Evening Star Newspaper, July 14, 1929, Page 32

T 'Famous Novelist Joins Ranks of Noted Men Assailing Caillaux Theory United States Has Hastened Decay. Reasons. for Attacks. BY JOHN ERSKINE, The Famous Author. Y JOSEPH CAILLAUX'S article on fthe destiny of civilization, which appeared in the edi- o torial section The Star re- cently, Is important not only because it comes from a man of his ability and knowledge of the world, but because it represents a point of view | frequently expressed nowadays in Furope and particularly in France. He says bluntly that civilization is dying and that its death knell has been sounded by the prosperity of the United States. On the Paris bookstalls one can pick up more than one volume which gays the same thing at greater length. The complaint is not that Europe has changed, but that the Unfted States has arrived. While Europe controlled the destinies of the world, or while it still could think it did, the course of civili- vation seemed to these eritics normal and satisfactory, but from the moment, the immense power of America was realized civilization has scemed on the rocks. Understand Depression. When we consider all that Europe Jost in the last war we understand why Europeans should temporarily be de- pressed and should have a poignant searching of heart over the future of the whole Western world. To watch with equanimity the good fortune of one’s neighbor in a moment of one’s own distress is hard; the American with any imagination will admit that if he were in the European’s place he, too, would probably think that fortune | was unfair, that the neighbor had prospered more than he deserved. But even those who are lovers of Europe, and especially of France, will wonder ‘why a man so intelligent should care to' publish article here in an American journal. If we are all victims of vast economical and peycho- | logical tendencies, as he indicates, what good will it do to tell us we are going t the wrong way? Or does he think we are naughty children who, if properly scolded, might reform? Or can it be that he wishes to irritate us to the point where we shall éxpress our own eriticisms of Europe? For, of course, the fact that the United States exists at all is to some extent a criticism of Europe. ‘When we go back to the old country on our vacations we Americans express readily our delight in the beautiful things which Europe has and which we have not. And certain aspects of Euro- pean life we enjoy for some particular flavor or charm. even though we have them here at home and in & more per- fected state, Our Delight Sincere. M. Caillaux Our delight in the old country is sin- | eere, but it is sometimes misinterpreted. Our European friends perhaps get the impression that because of our affection for this land we think little of our own. Certainly they often speak to us as though they pitied our enforced sojourn in a savage country and would be very glad at any time to exchange what each has a little too much of—some of their culture for some of our gold. They are naive enough not to consider this con- trast insulting. I doubt if the Ameri- can is less sensitive than other human beings. Perhaps he deserves some praise for suppressing his inevitable resent- ment of the condescension of the Euro- gean——- condescension which is possi- le, he knows, only because the Euro- n refuses to remember history and for the most part is dismally ignorant of what is going on in America. ‘The history which the European for- geta is simply this: That America is iposed of people who found European civilization unsatisfactory. Some few after trying the new country have pre- ferred to return, but this minority has ‘been negligible. Most of us are glad our parents or ancestors brought the family over, and we are not surprised that Europeans, in spite of their criticisms, still wish to leave and come to us in | such numbers that we are sometimes considered cruel” for setting limits to their migration. Speaks for One Class. Of course, those who wish to come #re not the people who write the eriti- cisms of us. If M. Caillaux wished to | be quite fair he should explain that he speaks for the class who have managed to stay on top and to skim the cream of European clvilization. Those who migrated to the United States are the poor, the workers, who have not been ‘well treated by the class for whom M. Calllaux speaks. M. Caillaux’s article is & warning to them that they are going the wrong way; that they should stay in Europe and remain restricted in their | ' ambition, undereducated, underpaid and overworked. They will probably con- | tinue tq leave Europe, where. the bene- | fits of civilization have largely been denied them, ‘The lovely things which the tourist admired in the Old World were for the i rich and well born. Any working man | with a keen mind would ask himself why he, too, should not have educa- [ tion, a home with some comfort and sanitation, a share in the enjoyment of | arts, facilities within reason for travel | and sightseeing. Those who asked these questions have come, and still wish to come, to a land where a work- 4rrg man can have these things. But M. Caillaux thinks this is all very wrong. However excellent these privi- leges were for the rich and the well |born in Europe, he thinks they will | have distressing effects upon the work- men in our country, and by contagion |upon the workmen