Evening Star Newspaper, September 15, 1929, Page 44

President Carmona of Portugal Has Brought Peace and Unity | to Long-Troubled Nation—Has Built No Par- BY WILLIAM LEON SMYSER. EN. ANTONIO OSCAR DE FRAGOSA CARMONA, President of Portugal, is the least known dictator in Eu- rope. Slight of stature, reti- cent, suave and silent, he seizes every rtunity of retiring behind the army which he represents. Among his fellow officers, who have studied his military treatises in the war college and worked under him at the cavalry school, he enjoys a rare prestige. Some even speak of him with real affection. They remember a certain occasion when, as chief of the 4th Army Division, he arose at 3 in the morning to sign the imme- diate release of a group of imprisoned colleagues whom a court-martial had just acquitted of treason. Outside the army, among the people, Gen. Carmona is neither loved nor hated, simply because no contact exists between him and them. He has built up no great popular creed, like fascismo or communism. He has never made a speech from a balcony. He has never given his proclamations a personal ring. In & government as arbitrary as that of the Pretorian Guard over imperial Rome, he represents the military man turned statesman, the technician learn- ing a new technique, the guardian of an army's honor attempting to restore that of his shaken country. The general, in his very first state- ment, showed how widely his dictator- &hip was going to differ from all the others flourishing on the continent. A series of successful revolutions and the dissolution of a military triumvirate had brought him to the supreme com- mand. The army controlied the coun- try. Parliament had been dissolved. Certain persons were in exile. Strict censorship closed every organ of ex- pression. When, now, he called to- gether the representatives of the press, those assembled came rather fearfully. Palace and Terraced Walls. At Belem one enters the dictator's palace between terraced walls, Spaced sentry boxes stand before, while behind, in the court, a rank of uniformed men 15 always at attention. From a deep por- tico, broad stairs lead up directly into a most imposing audience chamber, where thé ceiling liits away from one like the | scoundrels ready to be armed and sent interior of a mansard and, in its center, is nearly twice as high as the already lofty walls, Massive, these are, and bullt of squared gray stone. Against them hang the great black tapestries in each of which, likke some rare, exotic ‘blossom bursting out of a tropical night, glows the golden orange crest of Por- tugal. The ensemble forms the in- evitable setting for a pronunciamento. The awed representatives of the ‘were surprised at the serene affability with which they were received. If, as & general, the dictator wore a uniform on this occasion, it was not flamboyant or overbearing. He made no effort to dominate his guests. Instead of orating and posturing as a leader exhorting his people to new heights of nationalism, he spoke simply, as one man to another, merely outlining the fait accompli which they already r strangely enough, mentioning other men who were associated with him in the new enterprise of government far more often than he mentioned himself. He concluded: “Gentlemen, Portugal at this moment a 'gnder a dictatorship without a dic- Uma dictadura sem ditador is the secret of the Carmona regime. ‘The general has a knack of doing things and keeping out of the way. It is absolutely in keeping with his char- acter to have launched a witticism about his cautious regime. When I first heard the story in Portuguese Guiana, I did not know the man sufficiently to under- stand this fact and insisted that the young secretary who related it give me his word of honor as to its authen- ticity; yet at another time, months after the coup d'etat, I found during a conversation with the general that his own attitude toward his position amply bore out his earlier words: “I was at Evora. They came and told me that there had been a revolution and that there was need of me. I went at once to Lisbon and formed with Gen. Gomez de Costa and Commandante Mendes Cabacadas a new government. I was a soldier. The army had been my unique inter Indeed, I am here be- cause the army had to take control of the counts I stand for the army, that is all’ Phrase Becomes Classic. ‘The phrase uma dictadura sem dita- dor has become a classic throughout the Iberian Peninsula. It expresses so per- fectly the peculiar atmosphere which President Carmona has created about his office. It explains so well why po- litical assassination, which until his ad- vent in 1926 had been the universal re- ward of Portuguese statesmen for a generation, has not been invoked. . It represents so fully a system which is consolidated to go on in spite of bullets and bombs, a system based first upon unity within the army and then upon unity within.the nation, first upon & coherent and conservative program and then uron realization and solvency. But it expresses best