalities, Mr. 
Davidson devises two typical characters and makes them move through 
the actions that suggest the generalities. 

The natural case history, on the other hand, is one in which the writer 
turns to an actual case, either to illustrate his point or to discover within 
the case the meaning that he is after. Artificial cases can easily be made 
to conform exactly to the requirements of the generality, natural cases 
less easily. To be worth much in a case history, even a natural case 
must conform closely to type. There is little use, so far as general prin 
ciples are concerned, in spending much time and energy in examining 
a freak case. Even in the case that closely conforms to type there are 
usually minor features that are freakish or accidental. Some of these are 
irrelevant and them the writer ignores. Some departures from the norm 
are, however, not irrelevant, and the writer must give as much atten 
tion to these as to behavior that is normal for the problem. 

The case history method, then, presents an analysis of one example 
of a problem. The student, in writing case histories of his own, should 
start with the problem and then hunt for a good case to exemplify it. 
If he starts with a case without thinking what generalization the case 
illuminates, he will perhaps find himself writing a narrative with no 
general meaning at all. 



CASE HISTORIES 191 

The student should at this point ponder the relation between the 
general and the concrete in most kinds of writing. The case history 
method emphasizes the concrete elements. Fiction likewise is meaning 
ful to the extent that it mirrors generalizations while emphasizing the 
concrete. As an aid to communication, concrete illustrations and ex 
amples are useful even in writing that is purely abstract; that is, that 
deals almost entirely in generalities. How often we say, when we are 
confronted with abstract propositions, "Give me an example." We test 
the generality by the example. By seeing it in terms of an example we 
know better if it makes sense or not. The case history is, of course, an 
elaborated example. 

We should notice that case histories, as they are defined here, can 
show examples of other phenomena than human beings in action. The 
example of Kimball Young s "Intracommunity Conflict" in the pages 
that follow illustrates the use of one town as an example of towns in 
general. In "Three Southern Towns" Willson Whitman picks out three 
typical communities to illustrate certain problems of life in the South. 
These are case histories just as the others are. 



PROJECTION OF PARENTAL AMBITIONS 

UPON CHILDREN* 

By Kimball Young 

1. NOT INFREQUENTLY parents thrust upon their children their own 
unfulfilled wishes and ambitions. The children may identify them 
selves with the parents desires and fulfill the roles laid down for 
them, or they may revolt from such control and either take up the 
expected roles with indifferent success or in the end escape into 
something else. 

2. In the case of Mina cited below, the mother who was denied edu 
cational advantages projected upon her daughter her personal 
wishes for higher social status. Such a program proved to be greater 
than the child could manage, and she finally escaped the parental 
domination by getting out of the home and marrying. 

* From Source Book for Sociology ( 1935 ) by Kimball Young. Reprinted by 
permission of the American Book Company. 



192 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

THE CASE OF MINA 

In my position as director of educational guidance in a city school 
system, problems concerning boys and girls who are suffering be 
cause of unwise projection of parental ambitions upon them are 
constantly before me. One type of parent whose children are to be 
found in this group is the mother or father whose mentality is lim 
ited and whose education has been very meager. This parent has 
the idea that all that is needed to educate a child is to send him to 
school regularly and to "make him study." The parent frequently 
expects his efforts to be rewarded by having his child graduate from 
college with honors, secure a white-collar job, and earn easy money 
and social prestige. Having had little academic experience himself, 
and being otherwise mentally limited, this parent cannot compre 
hend the difficulties of his child, who is likewise of meager mental 
ity. The case cited below is an example of this situation. 

Mrs. A. is termed by her neighbors "a good mother"; this means 
that she keeps her children scrupulously clean and instills* into them 
the principles of "law and order." Her mental horizon is distinctly 
limited, and as she stopped school in the fifth grade, she has no con 
ception of higher education. She makes very few contacts outside 
of her home and never reads anything. Her four children tested dull 
and very dull on the Otis intelligence test. They got along with little 
friction in grade school because they were placed in ability group 
ings suited to their levels and because they were what teachers term 
"good children," meaning that they seldom transgressed the sacred 
laws of classroom order. 

When Mina was ready to leave the junior high school three years 
ago, the guidance director, Mrs. A., and Mina held a consultation 
concerning the latter s choice of subjects in senior high school. Mrs. 
A. had her plans well in mind when she appeared for this confer 
ence. She had studied the high school handbook and knew what 
was required for a college course. Her mind was fully made up: 
Mina was to be a teacher and to have the benefits of a full educa 
tion. . . . Mina was very docile about the whole affair; what suited 
her mother suited her, or so it seemed. When the guidance director 
attempted to point out that Mina s experiences with mathematics 
and English in junior high school did not warrant plunging her into 



CASE HISTORIES 193 

higher mathematics and languages, Mrs. A. waved aside the objec 
tions. Mina would study harder next year and would go to summer 
school to strengthen her foundation in mathematics and perhaps 
the teachers at senior high school would be a little more generous 
with assistance and report-card grades than those in the junior high 
school. Mrs. A. carried the day, and in spite of the plea of the guid 
ance director that Mina be given at least one year of lighter work 
in which to adjust herself to the new school, Mina entered the col 
lege preparatory class at the senior high school. 

6. She failed in three subjects during that first year in senior high. 
She revolted against school authority and played truant several 
times before the offense came to her mother s ears. When she came 
up for conference with the guidance director, she showed signs of 
extreme nervousness. She had bitten her finger nails down to the 
quick, and her facial muscles twitched. The school authorities com 
pelled her to drop one subject, mathematics, much against the 
wishes of her mother. Mina declared that she hated school and 
wished that she might return to the junior high school, where she 
"had never gotten in bad." Her mother was sure that the high 
school teachers did not give Mina any "attention" in her struggles 
with Latin. 

7. Mina s second year in high school was not quite so hectic, be 
cause outwardly, at least, she had become better adjusted, and be 
cause she was repeating work in two subjects. The teachers, anxious 
to get her off their hands, were allowing her to drift along with 
grades in the D class. She had found friends in a group of young 
sters of her own mental level, but from homes not nearly so care 
fully supervised as hers. There was constant friction at home be 
cause Mina insisted on painting her face excessively and attracted 
considerable attention by her boisterous manners in public. Neigh 
bors felt sorry for Mrs. A. because Mina was fast becoming "un 
manageable." 

8. During the summer Mina spent most of her time away from home 
in company with her chosen companions. She could not bring them 
to her home because of her mother s objections. She tried getting 
jobs at housework (much to her mother s chagrin) but held her 
places only a few days at a time. Toward the close of the summer, 
she startled her family and the whole neighborhood by eloping with 



194 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

a young lad she had known for only a few weeks and who was en 
tirely unknown to her family. Sympathy was all with Mrs. A., for 
she had been "such a good mother." 



ANALYSIS 

Examine this selection carefully, for it represents quite clearly the field in 

which "case history" as a technique has perhaps its widest and most exact use. 

Try to explain, from this selection, some of the notable characteristics of the 

method. 

Where, in this selection, is the generalization, the end product in the inductive 

reasoning in which the case of Mina is used as typical of a large field? 

a. How does the generalization rise out of the case? Docs it come from certain 
marked particulars? If so, what are they? 

b. Docs it come from the totality of the case, the cumulative effect of it? 

a. What kinds of details are noted and stressed? What sorts of things arc left 
out? Why? 

b. What principles can you formulate from this study concerning the process 
of selection and rejection that case history technique demands? 

Keep this article in mind when you read J. B. Martin s "The Ring and the 
Conscience." Note similarities and differences. 



THE RING AND THE CONSCIENCE* 
By John Bartlow Martin 

I 

THE HOMICIDE officers reported: "Answered call to the 100 block 
of Hawthorne and found the above deceased lying on a vacant lot, 
43 feet from the south curb line. . . . The deceased was lying on 
her back near some shrubbery; her feet were pointing north and 
her head south. Her dress up around her waist and her blouse was 
torn away on the left side/ Near the body the officers found her 
purse and a wedding band. The ring lay beneath her left knee and 
it was inscribed with three initials which the police noted. Only a 
few minutes after the body had been found, a girl identified the 
body as that of her roommate, Clara Belle Penn. They lived across 
the street at 112 Hawthorne Street 

Clara Belle, who was twenty-six, attractive, and called Blondie 

* From Harper s Magazine, September, 1945. Reprinted by permission of the 
author. 



CASE HISTORIES 195 

by her friends, had been strangled. Thumb marks were plainly vis 
ible on her throat. In the very manner of her dying, as well as in the 
way she spent so many nights, was crystallized a basic social con 
flict of this war, which has uprooted so many private lives. 

3. Homicide detectives found in her purse a snapshot of a soldier, 
inscribed "Love, Tommy" and mailed from New Guinea; a winged 
Army Air Forces shoulder patch, and a small well-filled address book 
on the first page of which was written her name and "Co T 3rd 
Regiment Ft Des Moines, Iowa." (The purse also contained the trin 
kets which always seem so inexplicably pathetic when their dead 
owner is surrounded by detectives and photographers : a shoe-repair 
stub, a bus ticket, a rent receipt for $3.34, a doctor s receipted bill, 
a box of face powder and a powder puff, some bobby pins, lipstick, 
rouge, and eyebrow tweezers, one "Tussy Cosmetique for Eye 
brows," a cinco pesos note on the Banco Central de Chile that ap 
parently was a keepsake, and a small mirror backed with a souvenir 
photo of the Alamo, the shrine of an old war which sightseeing sol 
diers visit today in nearby San Antonio. ) 

4. Clara Belle was murdered in a quiet residential district of Hous 
ton, Texas, sometime after midnight on December 14, 1944, and her 
body was discovered at 7:50 A.M. Since the crime occurred in the 
South, the police were told of a Negro s attempt, previously unre- 
portcd, to rape a white girl at this same spot a few weeks earlier. 
Some neighbors thought they had heard a car and loud voices at 
the scene about 3 A.M.; others had heard nothing. Clara Belle s 
landlady, Mrs. William Wolman, said her police dog didn t bark 
during the night. 

5. Large oak trees and a few palms lined Hawthorne Street in front 
of Mrs. Wolman s big old house. About seventeen young women 
roomed there; Clara Belle had moved in about a week previously. 
In her room detectives found correspondence with servicemen, some 
of them overseas. In an unmailed letter to a soldier in New Guinea 
she had enclosed her own Army discharge paper. Why she was 
sending the document to him was not explained. She had been a 
private in the WAG about five months; enlisted May 19, 1944, in 
Oklahoma City, discharged October 23, 1944. The circumstances of 
her discharge were not made public; however, one detective re 
called that the discharge was marked "Not eligible for re-enlist- 



iy(j THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ment." It showed she was born August 11, 1918, in Kansas City, Mis 
souri, and listed her occupation as waitress. After being discharged 
she had worked briefly for Douglas Aircraft in Oklahoma City, then 
had come to Houston. Recently she had been working as a waitress 
in the Forum Cafeteria downtown on Main Street. Her parents and 
other relatives still lived in Kansas City. Her father was a stationary 
engineer. The day before she was killed she had received a letter 
from her mother, who had planned to visit her and take her back to 
Kansas City in a few days. 

6. Her roommate, Jane McSpadon, who attended Elliott Business 
College, said, "Every night when I get home, Clara Belle is getting 
dressed and waiting for a call. ... If she did not get the call, she 
would go off and say, If I get a call, tell them to meet me at the 
Lido. I do not know any of the men whom she had dates with. I 
have heard her mention an Eddie* who is a lieutenant in the Air 
Corps, and a Steve/ , . . Since Clara Belle has been rooming here 
she has only spent two nights at home/ 

7. It was to the Lido Club that the dectectives went next, for Clara 
Belle, leaving the rooming house about 7 P.M., had told her room 
mate, "If anyone calls, I will meet them at the Lido," and she had 
told another roomer, "I think I will go to the Lido and see if my 
lieutenant is there." 

8. The sign at the door on Main Street about a mile and a half from 
the heart of Houston read: 

LIDO CLUB 

DANCING 

BEER 

The Lido Club had as many windows as an automobile showroom 
but they were painted an opaque blue and heavily curtained so that 
from the outside, even at the height of an evening, the place looked 
deserted except for the pale blue and red light bulbs ringing the 
marquee. At that time there was an admission charge, termed a 
"convert charge," of thirty cents per person. Under Texas law no 
liquor could be sold over the bar but you could buy a bowl of ice 
for sixty cents and a bottle of club soda for sixty cents and you could 
put your own bottle of liquor on the table. Beer cost twenty-five 
and thirty-five cents. Small flags of the United Nations hung over 



CASE HISTORIES 197 

the bar in the front room; large American flags were draped over 
the doors marked "Men" and "Women." In the back room were 
tables and chairs, a small dance floor, and an enormous red and 
yellow juke box. Near the bar in the front room was a pinball ma 
chine; airplanes and the word "Victory" lit up on the payoff board 
when you hit. The walls of the Lido were the same dark blue as the 
windows; a few small light bulbs hung unshaded from the checkered 
ceiling. 

9. The Lido, together with a couple of other places, was a favorite 
spot for servicemen. "If they re in town more than a day or two they 
wind up here," Homer Skeeter, a husky man sometimes referred to 
as the floor manager, has said. During this war Houston has not 
been overrun with servicemen in the same sense that, say, Little 
Rock, Arkansas, or San Antonio, Texas, have been. There has been 
no huge infantry camp on its outskirts. Moreover, it is so big that 
there has been room for ordinary civilian life side by side with the 
liberty life of soldiers and sailors. Nevertheless, it is a rail center of 
Texas, where enormous numbers of men have been trained and 
shipped, its busy port has brought many sailors to it, and last De 
cember several nearby Army camps were filled; so at the time 
Clara Belle was murdered, you could not go downtown in Houston 
without seeing, just as you would see in a score of other Army 
towns, lonely young men in uniform threading the crowds on the 
streets aimlessly, a peculiar, uncertain, questing expression on their 
faces as they paused to peer into store windows or barrooms. And 
you would see their shapeless sleeping faces in bus and railroad sta 
tions, you would see them sitting in dives with prostitutes, or jitter- 
bugging shockingly young and callow at the Lido and the Chi 
nese Duck and at a place advertised as "Roseland Ballroom, 
Houston s Only Taxi Dance Hall." Who were they and what did they 
want? To the uncomprehending civilians they all looked alike in 
their uniforms, but each one was alone, really, each had just come 
from some particular place and each was on his way to some par 
ticular new and equally strange place; each had but little time to 
spend, perhaps only a few hours between trains, perhaps overnight 
shore liberty or a three day pass. 

10. "Clara Belle was in here every night of the week," said Homer 
Skeeter of the Lido. "She were very lenient with servicemen she d 



198 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

talk to all of em. She had a different one every night." Usually she 
drank only beer. "She was a nice girl," said Skeeter, a tolerant man, 
and explained: "She never made trouble, never argued, never got 
drunk and mean. We have some troublemakers. The town was 
crowded with GI s then and it was crowded with hustlers. I threw 
the hustlers out." 

11. Skeeter remembers Clara Belle as "silly." "She giggled all the 
time. She d make eyes at me, just kidding of course. She talked all 
the time. She moved fast she d run over here, run over there, run 
out of the place, run back in. You know the type. Good-natured." 
She usually wore suits and a sweater but she kept the coat to her 
suit on and, Skeeter has said, "She was not what you would call a 
sweater girl." She was a chunky girl the physician who performed 
the autopsy reported her height at five feet one and her weight at 
between 125 and 135 pounds; "well-developed, well-nourished, 
slightly obese." Her eyes were gray and her hair platinum blonde. 

12. She liked to dance, though Skeeter did not consider her a good 
dancer. ("Ninety per cent of the girls come in here are not*. But you 
see a lot of servicemen that are really good." ) "She was strictly Navy 
I never seen her leave but with one soldier, a lieutenant in the 
Air Corps. He left here one night with her. Whenever he was here 
she was with him." 

13. Usually she was with a girl named Vadah Belle Vaughan, who 
was called Little Bit and who, twenty-three years old, worked at 
the shipyards. They had met at the Lido. They frequently danced 
together until sailors cut in. Sometimes they sat with a couple of 
other girls. This group comprised one of the cliques of regulars at 
the Lido. "There were several clicks," Skeeter has said. "Girls from 
the shipyards, from cafeterias, from theaters you know: different 
little clicks. Sometimes there would be four or five at one table." 
The Lido opened at 6 P.M., and by eight thirty there was a crowd. 
By then, too, Clara Belle usually was on hand. 

II 

14. On the night she was murdered she borrowed a dime for bus fare 
to the Lido. (A detective recalls that she owed small sums of up to 
a quarter to many of the roomers.) But she must not have gone 
there immediately, for when she arrived, between seven thirty and 



CASE HISTORIES 199 

eight o clock, she was with a civilian. Skeeter was surprised: "I d 
never seen her with a civilian before and I said to the cashier, Look 
she s with a 4-F tonight. " This was only a manner of speaking: 
the man was about fifty years old. His identity is unknown. He and 
Clara Belle sat alone for an hour, then left. They were gone about 
an hour. Where they spent that hour can only be conjectured. When 
they returned they sat at a center table near the dance floor and 
ordered two beers. Clara Belle excused herself immediately and 
went to the women s room. She was gone about twenty minutes. 
Skeeter and a waitress saw her in the doorway of the women s 
room, surreptitiously watching the civilian. He drank both beers 
and finally he left, alone. 

15. Clara Belle came out at once and sat down with Little Bit at a 
table near the stove. Little Bit, a small girl, was wearing boots. 
Soon two sailors came in and sat at the table next to them. One of 
them asked Little Bit to dance. "We dance one dance," she later 
told the police, "and he ask if he might join us at our table. And we 
told him yes." He and his friend sat down with the girls. Presently 
another sailor, a friend of these two, came in with a girl and joined 
the party. 

16. They all left together at closing time. Skeeter saw them no more. 
He was routed out of bed next morning by Lieutenant A. C. Thorn 
ton of Homicide and Inspector of Detectives C. V. Kern. He had 
never seen the sailors before, nor did he know Little Bit s address. 
That night he sent a waitress out with the police to look for them 
but they did not appear on the streets or in the bars. However, that 
night at the Lido another sailor told Skeeter casually that he had 
taken Little Bit home the preceding Saturday. He led the police to 
her house. 

17. She said she knew none of the three sailors names. The detec 
tives took her, Skeeter, and the waitress to the Navy base and the 
ordnance depot. They found a merchant vessel which had been 
loading munitions for several days. The captain called his gun crew, 
about twenty men, on deck. The wanted three were not there. But, 
under pressure, Little Bit said that the sailor who had taken her 
home was named Kclinske. They found him below, August Gustave 
Kelinske, twenty-three, seaman first-class. He named his two com 
panions of the night before; one was John Edward Bencik and the 



200 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

other we shall here call Ralph J. Lith. His initials corresponded to 
those on the wedding ring found by the police. Both men were 
called up on deck, identified, and taken to the police station. Thirty 
minutes later their ship sailed. By that time, Ralph J. Lith, seaman 
second-class, based with the Armed Guard Center at New Orleans, 
had confessed that he had choked Clara Belle "until she offered no 
resistance." 

18. Now Lith, twenty-five years old, was a husky young man, blond, 
soft-spoken, with sad blue eyes, good teeth, a ruddy complexion, 
and a chin cleft by a dimple. "An orphan boy" in a Texas town, he 
had been adopted when he was five by a local farmer. Ralph Lith 
was "pretty sure" he had completed the second year of high school 
his foster father said, "I disremember in what grade he quit 
school" and then he went to live on the farm. "I helped my fa 
ther with the crops," he said, and his foster father, when asked on 
the witness stand, "Did Ralph ever give you any trouble?" replied, 
"No, sir, none on this earth." 

19. When he was nineteen Ralph Lith went to a neighboring town in 
Texas, and there he married. (A few months later Hitler s troops 
marched into Poland.) He took his bride back briefly to the farm 
but they did not stay long, they moved to the city, to Dallas. That 
was in May of 1940; France fell soon, and a few months later Lith 
registered for the draft. In Dallas he went to school for machine- 
shop training, worked briefly for a transfer and storage company, 
and then went to work as a mechanic in what still was called a de 
fense plant. This was North American Aviation. 

20. About this time their daughter was born. Lith moved his family 
into a modest cottage in a good neighborhood inhabited by working 
people. A man who testified that he "could hear his [Lith s] con 
versation and his wife s conversation through my windows" called 
Lith "a very good neighbor." Other witnesses described him as "a 
quiet, peaceful, law-abiding citizen." 

21. Lith was still working for North American when, on June 30, 
1944, he entered the U. S. Navy. After his boot training at Great 
Lakes near Chicago, he went home to his wife and daughter for a 
week s leave. He was sent to Gulfport, Mississippi, for more train 
ing and was assigned to a ship five or six weeks later. At the time of 
his arrest he was in the Armed Guard; that is, he was a member of 



CASE HISTORIES 201 

a gun crew aboard a merchantman; sailors consider this a "good 
deal." 

22. But is any deal a "good deal" for a soldier or a sailor who has 
been obliged to leave his established home and his wife and his 
child? Many men in Lith s position lonely, far from home are 
miserable these days. Some try to keep their homes together; their 
wives and children follow them from Army camp to Army camp so 
long as they remain in the States. "So long as they remain in the 
States" we can read the desperation that phrase holds in the re 
sults of the camp-following: restive children crying in railroad sta 
tions or romping in the littered aisles of day coaches, dreary, bitter 
quarrels in OPA offices with rooming-house operators who charge 
over-the-ceiling rents, harried nights in cheap hotels, missed buses 
and changed orders and nervous weeping women stranded in 
strange places. Many wives are not temperamentally able to follow 
their husbands, many do not because they simply cannot afford it 
(the allotment is $80 with one child; the rent for a one-room tourist 
cabin, often the only place which will accept children, is $70 to 
$100 a month). And if there is more than one child it is really nearly 
impossible. So some couples compromise: she leaves the children 
with her mother and goes to visit him for a few weeks, until their 
money runs out or he is shipped somewhere else; then she goes 
back home, saves her money, and visits him briefly again. But this 
way he cannot see the children, and he and she are strange together 
in a hall bedroom without them. Besides, each forced parting after 
these visits means a new readjustment; and she goes home wonder 
ing if it was worth it. 

23. If the wives stay at home, what do the husbands do? One mar 
ried sergeant spoke unwittingly one of the bitterest lines of the 
war: "My girl friend s going to give a party for me as soon as she 
gets her allotment check." Her husband was overseas. This is what 
the Jeremiahs mean when they thunder, "What is happening to the 
American home?" But do they know that many of the young hus 
bands never hunt women? When they go to town it is to drink or 
eat or walk the streets, nothing more. (Only a very few are able to 
stay in the benumbing camp or aboard the gray ship every Satur 
day night.) In town they telephone their wives far away "Say 
hello to Daddy, honey" and they sit in bars and watch the un- 



202 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

shaven sailors of seventeen, the infantrymen of eighteen, dancing 
with the girls, the girls like Clara Belle Penn. "The Army isn t a bad 
deal for a young kid but it s no good for us," said one. Ralph Lith s 
attorney said, "I ask you if you had ever been out with another girl 
since you were married," and Lith replied, "One time." The kids are 
out for a good time; they are fun for a girl to be with. But some 
times your married man winds up with a girl, too, almost without 
wanting her. "A dogface isn t safe on the streets of Little Rock after 
dark" is strictly a gag; but the barroom is small and crowded, so 
small and crowded that it is impossible to avoid catching a girl s 
eye, and your married man is lonely just watching from outside. 
And here is the peculiar thing: often if he does get a girl, your mar 
ried man will almost hate her all the time he is with her, for she 
offends his conscience, her very gaiety rebukes him. The Cynaras of 
this war are numberless. One infantryman said, "I don t know why 
I go out with these pigs they re not half the woman my wife is." 
If he is lucky the thing does not trouble his conscience, it does not 
touch his marriage, not really, in his mind. Ralph Litfy was not 
lucky. 

24. Lith s attorney, in summation, described him as a country boy 
unskilled in the ways of the wicked city. But this story is not really 
the story of the stripling in uniform bes. I with perils, so often dis 
cussed from the pulpit these days. Lith had six years of marriage be 
hind him; he had had his own home, had known the responsibility 
of a family. And neither was Clara Belle a romantic child in bobby- 
socks, though she might have wished she still were; she was a young 
woman of twenty-six, and she was not getting any younger as the 
war continued to keep the boys away from home. Her problems, and 
Lith s, were not those of the very young who are in this war and 
whose very real agonies have been described frequently, to the neg 
lect of the drab unheroic unhappiness of older men and women also 
involved. 

Ill 

25. Lith s ship docked at Houston on Wednesday. He got shore liberty 
and, at 5:30 P.M., he went into town "with another seaman by the 
name of Kelinske." (A civilian chooses a close friend for an eve 
ning s companion; a serviceman often goes to town with another 



CASE HISTORIES 203 

whose name he doesn t even know. ) "We went to shows and visited 
USO clubs and servicemen s centers on Main Street." At the Serv 
icemen s Center Lith and Kelinske drank coffee. They went to the 
Coney Island Cafe, also on Main Street, where they ran into two 
other seamen from their ship, John Edward Bencik, and "a fellow 
named Shradder," who had come ashore together. They all drank a 
bottle of beer together, then Bencik and Shradder left. In a few 
minutes Lith and Kelinske went to the Crawford Inn; Bencik was 
there and they drank some more beer and Bencik bought a bottle 
of whisky. By this time Shradder was gone. Their restless wander 
ing, their meeting and separating and rejoining each other con 
tinued, for this was why they had come to town in the first place, 
this is why they all come to town to meet and wander and if 
they became separated during the evening, what matter? The three 
of them started toward the Lido Club, a few blocks down Main 
Street, and on the way Bencik met a girl he knew. She was Donna 
Louise Tomlinson, she was twenty-one, and she called Bencik "J un ~ 
ior." The three of them wanted to take Donna to the Lido with 
them but she had to get her coat, so Kelinske and Lith went on to 
the Lido alone. Thus Lith met Clara Belle Penn. 

26. She and the girl called Little Bit were still alone at a table though 
it was by that time about ten thirty. The foursome got together 
"practically when we first got there," Lith testified. "The tables were 
close together and we started talking and later they invited us to 
their table. . . . We started dancing," and he danced first with "the 
Penn girl." "Who danced with Kelinske?" the attorney wanted to 
know, and Lith replied, "I don t know. Kelinske was sitting by her 
[Clara Belle] and talking to her but I don t know it he danced with 
her." She appeared impartially interested in both of them, and in 
Junior Bencik too, when he arrived with his girl Donna, she in her 
coat. Indeed, one witness described Clara Belle as being "with three 
sailors." Kelinske had made the first move to join the girls; Lith, 
older, followed. Kelinske had selected Little Bit for the first dance. 
Thus as matters developed Clara Belle was thrown with Lith. 

27. They did not dance much. They were not notably gay; sometimes 
they sat while the other two couples danced. Donna and Junior 
Bencik danced a good deal. Once, about eleven thirty, Clara Belle 
excused herself to make a phone call; she who, it will be recalled, 



204 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

had already spent the first half of the evening with a middle-aged 
civilian, now called her roommate to see if anybody had phoned. 
No one had. Testimony on the drinks varied. One witness said that 
all six drank beer, another that the girls drank beer, and the sailors 
whisky. The autopsy showed that Clara Belle had had "at most" 
two bottles of beer. None of the six was drunk when they left the 
Lido. Kelinske and Little Bit went south and the other two couples 
started toward town. They walked a block or so, then they too sepa 
rated. Clara Belle and Lith were alone together for the first time. 
They caught a bus headed for her home. 

28. "Did she know your name at that time?" asked his attorney. 
"No, sir." 

"Did you know her name at that time?" 
"No, sir." 

29. They were riding on the late bus together when she asked to see 
his ring. This ring, a plain wedding band, meant a lot to him. His 
wife had given it to him six years before, when they were married. 
His wife had its mate. 

30. But Clara Belle wanted to try the ring on, so Lith let her. While 
they still were on the bus, riding to her home, he asked her to give 
it back, but and we must remember Skeeter s description of her 
as "silly, giggling" she refused. She had other souvenirs in her 
purse the picture of the Alamo, the AAF shoulder patch, the 
photo from New Guinea. She and this man had met so casually, two 
hours before, and now he was taking her home, as others had. 

31. The bus stopped almost in front of her rooming house. The hour 
was late; Hawthorne Street was quiet and dark and deserted. At 
her house he asked her again for his ring. "She was looking at it 
and trying it on and she wanted me to come back Thursday night 
and get it. I told her I couldn t come back for it. ... I was sup 
posed to return to the ship [which was due to sail] and I couldn t 
tell her that. I kept asking her for my ring and she wouldn t give it 
to me and then I asked her where I could catch the bus. She still 
wouldn t let me have the ring and she started making love to me. 
... I tried to get her to go in her apartment first but she said no 
men were allowed in there. . . . She wouldn t let me have the ring. 
I tried to get my ring off the finger and she hit me on the side of 
my face and we started fighting. ... I did not want to harm her. 



CASE HISTORIES 205 

. . . When I came to myself. ... I heard her trying to holler and 
I ran. ... I never did recover my ring. . . ." 

32. She had not tried to "holler"; she was dead. He said he didn t 
know this. He caught a bus back downtown, met Kelinske and Ben- 
cik at the bus station, and went to a restaurant with them; and at 
about 5 A.M. they went back to their ship. He told them nothing. 
The next time he saw his ring was when Lieutenant Thornton of 
Homicide showed it to him and took him off his ship. 

33. Lith readily made a statement to the police. He maintained, 
simply, "I wanted my ring and we got in a fight and I lost my 
head." He probably didn t know her name till the police told him; 
chances are she never did learn his. Locked up, he telephoned his 
wife, who came to him by bus and told him at his cell, according to 
the newspapers, that he was not to worry. "I ll stick by you." He 
thanked her and said, "How s the baby, honey?" She was wearing 
the mate to his ring. 

34. She sat by his side at the counsel table during his trial. The 
Grand Jury, which had recessed for the Christmas holidays, had 
been recalled and had indicted him for murder. He went to trial 
January 15, 1945, and a jury was chosen by 2:30 P.M. All the evi 
dence was in three hours later. After an hour s deliberation the jury 
found him guilty of murder without malice and recommended a 
five-year suspended sentence. This was imposed by Judge Frank 
Williforcl, Jr. Lith, freed quickly and without fanfare by Texas 
(Houston newspapers played the story down), was turned over to 
Navy authorities; they made no public announcement of the action 
they took, but it is said that he was discharged from the Navy and 
that he has since returned, a civilian, to live with his wife and 
daughter. 

35. For several nights after Clara Belle s death, her young lieutenant 
in the Army Air Forces went back to the Lido alone. Homer Skeeter 
of the Lido said recently, "The lieutenant seemed to hate it very 
bad that she was killed." He also said, "There s a girl that comes in 
here now and she looks so much like Clara Belle that the first time 
she came in, it scared the cashier. Her size and makeup and every 
thing. I don t know her name either." 



206 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



ANALYSIS 

1. After you have read the whole article carefully, study the beginning and note 
the technique used to get the article under way. 

a. Has the reader an immediate idea that this is using the case history method 
to present its point? 

b. Where do you first become aware of the nature of the organization as case 
history? 

2. Go through die article carefully and point out the places where the author 
generalizes from the material in the case study. 

a. Is this generalization all in a body or scattered throughout the article? 

b. Why are the generalizations placed where they are? Note especially the 
position in relation to the whole case of the generalizations in Paragraphs 
22-24. 

3. a. What important facts concerning the people involved in this study are given? 
b. How are these facts made to appear typical of a larger, more general situation? 

4. a. What are the main differences between this article and Kimball Young s 
study of Mina? 

b. In what ways lias the author of this article enlarged upon his material, made 
the study longer? 

5. a. Point out evidences in the reporting of the case itself in which you feel that 
the author is observing and reporting imaginatively. 

b. What effect does such reporting have on the validity of the case history? 

6. a. What has the author had to do to get this material? 

b. Where does he use court testimony? 

c. Where material gathered from interviews? 

d. Would the organization be materially different if he had put in one part of 
the paper all that he had learned from interviews and in another part all that 
he had selected from court testimony? 

e. What is the basis of his organization of concrete materials? 

7. What is the significance of the final quotation in the final paragraph? 



PSYCHOLOGY OF ALCOHOLISM* 
By Edward A. Strecker and Francis T. Chambers, Jr. 

THE STUDY of the sober personality gives little or no clue to un 
derlying drinking abnormalities. Many of our patients are poten 
tially adequate to meet reality, and, indeed, are often superior in 
endowment. Perhaps we have overlooked the possibility of a de 
gree of abnormality that is neither contained in mental disease nor 
in the neurosis, but is obtained only by the use of toxic agents that 

* From Alcohol: One Mans Meat ( 1938), by Edward A. Strecker and Francis 
T. Chambers, Jr. Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company. 



CASE HISTORIES 207 

alter the ways of thinking and being. In other words, are many ab 
normal drinkers perhaps too stable to become insane or to accept 
the minor psychosis which we call the neurosis, and having made 
bad adjustments to environment, unconsciously discovered in al 
cohol a quasi-neurotic escape that would be denied them without 
the use of a toxic agent? It seems reasonable to believe that a large 
segment of alcoholism is a psychoneurotic reaction type. 

2. Many neurotics are capable of facing life quite successfully, even 
though they feel insecure and distrust their capacities. Threatened 
defeat in the battle of life is anticipated and to some extent dis 
counted by the expedient of setting their subjective standards too 
high. Thus, the insult to the ego is lessened. From a normal, ob 
jective point of view, they are not inferior personalities, but only 
think themselves inferior because with unconscious purpose they 
have placed their standards so much higher than the average. The 
proof of this is to be found in many neurotics who, no matter how 
badly they themselves may have failed in taking their rightful place 
in reality, always expect and demand too much of those who have 
made adequate adjustments. It seems as if they are unwilling to 
compromise with life, and their philosophy is, "If I can t be perfect, 
why try to be anything? However, I do expect and demand perfec 
tion in those who have the audacity to pretend that they have made 
an adequate adjustment." 

3. When a potential neurotic of this type of personality becomes an 
abnormal drinker,. we may see how he uses destructively the state 
of mind that demands perfection in others , and for a long time his 
attitude of "Who are you to tell me what to do?" will be a stumbling 
block in the way of his submission to treatment. Should the thera 
pist be a normal drinker, the patient at once pounces on this fact, re 
fusing to recognize that there are plenty of people who can drink 
in moderation in a controlled manner. He can see in the gesture of 
drinking in others only the morbid condition that exists in regard to 
his own drinking. Such a state of mind, supercritical concerning those 
who are trying to help him, is, of course, a resistance on the part 
of the abnormal drinker against getting well, as it is, too, a symptom 
of the immature level on which the personality has chosen to face 
life. This is perhaps akin to the gradual dawning in the mind of the 
child of the knowledge that his mother and father are not omnipo- 



208 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

tent, and the subsequent shock that takes place when he finds that 
his parents are of but the same clay of which other adults are fash 
ioned. One wonders if this recruit for the army of alcoholism, both 
introverted and potentially neurotic, may not, because of his power 
to see so much subjectively, get a frightening glimpse in adolescence 
of the full burden that will be demanded of him if he allows him 
self to mature, and being untrained and uninformed as to how to 
accept maturity, he rebels and remains fixed at an adolescent level. 
Subsequently, his lot is thrown with people who have adjusted to 
maturer levels, and his position becomes uncomfortable and unten 
able. To compensate for this, he develops a system of escape which 
he hopes will be acceptable to his environment. These escapes are, 
after all, but complicated varieties of a childish malingering. One 
sees in the alcoholic neurosis a parallel to the age-old trick of hav 
ing a headache and being very sick indeed because one is unpre 
pared for school. Seemingly, the patient is demanding that the en 
vironment accept him as a weakling. Nevertheless, his ego rebels at 
this social measurement, so in an alcoholic breakdown he sometimes 
attains the neurotically enviable position of being an important 
weakling. Such personalities can stand anything but being ignored, 
and the fuss and worry brought about by his alcoholic problem are 
unconsciously welcomed and gloried in. 

The following short account given us by a frank patient and a 
member of his family during an early interview is illustrative of 
much that has been written in this chapter. 

Mr. X. was born of an excellent family of Quaker and Dutch an 
cestry. There was no history of mental disease and, with the ex 
ception of an uncle on his maternal side, no record of abnormal 
drinking. The grandparents had been successful in business, and 
his parents were comfortably established with little incentive to 
further enhance their pecuniary resources. The mother might be de 
scribed as a typical society woman. She had married the man who 
was chosen by her parents and approved by her social set. How 
ever, in her youth she had fallen in love with a man of whom her 
family disapproved because, although acceptable and attractive as 
a potential husband, he was socially unimportant. Like a dutiful 
daughter, she unwisely acquiesced in her parents desire and even 
tually married her family s choice rather than expose herself to 



CASE HISTORIES 209 

their criticism. The result was a humdrum, uninteresting union, 
and to escape she engaged in all kinds of club work, social service, 
and philanthropic activities. As her only son grew older, she be 
came more and more solicitous about him, and consequently over- 
protected him in every way, thus denying him the normal "give and 
take" of pyery4ay ^xistence. , 

6. The father of trie patient, on the other han3, was disappointed in 
the outcome of this marriage, in which there was no real love and 
little understanding. As time went on, he devoted himself more and 
more to business and club life, avoiding a home which fell far short 
of his expectations and ideals. As his son matured, the father en 
deavored to act as a counterfoil to the pampering attitude of the 
mother. He felt the boy s disaster was inevitable unless he at 
tempted to compensate by handling the boy in a stern, austere man 
ner. The result of this environment on the child is rather obvious. 
He found himself "out on a limb," uncertain which way to jump. 
Being human, he leaped to his mother s arms where he was over- 
protected, flattered, and completely untrained for the battle of life. 
Although he admired his father, he was terrified by his unnatural 
sternness and domineering tactics. 

7. When eighteen years of age, the boy entered college, and again 
found himself "out on a limb," but this time there was no place to 
jump. He was released from both the solicitous pampering of his 
mother, and the dominant commands of his father. Mr. X. thus de 
scribes his feelings and reactions: "I was torn between a stimulating 
feeling of independence on the one hand, and insecurity on the 
other. I found myself totally bewildered by the matter-of-fact man 
ner with which my contemporaries faced the problems of existence. 
They appeared so capable and unafraid in meeting their everyday 
problems. I craved their approval and wanted to be considered one 
of them; but I had no technique with which to establish a friendly 
relationship. 

8. "I remember my first visit to the village inn and my excitement 
and relief at discovering that alcohol would dissipate my feelings of 
insecurity and inferiority to the point where I felt socially secure. 
In this environment I was accepted by a fast group who were 
rendered uncritical by their use of alcohol. The Inn became a Mecca 
to which I made frequent pilgrimages. Here was afforded, at small 



210 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

expense and no effort, a sense of well-being and importance. While 
under the influence of a few drinks, I fancied myself an outstanding 
member of my class; and my drinking companions flattered me by 
welcoming me into their circle. Even the recital of some drunken 
prank in which we had all participated made me feel important 
and pleasantly conspicuous. This zest for recognition soon led to my 
seeking out bizarre things to do while under the influence of liquor. 
My drinking companions always applauded. Eventually, in my 
freshman year, I was called before the dean, who symbolized my 
father s stern personality. As I recall, he was kindly and gave me 
good, wholesome advice which was promptly rejected because it 
was so like my father s guidance. 

9. "When I had to leave college, I returned to a family wherein open 
warfare had been declared. My father blamed my mother for my 
failure at college; and my mother accused my father of almost 
everything imaginable. A position in a bank was secured for me, 
and I soon discovered that my inferiority feeling, due to my failure 
at college, could be dissipated by the use of my new found friend, 
alcohol. The next five years constituted a makeshift escape from 
unpleasant reality due to the conflict at home, and my resentment 
against both my mother s overprotection and my father s discipline. 
I found myself living more and more at the club, and almost en 
tirely preoccupied in a mad search for excitement amidst the social 
activities offered every young bachelor in a large city. During this 
period I drank a great deal, but had no realization that I was ad 
dicted to, or dependent upon alcohol. I persisted in my endeavor to 
become conspicuous when under its influence, and soon I found I 
had a reputation, at first, for being very gay; but later I sensed the 
gossips whisper, Isn t it too bad he drinks so much? 
10. "At the end of five years, I married. During those first two years 
of married life, my wife and I devoted ourselves to a whirl of social 
engagements, most of which seemed to demand that I use alcohol 
almost continuously. Then our first child was born. My drinking had 
now become a problem to me and my wife. I was getting a little 
bit tighter than anybody else at parties. I was beginning to look 
forward to lunch at the club merely to remedy my shaky hands and 
awfully gone feeling with a few drinks at the bar. It was not long 
before I concluded that a morning eye-opener would be advisable 



CASE HISTORIES 211 

in order to brace me sufficiently and tide me over until lunch time. 
At length, because of my alcoholic breath and inefficiency, I was 
hauled on the carpet in the president s office, where I was warned 
that it was imperative that I get hold of myself and learn to con 
trol my drinking. This frightened me. Like the dean in college be 
fore, the president no doubt was the admired and dreaded surro 
gate of the stern father of my boyhood. I tried going on the wagon, 
and was surprised to learn it was not so difficult to do without al 
cohol. It was painful, however, to endure the boredom and restless 
ness caused by abstinence. . . . My drinking companions at the 
club became rather dull, silly human beings, and I felt excluded 
from their conversation about drinking escapades. I became petu 
lant and terribly sorry for myself. My home life was very dreary, 
and my wife s worried attitude concerning my drinking made me 
guiltily furious. My moroseness had a repercussional effect so that 
marital life became a cat and dog existence. After two months of 
abstinence from alcohol, I decided that I could drink in moderation. 
I was welcomed back into the arms of my drinking companions, and 
even my wife admitted that things seemed to be going better now 
that I had control of myself/ This seminormal control lasted four 
months, during which time I thought I was able to limit my drink 
ing comparatively well. However, at the end of this period, my 
shaking hands had to be quieted by a heavy drink before breakfast; 
and the next time I was summoned to the president s office, I was 
fired. 

11. "Self-pity now became extreme. The hours normally spent at the 
office were now spent at the club with other men whose working 
interfered with their drinking. Every evening the return home be 
came more cloudy and vague. At first, I was just tight at dinner. 
Pretty soon I was dead drunk by that time and had to be assisted 
to bed by the servants. From this time on, a sanatorium was neces 
sary to sober me up. It seems as if I have spent the last five years 
in sobering up, and then looking forward to the day when I could 
drink again. I realize that it cannot go on any longer because I am 
physically, mentally, and morally so far down the ladder that de 
struction appears inevitable. I am willing and anxious to do any 
thing that will help me, provided you think I can be shown what 
to do." 



212 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

12. Naturally, we did not make a casual diagnosis of Mr. X/s case 
from the brief account cited above. All it gives is a vague picture 
of an environment destructive to mature emotional growth, and the 
patient s own account of how he used alcohol abnormally during 
the period of adolescence and maturity up to the time he consulted 
us. The history signified a state of mind so maladjusted in facing 
reality on a normal basis that the use of alcohol or some other way 
of eluding reality seemed inevitable. The fact that it was the mis 
use of alcohol that showed itself as a symptom of maladjustment 
seems to us in this instance and in many others merely a matter of 
chance, augmented by an environment in which drinking is common 
and socially acceptable. In other circumstances and in another en 
vironment, Mr. X. might have shown other neurotic symptoms with 
out the necessity of using alcohol. Because his symptom happened 
to take the form of chronic alcoholism, there was little incentive for 
him to seek any other path of escape. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. Outline this article on the basis of particulars and generalities. 

b. Show by your outline where both particulars and generalities come in the 
article. 

c. Explain why the generalities come where they do in the article. 

2. a. Indicate by parallel columns the particulars in the case study of Mr. X. that 
correspond to the generalities that the author covers. 

b. Does the author seem to cover each aspect of the man s behavior and re 
late such separate aspects to corresponding generalities? 

3. a. To what extent does the case study here deal with backgrounds, particularly 
heredity? 

b. How does he show the significance of such material? 

4. Compare the material contained in the last paragraph with that in the first two 
paragraphs. 

5. a. Compare this article with Kimball Young s "Projection of Parental Ambitions 
upon Children." Point out similarities and differences in style. 

b. Now compare this article with J. B. Martin s "The Ring and the Con 
science." What are the main differences in treatment between them? 

6. a. If you have read Charles Jackson s The Lost Weekend, write a brief paper 
in which you show to what extent his book could be called a "case history." 
b. Can you think of other books of fiction which use, primarily, this method for 
the ends of imaginative literature? 



CASE HISTORIES 213 

WOMEN AVAILABLE* 
By Ruth L. Porterfield 

1. HERE ARE the case histories of five unemployed college women 
whom I know in New York. This factual account of the situation in 
which they find themselves may explode the common theory that it 
is the unfit who have not survived the depression and that those 
endowed with education and experience have come through un 
scathed. These girls, it is true, still have a few friends to help them 
out occasionally, but they are fast approaching the depths of desti 
tution to which unemployed women of the working classes have al 
ready fallen. Theirs is a fair cross section of the experiences of thou 
sands of similarly well educated young women in all parts of the 
country. 

VERA 

2. Vera has never had a job. Almost every day of her first year in 
New York was spent in the discouraging routine all too familiar to 
the inexperienced college graduate looking for work. Employment 
agencies and prospective employers were equally indifferent to her 
plight when they discovered her lack of experience. And the money 
that she spent on stamps for answering want ads was wasted; her 
letters never elicited replies. 

3. For a time she lived on a small inheritance. But by the summer of 
1934 it was gone and she seemed as far as ever from any hope of 
getting a job. Despite the intense heat and the growing nausea and 
weakness of slow starvation she continued to look for work for a 
month after her funds gave out. During this period she did not pay 
any rent for her furnished room and for food she depended almost 
entirely on occasional dinner invitations from her friends. There 
were not many of these invitations because she did not tell anyone 
how desperate her situation really was. Sometimes, though, she 
would borrow a dollar which usually went for carfare when she 
got so tired she couldn t walk farther, or, contrary to her better 
judgment, for food. 

* From The American Mercury, XXXIV (1935), by permission of the pub 
lishers and the author. 



214 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

4. After four weeks of assuring her landlady that she would soon 
get a job and pay her rent she came home one night to find that all 
her clothing and personal belongings had disappeared during her 
absence. Frantic, she appealed to the landlady who told her that 
everything would be returned when she paid her rent. The value of 
her possessions was of course far greater than the amount of her un 
paid rent and she asked friends to loan her twelve dollars, the sum 
of her indebtedness. When she went home that night to redeem her 
possessions she found that a new lock had been put on the outside 
door of the house and that her key no longer fitted it. She rang the 
bell and knocked for a long time, but there was no answer. 

5. In a daze, she went to the park and sat on a bench and cried un 
til a policeman threatened to arrest her on a charge of vagrancy if 
she stayed any longer. That night she slept, or tried to sleep, in the 
waiting room of the Grand Central. Once a guard told her to leave, 
but when he discovered she was so weak and sick that she couldn t 
stand he relented. Later she discovered that homeless women often 
sleep in the big stations, pretending to be waiting for a morning 
train. She also found women lying behind the heating and ventilat 
ing shafts in subway toilets. In spite of the fact that the weather 
was exceptionally hot, most of them were wearing several suits of 
underclothing and two or three dresses. Not having any place to 
leave their belongings they had to wear everything they owned. 

6. Vera herself slept in all the Y.W.C.A.s in town in rotation: home 
less girls can spend one night in each. Finally someone directed her 
to the Girls Service League. By that time she was reduced to a state 
of thinking that it would be a privilege to work without a salary 
anything for some food and a dependable roof over her head. She 
was sent out for an interview with a prospective employer, but 
never got there. It was very hot and, except for a little bread, Vera 
had had nothing to eat for three days. She isn t sure what happened. 
But she remembers leaving the Girls Service League and feeling 
especially dizzy and sick. The next thing she knew she was in a bed 
in Bellevue Hospital. Vera lay there three weeks: in falling she had 
struck her head on the pavement and suffered a severe concussion. 

7. When she was discharged from Bellevue she was still too weak 
to look for a job. Consequently, she was forced to appeal to the few 



CASE HISTORIES 215 

friends that she has in the city. But, since they are none too well 
off themselves, she refuses to take more than a small sum from them 
each month. She is living in a ramshackle tenement, sharing a room 
with a homeless woman whom she met at the Girls Service League. 
The room is without improvements, except for cold running water 
and a gas plate. The paint is dirty and no amount of washing seems 
to have any effect on it. 

8. A mutual friend recently took me to see Vera. It was early eve 
ning and the two girls were having their dinner which consisted of 
rice and carrots. While they ate, cockroaches ran across the table. 
For weeks they have been trying to get rid of them and of the other 
vermin that infest the place, but so far their efforts have been un 
availing. The walls separating the apartment from the others in the 
building are so thin that we could hear almost every sound in the 
house: water running, dogs barking, children crying, and angry 
voices raised in interminable quarreling. 

9. A few days before our visit someone had thrown a stone through 
one of the windows and cold blasts of air increased the discomfort 
of an interior that is always tomblike and damp. The girls were 
wearing winter coats; their fingers were blue with the cold; we 
could see our breath as we talked. The broken window had been 
called to the attention of the owner who promised to get around to 
it when he could. "In the meantime, stuff the hole with rags," he 
advised, "fresh air is good for you/ He is similarly indifferent to the 
fact that the ceiling is falling: a few inches come down every day 
when there are fist fights in the apartment upstairs. 

10. Vera is now in the third year of her unemployment. If she is com 
pletely discouraged, she does not say so. In fact, she told me she 
had recovered sufficiently from her fall to start looking for work 
again. "Only I ll have to have something to wear first," she said. 
"No one will hire me looking this way." Her one dress has been 
cleaned and mended until there is nothing left of it; she has no hat 
and there are large holes in her shoes. Lately she applied for relief, 
but so far nothing has come of it. The woman who was sent to in 
terview her by the Home Relief Bureau spent the morning discuss 
ing her own religious problems and trying to convert Vera to 
Christian Science. After much talk about the "free flow of a supply 



216 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

of light" she suddenly announced that she was "frozen to death" 
and left in a great hurry, promising to return in a few days. So far 
she has not returned. 

MARGARET 

11. Margaret presents a strong contrast to Vera: her morale has been 
completely shattered by the depression. Eight years ago this past 
June she was the pride of the graduating class of one of the best 
known women s colleges in the country. She was offered a fellow 
ship, but felt that she should decline it in favor of working and try 
ing to help her family in the Middle West. She went into publishing 
in which she did exceptionally well, partly because publishing was 
in its heyday and partly because of her ability. She sent money home 
and had an attractive apartment. 

12. Her magazine stood the first two years of the depression, but in 
1931 it went under and she was out of a job. At first she looked for a 
position as good as the one she had lost, but there were not many 
like that in 1931. And the weary months, during which her savings 
went like snow in the sun, taught her to take anything she could 
get. She ran the gamut of cheap typing jobs: fourteen dollars a 
week and a lame back were all she could show for the longest, hard 
est days she had ever known. If she typed less than two thousand 
form letters a week her salary was cut to twelve dollars. And when 
the nervous strain of such work and living in a cold room made her 
ill and she stayed away from the office for a day or two, she got 
fired. 

13. By 1933 she seemed to be permanently out of a job. She spent 
much of that year looking for work but could find nothing and now 
she has stopped looking. She can no longer bring herself to face the 
self-assured indifference of receptionists when they turn her out at 
the mere mention of the word job. A well-developed inferiority 
complex makes her think that her misfortunes are her own fault 
and no one can convince her that this is not the case. 

14. The tables are reversed now: her family sends her a few dollars 
each month enough for the rent of a bleak loft. They are in bank 
ruptcy themselves and cannot afford even the little that they give 
her. Nor can they afford to have her corne home; they think that in 
the city she will soon find work. Not having seen her in a long time 



CASE HISTORIES 217 

they have no idea of the tragedy of her situation; in her letters to 
them she tries to conceal the truth. If it were not for her friends she 
would starve. They have a regular routine for entertaining her so that 
she has a dinner invitation almost every night. Dinner is her only 
meal. When one of the friends forgets that it is her turn to be host 
ess, Margaret doesn t eat at all. 

15. She knows that she should reward the hospitality that is offered 
her by seeming her former gay self, but it is almost impossible for 
her to be anything but apathetic and apologetic. She feels herself a 
burden and she knows that her appearance is anything but attrac 
tive: she hasn t even the facilities for keeping clean. Worst of all, 
she has lost almost half her teeth, although she is not yet thirty. 
Dental clinics will extract an aching tooth without charge, but fill 
ings and inlays run into money. 

FRANCES 

16. A little over a year ago Frances lost her job when the advertising 
agency in which she had been employed since her graduation from 
college failed. Since then she has found that education, six years of 
experience, and the most tireless energy can count as nothing in the 
search for work. Her terror at being jobless was intensified by the 
fact that in a small upstate town she had a mother and younger 
sister who were almost completely dependent on her for support: 
each week she had sent them part of her salary. Because of this gen 
erosity she was not fortified by much of a savings account when the 
disaster of unemployment came and her downfall has been un 
usually rapid. 

17. At present Frances seems as far as ever from finding anything, al 
though her days are still given over to an intensive program of job 
hunting. She would rather be out in the cold streets and winter 
storms than in her tiny hall bedroom with its one window opening 
on an airshaft and its nauseating odor of grease, kerosene, illumi 
nating gas, and defective drains. The absence of light and heat and 
air she finds as nothing compared with the horror of this overpow 
ering and inescapable stench. However, she has tried enough cheap 
rooming houses to know that they all have similar drawbacks. 

18. Besides looking for work, her other major preoccupation is the 
everlasting struggle to keep up appearances to look well dressed 



218 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

on nothing a year. If she is shabby she will never find work. But 
without running water or electricity she finds it practically impos 
sible to keep herself or her clothing clean and so she takes her 
laundry with her when she goes to see friends and utilizes their 
facilities. On such occasions she bathes, too; there is no tub in her 
house. 

19. Frances has sold her fur coat and all her more valuable clothing. 
First she had to part with her furniture at a great financial loss and 
then her clothes; and by Christmas she was reduced to selling her 
books. Every other day she took six of them to a secondhand shop, 
and if they were nicely bound and in good condition she got twenty 
cents for the six. That was all the money she had for food. She had 
fallen behind in her rent, too, and was being threatened with evic 
tion. 

20. Always ravenously hungry, Frances decided to apply for a Christ 
mas basket from one of the relief agencies: if she were care 
ful, she could make such a supply of food do for a week or more. 
The day before Christmas the basket was delivered. Visualizing 
fruit and a cold, roasted chicken, Frances tore frantically at the pa 
per; she was so hungry that she couldn t wait to untie it. Inside the 
basket there was a purplish slab of raw beef and an uncooked 
chicken. Since she had no cooking facilities she asked her landlady 
to cook the meat in exchange for a share of it. The arrangement 
was eagerly assented to but, unfortunately, the landlady, filled with 
holiday spirit, got drunk and let both roasts burn up. 

21. Some time ago Frances applied for relief, because she felt that 
such a course would be less distasteful than accepting money from 
her friends. Last week, after the usual procedure of investigation, 
she was notified that her application had been acted on favorably. 
This means that from now on her rent will be paid and that, every 
two weeks, she will receive $6.60 for food, clothing and other neces 
sities of existence. 

JANET 

22. I climbed four flights of rickety stairs to see Janet and her mother. 
The room was very cold, and her mother was lying on a couch shiv 
ering beneath a pile of blankets. At the clinic they said she cannot 
live more than a few months: cancer, advanced stage. 



CASE HISTORIES 219 

23. Janet sat with a scarf round her neck and her hand spread over 
one side of her face. She always sits that way now, trying to con 
ceal her birthmark a reddish, purple patch that covers one side of 
her neck and part of a cheek. In other and better years she was able 
to afford a certain patented product that completely hid the blem 
ish, Twice a day she painted her face and neck with this cosmetic 
that meant all the difference between the normal life she once lived 
and the life of the shrinking social outcast that she is today. Al 
though the lotion is worth its weight in gold to her, she cannot 
afford it; the price is ten dollars a bottle and she has no money and 
no job. Furthermore, she is afraid that she never will have one as 
long as her disfigurement is so apparent. She tries to cover it with 
ordinary face powder, but without success. 

24. The room would be unspeakably dreary if it were not for the fact 
that there are a great many books. Books are a liability, though, if 
you have to go on relief, as Janet and her mother discovered a few 
months ago. The investigator who came to see them was "shocked" 
to note such evidence of former prosperity and suggested that they 
sell the books at once. Unimpressed by their explanation that the 
books would bring practically nothing, she asked them if they didn t 
regret not having saved their money. Later she sent a colleague 
around to see what he would make of the strange situation. After 
urging them at some length to "come clean," he was finally con 
vinced that they were not millionaires in disguise and endorsed 
their application for relief. 

25. Except for this relief they have absolutely no money. It is a far 
call from the day, not so long ago, when Janet held a good position 
in the personnel department of a large bank. The depression meant 
consolidations, amalgamations, and retrenchments that finally left 
her without a job. Her experience and the fact that she is an alumna 
of a famous New York university and has done graduate work at Ox 
ford do not seem to have helped her much in the two years that she 
has been looking for work. She couldn t even get a job in a depart 
ment store during the Christmas rush last year. "You have to be 
very chic to do merchandising these days," she was told by a young 
girl in the employment bureau. 

26. Just now she probably couldn t take a job because the days when 
her mother is so ill that she can t be left alone are increasingly fre- 



220 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

quent. On relief it is impossible to buy the expensive medicine, the 
morphine, the thousand and one things that a sick person has to 
have. Janet denies herself literally everything so that she will have 
more money for these necessities. She lives largely on potatoes, and 
not very many of them. The brother of a college friend, who is in 
terning in a local hospital, tries to prescribe for her mother, but 
there is little he can do. 

LOUISE 

27. A newspaperman discovered Louise while he was on an assign 
ment and later took me to see her. She is a college graduate with 
five years experience as a teacher in a secretarial school. Two years 
ago the school closed and she was not able to get another job. Her 
savings went quickly, especially since she was ill threatened with 
tuberculosis and had to spend a few months in a sanatorium. 
When her money gave out she knew what it was like to be hungry 
and she was evicted from more than one furnished room and cheap 
boarding house. 

28. Finally she came down to sleeping in the various emergency shel 
ters that have been provided for women since the depression. In 
the daytime she wandered about in a stupor of hunger and fatigue, 
looking for any kind of work however menial and however badly 
paid. By that time she was too miserable to be very efficient or to 
know exactly what she was doing. And after a night or two in each 
of these shelters she had to think of some other place to go : there is 
a rule that the shelters are for temporary emergencies only. 

29. There was nothing left but the municipal lodging house. She was 
trying to reconcile herself to going there when another unemployed 
girl whom she had met at one of the shelters invited her to spend 
a few nights with her and two of her friends. The three of them had 
found a room for which they did not have to pay any rent and, 
with characteristic generosity, they asked Louise to share their mea 
ger quarters. 

30. These girls have been there for several months now. One of them 
is on relief and she shares her biweekly stipend of $6.60 with the 
others. That is all the money they have. The owner of the house lets 
them stay without paying any rent because the room is so unde 
sirable that she can t get a tenant for it. If she does have a chance 



CASE HISTORIES 221 

to rent it, they will have to go. The room is small and there is no 
heat, artificial light, or running water. The girls have to sleep in 
shifts because there are only two cots. Other furniture is at a mini 
mum, but they do not mind that as much as they do the absence of 
cooking facilities. Because they can t cook they have to live on 
bananas: they read somewhere that bananas are more filling than 
anything else at the same price. 