in other lands. In other words, prosperity for the work- jmen of the United States will, in M. Caillaux's opinion, drag. down civiliza- | tlos Caillaux Argument, M. Caillaux’s argument is as follow: | The modern world, under the leader- ’lhI{) of the United States, wants mate- prosperity. To achieve Te: rial it; T hi this result the world must produce. In order to produce America has developed organi- sation. Organization, according to M. ICllllluX. is equivalent to Taylorization. | Therefore, says M. Calllaux ethe lifé ot | the workman is unbearably monotonous, and shortly the working classes and the | others dragged down by them are to be | | “engulfed in the general sloth and f§gnorance.” |- Certainly there is monotony in some | phases of organized production. Some ‘tasks in modern manufacturing are | soul deadening. It is & duty of Ameri- can civilization to remove these mo- ! motonies. But if Mr. Caillaux thinks that | what he calls Taylorization character- | 4zes the life of the American workman | he simply knows too little about the ! eountry to pretend to judge us. ™ In the country as a whole, the rural districts as well as the cities, we have # class of carpenters, masons, plumbers and other craftsmen who not only are | far more prosperous_in material ways | than they possibly could be in Europe, but who also enjoy a level of education and culture which nurug:‘me:l l‘p'rle- led lve them, nor e dividuals there have said now—men and Europe as a whole has lacked faith in civilization; it has never be- that our land is only the logical de- velopment of , certain things in the European past. I have referred to the reasons for the migrations in our direc- tion. If we have developed qur natural resources by scientific means—and this, to M. Caillaux, is a grave error on our part—at least the scientific discoveries on which our progress has been based were, many of them, made¢ in Europe. The 'American temperament will never understand why Europe. instead of America, did not carry Europe to its logical conclusion—still less, why Eu- rope should be annoyed at us for finish- ing what Europe began. Time and again, in more matters than the Pan- ama Capal, it has been the fate of the | United States to complete what Europe | thought of and left either half done | or bungled. It does not seem to us | good sportsmanship to blame us for doing what the Old World would have done if it could, or if it had had the courage. Examples Are Many. ‘The examples are many. In the last 100 years there has been no greater benefactor of mankind, perhaps, than Pasteur. That is, he is a benefaetor in 50 far as his discoveries are put to use. In the United States I can buy Pasteurized milk very easily for my chil- dren. In Paris it is hard to find it, unless I buy it from an American agency. Europe is dubious about our | skyscrapers in New York, yet in Paris | the Eiffel Tower stands, and a monu- | ment is erécted to M. Eiffel for his | engineering achievement. Somehow this achievement seems better in the eyes of Europs because it is not put to general use, as are our tall buildings. No scientific discovery in recent years | has been much more brilliant than that | of radium by Mme. Curie. Almost any first rate hospital in the United States has more radium to work with than all the hospitals of France put together. | The radlum with which Mme. Curie now works, inadequate though it is for her needs, was contributed as the gift of American admirers. To say that America is richer than Furope is, I_think, merely to obscure the issue. Since the war Europe is badly handicapped, but the differences which I am noticing were true before the war. The sums of money involved in all these matters are not prodigious, yet if they seem so to the European, we Americans feel that the eivilization which M. Caillaux thinks deplorably materialistic cannot be so very bad if it has had for a long time the habit of giving prodigally to education, to sclence, to the arts, not only in our own land, but in Europe. If M. Caillaux were willing to admit | Europe, even before the war, had ceased to perpetuate its own civilization, that its wealthy men failed to pay back what they owed to the community as a whole, that its privileged classes withheld some of their privileges from the working classes which supported them, and that this .selfish behavior on the part of those Europeans who ought to have had greater vision' has produced on one side of them a nation of workers who have succeeded in getting access io the the other side, Russia, exploding in the effort to get those same graces and comforts. Europe and Education. Europe has never had the courage to undertake popular education. Indi- viduals have pleaded for it, but the in- tention behind the educational systems of Europe, except now in Russia, has been to keep the fortunate man in bis fortunate position in soclety, and to | keep the workman in his place. With this intention embedded in the Euro- pean temperament, sclence in a prac- tical form has been and will renwmin | unwelcome, because science, if applied, would immediately better the lot of the worker, reduce his hours and supply him with leisure. o ‘The European fights off this dreadful catastrophe, as M. Calllaux does, by asking what good leisure will do to & working man. Won't he fall a prey to that dreadful thing, the cinema, or won't he waste his