Evening Star Newspaper, December 5, 1936, Page 18

- B—2 RECORDS WHY WRITE ABOUT WR Inner Circles of Literary World Are Brought to Attention of Casual Readers—Mrs. Buck’s Family Observations. Dreams of Great Explorer and True Poet. By Mary-Carter Roberts. LIFE OF GEORGE MOORE. By Joseph Honme. New York: The Macmillan Co. HE biography of George Moore I which makes its appearance here, is the “official” one. Its author is its author by virtue of having been asked by Moore's *“literary executor” to become that. It s very complete, very painstaking and 502 pages long. 1t contains a chapter of critical examination by Desmond Shawe-Taylor; this follows another chapter given over to recording the impressions of the late novelist, which have lingered on through the years since his death in the memory of his former housekeeper. Moore the | Artist—Moore the Man. Did he| achieve stylistic perfection? Did he | prefer bass or sole? All questions are | answered here. | It would not be fair to make this particular biography of a writing man—so excellently done, so carefully worked out—a text for a sermon on the general irrelevance of biographies | of writing men, for that would be to gingle it out as particularly irrelevant |~ in itself. Be it said then that il is not. It is in very good tradition. But, having read through its 502 | pages, having duly learned that Moore was quarrelsome, that he stumbled on the hearth rug at Ebury street and | broke his wrist, that he went to| Palestine to prepare himself to write “The Brook Kerith,” that he liked cats, changed his religion, bragged | about his affairs with women, lived in Paris, Dublin, London, studied painting, wrote books—after having, indeed, practically lived with George | Moore a day-by-day existence through- | out his life—what is there to it? The question is put seriously. If any writer } has earned the tribute implied by all | this labor in minutiae, will his books not secure it to him? And if he has | not, what does his biography represent except the researches of another man? In the case of Moore, it is within | fairness to observe that, in the present | generation at least, he is more known | than read. His legend is part of every | sollege boy's equipment, but savants and critics largely make up his public. He was always a theoretical writer, | writing to formula—first to the formula of naturalism, second to that | of stylistic perfection for its own sake. FORD MADOX FORD, Author of “Collected Poems of Ford Madox Ford.” (Ozford University Press.) shows forth a brilliantly strong mind, self-sufticient, pure sud just. The curious thing about the work is that & wan with such & mind, having one medium of expression, should have found it necessary to write at all. But Gauguin reiterates that his writing was solely the outcome of necessity. He repeats again and again that he is “full of a desire to talk.” How understandable that most futile of desires is! The “Journals” was Gauguin’s be- quest to Andre Fontainas, to whom it is dedicated. M. Fontainas was un- able to find a publisher for it (!) and presented it to Gauguin's family. It is his son, Emil, who now gives it to the public. For the gift thanks are certainly due, so it becomes perhaps graceless to remark that the preface contributed by Gauguin fils is out of keeping with the rest of his father's work—text and illustrations. It in- troduces, somehow, a defensive mnote, and Paul Gauguin, by his own life and work, needed no defender. With reminder of the qualifying note above, the book is recommended. It is the random record of a great mind. FIGHTING ANGEL. By Pearl S. & Both are extreme and artificial at- titudes. Your naturalist always finds | his naturalism more interesting than literature, and your single-minded | stylist finds literature more interesting | Buck. New York: Reynal Hitcheock. HEN Mrs. Buck published her biography of her mother last year, under the title of “The Exile,” THE EVENING ITERS? mettlesome horses, he practiced sports. His writing at this stage is poetic, even visionary. In 1886, however, he made his first expedition north, to explore the east- ern coast -of Greenland, and from that time on he knew where his career ‘The present book is merely a , after that, of his successive forays into the Arctic. Alter the discovery there was, of course, the controversy with Dr. Cook. The book examines this affair in close detail, and attributes to the disap~ pointment which Peary felt at his treatment by Cook's adherents his subsequent failure in health. A final chapter is given to outlining the plans which he made for develop- lng an air service; early in the his- Wiy of fiylug he perceived its im- purtance and he was aclive from then vl In encoursging the building of & national air service. Prof. Hobbs, the suthor, has himself engaged in Arctic exploration. He is president of the Association of Ameri- can