of all the man ‘armona. modesty and other non-military virtues of this officer. With his quiet wit and tactfulness he has held together the most turbulent army outside the Bal- kans, and imposed upon a people more individualistic than the Irish a regime of benevolent but absolute despotism. From the first, President Carmona has done everything that he could do to make his play upon words appear the expression of a fact. Never has & dictator so labored to sweeten the bitter ill of autocracy. With astuteness he as surrounded himself with dominant figures, Every member of his cabinet he has exalted as if the man represented parliamentary choice and a constitu- ency. And he himself has kept behind. The self-effacement which one reads in President Carmona's public actions is legible also in his face and carriage. Although well proportioned, he appears almost fragile. He is inclined to stoo] . slightly forward, with a polished defer- ence which is misleading. One must not. mistake this for timidity, or inter- ret the pauses in his conversation for gulutlm He frequently stops in order to select exactly the phrase which best conveys his meaning. Exactitude and & sharpness of definition mark his every sture. The fineness of his face and ands has been carried nearly to deli- cacy, yet in their lines there is the char- acteristic element of decision. Face of a Strategist. The face is that of a strategist. Small, pinched and shrewd, it is so modeled as to accentuate by prominent cheek bones and dark brows the deep well of the eyes. Here the spirit has its being. It is a confession of the thing imperious, & power of calculation ng. of lg:gfl whluc‘t‘l do not enter into ura Sem ‘wh!mllmmww. the brows are those of & humorist, one who might launch a clever B it o o ot tache, tz.b-m::bdued. Like the eyes, it betrays haracter. 3 Ifls the complexity of this character, ht in the sharp, sagaci 1‘,!‘1:‘ swagger cavalry mustache and affected reticence of speech, which fits Gen. Carmona for his task. There can be no doubt that in the present state of affairs in Portugal the general has adopted the only policy cals press | ized and, ! ious ‘llflg& a) ticular Creed. tained no_politicians more infamous than the Portuguese bosses. Democracy became demagogy. Demagogues ruled the country and terrorism soon was the outcome. Presidents were elected and deposed, dictators rose and were as- sassinated, with callous regularity. Se- cret socleties, like the Carbonarios, were maintained. During the war Sidonio Pais, who had assumed absolute power in the name of the army, was shot down in spite of the country's % during his imposing funeral bombs were exploded thr: the city as a warn- ing egainst future dictatorships. When Gen. Carmona came into power his first task was to break the professional politician. “These men,” he explained to me. “formed a little oligarchy within the They were like feudal its decision Portug: to its former estate the army moved pri- marily against them. Type of Cannibal. “In Africa you will find a twe of can- nibal known as the Kassai. Within our ranks we call these white savages of politics after them, ‘Kassais’ of the Tagus instead of the Kongo. In the name of liberty the 'Kassali’ was able |to do anything. ' He filled his own pockets with gold, gave his su| | rich positions in the administrat! | ruined the country.” | Today the “Kassais.” if they exist at {all, lead a hidden life. The secret | police call them the furmigas brancas | or “white ants,” because, like the fa- | mous termites of Angola, they never | come out into the light, but work con- | cealed until the edifice which they are devouring crumbles and falls. Their | | conquest and probable ultimate disap- pearance has been the greatest achieve- | ment of President Carmona’s caress | Far more original danger than the | political parasite is the revoiutionary | | parasite. Portugal in 1920 resembied an | | Itallan city state at the time of the | Renaissance. { _“Revolution,” the President once said, | “had become a career like any other. | There were certain groups in the city who could provide at any time, for a |round sum, any number of resolute T and | | out against any | “Most vi | become to such.an extent an institution | that many civilians, who were so nu- | merous that in the end one had 10 in- | {vent a name for them and call them | the Revolucionarios Civis—Lay Revolu- | | tionaries—joined themselves = to . the | rmed forces . . or pretended to i join themselves to the armed forces TE whenever there was & coup d'etat. These adventurers were un- fortunately recognized by the first re- public, after it had driven out Dom | Manuel II, and they received a more than adequate compensation “‘of their | services.” Since then, of course. there | has always been a vast number of | | Revolucionarios Civis to assert that { ent. symptom of the political illness which | we are trying to cure.” An Intelligent Listener. Gen. Carmona always says ‘“‘we” instead of “I” .He is the one dictator | in Europe who abhors