time in a motor car? Of course, the American feels that the motive behind such questions, even if 1t is unconscious, is childishly clear. To us it seems no more dangerous for a workman to own a motor car than for M. Caillaux to own one. Perhaps M. Caillaux goes to a theater instead of to the cinema. The workman would be glad to do the same thing if he could afford it. In the meantime, he crowds the cinema. I don't think he has'a wide range of choice. As far as I nave observed him, he works prodigiously hard and receives in return wages too small to provide any margin for intel- lectual or spirifual comforts. Question of Monetony. The American is ready to admit, as I said, that in our organication for pro- duction there are certain monotonous tasks, That monotony will sooner or later be removed by other mechanical inventions or by better organization. The European workman has been taught to dread the introduction of machines. Those who wish to keep him down have whispered to him that with every machine there is likely to be less (Continued From Third Page.) on me by these working women, young and old. If as a matter of fact I came home with my shoulders black and blue from their hugs (and they are supposed to be the least expressive of people!) I really value those bruises and trust that I shall remember, long after they have vanished, the immense obligation that rests on any one who claims to r:gre- sent a body of women—of whofn there are millions in the country—whose lot is still, in our enlightened twentieth century, almost inhumanly hLard. Hardships Are Terrible. For these Lancashire women, on whose work the comfort and often the mainténance of the home depends, are (the vast proportion of them) either unemployed or underemployed today, and have been underemployed for last fous and a half years. The luckier ones among them are on “short time” —working two looms instead of four. They are proud and self-respecting to a fault; they spend hours in keeping their doorsteps scrubped and their poor homes clean, in one of the smuttiest towns, in Northern England, though heaven knows how they manage to pur- chase their cleaning material. The The- life of the working woman who is also the mother of children is a joyless thing, even when she is lucky enough to be brin home full wages, and now their faces, old before their time, all the facts he might confess that| comforts and the graces of life, and on | Better Half of Britain the | of the new woman voter helped that. hardships in those homes are terrible. | employment. This fear has some | ground, of course, in a country which much of Europe, unfortunately, is given | over to unproductive work. Bad as the monotony in the American factory may sometimes be, it.is vet a sacrifice in the | interests of a stupendous production of wealih, In which the workman shares. | What can be said for even greater mo- ‘fiutn,ny which is absolutely unproduc- ve? | . Much as I love M. Caillaux’s country, I know no land where one more fre- | Quently sees monotonous labor of this | sort. During the last Winter I have | watched the men at the gates of Paris | who ask every taxi entering or leaving il‘hn then give the driver a ticket regis- tering the amount so that a tax can be collected on the surplus when he comes back. It is the least practical way man could imagine to collect a tax on gaso- line. Of course, nobody ever has the wrong amount when hs comes back, and the man who hands you out the ticket and the man who asks for it again both kncw the operation is futile. ‘Will Get State Pension. ‘When these men have gone through these motions a sufficient number of years they will receive a pension from the state. So with the other petty officials at the other octroi stations in the land, whose days and nights are | given supposedly to the ecollecting of | revenue, but in effect to the slowing up | of traffic and the interruption of cir- culation. Our own way of handling the matter may not be ideal, but we | collect a tax on each gallon of gasoline sold. The tax is y collected, and | we avold the army of unproductive officials. Or my readers may remember the exasperating cgremonies you must go | through to get'into a French theater. | I say nothing about the endless and | futile clerical work over which a | French business employe spends his monotonous hours and ruins his eye- sight. But such a process as buying a theater ticket involves at least four people at the box office, and sometimes six. You buy a plece of paper ad- mitting you to the region of the house | you wish to sit in, and you then take | the paper to three able-bodied men in | a row behind a high desk, who by | their joint efforts assign you to a par- | ticular seat. All three men are, from | the American point of view. useless, | and worse than that, since their un- productive activities make a dreadful | congestion in the corridor. A machine can print the precise number of the seat on each ticket—but if our methods were followed I suppose some real work would have to be found for the three men, and Europe shudders at the problem. While I was in France last vear I had the privilege of visiting, with other tourists, a famous castle, long associated with American memories. ‘The present owner, a man of the beau- tiful culture which M. Caillaux admires, had restored it. It is perhaps unkind of me to insert the fact that the