Geographers and vice president of the International Commission on Glaclers. His' work is accurate and competent beyond question. As has | been said, it should find a public. | SELECTED POEMS BY WITTER BYNNER. Edited by Robert Hunt. | Horgan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. IN THIS volume are gathered what | the editor feels are the best of Wit- ter- Bynner's poems, from his first | volume, “Young Harvard,” which ap- | peared in 1907, to his last one, “The Guest Book,” which came out in 1935, | There seems little reason, beyond that | of individual liking, for quarreling | with the selection, | As Witter Bynner has shown himself | | to be, over the years, a true poet, there | also seems little point in remarking | | that tne collection is a desirable one. | The interesting thing about it, from | the critical standpoint, is the manner | in which it reflects the fashions ;nlmu'h which |our century. From it goes to Greenwick | | | | h Village, from | Greenwich Village it takes a peregrina- Oriental it turns to American South- | west—a perfect tour dilettantes, if | fortunate hands of a master. | volume hold true. In the early years | there was the Whitman influence, | showing to the point of decided imita- | tion. Later came the free versifying period of the pre-war years. In that| than life. But a squirrel turning in its | there were those who felt that she | era Bynner, proposing to mock at the cage is a potential source of power, | and Moore did make effects. In some | of his work he made great effects. had dealt rather hardly with her father. She really told little about him, however. She only indicated | many “schools” of poetry then flour- | | ishing—the imagists, the vorticists ' { and the like—wrote his famous “Spec- What the effect of the effects is to be that he was devoted to his divinely | tra” in collaboration with Arthur however, is still hanging in the ordained work as a missionary to the | Davison Ficke. He proposed in it to | balance. heathen to a point of such seiflessness satirize the current poetasters by | As to the phenomenon of this mi- | that he had little left to bring to his | writing nonsense under the guise of a | nute, long-laboring biographical wm-J ing, when its subject is an author is | 1% not simply writing more and more | about less and less? A writer's real | duties as head of & family. His wife, therefore, bore more than the usual motherly responsibility for her chil- dren; she was obliged to be both | still newer “school.” Curiously, the poems quoted here from that effort | read with better effect than those they | attempted to mock. At any rate, the | IN BOOKS OF PRODUCTIV JOSEPH HONE, Author of “The Life of George vore.”—(Macmillan.) should be read and used as a text grooms everywhere. ‘The details of the growth and de- velopment of children are singularly clear, and cover a tremendous fleld. Each year is taken as a standard of mental and physical expansion, thus enabling the mother to judge whether her youngster is up to the mark in every way or not. She is warned as to what she may expect in the way of physical weakness, mannerisms and habits during that particular 12-month period, and how to deal with each situation as it arises. Dr. Hay is ably assisted in the com- | pilation of this volume by Mrs. Esther L. Smith, author of “The Official Cook Book.” Mrs. Smith is a teacher and the mother of two adolescent children tion to other parents—B. C. Elizabeth Blacklock. Fleming H. Revell Co. New York: the effect of the life of a little 1rehglmu; feeling and wholesome senti- With a critical preface: by Paul|jgok by prospective brides and bride- ment. It is the sort of book over which you can cry with perfect contentment. It is recommended to readers who like a sad ending that still has a- glow of optimism over it. Dr. Howard A. Kelly of Johns Hopkins University has con- tributed a foreword. JILL :SOMERSET. By Alec Waugh. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. WE HAVE here a serious, earnest | and unimportant novel, dedi- | cated to interpretation of post-war |England. As is customary in such works, the characters are neatly de- signed to fill the roles of “types. We have a Fascist, & Communist, & dissipated young woman and a mem- ber of the bourgeoisie. As is also | pretly customary, this initial brave | poetry has passed in|_g poy and a girl—so she is well | regimentation breaks down into & young Harvard | equipped to offer firsthand informa- | narrative of related love affairs. The | reader is supposed to understand that, because the various actors in these tion through the Oriental, from the AMONG THE SHADOWS. By Sarah affairs are Fascist, Communist, etc., | the affairs themselves have some sort of supersignificance. the affairs, just as affairs, are pretty 3 Nott:enlg_ in geography but in form | gir}, born blind and lame, on the lives | dull. ‘There have been lots of such | oes istorical significance of the | or those about her. It is full of deep ' novels lately. To the reviewer | you wish, but laid out here by the "I HIS is a touching Mitle story about this significance was not evident. And STAR, WASHINGTON, ‘D. C., SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5. 