Evening star. [volume], April 03, 1937, Page B-2, Image 18

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

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NAPOLEON AS LABOR’S HERO
Author Who Studied Great Warrior’s Life for Quarter of a Century
Feels That His Loyalty to Class Failed—Lack of Impelling
Interest Found in Some Books of Fiction.
By Alary-Carter Roberts.
BONAPARTE. By Eugene Tarle. New
York: Knight Publications.
THE author of this new life of
Napoleon devoted 85 years to
research before beginning the
writing, so his publisher In
forms us. On reading the work re
sulting from such formidable studies
one cannot help reflecting that as
events have come about, Prof. Tarle
Is playing distinctly in luck. For If,
25 years ago, he had been able to fore
see the present, he could hardly have
picked a more popular theme for this
day than the one he has chosen on
which to fit the events In his hero's
rather well-publicised life. For that
theme is Napoleon in relation to the
class struggle, or. as sometimes seems
to be the case, the class struggle in
relation to Napoleon. And the class
struggle would appear to be as enter
taining reading matter in these thirties
is sex was back in the wicked twenties.
Prof. Tarle's contention is that Na
poleon was the logical champion of
the "workers"—and one understands
by this that he means not all of us who
work, but those whose work .is known
uniquely as "labor"—two curious con
centrations of meaning, by the way,
since there is hardly any one in the
world who does not work and so is
not a "worker," while quite tolerably
arduous "labors" have been performed
before now by individuals who were
using lighter tools than shovels. How
ever. when one speaks today of a
champion of the workers, one under
stands what is meant. That, says
Prof. Tarle, is what Napoleon might
have been.
His book follows the line that the
original revolution in France was one
which benefited the bourgeoisie, and
that the "workers,” dissatisfied, were
ripe for still more change at the time
Napoleon made his entry into impor
tance. They supported him, he says,
but Napoleon was indifferent to their
good will. Napoleon built his regime
instead on the middle classes, and the
middle classes repudiated him
promptly when they understood that
his aim was not to bring about an
orderly government, but to execute
plans for world conquest. Not so the
faithful workers, according to Prof.
Tarle. They remained Bonapartists
even to Waterloo and afterward. Had
Napoleon taken the support they ten
dered, his fall might not have come
about.
This is the theme which the book
Undertakes to prove, and frankly to
the reviewer it seems a little tenuous.
But it gives a necessary new twist to
old matter and saves the author from
repeating what has been repeated
often enough, since, in most of the
crises of Napoleon's career, instead
of relating the events, he occupies
himself with explaining the connec
tion of these events—their knowledge
by the reader assumed—to the afore
mentioned theory. If a reader can
agree that Napoleon's career would
have been different if Napoleon had
followed another course, and sub
scribe to the possibilities of that course
as Prof. Tarle outlines them, and take
an interest in all these past conditional
happenings, too, he ought to like the
book It is well enough written and
thoughtfully worked out.
JORDANSTOWN. By Josephine John
son. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
•‘Yl/ITH the publication of 'Jordans
” town’,” announce the publishers
rtf that work, “the author of ’Now In
November’ enlarges the field of her
•ympathies.”
"Now In November.” as readers will
remember, was the Pulitzer prize win
ning novel of 1935.
Now, just what Mias Johnson's ‘ field
ef sympathies” has been up to the
present the reviewer cannot say. Miss
Johnson’s only published book since
1935 was a collection of short stories.
The reviewer read them, but is obliged
to report that she found them com
pletely uncommunicative on any sub
ject whatsoever. They were, as it hap
pened, of that gloomy, maundering,
portentous incoherence which quite
frequently impresses publishers who
are cunning enough to be aware that
it may be art and and whose motto
is. "Take no chances in an issue like
that.” In this state of mind, much
praise should be given. For, after all,
•rt is so worth while!
So just what territory is being en
larged by the present novel must be
left to readers’ own perspicacity. As
to the enlargement itself, the reviewer
can only comment that Miss Johnson
seems a little slow. She is coming
out now with a book on the dear old
class struggle, and most of our young
novelists have already gotten brisk
ly over that ground and now are
putting out their second and even
their third volumes on that highly
profitable subject. Mayhap, the dig
nity of a Pulitzer Prize taker requires
lingering a bit behind the frankly
scrambling literary herd. Again praise
is due. Let us have, by all means,
propriety in all things.
Anyway. “Jordanstown” is a novel
on a formula so commonly in use that
the fact that Miss Johnson has en
dowed her performance with even an
hysterical individuality deserves credit.
She has done that, and she has also
Written at times with poetic beauty.
But a novel is a book, and her book,
Judged as a whole, is neither convinc
ing nor interesting.
It is one of those intolerably numer
ous tales of “an average American
small town,” with the familiar bigotry,
meanness and brutality (all of which
were discovered by genuine creative
writers back in the 20s, while Miss
Johnson was still in high school),
trotted out once more, but this time,
of course, set before the reader in
the currently popular terms of social
Injustice. The hero (a young idealist,
naturally) buys a newspaper and be
gins writing revolutionary editorials.
