Page:The American Magazine (1906-1956) - volume 73.pdf/441

JOSEPH EDGAR CHAMBERLIN

A daily newspaper journalist of high ideals whom Hellen Keller writes about in these pages. As representative of the New York Evening Post in Cuba, Mr. Chamberlin, alone among war correspondents, showed up the pettiness and uselessness of the war

“Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t see much of it. I was watching the Stadium.” It was the first time I had heard him comment about the thing he had built. "I was looking at the sweep of it. It was fine by the October light.” I was satisfied, assured that the precision and accuracy of the scientist is coming not only to end waste, but to create things of use, and to enjoy them in their highest use, which is beauty.

WALTER LIPPMANN.

JOSEPH EDGAR CHAMBERLIN

THIRTEEN years ago, when I was preparing for college, my teacher and I were guests at the Red Farm, which overlooks a beautiful lake in Wrentham, Massachusetts. What a solace it was to turn from the harassments of learning to the frolicsome company of that household! What a joy it was to desert the wanderings of the “Anabasis,” and go with three lovely children on real excursions by the shore of the lake and into the dusky woods! But that summer we were all lonely; for the master of the house was far away in Cuba.

Mr. Chamberlin was war correspondent of the New York Evening Post. He was following the fortunes of an army less celebrated than the army of the Ten Thousand. My teacher used to read me what he wrote for the newspapers and in his letters about our inglorious war with Spain. We found that Xenophon was a less sincere war correspondent than “Uncle Ed.” For Xenophon was an old-fashioned chronicler of the heroisms of war, and Mr. Chamberlin was a lover of men. I must say that Uncle Ed’s accounts of battles and sieges were very disappointing. The

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