Evening star. [volume], May 22, 1937, Page B-2, Image 18

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

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CLEAR ANALYSIS OF AN AGE
Beaten Ways Avoided in Fiction Which Leaves Conclusions to
Reader—Distinction in Story of Lovers Who Change
Partners—Book Reviews.
By Mary-Carter Roberts
JOHN DRAKIN. By G. D. Eaton.
Milwaukee; Gutenberg Publishing
Co.
HIS book is from the pen of
the late Godfrey Dell Eaton,
whose first work of fiction,
“Backfifhw,” published in
the 1920s, was hailed as holding con
siderable promise. Eaton wrote only
the two novels. He was no more than
35 when he died and so must be ac
counted one of our younger men of
letters. His work seems fit to assure
him a place in the ranks of those
who have survived him.
“Backfurrow,” as its title implies,
was a story of farm life. “John Dra
kin’’ also begins in a rural setting, but
its scope is broader. One of its au
thor’s aims, indeed, seems to have
been the presenting of a picture of
American white-collar society as it
has been through the years since the
World War. Carrying out this aim, he
has taken his hero through a wide va
riety of experiences as a worker, rang
ing from the holding of clerical jobs to
writing for the press associations; he
has chosen these experiences, one feels,
as being typical of those encoun
tered by the young man of college
education and superior intellect, but
no special training, when he elects to
support himself.
The book, indeed, stems to deal
with grim exclusiveness, with the typ
ical. It is a biographical novel and
toe hero, whose life story it is, is about
as typical a young man as can be
imagined. He is introduced as an
adolescent of no particular individual
ity, a mere vessel for holding the usual
adolescent curiosities and dreams. He
finishes high school just as the World
War engages the Nation, and by that
time has so far progressed in his
typicalness that he is in a fever of
patriotism; he enlists to save civiliza
tion from the Huns. He then goes
through the typical intellectual awak
ening; he likewise experiences the
strictly average disillusion as to the
beauty of the patriotic emotion, the
perfection of supposedly godlike adults
and the eternal nature of the emotion
of love. At this point, however, the
novel departs from the beaten path of
biographical works on young men. The
author spares his readers a miracle;
he does not tell them that young John,
having eaten of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, becomes wise. On the
contrary, he makes him emerge into
manhood still a creature of longings
and appetites, which are greater than
the strength of any learning. The
blows which he has suffered do not
lick him into any kind of shape. He
acquires no technique for living—be
yond, that is, the technique of get
ting jobs which he invariably despises.
He does achieve the sensitivity and
intellectual freedom of the superior
man, but he never becomes a superior
man. He becomes, instead, the per
fect type of job holder—a man in
capable of controlling his destiny, a
man who, when he has money, spends
it freely for creature comforts, and
when he has none, sobs aloud in his
misery and finally steals a 50-cent
piece from his landlady. Hardness is
not in him. His intellectual liberty
does him about as much service as an
extra leg.
rJpHIS obviously is a departure from
1 the common pattern of the novel
which is devoted to showing how
a youth grows into a man. For the
most part these works give us a hero
who, at the end, has achieved Olym
pic calm through his sufferings. They
lead us to believe that the young man,
after reaching his late 20s (for that
if where they usually leave him),
will be no more a prey to folly. He
generally becomes, instead, a new'
creature, one who will thenceforth
proceed through life with a fixed (and
noble) purpose and will know no de
sires but wise ones, and will use
toward his fellow' men a tolerant un
derstanding which is based on pro
found pity. It is a nice closing tab
leau, of course, but one may some
times wonder where these deific young
men are in real life. One meets, some
how, a good many more John Drakins
—incompetent poor devils except with
in narrow’ limits, intelligent to the
point of pain, enslaved and perfectly
aware of their slavery, unable to de
vise any escape for themselves ex
cept through the brief respites of
drink and women.
Such is the character presented in
this novel, and the portrait is executed
entirely by the objective method. The
author does not pity his man, neither
does he abuse him. He simply tells
us about him. He offers, to be sure,
sufficient explanation of John’s in
eptitude in the description which he
gives of his youth, but he does not
offer it by way of explanation. It is
there for the reader to interpret if
he cares to. It is, to the reviewer’s
mind, the most penetrating analysis
In the entire book.
For it takes up—with pure objec
tivity, remember—the mentality of
the American generation which pre
ceded John's, and which supplied the
country's youth with that training
which led it headlong and armed only
with dreams into the maelstrom of
the war, and which subsequently was
appalled at post-war “demoralization”
—a generation which substituted plati
tudes for thinking and, in its relation
to the young, offered roseate hypocri
sies for truth. Much has been written
about the spectacular debacle of the
actual children of the war; the break
down of their idealism has been pretty
well hymned; they have been labeled
the “lost generation” and their poor
day has passed into history as the
jazz age. Comparatively little has
been set down about the sources of
their vulnerability. That, you see, is
nowhere near as good copy.