He organizes—not the workers—but
the poor. He is, in Miss Johnson’s
terms, brave, honest and right. But,
somewhat unrealistically, he and his
poor friends are the only people in
Jordanstown w'ho are any of these
things. The citizens who have shown
themselves competent to exist in rel
ative comfort in the town are all
cowardly, thievish and wicked. The
gold standard seems somehow a rather
curious measure of moral quality.
Well, there you are. Nothing saves
a novelist from doing honest work so
neatly as the holding of black and
white convictions on some social issue.
But this wedding of propagandist
thinking with arty writing has as
suredly brought forth some comic off
spring! The past year and a half has
been filled with the glib, misshapen
children of that dishonest union, and,
contemplating the literary nursery, a
critic can only long, in sincere piety,
lor the return of the e*j|blished moral
standard, that art Is bom of genius
and work, meeting in a passion for
truth. Miss Josephine Johnson can,
at times, write. There is no reason
either to believe that she is unable to
think. But as long as she deliberately
foregoes thinking, in favor of ready
made .and vulgar isms, then she is
Just another superior hack. The re
mark is made in entire kindness.
SPANISH PRELUDE. By Jenny Bal
lou. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
JNTELLIGENT readers ought not to
be unduly prejudiced against this
book by the fact that it has won a
prize. The reviewer's honest opinion
is that it is not bad. It is also her
opinion that it is not good; she read
it. indeed, deriving no positive opinion
whatsoever, beyond a dull soporific
wonder that so many words could be
set down, so studiedly, with so complete
an absence of effect. It is not a cheap
work or an Insincere one. It is, let us
say. Worthy. But it had an effect on
the reviewer that can only be com
pared to the effect of a too-large and
too-heavy dinner. It is defeating to
any lively thought or emotion.
It is smothering, deadening. It over
powers with its sheer solemnity, with
out ever making clear Just what it is
being solemn about. To read it is like
being lost in a large, dim circular hall
full of curtains all of an unvarying dull
purple. One gets to feel that one
would like a little edge by and by, and,
if not asking too much, a little light
of a less peculiar color than the color
of Miss Jenny Ballou's mind. That
is as near as this reviewer can come
to describing "Spanish Prelude.” It
would help, of course, if she could de
cide in the first place just what it is
that has to be described.
The prize which this strange treatise
received was, it should be said, one of
the Houghton Mifflin fellowships for
1935. There were tw'o such awards;
the first went to a novel by one O'Don
nell called "Green Margins.” The
present winner's work is also a novel—
a novel without plot, characters or ac
tion. "Green Margins” was at least
rudimentarily outfitted with these con
ventional commodities and it made up
its lack of greater verisimilitude in re
spect of them by supplying readers
with a tremendous amount of scenery.
As the scenic, or geographic, novel is
a well-recognized and even beloved
figure in our literary midst, there was
no occasion to comment specially on
Mr. O'Donnell's opus. Spanish Pre
lude," however, enters strangely—a
muffled figure uttering incoherent but
solemn sounds. It may be authentic
ancestral voices prophesying war, and
then again it may be just one of the
neighbors’ children playing naughty.
You will have to make up your own
mind about that.
It is a stream-of-consciousness story,
taken out of the mind of an intelligent
but dreary young woman, as she drifts
drearily about Spain in the days of its
political travail, and thinks with stern
intentness about what she sees. Per
sonalities pass in and out, but they
never do anything. Ideas are dis
cussed—but what of it? One gathers
w’hen it is all over that Miss Ballou's
heroine was not a very lively sort and
that Spain is not exactly a paradise.
And that is all. Still, even though it
did win a prize, this book is not bad.
It sets a new high in prize-winning ,
works, as a matter of fact, by not being
anything. With this to go on, we may
even hope to get a good one, in time.
But not too soon, of course—not too
revolutionary.
THE LAST ROMANTIC. By William
Orton. New York: Farrar Si Rine
hart.
'T'HE title of this book might per
fectly be changed to “The Ten
Thousandth Romantic," so well does
the work follow a time-tattered for
mula. Withal, it is a selection of
“The Discoverers,” which is a depart
ment of Farrar Si Rinehart's given
over to choosing works of very special
merit.
Of course, the fact that a book be
longs to a type is nothing against it.
The goodness or the badness of writ
ten work lies always between individ
ual book covers, not in schools. So
that even so excessively trite a for- j
mula as that of the young-man's- j
quest-for-that-beauty-which-he - nev- |
er-finds should be received with respect. 1
It is still possible that a writer may j
work it to living ends. But when that
happens the book has triumphed over
the pattern, and, needless to say, it
is not an everyday occurrence.
It does not take place in this book.