31. Pooling their resources in the way of clothing, the girls have one 
costume fit to appear on the street. They try to keep it clean and in 
repair, and in rotation each of them wears it for a day and goes 
out job hunting. While she is gone the others sit around in their rags 
and talk about food. Sometimes they are so hungry that they visit 
the owner of the house around meal time, hoping she will offer 
them something to eat. It is a foolish idea, though, because she 
looks at them and says, "Did you know that if you re hungry a good 
drink of water will take away your appetite and do you as much 
good as food?" 

32. Louise has no family. If she has friends in the city she will not 
admit it probably because she does not want them to see her des 
perate poverty. She insists that she will either get a job soon or else 
be successful in going on relief and that, in any case, there is no 
cause for concern about her. But she looks tragically tired and 
worn, and she has an ominous cough. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Comment on the use of the first paragraph of this article. What necessary points 
does it make concerning the use of the case history technique in handling this 
particular problem? 

2. As the introduction says, this is an effort to deal with "factual" material. 

a. Point out in each of the cases particulars that fall under this category of 
"factual." 

b. Explain the kinds of facts used. Are similar kinds used in all five of the 
cases? 

3. Does the author do any generalizing in any of the cases? Where? Why? 

4. Explain why five cases are used here. Could not one case serve as well? Why? 
Why not? 

5. a. Point out any significant differences between the cases. 

b. What influence, if any, do these differences have on the conclusion? 

c. Are any of these cases too untypical to be useful? Do they all bear out the 
point? 



222 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

6. Compare the technique and style used here with that used in Kimball Young s 
case study of Mina and Strecker and Chambers "Psychology of Alcoholism." 

7. a. Does the author show any bias toward the problem that these case histories 
represent? Where? 

b. Is the article slanted? Toward what end? 



A CASE STUDY OF INTRACOMMUNITY CONFLICT* 
By Kimball Young 

1. CONFLICT may arise within a community between opposing fac 
tions as well as between one community and another. The follow 
ing case describes a struggle between two sections of a small city. 
The principal occasions were first, a controversy about the location 
of a union passenger station, and second, the dispute regarding the 
location of the city high school building. In addition to these, for 
years there have been minor and milder conflicts growing directly 
out of business and political rivalry. 

2. Leeds, the county seat of Bain County, , Ites 43 miles 

southeast of Junction City, which itself is a center for a rich agri 
cultural and mining region. Leeds was first settled about 1850, and 
has grown slowly until in 1910 it had slightly more than 8000 in 
habitants. The town is served by two transcontinental railroad sys 
tems and is an important service center for the surrounding agricul 
tural and mining communities. A small denominational college is 
located there. 

3. The city has long been divided in sentiment into the West Side 
and the East Side. There are no natural barriers, but Millrace Street 
served as the boundary between the two sections. Along this street 
runs a canal and a stub railroad line of one of the two major rail 
roads. The roots of the intracommunity opposition go back to pio 
neer days. The West Side was for decades the dominant center, but 
as the city grew to the east and northeast, a rival business center, 
located at and near the intersection of Fernando Avenue and Cen 
tre Street, arose in the newer portion of the community. The West 
Side business section, in contrast, is stretched out along the western 
half of Centre Street west of Millrace Street. 

* From Source Book for Sociology (1935), by Kimball Young. Reprinted by 
permission of the American Book Company. 



CASE HISTORIES 223 

4. There has long been a belief among the West-Siders that the 
East-Siders had an advantage over them. The college, which orig 
inally was located in the western section of the city, had been 
moved in the middle nineties to the northeastern quarter of the 
city. A larger number of the well-to-do residents and community 
leaders lived in the eastern section, although the West Side was not 
lacking in vigorous and effective leadership. During municipal elec 
tions the struggle frequently became sectional rather than strictly 
political. The two rather dilapidated railroad stations were also lo 
cated in the southeastern section of the city. 

5. It was, in fact, the proposal to build a union passenger station to 
serve both transcontinental railroads that gave rise to the most bit 
ter conflict. The East-Siders wanted the new station to be erected 
near the site of the two older stations. The West-Siders countered 
with a proposal to place the station in the southwestern quarter of 
the city. Since the project involved the question of a municipal 
franchise and also the matter of purchasing the land needed for the 
new building, the railroad companies left the decision more or less 
to the citizens. 

6. Out of the discussion of the issue, especially among the business 
and professional groups, there arose two publics, one favoring the 
West, the other the East. Leadership in the controversy was re 
cruited largely from business and professional men. Wealthy indi 
viduals from both sides offered to purchase land for the railroads 
upon which to erect the new station. In fact, the principal motiva 
tion of the struggle was economic, each side feeling that there would 
be increased business for their section if the traffic to and from the 
station were routed through their particular business section. It was 
finally agreed to hold a referendum vote to decide the issue. Tradi 
tional political party lines were forgotten. Men who had been ene 
mies in earlier and other political struggles united in the cause of 
one side or the other, depending on where they resided and where 
their business or professional interests lay. Public debates and rallies 
were held. Slogans and acrimonious accusations were flung freely 
back and forth. Speakers on both sides accused their opponents of 
attempting to dominate the community. The college administration 
for the most part favored the East-Siders, whose spellbinders 
pointed out to those college students living outside the city the dis- 



224 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

advantages which would arise from locating the new station so far 
away in the southwestern part of the town. (The proposal of the 
East-Siders would still leave the new station well over a mile from 
the college, while that of the West-Siders, if adopted, would add 
only about one quarter of a mile in the total distance from the col 
lege to the station.) 

7. The issue was finally decided in favor of the West Side proposal. 
But the bitterness of the controversy remained for years afterwards, 
reflecting itself in mayoralty campaigns, in plans for public holidays 
and public festivals, and in church activities. The West-Siders even 
built a new bank and withdrew their patronage from the dominant 
and strongest bank of the whole county, located in the eastern busi 
ness area. 

8. Curiously enough, the particular advantage of the West-Siders 
triumph was shortlived. Within a few years after the new station 
was built, an interurban electric line was constructed which linked 
up Leeds with a whole chain of towns and cities halfway across the 
state. The Leeds station for this electric road was put ia the eastern 
business section. Its efficient service soon took most of the local in- 
trastate passenger traffic and much of the local freight service away 
from the two transcontinental railroads. Then within a few years 
more, when the coming of the automobile brought good highways 
in its wake, the interurban road itself felt the force of new competi 
tion from busses and automobile travel. 

9. The second outbreak of the intracommunity conflict came about 
five or six years after the first one. It arose over the proposal to 
erect a large public high school. When definite plans began to be 
formulated, the old opposition again became apparent. There was 
much public discussion. Meetings were held and leadership on both 
sides became active in propaganda for their own side of the ques 
tion. In this instance the public discussion was directed toward in 
fluencing the Board of Education, since it had the legal right to de 
cide the issue. Once again the West Side won. The high school was 
placed just one block away from the assumed center of the West 
Side business district in an obviously poor location (because of lim 
ited space for future buildings and nearness to the business sec 
tion), but the West-Siders had triumphed again. 

10. Today [1935] the feeling between the two sections of the city is 



CASE HISTORIES 225 

much improved. Some years ago a third conflict developed over the 
location of the new city and county building, but it did not become 
so bitter and so intense as the other two. The city has grown to a 
population of over 15,000. A steel mill has been built just outside 
the city to the southeast, business has improved, the college has in 
creased its enrollment, and the city has grown most along the east 
ern and northeastern periphery. The Rotary and Kiwanis clubs have 
fostered kindlier relations among the business and professional men 
irrespective of their sectional affiliations. The educational aspects of 
the second major controversy have been somewhat obviated by the 
building of a new junior high school in the eastern part of the com 
munity. The next step doubtless will be the erection of a second 
senior high school in the same section. 

11. The principal features of this intracommunity conflict may be 
summarized as follows: (1) the long-standing rivalry of two sec 
tions of the city, going back to early days; (2) the sentiment among 
West-Siders that the East-Siders were snobbish; (3) the rise of an 
intense conflict, motivated largely on economic grounds, over the 
new union passenger station; (4) the development of group soli 
darity on each side, the rise of leaders, the use of public discus 
sions, and the employment of accusations and other verbal weapons 
to influence the final public decision; (5) the shortlived triumph of 
the West Side; (6) the continuation of a certain bitterness, and 
psychological readiness for another outbreak; (7) the recurrence of 
the controversy over the establishment of the public high school; 

(8) the repetition of the old conflict but without so much intensity; 

(9) the success of the West-Siders again; (10) the later com 
promise by building a new junior high school in the eastern section; 
and finally, (11) the gradual dissipation of the controversial atti 
tudes as the town has grown and as service and other agencies have 
influenced cooperative attitudes. 



ANALYSIS 

In this study you will notice that the area of the problem has shifted from 
individuals to the larger area of the community. 

a. What changes does this shift bring about in the nature of the generality or 
conclusion to the article? 

b. State the conclusion. Where in the article do you find it stated? 



226 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

2. a. What changes in the presentation of the particular that make up the case 
study come about because this is a study of a community? 

b. List die main facts of the community that the author places most stress upon. 

c. What does he do to build up in the reader s mind an understanding and 
knowledge of the community? 

d. What facts about the community are important here? 

3. Explain the function of the final paragraph of the selection. 

4. a. What reservations or limitations does the author make in clarifying the prob 
lem of the typicality of this particular town? 

b. How much of what was true with this specific town would also be true with 
any town? 

THREE SOUTHERN TOWNS * 
By Wilhon Whitman 

I. TUPELO: FEUDALISM AND TVA 

1. THE TENNESSEE VALLEY has no big cities but a hundred county 
seats. These valley towns differ, as the seven valley states differ, in 
history and character; but more interesting than their local color is 
the fact that arrested Southern economy has preserved* intact vari 
ous stages of economic progress, each of which may be almost per 
fectly exemplified in some one town. To consider in turn Tupelo, 
Mississippi, Huntsville, Alabama, and Kingsport, Tennessee, is to 
range all the way from rugged individualism through decadent 
capitalism to streamlined industrial planning, or from feudalism to 
fascism in three hard lessons. 

2. Tupelo, Mississippi, is called "the TVA city" by the local chamber 
of commerce. In 1933 Congressman John E. Rankin persuaded his 
home town to plug in government power, and now it is known 
throughout the country as the satisfied first customer of TVA 
current. 

3. Mr. Rankin admits that it took some argument, but argument in 
Tupelo is simple because you can do most of it with one man. Sup 
pose you wanted to talk to the vice-president of the Tupelo Cotton 
Mills, or the president of the Tupelo Garment Company, or the 
president of the Citizens* Bank of Tupelo; or suppose you had busi 
ness with the Tupelo Brick and Tile Company, or with R. D. Reed 
and Company, the Main Street department store in each case you 

* From The Nation, December 31, 1938, January 7 and January 21, 1939. Re 
printed by permission of the publishers and the author. 



CASE HISTORIES 227 

would ask for Mr. Rex Reed. Or you might be interested in the lo 
cal hospital, or the Red Cross, or the Tupelo Rotary Club, or have 
an inquiry for the state board of public welfare; again the best man 
to see would be Mr. Rex Reed. Of course there are other business 
men in Tupelo, a town with a population of some 6000, and others 
who believe with Mr. Reed that the road to success is service, but 
there is not much business, public or private, that is not somehow 
connected with the Reed enterprises. 

4. It was rumored that the Tupelo Cotton Mills saved $18,000 on 
their power bills the first year they had TVA power. Norman 
Thomas wondered out loud if companies which saved money by 
the use of government power would pass on their savings to their 
workers. The answer was given at Tupelo: just about the time the 
cotton mill counted its savings, the Supreme Court invalidated the 
NRA; so wages instead of being raised were lowered. This was 
hard, because the workers in the cotton mills lost money in another 
way when TVA power was plugged in. They lived in company 
houses, and since their lights were on the company line, they had 
paid at the industrial rate fifty cents a month. For TVA power 
they paid the regular residential rate, with a seventy-five cent mini 
mum. Electricity was cheaper now for everybody else in the town 
but two bits higher for them. The two bits counted. With a $4000 
weekly pay roll, the mill had four hundred employees; you can fig 
ure the average wage for a forty-six-hour week. 

5. In the spring of 1937, when everybody was doing it, the mill 
workers had the spunk to start a sitdown strike. Jimmy Cox, a ma 
chinist in the mill for seven years, was the leader. Jimmy had a wife 
and two small children to worry about, but he was young and hope 
ful. They asked for a 15 per cent raise in wages and a forty-hour- 
week. Of course they didn t stand a chance to get it. The mill of 
fered to compromise on 10 per cent, but it wasn t to be a raise; it 
would have to be a bonus at Christmas. And the management 
wouldn t reduce hours at all. As the strike started in April, Christ 
mas seemed a long way off; so Jimmy Cox, with a two-to-one vote 
to back him, stood pat. 

6. The management said that if the workers were going to be ugly 
about it, they would have to shut down the mill. Last summer the 
mill building, with a square tower like a feudal fort, was still shut. 



228 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Southern workers do not break windows, and the glass was there 
fore still intact. But scarlet trumpet vines were holding the fort, and 
on the door a card read, "This property is now in the hands of the 
receiver appointed by the Chancery Court of Lee County, Missis 
sippi." The mill cottages on the streets between the railroad tracks 
and the cotton fields bore the same placards. When evictions were 
tried during the strike, Jimmy Cox asked the Red Cross for tents 
because the mill workers had joined the Red Cross by a payroll 
checkoff, but Mrs. Rex Reed, the Lee County chairman, had no 
tents available. Nobody could say what the people lived on, for 
there is no "home relief," as Northerners know it, in Mississippi. 

7. Congressman Rankin, in Washington, charged that the National 
Labor Relations Board was "conspiring with communistic influences 
to destroy Southern industries," and that "the ruthless manner in 
which they helped to destroy and forced the liquidation of the cot 
ton mill in Tupelo, throwing all the employees out of work, and the 
brutal manner in which they are now trying to destroy the garment 
factories in that city is enough to stir the people of jmy state to 
revolt." 

8. After the cotton-mill strike a loudspeaker was put in the garment 
factory to tell the girls how well off they were and that unions were 
not to be trusted. But wages were as low as $5 a week, and some of 
the girls were discontented enough to listen to Tupelo s first out 
side organizer. Ida Sledge came from one of the best families in 
Memphis, but she had been corrupted by Wellesley and social 
work. So Miss Sledge was asked to leave Tupelo by a committee of 
loyalists from Reed Brothers, and actually escorted out of town by 
a group of local businessmen. It may be embarrassing for Southern 
gentlemen to have to treat a lady in this fashion, but Southern pa 
pers, discussing Tupelo s trouble, had referred to the Wellesley girl 
as "an influx of CIO agitators." 

9. When the girls who had joined the International Ladies Garment 
Workers Union lost their jobs, they appealed to the Labor Board 
and Tupelo got busy organizing company unions. Members of the 
Chamber of Commerce, the City Council, and the Kiwanis formed 
a Citizens Committee, which entertained loyal workers with pa 
triotic speeches, a dinner at the Hotel Tupelo, and a barbecue at 
the Legion hut; the mayor issued a statement against agitators; and 



CASE HISTORIES 229 

the sheriff announced his determination to "protect Tupelo s indus 
tries from outsiders/ City ordinances sought to discourage distribu 
tion of union circulars, and both papers refused union advertising; 
the Tupelo News gritted its teeth over the need to keep "the virgin 
Southland free from a communistic organization," and dared the 
Labor Board to invade Dixie. Both papers printed the page adver 
tisements of the Tupelo Garment Company urging industrial "co 
operation" by all "true, red-blooded Americans." The citizens tele 
graphed Congressman Rankin and Senator Pat Harrison demand 
ing defeat of the wage-hour law and congratulated Congressman 
Rankin when he warned Washington that the streets of Southern 
towns might be "stained with the blood of innocent people as a re 
sult of the activities of these irresponsible representatives of the so- 
called Labor Relations Board." 

10. The nearest thing to bloodshed in Tupelo was the experience of 
Jimmy Cox. Tupelo was Jimmy s home town, just as it was Con 
gressman Rankin s and Mr. Rex Reed s; he had taken civil service 
examinations and was first on the list of eligible substitutes at the 
Tupelo post office. The cotton mill had been in receivership for a 
year. One day as he was walking along the streets a car drove up 
and a man told him to get in. Since another car was behind, with 
twelve men in the two, there was no use arguing. They took Jimmy 
twenty miles out into the country, tied a rope around his neck, and 
started to tie the other end to the rear axle of the first car. He talked 
them out of that, or maybe they were just trying to scare him; at 
any rate they stretched him over a log instead and beat him with 
their belts. The people who took care of him afterward said he was 
pretty badly hurt it was feared he might lose an arm. He had to 
go for treatment to the new hospital, dedicated shortly before by 
Mr. Rex Reed. 

11. That was last spring. Last summer Tupelo industry faced its 
crisis. All three factories had company unions, and more than 
twenty girls had been fired for membership in the I.L.G.W.U. Or 
so the union was prepared to prove by depositions taken in the 
Holiness Church. Since the Tupelo courthouse was not available 
for the NLRB hearing "Tupelo don t want no riffraff in its court 
house," explained the farmer husband of one of the witnesses 
lawyers and examiner moved over to Aberdeen, the next county 



230 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

seat, a smaller, older town peacefully asleep under its magnolia 
trees. Everybody expected the hearing to last for weeks, but it was 
over in two days. First two, then all of the girls discharged were 
ordered reinstated with back pay. Company unions were ordered 
dissolved, with a word about unfair practices. 

12. The Labor Board works quickly in such cases because it is deal 
ing with a familiar condition. Except for its TVA power, Tupelo re 
sembles other little Southern towns as one "houn dawg" resembles 
another; and in such little towns all over the South industrial feu 
dalism is making its last stand. Of course the "loyal" girls who had 
saved on Coca Colas to pay for the company union were surprised. 
The Tupelo Journal, announcing the result of the hearing, headlined 
its story "NLRB Turns Down Garment Workers Plea," and quoted 
local opinion that the board was "under the thumb of John L. 
Lewis and his CIO unions and it was useless to expect any just ver 
dict." The News managed to make the decision sound favorable to 
the factories. 

13. During the Civil War a Yankee general who had won a little en 
gagement near Tupelo was persuaded to retreat and leave his 
wounded behind. Now, after the NLRB examiner had gone back 
to New York, there were casualties to be counted and a similar con 
fusion as to which side had won. The union girls had their wages 
and a chance to sew more TVA-brand shirts, but one garment fac 
tory and the cotton mill would stay shut. And what good does re 
instatement in a job do you if the big boss and the foreladies and 
right-thinking people in the town are still against you? The board 
may say "without prejudice" but it can t enforce it. It isn t as if there 
were jobs enough to go round. 

14 There is no doubt about what the best people think. To learn 
their views you have only to attend Sunday school at Mr. Rex Reed s 
church. There, the week of the hearing, the teacher of an adult class 
departed from the regular lesson to say what a great mistake it was 
to think we could substitute social service for true faith. Some 
churches made that mistake and some modern schools, and our 
President made it when he planned to regulate wages and hours of 
work. 

15. Tupelo is typical of that large section of the South which is will 
ing to accept New Deal benefits, unwilling to undertake New Deal 



CASE HISTORIES 231 

reforms. Right now, with a new reduction in rates and a profit of 
$40,000 on TVA power last year, it might be unsafe for anti-Admin 
istration forces to ask Tupelo to vote on a clear-cut choice between 
TVA plus NLRB or neither. What Tupelo wants is feudalism with 
electric fans. 

16. In the state that inveigled WPA into subsidizing school manufac 
ture of hosiery, TVA is not the only agency to be made an unwill 
ing accessory to unfair enterprise. But the Tupelo labor case could 
have, for TVA, a greater significance than the Congressional hear 
ings at Knoxville. The government as a manufacturer of power reg 
ulates its resale to domestic consumers; what about its use in in 
dustry? Congressman Rankin, one of the authors of the TVA act, 
insisted that passage of the wage-hour bill would mean "the end of 
civilization as we know it." In Tupelo, the day after the union vic 
tory, he was happy to talk about TVA and how much the Hotel 
Tupelo was saving on its light bill, but he wouldn t discuss labor 
questions. He didn t, he said, know what the cotton mill had paid 
its people. Congressman Rankin was re-elected by a comfortable 
majority in the fall, and there can be no doubt that he is, for Tu 
pelo, the perfect representative. 

17. It is less certain that it will be desirable for the country to make 
good in all respects a prophecy which President Roosevelt, in the 
first flush of enthusiasm over TVA achievements, voiced at Tupelo 
four years ago: "What you are doing here is going to be copied in 
every state in the Union." 

II. HUNTSVILLE: YANKEE INDUSTRY WELCOME 

18. At the time of the Civil War they say that Huntsville, Alabama, 
was full of Federal sympathizers who held a meeting of protest 
against secession. But it wasn t a matter of principle so much as of 
money; people in northern Alabama did their trading with Tennes 
see, and as long as Tennessee stayed on the fence they wanted to 
do the same. The odd thing is that Huntsville s financial ties, which 
made it favor the Federal side in 63, pulled the other way in 33, to 
make the town look coldly on the New Deal and decide to keep it 
self an island of high rates in TVA territory. Even nearby Scotts- 
boro and Decatur have voted to take TVA power, but not Hunts 
ville. Nowadays it isn t just a matter of selling farm produce over the 



232 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

state line in Tennessee. It isn t a matter of local money at all; Hunts- 
ville is far beyond the simple feudalism of little Tupelo. Huntsville 
is a stronghold of the Alabama Power Company and a textile-manu 
facturing center, with its big mills owned in the North. 

19. More people live in the surrounding mill villages Lincoln and 
Merrimack and Dallas than in the town of Huntsville; the popu 
lation of the town is 11,000, that of the villages 15,000. Huntsville, 
in polite phrase, polices its suburbs; the state law forbids picketing, 
and there are special city ordinances about loitering or talking in 
groups, and entry and search. But the mill people can t vote in 
Huntsville elections, and a stranger has no trouble telling where the 
town stops and the mill territory begins. It isn t the houses, which 
are better than a lot of those in Huntsville, or the stores and public 
buildings at the Merrimack mills they have good-sized, white- 
painted houses, with yards, a nice red-brick school with white colo 
nial pillars, and two white churches. The difference is that the mill 
property is behind galvanized wire fencing, with strands of barbed 
wire at strategic points. 

20. In the minds of Huntsville citizens there is an equally sharp divi 
sion between town dwellers and mill people, but of course mill 
wages spent in Huntsville keep the town alive. When the mills 
closed down last year Huntsville blamed the unions. There was no 
strike, and the mills said they closed for lack of orders, but maybe 
there was some truth in the idea that they hoped to kill the unions 
the way TVA kills mosquitoes in its reservoirs, by opening and shut 
ting the dam sluices. Huntsville, though, was alarmed, and when 
the Dallas mills threatened to close for good, the daily paper, owned 
in Birmingham, became excited over the loss of what it called a 
two-million-dollar industry. The paper not only blamed the work 
ers; it warned them that one person out of five in Madison County 
was out of work, that only one applicant out of ten could get a 
WPA job, that unemployment insurance might stop at any time. It 
said the outside labor leaders "foreigners" from Atlanta, Georgia, 
and Gadsden, Alabama were as bad "as anything they ever had 
in Chicago gangs," and it threatened those workers who joined the 
Textile Workers Organizing Committee. "You will be blacklisted 
until your dying day," it declared. "If you turn back to the farm 
there is no hope for you." 



CASE HISTORIES 233 

21. Hunts ville citizens then had the bright idea of going to Mont 
gomery to ask the Governor for "state protection" in reopening the 
mill. By this they meant, of course, martial law to break a strike, in 
case there should be one. A committee composed of city and county 
officials made plans for "Save Huntsville Day," April 20, 1938. The 
Mayor said, "Huntsville and Madison County are confronted with 
the most serious and tragic situation in our history." They closed 
the schools, the courthouse, the banks, the wholesale houses, and the 
cotton warehouse, and the Times suspended publication for the 
day so that everybody could drive to Montgomery. About a thou 
sand Huntsville citizens actually went. They saw the Governor, but 
it didn t do much good; Governor Graves is a New Dealer, and he 
seemed to side with the unions. He said the union had agreed to 
arbitration, and he invited the mill to sit in. That wasn t what the 
Huntsville people had come for, so they booed the Governor and 
drove home. 

22. But the big mills stayed closed, and shopkeepers grew low in 
their minds. Around the square they said the whole trouble had 
started with the NRA, when Washington first undertook to tell a 
man how to run his own business and egged on the mill hands to 
look for high wages. Then these agitators came. Even the Negroes 
living in shacks between the town and the mills said they couldn t 
see why the white folks had to go and make trouble with those 
unions. They were earning good money before, but when the unions 
came nobody could get work. The better people said it wasn t as if 
the mill workers hadn t been well treated before; the mills had 
built them houses and a hospital, and paid teachers and preachers 
salaries. Have an influence on what they taught and preached? 
Why, they could say anything they liked as long as they stuck to 
the schoolbooks and religion. 

23. CIO headquarters exhibited more normal business activity and 
more traditional Southern hospitality than any other place in Hunts 
ville. The union men said that a long history of organization in 
Huntsville rather than any sudden enthusiasm accounted for the 
strength of the unions. They had begun long ago when conditions 
were really bad, in the old mills that had closed down in Hoover s 
time. In those days they had all sorts of trouble, but they had got 
a start; some things that had happened, like the favorite Southern 



234 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

trick of kidnapping the organizer, had helped build morale. And 
now they knew what they were doing. They still had their troubles, 
of course, but they figured they could stick it out. No one bothered 
to mention a typewritten note recently received: "You and your 
kind are not wanted in Huntsville. We advise you to get out at 
once." They were careful, though, to padlock the office when they 
went out. 

24. At the mill offices nobody would talk. The Dallas mill had some 
local stockholders, but its directors met in New York, and the only 
qualified spokesman was "out of town couldn t be reached." As 
their names show, the Lincoln and the Merrimack mills are owned 
in the North; so local employees were justified in referring in 
quiries to Boston. 

25. One mill in Huntsville was running; a little mill locally owned, 
had signed the T.W.O.C. contract. Its wage scale was low, but 
that wasn t what the union was fighting about. There was no 
barbed wire around it, and the owner, right there in his office, 
could be seen. He proved to be as Southern as the T.W.O.C. or 
ganizer, and as practical in his way. How come he is running when 
the other mills aren t? Well, maybe he s got extra good people, in 
telligent people, working for him. Intelligent enough to hold out 
for a CIO contract? Well, maybe, if you want to put it that way. 
He s not afraid of unions his son, up in New York, belongs to the 
musician s union, and he has a brother in the Railway Brother 
hoods. It s an experiment, he says, to see how long he can run 
and make ends meet with competition from mills paying lower 
wages. On the other hand, he figures, keep everybody everywhere 
underpaid, and who s going to buy the goods? He adds that, in 
his opinion, the NRA was all right; and you notice a rarity in 
Huntsville, a picture of the President hanging on the wall. 

26. "So you re scabbing on the capital strike?" 

27. He laughs at that. He doesn t, he says, know what the other 
mills are doing. Maybe they haven t any orders, as they said. 

28. He is no sentimentalist about the unions. He has heard they 
didn t do right over at the Dallas mill, and he isn t sure he approves 
of the checkoff, but if his people want it, it s their business. This 
mill owner s attitude may be due in part at least to his family con 
nections with unions. But he could also be considered a good ex- 



CASE HISTORIES 235 

ample of the old-fashioned small capitalist who arrived by rugged 
individual effort and has retained some human regard for his 
workers. He had, he said, started in a mill when he was a boy, 
and he could tend a machine again if he had it to do. Of course 
he could hire only two hundred people while one of the big mills 
would take a thousand, and he didn t go in for housing or church- 
building. But he was asking no more from the little mill than a 
living for himself and his family, and he lived in a plain frame 
house. The superintendent of the big Lincoln mill was far more 
elegantly housed in a big brick mansion. 

29. Huntsville, so hostile to foreign invasion, doesn t seem to mind 
absentee ownership. And it doesn t seem to realize that the Ala 
bama Power Company isn t a local enterprise; a hardware man 
with a store on the square said he figured that the government s 
proposal to sell cheap power was just like a chain store coming in 
and competing with a local store. It wasn t fair. Huntsville people 
will tell you, too, about the taxes that Alabama Power pays the 
state, not realizing that the company had to be converted to that. 
Its founder once complained that the power to tax was the power 
to destroy. But then the Yankee financiers came in, advising, as 
Merlin II. Aylesworth said at Birmingham in 1924, "Don t be afraid 
of the expense. The public pays the expense." 

50. Of course the public pays the Alabama Power Company s taxes, 
indirectly. Many persons wish current were cheaper so they could 
use more, but few understand the iniquity of a sales tax, direct or 
indirect. Nearly all, moreover, have a great distrust of interference 
from Washington, acquired in Civil War and Reconstruction days. 
Last year a Huntsville ice and coal company put in a claim for 
losses due to TVA s "social experiment," and Huntsville cherishes 
many tall tales about the errors of TVA. Government juice, they 
say, is too strong blows the radio tubes right out. Then they have 
to write to Washington before they can make repairs. And all the 
fuss TVA is making over malaria mosquitoes is certain to ruin the 
fishing. 

31. The county agent admits that TVA phosphate is all right, but 
they won t let you have it for row crops, and of course Madison 
County is the biggest cotton-raising county in Alabama. Change 
to other crops? Why, this is a cotton country and it isn t going to 



236 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

change. But it s not true that tenants aren t encouraged to raise 
garden stuff, they could if they weren t shiftless and lazy. Rural 
electrification? Well, the Alabama Power Company has done a lot 
to develop this county, and they re building new lines right now. 

32. It won t be easy to change the cotton farming, though the ware 
houses are stuffed with last year s crop. Changing the mill setup 
by federal legislation may be easier. The small local mill was bound 
to be helped by the wage-hour law, making general the scale it 
was paying. Lately the big mills have given up their open-and-shut 
tactics and resigned themselves to Labor Board elections; the Dal 
las mill, with its local connections, was the first to sign the 
T.W.O.C. contract. The Lincoln mill is still holding elections, hop 
ing perhaps that the independent union of the A. F. of L. will 
gain strength, although the T.W.O.C. is ahead. In the Merrimack 
mill elections the T.W.O.C. won, and the contract calls for the 
mill to reopen this month with a thousand workers employed. 

33. In a final struggle before this contract was signed, workers were 
evicted from the Merrimack houses, and the union fo\md shelter 
for evicted families in an old hotel on the outskirts of town. The 
women s auxiliary set up cooperative kitchens, and the T.W.O.C. 
was able to add to its Huntsville history a successful experiment 
in group living, outside the wire fence. The town has shown no 
such adaptability, and this suggests that the worst barriers in 
Madison County are not the barbed-wire fences around the mill 
property. On the better residence streets of Huntsville the hedges 
are of rose-colored crepe myrtle, but the people living in the nice 
old houses are set apart behind less pleasant barriers of the mind. 

34. They say that though these people may vote Democratic they 
pray Republican. And Huntsville boasts the first Garner-for-President 
club to be organized in the South. 

III. KINGSPORT: THEY PLANNED IT 

35. Most Southern towns just grew, but in the Tennessee Valley is 
a town that is supposed to show you what American business can 
do when it turns its hand to civic planning. Kingsport, Tennessee, 
was "deliberately planned for a city of industrial efficiency, civic 
beauty, and human happiness." 

36. The quotation is from "Kingsport, a Romance of Industry," first 



CASE HISTORIES 237 

published in 1928 and still to be had in abridged form from the 
Kingsport boosters. The book contains affecting stories of how the 
romance began. One tells of a visiting financier who expressed 
curiosity about how the sunbonneted women in the nearby hills 
made a living. His local informant admitted that this was a prob 
lem, but said they might learn to make hosiery, whereupon "the 
financier was silent for a time, studying. Then the gracious, big- 
hearted man replied, Meet me at eight o clock in the morning 
and we will select the site for the hosiery mill/ " 

37. In another tale the visitor is taken to a little school in the hills, 
and the assembled Anglo-Saxon children are told that this great 
man from the East has it in his mind to build a big factory that 
will bring the blessings of prosperity to Kingsport. A little boy 
stands up and says, "Please, mister, build your plant here." So the 
plant was built. This second story was repeated last summer in 
the Saturdaij Evening Post, and therefore must be true. It is un 
disputed that Yankee industry came to Kingsport because of eager, 
tow-headed boys and women willing to work. Or, in the words 
of a report to the Labor Board, "One of the chief inducements 
held out ... in securing these industries was the plentiful sup 
ply of cheap labor." In telling of Kingsport s origins, the report 
says: 

A certain New York banker named Dennis, with railroad and other in 
terests in northeast Tennessee, conceived the idea of building an indus 
trial city in this section of the country. He enlisted the services of one 
J. Fred Johnson, then a small merchant in Kingsport, which was at that 
time but a hamlet. Johnson turned out to be a man of unusual vision and 
salesmanship and soon became and still remains a kind of patron saint of 
the community. 

Dennis, Johnson, and associates formed a corporation called the Kings- 
port Improvement Company, which purchased practically all the land in 
what is now the incorporated limits of the city; and beginning in the year 
1917 started a real estate development which resulted in attracting sev 
eral large manufacturing establishments from the North. . . . 

38. The city fathers have always made much of their planning; plan 
ning is all right if the right people do it. In December, 1937, the 
Nation s Business published an article explaining in detail that 
Kingsport was a "yardstick" of good planning by private enterprise, 



238 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

while Norris was an example of bad planning by the government. 
As the boosters would put it, at the birth of the little city all the 
good fairies of industry presided. The happy parents were the 
Clinchfield railroad and the land company; the fairy godparents 
were the Eastman Company, the Corning Glass Company, and 
the Kingsport Press of New York, the Borden and the Holliston 
mills of Massachusetts, the Mead Fiber Company of Ohio, and the 
Pennsylvania-Dixie Cement Corporation. Deliberate planning for 
industrial efficiency meant that these industries were linked to 
gether. The paper and cloth used for books turned out by the 
Kingsport Press are manufactured in Kingsport; the paper mill 
gets its wood pulp from the Eastman plant, and so on. For the in 
dustries the advantage is obvious. For the town the idea is that 
there shall be no dependence on one employer, as at Tupelo, or 
even on one industry, as at Hunts ville. 

39. As for civic beauty, private enterprise can do well enough with 
physical planning as long as it is willing to spend money. At Kings- 
port the money lasted until there had been produced a handsome 
common with red-brick colonial buildings reminiscent of New Eng 
land or Virginia, a wide main street, and even an artistic filling 
station. Civic administration was also carefully planned, with a 
charter examined and amended by the bureau of Municipal Re 
search of the Rockefeller Foundation. Could anything more be 
done to insure that third consideration of the planners, human hap 
piness? 

40. You wouldn t think so to read about beautiful Kingsport or even 
to look at it if you didn t wander too far from the Inn or Watauga 
Street, where the well-to-do people live. Of course the Kingsport 
industries built model houses for their employees; you can read 
about a Borden mill village where the houses have bathtubs. In 
1928 there were sixty-two houses in two Eastman villages at that 
time 422 persons were employed in the Eastman plant. After 
ward the number of employees grew to five thousand, and of 
course the owners built a beautiful new plant. They didn t, though, 
build a new town. 

41. Where do the workers live? In theory they are healthfully es 
tablished all over the neighboring countryside, on their own little 
farms, from which they drive to work in their own cars. Actually 



CASE HISTORIES 239 

many of them live crowded together on Long Island in the Holston 
River, which the early settlers of Kingsport foolishly took away 
from the Indians. No self-respecting Indian would live there now. 
But plenty of Kingsport workers do; the island is built over with 
shacks that would do no credit to a cotton plantation, although 
they rent for $10 a month. They are worse than plantation shacks 
to live in, because they are jammed so close together and there are 
no sewers on the island. The healthful combination of rural and 
industrial life in this part of Kingsport means that you have rural 
sanitation with city crowding, and the real miracle is that there 
has been no typhoid epidemic. 

42. Long Island folk are not pampered with fancy public buildings, 
either. The beautiful brick churches on the common are for those 
who live on Watauga Street; if the Long Island people want a 
church they will have to build one. Their school is a little shack 
so crowded that the children attend in three shifts. 

43. What s wrong with the Long Island people? Nothing at all. But 
you remember that low wages were one of the industrial attrac 
tions of Kingsport. Of course the Kingsport Press has to pay some 
skilled workmen, though they can t expect to make what printers 
get up North; and the Eastman plant has to have technicians for 
the ersatz articles it makes out of wood pulp. But the cotton mill, 
until the wage-hour law went into effect, had the usual $5-to-$15 
Southern scale, and plenty of people in the other industries were 
at that wage level. They couldn t pay much over $10 a month for 
a house, and so they lived on Long Island. 

44. You don t have much luck buying your own little home, in Kings- 
port. Of course with the real-estate company behind the town, and 
brick and cement and lumber among the local products, the au 
thorities would like to see the workers invest, and therefore they 
arrange loans and mortgages; but it always seems to work out 
that families trying to buy a house end by losing it. Even in Kings- 
port employment is irregular. 

45. You can t expect, of course, to take the blessings of industry and 
reject any little discomforts that come, too, such as the pall of ce 
ment dust that hangs over Kingsport within a wide radius of the ce 
ment works, or the pollution of the Holston River by chemicals 
dumped by the Eastman plant. These things go along with being 



240 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

what the Labor Board report calls "perhaps the most completely in 
tegrated industrial community in America." 

46. If you wonder how the Labor Board came to get a report on 
this industrial paradise, it must be whispered that there was actu 
ally a strike in Kingsport two years ago, in the silk mill that is 
closed now, and last year the T.W.O.C. called for a hearing on 
the cotton mill. The complaints were, as usual, intimidation and 
discharge of workers joining the union, efforts to foster a company 
union, and so on. But the NLRB examiner considered that the pe 
culiar local conditions had a bearing on the case. He noted that 
instead of the familiar political bosses, Kingsport had an "oligarchy 
composed of the founding fathers " working with the industrial 
ists: 

Practically all real estate has been sold by the Kingsport Improvement 
Company, with suitable restrictions and strict selection to preserve unity 
and cooperation in the industrial development conceived by the "found 
ing fathers" aforesaid, so that the latter have exercised at all times, and 
continue to exercise by this and other means, a very real, if not apparent, 
control of the government and its affairs. 

To show how this works out, the Mayor of Kingsport at the time 
of the hearing was plant superintendent at the cotton mill. Co 
operation of this kind is found everywhere, of course, but the care 
ful industrial planning in Kingsport makes it easier to attain. J. Fred 
Johnson runs Kingsport just as Rex Reed runs Tupelo; only Mr. 
Johnson does not act for himself alone but as agent for the co 
ordinated industries. 

47. It is true that in the last election a little upset occurred. It seems 
that odd things can happen about taxes in Kingsport. Perhaps a 
piece of land is considered a park and not taxed, until the land 
company has a good offer for it; but you wouldn t expect back taxes 
to be collected on it then as commercial property, would you? 
People aren t fussy about such things in Kingsport, but they did 
get to watching poll taxes, as Southern minorities do, and in the 
last election a local lawyer who opposed the oligarchy of the 
founding fathers bought radio time outside the town and told 
what he found out. So they elected a sheriff that didn t belong, in 
stead of the paper-mill man who was slated for the job. The sheriff s 
office could stand a little reform because it had had as many as 



CASE HISTORIES 241 

seventy-eight deputies sworn in at one time. But it will take more 
than one election victory to change Kingsport. With everything 
owned up North the way it is, about the only hope lies in the in 
tervention of the national government. 

48. Kingsport is probably no worse than many other industrial towns 
over the country; what lays it open to criticism is its own claim to 
be a "yardstick." It sets itself up as the industrial ideal; and if it is, 
there can be but one answer. On a tent in a shanty section where 
a revival meeting was being held one of the less prosperous citi 
zens of Kingsport lettered this excellent advice: "Ye Must Be 
Borned Again/ 

ANALYSIS 

1. Note particularly the threefold division of this article into what appear to be 
three separate case histories. 

a. Explain the author s purpose in so dividing the project. 

b. How does the totality of the three cases become a general case history? Of 
what is it the case history? 

2. Construct three parallel columns and in each put parallel facts in such a way as 
to demonstrate the parallel lines of development that the author uses to build 
the conclusion. ( Note the time span covered in each case, the choice of an area 
of time that has particular significance. ) 

a. Point out any places where there appears to be a large divergence or differ 
ence in the particulars treated. 

3. Point out the places in which the author makes clear to the reader 

a. that these cases are representative 

b. that the generality . made is contained in each of the cases 

c. that the main generality is contained in the over-all picture of the three cases. 

4. Compare this study with the study of intracommunity conflict by Kimball Young 
in this same chapter. 

a. Point out elements of similarity and elements of difference. 

b. What principles can you find in each of these articles that you can use in 
writing a case history that deals with communities, with larger groupings of 
individuals? 

5. a. Comment on the validity of the case history method as it is used in this ar 
ticle to present a social problem and a social solution involving social change. 
b. What seems to be the author s solution for the problems presented here? Is 
it stated or implied? 

6. a. Point out any evidences of bias that you find here. What seems to be the 
author s point of view or belief against which the article is written? 

b. Study the style of the article. What kinds of words ( particularly adjectives ) 
are used to build an attitude toward the material? How effective is such usage? 



242 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

BROTHER JONATHAN AND COUSIN RODERICK* 

By Donald Davidson 

1. Brother Jonathan lives in Yankeetown for a place name is often 
a "town" in New England, and less often a "ville" or a "burg" as 
in the South. He is a wizened little chip of a man, with blue eyes and 
a bald head, and he looks frail enough for any northwest wind to 
blow away. But there is not a wind on this planet strong enough to 
blow Brother Jonathan off his mountain farm. If any wind contrived 
to do so, he would climb right back again in the matter-of-fact way 
that Robert Frost describes in Browns Descent he would "bow 
with grace to natural law, And then go round it on his feet/ 

2. Brother Jonathan is past seventy years, and his wife Priscilla is 
well over sixty, but between them they still manage to do most of 
the daily work, in house and field, for a two hundred-acre farm, 
most of which is in woodland and meadow. Nathaniel, their 
adopted son, helps some now and then; but Nathaniel, who is 
carpenter, mechanic, cabinetmaker, mountain guide, and tax col 
lector combined, is busy putting up the new house into which he 
and Sophronia, his wife, will soon move they are building it 
extra large, to take in summer boarders. Sophronia helps Priscilla 
as much as she can, but she has her own small children to look 
after. Later on, Brother Jonathan hopes to get a twelve-year-old 
boy from the orphanage, who will do the chores for his keep. But 
now, Brother Jonathan must be up at daylight to start the kitchen 
fire and milk the cows. If it is haying time, he is out in the meadow 
early with the mowing machine, which he has sharpened and 
greased with his own hands, or repaired at his own smithy if it 
needs repairing. The mower bumps and clicks through the rough 
meadow, tossing the little man to and fro as he warily skirts the 
outcrops of stone that will have to be circled with a scythe to get 
the last wisp of hay. 

3. Later, he changes the patient old horses from mower to wagon 
and starts in with a pitchfork. It is a sight to see him navigating 

* Reprinted from The Attack on Leviathan by Donald Davidson by permis 
sion of The University of North Carolina Press. Copyright, 1938, by The 
University of North Carolina Press. 



CASE HISTORIES 243 

the loaded wagon from the upper field to the barn, past jutting 
boulders and through deep ruts. But his pace is easy; he keeps 
it up all day without undue perspiration or agony, and after sup 
per cuts his wood and milks his cows again in unruffled calm. 
He does not seem tired or bored. As he milks, he philosophizes to 
the listening stranger. Yes, times are not what they were, but a 
man can get along if he will be careful and honest. Foolish people, 
of course, never know how to manage. The harm all comes from 
people of no character that do things without regard to common 
decency. The stars are shining when he takes the pails of milk 
into the kitchen. Under the hanging oil lamp he reads the Burling 
ton Free Press or The Pathfinder until he begins to nod. 

4. All the arrangements on Brother Jonathan s farm are neat and 
ingenious the arrangements of a man who has had to depend 
largely on his own wits and strength. The barn is cleverly ar 
ranged in two stories, with a ramp entering the upper story for 
the convenience of Brother Jonathan and his hay wagons, and 
running water on the lower story, for the convenience of the ani 
mals. One well, near the barn, is operated by a windmill; it sup 
plies the stock. Another well, higher up, supplies the house, for 
Brother Jonathan has a bathroom in the upper hall and faucets 
in the kitchen. He has no telephone or electric lights. A man can 
dig and pipe his own wells, and they are finished; but telephone 
and electric lights, not being home contrivances, require a never- 
ending tribute to Mammon. He has his own sawmill and his own 
workshop, where he can mend things without losing time and 
money on a trip to the village. His garage, occupied at present by 
Nathaniel s four-year-old car (which is not being used!), contains 
a carpenter s bench and a small gas engine rigged to do sawing 
and turning. There are pelts drying on the walls. 

5. The house is built to economize space and retain heat. For all 
its modest proportions, it is convenient and comfortable. The 
kitchen is spacious and well equipped. The pantry and cellar are 
stored with vegetables, fruits, and meats that Priscilla has put up 
with her own hands. The dining room, with its long table covered 
with spotless oilcloth, is eating room, living room, and children s 
playground combined. Here all gather after supper: the women 
with their tatting and embroidery; the lively dark-eyed boy from 



244 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

the village, with his homemade fiddle; a summer boarder or two, 
or a visiting relative; and always Brother Jonathan with his news 
paper. In one corner is a reed organ, on which Brother Jonathan 
occasionally plays hymns. In another corner is a desk, filled with 
miscellaneous papers, books, and old magazines. On the walls hang 
a glass frame containing butterflies, the gift of a wandering ento 
mologist; an 1876 engraving of General Washington being wel 
comed at New York, with pictures of all the presidents, up to 
Hayes, around the border; and a faded photograph of a more 
youthful Brother Jonathan with his fellow baggage clerks, taken 
in the days when he went west and got a job in Chicago. Brother 
Jonathan talks of Chicago sometimes, but he never reveals why he, 
unlike many other Yankees, came back to Vermont. 
6. The temper of the household is a subdued and even pleasant 
ness, which the loud alarms and excursions of the world do not 
penetrate very far. The progress of Nathaniel s new house; the 
next morning s arrangements for gathering vegetables and canning; 
what Brother Jonathan shall say in the speech he is 4o make at 
the approaching celebration of the Timothys golden wedding 
such topics take precedence over the epic contentions of Mr. 
Hoover and Mr. Roosevelt. Priscilla may go so far as to marvel 
that anybody can doubt the goodness of Mr. Hoover. (She does 
not add, as she well might, that Mr. Roosevelt, as a "Yorker/ in 
herits the distrust of Vermont.) Or Brother Jonathan may warm 
up to politics enough to announce his everlasting distrust for liq 
uorish Al Smith and to confess that, out of firm disapproval for 
vice, he has once or twice bolted the Republican ticket and voted 
for the Prohibition party s candidate. But in the South, he sup 
poses, he would be as good a Democrat as the next one. They are 
all curious about the South about Negroes and whether the 
Southern people still have hard feelings against the North (on this 
point they seem a little anxious and plaintive). But the talk soon 
shifts to the Green Mountain Boys, from one of whom Brother 
Jonathan is descended, or to stories of his childhood, when bears 
were as thick as porcupines are now he tells of how seven bears 
were once killed in the same tree. In these stories Brother Jonathan 
may put in a dry quip or two, by way of garnishment. He has a 
store of homely jokes and extended metaphors, to which he fre- 



CASE HISTORIES 245 

quently adds a humorous gloss to be sure the stranger gets the 
point. Then maybe there is a game of anagrams or on another 
evening, a corn roast, with a few cronies and kinfolks from the 
village, who talk the clipped Yankee-talk that seems, to Southern 
ears, as pure an English as can be, with only a little of the twang 
that dialect stories have taught one to expect. 

7. Brother Jonathan is not dogmatic to the point of testiness, but 
he is firmly rationalistic on many points. He declares it incredible, 
for instance, that Catholics can believe in transubstantiation how 
can bread and wine actually turn into the blood and body of Jesus 
Christ? Yet oddly enough, Brother Jonathan is neither Congrega- 
tionalist nor Unitarian, but Methodist, and does not mind repeating 
the Apostles Creed, with its formidable references to the Trinity 
and the Resurrection. I am led to suspect that it is not the doctrine 
but the authority to which Brother Jonathan is temperamentally 
hostile. He is used to depending on himself; he does not like to 
be told things. And his independence is of a piece with the whole 
conduct of his life. Years ago, when a famous local character ec 
centrically bought up all the surrounding woodland and farm 
land and turned it into a forest reserve which he bequeathed to 
a neighboring college, Brother Jonathan did not sell out. He held 
on then, he holds on now, with a possessiveness that would be the 
despair of Communists. He will continue to hold on, as long as 
trees yield maple syrup which he will never, never basely dilute 
with cane syrup and boarders return summer after summer. 

8. For Brother Jonathan belongs in spirit to the old republic of 
independent farmers that Jefferson wanted to see flourish as the 
foundation of liberty in the United States. To conserve that liberty 
he has his own Yankee arrangements: the "town," which the South 
erner had to learn consisted of a village and a great deal of con 
tiguous territory up to the next "town line"; and the town meeting, 
at which Brother Jonathan could stand up and tell the government 
what he thought about it. Of the uses of town meetings Priscilla 
has something to say, which comes, I reflect, with a little feminine 
sauciness. A certain individual, she relates, was criticized for not 
painting the "community house," as he had been employed to do; 
and when he excused himself on the ground that paint was lacking, 
his own wife sprang up in the town meeting and cried: "Don t 



246 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

believe a word he says. That paint s setting in the cellar this min 
ute!" 

9. But the Southerner could reflect that such family intimacy might 
have civic advantages. Brother Jonathan s local government is com 
posed of nobody more Olympic or corrupt than his own neighbors 
arid relations. For him it is not something off yonder, and he visu 
alizes the national government (though a little too innocently) as 
simply an enlarged town meeting, where good management ought 
to be a matter of course. In Yankeetown, good management is a 
matter of course: it maintains a library, it looks after roads, it sees 
that taxes are paid and well spent. If the state government does 
not behave, Nathaniel himself will run for the legislature and see 
that it does behave. 

10. In all this there was much for a Southerner to savor curiously 
and learn about as he savored and learned about the strange 
food that appeared on Brother Jonathan s table: doughnuts for 
breakfast, maple syrup on pie and cereal, the New England boiled 
dinner, the roasting ears that were really roasted in the old Indian 
fashion. Just as Brother Jonathan s menu suited the soil and the 
people, so his tidiness and responsibility suited the unobtrusive 
integrity of his character. With emphasis, one could say: Vermont 
is upright, vertical, and, even yet, Puritan why not? 

11. And almost two thousand miles away, with an unconcern about 
the state of the world that parallels but differs from Brother Jona 
than s, Cousin Roderick of Rebelville is achieving another salvation 
somehow not recorded in the auguries of socialistic planning. Au 
tumn is beginning, the scuppernongs are ripe, and he invites every 
body to come over and join him in the scuppernong arbor. In the 
late afternoon a merry crew gather around the great vine, laughing 
and bantering as they pick the luscious grapes and crush them 
against their palates. Sister Caroline is there, with a figure as trim 
and a wit as lively at eighty as it must have been at twenty. Young 
Cousin Hector and his wife are there they are "refugeeing" from 
the industrial calamity that overtook them in a northern city. And 
there are numerous other vague cousins and sisters and children, 
all munching and passing family gossip back and forth between 
bites. Cousin Roderick s own Dionysian laughter goes up heartiest 
of all among the leaves, as he moves to and fro, rapidly gathering 



CASE HISTORIES 247 

grapes and pressing them upon the visitors. "Oh, you are not go 
ing to quit on us," he says, "you must eat more than that. Scup- 
pernongs never hurt a soul." The scuppernong vine, he declares, 
is a hundred years old and nearly always fruitful. But not so old, 
never so fruitful, puts in Sister Caroline, as the scuppernong vine 
at the old place, that as barefoot children they used to clamber 
over. 

12. Then the meeting is adjourned to Cousin Roderick s great front 
porch, where one looks out between white columns at sunset 
clouds piling up into the deep blues and yellows of a Maxfield 
Parrish sky. Down the long street of Rebelville, between the mighty 
water oaks set out by Cousin Roderick s kin, after the Confederate 
War, the cotton wagons are passing, heaped high with the white 
mass of cotton and a Negro or two atop, and the talk goes on, to 
the jingle of trace chains and the clop of mule hoofs on the almost 
brand-new State highway, which is so much better for rubber tires 
than mule hoofs. Over yonder lives Cousin Roderick s Aunt Cecily, 
a widow, the single indomitable inhabitant of a stately mansion 
where economics has not yet prevailed against sentiment. Next 
door is Uncle Burke Roderick, a Confederate veteran who at ninety 
still drives his horse and buggy to the plantation each morning; 
he is the last survivor of three brothers who were named Pitt, Fox, 
and Burke, after their father s eighteenth-century heroes. All 
around indeed, are the Roderick kin, for Cousin Roderick, whose 
mother married a Bertram, bears the family name of his mother s 
people, a numerous clan who, by dint of sundry alliances and an 
cient understandings, attend to whatever little matters need atten 
tion in the community affairs of Rebelville, where Jefferson s "least 
government" principle is a matter of course. Before supper, or 
after, some of the kinfolks may drop in, for there is always a vast 
deal of coming and going and dropping in at Cousin Roderick s. 

13. As he takes his ease on the porch, Cousin Roderick looks to be 
neither the elegant dandy nor the out-at-elbows dribbler of tobacco 
juice that partisans have accredited to the Southern tradition. He 
is a fairly tall, vigorous man, plainly dressed, with the ruddiness 
of Georgia sun and good living on his face. His eyes are a-wrinkle 
at the corners, ready to catch the humor of whatever is abroad. 
His hand fumbles his pipe as he tells one anecdote after another 



248 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

in the country drawl that has about as much of Mark Twain and 
Sut Lovengood in it as it has of the elisions and flattenings sup 
posed to belong to Southern patrician speech. In fact, though he 
is really patrician (as the female members of his family can assure 
you) he does not look anything like the Old Colonel of legend, 
and in spirit he, too, belongs to the Jeffersonian constituency. He 
has some of the bearing of an English squire, and a good deal of 
the frontier heartiness that Augustus Baldwin Longstreet depicted 
in Georgia Scenes. He assumes that the world is good humored 
and friendly until it proves itself otherwise. If it does prove other 
wise, there is a glint in his eye that tells you he will fight. 

14. Cousin Roderick is the opposite of Chaucer s Man of Law, who 
ever seemed busier than he was. Cousin Roderick is busier than 
he seems. His air of negligence, like his good humor, is a philo 
sophical defense against the dangerous surprises that life may 
turn up. Really, he is not negligent. He does not work with his 
own hands, like Brother Jonathan, or his Southern brothers of up- 
country and bluegrass; but in the past he has worked a-plenty 
with his hands and knows how it should be done. On his several 
tracts of land, the gatherings of inheritance and purchase, are 
some one hundred and fifty Negroes whom he furnishes housing, 
food, and a little money; they do his labor men, women, children 
together they are his "hands. " He is expected to call them by 
name, to get them out of jail, to doctor them, even sometimes to 
bury them when "lodge dues" may have lapsed. They are no longer 
his slaves; but though they do not now utter the word, they do 
not allow him to forget that he has the obligations of a master. 

15. As Cousin Roderick makes the "rounds" of his fields no more 
on horseback, as of old, but in a battered Chevrolet he sets forth 
his notions of economy. As for the depression, that is no new thing 
in Rebelville. People here have got used to ruination. After the 
Confederate War came Reconstruction; after Reconstruction, Tom 
Watson and the Populist turmoil of the nineties; a while later, the 
peach boom, and its collapse; then the Florida boom, with its 
devastations; and now, this new depression. Like most of his kin, 
Cousin Roderick has simply retreated into the old plantation 
economy. He tells how, when he was a young fellow, just begin 
ning to take charge, his father came out to the plantation one day 



CASE HISTORIES 249 

and asked for a ham. Cousin Roderick explained that hogs were 
up to a good price; he had sold the entire lot, on the hoof, and 
had good money in the bank. "Sir," said the old man, let me never 
again catch you without hams in your smokehouse and corn in 
your crib. You ve got to make this land take care of itself." "And 
that," says Cousin Roderick, "is what I aim to do." From the land 
he feeds his own family, the hundred and fifty Negroes, and the 
stock. Whatever is left, when taxes and upkeep are deducted, is 
the profit. Anything that grows, he will plant: asparagus, peaches, 
pecans, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and of course the great staple 
crops, grain, hay, and cotton. Especially cotton, for no matter how 
low the price, cotton is money. It is ridiculous, he thinks, to talk 
of getting people who are hard up for money to reduce cotton 
acreage. For his part, Cousin Roderick intends to make every bale 
his land will produce. But if cotton fails, he still can sell cattle, 
or cabbage, or timber from his baronial holdings. Land is the only 
abiding thing, the only assurance of happiness and comfort. He 
wants more land, not less. 

16. One suspects that Cousin Roderick, however hard-pressed he 
may be at the bank, is fundamentally right. If he is not right, 
how does he manage, in these times, to send a daughter to college, 
and entertain his friends, and keep a cheerful face before the 
world? The portraits of his ancestors, looking down from their 
frames above great-grandfather s sideboard or his wife s new grand 
piano, eternally assure Cousin Roderick that he is right. They won 
this Eden of sandy earth and red clay, where all things grow with 
a vigor that neither winter nor drouth can abate. Not soon, not 
soon will their son give it up. 

17. To the designs of experts who want to plan people s lives for 
them, Cousin Roderick gives no more than the indulgent attention 
of a naturally kindhearted man. He reads the anxious thunderings 
of the young men who reproduce, in the Macon Telegraph, the 
remote dynamitical poppings of the New Republic, and is un 
moved; the young men are like the mockingbird who sat on the 
cupola of the courthouse while court was in session and so learned 
to sing: Prisoner-look-upon-the-junj! Jury-look-upon-the-prisoner! 
GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! It is a little incredible that so much 
planning should need to be done. Don t people know how to live? 



250 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

As for politics, long since it became tawdry and uncertain. Politics 
is for lawyers. Cousin Roderick would no more think of running 
for the legislature than he would think of moving to China. In 
that, perhaps, he lamentably differs from his ancestors. But in 
Rebelville political action is generally no more than a confirmation 
of what has been talked around among the clans. If you really 
want things done, you speak quietly to Cousin So-and-So and others 
that pass the word to everybody that counts. And then something is 
done. 

18. In Rebelville the politics and economics of the bustling world 
become a faint whisper. All that matters is to see one s friends and 
relatives and pass from house to house, from field to field, under 
Georgia skies; to gather at a simple family dinner where only 
three kinds of bread and four kinds of meat are flanked by col- 
lards, sweet potatoes, corn, pickles, fruits, salads, jams, and cakes; 
or at a barbecue for fifty or more, for which whole animals are 
slaughtered and, it would seem, entire pantries and gardens deso 
lated; or to sit with the wise men in front of the store, swapping 
jokes and telling tales hour after hour; or to hunt for fox, possum, 
coon, and quail, in swamp and field; or (for the ladies) to attend 
meetings of U.D.C. s, D.A.R. s, and Missionary Societies; or church 
service, or district conference or the tender ceremonies of Con 
federate Memorial Day, or the high school entertainment; or to 
hear the voices of Negroes, sifting through the dusk, or the mock 
ingbird in moonlight; or to see the dark pines against sunset, and 
the old house lifting its columns far away, calling the wanderer 
home. The scuppernongs are gone, and cotton is picked. But al 
ready the pecans are falling. And planting begins again while 
late roses and chrysanthemums are showing, and, even in the first 
frosts, the camellias are budding, against their December flower 
ing. What though newspapers be loud, and wars and rumors 
threaten it is only an academic buzzing, that one must yet tol 
erate for manners sake. Sowing and harvest go together, and 
summer runs into winter, and in Georgia one is persuaded to take 
the horizontal view. 