1936. : E LIVES, GREAT MINDS 'FINAL TALK ABOUT TUGWELL Magazine Observes in Him an Example of the Necromancer of French Essayist—One Man’s Book List for Christmas. Coronet Gets Nice Welcome, By M..C:R. \HE passing of Dr. Tugwell from the ranks of the regimenters to the horrid fortresses of pri- vate business—those forces of entrenched greed—has not called forth any comment more direct than that published last week in the Nation. Paul W, Ward, in his Washington col- umn there, has this to say about the doctor’s sad, sad defection: “The chief reason (for the said defection) was that he had been of- fered a better-paying job with what looked like a more secure future. . . " It seems, somehow, almost the view- point of the materialist. Well, he made good copy while he lasted. He emulated, says Mr. Ward, “the tradition of Anatole France's necro- mancer . . . who had power to change himself into a dragon and terrify the countryside. He exercised that power until one day, while in dragon’s guise, he encountered St. George. Where- upon he changed himself into a rabbit and fled.” Still, concerning the de- parted, let there be nothing said but good. The rest can be smiles, if not silence. But—molasses, Had Arrow Collars, then, no job? N THE December Esquire Burton Rascoe gives some more figures on | the sales of “Gone With the Wind Macmillan sold more copies, he says, | “than Carter has pills.” He goes on: “The laundry bill of the grill room of the Prince George has increased | 320 per cent, because George P. Brett, | |ir., and Phelps Putnam of the Mac- | millan Co. go in there with other emi- | ment tablecloth mathemeticians . and multiply, add, subtract and divide, and then multiply some more, while two able-bodied waiters stand by to | add fresh tablecloths every four and & | | half minutes.” | | Al this multiplyinig, adding and | the like, the reader is to understand, is by way of determining how many | copies of the Mitchell novel have been | sold now. The last really picturesque GEORGE MOORE. Ilustration from “The Life of George Moore,” by Joseph Hone, figures were those comparing the structure that might be built of the purchased copies with the Empire State -Building. As yet nobody has said anything about the Great Pyra- mid. It seems customary, somehow. Any figures will be welcomed. Mr. Rascoe, as might be expected, goes in for a Christmas book list in this number of Esquire, and here are his selections: “The Big Money,” by John Dos Passos; “The Bible De- signed to Be Read as Living Litera- ture,” edited by Ernest Sutherland Bates; James Boswell's “Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,” Carl Van Do- ren’s “Three Worlds,” Gilbert Seldes’ “Mainland,” Van Wyck Brooks’ “Flowering of New England,” Vincent McHugh's “Caleb Catlum’'s America,” ' [C Louis Paul's “A Horse in Arizons,” Malvina Hoffman's “Heads and Tales,” Louis Adamic's “Cradle of Life,” James Gray's “Wake Up and Remember,” Ishbel Ross’ “Ladies of the Press.” George Milburn's “Catalogue,” Willa Cather's “Not Under Forty,” Weste brook Pegler's “ ‘T Ain’t Right,” Rob- ert Nathan’s “Enchanted Voyage,® Walter Edmond’s “Drums Along the Mohawk” and Robert Carson’s “The Revels Are Ended.” Well, there are some good books in it. While it is fortunately not neces- sary, in a publication designed for mixed reading, to indulge in the red- blooded, hard-punching watch-this- man-he's-going-far style of criticism which Mr. Rascoe naturally employes for a public exclusively masculine, it is quite possible to agree with him on a number of his selections. His list is perhaps as satisfactory as any that has yet appeared. Lists at best are pretty sad. They are only opinions. And there are few books about which, as Sir Roger remarked, ‘there is not 8 good deal to be said on both sides. All too few, in fact. 'ORONET, the new magazine which made its bow last month, is es- sentially an Esquire in miniature. It costs 15 cents less, and whether the difference in price is compensation for loss of Esquire’s handsome large- ness must be left to readers. Ungues- | tionably a magazine which devotes much space to pictorial effects is handicapped by a page of pamphlet | smaliness, which is Coronet's general outline, But, although the effectiveness of its pictures is cut down, the merit of the reading material is comparable to that offered in the older periodical. It is the same cheerful medley of fiction, satire, current affairs and criticism. Being, unlike Esquire, unsure of its public, it seems to exert itself even more to publish pieces of novelty and