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QUEENS BLUES
April 29, 1944
Presenting: The One And Only Man
Who’s Rolled Carriages On 2 Oceans
When Mr. McCutchan was told
that he was to be the “Person
of the Issue” and that we want
ed to know all the hidden facts
of his life, he said that he sup
posed it was best to start at the
beginning. He was bom in the
French Concession in Shanghai,
China. The only reason he could
give for this was that his parents
happened to be there at the time.
Since he came to the States at
the age of there months, his mem
ories of Shanghai are not too
vivid.
Central High School graduates
may be interested to know that he
attended Central the first year it
was built. While he was in Char
lotte, he lived in what was then
called the College Apartments
(originally the Charlotte Female
Institute). That was the first con
nection with Queens College.
He graduated from Davidson in
the Spring of 1931 in the same
class with Dr. James A. Jones.
That fall he went to Egypt where
he taught in Assiut College, 250
miles south of Cairo. In the Sum
mers he traveled in Europe and
Ethiopia. Although he says that
he usually gets to places too late
for the excitement, ’ he did get
“there” in time for some. When
he was traveling in the mountains
of Ethiopia he was attacked by
leopards one night just before mak
ing camp. In Ethiopia he visited
the governor of one of the pro
vinces; this governor was later
minister of war during the Italian
invasion. The thing he remembers
most vividly about the governor’s
“mansion” is that it was papered
with old newspapers, many of
which were put on upside down.
Despite all these events, he says
the most exciting thing that hap
pened to him in Egj^t was that
he met his wife there.
He said that the narrowest
escape he had had, however, was
while he was traveling in Egypt.
He and some friends wanted to see
the Red Sea, and their route was
via an old Roman road. They
were traveling in cars driven by
Egyptian chauffeurs who had never
seen the sea. When they arrived,
the chauffeurs became so fascinat
ed with racing the cars up and
down the smooth sand, that they
didn’t notice the incoming tide
until one car was in over the
axle. They had to pull and tug
to get the car out of the water.
When he was asked what was
the most embarrassing moment of
his life, Mr. McCutchan said that
there were so many he couldn’t
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pick out just one. After think
ing a while, though, he decided
that It occurred during his college
days. When he was a guest of
Mary Roberts Rinehart’s at a
luncheon in Washington, D. C. he
spilled his coffee all over the
tablecloth. He said that this made
him sink lower than did anything
else that had happened to him.
In 1941 he and Mrs. McCutchan
had to leave Egypt due to war con
ditions. A British troop ship
brought them from Suez as far as
Sydney, Australia. During the
month they were in Sydney, they
bought calf liver at 12 cents a
pound and sirloin steak for 25
cents a pound!! (Let’s go to Syd
ney!) From Sydney they came to
the States on an American ship.
'There were a great many Ameri
can and Australian air cadets on
board which made the ship a bel
ligerent vessel, so they had a
naval escort. They came through
the Fiji Islands where they saw
the large, forked sticks which were
previously used to roast human
flesh on. They aren’t used that
way any more. (We hope.) From
the Fiji’s they came on up to the
Hawaiian Islands and were in
Honolulu about two months be
fore Pearl Harbor. They then
came to the States—“and so to
Queens.” (To get the details of
how Mr. McCutchan happened to
come to Queens, you will have
to see Dr. Blakely.)
Unfortunately, he has had a very
prosaic life—or so he says. Just
to prove it, he says that he is
the only man he knows who has
wheeled a baby carriage around
the world. No, he didn’t walk
on the sea; they just had a col
lapsible baby carriage which they
unpacked, set up and used on board
ship. He wheeled Marjorie Ann
across the Atlantic on his way to
Egypt in ’38 and he wheeled Mary
Caroline across the Pacific on his
way back.
There is one thing that really
worries him—his age. He has
crossed the International Date
Line twice in the same direction,
and so he is two days ahead of
himself. Unless he can cross it
twice going the other way, he
won’t come out even. If anyone
has any suggestions to offer he
will be glad to accept them.
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Hello there all you “meet-me-at-
Diana” pals! Where you been keep
ing yourselves lately? Could it be
those gruesome term papers which
haunt you? Come now, they’re not
as bad as all that. Because you’ve
been inhabiting the library so
much lately, I’ve had to pass away
the hours by day dreaming or
playing games. I played a kind of
game with many of your names:
it helped to while away the hours.
Here’s what ’tis.
What if:
ELOISE were a notch instead of
a DENT.