the exploication of his own individuality. ‘When one approaches him he is al- ways an attentive, flattering and intelli- gent listener. yet 'his answers are cumspect. Concise enough whsn de- scribing events or discussing facts, he will at once become silent if the conver- sation approaches some present enter- prise or medern instance in which the government is interested. “That,” is his response, “should be the affair of the minister of such-and- such, and I must refer you to him.” or, “Senhor So-and-So is effecting this reform, and you must address yourself to him and not to me.” This is the modesty of the constitu- tional monarch and not that of the dic- tator. There is something ironic in the insistence with which President Car- mona refuses to wield the big stick. Obviously, the attitude is a certain dr- fense against the all too present threat of assassination, vet he is a brave man, and a higher purpose determines his choice of anonymity. To obtain the unity of the country he had first to ob- tain that of the army, which controlled the country. By invoking his cabinet, by retiring behind any one of the ap- pointees who collaborate with him, and by speaking of “we” upon every OCCA- sion, he stresses an accord. ‘The Portuguese Army is not easy to unify. There are too many high-spir- ited individualists ehllllplng‘ for power and position in & corps where unlim- ited nity is rare. There was a time before Gen. Oarmona's rise to powc‘r ;::en the army was not at all one in purpose. “The movement of the 28th of May was a surprise,” he says reminiscentlv, “because nobody was prepared for con- certed movement from the soldiers. Was it really possible to unite the Army? None of the politicians believed that such & move could succeed. However, union was and is a fact.” In making his statenient, President Carmons overlooks the dissolution of the military triumvirate of which he was one member, and the exiling of numer- ous obstreperous of who later were allowed to return. The President prefers to maintain & strategic silence about such matters, “We have had,” he nevertheless ad- mitted upon &n , “des choses disagreables. There wére per- sons who, having sown the wind, had to reap the tempest. In the precarious state of the nation it was necessary to act swiftly and declsively. There were certain persons in our path. We put them aside.” Even, Placld Voice. Gen. Carmona's voice is never raised. It flows on evenly, placidly, serenely. “When we have had to send & man out of the country for any reason of state,” he continued, “we do not do it been nrlralru lab the quai ;a . soldiery drawn up ane ing arms, so that he em‘am -mhmm'mm honors of the army. ador. Bristling out | on e culated to succeed. Since the assassina- | port tion of Dom Carlos in 1903, the revolus gainst his son and the subsequen it | clently solidified to support the intro- opponent. icious of all,: revolution had | TesPec | mental fact of his honesty. than that of his ordinary military rank. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER port the army in its efforts to establish order. The unity of the corps is rein- foreed.” From the creation of a unified army to the creation of a unified country has been put a step. Without the tremen- dous spiritual aid of some such force as Fascismo, Gen. Carmona and his as- sociates none the less have won over | the majority of the countrv to aeree that their rule is salutary. In a plebis- cite or appeal to the people . . .| the time honored expedient of success- ful coups d'etat since Napoleon I 5 the Carmona regime was sup- at the polls. It has earned the conficence of the people in two ysars. . Gen. Carmona knew that what Portugal most needed was confidence. | Since the expulsion of the monarchy | Portuguese capitalists had not felt se- cure to invest their money within the | country. Deprived of their mpfin, the government and the national declined. Self-seeking politicians com- pleted the debacle. Yearly deficits be- | gan to assume proportions of small war debts. All production, commerce and transportation stagnated. | Reads Hinder Motoring. “The roads were so bad,” President Carmona confided, “that automobiling | was nearly an impossibility and never a pleasure. I remember that about 1926 | I was still stationed at Evora and some | time befors the coup d'etat I rece.ved | an automobile, delivered to me there. I! invited a friend to come for a drive. | We went off together, and in all, al- though we were a long time on the | road. I bellieve that we covered only 30 kilometers. After that I used my car only in the city. I could not trust it to the infelicities of the national roads.” ‘The first necessity for the rebuilding of the roads, the commerce and the basic industries, the first necessity for ihe re-establishment of confidence, was the organization of an efficient militacy. As soon as the army had been suffi- duction of qualified civillans. this pre- liminary expedient was modified. Ex- perts from the life of the nation wer> sought. The outstanding