picturesqueness. One prophesies that it will go very well. (Continued From Page B-1.) { Mr. Steiwer served as keynoter and | temporary chairman of the Repub- | lican National Convention in Cleve- | | land. Throughout his legislative ca- reer he has exhibited great sympathy | for the problems of the disabled. He | has ever been a forceful and success- ful champion of their rights on the Senate floor. His efforts were in no | small part responsible for the passage. of the soldiers’ bonus bill, and the | Senator led the minority fight on last session’s banking and currency ap- propriations. Senator Steiwer is a member of the | more important committees of the Senate, including the Rules Commit- | tee, Banking and Currency and Ap- | propriations. | at the Anchorage Apartments while in Washington. Ironically enough, he doesn’'t seem particularly enthusiastic about public jack when he wants to be. At the Democratic State Convention in Texas last year he gave a whiz of a talk. Small wonder he served during the last campaign as chairman of the cratic National Committee. Without doubt, Sam is one of the strongest men in Democratic councils today. It will be recalled that he was a serious opponent of the late Joseph T. Byrnes in the House speakership fight, and early in Frankiin D.s ad- ministration, as chairman of the im- portant House Interstate Commerce Committee, he championed a bill which will virtually (it is hoped) abol- speaking, but certainly is & cracker- | Speakers' Committee of the Demo- | AMONG CONGRESS VETERANS | sentative Andrew Jackeon Montague of Richmond, Va. This session marks the beginning of his twenty-fifth year in Congress. In the November elec- tions he achieved the largest major- ity in his career. Today he serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. Montague's career in public life is Jjust one distinguished accomplishment on the heels of another. For four years he was attorney general for Virginia and for a like period was Governor. Not content with these honors, he also served as dean of the Law School at Richmond College. Only one thing has stood in the way of further honors—a frail physique with frequent intervals of ill health. The Representative is of average | height and slight build. His hair, once thick and flaming red, is thin- ish holding companies within five | EAN of the House of Representa- | years, This bill was passed last ses- tives (in point of service) is Rep- | sion. ning fast and turning gray. From farm boy to Representative is the familiar Horatio Alger-like personality has no legitimate con- nectionewith his work. To take an liustrious example or two, the life of parents, and that in circumstances | reminder is salutary. A chokingly of unusual difficulty, the circum- |eager emotion is about all that they | stances of a white family alone in | convey—as apt an expression of their Homer has never been written in great detail, while as to the impres- sions formed about Shakespeare by his housekeeper the world is still unen- | lightened. There are even those who | think that another man wrote Lhe‘ plays. But the plays remain, and | Homer, to0, is esteemed. When, as | with Moore, the writer in question is one whose personality has already been greatly exploited, there is a posi- | tive chance that further exposition of ‘ & personal nature may actually stand between his readers and a just valua- tion of his work. That, of course, would be simply terrible. | Nothing suggests itself to remedy $he fashion, however, beyond this, ‘which, though opening up interesting vistas, somehow seems unlikely to be put into effect: Let there be passed a law that all books shall be published anonymously; let it be a felony at least for a wriler to make his author- ship known; let there be no adver- | tising of books beyond their titles; let | book jackets be abolished (oh, para- | dise); let all works be published with | identical covers, only with good, plain | $ype. And then let posterity do the Judging, for which it is now, quite un- Justly, famous. Would it not be worth trying, for 200 hundred years, at least? Then let everything be re- vealed. The check-up would be one of the most illuminating things ever experienced in the cultured world. But if & reader likes the personal (bass or sole) approach to the artist, why here it is in this “Life.” Here, indeed, in a very good example of it, dignified, documented, demure. .The ehapter by Mr. Desmond Shawe-Tay- lor is even first-rate literary criti~ PAUL GAUGUIN'S 1NTIMATE| JOURNALS. Translated by Van Wyck Brooks. Preface by Emil Gauguin. Fifty-five illustrations. New York: Crown Publishers, SHOULD like to be & pig; man alone can be ridiculous.” One finds this remark on the second page of the present “Journals” by Paul Gauguin, and it gives accurately the flavor of the mind that is revealed fn the rest of the work. Strong, pungent contempt is