restoration was made possible by American money which came into the family through marriage. So far as the historical aspects of the castle are concerned, the restoration is superb. The past of the bullding in which the owner and his family live when they visit the estate is the last word in re- finement and comfort. The Kkitchen, however, which supplies the owner and | his guests, is still where it was hun- | dreds of years ago, under und, and nearly 100 yards from the dining room Retinue Enormous. ‘The retinue of servants is necessarily enormous. Some able-bodied humen being has to travel 100 yards and up several flights of stairs to bring a boiled egg to the table. We Americans | would feel it none of our business to | criticize these arrapngements, if M. Caillaux were not hard on us for having brought ti kitchen' above ground. and for having made menial tasks less menial. That is what our civilization stands for. And most of us | would rather take our chance with it than with the European civilization which can enjoy a meal produced by so much unnecessary drudgery. Meanwhile, M. Caillaux's fears for our cultural future are somewhat diminished in mv mind by the fact that the artists, the writers, the musi- cians in his country and in other parts of Europe eventually find their best and most profitable audience in the United States. The leisure and the economic free- dom which our civilization is produc- ing 15 turned to account in just those directions which leisure and economic freedom have always sought, since human nature is not radically dif- ferent in the two continents—as soon as man has time and sufficient wealth he will try to satisfy the baffled hun- rs of his soul and reach for the auty and the satisfactions which have hitherto been denied him. If M. Caillaux replies that I am an optimist, that I have too much faith in man, I reply: not too mach for America. And I add that unless Europe can acquire faith in man, its civilizat! perish. | jon will certainly, as he fears, and there they asked guestions mainly sbout pensions, unemployment insur- ance ana the abolition of war. Lan- cashire they also asked about the fac- tories act (promised but not introduced by the Torfes) and the 48-hour week (Washington ~ Convention), another broken pledge. Concerned About Children. Tn so far as they expressed a general point of view, it was one of deep con- cern about the future of their children. They are inordinately patient, these women; they don't expect much for themseives, but they do want scmething better for their children. “Safety first” did not seem to hold that; the Labor party’s mcm Every cne now agrees, re Was more argu ment and less hot air in the 1920 elec- tion than at any previous one. It may be that uncertainty as to the meniality | | Certainly my own experience is that the woman voter was weighing things up g_retty seriously and expected to_be eated as an intelligent being. The other point on which every one agrees is that the apathy that the papcrs went on ‘talking about up to the very iast never existed. The election was quiet, but tense. An average poll over the whole country, including the most scat- itural districts, of 79 per cent does not connote apathy. (In Blackburn we had & poll of 87.9 per cent.) As & matter of fact, of course, much of the present-day talk about women in general would be saved once firmly fixed as & fact that thing as & “Wmn or S5 g = 4 & 2 HE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, |1s not sufficiently productive, and too |- how much gas there is in the tank, and |. D. C, JULY 14, i PORTRAIT OF AMBROSE BIERCE. | (Drawn for The Sunday Star by J. Scott Williams.) to the offcs or shop in neat shoes anti| art silk stockings, but the home in which they have grown up colors their outlook, and all the new modern stimu- lants to envy and dissatisfaction sup-| plied by the cinema and the wireless | disineline them to take kindly to any such policy as “safety first.” ~ If they could have put in one sentence what | they wanted in May, and what there | was at least an off chance that politics might give them, it would have been, “A ehange.” Let not this point be forgotten, éither. | For many years now, women have been | the hardest workers in the political parties, and above alil in the party which has to rely entirely on voluntary serv- ice—namely, Labor. The very fact that we could not afford to pay our workers (even less now than before, owing to | the operation of the trade disputes act in cuttf off supplies of trade union money) has really been & source of strength, since Labor could give its members plenty to do, and there is noth- like working for a cause to keep you steady in belief in it. ‘Women the Backbone. Among these unpaid workers, women have been the backbone. One could | cite constituency after constituency il which, between elections, the women's section has kept things going. has pro- vided funds by organizing sales of work, and kept up enthusiasm by organizing Jectures and canvassing classes—all on a voluntary basis. To those who knew these women and what they have been doing, the increased woman's vote was a source of reasoned hopefulness, so far as the success of the party at the polls went. So, if In tice the Labor party actually troubled itself less than did either of the others to make separate and special appeals to women, as wo en; if it held