Civilization in the United States: An inquiry by thirty Americans

by Unknown

Garet Garrett was born in Pana, Ill., in 1878, and from 1900 to 1912 was a financial writer on the New York Sun, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Evening Post, and the New York Times. He was the first editor of the New York Times Annalist in 1913–1914, and was executive editor of the New York Tribune from 1916 to 1919. He is the author of “The Driver,” “The Blue Wound,” “An Empire Beleaguered,” “The Mad Dollar,” and various economic and political essays.

Walton H. Hamilton was born in Tennessee in 1881, was graduated from the University of Texas in 1907, and received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1913. After teaching at the Universities of Michigan and Chicago, he became Olds Professor of Economics in Amherst College in 1915. He was formerly associate editor of the Journal of Political Economy, and is associate editor of the series, “Materials for the Study of Economics,” published by the University of Chicago Press. During the War he was on the staff of the War Labour Policies Board. He is co-editor with J. M. Clark and H. G. Moulton of “Readings in the Economics of War,” and the author of “Current Economic Problems” and of various articles in economic journals.

Frederic C. Howe was born in Meadville, Pa., in 1867, and was educated at Allegheny College and Johns Hopkins University, from the latter receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1892. After studying in the University of Maryland Law School and the New York Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1894, and practised in Cleveland until 1909. He was director of the People’s Institute of New York from 1911 to 1914, and Commissioner of Immigration in the Port of New York from 1914 to 1920. He has been a member of the Ohio State Senate, special U. S. commissioner to investigate municipal ownership in Great Britain, Professor of Law in the Cleveland College of Law, and lecturer on municipal administration and politics in the University of Wisconsin. Among his books are “The City, the Hope of Democracy,” “The British City,” “Privilege and Democracy in America,” “Wisconsin: An Experiment in Democracy,” “European Cities at Work,” “Socialized Germany,” “Why War?” “The High Cost of Living,” and “The Land and the Soldier.”

Alfred Booth Kuttner was born in 1886, and was graduated from Harvard in 1908. He was for two years dramatic critic of the International Magazine, and is a contributor to the New Republic, Seven Arts, Dial, etc. He has pursued special studies in psychology, and has translated several of the books of Sigmund Freud.

Ring W. Lardner was born in Niles, Michigan, in 1885, and was educated in the Niles High School and the Armour Institute of Technology at Chicago. He has been sporting writer on the Boston American, Chicago American, Chicago Examiner, and the Chicago Tribune, and writer for the Bell Syndicate since 1919. Among his books are “You Know Me Al,” “Symptoms of Thirty-five,” “Treat ’Em Rough,” and “The Big Town.”

Robert Morss Lovett was born in Boston in 1870, and was graduated from Harvard in 1892. He has been a teacher in the English Departments of Harvard and the University of Chicago, and dean of the Junior Colleges of the latter institution from 1907 to 1920. He was formerly editor of the Dial, and is at present on the staff of the New Republic. He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and is the author of two novels, “Richard Gresham” and “A Winged Victory,” of a play, “Cowards,” and with William Vaughn Moody of “A History of English Literature.”

Robert H. Lowie was born in Vienna in 1883, and came to New York at the age of ten. He was educated at the College of the City of New York and Columbia University, from which he received the degree of Ph.D. in 1908. He has made many ethnological field trips, especially to the Crow and other Plains Indians. He was associate curator of Anthropology in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, until 1921, and since then has become Associate Professor of Anthropology in the University of California. He is associate editor of the American Anthropologist, and was secretary of the American Ethnological Society from 1910 to 1919, and president, 1920–1921. He is the author of “Culture and Ethnology” and “Primitive Society,” as well as many technical monographs dealing mainly with the sociology and mythology of North American aborigines.

John Macy was born in Detroit in 1877, and was educated at Harvard, from which he received the degree of A.B. in 1899, and A.M. in 1900. After a year as assistant in English at Harvard, he became associate editor of Youth’s Companion, and later literary editor of the Boston Herald. Among his books are “Life of Poe” (Beacon Biographies), “Guide to Reading,” “The Spirit of American Literature,” “Socialism in America,” and “Walter James Dodd: a Biography.”

H. L. Mencken was born in Baltimore in 1880, and was educated in private schools and at the Baltimore Polytechnic. He was engaged in journalism until 1916, and is now editor and part owner with George Jean Nathan of the Smart Set Magazine, and a contributing editor of the Nation. His books include “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche,” “A Book of Burlesques,” “A Book of Prefaces,” “The American Language,” and two volumes of “Prejudices.” In collaboration with George Jean Nathan he has published “The American Credo,” and “Heliogabalus,” a play.

Lewis Mumford was born in Flushing, Long Island, in 1895. He was associate editor of the Dial in 1919, acting editor of the Sociological Review (London), a lecturer at the Summer School of Civics, High Wycombe, England, and has contributed to the Scientific Monthly, the Athenaeum, the Nation, the Freeman, the Journal of the American institute of Architects, and other periodicals. He was a radio operator in the United States Navy during the War.