F THE present book, however; due
attention is given to those pre-war
fashions in education. Young John,
coming of prep school age, js allowed
to decide for .himself whether he will
go to a private school in New York
City or to the public school in Detroit,
the city nearest his home. He de
cides for the latter. He is then sent
to the city, where he lives alone in a
boarding house. He has an allowance
of $200 a month and a $2,000 automo
bile. With so much material for self
expression in his hands, he is given no
discipline exoept letters affectionately
advising him to be good, and no train
ing whatsoever, except that received
in his classes at school, toward which
he adopts the fashionable attitude of
negligence, even when a subject in
terests him. There are three adults
who are responsible for him—a
wealthy father with a city back
ground and a prosperous uncle and
aunt on the farm. They are all fond
of him and truly wishful for his good
development But this' is the best
course which they can devise. The
picture is merely drawn in; Mr. Eaton
has made no comment whatsoever on
it.
The book puts one in mind inescapa
bly of Maugham's “Of Human Bond
age.’’ It is not comparably great;
it falls short of the older novel in
many ways. Particularly it is not
universal in its applicability; it is
not of human bondage; it is of the
bondage of a group, an age and a
country. But within those limits it
does much the same thing. Its writing
is sometimes sketchy; its style is
plain journalism. But there is a
solidity about it which must command
respect. Among works which celebrate
post-war behavior it deserves an
honorable place.
LOVERS. By Gina Kaus. Translated
from the German by June Head.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
'J'HIS exceptionally intelligent novel
is the story of two pairs of lovers
who changed partners. If that sounds
uneventful, there is something more
to it; the plot is built on the theme
that the human creature’s longing for
spiritual union is impossible of ful
fillment.
To demonstrate this concept the
author has employed the device of
making three of the quartet tell their
own versions of their emotional en
tanglements to the fourth, and, while
it is substantially the same story that
is told each time, the three versions
differ utterly. Yet all three narrators
speak with complete sincerity. The
story which they tell, in each case, is
the story of what they have wished to
believe.
Chance then places the truth in the
hands of the one who receives the
confidences, and she is amazed to find
that the stories are wide of the facts,
as well as in disagreement with each
other. The implication is that the
closest physical relationship does not
necessarily carry understanding. While
this is not a particularly new discovery,
there is a distinction in the work,
a cool astringent quality in the writing
and a complete absence of banality.
The book, indeed, seems to be a su
perior thing of its kind. It can be
commended to all save the deter
minedly sentimental.
THE OUTWARD ROOM. By Millen
Brand. New York; Simon &
Schuster.
rpHIS novel is the story of a woman's
return to normal mentality after
she has spent several years in a mental
hospital. It tells of how she acquired
the idea that she must escape from
the sanitarium; of how she did escape;
of how, penniless and bewildered, she
arrived in New York, and finally, of
how, in the companionship of a man,
a machine shop worker, who befriended
her there, she groped her way back
to mental self-sufficiency.
It is a good book if you like that
kind of story. It is already on the
best-seller list of one bookshop in the
city. The reviewer is of the opinion,
however, that readers will need a
certain definite interest in the prob
lem involved before they can find the
story absorbing. It is a little too far
outside the run of human experience.
But, for what it is, well done and
convincing.
THE WIND PROM THE MOUN
TAINS. By Trygve Gulbranssen.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
'J'HIS is the sequel to “Beyond Sing
the Woods,’’ a novel which, some
what to the reviewer’s mystification,
became a best seller tor some months
last year. It was, to be sure, a pleas
ant little book. It was one of those
Scandinavian novels in which the ex
pected realism of the country is aban
doned for a romance of so pure, child
like and quaint a quality that to read
it is to be almost embarrassed. The
Scandinavians do both types of work—
the realistic and the romantic—very
well, when they stick to the clean di
vision. Sometimes, however, a novel
ist among them will mix the two.
When that happens there Is nothing
for a reader to do but commit suicide.
Nothing can be more unrelievedly
awful.
Well, “Beyond Sing the Woods’’ was
unmixed romance, and was a very
pretty little tale, with a family of
strong, silent, handsome men holding
an estate of vast wealth up in the
wildest of mountains and being feared
and slandered by their shallow-mind
ed neighbors, but maintaining their
own very heroically (even to fighting
bears with naked hands) and forgiv
ing their enemies in the long run.
And the like. But as to why it should
have found a responsive chord in the
American publio the reviewer cannot
imagine. Certain it is that if such a
tale had been written about an Ameri
can family, in an American setting,
it would have been received as asking
too much for the imagination. But
we can believe in wonders when we
see the importer’s stamp. The only
parallel In English which occurs to
the reviewer is the redoubtable family
of Miss de la Roche’s Whiteoaks, and
even they come from Canada.