19. By some it may be said that dark clouds hang over Yankeetown 
and Rebelville and clouds of menace, maybe of destruction. I do 
not deny their presence, but my story is not of such clouds. In this 



CASE HISTORIES 251 

strange modern world it may be observed that men talk continually 
of the good life without producing a specimen of it, to convince an 
inquirer. Brother Jonathan and Cousin Roderick do not talk about 
the good life. They lead it. If government is intended to serve hu 
man interests, what does it propose to do about them? If science 
is really intelligent, what does it mean by conniving to put a stigma 
upon them or to destroy them? I cannot believe that a government 
or a science which ignores or deprecates them is very trustworthy. 
I believe that government and science will fail unless they are taken 
into account. They, and others, are the incarnations of the principle 
of diversity through which the United States have become some 
thing better than Balkan, and without which the phrase "my coun 
try" is but a sorry and almost meaningless abstraction. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Point out the conclusion that Mr. Davidson reaches in this essay. Where is it 
stated? 

2. a. Are Brother Jonathan and Cousin Roderick real people or fictions of the au 
thor s mind? How can you tell? 

b. What, after all, are the important characteristics of these people, to Mr. 
Davidson s way of thinking? List them. 
v>. a. What similarities exist between the two cases used here? 

b. What is the significance of these similarities to the case history technique as 
a whole? 

4. a. Why is it essential to use two cases here? 

b. As far as the conclusion to the essay is concerned, can these two cases be 
considered as one? Why? 

5. It is obvious that Mr. Davidson here is arguing a point about which he feels 
deeply. 

a. Assuming that you wished to demonstrate the opposite point of view, out 
line a paper in which you use Mr. Davidson s case history technique to arrive 
at a different, perhaps opposite conclusion. 

b. Could his same people, Brother Jonathan and Cousin Roderick, be used? 

c. Could the same characteristics that they possess here be used toward a totally 
different end? 

d. Comment on the conclusions you have reached concerning the use of this 
technique in the writing of controversial matters. 

6. Find the topic sentences and explain the methods used in developing them in 
paragraphs 4, 5, 6, 14, and 15. 



252 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

Many of the subjects already suggested in the sections on Informal In 
ductions and Secondary Source Papers can be subjected to the case history 
technique if typical examples are stressed. 

Various subjects are given in the form of character types. The student 
should realize, however, that in uniting case histories his business is to 
find a problem first or an idea for exemplification, and then create a case 
by which to analyze the idea or problem. 

The failing student 

The working student 

The shoplifter 

The bully 

The little boy who runs away from home all the time 

The dime-a-dance girl 

Class consciousness in the small town ( take a typical one for study ) 

Economic problems in towns made up largely of retired farmers 

Relations between minority groups and majority groups in a society (racial 

groups, religious groups, occupational groups) 

Attempts of immigrant groups to assimilate 

Are the unemployed shiftless? Study a typical example 

The effect of a chain store on its competitors in a community 

The effect of large-scale mechanized fanning on a community 

Deterioration from occupational hazards or diseases 

Erosion problems (take a typical one) 

Case study of mass hysteria 

Spoiled children 

The child of divorced parents 

Effects of early rushing for fraternities or sororities 

Effects of athletic scholarships on academic careers 



6. TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN 
ORGANIZATION 



6 



Traditional Patterns 
in Organization 



A /THOUGH in a sense it is true that every idea has its own pri 
vate organization which it shares with no other idea, just as no 
two fingerprints are alike, actually there are certain organizational pat 
terns that occur again and again in our experience. Often these recur 
ring patterns form only parts of larger organizations are subassem- 
blies in the larger process of assembling all the parts of an idea. The 
student should not try to avoid using these traditional patterns, but 
should avail himself of their assistance whenever he can. Many of the 
best writers the world has known have been content to cast their ideas 
into them, and with good reason, for clarity of structure is an important 
ingredient in clarity of thought. The student sometimes forgets that 
simplicity of organization is a virtue, and that it is foolish on most oc 
casions to obscure in any way the simple relations between the ideas 
with which he is working. The simpler the structure, the more complete 
is the communication. If I wish to turn from a discussion of the preva 
lence of typhoid fever in a community to the causes of the prevalence, 
I should not want to hide in any way what I am doing. Instead, 
I should want to make the turn as obvious as possible. If I am writing 
about communicable diseases, I should be happy to fall back upon an 
obvious structural pattern like classification in laying out my thought 
in orderly fashion. 

The student can come more quickly than otherwise to an ability to 
handle structures by learning when and how to fall back upon tra 
ditional structural patterns. Structural patterns are in themselves tools 



256 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

for creating thought as well as the channels through which thought 
flows. By the use of the machinery involved in analogy or comparison 
or classification, the writer may arrive at answers that otherwise might 
have been unobtainable. If he is trying, for instance, to pin down a 
vague idea he has about Hitler, he may find that a comparison between 
Hitler and Napoleon will lead him easily to his answer. It may well be 
that our ability to think depends somewhat upon our first conceiving 
certain configurations of relations between one thought and another. 

The traditional patterns with which this section deals are not the 
only patterns that exist in organizations of ideas. There are other recog 
nizable patterns, although many of them are combinations of the ones 
here presented. Those given here are examples of frequently recurring 
structures. 

The organization which makes use of enumeration breaks up a body 
of material into some of its salient features. Homer Croy, in writing 
the article, "You Wouldn t Know the Old Farm Now," surely did not 
intend to imply the changes he lists are all the changes that can be 
isolated. He enumerates as many items as are necessary to illustrate 
his introductory proposition. 

Logical classification, on the other hand, divides an area on a clear 
and single basis. It creates mutually exclusive parts and divides the 
whole area so that no part of it is not comprised in one or another 
of the division. Thus, if one makes a classification of levels of society, 
the classification must include all members of society even if it must 
contain a "miscellaneous" class. The classification of mankind into the 
young, the middle-aged, and the old includes every member of so 
ciety. The divisions in a classification consequently have relations with 
other divisions, for their boundaries are contiguous. 

A common method of organizing ideas is the one called here com 
ponent parts, a method that looks at a topic in terms of the parts the 
elements that, when taken together, make up the whole. In such a 
pattern of organization the writer approaches his topic not from a single 
point of view that he wishes to demonstrate or prove, but merely from 
the desire to understand the whole subject more clearly by seeing how 
it is divided into its component parts. 

Causal patterns are patterns that derive from extended causal reason 
ing; that is, from an attempt to trace an effect back to its cause or a 
cause to its effect, In conformity with the structure of such reasoning, 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 257 

the causal pattern is sometimes a chain pattern. After the first cause is 
found, the writer often turns to a search for the cause of the first cause, 
and then to the cause of the second cause, and so on. However, other 
causal patterns show several contributory causes to one effect and then 
the pattern is not much unlike listing or classification. Even more com 
plicated causal patterns result when the search for causes leads to a 
study of concomitant variations. In one way or another the patterns of 
causal reasoning tend to differ from the patterns of inductive reason 
ing, since there is a fundamental difference in purpose between them. 

The concessive pattern, which appears either as part of a larger or 
ganization or as a total organization in itself, contains normally either 
two or three main divisions. If there are three divisions, one usually 
finds the following: (1) a somewhat elaborated statement of a proposi 
tion, (2) concessions that need to be made, arguments on the other 
side that need to be considered or disposed of, and (3) a return to the 
affirmation to show how the proposition has not been materially dam 
aged by the concessions. When there are two divisions, the first of the 
three is usually omitted. This pattern is, one notices, a pattern often 
used in disputation, either in anticipating the case of one s opponent or 
in rebuttal against it. To be noticed also is the difference between this 
kind of organization and the pro-and-con organization, which is usu 
ally more inconclusive and flabby than the concessive pattern. 

The student should also have some acquaintance with the analogical 
pattern as a common instrument of thought and organization. An anal 
ogy is an attempt to demonstrate a point by comparing one situation to 
another. Sometimes, it is true, an analogy is more an illustration than an 
attempt at demonstration. The writer who constructs an analogy is in 
terested primarily in only one of the two situations compared and uses 
the other situation as a tool. 

Comparison, the last of the organizational patterns with which this 
section deals, is, on the other hand, an attempt to discover truths of 
value by comparing two situations when the writer is equally interested 
in both or is primarily interested in neither and is using the comparison 
as a tool to get at the answer in which he is interested. 

These organizations, let it be said, are found most frequently as parts 
of larger organizations. The writer ordinarily does not use one or an 
other of them to the exclusion of others. He may begin with a logical 
classification, devote a second section to a search for causes, make cer- 



258 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

tain concessions, add an analogy or a comparison, and finally end with 
an enumeration. Or his organization may involve more subtle conden 
sations and combinations of these. The important point, toward which 
this whole section works, is that the student in a composition course 
should learn to rely more upon obvious and immediately communica 
tive organizations. 

FIRST PATTERN: Enumeration 

THE CHANGING WORLD* 

By William Ernest Hocking 

1. THE ADVANTAGE which naturalism enjoyed in the nineteenth cen 
tury in clarity and imaginableness and the consistency of its scien 
tific structure in all its parts, that advantage has vanished. With 
the advent of a new outlook in physics, which we may date roughly 
from Roentgen s discovery of the X rays in 1895, a discovery which 
gave us the instrument for exploring the subatomic levels of the 
universe, physical conceptions have entered upon a period for 
which "transition" would be too tame a word. These changes, so far 
as they affect our world picture, may be resumed roughly as 
follows: 

2. a. The simple and unchangeable atom has shown itself to be a mi 
nute world of much internal complexity, capable of composition and 
decomposition, and of turning on occasion into some other kind of 
atom. The discoveries of the electron and of radioactivity have re 
vealed motion and change in what was formerly thought eternally 
stable. 

3. b. The fixed difference between matter and energy is no longer 
clear. Nothing is more obvious to common sense and to nineteenth- 
century physics than that you can change the rate of motion of a 
body ad libitum without changing the mass of the body. In taking 
an inventory of the physical universe, you had always two quanti 
ties to consider, the amount of matter, and the amount of motion: 
these were independent facts. No matter could ever be created or 
destroyed. The same of energy, a function of mass, motion and posi- 

* From Types of Philosophy (1929), by William Ernest Hocking. Reprinted 
by permission of Charles Scribner s Sons. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 259 

tion. There was a "conservation" of matter, and another "conserva 
tion" of energy. Now it appears that matter and radiant energy are 
convertible one into the other; and it is not inconceivable or 
rather it is not physically impossible whether we can conceive it 
or not that the substance of the physical world is being trans 
ported gradually from place to place, taking wings in the form of 
radiation, and being precipitated in remote regions as newborn 
atoms. By a sort of universal convection or Gulf-Streaming, the re 
sources of the sidereal systems are forever redistributing themselves 
with the speed of light. If there is any conservation, it must be of 
some union of matter and energy rather than of either alone. 

4. c. The law of continuity is in difficulties. There is hardly any prin 
ciple of science of greater dignity than this law: natura non facit 
saltum. If a body is to get from one place to another, it must go 
through a continuous series of intermediate places, except in dreams 
and fairy tales. If a revolving flywheel is to increase or reduce its 
speed, it must do so by going through all intermediate speeds. But 
we are now asked (by such theories as Planck s theory of quanta, 
and by such facts as the Compton effect ) to consider that periodic 
motions may be "granular" or discontinuous like the series of whole 
numbers, that electrons may jump from one orbit to another with 
out at any time being anywhere between, that radiant energy may 
go off into space in a series of distinct darts at once wave-wise and 
lump-wise. We are not asked to picture these events, we are simply 
warned that we may be required to believe them. Any a priori prej 
udices we may have in behalf of the continuity of all changes must 
be prepared to yield as gracefully as possible. 

5. d. The independence of time and space is likewise under suspi 
cionsince the publication of Minkowski s memoir in 1908. Not 
that time is to be considered a form of space, nor space a form of 
time; but that space and time have to be taken together for pur 
poses of measurement, and that how much space and how much 
time are occupied by any given event are questions which cannot 
be answered independently of one another. The theory of relativ 
ity at present is to be regarded as a fundamental inquiry into the 
principles of physical measurements, rather than into the nature of 
space and time; but it has made clear that however distinct our 
ideas of space and time may be (can you think of time without 



260 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

space, or of space without time? ) we must consider them one mani 
fold for scientific purposes. And further, we must take them to 
gether with the events which, as we say, occur "in" space and time : 
for apart from these events it is questionable whether space and 
time, as empty regions, would so much as exist 

6. When Herbert Spencer made up his list of "ultimate scientific 
ideas" he mentioned five space, time, matter, motion, force ( to 
which he added consciousness, as another sort of thing ) and these 
five he regarded as alike inconceivable, if we ask what they are in 
themselves. He also held it to be unbelievable that these five are 
completely independent entities, and so proposed that the others 
are all manifestations of force, though how this could be he thought 
must remain unknowable. Physical science seems to be entering by 
necessity the region of these "inscrutable" relationships of ultimate 
ideas: and in so doing makes at least so much clear, that the 
apparent clarity of materialism was an illusory advantage. If we ex 
plain the world in terms of physical elements we are no longer ex 
plaining the unknown by the known, but the known by the unfamil 
iar and unpicturable, possibly even the unthinkable. Naturalism can 
no longer claim support from the human instinct to take the solid 
as the real. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. Discover and state clearly the use the author makes of the logical device 
known as enumeration. 

b. Does the nature of his subject warrant the use of enumeration? Why? 

2. a. Is there any inherent order followed in this enumeration? 

b. Would it be possible without changing the fundamental nature of the whole 
article to change the order of the parts listed? 

3. Does this enumeration make any pretense of being complete, or is the purpose 
for which it is used such that completeness is not necessarily essential? Explain. 

4. a. Does each part of the enumeration get equal treatment by the author? 
b. What seems to govern the length and fullness of the treatment here? 

5. a. Make a study of the paragraph development. 

b. Point out, in the third paragraph, devices the author uses to enlarge on his 
point (such things as examples, analogies, figures of speech). 

c. What is the topic sentence here? 

6. a. Examine the meaning of such words as naturalism and determine to what 
degree the author defines them through their usage in the article. 

b. Does he do likewise with the Latin quotations? 

7. What is the function of the final paragraph? 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 261 

YOU WOULDN T KNOW THE OLD FARM NOW* 
By Homer Croy 

I 

1. HALF A MILE from the Missouri farmhouse where I was brought 
up was the Knabb School (don t pronounce the K). During the 
winter we would have debates, not us scholars, but our parents. 
How well I remember some of the subjects. One was, "Resolved, a 
college education is more to be desired than a thousand dollars." A 
thousand dollars! It was a tremendous sum. How smart a person 
seemed who had been "off" to college. I had never in my life seen 
anybody who had been to college, and I suppose that hardly any 
one else in attendance had. Our fathers didn t know anything about 
college, but that didn t keep them from debating its merits. 

2. One night the subject was "Resolved, the next fifty years will not 
see as many great inventions as the past fifty years." My father was 
one of the debaters; he said that about everything useful to man 
had been invented. And that did, indeed, appear true; for we had 
a McCormick reaper that could do the work of three men, and a 
steam thresher which to us seemed the last word in human ingenu 
ity. Rubber tires for buggies had come in, and we had, in our home, 
a wonderful invention called a "gramaphone." It had a tremen 
dous horn, and when we wound the contrivance up and put on 
a record, it played music and talked! I can still see the title of one 
record; it was printed in a semicircle around the hole in the middle: 
Flogging Scene from Uncle Tom s Cabin with Incidental Music. 
For a long time I thought poor Uncle Tom had been flogged to 
music. My Uncle Will Sewall had a zither; he would put a coiled 
steel spring on his index finger, push down some felt keys, rake 
that coiled spring across the strings and make some mighty lovely 
music. 

3. But this wasn t the end of our wonderful inventions. In fact, it s 
only a smattering. So you would think my father would win, for 
he had only to mention the things we had and include the new 
double-action pump that was now hooked up to windmills. Logic 

* From Harpers Magazine, October, 1946. Reprinted by permission of the 
author. 



262 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

was on his side, but he lost. He went home, pretty well discouraged; 
the judges must have been prejudiced. 

4. All this I cite as a contrast to the astonishing things we now have. 
And they are really, truly amazing. Tin sure the next fifty years 
can t hold a candle to them. I m like Pa; human ingenuity can t go 
any further. 

5. First, machinery. When I was a young shaver, a farmer, working 
by himself, could take care of eighty acres of land. That is, he would 
exchange work with the neighbors who would come in and help 
with the haying, hog-ringing, butchering, and mule-breaking. Of 
course he really had more land, usually a quarter-section. But also 
he had sons who would go into the field at twelve or fourteen; thus 
a farmer, with family help, could manage one hundred and sixty 
acres. Today, with modern machinery, a farmer can easily handle 
two hundred acres himself, if need be, without sons. This is why 
the farms are losing population, although production stays up. I 
used to shell corn with a hand sheller; there was a little chute on 
the back; I pushed the corn in with one hand and with the other 
turned a crank which kept an iron flywheel running. (We used to 
shell our black walnuts that way, too. ) Well, today this section has 
what is called "custom shelling." A man comes with motor equip 
ment, pulls into the barnyard, sets his machine going, and in no 
time he has shelled all the corn a farmer has raised. Pretty easy. 

6. Haying was the most exciting event of the year. Our neighbors 
would come to help; Pa would also get four or five men from town; 
they were never any good. Twenty men we would have and three 
or four neighbor women to help cook. ( Boys always had to eat last 
sometimes I would get pretty weak.) Sometimes, of mornings, 
there would be dew, and the men would sit on the hayframes and 
tell funny stories. That was the best part of haying. Then the sun 
would come out and we d have to go to work. I tell you it was hell. 
I had to drive the horse that lifted the hay fork up to the tremen 
dous track in the top of the barn; along this overhead track the hay 
would go like a mammoth umbrella. "Dump!" the man in the mow 
would shout; the man on the wagon would pull the trip rope, and 
down the hay would come, spreading out as big as a tent. 

7. That s all gone. Hay is now baled in the field. A machine lopes 
along, snatches up the hay, compresses it into a bale and blithely 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 263 

drops it into a truck-trailer which goes lumbering off to the barn. 
And I ll be damned if there isn t a motor there to lift the bales into 
the mow. I haven t heard in ten years of a boy, during haying time, 
having to wait until the second table. No neighbor woman ever 
comes in to help the cook. No funny stories in the field. I tell you 
haying today is pretty tame. 

8. No waiting for the dew to dry. On some farms the hay is brought 
in damp, and shoved into the barn loose, to be dried inside. On the 
floor of the haymow is a vast system of dryers, which blows through 
the hay. My father would never have believed it; I blink a little 
myself. 

II 

9. Machinery everywhere. The usual owner-tenant contract calls for 
the tenant to furnish the machinery. Spide Logan, on the Croy 
Farm, has $2800 invested in machinery. 

10. In my day a lister cost $20 a great deal of money, indeed. The 
other day I was looking at a lister Spide had bought; it had disks 
and gadgets I had never heard of. And it cost $112. My eyes 
popped. And right here, in that simple thing, is the story of the 
change in farming from the simple, one-man affair of my father 
and my boyhood to the tremendously complicated, highly mecha 
nized matter that farming has become. And right here, as I ve 
pointed out elsewhere, is why the veterans, returning home from 
the war, have so much difficulty getting located on farms and in 
business for themselves. 

11. In my day corn gathering was next to manure hauling the 
hardest, most back-breaking work on a farm. The cursed thing 
lasted a month, sometimes two. Farmers would tell whoppers of 
how many bushels they could shuck in a day. Some of them pushed 
it up to a hundred. But I never knew a man in my life who could 
pick and scoop one hundred bushels of corn in a day. The average 
was in the neighborhood of fifty. ( Me? Well, forty on good days. ) 

12. Today a giant mechanical picker goes out at dawn and brings in 
twelve hundred bushels before dark. Some are four row affairs, truly 
behemoths. Of course, not every farmer can afford to own one him 
self, so there is "custom picking." That is, a man who owns a picker 
goes from farm to farm husking corn at so much a bushel. In other 



264 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

words, a farmer can hire all his corn shucked in one day. It is in 
credible. I don t blame you for not believing it. 

13. I have mentioned the worst of all farm work manure hauling. 
The time I decided I would leave the farm was one day when I was 
forking manure from our cattle lot into a wagon. I was wearing gum 
boots and had a four-tined, square-shouldered manure fork. Well, 
that s all changed, thank God. The manure in the feed lots is 
scraped up by a bulldozer and toted away to the field in a spreader. 
And there, by means of a little traveling track and whirling blades, 
it is scattered over the ground. If the thing had been managed that 
way when I was a boy, I might not have left the farm, at least when 
I did. 

14. Plowing was almost as bad. Once I plowed out a rattlesnake. I 
was barefooted. I gave a leap that landed me just abreast of the 
horses. I loosed a tug and killed the snake, but I was so badly 
shaken that I unhitched the team and went to the house. I half ex 
pected my father would make me go back, but he didn t; and for a 
moment I had a deep and moving flash of love for him. * 

15. Today plowing is a sitting-down job. A plowing tractor is geared 
at about six miles an hour and dashes across a field at an amazing 
speed. Some farmers like to plow at night; electric lights are ar 
ranged ahead and are also pointed down to show the furrows. 
Sometimes there are night bugs; then Spide puts on a kind of bee 
keeper s mask and plows gaily along. Nor does he get so lonely, 
either, for he has a radio. I tell you if they d had that, Yd never 
have left. 

16. Sunday dinner was a great event. It was always my job to run 
down a chicken. How I hated picking it. Then the singeing. Do you 
remember that? Those pinfeathers? And how, when you were hold 
ing the chicken over the blaze, you would get nipped by the flame? 
Now comes the most astonishing item of all. Farmers have chicken 
pickers run by electricity. A series of rapidly revolving rubber "fin 
gers" snatch off the feathers and shoot them into a bag. I mean it. 
Mrs. Logan hasn t got one, but there s one in the neighborhood, 
and when she is going to stow chickens in the cold storage locker, 
she borrows the picker. Thank God, no device has come along to 
supplant Sunday eating. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 265 

17. Milking! how I hated it. (I m getting embarrassed at how many 
kinds of work I hated. ) I had a one-legged milk stool which I kept 
in a crack in the milk lot fence; I would sit down on the stool, edge 
my shoulder under the cow and begin squirting. Mud, dust, and 
filth. Today it s all machinery. A cow s head is stanchioned, harness 
is thrown over her, suction cups are attached at the proper places, 
and the fanner sits down and rests. I would have liked that. 

18. Another torture was flies. A cow would lash you with her tail; 
or in order to get a fly off, she would flinch her skin like a shimmy 
dancer. Then she would kick. Well, that s over, too, thanks to fly- 
spray, a great deal of it developed during the war. When a cow 
goes into her stall, you spray her and she stands there peacefully 
and contentedly, and never once knocks the daylights out of you. 

19. But this is not all. As I write this, "custom" fly-spraying is com 
ing in. A man with motorized equipment dashes up and sprays the 
barn or dairy with DDT and then speeds away. At present, the 
spray- will eliminate flies for from thirty to forty days; when they 
again become bothersome, the farmer telephones the custom fly- 
sprayer and the man comes dashing around again. It s curious how 
many outside people mix in with a farmer s work these days. In my 
day Pa and I did it all. 

20. The most completely amazing bit of machinery is the sow milker. 
Yes, that s exactly what I mean. It s a device for securing the milk 
from its natural source and testing it out for pigs. If a litter of pigs is 
not doing well, the milk is tested and the mother put on a diet. 
That s right, too sows are now dieted. The fourth and fifth weeks 
are the critical ones in the life of a small pig; if he pulls through 
them he is pretty well set for hoghood. So, to make sure his nourish 
ment is all right in these dangerous days, the sow milker is used. 
The thing was invented and developed by the Hormel Founda 
tion, Austin, Minnesota. I m glad Pa never knew about it. 

21. Before I finish with machinery, I want to tell about something 
else that was the bane of my life. Posthole digging. It s the hardest 
work in the world; get out there and dig and dig. Then, just as 
you think you re finished, your father comes along and says, "It ll 
have to go a couple of inches deeper." Well, how do you suppose 
it s done today? By machinery. A giant auger is poised over the 



266 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

place where the hole is to be, a man touches a lever, and before 
you know it the hole is dug. Why is it that all progress hit the 
farm after I left? 

22. Oh, yes! One more bit of machinery that made me gape when I 
came upon it for the first time. The electric prod. In the old days 
cattle were driven by means of a whip; horses, too. Today the 
driver has a prod about as long as your arm and as big around 
as your wrist; inside is a dry battery and at the grip end is a switch. 
The man touches a steer, or a horse, with the prod and pushes 
on the switch with his thumb and gets immediate results. It 
sounds cruel, but it is not as cruel as a whip; it leaves no lash 
mark and lets the skin recover more quickly. In handling a team, 
the other horses are not frightened by the whip; only the laggard 



23. But machinery has its toll. It is always getting out of whack, 
and this has brought in the Fix It Man who travels around repair 
ing equipment that has begun to act up. He carries everything 
seemingly in his truck; it s a rolling storehouse of parts and re 
placements. And it s a job that many mechanically trained men 
took up at the end of the war. 

24. Here s a list of the things the Fix It Man does: wires houses and 
barns, installs water-softeners, puts in bath tubs and sewage sys 
tems, fixes the spring on the screen door, clears out the kitchen 
drain, overhauls the tractor, puts new shoes on the spring-tooth 
harrow, finds out what is wrong with the refrigerator, welds a new 
point on the plowshare, repairs the radio, and dispenses the neigh 
borhood news. On rainy days the farmer used to try to do these 
things himself, but now he telephones the Fix It Man. It was vastly 
different when Pa and I did it. I mean Pa. 

25. A tree trimmer! That s another. In the fall, Pa and I would climb 
up on a stepladder and saw away at a limb, the stepladder craftily 
watching for a chance to hurl us to the ground. But it s not done 
that way any more. The Fix It Man comes with a "hot wire," loops 
it over a limb, turns on the electricity, and pretty soon the limb 
is off. Sometimes I wonder what the farmer of today has to do, 
anyway. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 267 

26. For cutting down trees there is a round, whirling-blade, cruel- 
looking saw. The device is wheeled up on rubber tires and the 
edge of the saw is placed against the tree. The thing is run by 
kerosene. You pull a cord, and the blade tears into the tree with 
a savage, heart-breaking snarl; at least that s the way it sounds 
to a person who hates to see a tree even an old one yield up 
its life. 

27. Changes not connected with machinery are also taking place. 
One is health insurance. At first the idea was considered revolu 
tionarybut aren t all new ideas? Time after time farmers had 
suffered from ruinous medical bills; it was a saying that when a 
man began to "doctor" he was opening a door called Debt. It is 
appalling to think of the aches and pains and, sometimes, death 
that farm families have suffered rather than place themselves in 
the hands of doctors. And so farmers have organized cooperative 
health associations, each grouped around a community hospital, 
and now farmers pay monthly assessments for health protection. 
That, indeed, is revolutionary. I do believe there is nothing more 
so in all the corn belt. 

38. As a result, farmers now have preventive medical care; yes, and 
preventive dental care. Snaggle teeth are taken care of, as they 
never were before. New words are coming to farmers : obstetrician, 
urologist, pediatrician, orthopedist, gynecologist. They can t pro 
nounce them, but they know what they mean. And they get shots 
and serums and treatments that once went only to city people. 

29. Why in God s name shouldn t they? No group in this country 
works so hard as farmers; and what do they get out of it? Very 
little indeed, compared to the sleek people of the cities. It s easy 
to say, "Why don t they give up farming?" But it s far more in 
volved than that. They have inherited farms, they have not been 
able to get much schooling all they know is farming. 

30. It s not simple to pull away from the land; a thousand ties hold 
one there, especially the fathers and mothers and old folks. There 
are always "old folks" Grandpa and Grandma who live in the 
L, or in the room behind the kitchen. My heart breaks when I see 
them those brown, gnarled hands that have worked so hard and 
got so little out of life. 

31. The good news is that farm babies are now being born in hos- 



268 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

pitals. Of all the boys and girls I grew up with, not a single one 
was born in a hospital. But their children are being born there and 
are getting service comparable to what the city people get. Farm 
health has been a disgrace to the country, and I rejoice that it is 
being bettered. 

32. Now and then my father would have to borrow money to "feed 
out" the steers. How he dreaded it. Also a kind of shame hung over 
it. There, on one side of the counter, would be Pa in his Sunday 
clothes and "vici" shoes no tie; on the other side would be Joseph 
Jackson in his silk vest, his gold watch chain, and ascot tie. Pa 
would lean over the counter and say in a guarded voice, "Joe, 
could I see you privately?" 

33. "Yes, Amos, in the back room." 

34. Mr. Jackson would open the door and Pa would follow him into 
the mysterious "back room." 

35. After a while Pa would come out and get away as fast as he 
could. Borrowing money was a big a kind of shameful occa 
sion. 

36. Today it s done by mail. Des Moines is filled with places that 
lend money by mail. One of the lines in their advertising says: 
"The entire transaction is handled without friends or relatives be 
ing notified, or contacted/ Just fill in a few lines, sign here and 
there and the money is yours. No slipping in, leaning over the 
counter and dropping your voice. Maybe it s a little too easy. 

37. Two other changes have come that I believe the public has heard 
little about. One is the tremendous increase in popcorn; this is 
supposed to have got a start during the war when candy was not 
to be had for the asking. So important has become the sale of 
popcorn in movie theaters that the Fox Midwest Amusement Cor 
poration, in Kansas City, has about four thousand acres in pop 
corn; in addition, it has contracts with neighboring farmers. I saw 
one farm, near Tarkio, Missouri, that had six hundred acres in 
popcorn. Practically all of this goes on sale in movie theaters. The 
crunching must be terrific. In addition, popcorn is put in little 
round bowls in cocktail lounges. The crunching here is of a more 
refined nature. 

38. The second change is the tremendous growth of waxy-maize 
corn. This, too, is supposed to have come about as a result of the 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 269 

war. Until the war cut it off, imported tapioca was generally used 
to make the adhesive on envelope flaps and on postage stamps. 
Then it was found that waxy-maize corn would do the trick, and 
since that time the growing of this particular kind of grain has in 
creased amazingly. 

39. An item appearing in the daily papers just now has to do with 
farmers taking to the air. Indeed, there is an organization called 
"The Flying Farmers." A confirmed city man, reading these dis 
patches, would assume that a new and tremendously important 
factor has come into farm life. These new stories tell how a farmer 
hunts lost cattle, looks for down fences, patrols for grasshoppers, 
and I don t know what all. 

40. But the sum and substance of it is that a farmer seriously using 
an airplane for farming has been kicked by a mule. No farmer, in 
the corn section, has a farm so big that he has to hunt for his 
cattle by going up in the air. It gets down to this: a few rich 
farmers have planes (they make their money some other way) and 
have organized clubs, just as people organized automobile clubs 
in the early days, and they fly around in these planes and tell how 
useful the plane is. It makes a good story, but alas! there s not 
a word of truth to it. A plane on the farm, in the foreseeable fu 
ture, is a fifth wheel. 

IV 

41. The biggest swing, at the moment, is to something that a few 
years ago didn t even have a name. The name had to be made 
up out of whole cloth, and here it is: Chcmurgij. Wheeler McMil- 
len, editor of the Farm Journal, who is the founder of the idea, 
tells me that a group put some possible names clown on paper 
and pounced on this. Some say it is the biggest idea in farming 
in the Twentieth Century. But I am a little distrustful of "biggest 
ideas* in the Twentieth Century; I ve seen too many go up the 
flue. Anyway, there are four main purposes in the farm chemistry 
idea: 

1. To develop new nonfood uses for farmers crops for instance, 
garment fibers out of casein, which comes from milk. 

2. To put crops into industrial uses: soybeans into steering wheels, 
sweet potatoes into high-grade starch. 



270 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

3. To make use of farm products that would otherwise go to waste: 
as an example, cigarette papers from flax straw. 

4. To find new profitable crops. Soybeans are fairly new. Ramie 
is a fiber new to this country. Anguar has been introduced into 
the United States from India and is now being grown in Ari 
zona. It is used in the making of paper. 

42. Anyway, people who know far more about this than I do say 
that chemurgy is the biggest thing around the corner. But there is 
plenty more around the same corner, all bringing a host of changes 
into farm life. Here are a few: 

1. Hybrid corn, which already has put millions in the pockets of 
the corn farmers. 

2. Frozen foods. Nearly every farm has its cold storage locker 
in the community plant. Some of these plants are not in a town, 
but out in the country, sometimes at a crossroads. 

3. Home demonstration agents. Specially trained women come to 
farm homes, neighborhood clubs, and rural schoolhouses and 
show the women the newest in canning and cooking. One home 
demonstration agent I heard spoke on "How to Fit a Dress 
Form." She had me popeyed. 

4. The amazing number of uses that soybeans can be put to. The 
number, as I write, is about two hundred. One is to eat them. 

5. A drug effective against chiggers. A few drops spread on your 
ankles will knock chiggers silly. 

6. A machine that will clean chicken houses. Ah, me! 

7. Truck driver contests. All the states are having them; some 
times they call them "roadeos." The men demonstrate their 
skill in backing ponderous trucks to platforms and turning in 
narrow spaces lots of fun and examples of unbelievable skill. 

8. Weed killers. What a godsend they would have been in the 
1900 s. 

9. New grasses, such as crested wheat grass, brome grass, Cossack 
alfalfa. 

10. The fall-off in attendance on Saturday afternoon in town. 
Farmers, especially during crop season, now go to town when it 
rains and they can t get into the fields. Revolutionary. 

11. The number of farmers going to town by bus. Every filling 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 271 

station on the highway is a bus stop, and every crossroads 
store. When there is a passenger, a red flag is hung out. Wish 
to God they d had it in my time. 

12. Seeing-Eye dogs on farms. Some are for veterans. 

13. The great number of men and women young and old who 
get seasonal work at de-tasseling hybrid seed corn. Machines 
are used to convey the dc-tasselers through the fields, to make 
it easier to reach the top of the stalks. 

14. The giant motorized machines being used to fight the Euro 
pean corn borer; they spray a solution of DDT on the stalks. 

43. And now to something a little on the delicate side; artificial in 
semination. If you don t know what that is, you are not going to 
find out here. So far it is chiefly practiced on dairy farms, but 
it will spread to the beef-producing sections and the steak you 
find on your table will be bigger and juicier because of it. And 
more milk will be produced and more cheese. So new, so recent 
is this that the first bull used in Iowa is still living. He doesn t 
seem to be very happy. 

ANALYSIS 

i. Although the major pattern of organization in the selection is a random list, 
two or more other principles can be discovered in action: ( 1 ) there is a shadowy 
partition of the items on the list into mechanical and nonmechanical changes; 
( 2 ) during the treatment of the early items on the list the author compares the 
farm today with die farm of yesterday; consequently, he employs temporarily 
the principle of comparison. 

a. With what paragraph does the major enumeration of changes on the farm 
begin? 

b. In enumeration, does he make any pretense to completeness? 

c. Does he follow any inevitable order in putting down the items? 
a. a. Mark off the introduction. How effective an introduction is it? 

b. Is it formal or informal that is, does it state the problem of the article di 
rectly or does it come to it indirectly? 

3. a. Analyze the article in respect to the phrases illustrating the author s view 
point: "I blink a little myself," "I might not have left the farm," "I hated many 
things/ "It has all become easy/ 

b. Enumeration is a loose form of organization; how does the weaving together 
of these phrases help to strengthen the organization? We are looking here at 
the principle of "counterpoint" in organization the overlaying of one organiza 
tion by another. Note how complicated the counterpoint is in this selection. 

4. Do you detect a note of nostalgia for the past in Paragraph 7? Anywhere else? 



272 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

5. a. Describe the tone of the article. Does the shortness of many of the sentences 
play an important part in creating this tone? 

b. Is the author trying to talk like a farmer? 

6. Note the brief lists that appear within the main enumeration: Paragraph 24, 
Paragraph 37, Paragraphs 41, 42. 



THE RESULTS DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT 
HAS GIVEN* 

By James Bryce 

1. To TEST democracy by its results as visible in the six countries 
examined, it will be convenient to consider how far in each of 
them the chief ends for which government exists have been at 
tained, taking these ends to include whatever the collective action 
of men associated for the common good can do for the moral and 
material welfare of a community and the individual citizens who 
compose it, helping them to obtain the maximum that life can af 
ford of enjoyment and to suffer the minimum life may bring of 
sorrow. 

2. These ends may be summed up as follows: 

Safety against attack on the community from without. 

Order within the community prevention of violence and crea 
tion of the consequent sense of security. 

Justice, the punishment of offenses and the impartial adjustment 
of disputes on principles approved by the community. 

Efficient administration of common affairs, so as to obtain the 
largest possible results at the smallest possible cost. 

Assistance to the citizens in their several occupations, as, for 
example, by the promotion of trade or the regulation of industry, 
in so far as this can be done without checking individual initiative 
or unduly restricting individual freedom. 

3. These may be called the primary and generally recognized func 
tions of government in a civilized country. Other results, needing 
a fuller explanation, will be presently adverted to. I take first the 
five ends above named. 

4. 1. Safety against external attack. In all the six democracies 
this end has been attained as fully as in most non-democratic 

* From Modern Democracies, Volume II (1924), by James Bryce. Reprinted 
by permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 273 

governments, and in one respect better attained, because the nec 
essary preparations for defense have not given reasonable ground 
to other nations to fear that armaments were being increased with 
a view to hostile aggression. 

5. 2. In most of the six, internal order has been well maintained, 
best perhaps in Switzerland, least perhaps in parts of the United 
States, where, although the Federal Government has done its duty 
faithfully, some state governments have tolerated lynching and 
failed to check other breaches of the law. Rioting in connection 
with Labor disputes has occurred everywhere, but except in some 
Australian cases the constituted authorities have shown themselves 
able to deal with it. 

6. 3. Justice has been honestly and capably administered, quite 
as well as under other forms of government, in Switzerland, Can 
ada, Australia, and New Zealand, and in France also, though per 
haps with not so full a confidence of the people in the perfect 
honor of all the Courts. In the United States the Federal Courts 
are staffed (with few exceptions) by upright and capable men, 
and the same is true of certain states. In others, however, the Ju 
diciary is below the level of its functions, and in a few it is not 
trusted, while criminal procedure is cumbrous and regrettably in 
effective. 

7. 4. Civil administration has long been conducted with efficiency 
in France and Switzerland, and is now, since the partial abolition 
of the "Spoils System," beginning to be so conducted in the United 
States Federal Government and in many of the state governments. 
A similar improvement is visible in Canada. Australia and New 
Zealand have permanent services which are honest but as yet not 
more than fairly competent. Still possessed by the notion that one 
man is as good as another, the new democracies have not yet duly 
recognized the increased call for thorough knowledge and trained 
skill in handling the widened functions now imposed on govern 
ments, both in determining the principles of economic and social 
policy to be adopted and in carrying them out in a scientific 
spirit. That the management of national finances has, in every 
country except Switzerland, been lavish and frequently wasteful 
is the fault not of the civil services but of ministers and legislatures 
who have spent vast sums in that form of electioneering bribery 



274 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

which consists in making grants of money to particular classes (as 
in the United States to those who professed to be Civil War Vet 
erans), or to constituencies under the pretense of executing public 
works. This kind of bribery, like the indulgence extended to law 
breakers whose displeasure can be shown at elections, is directly 
attributable to democracy. 

8. 5. What further services, beyond those already mentioned, gov 
ernment may render to a community or to any class of its citizens 
by acquiring property to be used for the common benefit, or by 
aiding individuals to do so, is a question on which opinions differ 
so widely that no standard exists whereby to estimate the merits 
or defaults of governments. The only two countries that have gone 
far in this direction are New Zealand and Australia, with results 
which raise doubts whether democracy is a form of government 
fitted for such enterprises. Other matters, however, which are now 
generally deemed to fall within the sphere of legislation such as 
public health and the conditions of labor and the regulation of the 
means of transportation, have received in all the six countries due 
attention, the newer democracies being in no wise behind their elder 
sisters. 

9. Of the conduct of foreign policy, once deemed a department in 
which popular governments were inconstant and incompetent, noth 
ing need be added to what has been said in a preceding chapter 
except that the errors of the peoples have been no greater than 
those committed by monarchs, or by oligarchies, or in democracies 
themselves by the small groups, or the individual ministers, to 
whose charge foreign relations had been entrusted. 

10. Outside and apart from these definite duties, legally assigned to 
and discharged by government, there is a sphere in which its ac 
tion can be felt and in which both its form and its spirit tell upon 
the individual citizen. When political institutions call upon him 
to bear a part in their working, he is taken out of the narrow cir 
cle of his domestic or occupational activities, admitted to a larger 
life which opens wider horizons, associated in new ways with his 
fellows, forced to think of matters which are both his and theirs. 
Self-government in local and still more in national affairs becomes 
a stimulant and an education. These influences may be called a 
by-product of popular government, incidental, but precious. Who- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 275 

ever has grown up in a household where public affairs were fol 
lowed with interest and constantly discussed by the elders and 
friends of the family knows how much the boy gains by listening, 
asking questions, trying to understand the answers given; and the 
gain to the budding mind is greatest when the differences of opin 
ion he hears expressed are most frequent. In Britain and America 
every general parliamentary or presidential election marked for 
many a boy an epoch in the development of his thought, leading 
him to reflect thenceforth on events as they followed one another. 
In the six democracies described this kind of education is always 
going on, and the process is continued in an even more profitable 
form where the citizen, when he has reached the voting age, is 
required to vote not only at elections, but also, as in Switzerland 
and some of the American states, on laws submitted to the people 
by Referendum and Initiative. 

11. Could this examination be extended to six other European coun 
tries, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the re 
sults to be described would not differ materially from those set 
forth as attained in the six countries examined in Part II. In none 
has justice or order or the efficiency of civil administration suffered 
in the process of democratization which all have undergone within 
the last ninety years, and in most these primary duties of govern 
ment are better discharged. We may accordingly treat the results 
our inquiry has given for the six as substantially true for Euro 
pean democracies, in general. 

ANALYSIS 

1. What is the author s main purpose in using the device of enumeration? Where 
does he explain it? 

2. Is the order of the enumeration inherent in the nature of the material treated 
or imposed arbitrarily? How can you tell? 

3. a. Is there anything in the article that tends to explain why the author lists but 
five main results of democratic government? 

b. Can you think of others that he might have mentioned, or is his enumeration 
complete and final? 

4. a. Compare this article with the others in this group and explain clearly their 
points of likeness and their points of difference. 

b. Formulate some working principles concerning the use and effectiveness of 
this method of organization. 

5. Note the summary in Paragraph 2 and the subsequent expansion of these points. 
Is this device effective? In what ways? 



276 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



SECOND PATTERN: Classification 

BALLADS OF THE OKIES * 
By Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin 

1. THE SONGS of our country are as varied as its geography. From 
Tin Pan Alley and the cotton lands, from the lumber camps of 
the Northwest and the Georgia chain gangs, from the railroads 
and the levees, from the Great Lakes and the coast towns, come 
songs that belong to the people of America. 

2. There are "blues" and "hollers," "shanties" and "break-clowns," 
"sinful" songs and "Christian" songs; there are songs addressed to 
mules, ponies, rattlesnakes, jackrabbits, boll weevils, geese, chick 
ens, pigs, and crawdads. There are ditties about rye whisky and 
cocaine. There are "ballits" which tell of the death of Dewey Lee, 
the fate of Edward Heckman, the hanging of John Hardy, the 
shooting of Jesse James, and the betrayal of Bold Jack* Donahue. 
In short, name your favorite American institution, be it a bucking 
bronco, a groundhog, or a public enemy, and, with a little traveling, 
you ll probably find a song about it somewhere. 

3. With other nations torn by war and hostile ideologies, America is 
becoming more and more conscious of her priceless possessions. 
Among other things, we are slowly rediscovering our heritage of 
song. The record companies and the radio have responded to the 
present mood, finding an enthusiastic audience for singers like 
Woody Guthrie of the Dust Bowl, Lcadbelly of the chain gangs, and 
the Golden Gate Quartet. Behind this popular interest stands the 
music division of the Library of Congress in Washington, which for 
many years has been tirelessly engaged in collecting and preserving 
the songs that the people of America sing. Among the most recent 
acquisitions of the Library of Congress in this field is a collection of 
more than two hundred acetate recordings of the songs of the 
"Okies," those modern forty-niners from the depleted farm lands of 
the Southwest who are still "looking for a home" in the valleys and 
deserts of California. 

* From The New York Times Magazine, November 17, 1940. Reprinted by 
permission of the publishers and the authors. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 277 

4. Whenever Americans have pulled up stakes and "made a change 
in the business" they seem to have had songs for the occasion. The 
rebellious colonies had their "Yankee Doodle," the gold rush had its 
"Oh Susannah," the A.E.F. had its "Mademoiselle from Armentieres," 
the CCC boys, far from home, have their "Loveless CCC." As for 
the Okies, they have their "Going Down the Road Feelin Bad." 

5. The songs of the Okies do not end there, however, for these peo 
ple came from regions where the fiddle, the dulcimer, the "git-tar," 
and the human voice have been getting together for more than a 
century out of sheer love and need for singing. They are the people 
from isolated farms in the Ozarks, the Panhandle, and the moun 
tains farther east. They are people who still speak intimately of 
"play-parties," "break-downs," "fiddlin bouts," and unbelievable 
song-fests at "hog-killin time." They are a people many of whose 
songs came down to them from their parents parents, singers of 
"sad songs" about lords and ladies who rode on milk-white steeds 
and avenged betrayals with the "silver dagger" or the "wee pen 
knife." Finally, they are the people who were "dusted out," "blowed 
out," or "tractored out" of their ancestral homes, and to whom sing 
ing is one of the few things that remain constant in a strange new 
land where prosperity is measured by the amount of gasoline in a 
battered tank. 

6. It is a somewhat bewildering experience to travel a few miles in 
land from the modern, sophisticated cities of the California coast to 
the hot valley of the San Joaquin, where many of the Okies have 
made their homes in government camps, private camps or in road 
side tents and shelters. Geographically it is still California, but for 
the collector of songs it is another and far more fascinating world. 
Strolling in the evening through one of the big Farm Security Ad 
ministration s camps, past long rows of tents and metal "units" one 
hears fragments of tunes that a more prosperous America has for 
gotten in the process of growing up and getting rich. 

7. Modern music is making inroads, of course, but the majority of 
the Okies still prefer the old tunes. Even at the Saturday night 
dances which are popular in most of the government camps it is a 
tune like "Sally Goodin" or "The Tennessee Waggoner" which sets 
the feet to dancing rather than the latest song-hit. 

8. The songs the Okies sing may be divided roughly into three cate- 



278 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEA S 

gories, though there are a good many songs which defy classifica 
tion. There is the traditional ballad with early English or Scottish 
antecedents, the more recent, late" song of the American Southwest 
(hillbilly, cowboy, "outlaw d" etc.), and the original song celebrat 
ing events of the migration. The first is the favorite of the older 
people. The other types are found among all groups. 
9. The Okie, in singing an old ballad, is intensely serious. Tears 
come to a woman s eyes as she moans of "George Collins" and a 
sweetheart faithful even after death: 

She followed him up, she followed him down, 
She followed him to his grave . . . 

although her youngsters may wriggle with embarrassment when 
their mother "gets so silly over an old song." 

10. Then, too, the Okie often takes these ballads quite literally. In 
the case of "The Waco Girl/ a song well known in many of the 
camps, the singer may conclude his rendition by informing you that 
the story is a "real-life" one about a familiar case of murder in the 
vicinity of Waco, Texas: 

I wound my hand in her dark brown hair 

And drug her round and round, 
I drug her down to the water side, 

And threw her in to drown . . . 

11. There is no use informing him that the ballad appears in several 
old English collections with another title and was sung centuries 
before the town of Waco was incorporated. The same is true of 
"Barbara Allen," whose hero changes his identity, depending upon 
the singer, from "Young William" to "Jimmy Gray from the Western 
States" with splendid disregard for the memory of Samuel Pepys, 
who listened to the song back in the seventeenth century. 

12. The Okie singer does better with these ballads when he is unac 
companied, for the tunes are often pitched in a difficult minor key, 
but, above all, it is the story which really counts. Primarily, these 
are stories of frustrated love and of death by violence, with fre 
quently a warning moral at the end. 

13. "Sad Songs," these songs are called the songs of a lonely race to 
whom individual tragedy is far more real than the clash of empires. 
It seldom matters if in the course of transmission from one genera- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 279 

tion to another lines and words lose their meaning. The collector 
may puzzle over "Mother, Oh, Mother, Go Kittle Your Sports" in an 
Arkansas version of "The Brown Girl," but the Okie seldom bothers 
his head about it. The people know the story and that is enough. 

14. The Okie is no less serious about his "late" songs than he is about 
the ballads (and this fact has been recognized by the advertising 
managers of those California radio stations who drench the ether 
from morning till night with Carter family records and "singing 
cowboys"). There is a curious monotony in the tunes, but the stories 
these songs tell are full of the flavor of life in the old Southwest. 
Gospel singers, harsh and strident, blend with the "git-tar" in "Fire 
Brands for Jesus," or "Forgive Me, Lord, and Try Me One More 
Time." 

15. An old Texas migrant, heading for Oregon in search of a "piece 
of land," recalls lilting little childhood songs his daddy sang to him 
songs like "Along Come Old Jinny On-a-Fine Summer Day" (with 
references to "the fightin down Mexico way"), and an endless 
"pile-up song" which begins: 

I had a hen and the hen pleased me; 

I fed it down in yonder tree 

An the hen goes chim-chack, chim-chack, 

Fiddle-I-fee. . . . 

16. Then there are the "blues" songs: "The Carter Blues," "Liddle 
Biddy Blues," "Jackrabbit Blues," "Deep Ellum Blues" and old 
"breakdowns" such as "Grady Watson s Favorite" or "Billy in the 
Low Ground." A jolly, gray-haired old lady from Arkansas recalls 
"Skip to My Lou" and "Shoot the Buffalo," play-party songs which 
she and her husband helped to "holler off" at those Ozark get-to 
gethers where fiddlers were banned by the "pesky old folks" and 
the only music allowed was what the youngsters could supply by 
singing. A red-headed miss of ten years struggles valiantly through 
the many verses of "The Great Speckled Bird" or "The Convict and 
the Rose," and a lad of seven, "seconded on the git-tar" by his young 
father, raises a lusty treble to the strains of "An* you ought to see 
John Hardy git away." Finally there is the inevitable cowboy, long- 
legged and lean, who is always welcome so long as he has songs 
like "Zebra Dun" or "Little Joe the Wrangler" to sing. 



280 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

17. With these "late" songs, as with the ballads, it doesn t make much 
difference if a line slips out that makes no sense whatever. Mrs. W. 
has always sung the "Wildwood Flower" with that line, "As I twine 
with my mingles and wavy black hair," and if the poor collector 
doesn t know what "mingles" are well, neither does Mrs. W. 

18. The popularity of the "outlawed" songs among the Okies might 
give rise to some theorizing on the part of the sociologists if it were 
not for the fact that most ballad makers from the time of Robin Hood 
have been partial to public enemies. Some commentators have used 
the "rob the rich and give to the poor" theme of many of these 
songs to prove the class consciousness of folk singers, but such rea 
soning seems a little forced. The Okies are rugged individualists of 
the old school, and any legend that deals with a gallant brigand 
who robbed a Chicago bank or stood off a posse singlehanded is 
bound to be a popular one. Thus, the story of Bold Jack Donahue, 
a song claimed by some to have originated in Australia and come 
to America by way of Nova Scotia, ends with these words: 

Nine men he forced to bite the dust 

before the fatal ball 
Had pierced the heart of Donahue, 

which caused him for to fall, 
And when he closed his trembling eyes 

he bade this world adieu. 
Dear Christians all, pray for the soul of 

Bold Jack Donahue. 

19. These, and many more, are the songs of the Southwest that the 
Okie has brought with him to California songs he will always 
sing no matter where the tides of migration carry him. The old min 
strelsy that gave birth to these songs has by no means been in 
hibited by a change of scenery. The "Oh Susannahs" are still being 
written as the westward trek goes on. 

20. "How did you happen to write it?" one asks. "Oh," says the com 
poser of one of these "Migrations" songs, "I was jist a-pickin on my 
git-tar one night and the words sorta come to me." That, most often, 
is how it is done. You get to thinking about home, about the trip 
across the desert in the old jaloppy, and before you know it you 
have something like this: 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 281 

We were out in Arizona 
On the Painted Desert Ground; 
We had no place to call our own 
And work could not be found. 

We started to California, 

But our money it didn t last long. 

I want to be in Oklahoma, 

Be back in my old home. 

The tune is easy. You borrow one from another song, or just make 
one up to fit the words. 

21. A little later, perhaps, your mood changes. You get mad at Cal 
ifornia, mad at the people who told you this was the land of milk 
and honey. You want a fast tune, not nearly so sad and pretty, for 
a song that ends like this: 

But listen to me, Okies, 
I came out here one day, 
Spent all my money gettin here, 
Now I can t get away. 

22. Somewhere out in California, scuttling along in the back seat of 
an old jaloppy, is the twelve-year-old daughter of an Arkansas 
sharecropper who found one of the loveliest of the old mountain 
tunes and set these words to it: 

Way down in Old St. Francis Bottom, 
Where they call it the Devil s Den, 
Many a poor tenant has lost his home, 
And me, Ah God, I m one . . . 

The song ends, after five verses, with these childishly poignant 
lines: 

Oh Boss, don t you see where you done wrong 
When you run me outa my shack? 
I had to build me a home 
Out of my old pick-sack. 

23. And up near Shafter, California, lives a sturdy little fellow, aged 
fourteen, who livens up the camp "socials" with a song hit of his 
own composition about the cotton-picker. It is a catchy tune, with 
stanzas like this in it: 



282 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

I have no care like a millionaire, 

No grief to make me blue, 
But I pull my pack from day to day 

And paddle my own canoe. 

24. The pea-picking country in California has produced "Pea-Pickin 
Poppa s Got the Pea-Pickin Blues," as well as the "Pea-Picker s 
Dream," which ends in this fashion: 

Oh, Td like to be a pea-boss, 

I d buy up all the peas 
Then plow them under way down deep 

And let them rot and freeze! 

25. In the same spirit is an old blues number in which the Okies have 
made a few appropriate changes. After a few verses in which the 
singer testifies that he is going to "shoot poor Thelma just to see her 
jump and fall," he concludes that he d 

Rather drink muddy water, 

Sleep in a holler log, 
Than to be in California, 

Treated like a dirty dog. 

26. For the most part, however, the Okie minstrels are appreciative 
of what is being done for them in California. A woman in the Arvin 
Camp, after a long recitation of the rigors of the migration, ends 
with the following popular sentiment: 

The people they were friendly 

And ready to lend a hand. 
Of all the states we ve worked in 

By this one we will stand. 

27. There are "homesick" songs about the good things to eat back in 
Arkansas: "peanuts, pumpkins, buttermilk, and good old turnip 
greens"; there are songs of "social significance" such as "Seven- 
Cent Cotton and Forty-Cent Meat" or "I d Rather Not Be on the 
Rolls of Relief"; and there are made-up songs which are just plain 
songs, with titles like "Come Sit by My Side, Little Darlin ," or 
"Moonlight and Skies." Finally there is the one that has become al 
most the theme song of the Okies, the "Oh Susannah" of the migra 
tion of the nineteen thirties: 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 283 

I m goin where the climate fits my clothes, 

I m goin* where the climate fits my clothes, 

I m goin" where the climate fits my clothes, Lord, Lord, 

And I ain t a-gonna be treated this-a-way. 

28. There is no need to fear that a people who can sing as these peo 
ple do will vanish from the earth. They may be "dusted out" and 
"tractored out," but they are not down and out not so long as they 
go on singing songs like these, with "git-tars" to "second" them. As 
Carl Sandburg says of the people of America, 

The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback, 
You can t laugh off their capacity to take it. ... 

And somehow, as one hears these many songs of the people of 
America, one becomes doubly certain of their ability to take it. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. Explain the function of the first three paragraphs of this article. 

b. What do they tell the reader concerning the kind of organization that is 
likely to be followed here? Point out places to support your conclusion. 

2. a. Point out where the logical classification begins in the article. 
b. Of what use is the material up to this point? 

3. One must have a logical and clear basis for classification, a breaking down of 
a subject into its component parts. 

a. Discover the basis for the classification used in this article. 

b. Does the basis serve to include all the types of ballads or only those types 
that the authors feel they should treat? 

4. a. Point out the divisional points in the text marking the end of each of the cate 
gories handled here. 

b. What transitional words or phrases do the authors use to get from one cate 
gory to another? 

5. a. How does this method of classification relate to the conclusion that the au 
thors reach in this article? 

b. Is the method of classification inherently a part of the subject matter, or is 
it an artificial device used for clarity? 

6. a. How does logical classification differ from enumeration? 

b. How does this technique differ from classification on component parts pat 
terns? Explain. 

7. Consider this article as an example of a primary source paper. Is classification 
the primary purpose of the article? 



284 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ON VARIOUS KINDS OF THINKING* 

By James Harvey Robinson 

i. WE DO NOT think enough about thinking, and much of our con 
fusion is the result of current illusions in regard to it. Let us forget 
for the moment any impressions we may have derived from the 
philosophers, and see what seems to happen in ourselves. The first 
thing that we notice is that our thought moves with such incredible 
rapidity that it is amost impossible to arrest any specimen of it long 
enough to have a look at it. When we are offered a penny for our 
thoughts we always find that we have recently had so many things 
in mind that we can easily make a selection which will not com 
promise us too nakedly. On inspection we shall find that even if we 
are not downright ashamed of a great part of our spontaneous think 
ing it is far too intimate, personal, ignoble or trivial to permit us to 
reveal more than a small part of it. I believe this must be true of 
everyone. We do not, of course, know what goes on in* other peo 
ple s heads. They tell us very little and we tell them very little. The 
spigot of speech, rarely fully opened, could never emit more than 
driblets of the ever renewed hogshead of thought noch grosser 
wies Hcidclbergcr Pass. We find it hard to believe that other peo 
ple s thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are. 

2. We all appear to ourselves to be thinking all the time during our 
waking hours, and most of us are aware that we go on thinking 
while we are asleep, even more foolishly than when awake. When 
uninterrupted by some practical issue we are engaged in what is 
now known as a reverie. This is our spontaneous and favorite kind 
of thinking. We allow our ideas to take their own course and this 
course is determined by our hopes and fears, our spontaneous de 
sires, their fulfillment or frustration; by our likes and dislikes, our 
loves and hates and resentments. There is nothing else anything 
like so interesting to ourselves as ourselves. All thought that is not 
more or less laboriously controlled and directed will inevitably cir 
cle about the beloved Ego. It is amusing and pathetic to observe 
this tendency in ourselves and in others. We learn politely and gen- 

* From The Mind in the Making (1921), by James Harvey Robinson. Copy 
right, 1921, by Harper and Brothers. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 285 

erously to overlook this truth, but if we dare to think of it, it blazes 
forth like the noontide sun. 

3. The reverie or "free association of ideas" has of late become the 
subject of scientific research. While investigators are not yet agreed 
on the results, or at least on the proper interpretation to be given to 
them, there can be no doubt that our reveries form the chief index 
to our fundamental character. They are a reflection of our nature as 
modified by often hidden and forgotten experiences. We need not 
go into the matter further here, for it is only necessary to observe 
that the reverie is at all times a potent and in many cases an omnip 
otent rival to every other kind of thinking. It doubtless influences all 
our speculations in its persistent tendency to self -magnification and 
self-justification, which are its chief preoccupations, but it is the last 
thing to make directly or indirectly for honest increase of knowl 
edge. 1 Philosophers usually talk as if such thinking did not exist or 
were in some way negligible. This is what makes their speculations 
so unreal and often worthless. 