member of the present cabinet—proof again that both Gen. Carmona and his associates are willing to step aside before a man so qualified and devoted as to win their ct—is Oliveira Salazar, the Minis- ter of Finance. He has reorganized the income tax and brought about in on= year the econcmic reforms whish a committee of experts from the League of ‘Nations calculated would take three years in even the most concentrated effort to balance the national budget How is it that Gen. Carmona found such & man when the politicians who had preceded him did not? Salazar had been occupying the chair of eco- nomics at the university all the time, coming down to Lisbon in special inves- tigations, and lecturing. He was the first technician in his fleld. But the politicians were not interested in tech- nicians. Gen. Carmona was. In the tysis, however, it is nathol:ly }ll'is 1o} support of his fellows, self- e(z:i'm!r?tpznd his solid merit which are solidifying the regime. It is the ele- Gen. rmona’s first act upon taking office under the regime of a dictatura sem ditador was to Tefuse any salary e had come to consolidate and not to rob. He himself set the example of a Spartan simplicity. A feeling of secur~ ity swept over the country. Comfortable, Cluttered Rooms. At Cascaes the rooms have ey, comfortable, cluttered afr. A N consclous intimacy pervades the piace. The general is surrounded by his ni merous family. It is & group such as some mid-Victorian author might have imagined for the ideal republican. ‘There is music beyond the wall whish shuts off the long veranda from the town. “Come. It is the fete day of a lochl saint and from the top of the wall we n look down and see their proces- n,” suggests the general. We clamber up an incline solidly constructed of thick masonry, grown over everywhere with ferns and squashy mosses, From & sort of battiement we look down, and there to one side is the beach, with fishing craft drawd up be- yond the tide line, and great bia¢k nets spread out across the sand liké spiders’ webs to dry. A tiny hamlet straggles along behind, while inland, curving in a crescent round with the promontory to the foot of our wall, is the town itself, pink and yellow and blue and white, with its gay population in move- ment and Its cheery holiday sounds borne up to us on the breeze. For fully five minutes the general looks down, silently enjoying the charm of peaceful, happy fun making. Then, as we turn away, his gaze goes out across the Tagus toward the tower where Vasco da Gama set out to reach the Indies, and he sees as if for the first time the little gunboat standing below his balcony. Balcony, house and all are shut in dy the walls on which we stand . . . and the inclosure widens with the promon- tory to include rank upon rank of long, cold barrack buildings. Its occupant, this silent, smiling man who has just entertained his guests with a glimpse of simple rural life, is military dictator of Portugal. Wide Prison Reform by Prussia to Save Criminals (Continued from Third ) uniform prison regime, according to the Prussian reformers, are of no earthly good in the rehabilitation of the morally defunct. Paramount in the coming penal treat- ment of the German prisoner is the content and potential value of his per- nnnmz and character. sxcmngnc the e categories for the &eye 18 trists’ categories is believed/ be bargain. To know whether & felon has an inferiority or a superiority complex, whether he is sensitive or ex- pansive, is more valuable than to know the precise degree of larceny or assault. None Given Up as Lost. The nearest which American penal methods have come to this program of individualization is through the mo board and the indeterminate sentence. The German system will & if not achieve, some of those set forth Dr. Sheldon Harvard University for & rational as to the treatment of pproximate, &umplg royalty. penal PRESIDENT CARMONA T‘ DI (Continued From Third Page.) I\Igfcled to pretend that they do. I shall never forget one such announ | ment that greeted me on a visit to temple aquarium in celebrated Soo- chow. It read: “See these fine fish! In the pond on &umme to preserve the lives of fish of West Garden!” The astonishing fact was that there was not a single fish in the entire pisca- torial retreat, all of them having been removed since by the Kiangsu soi- diers ostensi| placed there_ to prevent others from dolng that very thing! ‘There the early stages of decadence at an ex- capital of China. Looking back through Chinese history, one is reminded that | numerous and glorious though the cap- itals of this former empire have been, today little remains to identify any of them. Nanking, for instance, faded and waned after it had been abandoned by the Mings. Its royal palaces swooned and finally were obliterated altogether by the scourge of the Taiping rebels. Tombd en Purple Hill Only Reminder. And when, after a lapse of six cen- the Kuomintang recently restored ing as the national city, mtmn‘ but an ancient tomb on a purple hill suggested that