This book is the tale of a youth named
Michael (and one notes how very
ofter the heroes of these “quest-for
beauty" novels are called Michael,
Tony and Terry), who dreams, whose
tastes are not for business, who expe
riences an awakening of soul when he
first hears great music, who “falls in
love with words,” who looks to every
girl he meets to see if she is his ideal
—who, in short, does a great many
things which a great many fiction
heroes have done before, and then
goes wistfully off to the war and ends
his novelist's labors by stopping a
shell with his world-weary and still
unsatisfied frame. It has all been done
before—ad absurdum. Why, in the
name of heaven, do it again?
Mr. Orton, it may be added, piles
Pelian on Ossa by stepping in be
tween his hero and the reader on every
passible occasion and declaring in his
own person that Michael was a lov
able, rare and interesting young man.
As the book is done in such close de
tail that one suspects it of being
autobiographical, this tendency does
not add much to its charms. Why
this should be a "discovery” is beyond
the reviewer's possible comprehending.
PRESENT INDICATIVE. By Noel
Coward. Garden City: Doubleday
Doran & Co.
'T'HIS book has the merit of a truth
ful title—It Is a perfectly plain,
straightforward narrative of the au
thor's life In the theater, done without
benefit of comment, epigram or eflort
toward wit. It is as ungarnished a
work of memoirs as has come to hand
In this year of unparalleled memoir
writing. Consequently, there is not
much to say about It. The world
knows Mr. Coward's history already,
to a pretty close degree; his life has
by Its nature been lived In the public
eye. He began as a stage child, he
worked into small parts, then bigger
parts, he had a brief time in the
Army, he wrote plays of his own. And
there you are. That Is about the
whole of It.
Naturally the story brings In the
names and personalities of a hast of
stage people. Lovers of the theater
ought therefore to find considerable
pleasure In the book,r But those who
buy it with anticipation of enjoying
Mr. Coward* famously oblique wit
will be disappointed. He reserve* that
for the stage, apparently. He has
written very simply here.
OUR GALLANT MADNESS. By Fred
erick Palmer. Garden City: Dou
bleday Doran Sc Co.
“'J'HERE is no more argument in
favor of war than in favor of go
ing to bed with a rattlesnake or a
plague-infected rat.' Thus Frederick
Palmer, veteran correspondent, con
cludes his present volume of war
memoirs, in every line of which he
makes bum a very passion against fu
JOSEPHINE JOHNSON,
Author of “Jordanstown”
(Simon <fc Schuster).
WALTER KARIG,
Washington correspondent of
the Newark Evening News and
author of “Aisa’s Good Neigh
bor” (Bobbs Merrill & Co.).
From Edwin Earle’s wood cut for the jacket of "Spanish Prelude,” by Jenny Ballou, Houghton Mifflin Fellowship Prize winner.
ture armed conflicts between the na
tions.
His book is not an account of the
author's personal adventures in the
World War, as have been so many of
these recent volumes of correspond
ents’ memoirs. It is first Col. Palmer’s
interpretation of the whole movement
of America toward war, the interests
involved, the passions, the idealism,
the "gallant madness,” in short. After
that it is the story of our troops in
Prance, and the part they bore in the
actual straggle.
Unlike many writers Col. Palmer has
not reformed his Ideas of his Nation’s
behavior since the excitement of con
flict died down. He has not come to
the conclusion that we went into war
solely to protect our markets, or solely
to accommodate the private makers of
armaments, or solely to Insure our
foreign loans or, for that matter, solely
for idealism. It was a combination of
reasons which brought us in, he
says, and he is not ashamed to point
out, with personal emotion, that, no
matter what brings a people into a
fight, it is the individuals who are not
concerned with the reasons who pay
the price. Nothing, he asseverates, is
worth what has to be paid, once war
is declared.
Writing with a lashing pen, he
warns us against another combination
of forces which may sweep us into the
next world combat. He sees war, as
do most of the veteran correspondents
who have recently written on current
affairs, as something to be expected
at any moment. But, if we make a se
vere embargo on war materials and
give up our trade in neutral waters,
he thinks we may avoid being drawn
into a European struggle from without.
The greater danger, as he sees it, is
that we may move toward our de
struction of ourselves. His whole book
is a tirade of warning against that
eventuality.
EARLIER LETTERS OP GERTRUDE
BELL OP ARABIA. Edited by Elsa
Richmond. New York: Liveright
Corp.
'T'HE first volume of the letters of
Gertrude Bell came out in 1927,
and revealed to the general public for
the first time the personality of this
extraordinary Englishwoman, whose
knowledge of Arabia Is said to rival
Charles Doughty’s or Col. Lawrence’s,
and whose achievements as explorer,
mountain climber and arechologist
rank with those of the foremost in
those fields.
The present volume, however, is
something of a disappointment. It
deals with the youth of Miss Bell, the
first letters being written when she
was 8 and the last when she was 24.