Now we have “The Wind Prom the
Mountains” dealing with a new gener
ation of this same strong, silent family,
and it ought to repeat its predecessor's
success. For it is much the same kind
of book. It tells of the arrival on the
mountain estate of a young city-bred
daughter-in-law and of her feeling of
deep kinship for the place, of more
difficulties with neighbors, notably the
wicked siren, Elizabeth, of the birth
of children, of ghosts, mytlis and
legends which have a living place in
the peasants’ minds, and of the final
heroic end of the master of the estate
who follows the tradition of his for
bears, even in his manner of dying.
As romantic as "The Trail of the
Lonesome Pine,” in other words, and
just as enthralling. Nor is that last
remark made disrespectfully. "The
Trail of the Lonesome Pine” has been
an all-time best seller among Ameri
can works of fiction. You cannot
laugh at a thing like that, even
though you may want to.
THE BESIEGED. By Gerald Breck- !
enridge. Garden City; Doubleday
Doran & Co.
'J'HIS Is one of the “depression” \
novels which sue now beginning
to be written in growing numbers. It
is, indeed, the second book on the
subject of our late financial downfall
to come from the pen of this
author; last year Mr. Breckenridge
wrote a story called "Brief King
dom,” In which he told of a young
man’s efforts to retrench economically
by taking over and running a .little
country newspaper. That work was
limited to a rural scene. The present
novel tells of the effect which tha mar
A
ket crash had on a group of people of
the market-playing type—well-to-do
families who lived beyond their means
in the remembered faith that good
tunes would keep up forever.
Good times do not keep up forever,
of course, and the children of these
families4iave to give up their cars and
college and take Jobs. One young
man engages In the easier profession
of selling liquor—and goes to Jail. He
is contrasted to a second boy whose
family has virtuously resisted the spec
ulating fever, and who brings the
wholesome outlook to bear on his
friend’s trouble. In the end, they pull
out of their difficulties, not without
loss, but still with a chastened state
of mind.
The book is a good superficial pic
ture of the late trouble and should
make entertaining light reading.
PATTERN OP THREE. By Mary
Hastings Bradley. New York: D.
Appleton-Century Co.
'J'HIS is a love story of the wom
an's magazine variety—so, if you
like love stories of the women’s’ mag
azine variety, you ought to find it sub
lime. It tells how Eve and Dick get a
divorce so that Dick may marry Kay,
and then it tells how Kay and Dick
have two babies and make a home,
while Eve dies. It is harmless. The
triangle without the points, in other
words.
FOUNTAINS OF YOUTH. By Dor
mer Creston. New York: E. P
Dutton & Co.
'J'HIS is the biography of Marie
BashkirtsefT. As its source Is
almost wholly the famous BashkirtsefT
diaries, and indeed as the book itself
consists in a large part of excerpts
from these diaries, there would seem
to be little, if anything, new in it. It
is, however, the first life of the young
Iconoclast or the 70s that has been
written—probably because Marie her
self wrote her story with such copious
ness; it has that value at least, and it
also serves to get between the covers
of a single volume the chief happen
ings of Marie's brief career.
Whether this is a kind service to
her, however, is debatable. The story
of her life, as she wrote it, is a moving
thing because it is self-revelation, and
because self-revelation in Marie’s day
was for a young woman a thing un
heard of. Her own story, therefore,
as the world has admitted, had the
value of an essay in forbidden honesty.
But when the events and emotions
which she recorded are told by a
second person that value is lacking,
and the story becomes pitiable, and
the teller, in spite of obviously perfect
intention, becomes cruel.
For the hard fact about Marie
BashkirtsefT's life is that it contained
little of sufficiently intrinsic in
terest to merit telling for its own
sake. Equally inescapable is the fact
that it contained much that was
foolish, vain and crude. Told in
Marie's own words, the record of her
career lias the dignity of any effort
of a human being to be honest with
himself about himself. But the actual
materials of her honesty—the longing
for fame, the efforts to attract famous
people, the unsuccessful love affairs—
have none of this merit. They become,
in the bare record, stripped of her
personal intensity, dangerously near
tawdry. Miss Creston reiterates that
Marie deserves her fame, although
she accomplished little in her life
and died at the age of 24; but ap
parently she has not noted that that
fame has rested since the early 80s
on Marie's own account of herself;
Her only real achievment was her
autobiography. The one thing she
has never needed is a historian.
