Evening star. [volume], December 12, 1936, Page B-2, Image 18

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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PERSONAL STYLE AND IMPERSONAL MIND, LIFE OF BOOK
SEEKER FOR ELUSIVE PEACE
Author Gives Picturesque Record of Explorers in Midst of
Chinese Carnage—Anthology Which Overlooks America.
Novels Which Present Some Individual Ideas.
By Mary Carter Roberts.
I FOUND NO PEACE. By Webb
Miller. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
EBB MILLER changed hU
name, from the one which
his parents had given him
—Webster—to the one by
which he is now pretty widely known—
In order that ha might have a good,
■nappy by-line. That would seem to
have been characteristic of him. He
was a reporter, first, last and always.
In his present book, his autobiography,
he does remark that he has been
over most of the world in his life and
has seen most of the historic events
of that time, and that he has nowhere
found peace, or even men of peaceful
Intent. But he is not really con
cerned much about the meaning of
events. It is always the event Itself
that has fascinated him. And that
probably is why he is one of the
best reporters in the world.
His book comes at a time when
the presses seem to be glutted with
autobiographies of newspaper men.
Whether Vincent Shean set the
fashion, with his wonderfully profita
ble volume, or whether he merely
happened to be first in a fashion
that was inevitable anyway, is a ques
tion. There is this to be said for
the latter supposition—most of these
reporters are about the same age, most
of them have had parallel experi
ences, and the state of the world is,
at present, comparatively quiescent.
It may be merely natural that men
who have had such extraordinarily
broad opportunities to observe the
planet’s muddle-headed blattlng about
through recent decades should feel an
Impulse to sit down while there is time
and put their observations into coher
ent form. A significant thing about
these memoirs is that they are not
those of old or retired men. Their
writers are still in harness and will go
back to work when the next calamity
descends upon us.
VL^EBB MILLER S book is really
very good reading. As has been
•aid, he writes of events instead of
interpreting them. He differs from
the Shean-Spivak-Freeman school of
autobiographical writing in this; they
have discarded the simple reporter’s
role for that of the somewhat grandiose
prophet, and, like most grandiose (or
somewhat grandiose) performers, they
please no one except those who agree
With them anyway.
Most people prefer a story to a
tract. Webb Miller’s book is a story.
In spite of its prophetic title. He
offers no panaceas, no solutions, no
profundities. He attaches himself to
no ism as the ultimate or absolute.
“This happened," he remarks. "I saw
It.” And that is about all.
He tells of his boyhood, spent on
various tenant farms in Michigan.
The Millers were poor; he had never
had two suits of clothes until he
started for Chicago to get a Job—re
porting, of course. He had already
•et his mind on that. He tells of his
eub days on the American, when he
chiefly reported crimes and hangings.
He then tells of his start as a free
lance, covering the pursuit of the
Mexican bandit, Villa. And from
then on. his narrative goes through
the World War, the occupation of the
Rhineland, the Riffian War, the
Gandhi riots in India, and the con
quest of Ethiopia, when, as is history
row, he scooped the world on the
■tart of hostilities. Many smaller
matters are, of course, tossed in. It is
straight reporting of reporting. It is
the best manner of newspaper writing
that there is—a combination of a per
sonal style with an impersonal mind.
Any story, however, is Improved by
putting it in a frame, by giving it a
boundary and a shape, and Webb
Miller is far too astute a writer not
to know that. So he has wound
around his narrative a little legend
about himself—his personal develop
ment from a shy, shrinking farm boy,
with all the inhibitions that a poverty
•tricken country childhood imposes
on a sensitive nature, to a self-posses
sed master of his craft and man of
many worlds. There is something
Indescribably good about this. It ia
done so completely without swank, It is
so devoid of the offensive self-pity and
self-admiration which have clouded
some recent autobiographies of re
porters, notably that of Joseph Free
man. that it becomes an unusual asset
rather the usual liability in such a
work. It is not given much space or
much Importance. But it serves ad
mirably as a frame for the rest of the
Miller story.
As to the title, It rests where titles
•hould rest, on the substance of Its
book. That book, as has been said,
deals with crimes, wars and rumors of
war* in almost every part of the
world. Mr. Miller by temperament
loves peace, a positive, contemplative
peace such as is prescribed as medicine
for the soul In the writings of Henry
Thoreau. Thoreau, he says, has been
his mentor through his life. He has
carried a copy of "Walden” with him
constantly; he haa, in fact, worn out
three copies. But he has found no
peace, because there is none. With
the closing remark that he thinks
another war Is inevitable, he leaves it
at that.
