Evening Star Newspaper, January 18, 1931, Page 92

BACK STREET. By Fannie Hurst, guthor of “Lummox,” etc. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation. HIS is the story of Ray Schmidt. Not a great character nor a great scene. Both, however, greatly conceived and delivered. An intimate, -everyday, first-hand knowledge of the human material engaged. An absolutely sincere ap- proach to it. A purpose so sturdy as to allow no possibility of being seduced away from it. A writer of experience, lauded and looked for by thousands. Such is Fannie Hurst, engaged here in the career of Ray Schmidt. There are many of her—of this Schmidt girl. Good look- ing, friendly, competent in business, a different way with her clothes, a somebody to look at. The boys liked her.. Ray was popular in an opeéh, unsubtle way that left the young fellows comfortable, not half scared over what might be expected of them. Girls jealoys? Yes, natu- rally, but not really vicious. Even the girls liked Ray. She was so ready with help, with good sense, with an instinct for the next move to the good for some one in trouble. g I'm trying to show you the kind of girl that this one is, for the whole of that which follows rises out of that—out of the kind of girl that Ray Schmidt is. Among the drummer men that came to the town was Walter Saxel. Well, that's the story—Ray Schmidt and Walter Saxel. Why, to be sure, they fell in love, were married, had children. Now, wait a minute. They did fall in love. But Walter married the daughter of that rich Jew up the street. These two had children, naturally—but that is another story. This one is the tale of Ray Schmidt's magnificent folly, the story of her slow suicide by self-denial, by support of Walter in his busi- ness projccts,.in any plan whatever which could not be brought to issue without the advice of Ray, without her business acumen and her devoted friendship to this Walter man. That’s the story. You can finish it by turning to life, without even opening Fannie Hurst's book. If you shculd, however, decide upon this sketchy course you will miss a deal of insight upon the human—upon yourself and the rest. If you should do this you will fail to see that this Ray Schmidt is a kind—a type we call it— a generous and giving woman wherever need of any sort passes her way. When she came to love that man she did not change. She merely became intensified in that which she always had been, always would be. She gave and gave. Walter took and took—and took. That is Wal- ter's way. Now, if you are light-minded, and a few other things besides, you will call this the story of an illicit relationship—the story of a man and his mistress—and read it as such. If, by chance, you are of another stripe you will read it for its insearching of character, for its grip upon social relations rising out of character plus circumstance, for its keen seizure of man as man, of woman as woman, in their common love interlinkings. For these reasons, and by virtue of such a truly genuine and really conservative book of life, you will agree that here is a great story. It is. A terrible story—and great. THE DRY DECADE. By Charles Merz, author of “The Great American Band Wagon,” etc. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. ELEVEN years ago, at midnight, January 16, prohibition by constitutional amendment became effective. Let us not stop to argue that point. Rather, let us remind ourselves that no such turbulent decade as this “dry” one has ever before crowded itself into any authentic story of United States history. So great been, and is, the turmoil that the effect of the moment would be complete confusion were it not for such work as Charles Merz has done for readers in this story, “The Dry Decade.” Way- wise"to press files, Mr. Merz has gone over the period in question in search of the salient and significant facts of the great adventure in prohi- ®ition. Out from the maze of front-page sen- sation on the subject of drink lawlessness and the gamut of crimes sourced therein this author has drawn a clean line of story, beginning with the rise of the late prohibition movement, with its advance here and its recession there, with its growth in political significance as well as in legislative concern, with the mutlifarious ingenuities bent upon evasion of the law, with the inadequate measures provided to enforce prohibition enactments, with the public state of mind in respect to the question as a whole, with the particular state of mind in respect to personal liberty, and so on and so on. It is an astonishment that, through so em- broiled a matter, any man could take so straight a course of pursuit and research as Charles Merz has done in “The Dry Decade.” Nowhere else, so far as I know, does an open view of the subject