Marie Bashkirtseff was bom in
Russia in 1860, of a well-to-do but
harum-scarum family. Her people
were minor nobility. When she was
a child her family moved to Nice and
later to Paris. Marie was obsessed
by a desire for glory; she did not
particularly care what the source of
acclaim was to be, but acclaim she
was determined to have. She also
longed for approval; she discovered
that the unconventional manners of
her family were considered scandalous
to her French neighbors and made
pathetic attempts to set these points
right. She undertook to study singing,
she studied painting, she thought of
a brilliant marriage, she tried to
establish a salon. She put into all
these efforts the anguished intensity
of genius, but genius itself she did
not possess. Except for a brief success
in her painting, she failed in every
thing. She kept a journal of her hopes
and despairs; it was unabashed revela
tion. It was published after her death
and, by its frankness, its vividness
and its shrewdness, it established her
posthumously as a personality. It
seems a curious thing to write the life
of a person whose only recognized
accomplishment is a self-history, but
that is what we have here. As has
been said, the book has the merit of
compression. The diaries, on the other
hand, are very long.
PYRAMID6 OF POWER. By M. L.
Ramsay. Indianapolis: Bobbs
Merrill Co.
'T'HIS Is the story of Samuel Insull’s
one-time great utility empire, its
rise and fall. It is a vividly written
thing, obviously put together with an
eye for popular appeal, with many
word portraits of notorious person
ages, anecdotes and epigrams. It has,
of course, an astonishing story to tell
and one Which the public probably
has never understood in its entirety.
The Insull empire, as Mr. Ramsay de
scribes it, was the greatest organiza
tion ever held In the hands of one
man. Its growth and development
are an astounding piece of hlatory.
There is reason, therefore, in writing
that history, so that the generality
of us can follow it.
The book is built up on the Idea
that the fight for publicly owned
utilities was immensely forwarded by
the Insull collapse, and a sort of
drama is constructed along that line—
the protagonist* of public ownership
being shown as attackers in numbers
of the giant Insull, who maintained
his place a long time by sheer size
and fell with the aggravated disaster
that attends the fall of the swollen.
The reader may wonder if there
is justice in attacking, even implicitly,
all private power companies under
the blanket of the Insull fiasco, but
he still should be entertained by the
liveliness and foroe of Mr. Ramsay’s
narrative. He may pause a little over
the fairness of advocating abolish
ment of any private utility owner
ship on the basis of a single scandal,
no matter of what magnitude, but he
will find the drama of that scandal
told very racily here. It is a very
good piece of popular history and
goes far toward making the gigantic
mystery of what happened to our
■»
GINA KAUS,
Author of “Lovers” and “Dark Angel.” (Macmillan.)
MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY,
Author of “Pattern of Three.” (D. Appleton-Century Co.)
money clear. That alone, perhaps,
would be recommendation enough.
SKY-STORMING YANKEE. By Clara
Studer. New York: Stackpole Sons.
'J'HE American genius for mechani
cal invention, as exemplified by
Glenn Hammond Curtis, is here the
theme of an entertaining biography
by Mias Studer.
She has captured In this volume
much of the forgotten drama of the
earliest pioneering of human flight in
tracing the unwilling entrance into
aviation of Curtiss, who was to be
come one of the world's greatest fig
ures in aeronautics.
She tells how the shy, taciturn boy,
who was named for Watkins Glen and
his home town. Hammondsport. N. Y.,
first came to public notice as a builder
and racer of bicycles; how he grad
uated to motor cycles and was forced
to build his own engines, and how
this led him into aviation.
Miss Studer breaks through the
shell of reserve which made Curtiss
an unknown quantity to his contem
poraries, and gives us a lovable, wholly
understandable character. The book
is full of color and excitement, as was
the life of its subject. It is a care
ful study of the man and his days
of struggle and development.
The volume includes some 30 pages
of rare photographs of key incidents
in the life of Curtiss and the early
days of aeronautics. J. s. £.
SON OP HAN. By Richard Lapiere.
New York: Harper St Brothers.
'T'HIS Is a book worth reading. It
combines fine writing devoid of
histrionics, with good plot and char*
acterization, and a universal, human
theme. In addition, it describes a way
of life radically different from ours,
yet the description sounds authentic,
the countryside, the villages, the cus
toms sound probable, the people are
human, not marionettes, in an exotic
setting.
Han Te Lin is the eldest son of an
eldest son of an eldest son. All three
have achieved scholarship of the first
order. All three had planned going
on to higher honors, only to be de
feated by fate and circumstances. All
three adjust themselves to the knowl
edge that they will not themselves
rise higher than the first order in the
hope that their sons will carry on.
Frustration and hope are the bare
bones of the book, but they are clad
with flesh and clothes, of plot gov
erned by Chinese custom and growing
out of it, by characters recognizable
in any land, yet motivated by Orien
tal training, by a delicately told love
story that does not dominate the
whole book, as it would in a novel
of Occidental life.