All that they reveal to the reader of a
woman destined to be known as one
of the rare individuals of her time is
a vivid mind. But this mind is shown
only in relation to rather ordinary
preoccupations—the usual preoccupa
tions of a young girl at school—studies,
calls on friends, visits to art galleries,
vacations spent in fishing and garden
ing and such casual matters. Miss
Bell, in the period covered by this vol
ume, clearly had not conceived of her
future career, or developed the in
terests which led her to it.
The value of the present collection,
therefore, is purely incidental. The
last two chapters, to be sure, are writ
ten from Persia, whither she went
with relatives after completing her
work at Oxford. In these latter letters
she does reveal keen interest in the
East, but hardly an interest of a
quality to Indicate her future activi
ties. The collection can only be com
mended to those who have an interest
in all phases of her life.
THE PARADOXES OP MR. POND.
By G. K. Chesterton. New York:
Dodd Mead & Co.
'T'HIS is a collection of detective
stories, in which the sleuth is
Mr. Pond. They are typical Chester
tonian stuff, but not in his most bril
liant vein. Eight tales are included in
the volume, none of which is enough
better than the others to be mentioned
specially. The situations seem forced
and the familiar ‘■deductive” solutions
unconvincing. It is to be feared that
the volume will add little to its au
thor’s glory—but that is generally the
case with posthumous volumes. One
does not need to say, of course, that
there are passages worth reading in
the book. After all, Chesterton
wrote it.
MANHATTAN SOLO. Marjorie Worth
ington. Alfred A. Knopf, New
York.
'J'HK story of a woman who got what
she wanted, and then wasn't quite
sure she wanted it. An interesting tale
of a so-called career woman who en
ters upon her career from necessity
rather than choice. After the first
driving need of satisfying the land
lord and the butcher, a second force,
ambition, becomes the motive power
of her life, which changes her from a
warm, human person into an egotistic
celebrity, so wrapped in her eareer that
she eannot vend Me necessary time
t>r energy properly to insure her child's
health and life. Awakened by the
shock of her daughter’s death, she
finally succumbs to the need of human
relations, but in the end is too ab
sorbed in her career to make a real
success of a second marriage.
The tale is well told and holds the
Interest, but one wonders a bit at the
lack of plausibility. Absolutely inex
perienced, and with only three weeks
of job hunting during a period of de
pression, Mary Dobbs finds a job which
allows her to start as reception clerk
in a magazine publishing house and
finish as editor in chief. Moreover,
she immediately plunges into writing
short stories and a novel for a syn
dicate, although her previous literary
efforts never extended beyond fresh
man composition. And one wonders,
too. whether need and ambition are
sufficient equipment to raise one from
mere clerk to editor in chief. There
i is no indication in the beginning of
the book, and but little elsewhere, that
Mary Dobbs had anything else.
R. R. T.
ASIA'S GOOD NEIGHBOR. By
Walter Karig. Bobbs Merrill &
Co., Indianapolis and New York.
I A NEWSPAPER MAN, one of the
distinguished members of Wash
ington's corps of correspondents, has
written a fascinating book on a sub
ject that most of us too willingly
leave to the heavy experts who see
foreign relations and international
trade through a maze of statistics
and quotation marks. Mr. Karig.
plainly, does not like statistics. And
his quotation marks are few and far
between. The book is written as a
good newspaper story would be writ
ten—clear, direct and to the point,
with the human interest and the con
sequential facts carrying the reader
along in an effortless absorption of a
vast amount of new and unexpectedly
interesting information.
It differs from the reporter's tale,
however, in the author's frank as
sumption of editorial command of
his theme. The book fairly sizzles,
in spots, with personal indignation
over acts in the past—not so distant
past—in the white man's exploitation
of the East. Yet a fine balance is
struck through Mr. Karig's whole
souled appreciation of what he con
siders Americanism at its best. And
Americanism at its best, in the field
of foreign relations, is the intelligent
appreciation of the rights and the
aspirations of other people than our
own. Mr. Karig's heroes are not
Dewey at Manilla Bay or Commodore
Perry at Tokio Bay, but Townsend
Harris, Caleb Cushing and Anson
Burlingame, men of good will, whose
policies in the Far East were the
policies of the Good Neighbor; who
commanded respect and affection for
their country because they, in turn,
were respectful and affectionate in
their relations with others.
Two hundred thousand years ago.
Mr. Karig writes, two streams of
humanity flowed out of Asia in op
posite directions, and “now they meet
on the shores of the Pacific and make
horrible faces at each other.” That,
the author announces, is his story,
and his theme becomes an indignant
question of why, now that they are
met, they should make faces. The
answer is that the story deals with
humanity and “becomes cluttered up
with a lot of stupidity” on the part
of other nations and our own which, in
taking up the white man’s burden,
have conceived it as an opportunity
to bring home the bacon. The only
preventive for the war with Japan
that so many have accepted as in
evitable, perhaps through wishful
thinking, is the policy of the good
neighbor which America followed for
half a century in the Far East and
JENNY BALLOU.
