April 1955
In This Issue
Explore the April 1955 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Jukebox on Wheels
Studebaker's designer and stylist expresses his irrepressible opinion of the American automobile today, and of what it may be fifty years hence
Iran
Spain
Table of Contents
Conscience and the Undergraduate
“ Do not judge the college student of today by the standards of yesterday,” saysJOHN S. DICKEY, President of Dartmouth since 1945. “ Remember that he is different, faced with graver issues than we were a generation ago, more responsible in his decisions, and much more lonely.” President Dickey graduated from Dartmouth with the class of 1929 and from the Harvard Law School three years later. He practiced law in Boston, served in the State Department over an eleven-year period, and taught foreign affairs before returning to his alma mater. His findings in this article will be stimulating and reassuring to many parents.
A Nice Gershwin Tune
New England born composer LEONARD BERNSTEIN is now on a spring visit to Italy, where he is conductor in residence at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and where he will conduct the May Festival in Florence. Shortly before his departure, he had completed the score for a musical version of Voltaire’s Candide with a book by Lillian Hellman, which is scheduled for production in the fall.
July Mountain
Our Need for a Public Philosophy
In his new book, The Public Philosophy, which has just been published, WALTER LIPPMANN has analyzed the reasons for the drastic impairment of the power to govern which has imperiled the western democracies during the past four decades. He shows that this deterioration began before 1914, that Lord Bryce saw the warning signs in 1920; and he shows how deep-seated the disorder has become since 1938. The great question to which he addresses himself is whether this decline can be checked and to what extent Democracy can renew its strength. This is the last of three excerpts we have drawn from Mr. Lippmann‘s book.
Sauer Kraut Day in East Dubuque
A graduate of Exeter and Harvard, RICHARD BISSELL knows our inland waterways — the Ohio, the Monongahela, and the Mississippi (on all of which he worked as a mate or a pilot) — as well as Mark Twain knew them. From this river experience came the source material for his first novel, A Stretch on the River. He is the coauthor of The Pajama Game, a highly successful musical comedy based on his second novel, 7½ Cents; and his third, High Water, made its debut last autumn under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.
Able Baker
JOSEPH WHITEHILL of Topeka, Kansas, who makes his first appearance in the Atlantic aw/ it’i/Z certainly be heard from again, is a seafarer who has gone inland to do his writing. “Noting in the Writer‘s Yearbook,” he wrote in his accompanying letter, “that the Atlantic ʽFirst‘ section is reserved for unestablished writers, I beg to call your attention to the fact that I am about as unestablished as you can get and still be eating.”
Morning in Spring
Brain-Washing: Time for a Policy
In Korea, for the first time, the Communists used brain-washing as a military weapon. Our authorities were unprepared for the resulting demoralization of officers and men, and in a series of uncoördinated courts-martial our Army. Air Force, and Marines have meted out punishment ranging from honorable discharge to twenty years imprisonment. Tn the article that follows, GLADWIN HILL, Chief of the New York Times Bureau in Los Angeles, traces the course of such erratic justice.
The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
Mr. Seward's Bargain: Chance or Destiny?
As we look back over the American past it is possible to recognize a series of great achievements which were crucial in our development as a world power. Historians of the nineteenth century believed that God’s will was “visible in historyin”; in our time a search for cause and effect takes a different approach. In his new book, Chance or Destiny: Turning Points in American History, OSCAR HANDLIN, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1952, has made a colorful and penetrating analysis of the accidents, the deliberations, and the unpredictable decisions which have again and again determined our future. This is the last of five articles drawn from Mr. Handlin’s book, which will be published in May under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.
Through a Lens Darkly
Edward Steichen’s exhibit uj photography, “The Family of Man” comprising more than five hundred pictures drawn from sixty-eight countries, opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on January 26 and will run through May 8. Readers who have seen it as well as those who have not will find interest in this evaluation of its scope and arrangement by PHOEBE LOU ADAMS Miss Adams has been a member of the editorial staff of the Atlantic for the past decade.
The Greek Drama in Translation
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Books: The Editors Like
Reader's Choice
Accent on Living
Full Circle
A country editor widely known for the pungency of the columns he wrote for the Lisbon Fulls Enterprise, JOHN GOULD is also the author of many books and articles about life in Maine.
The Solipsist
The Case for Third Base
A former city editor of the Omaha World Herald, B. F. SYLVESTER is a free-lance writer and news correspondent.
Canzonetta
Record Reviews
Verona
EDITH TEMPLETON served with both the United States and British forces during World War II as an interpreter. She is the author oj several novels and a book about Italy, The Surprise of Cremona.