The person interested in foreign
lands and customs will find ' Son of
Han” particularly interesting. The
whole ritual of the wedding, a vivid
description of the funeral customs,
the acceptance of a new daughter-in
law into the household, the ceremony
of adopting a brother and the trien
nial migrations of students to the
capital of the province for examina
tions are especially vivid. Although,
so steeped does one become In the
atmosphere of 'the book as one reads,
that these incidents do not stand out
as particularly notable until after one
has read and digested the whole.
R. R. T.
Brief Reviews of Books
SOCIOLOGY
C OCTAL AND CULTURAL DYNAM
° ICS. By Pltlrim A. Sorokin.
Three volumes. New York: Ameri
can Book Co.
A monumental analysis of social
change during the past 2,500 yean,
arriving at the conclusion that we are
now in an age of transition. How we
got there and where we ara going.
A very profound study.
THE NATION.
NEUTRALITY FOR THE UNITED
STATES. By Edwin Borchard
and William P. Lage. New Haven:
Yale Univenity Press.
How we got into the World War
and what we must learn about di
plomacy If we are to keep out of the
next one. By a professor of inter
national law at Yale University.
THE SUPREME COURT AND THE
NATIONAL WILL. By Dean Al
fange. Garden City: Doubleday
Doran tc Co.
A book devoted to showing that
the court in the past has been able
to adjust Itself to changing times
and that it has the power to do so
now, without sacrifice of influence.
By a winner of the Theodore Roose
velt Memorial Award.
THE SUPREME COURT INDEPEND
ENT OR CONTROLLED. By
Walter Lippmann. New York:
Harper Ac Bros.
Mr. lippmann'* articles on the
court question published in pamphlet
form. They originally came out in
his column in the New York Herald
Tribune.
EDUCATION.
AMERICAN EDUCATION. By Junes
Rowland Angell. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
A collection of essays covering many
aspects of the subject of eduction. By
the president of Yale University,
t
HISTORY.
A HISTORY OP CHICAGO. By
Bessie Louise Pierce. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Volume I of a history of America’s
second city, covering the years between
1673 and 1848. Very comprehensive.
TRAVEL.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO SCANDI
NAVIA! By Clara E. Laughlin.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
A tourist guide to the Scandinavian
countries—Norway, Sweden, Finland
and Denmark.
LET ME SHOW YOU VERMONT. By
Charles Edward Crane. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Places and personalities of the Green
Mountain State. Illustrated with pho
tographs.
ART
JOHN CONSTABLE. A booklet on
the life and work of the great
painter, issued by Studio Publica
tions, New York.
Handy biography and criticism, il
lustrated with reproductions of paint
ing.
J. M. W. TURNER. (Same as above.)
_ CRITICISM.
aoter the genteel tradition.
Edited by Malcolm Cowley. New
York: W. W. Norton Co.
bsays on American writers since
1910, by various contemporaries—
ltewis, Dreiser, Dos Pasaot, O'Neill,
Cabell, and so on.
HEALTH.
CANCER, THE GREAT DARKNESS.
The article which originally came
out in Fbrtune Magazine, now in
book form. Published by Double
day Doran A Co.
A valuable piece of popular health
education.
YOGA: THE SCIENCE OP HEALTH.
By Felix Guyot. New York: £. P.
Dutton Co.
How to attain health through prac
l
FLYER FINDS WAR BELOW’ PAR
New and Old Magazines Search for Great Themes, but Few Gain
Unqualified Approval—Edward Still Causes Specu
lation, Arousing Imaginative Persons.
by M.-C. R.
VITAL statisticians may some
time be interested In investi
gating the average life span
of a magazine. It would seem
*to be a curious sort of subject, and
certainly it is one that is not much
prospected. For most of us follow
beaten paths among the periodicals;
if we read the slicks, we read the
slicks, and if we read the pulps, why
we read ttye pulps and that is the ex
tent of our discrimination. Even
within’ those bonds, sometimes we set
up still narrower limits. The reviewer,
in fact, knows more than one intelli
gent person who refuses firmly to read
any periodical except a certain favor
ite or two—not that there is supposed
to be any particular merit in the
favorites, but that they have become
a habit. Yet any one who is obliged
to be aware of magazines (the re
viewer is paid for it, of course) cannot
help knowing that there is a dying
and giving of birth among the in
habitants of the newsstands, even as
elsewhere in this mortal world.
Hardly a week passes, indeed, with
out a new No. 1 Volume 1 appearing
on the reviewer’s desk, accompanied
by a polite little letter saying that
any notice will be appreciated. How
long do these hopeful children live?
What deaths occur to make room for
the new generation? Who gathers in
a fortune from the life? Where, in
what splendid or attic offices, are these
frail print creatures brought forth?
Statisticians take note. You cannot
go on charting the depression forever,
you know. In 20 years, say, that sub
ject. will be pretty well exhausted.