It Is a splendid picture of the world,
as a really great reporter sees it.
THE FLIGHT OF BIG HORSE. By
Sven Hedin. Translated by F. H.
Lyon. New York: E. P. Dutton
A Co. '
'T'HIS is a highly interesting com
bination of travel book and ad
venture story. For it gives the ac
count of what started to be merely an
exploring expedition, but turned into
an agile dodging party between hos
tile Chinese armies bent, on destroy
ing one another and sublimely indif
ferent to the presence of casual white
scientists. It makes an exciting and
sometimes an uproarious tale.
It ia the record of an expedition
which the veteran explorer, Sven He
din, was leading into Sinkiang in
the Spring of 1934. The expedition
had no political lntereat whatsoever;
It was neutral, and devoted entirely
to scientific and economic research.
When it had gone too far to turn back,
It suddenly found itself between the
lines of a civil war of considerable mag
nitude. The local Chinese population
had risen against Chin-shu-Jen under
the leadership of Ma Chung-yin,
whose name translated means Big
Hone. As Hedin saw them, both lead
ers were rascals of purest ray serene,
but about Ma there was a certain ro
mantic glamor; he was cruel, but he
was brave and unpredictable, too.
After altogether too many adventures
r
MARY ELLEN CHASE,
Author of “This England."
(Macmillan.)
to be reported here, he was forced to
run away from his war, and Dr. Hed
in's party assisted him, willy-nilly,
with their highly convenient motor
lorries. They then found themselves
faced with embarrassing explanations
to make to the victorious authorities.
But it all came out well in the end.
It is as picturesque a record as has
appeared in a long time. Whether it
be read as history or adventure, it is
excellent entertainment.
THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH
VERSE. Edited by William But
ler Yeats. New York: Oxford Uni
versity Press.
rJ''HIS collection, which must call for
the attention of readers every
where, represents its distinguished
editor's personal preferences and per
sonal interpretation of poetic history
in recent decades, and seems some
what less than a representative an
thology. It may be that it is more
worthy for that reason: better per
haps to have the personal willful
choice of a brilliant man than the
careful, reasoned-out program of a
pedant. You will get less chaff that
way in the long run. Yet it Is cu
rious to find an anthology of ‘ modern”
verse that Ignores such poets as Rob
ert Frost, Vachel Linsay, Edward Ar
lington Robinson and Elinor Wylie.
Mr. Yeats writes, to be sure, that
he has deliberately omitted the work
of all American poets save those whose
writing seems to him essentially Eng
lish. But does this omission belong
in an anthology of “modem" verse?
Would it not be better to change the
title to an anthology of modem Eng
lish and Irish verse? Then it would
cover the case, as Mr. Yeats pre
sents it.
For his book is built up around hit
own individual Interpretation of the
development of English and Irish
poetry in the years since Pater. The
first revolt against the Victorians, he
says, began with the group of young
Hamlets which included Ernest Dow
son, Francis Thompson and Lionel
Johnson; they drank black coffee and
absinthe, went mad and committed
suicide. They were determined to
purge poetry of all non-poetic stuff,
they worshipped Catullus, Verlaine
add Baudelaire. “The bitter and the
gay,” they called themselves. Lord,
could such posing be?
After them came the folk versifiers,
Housman and Hardy and Synge, with
Robert Bridges and Kipling contin
uing Victorian forms in a chastened
manner. And then the day of Edith
Sitwell and T. S. Eliot, the artificers.
To them and their contemporaries he
devotes brief chapters in his intro
duction. They tell us little, these
chapters, beyond that he found rea
son for including such and such a
poet’s work. His introduction is not
a critical explanation of his anthology,
nor is it, in any except the most
strictly personal sense, a history of
poetry in modern times.
Yes. on the whole, incomplete as the
anthology seems, and limited as is its
introduction, the collection does con
trive to touch many peaks, and con
tains relevant material for a student
of modern poetry. It is a valuable
work. The reviewer has long since
come to rate any anthology by what
it actually contains, and not by what
it announces itself as containing. This
volume has some excellent modern
verse in it. The anthology perfect
cannot be compiled for any man ex
cept by himself.