CONNIE were a cutter instead of
SLICER
BETTY were a moon instead of a
STARR
BECKY were dimes instead of
NICKLES
ELINOR were a chime instead of
a BELL
EMMY were rock insteafi of WOOD
SUE were a clarinet instead of a
HORNE
FRANCES were an ounce instead
of a POUND
KITTY were a derrick instead of
a CRANE
HELEN were an obstacle instead of
a BARRIER
JOY were short instead of LONG
MIRIAM were a robin instead of
a WRENN
JOYCE were a bricklayer instead
of a CARPENTER
JEAN were a Pontiac instead of
a HUDSON
MARY FRANCES were brushes
instead of COMBS
MARGARET were months instead
of WEEKS
MABLE were a shore instead of a
BEACH
O. K., so you think I have gone
“daffy.” Well, what would you do
if you had Time taking snoozes
on your shoulders? Say, where
are my sunglasses? I have such
a terrible time keeping track of
them; this sun is so glaring, but
it feels wonderful. I’m going to
send someone to the lab to fetch
me a chemical which will give me
a golden-bronze tan. So many of
you have taken advantage of our
“Back Campus Tanning Club.”
Those tans make me envious and
desirous of one for myself. . . I’m
getting so excited over May .Day.
At that time I’ll be seeing many
of your families and relatives.
More fun, eh what?
I’ll tell all that I know in
the next issue of the Blues. Adios,
amigos! (how’m I doin’, Marcela?)
New Treasury Of War Poetry
By George Herbert Clark
Reviewed by Laura A. Tillett
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When Wordsworth gave his fa
mous definition of poetry as “the
spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings”, he hastened to add that
the emotion should be “recollected
in tranquility”. The poet, he ex
plained, does not write under the
immediate excitement of the
event. Nothing illustrates this bet
ter than war poetry; those too
close to the soul-stirring events of
war are not likely to give the
most memorable expression to
those events. It is true that Mil-
ton was moved to noble expres
sions on liberty during the Civil
War of his day and produced a
few fine sonnets under its influ
ence and that Wordsworth was
inspired by the Napoleonic con
quests to write some immortal
ones. Yet Wordsworth’s sonnets
were not so powerful an expres
sion of the emotions aroused by
those events as Tolstoy’s War and
Peace written many decades later.
Likewise, in this country the
greatest poems on the War Be
tween the States were not pro
duced by the p^ts living then;
the greatest caine a few years
ago in Stephen Vincent Benet’s
John Brown’s Body. World War I
gave. us some inspiring lyrics such
as Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier”
and “Now God Be 'Thanked”, Alan
Seeger’s “I Have a Rendezvous
With Death”, and John McCrea’s
“In Flanders Fields”; but we are
yet to see a major work based
upon that war. In spite of these
facts, however, any collection of
war poetry such as George Her
bert Clarke’s New Treasury of
War Poetry evokes interest.
Mr. Clarke is the compiler of
A Treasury of War Poetry that
was published in two series during
the period of World War I. 'That
is an excellent anthology of the
verse that appeared between^ 1914
and 1919, and now in his ‘ New
Treasury he has given us a fit
companion to that first collection.
The New Treasury of War Po
etry attempts, as Mr. Clarke says
in his introduction, “a poetic sur
vey of the objective deeds and
experiences of the United Nations”.
It contains “representative contri
butions, both in form and spirit,
of the poet’s response to the con
ditions of the world today.” Among
poems from over a hundred pwets
are some by such well known writ
ers as Edna St. Vincent Millay.
William Rose Benet, Robert P.
Tristram Coffin, Robert Frost,
Robert Nathan, Leonard Bacon,
Robinson Jeffers, Archibald Mac-
Leish, Mark Van Doren, John
Masefield, Jan Struther, and Ste-
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phen Spender. The poems cover
all places and outstanding inci
dents of this present war; they
express the fears, hopes and ideals
of the day and sound clear notes
of challenge and warning.
The anthology is arranged so
that the pwems treating certain
coimtries are group)ed tc^ether.
Hence we see such divisions as
those marked America, England,
France, Russia, and China. Then
there are sections bearing the
titles Dunkirk, Incidents and As
pects, The Flyers, Reflections, Wo
men and the War, and Peace.
Particularly impressive are such
poems as Leonard Bacon’s “Our
Time”, Millay’s “Memory of Eng
land”, Masefield’s “"They Marched
Over the Field of Waterloo”, and
Joseph Auslander’s “Prayer to
Jehanne of France”. Amanda B.
Hall’s “For Madame Chiang Kai-
Shek” is a lovely tribute to the
“lady of the jeweled brain” writ
ten in grave beauty of style. And
Robert Nathan’s quietly sincere
poem to Captain Colin P. Kelly,
Jr. pays tribute to that first
American hero of this war. “On
Going to the Wars”, written by
a young professor of the Univer
sity of Toronto now serving with
the Canadian Army, is a poignant
expression of the ideals for which
he is fighting. Several poems com
memorate the destruction of Li
dice; among these the sonnet by
a Jewish doctor in England,
Charles Schiff, is especially fine.
In the ringing free verse stanzas
of “The Women Will Soon Knit
Again” Roger Burlingame recalls
the French Revolution and issues
a challenge to the leaders of Ger
many and Vichy. Included, too,
is p>erhaps the loveliest poem yet
to come from this war, “High
Flight” by John Gillespie Magee,
Jr., that exquisite sonnet which
Archibald MacLeish called as great
a poem as any that came out of
World War I. The anthology is
indeed a treasury of poetry par
ticularly appealing at this time.
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