There is a whole world unexplored
waiting for you on the back shelves
and higher racks of the magazine
stands.
In past years of course the vast
army of newborn publications was
“little.” Today, however, the digest
has driven the pale child of art and
Intellectuality almost completely into
oblivion. And there are more digests
that can be kept track of, for a new
one appears practically every week.
What happens to them? Once more,
statisticians note.
'P'ODAY, even as on other days when
magazine copy has to he pre
pared, there is a new face in the mail.
It is Famous Stories—not, for a mir
acle, another digest. It is a pocket
size publication, to be issued monthly.
Its idea is not a new one, but one
that always seems meritorious. It is
the idea of reprinting the world’s great
short stories.
So the June Famous Stories carries
work by Kipling, Gaboriau, de Mau
passant, Hawthorne, Byron, Mark
Twain and others. And the July
Famous Stories will contain work by
Dickens, Tolstoy. Poe, Bret Harte,
Voltaire and Reade. This is Charles
Reade, to be sure, but tne mere juxta
position of the name in any form with
Gaboriau has put the reviewer in mind
of one of the best literary jingles that
she has ever heard. So, having duly
noted No. 1, Volume 1 of Famous
Stories, she is going to quote. Here is
the jingle:
"Said Opie Reed to E. P. Roe
‘How do you like Gaboriau?’
‘I like him very well indeed.’
Said E. P. Roe to Opie Reed.”
You have to read it aloud, of course.
Then you will see what a very neat
thing it is.
Famous Stories, by the way, aells
for 10 cents.
rJ'HE reviewer took occasion, 6ome
months ago, to be most disagree
able about a then new magazine called
I^>r Men and Men Only! the excla
mation point being part of the title,
if you please. Not in the least deterred
by the unkind words, the editors now
send a second copy to, as it were, the
slaughter. In general, the verdict
still is no. For Men and Men Only!
Is on the wrong side of that thin, thin
line which distinguishes between what
actually is funny and what wants to
be funny. But it has an interesting
article in it by Bert Acosta, the avi
ator, descriptive of his recent adven
tures flying for the loyalist army in
the Spanish War. He says with en
gaging frankness that he fiew for
Spain—and gold. He was promised j
“much dinero.” But. having joined the '
loyalists even for so qualified a rea- !
son, he acquired a liking for them, to
some extent at least, and he says flatly
that it will not be Gen. Franco who
wins. The loyalists will stick with it, |
he says, and they are much better able
to hold out than the rebels.
Even so, Mr. Acosta did not think
it was much of a war. There was a
great deal of killing, but precious lit
tle else, as he saw it. And most of
the killing was non-combatants, who ■
didn't know what it was all about. '
The ships were bad, he wrrites, and
the mechanics incompetent or non
existant. He quit for these reasons
and he never got his gold, either. It
was always a comic opera war, as he
saw it; that is, it combined the bad
features of both war and comedy. It
would be hard to imagine anything
worse.
'J'HE magazines are not through with
the Duke of Windsor yet. He is
still copy. The current Liberty, like all
Libertys for some time past, devotes
am article to him and the Cosmo
politan is using him in its June issue.
It is his future now that is causing
Liberty so much headache.
In a piece by Frederick L. Collins, it
wonders if he may not return to public
life in some such important position
as governor general of Canada or |
viceroy of India, or even, if you please, j
as prime minister. “Will the Duke 1
and Duchess of Windsor yet enter upon <
a new career through the door of 10
Downing street?” it asks plaintively, i
And the answer, as it sees it. is “Why
not?” Edward has traveled more than
the most brilliant of the English
statesmen, it points out unanswerably, i
“He has seen more with his own
eyes and heard more with his own
ears. He has more first-hand knowl- !
edge of the world in general, and of
how people live and how they feel ;
about it. than any other man of our
time.” Why should England not make
use of him? asks Liberty. And then ;
it adds, “It is this world significance :
of the man which makes him unique—
which makes him indispensable!”
There would be a certain humor,
assuredly, in Edward's holding the
vast power of minister. But, if that
happened, to make it truly enjoyable, ,
Stanley Baldwin should be King.
-Jr
Cosmopolitan, however, does not
concern itself with Edward's future.
His glamorous past is the subject of
its article, the author being Elsa Max
well, the famous party giver. Her
piece is entitled. “Edward's Set as I
Knew Them,’’ and it contains pen
pictures of the group of pleasure-loving
people who are, in some quarters,
held responsible for the abdication—
Edward’s personal associates. Thera
is a certain regret in the article. With
out these gay young people, says Mi.-s
Maxwell, the new King's court is
going to be a far duller place.