BITTER VICTORY. By Louis Guil
loux. Translated from the French
by Samuel Putnam. New York:
Robert M. McBride & Oo.
rPHI8 is a savagely bitter novel
A about human defeat. Old as the
theme is. It is still quite possible to
write books on it that have newness,
and M. Guilloux has done that. His
book reads with an Inevitable famili
arity, but with a vivid life. If at times
it becomes a trifle wearying, that is
because of the author’s monotonous
insistence on grim physical details;
it is not because he has lacked artistic
vitality.
The story Is that of Prof. Merlin,
nicknamed Cripure, a schoolmaster In
a provincial French city during the
third year of the World War. He is
the man who has loved honor and
who finds himself a worldly failure,
the town laughing stock. Nothing In
his whole existence bears out his
inner convictions. He appears a
buffoon, a satyr, a pedant, a very
mockery of a man. It is possible for
essentially inferior men to laugh at
him quite sincerely.
Such a tale, of course, rests entirely
on its author’s ability. It has been
told too many times before to claim
attention as a concept. Suffloe it to
repeat that M. Guilloux keeps his
novel alive, fresh and forceful through
out. No lover of the novel form can
fail to feel respect for It. But the
book Is too Intelligent, too savage, too
subtle to appeal to a very large public.
HONORABLE ESTATE. By Vera
Brittain. New York: The Mac
millan Oo.
'T'HIS Is a novel written to a thesis,
1 and consequently more on the
argumentative side than an that of
the atory. It deals with women’s
rights, setting forth the justification
for feminine emancipation through
the medium of three marriages, two of
the Victorian period and one e( the
modern. While dealing with auch
a question at all seems today like act
ing up a straw man to knock over,
the work i« written with all the In
dignant feeling which feminists have
usually brought to their subject, and
will no doubt move the adherents of
the cause to sympathy. It is respect
ably written, and has some of the
stuff of which popularity is made, but
seems to the reviewer without signi
ficance other than that of setting forth
a pretty well-known case.
RICH MAN POOR MAN. By Janet
Ayer Falrbank. Boston: Hough
ton Mifflin Co.
'T'HI8 is another big, thick novel de
voted to portraying “an era."
That means, in a reviewer's Irreverent
parlance, that it is a book without
characters and with trumped-up
“issues” acting the parts. One does
not merely wonder why such books are
published. It is not conducive to
sanity to wonder anything about the
publishing business. One wonders,
rather, that they are written. What
a tremendous amount of labor! And
not a spark of life from beginning to
end. Not even good writing in this
case, but trite, stodgy, dull stuff that
maunders between romantic school
glrlism and the steam-whistle style
of the female cause-monger. It has
quite a bit of marrying and remarry
ing in it, however, and so may well be
popular.
The era in question (in case you
want to know) is the one Which be- !
gan with the Bull Moose campaign of
1912 and ended in the well-known I
post-war years. The heroine, rightly
enough, is the type which in future,
more discerning years may come to
symbolise pre-war America—the lady 1
Jacket design by M. Uinkin for “This Englandby Mary
Ellen Chase. (Macmillan.)
use of the first person singular, la a
simple, rambling chronicle of life in
South America's roughest frontier.
Seemingly written for his own pleas*
ure, it gains thereby a certain breesy
freshness which is entirely welcome to
one fed up with high-pressure ad
venture.
Meandering pleasantly along, the
author sets out to tell of his 12 years
in the cattle Industry in Paraguay, and
succeeds admirably in constructing a
sort of autobiographical hash, which
is mainly Interesting for Us view of
the country and its peoples. It is,
however, spiced liberally with well*
man has already written a number
of books on religious subjects, and Is
well known to Washingtonians. To
those who find benefit In dally re
ligious reading, his volume would seem
to call for recommendation.
WAKE AND REMEMBER. By James
Gray. New York: The Macmillan
Co.
'T'HIS Is an analytical novel In
which things happen so easily as
to strain the reader’s credulity. Mr
Gray reduces every emotion of his
hero to an analytical pulp, but Vets
events fall as he wishes. He builds up,
NEW O. HENRY MANUSCRIPTS
Girl’s Curiosity Leads to Discovery of Writer’s Articles in Files
of Texas Paper—Magazine Story of Origin of a Name.
Book-Listing Business Still Flourishes.
By M. C. R.
FICTION PARADE, carrying this
month two page* from Carl
Sandburg'! "Tha Paople, Y«,"
makes the following disclosure:
“It waa a surprise to us to find
that the name -Sandburg ... la not
hla real family name, but one chosen
by his Swedish father for a very prac
tical reason.
