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    Publishing Information

    Bernard De Voto and Kitty Smith

    By Floyd Dell

    The Nation
    January 23, 1937
    Vol. 144, No. 4, P. 98

  1. Bernard de Voto, who conducts the Easy Chair department in Harper's Monthly, has apparently been unable to resist the temptation to expand himself into the papal void left by the recent collapse of H. L. Mencken. De Voto has been getting more and more pontifical about America every month. America is the way it is, one gathers from De Voto's pronouncements. And it is that way because that is the way it is. Consequently, it is better that way than it would be any other way. I think that is the De Voto philosophy of Americanism in a nutshell.

  2. I myself have been inclined to agree with some of his opinions. Thus I should probably have thought that schoolmarms in small towns cannot expect to be allowed to smoke cigarettes, drink cocktails, or wear shorts in public. But when De Voto pompously rebukes these errant schoolmarms in the name of "social integration," I abruptly realize that this is merely Ku Klux Klan talk.

    A change sufficient to make Caribou accept Chicago's morality for teachers would mean that beliefs essential to the vigor of the whole had lost their vitality. When Kitty Smith can smoke a cigarette, drink a cocktail, or wear shorts on the corner of Fifth and Spring unrebuked by her superintendent, the social integration that is the health of Caribou and, therefore, of the nation, will be gone [italics mine].*

  3. It is my own impression that such a change is now going on in small towns all over the country. I should not be surprised if in ten years or even less time Kitty the schoolmarm could smoke, drink cocktails, or wear shorts in Caribou without being in any danger whatever of losing her job. Personally I am for Kitty the brash young schoolmarm. De Voto, however, warns us that if Kitty wins out, the "social integration that is the health of Caribou and, therefore, of the nation, will be gone." These are strong words. Manners and morals have changed in the last quarter-century. We men folks descended from the lofty plane of social integration represented by the quid and the spittoon to the moral anarchy of the unmanly cigarette. And flow nice girls in Caribou smoke cigarettes, and respectable matrons learned back in boom times to drink cocktails at the Caribou Country Club. But obviously it does not devolve upon ordinary people to maintain "the social integration that is the health of Caribou and, therefore, of the nation." It is our school teachers who, according to the De Voto philosophy, have the high and holy task of upholding our "social integration." They perform it by consenting to be—or pretending to be—purer than other people.

  4. So far this is Vestal Virgin stuff, and is rapidly passing out of date. Schoolmarms have in various parts of the country fought for and won the right to marry and hold their jobs. Yet chastity is the very nubbin of the question of the right of schoolmarms to smoke cigarettes, drink cocktails, and neck in parked cars—an indulgence which De Voto also mentions as forbidden to Kitty the schoolmarm in Caribou. These practices were once the outward and visible signs of a probable or possible loss of female virginity. However, public ideas have changed so much, even in Caribou, that these standards are no longer applied to females in general, just to schoolmarms. Why? Can it be that there is some other aspect of our "social integration" that is endangered by the independence of our young schoolmarms? Is all this fuss really just about Kitty's cigarettes, her cocktails, her shorts, and her necking?

  5. De Voto's article is a commentary upon the report of the Commission of Social Studies of the American Historical Association. This report shows that the freedom of our school teachers is curtailed in various ways by school authorities. It appears that Kitty has to conform to the political as well as the moral opinions held by the best people of Caribou. In De Voto's words:

    On Armistice Day, pleasantly recalling the handsome face of John Strachey, who lectured at Michigan last year, she refuses to buy a poppy from a buddy; the fervor thus reawakened leads her to tell the fifth grade that world peace would be wonderful, information which reaches the Adjutant of the American Legion post through a son who is doing badly in arithmetic. The superintendent of the Caribou schools now summons Kitty and forbids her to teach communism; he also instructs her not to wear chiffon stockings to school, and as circuitously as possible tells her to put on a brassiere. By February she is nervously aware that the whole Eastern Star is gossiping about her.

  6. Thus we are given to understand by De Voto that the current tendency of American school teachers to think for themselves on political and social subjects is a form of tactlessness which would inevitably irritate any community and is naturally open to official rebuke.

  7. The restrictions upon school teachers are many, and apparently both tyrannical and absurd. "It looks pretty bad," says De Voto, who continues: "But let us not too hastily denounce Caribou. And let us not assail it with too hasty a use of the word freedom." Why not? Because, according to De Voto "freedom is neither a syllogism nor an entity, and the problem of freedom is not simple but infinitely complex and infinitely contingent."

  8. That should go a long way to console Kitty and the other teachers who thought they had lost their freedom. "Caribou," he says solemnly, "is enforcing on Kitty Smith a special morality that comes from the relationship of its energies to one another." This makes everything all right. The relationship of Caribou's energies to one another just naturally makes Kitty Smith the goat, and gives the American school system into the hands of the American Legion. Above all, we should "not too hastily denounce Caribou," because freedom is "neither a syllogism nor an absolute nor an entity," but just something that American school teachers haven't got.

  9. If Kitty the schoolmarm is allowed to smoke cigarettes or to refuse to buy a poppy on Armistice Day or to mention world peace to her fifth-grade pupils or to exercise her rights as a citizen in having opinions of her own, hell may pop. In De Voto's choicer language, "The disequilibrium so created would swing us out of the orbit so far that all kinds of freedom would be in danger."

  10. He lets it go at that. Maybe we shall go Communist if Kitty the Caribou schoolmarm is allowed to smoke cigarettes and talk pacifism. Maybe we shall turn to fascism so as to shut Kitty up and put her back in the kitchen. Something awful will happen if Caribou and the Ku Klux Klan capitulate to Kitty the schoolmarm. First the "social integration" of Caribou will collapse and then that of the nation. Will it stop there?

  11. We must wait and see. And we probably shall see, because the teachers in Caribou and all the other towns of America are showing a disposition to fight for their rights. We may as well prepare for the worst.

  12. Meanwhile these words of De Voto's are so sublime in their papal quality that I think they should be put in small capitals as on a tombstone:

    WHEN KITTY SMITH CAN SMOKE A CIGARETTE, DRINK A COCKTAIL, OR WEAR SHORTS ON THE CORNER OF FIFTH AND SPRING UNREBUKED BY HER SUPERINTENDENT, THE SOCIAL INTEGRATION THAT IS THE HEALTH OF CARIBOU AND, THEREFORE, OF THE NATION WILL BE GONE.

  13. Even without OR HAVE OPINIONS OF HER OWN, these words say quite enough. Heil De Voto!

    * Mr. De Voto's article, "Tyranny at Longfellow School," appeared in the January issue of Harper's.