Author of “Spanish Prelude"
(Houghton Mifflin Co.).
then seemed, in the author's estima
tion, to have dropped for more glam
orous if less altruistic adventures.
Mr. Karig writes as an intelligent
pacifist who takes no stock in- the tall
talk of the admirals—a privilege that
is deserved by those who, like him,
saw and suffered as soldiers in France.
The book is illustrated with sketches
by the author, contains a very com
plete index, and its btbleography is
generous in acknowledgement.
B. M, McK.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. By Edward
Saekvllle-West. Yale University
Press.
rT'HE subject of this book wrote his
own phystcial and spiritual bi
ography—vividly and voluminously.
Not only in the "Confessions of an
English Opium Eater.” but in a score
or more of miscellaneous essays the
tortured little man recorded inti
mate details of his own life and the
lives of his more illustrious friends,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,
Lamb, Carlyle and others.
He did even better. He described,
in passages unsurpassed in the Eng
lish language for word music his
hallucinations and dreams, so that
psychologists of the future might in
fer much that he himself left untold.
Perhaps nobody has quite dared
compete with the master on his own
peculiar subject. De Quincey had
been left without an adequate biog
raphy by somebody else before the ap
pearance of Mr. Sackville-West's book.
It was published in England as "The
Flame in Sunlight.'' The two titles
in themselves are indicative of the
nature of the work. It is thorough
and scholarly, as one might judge
from its American academic dress.
It meets the requirements of a Ph.
D. thesis. There are no split in
finitives. Dates are checked and re
checked.
It is more than this, as Indicated
by the English title. It is an
Imaginatively interpretative study of
the strange, haunted life of a strange
man. Thomas De Quincey wandered
far at times out of the familiar
sensory world which is man’s prison
cell. He was, intermittently, one
of the rare exceptions to the almost
universal fate of his fellows with
emergence out of childhood, expressed
so eloquently in his friend Word
worth's "Intimations of Immortality."
If only the qualities of Wordsworth
and De Quincey could have been com
bined in the same man!
The biographer follows his subject
in his wanderings through the mystic
places. Out of the scholarly academic
thesis there emerges a living man.
This, of course, is unforgivable in an
American thesis. It is an axiom that
scholarship and life cannot be com
Brief Reviews of Books
NON-FICTION.
INTERNATIONAL WHO’S WHO.
London: Europa Publications,
Ltd. The 1937 edition.
DINE AT HOME WITH RECTOR.
By George Rector. With a preface
by Bugs Baer. New York: E. P.
Dutton Co.
A book on feeding men by the famous
chef. Popularly written. Amusing.
AS ONE GARDENER TO ANOTHER.
By Lucy M. Ellis. New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
An exceedingly practical work of
Instruction on gardening for those
who want to do the work themselves.
NEW YORK, THE CANAL 8TATE.
By Francis P. Kimball. Albany:
The Argus Press.
A history of 112 years of “canal -
lng” In New York State.
FICTION.
LIVING CHINA. Compiled and edited
by Edgar Snow. New York: Reynal
ft Hitchcock.
A collection of modern Chinese short
stories. Praised by Pearl Buck and
Lin Yutang.
MYSTERIES.
IT WASN’T A NIGHTMARE. By
L. P. Hay. New York: The Mac
millan Co.
A thriller on international con
spiracies, and the like. Very exciting.
THE MILL HOUSE MURDER. By
J. S. Fletcher. New York: Alfred
Knopf.
J. 8. Fletcher’s last novel. Left
unfinished at his death and completed
now by ‘‘Torquemada,” the mystery
critic of the London Observer. Con
cerns the killing of a rich mill owner
and the suspicious behavior of his
nephew.
THE FALCON OUTS IN. By Drexel
Drake. Philadelphia: J. B. Llp
pinoott Co.
Murder In the tangled maaes of New
York night life.
JUVENILES.
TRAILER TRACKS. By Harriet F.
Bunn. New York: Macmillan.
A family travels west by trailer and
has rariouf adventures on the way.
By M.-C. /?.
WITH such veteran observer*
of world affairs as Freder
ick Palmer, Wythe Wil
liams, Webb Miller, Gran
ville Fortescue and John Whitaker
unanimous in prophesying war In
Europe, there Is information of gen
eral Interest In a leading article in
the Spring Hungarian Quarterly, an
excellent publication sponsored in this
country by the Columbia University
Press. The article in question is by
G. P. Gooch, and it is called "The
Grouping of the Powers.”
Mr. Gooch’s chief point is con
tained in the following sentence, "The
greatest tragedy of the World War Is
that It need never have occurred, and
the greatest tragedy of the post-war
years Is that the opportunity to rebuild
Europe on more stable foundations
was lost.” Today, he points out, ex
actly as in 1914. Europe ts grouped
into two camps—France, Russia and
England on the one hand and Ger
many, Italy and Austria on the
other.