"Bom August Johnson, his father,
on first arriving In America, found
work on a railroad construction gang.
But as there were several other August
Johnsons on the same Job, Carl’s
father found that this coincidence was
causing hla pay anvelope to go astray.
It waa to prevent this calamity that
he adopted the new name, Sandberg,
which his famous ion now bears.”
It waa a surprise to the reviewer,
too, no less than to the editors of
Fiction Parade.
JANUARY Redbook Magazine prom
J isea to publish some newly dis
covered O. Henry manuscripts. These
came to light, says the announcement,
through a "girl’s curiosity as to why
O. Henry got a pay Increase to $25 a
week.”
It explains that Miss Mary Harrell,
O. Henry* biographer, making an
examination of the records of the
Houston Post for the time when O.
Henry wrote for It. found that in the
Spring of 1896, O. Henry got the raise
to $28 from $15 a week, although his
column waa frequently missing from
the paper s pages.
“Miss Harrell,” says the announce
ment, “concluded that he must have
been doing other work for the'Post
at this time, and this led to her dis
Jacket design by Agnes Tait jor “Rich Man Poor Man," by Janet Ayer Fairbank. <Houghton Mifflin Co.)
I
SVEN HEDIN,
Author of “The Flight of
‘Big Horse’” (E. P. Dutton
& Co.) _
reformer, the social conscience gal,
the legitimate descendant of Carrie
Nation, in other and unklnder words.
A writer smart enough (and some of
them are so far from smart)! to have
seen that this kind of woman was
a ‘‘type female” of her day, might
have been expected to have intelligence
enough to make her as mercilessly
funny and offensive as she really was.
But Mrs. Janet Ayer Fairbank takes
her heroine seriously. She takes the
whole book seriously evidently. But
nothing can make the reviewer take
Mrs. Janet Ayer Fairbank seriously.
And there you are.
HALF THE WORLD IS ISFAHAN.
By Caroline Singer and Cyrus
Leroy Baldridge. New York: Ox
ford University Press.
'T'HE reader of this decorative book
, will undoubtedly be surprised at
the conspicuous difference between
the concepts of Iran (or Persia) which
are set forth by the artist and the
writer of the text. That, indeed, is
the overwhelming Impression which
arises from the whole work. For Mr.
Baldridge’s sketches and illustrations,
while finely executed and reproduced,
seem made in the Paradise of the
Prophet, so contented and well-doing
do his subjects seem. But Miss Sing
er's text tells of poverty, famine, op
pression, Ignorance and primitivism.
Surely, one feels, looking from print
to picture, these are not about the
same places.
It U a record of a year’s travel about
Persia. The collaborators went into
mountain villages, desert tents. They
conversed with types of many kinds.
Their book is unquestionably a very
handsome affair, as Oxford Univer
sity Press has presented it, with full
color illustrations, deep margins, and
excellent type. One thinks of it at
once as an inevitable Christmas gift.
But one feels, somehow, that it Teally
ought to be two books, so diverse are
the points of view reflected in it.
PARAGUAYAN INTERLUDE. By C.
W. Thurlow Craig. New York.
Frederick A. Stokes Co.
TTERE, finally, is a travel book which
*1 does not seek to make spectacular
the ordinary, or dramatise the business
•f making a living in a strange land.
Craig's book, devoid of plot and chief
ly remarkable for economy in the
drawn character sketches and amus
ing anecdotes and on the whole is
several cuts above the average travel
volume. R. C. R.
BALLET PROFILE. By Irving Deakin.
New York: The Dodge Publishing
Co.
TRVING DEAKIN. well known au
A thorlty on the ballet, publishes here
an excellent and badly needed hand
book on the modern dance. It Is
both a history of the movement, from
its classic state in the imperial Rus
sian school to the present, and a story
of the lives, achievements and per
sonalities of the dancers and artists
who have contributed to it. Pavlova,
Nijinski, Karsavina. Diaghllefl. Fo
kine and so on. It is good factual
history, but written with color and
enthusiasm. It would seem to be
indispensable to ballet lovers and
students.
THE MELLOW FRUITS OF EX
PERIENCE. By L. M. Zimmer
man. Philadelphia: The United
Lutheran Publishing House.