^COSMOPOLITAN'S other story of
Edward is by I. A. R. Wylia. It
Imagines a King who has abdicated
returning to his native land on coro
nation day dressed in disguise. He
wanders about among the crowds and
thinks his thoughts. According to
the story, they are pretty orthodox
thoughts. One cannot but wonder
how long it will be before “the greatest
news story since the Crucifixion" a
shifted to the inside pages. _
■yyHEN the last issue of Globe wj
reviewed in these columns the
reviewer found it necessary to be harsh
over a piece by Ezra Pound, as irri
tating a poseur and as bad a prose
writer as has ever been, although
sometimes he has done a good verse.
• The rest of Globe was pretty good . >
Now comes a new issue, and Pound
is still writing in it, and truth compels
one to remark that his piece is about
as sensible a thing as one has read
in a long time. But then, it happens
to be in agreement with one of the
reviewer’s pet hates; he is writing
about newspaper men who write books
about being newspaper men. and in the
course of these works go off the deep
end interpreting everything. He docs
not like them either.
Running through the count (see
back book pages of The Start, he ticks
off Negley Parson, George Slocombe,
Webb Miller, Vincent Sheean, John
Whitaker, George Seldes and John
Gunther—among others. “It struck
me as odd,” he remarks, “that all
the authors are reverting to jour
nalism, while all the newspaper men
are writing books.” And further.
’’* * * Newspaper men have no busi
ness to be Red or White, to express
opinions on whether it is better to
have a Jewish prime minister or an
anti-Semitic dictator, on whether the
fate of democracy is somehow in
volved in the Spanish fighting, on
whether Russia is in the advance
guard of civilization, on whether fas
cism is the latest sort of devil without
which men don't seem able to live, on
whether better o" brighter atrocities
are committed in the name of liberty
or in the name of order, and all the
rest of the tripe that is nowadays put
forward in the place of the old-fash
ioned, straightforward reporting of
good, downright, concrete facts re
corded, without any particular siant
or propagandist purpose.” But, ha
says, noboby was convinced when he*
explained all this, for he explained :t
to a group of these same journalists
turned author.
If there is anything written these,
days that does not have some kind of
‘■particular slant or propagandist pur
pose” it is precious rare. It even
gets into fiction; only last week there
was a novel—a novel, if you please
devoted to selling the co-operative Idea
to the public via a love affair. Tins
tendency makes criticism a very trying
job. It makes a critic a crusader, too
—against propaganda. And that is as
dire as any other kind of crusading, of
course. It seems a kind of universal
sickness, every one determined to
infect every one else with an idea. Oh,
for a good antiseptic—or, for a really
good idea!
tice of Hatha Yoga, exercises, hygiene
and the like.
JOBS.
PRESS AGENTRY. By Charles
Washburn. New York; National
Library Press.
How to be one.
YOUR FACE.
THE ART OP MAKE-UP. By Serge
Strenkovsky. New York: E. P.
Dutton Co.
How to use cosmetics, both for
stage and society. Detailed and ex
plicit.
NOVELS.
BLACK EARTH. By Louise Cochran.
Boston: Bruce Humphries.
Share croppers and their troubles.
SEPARATE FROM HIS BRETHREN.
By Pierre Lambert. Boston:
Meador Publishing Co.
Story of lonely young man in Paris.
MYSTERIES.
THE AFFAIR OF THE SYRIAN
DAGGER. By Charlton Andrews.
New York: Ives Washburn.
Beautiful lady is murdered in Paris.
POETRY.
SONNETS POR THE ETHIOPIANS
And other Poems. By J. Harvey L.
Baxter. Roanoke: Magi* City
Press.
Impassioned verse in defense of
the freedom of Ethiopia. Young.
DRUM BEATS. By Kendall Banning.
Dallas; Kaleidograph Press.
Short verses on life and love. Fair.
THE OVERLAND MARKER AND
OTHER POEMS. By Prank E.
Breithaupt. Boston: Meador Pub
lishing Co.
Homely verses—very homely ones, in
fact.
A SONG OF MAGNOLIA. By Julious
C. HilL Boston: Meador Publish
ing Co.
Everyday verses. Doggerel.
JUVENILES.
HAPPY DAYS IN HOLLAND. By
Ella H. Hay. Chicago: Beckley
Cardy Co.
How the Dutch children live. Illus
trated with photographs.
BLACK AND WHITE FEATHERS.
By Lillian J. Keating. Boston:
Meador Publishing Co.
Rather moral fairy stories.
BEST SELLERS WEEK END
ING MAY IS
The Years. Woolf. Harcourt
Brace.
The Outward Room. Brand. Si
mon Ac Schuster.
Theatre. Maugham. Doubleday
Doran.
New Wine at Cock Crow. Slis.
Morrow.
Buckskin Breeches. Stong. Far- :
rar Ac Rinehart.
File of Rufus Ray. Reilly. Mor
row.