"The line,” he says, "running from
west to east cuts the line running
from north to south at Prague. That
is' why Czechoslovakia is the chief
danger zone in Europe. . . .”
One recalls that Wythe Williams,
in his book, “Dusk of Empire.” ire
viewed on this page last week) also
prophesied that the new trouble
would break out in Czechoslovakia.
Mr. Gooch charges that Germany is
endeavoring to foment this prospec
tive discord by attempting to "make
the German people believe in the bol
sheviaation of Czechoslovakia. In the
Nazi press, he says, "Prague, it is
declared, is full of Russian officers,
while Russian aeroplanes and aero
dromes are said to abound on Czecho
slovak soil. These statements are con
stantly reiterated in the official press,
despite official denials from Prague
and despite their complete lack of
foundation.”
He also brings forward the state
ment that it has teen the French
and English attitude on the Abyssin
ian conquest which has forced the
new alignment of the powers. Italy,
from being friendly to France and
England, has, through her resentment
of Anglo /ind French criticism, now
Joined with Germany. Austria, which
until now was constantly in danger
of being annexed by either Germany
or Italy, has acquired a new tem
porary lease on independence by be
coming "a Junior partner in the Italo
German firm.” Thus he apparently
says that efforts to secure justice for
bined. In England it is not quite so
bad.
Mr. Sackville-West has produced
one of the moat scholarly and read
able biographies of the decade, either
academic or popuar. T. R. H.
ESCAPE TO THE TROPICS, by Des
mond Holdridge. New York: Har
court, Brace & Co.
pROBABLY 9 people out of 10
have envisioned, at some par
ticularly contrary time of their lives,
that tropical island where cool zephyrs
and mellow sunshine dissipate all
worry and care. Desmond Holdridge
is one wiho not only fancied such an
escape but actually accomplished it,
and here he relates his self-ostracism
from the artificiality of a metropoli
tan existence to a native hut nestled
in the beatific atmosphere of an
island cove.
Mr. Holdridge, quite bitter in his
estimation of political machinery in
general and poignantly dissatisfied to
be without sufficient income to sus
tain marriage, shows how social mal
contents can retreat to a spot iso
lated from civilization where living
costs are astonishingly low and where,
he thinks, life can be made as enjoy
able as in any civilized country.
He and his companion. Bet (an
island wedding with a 40-cent mar
riage license) chose one of the smaller
Caribbees, St. Johns, on which to
lead their back-to-nature exploit and.
according to the author, managed
very well on an average of $65 per
month—including laundry and rum.
With the acquisition of a second
hand sloop the pair were able to travel
at will and voyaged leisurely among
numerous surrounding islands. More
or less romantic descriptions of trop
ical scenes follow his several tours,
and he also gives his impressions of
the more populous lands, including
tourist-ridden Puerto Rico.
Ultimately succumbing to the then
current flair of interest in locating
Paul (Redfem, the lost aviator, the
traveler equipped himself as a one
man expedition and, leaving Bet safe
ly in Dutch Guiana, he then scraped
around in Brazilian wilds for sev
eral months in what proved a fruit
less venture. But he had his fun.
An easy-mannered narrative, which
oilers sympathetic solace and enter
tainment for those who would like
"to get away from it all.’’ J. 8.
Five Days
(Continued From Page B-l.)
ty to all nations and make the world
Itself at last free. To such a task we
can dedicate our lives and our for
tunes, everything that we are and
everything that we have, with the
pride of those who know that the day
has come when America is privileged
to spend her blood and her might for
the principles that gave her birth and
happiness and the peace which she
has treasured. God helping her, she
can do no other.”
Therw |ra* momentary silence as the
WAR AS GRAVE OF FREEDOM
Conspicuous Among Magazine Features Is Study of Europe by
Hungarian Quarterly, Which Looks Frankly at Divided
Forces—Newsreel Development.
the one smell nation have endangered I
the peace of the whole world. Is Jus
tice the less desirable on that account?
The question Is not exactly a new
one, but not one either that ever seems
to go on the inactive list.
A FURTHER statement made in
the Oooch article In the Hunga
rian Quarterly is that if the insurgents
are successful in Spain that country
Will be added to the "Fascist bloc,”
thereby increasing the peril of France,
which will then be menaced on two
borders.
In view of this, it Is interesting to
read the comment on the Spanish
situation contained in still another
quarterly, The Round Table, which
Is a non-partisan co-operative review
"of the politics of the British Com
monwealth.”