4. The reverie, as any of us can see for himself, is frequently broken 
and interrupted by the necessity of a second kind of thinking. We 
have to make practical decisions. Shall we write a letter or no? Shall 
we take the subway or a bus? Shall we have dinner at seven or half 
past? Shall we buy U. S. Rubber or a Liberty Bond? Decisions are 
easily distinguishable from the free flow of the reverie. Sometimes 
they demand a good deal of careful pondering and the recollection 
of pertinent facts; often, however, they are made impulsively. They 
are a more difficult and laborious thing than the reverie, and we 
resent having to "make up our mind" when we are tired, or ab 
sorbed in a congenial reverie. Weighing a decision, it should be 

% 

1 The poet-clergyman, John Donne, who lived in the time of James I, has 
given a beautifully honest picture of the doings of a saint s mind: "I throw 
myself down in my chamber and call in and invite God and His angels thither, 
and when they are there I neglect God and His angels for the noise of a fly, 
for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door. I talk on in the same 
posture of praying, eyes lifted up, knees bowed down, as though I prayed 
to God, and if God or 1 1 is angels should ask me when I thought last of God 
in that prayer I cannot tell. Sometimes I find that I had forgot what I was 
about, but when I began to forget it I cannot tell. A memory of yesterday s 
pleasures, a fear of tomorrow s dangers, a straw under my knee, a noise in 
mine ear, a light in mine eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy, a chimera in 
my brain troubles rne in my prayer." Quoted by Robert Lynd, The Art of 
Letters, pp. 46-47. 



286 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

noted, does not necessarily add anything to our knowledge, al 
though we may, of course, seek further information before mak 
ing it. 

5. A third kind of thinking is stimulated when anyone questions our 
belief and opinions. We sometimes find ourselves changing our 
minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told 
that we are wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. 
We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find 
ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone pro 
poses to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas 
themselves that are clear to us, but our self-esteem, which is threat 
ened. We are by nature stubbornly pledged to defend our own from 
attack, whether it be our person, our family, our property, or our 
opinion. A United States Senator once remarked to a friend of mine 
that God Almighty could not make him change his mind on our 
Latin-American policy. We may surrender, but rarely confess our 
selves vanquished. In the intellectual world at least peace is with 
out victory. 

6. Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished con 
victions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like 
to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as 
true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of 
our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for cling 
ing to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning con 
sists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do. 

7. I remember years ago attending a public dinner to which the 
governor of the state was bidden. The chairman explained that His 
Excellency could not be present for certain "good" reasons; what 
the "real" reasons were the presiding officer said he would leave us 
to conjecture. This distinction between "good" and "real" reasons is 
one of the most clarifying and essential in the whole realm of 
thought. We can readily give what seem to us "good" reasons for 
being a Catholic or a Mason, a Republican or a Democrat, an ad 
herent or opponent of the League of Nations. But the "real" rea 
sons are usually on quite a different plane. Of course the importance 
of this distinction is popularly, if somewhat obscurely, recognized. 
The Baptist missionary is ready enough to see that the Buddhist is 
not such because his doctrines would bear careful inspection, but 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 287 

because he happened to be born in a Buddhist family in Tokio. But 
it would be treason to his faith to acknowledge that his own parti 
ality for certain doctrines is due to the fact that his mother was a 
member of the First Baptist Church of Oak Ridge. A savage can 
give all sorts of reasons for his belief that it is dangerous to step on 
a man s shadow, and a newspaper editor can advance plenty of 
arguments against the Bolsheviki. But neither of them may realize 
why he happens to be defending his particular opinion. 

8. The "real" reasons for our beliefs are concealed from ourselves 
as well as from others. As we grow up we simply adopt the ideas 
presented to us in regard to such matters as religion, family rela 
tions, property, business, our country, and the state. We uncon 
sciously absorb them from our environment. They are persistently 
whispered in our ear by the group in which we happen to live. 
Moreover, as Mr. Trotter has pointed out, these judgments, being 
the product of suggestion and not of reasoning, have the quality of 
perfect obviousness, so that to question them 

... is to the believer to carry skepticism to an insane degree, and will 
be met by contempt, disapproval, or condemnation, according to the na 
ture of the belief in question. When, therefore, we find ourselves enter 
taining an opinion about the basis of which there is a quality of feeling 
which tells us that to inquire into it would be absurd, obviously unneces 
sary, unprofitable, undesirable, bad form, or wicked, we may know that 
that opinion is a nonrational one, and probably, therefore, founded upon 
inadequate evidence. 2 

9. Opinions, on the other hand, which are the result of experience or 
of honest reasoning do not have this quality of "primary certitude/ 

1 remember when as a youth I heard a group of businessmen discuss 
ing the question of the immortality of the soul, I was outraged by 
the sentiment of doubt expressed by one of the party. As I look back 
now I see that I had at the time no interest in the matter, and cer 
tainly no least argiiment to urge in favor of the belief in which I 
had been reared. But neither my personal indifference to the issue, 
nor the fact that I had previously given it no attention, served to 
prevent an angry resentment when I heard my ideas questioned. 

10. This spontaneous and loyal support of our preconceptions this 
process of finding "good" reasons to justify our routine beliefs is 

2 Instincts of the Herd, p. 44. 



288 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

known to modern psychologists as "rationalizing" clearly only a 
new name for a very ancient thing. Our "good" reasons ordinarily 
have no value in promoting honest enlightenment, because, no mat 
ter how solemnly they may be marshaled, they are at bottom the 
result of personal preference or prejudice, and not of an honest de 
sire to seek or accept new knowledge. 

11. In our reveries we are frequently engaged in self -justification, for 
we cannot bear to think ourselves wrong, and yet have constant il 
lustrations of our weaknesses and mistakes. So we spend much time 
finding fault with circumstances and the conduct of others, and 
shifting on to them with great ingenuity the onus of our own fail 
ures and disappointments. Rationalizing is the self-exculpation 
which occurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of mis 
apprehension or error. 

12. The little word my is the most important one in all human affairs, 
and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has 
the same force whether it is mij dinner, rmj dog, and my house, or 
my faith, my country, and my God. We not only resent the imputa 
tion that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our con 
ception of the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus," 
of the medicinal value of salicine, or the date of Sargon I, are sub 
ject to revision. 

13. Philosophers, scholars, and men of science exhibit a common sen 
sitiveness in all decisions in which their amour-propre is involved. 
Thousands of argumentative works have been written to vent a 
grudge. However stately their reasoning, it may be nothing but ra 
tionalizing, stimulated by the most commonplace of all motives. A 
history of philosophy and theology could be written in terms of 
grouches, wounded pride, and aversions, and it would be far more 
instructive than the usual treatments of these themes. Sometimes, 
under Providence, the lowly impulse of resentment leads to great 
achievements. Milton wrote his treatise on divorce as a result of his 
troubles with his seventeen-year-old wife, and when he was ac 
cused of being the leading spirit in a new sect, the Divorcers, he 
wrote his noble Areopagitica to prove his right to say what he 
thought fit, and incidentally to establish the advantage of a free 
press in the promotion of Truth. 

14. All mankind, high and low, thinks in all the ways which have 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 289 

been described. The reverie goes on all the time not only in the 
mind of the mill hand and the Broadway flapper, but equally in 
weighty judges and godly bishops. It has gone on in all the philoso 
phers, scientists, poets, and theologians that have ever lived. Aris 
totle s most abstruse speculations were doubtless tempered by highly 
irrelevant reflections. He is reported to have had very thin legs and 
small eyes, for which he doubtless had to find excuses, and he was 
wont to indulge in very conspicuous dress and rings and was ac 
customed to arrange his hair carefully. 3 Diogenes the Cynic ex 
hibited the impudence of a touchy soul. His tub was his distinction. 
Tennyson in beginning his "Maud" could not forget his chagrin over 
losing his patrimony years before as the result of an unhappy in 
vestment in the Patent Decorative Carving Company. These facts 
are not recalled here as a gratuitous disparagement of the truly 
great, but to insure a full realization of the tremendous competition 
which all really exacting thought has to face, even in the minds of 
the most highly endowed mortals. 

15. And now the astonishing and perturbing suspicion emerges that 
perhaps almost all that had passed for social science, political econ 
omy, politics, and ethics in the past may be brushed aside by fu 
ture generations as mainly rationalizing. John Dewcy has already 
reached this conclusion in regard to philosophy. 4 Vcblen 5 and other 
writers have revealed the various unperceived presuppositions of 
the traditional political economy, and now comes an Italian sociolo 
gist, Vilfredo Pareto, who, in his huge treatise on general sociology, 
devotes hundreds of pages to substantiating a similar thesis affecting 
all the social sciences. This conclusion may be ranked by students 
of a hundred years hence as one of the several great discoveries of 
our age. It is by no means fully worked out, and it is so opposed to 
nature that it will be very slowly accepted by the great mass of 
those who consider themselves thoughtful. As a historical student I 

8 Diogenes Laertius, book v. 

4 Reconstruction in Philosophy. 

6 The Place of Science in Modern Civilization. 

6 Traite de Sociologie Generate, passim. The author s term "derivations" seems 
to be his precise way of expressing what we have called the "good" reasons, 
and his "residus" correspond to the "real" reasons. He well says, "L homme 
dprouve le besoin de raisonncr, et en outre d etendre un voile sur ses instincts 
et sur ses sentiments" hence, rationalization, (p. 788.) His aim is to re 
duce sociology to the "real" reasons, (p. 791.) 



290 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

am personally fully reconciled to this newer view. Indeed, it seems 
to me inevitable that just as the various sciences of nature were, be 
fore the opening of the seventeenth century, largely masses of ra 
tionalizations to suit the religious sentiments of the period, so the 
social sciences have continued even to our own day to be ration 
alizations of uncritically accepted beliefs and customs. 

16. It will become apparent as we proceed that the fact that an idea 
is ancient and that it has been widely received is no argument in its 
favor, but should immediately suggest the necessity of carefully test 
ing it as a probable instance of rationalization. 

17. This brings us to another kind of thought which can fairly easily 
be distinguished from the three kinds described above. It has not 
the usual qualities of the reverie, for it does not hover about our 
personal complacencies and humiliations. It is not made up of the 
homely decisions forced upon us by everyday needs, when we re 
view our little stock of existing information, consult our conven 
tional preferences and obligations, and make a choice of action. It 
is not the defense of our own cherished beliefs and prejudices just 
because they are our own mere plausible excuses for remaining 
of the same mind. On the contrary, it is that peculiar species of 
thought which leads us to change our mind. 

18. It is this kind of thought that has raised man from his pristine, 
subsavage ignorance and squalor to the degree of knowledge and 
comfort which he now possesses. On his capacity to continue and 
greatly extend this kind of thinking depends his chance of groping 
his way out of the plight in which the most highly civilized peoples 
of the world now find themselves. In the past this type of thinking 
has been called Reason. But so many misapprehensions have grown 
up around the word that some of us have become very suspicious 
of it. I suggest, therefore, that we substitute a recent name and 
speak of "creative thought" rather than of Reason. For this kind of 
meditation begets knowledge, and knowledge is really creative inas 
much as it makes things look different from what they seemed be 
fore and may indeed work for their reconstruction. 

19. In certain moods some of us realize that we are observing things 
or making reflections with a seeming disregard of our personal pre 
occupations. We are not preening or defending ourselves; we are 
not faced by the necessity of any practical decision, nor are we 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 291 

apologizing for believing this or that. We are just wondering and 
looking and mayhap seeing what we never perceived before. 

20. Curiosity is as clear and definite as any of our urges. We wonder 
what is in a sealed telegram or in a letter in which some one else is 
absorbed, or what is being said in the telephone booth or in low 
conversation. This inquisitiveness is vastly stimulated by jealousy, 
suspicion, or any hint that we ourselves are directly or indirectly in 
volved. But there appears to be a fair amount of personal interest 
in other people s affairs even when they do not concern us except 
as a mystery to be unraveled or a tale to be told. The reports of a 
divorce suit will have "news value" for many weeks. They consti 
tute a story, like a novel or play or moving picture. This is not an 
example of pure curiosity, however, since we readily identify our 
selves with others, and their joys and despair then become our own. 

21. We also take note of, or "observe," as Sherlock Holmes says, 
things which have nothing to do with our personal interests and 
make no personal appeal either direct or by way of sympathy. This 
is what Veblen so well calls "idle curiosity." And it is usually idle 
enough. Some of us when we face the line of people opposite us in 
a subway train impulsively consider them in detail and engage in 
rapid inferences and form theories in regard to them. On entering 
a room there are those who will perceive at a glance the degree of 
preciousncss of the rugs, the character of the pictures, and the per 
sonality revealed by the books. But there are many, it would seem, 
who are so absorbed in their personal reverie or in some definite 
purpose that they have no bright-eyed energy for idle curiosity. 
The tendency to miscellaneous observation we come by honestly 
enough, for we note it in many of our animal relatives. 

22. Veblen, however, uses the term "idle curiosity" somewhat ironi 
cally, as is his wont. It is idle only to those who fail to realize that 
it may be a very rare and indispensable thing from which almost all 
distinguished human achievement proceeds, since it may lead to 
systematic examination and seeking for things hitherto undiscov 
ered. For research is but diligent search which enjoys the high flavor 
of primitive hunting. Occasionally and fitfully idle curiosity thus 
leads to creative thought, which alters and broadens our own views 
and aspirations and may in turn, under highly favorable circum 
stances, affect the views and lives of others, even for generations to 



292 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

follow. An example or two will make this unique human process 
clear. 

23. Galileo was a thoughtful youth and doubtless carried on a rich 
and varied reverie. He had artistic ability and might have turned 
out to be a musician or painter. When he had dwelt among the 
monks at Valambrosa he had been tempted to lead the life of a re 
ligious. As a boy he busied himself with toy machines and he in 
herited a fondness for mathematics. All these facts are of record. 
We may safely assume also that, along with many other subjects 
of contemplation, the Pisan maidens found a vivid place in his 
thoughts. 

24. One day when seventeen years old he wandered into the cathe 
dral of his native town. In the midst of his reverie he looked up at 
the lamps hanging by long chains from the high ceiling of the 
church. Then something very difficult to explain occurred. He found 
himself no longer thinking of the building, worshipers, or the serv 
ices; of his artistic or religious interests; of his reluctance to become 
a physician as his father wished. He forgot the question of a career 
and even the graziosissime donne. As he watched the swinging 
lamps he was suddenly wondering if mayhap their oscillations, 
whether long or short, did not occupy the same time. Then he 
tested this hypothesis by counting his pulse, for that was the only 
timepiece he had with him. 

25. This observation, however remarkable in itself, was not enough 
to produce a really creative thought. Others may have noticed the 
same thing and yet nothing came of it. Most of our observations 
have no assignable results. Galileo may have seen that the warts on 
a peasant s face formed a perfect isosceles triangle, or he may have 
noticed with boyish glee that just as the officiating priest was utter 
ing the solemn words, ccce agnus Dei, a fly lit on the end of his 
nose. To be really creative, ideas have to be worked up and then 
"put over," so that they become a part of man s social heritage. The 
highly accurate pendulum clock was one of the later results of Gali 
leo s discovery. He himself was led to reconsider and successfully to 
refute the old notions of falling bodies. It remained for Newton to 
prove that the moon was falling, and presumably all the heavenly 
bodies. This quite upset all the consecrated views of the heavens as 
managed by angelic engineers. The universality of the laws of gravi- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 293 

tation stimulated the attempt to seek other and equally important 
natural laws and cast grave doubts on the miracles which man 
kind had hitherto believed. In short, those who dared to include in 
their thought the discoveries of Galileo and his successors found 
themselves in a new earth surrounded by new heavens. 

26. On the twenty-eighth of October, 1831, three hundred and fifty 
years after Galileo had noticed the isochronous vibrations of the 
lamps, creative thought and its currency had so far increased that 
Faraday was wondering what would happen if he mounted a disk 
of copper between the poles of a horseshoe magnet. As the disk re 
volved an electric current was produced. This would doubtless have 
seemed the idlest kind of an experiment to the stanch businessmen 
of the time, who, it happened, were just then denouncing the child 
labor bills in their anxiety to avail themselves to the full of the re 
sults of earlier idle curiosity. But should the dynamos and motors 
which have come into being as the outcome of Faraday s experi 
ment be stopped this evening, the businessman of today, agitated 
over labor troubles, might, as he trudged home past lines of "dead" 
cars, through dark streets to an unlighted house, engage in a little 
creative thought of his own and perceive that he and his laborers 
would have 110 modern factories and mills to quarrel about had it 
not been for the strange practical effects of the idle curiosity of sci 
entists, inventors, and engineers. 

27. The examples of creative intelligence given above belong to the 
realm of modern scientific achievement, which furnishes the most 
striking instances of the effects of scrupulous, objective thinking. 
But there are, of course, other great realms in which the recording 
and embodiment of acute observation and insight have wrought 
themselves into the higher life of man. The great poets and drama 
tists and our modern storytellers have found themselves engaged in 
productive reveries, noting and artistically presenting their discov 
eries for the delight and instruction of those who have the ability to 
appreciate them. 

28. The process by which a fresh and original poem or drama comes 
into being is doubtless analogous to that which originates and 
elaborates so-called scientific discoveries; but there is clearly a tem 
peramental difference. The genesis and advance of painting, sculp 
ture, and music offer still other problems. We really as yet know 



294 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

shockingly little about these matters, and indeed very few people 
have the least curiosity about them. 7 Nevertheless, creative intelli 
gence in its various forms and activities is what makes man. Were 
it not for its slow, painful, and constantly discouraged operations 
through the ages man would be no more than a species of primate 
living on seeds, fruit, roots, and uncooked flesh, and wandering 
naked through the woods and over the plains like a chimpanzee. 
29. The origin and progress and future promotion of civilization are 
ill understood and misconceived. These should be made the chief 
theme of education, but much hard work is necessary before we 
can reconstruct our ideas of man and his capacities and free our 
selves from innumerable persistent misapprehensions. There have 
been obstructionists in all times, not merely the lethargic masses, 
but the moralists, the rationalizing theologians, and most of the phi 
losophers, all busily if unconsciously engaged in ratifying existing 
ignorance and mistakes and discouraging creative thought. Natur 
ally, those who reassure us seem worthy of honor and respect. 
Equally naturally those who puzzle us with disturbing criticisms 
and invite us to change our ways are objects of suspicion and read 
ily discredited. Our personal discontent does not ordinarily extend 
to any critical questioning of the general situation in which we find 
ourselves. In every age the prevailing conditions of civilization have 
appeared quite natural and inevitable to those who grew up in 
them. The cow asks no questions as to how it happens to have a 
dry stall and a supply of hay. The kitten laps its warm milk from 
a china saucer, without knowing anything about porcelain; the dog 
nestles in the corner of a divan with no sense of obligation to the 
inventors of upholstery and the manufacturers of down pillows. So 
we humans accept our breakfasts, our trains and telephones and 
orchestras and movies, our national Constitution, or moral code and 
standards of manners, with the simplicity and innocence of a pet 
rabbit. We have absolutely inexhaustible capacities for appropriat 
ing what others do for us with no thought of a "thank you." We do 

7 Recently a reexamination of creative thought has begun as a result of new 
knowledge which discredits many of the notions formerly held about "reason." 
See, for example, Creative Intelligence, by a group of American philosophic 
thinkers; John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic (both pretty hard 
books); and Veblen, The Place of Science in Modern Civilization. Easier 
than these and very stimulating are Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, 
and Woodworth, Dynamic Psychology. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 295 

not feel called upon to make any least contribution to the merry 
game ourselves. Indeed, we are usually quite unaware that a game 
is being played at all. 

30. We have now examined the various classes of thinking which we 
can readily observe in ourselves and which we have plenty of rea 
sons to believe go on, and always have been going on, in our fellow- 
men. We can sometimes get quite pure and sparkling examples of 
all four kinds, but commonly they are so confused and intermingled 
in our reverie as not to be readily distinguishable. The reverie is a 
reflection of our longings, exultations, and complacencies, our fears, 
suspicions, and disappointments. We are chiefly engaged in strug 
gling to maintain our self-respect and in asserting that supremacy 
which we all crave and which seems to us our natural prerogative. 
It is not strange, but rather quite inevitable, that our beliefs about 
what is true and false, good and bad, right and wrong, should be 
mixed up with the reverie and be influenced by the same considera 
tions which determine its character and course. We resent criticisms 
of our views exactly as we do of anything else connected with our 
selves. Our notions of life and its ideals seem to us to be our own 
and as such necessarily true and right, to be defended at all costs. 

31. We very rarely consider, however, the process by which we 
gained our convictions. If we did so, we could hardly fail to see that 
there was usually little ground for our confidence in them. Here 
and there, in this department of knowledge or that, some one of us 
might make a fair claim to have taken some trouble to get correct 
ideas of, let us say, the situation in Russia, the sources of our food 
supply, the origin of the Constitution, the revision of the tariff, 
the policy of the Holy Roman Apostolic Church, modem business 
organization, trade unions, birth control, socialism, the League of 
Nations, the excess-profits tax, preparedness, advertising in its 
social bearings; but only a very exceptional person would be en 
titled to opinions on all of even these few matters. And yet most 
of us have opinions on all these, and on many other questions of 
equal importance, of which we may know even less. We feel com 
pelled, as self-respecting persons, to take sides when they come 
up for discussion. We even surprise ourselves by our omniscience. 
Without taking thought we see in a flash that it is most righteous 
and expedient to discourage birth control by legislative enactment, 



296 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

or that one who decries intervention in Mexico is clearly wrong, or 
that big advertising is essential to big business and that big busi 
ness is the pride of the land. As godlike beings why should we 
not rejoice in our omniscience? 

32. It is clear, in any case, that our convictions on important mat 
ters are not the result of knowledge or critical thought, nor, it may 
be added, are they often dictated by supposed self-interest. Most 
of them are pure prejudices in the proper sense of that word. We 
do not form them ourselves. They are the whisperings of "the voice 
of the herd." We have in the last analysis no responsibility for 
them and need assume none. They are not really our own ideas, 
but those of others no more well informed or inspired than our 
selves, who have got them in the same careless and humiliating 
manner as we. It should be our pride to revise our ideas and not 
to adhere to what passes for respectable opinion, for such opin 
ion can frequently be shown to be not respectable at all. We should, 
in view of the considerations that have been mentioned, resent our 
supine credulity. As an English writer has remarked:* 

33. "If we feared the entertaining of an imverifiable opinion with 
the warmth with which we fear using the wrong implement at the 
dinner table, if the thought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as 
docs a foul disease, then the dangers of man s suggestibility would 
be returned into advantages." 8 

34. The purpose of this essay is to set forth briefly the way in which 
the notions of the herd have been accumulated. This seems to me 
the best, easiest, and least invidious educational device for culti 
vating a proper distrust for the older notions on which we still 
continue to rely. 

35. The "real" reasons, which explain how it is we happen to hold a 
particular belief, are chiefly historical. Our most important opin 
ions those, for example, having to do with traditional, religious, 
and moral convictions, property rights, patriotism, national honor, 
the state, and indeed all the assumed foundations of society are, 
as I have already suggested, rarely the result of reasoned consid 
eration, but of unthinking absorption from the social environment 
in which we live. Consequently, they have about them a quality 
of "elemental certitude," and we especially resent doubt or criti- 

8 Trotter, op. cit., p. 45. The first part of this little volume is excellent. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 297 

cism cast upon them. So long, however, as we revere the whisper 
ings of the herd, we are obviously unable to examine them dispas 
sionately and to consider to what extent they are suited to the novel 
conditions and social exigencies in which we find ourselves today. 

36. The "real" reasons for our beliefs, by making clear their origins 
and history, can do much to dissipate this emotional blockade and 
rid us of our prejudices and preconceptions. Once this is done and 
we come critically to examine our traditional beliefs, we may well 
find some of them sustained by experience and honest reasoning, 
while others must be revised to meet new conditions and our more 
extended knowledge. But only after we have undertaken such a 
critical examination in the light of experience and modern knowl 
edge, freed from any feeling of "primary certitude/ can we claim 
that the "good" are also the "real" reasons for our opinions. 

37. I do not flatter myself that this general showup of man s thought 
through the ages will cure myself or others of carelessness in adopt 
ing ideas, or of unseemly heat in defending them just because we 
have adopted them. But if the considerations which I propose to 
recall are really incorporated into our thinking and are permitted 
to establish our general outlook on human affairs, they will do 
much to relieve the imaginary obligation we feel in regard to tradi 
tional sentiments and ideals. Few of us are capable of engaging 
in creative thought, but some of us can at least come to distinguish 
it from other and inferior kinds of thought and accord to it the es 
teem that it merits as the greatest treasure of the past and the 
only hope of the future. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. How much of the beginning of this article is "introductory" material? Point 
out its extent in the text. 

b. What is the function of this material in relation to the pattern of organiza 
tion that the author follows? 

2. Make a brief topic outline of the main portions of this article to indicate the 
number of divisions in the classification. 

a. Copy out the key sentences for each division. 

b. Copy out the phrases or sentences that the author uses to establish the tran 
sition between each division. 

3. Indicate on your outline of the article what you believe to be the logical basis 
for the classification followed here. Indicate the basis on which the author 
orders his separate items of the classification. 



298 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

a. Is the progression from one part to another based on a clear principle? What 
is it? 

b. Could item three, for instance, just as well be item two? Explain. 

4. Explain the kinds of illustrations and examples the author uses to clarify each 
of the various kinds of thinking. Comment on their aptness. 

5. Make a comparative study of the styles of this article and Todd and Sonkin, 
"Ballads of the Okies/ The latter article is what one might loosely call "jour 
nalistic" writing. In your examination of these two articles, indicate the main 
characteristics of "journalistic" writing. 

a. How does the writing in Robinson s article differ? Point out specific places, 
specific techniques of difference (word usage, sentence patterns, figurative 
speech ) . 

6. Aside from Robinson s desire to clarify his ideas through his classification of the 
various kinds of thinking, has he a further point to make, a belief he expresses 
in die article? If so, what is it? Comment on it. 

7. Note the use of restatement as a device for paragraph development in Para 
graph 2, the use of concrete illustrations in Paragraph 4 and elsewhere. 

8. In Paragraph 34 the author states his purpose in writing this essay. Does his 
statement correspond to what he has actually done in it? 



THIRD PATTERN: Component Parts 

GERMANIA 
By Tacitus 

1. GERMANY is separated from Gaul, Rhaetia, and Pannonia, by the 
rivers Rhine and Danube; from Sarmatia and Dacia, by mountains 
and mutual dread. The rest is surrounded by an ocean, embracing 
broad promontories and vast insular tracts, in which our military 
expeditions have lately discovered various nations and kingdoms. 
The Rhine, issuing from the inaccessible and precipitous summit of 
the Rhaetic Alps, bends gently to the west, and falls into the North 
ern Ocean. The Danube, poured from the easy and gently raised 
ridge of Mount Abnoba, visits several nations in its course, till 
at length it bursts out by six channels into the Pontic sea: a sev 
enth is lost in marshes. 

2. The people of Germany appear to me indigenous, and free from 
intermixture with foreigners, either as settlers or casual visitants. 
For the emigrants of former ages performed their expeditions not 
by land, but by water; and that immense, and, if I may so call it, 
hostile ocean, is rarely navigated by ships from our world. Then, 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 299 

besides the dangers of a boisterous and unknown sea, who would 
relinquish Asia, Africa, or Italy, for Germany, a land rude in its 
surface, vigorous in its climate, cheerless to every beholder and 
cultivator, except a native? In their ancient songs, which are their 
only records or annals, they celebrate the god Tuisto, sprung from 
the earth, and his son Mannus, as the fathers and founders of their 
race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons, from whose names the 
people bordering on the ocean are called Ingaevones; those in 
habiting the central parts, Herminones; the rest, Istaevones. Some, 
however, assuming the license of antiquity, affirm that there were 
more descendants of the god, from whom more appellations were 
derived; as those of the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, and Vandali; and 
that these are the genuine and original names. That of Germany, 
on the other hand, they assert to be a modern addition; for that 
the people who first crossed the Rhine, and expelled the Gauls, 
and are now called Tungri, were then named Germans; which ap 
pellation of a particular tribe, not of a whole people, gradually 
prevailed; so that the title of Germans, first assumed by the victors 
in order to excite terror, was afterwards adopted by the nation in 
general. They have likewise the tradition of a Hercules of their 
country, whose praises they sing before those of all other heroes 
as they advance to battle. 

3. A peculiar kind of verses is also current among them, by the 
recital of which, termed "barding," they stimulate their courage; 
while the sound itself serves as an augury of the event of the im 
pending combat. For, according to the nature of the cry proceed 
ing from the line, terror is inspired or felt: nor does it seem so 
much an articulate song, as the wild chorus of valor. A harsh, 
piercing note and a broken roar are the favorite tones; which they 
render more full and sonorous by applying their mouths to their 
shields. Some conjecture that Ulysses, in the course of his long 
and fabulous wanderings, was driven into this ocean, and landed in 
Germany; and that Asciburgium, a place situated on the Rhine, and 
at this day inhabited, was founded by him, and named AdKiirvpyiov. 
They pretend that an altar was formerly discovered here, conse 
crated to Ulysses, with the name of his father Laertes subjoined; 
and that certain monuments and tombs, inscribed with Greek 
characters, are still extant upon the confines of Germany and 



300 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Rhaetia. These allegations I shall neither attempt to confirm nor 
to refute: let everyone believe concerning them as he is disposed. 

4. I concur in opinion with those who deem the Germans never to 
have intermarried with other nations; but to be a race, pure, un 
mixed, and stamped with a distinct character. Hence a family 
likeness pervades the whole, though their numbers are so great: 
eyes stern and blue; ruddy hair; large bodies, powerful in sudden 
exertions, but impatient of toil and labor, least of all capable of 
sustaining thirst and heat. Cold and hunger they are accustomed 
by their climate and soil to endure. 

5. The land, though varied to a considerable extent in its aspects, 
is yet universally shagged with forests, or deformed by marshes: 
moistcr on the side of Gaul, more bleak on the side of Noricum 
and Pannonia. It is productive of grain, but unkindly to fruit trees. 
It abounds in flocks arid herds, but in general of a small breed. 
Even the beeve kind are destitute of their usual stateliness and 
dignity of head: they are, however, numerous, and form the most 
esteemed, and, indeed, the only species of wealth. Silver and gold 
the gods, I know not whether in their favor or anger, have denied 
to this country. Not that I would assert that no veins of these metals 
are generated in Germany; for who has made the search? The pos 
session of them is not coveted by these people as it is by us. Ves 
sels of silver are indeed to be seen among them, which have been 
presented to their ambassadors and chiefs; but they are held in 
no higher estimation than earthenware. The borderers, however, 
set a value on gold and silver for the purposes of commerce, and 
have learned to distinguish several kinds of our coin, some of which 
they prefer to others: the remoter Inhabitants continue the more 
simple and ancient usage of bartering commodities. The money 
preferred by the Germans is the old and well-known species, such 
as the Serrati and Bigati. They are also better pleased with silver 
than gold; not on account of any fondness for that metal, but be 
cause the smaller money is more convenient in their common and 
petty merchandise. 

6. Even iron is not plentiful among them; as may be inferred from 
the nature of their weapons. Swords or broad lances are seldom 
used; but they generally carry a spear (called in their language 
framed) which has an iron blade, short and narrow, but so sharp 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 301 

and manageable, that, as occasion requires, they employ it either 
in close or distant fighting. This spear and a shield are all the ar 
mor of the cavalry. The foot have, besides, missile weapons, sev 
eral to each man, which they hurl to an immense distance. They 
are either naked, or lightly covered with a small mantle; and have 
no pride in equipage: their shields only are ornamented with the 
choicest colors. Few are provided with a coat of mail; and scarcely 
here and there one with a casque or helmet. Their horses are nei 
ther remarkable for beauty nor swiftness, nor are they taught the 
various evolutions practiced with us. The cavalry either bear down 
straight forwards, or wheel once to the right, in so compact a 
body that none is left behind the rest. Their principal strength, on 
the whole, consists in their infantry: hence in an engagement these 
are intermixed with the cavalry; so well accordant with the nature 
of equestrian combats is the agility of those foot soldiers, whom 
they select from the whole body of their youth, and place in the 
front of the line. Their number, too, is determined; a hundred 
from each canton: and they are distinguished at home by a name 
expressive of this circumstance; so that what at first was only an 
appellation of number, becomes thenceforth a title of honor. Their 
line of battle is disposed in wedges. To give ground, provided they 
rally again, is considered rather as a prudent stratagem, than cow 
ardice. They carry off their slain even while the battle remains 
undecided. The greatest disgrace that can befall them is to have 
abandoned their shields. A person branded with this ignominy is 
not permitted to join in their religious rites, or enter their assem 
blies; so that many, after escaping from battle, have put an end 
to their infamy by the halter. 

7. In the election of kings they have regard to birth; in that of 
generals, to valor. Their kings have not an absolute or unlimited 
power; and their generals command less through the force of au 
thority, than of example. If they are daring, adventurous, and con 
spicuous in action, they procure obedience from the admiration 
they inspire. None, however, but the priests are permitted to judge 
offenders, to inflict bonds or stripes; so that chastisement appears 
not as an act of military discipline, but as the instigation of the 
god whom they suppose present with warriors. They also carry 
with them to battle certain images and standards taken from the 



302 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

sacred groves. It is a principal incentive to their courage, that their 
squadrons and battalions are not formed by men fortuitously col 
lected, but by the assemblage of families and clans. Their pledges 
also are near at hand; they have within hearing the yells of their 
women, and the cries of their children. These, too, are the most re 
vered witnesses of each man s conduct, these his most liberal ap- 
plauders. To their mothers and their wives they bring their wounds 
for relief, nor do these dread to count or to search out the gashes. 
The women also administer food and encouragement to those who 
are fighting. 

8, Tradition relates, that armies beginning to give way have been 
rallied by the females, through the earnestness of their supplica 
tions, the interposition of their bodies, and the pictures they have 
drawn of impending slavery, a calamity which these people bear 
with more impatience for their women than themselves; so that 
those states who have been obliged to give among their hostages 
the daughters of noble families, are the most effectually bound to 
fidelity. They even suppose somewhat of sanctity and prescience 
to be inherent in the female sex; and therefore neither despise their 
counsels, nor disregard their responses. We have beheld, in the 
reign of Vespasian, Veleda, long reverenced by many as a deity. 
Aurima, moreover, and several others, were formerly held in equal 
veneration, but not with a servile flattery, nor as though they made 
them goddesses. 

9. Of the gods, Mercury is the principal object of their adoration; 
whom, on certain days, they think it lawful to propitiate even with 
human victims. To Hercules and Mars they offer the animals 
usually allotted for sacrifice. Some of the Suevi also perform sacred 
rites to Isis. What was the cause and origin of this foreign worship, 
I have not been able to discover; further than that her being rep 
resented with the symbol of a galley, seems to indicate an im 
ported religion. They conceive it unworthy the grandeur of celes 
tial beings to confine their deities within walls, or to represent 
them under a human similitude: woods and groves are their tem 
ples; and they affix names of divinity to that secret power, which 
they behold with the eye of adoration alone. 

10. No people are more addicted to divination by omens and lots. 
The latter is performed in the following simple manner. They cut 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 303 

a twig from a fruit tree, and divide it into small pieces, which, 
distinguished by certain marks, are thrown promiscuously upon a 
white garment. Then, the priest of the canton, if the occasion be 
public; if private, the master of the family; after an invocation of 
the gods, with his eyes lifted to heaven, thrice takes out each 
piece, and, as they come up, interprets their signification accord 
ing to the marks fixed upon them. If the result prove unfavorable, 
there is no more consultation on the same affair that day; if pro 
pitious, a confirmation by omens is still required. In common with 
other nations, the Germans are acquainted with the practice of 
auguring from the notes and flight of birds; but it is peculiar to 
them to derive admonitions and presages from horses also. Cer 
tain of these animals, milk-white, and untouched by earthly labor, 
are pastured at the public expense in the sacred woods and groves. 
These yoked to a consecrated chariot, are accompanied by the 
priest, and king, or chief person of the community, who attentively 
observe their manner of neighing and snorting; and no kind of 
augury is more credited, not only among the populace, but among 
the nobles and priests. For the latter consider themselves as the 
ministers of the gods, and the horses, as privy to the divine will. 
Another kind of divination, by which they explore the event of 
momentous wars, is to oblige a prisoner, taken by any means what 
soever from the nation with whom they are at variance, to fight 
with a picked man of their own, each with his own country s 
arms; and, according as the victory falls, they presage success to 
the one or to the other party. 

11. On affairs of smaller moment, the chiefs consult; on those of 
greater importance, the whole community; yet with this circum 
stance, that what is referred to the decision of the people, is first 
maturely discussed by the chiefs. They assemble, unless upon some 
sudden emergency, on stated days, either at the new or full moon, 
which they account the most auspicious season for beginning any 
enterprise. Nor do they, in their computation of time, reckon, like 
us, by the number of days, but of nights. In this way they arrange 
their business; in this way they fix their appointments; so that, with 
them, the night seems to lead the day. An inconvenience produced 
by their liberty is, that they do not all assemble at a stated time, 
as if it were in obedience to a command; but two or three days 



304 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

are lost in the delays of convening. When they all think fit, they 
sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who have on 
this occasion a coercive power. Then the king, or chief, and such 
others as are conspicuous for age, birth, military renown, or elo 
quence, are heard; and gain attention rather from their ability 
to persuade, than their authority to command. If a proposal dis 
please, the assembly reject it by an inarticulate murmur; if it prove 
agreeable, they clash their javelins; for the most honorable ex 
pression of assent among them is the sound of arms. 

12. Before this council, it is likewise allowed to exhibit accusations, 
and to prosecute capital offenses. Punishments are varied accord 
ing to the nature of the crime. Traitors and deserters are hung 
upon trees: cowards, dastards, and those guilty of unnatural prac 
tices, are suffocated in mud under a hurdle. This difference of pun 
ishment has in view the principle, that villainy should be exposed 
while it is punished, but turpitude concealed. The penalties an 
nexed to slighter offenses are also proportioned to the delinquency. 
The convicts are fined in horses and cattle: part of the mulct goes 
to the king or state; part to the injured person, or his relations. In 
the same assemblies chiefs are also elected, to administer justice 
through the cantons and districts. A hundred companions, chosen 
from the people, attend upon each of them, to assist them as well 
with advice as their authority. 

13. The Germans transact no business, public or private, without 
being armed: but it is not customary for any person to assume 
arms till the state has approved his ability to use them. Then, in 
the midst of the assembly, either one of the chiefs, or the father, 
or a relation, equips the youth with shield and javelin. These are 
to them the manly gown; this is the first honor conferred on youth: 
before this they are considered as part of a household; afterwards, 
of the state. The dignity of chieftain is bestowed even on mere 
lads, whose descent is eminently illustrious, or whose fathers have 
performed signal services to the public; they are associated, how 
ever, with those of mature strength, who have already been de 
clared capable of service; nor do they blush to be seen in the 
rank of companions. For the state of companionship itself has its 
several degrees, determined by the judgment of him whom they 
follow; and there is a great emulation among the companions, 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 305 

which shall possess the highest place in the favor of their chief; 
and among the chiefs, which shall excel in the number and valor 
of his companions. It is their dignity, their strength, to be always 
surrounded with a large body of select youth, an ornament in 
peace, a bulwark in war. And not in his own country alone, but 
among the neighboring states, the fame and glory of each chief 
consists in being distinguished for the number and bravery of his 
companions. Such chiefs are courted by embassies; distinguished 
by presents; and often by their reputation alone decide a war. 

14. In the field of battle, it is disgraceful for the chief to be surpassed 
in valor; it is disgraceful for the companions not to equal their 
chief; but it is reproach and infamy during a whole succeeding life 
to retreat from the field surviving him. To aid, to protect him; to 
place their own gallant actions to the account of his glory, is their 
first and most sacred engagement. The chiefs fight for victory; the 
companions for their chief. If their native country be long sunk in 
peace and inaction, many of the young nobles repair to some other 
state then engaged in war. For, besides that repose is unwelcome 
to their race, and toils and perils afford them a better opportunity 
of distinguishing themselves; they are unable, without war and 
violence, to maintain a large train of followers. The companion 
requires from the liberality of his chief, the warlike steed, the 
bloody and conquering spear: and in place of pay, he expects to 
be supplied with a table, homely indeed, but plentiful. The funds 
for this munificence must be found in war and rapine; nor are they 
so easily persuaded to cultivate the earth, and await the produce 
of the seasons, as to challenge the foe, and expose themselves to 
wounds; nay, they even think it base and spiritless to earn by 
sweat what they might purchase with blood. 

15. During the intervals of war, they pass their time less in hunting 
than in a sluggish repose, divided between sleep and the table. 
All the bravest of the warriors, committing the care of the house, 
the family affairs, and the lands, to the women, old men, and 
weaker part of the domestics, stupify themselves in inaction: so 
wonderful is the contrast presented by nature, that the same per 
sons love indolence, and hate tranquillity! It is customary for the 
several states to present, by voluntary and individual contributions, 
cattle or grain to their chiefs; which are accepted as honorary gifts, 



306 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

while they serve as necessary supplies. They are peculiarly pleased 
with presents from neighboring nations, offered not only by indi 
viduals, but by the community at large; such as fine horses, heavy 
armor, rich housings, and gold chains. We have now taught them 
also to accept of money. 

16. It is well known that none of the German nations inhabit cities; 
or even admit of contiguous settlements. They dwell scattered 
and separate, as a spring, a meadow, or a grove may chance to 
invite them. Their villages are laid out, not like ours in rows of ad 
joining buildings; but every one surrounds his house with a vacant 
space, either by way of security against fire, or through ignorance 
of the art of building. For, indeed, they are unacquainted with 
the use of mortar and tiles; and for every purpose employ rude 
unshapen timber, fashioned with no regard to pleasing the eye. 
They bestow more than ordinary pains in coating certain parts of 
their buildings with a kind of earth, so pure and shining that it 
gives the appearance of painting. They also dig subterraneous 
caves, and cover them over with a great quantity of dung. These 
they use as winter retreats, and granaries; for they preserve a mod 
erate temperature; and upon an invasion, when the open country 
is plundered, these recesses remain unviolated, either because the 
enemy is ignorant of them, or because he will not trouble himself 
with the search. 

17. The clothing common to all is a sagum fastened by a clasp, or, 
in want of that, a thorn. With no other covering, they pass whole 
days on the hearth, before the fire. The more wealthy are dis 
tinguished by a vest, not flowing loose, like those of the Sar- 
matians and Parthians, but girt close, and exhibiting the shape of 
every limb. They also wear the skins of beasts, which the people 
near the borders are less curious in selecting or preparing than the 
more remote inhabitants, who cannot by commerce procure cloth 
ing. These make choice of particular skins, which they variegate 
with spots, and strips of the furs of marine animals, the produce 
of the exterior ocean, and seas to us unknown. The dress of the 
women does not differ from that of the men: except that they 
more frequently wear linen, which they stain with purple; and do 
not lengthen their upper garment into sleeves, but leave exposed 
the whole arm, and part of the breast 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 307 

18. The matrimonial bond is, nevertheless, strict and severe among 
them; nor is there anything in their manners more commendable 
than this. Almost singly among the barbarians, they content them 
selves with one wife; a very few of them excepted, who, not through 
incontinence, but because their alliance is solicited on account of 
their rank, practice polygamy. The wife does not bring a dowry to 
her husband, but receives one from him. The parents and relations 
assemble, and pass their approbation on the presents presents 
not adapted to please a female taste, or decorate the bride; but 
oxen, a caparisoned steed, a shield, spear, and sword. By virtue of 
these, the wife is espoused; and she in her turn makes a present of 
some arms to her husband. This they consider as the firmest bond 
of union; these, the sacred mysteries, the conjugal deities. That the 
woman may not think herself excused from exertions of fortitude, 
or exempt from the casualties of war, she is admonished by the very 
ceremonial of her marriage, that she comes to her husband as a 
partner in toils and dangers; to suffer and to share equally with 
him, in peace and in war: this is indicated by the yoked oxen, the 
harnessed steed, the offered arms. Thus she is to live; thus to die. 
She receives what she is to return inviolate honored to her children; 
what her daughters-in-law are to receive, and again transmit to her 
grandchildren. 

19. They live, therefore, fenced around with chastity; corrupted by 
no seductive spectacles, no convivial incitements. Men and women 
are alike unacquainted with clandestine correspondence. Adultery 
is extremely rare among so numerous a people. Its punishment is 
instant, and at the pleasure of the husband. He cuts off the hair of 
the offender, strips her, and in presence of her relations expels her 
from his house, and pursues her with stripes through the whole vil 
lage. Nor is any indulgence shown to a prostitute. Neither beauty, 
youth, nor riches can procure her a husband: for none there looks 
on vice with a smile, or calls mutual seduction the way of the world. 
Still more exemplary is the practice of those states in which none 
but virgins marry, and the expectations and wishes of a wife are at 
once brought to a period. Thus, they take one husband as one body 
and one life; that no thought, no desire, may extend beyond him; 
and he may be loved not only as their husband, but as their mar 
riage. To limit the increase of children, or put to death any of the 



308 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

later progeny, is accounted infamous: and good habits have there 
more influence than good laws elsewhere. 

20. In every house the children grow up, thinly and meanly clad, to 
that bulk of body and limb which we behold with wonder. Every 
mother suckles her own children, and does not deliver them into 
the hands of servants and nurses. No indulgence distinguishes the 
young master from the slave. They lie together amidst the same 
cattle, upon the same ground, till age separates, and valor marks 
out, the freeborn. The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, 
and hence pass the age of puberty unexhausted: nor are the virgins 
hurried into marriage; the same maturity, the same full growth, is 
required: the sexes unite equally matched, and robust; and the 
children inherit the vigor of their parents. Children are regarded 
with equal affection by their maternal uncles as by their fathers; 
some even consider this as the more sacred bond of consanguinity, 
and prefer it in the requisition of hostages, as if it held the mind by 
a firmer tie, and the family by a more extensive obligation. A per 
son s own children, however, are his heirs and successors; and no 
wills are made. If there be no children, the next in order of in 
heritance are brothers, paternal and maternal uncles. The more 
numerous are a man s relations and kinsmen, the more comfortable 
is his old age; nor is it here any advantage to be childless. 

21. It is an indispensable duty to adopt the enmities of a father or 
relation, as well as their friendships: these, however, are not ir 
reconcilable or perpetual. Even homicide is atoned by a certain fine 
in cattle and sheep; and the whole family accepts the satisfaction, 
to the advantage of the public weal, since quarrels are most dan 
gerous in a free state. No people are more addicted to social enter 
tainments, or more liberal in the exercise of hospitality. To refuse 
any person whatever admittance under their roof, is accounted flagi 
tious. Every one according to his ability feasts his guest: when his 
provisions are exhausted, he who was late the host, is now the guide 
and companion to another hospitable board. They enter the next 
house uninvited, and are received with equal cordiality. No one 
makes a distinction with respect to the rights of hospitality, be 
tween a stranger and an acquaintance. The departing guest is pre 
sented with whatever he may ask for; and with the same freedom a 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 309 

boon is desired in return. They are pleased with presents; but think 
no obligation incurred either when they give or receive. 

22. Their manner of living with their guests is easy and affable. As 
soon as they arise from sleep, which they generally protract till late 
in the day, they bathe, usually in warm water, as cold weather 
chiefly prevails there. After bathing they take their meal, each on 
a distinct seat, and at a separate table. Then they proceed, armed, 
to business; and not less frequently to convivial parties, in which it 
is no disgrace to pass days and nights without intermission, in 
drinking. The frequent quarrels that arise amongst them, when in 
toxicated, seldom terminate in abusive language, but more fre 
quently in blood. In their feasts, they generally deliberate on the 
reconcilement of enemies, on family alliances, on the appointment 
of chiefs, and finally on peace and war; conceiving that at no time 
the soul is more opened to sincerity, or warmed to heroism. These 
people, naturally void of artifice or disguise, disclose the most se 
cret emotions of their hearts in the freedom of festivity. The minds 
of all being thus displayed without reserve, the subjects of their de 
liberation are again canvassed the next day; and each time has its 
advantages. They consult when unable to dissemble; they determine 
when not liable to mistake. 

23. Their drink is a liquor prepared from barley or wheat brought by 
fermentation to a certain resemblance of wine. Those who border 
on the Rhine also purchase wine. Their food is simple; wild fruits, 
fresh venison, or coagulated milk. They satisfy hunger without seek 
ing the elegances and delicacies of the table. Their thirst for liquor 
is not quenched with equal moderation. If their propensity to drunk 
enness be gratified to the extent of their wishes, intemperance 
proves as effectual in subduing them as the force of arms. 

24. They have only one kind of public spectacle, which is exhibited 
in every company. Young men, who make it their diversion, dance 
naked amidst drawn swords and presented spears. Practice has con 
ferred skill at this exercise, and skill has given grace; but they do 
not exhibit for hire or gain: the only reward of this pastime, though 
a hazardous one, is the pleasure of the spectators. What is extraor 
dinary, they play at dice, when sober, as a serious business: and 
that with such a desperate venture of gain or loss, that, when every- 



310 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

thing else is gone, they set their liberties and persons on the last 
throw. The loser goes into voluntary servitude; and, though the 
youngest and strongest, patiently suffers himself to be bound and 
sold. Such is their obstinacy in a bad practice they themselves call 
it honor. The slaves thus acquired are exchanged away in com 
merce, that the winner may get rid of the scandal of his victory. 

25. The rest of their slaves have not, like ours, particular employ 
ments in the family allotted them. Each is the master of a habita 
tion and household of his own. The lord requires from him a certain 
quantity of grain, cattle, or cloth, as from a tenant; and so far only 
the subjection of the slave extends. His domestic offices are per 
formed by his own wife and children. It is usual to scourge a slave, 
or punish him with chains or hard labor. They are sometimes killed 
by their masters; not through severity of chastisement, but in the 
heat of passion, like an enemy; with this difference, that it is done 
with impunity. Freedmen are little superior to slaves; seldom filling 
any important office in the family; never in the state, except in those 
tribes which are under regal government. There, they, rise above 
the freeborn, and even the nobles: in the rest, the subordinate con 
dition of the freedmen is a proof of freedom. 

26. Lending money upon interest, and increasing it by usury, is un 
known amongst them: and this ignorance more effectually prevents 
the practice than a prohibition would do. The lands are occupied 
by townships, in allotments proportional to the number of cultiva 
tors; and are afterwards parcelled out among the individuals of the 
district, in shapes according to the rank and condition of each per 
son. The wide extent of plain facilitates this partition. The arable 
lands are annually changed, and a part left fallow; nor do they at 
tempt to make the most of the fertility and plenty of soil, by their 
own industry in planting orchards, inclosing meadows, and water 
ing gardens. Corn is the only product required from the earth: 
hence their year is not divided into so many seasons as ours; for, 
while they know and distinguish by name Winter, Spring, and Sum 
mer they are unacquainted equally with the appellation and bounty 
of Autumn. 

27. Their funerals are without parade. The only circumstance to 
which they attend, is to burn the bodies of eminent persons with 
some particular kinds of wood. Neither vestments nor perfumes are 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 311 

heaped upon the pile: the arms of the deceased, and sometimes his 
horse, are given to the flames, the tomb is a mound of turf. They 
contemn the elaborate and costly honors of monumental struc 
tures, as mere burthens to the dead. They soon dismiss tears and 
lamentations; slowly, sorrow and regret. They think it the women s 
part to bewail their friends, the men s to remember them. 
28. This is the sum of what I have been able to learn concerning the 
origin and manners of the Germans in general. 

ANALYSIS 

1. It is likely that an essay which breaks up its whole subject into its component 
parts will have a "noun" subject rather than a "thesis" subject. The subject 
"Cats" is a "noun" subject; the subject "Cats Make Good Pets * is a thesis sub 
ject. The distinction cannot be made from a title alone, since many essays with 
thesis subjects are given noun titles. The noun subject concerns some kind of 
entity that can be approached from many angles. The predicate of the thesis in 
the thesis subject usually limits the approach to one angle. 

a. Make up three noun subjects and three thesis subjects and devise brief out 
lines for each subject. 

b. How do the organizations of the two kinds differ? 

c. Look now at the organization of Germania. To which of the types does it 
belong? 

2. a. Does Tacitus achieve unity in his paragraphs? Examine, for instance, Para 
graphs 2 and 3. Does not Paragraph 4 develop better the topic sentence of 
Paragraph 2 than Paragraph 2 does? 

b. Is there any excuse for the insertion of the alien material that comes be 
tween? 

c. Note how the subject matter shifts in Paragraphs 5 and 6 from climate to 
agriculture to mining to weapons to military organization to cowardice in battle. 
What controls this progression of ideas; that is, how did they happen to come 
out in this order? 

3. a. Make a list of the aspects of life among the German tribes that Tacitus dis 
cusses. 

b. Can you rearrange these aspects under a smaller number of headings to get 
a more distinct partition of the subject matter? 

c. Would the material in Paragraph 14, for instance, find a more natural lodg 
ing place elsewhere? 

4. It is to be remembered that when Tacitus wrote this treatise the Romans back 
home had grown soft and were given to luxurious living. 

a. Note places in the treatise where the comments on German life were meant 
to have particular pertinence to life in Rome. 

b. Is the comparison that is implied always favorable to the Romans? 

5. Note the brevity of both introduction and conclusion. 



312 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

HOW TO ROUND UP CANNON FODDER* 

By Bruce Winton Knight 

I 

1. As LONG as peace rages with the vigor of the last few years in 
Europe and the Far East, the technique of assembling cannon fod 
der is no mere academic question for Americans. Of course, the as 
sassination of a king and a brace of prime ministers will not "cause" 
a war. Neither will a menacing trial-balloon speech from an offi 
cially unofficial source in the Orient. But these things are symptoms 
of the more fundamental fact that nationalism, imperialism, and bal- 
ance-of -power diplomacy are still doing business at the 1914 stand. 

2. And our foreign policy, especially in the Pacific, makes the 
chances of American participation in the next major war so great 
that we ought to face this fact frankly: conscription, as the preferred 
method of raising armies, has fastened itself on mankind with a grip 
which is not likely to be relaxed until war is either abolished or radi 
cally changed in character. In the event of war against a first-rate 
opponent, our geographical situation may make it possible for a 
large force of well-drilled troops to fend off the enemy until our 
wartime recruits are adequately trained. It may be possible to pre 
pare a sufficient standing army by volunteer recruitment, and it may 
not. Assuming that this can be done, however, it will not be prac 
ticable to secure enough supplementary troops without conscription. 

3. Even men in high places have not always understood why this is 
true. In a preparedness speech at Chicago in January, 1916, Presi 
dent Wilson said: 

I have been asked by questioning friends whether I thought a sufficient 
number of men would volunteer for training or not. Why, if they did not, 
it is not the America that you and I know; something has happened. 

4. Incidentally, something had happened. The young men already 
slaughtered in Europe far outnumbered the entire population of 
New York City. But the main point is that in "the America that you 
and I know," if we do know it, volunteering never was a success, 

* From The American Mercury, January, 1935. Reprinted by permission of the 
publisher and the author* 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 313 

and for more than a century it had not been a success anywhere 
else. A little over a year after the aforementioned speech, Mr. Wil 
son had his Secretary of War and his Judge Advocate General at 
work on the blueprints for compulsory enlistment. The correspond 
ing plans for our next war are already prepared. The reasons lie in 
certain historical developments, not only in America, but in the 
world at large. 

5. Universal service amounting to conscription dates back to ancient 
times. In early Egypt, only the varlets possessing less than six acres 
of land were denied the "privilege" of being soldiers. The first chap 
ter of Numbers tells us how Moses, acting on instructions from Der 
Fuehrer of his day, recruited 603,550 soldiers by drafting everyone 
over twenty years old. Demosthenes assured his fellows that they 
must be soldiers to remain free. "There is one source, O Athenians," 
he said, "of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to 
be soldiers." In Rome, Lombardy, Milan, Pisa, Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, 
and the Swiss Cantons, each in its time, universal service was the 
rule. If it was not conscription, it might as well have been: any real 
alternative to the service was what John R. Commons calls "an un 
available option." 

6. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the complexity of 
economic and social life in Europe became such that unless the ma 
jority of men stuck to their knitting at home during war, organized 
existence would have collapsed. For this reason universal military 
service gave way to the system of a relatively small professional 
standing army, supplemented during war by volunteers. The new 
system itself, however, could not endure long. The expansion of the 
known world and of economic opportunities which attended the 
commercial and industrial "revolutions" made the professional army 
inadequate. At the same time that the job of conquest and defense 
grew, the attractions of civilian life increased and the emotional ap 
peal of war was largely lost. Volunteers became more and more diffi 
cult and expensive to secure, until potentates who took the sword 
began to perish by the taxes. 

7. In the French monarchy of the late seventeenth century, the re 
verberation of an empty treasury foretold conscription. In 1688, cit 
izens were drawn by lot from nonexempt classes in the parishes. At 
first, the service was only temporary; and the conscripts, instead of 



314 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

being merged with the regular troops, were used only to guard in 
terior posts and lines of communication and to help occupy con 
quered areas. But during the War of the Spanish Succession con 
scripts drafted by lot were employed with the professional armies; 
and this system came to be used constantly during the chronic wars 
of the eighteenth century. It was far from being popular. We are 
told that the black ticket was drawn with "trembling hand and 
frozen heart"; and drafting was among the grievances helping to 
bring on the French Revolution. 

8. Yet the new republic established by the Revolution found volun 
teering inadequate to prevent the restoration of the Bourbons. Vari 
ous experiments with drafting led up to the law of 1793, which 
made liable to compulsory service all able-bodied men from eight 
een to twenty-five years old. For two reasons the measure was fairly 
successful: civil life had become uncertain, and the men within the 
draft ages were too small in number to resist the will of the rest. 
The principle of conscription was embodied in the Constitution of 
1798. Napoleon Bonaparte long used French regulars supplemented 
with conscripts, although toward the end of his career he was rely 
ing largely on foreign mercenaries. During the Restoration, regulars 
supplemented with conscripts predominated. Napoleon III over 
threw the Second Republic with a small professional force, and was 
so fearful of arming the rabble that he adopted the standing army 
as a general principle. The Third Republic, however, returned once 
more to conscription, which has been well established in France 
ever since. At present, every French citizen, beginning with the age 
of twenty, is liable to compulsory service for twenty-eight years of 
his life. 

II 

9. Prussia was convinced by Napoleon I of the virtues of conscrip 
tion. By the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, the professional army, once the 
glory of Frederick the Great, was reduced to 42,000. But Baron von 
Stein and General von Scharnhorst soon accomplished wonders with 
the wreck. First they got rid of mercenaries and foreigners, abolished 
municipal and class exemptions, and apportioned military service by 
territories. Then, by a system of training 42,000 men in one year and 
sending them home, training another 42,000 the next year, and so on, 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 315 

they had better than a quarter of a million well-drilled troops ready 
to take the field by 1813. In the following year, conscription was in 
corporated permanently into law. The results were evident in the 
overthrow of Napoleon, and in the smashing victories over Austria 
in 1866 and France in 1871. Following the Franco-Prussian War, 
England was the only great European power which had not adopted 
conscription, even in time of peace. 