this straggling oity might have held the throne in another era. Likewise in Soochow, Sianfu_and Hangchow only & few bl of archaic broken masonry testify to the fact that In those places, too, at one time blossomed the Forbidden City. Regarded separately from the general Indifference in Peiping toward expiring Objets d'art, there are many indicatiors that the Ming-Manchu capital is on the th of . ‘Though to the tour- &‘t 1t is still by far the most interesting city in the Orient, the animation that once made it also the most fascinating place to observe Chinese life at its best is no longer there. The vessel still has its old curves of beauty, but its content, its_meaning has been lost. Three things, more important than numerous other conditions which also are_contributing causes, have combined to bring about the beginning of Pe- king'’s line. First—and by far the most_significant, of course—is the re- moval of the capital. Never an indus- trial city, Peking’s prosperity has been due largely to the commerce attracted to it because it was the national seat of government. It is almost 100 miles from the seacoast and it has no water- ways affording communication with the rest of the country. Onoce the Grand Canal was the thoroughfare between it and socth, but this has been allowed to silt up till it no longer is avallable at the ern end. Rallway Connections Ample. Fortunately, Peking has good railway connections; directions. But it has few other indus trisl or commercial advantages—upon its asset as capital alone it always has depended for its pggmmy in trade. The presence of the official departments furnished ample stimulus to business. T aTate, She me¢hinery of Eovern: manipulate, the - ment?;lurehuln' offices bought millions of dollars’ worth of mate; annually. Prior to the revolution in 1911 the wealthy mandarins and Manchu princes maintained large establishments. To rovision the elaborate banquets held their expansive dining halls numbers of servants were employed and pros- perity assured to hundreds of Chinese merchants. Even after the Manchus were expelled and the flnm:ln‘ emperor became an im- tent nonentity, so Pomained at Feking, through all vicissitudes of the républic, there were liticians and militarists to empty their into the local mdllh! and to buy expensive homes and furnishings nns prs:me for households equally as exttavagant as those of the unmm , “must be made | The ? H E EE 5g8d S 5 3 H i 2 =5 8 85 ¢ H E H g5 5 1 'OLER is nothing new in witnessing | CTATOR OF STRATEGY AND ANCE Drawn for The Sunday Star by 8. J. Woolf the Mongols every opportunity to in- crease their trading profits, military disturbances have made it more and more difficult for the Mongols to in the Chinese frontier cities at all Thus it today is possible to buy Mongol furs and wool in Viadivostok cheaper | the distance to the former port from the Mongol trading points is almost twice that to the latter. Where the ‘Chlnm militarists have added heavy | taxes, endangered safety and made of | the Peking-Suiyuan Railway a me- | dium of enormous revenue, the Soviet | Ireight rates almost te cost basis, have given the caravans protection and es- cort and made them special concessions come into the Sino-Mongolian frontier cities, because when they do so (often having to fight off bandits on the way) they usually have to sell their goods at a loss. For although anxious to do business, the Chinese buyers cannot pay fair figures, because they have to calculate the taxes and the railway freight, which together often amount to 50 per cent, and with that in mind purchase in such a manner as to assure them &' reasonable selling profit after lphet have been delivered In In Suiyuan, where the writer recently visited, only hall a dozen Chinese fur buy remain. This Sino-Mongolian city at one time was the richest trading center in the northwest. At the height of the buying season as many as a thousand Chinese and about 25 foreign. ers engaged in trading there, and it was |said that no man was satisfied with |less than a 200 per cent profit. Single Foreign Buyer on Duty. ‘Today a single foreign buyer endures { the hardships of the rigorous northern | climate, and he only because he likes {it. There is no business. He told me that he had not been able to buy a single pelt for more than six months! Thus this rich Mongol traffic, which used to pour into Peking, the “city of fabled riches,” has ceased and the ex- capital has lost its second most impor- tant source of commerce. Generally impoverished conditions all through the northwest provinces are the third explanation of Peking's present lassitude. Drought, famine, bandits, clvil war, maladministrations—all these have afflicted seriously the great terri- tory with which Peking once conducted rehabilitation of these districts has taken place can Peking hope for the return of & measure of her old prosper- ity. Even when and if conditions in Shansl, Chihli, Shantung and Shen- si return to normal, the Peking that is no longer capital will have to