fewer meetings “for women only,” the reason was twofold. Partly the co-operation of women had been enlisted long ago. The vast ma- jority of trade unions admit women on exactly the same termys as men: there are two women on the general council of the Trade Union Congress, and a woman (Margaret Bondfield) has been chairman of that council. The Labor party reserves four executive places for women, and & woman (Susan Law- rence), will be chairman of the party in 1930. Every local Labor party has its women's section; every one of them has women among its most active workers, What Labor Relied On. This is part of the answer. But the other part is more significant. Labor relied on the attraction, to women, of its general national program. It be- Yjeved that the issues that matter to women are those that matter to men, thiit the appeal Labor has been making more and more strongly to the workers ever since the war would carry woman voter as it was carrying the man. Above all, the young voter. And in this, Lavor was proved right. The program | of hopeful action did carry the younger | voter, who was repelled by “Safety.; First. There is, therefore, little of accident in the fact that of the 14 women who will take their seats in the new House of Commons, no fewer than nine belong to the Labor party, which returned all but two of the new woman M. Ps! These new nine have all been de- seribed by the Manchester Guardian, which is not given to idle bouquet thro , a8 “exceptionally able” in their different’ ways. Nevertheless, I do not imagine that any one of them would dissent from the view that it was the program and record of the Labor party, whose standard bearers they were, to which, in the first instance, their elec- tion was due. By its record I do not merely mean that it has been, as a mxy the firmest and most faithful friend of sex equality. x"?«""fi;‘" .ll't'l' llior “h& to_be, political gra 5 o of Labor's record was wider who is not proud of her. Her colleagues in the House are different enough, indi- vidually, both in their backgrounds and their experiences: but, like her, they are ail Socialists, and committed both by conviction and temperament to foreing human values and the raising of the average standard of life right to the front, and keeping it there. ‘To do this is their first responsibility. The picture papers may choose to tell their readers more about what these women wear than about what they do; but their own view, without exception, is that they are there to work; to im pmv?, the unnlv:n‘n ]huusekeepml and care for all, not only for some, children. & ot Nitrogen Controls Ripening of Fruit A report from the Low Temperature Research Station in Cambridge, Eng- land,” which recently appeared in Na- ture, London, gives some valuable in- formation on fruit preservation. It was announeed some time ago that fruit could be kept over long periods by placing it in sealed vessels containing nitrogen after all the oxygen and car- (bon dioxide had been removed. Now the authors of the article referred to have made an additional contribution ‘To quote the authors, Franklin Kidd and Cyril West: “We have in this way kept in a hard, green condition for sev- eral months varieties of pears which in air at ordinary room or shed tempera- tures softened and decayed within a week or two. The appearance of the fruit on removal after several months’ storage in nitrogen was remarkable, be- ing identical with that shown by the fruit when placed in the sealed con- tainer. The pears, moreover, were edi- ble and free from objectionable flavor; nevertheless, they proved disappointing | Pag€ because they failed to yellow, ripen and develop juiciness and the typical pear flavor.” This, it should be sald, was in extreme cases of oxygen deprivation. It has been found that by controlling the oxygen content ripening can | slowed up as desired and not prevented altogether. A positive control on ripen- ing period would be of immeasurable commercial value. Claims Electric Gardens Have Proved Lucrative Electrical gardening has proved to be a practical and economically prof- itable occupation in Sweden. Although the present Winter has been one of the hardest in history, such garden products as “home- raspberries,” cucumbers and the most delicate of garden flowers have been available at all times. In the gardens near Hamlingby, a small town north of Stockholm, 10,000 tulips, 1,500 lilies of the valley and 1,500 hyacinths were raised during January, all in ind electrically heated and under ar- tificial light of electric lamps. The operating expense of the eléctrical sys- tem was found to be negli . The B eting “vavons Types of D n suj various with particular variety of t which they require, the lamps suitable | i i i ; : . g% i; I i I B i i g il i beess g i 4 | i z | é { 1929—-PART 2. Highlights of Theodore Roosevelt’s Boyhood and Youth as Found in His Diaries—-More Travel, Some New Biographies and Breezy Fiction for Hot Days.