10. Meanwhile, what about Japan, our most probable opponent in an 
other major war? 

ji. It may be remembered that, as late as eighty years ago, the civili 
zation of Japan was unsatisfactory to the United States. Under a 
political system of feudalism and an economy of small-scale agri 
culture and household economy resembling medieval Europe, Ja 
pan had been virtually self-sufficient. Her foreign trade had been 
limited almost exclusively to an insignificant amount carried on with 
the Dutch. And so, in the spring of 1854, Commodore Perry, U.S.N., 
returned to Japan for an answer to the ominous question which he 
had put during his visit of the summer before: Wouldn t it be a good 
idea for the Japanese to extend trading rights and a few other privi 
leges to Americans? The Japanese took another look at Perry s war 
ships and decided that Western culture was irresistible. An agree 
ment was made to open two ports to American ships; and in rapid 
succession similar agreements were entered into with other foreign 
powers. But in the amazing development of civilization which fol 
lowed, it was not merely Western economy which was adopted. 

12. For the preceding three centuries, Japan had been at peace with 
the outside world. This is not to say that all had been quiet at home. 
The domestic racketeering bossed by various shoguns had produced 
enough fighting among the rival gangs of Samurai, the exclusive mil 
itary caste, attached to these feudal barons, and the Emperor had 
been reduced to an impotent symbol. But the strife had been con 
fined to Japan, and conducted by rules so antiquated that anybody 
who shot a man at a distance, instead of meeting him with cold 
steel, was considered a poor sport. For a century and a half, too, the 
population had remained stable at about thirty millions. But West 
ern culture changed all this in short order. Population swelled with 
the growth of trade (it now expands at the world s record rate of a 
million a year), and Japan reached for outside markets and raw ma- 



316 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

terials. Whatever might have been the best way to make her trade 
dependable, she imitated the West in this as in other things. She ac 
cepted imperialism and the consequences of imperialism. The Meiji 
restoration of 1868 elevated the Emperor to dignity and power; the 
arrogant Samurai were ousted; and military service was opened to 
all classes. In 1873 Japan adopted her first conscription act, and 
turned over to a French military mission the instruction of her con 
scripts. From 1885 to 1894, the military mission and training were 
German. Since 1894, conscription for all classes, even in peacetime, 
has been well established. At present, all males from seventeen to 
forty are liable to compulsory service. 

13. So we see that at the opening of the [first] World War only two 
great powers, Britain and the United States, had escaped conscrip 
tion as a fixture of the peace that ends in war. Insular position and 
genius for alliances in the case of England, and remoteness from 
powerful neighbors in the case of the United States, had been largely 
responsible for these islands of volunteering in a sea of conscription. 
Two main factors now forced these two powers into line with the 
rest. First, the Central Powers had huge armies of well-trained con 
scripts. Second, the changed character of warfare called for much 
larger numbers of victims. Frontal assaults on entrenchments stood 
no chance unless they were preceded by artillery barrages which so 
cut up the ground that advances over it were a slow process. Neither 
airplanes, nor high explosives, nor poison gas, nor even tanks, could 
break the deadlock, which was made only the more binding because 
private armament firms had done their best to supply both sides im 
partially with the best killing tools and defenses. The result was a 
war of attrition, in which killing and the destruction of wealth con 
tinued until one side collapsed from exhaustion. 

14. On paper, Britain had in 1914 some 700,000 soldiers, composed of 
various Regulars, Army Reserves, Special Reserves, and Territorials. 
In practice, only the regulars were ready; and they were so scattered 
about the earth that the first expeditionary force to France, "the 
contemptible British army," numbered barely 60,000. In this pre 
dicament, volunteering was given every chance. 

15. England declared war on August 4, 1914. "The first hundred 
thousand" volunteers were not secured until August 28. For a time 
after this, propaganda and the bombing of British cities brought re- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 317 

cruits faster. By September 10 the number was a little over a half- 
million. But that was the high tide, and thenceforward the rate de 
clined progressively. Another two months brought only 200,000 
more; and a six-week s drive beginning in mid-November netted 
only 120,000. By the New Year, the total was only a million. Only: 
for nearly four millions were considered necessary. 

16. Yet volunteering was relied on for another year. Its subsequent 
stages need not be detailed. Three facts especially stand out. First, 
the "volunteering" became more and more coercive. Every device 
designed to produce mass hysteria was employed; and social ostra 
cism was the lot of men without stars, certificates, and the like, to 
show that they were exempted for industrial reasons. Second, the 
data on manpower was defective. At first, men were classified ac 
cording to age and whether they were married or single, although 
the presence or absence of special qualifications for industry was 
more important. When economic classification was adopted, failure 
to keep track and control of manpower still prevented an intelligent 
distribution of men between military and industrial needs, and 
among the various branches of each. Third, at the end of the year 
there were still a million and a half eligibles who had refused to 
volunteer. Conscription was adopted early the next year. When 
Russia collapsed, England extended the draft age to include every 
available man under fifty-one years old, and she implored America 
for speed. 

Ill 

17. Meanwhile, the United States had learned much from British ex 
perience with volunteering. She may have learned something also 
from her own. Though popular history creates the impression that 
our wars were triumphs of the volunteer system, the unvarnished 
facts about "the America that you and I know" are these: that it 
was very difficult to get volunteers to the front and keep them there, 
and that generally the volunteers were poor soldiers while they were 
in action. There was nothing wrong with the volunteers as men. 
When decently equipped and trained, they proved themselves the 
equals of any soldiers. As a rule, however, they were only half -fed 
and clothed, and much less than half-trained. Because there were 
not enough seasoned troops to hold the line until recruits could be 



318 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

trained, the volunteers were pitched into battle untutored in the arts 
of slaughter, unsteeled against its horrors, and even unsupplied with 
experienced leaders. The result was unreasonably to prolong our 
wars, and to increase their cost in lives and wealth correspondingly. 

18. In the Revolutionary War, the first difficulty was to get volunteers 
and keep them in service. Washington complained that the men 
even refused to enlist until they knew their colonel, lieutenant- 
colonel, major and captain. On November 28, 1775, he wrote as fol 
lows to the President of the Continental Congress: 

I am sorry to be necessitated to mention to you the egregious want of 
public spirit which reigns here. Instead of pressing to be engaged in the 
cause of their country, which I vainly flattered myself would be the case, 
I find we are likely to be deserted in a most critical time. Those that have 
enlisted must have a furlough, which I have been obliged to grant to 
fifty at a time, from each regiment. 

On the same day he wrote to Joseph Reed: 

Such a dearth of public spirit and such want of virtue, such stock-job 
bing and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantages of one kind or 
another in this great change of military arrangement I never saw before, 
and pray God s mercy that I may never be witness to again. 

19. Certain Connecticut troops left camp wholesale as soon as their 
short-term enlistments were terminated, some of them taking their 
arms and ammunition along. The next year, following the British 
occupation of Long Island and New York, Washington wrote: 

The same desire of retiring into a chimney corner seized the troops of 
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, so soon as their time 
expired, as had wrought upon those of Connecticut, notwithstanding 
many of them made a tender of their services to continue till the lines 
could be sufficiently strengthened. 

As a story about [first] World War deserters had it, the men in the 
Revolutionary War had been instructed to "strike for country and for 
home," so some of them let the others strike for country while they 
struck for home. Of this spirit General Schuyler wrote as follows: 

Nothing can surpass the impatience of the troops from the New England 
colonies to get to their firesides. Near three hundred of them arrived a 
few days ago, unable to do any duty; but as soon as I administered that 
grand specific, a discharge, they instantly acquired health, and rather 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 319 

than be detained a few days to cross Lake George, they undertook a 
march from here of two hundred miles with the greatest alacrity. 

20. Bounties for enlisting for the period of the war were of little avail. 
Chaos was guaranteed by the competition of State with Congres 
sional bounties, and by the ambitions of military adventurers, for 
eign and domestic, who sought soft jobs at high pay. 

21. But if the process of getting and holding volunteers proved dis 
heartening, the qualities displayed by volunteers in battle proved no 
less so. Volunteer officers in 1775 were ranked, not according to mil 
itary ability, but by wirepulling and the number of recruits they 
could bring in. Green volunteer troops performed not badly when 
ever they were commanded by seasoned officers and secured behind 
strong works. This was the case at Bunker Hill. Putnam pointed out 
that "the Americans are never afraid of their heads, they think only 
of their legs, shelter them and they will fight forever." Otherwise, 
the results were doleful. It is true that in 1777 the Americans cap 
tured Burgoyne s army at Saratoga. But they outnumbered their 
foes three to one, and they failed to follow up their advantage by 
investing Howe at Philadelphia. The training received by some of 
our troops from Von Steuben was an exceptional case. At Camden, 
the volunteers who composed the bulk of our right flank exchanged 
a single fire with the enemy and then relied on footwork for safety. 
Tarleton, the victor at Camden, fared less handsomely at Cowpens 
the next year, and for this interesting reason: the seasoned Conti 
nentals were drawn up behind the raw volunteers, so that it was 
more dangerous for the latter to run than to fight. Stevens, whose 
command had deserted him at Camden, later employed the Cow- 
pens device at Guilford Courthouse. 

22. The war was ended by the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown by 
the combined forces of Washington, Lafayette, and a French fleet. 
How had the volunteer system worked? Although 395,000 men had 
been called out during the course of the war, 89,000 had been the 
most to take the field in any given year. The greatest force Wash 
ington had ever led in battle had been 17,000, and at Trenton and 
Princeton he had less than 4000. With a population of three mil 
lions, and with the assistance of France, it had taken us seven years 
to expel an enemy which never numbered over 42,000. 



320 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

23. The experience with volunteering was substantially the same in 
the War of 1812. At the outbreak of this conflict our population was 
seven millions; and the entire British force in Canada was 4500. 
Probably 15,000 well-trained American troops could have ended the 
war in a single campaign. Having no such force, we resorted again 
to the volunteer system. And again troops proved hard to secure, 
harder to get into action, and grossly unprepared when they got 
there. 

24. At the outset, the Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut 
refused to furnish their quotas of 100,000 authorized militia (state 
volunteers whose training has been notoriously inferior to that of 
the Federal "regulars"). Their argument was that individual states 
must decide for themselves when it was necessary, according to the 
Constitution, to put militia at the service of the Federal government 
in order to enforce the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and 
repel invasion. While Congress was debating measures to fill the 
ranks, New England representatives, including Quincy and Daniel 
Webster, preached states rights and nullification; and In 1814 some 
of the New England Federalists entered upon a definite movement 
for secession. Not to be outdone by statesmen in aptitude for Consti 
tutional law, militiamen mustered into the Federal service more than 
once refused to cross over into Canada, because, they argued, the 
Constitution did not require them to serve outside the United States. 
Some of General Hull s force behaved in this fashion at Detroit in 
1812. The remainder crossed over, and returned without inflicting 
any damage, after which the entire garrison surrendered Detroit 
without firing a shot. In the same year the heights at Queenstown 
had to be abandoned because the small band of regulars who had 
taken them was refused support by militia over on the American 
side. 

25. Stung to the quick by such humiliations, one General Smyth is 
sued "to the men of New York" a proclamation running like this: 

In a few days the troops under my conmmand will plant the American 
standard in Canada. . . . They will conquer or they will die. Will you 
stand with your arms folded and look on this interesting struggle? . . . 
Must I turn from you and ask the men of the Six Nations to support the 
government of the United States? . . . Shame, where is thy blush! No. 
Where I command, the vanquished and peaceful man, the child, and the 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 321 

matron shall be secure from wrong. If we conquer, we will "conquer but 
to save." 

Men of New York, the present is the hour of renown. . . . 

And so on. Smyth raised about 4500 men of New York. On Novem 
ber 28, they started to cross the Niagara River, but changed their 
minds and came back. On December 1, some one hundred and 
fifty men refusing even to start, the first line of boats was recalled 
after going about a quarter of a mile, and the expedition was called 
off. At about the same time, Constitutional law was invoked by 3000 
militiamen near Lake Champlain to stay out of Canada. In 1813 and 
1814, two separate Vermont Governors forbade the use of their mil 
itia in the Federal service, although in both cases the governors 
were disobeyed. 

26. In battle, the behavior of the volunteers was typical of untrained 
men. In 1812, no less than 65,000 men drew pay from our govern 
ment, and yet we lost the Northwest to less than 1500 British regu 
lars and such Indians as they could muster. The British and Ameri 
cans both fled the "battlefield" at Frenchtown, Ohio, in 1813, the 
British because they were greatly outnumbered, and the Americans 
because they were panic-stricken. Our volunteers evacuated Fort 
George without a struggle; and the British destroyed Buffalo and 
Lewiston practically unopposed. Volunteers who had been inten 
sively drilled proved themselves the equals of British regulars at 
Chippewa and Lundy s Lane in 1814. At Washington, however, a 
defending army of 5400, mostly volunteers, suffered casualties of 
only eight killed and eleven wounded before running for dear life 
from 1500 British regulars. At New Orleans, in 1815, it was again 
demonstrated that volunteers under seasoned officers can stand their 
ground behind strong breastworks. For the madness of advancing 
across flat ground against works so strong that the Americans lost 
only seven killed and six wounded, Packenham paid with his life 
and the lives of 2000 British regulars in less than half an hour. And 
yet, while this was happening, a division of our raw troops on the 
west bank of the Mississippi needed nothing but the sight of battle 
to send them running headlong into New Orleans. 

27. Experts have said that a small but well-drilled army could have 
won the War of 1812 handily in a single season. Under the volunteer 
system, half a million American troops, all told, were called out; 



322 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

three years were required to conquer British regulars whose num 
ber never exceeded 16,500; and our losses in killed and wounded 
were greater than the total force of British in America at the begin 
ning of the war. 

28. The unbroken string of victories against superior numbers in the 
Mexican War seemed to prove the case for volunteering. In reality, 
it did not. Rather it showed that, against opposition of doubtful 
quality, regulars were able to bear the brunt until volunteer recruits 
had been thoroughly drilled. 

IV 

29. Volunteering was its old self again in the Civil War. Expecting a 
short conflict, President Lincoln in April, 1861, raised 75,000 volun 
teers for a period of three months. The North was so short of experi 
enced officers that the recruits received little real training. But pop 
ular demand for action before the expiration of their term pushed 
them into the Battle of Bull Run. It is history that they did the bulk 
of the running. While running anywhere from fifty to several hun 
dred yards to the rear, they kept firing high in the air, thus oblig 
ing those still in front to retire also. A battalion of regulars which 
covered the retreat of the terrified rookies withdrew in perfect 
order. This rout, together with other Rebel victories of the same 
year, gave the Confederacy substantial advantages in initiative and 
morale. 

30. By the end of March, 1862, the North had 600,000 three-year men; 
the South, only 200,000 one-year men. Had it employed conscrip 
tion from the first, the North would have had at that time enough 
trained soldiers to bring the war rapidly to a close. Actually, the 
Confederacy was given time to adopt conscription and greatly 
strengthen its army. The North began to employ the draft the fol 
lowing year, but too late to prevent the war from dragging through 
four of the bloodiest years in history. It is not unlikely that the 
South would have won had its manpower and resources been any 
where near equal to those of the North. Against a really first-rate 
opponent who employs conscription, you must employ conscription 
even to hold your own. 

31. The Spanish War proved little, save that a vastly superior navy 
and a mixture of volunteers and regulars could defeat a weak 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 323 

adversary. But even in this successful conflict the impulses of volun 
teers might have proved detrimental had they not been overbal 
anced by professional judgment. For example, a Regular Army ser 
geant told the writer of having seen Theodore Roosevelt expose 
himself in foolhardy fashion. 

32. In the [first] World War, the United States largely escaped not 
only the blunder of volunteering but also the main mistakes which 
attended drafting during the Civil War. The war was well sold to the 
people. Allied propaganda and channels of transmission far excelled 
anything the Germans could offer. Wealthy persons were not al 
lowed to escape merely by purchasing discharges or hiring substi 
tutes, although, as Grover Cleveland Bergdoll illustrated, money 
was sometimes useful in dodging the draft. Local feelings were not 
ruffled, as in the Civil War, by having officials in Federal uniforms 
invade homes to enroll and draft men. Instead, the draft was ex 
ecuted through the customary political divisions and subdivisions. 
"As if they were going to vote," men were registered in their own 
voting precincts, usually by personal acquaintances. 

33. The announcement of Lincoln s draft had too far preceded the 
actual drafting. People had had time to look at it more and more, 
and to like it less and less. Four months had not sufficed to com 
plete the registration, but it had proved enough for the killing or 
wounding of about a hundred Federal registrars. In the rioting 
which had attended the drafting itself, three hundred persons had 
been killed and over two million dollars worth of property de 
stroyed in New York City alone. To say that the [first] World War 
draft was all arranged before the public heard about it is stating the 
facts mildly. The main outlines were determined upon before Con 
gress began to debate the measure, and local precincts and officials 
were supplied with blank forms far in advance. Only about three 
weeks intervened between the enactment of the measure and the 
date set for registration; and, before this period began, the trick plays 
designed to score on the people were well rehearsed. In the debate 
at Washington, of course, the legendary virtues of volunteering were 
dusted off, and conscription was viewed with alarm. General 
Crowder was warned that if he accepted the job of Chief Provost 
Marshal his name would be the most odious in America. Senator 
Champ Clark declared, in round numbers, that conscript and con- 



324 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

vict were all the same to Missourians; and Senator Reed of Missouri 
guaranteed rivulets of blood in our streets. 

34. None the less, the draft worked pretty well. It rounded up nearly 
four fifths of the men it went after, which probably compares well 
with the Canadian Mounted. To be sure, it missed some 337,000 
balkers. These consisted of "dodgers" and "conscientious objectors"; 
and the objectors, in turn, of those who objected, respectively, with 
and without benefit of clergy. It was the objectors who based their 
case on reason instead of emotion who caught particular hell. Their 
most merciless opponents were the especially pious elements of 
America, who would not raise a hand to defend them from excessive 
prison sentences. A good example of the rational objector was Carl 
Haessler, Rhodes scholar and teacher of philosophy. He did not be 
lieve that the war was being fought to save democracy, or even to 
end war. And so he was led off in handcuffs to improve his educa 
tion at prison labor. Despite such inconveniences, however, our 
draft was successful in getting 100,000 young Americans killed. Con 
scription throughout the civilized world at this time \vas a major 
triumph; it assembled enough men to kill thirteen million directly 
and extinguish another twenty-five million or so as an indirect result. 

35. Conscription, especially when extended to peacetime, seems to 
have some objectionable features. It takes men from productive oc 
cupations, brings hardship to their families, and gives them train 
ing which is no offset for the civilian training they might have got 
in the same length of time. It develops urban at the expense of rural 
life. Towns grow up, or expand, to serve garrisons and to manufac 
ture war materials; and drafted country boys acquire a taste for the 
bright lights. The shortage of young women near the troops, and of 
young men in civilian life, stimulates prostitution in the former sec 
tor and vicious competition among young women in the latter. Na 
tionalist and militarist sentiment is aggravated. When it comes to 
war, the conscripts are so young that they do not relish the prospect 
of being or making corpses or invalids. 

36. And yet conscription is not especially to blame. If war is accepted, 
any other system of recruiting would be yet more prodigal of life 
and wealth. As long as imperialism necessitates saving the institu 
tions under which it flourishes, conscription is incomparably supe 
rior to the volunteer system. As long as armament manufacture is a 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 325 

private enterprise disturbing peace and protracting war, conscrip 
tion is a fixture. As long as armament firms sell the latest and best to 
friend and foe alike, thus creating an even balance between attack 
and defense, minimizing surprise and finesse, and turning the once 
mobile art of war into a clinch in which the winner is the people 
which can starve and freeze and die the longer, it will be imprac 
ticable to round up enough cannon fodder without conscription. 
Modern conscription is so inseparable from modern war that if you 
approve the latter you are unreasonable to condemn the former. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. What direct connection does the title have with the material covered in the 
selection itself? 

b. Is the selection a series of directions to be followed to round up cannon fod 
der? What is its larger purpose? 

2. a. Examine and explain how this purpose is accomplished in terms of the or 
ganizational pattern of the article. 

b. Why does the author use a pattern of component parts here? 
r. Where does the introduction begin and how is it developed? 

3. a. Point out the manner by which the author has gained a complete under 
standing of his subject by investigating its parts. 

b. Could the author have used other material had he wished to treat his sub 
ject more fully? 

c. Would the author have reached the same conclusion in paragraph 36 had 
this selection been written after the second World War? 

cL Make an outline of tin s selection. Now add component parts from your 
knowledge of conscription in the second World War. 

4. a. Can you find any evidence in the writing of the author s point of view on 
the conscription problem? What is it? 

b. Does he announce it or does he conceal it in hints and suggestions? 

c. Comment on the presence or absence of bias or point of view in this selec 
tion, supporting your statements with evidences from the text. 

5. Make a careful comparative study of this selection and the one by Tacitus. 
Try to formulate some working principles for the use of component parts as 
an organizational technique. 



326 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



FOURTH PATTERN: Cause 

RUMOR 
By James Fenimore Cooper 

1. THE PEOPLE of the United States are unusually liable to be im 
posed on by false rumors. In addition to the causes that exist else 
where, such as calculated and interested falsehoods, natural frailty, 
political machinations, and national antipathies, may be enumer 
ated many that are peculiar to themselves. 

2. The great number of, and the imperfect organization of the news 
paper establishments, as has already been shown, is a principal rea 
son; necessity, in some degree, compelling a manufacture of "news" 
when none exists in reality. 

3. The great extent of the country, the comparative intelligence of 
the inhabitants, an intelligence that is often sufficient to incite in 
quiry, but insufficient for discrimination, the habit of forming opin 
ions, which is connected with the institutions, the great ease of the 
population, which affords time for gossip, and the vast extent of the 
surface over which the higher intelligence, that can alone rebuke 
groundless and improbable rumors, is diffused, are so many reasons 
for the origin and increase of false reports. 

4. Falsehood and truth are known to be inseparable, everywhere, 
but as rumor gains by distance, they are necessarily more mixed to 
gether in this country, than in regions where the comparative small- 
ness of surface renders contradiction easier. 

5. The frequency and all-controlling character of the elections keep 
rumors of a certain sort in constant circulation, bringing in corrup 
tion and design in support of other motives. 

6. The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that 
which is false, is one of the last attainments of the human mind. It 
is the result, commonly, of a long and extensive intercourse with 
mankind. But one may pass an entire life, in a half-settled and half- 
civilized portion of the world, and not gain as much acquaintance 
with general things, as is obtained by boys who dwell in regions 

* From The American Democrat (1838). 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 327 

more populous. The average proportion between numbers and sur 
face in America, is about twelve to the square mile, whereas, it ap 
proaches three hundred, in the older countries of Europe! On this 
single fact depends much more, in a variety of ways, than is com 
monly believed. 

ANALYSIS 

1. In this short selection the main problem is to discover how close the pattern of 
causation is to the subject itself. 

a. How much of this pattern is devoted entirely to the effort to discover causes? 
How much of the passage does something else? 

2. Does Cooper explain in much detail the effect for which he is finding these 
causes? Explain. 

3. Try to determine how the causal pattern is related to the general subject matter 
of this selection and why such a pattern works well here. 

4. You will note that this article was published in 1838. Study the manner of writ 
ing Cooper uses here and list characteristics (word choice, sentence patterns, 
etc. ) that seem to you to indicate that it was written a little over a century ago. 

5. Are Cooper s findings at all valid today? Explain. 



MICE AND MEN* 
By Julian S. Huxley 

I 

1. EARLY in 1927 the newspapers contained accounts of the havoc 
being wrought in California by field mice. These little creatures, in 
creasing beyond all ordinary bounds, had forced themselves by 
sheer quantity upon the notice of man. In ordinary seasons they levy 
a modest toll on the fruits of the earth, wild and cultivated a toll 
scarcely noticed by the farmer, still less by the community at large. 
In this year and region, however, they had become a grave menace 
to agriculture, and the resources of the state were being mobilized 
against them. 

2. A similar plague occurred on the other side of the Atlantic in 
1892-93. In Scotland during that season vast hordes of field mice 
ravaged the farms and again became such a serious pest that they 
were deemed worthy of a Government investigation. In this Scotch 
plague the mouse mainly responsible was the short-tailed field 

From Man Stands Alone ( 1927), by Julian S. Huxley. Published by Harper 
and Brothers. Copyright, 1927, by Julian S. Huxley. 



328 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

mouse or vole, Microtus hirtus. But other field mice were abnor 
mally abundant at the same time, such as the long-tailed field mouse 
and the bank vole. This would indicate at the outset that some 
general conditions in the season were responsible for the sudden 
abundance, and not any specific conditions favoring one kind of 
mouse only. 

3. These plagues are accompanied by great gatherings of birds 
which prey upon the mice. In 1892 large numbers of kestrels and 
still larger numbers of short-eared owls assembled at the feast, 
though by what means they received intelligence of it is a mystery. 
So great was the supply of food that the owls prolonged their breed 
ing season right into November, and even then produced broods 
much larger than the normal. 

4. In a mouse plague which occurred in Nevada in 1907 three- 
quarters of the alfalfa acreage of the state was destroyed. The whole 
ground, for square mile after square mile, was riddled with mouse 
holes till it was like a sieve. It was estimated that the several thou 
sand mouse-eating birds and mammals busily gorging on mice in the 
affected district were killing over a million mice a month; and yet 
the numbers of the mice continued to increase in spite of this toll. 

5. Why these sudden outbursts of generative energy on the part of 
rodents? That is a problem for animal ecology, the branch of bi 
ology which might be called scientific natural history the study of 
animals in nature and their relations with their environment and 
with other animals and plants. The first thing the ecologist discov 
ers is that the plagues are not such isolated phenomena as at first 
sight might appear. They are merely exaggerations of one part of a 
regular cycle. All small rodents (not at present to go beyond this 
group) appear to have the life of the species strung on a curve of 
numerical ups and downs, a cycle of alternating abundance and 
scarcity. Field mice in England, for instance, have their ups every 
three or four years. There was a moderate degree of abundance in 
1922, and again in 1926. 

6. The best known of all such cases of cyclical abundance, however, 
is the lemming of Scandinavia, which has become almost mythical. 
In the sixteenth century, this animal was reported "by reliable men 
of great probity" to fall down from the sky in huge numbers during 
storms of rain. The truth is not much less remarkable. The European 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 329 

lemmings live on the mountains in southern Scandinavia (and, far 
ther north, at sea level on the treeless tundra). Every few years 
they become enormously abundant in their mountain homes, and set 
off upon a strange migration. They move off in all directions down 
hill from the mountains, crossing roads and rivers and railways on 
their march. If they reach the scacoast they start to swim out to sea, 
and swim until they drown. After a lemming march the beach will 
be strewn with lemming corpses. But it is not only drowning and 
the accidents of the route which kill off the little creatures. Epi 
demics always seem to break out in years of abundance and slaugh 
ter thousands. The animals which migrate are almost exclusively 
young animals. The old ones stay at home, on their breeding- 
grounds; but there they too may succumb to the spread of the epi 
demic. These years of overpopulation occur with considerable regu 
larity, and not only with regularity, but with the same rhythm as 
that which characterizes the rhythm of abundance in British field 
mice. The average length of the cycle in both kinds of animals is 
close to three and a half years. 

7. But the lemming introduces us to another fact of very great inter 
est. Lemmings occur not only in Europe but also in Greenland and 
Canada. Here too there are years of abundance and of dearth, and 
the cycle appears to be the same or nearly so in both continents. 
Causes are at work which are simultaneously influencing the little 
rat-like animals on the Barren Grounds of Canada and in the moun 
tains of southern Norway. 

8. Before going farther in our analysis it will be well to remind our 
selves that many other kinds of animals show the same sort of cycli 
cal rise and fall in numbers. The year 1927 was of interest to Eng 
lish ornithologists because it witnessed a considerable irruption into 
England of that remarkable bird, the crossbill, with its mandibles 
crossed over each other for the purpose of feeding upon pine cones, 
These irruptions come westward from the pine forests of central 
Europe, and occur at more or less regular intervals. One, in the six 
teenth century, brought prodigious numbers of the birds, which did 
great damage, since they discovered that their beaks were admir 
ably adapted for slicing apples in half as well as for obtaining the 
seeds from pine cones. The dates of crossbill irruptions, however, 
have not been quite so well recorded as those of two other kinds of 



330 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

birds, the Siberian nutcracker and the sand grouse. The nutcracker 
is an inhabitant of the vast coniferous forests of Siberia. It has in 
vaded western Europe at intervals of eleven years, with what would 
be extreme regularity if it were not for the fact that now and again 
one of the invasions is "skipped." Although observations on the spot 
in Siberia are not forthcoming, it appears almost certain that the mi 
grations are due to overpopulation in the birds natural home, cou 
pled with a bad harvest of the pine cones upon which they feed. 
Doubtless, when the failure of the pine crop is less extreme than 
usual, the pressure on population is not so great, and the wave of 
migration spends itself before reaching Europe. 

9. Pallas sand grouse, on the other hand, is a bird of the steppes and 
deserts of central Asia, where it lives upon the scanty vegetation of 
the salty soil. In every so many years the bird leaves its home in 
huge flocks, migrating both eastward into China, and westward into 
Europe, even as far as the British Isles. Here again, a cycle of eleven 
years is pretty closely adhered to, with the additional fact that the 
alternate migrations are much bigger. As the records go, we seem 
safe in prophesying the invasions at regular intervals. The cause of 
the emigration again seems to be relative overpopulation, or, what 
comes to the same thing, food shortage, owing to their food- 
plants being covered by snow or heavy frosts. 

10. The periodic migrations of locust and cricket swarms, literally 
eating up the country in their advance, are well known. Unfortu 
nately a full analysis of them has not yet been made. This is partly 
due to the fact that the direction of insect migration is entirely at 
the mercy of the wind, and that a periodic increase of locusts in one 
spot will cause emigration to various different countries according 
to the accident of wind direction. In addition, insects, with their 
lack of a constant temperature, are more likely than birds and mam 
mals to show the effects of short periods of very exceptional weather, 
less likely to sum up, so to speak, the effect of moderate and ir 
regular but long-continued change. However, there seems little 
doubt that investigation will reveal, in these and other insects, such 
as the cockchafer, periodic cycles of abundance similar to those 
found in birds and rodents. 

11. However, the most remarkable facts on the problem of periodic 
fluctuations in animal numbers are provided by the books of the 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 331 

Hudson s Bay Company. This great trading concern has kept records 
of the number of skins of all the various kinds of fur-bearing ani 
mals brought in each year by its trappers. The records show cycles 
of abundance and scarcity in muskrats, Canadian rabbit or varying 
hare, skunk, fisher, mink, wolverine, marten, lynx, red fox, and arc 
tic fox. The most spectacular changes, perhaps, are to be noted 
with the Canadian rabbit (Lepus americanus). One year these ani 
mals will be enormously abundant over vast areas of the continent. 
Next year an epidemic will set in, and in the succeeding season a 
rabbit will be a great rarity. 

12. But more remarkable even than the change of abundance is the 
regularity of the cycle. The Hudson s Bay record goes back to 1825. 
The record for annual number of lynx skins, for example, when 
plotted as a graph, has the regularity of a temperature chart. At 
about every eleven years comes a peak, when the number of skins 
brought in averages about fifty thousand always over thirty thou 
sand, and sometimes seventy thousand. Halfway between these 
peaks are depressions, in which the average number of skins sinks 
to well below five thousand, occasionally approaching zero. If rec 
ords were available from single areas, the ups and downs would be 
even more marked, for the maxima and the sudden drops are not 
synchronous over the whole continent, although they do not vary in 
any one locality more than two or three seasons each way from the 
mean for the whole continent. 

13. Both lynx and rabbit have a cycle of just over eleven years in 
length. The lynx eats the rabbit; and, accordingly, the lynx s maxima 
are one to two years later than the rabbit s. 

14. Not merely are there more rabbits in existence at a period of maxi 
mum abundance, but they are reproducing faster. In bad years there 
will be only one brood in a season, and about three young in a 
brood; in very favorable years there will be two or three broods, 
and eight or ten young in each brood. The Indian trappers are said 
to prophesy the prospects of next season s rabbit crop by counting 
the number of embryos in this season s rabbits. The same sort of 
thing occurs in field mice in England, as was first established by 
Mr. C. S. Elton at Oxford; though the number of young per brood 
is not increased in favorable years, and the number of months in the 
year during which no breeding animals are to be found diminishes. 



332 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

15. When the different records for all kinds of animals and birds from 
all over the temperate regions are analyzed, it turns out that in most 
cases the average length of the cycle of abundance is either just 
about eleven years, or else one third of this, namely about 3.7 years. 
But of course a periodically fluctuating curve of abundance might 
be due to two separate cycles, interacting with each other. By 
mathematical analysis, however, when such is the case, the two com 
ponents can be separated from each other. When such analysis is 
applied to the Hudson s Bay records, it is found that in fact the 
curves for the numbers of many animals are thus compound. Some 
times a curve which clearly has maxima every eleven years will be 
revealed as possessing in addition a minor rhythm of about three 
and a half years. This, for example, is the case with the red fox. On 
the other hand, the more northern arctic fox has an obvious period 
of about three and a half years; but when this is eliminated from 
the curve, lo and behold a minor, but none the less definite, eleven- 
year cycle remains. Is there any virtue in this period of eleven years? 
Every astronomer would at once exclaim "sun spots";* for the num 
ber of sun spots visible on the sun s disc shows a well-marked fluc 
tuation, and this cycle, too, has a period of just over eleven years. 
This cycle does, in fact, correspond with that of number in various 
animals, the sun-spot minima about coinciding with the animal s 
maxima. What is more, the sun spots do not always keep strictly 
to their eleven-year period, but may anticipate or delay matters a 
year or so: and when this is so, the animals curve of abundance is 
usually found correspondingly shifted. 

II 

16. There is little doubt that spots on the sun have an effect upon 
weather on the earth. They cause great magnetic storms; and, in 
addition, the amount of energy radiated by the sun appears to be 
greater at sun-spot maxima, less when sun spots are few. One of the 
chief facts of terrestrial climate which seems to be definitely cor 
related with sun-spot number concerns the track of storms. If the 
tracks followed by heavy storms are plotted on a map, it will be 
found that, in North America for instance, there is in any one year 
a zone along which the majority of storms travel. Now this zone 
shifts up and down with considerable regularity from year to year, 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 333 

returning to the same position about every eleven years. Such a shift 
in the storm tracks will obviously mean a slight shift of the margins 
of all the great climatic zones. It will mean that there will be cycles 
of rainfall, some areas getting more than the average every eleven 
years, while other zones in the same years will be getting less than 
the average; and this, according to the careful investigations of 
O. T. Walker, is what actually occurs. Such changes are likely to 
have the most noticeable effect upon plants and animals where con 
ditions are difficult for life. For instance, a small change in rainfall 
in a semi-desert region will have much more effect than the same 
change in a well-watered country; and quite small temperature 
changes in the Arctic will have disproportionately large effects on 
the animals and plants which live there. 

17. The three and one half year period, on the other hand, has not so 
far been correlated with any meteorological facts. This, however, 
need not surprise us. What the meteorologist records are variations 
in single factors of climate such as temperature, rainfall, sunshine, 
and sometimes humidity. It is by no means likely that any one of 
these by itself is going to be the main factor responsible for the 
abundance or scarcity of a plant or animal. It is much more likely 
that what favors the growth of an organism beyond normal will be 
a particular combination of, say, temperature, moisture, and sun 
shine, probably no single one of the factors at work being either at 
its maximum or its minimum. Something of the sort can often be 
traced with life. For instance, the optimum geographical zone for 
white men is one of moderate temperature, moderate rainfall, mod 
erate sunshine, and a good deal of changeable weather: no extremes 
are involved in it. 

18. Though the sun spots undoubtedly affect the weather and so the 
growth of plants, the growth of small herbivorous animals, and this 
in turn the abundance of their carnivorous enemies, the correlation 
of sun-spot cycles with the cycles of animal abundance is not fully 
proved. The animal cycle may be an independent one, of a slightly 
shorter period. 

19. The abundance of rodents is thus an indicator for certain com 
binations of meteorological factors. The meteorologists themselves 
have not yet invented any instrument for recording these particular 
combinations of factors indeed, they would not have suspected 



334 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

their existence but for the facts unearthed by the biologist. Th lem 
ming or the field mouse or the Canadian rabbit is thus, from one 
point of view, a sensitive meteorological instrument for integrating 
and summating a number of different agencies which affect the 
weather, and transmuting a particular combination of them into an 
increase of numbers which catches the eye of observant man. 

20. That important biological and meteorological effects are exerted 
by sun-spot cycles is rendered certain by corroborative evidence 
from other quarters. Professors Huntington and Douglass have ex 
amined the growth of the big trees (Sequoias) of California, as 
recorded in the thickness of their annual rings of wood. This biologi 
cal record goes back over three thousand years; and in it they find 
a quite definite eleven-year cycle corresponding perfectly with the 
cycle in sun-spot numbers. Besides this, changes in the mean level 
of various large lakes, notably Victoria Nyanza, have been analyzed 
and, as Brooks has shown, here too a correlation is apparent be 
tween rise and fall of water level and increase and decrease of sun- 
spot number. It may be noted that lake level will not be dependent 
on any single one of the factors usually measured by meteorologists, 
but will represent a balance between precipitation and evaporation, 
which latter in its turn will depend partly on temperature and partly 
on humidity. The lake thus integrates a number of weather com 
ponents, as does an organism. 

21. In passing, it should be observed that the short-period cycles, of 
three and one half years, would be expected to affect only small ani 
mals which reach maturity in a year or less. Larger animals have 
lives which are too long to be upset by such small cycles. In pre 
cisely the same way, the choppy little waves which are so un 
pleasant to the inmates of a row boat have no effect upon the bulk 
of a liner. Even the eleven-year cycles will have little effect upon 
animals like deer or wild asses. There are indications of fluctuations, 
however, in the larger herbivores, but these are of much longer 
range, a fact which in itself makes it more difficult to collect sta 
tistics on the subject. 

22. It is of great interest to find that the beaver, almost alone among 
the smaller fur-bearing mammals of Canada, shows no periodicity in 
its numbers. This fact is doubtless to be correlated with its remark 
able mode of life. It lives, not on shortlived herbs or grass, but on 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 335 

the bark of trees. It constructs dams by which it regulates its water 
supply; and brings tree trunks from considerable distances to serve 
as food-stores. When the local supply of trees is exhausted it mi 
grates elsewhere. Since it lives in small, isolated colonies it does not 
suffer from widespread epidemics. Here we seem to have a good 
proof that the fluctuations in numbers which affect other animals 
are not due to mysterious cyclical fluctuations in the animal s in 
herent reproductive capacities, but to a normal though indirect ac 
tion of climatic influences via the animal s food, its parasitic ene 
mies, and so forth. 

23. A great deal has been heard recently of this theory of inherent 
or spontaneous changes in reproductive capacity, apropos of the fall 
in the human birthrate which has been so noticeable during the last 
half -century among most civilized peoples; and the upholders of this 
view attempt to support their conclusions concerning man by re 
ferring to the cycles obtaining in mice and lemmings. Far from 
lending them support, however, the biological facts tell in the op 
posite direction. We know of no single case of an animal changing 
its reproductive capacity, whether number of broods per year, or 
number of young per brood, so long as it is kept under really uni 
form conditions, while we know of a great many cases in which im 
proved conditions of temperature, food, etc., do bring about an in 
crease in reproductive output. 

24. As Sir William Beveridge has ably pointed out, there is nothing 
in the fall of the human birthrate which cannot be accounted for 
by increased prudence . . . ; nor is there anything, even in the most 
spectacular disappearance of the marauders, which cannot be ac 
counted for by causes simpler and more familiar than an otherwise 
unknown fluctuation in reproductive potency. Once conditions such 
as food begin to favor a small herbivorous mammal, the shortness 
of its life-span enables it to outrun the constable of its carnivorous 
enemies, which are handicapped through being of larger size, and 
so requiring longer to complete each generation. However, as the 
density of herbivore population increases, parasites will be able to 
spread more rapidly from one individual to another. Finally a den 
sity is reached at which some disease-germ can pass from mouse to 
mouse with great rapidity, with the result that a fulminating out 
break of disease occurs. This violent outbreak of epidemic disease 



336 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

has been reproduced experimentally with mice. The same bacillus, 
the same mice: but with one density of mouse population there are 
only isolated cases of disease, while with five times the density of 
population a devastating epidemic breaks out. The same appears to 
be true for animals kept under semiartificial conditions for sporting 
purposes. For instance, the commission appointed to investigate 
grouse disease in Britain came to the conclusion that the mere fact 
of overstocking a moor would cause disease, by permitting a nor 
mally innocuous coccidian parasite to pass so rapidly and in such 
numbers from bird to bird that mass-infection and consequent dis 
ease resulted. 

25. It appears to be a constant rule that the rapid increase conse 
quent on outrunning larger, carnivorous enemies always has as con 
sequence the running into new conditions more favorable to the in 
visible parasitic enemies of the species. As a result, an epidemic 
follows, and the numbers of the species are reduced below normal. 
Tim reduction may then be carried still farther by unfavorable 
seasons. 

26. This has one interesting consequence of general biological inter 
est. The evolutionist normally assumes that the pressure of natural 
selection will be approximately equal, in natural conditions, over 
long periods of time. This may be so for animals like the beaver; but 
it will clearly not hold for those like lemmings or field mice. In 
these, after a period of minimum numbers has been well passed, 
and the animal is filling the empty landscape once more under in 
creasingly favorable conditions, natural selection will clearly be 
much less intense than normal, for there will be next to no competi 
tion due to population pressure, and weather and food conditions 
will be more favorable than normal. The shoe will pinch unusually 
hard twice in each cycle once when weather and food conditions 
are most unfavorable, and once when the inevitable epidemic 
breaks out. Thus, as Elton puts it, the animals will be subjected in 
each cycle to two severe examinations of different type, while they 
will be hardly troubled by schoolmistress Nature during the rest of 
the time. 

27. But when violent epidemics come, disease resistance will indeed 
be at a premium, since only one in a thousand or even one in a hun 
dred thousand will survive, and from those scattered survivors the 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 337 

whole species will be reproduced. That is natural selection with a 
vengeance. 

Ill 

28. Important consequences of another type flow from the facts. If 
lemmings and rabbits and mice are killed oft in thousands by epi 
demics, may not rodent cycles bear some relation to human disease? 
The answer is not only that they may, but that they do. Most peo 
ple know now that bubonic plague is spread to man from rats and 
other small rodents like gerbils by means of the animals fleas. The 
years when the small rodents in Central Asia or South Africa show 
maxima in numbers the incidence of human plague increases. 

29. After lemming migrations, visitations of disease are not uncom 
mon among the human populations of the Norwegian valleys. The 
matter has not yet been properly investigated; but it is at least pos 
sible that some bacillus, acquiring new virulence by its rapid pas 
sage through its rodent victims, may produce this human disease. 
Hardly any work has been done on the causes of these natural epi 
demics of animals. The whole question would well repay investi 
gation, both on account of its intrinsic interest, and because of its 
possible bearing on human health. 

30. Immediate practical questions arise as to means of coping with 
the periodic pests as they arise. All kinds of paradoxes here present 
themselves. The obvious course, and that naturally enough de 
manded by the suffering agriculturist, is the wholesale destruction 
of the voles or mice which are taking toll of his crops. Destruction, 
however, is often no easy matter. It is difficult to get at such small 
creatures which live in holes, swarm in myriads, and in a few weeks 
time arc grown up and ready to reproduce their kind. Both trapping 
and poison have their drawbacks and defects. Furthermore, killing 
the animals once they are so abundant that they are easy to kill is 
like locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. 

31. The bird-protectionist sees one step further. He reminds us that 
owls and man) hawks prey upon small rodents, and would have us 
keep down the mice and moles by encouraging the predatory birds. 
But then steps in the ecologist and points out that both human de 
struction and avian enemies will have as their effect merely the 
slowing down of the geometrical increase of the mice (for cer- 



338 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

tainly not even the dense hordes of owls and kestrels in 1892 served 
actually to decrease the numbers of the voles, and man s methods 
have hitherto proved a good deal less efficient than Nature s ) ; and 
all that this can be expected to do is to delay the outbreak of the 
epidemic which alone can reduce the creatures to manageable num 
bers. The ecologist, on the contrary, would prefer to try some 
method which would actually encourage the multiplication of the 
rodents in the hope that the epidemic would come sooner, the ag 
ony would not be so prolonged, and the losses to agriculture conse 
quently not so great. As alternatives he would suggest the effect of 
various bacterial cultures, which might provoke an artificial epi 
demic at an earlier stage of the cycle; or possibly some biological 
treatment such as that proposed by Rodier for rats, of trapping, kill 
ing all the females captured, but releasing all the males, in the hope 
that the minority of females would be pestered out of successful 
breeding. 

32. Common sense, however, may rightly ask one or two questions of 
the ecologist. It seems, for instance, to be a fact that* epidemics set 
in among mice in all years of maximum abundance, whether the 
overpopulation becomes so intense as to constitute a real plague, or 
is so moderate as to be noticeable only by the professional naturalist 
on the lookout for such phenomena. How is it that the epidemic 
does not break out in the plague years as soon as the population in 
tensity attained at the ordinary maximum has been reached? Clearly 
some other factor must come in possibly a time factor, or, what 
comes to much the same thing, one involving the number of genera 
tions run through by one or all of the parasites of the rodent. 

33. What is clear, however, is that no quite simple, straightforward 
methods will serve. The biological thinking of the man in the street 
and of the professional biologist, too, for that matter is much too 
much obsessed by military metaphor for him to be able yet to see 
quite straight on ecological problems. He is brought up to believe in 
a struggle for existence, which he envisages as a regular battle be 
tween an inoffensive herbivore and its enemies, or a sort of athletic 
competition between a carnivore and its prey. In both cases he 
thinks of the struggle as something in which victory is to be 
achieved, as in war or sport. As a matter of fact, it is nothing of the 
kind. A herbivorous animal without carnivorous enemies would 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 339 

tend to overpopulate its territory, to be diseased and undernour 
ished, even to condemn itself to starvation by eating down its own 
food supply; a carnivorous species which was restricted to one kind 
of prey, and a kind which it could too easily catch, would inevitably 
bring its own race to extinction by eating itself out of hearth and 
home. Both eventualities have, through the interference of man, 
been realized. When red deer were introduced into New Zealand 
they throve on the succulent forest and bush, and multiplied ex 
ceedingly owing to the absence of all carnivorous enemies. But after 
a few decades they had changed the face of the country where they 
were abundant, and today the fine heads of heavy beasts are found 
only on the outskirts of the deer range, where they are still advanc 
ing into virgin country. Elsewhere the herds are full of stunted spec 
imens and malformed antlers, and the authorities have been forced 
to play the part of natural enemy, and to adopt a vigorous policy 
of periodic thinning-out to save the stock. 

34. As an example of the opposite effect, I may quote from Elton s 
Animal Ecology the curious case of Berlenga Island, off the coast of 
Portugal. "This place supports a lighthouse and a lighthouse-keeper, 
who was in the habit of growing vegetables on the island, but was 
plagued by rabbits which had been introduced at some time or 
other. He also had the idea of introducing cats to cope with the 
situation which they did so effectively that they ultimately ate up 
every single rabbit on the island. Having succeeded in this, the cats 
starved to death, since there were no other edible animals on the 
island." 

IV 

35. We are often told that it is very important for children to select 
their parents wisely. It is becoming clear that a wise choice of ene 
mies is an asset to an organism! One can hardly, perhaps, speak of 
an animal s enemies as part of its adaptations; but at least they are 
vital to its survival. The fact is, of course, that in almost every case 
the word "enemy" is only applicable when we are thinking in terms 
of individuals: as soon as we think of the species, the individual 
"enemy" usually turns out to be a racial benefactor. 

36. The two things needful are patience and research patience is 
needed in face of the popular demand for immediate action which i* 



340 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

raised every time a plague of mice or a dearth of fish is experienced, 
research to unravel the excessively complicated threads of the web 
of life. 

37. The picture gained by research looks something like this, though 
we are not sure of the sun-spot influence on certain animal cycles: 
The fluctuation in the number of sun spots is probably connected 
with the distance of the great planet Jupiter from the sun s in 
candescent surface. The sun-spot fluctuations change the tracks of 
storms, brim and depress the waters of our lakes, alter our weather. 
The weather-changes make the giant trees put on more or less wood, 
promote the multiplication of rabbits, mice, and lemmings, cause an 
alternation of fat and lean years in the fur department of the Hud 
son s Bay Company, inflict periodic losses, through vole plagues, 
upon the world s agriculture. The multiplication of the rodents, be 
sides reverberating upon fox and lynx, hawks and owls, affects our 
human health returns. Verily the dreams of astrology, even if they 
suffered from the defect of not being true, had at least the merit of 
simplicity in comparison with this web of cosmic influence spinning 
out from one corner of the solar system to another! 

38. But the very complexity of what we do know, or can reasonably 
surmise, bids us take an infinity of pains to unearth the still greater 
complexities that are still hidden from us, if we are to control nature 
efficiently. Modern agriculture, with its massing of huge numbers of 
individuals of one species of plant or animal, is a deliberate invita 
tion to parasites and pests to revel in the unaccustomed profusion. 
And when we come to tropical agriculture, we must remember that 
the tropical heat raises the insect to be the equal in activity of the 
warm-blooded mammal, including our own species. The mechanical 
and chemical triumphs of the last hundred years must give place in 
this century to biological triumphs of equal magnitude if man is to 
retain his dominant position on the earth. 

39. Until synthetic chemistry has progressed a great deal farther, the 
control of the plant kingdom is man s only means of supplying him 
self with the bulk of the food and the raw materials which he needs. 
The success of this control, as more and more of the earth s surface 
is given over to such vegetable exploitation, will come to depend 
more and more upon detailed knowledge about the animal and 
plant enemies, actual or potential, of the crops. We talk a great 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 341 

deal about safeguarding the food supply of the country in time of 
war. In fifty years time we are much more likely to be talking about 
safeguarding the world s food supply in time of peace. And we shall 
not be looking to machinery for our safeguards, nor even to light 
cruisers, or other forms of naval strength, but to the laboratories of 
entomology, mycology, and all the other branches of pure and ap 
plied ecology. 

ANALYSIS 

The reasoning exhibited in this essay is involved and illustrative of several of 
the thought processes commonly employed by the natural scientist. Although 
the work as a whole is primarily concerned with problems of cause and 
effect, the first half of the essay is filled with inductions, with the formation of 
generalizations upon observable data. The causal pattern is to be seen most 
clearly in Paragraphs 15-25. In Paragraphs 25-37 we are not looking at causes 
of the conditions described as much as seeing other effects that derive from 
the same causes. Thus in this section we find further variations of the principles 
of causal reasoning. 

1. The author, we notice, uses the word correlation frequently. What is the con 
nection between correlation and causation? 

2. The problem of the essay is set for us in Paragraph 5 in the question that is 
asked there. Note that it asks for a search for causes. 

a. Why has the author waited until this point to let us know what his main 
concern is? 

b. What has he been doing until this point is reached? 

c. Has he as yet generalized extensively upon the examples that he cites? 

3. Why, after he has asked his main question, does he proceed to cite more in 
stances, to make many generalizations? That is, why has he inserted his ques 
tion about causes into the essay before he is ready to discuss cavises? 

4. Since he wishes to correlate generalizations, is it imperative that he first explain 
the generalizations? 

5. Chart the main outlines of the causal chain. Does Paragraph 18 represent a 
tentative answer to his main question? 

6. a. Study the nature of the evidence in Paragraph 20. How is it useful? 
/;. This is reasoning from effect to effect. What does this mean? 

7. Some may say that the author cites the beaver in Paragraph 22 as the excep 
tion that proves the rule. Is this true? 

8. Note the refutation involved in Paragraphs 23 and 24. 

9. What underlying principle of causal reasoning can be drawn from the following 
statement taken from Paragraph 24: "Nor is there anything, even in the most 
spectacular disappearance of the marauders, which cannot be accounted for 
by causes simpler and more familiar than an otherwise unknown fluctuation in 
reproductive potency"? 

10. Note that the expanded answer to the main question comes in Paragraphs 24 
and 25. 



342 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



FIFTH PATTERN: Concession 

MAN S MORAL RESPONSIBILITY* 
By Clifford Barrett 

I 

1. WHAT is MAN anyhow? What am IP What are you? 

2. So Walt Whitman phrased the most universal and the most fun 
damental of all questions. To it, the mechanistic theory offers an an 
swer. Man is one among an innumerable company of living things 
that inhabit the earth. His life span is brief. His powers are pitifully 
inadequate to his needs. Continually he finds himself confronted by 
forces that are greater than his own. They regulate his actions and 
determine his happiness. They even have shaped his being, body, 
and mind. They provide the possibilities of life and experience 
and the certainty of final darkness. 

3. Yet, in man, some senseless whirl of atoms has created a strange 
creature a being who not only thinks but who supposes that what 
he thinks, feels, and strives for really matters. Failing to recognize 
that his every act and desire is determined by the forces that pro 
duced and that sustain him, this creature, man, imagines himself to 
be free. Supposing that there are things which he ought to do, he 
endures both the censure of his fellows and the remorse of his own 
"conscience" when he fails to fulfill the "moral responsibilities" that 
constitute his besetting illusion. In plain fact, he has no moral re 
sponsibilities. His thoughts, his emotions, and his supposed "moral 
choices," like everything else in the universe, are due to causes be 
yond his control. What he does he must do and what he does 
because he cannot do otherwise deserves neither praise nor blame. 

4. Here is a clear reply to the question of what man is. Some of its 
contentions, furthermore, are beyond reasonable challenge. Man s 
life is short. Frequently, it is beyond his power to control the situa 
tions in which he is placed. The universe and man do operate ac 
cording to causal law if causal law be taken in its now generally 
accepted sense in the sciences, that is, as suggesting no creative 

* Prom Forum, Vol. 98 (1937). Reprinted by permission of the publishers and 
the author. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 343 

force but only a regular, observable order in the sequence of events. 
Nor is it to be doubted that inherited capacities deeply affect what 
we are and may become. The moron certainly is not free to become 
a Plato, and, within narrower limits than such extremes, physical 
and mental aptitudes are very real and must be recognized. Further, 
states of health are closely related to mental and temperamental 
attitudes. If our destiny does not lie in our glands, at least it is likely 
to be distinctly affected by their behavior. Through language and 
early training, as well as a persisting fear of social ostracism, estab 
lished customs and beliefs, concepts and ways of conduct are cease 
lessly impressed on us. By no means least important among shaping 
forces is a too ruthless economic system, on which we are dependent 
for daily bread itself and the decencies of life, as well as for so many 
opportunities of action and personal development. 

5. All of this, indeed, must be only too readily granted. But, with 
full and frank recognition of every dire evil that brings wretched 
ness and frustration to any human being, the question still remains 
whether facts and sound thinking actually lead to the mechanist s 
extreme conclusions. Doubtless, not all of any man s actions are free, 
and, possibly, not any of his actions is altogether free. Yet, if we 
consider calmly the facts and then the meaning of freedom and 
moral responsibility, it becomes apparent, I think, that both really 
exist and are present in varying degrees in our decisions and ac 
tivities. 

II 

6. It is agreed that human beings possess ideas and that these ideas 
arise in large part from the necessity of coping with hostile ele 
ments in their environment. It is a fact of first importance, further 
more, that reason actually has proved itself a match for senseless 
forces in the physical world and for numerous forms of oppression 
in society. Its achievements have been sufficient to encourage all 
but the most impatient. Long ago, men came to realize that they 
were not able, by main strength, to destroy many of the forces that 
opposed their purposes. But they learned, too, that often they might 
manipulate these forces in such a way as to make them serve chosen 
ends. Cleverly, new means were discovered for cutting across usual 
orders of cause and effect. Electricity is deadly, but it can be made 



344 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

to work for us. Smallpox is devastating, but vaccination is possible. 
Glandular insufficiency may give rise to mental instability, but the 
deficiency can be supplied, and a normal endocrine balance re 
established. The universe may be indifferent to our desires, but our 
desires can make themselves effective in it. We need not merely ac 
cept facts. We also may shape policies. There is a power of body 
over mind, but there is also a power of mind over body. The world 
in which we live is a complicated field of interacting energies. Pur 
poses, intelligently chosen and acted on, can affect the balance and 
bring new adjustments which we desire. The motor-driven ship, 
no less than the sailless and rudderless derelict, must travel seas 
where winds and currents, storms and reefs need to be taken into 
account but the motor ship is not altogether at their mercy. A 
port of destination may be selected and, barring mishap, it may be 
reached through intelligent manipulation. 

7. It happens that in man s evolution two notable characteristics are 
evident. Man has adapted himself to his environment as was nec 
essary if he was to survive. At the same time, gradually* he has trans 
formed the environment to meet his needs and desires as also was 
necessary if he was to mature as a man and satisfy the demands of 
his intelligence. To this, every irrigation and drainage project, 
every cultivated farm, every advance in industry and trade, every 
step in the development of equitable law and government, every ad 
vance in science and education bears witness. 

8. There is a further fact which calls for attention. At one time, num 
erous observers believed the human mind to be passive. It was com 
pared to an empty cupboard, waiting to be filled, and to a blank 
tablet, on which experience must write whatever the individual was 
to know or think. No competent psychologist, of course, would hold 
such a theory in the light of modern knowledge. The external world 
stimulates our senses and provides material for thought, but the 
mind is not passive. Constantly, it selects that which is to receive at 
tention. What comes to it literally as feelings of color, sound, hard 
ness, or other qualities it puts together and interprets as objects and 
events with meanings and values. Our experiences are our reactions 
to stimuli which the world provides. We react in terms of our own 
natures, and it is these reactions that determine what objects and 
events are to be for each of us. Hence the same object or event may 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 345 

hold diverse interests and values for different people. Two brothers 
may react differently to the same environment and follow widely 
varied courses in life. One man may see in bankruptcy only a cause 
for utter despondency, while another views it as a challenge for new 
effort. Only the idiot really takes the world passively as it comes to 
him but the idiot, alas, never comes to recognize that it is a world, 
but only bits of confusion. 

9. To this ever present fact of interpretation in human thought must 
be added the related facts of evolution and creativity, which always 
are present in some form in the world. In man s development, there 
have dawned new powers of thought and appreciation. In addition 
to physical, chemical, and biological relations, he has become cap 
able of esthetic, intellectual, and I venture to add moral rela 
tions. A machine changes, but it never evolves new powers and 
characteristics. A purely mechanical cause may reshape what exists, 
but it cannot create anything genuinely new. Essentially, this is an 
ongoing world. Growth and novelty plainly are characteristics of its 
history. What we are has been determined in large measure by our 
own past reactions. Our present responses to situations largely shape 
our actions. Our actions, in turn, bring innovations into the course 
of events. 

Ill 

10. With these facts in mind, we may turn to the question of what 
actually can be the meaning of freedom. Mechanism often urges 
that freedom is impossible because there is no chance in the world. 
All things have causes, and the law of cause and effect is inexorable. 
But, if chance did exist, it could not be trusted. In a world of chance, 
we never should be able to foresee the outcome of any action. Sim 
ilarly, if our choices represented no well-defined nature of our own 
but only vagrant and disorganized desires as they flitted through 
consciousness, we never should have any reason to suppose that the 
fulfillment of a present desire would yield satisfaction a moment 
hence. Choice involves preference and a reliable order of things 
within which one s purposes can be worked out. Preference, in turn, 
requires that we know what we want what our natures actually 
will find most compatible and it requires a world in which causes 
and effects are related in a reliable way to one another. 



346 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

11. The question of freedom, then, does not ask whether our choices 
and actions have a cause but what their cause may be. When we our 
selves that which we actually are are the cause, we are free. For, 
surely, I should not be free if I were obliged to express no particu 
lar tastes or interests in my choices nor would I be free if obliged 
to express those of some nature that was not my own. The number 
of possible alternatives in a choice is not paramount. Whether other 
possibilities are open or not, I am free when I can do the thing 
which I desire to do. If a boy wishes only to be a lawyer, he is free 
whether any other occupations are or are not open. On the other 
hand, though a thousand young ladies hopefully await an invitation 
from a campus hero, if the chosen one cold-heartedly declines, his 
freedom is limited. There may be many reasons to take account of 
the factors which have affected what one is; but, as far as freedom 
at any time is concerned, it is simply the possibility of expressing 
what, at that time, one really is and desires. Since precisely what 
anyone ever is or desires may never be fully discovered, freedom 
may remain limited. Yet it is genuine and, with increased intelli 
gence, it may grow. 

