Wallaceland Revisited

IN 1947 Dwight Macdonald, exploring the liberal hinterland, discovered a vast terrain stretching from Soviet Siberia to the editorial offices of the Nation and the New Republic. This terrain he called “Wallaceland,” after Henry Wallace, a gentleman who teetered on the brink of becoming the 32nd President of the United States. The Newfoundland Macdonald saw possessed not only a variegated geography, but a language all its own, one which the great explorer dubbed “Wallese,” defining it as a “debased and provincial dialect.”

It is sad to report that since his early discoveries, Macdonald has himself often wandered off into Wallaceland. So addicted has he become to the “provincial dialect,” that he uses itasifit were quite the most normal way to talk—and to write. Does he even realize that a whole new generation is rediscovering Wallaceland?

MG

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Max Geltman

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IN 1947 Dwight Macdonald, exploring the liberal hinterland, discovered a vast terrain stretching from Soviet Siberia to the editorial offices of the Nation and the New Republic. This terrain he called “Wallaceland,” after Henry Wallace, a gentleman who teetered on the brink of becoming the 32nd President of the United States. The Newfoundland Macdonald saw possessed not only a variegated geography, but a language all its own, one which the great explorer dubbed “Wallese,” defining it as a “debased and provincial dialect.”

It is sad to report that since his early discoveries, Macdonald has himself often wandered off into Wallaceland. So addicted has he become to the “provincial dialect,” that he uses itasifit were quite the most normal way to talk—and to write. Does he even realize that a whole new generation is rediscovering Wallaceland?