Speaking of British intervention in
Spain, the anonymous writer observes
that it is not desirable. “The ideolog
ical war,” he remarks, "Is a war be
tween two enemies of British Ideas
and British institutions. If, accord
ing to our different political opinions,
we reserve the worst of our gall for
one—for communism or for facism—
that is no good reason for spilling our
blood on behalf of the other. There
has been a tendency among British
parties of the Left, who detest fascism
and sympathize with the Russian ex
periment, to call for Intervention in
Spain on the side of Caballero, in the
name of freedom. Freedom for Span
iards? Freedom for all Spaniards
might, indeed, be a cause to stir self
sacrifice, but it must be freedom from
the dictatorship of the proletariat—
that is, of the Communist party—as
well as from the dictatorship of a
Fascist oligarchy. Freedom for Eng
lishmen? War is the grave of free
dom. • • * ”
War is the grave of freedom. How
excellent a sentence! One wishes
greatly that one might encounter the
like of it somewhat more often In one's
examination of what is being written
about the future of mankind.
JJ'NDER the heading, "President
Roosevelt's Tight-Rope,” the ;
Round Table also contains a sum
ming up of American politics since
the election, written by an observer
in this country, but for British read
ers. Describing the President as a
"bom centrist,” it proceeds:
“ * * * if you admit the legiti
macy of a centrist philosophy, you
make an honest philosopher of Presi
dent Roosevelt.
"Already, in his second term, the
President has taken steps in both
directions. Within two days, he re
buked both employers and workers
in the General Motors strike. After
sweetly reassuring business following
the election, he has turned around
and gone after the private utilities
in the Tennessee Valley area with
knife and machine gun. At least,
he has threatened them with such
weapons. • • • The President, by
threatening to set up a completely
competitive system of Government
owned and operated power lines in
thl$ vast Southern empire, may sim
ply be seeking a more favorable grid
system alliance with the private utili
ties, In short, his centrist philosophy
may be in process of application, and
we are merely seeing a realistic form
of Government regulation rather than
a move toward full socialization."
But was Mr. Roosevelt elected on a
platform of socialization? The ques
tion is likely to occur to American
voters.
The article continues: “Prom every
standpoint, the next few years look
like a period of consolidation, of im
provement in the hasty reform laws
President ceased speaking and turned
away from the reading desk. Then a
j tumult of applause broke out. As soon
as order was restored. Senator Thom
as S. Martin of Virginia introduced a
| Joint resolution declaring a state of
| war with the Imperial German Gov
emment to exist. It was referred to
: the Committee on Foreign Relations
and immediately the Joint session ad
journed.
Outside the Capitol the crowd which
had been unable to enter had lingered,
and long before word had seeped out
that the President had demanded war
with Germany. Then it sped down
town to eagerly waiting throngs in the
street, hotel, cafe and restaurant.
Meantime, an extra of The Evening
8tar was bringing them text of the
war message.
After the long exchange of notes be
j tween this Government and that of
: the Kaiser, which had led to nothing
I more than the breaking of diplomatic
relations, President Wilson's war mes
sage was acclaimed throughout the
land and firmly welded the martial
spirit of most elements except the
avowedly pro-German. Even so in
i transigent a foe of the Chief Magis
■ trate's policy of “watchful waiting" as
; former President Theodore Roosevelt
pronounced it a masterly document
which would go down in history.
JT WAS a night of universal excite
ment throughout Washington. In
bars everywhere ebullient patriots were
loudly proclaiming the deeds of valor
they would perform as soon as they
could get at a few regiments of the
Kaiser's troops. In homes quiet but
anxious parents of young men eligible
for uniforms were pondering the soul
chilling portent of events. Every win
dow in the State, War and Navy
Building, where all operations of thoee
departments then centered, blazed
with light all night. Officials and
personnel labored on feverishly, oblivi
ous to what had taken place on Capi
tol Hill, for weeks before they were
told to "prepare,” and intuitively they
knew that tonight, of all nights, they
must speed their work to its highest
pitch.
After a wild night of celebration
that at last the United States no
longer was going to "take it on the
chin” from the war lords of Ger
many, events began to move rapidly.
The very next morning the Govern
ment allowed it to become known
that when war was formally a fact
the Navy would immediately begin
co-operation with the fleets of the
Allies.
On Tuesday, also, the late Sena
tor Robert M. La Follette, father of the
present Wisconsin 8enator and unter
rlfled opponent of our entrance into
the war, succeeded by parliamentary
maneuver in delaying action on the
war resolution by the Senate for 24
hours. But the newly-created Coun
cil of National Defense was not sub
ject to obstruction and was very much
in action, recommending the raising
of a national army by universal draft,
with 500,000 men as a starter. The
Regular Army already had been put
upen a war footing, of eourse, and
passed in the last term, of careful
drafting of new projects. Not the
least Important of these plans Is
that for governmental reorganization.
• • • If President Roosevelt achieves
this reform, he will have written his
name large in American history.”
And then the Round Table writer
informs his readers that the "most
attractive” possible successor to Mr.
Roosevelt is "the thoughtful, philos
ophical, religious, sturdy Secretary of
Agriculture.”