HTHIS is a little book of page-length
sermons by the former minister
of Christ Lutheran Church of Balti
more. They are simple, straightfor
ward and sincere religious talks. They
have a readable quality which ought
to make them popular. Dr. Zimmer
1 (or Instance, a convincing picture o(
the resentment of the hero'* young
son to his father's second romance,
but wipes out this deep-seated trouble
by the simple device of having the
father speak a few well-chosen words
at the right moment. One simply
can’t believe things happen that way.
The hero, devoted to his wife's mem
ory, faces the task of building another
life. He becomes involved with the
problems of others and by helping
them to a solution is freed from his
own dilemma. Mr. Oray lets these
people think like human beinp, but
he pulls the strings of his plot with
so undisguised an auctorial hand that
, the story is unconvincing. E. T.
-•
Pet Food Guarded.
'T'HERE has been such an increase in
canned dog and cat foods that the
' Bureau of Animal Industry has found
: it necessary to amend its regulations
‘ concerning branding. Heretofore the
cans were required to bear the legend.
U. S. Inspected and Passed by the
Department of Agriculture.
Now, that legend is reserved ex
clusively for human foods and the
animal foods must carry a different
statement. Indicating that the product
has been prepared in plants which are
subjected to Pederal inspection.
Brief Review of Books
Non-Fiction.
THIS ENGLAND. By Mary Ellen
Chase. New York: The MacMillan
Oo.
Trite essays on Albion. Less than
tepid.
PRESENTATION OF THE BUST OF
LORD KELVIN TO THE SMITH
SONIAN INSTITUTION BY THE
ENGLISH - SPEAKING UNION.
The addresses delivered on the occa
sion.
THE CONSTITUTIONALIST. By
Stephen A. Day. Boston: The
Christopher Publishing House.
How to preserve the safeguards.
THE ROLE OF POLITICS IN SO
CIAL CHANGE. By Charles E.
Merriam. New York: New York
University Press.
An examination of the subject. Ele
mentary.
EVERYTHING HAPPENED TO
HIM. The story of Tex Rickard
by Mrs. Tex Rickard. New York:
Frederick A. Stokes Oo.
The life of the lnstitutor of the
millkm-dollar gate.
ACROSS THE PLAIN8 AND AMONG
THE DIGGINGS. By Alonso Del
ano. New York: Wilson Erickson
‘Co.
A reprint of the original edition.
SECRET WRITING.' By Henry Ly
sing. New York: David Kemp &
Co.
An introduction to cryptograms,
ciphers and codes.
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE
JEWS. By Robert Gessner. New
York: Farrar 61 Rinehart.
Mr. Gessner, who once saved the
Indians, now turns his generous pro
fession*! anguish on the jews.
SOCIAL DOCTRINES OF THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Robert
G. Brehmer, Jr.' With a preface
by Rev. Jamee M. Gills of the
Paullst Fathers, sditor of the Cath
olic World.
t
A statement of the church’s posi
tion in the social sciences.
JOHN L. LEWIS. By Cecil Carnes.
New York: Robert Speller Pub
lishing Corp.
The life of the labor leader.
MEN OF CONCORD. By Henry D.
Thoreau. Edited by Francis H.
Allen. Illustrations by N. C.
Wyeth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Co.
Selections from Thoreau’s Journal.
Good gift book.
Fietion.
BACKWATER VOYAGE. By Archie
Blnns. New York: Reynal St
Hitchcock.
Limited edition of a tepid little tale
about two sailors and an old sail
boat.
DARK METROPOLIS. By John Ar
thur. Boston: Meador Publishing
Co.
Novel of Harlem.
EXPLORER8’ CLUB TALE8. Edited
by the Publications Committee of
the Explorers’ Club. New York:
Dodd Mead & Co.
True stories of exploration, research
and adventure. Very good.
Jevenilea.
STORY PARADE. Philadelphia: John
C. Winston Co.
A collection of stories by eminent
authors. Excellent.
Poetry.
RESTLESS ANCHOR. By Wendy
Marsh. New York: Oreystone
Press.
Good, workmanlike verse. Some
what on the whimsical side.
LADDERS AND BRIDGES. By Kath
erine Bregy. Philadelphia: David
McKay Co.
Passable short verse.
Drama.
OUR DEPRESSION. Play in nine
scenes. By O. W. Rethorst. Bos
ton: Christopher Publishing House.
Poetie drama about the lata hard
times. *
WEBB MILLER.
Author of ‘‘I Found No Peace."
(Simon <fc Schuster.)
covery of the stories published in the
newspaper.”