the constant quality of that mind, and liberty of expression is its medium of utterance, Hiberty of that rare quality which in- dicates the coming of the mental wheel full circle in its passage from the wisdom of inmocence to the wis- dom of full knowledge. To readers ‘who can receive it in corresponding fashion, it offers savory satisfaction. To the less: hardy it will probably bring considerable annoyance. Of course, Paul Gauguin is dead. ¢ is generally possible for the public to accept tolerantly from a dead ‘writer words which it would reject in- dignantly from one alive. And then, too, Gaugin is a Great Artist. His ‘works bring breathless prices. He has become respectable. And (again) of eourse, it is a Tolerant Age. . . . ‘The “Journals” is not a connected marrative. It is really little more than & series of random observations, It | | eision to give all his time to painting, Tt gives some passages over to mem- of Van Gogh. It discusses the istration of the Marquesas Islands, with its manifold injustices and follies. It reflects on religion, on literature, on art. Its subject mat- ter is never lmpothm.rlt chiefly > D the interior of China in all kinds of international weather. Bui now Mrs. Buck makes handsome amends for her previous negative picture of her parent. She shows him, in this biography, in his positive aspect, that of the old-fashioned man of God, quaintly devoted to “sound doctrine” and hating the strange gods of the idolater; courting hardship, courting martyr- dom even; ascetic, scornful of easy posts, happy only when actively and dangerously bringing the heathen to‘ repentance—a dedicated man, in other words, and one who interpreted his dedication in the most rigorous puri- tanical sense of the word, applying it to himself even as he applied it to others, The picture that she gives is Sympathetic, even admiring, althougi | it lacks the personal emotion which colored the book on the life of Carie, her mother. “He wandered about China,” she says, “for more than half a century.” Yet, when she asked him to write an account of his life there for her, he could only produce 25 pages. He considered that complete. It con- tained the record of his quest for souls; all else was omitted. He did refer once, she says, to his wife, and he also listed his children, but he forgot one of them, one who had lived to be 5 years old. He wrote only of his mission. It is doubtful, by implication, that he remembered anything else. Curious that & man so obsessed should have aroused love in any one, especially in a foreign people to whom his movements in great part must have been mysteries. Yet Mrs. Buck records that the Chinese came to have an affection for him. They called him “the Old Teacher” and regarded him indulgently. Beyond giving this half-heroic, half- pathetic picture, the book adds little to the record of “The Exile.” Pic- tures -of the hardships of family life in the distant reaches of China, of makeshifts, of privations, these fill up much of its pages. As has been said, it lacks personal warmth, and one feels that Mrs. Buck did not know her father as she did her mother. But then, & man who has. no self is hard to know—although sometimes easier to remember and often impossible to forget. PEARY. By William Herbert Hobbs. New York: The Macmillan Co. THl.s sympathetic biography of the great explorer combines a scien- tific narrative of his various expedi- tions with a romantic, almost reverent, picture of his character as a man. Peary, as Prof. Hobbs sees him, be- longed to the race of heroes, the self- less great dreaming men who find their destinies in the acceptance of vast challenges. The work is in no sense sentimental, however. Indeed, the chapters devoted te exploration are written so much from the scien- tist's viewpoint that the lay reader will probably find them difficult. 1t is a work which ought to find a- public, People in general know that Peary discovered the North Pole. Be- yond that, however, they know little of him. Prof. Hobbs gives an inter- esting picture of his early life, when he worked as a surveyor and ‘in the Geodetic Survey, showing from and journals that Peary felt even then that he had not found the career to. which he could devote himself. He used his great nervous energy on vari- mexpsdhnh.n‘ll‘dufl.hmxvr marriage, hjmd children, | moves R | decade, perhaps, as may be, a decade |now considerably more mauve than | the 90s. The later work shows an increasing austerity of form and an evermore | penetrating, evermore detached and | | subtle satire. The poet seems to have | reached the point, indeed, where he is | & poet in form only; he writes now as & philosopher. He sings, but his mel- | ody is built on a finely shaded scale, |and his words are not lyrics—they are proverbs. It is, of course, a volume to be had. Its critical preface is long and pre- | tentious, but need not be read. It | accomplishes nothing, and so is in the | very best tradition of such essays, | | COLLECTED POEMS OF FORD MADOX FORD. With an intro- duction by William Rose Benet. New York: Oxford University Press. 