Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 197: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Camp-Fire . through some things. And what sort of man is it who would not give his life a dozen times rather than see some others suffer or yield a real principle? “I’ve written a lot of adventure stories. When I get a situation up where the hero and the heroine are sailing through the air about half-way down the thousand-foot precipice, I have to sit back and laugh. What does it matter whether they land on a hay- mound and survive, or hit a rock and go out? FLDITORS have a way of shifting titles on me. I’m calling the story, “A Prejudice * Against Suicide,” because thac was the real idea I had in writing that story. Circumstances | broke to keep me from being a@clergyman after 1 had got most of the training for it. My idea is that of obedience to the law, even when it seems to have lost its purpose in an individual case. Here is a man without a chance to live, refusing to save himself the last hours of agony by a crime which, perhaps, few would condemn under the circumstances. The sea setting of the story was a mere detatl for con- veying the feeling I have that law and right are fixed by a power so much»above us that they may not be subverted to special conditions of individuals. Not all the idea$*I put into stories come, as this one. did, out of the tomes of moral theology; but when I write a story with no idea bigger than living through a peril or series of them, you can figure that I laughed wher I wrote it. A man will always ~ be to me so much bigger than his mere ghysical life that I shall find it funny to take that side of him very seriously. things. So don’t strain your mind too hard trying to find the moral of a yarn with my name at the top of it. There may not be any. But I am still. theologian enough to-believe that the real big adventure is that of each one of us in keeping our souls out of ‘hell for the long time after we're dead, and getting and holding the love for the Right and the God. that makes Right. Think I ought to have kept away from the Camp-Fire and stayed in church? Yours for the real adventures—Grorcr M, A. Carn. MN ANY of you responded to my re- quest for frank and detailed opin- ions on our new sister magazine Romance and I want to thank you sincerely. That kind of opinion helps a lot. Creating a new magazine is not so easy as it sounds and it is perhaps still more difficult for the editor to tell just what it’s like after it-is created. It’s like a writer trying to criticize his own story. In either case a fellow has to turn to outside opinion to find out what’s really there. Your opinions helped in many ways. Of course there were the inevitable dif- ~ ferences of taste and judgment. One Still—I love funny - 183 letter would say “Give us more stories like \*x’;” the next would say “All the stories are good except ‘x, whichis rotten.” But, taking all the letterseas a whole, the net result was very valtable guidance for the future. ATURALLY your letters, being from Adventure readers and nearly all men (we find only 15 per cent. of Ad- _venture’s newsstand*sales are to women and girls), they give the point of view of only those who are strong for a man’s magazine, and I’m glad to say their ver- dict is overwhelmingly favorable. But Romance, aimed at women as well as men, must. appeal to both. I have no such quick ways of getting a verdict from women readers, but, though there has been criticism (not from any of you) that Romance is too much like Adven- ture, newsstand reports prove that the other sex must be taking kindly to it. Indeed, the sales indicate that we should have printed a much larger edition to meet the demand. ND Romance has by no means struck its real gait yet. It takes time to shape a new magazine into its final form. Remember how long it’s taken to shape our own magazine, and of course there are always some changes and improve- ments to be made. If Romance is good now, it’s going to be a whole lot better ~ at the end of a year. « ROM. one of our Indian comrades a word about mound-builders and snake-bites : : Eufaula, Oklahoma. I note a lot about the Indian in your maga- zine. I am an Indian myself, and have written a great many articles for newspapers; and at one time wrote magazine articles’ I don’t know if this recommendation would cut any ice with Adventure or not, but I believe I could open the eyes of some of the historians of this country on some subjects such as the history of the mound-builders of North America as handed down to me from mouth to ear. I can give a mouth to*ear history of the origin of the Red Moon dnd can relate some stubborn facts about the Medicine Men of the Red Race. I notice in-the Adventure several times about the cure for snake-bites. It is no trouble to cure a rattler’ s bite if one knows what to use, ~~ EDOO