Redboolc will publish five of these
tales, the first appearing in January.
AS CHRISTMAS season approaches
the book-listing business flourishes
wickedly, and we now have the Na
tion coming out with a group of
choices, according to the bourgeois
holiday this severe recognition at least.
Here are works of which It approves.
"The Last Puritan.” by George San
tayana; "The Thinking Reed,” by Re
becca West; “Days of Wrath,” by
Andre Malraux; "Eyeless in Gaza,” by
Aldous Huxley; "The Earth Trembles,”
by Jules Romains; “The Big Money,”
by John Dos Passos; “A World I Never
Made,” by James T. Farrell; "Absalom!
Absalom!” by William Faulkner; "The
War Goes On,” by Sholom Asch; “The
Borzoi Reader,” edited by Carl Van
Doren; "Education Before Verdun,”
by Arnold Zwelg; “The Works of Alex
ander Pushkin”: Stories of Three
Decades,” by Thomas Mann, and "The
Brothers Ashkenazi,” by I. J. Singer.
That ii to say, those are the works
of fiction of which the Nation approves.
The reviewer can concede that all
of them are serious and that some of
them are accomplished. None of them
is representative of its author’s best
in other years, and most of them are
banging away at a thesis of some kind,
being essentially propaganda and not
novels. This Is true of “Days of
Wrath," "Eyeless in Oasa," ‘The Big
Money,” ‘The War Goes On,” "Edu
cation Before Verdun" and "The
Brother Ashkenazi." The most per
fect work of novel-writing art among
them ia “Absalom! Absalom I" It is
a story, pure and simple. Mr. Faulk
ner had no ideas to sell.
't'mS month sees the eO-year-old
1 Town and Country Issuing an an
nual in honor of the season. It Is
304 pages long and, according to
Time, has "a nostalgic article on old
fashioned proms by Town and Coun
try's fashion editor, Mrs. Chester La
Roche • • • descriptions by Sports
man Foshall Keene of his II injuries
sustained In opart; and a two-page,
full-colored spread of The First
Christmas.’ by Gentile da Fabriano
In the Ufltzl Gallery In Florence.” De
votees of this most ancient of Mr.
Hearst 's publications take due heed.
VERA BRITTAIN,
Author of “Honourable Estate
(Macmillan.)
nEOEHBER Stage publishes this
account of Noel Coward's one
act play series, recently at the Na
tional, as It affected the staid city
of Boston, Mass. James Thurber Is
the author.
"The audienoe there on the lsst
night stood and cheered. I heard a
gray-haired woman say that in 28
years of Boston playgoing she had no
memory of such a letting go."
Or, Boston falls once more.
CTAGE also provides a quaint touch
this month for those who like
their touches of quainterie. It in
cludes In its own slick pages a reprint
of the January 3, 1886. issue of its
own predecessor, The Stage. The
Stage was, says a note "by its own
admission, at that time the only offi
cial Journal devoted to 'the Drams,
the Music, the Ballet and the Re
lated Arts'.”
It was a four-pace sheet, according
to the reprinted copy, and In the
Issue In question the oenter section
of the front page wae given over to an
announcement of the opening at the
Winter Garden of Mr. Edwin Booth's
' Hamlet." Flanking this are col
umns of advertisements. One sees
the familiar "Steinway tt Sons Grand,
Square and Upright Pianos" with im
mediately beneath it a notice oele
bratlng "Duplex Elliptic Hoop Skirts
* * * will not bend or break like Single
Spring Skirts, but will preserve their
perfect and beautiful shape twice the
length of any other make.” The lead
ing article is devoted to "Goethe in the
Role of a Theatrical Manager.”
J^ENTION of Stage would hardly
be complete without a protest
against the quite hideous and unfunny
caricatures which it has recently fea
tured for covers. This month has ore
of Fannie Brice as she appears <so
they sayi in “Ziegfeld's Follies.” This
is the third of what seems likely to
be a series. They are done by A.
Birnbaum. They are caricatures,
right enough; they display essential
characteristics in deliberate exagger
ation. But they have no point be
yond that, apparently. There is no
satire in them, no wit, no interpreta
tion. It is hard to feel that they are
anything more than ugly pictures.
'J'HE New Masses promises, in capi
talistically verbose advertise
ments, that it will celebrate its twen
ty-fifth anniversary with a special
issue December 10. The dead line for
Saturday copy does not allow the re
viewer to wait for it. Readers will
have to contain their souls in pati
ence. It is promised for the Satur
day afterward—if that is not too ter
ribly long to wait.