fight with spirit to get her share of the commerce. Other interior cities, such lines enter 1t from three . as Teinan, Chengchow and Hsichiach- are more conveniently located as distribution centers, and the North E"!ulrlll‘] e::n:wm l{le. of course, more ui s outlets and inlets et 5 lown Jade street, Lantern street, &nhrome street, or any of the lanés so enchanting and bustling Ja other days, is now a depressing experi- ence. One dare not greet the lusterless merchants with the customary “San-yi, hau-bu-hau?” (business good, not good?) for it is all too obvious that things seldom have been worse. It is only when a tourist party come in that the streets regain some of their old activity. Scores of Shops Closed. Scores of Chinese storekee have closed shop and moved lontgs:rd or into the flourishing new cities of Man- churia. It is said the business popula- tion of Peking has decreased sap T cent since the capital was elublmndp:t Nanking. Many foreign firms have dis- continued their Peiping branches and a wk\:r '?l amall enterprises have gone pt. ‘While Chairman Chi was in Pekis several hundred cnfigu mr;“’e“:': P present him a petition for the return of the capital. péhun' did mtnthm,bu through his spokes Yat-sen Stronger. otive. toi ¢ sf r_motive headquarters the: |than in Ueking or Tientsin, although agents on the other hand have lowered | rebult is that today féw caravans ! such an opulent business. Not till the | 15, 1929—PART 2, REVIEWS OF NEWEST BOOKS A Group of Novels for the Days of Early Autumn—Talbot IDA GILBERT MYERS, Q%CL‘}”PGATRA: A No\;el' undy, author of ‘Winds of the World,” ete. apolts: The Bobbs-Merrill Co, - NEW Cleopatra steps out here. Such is the first effect of Tal- bot Mundy's novel. The second is that of surpassing workman- ship. The two go together. One can well believe that a long preparatory period -went into the making of this romance—reading and study: Plutarch, Shakespeare, accredited history, the findings of modern investigators, pic- tures, the land itsell. Then came the - pause for mind saturation in Egypt and {its meanings, and then the shaping of the drama, whose purpose is to revital- ize in a more adequate form and In a truer meaning one who has become almost’ & myth, certainly a legend of “the serpent of old Nile.” Out of clear architectural skill, coupled with an artistry of insight and ;{mpflhy‘ there comes to us by way this novel a living woman. ~ Set in her own sur- roundings of time and place, of politi- cal ambitions and dynastic strife within the royal family itself, of menace from the West, of Caesar with his legions— here is a new Cleopatra. This is an intelligible being, fashioned to endure | by virtue of her high mentality, of her | true historic stature. The old concep- |tion of the wantan, of the Siren-and- Circe combination, will not longer hold. A politician and a statesman instead; unscrupulous, if you will, but never the mere tool of any man's personal vanity. i Use the man to meet her own dynastic ambitions? Use Caesar? And then Antony, and then another? Certainly and bly. A game of statecraft, in which both sides made use of the means at hand. On the one hand Egypt and | Cleopatra; on the other Caesar and the Roman legions. Caesar, vain, as every great man is, has to be. Cleopatra, wise to the thinnest threat of that van- ity, playing on each of them to secure for her land that which only Caesar at that time could grant. And around the two this author has spread the gor- geous pageant of the royal life of Egypt. | Around the throne are priests, scholars, | soothsayers, Oriental attendants, sol- ‘diers and their commanders, military allies, elegant young sophists and orna- mental philanderers. Military move- ments, sumptuous ceremonies of politi- cal content, moments of ease and gayety —all very royal, all very impressive— gather the two great personages of this tale into a vivid drama which, ancient history as it clearly is, yet moves be- fore any reader with the immediacy of the present. Counting the gains of this story, of this amazingly fine story, one seizes first of all upon a Cleopatra rescued from the futile and silly and devastating role of a mere courtesan, igned to her by the morals of a later ay, to that of an astute statesman who counted her country before she counted herself. When men do this, as two or three have done, they are crowned and laureled for the edification of posterity. But, you say. Cleopatra lost through her own wickedness. Well, everybody loses sooner or later—because “the bird of time has but a little to flutter, and the bird is on the wing." us get back to the undisputable fact that Talbot Mundy has written a strong and finely artistic romance on a theme that refuses to grow old. *oxox ok THE CABALA. By Thornton Wilder, author of “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.” Imgroduction by Herbert Gor- New York: The Modern Li- brary. THS popularity of “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” and the rescue work of the Modern Library have together