SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1021 THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE
Some of America 's AYagazines
(By G. D. E.) third of its poetry is excellent. One he is the godfather of all the young necessary to the periodical's circula-
When one glances over the field of finds in it the best fiction, excellent American writers of promise. tion, and I take it that the editors of
magazines in this literary empire one cultural articles, and superb book re- I honestly believe that the editors the Smart Set are not desirous of
is appalled at paucity of good period- views. Nearly always one can depend of the Smart Set would rather run a: having a corpse on their hands. But
icals. on finding a translation of something good story by a young unkonwn than one thing is certain: the unknown
In making a resume of the business by a European literary light. by the foremost lights in the literary writer, man or woman, who sends
I started out with a trial of fire, pray- The Smart Set is somewhat differ- galaxy. No magazine has shown such something in to this magazine can ut-
er, and faith, vowing that I would be ent. Its fiction is not quite so' good perspicacity in picking out the coming terly rely on the honesty of the edi-
as liberal in making decisions as War- as the Dial's but chiefly, I suspect, literati since the Seven Arts went out tors, to the best of their tenets.
ren Harding himself, because it is the foremost desire of of business. 'Way back in the dark ages The
For all my splendid Christian spirit the Smart Set's editors, Nathan and The fact that the Smart Set runs Smart Set was publishing stuff by
For llnI w splendiChrisn st Mencken, to launch worthy young stories by the first raters I believe Cabell, by O'Neill, by Sherwood An-
of tolerance I was sickened at the
results. I dropped the Atlantic month- writers, to give them the recognition to be because of the American craze derson, whose books now run into
ly as a sort of paleozoic Amphioxus, they deserve. Vanity Fair, an in- for big games, a craze that is diffused several printings.
the Saturday Evening Post, The Red congruous mixture of trash and merit, into the most iconoclastic of readers. The poetry of the Smart Set is prob-
Book, and all such purveyors of "clean has rightfully said of Mencken that Celebrities are therefore more or less ( (Continued on Page Seven)
fiction" as so many inelliferous squirt-
guns. I was forced to admit that
such magazines as the Cosmopolitan,
Snappy Stories, the Parisienne, et al,
were designed solely to rouse the pas-
sions of shop girls and factory hands.
The American Magazine is the worst
of all. It sticks charcoal into fluid
marshmallow, stirs it up, and uses it
for printer's ink. Of all the sweet and
overwhelming stories of how news-
boys went into the soup-ladle business
and won great fortunes, there is none
to compare with those published by
this magazine. Furthermore, it prints
the dulcifiuous editorials of Bruce
Barton and of that national genius,
Dr. Frank Crane.
For a while, about six months back,
I watched the curious fermentings of
the Century magazine with interest.
A rumor spread and grew that the
thing was going to be literary, and
for a short space of two months it
actually had the buds of something
worth while, but it took an acute
dyspepsia and is back to its old groans.
All that remains of the promising new
Century is the cover.
Other than fiction magazines I find
but one or two worth reading. The
Bookman has seen a vast improve- ITCHES, Goblins and grin-
ment, under the hand of its young
editor, John Farrar, and is no longer n
the stodgy old bundle of criticism that ning Pumpkins will lend the
it once was, It gives proportionate
spaces to good books, and it is well
worth reading. The only fault I have Grotesque Touch to Your Hal-
to find with it is that it doesn't un-
sheathe the sword occasionally.
Setting aside the political pishposh loween Party.
of the Nation's editorial policy, one
may count on it for veracious articles
and for some of the best book reviews
in this fair land, which are nothing B
like those of the New York Times.
The best one can say of the Times'
literary section is that it is vsliimin-
'2";13;t"" "ag no'tt~dParty is Complete without it.
ous. The New Republic is not bad, P ryi o peewto tft
but in my judgment, it falls short of
the Nation's standard.
In the fiction field but two magazines M A we assist you in making
of first rank remain. They are the
Smart Set and the Dial. Here are
two magazines that deserve the at- your selection
tention of anyone who makes more
z than a pretense of being literary;
here are two publications that warrant
the consideration of every young man
or woman who Intends to go into lit-
erary work, unless of course, he or
she wants to live in hoggish opulence
from writing such truck as Harold
Bell Wright's or Gene Stratton Port- tt t y M uB2
er'5.
The Dial, perhaps, stands first. I hrs A. $R. t ao
personally prefer the Smart Set. but
chiefly because my stomach becomes
weak when I look at the Dial's "art."
Nine-tenths of the Dial's prase is
absolutely above reproach, nearly _