lie. Nowhere else, I'm sure, does so unprejudiced an outlook spread before the student of this subject, so clearly every- body’s business. And it reads like a story— like an adventure, as it so certainly is. What the end of the national experiment will be is not mow known. But to get a grip on the essence of it up to the moment in hand you will need “The Dry Decade,” a most immediately vital book on the surpassing theme of the present for the United States and the world itself. It is not easy to appear judicial and reserved in respect to this book. A clarifying study, an expert exposition, a commanding survey of in- estimable worth. THE NATIONAL CYCLOPEDIA OF AMER- ICAN BIOGRAPHY. Current Volume “C.” New York: James T. White & Co. '1‘0 the library of The Star came recently this new volume of “The National Cyclopedia of American Biography.” About six years ago the publishers of this 40-year-old enterprise took up the project of a current series diwvoted to records of living Americans only. The book in hand is Volume C of that series. Hexe are stories—life stories—of Americans to whom in sne way or another the public generally is in " of adventure. A New Novel by Fannie Hurst—More Biographies, History, a Bible Study and a New Book on Prohibition. debt. Stepping off with the moment, so to speak, Volume C opens with a biography of Herbert Hoover, with life sketches of his cabinet as well. Here are chronicles, besides, of the heads of various important commissions now operating in different departments of the ad- ministrative field. Not only the political and governmental fields claim expert attention here. Education, literature, modern philosophy on trial and in its immediate effects, science, indus- try, finance and banking, philanthropy—every vital aspect of current modern American life receives here trained biographic summaries of those who are outstanding in these many de- partments of the composite national life. A full index, straight and businesslike, adds, to the immediate usefulness of the volume to the already crowded business man. Each biog- raphy is a succinct, .substantial body of fact concerning its subject. A readable body of fact as well. Here, as almost nowhere else, does one searching come upon the man and his subject in a direct, time-saving, illuminating way. Of surpassing use in libraries, business offices, editorial departments of the press, here is a fresh addition of great business value to a series that years ago established its good name upon the sure foundation of meeting a general need with expert competency and a thorough understanding of the nature of that need. SEVEN GREAT BIBLES. By Alfred W. Mar- tin, AM. S. T. B. (Harvard). New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. UN’LESS nudged to a bit of extra thinking, our passing assumption is that there is but one Bible—and that we have it. Here is a study calculated to remind us that there are other religions than our own, other Bibles than our own. Away in the Orient seven great re- ligions arose and flourished—Hinduism, Bud- dhism, Zoroastrianism, Confuciamism, Moham- medanism, Judaism, Christianity. Each had its sacred book of law and guidance. Each, in the language of its people, gave out the law for spiritual teaching. The purpose of this study 18 not so much to tell about these various books of “holy writ” as it is to submit them, literally, in sufficient measure to prove their quality as guardians, each of its own people, as teachers, each, of its own spiritual precepts and laws of conduct. The study does more than this, much more. For, little by little, it discloses & basic unity among them, a common essence of all life pervading these seemingly diverse scrip- tures. And that, I take it, is the chief value of this scholarly and deeply significant volume —the essential unity of the whole as, side by side, passages from the great Bibles proclaim, in effect, that life differs at its surfaces, but that within, deep within, there are the same calls of the soul to a common source of origin and dependence. There is, for all, a common outreach toward the unknown infinite. The World Unity Foundation has work of this capa- ble and distinguished sort in hand, and in its own high projects of understanding and tol- erance as well. Profoundly worth the study of thinking readers. THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. By James Morgan, author of “Our Presi- dents,” etc. New York: The Macmillan Co. “I CLAPPED it into my school as history text for the boys, and they just ate up that business of exploration and settlement clear from the Norseman, adventuring, to Yorktown .and a free country.” That sounded rather good to me. Teachers do not often talk with just that swing of en- thusiasm. I'd read the book, only