+ IDA GILBERT MYERS. Adolphe de Castro, New York: B, 'x'r\e Century Co. E used to see Ambrose Bierce now and then in Washing- ton. Handsome, impressive, much of mystery about him; not so young—but unforget- table. Then we came upon his writings. One or two of his books passed straight from his own hands into ours—into | | to be snuffed out. mine. More of his books to be read; most_certainly after that meeting with the first one. Then more and more of the stories coming to settlé the opinion, and then the conviction that here was s great satirical writer—as bitter 8s| | | Bwift, driven as hard as Swift was driven by some vitriolic essence of the soul itself, Then Bierce went away. Anti after & while stories came back of strange adventurings on the part of this driven man, of a tragic fate over- taking him to the south of us. ‘Here is adolphe de Castro with the full story of Ambrose Bierce, that out- standing writet of California when the State was as rich in literary" talent as it was in gold dust and nuggets. De Castro was the disciple of Bierce. He pattern. He still loves him. It was by virtue of this devotion that he set out to tell his storv, to solve the mystery of his death, or of whatever had be- fallen him. This is the story. It is the saga of California when poets and every degree wrote the current history of the Golden State in a blazonry of clear genius itself. And high among these stood Ambrose Bierce. In com- full nafure of Bierce as he in his true intimacy with the man saw it. The savage nature under a sense of injustice, the complete honesty of attitude and behavior, the vanity that every man possesses in the measure of his gifts, the warm friendships, the bitter hatreds —these are all here attached to the real i!hl\m of the man's work. Then dolphe de Castro follows the trail into Mexico for the opening up of the mys- tery. No, Blerce is not in some corner of Mexico, hiding away in resentment is dead. And there follows the story from the lips of Villa himself as to the last days of Ambrose Bierce, the last hour of the “viejo borracho,” as Villa calls him. 5 An absorbing story that’ is told in open frankness and at the same time and love. Those who know the high genius of Blerce will read it in deep concern. Those who love him will read it in. sorrow. Those who hate him— belonging only to those who do hate. Fine spirit of investigation is see here. The flair of adventure the writer. The sense of drama leads whom he is paying the high tribute of appreciation for his genius, his honesty, his disappointments—for that strange human complex, Ambrose Bierce, peer among great American writers. * k% % ON MY WAY: Being the Book of Art Young in Text and Picture, Horace ~ Liveright. A BOOK dignified and distinguished in appearance to come upon, quite stately in its black and white garb, with a golden breastplate whose device hints delicately at the later confession of Art Young that 60 years of the “Way” are already ‘behind him. Young clearly, both the book and the man. A most impressive book as such. Once inside it, the same effect holds. Here at every step the Art Young sketches turn mere words into Iife in scene, incident, per- sons, things, in the usual whatnot of every day's common doings. For this is a daily rccount. however, it is not the diary that it pur- ports to be. No matter. It is just as good; better even. A true diary has a tendency to slump in spots, to go to in a pursuit of the dry task. that have taken on the convenient and friendly guise of the chronicle. What an ambling way it is:that one follows here! No set course with defi- nite end in view, no charted way carry- ing a special mission. Just amblin’ along instead, just roamin’ about—pick- ing up a sunset here or maybe a dog there. “I walked to the village today and noted a gentle rise of my spirits as 1 watched' the butterflies careen through the field of goldenrod —some- thing like this in mood marks the busi- ness of getting along here. “In the evening a big cloud shaped like a camel came up beyond the orchard hill"—and there it is, the camel loping across the as if this were the ‘desert of its usual caravaning. “In the afternoon I decided to get sweet corn for dinner. One of the richest moments of my boy- hood was walking through a field of corn, my arm outstretched to cleave aside the long, rustling leaves. The cornflelds and the pumpkins are here this day"—and these he sets in evi- dential sketch upon the page, natural as life to all who recall the golden pumpkins and the standing corn. So the record runs—not all s0 bucolic in tone, however. Here are fresh mem- ories, fresh in sketch and story, of men and women, art and artists, of writers and other works in other fields. Here are country-wide views filling this Jeisurely and rich “Way” in a spirit of happy remembe: for Art Young, and in a manner of clear joy for all who {may be lucky enough to follow along in the ample leisure and in the friendly spirit of this artist whom eve ly knows. * * K % THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S DIARIES OF BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. II- lustrated from photographs and with fa of the author’s drawings and letters. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. years old, setting out for travel pretty grown-up in taking. Sounds much like the young gentleman of the Victorian period who rounded formal schooling by a ‘tour of the Continent.” Yet, despite [ implication of maturity in- duced solely by the circumstance of travel, this is the daily account of a ® | venture. Yet—the loved the man; took him for his pen | romancers and adventurers and men of | | plete fairness this writer defines the | toward his own land. Ambrose Blerce | is given in the spirit of great devononj their feelings in reading it are a secret | him. The power to picture directs him | in this story of the unhappy man to| { Strictly speaking, | lleeg Nothing like that in these recoliections | T|to the even fairly plausible. There is a life of the great American this record is priceless. As company for other boys it is less the boy than one ex- pected to find. ok kK SIXTY SECONDS. By Maxwell Bod- enheim, author of “Georgie May,” etc. New York: Horace Liveright. A MINUTE and a lifetime all in one. The iast minute so illuminating and Inclusive as to seize the full drama of one man's existence. The man is John Musselman. In 60 seconds he is Condemned to that certain and sudden taking off, you see. | A flash of time, but it is enough for boyhood to appear in it, and youth with its passions and its dreams of adventure and glory and love—every boy's dreams. | And here, not hurrying, or not seeming to hurry, is spread in blinding light the second of disillusionment in which the untruth of love appears, and the treacheries of friendship and the will-o'- the-wisp qf high emprise, and the bitter futility n? youth's visions. And the women—they who s0 bedevil youth, all unconsciously to be sure, as they quest ravening among the various foods of ex- istence—the women dance to and fro within this last 60 seconds, the prime force in the life of John Musselman that worked for mistrust of the human, for the grimly bitter cast of. the succeeding years. Just a review, you see. Original, indeed, as the theme and motif of a novel. ‘To make it register upon the reader in its full content of dramatic | tension and deep-searching effect only one additional element is required— Maxwell Bodenheim, or another of equal power in the seizure of the ironic qual- ity of every man’s life. Gruesome—but true and tremendously impressive. R THE LIFE OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI. By John Adding- | ton Symonds. New York: The Mod- ern Library. H!BE is the story of the great Flor- entine artist, born in 1474. At his birth the planets were propitious— “Mercury and Venus having entered with benign aspect into the house of Jupiter, which indicated that mar- Velous and extraordinary works, both of | manual art and intellect, were to be | expected from him.” | **B5 far, John Addington Symond's life | of Michelangelo stands at the top of ail literary endeavor in behalf of the sur- passing Florentine. The most complete, the most intelligently apprehended, the most convincingly a part of his own time and place, and yet at the same time the most universally interpreted for the advantage of every time and place—such are the qualities that set this “Life” permanently in the favor of critical readers. Here is another of the many oppor- tunities offered by the Modern Library to come upon the best in literature by way of publications that are available to 1. ‘Well made, attractively projected, priced within the reach of every one, these books are 4 literal treasure house to readers. | * % % % TUNE IN THE TREES. By Nelia Gardner White, author of “David Strange.” Philadeiphia: The Penn Publishing Co. HE story of Cinderella brought up to date. The little drudge is Kathe- e Durney, servant to Mrs. Binderly. | her own person sums to the whole abusive tribe that oppressed the original of this old, old tale. However, times have changed and this modern Cinderella owns a spirit that cannot be quite so meek and submissive as that which dwelt in the meager 1ittle body of her forebear of the older adventure. And so, despite work and no play, de- spite shabby clothes and never a holi- dav. this slip of a girl went about mak- ing friends and finding for herself more than one hour of happiness and joy. Everybody liked her, everybody but Mrs. Binderly—and she liked not even her- | self. Besices, the girl had made a little singing tune out of the common things | around. Out of the tall trees hobnob- bing together high up in the air, out of the play of sunshine and shade upon the grass beneath them, out of the me- lodlous things that birds have to say to one another, out of the tremendous secret, colloguin’ of small animals bent upon their partitular business of being alive. And then—as the vears crawled along there was a boy who gradually became & young man. And that is the end of the story—almost the end. The very end has to do with a cottage. all built and furnished to which one Win- ter night he drove this new Cinderella. And there was a light in the window of about the coziest place that can be fmagined. And that is really the end of the story. Simple, believable, compan jonable, hopeful, engaging—so the “Tune in the Trees” is bound to sing especially to young readers. * K % % THE -DAGGER. By Anthony Wnne, author of “Sinners Go Secretly,” etc. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. NTHONY WYNNE is a London doc- tor. Basides. he writes medical books of technical and practical im- portance to students of the art of heal- ing. to practitioners in the art also. A busy man. one would say. And so he is. In the pursuit of his profession he has as matter of ecourse come upon a deep and intimate knowledge of the emotional life of the human. upon the areas of secret feeling and desire and action which every man holds deep within himself. A fund of true psy- chology is part of the professional stock in trade of this London physician. A story teller. probaby bv native bent, he has fallen into the habit of writing the mystery tale, drawing for ifs funda. mentals upon his own store of observa- tion and ce. Half a dozen stories of this brand already stand to his ac- count. By way of these he has created Dr. Hailey. who 5 the Sherlock Holmes, the Philo Vance of his particu- lar_inventions. “The Dagger” is first and foremost of psychological substance. A most unlikely criminal emerges as the climax of a series of crimes of excep- tional brutality, of exceptional mystery. ‘The whole exciting round of outrage =oes back to certain conditions of child- hood. and birth, out of which from in- numerable suopressions and conceal- ments step the deep hatred and the rin {who in this series of murders rests. The wri states of mind inducing it, ton readv to resort te the sensational rather than shade of such overloading in this ad. | THE CHINA VENTURE: A Novel slowly developed cunning upon which |- Jacob Wassermann. Bos- ton: Liftle, Brown & Co. THE BOOK OF MONELIE. By'Marcel Schwob. Translated by Willlam Brown Meloney, V. With a preface by John Erskine and an intraduction by the translaf Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. THE HEAVEN AND EARTH OF DONNA,ELENA. By Grace Zaring Stone. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. SARAH ORNE . By Prancis Otto Matthiessen. Illustrated. Bos- ton: Houghton. Mifiin Co. SCRAPPED; A Navel of Post-War Ger- many. By Meta Schoepp. Adapted and translated by ise Tausig. New York: Covic-Frisde. FUGITIVE LOVE. By Neglcy Parson, author of “Daphne(s in L~"«.” New York: The Century Co. A YOUNG_PEOPLE. By Hans E. Kinck. Translated from the Nor- wegian_by Barent Ten Eyck. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.. Inc. ARMOR WHEREIN HE TRUSTED: A Novel and Some Stories: By Mary Webb. With an introduction by Martha Armstrong. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. LURE OF THE DUST; A Comedy of Rhodesia and the BSouth Atlantic. By Harding Forrester. New York: The Century Co. PILLORIED. By Sewell Stokes. Ilus- trated by Gabriel Atkin, New York: D. Appleton & Co. MR. BILLINGHAM, THE MARQUIS AND MADELON. By E. Philfips Boston: Little, Brown By Dorothy Graham. New York: Pred- erick A. Stokes & Co. THE PEEP SHOW. By Alice Dudeney, sythor of “Seed Pods.” etc. New : G. P. Putnam’s Sons. THE CLINIC. B{ Maurioe De- ;obm, Transiated from Flammes e & Co. Velgurs by F. M. Atkinson, New Yo A&m & Clarke, Ltd. New Yorky D. Appi By THE _SECRET® OF MUSTERTON HOUSE. By'George Granby. New York: E. P. Du¢ton & Co., Inc. IMAGES IN JADEY Translations From Classical and Modern Chinese Postry. Bv_Arthur Christy. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. THE YOUNG LO . By H. O Bailey, author of “Mr. Fortune’s Trials,” etc. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. THE EDUCATION OF THE MODERN GIRL. By Eight Educators Con- nected With Schools and Colleges for Girls. Introduction by William Allan Neflson. Ph.D., LLD., L. . D, president of Smith College. Boston: Houghton Miffiin Co. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY Recent accessi: at the Publie Li- brary and lists of recommended read- ing will appear in this column each Sunday. Essays. Anderson. Sherwood. Hello Towns! 1277h. Biographer. Y-B721h . C. 8. Journeys to Bagdad. 1 20. Y-B793j. esterton. G. K. Generally Speaking. Y-C423g. Cofer, D. 5 ed. Nineteenth Century Essays from Coleridge to Pater. Y-9C654. Hanes, Ernest, and McCoy, M. J. Man- ual to Readings in Contemporary Literature. Y-9H193cm. Le Gallienne, Richard. Prose Fancles, 1896. Y-LS23pr. ’ Lindsay, N. V. The Litany of Wash- ington Street. Y-L6441. Ward, B. E, ed. Essays of Our Day. Y-9W2le, 5 Moving Pictures. Betts, Ernest. Heraclitus; or. The Fu- ture of Films. VUW-B469. Cameron, J.‘R Talking Movies. 1927, -C143. Cinema Schools, Incorporated. Manual; ng o Motion Picture Junior_Scenarios VUW-EaTj. The Motion Picture Almanae, 1829. 'Rds' Does not circulate) VUW- 5MB85. S. Bureau of Navigation (Navy De- partment). Instructions for the Handling and Care of Motion Pic- ture Film and Projectors. WRN- Un3o0. Travel. Gedye, G. E. R. A Wayfarer in Aus- | “tria. G56-G26. ‘flurflgé ©O. M. French France. G39- H The Key to London, Great Britain and Ireland: a Monthly Magazine. GASL-K52. Laughlin, C. E. Where Tt All Comes True in Italy and Switzerland. G35- 1364w Macdonald, John. Memoirs of an Eighteenth-Century Footman. 1827, G45-M146. Park, Mungo. Travels. 1927. (Every- man’s Library.) G70-P215a. Phillips. U. B. Life and Labor in the Old South. GB86-P54. Powell, E. A. The Last Home of Mys- tery. G6913-P87. Finance. Barron's: the National Mnancial Weekly. Investing for & Business Man. HR-B276i. Chew, Oswald, ed. The Btroke of Moment: a Discussion of the eien Debts. HT-C42s. Cole, G. W. Successful Speculation. HKS-C67. Financial Publishing Co. Short-Time Bond Values Tables. HED-F4%%. Lewis, Cleona. The International Ac- counts. HT-L58i Pl‘ohegsojl E. M. U. the For- Tests of a Fore! ong R Ty ment ther will say that he had develoved sn abnorm: e e business! I BOOKS 'RECEIVED I CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SCULPTURE. Issued for the exm.btl; Rents the New and Popular Books At a Mere Fraction of their Sale Price modern works of famous writers the selections of the ‘book clubs be rented from Womiath’s for & ufl?l-pu if new and popular. l-%‘ whea WOMRATH'S %8t 1519 ¥ Btreet. *’ 1tk W, in ww. You can start