served to maAke desirabl. and available this lier novel by Thornton Wilder, “The Cabalp.” “The Bridge” made a tremendous stir. The novel in hand is one of quality. Yet it will hardly rank in the matter of a wide acceptance with any number of the fresh romances that are swooj down in crowds and swarms upon the public. It is too well written. It does not specialize in the familiar glamours. It is not greatly in- terested in:the poor behaviors of the common run. One has to think while he is reading—and who wants to think? Novels are made to prevent any such ef- By “The | | or any other subject, look it Indian- | e Earlier Work. fort, or ought to be so made. Besides, it is | not easy to find one’s self in this ro- mance. So, of course, it cannot count; Here it is, set just outside engaged with the feelings of a handful of mysteriously exclusive group, men and women left over out of a past, seemingly much more worth while than the gaudy and noisy present that sur- rounds them. And that's the story— the reactions of this duke and that cardinal, this duchessa and the young marcantonio, who somehow find them- selves on a little neglected island of out- moded thoughts and feelings, of ideals and behaviors long left behind by the ramping rush of the years in their fresh frontage upon life. And what to do in thi; dilemma? The most instinctive and natural thing in the world. To ¢ m;e‘in order to keep step? Not at ther to ascribe to themselves the high piace of superiority, to shut them- selves therein, a close corporation of social excellence living upon past ex- clusions of rank and birth and influ- ence. A ciear characterization defines the , the “cabala,” as such, and an equally clear art presents each of its members in special trait and beha- vior. As one reads along, pleased with the vivid and life-like effect of these people, enlisted whether he will or no | in their tenacious hold upon a vanished past, then that reéading one comes to| | the fact that everywhere, not alone in a Roman villa with these interesting| | has-beens, but everywhere along the way of here and now there are similar groups marooned in a past which they will not or cannot relinquish for the sake of the sweep ahead that is going | on around them. So, satisfied that it is a story about himself, after all, the reader goes over it all again to spot the points at which the matter ceases to be general in a sort of aliegorical way and becomes his own particular story of getting left here and there and over there while the great possession moves forward. An imaginative writer of ex- clusive stamp this Thornton Wilder, given somewhat to parables of modern (stripe, but he is amazingly worth while when you come to know him. I love this book. Let me tell you a secret— | rather a shamefal secret. I didn’t read “The Bridge.” No? Why not? No- body gave it to me, and I can't read a book unless I have an obl toward |it. Haven't time. The - “obligation” | 8oes with the gift ofsthe book. In 100 years I may have time to read accord- ing to choice. Then I'll surely reach for “San Luis Rey.” * x % x | THEODOR HERZL: Edited by Meyer W. Weisgal. New 'HEODOR HERZL, the subject of | this memorial, was founder of the | Zionist movement, and counted by | many as the greatest of modern Jewish | figures. This book is drawn from many | sources of recognized authority. Its | purpose is to cover not only the purpose and progress of the Zionist movement I but to include as well the life and work |of its founder, Herzl. An outstanding | man, brilllant in intellect and scholar- | ship and literary production. | amazing, too, that without contacts However, let | with the many who were evolving plans | | for the Jew in Palestine, who were con- | sulting together over these plans, this |men, apart from these, conceived the importance of such a movement, and. having entertained it, went to work to | perfect it to a working program. There- | fore, he became in the course of events | the accepted leader in the great trend | toward the . This memorial, cen- tering upon Herzl is, in essence, eulogy and' commemoration that takes many | forms—poetry, drama, analysis of the |man in his bearing upon the t scheme of migration, personal recoliec- tions by friends and relatives, his ef- a forecast of this vision turned to reality; oh, a thousand ts, of view from which one and another of compe- tency and power contribute to a com- ‘)le!e revelation of this truly Homeric- jooking hero—Theodor Hersl. book, 80 richly sourced in Jewish achievement and real distinction, gives in substance the last quarter century of Jewish history as this, both directly and indirectly, bears upon the various stages of the Zionist aim and endeavor. A Memorial. | York: The New Palestine Magazine. | Most | fect upon England when he went to| that country, a summary of his vision, | Mundy Writes of Cleopatra—Thornton Wilder’s A valuable publication for all, Jew and Gentfle alike, since it 15 in effect a constituent part of the spirit of all countries for the past 25 years