12. Freedom, in this sense of self-determination, involves moral re 
sponsibility. In a society where labor is divided and all men, as spe 
cialists, are dependent on one another, the absence of some sense of 
mutual respect of rights and obligations must bring catastrophe. The 
battle, then, would be to the stronger, in a warfare of all against 
all. Such a doctrine, practically applied, might seem a godsend to 
tyrant and exploiter, but to mankind it must mean chaos. 

13. But, regardless of consequences, what are the facts? It is reason 
able to treat anything whether a stone, a dog, or a person in a 
manner consistent with its nature. Likewise, to be a reasonable be 
ing is to possess the capacity to consider things not only in terms of 
their physical characteristics, such as size and weight, but also in 
terms of their meaning and worth. The logical and moral claim of 
an individual that he possesses certain rights and that these should 
be respected by other reasonable beings like himself is simply a de 
mand that worth as well as brute force be recognized and that he 
be regarded as the kind of being he actually is. Now what he is is 
a being capable of spiritual as well as physical pleasures and pains, 
a being who can appreciate purposes and achievements, a being 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 347 

who can act rationally and reason demands that other intelligent 
beings recognize these capacities in their dealings with him. I must 
expresses a compulsion of force and circumstance; I ought repre 
sents the compulsion of an intelligent being s own nature to act in 
the most reasonable way that is, in the way which will have the 
greatest worth. This is to act morally. And to be a morally respon 
sible person is to be one whose decisions and actions are determined 
not solely by the push of blind forces but, at least in part, by a sense 
of values. We are morally responsible in so far as our actions are 
based on our view of the worth of things. 

14. If the manager of a bakery is faced by numerous competent ap 
plicants for work and if he selects one whom he knows to be a car 
rier of an infectious disease, is he not morally responsible? If a citi 
zen votes for a candidate whom he knows to be incompetent and 
dishonest, rather than for his able and honest opponent, merely be 
cause of a promise to have his street repaved, is he not morally re 
sponsible? If prison authorities are willfully indifferent to possibil 
ities for more intelligent segregation and treatment of criminals, are 
they not morally responsible? If a young man or woman wittingly 
neglects opportunities for self-improvement for no good reason, is 
there no moral responsibility involved? 

15. What, then, would the mechanist wish to deny in order to main 
tain his conclusion? Would he insist that our actions cannot in 
fluence external events or would he hold that our purposes can 
have no effect on our actions? Would he deny that our purposes re 
sult from the responses which our minds make to the world around 
us or would he believe that our sense of values and our interpreta 
tions of things have nothing to do with what we desire and strive 
for? If the possibility of determining what is to happen by our own 
sense of what is valuable and desirable is not freedom will he tell 
us what freedom would be? If my own sense of its worth and my 
consequent desire for anything is the cause that brings it about, 
who or what is responsible for it if I am not? To say that I am its 
cause, but still not morally responsible is to forget that it was no 
blind force that compelled me to act in the way I did but rather 
my own sense of what is valuable and desirable. 



348 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



ANALYSIS 

1. A concessive pattern in controversy involves the understanding and statement 
of a thesis or proposition, followed by a statement and acknowledgment of the 
opposing arguments, and, at last, a restatement of the original thesis and an 
assertion of its validity in spite of the opposed ideas. 

a. Point out as clearly as you can each of these main divisions in the article. 

2. a. List and explain the main points that the author concedes. 

b. Do these seem to be important points, points that might well wreck the 
argument, or arc they subordinate points, ones the acknowledgment of which 
will make little difference in the validity of the main proposition? 

3. a. Where docs the turnback to the main thesis come? 

b. What provision does the author make to assure the reader that he has only 
conceded something, that he has not given in the whole argument? 

4. a. What effect does this pattern have on the strength and clarity of the whole 
argument? 

b. What principles can you formulate about the use of concession as a pat 
tern of writing? 

5. a. Does the author show any bias, any deception in his writing? 

b. Does he use any elements either of style or of reasoning that seem to deviate 
from the straight line of his pattern? Explain. 

6. Note the use of concrete illustration in Paragraphs 6 and 8, or in Paragraph 14. 



THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR * 
By Ralph Waldo Emerson 

1. THE NEXT great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the mind 
of the Past in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of insti 
tutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the influ 
ence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth learn the 
amount of this influence more conveniently by considering their 
value alone. 

2. The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received 
into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new ar 
rangement of his own mind arid uttered it again. It came into him 
life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; 
it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it 
went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now it is quick thought. It 
can stand and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. 

* Part of a larger essay entitled The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo 
Emerson. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 349 

Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so 
high does it soar, so long does it sing. 

3. Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone of 
transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the 
distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be. 
But none is quite perfect. As no air pump can by any means make a 
perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conven 
tional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of 
pure thought that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote 
posterity as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. Each 
age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each genera 
tion for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not 
fit this. 

4. Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches 
to the act of creation, the act of thought, is transferred to the record. 
The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man: henceforth the chant 
is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit: henceforward 
it is settled the book is perfect: as love of the hero corrupts into wor 
ship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes noxious: the guide is 
a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to 
open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having 
once received this book, stands upon it and makes an outcry if it is 
disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by think 
ers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, 
who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of 
principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their 
duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon 
have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young 
men in libraries when they wrote these books. 

5. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence 
the book-learned class, who value books as such; not as related to 
nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third 
Estate with the world and the soul. Hence the restorers of readings, 
the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees. 

*6. Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. 
What is the right use? What is the one end which ail means go to 
effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a 
book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, 



350 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world 
of value is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every 
man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed and 
as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, 
or creates. In this action it is genius; not the privilege of here and 
there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence 
it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the insti 
tution of any kind stop with some past utterance of genius. This is 
good, say they let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look 
backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of 
man are set in his forehead not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius 
creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not the pure 
efflux of the Deity is not his cinders and smoke there may be but 
not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, 
and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no 
custom or authority but springing spontaneous from the mind s own 
sense of good and fair. 

7. On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from 
another mind its truth though it were in torrents of light without 
periods of solitude, inquest, and self -recovery, and a fatal disservice 
is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over- 
influence. The literature of every nation bears me witness. The Eng 
lish dramatic poets have Shakcspearizcd now for two hundred years, 

8. Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly sub 
ordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. 
Books are for the scholar s idle times. When he can read God di 
rectly the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men s transcripts 
of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come 
they must when the sun is hid and the stars withdraw their shin 
ing we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray to 
guide our steps to the East again where the dawn is. We hear, that 
we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A fig tree, looking on a 
fig tree, becometh fruitful." 

9. It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the 
best books. They impress us with the conviction that one nature 
wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great 
English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most 
modern joy with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 351 

by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe 
mixed with the joy of our surprise when this poet, who lived in 
some past world two or three hundred years ago, says that which 
lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought 
and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical 
doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some pre- 
established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and 
some preparation of stores for their future wants like the fact ob 
served in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub 
they shall never see. 

10. I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration 
of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know that as the human 
body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and 
the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. 
And great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other 
information than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs 
a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. 
As the proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the 
Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then cre 
ative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced 
by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes 
luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly signifi 
cant and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We then 
see, what is always true, that as the seer s hour of vision is short and 
rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the 
least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or 
Shakespeare, only that least part only the authentic utterances of 
the oracle all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Pla 
to s and Shakespeare s. 

11. Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a 
wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious 
reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office 
to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim 
not to drill but to create; when they gather from far every ray of 
various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires, 
set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are 
natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns 
and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never 



352 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this and our 
American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they 
grow richer every year. 

12. ... Let [the scholar] not quit his belief that a popgun is a pop 
gun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be 
the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let 
him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neg 
lect, patient of reproach, and bide his own time happy enough if 
he can satisfy himself alone that this day he has seen something 
truly. Success treads on every right step. For the instinct is sure 
that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns 
that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has de 
scended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mas 
tered any law in his private thoughts is master to that extent of all 
men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his 
own can be translated. 



ANALYSIS 

1. What attitude toward books is the author here opposing? 

2. List the elements of truth which he concedes to this attitude. 

3. Is his argument for his own thesis everywhere convincing? 

4. Indicate the devices the author uses to amplify his paragraphs. Are they suc 
cessful? 

5. Compare this selection and Barrett s "Man s Moral Responsibility" both as con 
cessive patterns of argument and as pieces of organized thought. 

SIXTH PATTERN: Analogy 

ART CRITICISM FOR HUMAN BEINGS* 

Btj Dorothy Grafly 

i. TWENTY years ago when first I began to write for newspapers I 
was assigned to cover a certain learned institution in Philadelphia. 
It was my job to dig up stories that had popular appeal. The insti 
tution was so nearly dead that sections of it were being cut off al 
most annually from public view because it could not foot the bills 

* From Education (Vols. 63, 64), Some Aspects of Art Criticism by Dorothy 
Grafly. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 353 

for light and care. It needed desperately the sort of general interest 
that would bring people into its halls. 

2. I interviewed the learned heads of its various departments. What 
they told me might have had meaning in a scientific journal. Then, 
suddenly, we were discussing eels. Not eels in hermetically sealed 
glass cases, but eels in the rivers around Philadelphia; the habits of 
eels. And as the scholar warmed to his subject he told me about 
the love life of the eels. But he talked within the web of his own 
language. I translated it; jazzed it, if you will. It made news a 
good feature story. And for years I was persona non grata in that 
institution. 

3. Today that museum is one of the best publicized in the city. It is 
no longer afraid of meeting the public on its own ground, and I 
can t help feeling that the first germ of change might be traced back 
to that story on the love life of eels. 

4. What is true of biology is true, also, of art. Do you think for a 
minute that the great success of the Van Gogh exhibition was due 
to twaddle about Van Gogh s art? No. In great measure it came 
from canny publicity that was not afraid to use the story about Van 
Gogh s bloody ear, wrapped and delivered to a girl in a brothel. Dis 
gusting, you say. But it brought millions to see the exhibition, and 
once there the millions were faced with Van Gogh s art. They did 
not come because they had read a schoolman s treatise on the paint 
er s technique. They came because they were interested in Van 
Gogh as a human being. And it is the dramatization of the human 
aspect of art that is of real importance in breaking through public 
apathy. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Point out in the text where you first discover that the pattern here is analogy. 

2. The success of an analogy rests upon the closeness of the two things that are 
held up for extended comparison. 

a. Examine the parallel elements in the analogy here and attempt to discover 
how close together they are. 

b. Are there any significant differences which would make the analogy false? 

c. Does the analogy cover enough specific characteristics of each part? 

3. Explain how you think the use of the analogy here serves to clarify and 
strengthen the point the author wants to make. 



354 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ARE CHILDREN VEGETABLES?* 

By Wilson Follett 

i. THE HAYFIELDS are extensions of our lawn, or our lawn a theft 
from the hayfields, and from time to time a spear of timothy creeps 
in. Timothy, in the fertile manured fields hereabout, grows waist- 
high; in a wet season it will even attain the height of a tall man s 
shoulder. It is interesting to watch the spear in the lawn in its sum 
mer-long struggle for self realization. Clipped back as often as it 
gets a good start, the plant learns week by week to modify its aspi 
rations and, almost, its nature. A potential giant among grasses in 
early May, it is a pygmy by late July. Its first answer to the dis 
couraging environment is a frantic acceleration of growth; it is try 
ing desperately to achieve its natural stature in the negligible inter 
val between mowings. Thwarted again and again, it discovers that 
gigantism is getting it nowhere and gradually adopts a more modest 
aim. Taught and driven by its innate need, it seeks completion, per 
petuation, on a miniature scale, and by the first week of August it 
presents to the hostile blade a formation as complete and mature 
as that of its uninhibited cousins in the field a plant finished and 
perfect from root-crown to seed-spike, but rearing that triumphant 
spike scarcely an inch and a half above the ground. 

2. It has obeyed the law of its being; it has fulfilled itself after a 
fashion. 

3. As a father of very young children whose growth, development, 
and early education are matters of prime concern to me, I can 
never run a lawn mower over this small drama of adaptation with 
out seeing in my act a faithful analogy of what our civilization is 
perpetually doing to the minds of its young. The infant intelligence 
enters the world with an inherent capacity for growth of which no 
one has ever yet ascertained the limit; and we promptly set bounds 
to its growth arbitrary bounds of our own preconceiving. The 
young mind puts out new shoots of amazing health and vigor; and 
we forthwith clip them down. The mutilated organism, disillu 
sioned and sensing that it has a hostile environment to cope with, 

* From The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1938. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers and the author. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 355 

resorts for a while to freakish and frantic behaviors; witness the 
number of children hardly out of the teething stage who are dis 
traught, addled, peevish, almost impossible to interest, and incapa 
ble of amusing themselves except by experiments in deliberate mis 
chief. ( Some of them are still that way at twenty-five forty sixty. ) 
In the end the child unlearns its instinct of untrammeled growth, 
for it finds that there is no other way to self-adjustment, survival, 
or any growth whatsoever. It submits itself to the conditions im 
posed; it curtails its aspirations; it grows here a little and there a 
little, stealthily, when and as it can; and presently, with luck, it 
attains the mental shape, the structure, the development, but not 
the stature, of an adult human being. When we have got through 
the season of running our lawn mowers over it, it is complete and 
mature and a dwarf. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. State the main purpose of the selection. 

b. Is this purpose given in the text of the selection? Where? If not, how do 
you arrive at it? 

2. a. Where does the analogy first become evident? 

b. Why has the author chosen this particular kind of comparison? 

c. Is writing that uses this device more apt to be circuitous or direct in its ap 
proach to its main point? 

d. What is to be gained by such indirection? Is it gained in this article? 

3. a. Outline the parallel elements in each part of the analogy. 

b. How well do the parts parallel each other? 

c. Are there any important differences that might change the nature of the 
conclusion? What are they? 

4. a. Compare this article with Grafly, "Some Aspects of Art Criticism/ Which 
contains the longer, more exhaustive analogy? 

b. Which succeeds better, to your way of thinking? Why? 

5. a. Make a study of sentence patterns in the last paragraph of this article. Point 
out dominant ways of working subordinate material into the sentences. 

b. What can you discover about sentence length and its relation to clarity of 
idea? 



356 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ITALIAN NOTEBOOK: 1938* 
By Hamilton Basso 

YESTERDAY we rode in the automotrice from Florence to Siena. 
An automotrice is a sort of combination daycoach and motorbus 
that runs on tracks. This particular one was crowded, and since the 
day was wet and windy, all the windows were tightly shut. We all 
sat in a noisy chattering steamy intimacy, the two foreigners stared 
and stared at, a salesmany-looking man nodding on the seat facing 
us and beside him a little girl of eleven or twelve holding her 
schoolbag, very grave and beautiful, with enormous sea-green eyes. 

This being a local automotrice, we stopped at every station: and 
if you are merely seeking the sinister in Italy, you can go to the first 
railroad station, take one good look at the military sentries who are 
always there, and go back home. The first time I saw these sentries, 
in Genoa, I got my first chill from this regime: and not just because 
they looked like old playmates of Dutch Schultz either. No, it was 
simply that they were there: booted, belted, revolvers slung over 
their shoulders, the skirts of their green overcoats flaring. 

Why are these sentries at every railroad station? The principal 
reason, though I am leaving out a lot of complications, is because 
even Italians, traveling in Italy, must have a card of identification 
similar to a passport: and if they haven t well, that s one case 
where the military comes in. 

I am not building up, however, to any dramatic climax. No one s 
papers were found to be out of order, no one was brutally treated, 
no one was discovered as a spy. All that happened was that three 
of the military got on the automotrice at a little country station to 
ride the rest of the way to Siena. They got on and the car started 
and the little girl looked at them with her grave and beautiful eyes 
and then, very suddenly, five or six men began hailing the soldiers 
as though they were their brothers who had not been home in 
years and years. I watched them, wishing I could understand all 
they said, the few words and phrases I caught being like a hole in 
a circus tent, just enough to make you want to hear and see more, 

* From The New Republic, June 15, 1939. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 357 

recalling the stressed politeness, the almost servile but smiling def 
erence, that the military and particularly the officers of the military, 
are accorded all over Italy: and then, stubbornly refusing to accept 
the handy idea of brute force, of crushing suppression and noth 
ing else, seeking for some point of reference in my previous experi 
ence, I remembered the "Elysian Fields." 

5. The "Elysian Fields" was a gang of boys in New Orleans who 
took their name from a street in our neighborhood. For "Elysian 
Fields," I said to myself, substitute "Fascism." And in place of Tick 
Mcagan Tick being the leader of the "Elysian Fields" - put the 
title II Duce. It is not an exact analogy, no analogy ever is, but it 
is more helpful in trying to tell what it is like in Italy than all the 
empty and hackneyed propaganda words. 

6. The "Elysian Fields," and they were nobody s sissies either, con 
trolled a certain neighborhood. Here that neighborhood becomes 
all of Italy. If you belonged to the "Elysian Fields," as I did not, 
you had certain rights and privileges: just like the military and 
the bureaucracy here. The boys in the gang, to identify themselves, 
used to print an EF in a circle on their forearms. In Italy that en 
circled EF has been glorified into the whole dazzling array of Fas 
cist uniforms. 

7. The "Elysian Fields," also, and this is what I would stress, were 
the pride, the enormous irrational ridiculous pride, of practically 
all the kids in the neighborhood. These kids had to pay tribute to 
get across the railroad tracks to school, a nickel a week or else; 
they had to divide their lunches whenever the "Elysian Fields" felt 
unusually hungry, often going without any lunch at all; they had 
to take long devious detours to avoid meeting some member of the 
gang who was "looking" for them they had to do all these things 
and others, and yet, despite this "brutal domination," they were as 
proud of the "Elysian Fields" as if they were in the gang them 
selves. 

8. This is why. 

9. The "Elysian Fields" was the gang of "our" neighborhood. When 
ever it emerged victorious from a rock-fight, driving off the "Irish 
Channels" or the "Basin Blues," all the other kids, the "exploited 
and oppressed" ones, gained a sort of vicarious triumph. "Our" 
gang had won. There would always be a celebration on the wharves 



358 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

after one of these victories, the "Elysian Fields" hailed as heroes, 
all full of boasting and bragging, and it was always the non-gang 
kids who did most of the celebrating: even though one of them in 
variably got bashed for popping off his mouth too much. 

10. The "Elysian Fields," too, had a large number of hangers-on: 
practically all the kids in the school. The young ones (in Italy they 
call them the Sons of the Wolf) used to hang around the boys in 
the gang in wonder and awe and admiration, hoping that some day 
they too would belong to the gang. The few independent spirits, 
and there were a few, had a very unhappy time of it. 

11. It is not, as I have said, exactly an analogy, for the "Elysian 
Fields" never indulged in murder or imprisonment, but that is 
something of the way it is like in Italy. This regime has turned most 
of the Italian people, a people of charm and warmth who are the 
direct inheritors of much that is finest in our history, into the camp 
followers of a tough and ruthless gang. I have no doubt that they 
grumble, I know full well that they do, but most of them, while 
grumbling, are proud of the gang as well. The ones * who are not 
proud, the men of independent spirit, are nowhere to be found. 
They are silent or not alive. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Where does the analogy start? What introduces it and why is the introduction 
important for the clarity of the analogy? 

2. How closely related are the two elements of the analogy, the situation as the 
author sees it in Italy and the "Elysian Fields"? 

3. What exactly does the author accomplish by the use of the analogy? 

a. Is it mere mental clarification of the situation; is it understanding; is it an 
emotional awareness of tilings in Italy as Basso sees them? How can you tell? 

4. Indicate the parallels that exist between the two main elements that make up 
the analogy. 

5. Explain the purpose of the last paragraph in strengthening the analogy. 

6. The two preceding selections begin with an analogy that does not directly 
carry the thesis; that is to say, the two selections are not concerned primarily 
with biology or timothy. 

a. How does the structure differ here? Can you say that one way is more ef 
fective than the other way? 

7. Note the very short Paragraph 8. Wliy is this device effective? Do you ever 
use it in your own writing? 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 359 

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF ADVERTISING ART* 
By Paul Parker 

I 

1. THE MEN and women who illustrate advertisements have to con 
vey to us a clear and immediate effect. There must be no undue 
complexity in the pattern of their pictures, no perplexing "atmos 
pheric" effects; and they must run no risk of confusing us by por 
traying individual men and women when clearly recognizable 
types will convey an instant meaning to us. Everything must help 
us to classify at once what we see. 

2. Hence the sexes are carefully distinguished in advertising art. 
The males can be reduced to the blocking-in method of figure con 
struction with angular heads, wide shoulders, triangular torsos nar 
rowing to the hips. Women, on the other hand, can be reduced 
to ovals. Everything is expressed in curves the head, the breasts, 
the hips, the abdomen, the legs, the buttocks. Hence too there are 
clear-cut distinctions among various types within each sex. Men 
fall quite easily into economic and occupational groups the la 
borer, the salesman, the merchant, the scientist, the man-about- 
town, and so on. Each has his own special attributes, just as in 
evitably as do the figures in Christian or pagan religious art. They 
lend themselves to study as iconographic types : as the images which 
people the advertisers ideal world a best possible world of ma 
terial things. 

3. Consider the Scientist. He is grave, efficient, deliberate, unlikely 
to be swayed by carnal passions. He is shown at his work desk 
looking through a microscope or inspecting a test tube or some 
curious mechanism. All about him is a medley of retorts, bunsen 
burners, and carboys of magical ingredients in fact, all the at 
tributes of the scientific passion. He may be shown alone, or with 
disciples of only slightly less probity. This subject is so common 
that one is tempted to believe it would lack any appeal. But it is 
common because it personifies Faith, and Faith is, apparently, a 
universal necessity. This modern savior, the embodiment of the 
shibboleth of Science, is the court of appeal of the advertiser. Proof, 
* From Harper s Magazine, June, 1938. Reprinted by permission of the author. 



360 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

in advertising, only too often consists of the significant words: 
"Modern Science tells us . . ." The Scientist is one of the few 
characters in the advertising pantheon who never smiles. He is felt 
to be even above humor. In this modern day He is the Man Who 
Knows. He is the magician who makes the ideal world created by 
advertising possible. 

4. Sometimes the disciples of the Modern Scientist are to be seen 
in their tasks of carrying out His Mission. They arc common in 
automobile advertising. They may carry the voice of authority, 
or again the humblest workman may bring forth His ideals to the 
world. Whether high or low, the disciples still do not smile. They 
too are deadly serious, their faces lined with care. 

5. Since most people have more acquaintance with the medical 
than the engineering profession, it is necessary to humanize the 
doctor. His is rather the role of the Saviour at the Feast of Cana. 
He is still remote, but he speaks directly to us. He is often shown 
as talking, and if he smiles it is with the proper reserve and dig 
nity. The Vienna doctors of certain advertising campaigns wore 
beards, but there seemed to be something faintly ridiculous about 
giving a beard to an American doctor, so now he is mtistached. He 
is of course middle-aged. And just as the Scientist, by an anthropo 
morphizing process, becomes also Science, so the doctor is also 
Medicine. 

6. The dentist is of a lowlier station than the M.D. The latter can 
talk learnedly on all things from vitamins to cigarettes: his domain 
properly includes teeth as well. But the dentist talks only for his 
own profession. As one who is not quite so omniscient, he is shown 
as much younger and more handsome, a sort of Philip among the 
faithful. He is calculated to impress women with his soul as well 
as his tact. His face is entirely hairless. His attributes are his white 
jacket and his mirror. 

7. To descend from Olympus, we may consider two common types 
the salesman and the businessman, or buyer. The buyer may or 
may not have a mustache, but the salesman (like the dentist) never 
does sales manuals warn against the mustache because it dis 
tracts attention from the message. The salesman stands (Talk on 
your Feet!) and leans forward (Project your Personality, Look 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 361 

your Man in the Eye!). The buyer is interested but not too eager, 
attentive but not ingenuous. He personifies the solidity of big 
business, just as the salesman, a kind of Hermes, portrays the ro 
mance and adventure. But as though this were not enough to dis 
tinguish between the two types ( and from an advertising standpoint 
it is not), attributes are present to clear up any possible doubt; or 
rather, to make identification immediate as well as complete. The 
salesman has a brief case or demonstration portfolio, and the busi 
nessman has a telephone and desk. Thus the mobility of the one 
and the stability of the other are suggested. 

8. It may seem like splitting hairs to draw a distinction between 
attributes and environment, but the distinction is fundamental and 
necessary. If the commercial artist were interested in verism he 
could sketch a background of a saloon with two gentlemen sitting 
at the bar engaged in imbibing tall drinks; or the setting could 
be a golf course or a night club or any other place where business 
is transacted. In any other than the office setting, however, the 
environment would be a distraction. The setting is ordinarily of no 
importance except in the broad sense that it is an office and offers 
a proof that business is taking place. 

9. (If, however, the advertiser were selling office equipment and 
wished to prove how important it is that the businessman s pos 
sessions should impress the casual visitor, the figures would be 
shoved back somewhat in the composition so that they would not 
have such heroic proportions, and every detail in the room would 
be polished.) 

10. As for industrial types, note that while a workman may be shaved 
and wear clean overalls, he is shown with his attributes a pick 
and shovel, a machine beside him, or some special uniform. He is 
never identified, that is to say, by purely artistic means he is one 
particular kind of laborer, the kind you would have confidence in, 
and not a conception of the laboring man in general. A most com 
mon type of workman is the filling-station attendant, identifiable by 
his cap or badge. He is always young, but his inexperience is more 
than balanced by an intelligent servility. He looks like a college 
man from one of the better fraternities. He is an anthropomorphic 
conception of the oil business in general and of Service in par- 



362 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ticular. Since most gasolines are about equal in magical properties, 
it is some gain if gasoline is sold by the promise of better wind 
shield-wiping and rest-room facilities in an ideal world of fast travel. 

11. An apparent exception to male iconographic types is the man- 
about-town, who often proves himself to be such precisely because 
there is no definite series of attributes associated with him, but 
rather luxury objects in general. Or more subtly, no attributes are 
shown at all. There is nothing quite as swanky as the Esquire-like 
portrait of a man doing nothing. He is independent of occupational 
and social obligations. His is the most conspicuous consumption, 
time. One feels sure that the salesman would be lost without his 
brief case, that it accompanies him everywhere, that it is associated 
with all his social as well as his business activity. But when a man 
of dignified unemployment, of the conspicuous leisure class, is 
shown with, let us say, a dog and a gun, we realize that this tem 
porary flurry of activity will be superseded on the morrow by sail 
ing, fishing, or drinking in his club, or best of all by doing 
nothing. 

II 

12. Women in advertising art are not divided into as many types 
as the men because of the onerous task of the artist to make 
women young and beautiful. I recall an art director s instructions 
to a friend of mine regarding a dry brush drawing. The scene 
was to be a kitchen, with the housewife taking a roast from a hot 
oven, and the husband just coming through the door. The only 
difficulty was the housewife. "Make her a sort of rural type," said 
the art director. "This is for a Kansas City paper, some power com 
pany. But put a little class in her dress. Make her look tired, but 
young and with some sex appeal. Don t make her an ingenue, but 
maybe a young mother with two or three kids. Not matronly, 
though. Say about twenty-five. No, that s too old. Say about twenty- 
four." 

13. As in English fiction, where the hero is thirty-five and the heroine 
a maximum of twenty-four, we find that the women of advertising 
art are twenty-four or younger until they are fifty. 

14. As a tribute to her emancipation, a woman is almost never por 
trayed in a laboring or menial occupation. Domestic servants are 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 363 

butlers or Negroes; if a maid is shown she is very superior and 
French, not American. Men in offices or stores may be thought of 
as white collar workers; but the girls working in stores, offices, or 
beauty parlors are "in the business profession." The stenographer, 
by the definition of the copywriter, is a secretary; the alchemy of 
the commercial artist makes the cognomen seem almost reasonable. 
A "professional woman" such as these represents the lowest pos 
sible economic level of the fair sex as the advertisers view it. She 
looks as though she made at least sixty dollars a week. Her presence 
in advertising is determined by the exigencies of the advertiser, 
who may wish to bring pressure to bear on a purchasing agent by 
appealing to his employees, just as the breakfast-food manufac 
turers appeal to the children. The professional girl is well turned 
out and is an example of the peculiar ability of artists, whether in 
advertising or Hollywood, to combine in one person such binary 
pairs as femininity and efficiency, affection and independence, vir 
ginity and sophistication. She goes into ecstasy, however, only over 
the latest gadgets on a typewriter or the magical ingredients of a 
bond paper which will in turn perform magic for the company 
purchasing it. One is made to understand that she is not in business 
to make money as much as to be, somewhat vaguely, in a profes 
sion thus is the stigma of money-grubbing erased in the ideal 
world created by advertising. 

15. A unique variation of the professional-girl type is to be seen in 
the nurse. She is more the Neysa McMein than the McClelland 
Barclay pretty girl, with a wide face, high cheekbones, and dark 
hair. She is young but competent, and being toward the buxom 
rather than the petite side, is felt to be "of good stock." Although 
her lips are curved in a slow smile, the smile is never pronounced 
enough to show the teeth; it expresses a knowledge of tragedy and 
suffering which could have been so easily avoided had the patient 
only tried the right medicament. 

16. Inasmuch as the nurse can represent the hospitalization phase of 
the medical profession, and because her cap makes a quickly iden 
tifiable attribute, she often appears only as a symbol. It is not 
necessary to illustrate her in an action pose or demonstrating some 
gadget or cure a head-and-shoulders portrait may be sufficient 
to imply the magical virtues of the product. She is of course by 



364 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

way of being an acolyte to the medical profession, and in some 
cases to the Modern Scientist. But she has sufficient potency in her 
own right to appear occasionally as the votaress of sanitary prepara 
tions and proprietaries. 

17. Of the same age is the debutante type, so useful for cigarettes 
and cosmetics. She always smiles except in those rare instances 
when she has to "wonder." She may be with or without attributes 
for, like the man-about-town, she toils not. She varies from the 
demure, high-school-heartbreak type of True Story all the way to 
the brittle sophistication of Vogue. The Vogue debutantes have a 
way of denying their wiles; in a masterly fashion the wiles are 
advertised by conscious omission. But the composite picture of the 
debutante is the familiar pretty girl; if she wonders it is never for 
long. 

18. The only older woman (except the Vogue wife, who can be 
called thirty and can defend her seemingly untenable position by 
a recourse to displaying her material possessions) is the woman 
occasionally called on to play character bits on the advertising 
stage. 

19. But among the women of the advertising pages the most im 
portant of all is the housewife. She is twenty-four, married, has two 
children, is suburban, gadget-conscious. Her antecedents are doubt 
ful she could have graduated either from the "professional" or 
the debutante class. She has the "married look." As the buyer of 
the nation s food, household equipment, and clothing, she has been 
placed on a pedestal. She lives in a passionless Ladies Home 
Journal world; in the women s mass magazines one feels that her 
Joseph works at the office all day while she gracefully retires from 
the strife she renounced upon leaving the business profession or 
the fluffiness of her debutante years. She never perspires, she never 
has a Victorian dew on her upper lip. The cure for all physical 
torments comes to her in bottles and packages; her tranquillity is 
a result of the conquest of toil by the Modern Scientist. In fact, she 
is the patron saint of advertising. 

20. Sometimes she strikingly suggests the madonna of religious art 
as in certain insurance advertisements in which mother and child 
look wistfully off into space; the child, like a Christ-child of Man* 
tegna, has the prescience of an uncertain future. Considerable at- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 365 

tention is paid to the slender hands, the long type of head, the 
smooth brunette hair, the sober restraint. 

21. Children in advertising offer the advertiser the surest sort of 
approach to the emotions of his audience. There may be an in 
hibition against showing too close a parallel between mother-and- 
child pictures and religious prototypes, but the innocent babe can 
be portrayed in the Christ-child role with no fear of offending. In 
a recent tire advertisement, with a large photograph of a seated 
baby, the halo is not limited merely to the head; on the contrary, 
the entire body appears to give off an ectoplasmic emanation. He 
is gifted with a truly remarkable cognition: his upraised hand, in 
a gesture of blessing, indicates his understanding of the relation 
ship between his safeguarding and that of his parents with good 
automobile tires. A little child shall lead them. 

22. When children grow older they are presented in somewhat more 
earthy activities playing games, eating food, and the like. Yet they 
are capable nowadays of planning their life s course; of advising 
mother as to the proper breakfast food or even toilet paper. Chil 
dren receive these revelations not only from intuition or a divine 
status, but from reading advertising and hearing it over the radio. 
Thus their choices have an intellectual validity denied the children 
of a former generation. 

23. The family group scene of parents and children is presented in a 
quasi genre fashion, as in a Rubens Holy Family. The touch is usu 
ally quite folksy. Father is reading the paper or amusing the chil 
dren, mother is knitting, the children are romping on the floor. The 
props of the background prove the family to be average middle- 
class. It may be worth noting that the layout and typography with 
this kind of illustration tend to be symmetrical and conservative, 
thus expressing the traditional conservatism of the home-owning 
group. 

Ill 

24. There is a great deal more than an analogy between the iconog 
raphy of religious art and that of advertising art. Advertising art 
is, in fact, itself a religious art. It uses cliches, set subjects, and 
types, some of them innovations, some borrowed from other art 
forms - just as in Early Christian art Orpheus and the Good Shep- 



366 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

herd are taken from pagan art, and remolded to take their part in 
the church dogma. The new religion is of course the American 
Standard of Living. 

25, Advertising has done its job so well that it is difficult for the aver 
age person to believe that a materialistic ideal world has not always 
been the goal of people everywhere, in all classes, in all ages. But 
the most casual survey of cultural history will disclose that the pur 
suit of conspicuous consumption as an evidence of status to bor 
row Veblen s terminology has in the past been confined quite 
rigidly to the classes who could indulge the expenses incident to the 
pursuit, and that an ideal of bodily cleanliness to the point of fetish 
ism is new and uniquely American. In our superiority we cannot 
imagine how people could have walked casually from one place to 
another instead of speeding at a homicidal sixty miles an hour, or 
how people could have endured the body odors and dirty under 
wear of their husbands, wives, and friends. We are apt to forget 
that the possession of foibles would hardly seem essential to a so 
ciety which in the large was not only unacquainted Avith foibles as 
objects of adoration but also with foibles as a means of advance 
ment up the ladder. 

26. The part that advertising has played in spreading an emulative 
culture is difficult to overestimate. It has codified and written 
the gospel and painted the didactic pictures for the religion of 
the American Standard of Living. Just as we look at Gothic 
cathedrals, miniatures, and altarpieces to understand the medieval 
mind, so must we examine advertising art to come to any under 
standing of the materialistic phase, at least, of the modern Ameri 
can milieu. 

ANALYSIS 

1. a. What is the analogy here? What is compared to what? For what purpose? 

b. State the main point of the article in one sentence. 

c. Could the author have made his point without recourse to the analogy, or 
is it an essential part of the point? 

2. a. Precisely what do the areas compared have in common? Parallel item with 
item. 

b. Where does the author say that the comparison is significant? 

3. a. Does the author first explain one "wing** of his analogy and then the other, 
as the others of the preceding three selections have done, or does he allow the 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 367 

idea of die comparison to remain in the reader s mind as background? Why? 

To what effect? 

b. In which paragraphs does he make reference to religious iconography? 

4. a. Is the author especially concerned with making a comment on advertising 
art or upon American society? Give reasons for your answer. 

b. To the extent that he comments upon advertising art, is he apologizing for 
it or condemning it? How can you tell? 

c. Does the author slant his writing to create a favorable or unfavorable atti 
tude toward advertising in the mind of the reader? Hunt out evidence to back 
up your answer. 

5. The body of this article actually presents us with a classification. 

a. Where does the classification start? Where does it end? What are its major 
divisions? 

b. Is the classification complete? What purpose does it serve? 

c. How do you know that the paper has not been written just to make the 
classification? 

6. Using all four articles in this section as guides, formulate some general work 
ing principles for the use of analogy in writing. Where does the device seem 
best to succeed? 



SEVENTH PATTERN: Comparison 

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON TODAY* 

By James Truslow Adams 

I 

"WE HOLD these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal; that tbey are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." 

Jefferson 
"The People, your People, Sir, is a great Beast." 

Hamilton 

i. Rhetoric and sentimentalism have always appealed almost equally 
to the American people. "Waving the flag" and "sob stuff" are the 
two keys which unlock the hearts of our widest publics. It is not, 
therefore, perhaps wholly unfair to take the most rhetorical and 
emotional of the utterances of Jefferson and Hamilton with rela 
tion to their fundamental political philosophies to head this article. 
The complete divergence of the two men could be shown in many 

* From Our Business Civilization ( 1929), by James Truslow Adams. Reprinted 
by permission of Albert and Charles Boni, Inc. 



368 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

quotations more carefully worded, but would appear only the more 
clearly. That divergence was sharp-cut and complete. Their views 
as to the relation of the people at large to government were as far 
asunder as the poles. In examining the writings of both these states 
men, it has been borne in upon me that if, as Lincoln said, a nation 
cannot live half slave and half free, neither can it live half Hamilton 
and half Jefferson, especially when the two ingredients are mixed, 
as they now are, in the blurred mentalities of the same individuals. 

2. The two men themselves knew this well in their own lifetimes. 
Each fought valiantly for his own beliefs. Each felt that one or the 
other, and one philosophy or the other, must conquer. Neither be 
lieved that the two could lie down together, lion and lamb, in that 
curious and conglomerately furnished mental apartment, the Ameri 
can consciousness. That this has come to be the case merely shows 
for how little ideas really count in modern American political life, 
a life which is almost wholly emotional and financial rather than in 
tellectual. Ideas are supposed to be explosive. In America, appar 
ently, they are as harmless as "duds." Even the Civil War, our great 
est "moral" struggle, was largely a matter of emotion; and as for 
the last war, anyone who, like myself, was in a position to watch the 
manufacture of propaganda can say whether it was directed to the 
heart or to the head of the multitude. 

3. There are certain ways in which conflicting ideas may be held in 
the same community without hypocrisy. In every age, for example, 
there has been one set of beliefs for the learned, the cultivated, and 
the sophisticated, and another for the mob. The mob in the past 
was never educated, and even "the people" today, in spite of a smat 
tering of "book knowledge," are not educated in the same way that 
the cultivated and, in an uninvidious sense, the privileged classes 
are. Here and there one may find a case of a mechanic, a farmer, a 
saleslady, or what not who really uses his or her mind, but how rare 
the cases are I leave to anyone who is not afraid to come out and 
tell the truth as he has found it, speaking broadly. Merely reading 
a newspaper, even if not of the tabloid variety, or tucking away un 
related bits of information uncritically, is not thinking. Between the 
man who critically analyzes, compares, and thinks, and the one who 
merely reads, there is a great gulf fixed as to ideas. 

4. Such a case has always been common in religion, from the medi- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 369 

cine man or the Egyptian priest down to the Archbishop of Canter 
bury or a cardinal in Rome. The dogmas of the Christian religion, 
for example, as held by the two latter are quite different "ideas" 
from the same as held by a person who has had no philosophical 
training and who could not if he would, and would not if he could, 
undertake the course of study necessary to get the point of view of 
the bishop or the cardinal. In this sense, ideas which are so differ 
ent as to be almost, if not quite, contradictory may nevertheless live 
on side by side in the same society without hypocrisy. They may, in 
deed, be considered as expressions of the same idea merely attuned 
differently to be caught, as far as possible, by minds of different 
"pitch." 

5. Again, we may have ideals which apparently conflict with the 
practice of society, but they are ideals and, however far practice 
may fall short of attainment, there is no real conflict, because in fact 
a certain amount of effort, however slight and however sporadic, is 
made to attain them. The conflict is not between clashing ideas or 
ideals, but between ideal and practice. 

6. Once more, contradictory ideas may exist in the same society 
without hypocrisy if they are held by different individuals or parties 
who openly avow them and who either honestly agree to differ in 
peace or who struggle to get one or the other set of ideas accepted 
by all. 

7. But the odd thing about the contradictory Hamilton-Jefferson 
ideas is that they are not held by different social classes the one 
set of ideas as a sort of esoteric doctrine and the other publicly 
proclaimed nor are they any longer the platforms of two parties, 
as in the days when the two statesmen themselves fought honestly, 
courageously, and bitterly for them in the open. And I say this even 
though the portrait of Hamilton may adorn the walls of Republican 
clubs and that of Jefferson those of the Democratic ones. The pres 
ent situation is anomalous. 

8. Hamilton and Jefferson each had a fundamental premise. These 
were as utterly contradictory as two major premises could possibly 
be. From each of these respectively each of the men deduced his 
system of government with impeccable logic. Yet what of these men 
and their philosophies in our politics today? There is scarcely a poli 
tician of any party who would dare to preach Hamilton s main de- 



370 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ductions, while not a single one could be elected to any office if he 
did not preach Jefferson s premise. The Republicans claim to be fol 
lowers of Hamilton, yet they would not dare to preach Hamilton s 
most fundamental assumption, that on which his whole structure 
was based. The Democrats claim to be followers of Jefferson, yet 
they have departed far from some of his most important deductions. 
On the whole, I confess I think they show the greater intellectual 
integrity of the two parties, yet, so far, I have always voted Republi 
can, which is a sample of the intellectual muddle our politics are in. 

II 

9. Before going further, let us examine very briefly what the ideas 

of the two men were. 

10. Jefferson s fundamental idea, his major premise, was an utter trust 
in the morality, the integrity, the ability, and the political honesty of 
the common man of America, at least as America was then and as 
Jefferson hoped it would remain for centuries. He made this point 
again and again, and from it deduced his whole systpm. Based on 
that belief, he wrought out the doctrine that the only safety for the 
State depended on the widest possible extension of the franchise. 
"The influence over government must be shared among all the peo 
ple. If every individual which composes their mass participates in 
the ultimate authority, the government will be safe." "It is rarely 
that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely." "It has 
been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of 
suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people; but it would be 
more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such 
numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption." He 
dreaded the power of wealth, the growth of manufacturers, the de 
velopment of banks, the creation of a strong central government, a 
judiciary which was not elected and readily amenable to the will of 
the majority. He wished for as little government as possible, with 
few hampering restrictions on the individual expression of the citi 
zen. He was for free trade and universally diffused free education. 
He wished to preserve the state governments in all their vigor, 
which, at that time, meant practically independent and sovereign 
commonwealths. To the Federal government he would allot the 
most meager of functions, merely those dealing with foreign nations 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 371 

and concerning such acts in common as it would be impracticable 
for the states to perform individually. His ideal was "a wise and 
frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one an 
other, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits 
of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of 
labor the bread it has earned." "This," he added, "is the sum of good 
government." 

11. On the other hand, let us turn to Hamilton. The remark prefixed 
to this article, although made in a moment of vexation, expresses 
his attitude toward the common people, whom he never trusted. In 
his writings for the public, he had, of course, to be more discreet 
in his utterances, but his statements, and still more his acts, are clear 
enough. "Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed 
by? Their passions . . . One great error is that we suppose man 
kind more honest than they are." "It is a just observation that the 
people commonly intend the public good. This often applies to 
their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator 
who should pretend that they always reason right about the means 
of promoting it. ... When occasions present themselves, in which 
the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it 
is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the 
guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusions." 
"The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God: and, 
however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is 
not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom 
judge right or determine right." "Can a democratic Assembly, who 
annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to 
pursue the public good?" "The difference [between rich and poor] 
indeed consists not in the quantity, but kind of vices, which are in 
cident to the various classes; and here the advantage of character 
belongs to the wealthy. Their vices are probably more favorable to 
the prosperity of the State than those of the indigent, and partake 
less of moral depravity." "It is an unquestionable truth, that the 
body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. 
But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the dis 
cernment and stability necessary for systematic government." 

12. As a corollary from this fundamental assumption, Hamilton de 
voted all his great abilities to the development of as strong a central 



372 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

government as possible. He would remove power as completely as 
might be from the hands of the common people and place it in 
those who had inherited or acquired wealth and position. For this 
purpose he deliberately set about to tie the wealthy classes to gov 
ernment by his Funding Act, by the creation of manufactures, by a 
protective tariff, by the establishment of banks, and in other ways. 
He felt that human nature had always been the same and would not 
change. Public education did not interest him. His one interest was 
the establishment of a strong government in strong hands, and he 
evidently felt that a smattering of book knowledge, such as our peo 
ple even yet get in grade and high schools, would not alter their 
characters and make them safe depositories for political power. In 
fact, and this is an important point to note in his system, the de 
velopment of the industrial state would tend to make the people at 
large even less capable than in his day by creating, as it has done, 
a vast mass of mere wage earners, floating city dwellers, on the one 
hand, while it built up his wealthy class on the other. The great 
mass of the people, he reasoned, would always have tq be governed 
in any case, and the more powerful and influential the wealthy 
could be made, the stronger would they be for governing. Out of 
these simple assumptions, the banks, the vast "implied powers" of 
the central government, the funding of the national debt, the rise 
of a manufacturing industry, and the formation of a tariff designed 
not merely to protect infant industries but to create a dependence of 
wealth upon government favor, were developed as clearly and log 
ically as a theorem in Euclid. 

13. Thus, very briefly, and perhaps a trifle crudely, we have stated 
the real bases of Jeffcrsonianism and Hamiltonianism. Their whole 
systems of government sprang logically from their differing prem 
ises. Jefferson trusted the common man. Hamilton deeply distrusted 
him. That was a very clear-cut issue from 1790 to 1800, and both 
men, and the people themselves, recognized it as such. Stupendous 
consequences would follow from the success in practical politics at 
that time of either of those theories of human nature. For the first 
decade of our national life Hamilton beat Jefferson in practical poli 
tics, and in a very real sense created the United States as we know 
it today, a vast manufacturing nation with its Federal government 
eating up all the state governments like an Aaron s rod, with its 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 373 

trust and its money power and its Chinese wall of a protective 
tariff, and all the rest. There is no doubt of the strength of the pres 
ent government. There is no doubt of the support it derives from the 
wealthy classes. There is no doubt of the colossal success of the in 
dustrial experiment as a creator of wealth. 

14. The Republican Party may well look back to Hamilton as its High 
Priest, but the odd thing is that Hamilton created all this heritage 
of strength and power and banks and tariffs for a very simple rea 
son, and that reason the Republican Party would not dare to 
breathe aloud in any party convention, campaign, or speech. "The 
People, your People, Sir, is a great Beast." Imagine that as an ex 
ordium of a keynote speech to nominate Calvin Coolidge or Herbert 
Hoover. Hamilton deliberately set about to create special privileges 
for certain classes so that those classes would in turn support the 
government and control the people. What does the Republican 
Party do? It hangs on for dear life to all those special privileges, it 
preaches Hamilton s corollaries as the one pure political gospel, and 
then it steals Jefferson s major premise, and preaches the wisdom 
and the nobility and the political acumen of the common people! 
One feels like inquiring in the vernacular, with deep emotion, "How 
did you get that way?" As when watching a prestidigitator, one s 
jaw drops with amazement as the rabbit pops from the one hat we 
could not possibly have expected it from. 

15. On the other hand, how about the Democrats? They too preach 
Jefferson s major premise the wisdom, the ability, and the politi 
cal acumen of the common people. But what have they done with 
most of Jefferson s deductions? They certainly do not evince any 
strong desire to reduce the functions of government and bring it 
down to that "wise and frugal" affair their leader visioned. They are 
more inclined to increase government bureaus and supervision and 
interference with the affairs of the citizen. As to the tariff, they have 
capitulated completely and in the last campaign scarcely mentioned 
the dangerous topic, for fear of losing money and votes. They 
preach their founder s major premise and hurrah for the common 
people, but beyond that I cannot penetrate at all through the murky 
fog which hides all real political issues in the United States today. 
There is the vague sense of expectancy one has during the entr acte 
at the theater. There is nothing to see, but eventually the curtain 



374 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

will go up again. Meanwhile the sceneshifters are supposedly busy. 
I have an idea that before long the sceneshifters will not be our 
spineless politicians, but the Fates. 

Ill 

16. And now, lastly, let us consider one more curious thing about this 
preaching and living of Hamilton s conclusions illogically from Jef 
ferson s premise. 

17. Is that premise really valid today for either party? Would even 
Jefferson believe it to be? There is no telling what he would say if 
he came back, but it must be remembered that he did not believe 
in the common people always and under all circumstances. He drew 
a distinction many times between those living in the simple agricul 
tural America of his time and those in the crowded cities of Europe. 
In a long and interesting letter to John Adams, he wrote: "Before 
the establishment of the United States, nothing was known to 
history but the man of the old world, crowded within limits either 
small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which* that situation 
generates. A government adapted to such men would be one thing; 
but a very different one, that for the man of these States. Here every 
one may have land to labor for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring 
the exercise of any other industry, may exact from it such compensa 
tion as not only to afford comfortable subsistence, but wherewith 
to provide for a cessation from labor in old age. . . . Such men may 
safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome con 
trol over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which, in the 
hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly 
perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public 
and private." Again he says that our governments will surely be 
come corrupt when our conditions as to crowded cities shall have 
approximated those of the Europe of his day. 

18. Without here attempting to pass any judgment on the success of 
Hamilton s work in its human rather than its financial and govern 
mental aspects, we shall have to admit that it had brought about 
the very conditions which Jefferson dreaded and under which he 
feared that his common man would become corrupt and incapable 
of self-government. The tremendous demand for labor resulted in 
our importing by the millions those very canaille, in Jefferson s 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 375 

phrase people from the lowest classes of overcrowded Europe 
in whom he had no confidence whatever, whom he considered in 
capable of self-government. We have ourselves developed over 
crowded conditions. There are three times as many people in the 
metropolitan area of New York today as there were in the entire 
United States in Jefferson s day. Over fifty per cent of our popula 
tion now live in cities and are beginning, in the larger ones at least, 
to develop the vices of a city mentality. In fact the corruption is 
worse here than in Europe in many respects. London has a larger 
population than New York, yet it costs $180,000,000 a year to run 
that city and $525,000,000 to run New York. Even making all allow 
ances for difference in prices, there is no escaping a most unpleasant 
conclusion from those figures. 

19. Yet Jefferson claimed that if he was right in his assumption that 
the common man was honest, able, and capable of self-government, 
the governments most honestly and frugally conducted would be 
those nearest to him, the local rather than the Federal. Jefferson s 
whole philosophy was agrarian. It was based on the one population 
in the world he thought worthy of it a population of which ninety 
per cent were farmers, mostly owning their own homes. He hoped 
it would remain so for many hundreds of years and believed that it 
would. It did so for only a few decades. 

20. How long are we to go on preaching Jefferson and practicing 
Hamilton? Jefferson s philosophy develops from his premise and 
hangs together. So does Hamilton s. But the two do not mix at all, 
as both men recognized in deadly earnest. We have been trying to 
mix them ever since, oratorically at least. We practice Hamilton 
from January 1 to July 3 every year. On July 4 we hurrah like mad 
for Jefferson. The next day we quietly take up Hamilton again for the 
rest of the year as we go about our business. I do not care which 
philosophy a man adopts, but to preach one and to practice the 
other is hypocrisy, and hypocrisy in the long run poisons the soul. 

21. Personally I prefer Jefferson as a man to Hamilton. In this spirit 
I believe he was far more of an aristocrat than Hamilton ever was, 
with all his social pretensions. I prefer the America which Jefferson 
visualized and hoped for to that which Hamilton dreamed of and 
brought to pass on a scale he never could measure. On the other 
hand, I believe that the future will be, as the past has been, Hamil- 



376 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ton s. His hopes and Jefferson s fears have come true. The small 
farmer, the shopkeeper, the artisan are being more and more 
crowded out from the interest of a plutocratic government. A Ham- 
iltonian philosophy or government cares nothing for them as com 
pared with the large manufacturer and larger trust. 

22. If we want to know why they should not be helped or protected 
as well as corporations which can declare hundreds of per cent in 
stock dividends and then cash dividends on the stock dividends and 
so on ad infinitum, we must go back to Hamilton and the beginning 
of his system. I do not see now that any other system is possible. 
Perhaps some day we may secure a lowering of the tariff to less 
swinish levels and certain other reforms, but as a whole the system 
must stand. Jefferson s dream of a new and better world at last 
opened to men, with a whole continent at their back over which as 
freeholders they could slowly expand for ages, has passed. We have 
swallowed our heritage almost at a gulp. We have become as a na 
tion colossally rich. But if anyone thinks we have become more hon 
est or more capable of self-government, let him study the records. 

23. If we are to accept Hamilton s conclusions and system, why not 
be honest and accept, instead of Jefferson s, his own premise, the 
only real basis for his conclusions and, as he believed, the only real 
buttress for his system? That system was based upon the deep, hon 
est, and publicly avowed belief that the people could not govern 
themselves. That they do so, except to the extent of sometimes im 
peding action at a crisis, is, I believe, far less true than they 
believe, unpalatable as that remark may be. Of course, "public opin 
ion" has to be considered, but anyone who knows how public opin 
ion is manufactured can take that at its real value. Of course, again, 
there is a lot of bunkum talked, but that can also be taken at its 
real value. There are two passages in "Uncle" Joe Cannon s Auto 
biography that, taken together, are very amusing. In one of the 
chapters he describes how Mark Hanna had the nomination for 
President of the United States absolutely in his own hand. The sole 
choice "the people" had was to vote for or against Hanna s man. Yet 
Cannon ends his book by saying that America is ruled from the 
homes and the firesides! As for public opinion, it is far from always 
being salutary. I have good reason to believe that, had it not been 
for public opinion in the Middle West, Wilson would have entered 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 377 

the war long before he did; it would have ended far sooner; and the 
world would have been saved much of all that has happened since. 
Had it not been for public opinion, which really meant popular 
emotion, in about twenty countries after the Armistice, the men 
gathered at Paris to make the Peace Treaty would have been able 
to make a far more sensible one than they did. 

24. One last point. Hamilton believed in giving special privileges to 
certain classes so as to secure their adherence and support. That 
is understandable, arid is good Republican doctrine today. But those 
who did not get those privileges were to be kept as far as possible 
from any control of government. That may sound a bit cold 
blooded, but it also is logical and understandable. Jefferson believed 
in privileges for none and a voice in the government for all. Again, 
given his premise, that is a logical and understandable position. But 
where is the logic, and what will happen, when you give the power 
to all and still try to retain special privileges for some? For a while 
the patient may be kept quiet with strong doses of "hokum/ but 
some day we may find that the opposing views of the two statesmen 
of 1800 cannot be fused as innocuously as we have tried to fuse 
them. 

25. Hamilton and Jefferson. Honest men both, and bitterest of foes 
in a fight over premises and principles which they knew were fun 
damental. How amazed they would be could they return and find 
us preaching the one, practicing the other, and mixing their clear- 
cut positions together! Hamilton might be pleased to see the stu 
pendous growth of all he had dreamed, but would ask why, when 
all had gone so perfectly according to his plans, political power had 
been transferred to the people at large. Jefferson would say, why 
preach theoretically his fundamental assumption and then do all 
and more than his bitterest foe could do to nullify it practically? 
Both might say, hypocrites, or addlepates. 

26. Our apologetic answer for the last century might be democracy. 
The answer for the next century is hidden, but is deeply troubling 
the thoughtful or the wealthy of every nation except the prosperous 
class in America, which is too gorged with profits to think about 
anything 



378 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 



ANALYSIS 

1. a. State clearly the nature of the problem that the author proposes to handle in 
this article. Where does he state it? 

b. Does he give the reader any hint of his solution to the problem at the be 
ginning or does he there merely introduce the problem? 

2. a. Is the comparison a means to an end or an end in itself? That is, has the au 
thor written this article to make this comparison, or has he chosen this com 
parison as a means of getting across the idea that he wishes to communicate? 
b. Where do you first find evidence of the use of comparison? 

3. a. What is the job done by the section that begins with Paragraph 2 and ends 
with Paragraph 7? 

b. Can you find a topic sentence in Paragraph 2? 

C. The point made in the first sentence of Paragraph 3 controls the thought of 

how many paragraphs? What then is the topic sentence for Paragraph 3? Does 

it also control Paragraph 4? 

d. What is the function of Paragraph 7 in respect to this section? Characterize 

the kind of reasoning found in this section. 

4. How then does Paragraph 8 fit into the organization of the whole article? 

5. Note the author s use of the short transitional paragraph, as in Paragraphs 9 
and 16. How effective is this device? 

6. a. List the elements as they appear in the comparison. 

b. Is the comparison balanced are qualities and characteristics on one side bal 
anced with an equal number on the other side? 

7. Is the author primarily interested in pointing out similarities between Hamil 
ton and Jefferson, or differences? 

8. a. Does the author take sides here? 

b. Does he have a political, social, or economic belief that governs the choice 
of elements used here in the comparison? 

c. What is his point of view? How does it affect his conclusion? 

9. At what point does the author leave his comparison? Are there any paragraphs 
toward the end that pull the ideas back to comparison? 

10. Explain the differences between a pattern of analogy and a pattern of com 
parison, as organizational devices, in terms of this article and one of the arti 
cles in the section on analogy. 



AMERICA AND EUROPE 

YESTERDAY S INFLUENCE ON TODAY 

By Aldous Huxley 

A STUDY of the effect of the Past on the Present. Strange things 
(it may seem a paradox, but it is nevertheless the truth) are easier 

* Reprinted from The Century Magazine. Copyright, 1929, by The Century 
Company, by permission of D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 379 

to understand than those we know too well. The nearer, the more 
everyday and familiar an event is, the greater the difficulty we find 
in comprehending it or even realizing that it is an event that it 
actually takes place. Habit causes us to react automatically to the 
things which surround us. Confronted by the unknown, we are 
forced to think; hence our passionate dislike of unfamiliar things; 
but in the face of the known, we are hardly better than machines. 
When we live habitually, we function with the greatest practical 
efficiency, the least possible waste of energy; but we are scarcely 
more aware of the world in which we are living and acting than the 
automobile is aware of the landscape through which it is being 
driven. For the conscious, thinking part of us, habit abolishes the 
environment by making it too familiar. We must make a great 
mental effort if we would analyze and comprehend the things 
we take for granted. The people who do not take for granted, who 
are not content merely to live in the familiar world, but want to 
understand it too, are called philosophers and men of science. They 
are not numerous. Most of us are content to live in our im 
mediate surroundings as fishes live in water, taking it for 
granted that our particular mode of existence is the only possible 
mode, and so completely familiar with the element which we in 
habit, that we are not conscious of its nature and hardly, even, of its 
bare existence. 

2 To travel is to change one s element. Passing from a liquid into a 
windy world, the most unscientifically minded of fish is suddenly 
enabled to criticize and comprehend the water which, as an in 
habitant, it had ignored. And the traveler discovers in foreign coun 
tries many obvious facts about his own facts which he had over 
looked while at home, because they were too close to him. Thus, it 
was while journeying in India that I came to understand the in 
ward nature of our European civilization. Talking with Orientals 
whose mentality was prescientific, I realized, as never before, the 
significance of that scientific outlook which has become the world- 
view of the contemporary West. And it was in America in the 
country which, for all practical purposes, has no history that I dis 
covered the importance to us Europeans of our past and the extent 
to which (though we may be quite unaware of it) it influences our 
thoughts and actions in the present. 



