"Why Have Editors?"

129 CONTRIBUTORS, EDITORS, AND PUBLISHERS The following speeches were given before the Plenary Session of the 1967 Annual RM-MLA Meeting at Albuquerque , 13 October 1967. George W. Arms (English, University of New Mexico) has been an editor of The Explicator for twenty-five years, and of American Literature since 1965. He is co-author of a bibliography of William Dean HoweUs (1948) and of Twelve American Writers (1962). Richard M. Chadboume (French, University of Colorado) is the author of the MLA prize-winning book, Ernest Renan as an Essayist (1957), and publishes on nineteenth-century French literature. Jack Garlington (English, University of Utah) has been editor of Western Humanities Review since 1962. He publishes on modern literature . "WHY HAVE EDITORS?" George Arms At Indiana University this summer, each morning when I drove into the campus, the sign "Indiana University: Firing Range" attracted my attention. Of course, when I asked about it I got the expected reply, perhaps an echo of the New Yorker cartoon: "We really mean publish or perish here." Well, without such a melodramatic confrontation this afternoon we hope to have a confrontation not lacking in the comic or tragic drama that concerns all teacherscholars in some degree—getting what we write into print. Mr. Chadboume will concern himself mostly with the writer and reader of scholarly articles, Mr. Garlington with the kind of magazine increasingly published by universities , the "unimag" that is more broadly based in its interests than the literary journal, and I shall mostíy speak of the problems and pleasures of editors of more specialized literary periodicals. But though we have these different approaches , all three of us have the same subject; and when we consider the nearly 21,000 entries in the 1966 MLA Bibliography (up from nearly 19,000 the year before), we can be sure a good many people do write and edit and publish . Perhaps too many. But with about 24,000 MLA members at the end of 1966, the number of books and articles seems to me in good balance; the 1956 MLA Bibliography had 10,000 entries, with the membership then 9,000. Though the authors of books and articles in the MLA bibliographies are not exclusively MLA members, the proportion of entries to members probably affords a satisfactory gauge of publishing activity and suggests (for there were more entries tiian members in 1956 but fewer entries than members in 1966) that literary scholars today publish less than ten years ago. Those who decry so-called overpublication may take a little joy in this; not one of the decriers, I find a little sadness in these figures. If it does not convince me to approve more books and articles for publication than I now do, it persuades me that journals and publishers might proliferate more than they have. My present two journal editorships are with American Literature and The Explicator, whose editors-in-chief are respectively Clarence Gohdes and J. Edwin Whitesell. My membership in the board of editors of American Literature began a little less than two years ago, but my co-editorship of The Explicator goes back to its founding in 1942. Thus I know more about the latter than the former, though with both I am grateful to the editors-in-chief for help. In 130 RM-MLA Bulletin December 1967 connection with my serving as an editor of these two journals (and from time to time of others) I am mostly asked these questions: How many articles submitted do you accept? How long does it take to publish them? What makes you decide for or against an article? Do all the editors read all the contributions? Does your magazine consult with a specialist in die field part of the time or regularly? Why in the world did you take diat stupid piece on Henry James (or whoever) in the last number? If you thought my article good in part, why didn't you ask me to revise? No one except Henry Pettit, who told me that my tide "Why Have Editors?" was appearing in the program as it went to press, has asked me in effect "Are you—or any editors—needed ?" Still...