'pHZ leading article in Scribner’s for
April is rather a thought-provok
ing piece. It is called "The News
reels,” and it considers those lUms
which are devoted to showing actual
events. Its author is Thomas Sugrue.
It offers an Interesting contrast be
tween the American viewpoint toward
news pictures and the European.
“This generation," it says, meaning
the present generation in the United
States, "which has grown up with
automobiles, radios and airplanes, has
also grown up with newsreels. This
generation, which is accustomed to
travel overland at sixty miles an hour
and through the air at two hundred
miles an hour, and which accepts as
commonplace the voice of a man
speaking to it from a distance of a
thousand miles, has not considered as
remarkable the fact that it can see
with its own eyes, while sitting in its
neighborhood theater, events that
transpired in the far places of the
world only a few days before. This
practical clairvoyance in time and
space, with which mystics have wres
tled for thousands of years, is not
considered a phenomenon by Ameri
cans.
“Foreigner* think differently. In
London there are twenty newsreel
theaters—cinema houses devoted ex
clusively to the exhibition of pictorial
news. In Paris there are ten, and every
small European city has at least one.
In the whole of the United States
there are six: Three in New York, one
lrr Newark, one in Philadelphia and
one at North Station in Boston. The
best customers of these hal dozen
pioneers are foreigners, especially Jap
anese and Chinese The Oriental
thrills when a far place or a great
man in brought before him.
"The American is apathetic. . . .
History either bores or frightens
him. . . .”
Washingtonians, of course, will know
that there are now seven newsreel
theaters in the land, since the new one
has opened in the Nation's Capital. A
visit to discover the proportion of na
tive to foreign spectators might be
Interesting.
^CCOMPANYING Mr Sugrue's ar
ticle, which gives a highly inter
esting history of the growth of news
reel technique, there are four pages
of pictures, one from each of the
great newsreel distributors — Fox
Movietone. News of the Day, Para
mount and Pathe. Each page contains
what the company in question con
siders its six best shots. Among them
are views of “Edward and Mrs. Simp
son at Cannes.” the assassination of
King Alexander at Marseilles, the first
news picture taken of Pope Benedict.
Lindbergh coming up Broadway in
his triumphal parade after his flight
to Paris, former King Edward and
Mr. and Mrs. Simpson peering from a
window in St. James, the Nazi book
burning, the sinking of an Austrian
cruiser during the World War and a
very dramatic shot of a blimp just
coming up to the mooring mast
atop the Empire State Building. This
last was the reviewer's favorite. But
they are 24 really remarkable shots
all in all. A great deal has gone into
1 the production of any of them.
the militia of all the States was in
process of becoming a part of the
national military establishment.
A Star headline on Tuesday said
"Every Agency Being Moved to Gird
Nation Against 'Natural Poe to Lib
erty,”’ and in London the press an
nounced that "America Seals Doom
of Kaiser.’’
The American Red Cross announced
April 3 its first drive for funds with
which to carry on the work it knew
confronted it in mobilizing nurses for
the Army and Navy and otherwise
serving the armed forces in the strug
gle ahead. American girlhood began
dreaming of nursing the wounded on
the battlefield, 'mid shot and shell.
jyj E AN WHILE, Washington had be
come a riot of color, the flag
appearing everywhere. Virtually all
stores and many residences were fly
ing the colors, as well as all trolley
cars, and there were few automobile
radiator cape which did not sport a
cluster of small silk Stars and Stripes.
Enthusiasm for the arrival of war was
growing.
On Wednesday, April 4, a vote on
the war resolution was forced in the
Senate after Senator Vardaman of
Mississippi became the first to an
nounce he would vote against it. But
it was adopted. 82 to 6, the Senators
joining Vardaman in opposition being
Gronna of North Dakota, La Pollette
of Wisconsin, Norris of Nebraska, Lane
of Oregon and Stone of Missouri.
The vote in the House was obtained
early on April 6. the ballot being 373
to 50 for the Senate resolution after
pacifist members had tried in vain to
have Congress forbid the sending of
troops overseas.
BEST SELLERS OF THE WEEK
ENDING MARCH 27.
Fiction.
The Late George Apley. Mar
quand. Little, Brown.
Paradise. Forbes. Harcourt.
Brace.
Theatre. Maugham. Doubleday,
Doran.
Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck.
Covici Friede.
None Shall Look Back. Gordon.
Scribner’s.
Sea of Grass. Richter. Knopf.
Non-Fiction.
How to Win Friends and In
fluence People. Carnegie. Simon
& Schuster.
The Hundred Years. Guedalla.
Doubleday-Do ran.
Something of Myself. Kipling.
Doubleday Doran.
The Golden Fleece. Harding.
Bobbe. Merrill.
Return to Religion. Link. Mac
millan.
An American Doctor's Odyssey.
Heiaer. Norton.
Man tha Unknown. Oarrel.
Harper’s.