February 15, 1934
The current Literary Digest interviews Cousin Arthur LaMotte, technical section manager of the explosives department of the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co., Inc. Nice to hear from Cousin Arthur in this round about way. Must write to him and invite him to look us up if he should come to the Moore Plant. He lists many of the interesting uses of the potent stuff invented by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish Peace Prize chap.Booth Tarkington's "Little Orvie's Fixation", a short story in SEP, would make a good paper for a PTA meeting. He gets behind the scenes of a child's stubborness and shows what lack of adult sympathy can accomplish in misunderstanding motives. Here is a bit of psychology which is easy to lose sight of: "We have to grow older before we can accumulate memory of enough events to know an extraordinary one from an ordinary one; thus, small shildren are a little surprised by almost anything, but not much surprised by anything."
Well, o-hum, Forum couldn't use Industrial Social-Consciousness; so I think I shall give it a rest. Wayne dropped in to lunch unexpectedly to thrash out some installation and ordination publicity. He thought I should give Encouragers another try when the American sends it back. He did not approve of the American, because it is too Babbitified; and I told him that is just why I sent it there. Wayne still insists my style is humorously cynical and should gain a place somewhere in the sun, but the market is undoubtedly overcrowded. Possibly I should stick to narration of actual observations, and avoid half-baked theorizing. For instance, the Ramsaur letter may provide some observations, although I am almost certain of getting off the track if I launch on that experience.