380 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

In externals, life on one side of the Atlantic looks very much like 
life on the other. Western Europe is as completely and intensively 
industrialized as America. Huge populations of propertyless wage 
earners inhabit the cities of each continent. In both, business is the 
principal occupation of the better educated classes, and the great 
industrialists and financiers wield almost, if not quite, as much polit 
ical power in England, France and Germany, as they do in the 
United States. True, there is one important difference. America, be 
ing a very large and opulent continent inhabited by a relatively very 
small population, is much richer than Europe; there is still, in Amer 
ica, more than enough to go round. Europe, on the other hand, is 
overcrowded, as America will begin to be some hundred years hence 
when the present population has doubled or trebled itself. Prosper 
ity creates self-satisfaction and optimism; and contemporary Amer 
ica is as full of these spiritual commodities as was middle-class Eng 
land in the palmy clays of her industrial supremacy, between 1840 
and 1900. But though the level of prosperity is lower in Europe than 
in America, the courses of European wealth, such as it is, are the 
same as those of American wealth, and the externals of life in the 
great industrial and commercial centers of both continents are very 
similar. And yet, in spite of this external similarity, Europe and 
America remain profoundly foreign to one another. The European s 
outlook, his standards, his point of view are, in many important re 
spects, quite unlike the American s. So much so, that an Englishman 
will often find it easier to understand the mentality of an Austrian 
or a Frenchman than that of an American. The American, it is true, 
speaks his language; but the Frenchman and the Austrian are Euro 
peans and, inhabiting the same continent, share the Englishman s 
historical background. Their views about man and things will be 
closer to his than those of the American, who comes from a country 
that has not known the Middle Ages. St. Francis of Assisi and the 
Holy Roman Empire, Scholastic Philosophy, the Guilds, the Feudal 
System seem remote enough. Nevertheless they continue to exercise 
their influence on modern Europe. A visit to America makes one 
realize how great that influence is, how profoundly our contem 
porary ideas about many of the most important aspects of social life 
are modified by the past. I propose in this article to give one or two 
of the most striking examples of the way in which history has con- 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 381 

ditioned the European point of view, making it different from the 
American. 

4. Business being the main activity of the educated classes in both 
continents, one would expect the attitude toward it to be the same 
in Europe as in America. And yet, for purely historical reasons, it is 
not. In America it is true to say business is accepted wholeheartedly 
as an end in itself, to which the highest activities of the best men 
can be worthily devoted. I have read pronouncements by American 
clergymen who affirmed, in so many words, that "Business is Re 
ligion." And it has become a commonplace of the modern American 
sermon, newspaper article and advertisement that the businessman 
is doing service of the highest kind. "Service" is the modern Ameri 
can businessman s favorite word. It was also one of the favorite 
words of the Founder of Christianity and of his most remarkable 
medieval disciple, St. Francis of Assisi. But the same word does not 
always mean the same thing. When we demand the precise signifi 
cation of the eminently Christian word "service," as used by success 
ful businessmen, we find that it means roughly this: Selling the 
public what it wants ( or what it can be persuaded by means of ad 
vertising to imagine it wants ) in an efficient way and with the maxi 
mum profit compatible with legal standards of honesty. Would 
Christ or St. Francis have defined it in the same way? One wonders. 
In any case, that is the definition of "service" current in business 
circles. The word hallows the thing. The aura of service shines 
round the American businessman like a halo. 

5. In Europe the businessman finds it more difficult to persuade his 
fellows that his is a noble existence of perpetual service and he 
himself the highest of human types. For Europe is still haunted, in 
spite of all the changes of the last seven hundred years by the ghost 
of the medieval tradition. In the eyes of the medieval church, ava 
rice or the love of money, was one of the deadly sins. Nor was the 
church satisfied with deploring abstractly and on principle the ac 
tivities of those who tried to get rich quick. Religious condemnation 
was reflected in legal practice by a host of enactments limiting and 
controlling the activities of financiers, manufacturers and middle 
men. Interest, when it was permitted at all, might not exceed a cer 
tain moderate rate; speculative profits were regarded as illegal; 
monopolists were prosecuted on earth as well as condemned to 



382 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

eternal torments in another world; the man who made a "corner" in 
necessary commodities was not only damned, but fined also and im 
prisoned. The medieval state, which was for all practical purposes 
a manifestation of the medieval church, thought it a part of its 
duty to curb men s lust for money, just as it curbed and regulated 
their sexual instincts and their passions of violence and revenge. 

6. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the churches had 
ceased to regard economics as a province of human activity in 
which they were entitled to interfere. But their previous protests 
against avarice remained on record, and the tradition that they had 
once interfered in economic matters still lingered, even though they 
interfered no longer. States shortly followed the example of the 
churches and left their subjects to settle their economic problems 
among themselves with what appalling results any student of the 
early history of industrialism is familiar. The political economists 
of the new generation did not condemn the lust for money, as their 
religiously minded predecessors had done, and instead of trying to 
control and regulate it, demanded that it should be allowed to ex 
press itself freely, without interference by religion or law. For the 
economist, avarice is simply the motive power that works the eco 
nomic machine, in precisely the same way that water is the motive 
power that works the mill. The faster the mill wheel turns, the bet 
ter. If the flow of water is interfered with, the wheel will turn more 
slowly. Therefore there must be no interference. The modern state 
accepts this conception with but few modifications, interfering only 
to prevent the weak from being too brutally exploited by avaricious 
employers and the consuming public from being too unconscionably 
swindled by avaricious producers and middlemen. It continues, like 
its medieval predecessor, to condemn the intemperate manifesta 
tions of sexuality and rage, but leaves the avaricious man almost 
entirely free to satisfy his lust for money and even rewards him, 
when successful and rich, with honors and political power. 

7. This state of things holds good on both sides of the Atlantic. But 
whereas it would be true to say that, in America, the attitude of the 
economists and of the state is substantially the attitude of the public 
at large, in Europe, on the contrary, public opinion is not quite so 
wholeheartedly convinced of the moral excellence of business and 
businessmen. The influence of the Middle Ages still faintly persists 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 383 

in the Old World. It is now exactly seven hundred years since St. 
Francis of Assisi sang the praises of the Lady Poverty and devoted 
himself to her service. But something of his spirit survives even to 
day, so that industrialism and business, though triumphant in fact, 
do not in Europe receive the homage to which their predominance 
seems to entitle them. They rule the external world, but not men s 
minds. Poverty, particularly if it is poverty for the sake of some idea, 
is still rather respectable in Europe and the enriched businessman 
is not looked up to as the highest type of citizen. Indeed, the aristo 
cratic tradition unites itself with the religious tradition of the Mid 
dle Ages and causes him actually to be disparaged and looked down 
upon, even while he is envied and obeyed. Of the aristocratic tradi 
tion I shall have more to say later. Meanwhile, I should like to point 
out another result of the medieval ethico-religious tradition. Europe 
is notoriously far more tolerant of the class of ideas labeled "social 
istic" than is America, where they are looked upon with horror, as 
positively criminal. The rich European businessman probably ob 
jects to socialism quite as strongly as does his brother on the op 
posite side of the Atlantic; but public opinion at large is not so 
violently opposed to it as it is in America. Indeed, the ideas of so 
cialism seem familiar and almost obvious to minds on which the 
religious teaching of the Middle Ages still exerts a certain influence. 
Politically, medieval Europe was a collection of despotisms, large 
and small. But its economic system, based on the assumption that 
the love of money is a sin which must be repressed and controlled 
like any other undesirable natural proclivity, bore a close resem 
blance to modern state socialism. Human beings are only fright 
ened by the things they do not know. Obscurely and almost un 
consciously, the European is familiar with the ideas of socialism, 
because they are to a great extent implicit in the religious beliefs 
(still predominantly medieval ) with which he has been brought up. 
The American public, cut off from the Middle Ages and unfamiliar 
with these ideas, finds them stupid, wicked and worthy of violent 
suppression. 

8. Another heritage from the Middle Ages a heritage which con 
ditions the modern European outlook and makes it different from 
the American is the tradition of aristocracy. Hereditary aristoc 
racies have ceased in almost all European countries to possess spe- 



384 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

cial privileges and exercise special political powers. In England, it 
is true, the Second Chamber still consists of hereditary peers. Cer 
tain political theorists object to these legislators, whose only qualifi 
cation to be law-givers is that they happen to have been born with 
a title. Theoretically, they may be objectionable: but I cannot see 
that they do their business any worse than an assembly consisting 
of an equal number of men chosen at random, as a jury, would do 
it. And as a democrat, I for one would always prefer the present 
House of Lords to any specially elected or nominated assembly of 
financiers, industrialists, retired colonial governors, superannuated 
experts in various branches of applied science and so forth, whose 
training and habits of mind would tend to make them far more 
meddlesome and tyrannous than the sporting country gentlemen 
who form the majority of the English Second Chamber today. But 
that is by the way. The English aristocracy still possesses political 
power, but vastly less than it did; and its special privileges have 
long since been abolished. It is no longer an oppressive ruling class. 
The same applies to other parts of Europe. In all countries the her 
editary aristocracy is only the ghost of what it was. And yet its in 
fluence on contemporary social life and on current ideas is still im 
portant. How important, a European only realizes when he has 
visited a country which has not known the Middle Ages and where 
the idea of hereditary aristocracy is not only foreign but even tradi 
tionally odious. 

In a country where there is no hereditary aristocracy the leaders 
of society are the rich. This is not the case in countries where aris 
tocracy survives as a social and political institution or even as a 
mere tradition. Wealth, it is true, can almost always force its way 
into an aristocratic clique; but in no circumstances is it equivalent 
to aristocracy. Wealth as such does not carry, in an aristocratic 
country, the prestige which belongs to it in a society founded on a 
different principle. Money, in an aristocratically organized society, 
can command and control men s actions (as it does in other so 
cieties), but not their thoughts; one cannot buy the respect which 
an ancient name evokes in the minds of those who have been 
brought up in the aristocratic tradition, nor its romantic glamour. 
The enriched businessman may buy his way into the exclusive world 
of hereditary aristocracy; but he will be secretly, or even openly, 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 385 

looked down upon by those whose company he frequents. Com 
merce was regarded as degrading in the Middle Ages; an aristocrat 
did not buy and sell. The tradition dies hard. 

10. Snobbery for snobbery, there is not much to choose between a 
snobbery whose object is the titled and a snobbery which adores the 
very rich. They are equally comic. But snobbery is not the only fruit 
of traditional aristocracy. It has other by-products of a much more 
interesting nature. The most important of these by-products is the 
more or less complete indifference to public opinion which char 
acterizes the members of a hereditary aristocracy. It is obvious that, 
if you are born with a certain acknowledged social superiority, 
which is independent of material circumstances (for a poor aristo 
crat is still an aristocrat ) and of which nothing can deprive you, you 
need not feel preoccupied about public opinion. "What will the 
neighbors say?" You do not care two pins what they say. What they 
say can do nothing to damage your position, which you hold by 
something approaching a divine right. This indifference to public 
opinion is the cause, among those who feel it, of a good deal of 
stupid and uncontrolled behavior. Liberty easily turns to license; it 
takes a strong man to be free with dignity. Rich and foolish young 
men who happen to be hereditary aristocrats probably behave worse, 
on the average, than rich and foolish young men whose fathers were 
manufacturers or bankers. If the aristocratic indifference to public 
opinion resulted only in this, it would hardly be worth talking 
about. But not all aristocrats are foolish. A strong and intelligent 
man who feels himself to be above public opinion will not behave 
badly; he will behave independently, doing what he thinks right 
and rational, regardless of the prejudices of the crowd. Among the 
European aristocracies there is always to be found a good supply 
of unyielding independent characters, whose eccentricity, fostered 
by their sense of superiority, can sometimes attain almost to the 
pitch of madness. 

11. In our too completely standardized world a leavening of strong- 
minded eccentrics is a most desirable thing; the tradition of hered 
itary aristocracy produces them almost automatically. The eccentric 
aristocrat does good by his example. Careless of public opinion him 
self, he gives to eccentricity a certain respectability which it cannot 
possess in countries where public opinion rules every class of so- 



386 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

ciety, even the richest, and where all departures from the average 
are looked on with grave suspicion. Moreover, aristocracies have al 
ways been the patrons of the arts and letters, even to a certain extent 
of the sciences. To play with new ideas has been one of the tradi 
tional sports, along with hunting and love-making, of the more in 
telligent of European aristocrats. They have protected otherwise de 
fenseless innovators coming from the lower strata of society and 
have shielded them with their prestige and power from the rage of 
the ignorant and therefore conservative mob, to which all novelty, 
every attempt to change established prejudices, is abhorrent. Per 
sonal liberty the liberty of every man to act and think, within 
reasonable limits, as he likes is undoubtedly greater in Europe 
than in America, where "liberty" means the liberty of the majority 
to impose its will on the minority and to make compulsory by law 
and, still more, by the force of public opinion, a general uniformity 
of habits, customs and beliefs. Legal and nonlegal interference in 
the private lives of individuals has gone to extraordinary lengths in 
America! In many parts of the United States unfamilfar, and there 
fore unpopular, ideas are persecuted with violence. People who 
hold unpopular beliefs and whose habits of life are different from 
those of the majority enjoy in Europe a degree of freedom which 
would never be accorded them in most of the states of America. 
This freedom is largely due, I believe, to the influence of the sur 
viving hereditary aristocracies, to whom the idea of personal liberty 
is sacred and who therefore do their best to protect, not only their 
own, but even other people s freedom to think and behave as they 
like. 

ANALYSIS 

1. Indicate the author s purpose in this article. Point out where in the text he an 
nounces it. 

2. To what extent is the pattern of comparison inherent in the author s subject 
matter? 

3. List the main elements that are compared. Why is the author concerned only 
with business and aristocracy? Is the comparison complete? 

4. Is the author interested mainly in pointing out similarities or differences? Does 
he do both? Where? 

5. The paragraphs are uniformly long here. Study the paragraphing and the kinds 
of devices of paragraph development used. 



TRADITIONAL PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION 387 

6. Compare this article with Adams "Jefferson and Hamilton Today." 

a. Which of the two seems to you more concrete? Why? 

b. Which seems to use a more solid basis for the comparison? Why? 

7. In the light of these two articles try to formulate some working principles con 
cerning the use of the pattern of comparison in writing. 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

Enumeration: 

Some characteristics of cutover land 

Aspects of living in the city 

The basic principles of swimming (or basketball, football) 

Changes the war has brought to my town 

Classification: 

Kinds of public building architecture in my town 

Types of campus trees 

Component Parts: 

Growing air transportation and its effect on the country 

The spreading of Hollywood fads throughout the country 

Cause: 

Why do children read the comic books? 

Causes of population growth ( or decline ) in my town 

Why certain advertisements are effective 

The causes of popularity of historical novels 

Concession: 

The movies may be demoralizing, but . . . 

Though athletic scholarships are bad things, there is some good in the system. 
Labor unions may be guilty of bad practices; yet the labor movement is un 
changed in its accomplishments and benefits. 

In spite of all that has been said about caste systems in college sororities and 
fraternities, they are nevertheless worthwhile organizations. 

Analogy : 

"Habit is the enormous flywheel of society/ 

To understand society, one must understand the organization of ants or bees. 

One can understand the movement of wind in terms of fluid currents. 

The chronic radio listener is really a dope addict. 

Comparison: 

Two towns a comparison 

The guild union and the trade union 

Newsweek and Time magazines a comparison 

The college student of today and the college student of my father s generation 



7. APPRECIATIONS 



Appreciations 



THE CONFUSION that besets the minds of so many amateur writ 
ers of prose in our day, especially when they are thinking about 
ideal forms, about forms worthy of imitation, or about the effects to be 
achieved by the use of one or another of several forms, would be con 
siderably lessened if those writers would perform a recapitulation of the 
history of prose over the past few centuries. For, to begin with, the 
forms of prose that we use today had, for the most part, definite origins 
at definite times in the past, and the origins are to be identified with 
intellectual novelties of their times. We forget that the essay, for in 
stance, came into being during the Renaissance, in the sixteenth cen 
tury, at the hands of Michel de Montaigne and, later, Francis Bacon, 
and that the essay allowed its innovators to express shadings of ideas 
which the predecessors of Montaigne and Bacon had neither the desire 
to express nor the forms in which to express them. Whether or not the 
absence of the forms prevented the growth of the shades of feelings is 
to us a relatively unimportant point. When, however, we, as inhabitants 
of the twentieth century, call all kinds of expository prose essays, we 
are in effect returning our understanding of prose to the period before 
Montaigne and Bacon, since the term no longer has any specific meaning. 
In the beginning, essays were not treatises. They were not systematic 
expositions of the materials of arts and sciences. Nor were they used in 
disputations. Instead, relatively speaking, they were written in a vacuum 
and expressed high level generalizations with no great amount of sub 
stantiation, at least with only scant attempts at demonstration. These 
essays were personal in the sense that they expressed the ideas of the 



392 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

writer without demonstration, but they were not personal in the sense 
that they tried to say something about the peculiarities of the author. 

In the eighteenth century the essay form was "personalized"; that is, 
we begin to find in the prose of that time what are known as "personal 
essays." Personal essays still expressed ideas often, but their important 
feature was their ability to express feelings or intuitions that logical 
demonstration could not easily approach. When Charles Lamb, in the 
nineteenth century, wrote his essay on "Old China," he took the human 
mind into new areas of thought; he expressed kinds of thought that 
most of his predecessors had cither not cared to express or not dis 
covered how to express, in prose. Poetry had been to that time the 
province in which expression of those kinds of thought had appeared. 

All this is a lengthy introduction to the subject of appreciative prose. 
We are not talking here precisely about the personal essay, but the per 
sonal essay is one form that appreciations can take. Personal essays at 
tempt to communicate the value of certain feelings or insights that a 
writer has experienced. These values cannot be demonstrated but they 
can be communicated, and, as a result of the communication, the reader 
can find out if they are values for himself also. He can, in other words, 
acquire knowledge about what is valuable to another human being. The 
knowledge communicated here is subjective knowledge, a knowledge 
that is every bit as important to man as his objective knowledge, but it 
is communicable only because one human being resembles another, 
even though sometimes it is possible to come to understand an alien 
kind of human being best by attempting to understand his appreciations. 
For instance, an understanding of Chinese poetry may give us a better 
idea of the core of Chinese mentality than can an understanding of ab 
stract Chinese ideas. 

Criticism of works of painting, music, and literature can be either 
appreciative or judicial. Judicial criticism deals with objective features 
of a work of art and judges in terms of conformity to rules, norms, or 
standards. Judicial criticism is thus comment about art that approximates 
other kinds of induction. Appreciative criticism, on the other hand, at 
tempts to communicate subjective reactions to art works, to recreate the 
feeling or thought expressed in them. Anatole France defined apprecia 
tive criticism as the "adventures of a sensitive mind among master 
pieces/ Appreciations involve a kind of communication of a special sort 
simply because there is no objective data by which to check the ac- 



APPRECIATIONS 393 

curacy of observations. The value feelings that attach to a Donatello 
statue cannot be measured as easily as can our perceptions in regard to 
the number of people in a room or the distance between one town and 
another. 

The term "feeling" has been used here to describe our mental reac 
tions in the area of appreciations, but the reader should beware lest he 
confuse "feeling" with "emotion." By "feeling" is meant here a percep 
tion of a subjective reality, and it may be called an insight, an intuition, 
or simply a perception if we agree that a perception need not concern 
an objective reality. 



NIGHT AND ITS MELANCHOLY MYSTERIES * 

THE NOCTURNES OF CHOPIN 

By James Huneker 

i. JOHN FIELD has been described as the forerunner of Chopin. The 
limpid style of this pupil and friend of Clementi, his beautiful touch 
and finished execution, were certainly admired and imitated by the 
Pole. Field s nocturnes are now neglected so curious are Time s 
caprices and without warrant, for not only is Field the creator of 
the form, but in both his concertos and nocturnes he has written 
charming, sweet and sane music. He rather patronized Chopin, for 
whose melancholy pose he had no patience. "He has a talent of the 
hospital," growled Field in the intervals between his wine drinking, 
pipe smoking and the washing of his linen the latter economical 
habit he contracted from Clementi. There is some truth in his stric 
ture. Chopin, seldom exuberantly cheerful, is morbidly sad and 
complaining in many of the nocturnes. The most admired of his 
compositions, with the exception of the valses, they are in several 
instances his weakest. Yet he ennobled the form originated by Field, 
giving it dramatic breadth, passion and even grandeur. Set against 
Field^ naive and idyllic specimens, Chopin s efforts are often too 
bejewelled for true simplicity, too lugubrious, too tropical Asiatic 
is a better word and they have the exotic savor of the heated con- 

* From C/iopin, the Man and His Music ( 1900), by James Huneker. Reprinted 
by permission of Charles Scribner s Sons. 



394 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

servatory, and not the fresh scent of the flowers reared in the open 
by the less poetic Irishman. And, then, Chopin is so desperately 
sentimental in some of these compositions. They are not altogether 
to the taste of this generation; they seem to be suffering from 
anemia. However, there are a few noble nocturnes; and methods of 
performance may have much to answer for the sentimentalizing of 
some others. More vigor, a quickening of the time-pulse, and a less 
languishing touch will rescue them from lush sentiment. Chopin 
loved the night and its soft mysteries as much as did Robert Louis 
Stevenson, and his nocturnes are true night pieces, some with 
agitated, remorseful countenance, others seen in profile only, while 
many are whisperings at dusk. Most of them are called feminine, a 
term psychologically false. The poetic side of men of genius is fem 
inine, and in Chopin the feminine note was overemphasized - at 
times it was almost hysterical particularly in these nocturnes. 
2. The Scotch have a proverb: "She wove her shroud, and wore it 
in her lifetime/* In the nocturnes the shroud is not far away. Chopin 
wove his to the day of his death, and he wore it sometimes but not 
always, as many think. 

ANALYSIS 

1. What is the objective field of the author s subject matter? With what actual 
body of material in the concrete world is he concerned? 

2. a. Think of ways in which statements could be made about this material whose 
truth could be demonstrated. 

b. Make up titles for two objective articles about this material. 

3. How does the appreciative approach differ from the objective approach here? 

4. a. Make a list of phrases in the selection that exhibit value judgments about 
Chopin s Nocturnes. 

b. Does a phrase like "Chopin is so desperately sentimental in some of these 
compositions," imply a value judgment? Find other similar phrases. 

5. Point out the phrases in which the author has used words figuratively to ex 
press the feelings the music gives him. 

6. Are these figurative expressions often a part of value judgments? Point out 
examples. 

7. Are any assertions in the selection of the kind the truth of which can be dem 
onstrated? 

8. a. If you are familiar with Chopin s Nocturnes, do you find yourself in com 
plete agreement with the author s interpretations and judgments? 

b. Is your reaction as "right" or "true" as his? In dealing with appreciative 
judgments can *ne apply any other standard than "Each man to his own taste"? 



APPRECIATIONS 395 

9. a. Do any of the author s statements fail to communicate his meaning? 

b. Can we understand what he means even if we choose to find other mean 
ings or values in Chopin s Nocturnes? 

10. This selection was originally an introductory section to a detailed, commentary 
upon each of the Nocturnes in turn. The unbalanced length of the two para 
graphs can thus be understood. 
a. Can the long paragraph be broken into two or more shorter ones? 

THE "CONQUISTADOR" OF ARCHIBALD MACLEISH* 

[A Review] 

By Stephen Vincent Benet 

1. It runs from the beginning of these continents, as we, the inherit 
ors, know them the savage dream the great fable the treasure 
to be ravished by right of conquest and, with the search and the 
accomplishment, the despoiling of the land. Some day a history of 
the Americas may be written in these terms alone, and, when it 
is, it will be a valuable one, for the fate is not yet worked out and 
the strength is still in the loadstone. But in the conquest of Mexico 
by Cortes and his companions we see the dream at its fantastic 
apogee. The whole tale of the Conquest is a tale that could not have 
happened. And it was real as real as the gold and the wounds and 
the dry thirst after the battle. It is this reality this sense of living 
men which Mr. MacLeish has captured in the pages of "Con 
quistador." Reality like that of an orchard or a ship. 

And we heard them laugh in their hands: and the voice of de Avila 
Filling the slack of the surf like a boy s bugle 
"Did they eat the tongues from the root of your throats like calves? 
"Have they taken the words from your mouths, Veterans?" screw 
ing the 

Sneer in the twist of his teeth: and the wind suddenly 
Fresh out of that shore and the smoke moving: 
And the smell under the smoke of the burning blood: 

2. This is both a new kind of writing and a very old one. The as 
sonant beat, the occasional, deliberate throwing away of emphasis, 
the hard, rebellious texture are of our own time. But there is some- 

* From High Achievement (1932), by Stephen Vincent Benet. Copyright, 
1932, by the Saturday Review Company, Inc. The excerpts from Conquista- 
dor by Archibald MacLeish are quoted by permission of the publisher, 
Houghton Mifflin Company. 



396 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

thing behind them that goes back to very old things, to the first 
plowed earth, the first corn harvests, the feel of wood and water and 
stone in the hand. Mr. MacLeish, at times, has done work that was 
in a fashion and will pass with that fashion. But his best work has 
never had anything to do with fashion and the quality that makes 
for its endurance is a quality outside of time. "Everything we have 
done has been faithful and dangerous," he says in another poem, 
speaking not of any one tribe or nation, but of men themselves, 
anonymous, stubborn, and forgotten, the ancestors, the old beyond 
eld, the worshippers of Wind and Knife. The ship has long been 
sunken, but the planks were well hewn and truly fitted, even the 
lines of the earthwork have disappeared, but, while it stood, it was 
strong. And it is this deep-rooted, primitive sense of elemental 
things and forces a sense almost tactile in its definiteness which 
gives "Conquistador" some of its amazing vitality. The note is struck 
at once in the Prologue. 

Time done is dark as are sleep s thickets: 
Dark is the past: none waking walk there 

and in the calling up of the Conquerors from the shadowy beaches: 

And Sandoval comes first and the Palos wind 
Stirs in the young hair: and the smoky candle 
Shudders the sick face and the fevered skin: 

And still the dead feet come: and Alvarado 

Clear in that shadow as a fagot kindled: 

The brave one: stupid: and the face he had 

Shining with good looks: his skin pink: 

His legs warped at the knee like the excellent horseman: 

And gentleman s ways and the tail of the sword swinging: 

. . . And still they came: and from the shadow fixes 

Eyes against me a mute armored man 
Staring as wakened sleeper into embers: 
This is Cortes that took the famous land: 

The eye-holes narrow to the long night s ebbing: 
The gray skin crawls beneath the scanty beard: 
Neither the eyes nor the sad mouth remember: 
Other and nameless are there shadows here 



APPRECIATIONS 397 

Cold in the little light as winter crickets: 
Torpid with old death: under sullen years 

Numb as pale spiders in the blind leaves hidden: 

These to the crying voices do not stir: 

So still are trees the climbing stars relinquish: 

And last and through the weak dead comes the uncertain 

Fingers before him on the sightless air 

An old man speaking: and the windblown words . . . 

3. It is Bernal Diaz who tells the tale. "That which I have myself 
seen and the fighting." Sometimes the voice is indeed like the broken 
whisper of a ghost, sometimes it is strong and resonant, the voice of 
the young, hard soldier, able for all things, unbeaten yet by success. 
But always it tells the tale, and the tale moves with it arid always, 
beyond it, there is the feel of the land and a people and an army 
of men marching endlessly men sleeping the sleep of exhaustion 
after the march men, at last, come dazzled and wondering to a 
clean, princely city arid living there like gods for a little while. Then 
follows the tragedy which was more than Alvarado s massacre or 
the Noche Triste the tragedy of the conquest achieved, the gold 
won, the city looted, and the followers of conquest inheriting the 
land. 

And those that had jeered at our youth (but the fashion changes) 
They came like nettles in dry slash: like beetles: 
They ran in the new land like lice staining it: 

They parcelled the bloody meadows: their late feet 

Stood in the passes of harsh pain and of winter: 

In the stale of the campments they culled herbs. . . . 

. . . Old ... an old man sickened and near death: 
And the west is gone now: west is the ocean sky . . . 

O, day that brings the earth back, bring again 

That well-swept town those towers and that island. . . . 

4. So the tale ends, after all the labors. I have not attempted even to 
sketch the bare outlines of the tale it is better to read the poem. 
But it is one of the great tales of the world, and it is here presented 
not merely faithfully, but as if it came today from the mouth of a 



398 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

living man. Occasionally, as through the whole of the Tenth Book, 
the verse is extraordinarily rich, beautiful, and colorful; sometimes, 
as in certain passages of the first few books, it moves as if in a 
trance, lit with sudden sharp pictures the trance of an old man, 
between sleep and waking, remembering brokenly and muttering 
names and words in our ears whose import we do not yet compre 
hend. But, from the moment the actual march toward Mexico City 
begins, it gathers force, impetus, and movement, and mounts stead 
ily till the end. 

There are few individual portraits, except in the Prologue 
though, running throughout the verse, there are pictures of indi 
vidual men at single moments, brief, sharp, and definite as sketches 
on the edge of a muster-roll. We have men s words and their acts, 
but there is no attempt, for instance, to draw a full-length portrait 
of Cortes in the traditional, biographic sense, or even to get inside 
his mind. But, for the purposes of the poem, such portraits would 
be unnecessary and out of key. We know the narrator, we see the 
strange things through his eyes. And all around us is "the stir of men 
and the unknown landscape, the mountains, the plains, the foes in 
feather-armor, the odor of noon, the odors of blood and dust. "We 
drank of the milk of the aloe and were drunk." "We set the flame to 
the thatch and they fell like the burning bees where the winds toss 
them/ That is how it happened. Afterwards we may think and re 
member, as Diaz remembers at the beginning and the end. But while 
we marched, Cortes was not history but Cortes. The history, the 
tangling of motives, came later on. One man saw this with his eyes. 



ANALYSIS 

In appreciative criticism of this kind, Mr. Benet, himself a distinguished poet, 
is attempting to communicate the meanings and effects of Archibald Mac- 
Leish s long poem "Conquistador" by recreating the meanings and effects, partly 
by summary, partly by translation, partly by quotation, and partly by making 
value judgments. Some of the statements here follow the main principles of 
induction as we have been looking at them. There are generalizations the evi 
dence for which can be checked. When he says, for instance, "There are few 
individual portraits, except in the Prologue," we can check with the poem to 
see if the generalization is true. 

a. Point out other statements in the passage that are likewise open to sub 
stantiation. 



APPRECIATIONS 399 

a. Many of the statements are value judgments: "Occasionally, as through the 
whole of the Tenth Book, the verse is extraordinarily rich, beautiful and color 
ful. . . ." 

a. Point out other statements that are likewise value judgments. 

b. Can the truth of these statements be demonstrated? Is there any validity in 
them? 

3. Note the attempts to communicate subjective meanings: "But there is some 
thing behind them that goes back to very old things, to the first plowed earth, 
the first corn harvests, the feel of wood and water and stone in the hand." 

a. Find similar sentences in the passage. Attempt to explain more fully the 
kind of communication that these sentences represent. 

4. Do the rhythms of MacLeish s poem have any effect upon the prose rhythms 
Benet uses in talking about the poem? Can you explain your answer? 

5. What purposes are served by the quotations from the poem? 

6. Discern the order of the organization. Find the topic sentence for each para 
graph. 



ONCE MORE TO THE LAKE* 
By E. B. White 

1. ONE SUMMER, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a 
lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August. We all 
got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond s Extract on 
our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in 
a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside of that the vacation was 
a success and from then on none of us ever thought there was any 
place in the world like that lake in Maine. We returned summer 
after summer always on August first for one month. I have since 
become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days 
when the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea 
water and the incessant wind which blows across the afternoon and 
into the evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the 
woods. A few weeks ago this feeling got so strong I bought myself 
a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where 
we used to go, for a week s fishing and to revisit old haunts. 

2. I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his 
nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows. On the 
journey over to the lake I began to wonder what it would be like. I 
wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot 

From One Mans Meat (1941), by E. B. White. Published by Harper and 
Brothers. Copyright, 1941, by E. B. White. 



400 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps 
and the paths behind the camps. I was sure that the tarred road 
would have found it out and I wondered in what other ways it 
would be desolated. It is strange how much you can remember 
about places like that once you allow your mind to return into the 
grooves which lead back. You remember one thing, and that sud 
denly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest 
of all the early morning, when the lake was cool and motionless, 
remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made 
of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen. 
The partitions in the camp were thin and did not extend clear to 
the top of the rooms, and as I was always the first up I would dress 
softly so as not to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet out 
doors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the shore in 
the long shadows of the pines. I remembered being very careful 
never to rub my paddle against the thwart for fear of disturbing the 
stillness of the cathedral. 

The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There 
were cottages sprinkled around the shores, and it was in farming 
country although the shores of the lake were quite heavily wooded. 
Some of the cottages were owned by nearby farmers, and you would 
live at the shore and eat your meals at the farmhouse. That s what 
our family did. But although it wasn t wild, it was a fairly large and 
undisturbed lake and there were places in it which, to a child at 
least, seemed infinitely remote and primeval. 

I was right about the tar: it led to within half a mile of the shore. 
But when I got back there, with my boy, and we settled into a 
camp near a farmhouse and into the kind of summertime I had 
known, I could tell that it was going to be pretty much the same 
as it had been before I knew it, lying in bed the first morning, 
smelling the bedroom, and hearing the boy sneak quietly out and 
go off along the shore in a boat. I began to sustain the illusion that 
he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my 
father. This sensation persisted, kept cropping up all the time we 
were there. It was not an entirely new feeling, but in this setting it 
grew much stronger. I seemed to be living a dual existence. I 
would be in the middle of some simple act, I would be picking up 
a bait box or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying some- 



APPRECIATIONS 401 

thing, and suddenly it would be not I but my father who was say 
ing the words or making the gesture. It gave me a creepy sensa 
tion. 

5. We went fishing the first morning. I felt the same damp moss 
covering the worms in the bait can, and saw the dragonfly alight 
on the tip of my rod as it hovered a few inches from the surface 
of the water. It was the arrival of this fly that convinced me be 
yond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that 
the years were a mirage and there had been no years. The small 
waves were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we 
fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color 
green and the ribs broken in the same places, and under the floor 
boards the same fresh-water leavings and debris the dead hell- 
grammite, the wisps of moss, the rusty discarded fishhook, the dried 
blood from yesterday s catch. We stared silently at the tips of our 
rods, at the dragonflies that came and went. I lowered the tip of 
mine into the water, tentatively, pensively dislodging the fly, which 
darted two feet away, poised, darted two feet back, and came to 
rest again a little farther up the rod. There had been no years be 
tween the ducking of this dragonfly and the other one the one 
that was part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was silently 
watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes 
watching. I felt dizzy and didn t know which rod I was at the 
end of. 

6. We caught two bass, hauling them in briskly as though they were 
mackerel, pulling them over the side of the boat in a businesslike 
manner without any landing net, and stunning them with a blow on 
the back of the head. When we got back for a swim before lunch, 
the lake was exactly where we had left it, the same number of 
inches from the dock, and there was only the merest suggestion of 
a breeze. This seemed an utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could 
leave to its own devices for a few hours and come back to, and 
find that it had not stirred, this constant and trustworthy body of 
water. In the shallows, the dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs, 
smooth and old, were undulating in clusters on the bottom against 
the clean ribbed sand, and the track of the mussel was plain. A 
school of minnows swam by, each minnow with its small individual 
shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in the sun- 



402 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

light. Some of the other campers were in swimming, along the 
shore, one of them with a cake of soap, and the water felt thin and 
clear and unsubstantial. Over the years there had been this person 
with the cake of soap, this cultist, and here he was. There had been 
no years. 

7. Up to the farmhouse to dinner through the teeming, dusty field, 
the road under our sneakers was only a two-track road. The middle 
track was missing, the one with the marks of the hooves and the 
splotches of dried, flaky manure. There had always been three 
tracks to choose from in choosing which track to walk in; now the 
choice was narrowed down to two. For a moment I missed terribly 
the middle alternative. But the way led past the tennis court, and 
something about the way it lay there in the sun reassured me; the 
tape had loosened along the backline, the alleys were green with 
plantains and other weeds, and the net (installed in June and re 
moved in September ) sagged in the dry noon, and the whole place 
steamed with midday heat and hunger and emptiness. There was a 
choice of pie for dessert, and one was blueberry and otie was apple, 
and the waitresses were the same country girls, there having been 
no passage of time, only the illusion of it as in a dropped curtain 
the waitresses were still fifteen; their hair had been washed, that 
was the only difference they had been to the movies and seen the 
pretty girls with the clean hair. 

8. Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade- 
proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern 
and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the 
background, and the life along the shore was the design, the cot 
tages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with 
the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds 
in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading 
from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses 
and the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at 
the store the miniature birchbark canoes and the post cards that 
showed things looking a little better than they looked. This was the 
American family at play, escaping the city heat, wondering whether 
the newcomers in the camp at the head of the cover were "com 
mon" or "nice," wondering whether the people who drove up for 



APPRECIATIONS 403 

Sunday dinner at the farmhouse were turned away because they 
were Jews or because there wasn t enough chicken. 

9. It seemed to me, as I kept remembering all this, that those times 
and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. 
There had been jollity and peace and goodness. The arriving (at 
the beginning of August) had been so big a business in itself, at 
the railway station the farm wagon drawn up, the first smell of the 
pine-laden air, the first glimpse of the smiling farmer, and the great 
importance of the trunks and your father s enormous authority in 
such matters, and the feel of the wagon under you for the long ten- 
mile haul, and at the top of the last long hill catching the first view 
of the lake after eleven months of not seeing this cherished body of 
water. The shouts and cries of the other campers when they saw 
you, and the trunks to be unpacked, to give up their rich burden. 
(Arriving was less exciting nowadays, when you sneaked up in your 
car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags 
and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss 
about trunks. ) 

10. Peace and goodness and jollity. The only thing that was wrong 
now, really, was the sound of the place, an unfamiliar nervous 
sound of the outboard motors. This was the note that jarred, the 
one thing that would sometimes break the illusion and set the years 
moving. In those other summertimes all motors were inboard; and 
when they were at a little distance, the noise they made was a seda 
tive, an ingredient of summer sleep. They were one-cylinder and 
two-cylinder engines, and some were make-and-break and some 
were jump-spark, but they all made a sleepy sound across the lake. 
The one-lungers throbbed and fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones 
purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound too. But now the 
campers all had outboards. In the daytime, in the hot mornings, 
these motors made a petulant, irritable sound; at night, in the still 
evening when the afterglow lit the water, they whined about one s 
ears like mosquitoes. My boy loved our rented outboard, and his 
great desire was to achieve singlehanded mastery over it, and au 
thority, and he soon learned the trick of choking it a little (but not 
too much), and the adjustment of the needle valve. Watching him I 
would remember the things you could do with the old one-cylinder 



404 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

engine with the heavy flywheel, how you could have it eating out 
of your hand if you got really close to it spiritually. Motor boats in 
those days didn t have clutches, and you would make a landing by 
shutting off the motor at the proper time and coasting in with a dead 
rudder. But there was a way of reversing them, if you learned the 
trick, by cutting the switch and putting it on again exactly on the 
final dying revolution of the flywheel, so that it would kick back 
against compression and begin reversing. Approaching a dock in a 
strong following breeze it was difficult to slow up sufficiently by the 
ordinary coasting method, and if a boy felt he had complete mastery 
over his motor, he was tempted to keep it running beyond its time 
and then reverse it a few feet from the dock. It took a cool nerve, 
because if you threw the switch a twentieth of a second too soon 
you would catch the flywheel when it still had speed enough to go 
up past center, and the boat would leap ahead, charging bull-fashion 
at the dock. 

11. We had a good week at the camp. The bass were biting well and 
the sun shone endlessly, day after day. We would be* tired at night 
and lie down in the accumulated heat of the little bedrooms after the 
long hot day and the breeze would stir almost imperceptibly out 
side and the smell of the swamp drift in through the rusty screens. 
Sleep would come easily and in the morning the red squirrel would 
be on the roof, tapping out his gay routine. I kept remembering 
everything, lying in bed in the mornings the small steamboat that 
had a long rounded stern like the lip of a Ubangi, and how quietly 
she ran on the moonlight sails, when the older boys played their 
mandolins and the girls sang and we ate doughnuts dipped in sugar, 
and how sweet the music was on the water in the shining night, and 
what it had felt like to think about girls then. After breakfast we 
would go up to the store and the things were in the same place 
the minnows in a bottle, the plugs and spinners disarranged and 
pawed over by the youngsters from the boys camp, the fig newtons 
and the Beeman s gum. Outside, the road was tarred and cars stood 
in front of the store. Inside, all was just as it had always been, ex 
cept there was more Coca-Cola and not so much Moxie and root 
beer and birch beer and sarsaparilla. We would walk out with a 
bottle of pop apiece and sometimes the pop would backfire up our 
noses and hurt. We explored the streams, quietly, where the turtles 



APPRECIATIONS 405 

slid off the sunny logs and dug their way into the soft bottom; and 
we lay on the town wharf and fed worms to the tame bass. Every 
where we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walk 
ing at my side, the one walking in my pants. 

12. One afternoon while we were there at that lake a thunderstorm 
came up. It was like the revival of an old melodrama that I had 
seen long ago with childish awe. The second-act climax of the drama 
of the electrical disturbance over a lake in America had not changed 
in any important respect. This was the big scene, still the big scene. 
The whole thing was so familiar, the first feeling of oppression and 
heat and a general air around camp of not wanting to go very far 
away. In midaf ternoon ( it was all the same ) a curious darkening of 
the sky, and a lull in everything that had made life tick; and then 
the way the boats suddenly swung the other way at their moorings 
with the coming of a breeze out of the new quarter, and the pre 
monitory rumble. Then the kettle drum, then the snare, then the 
bass drum and cymbals, then crackling light against the dark, and 
the gods grinning and licking their chops in the hills. Afterward the 
calm, the rain steadily rustling in the calm lake, the return of light 
and hope and spirits, and the campers running out in joy and relief 
to go swimming in the rain, their bright cries perpetuating the 
deathless joke about how they were getting simply drenched, and 
the children screaming with delight at the new sensation of bathing 
in the rain, and the joke about getting drenched linking the genera 
tions in a strong indestructible chain. And the comedian who waded 
in carrying an umbrella. 

13. When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. 
He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung 
all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with 
no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny 
and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals 
the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt sud 
denly my groin felt the chill of death. 

ANALYSIS 

i. It may not be an easy task to discover the central theme in this essay, since 
there are three or four themes in it that parallel one another: ( 1 ) this is an 
appreciation of life at a fresh-water lake; (2) this is an appreciation of a kind 



406 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

of life that emphasizes peace, goodness, and jollity; (3) this is an appreciation 
of summertime; (4) this is an appreciation of the feeling of identification of 
father with son through memory. 

a. Can you think of any other theme here that can be ranked with these four? 

b. Can you determine which of these four is the most important? 

c. Do the ideas here represent a group of unrelated thoughts brought together 
simply because all pertain to the lake? That is, is this a unified body of ex 
perience from which several unlike thoughts arise? 

d. Is the author s intention to communicate a state of mind? 

2. If appreciation is an attempt to communicate the value of something, what 
value is being communicated here? 

3. a. Note where each of the four themes listed above appear in the essay. Are 
they mingled together or treated separately? Is he sometimes aiming at more 
than one at one time? 

b. Upon what basis is the material organized here? Does any one of the themes 
control the organization? 

4. a. If this essay is an appreciation, how do the details contribute to the ap 
preciation? 

b. What kinds of details does the author use most, details that appeal to what 
particular senses? 

c. Are these details universal in the sense of appealing to the experience of the 
average reader, or are they noteworthy because they are new to the reader? 

5. a. What paragraphs in particular follow the time sequence? 

b. What change in the handling of time takes place in Paragraph 11? 

c. What paragraphs are outside of time, logical rather than chronological units? 

6. Study the selections in this section in an attempt to formulate principles of the 
writing of appreciations. 



SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 

The Full Flavor of Living: The Waterfront Restaurant 

Bach s Toccata and Fugue in D minor 

Homesickness for the Mountains 

Swimming at Night 

Boogie Woogie: What Is It Good For? 

Charlie Chaplin: An Appreciation 

Neighborliness, A Cardinal Virtue 

Mood Melancholy 

Picasso s Blue Period 

An Essay on Honor 

The Music of Stephen Foster: a Deluge of Sentimentality 

Tennyson, Master of the Maudlin 

In Defense of the Open Spaces 

The Quakers: An Appreciation 

Georgian Architecture: Symbol of Order 



APPRECIATIONS 407 

Calf Love 

Circuses: Weren t They Wonderful? 

Shakespeare in High School 

Messing Around in Boats 

High Mass 



8. REFUTATIONS 



8 



Refutations 



MOST of the sections of this book have dealt with the presentation 
of affirmations and the construction of positive inductions leading 
to positive conclusions. Some space, however, should be devoted to 
refutation, writing which, instead of establishing a new idea, attempts 
to demolish an old one. Like other kinds of inductive writing refuta 
tion demands that the writer examine the facts carefully. He must use 
the conclusions he has drawn from these facts against the conclusions 
he wishes to refute. He will often find that he must organize his material 
according to the pattern of his opponent s argument. 

Of the selections that follow, Theodore Dreiser s "If Man Is Free, So 
Is All Matter" is an attempt to refute the ideas in Clifford Barrett s 
"Man s Moral Responsibility," page 342. The selection from Thomas 
Paine shows a major part of his famous endeavor to refute the argu 
ments presented by Edmund Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in 
France. Burke was pleading for gradual organic change in government 
rather than sharp, sudden change by revolution. Max Wylie s "Wash 
board Weepers," which brings us closer to a smaller, more specific issue 
of our own day, defends the "soap operas" of radio. 

One of the primary tasks in refutation is to find the issues and to hold 
fast to them. An issue in an argument is the line which separates one 
side from the other. Since the validity of every idea can potentially be 
denied, it is important for writers to remember that the more clearly 
they recognize the issues, real or potential, contained in the material 
they are handling, the more vital their presentation becomes. Dull read 
ing is often the result of failure to recognize what aspects of a problem 
need most attention. 



412 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION* 
By Thomas Paine 

1. AMONG the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke 
and irritate each other, Mr. Burke s pamphlet on the French Revo 
lution is an extraordinary instance. Neither the people of France, 
nor the National Assembly, were troubling themselves about the 
affairs of England, or the English Parliament; and that Mr. Burke 
should commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in Parlia 
ment and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the 
score of manners, nor justified on that of policy. 

2. There is scarcely an epithet of abuse to be found in the English 
language, with which Mr. Burke has not loaded the French Nation 
and the National Assembly. Everything which rancor, prejudice, ig 
norance or knowledge could suggest, is poured forth in the copious 
fury of near four hundred pages. In the strain and on the plan Mr. 
Burke was writing, he might have written on to as many thousand. 
When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is 
the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted. 

3. Hitherto Mr. Burke has been mistaken and disappointed in the 
opinions he had formed of the affairs of France; but such is the in 
genuity of his hope, or the malignancy of his despair, that it fur 
nishes him with new pretences to go on. There was a time when it 
was impossible to make Mr. Burke believe there would be any Rev 
olution in France. His opinion then was, that the French had neither 
spirit to undertake it nor fortitude to support it; and now that there 
is one, he seeks an escape by condemning it. 

4. Not sufficiently content with abusing the National Assembly, a 
great part of his work is taken up with abusing Dr. Price (one of 
the best-hearted men that lives) and the two societies in England 
known by the name of the Revolution Society and the Society for 
Constitutional Information. 

5. Dr. Price had preached a sermon on the fourth of November, 
1789, being the anniversary of what is called in England the Rev 
olution, which took place in 1688. Mr. Burke, speaking of this ser 
mon, says, "The political Divine proceeds dogmatically to assert, 

* From The Rights of Man ( 1791). 



REFUTATIONS 413 

that by the principles of the Revolution, the people of England have 
acquired three fundamental rights: 

A. To choose their own governors. 

B. To cashier them for misconduct. 

C. To frame a government for ourselves." 

6. Dr. Price does not say that the right to do these things exists in 
this or in that person, or in this or in that description of persons, 
but that it exists in the whole; that it is a right resident in the Na 
tion. Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that such a right exists in 
the Nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists anywhere; 
and, what is still more strange and marvellous, he says, "that the 
people of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that they will 
resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes." 
That men should take up arms and spend their lives and fortunes, 
not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, 
is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxi 
cal genius of Mr. Burke. 

7. The method which Mr. Burke takes to prove that the people of 
England have no such rights, and that such rights do not now exist 
in the nation, either in whole or in part, or anywhere at all, is of the 
same marvellous and monstrous kind with what he has already said; 
for his arguments are that the persons, or the generation of persons, 
in whom they did exist, are dead, and with them the right is dead 
also. To prove this, he quotes a declaration made by Parliament 
about a hundred years ago, to William and Mary, in these words: 
"The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name 
of the people aforesaid [meaning the people of England then liv 
ing], most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and 
posterities, for EVER." He also quotes a clause of another act of 
Parliament made in the same reign, the terms of which, he says, 
"bind us [meaning the people of that day], our heirs and our poster 
ity, to the end of time." 

8. Mr. Burke conceives his point sufficiently established by produc 
ing those clauses, which he enforces by saying that they exclude the 
right of the Nation for ever. And not yet content with making such 
declarations, repeated over and over again, he farther says, "that if 
the people of England possessed such a right before the Revolution 
[which he acknowledges to have been the case, not only in Eng- 



414 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

land, but throughout Europe, at an early period], yet that the Eng 
lish Nation did, at the time of the Revolution, most solemnly re 
nounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their posterity, 
for ever." 

9. As Mr. Burke occasionally applies the poison drawn from his hor 
rid principles (if it is not profanation to call them by the name of 
principles ) not only to the English Nation, but to the French Revo 
lution and the National Assembly, and charges that august, illumi 
nated and illuminating body of men with the epithet of usurpers, I 
shall sans ceremonic, place another system of principles in opposi 
tion to his. 

10. The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for 
themselves and their constituents, they had a right to do, and 
which it appeared right should be done: but, in addition to this 
right, which they possessed by delegation, they set up another right 
by assumption, that of binding and controlling posterity to the end 
of time. The case, therefore, divides itself into two parts; the right 
which they possessed by delegation, and the right which they set up 
by assumption. The first is admitted; but with respect to the second, 
I reply 

11. There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a 
Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in 
any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and con 
trolling posterity to the "end of time" or of commanding for ever 
how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and there 
fore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of 
them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power 
to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. 
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases 
as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and pre 
sumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and 
insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has 
any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. 
The Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had 
no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind 
or to control them in any shape whatever, than the Parliament or 
the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or control 
those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every 



REFUTATIONS 415 

generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its 
occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be 
accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants 
cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the con 
cerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who 
shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or 
how administered. 

12. I am not contending for nor against any form of government, nor 
for nor against any party, here or elsewhere. That which a whole 
Nation chooses to do, it has a right to do. Mr. Burke says No. Where, 
then, does the right exist? I am contending for the rights of the liv 
ing, and against their being willed away, and controlled and con 
tracted for, by the manuscript assumed authority of the dead; and 
Mr. Burke is contending for the authority of the dead over the 
rights and freedom of the living. There was a time when Kings dis 
posed of their Crowns by will upon their deathbeds, and consigned 
the people, like beasts of the field, to whatever successor they ap 
pointed. This is now so exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and 
so monstrous as hardly to be believed; but the Parliamentary clauses 
upon which Mr. Burke builds his political church are of the same 
nature. 

13. The laws of every country must be analogous to some common 
principle. In England no parent or master, nor all the authority of 
Parliament omnipotent as it has called itself, can bind or control the 
personal freedom even of an individual beyond the age of twenty- 
one years. On what ground of right, then, could the Parliament of 
1688, or any other Parliament, bind all posterity for ever? 

14. Those who have quitted the world, and those who are not yet ar 
rived at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of 
mortal imagination can conceive. What possible obligation, then, 
can exist between them; what rule or principle can be laid down 
that of two nonentities, the one out of existence and the other not 
in, and who never can meet in this world, the one should control 
the other to the end of time? 

15. In England it is said that money cannot be taken out of the pock 
ets of the people without their consent. But who authorized, or who 
could authorize, the Parliament of 1688 to control and take away 
the freedom of posterity (who were not in existence to give or to 



416 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

withhold their consent), and limit and confine their right of acting 
in certain cases for ever? 

16. A greater absurdity cannot present itself to the understanding of 
man than what Mr. Burke offers to his readers. He tells them, and 
he tells the world to come, that a certain body of men who existed 
a hundred years ago, made a law, and that there does not now exist 
in the Nation, nor ever will, nor ever can, a power to alter it. Under 
how many subtilties or absurdities has the divine right to govern 
been imposed on the credulity of mankind! Mr. Burke has discov 
ered a new one, and he has shortened his journey to Rome by ap 
pealing to the power of this infallible Parliament of former days; 
and he produces what it has done as of divine authority, for that 
power must certainly be more than human which no human power 
to the end of time can alter. . . . 

17. It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive that 
altho laws made in one generation often continue in force through 
succeeding generations, yet that they continue to derive their force 
from the consent of the living. A law not repealed continues in force, 
not because it cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed; 
and the non-repealing passes for consent. 

18. But Mr. Burke s clauses have not even this qualification in their 
favor. They become null, by attempting to become immortal. The 
nature of them precludes consent. They destroy the right which 
they might have, by grounding it on a right which they cannot have. 
Immortal power is not a human right, and therefore cannot be a 
right of Parliament. The Parliament of 1688 might as well have 
passed an act to have authorized themselves to live for ever, as to 
make their authority live for ever. All, therefore, that can be said of 
those clauses is that they are a formality of words, of as much im 
port as if those who used them had addressed a congratulation to 
themselves, and in the oriental style of antiquity had said: O Par 
liament, live for ever! 

19. The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the 
opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, 
and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. 
That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age 
may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such 
cases, who is to decide, the living, or the dead? 



REFUTATIONS 417 

20. As almost one hundred pages of Mr. Burke s book are employed 
upon these clauses, it will consequently follow that if the clauses 
themselves, so far as they set up an assumed usurped dominion over 
posterity for ever, are unauthoritative, and in their nature null and 
void; that all his voluminous inferences, and declamation drawn 
therefrom, or founded thereon, are null and void also; and on this 
ground I rest the matter. 

21. We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr. 
Burke s book has the appearance of being written as instruction to 
the French Nation; but if I may permit myself the use of an ex 
travagant metaphor, suited to the extravagance of the case, it is 
darkness attempting to illuminate light. 

22. While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some 
proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette 
(I ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for 
distinction s sake) to the National Assembly, on the eleventh of 
July, 1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille; and I cannot 
but remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from 
which that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead 
of referring to musty records and moldy parchments to prove that 
the rights of the living are lost, "renounced and abdicated for ever," 

, by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la 
Fayette applies to the living world, and emphatically says, "Call to 
mind the sentiments which Nature has engraved in the heart of 
every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly 
recognized by all: For a Nation to love Liberty, it is sufficient that 
she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it." How 
dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labors; 
and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declama 
tion and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and 
soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead to 
a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like 
Mr. Burke s periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the 
heart. . . . 

23. "We have seen," says Mr. Burke, "the French rebel against a mild 
and lawful Monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than any 
people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or 
the most sanguinary tyrant." This is one among a thousand other in- 



418 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

stances, in which Mr. Burke shows that he is ignorant of the springs 
and principles of the French Revolution. 

24. It was not against Louis XVI, but against the despotic principles 
of the government, that the Nation revolted. These principles had 
not their origin in him, but in the original establishment, many cen 
turies back; and they were become too deeply rooted to be re 
moved, and the Augean stable of parasites and plunderers too abom 
inably filthy to be cleansed, by anything short of a complete and 
universal Revolution. When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the 
whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it. 
That crisis was then arrived, and there remained no choice but to 
act with determined vigor, or not to act at all. The King was known 
to be the friend of the Nation, and this circumstance was favorable 
to the enterprise. Perhaps no man bred up in the style of an ab 
solute king, ever possessed a heart so little disposed to the exercise 
of that species of power as the present King of France. But the 
principles of the Government itself still remained the same. The 
Monarch and the Monarchy were distinct and separate things; and 
it was against the established despotism of the latter, and not against 
the person or principles of the former, that the revolt commenced, 
and the Revolution has been carried. 

25. Mr. Burke does not attend to the distinction between men and 
principles; and, therefore, he does not see that a revolt may take 
place against the despotism of the latter, while there lies no charge 
of despotism against the former. 

s6. The natural moderation of Louis XVI contributed nothing to alter 
the hereditary despotism of the Monarchy. All the tyrannies of 
former reigns, acting under that hereditary despotism, were still 
liable to be revived in the hands of a successor. It was not the res 
pite of a reign that would satisfy France, enlightened as she then 
was become. A casual discontinuance of the practice of despotism, 
is not a discontinuance of its principles; the former depends on 
the virtue of the individual who is in immediate possession of the 
power; the latter, on the virtue and fortitude of the nation. In the 
case of Charles I and James II of England, the revolt was against 
the personal despotism of the men; whereas in France, it was against 
the hereditary despotism of the established government. But men 
who can consign over the rights of posterity for ever on the author- 



REFUTATIONS 419 

ity of a moldy parchment, like Mr. Burke, are not qualified to judge 
of this Revolution. It takes in a field too vast for their views to ex 
plore, and proceeds with a mightiness or reason they cannot keep 
pace with. 

27. But there are many points of view in which this Revolution may 
be considered. When despotism has established itself for ages in a 
country, as in France, it is not in the person of the King only that 
it resides. It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal 
authority; but it is not so in practice and in fact. It has its standard 
everywhere. Every office and department has its despotism, founded 
upon custom and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and every 
Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism resident in the 
person of the King, divides and subdivides itself into a thousand 
shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation. 
This was the case in France: and against this species of despotism, 
proceeding on through an endless labyrinth of office till the source 
of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of redress. It strength 
ens itself by assuming the appearance of duty, and tyrannizes under 
the pretence of obeying. 

28. When a man reflects on the condition which France was in from 
the nature of her Government, he will see other causes for revolt 
than those which immediately connect themselves with the person 
or character of Louis XVI. There were, if I may so express it, a 
thousand despotisms to be reformed in France, which had grown up 
under the hereditary despotism of the monarchy, and became so 
rooted as to be in great measure independent of it. Between the 
Monarchy, the Parliament, and the Church, there was a riualship of 
despotism; besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the 
ministerial despotism operating everywhere. But Mr. Burke, by con 
sidering the King as the only possible object of a revolt, speaks as 
if France was a village, in which everything that passed must be 
known to its commanding officer, and no oppression could be acted 
but what he could immediately control. Mr. Burke might have been 
in the Bastille his whole life, as well under Louis XVI as Louis XIV, 
and neither the one nor the other have known that such a man as 
Mr. Burke existed. The despotic principles of the government were 
the same in both reigns, though the dispositions of the men were 
as remote as tyranny and benevolence. 



420 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

29. What Mr. Burke considers as a reproach to the French Revolution 
(that of bringing it forward under a reign more mild than the pre 
ceding ones) is one of its highest honors. The Revolutions that have 
taken place in other European countries, have been excited by per 
sonal hatred. The rage was against the man, and he became the 
victim. But, in the instance of France we see a revolution generated 
in the rational contemplation of the rights of man, and distinguish 
ing from the beginning between persons and principles. 

30. But Mr. Burke appears to have no idea of principles when he is 
contemplating governments. "Ten years ago," says he, "I could have 
felicitated France on her having a government, without inquiring 
what the nature of that government was, or how it was adminis 
tered." Is this the language of a rational man? Is it the language of 
a heart feeling as it ought to feel for the rights and happiness of the 
human race? On this ground, Mr. Burke must compliment all the 
governments in the world, while the victims who suffer under them, 
whether sold into slavery, or tortured out of existence, are wholly 
forgotten. It is power, and not principles, that Mr. Burke venerates; 
and under this abominable depravity he is disqualified to judge be 
tween them. Thus much for his opinion as to the occasions of the 
French Revolution. I now proceed to other considerations. 