in th's particular aspect of general interest. It gives the effect of a highly scholarly and competent survey in its double role of biographer and historian, * % % % | TIDES. By Count Edouard von Key- serling, author of “Twilight," eic. Translated from the German by Arthur J. Ashton. New York: The Macaulay Co. "THE girl marvied & nobleman of het own class, he quite old enough to be her father. When the gifted rrtist came to paint her picture she fell in love with him, he with her. Not un- natural, you sce. Right or wrong, she went_with the young peasant painter: married him. Not better than the first alliance, as time proved. That's the story, except for the release that came finally. This no better than captivity. either. Frustration is the theory of life as Edouard von Keyserling depicts it in this novel; in the most of his novels as well. The bare story in its outline does not convey the clarity of the medium here—words so chosen, so arranged, so combined as to produce & pure transparency, through which one looks across into his own life. A nobleman himself, one of the “Baltic barons” in Courland. Von Keyserling turned Socialist, but, disillusioned, went back to his own order. Decfeated. as he thought, in each of his trials with life, his novels naturally refiect the experi- ments which he himself made to ad- just his own existence to the common order and trend. Such is the purpose of “Tides,” a beautiful piece of simplicity in the of novel writing. e KALLU OF THE CARTS. By John Eyton. Indianapolis: The Bobbs- Merrill Co. BDCAUSE of some obscure Hindoo mother, the boy went native on & Yeflml_v good English family living in |India. ‘Such a golden-brown skin was —well, it was a shame. So the grown young ladies of the family felt and so they acted. His name was Drew. He | was going to be sent away to school | that very day or the next. Then the | carts came. six of them, crawling over the long lines of hill and valley till they came to the house where Drew lived. And that is the beginning of a delicious adventure. To strip off his clothes, to tie on a pink flannel loin- cloth, to think of a name better than Drew—"Durroo” it was—to fly after the carts, to h~ accepted upon stern trial by Kallu, the littlest of the Indien drivers—that's the story a little further | along: thay's the story almost to an end, though there's quite a long space given over to the recovery of Durroo—"Drew" again. if you please—to a short and painful career in the school upon which he had been headed when the great adventure came. But nothing lasts for- ever, not even misery. Trust Kallu of the Carts, that adorable and depend- Able little driver. He, not the kind to leave a new friend in the lurch: not | Kallu. Therefore, we go along with a | splendid rescue from prison. otherwise called a school: another swift skinning Off of coats and things, & deft turn of the loin-cloth around a slim middle, | and off they go, Durroo and Kallu, over |the wide roads of India, stopping at | nightfall to sleep beautifully on the jground, to eat delectable stuff with thelr fingers—rice and meat and tangy stuff covered with a smothering pan- jcake. Such joy, such a life of happi- ness. all because Drew turned native on his perfectly good English father! You will be told that this is a fine story for boys. It is. But. you boy )llon‘ about 90 years old, don't you let llhss story of Durroo end Kallu slip ’gumdoh your hands. Youll rue it if * %k x ¥ THE VAMPIRE: His Kith and Kin By Montague Summers, author of The History of Witcheraft,” ete, New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. i The 1qu the many beliefs_that come together under the Subject of de- monology Mr. Summers has drawn off for special study of that vampirism and the vampire. A ferrible tradition, this. which spread into the beliefs and (Continued on Fift Those young people whose growing minds are eager forinformation—and those older folk, too, whose minds are still growing—are in daily need of the ever-readv assistance of this great question- answerer — The “Supreme Authority” WEBSTER'S NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY The Merriam-Webster up in the “Supteme Authority. A Library in One Volume Its type mattet is equivalent to a |5-volume there are ia. In its 2,700 pe 452,000 entries, includi such as Rely on the testimony of Presidents and Department Heads of the | See It At leading Universities; the indorsement of hundreds of Supteme Court Judges; the judgment of Librarians all over the country who choose the MERRIAM-WEBSTER for their own use. America’s Great Question-Answerer Whether your question concems the spelling, pronunciation, or meaning of & word; a fact about a famous character, or histofical event, or geographical point; some detail of science, business, government, literature, These Stores: Wm. Ballantyne. & Sons Brentano’s John Byrne & Company S. Kann Sons Co. Paul Pearlman subjects; 100 valuable tables; over 6,000 iflmfiom. Its encyclo- sa tbeter's New ll:u' (W. Mar Springfield, Send me. h] o e