Produced by Stan Goodman, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
of 1919
1924
ENGLAND TO AMERICA. By Margaret Prescott Montague
"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO." By Wilbur Daniel Steele
THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL. By Ben Ames Williams
ON STRIKE. By Albert Payson Terhune.
THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS. By Edison Marshall
TURKEY RED. By Frances Gilchrist Wood
FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. By Melville Davisson Post
THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON. By Thomas Grant Springer
"HUMORESQUE." By Fannie Hurst
THE LUBBENY KISS. By Louise Rice.
THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE. By Samuel A. Derieux
PORCELAIN CUPS. By James Branch Cabell
THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE. By Beatrice Ravenel
THE KITCHEN GODS. By G.F. Alsop
APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL. By Edna Ferber
On April 18, 1918, the Society of Arts and Sciences of New York Citypaid tribute to the memory of William Sydney Porter at a dinner inhonour of his genius. In the ball-room of the Hotel McAlpin theregathered, at the speakers' table, a score of writers, editors andpublishers who had been associated with O. Henry during the time helived in Manhattan; in the audience, many others who had known him, andhundreds yet who loved his short stories.
Enthusiasm, both immediate and lasting, indicated to the ManagingDirector of the Society, Mr. John F. Tucker, that he might progresshopefully toward an ideal he had, for some time, envisioned. The goallay in the establishing of a memorial to the author who had transmutedrealistic New York into romantic Bagdad-by-the-Subway.
When, therefore, in December, 1918, Mr. Tucker called a committee forthe purpose of considering such a memorial, he met a glad response. Thefirst question, "What form shall the monument assume?" drew tentativesuggestions of a needle in Gramercy Square, or a tablet affixed to thecorner of O. Henry's home in West Twenty-sixth Street. But things ofiron and stone, cold and dead, would incongruously commemorate thedynamic power that moved the hearts of living men and women, "the masterpharmacist of joy and pain," who dispensed "sadness tinctured with asmile and laughter that dissolves in tears."
In short, then, it was decided to offer a minimum prize of $250 for thebest short story published in 1919, and the following Committee of Awardwas appointed:
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D.
EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D.
ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD
ROBERT WILSON NEAL, M.A.
MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D.
It is significant that this committee had no sooner begun its roundtable conferences than the Society promised, through the Director, fundsfor two prizes. The first was fixed at $500, the second at $250.
At a meeting in January, 1919, the Committee of Award agreed upon thefurther conditions that the story must be the work of an Americanauthor, and must first appear in 1919 in an American publication. At th