31. I know a place in America called Point-no-Point, because as you 
proceed along the shore, gay and flowery as Mr. Burke s language, 
it continually recedes and presents itself at a distance before you; 
but when you have got as far as you can go, there is no point at all. 
Just thus it is with Mr. Burke s three hundred and fifty-six pages. It 
is therefore difficult to reply to him. But as the points he wishes to 
establish may be inferred from what he abuses, it is in his paradoxes 
that we must look for his arguments. 

32. As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged his 
own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they 
are very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are 
manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, 
through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke 
should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that 
his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of high- 
toned exclamation. 

33. When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication in- 



REFUTATIONS 421 

tended to be believed that "The age of chivalry is gone! that the 
glory of Europe is extinguished for ever! that the unbought grace of 
life (if any one knows what it is), the cheap defense of nations, the 
nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone! 9 and all this 
because the Quixotic age of chivalry nonsense is gone, what opinion 
can we form of his judgment, or what regard can we pay to his 
facts? In the rhapsody of his imagination he has discovered a world 
of windmills, and his sorrows are that there are no Quixotes to at 
tack them. But if the age of aristocracy, like that of chivalry, should 
fall (and they had originally some connection), Mr. Burke, the 
trumpeter of the Order, may continue his parody to the end, and 
finish with exclaiming: "Othello s occupations gone! 9 

34. Notwithstanding Mr. Burke s horrid paintings, when the French 
Revolution is compared with the revolutions of other countries, the 
astonishment will be that it is marked with so few sacrifices; but 
this astonishment will cease when we reflect that principles, and 
not persons, were the meditated objects of destruction. The mind of 
the nation was acted upon by a higher stimulus than what the con 
sideration of persons could inspire, and sought a higher conquest 
than could be produced by the downfall of an enemy. Among the 
few who fell there do not appear to be any that were intentionally 
singled out. They all of them had their fate in the circumstances of 
the moment, and were not pursued with that long, cold-blooded, 
unabated revenge which pursued the unfortunate Scotch in the af 
fair of 1745. 

35. Through the whole of Mr. Burke s book I do not observe that the 
Bastille is mentioned more than once, and that with a kind of impli 
cation as if he were sorry it was pulled down, and wished it were 
built up again. "We have rebuilt Newgate," says he, "and tenanted 
the mansion; and we have prisons almost as strong as the Bastille 
for those who dare to libel the Queens of France." As to what a 

madman like the person called Lord G G might say, to whom 

Newgate is rather a bedlam than a prison, it is unworthy a rational 
consideration. It was a madman that libeled, and that is sufficient 
apology; and it afforded an opportunity for confining him, which was 
the thing that was wished for. But certain it is that Mr. Burke, who 
does not call himself a madman (whatever other people may do), 
has libeled in the most unprovoked manner, and in the grossest style 



422 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

of the most vulgar abuse, the whole representative authority of 
France, and yet Mr. Burke takes his seat in the British House of 
Commons! From his violence and his grief, his silence on some 
points and his excess on others, it is difficult not to believe that Mr. 
Burke is sorry, extremely sorry, that arbitrary power, the power of 
the Pope and the Bastille, are pulled down. 

36. Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection 
that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who 
lingered out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the 
most miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing 
his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke 
than he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touch 
ing his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his im 
agination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. Ac 
customed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him 
from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the gen 
uine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a 
tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, 
sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon. . . . 

ANALYSIS 

1. Refutation implies the existence of an argument, one side of which is being 
contested, argued against, refuted. 

a. After you have read this selection carefully, indicate the nature of the argu 
ment against which Paine is directing his attention. 

b. Where in the text docs the author state this argument? How is it stated? 

2. a. Point out where you think the actual refutation begins. 

b. Does the author use refutation in his statement of the opposite argument? 
How? 

3. Good arguing necessarily involves getting down to "cases," boiling the argu 
ments down to the simplest form of statement and issue. Does Paine do so 
here? Where? How? 

4. Does Paine organize his refutation in any way to clarify it? Where? 

5. What common devices of argumentation can you find here? ( Such things as an 
appeal to emotions, overstatement of opposition points, the logic whereby the 
extreme results of following a suggested pattern is indicated, ridicule, satire, 
irony, etc.) 

6. To what extent do you feel that Paine s refutation succeeds? 



REFUTATIONS 423 

IF MAN IS FREE, SO IS ALL MATTER* 
By Theodore Dreiser 

I 

1. Mr. Barrett * bases his conviction that man has free will and is 
therefore morally responsible for his actions on two facts, mainly: 
First of all, that man has intelligence, reason, and ideas, means by 
which he is able to manipulate his environment to his own advan 
tage. Secondly, that man fulfills his own being, expresses his own 
nature. According to Mr. Barrett, the expression of one s own nature 
is freedom; man is free. Altogether, since man by the use of the 
above mentioned devices expresses himself and also, by using them, 
chooses the path of his action, he is morally responsible for the con 
sequences of his acts, is bound to choose "good" rather than "evil," 
and has based a highly complex social life on the idea of moral re 
sponsibility. 

2. Mr. Barrett admits that there are restrictions on freedom. These 
restrictions depend on a hazily drawn line, an implied separateness 
between physical and mental causes. This leads to the admission 
that man has many activities that are not free at all and that he is 
not even entirely free in any act. If we insert Mr. Barrett s definition 
of freedom here, that it is an expression of the intrinsic nature of 
whatever being, the above statement is equivalent to saying that 
man commits many acts not expressive of himself at all and that, in 
fact, in no act does he express his own nature completely, without 
restriction. Further than this, Mr. Barrett, by implication through 
out, seems to be distinguishing between man and the other species 
on this earth, as the highly favored recipient of increasing freedom 
through the growth of intelligence, reason, and ideas. He seems 
further to be distinguishing between reason, intelligence, and ideas 
as something opposed to "senseless force" which operates the rest 
of nature. 

3. When the suggestion was first made for this article, I had intended 
to base my argument on the more or less familiar mechanistic out- 

* From Forum, December, 1937. Reprinted by permission of the publishers 

and the author. 
1 For the essay in question, "Man s Moral Responsibility," see pages 342-348. 



424 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

line of the causes of human activities as being imbedded in the ob 
viously physical nature of themselves and the obviously physical 
nature of their environment, picking my supporting facts from mod 
ern researches in psychology and biology. However, because of Mr. 
Barrett s insistence on the nature of freedom as self-expression, re 
gardless of the kind of causes which produce the "self," I have de 
cided to devote this remaining space to a discussion of such free 
dom, with the result, I hope, of proving that freedom on that basis 
exists everywhere or nowhere. If man is free in this sense, he shares 
this freedom with the most senseless forces. And, if his moral re 
sponsibility depends on the possession of freedom in this sense, then 
storms, hurricanes, and earthquakes are no less morally responsible. 
Therefore, do not think that I am evading the issue because I am 
neglecting to point out certain facts as to the sources of being or to 
discuss the matter of chance. 

II 

In the first place, if freedom is self-expression, what energy or 
matter is there in the universe electrical, chemical, or physical 
which is not also expressing itself? An apple falls to the ground, 
thereby expressing itself as a material object, which intrinsically it 
certainly is. An element excited to a certain intensity gives off wave 
lengths of light expressing its special and intrinsic atomic character, 
peculiar to it and no other. A fish swims, lives in water, dies in air, 
thereby expressing itself in its fishy character. Mr. Barrett says that 
a man freely expresses himself if he wants to be a lawyer and is one, 
regardless of his other possibilities, and that a college hero s free 
dom is inhibited if, in spite of the numerous other ladies he might 
choose, the lady of his choice refuses to accompany him to some 
college festivity. A light ray proceeding from some distant star trav 
els for some millions of miles in its original direction. Then it hits 
the mirror of some astronomer s telescope, and is deflected. How 
are the examples from the "senseless forces" different from the 
ordinary procedures of human life? Are we not always expressing 
ourselves, whether successful or not? Is that not also the very com 
monest feature of all else in nature to express itself? 

Freedom, in this sense, is nothing other than victory, triumph, sur- 



REFUTATIONS 425 

vival. And freedom is inhibited by every encroachment on the "orig 
inal direction," like the "encroachment" of the lens on the light ray 
or my arm against your fist "willed" to hit me. Is not this the fa 
miliar picture of stresses pitted against each other, of waves against 
the shore, the large fish against the small ones, one species against 
another, the planets against the sun and each other, a "battle" in 
which we are all helplessly taking part? We think ourselves free 
when we are not too much encroached on. Human freedom how 
is it any different from, superior to, the freedom which is shared by 
every living thing? 

6. And now for reason, intelligence, and ideas. I am perfectly will 
ing to admit that humans have such qualities. How else this refuta 
tion of their importance? But how connected with our "freedom"? 
Mr. Barrett implies that these qualities help man to manipulate his 
environment, to determine what he is, with the end in view of help 
ing him better to express himself successfully, in other words, to 
triumph over whatever seems to inhibit him. In other words, reason, 
intelligence, and ideas are not ends in themselves but means to that 
other end of self-expression. But so are the beaks of birds, the webs 
of spiders, the tropisms of fish and insects all are means to the 
ends of successful self-expression or survival. It makes no difference 
in this classification of our so-called mental faculty as a means that 
it serves diverse ends, can manipulate, seem to serve itself. It serves 
the whole organism. What is expressed, whether by humans using 
intelligence, etc. or by other animals using "instincts," their beaks, 
claws, etc., is with due regard to the whole organism. This separa 
tion of one part of the activities from those of another part is only 
a seeming separation. In humans certainly and in other animals ob 
viously, there are intrinsic inconsistencies of direction which before 
any exterior expression can be achieved must fight it out with each 
other, often to the defeat of any exterior expression at all. 

7. What about the desire for rest and the desire for money? Suppose 
a man wants very much to spend his time in reading, resting, con 
templating; suppose he wants also money, power, etc. Which is his 
true self? Which choice will be made freely? Will intelligence, 
reason, or the possession of ideas enable him to distinguish? Cer 
tainly not, I say. They can help him to be successful in the one end 



426 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

or the other but they are not the causes of the desires or the judges 
of them. If intelligence, etc. could make us free, then it would be 
creative. But it is created, as a means, not an end. 

8. And this is the crux of the whole proposition. Nature is not con 
sistent. Self-expression is not one-directional, and the more complex 
the object in question the more possibilities it has the less is 
the direction to be determined by itself. Within us, at least, are basic 
divergences. And, no matter how clever, how intelligent, how rea 
soning we are, we cannot do more than serve that is, react to 
what is there already. The creative process works through us. All 
our causes are out of our hands. We did not make ourselves or any 
thing we see. And the choices that we make involve no more free 
dom, whether successfully or unsuccessfully expressing ourselves, 
than do the activities or choices equally of other objects in nature. 
The very concept of freedom itself, that we can think of it at all, 
is based on a typical basic inconsistency and limitation of ourselves. 

9. Obviously, man cannot hold in consciousness the causes of his ac 
tions, even the more immediate ones. It is only % through after 
thought, the mechanism called memory, that the complex of causes 
even occurs to us and then only partially. And, the less we know 
of the diversity of causes involved in any single act, the freer we 
think we are. The very feeling we have of freedom, that comes to 
us, say, when we order with plenty of money in our pockets, a par 
ticularly appealing dinner, can stay only as long as we do not in 
quire into its causes. A man will board a train and depart for the 
place of his choice. He marries the woman of his choice. He picks 
the friends he wants. He does, in a word, as he pleases he thinks. 
He expresses himself. But let him examine closely into the reasons 
for any of his actions, and his illusion will vanish. He will find him 
self caught in all his acts, in every "thought," in every evaluation, 
in a tangled complex of suggestions, necessities, and compulsions, 
which can be regarded as free only if they are thought of as isolated 
from the rest of nature and self-created which, of course, is non 
sense. Whether life defeats him at every turn or whether it seems 
to fall in with him, there is no freedom for him. And why not so? 
This is surely no galling fate, for it allows as much satisfaction as 
we have, minus the feeling of responsibility which the other view 
tries to force on us. 



REFUTATIONS 427 

III 

10. And now we come to the question of moral responsibility. Is a 
man morally responsible for freedom in the sense of self-expression? 
If so that is, if he can be called responsible then so can all other 
objects in nature which also express themselves; the lion for in 
stance, when it expresses itself in killing the lamb, should feel guilty, 
for it has moral responsibility. Also the wind, when it rushes as a 
tornado; the rain, when it falls and feeds crops or swells rivers. 

11. Yet it is not necessary to have moral responsibility as the basis of 
social organization. Look at the ants, bees, schools of fish, the tem 
porary families of animals, herds and so on. Certainly there you 
have social life, carried on for the greater benefit of the individual 
through the group, to a very successful degree. The ants and bees 
in fact seem more successful than we in this respect and must there 
fore be of a considerably greater moral stature. The spiders do 
moral and immoral things ( as we see them ) but seemingly in order 
to preserve the spider race, and they do not seem to be aware of our 
standards, But why not? They are evolved, the same as we are. The 
same forces that environ them environ us. They hold their young 
up to the sun to make them grow. They display astounding skills 
genius no less, as we see genius. But we say that they have no 
minds or that consciousness that we have; that we are superior and 
therefore moral and therefore responsible. But are we? Who is to 
say that? Mr. Barrett? Or has he heard someone else say it has it 
not been historically repeated, and may he not be mechanistically 
repeating what he has heard? If he had never heard of our so-called 
moral law, our responsibility, would he be able to "think" or "speak" 
of those things? Actually how long do you think that morals and 
responsibility would remain in their present reality if their admin 
istration were left to intelligence, reason, ideas that is, if chemical 
responses to exterior and interior stimuli were not in us automatic, 
not a matter of "will" or "thought"? 

12. Mr. Barrett admits that these human faculties can be used for evil 
ends as well as good. And what determines the good ends? What 
enforces them, even so far as they are enforced? Is it not always the 
threat of punishment, retribution? Do not morals even threaten the 
basis of freedom, self-expression, according to Mr. Barrett? As I 



428 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

have already pointed out it is possible, as all who have any experi 
ence of life must admit, for a person to have within himself two, 
three, or more compulsions to be (what Mr. Barrett would call 
will), each of them incompatible with the fulfillment of the others 
and perhaps all of them immoral in a social sense. The unfortunate 
victim of such desires (for even Mr. Barrett could hardly hold a 
human being responsible for his own generation ) expresses himself 
perhaps he rapes a girl, perhaps he steals some money or an idea, 
perhaps he loafs away his life, wasting his talents. Mr. Barrett holds 
up the awful picture of society divested of moral responsibility, 
What he is really talking about is a society divested of jails, prisons, 
stigmas, social distinctions, economic distinctions, insane asylums. I 
sadly fear that moral sense in the long run and especially where 
there are questions of the common good depends on the continu 
ing existence of such institutions or ones like them. The feeling of 
guilt is only a reflection of their more concrete reality. For cer 
tainly man, even in his most unsocial acts, is expressing himself, 
just as much as in his most social. And therefore he must be free 
then, according to Mr. Barrett. And morals plus the concept of re 
sponsibility can inhibit even his freedom on which it depends. A 
sorry picture. 

IV 

13. Just in closing I should like to ask this one question. The whole 
problem of freedom arises why? Because in many ways we must 
at once admit we are slaves. Freedom is a relative state. Its realest 
sense and the only practical one for us is just what Mr. Barrett 
says it is the least inhibited self-expression. And it is only the 
simplest logic to concede that successful self-expression is common 
throughout nature. In every conflict there is a victor and a van 
quished, the victor free, the vanquished a slave. 

14. If freedom is more than that in our lives, we never experience it. 
But behind that? It seems to me that true freedom cannot be con 
ceived of in this way. We have never a chance to say what we will 
be "free" to do. We are born into this world with a heritage of 
physical and mental being, with internal conflicts set forth from the 
beginning. The world we are born into we are helpless to affect a 
priori. What effect we do have must be according to the bodies we 



REFUTATIONS 429 

are born with, as these contend with what we find here. And after 
all that is death. No one has successfully answered any fundamental 
questions as to why all this is. And we can say all we want that 
we have free will, that we are responsible, that we have this marvel 
ous mechanism of intelligence these are just words, and we want 
to make them into physical effects. Well, the words themselves are 
physical effects, but they carry conviction and force only, in fact are 
only, as long as they stand out against a whole world of fact that 
we do and must ignore, because we are merely parts of an enor 
mous and complicated mechanism or process which cannot be de 
fined as good or evil but only in part and at times and because, 
again, of unexplained internal conflicts, within ourselves and our 
particular limitations and ignorance. 

15. In the last paragraph but one of his argument, Mr. Barrett offers 
four of what he must assume to be irrefutable illustrations of moral 
responsibility. And they may look irrefutable to some. There is not 
room here for all four, so I will take at random number two the 
voter who votes for the politician whom he knows to be incompetent 
and dishonest, because the politician promises to have the voter s 
street repaved. Concerning this, he asks: Is not the voter morally 
responsible? My answer is no not unless you define the prevailing 
social opinion or local law as moral; and, again, not unless you as 
sume that the action of the person who does not obey it is based on 
a conscious or intelligent knowledge or grasp of this current public 
opinion or law or custom or taboo; and, further, not unless you agree 
that he agrees that, for reason of benefits received or to be re 
ceived from this public or its agreed-on government, he owes it 
to it to coincide with or at least to obey its conviction as to the fair 
ness and worth-whileness of the services of the honest candidate as 
opposed to the dishonest candidate. 

16. But who is to decide that? I, Mr. Barrett, or the voter in question? 
Why was his street unpaved? And why, under a thoroughly equit 
able social arrangement, would he feel it necessary to bribe the pol 
itician with his vote? Were the executives of his local public all 
honest? Would they have paved his street as quickly as that of an 
other? It is so easy to speak of honest and dishonest politicians. But 
defining one taking all his acts and deeds in order is not so easy. 
For, speaking of an honest politician, an act of his that might look 



430 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

honest and be honest to one group of men would not necessarily be 
let alone look the same to another. To the poor it might seem 
just, to the rich, confiscation, or vice versa; to the intelligent, fair 
and just, to the unintelligent, class legislation as against mass need; 
and so on. 

17. As you can see for yourself, no hard-and-fast proposition such as 
this can intelligently be propounded. Too many ifs are involved, too 
many mental or temperamental and social angles. Actually the 
voter might have been right in bribing the politician. It would de 
pend on how necessary the paving of this street was; how long it 
had been delayed; what losses or deprivations or irritations, if any, 
it had entailed. In fact, if arrested for bribery, the voter might have 
been able to prove to a jury that he was justified (by injuries or ills 
suffered) in agreeing to vote for the crooked politician. Even Mr. 
Barrett might have been one on a jury to vote not guilty not be 
cause the accused was not guilty of bribery, but because to vote 
not guilty would be the only way Mr. Barrett would have of indicat 
ing that essentially equity was on the side of the vot^r and not on 
that of the prosecuting public which was seeking to hold him mor 
ally responsible. Selah. 

18. As I have done in this case, so I can do in the other three. 

ANALYSIS 

x i. State the fundamental problem that Dreiser is attempting to refute. To this 
end it would be well to refer again to Clifford Barrett s "Man s Moral Responsi 
bility," which takes the other side of this argument. 

2. a. Does Dreiser simplify the issues? 

b. Does he state the issues as he sees them? Where? What are they? 

3. Point out where the refutation proper begins. 

4. a. On what kinds of logic or argumentative technique does Dreiser base a large 
part of his argument? 

b. Of what significance is the title of the article as an indication of the kind of 
approach Dreiser uses here? 

5. Point out places that seem to you illustrative of Dreiser s efforts to base his 
reasoning on experience, on concrete knowledge and observation. Does he do 
much of this? 

6. a. Compare the two sides of this argument as they are presented in these two 
parallel articles. 
b. Which seems to you to succeed more completely? Why? 



REFUTATIONS 431 

WASHBOARD WEEPERS* 

A SMALL CASE FOR RADIO 

By Max Wylie 

I 

1. RADIO is accused of a multitude of sins, by a multitude of persons. 
Senators, cranks, and congressmen attack it. Lawyers, psychiatrists, 
doctors, educators, editors, and clergymen all take swipes at it. 
Many of these people are important and their views are often given 
wide publicity. Many, alas, are neither informed nor fair. 

2. By far the greatest amount of abuse and some of the least justi 
fied is directed at the lowly serials, better known as soap operas 
or washboard weepers. This is not surprising, since there are so 
many of them; many more than enough in the opinion of radio s 
critics. I have been up to my ears in these weird wonders for quite 
a time, and I believe I can set down a fair statement of what we in 
radio think is behind them and why we believe there is justification 
for their more or less dismal continuance. These super-hardy sun 
flowers of backyard fiction have crowded the daylight radio hours 
on weekdays for more than ten years. At night they crawl back in 
the ditto machines; on weekends they relax entirely after a flamboy 
ant Friday outburst; and many of them estivate all summer. They 
can be moved from the Red Network to the Blue without turning 
purple, often without knowing they were transplanted. They can 
go unnourished for weeks without losing their Hooper. They can 
stick their roots in a bar of soap and bloom as if it were Wheaties. 
Aspirin revives them. So does anything in a tube. As flowers go, they 
are tough babies, but if they are hard to classify, they are harder 
to kill. 

3. Strangely enough, most of the arguments against daytime serials 
are based on charges that are entirely justified. Here are the charges: 
the stories are depressing; the stories are badly written; the stories 
drag; one story follows another in weary and continuous sequence; 
one network does what the other does; serial stories dominate pro- 

* From Harpers Magazine, November, 1942. Reprinted by permission of the 
author. 



432 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

gram schedules all day for most of the week; the stories, most of 
them, are dreadful and some are salacious. 

4. The argument then proceeds to tells us that these shows are detri 
mental to listeners; that they are undermining the American home; 
that they are thereby undermining America; and that they should 
therefore be stopped. 

5. Broadcasters do not see it this way. In general they admit the 
charges. They know all about it first; they knew about it before 
the facts became charges. But they flatly deny two things: first, that 
the charges constitute an argument, and second, that there is any 
validity in the conclusion. 

6. Broadcasters not only deny that the shows are detrimental to lis 
teners. They insist that they are necessary to them, that they have 
been constructed for them, and that they would not be on the air 
unless audience response demanded it. To a very generous extent I 
share this opinion because I can see nothing wrong in the reasoning. 
I have been more hotly pursued by backstage wives, orphans of di 
vorce, and women in white than most men. I have made my living 
from these forlorn females. In some cases I have even determined 
when and whom they should marry and when they should cease to 
be married, and I once had the problem of supervising a case of 
literary parthenogenesis on sixty-eight stations for a large coast-to- 
coast network. I can modestly say that I know what some of these 
girls are up to, and some of the writers put them up to it. 

7. Four characteristics are present in nearly all the criticisms of day 
time radio that broadcasters have to contend with. Here they are: 

8. Most of those who criticize daytime radio do so because they can 
find there no entertainment values for themselves. 

9. Most of those who sit down to the task of preparing statements 
that will improve radio end up by scolding radio. They are on a 
hunt for evil and they immediately find evil. 

10. Most of those who criticize daytime shows either do not listen to 
enough shows, or do not listen to any given show long enough, to 
arrive at any constructive opinion as to what the serials may be do 
ing culturally or psychologically to the listener who follows them 
all the time. 

11. Few of the critics are steady listeners or general listeners. The 
great majority are most casual in their listening habits, and some 



REFUTATIONS 433 

even advise us in their opening sentence that they never listen at 
all. They tell us they "gave up/* 

12. Concluding paragraphs of their attacks usually wind up in a 
shellburst of challenge and dismay. "Why aren t there shows about 
happy homes and happy people?" they ask. "Where are the great 
American themes?" "With the world afire, why can t writers find in 
spiration in the courageous performance of our soldiers?" "Is De 
mocracy so sick it can get nourishment from this sort of hokum?" 

II 

13. We may as well take care of the primary complaint right away 
"Why don t you have shows about happy homes and happy people?" 

14. We have a few a very few and they are comedy shows. Most 
of the shows are about unhappy homes and unhappy people. The 
main reason of course why radio has so many stories about trouble- 
ridden families is that the picture of the well-adjusted family pre 
sents no problem and hence no story. It is a well-adjusted, com 
fortable American family, minding its own business, paying its rent, 
sending its normal children to normal school, going to church, and 
living at all times, despite the day s weather or the year s season, at 
room temperature. A writer would lose interest in it in a day s visit, 
and a listener in a single show. That is the flat answer to a question 
that any man or woman could answer for himself if he considered 
it for long. But this is only half of radio s reasoning. Radio knows a 
handful of sociological verities so unpleasant that the critics hesitate 
to mention them. Radio not only mentions them. It buys them and 
sells them and insists upon them, and puts them on live networks so 
that they can be heard all over the country and then puts them on 
acetate recordings so that they can be heard in New Zealand and 
Hawaii. It even translates them so that they can be heard in Polish, 
Yiddish, Portuguese, and Italian. 

15. What are these verities, if verities they be? They are more funda 
mental than the adage about misery loving company. They actually 
presume that most people are more preoccupied with the unhappy 
aspects of their present lives and past recollections, and more pre 
occupied about the uncertainty of their futures, than they are with 
the endurable or, in rare cases, the downright happy status quo of 
the moment. They presuppose that not only the secret and subcon- 



434 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

scious mind of womankind, but the conscious mind itself, is packed 
with more memories of loneliness and frustration and unrealized 
romantic reverie than memories of past delight or present fulfill 
ment. They presuppose that the great mass of all mankind with 
the women worse off than the men is cramped and poor and 
troubled and tired; ungifted, without a future, and insecure; adven 
turesome, vain, and seeking. 

16. Women of the daytime audiences are having physical and psychic 
problems that they themselves cannot understand, that they cannot 
solve. Being physical, they feel the thrust of these problems. Being 
poor, they cannot buy remedies in the form of doctors, new clothes, 
or deciduous coiffures: being unanalytical, they cannot figure out 
what is really the matter with them; and being inarticulate, they 
cannot explain their problem even if they know what it is. "There 
isn t anything the matter with me that a million dollars wouldn t 
cure" is no passing gag, and no sincere psychiatrist will call it a gag. 

17. Radio doesn t think it s a gag either and does one of two things. 
It takes them into their own problems or into problems worse than 
their own (which is the same thing, only better). Or it takes them 
away from their problems. It gives listeners two constant and fre 
quently simultaneous choices participation or escape. Both work. 

Ill 

18. Radio s critics like to think of themselves as the true and suitable 
norm, and in all the arts save radio this is not only a safe presump 
tion; it is a necessary one. The book critic talks to book readers and 
book lovers. In so far as he can, he reads and criticizes what his 
instinct and past experience tell him is the most important or most 
significant or most promising book in any given day or week. He 
writes for people who read books or who wish to seem to have read 
them. 

19. The same holds true for the critic of art exhibits, the dance, seri 
ous music, statuary, drama, architecture, poetry, epicureanism, 
flower arrangement, landscape gardening, and street planning. All 
such critics must concentrate on a field whose limits are pretty well 
known and accepted. As specialists, they have less to cover and 
fewer to cover for. Chotzinoff does not have to know what Fadiman 
knows and he is not expected to. Richard Watts does not have to 



REFUTATIONS 435 

know much of what Fadiman knows, and nothing at all of what 
Chotzinoff knows. But the radio critic should know what all these 
men know. And in addition to this he must be an expert in f orensics, 
elocution, debate, and psychology, and he must also be a sound 
newspaperman. A radio critic would have to be omniscient. 

20. That is why radio is almost without competent critics. That is why 
it has had to be its own critic. That is why it is vulnerable to crit 
icism from any outsider who wants to come in with criticism. That 
is why it cannot protect itself from these outsiders, and therefore 
why outsiders proliferate without disturbance. 

21. For mass-consumption purposes, in order to carry a case against 
daytime radio, it would seem to be necessary for the critics to dem 
onstrate that these shows are worse than other avenues of mass en 
tertainment in the matter of violence, or misery, or vulgarity, or in 
their suggestion and intention. 

22. Let us set up an average man of twenty and see what he has read, 
heard, and looked at in the course of a normal American education. 
Before he learned how to read he could recite thirty or forty Mother 
Goose rhymes. He knew "Goosey, Goosey, Gander," in which he 
found an old man who wouldn t say his prayers, and being a correct 
young man of four, he did the only thing possible. He took that old 
man by his left leg and threw him down the stairs. He saw a spider 
frighten a Miss Muffett off her tuffet. He saw a farm woman cut off 
the tails of three blind mice with a carving knife. He saw London 
Bridge fall and Scotland burn. He knew a kid named Simon who 
couldn t buy anything from a pieman because he was flat broke. He 
knew a girl with bonny brown hair who was being stood up for the 
first time because a fellow named Johnny didn t come home from 
the fair. Our young friend is now sophisticated enough to know 
some babes. These seemed to be lost in a wood. Nothing happened 
to them except that they sobbed and they cried and they lay down 
and died. And he was the intimate of the children who got spanked 
soundly and sent to bed because their old lady didn t know what 
else to do, living in a shoe the way she did. 

23. Except for a merry old soul who liked fiddle players, our young 
friend has seen little enough that is pleasant. It looks like a troubled 
world to him, full of lost and impoverished youngsters, homeless 
and whimpering in the dark; a world of homely parents, most of 



436 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

whom are ancient and cruel; a place of shadows, ridiculous eco 
nomic structures, and cows with crumpled horns, This wearies him 
a great deal and he goes to bed in a tree top comforted by the news 
that the whole works is likely to come crashing to earth any minute. 

24. Presently he learns how to read, and his storybooks introduce him 
to a man who hangs his wives to rafters by their hair; to a little 
match girl freezing in the snow; to a boy bumping around Germany 
in the fire box of a big stove; to a boy who kills giants with a pickax; 
to wolves, devils, pirates, kidnappers, and people who can unscrew 
their eyes. Children disappear into a mountain cleft and never come 
back to Hamelin. Children disappear into a Crusade and never come 
back to England. A boy gets shot out of a tree and falls dead before 
Garibaldi. A boy gets his legs shot off, hangs his drum to a bough, 
and beats the charge till his blood runs out. A French maiden is 
burned alive. A queen is beheaded. 

25. Comic strips begin to feature more prominently in his develop 
ment, and he devours panel after panel of the fastest moving four- 
color melodrama that man s ingenuity can devise. He, does this, it 
is to be presumed, to relax from the urbane suavity of Poe, the 
eupeptic exuberance of Hawthorne, Thomas Hardy s irrepressible 
wise-cracking, and the glyptic inertias of Jack London, Ambrose 
Bierce, and Bret Harte; Conrad, Wells, Kipling, Scott, and Dickens 
all of whom he has been reading in small daily doses for a year 
or two because they were part of his syllabus. When he is only six 
teen our young student is obliged to memorize great sections of a 
story which when slightly compressed and rephrased might read 
like this: 

26. Joe s girl, a gun moll, suspects that he s too soft for the killings 
he s got to undertake. So the next night she pours liquor into the 
victim s bodyguards, gets them drunk, takes their guns, gives them 
to Joe, and tells him to go in and do the killing which he does. 
But the next night there is good reason to kill the gang leader s 
lieutenant, and Joe is so scared that he pays a couple of local boys 
to do the job with clubs. By this time Joe keeps seeing the lieuten 
ant, probably because he isn t there. His nerves are shot. He decides 
that if he doesn t kill everybody in his way, they ll kill him. But the 
mob turns on him, kills him, and cuts his head off to make sure. 



REFUTATIONS 437 

27. There is no sex in this story at all. It is the sort of story that you 
have read in the newspapers in one form or another, and it will be 
going on in the papers as long as there are men living who do not 
have what they want, or who do not have what their wives want, 
which is usually more newsworthy. 

28. I have paraphrased the story just recounted because I wished to 
conceal its authorship. I think it is a story of violence, a yarn not 
far removed in many of its features from the very sort of story that 
has been lambasted all over the four networks. ( In May of this year 
five daytime shows on the Red Network alone were dealing with 
murder. ) 

29. Nobody knows who wrote this story. Some say Holinshed and 
some say George Buchanan. It doesn t matter in the least. What does 
matter is that an alert and busy Englishman stumbled upon it, was 
fascinated by it, rewrote it, and called it "Macbeth." 

30. I do not see any reason to go on with this. The point is clear. All 
our childhoods were sadistic. Our formative years were explosive, 
reckless, and packed with excitement. Lyricism, if any, we managed 
to catch on the fly. By the time the normal American is eighteen he 
has seen men killed every way it can be done. By the time he is 
twenty there is almost nothing in the category of classical miscon 
duct he doesn t know. Much of this he has learned by reading, and 
much of it by reading what was put into his hands by those respon 
sible for his education. I grant of course that he has also read much 
that was light and easy on the nerves, but his reading thrills were 
thrilling because they treated of violence or of a promise of violence. 
(We won t even mention the movies. ) 

31. Critics of radio will insist that these stories of exalted adventure 
are classic stories and therefore improving. This is true. But radio 
answers this by pointing out that less than one per cent have gone 
on reading the classics after their limited compulsory exposure to 
them in school. 

32. That is the thing radio men know. They know other things. They 
know that most members of American radio homes don t give a 
hoot for a symphony. Only about six and a half million individual 
listeners really enjoy symphonic music. About twice this many may 
pretend to like it, which splits the normal symphony audience into 



438 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

two parts, at a ratio of two fakers for every fan. Culturally this may 
not be flattering, but factually, though it may be of no interest to 
critics, it is of compelling interest to broadcasters. It limits the amount 
of good music this country shall hear. But radio has more harrowing 
evidence than this. Radio is in fourteen million homes where there 
are no magazines. It is in eight million homes where there are no 
bathtubs. These are the homes of America s poor. 

33. Radio believes that these people are limited in a way not under 
stood by radio critics, or it would have been mentioned by them. 
The critics have criticized radio because there are major aspects of 
radio they do not like for themselves. It is they themselves who do 
not like soap operas. Wittingly or not, they all speak for themselves 
or for a plane of privilege and discrimination and social criteria 
totally unknown to the multitudes. They would exchange the bad 
taste of these multitudes for their personal idea of good taste. This 
might get better programs on the air and poor programs off the air, 
but it would sink radio inside of a year. It would pull the sea cocks 
out of her, and she would subside in a wail of woodwinds, bow- 
heavy with artistic mash, logy with prose. 

IV 

34. Here is the fatal flaw running through all the criticism of radio to 
date, irrespective of source, corrective, or intention. Radio, to be 
free, must be radio for all the people. That is why it is so strong 
and open-throated in America. Everybody has a piece of it here. 
That is why it is dead in Europe. It doesn t belong to the listeners. 

35. Today radio is being badgered and squeezed by the neck. Its eyes 
are beginning to start. It needs help. Up to now it has handled its 
fights by itself. Alone it cannot win them all and has already lost 
some big ones. It has consistently refused to pre-empt its own power 
to win any converts to its cause, for radio really believes that Amer 
ican broadcasting is owned and operated by its public. 

36. You are its public, and if you like radio stick up for it. If you don t 
like it complain about it. But complain in the charitable terms that 
bespeak your recognition of the tastes and the rights of others. 

37. No man in American radio has ever said that everything in radio 
is right, and no radio man ever will. But they will all tell you this: 
if you make radio a public issue, radio will bring it to the public. 



REFUTATIONS 439 

Broadcasters have never flinched from a public issue and as long 
as democracy exists they never will. 
38. Public trust is radio s only security, public response its mold. 



ANALYSIS 

, a. What is the argument that the author attempts to refute in this article? 
Point it out in the text. 

b. Is it a single argument or a complex one? 

c. Does the author "color" the argument in his statement of it? How? 

. a. Point out any evidences you find of the author s efforts to simplify the argu 
ment in his process of refuting it. 
b. Does he oversimplify it? Explain. ( Note especially Paragraphs 22-30. ) 

. Where does the author s refutation begin? How does he divide this part of his 
article? Why? 

, a. List the main points used by the author to refute the argument advanced 
against the radio. 

b. How does he handle the ones concerning soap operas? 

c. Does he evade the issue? Is his argument here straightforward or circuitous? 
Is it valid? Explain. 

, Here, as in the other selections in this part of the book, look closely at the 
technique of controversy. Look, in this article especially, for evidence of de 
ceptive patterns of reasoning (fallacies of all kinds, such as the one whereby 
an artificial case is set up merely to be demolished, under the guise of having 
demolished the real case, which, all the while, remains untouched). Look to 
see if the arguments succeed without the necessity of being deceptive or, ul 
timately, false. Look to see if the arguments really get at the core, the founda 
tion, the real case; that is, is the issue worth the controversy. 
a. From this study, make a critical commentary on the three articles in this sec 
tion and a summary of the main principles to be used in writing refutations. 

SAMPLE THEME SUBJECTS 
College life does not prolong adolescence. 

Those who claim that slang is vigorous language fail to recognize that large 
areas of slang show weakness, laziness, and inadequacy. 

The state of nature is far less idyllic than the Romantic writers described it. 

One encounters too frequently attacks on Hollywood movies. Hollywood s in 
terpretation of life is a better one than that found in the popular magazines. 

The younger generation is not going to the dogs. 

Woman s place is not in the home. 

Athletics do not noticeably breed a sense of fair play in athletes. 

The notion that advertising is worthwhile because it alone makes possible the 
standard of living found in this country is riddled with fallacies. 



440 THE EXPOSITION QF IDEAS 

Social standing in this country is not, as is so often thought, dependent upon 
wealth alone. 

The spirit of science is not inimical to the spirit of religion. 

Unlike the conception of it fostered by books like Sinclair Lewis s Main Street, 
the small town does not provide a shallow, valueless sort of life. 

Grading on a curve in college is not realistic. 

Modern poetry is not so incomprehensible as it seems to be. 

Patriotism is a desirable quality, but the patriotism that deifies all the well- 
known figures in our history is dangerous to the successful operation of a de 
mocracy. 

The railroads will not be supplanted in the discernible future by air trans 
portation. 

Working one s way through college is not advisable in most cases. 
We do not have a free press. 

Classical music is not boring to anyone who understands it; the boredom merely 
accompanies ignorance. 

Leaning on hobbies does not improve us; it merely makes us pass our time in 
nocuously. 

Vocationalism in college is not as practical as it seems to be at fiVst glance. 



9. HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 



9 



High Level Generalizations 



HIGH LEVEL generalizations are generalizations far removed from 
the mass of perceptions upon which thought is, or should be, based. 
The task of pushing them back to the concrete level to check their ac 
curacy is an arduous one. Because such generalizations represent con 
clusions drawn from large bodies of evidence, on subjects of wide scope, 
they are valuable when they are accurate. An advanced civilization can 
not well exist without them, but it can also fall because of them. They 
are food for the trained mind but poison for the mind that takes thought 
on hearsay or wanders easily into fairylands of no-meaning. When high 
level generalizations are sound, they are expressed by wise men, by men 
who have had extensive experience in checking and rechecking the 
validity of ideas in special areas of thought, by authorities in their fields, 
or by research workers trained at assembling data turned up by other 
research workers. More often, however, they are myths broad ideas 
which we live by without either the inclination or the ability to test 
their ultimate validity. 

The example given here is not for the average undergraduate to im 
itate. Perhaps he is as capable of indulging in the pastime of general 
izing as some of his elders but he is not justified in imitating their mis 
takes. The generalizations learned by children in many of our schools 
are too often presented without reference to the facts. Perhaps at times 
we become confused in our thinking by failing to distinguish between 
high level generalizing which makes broad assertions in a positive man 
ner and pure speculation which ponders only the possibilities. The abil 
ity to speculate is rare and should be cultivated by all students. High 
level generalizations, however, should be left to those qualified to handle 
them. 



444 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

A WESTERNER VIEWS THE U.S.A.* 

By Edward M. Miller 

1. MANY A WESTERNER holds to the vague belief that his beginnings 
date back no farther than the covered-wagon days, when his great- 
great-grandparents, or his grandparents, made choice of the west. 
Actually the Westerner is the terminal product of an American proc 
ess that began more than three hundred years ago when ambitious 
peoples, fed up with the inequities and restraints of Europe, set out 
to establish a world where the individual might flourish. A good 
many of the early comers were singularly ill equipped for the job. 
Plymouth folk learned the hard way by experience. 

2. Time brought stability and comfortable institutions, however, 
and many were content. There were others who preferred not to 
await the fruition of the clipper ship and the flowering of political 
genius in Virginia. These were the Westerners, the restless ones, 
and the settlement of the Tidewater served both as reason and 
excuse for malcontents to roam inland and onward in search of 
more space and better fortune. Progress was slow. Dating from 
Plymouth, two hundred years were required to push modest dis 
tances beyond the Mississippi, and it was not until 1843 that the 
first substantial group of migrants set out from Missouri for the 
Pacific Northwest. There were earlier settlements in California, but 
the tide did not reach its height until the discovery of California 
gold in 1848. Thus, pertinent time for Westerners stems from the 
40 s to the 80 s. During those years most of the livable areas of the 
west, save for earlier Spanish and Mexican settlements in the South 
west, saw their first homesteaders. 

3. The great migration to the far West, in which the migrant of the 
early 1840 s was a zestful participant, represented the culmination 
of an amazing group of fortuitous circumstances. The seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries had evolved a magnificent political philos 
ophy calculated to dignify and inspire an individual a philosophy 
with which by the early 1800 s the American people had been im 
bued and which had found workable expression in the exuberant 
confidence of Jeffersonian democracy. 

* From The American Scholar, Autumn, 1943. Reprinted by permission of the 
publishers and the author. 



HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 445 

4. The Western migration took place at a time when the American 
people were no longer amateurs in the business of bending a wild 
erness to their needs. Fortune smiled on the Westerners when she 
gave them blood sufficiently kindred to permit effective, efficient 
colonization; and time had released the bonds of early inhibitions 
stemming from secularized religion. 

5. World events conspired to make the Western lands available ex 
actly when preparations were complete. Napoleonic ambition pro 
vided all Louisiana, the controversy with Britain was a signboard 
and a spur to the Oregon country, and Mexico s tenuous hold on 
California was an evident temptation. Finally, the resources of the 
West were to prove adequate for the encouragement and support 
of a high standard of living. 

6. Never in all the history of the world had so many peoples, so ad 
mirably equipped, set out to emblazon their destiny on slate so 
clean. 

7. Such were the legacies to the Westerner-to-be. As an individual 
he displayed vital American characteristics destined to gain new 
vigor from the men who bore them; dogged enterprise, ingenuity, 
and a sublime confidence in God, himself, and the Bill of Rights. 
To these must be added a restless, feverish enthusiasm for his own 
forthright version of social security, "Oregon or Bust," scrawled on 
the side of his wagon. The cynical will ascribe his delirium to the 
lure of free lands. (Congress, in clue course, allotted 320 acres to 
each emigrant. With a wife he got 640. ) True, ordinary greed fairly 
designates the motives of many who sought gold and lands, but it 
does not suffice to explain the tormenting fever that compelled men 
to snatch wives and children from established homes and to thrust 
them into the hazards of Indians, flood, and famine. Acres, alone, 
do not provide explanation. 

8. No, the peoples of the wagon trains were willing victims of the 
frontier, questers for an illusive substance, which today we call the 
American Dream new words to identify the compelling urge and 
confident hope for a better world. 

9. For all the spiritual legacies and ties with the past, it should not 
be forgotten that the long, dangerous trip across the plains was the 
most spectacular of all the American breaks with the past, both in 
fact and in the minds of the participants. If their going was an af- 



446 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

firmation of hope in a beckoning future, it was also a breaking away 
from the shackles, real or imagined, they had known in the East. In 
the fullness of the break they were discarding residual accumula 
tions of time, contagious behavior patterns, to which the attitudes 
and actions of men are inevitably susceptible. There was stern sym 
bolism when, to ease the strain on thinning oxen, the migrants ruth 
lessly tossed aside their few keepsakes of an ordered past. Spiritual 
legacies had been stripped of all trimmings and trappings when 
their bearers gained Pacific saltwater. 

10. The newcomers to the West were to find need of all their re 
sources. Nature decreed the West should be desolate and beautiful 
and tough and the beauty should be that of the bold, sweeping 
stroke. Here were the nation s tallest mountains, wildest rivers, big 
gest canyons, tallest trees, heaviest rains, deepest snows, driest des 
erts. In later times such items were to wring profit from tourists. 
To early settlers they were nightmares come true. 

11. First came the Rockies, a massive range sprawling from Canada 
to Mexico. Beyond and parallel to the Rockies the migrants encoun 
tered an arid trough six hundred miles wide. It was laced and inter 
laced with canyons of great rivers. It was strewn with ten thousand 
named and nameless errant buttes and mountains and was centered 
by the Great Salt Lake. 

12. Beyond the trough a second major range of mountains, called the 
Cascades in the north and the Sierra Nevadas in the south, offered 
towering snow capped peaks. With final mountains surmounted, the 
migrants spilled down into the valleys at or near Pacific tidewater 
where they founded the future large cities of the coast. The vast ex 
panse between the Pacific and the Rockies soon became dotted with 
settlers from the East or by others who backwashed from the 
Pacific. 

13. Now began the great adventure, the great question mark: Would 
the Western men and women, thrown on their own resources, uti 
lize to full measure the gifts and talents fortune had bestowed? The 
West forced a new factor into the colonization of America; namely, 
the conquest of aridity. Few Easterners realize the extent to which 
aridity and semi-aridity prevail throughout the West. The dryness 
forced concentration on water, or rather, the scarcity of water. 
There were feuds over water holes and bankruptcies from water 



HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 447 

rights, but out of the process of bringing fertility to sage flats there 
emerged the spirit of enterprise underlying irrigation, the cup of 
life in the West. 

14. Climate and geography gave rise to many other occupations either 
new to the American scene or destined to become identified with 
the West: cattle ranching; sheep raising; gold, silver, and copper 
mining. To these must be added the time-honored means of liveli 
hoodlogging of trees, sawing of lumber, subsistence farming, 
shipping, trade, doctoring, and lawyering. All of them required new 
applications, new solutions to fit virgin surroundings. The challenge 
was great, the task was immense. After one hundred years the job 
of whittling down the West to man s size still remains undone. 

15. I have dwelt upon physiography and industry to emphasize an 
obvious but easily overlooked fact: the Westerner has been forced 
into intense preoccupation with the physical job at hand. When you 
are uprooting firs and sage, fighting and fleecing Indians, launching 
steamboats, scheming railroads, gouging highways, and building the 
great projects of current date under such circumstances you do 
not philosophize about the implications of historical processes. To 
the contrary, you sweat, and pin your faith on the morrow. 

16. The Western character emerged from its mold about the turn of 
the century. Native American attributes remained basic, but the 
Westerner had been conditioned strongly by his lack of concern 
with the past, his preoccupation with the urgencies of the present, a 
receptivity toward innovations, and an uncritical faith in a better 
future. 

17. With this formula in mind, it will be seen the Westerner is a rela 
tively uncomplicated person. He enjoys the naivete of a youthful 
people. He has escaped the searing scars of cynicism and despair, 
for he has been spared the lash of major regional conflicts and ca 
tastrophesno civil wars, no reconstruction, no dust bowls, no 
gaunt cotton mills. 

18. Furthermore, his mind remains uncluttered with worrisome ab 
stractions. Why should he bother about the fine points of Magna 
Carta, the philosophy of the Lockes and the Rousseaus, the statutes 
of Virginia, even the implications of the Declaration of Independ 
ence, when, he is the living epitome of all the freedoms ever in 
vented? 



448 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

19. As an individual the Westerner is easy-going, casual, and not 
given to the furrowed brow. His affection for nature is tremendous, 
and he counts hunting and fishing the finest of all pastimes. He is 
well-disposed toward his fellowmen. Friendliness is given as a mat 
ter of course and without reservations. The Westerner s candor is 
immense what he thinks, he says, and expects you to reply in kind. 

20. We revere the practical. Save in Carmel and San Francisco, a 
connoisseur of the fine arts can be mighty lonesome west of the 
Rockies. Contrariwise, domestic architecture flourishes admirably. 
A good house is practical. 

21. The manifestations of the body politic are of infinite variety and 
utterly incomprehensible to many strangers. We film the sexiest 
movies, adhere to the strictest morals, commercialize divorce, build 
splendid schools, germinate the nuttiest cults, build the biggest 
bombers, tolerate inexcusable insane asylums, wear the weirdest 
clothes, indulge in honest politics and goofy politics, revere the 
D.A.R., and root for Marian Anderson. Where is the pattern? 

22. In early days, the absence of traditional pressures * gave rise to 
many excesses. Fortunately, the traveling kits of migrants contained 
many a strong dose of subduing Calvinism. Stern cathartics elimi 
nated the most obnoxious excesses, and recovery brought back the 
good health of vigorous enterprise. 

23. Relatively few of our people, save those lured by the arts or by 
prospects of professional advancement, have any desire to migrate 
eastward. Yet this is no bar to curiosity. Most Westerners are born 
with itchy feet, and they speak with apologetic regret if their trav 
els have not included a journey to the Atlantic. There are riches 
ahead for the Westerner who will travel back the trail in honest 
search for treasures hidden in those two hundred and fifty years so 
lightly cast aside by his great-great-grandparents. His riches will 
consist of a new and deeply thrilling conception of America and, 
yes, an exciting introspective knowledge of himself. 

24. Our traveler encounters the beauty of the Eastern countryside 
with a surprise akin to shock. Weaned on the expansive travel bro 
chures of the Union Pacific, he learns to his astonishment that a 
miniature in proper setting asks no favors from a mural. 

25. Autumn leaves in New York and New England are unbelievably 
gay. Views round the bends of rural lanes surely were invented for 



HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 449 

the special benefit of cameras. Roadside stands give hints of pro 
ductivity unsuspected in soil so thin. The endless stone walls give 
testimony to patient, toilsome affection for this stony land. 

26. The visitor readily extends respect for the Palisades of the Hud 
son, and he is enchanted with the well-groomed farms and stone 
barns of Pennsylvania. The soft beauty of Virginia is a revelation. 
In all the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Virginia offers the 
most persuasive invitation for the establishment of a country home. 
Amblings through the Great Smokies of North Carolina teach the 
lesson that eastern mountains wear well. Western peaks exude the 
frigidity of their ice caps. Eastern mountains, tolerant with age, in 
vite companionship. 

27. The deep South has been visioned as a vast flat space, white with 
cotton. It is an agreeable surprise to discover the intriguing red 
soil pleasantly contoured and mantled with pines. The camera finds 
much to record as the journey continues to Charleston s Magnolia 
Gardens and the nearby highways canopied with Spanish moss. 
There is an album respect, too, for Florida s royal palms, for the 
seductive azure coast line and the efficiently maintained orange 
groves. 

28. Our visitor readily understands and readily approves many an 
evidence of vigorous Eastern enterprise. He thrills to the boldness 
of New York: the skyline at dusk, the spectacle from the Empire 
State, the magnificence of Park Avenue, the clamor of the Holland 
Tunnel, and the precision of the Rockettes. He mingles astonish 
ment with applause when confronted with the parkways of the New 
York area, superb creations surpassing all other American thorough 
fares in beauty and in the conception of their fitness to new dimen 
sions of new times. 

29. The surging power of industry breaks through the screen of soot 
and grime. The sight and smell of heavy industry contribute to the 
visitor s sense of propinquity, to the main stream of American af 
fairs, and so does a visit to Congress and likewise an elevator ride 
in Rockefeller Center. Equally powerful in this respect are the na 
tional shrines. 

30. The books have told us that human experience did not begin in 
1843 and have explained that certain men of the Revolution were 
persons of consequence. A single visit to the tasteful splendor of 



450 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

Mount Vernon is worth many a chapter in spreading forth a graphic 
story of accumulated capital, gracious living, and powerful idealism. 
One willingly makes tourist trips to Lexington and Concord; to the 
Lincoln Memorial; to the slave market in Charleston and the relics 
of St. Augustine. At Monticello and the University of Virginia the 
man Jefferson becomes a living personality. 

31. We need the jar of experience, the sight and feel of actuality. The 
East reeks with the actuality of men and deeds. It seeps out of the 
past and it floods the present. There comes a time when the new 
comer, too, joins the stream and finds it good. He has become a part 
of propinquity. 

32. Time has been indulgent to the East but time has, with no less 
emphasis, been cruel. She has wiped the bright light of hope from 
so many faces. 

33. I cannot forget the utter dejection in the eyes of the mountain 
woman, babe in elbow, who watched our car take gas in Tennessee; 
the whine in the voice of the bony woman selling roadside orange 
juice in Florida; the tired sharpness of the change vendor in Bos 
ton s subway; the humility of the black waiter in Charleston; the 
furrowed sweat on the girl in the "quick lunch," Gotham. And the 
wistful children on a New York ferry who, intrigued by our West 
ern rs and as shyly offered conversation. 

34. I cannot forget many houses in the South. You are driving on a 
highway. Far ahead you perceive the fine lines of a stately struc 
ture, and there flashes a picture of discriminating taste and high 
purpose. Still closer the house needs paint, but windows and 
chimneys have been spaced by a knowing hand. Closeup a chicken 
drowses in a window ledge where glass should be, and untidy chil 
dren, sometimes black, sometimes white, sit in listless play on the 
splintery porch. Is this the price of the boll weevil, reconstruction, 
hot summers, tenant farming, soil exhaustion, the Ku Klux Klan, the 
one-party system? 

35. A few hours drive takes one from the miserable huts of Georgia 
and northern Florida, not fit for animals but housing human beings, 
to the blatant hotels and private sands of Miami Beach. There is no 
need here to describe, in dreary detail, the hovels of Southern share 
croppers, the Negro sections of Savannah and Charleston, the slums 
of Washington and New York. I am told the residents of Baltimore 



HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 451 

take rightful pride in the whiteness of their doorsteps. For my part, 
I drove with something akin to horror through endless streets packed 
and jammed with identical brick flats. Is it possible for man to ges- 
tate a spark of individuality in surroundings such as these? 

36. Throughout an Eastern journey the Western observer will remain 
uncomfortably aware of group segregations or conflicts, or lack of 
assimilations as evidenced in the crackers, the mountaineers, and 
Jim Crows; coal miners, Polacks, Harlem; Jews in New York and 
Irish in Boston; the very rich and the very poor. 

37. Such matters dismay the Westerner because his insufficient back 
ground permits neither sympathetic understanding nor intelligent 
solution of severe social conflicts. Out West we have long since 
made peace with the Indian; the problem of the roving Okies is not 
insoluble; Mexicans are not ambitious; and the Chinese, great fa 
vorites of the moment, are notable at minding their own business. 
The Japanese remain our great question, and even they have not 
greatly entered our daily consciousness. 

38. So, caught in the eddies of Eastern class dissensions, the West 
erner reacts in a manner simple, direct, and not wholly courageous. 
He craves escape. There are too many people. 

39. Any Westerner who precipitously departs, literally or figuratively, 
does himself and his host a strong injustice; for he unwittingly dis 
dains the East s finest heritage the capacity for mature social re 
lationships and mature social responsibilities. 

40. He who remains will soon make the happy discovery that the 
Easterner is really a very nice person. True, you will continue to 
feel the chill indifference of the many toward the one; and you 
learn early that proper credentials and suitable sponsors are man 
datory passports in crossing Eastern barriers of caution. Once that 
barrier is broken, the man of the Atlantic demonstrates a rare talent 
for indulgence in the amenities, and an enviable capacity for ob 
taining enjoyment therefrom. 

41. I am thinking of the Southerner who, his day s work done or un 
done, sits on the front porch that he may hail greetings to pass 
ers-by; the amazing ability of the same Southerner to accept the 
burden of prolonged conversation and to do so in a manner both en 
tertaining and persuasively flattering to his companion. The con 
genial buzz-buzz-buzzing of New York garment workers during 



452 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

sidewalk recess is a phenomenon unknown in the West, likewise the 
happy abandon of a New Year s crowd in Times Square. 

42. But the East s capacity for human relationships extends beyond 
the range of good fun, pleasing manners, and gracious hospitality. 
At Harvard University I found all these. I also found an amazing 
combination of driving energy, a sustained devotion to truth for the 
sake of truth, a healthy conception of, and allegiance to, American 
ideals, and most important of all a restless conscience that de 
mands acceptance of a full share of responsible leadership in better 
ing the pattern of American life. Certainly I do not suggest that the 
school on the Charles is unique in these respects. I do say its sense 
of urgency and vigor of application is beyond my previous ex 
perience. 

43. One does not forget that some of Harvard s most handsome liv 
ing quarters steal the sun from quite awful Cambridge flats un 
happy symbolism of the great Eastern gap between those who are 
in and those who are out. But neither should we forget that Frank 
lin Roosevelt, who may have seen those flats, has dcmqnstrated the 
twentieth century s most vivid sense of social responsibility. In ac 
cepting this leadership Mr. Roosevelt was following the Eastern 
tradition of maturity that of providing a vastly preponderant share 
of American political, social, and intellectual leadership. Out of the 
East have come the powerful and enduring forces which generate 
ground swells for the surging greatness of the nation. 

44. To the Western man there comes a time for home-going. The 
3400-mile journey finds its climax in a blizzard at the summit of the 
Rockies. This is home. Presently you are indulging in reflections, 
making evaluations. 

45. Certainly there is a new crop of stories to tell: about the evenly 
spread beauty of the Eastern landscape and the frightfully messy 
signboards along the highways of Florida; the expensively tanned 
loafers at Miami Beach, and the sincere search throughout the East 
for new solutions of employer-employee relationships, the contrast 
of slums and new Federal housing projects side by side in Savannah. 
You will tell of children of the East, less robust, less active, and bet 
ter mannered. The soot of the East, the pressure of crowds, the 
might of the factories, and the genius of the Easterner for fellow 
ship. And New England intellectual vigor surmounting, shall we 



HIGH LEVEL GENERALIZATIONS 453 

say, an occasional lapse into graveyard philosophy, a kowtowing to 
age for the sake of age? 

46. And the West? You see with new eyes that many a desolate mile 
stands between the deepest canyons, the highest mountains, the 
cleanest rivers. Many of the farms are not very tidy. There are 
flashes of impatient intolerance. Yet you bring home the simple con 
viction that the casteless West is better for the average man, the 
common man, for yourself. Yet, still, the West is not the whole loaf. 
You will regret standing aside from the main stream of events. 

47. A few years ago, I journeyed with the late Thomas Wolfe through 
a large portion of the West. The novelist, readily sensing the zest of 
the area, expressed his approval by saying the West is America s hori 
zon. But a visit to Salt Lake prompted him to erupt in violent protest 
against the moral restrictions enforced by the Mormon church and 
all other churches. The restrictions, he contended, fettered a man s 
soul and produced minds distinguished only by their mediocrity. 

48. When countered with the argument that ecclesiastical restrictions, 
however arbitrary, had aided greatly in the production of a wealth 
of good citizenry, Wolfe impatiently brushed the point aside. Great 
men, he said, are compounded of complete intellectual freedom, sharp 
cleavages, and bold crises. One genius one bright, guiding light 
is worth a host of plodding citizens, no matter how law-abiding. 

49. Wolfe s argument becomes provocative when one observes the 
dearth of truly great names associated with the land west of the 
Rockies, save in the sciences dealing with material things. Our list of 
statesmen, novelists, economists, social scientists, educators has not 
been impressive. 

50. I suggest the West has been too young and too busy and too for 
tunate to produce the guiding lights. Give us a little more time. Al 
ready there are signs. History may say the West became adult in 
1929, for we too shared that crisis; we are now up to the hilt in war; 
and we too will share in postwar plans. Those who know, say Doug 
las of Washington is one of America s two great New Deal philoso 
phers, and the other is Midwesterner Wallace. 

51. The Eastern ground swells dedicated to life, liberty, and the pur 
suit of happiness for the individual thrust some of their finest break 
ers into the West. Now the East sends new impulses* of social re 
sponsibility, intimations that the self-sufficient individual must ally 



454 THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS 

himself with less fortunate individ