the day be- fore. So, it was easy for me to see the school fellows, not exactly “eating up” the story. Rather, going along with it in the very actuality It is that kind of book. An old story, as you know. Yet as new here and as alive as if time had not wedged in some hun- dred years between then and now. After all, it is the way of the writer that counts. And this man has a way, a live way of looking at past times through the eyes of the present. And a genuine art, besides, of, putting a pull into his words that land them, not, merely beside the mind, buy tuck them quite inside the heart Fannie Hurst. as well. A merciless man, in a way, who does not scruple to knock over untruth which we have cherished as fact—a sentimental and al- most sacred fact at that. We hardly mind, even when the “skeleton in armor” gets his, and when many another bit of ancientry drops into the discard. On the road to Yorktown thege is a host of adventure—pilgrims and Puri- tans and settlers “’n Cap'n John Smith” and the lost colony of Roanoke, Walter Raleigh and his troubles, the rising angers of the new world —the true story of the Colonies handed out in a zest of personal partaking, in the colors of brave adventure, in a knowledge of men and their ways that sum, together, in a line of evente where everybody reading has a definite place and an actual role to play. No wonder the boys up in that school took James Morgan and his history-book so much to heart. = ABOUT THE MURDER OF GERALDINE FOSTER. By Anthony Abbott, author of “About the Murder on the Fifteenth Floor.” New York: Covici-Friede. \ O REASON, that could be seen, for the murder of the Foster girl. Young, pretty, harmless, doing her job in the office of a suc- cessful and popular Dr. Maskell. Nobody in particular wanted the girl, though I believe she was engaged to a young fellow of her own gen- eral stripe. However, the girl was found mur- dered—and very brutally murdered—in a lone spot near the town. Immediately around the crime came flocking the swarms of suspicion, so-called evidence, no evidence at all, such as in every day’s paper discloses the hysteria of the public, discloses as well its inability to analyze evidence, or even to recognize it as it passes by. This is a Thatcher Colt story. Now it seems that Thatcher Colt is one of the wiz- ards of crime pursuit. A student of crime from its historical disclosures, from the psychological reactions, also, to inheritance, disease, the pres- sure of modern life and so on. A modest man withal. So this tale proceeds quietly on its devious way through little clues, or indications which upon pursuit fade into thin inconsisten- cies or plain impossibilities. Every little while, however, some faint whiff of suspicion drifted toward the office of Dr. Maskell. But nothing came of these. Yet this office and this man proved to be the center of the matter—not of the murder, but of a passion that, after all, lies the deepest of all, that is the most masterful of all. I like this Thatcher Colt. You will. A Northeastern Pulp Wood. F careful forest management is carried on in the spruce areas of New York and New England, a permanent source of a large part of the pulp wood needed by the paper industry will be maintained, and at the same time the owners of the timberland will be assured of an adequate and steady income. Forestry experts of the Department of Agri- culture believe that the exceedingly favorable growing conditions of this area may even per- mit of an increased supply of the pulpwood, if judgment is used in the logging-up operations, and efforts are made to bring on replacement of the timber cut. It is necessary for the growth of young spruce that they obtain a fair amount of sun- shine, and proper selection of the timber to be cut will add to the sunshine left available for the trees still standing. In the logging. operations, it is vital to the future that as much thought be given to the protection of the young trees growing nearby as to the matured trees that are felled. The logging, however, is not the end of the problem, for,. after the timber is removed, it is vital that the litter left behind be collected and burned under supervision which will prevent the starting of fires that might get out of hand and sweep through large sections. In some stands of spruce, there are also present large numbers of hardwoods. Some of these may well be left to provide windbreaks for the spruce, some may be lumbered out, and defective trees girdled, in order to prevent the growth of leaves which might bring unwel- come shade to the conifers. perfectly simple and natural man who studies every detail, who moves from point to point without parade on the one hand, or that annoy- ing excess of nonchalance on the other which some of the