The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 1 No. 2

Authors

Paul Phelps Hutchison
Fred L. Parrish
John Q. Reed
Morris L. Stevens
Earl Swisher
Hans Beerman
Midwest Quarterly Editors

Contents

"Friendly Neighbors": Some Thoughts on Canadian-American Relations

Kokutai: Changes in the National Entity of Japan

Mark Twain: West Coast Journalist

Is Full Employment Possible Without Inflation?

The Ugly American: Two Views

----In the Far East

----European Reflections

Abstract

in this issue...

FEW AMERICANS who have not visited Canada, our closest friend and ally to the north, have much appreciation for the fact that Canada is a separate and distinct sovereign nation, broad in expanse, magnificent in her natural endowments, and peopled with far more than red-coated members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It was the editor's privilege to visit the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta in the summer of 1957 as director of a field trip whose personnel were basically Kansans, many of them school teachers in the Sunflower State. It was little short of a revelation for him to discover that most of his fellow field-trippers looked upon Canada as a sort of colonial possession of the United States with rather primitive accommodations for tourists and quaint "play money" which for some inexplicable reason was worth more than genuine American currency. Remembering this experience, the editor was quick to take advantage of the opportunity to publish a discussion of Canadian-American relations by a Montreal lawyer with long experience and many connections with business, professional, and social groups in the United States.

Paul Phelps Hutchison, Queen's counsel and partner in the Montreal law firm of Heward, Holden, Hutchison, Cliff, McMaster, and Meighen, has held many offices in the Canadian Bar Association and was its president in 1956. President and director of four Canadian companies, he is also a governor of the Montreal General Hospital, and in 1958 he became international president of the Alpha Delta Phi, one of the oldest American social fraternities with chapters in three Canadian universities, British Columbia, McGill, and Toronto. Mr. Hutchison's degrees include: bachelor of arts, McGill, 1916, and doctor of laws from the same university in 1921; honorary doctor of laws from Southern Methodist University and honorary doctor of civil law, McGill. He is a veteran of World War I, and a member of the Royal Highlanders of Canada in which he holds the rank of colonel.

THE SECOND ARTICLE in this issue moves some seven thousand miles from Canada for its locale. Fred L. Parrish, professor of history at Kansas State University, spent a recent sabbatical leave traveling and studying in nine Asian countries. His special field of interest is Asian history, and his offerings at Manhattan include Far Eastern History, Indian and Southeast Asian History, and History of Religions. His article on the kokutai of Japan is related to his experiences in that country in 1958.

Professor Parrish holds the bachelor and master of arts degrees from Northwestern University, a bachelor of divinity degree from Garrett Graduate Seminary, and a doctor of philosophy degree from Yale. A member of the history faculty of Kansas State University since 1927, he was Head of the Department of History, Government, and Philosophy from 1942 to 1958. His article was prepared and presented as a paper at the 1959 meeting of the Kansas Association of Teachers of History and Related Fields, held at St. Benedict's College in Atchison.

WHILE IT IS CUSTOMARY among Americans to take a rather condescending view of the Oriental tendency to revere the past, it is interesting to note how frequently Americans look backward and with what gusto we repeatedly celebrate all manner of anniversaries. This year, for example, Americans are called upon to observe the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the great American literary figure Samuel Clemens, more widely known as Mark Twain. Last October the executive committee of the Central Mississippi Valley chapter of the American Studies Association met in Hannibal, Missouri, to make preliminary plans for a special celebration to take appropriate notice of Mark Twain's death in April of 1910. This year is also the 125th anniversary of the birth of Hannibal's most-famous son, and one supposes that suitable celebrations will mark that event, too.

Among those present at the Hannibal meeting last October was John Q. Reed, associate professor of American literature here, and it seemed timely to the editorial board of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY to publish in this first 1960 issue Professor Reed's careful analysis of Mark Twain's apprenticeship on the West Coast. John Reed's particular field of interest is native American humor; he has published a number of articles on Artemus Ward, an American humorist who preceded Mark Twain and to whom Mark Twain owed a considerable debt, particularly in his techniques as a comic lecturer. Professor Reed is a naturalized Midwesterner; born and reared in the Keystone state, he holds the bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State Teachers College at Slippery Rock and the master's from the University of Pittsburgh. He moved out to the State University of Iowa for his doctoral work and joined the faculty of Kansas State College of Pittsburg in 1955 after teaching at Buena Vista College in Iowa.

THE FOURTH ARTICLE in this issue of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY discusses a subject which is anything but humorous. The problems of full-employment and inflation have bothered many thinking Americans for the last quarter century and more, and in recent years and months the subjects have cropped up wherever economists, labor leaders, industrialists, or politicians gather together. We are happy to present Professor Morris L. Stevens' close scrutiny of the question "Is Full Employment Possible Without Inflation?" because it carefully, fully, and objectively covers the subject.

Dr. Stevens, associate professor of economics, received his A. B. degree from Houghton College, New York, and his LL. B. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wisconsin. Last June he completed the work for and was awarded the doctor of philosophy degree in economics at Wisconsin. He is a member of the American Economic Association, the Wisconsin Bar Association, and the American Association of University Professors. Last summer Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin requested Dr. Stevens' assistance in making an evaluation of current monetary policies of the federal reserve system and particularly of the relation of these policies to inflation and the level of employment. Out of this work and his earlier research Dr. Stevens has collected the material for the article here published. It was originally presented in October as the first of the 1959-60 series of Great Issues Lectures sponsored by the Department of Social Science.

BECAUSE OF WIDE-SPREAD PUBLIC INTEREST in the best-selling novel, The Ugly American, the editors of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY months ago decided to recruit a squad of reviewers who possessed some overseas experience in widely separated geographical areas. By great good fortune, a University of Colorado Bulletin announcing the University's first Alumni Institute last July informed us that Earl Swisher, professor of Far Eastern history, was lecturing on The Ugly American as part of the program. A letter to Professor Swisher resulted in quick and amiable cooperation.

Few native Americans have had more personal contact with the Far East than Earl Swisher. Born and brought up in Palisades, Colorado, he worked for his bachelor and master of arts degrees at the University of Colorado and his doctor of philosophy degree at Harvard. He has been a member of the University of Colorado history faculty since 1935 but before that time and since he has been a frequent visitor and full-time student of the Far East. From 1931 to '34 he was a Harvard-Yenching Fellow; he taught four years at Lingnan University, Canton, China; he held Rockefeller Research Fellowships in Peiping in 1937-38 and 1947-48, and in 1956-58 was a representative of The Asia Foundation, traveling over all of East Asia. From 1942 to '46 he served with the United States Marine Corp, participating in five amphibious landings and winning the Bronze Star Medal with commendation; his present rank is lieutenant colonel, USMCR-Ret. Since the war he has been Director of the Institute of Asian Affairs at the University of Colorado.

THE SECOND VIEW of American foreign policy and The Ugly American is by Hans Beerman, assistant professor of foreign languages here, who is already well known to QUARTERLY readers by virtue of his article, "Hermann Hesse and the Bhagavad-Gita," which appeared in our October issue. Born and raised in Germany, widely traveled in Europe and Asia, Professor Beerman holds his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and his master's and doctor of philosophy degrees from Iowa State University.

Recommended Citation

Hutchison, Paul Phelps; Parrish, Fred L.; Reed, John Q.; Stevens, Morris L.; Swisher, Earl; Beerman, Hans; and Midwest Quarterly Editors (1960) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 1 No. 2," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 1: Iss. 2, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol1/iss2/1