“Germans brought a language, literature, and social customs of their own, so that although when scattered they Americanized with great rapidity wherever they were strong enough to maintain church and schools in their own tongue they were slow to take the American stamp.” So much for those earlier immigrants. The case is vastly different with the later tides of immigration. “After 1870,” he writes, “the Teutonic overflow was prompted by economic motives, and such a migration shows little persistence in flying the flag of its national culture. Numbers came, little instructed.” In the words of a German-American, Knortz, “nine-tenths of all German immigrants come from humble circumstances and have had only an indifferent schooling. Whoever, therefore, expects pride in their German descent from these people who owe everything to their new country and nothing to their fatherland, simply expects too much.”
Well, then! If they no longer pride themselves on being German, and are easily assimilated by the second generation, we should expect to see the slight stigma of being of German descent removed by this time. But is it? Not long ago I had occasion to attend a Bach revival and the beautiful passion music was played and sung. One of my friends remarked, “You have to get used to this music before you can appreciate it,” and I retorted condescendingly, “I don’t; I have heard it from childhood. This is the kind of music we sing in the Lutheran church.” This same friend later, guiding my tottering steps through the mazes and pitfalls of society in the “most aristocratic suburb of New York,” said hesitatingly, “I don’t think I’d mention it, especially to people in general, that I was a Lutheran, if I were you.” Of course I was seized immediately with a perfectly natural desire to talk of it in season and out to everyone I met. Why not? Why not be a Lutheran as naturally as an Episcopalian or a Methodist? “Well, they are mostly Germans, you see.” But I don’t see, and I never have seen, although this article, enlightening and interesting, goes nearer to the reasons for such an attitude than anything else I have ever read.
Rejections by Editors
Never again shall I feel a sense of shame and humiliation on receiving my rejected MS. and the printed slip. I have always suspected that it was on account of the editors’ lack of taste and discrimination; now I am sure of it. Indeed, I’m not quite sure but that it argues more to be rejected than to be accepted. I’m beginning to be proud of it. Read Henry Sydnor Harrison’s article in the April Atlantic—Adventures with the Editors—and see if you don’t feel the same way! Or, perhaps, you’ve never been rejected with the added ignominy of the printed slip. If so, don’t read this; it is not for you. But all ye rejected ones take renewed hope from this statement that an editor, actually an editor himself, has made:
“I think I can tell you why editors so frequently reject the earlier and often the best work of writers: it is because any new writer who sends in first-class work sends in work that is very different from what editors are used to.”
It reminds me of a time when I wrote, maliciously, I admit, to a certain well-known magazine, to tell its editors a story they had printed by a renowned author had been cribbed entire (unconsciously, possibly) from an old classic; and I told them, too, if they would prefer to print original stories, I had one on hand. I got back such a deliciously solemn reply regretting the unconscious plagiarism and asking me to send on any story I had. I did not do so, for the good and sufficient reason that I had already sent it to them several weeks previously, and had had it rejected without comment. No doubt it deserved to be rejected; every one else did the same with it. To be sure, one kindly editor took the pains to tell me why, personally. “The trouble is,” he said, “there isn’t enough story. Your character-drawing is both careful and sincere, however.” So it must have been dull to deserve anything like that. I wish we could hear a little more of the experiences of those poor rejected, who never do “get over the wall,” as Mr. Harrison terms it. I imagine it would be both illuminating and ludicrous.
And, oh! the happy moments I had on reading E. S. Martin’s comments, in Life, on Mr. Harrison’s article. Mr. Harrison makes the charge that magazines will print poor stories of well known writers in preference to good stories of the unknown, and Mr. Martin’s response is:
“It does not follow that the editors were wrong because they did not buy Mr. Harrison’s tales before Queed. Maybe they were not more than average stories. But after Queed they were stories by the author of Queed.... Queed pulled all Mr. Harrison’s past tales out of the ruck, and put them in the running. It was hardly fair to expect the editors to pick them for winners beforehand.”
What then are editors for, if not to “pick winners?” And Mr. Harrison says himself that Queed was rejected by two publishers. Probably it was hardly fair to expect the publishers to pick such a winner in advance. We, the rejected, have always humbly thought that was their occupation—their raison d’être. And if Mr. Harrison’s short stories were “not more than average stories,” doesn’t it prove his contention that average poor stories by the known are more acceptable to editors than good ones by the unknown?
At least I am going to think so, and some day I shall write an article on the lofty distinction of being rejected.