5THE veteran Ford Madox Ford | scarcely needs introduction. His poems, however, have not previously | been published in collected form in | this country, and so the present vol- | ume should find a receptive public. | It contains the poems which were published in England in the volumes {of 1916, 1918 and 1927, with & new hitherto unpublished group. Critical- ly speaking, it could be pruned down considerably with improvement. But historically, like the collection of ‘Witter Bynner’s work reviewed above, it is interesting in its entirety for the light that it throws on the poetical fashions of the past decades. Its faults lie, perhaps, in the fact that its author is a writer'’s writer. NourisHied in literary tradition, he has always seemed to think in paragraphs, and no doubt he muses in stanzas. The line between craftsmanly neat- ness and the genuine experience which makes living verse has never troubled him greatly. He is at home on either side of it, and about equally divided. The present volume should be noted for one great achievement, however, and that is in the writing of its jacket notice. It marks a truly breath-taking restraint, “This,” it says, “is the first exten- sive printing in book form in America of Mr. Ford's poems, which reach a high quality and are always out of the ordinary.” Compare that, oh, readers, to the florescent verbiage of the American blurb! Out of the ordi- nary, indeed. The volume is recommended as & contemporary work of interest. Its eventual value, of course, can hardly | be predicted. THE HAY SYSTEM OF CHILD DE- VELOPMENT. By William How: Hay, M. D. Esther L. Smith. Pub- lished by Thomas Y. Crowell Co, New York. book will be hailed by & num- ber of women who have been dis- satisfied with the tomes dealing with the upbringing of children heretofore published, It combines a remarkable understanding of the physical, moral and mental needs of the younger gen- eration, from the period of prenatal care, to the advanced age of 12 years. Although, inevitably, Dr. Hay's dietary beliefs influence the portion of the book devoted to the feeding of the expectant mother, and of the children throughout infancy and up to their teens, even those who do not espouse his principles of nutrition may well find useful and helpful material in the other pages. The opening -chapters, dealing with the mental ‘preparation < \ =, V) ////i’ 7y Peary’s equipment for ‘his first Greenland expedition, from “Peary,” by William Herbert Hi obbs. (Macmillan.) Brief Reviews of Books Non-fiction. PRESIDENT TRUJILLO, HIS WORK AND THE DOMINICAN REPUB- LIC. By Lawrence de Besault. ‘Washington: The Washington Publishing Co. An account of the career of Gen- eralissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, president of the Dominican Republic, and the accomplishments and developments of the Dominican Republic under his leadership. THE HIGHER LEARNING IN AMERICA. By Robert Maynard Hutchins. New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, The president of Chicago Univer- sity writes laudable platitudes about educatiorr. BRITISH AUTHORS OF THE NINE- TEENTH CENTURY. Edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft. New York: H. W. Wil- son Co. One thousand concise biographies of major and minor British authors of the last century. Useful handbook. RE-THINKING RELIGION. By A. E. Avey. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Can a thinking people be religious? The old question treated with no par- ticularly novelty. A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BOOKER WASHINGTON. By Anson Phelps Stokes. Hampton: Hampton Insti- tute. Small volume covering the essential points of the famous Negro leader’s career. With an introduction by President Graham of the University’ of North Carolina. THE ART OF PLAYGOING. By John ‘Mason Brown. New York: W. W. Norton Co. Plays from the point of view of the audience. Intelligen HOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESI- DENT. By Sherfhan Day Wake- fleld. % A careful analysis of the political and election. Limited edition of 600 copies. Worth having. | LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS OF BARRY CORNWALL. Introduc- tion and notes by Richard Willard Armour. Boston: Meador Publish- ing Co. Delightful reminiscences of Bryan ‘Waller Proctor or, if you wish, Barry Cornwall. Material contained in “An Autobiographical Fragment,” pub- lished 1877 and edited by Coventry Patmore, but re-arranged and much shortened. An interesting thing. CHRISTMAS. AN AMERICAN AN- NUAL OF CHRISTMAS LITERA- TURE AND ART. Edited by Ran- dolph E. Haugan. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House. Volume sixth of this colorful year- 1y collection. © ' Fiction. THE GAY CRUSADER. By Ralph Connor. New York: Dodd Mead & Co. « A ‘The venerable Harold Bell Wright of Canada -writes on. WITHOUT RESTRAINT. By Hamp- ton Del Ruth. New York: Gideon & Stuyvesant. Tripe about the “indefinite sex.” ' THE BORZOI READER. Edited by . Carl Van Doren. New York: Al- fred A.:Knopf, Inc. ‘The beést book buy of the year. Omnibus from Knopf’s containing complete novels by Cather, Mann, ‘Wylie, Garnett and Hergesheimer; the complete text of “Of Thee I Sing,” and essays by a distinguished group of contributors, Get it by all means. KOPET ALTA. By Edward Harper Thomas. Caldwell: Caxton Printe ers, Ltd. Romance. , Sityated this time on Puget Sound. . © Drama. FOUR - STAR - SCRIPTS. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Co. Scripts ‘of the - motion - pictures, “Lady For a Day,” “It Happened One Night,” “Little Women” and “The resentative Adolph J. Sabath, Demo- crat, of the fifth Illinois district. He | has been in Congress more than 30 years; was elected to the sixtieth and all subsequent sessions. Sabath, born in Czechoslovakia in 1866, and for 12 years judge of the Chicago Municipal Court, is a colorful figure. His build is stumpy, he wears glasses and a bushy mustache and In striking contrast to Rayburn is Representative Sumners—that is, ex- cept for the matter of the hairless head. Tiny, bespectacled, ultradigni- | fied, he looks, talks and acts more like | a professor than a politician. And he | wears the frock coat and striped pants of an earlier era, which no doubt ex- ton.” Sumner's home city of Dallas | is possessed of a beaming smile. One of the most important figures humanitarian. Today he is chairman of the Steering Committee, 8 member | to Investigate Real Estate Bondhold- ers’ Reorganizations. During the World War he was on the House For- eign Affairs Committee when it ap- proved the declaration of war against Germany. Next in point of service in the House is Edward Thomas Taylor, Democrat, of Glenwood Springs, Colo. | He is now serving his fifteenth straight term. ‘This able legislator is the ranking member of the powerful Appropria- tions Committee and also serves as chairman ¢ the Interior Department Subcommittee. Representative Taylor was very much in the limelight last session as acting House Democratic leader in the absence for several months of Representative Bankhead, who was ill. One of the biggest men in Congress, from every conceivable standpoint, is Representative Robert L. Doughton, Democrat, of Laurel Springs, N. C., who is now starting his twenty-seventh year as & member of the House. He's about 6 feet 1 or 2, heavy set, but without an ounce of Doughton is in the habit of wearing an enormous, old-fashioned slouch hat. Result? He looks exactly like what he is—a dirt farmer. His chief obsession, in fact, is his large farm back home, where he raises cotton, tobacco and live stock. Friends call him “Old Bob” in con- tradistinction to “Young Bob™ Rey- nolds, dashing Senator from North Carolina. In the November elections Doughton was re-elected to the Sev- enty-fifth Congress by & sizable ma- Jority, ‘carrying every county in his district. Today he is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which main- tains large offices. What has his com- mittee done? Well, it was instru- mental last session in pushing through the measure making possible the President’s pet piece of legislation, the social security act, which, by many keen obsefvers, is regarded as one of the main reasons for Mr. Roosevelt’s spectacular landslide during the No- vember elections. 8 HAS been pointed out, three members of the Texas delegation, all Democrats, have served in Con- gress for 12 consecutive terms. To re- fresh your memory, they are Sam Rayburn of Bonham, Hatton W. Sum- ners of Dallas and James P. Buchanan of Brenham. Rayburn is tops in Congress, chiefly because he is a born leader. He is brainy, aggressive, a good mixer and an ace public speaker. Political friends and foes alike are ry fond of the gifted Texan and in- ~ | variably refer to him as “Sam” rather | ment. than as Representative Rayburn. He's bald-headed, about § feet 10 inches tall, well proportioned and s con- is essentially a manufacturing metrop- | olis, with agricultural surroundings in the House is this nationally known | . . . cotton being the money crop, with | in next in importance. ‘While colleagues are hoofing it across | constitutional law. This is easily un- derstood when it is learned that his major aim during his long service in the House has been, to quote his own words, “to simplify and popularize my findings about' constitutional law and interpret them for the edification and benefit of the man in the street.” Today Representative Sumners serves on the powerful Appropria- tions Committee. He is known far and wide as one of the Nation's fore- iml experts on money matters. WKXLE