NON-FICTION.
Coronation Commentary. Dennis.
Dodd-Mead.
How to Win Friends and In
fluence People. Carnegie. Si
mon Ac Schuster.
Present Indicative. Coward. Dou
Weday-Doran.
Middletown in Transition. Lynd.
Harcourt-Brace.
The Hundred Years. Guedella.
' Doubleday-Doran.
American Doctor’s Odyssey. Rei
ser. Norton.
i
The Public Library
HOUSING PROGRESS.
During the past few years various
experiments In housing have provided
some dwellings, but the need, espe
cially among low-income groups, is
still acute. Housing legislation is
again before Congress, offering an ex
tensive program sponsored by a Fed
eral housing agency, as well as a co
ordination of efforts in this field.
Whether the program will proceed
depends on the action taken by Con
gress on the Wagner-Steagall housing
bill. Reference to current literature
is the best way to understand this
situation. A selection from the ma
terial available is presented below.
These items may be borrowed from
the Sociology Division, Main Library',
Eighth and K streets.
The Need for Housing.
AMERICA NEEDS HOMES, by M. A
Rose. Today 2:3-4. January 1936.
Details of the demand for modern
houses voiced by the lower and middle
classes.
FACING THE FACTS ON HOUSING.
Harper 174:419-30. March 1937.
Considers the causes of and prob
lems resulting from the high cost of
housing.
HOMES FOR WORKERS. Federal
Emergency Administration of Pub
lic Works, Housing Division. Bulle
tin No. 3. 1937. Pamphlet file.
A resume of the effects of bad hous
ing, need for and cost of homes, and
some Government and private projects
providing houses.
HOUSING AS A PUBLIC HEALTH
PROBLEM, by C. E. A. Winslow.
American Journal of Public Health
27:56-61. January 1937.
Health aspects of housing examined
with suggestions as to what may be
expected from a Federal program to
improve conditions.
HOUSING SHORTAGE FACES OUR
CITIES, by Coleman Woodbury.
Public Management 19:36. Janu
ary, 1937.
PRESENT SITUATION OF INADE
QUATE HOUSING, by G. Ter
bough. American Economic Re
view 27:169-74. March 1937.
Envisions the shortage of urban
houses and causes of the same.
SLUMS AND BLIGHTED AREAS IN
THE UNITED STATES, by Edith
E. Wood. Federal Emergency Ad
ministration of Public Works,
Bulletin No. 1. 1935. HFZ. W854s.
A survey of housing conditions in
several large cities, emphasizing the
need for slum clearance and low-cost
housing.
Modern Housing Developments.
CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN
HOUSING. Annals of the Ameri
can Academy of Political and
Social Science. Vol. 190. March
1937. HFZ.Am37c.
A collection of articles which indi
cate the nature of housing problems
as local and Federal responsibilities.
SLUMS AND HOUSING, by James
Ford. 1936. HFZ.F75.
A picture of present activities in
housing in New York City set against
a vivid commentary on the historical
development of New York’s dwellings.
« i
MODERN HOUSING, by Catherine
Bauer. 1934. HFZ.B32. »
The background and forces in
modem housing as they have de
veloped in Europe and America,
THE TENEMENTS OF CHICAGO by
Edith Abbott. 1936. HFZ.Ab2.
A history of Chicago's slum areai
and their human and social costs.
OUR HOUSING HODGE-PODGB,
AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
M. J. Pusey. Harper 173:60-70.
June 1936.
Progress in Housing by Govern
ment Agencies.
A HOUSING PROGRAM FOR THB
UNITED STATES. National As
sociation of Housing Officials
1935. HFZP962.
Sets forth the main outline for t
low-cost housing program for this
country.
IS GOVERNMENT HOUSING DE
SIRABLE? James Ford. Review
of Renews 94:29-33. September
1936.
Suggests the many dangers of hous
ing by a Government agency and
contrasts the advantages of private!}
constructed dwellings.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OB
HOUSING OFFICIALS. YEAR
BOOK, 1936. HFZ.8N214.
Reviews the present housing activl.
ties of the Federal and Stall
governments.
SMALL-DWELLING PROJECT LN
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Monthly Labor Review 44.550-8
March 1937.
Description of the houses at Hopkinj
Place built by the Alley Dwellin*
Authority, District of Columbia. '
THREE YEARS OF PUBLIC HOUS
ING. by Loula D. Lasker. Survej
Graphic 26:78-82. February 1937,
Shows wliat has been accomplish^
by public housing agencies during th<
period and why a larger program i
needed.
The most entertaining,
most d)7iamic story eve*
written about the citj
where money meets poweB
Washington
calling;'
A Novel by
MARQUIS W. CHILD!
author of
**Sweden: The Middle Way'
$2.50 end published by MORROS