Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

220 militaristic spirit. It has increased it for 15, but actually decreased it for more than twice that number, 33. Considering that, at least in my day, 90% of the students hated drill, the replies to No. 3 and No. 4 are amazing and very sad for the pacifists. OME pacifist will say college boys don’t know anything about anything. Well, remember that when the vote was taken among men years out of college the result was still more overwhélmingly against the pacifists. Also it seems to me that an undergraduate who has been drilled for two years is a darned sight better judge of the effects of drill than is a pacifist of 40, 50, 60 or even go years who never was drilled in his life and prefers theories to facts. Par- ticularly if the pacifist is a lady. Of course my fact test was on a small scale, but as a:result of it the matter will probably be getting a thorough test, and when the results come in from all the State universities this big argument of the paci- fists will have its death-blow. Tr U. S. Marine Corps has never had a publication devoted to its interests as have the other services, but now that is to be remedied. Captain Frank E. Evans, U.S. M.C., retired, is in charge of the new magazine and will be especially glad to hear from any ex-marines who have had service at ‘the front with any of the European bel- ligerents or have had experience elsewhere that would make interesting and profitable reading for those still in the U. S. M. C. Letters addressed to Captain Evans in our care will be forwarded. DWARD S. PILSWORTH enters Adventure this month with a story, “The Pillar of Flame,” and rises according to custom to give an account of himself: Necedah, Wisconsin. Your request for an autobiographical sketch is rather embarrassing because I have so little to say that could be of interest to readers of Adventure. Between ourselves, the “Camp-Fire” is the most interesting part of any magazine that I know of, principally, I think, because of the human nature it contains. I read every tittle of it, for the side-lights on men and actions, reasons and interests, and the exposing of hidden character traits are tremendous- ly interesting. My ancestry are everywhere Irish, an adventur- ous crowd, full of soldiers and what not, but my hope of following in their footsteps was killed by a Adventure marriage at twenty. The kids kept me hustling till a few years ago, when I became my own man again. Most of my life till the age of eighteen was spent in England, and the one great adventure of it was my arrival in this country at that age. Since then I have lived and wandered over nearly all of the North, East and South, but have crossed the Mis- sissippi only a couple of times. A pleasant disposition has been forced upon me by physical conditions; as I stand six feet one, and weigh over two hundred, which an outdoor life has toughened to an extent, it is not possible for such a party to indulge belligerent tendencies with the - average person through fear of consequences. At that I am the shortest man in my family, and I have three brothers. WE ARE all artists; I guess it runs in the blood, and that is the profession I have always fol- lowed. Maybe it accounts somewhat for my love of outdoors and nature, for the ideal life, I think, is one in a tent, or, better still, outside the tent, with only the sky for cover, and the stars watching to see that no bugs get into a fellow’s ear. Some ten or twelve years ago I began to combine story writing with drawing, and it was then I per- petrated an act that I understand has been a source of trouble to editors ever since. I was the original culprit who introduced the tramp to fiction. Sev- eral magazines published him, McClure’s, Metropoli- tan, etc., and the People’s ran a series on him for two or three years. I had to break it off because I took a five-year contract writing text-books, etc., for an art school. When my time was up I hit for the woods, and incidentally went back to writing. HILE I lived in Pittsburg I had some experi- ence with oil, enough so that I could talk in- telligently about it, and last year, while on an eight or ten hour journey to Chicago, fell into talk with a man who had “‘wild-catted” some in the South- west. We found we had several points of interest in common, and in the course of our journey, he told me most of the incidents that make the meat of “The Pillar of Flame.” The tale, in its main facts, is truth. Just enough fiction for interest and to take it away from a plain narrative-—EDWARp S. PILSWORTH. ERE is a letter from another of us at. the front about the American Legion. It was written on a letterhead of the Cana- dian Expeditionary Force, and printed at the top is the following: | Do not mention your rank, battalion, brigade or the names of places; expected operations, movemenis or numbers of troops; casualties previous to publication of official lists, or make specific reference to the moral or physical condition of troops. Belgium, November 21, 1915. Back in 1914 you began organizing an American Legion for defense purposes, etc. It took my eye, but up until then I had had no military experience. Since then, according to an article I read in a maga- zine a chap had sent to him, the movement has de- veloped into a vast enrollment of all branches of war “trades” and I-want to see what opportunities present themselves in the aerial line. You will com Sj (@) (E) 006)