FLORIDA SUGAR
(Continued Prom Page B-l.)
Agricultural Adjustment Administra
tion for crop restriction SI.265,504.
"Had your corporation." said its last
annual report, "been free to operate
its facilities at 100 per cent of their
capacity it is probable that the earn
ings would have been as great, if not
greater, than operating at about two
thirds capacity and receiving benefit
payments for restriction.”
The land around the southerly
shores of Lake Okeechobee, where the
sugar-cane plantations are located,
is under drainage control and pro
tected by levees, locks, gates and other
structures erected for the Okeechobee
Flood Control Authority by United
States Army Engineers. The greater
part of the Everglades, exceeding
4.000.000 acres, however, has never
been placed unde^ cultivation.
Spasmodic attempts to develop
sugar-cane culture in the Everglades
were made as far back as the middle
80s. These early efforts, however,
were unsuccessful, largely on account
of inadequate water control.
Actually, the successful production
of cane sugar in the Everglades start
ed with the harvest season of 1928-29,
when 769 tons of raw sugar were
produced. By 1932-33. despite hurri
canes, cloudbursts, the lowest price at
which sugar ever sold on the New
York Exchange and the worst de
pression in the history of the country,
the production had increased to 35.908
tons.
Probably the most interesting fea
ture learned by the official party in
connection with the trip is that sugar
cane is one of those peculiar "breed
of cats,” because in some sections of
the world it must be replanted after
each cutting; in others, like Louisi
ana. it must be replanted after two
cuttings. In Cuba it has been known
to stand for 20 cuttings. Also in some
areas, like Louisiana, the growing
period is but eight or nine months,
while in Hawaii the cane must be
allowed to grow nearly two years.
'J'HE entire trip had its educational
value as well as its objective to
emphasize the possibilities of the Ever
■ glades to become the potential "sugar
bowl” as well as the vegetable garden
of the Nation. The guests on the ex
pedition not only traced the develop
ment of sugar from the cane to the
refined state, in which it is sold, but
they saw the experimental production
of citrus in the Everglades, the work
being done by the Government in that
area to improve the quality and nutri
tion of sugar cane, and the steps taken
to control plant disease.
En route to the Everglades the spe
cial train stopped for about four hours
in Savannah, Ga , where members of
the party made an inspection of the
plant of the Savannah Sugar Refinine
Corp., where raw sugars are refined
and boxed or bagged for the marke\
as well as the plant of the Union Bag
Co., which is manufacturing paper
bags made from the pulp of the here
tofore almost useless Southern scrub
pine tree.
But returning to sugar, very little
of the Florida product reaches the
Northern market. The State's limited
production can be disposed of in the
South, and transportation costs saved.
If the Florida producers are success
ful. however, and Congress removes
the quota restriction on American
produced sugar, new markets will be
sought, and the country some day
may read a new slogan:
"America Sweetens Its Own Cup."
New Debt Argument.
J^EVIVAL of war debt discussion
finds those seeking to tyring a
resumption at least of interest pay
ment has back of It a more concrete
argument than those advanced on
former occasions.
Always when continued payments
have been advocated in the past,
opponents of payment have warned
that it would be definitely dangerous
to the international exchange situation
to transfer more funds to the United
States.
Cattle Ticks Routed.
A FEW years ago. the cattle tick
wars of the South and Southwest
were common occurences and played
a prominent part in the news. Now,
stock raisers realize the advantage of
the dipping required by the Depart
ment of Agriculture and have joined
wholeheartedly in the drive to elimi
nate the tick, which not only menaces
the lives of the cattle attacked but
ruins the hides by puncturing them in
many places.
So far has the elimination program
progressed only five areas remain in
which the quarantine exists, three in
Florida and two in Texas. Louisiana
has recently been freed from all re
strictions.
Tor
Christmas
GIVE THE NOVEL
THAT IS CEBTAIN TO BE
“read and reread
i and remembered!
forever/
Throbs
with Ilfs
and color
— thsrs's
nsT«r a mo
ment's 1st
down 1"
Hirsts yew
attention through
L000 pages—after
many glorious
hours you lay It
dbwn with q sight**
•
On sets wherever
hooka ere aold, and
your dealer will he
fled to take ears of
ayeeiat holiday
mailing for you.