supers in crime pursuit are made to assume. You'll like him for his solid work. You'll get quite a shock of surprise, too, when the murder finally opens up to its actuality of motive and achievement. Good work. LICHEE NUTS. By Edgar Lee Masters, author of “The Spoon River Anthology,” etc. New York: Horace Liveright. “My friend Yang Chung is a very old man, Gray and bent, wrinkled, without teeth, He talks of his boyhood when he made sand pagodas, And flew kites and sailed the.river. He talks of his days of business, When he bought and sold and grew rich. He talks of his later days, and the present days When for something to do he buys and sells. ‘All the same thing,’ said Yang Chung, ‘First playthings, then real things, business and money. Then growing o'd, then old, and all life old. Ther;h business and money becoming play= ings. First playthings, then business, Then business becomes a plaything.’” . WHEN, out of the East, the Chinaman comes this way he does not leave behind him the mellow wisdom of his race. He brings it along, to the usually unaccepting mind and heart of the materially engrossed man of the West. And * 80, a ripe philosophy goes to waste over here, fails to take root, or would were it not for Mas- ters and his tribe, whose prime use in the world is not to write verses, but rather to conserve gems of wisdom that have crystallized into ways of life along the hard-earned experience of old races and peoples. A sort of a BiMle of a book, “Lichee Nuts,” its good substance picked out of the new day by old Yang Chung and folded back upon the tried philosophy of his ancient land for meas- urement and test. A book to pick up as you pass for another minute of refreshment drawn from the deep well of true wisdom from the open hand of Edgar Lee Masters going to school to the old Chinaman, Yang Chumng. RUSTY; The Adventures of a Little Dog. By Nason H. Arnold. Illustrated by Griswold ‘Tyng. Boston; Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. JUS’I‘ a black spaniel, with a rusty spot on his throat, that a man bought to be company for himself. Had he no folks of his own? Oh, yes, he had a wife and at least one little girl—but a fellow gets lonesome now and then in a way that nothing but the right kind of dog can help. So when this man helped Rusty onto the seat beside him he already felt a lot better. And so they rode away home after the day in the office. This is a short story. Here is the end of it. That is, the end of that particu- lar story just above. For when the car stopped at the house that was the end of Rusty as the man’s dog. What happened? You know—the wife had to have the “darling dog.” They always do. Betty, the little daughter, had to have him, too. The cook rather hankered after Rusty and the big old St. Bernard adopted him in ho time. The book then, diverted from its original good intent, becomes a brilliant record of the doings of Rusty from dawn to dark every day through. A darling dog. A darling story— just right. Not overdone. Anybody would like this dog story—unless he chanced to be of pervert tribe that simply “can’t stand a dog.” Books Recerved POCAHONTAS. By Nathalia Crane, author of “The Janitor's Boy,” etc. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. < TAMBALO; and Other Stories of Far Lands. By Alice Alison Lide and Annie H. Alison. Chicago: Beckley-Cardy Co. SIX PLAYS FOR SIX GRADES. By Carolyn Barr, author of “Jimmie or Ned,” ete. Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Co. UNCLE BILLY STORIES. By -George T. Wear. Boston: Meador Publishing Co. TIMOTHY AND THE BLUE CART. By Elinor Whitney. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. A PRESENT SANTA CLAUS. By Mil- dred Whitney Stillman. New York: Duf- field & Co. TALES FROM STORY-TOWN. By Nina Pearl Ashton, author of “Story-Book Tales.” Il- lustrated by Ludwig and Regina. Chicago: Beckley-Cardy Co. FIFTEEN SOUTH DAKOTA POETS. New York: Henry Harrison. AND I SHALL MAKE MUSIC. By Bessie Lasky. New York: Horace Liveright. NANTUCKET, MAUSHOPE AND OTHER NEW ENGLAND POEMS. By Don Haldemane Jeffries. Boston: Meador Publishing Co. PRAYERS; Of Hope and Gladness. By Elinor Cochrane Stewart. New York: Pavensy Press. THE NATIONAL FLAG: A History. By Willis Fletcher Johnson, honorary professor in New York University. Boston: Houghton Mif- flin Co. TAMA JIM. By Earley Vernon Wilcox, staff of the Country Gentleman, in collaboration with Flora H. Wilson. Boston: The Strat- ford Co. SELECTED POEMS OF THOMAS WALSH, author of “Gardens Overseas,” ete. With & memoir by John Bunker and appreciations by Edward Keyes and Michael Williams. New York: The Dial Press. GOLDEN TREASURY OF MEDIEVAL LITERATURE. By James J. Walsh, M.D,, Ph. D, Litt. D., author of “A Catholic Looks at Life,” ete. Boston: The Stratford Co. -