Evening Star Newspaper, April 2, 1933, Page 77

“ poesible transportation system? ) THE AMERICAN TRANSPORTATION PROB- LEM. By Harold G. Moulton and Associates. Prepared for the National Transportation Committee. Washington, D. C.: The Brook- ings Institution. HE problem of transportation % im- portant from the very beginning of man’s life in groups and grows in- ‘creasingly complicated as social or- ganization progresses. The acute situation in American transportation, especially in connection with the railroads, led to the formation of the National Transportation Committee, at the request of a number of im- portant ‘business associations, savings banks, rakice ed\npanies and trust institutions. The committee organized on October 7, 1932, with Calvin Coolidge as its chairman and former Gov. Alfred E. Smith a member of the com- mittee. Dr. Harold G. Moulton, president of the Brookings Institution, was asked to conduct research in this problem which has so many ramifications. This volume is the result of that research, carried on by a staff of economic specialists. It is prefaced by the report of the National Transportation Committee, based on the results of the research, and by & supple- mental report of Gov. Alfred E. Smith, who says: “While I am in substantial agreement with the greater part of the committee report, this supplementary memorandum states my conclusions in my own language, placing the emphasis where I think it belongs.” Sound study of ail economic and social qués- tions, perhaps of all questions of any sort, must be based on history, and Dr. Moulton and his staff have given in their introduction a sum- mary of American transportation development from the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the first railroad—the Baltimore & Ohio— in 1829. All the important aspects of railroad, water, motor, air and pipe line transportation are then analysed. from the three viewpoints of the public, the transportation companies, and the Government. It is impossible to mention in a brief review even a few of the pertinent facts brought out by this study, but some of the conclusions may be noted. The Brookings investigators ask and seek to answer three questions: “(1) What general principles of regulation and Government support are neces- sary in order to promote the most efficient (2) What conditions are responsible for the failure of regulation to attain this objective? Commission,” which has the benefit of 45 years of experience and “is competent to meet greater responsibilities” than it already has in the present restricted regulation of railroads and pipe lines. 2 BEAUREGARD: THE GREAT CREOLE. By Hamilton Basso. New York: Charles Scrib- ° mer’s Sons. 11 [COR several months before the election of Lincoln, Beauregard had been pulling wires to get himself appointed commandant of West Point.” His wire-pulling was successful, and he held the position just five days when he was relieved, undoubtedly because he had avowed his intention of following his State should Louisiana secede from the Union. When the Confederacy was formed, Jefferson Davis appointed Beauregard first brigadier general in the Provisional Army of the Confederacy, and he was in command at Charleston when Fort Sumter was fired upon. At the Davis and Beauregard were friends, or at least friendly allies devoted to the same cause. In a few months the situation changed and the two men became definitely antagonistic. Finally, ac- cording to Mr. Basso, they hated each other. This hatred was partly due to opposition in temperaments; Davis was dignified, cautious, cold; Beauregard was enthusiastic, bold, rather emotional. Both were egotistical, and perhaps each considered himself a military genius. .In their theories of strategy they were absolutely at variance. Davis planned a defensive war policy, conservative, likely to bring no striking success, but not tempting disaster. Beauregard urged a more daring program of attack, somewhat Napoleonic, and pictured immediate capture of ‘Washington, the flight of Lincoln and his cab- inet and the recognition of the Confederate States as an indepencent nation. Jealously was added to the growing hostility when Beauregard was supported by a substantial group for the presidency of the Confederacy. Long after the Civil War was ended, when both were old men, the hatred endured, and there is a vivid word picture of Beauregard poring over the two thick volumes of Jefferson Davis’ “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government” and gnashing his teeth over the slights and misrepresentations he found there with regard to himself. In this hatred Mr. Basso finds the cause of the tragedy of Beauregard's life, the reason why all his successes were “mocked by futility.” It is because he thinks that time itself, which cften adjusts things fairly, has been unjust to Beauregard, that Mr. Basso has chosen to write this biography. He says: “He has fallen into obscurity, even in the South, where once he was lo:1 and honored as much as Lee. And so, in writing of him, it has interssted me to seek an explanation of his neglect and effacement.” Beauregard does not, he continuss, “fit into the tradition,” the South:crn tradition of the Confederate general. “Lec, then, became the legendary hero. He was t12 modcl the others THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 2, 1933. = / n N BCOK/S .VV \/ A America’s Problem of Transportation, and a NewStory of Beauregard’s Life—Tragedy of Tolstoy and the New Fiction. must measure up to. * * * He and Lee were as unlike each other as it is possible for two men to be. * * * For one thing, he was a French- man, and the tradition is essentially Anglo- Saxon. Lee was quiet and restrained. Beau- regard, although a silent man, was not at all restrained. * * * The difference between them is the difference between ‘Steady, my lads, stand firm,’ and ‘Soldats! Avant! Pour gloire et vic- toire!’” Mr. Basso is thoroughly in sympathy with the subject of his biography, so thoroughly in sympathy and so on the defensive that he may be charged by some with unfairness to Jefferson Davis. He has made use of many sources, some of them Iletters and papers of Beauregard never printed, and has received in- formation from the recollections of individuals. THE TRAGEDY OF TOLSTOY.” By Countess Alexandra Tolstoy. New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, : Movmbythepubuuuono!thedhfluot the Countess Sophia Tolstoy, wife of Tol- stoy, their daughter, the Countess Alexandra explains her reluctance to write so , and says that it would not have been i i i “ggéief g B8 REEST %SEa駧€§$EE§E§ overtaken by his last illness on his fiight from home. As he worried lest his whereabouts world were printing accounts of his flight and illness, the station was full of reporters and camera men, and his wife and children were in the ante-room. UNFINISHED SYMPHONY. By Sylvia Thomp- son. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. OWEVER complicated and insincere the conditions of modern society, it is perhaps better for one who must live in that society to grow up in it, to bscome sophisticated, to struggle for personal honesty and individuality, to win or lose in the midst of the crowd. With- drawal and isolation must be continued if they are to bring peace and harmony. So, Lawrence Marvell, English dramatist, sated and cynical with his own meretricious success. disgusted with his London life and his selfish, shallow family, does a great injustice to his four-year- old daughter Helena when he takes her away from the artificial life into which she has been born, to an island in the Mediterranean, to bring her up accérding to a classical tradition of beauty, truth and simplicity. It couldn’t be done. It wouldn't ] ). su3=3<dcd even if Sir Lawrence had lived to see his daughter through to a cafe early middle age, but when he dies, leaving her an “unfinished symphony” at 18, che is badly prepared for lving in theshousehold of her sister Merigold, married to a Member of Parliament, with whom she has an unspoken, friendly agreement which permits her to lead her own life of social externalities and cheap love affairs. Helena is forced, with sudden shock, to become acquainted with the stupid people and false ideas which her father's training has taught her to look upon as the only sins. Hugh Palpole created in “Hans Frost” a world-weary and world-disgusted author who threw aside all the fruits of his success and retired to solitude and sincerity, but Hans Frost * mads no experiments with a young daughter. In the character of Helena, Sylvia Thompson has-drawn a personality rich in beauty, naive - says, without the least intent to be “catty”: “Plere says you're 35; but when you’re painted like this you look quite young.” Helena’s small blunders are conly a prelude to her great dis- illusionment, which comes throggh her love for her sister’'s husband, Philip. In him she sees all the nobility she has believed her father to possess. Through reading one of her father’s plays—he has never permitted her to read anything he has written—she discovers that his i at a crisis, F533158 and to Hold,” but the charm of its reflective, dreamy style compensates for much loss in action. The stcry itself seems to make little difference, because”interest is early centered on the setting. both dom:astic and historical. Delicia to England, where her aunt lves, her love for a weakling, already married break the unity of the narrative and draw us unwillingly away from the delightful atmosphere of Indian Leap, the plantation home of . When Delicia returns, the spell ptured, partly because the troublous events have destroyed the peace of plantation 'x:lu mountains and plantations of her own others. Indian Leap, with its large estatc and ‘many slaves, its long, winged house, where the tulip tree brushes the pillars of the portico, is a happy home for children. Delicia and her brother make dams in the creek and go after berries and guinea eggs with Isaac, Esau, Katherine, Prances and Roxy, children of the slave quarter. She sees history in the making on the day when her grandfather takes her down the road tosee a group of about 50 Chero- kees migrating west to the Great Reservation— the last act in the drama of Indian removal from that part of the South. The Civii War sorrow and disruption to Indian Leap, but does not destroy it and there, finaily, Delicia finds happiness LET THE HURRICANE ROAR. Wilder Lane. & Co. CBARLES, daring hunter, fighter, dancer, fiddler, and Caroline, shy, quiet, not very pretty, aged 19 and 17, light-] became ploneers in the covered wagon days. This is their story—the pioneer story so often repeated, formerly in fact, recently in fiction—of cour- age through hardships which seem almost dia- bolical. When they started out for the Da- kotas, they were better equipped than mecst westward-moving. couples. Charles’ father, more genercus than his neighbors, gave Charles the last two years of service due him snd the team and wagon he would have earnod had he By Rose New York: Longmans, Green the broken and the enchantment is never re- - g into their sod house, built in two days, for Winter. Caroline’s baby was born in out on their claim on Wild Plum Creek, wi she and Charles were the only human on an expanse of many miles of snow. prairie. Exultation over the promise of a it REM- BRANDT VAN RIJN. New York: The NON-FICTION, MASTER DRAUGHTSMEN NO.4. MARRIAGE. Bd. by’ Kenneth M. Walker, F. R. C. 8. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. : THE DEAD INSIST ON "LIVING {Drama). By Seymour Waldman. New York: Gotham FATHER COUGHLIN OF THE SHRINE OF mmmwmwi- mgo;ffin:ho.hn&ca " AND ITS RACE PROBLEM. William Atherton Dr Puy. e D. C.: United States terior. ENGLISH PUBLIC FINANCE. 1558-1641. By Frederick C. Dietz, Ph.D. New York: The Century Co. : ; ROMEWARDS. By C. J. Eustace. New York: Brothers. Benziger SOVEREIGNTY. By Joseph P. Tanney, LL. M. Published by author. ‘ REVOLUTION: 1776. By John Hyde Preston. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. s : Covici-Friede. I HAVE BEEN YOUNG. By Elizabeth Lomona. : New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, THE SINNER (YOSHE KALB). By I J. Singer. New York: Liveright, Inc. 3 LIGHT Aoux::.e By Blair Niles. New York: New York: T..e Dial Press. . THE MYSTERY I'"” ~~ BOOK. By Lassiter Wren and Rer “Tay. New York: " ‘Thomas ¥. Crowe': . ¢ HIZZONER THE MAYOR. By, Jocl Sayre. New | York: The John Day Co. ; THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH-13TH. By Slan- ' islas-Andre Steeman. : J B Lippincott Co. THE LIGHT IN THE JUNGIE. By Edisoa Marshall, New York: H. C. Kinsey & Co. GOD LIGHTS A CANDLE. By Anne S! ~ Monroe. New York: Doubleday, Doran & 3 THE AUCTION. By George Agnew Chambes- lain. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Go.