most of the old guard Re- publicans are missing this ses- sion, Representative Carl E. Mapes of Grand Rapids, Mich,, remains in the House as the outstanding spokesman for his party. The ranking member of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, he also serves on the Rules Committee. Democratic landslides bother him Congress, he has weathered them all, being elected to the Sixty-third and all succeeding Congresses, with very little difficulty in most instances. Mapes is respected among his po- litical friends and foes alike. Bald- headed, bespectacled, he has had a distinguished career. However, one would never suspect it from the two- line autobiography he inserted in the Congressional Directory. Another able G. O. P. Congressman is Representative Allen T. Treadway of Stockbridge, Mass. Probably there is no ‘more versatile or more popular member of the House today. For here is a veritable human dynamo, & per- fectly proportioned 6-footer, pos- sessed of 200 pounds of apparently inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm. A thorough-going blueblood, he’s nevertheless a very informal sort of person with & rare knack of making every one, in whatever walk of life, feel perfectly at ease. Treadway’s congressional district is very important. It takes in some 79 | towns and 4 cities in Western Massa- chusetts. The Representative is such hero back home that the towns stood by him almost to & man during the November elections, with the result that he achieved his largest victory of his 24 years in Congress. Over Treadway's Democratic opponent, the famous novelist, Owen Johnson, the G. O. P. member had & majority of 8,000 votes. All this, bear in mind, in the face of the amazing Democratic 1andslide. Treadway is ranking member of the ‘Ways and Means Committee and also serves on the Library Committee and Internal Revenue Taxation. Last ses- sion he was exceedingly active in tax and tariff legislation and flercely fought - the reciprocal trade agree- TRADITIONAL seholar of the old - school and a polished gentleman | plains his nickname, “Dapper Hat- | not & trifie. During his 24 years in | career of Representative Carl Vin- son of Milledgeville, Ga. Ever hear of Milledgeville? Probably not, if you're a Yankee. Nevertheless, little Mill- edgeville, a mere spoi on the map to- day, was the capital city of Georgia during the Civil War. It is in the heart of the important cotton section. Since December, 1931, Vinson has been chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, a major committee, Al though not especially fond of public speaking, he can be a spell-binder | when the occasion demands. His fund | of general and specific information is of the Rules Committee and also serves ' golf links, he usually can be found in | .o vapie as chairman of the Select Committee | his office with & book on economics or | - The Georgian is a 6-footer and weighs about 190 pounds. He was unopposed during the November elec- tions. Tomato Has Returned. THE tomato, the love apple which at various times has been con- sidered poisonous and a source of can- cer, totally erroneous ideas, of course, has come back to America to take & | place on the modern diet which is | almost unprecedented. The 20. year | growth of tomato production shows & tremendous gain. Even as recently as 1915, barely more than thirteen and | a half million bushels were produced in the United States. Now the figure | is nearly eighteen million bushels. The gain in production is due in | part to the development of better types and partly because of the vitamin value of the juice. Uneaten—and unknown—by eivi- lized folks 400 years ago, the tomate |has a very brief recorded history. |Prior to Columbus’ discovery of | America it was known only to the na- tives of tropical America who doubt- less had used it for a long but un- determined time. Today the tomatn in its many forms is almost as widely distributed as wheat, a crop with rec- orded history going back thousands of years. f Introduction this year of & new variety, the Glovel, originated by scientists of the United States De- partment of Agriculture and developed in co-operation with the Florida ex- periment station, is another step up- ward in the rapid rise of the tomato. Since research has proved the tomato rich in needed vitamins, the success story of the tomato is easy to understand. It is considered an ex- cellent source of vitamin A, a fair source of vitamin B, and stands out as & source of vitamin C, all three of which are important in s balanced diet, according to the Bureau of Home Economics. This bureau points out the ver- satility of the tomato. Canned or fresh, it serves as the basis of cock- tail, soup, or savory sauce. It's bright color and tart flavor enlivens many a meat and vegetable dish, and the American salad might never have been what it is without raw sliced tomatoes, tomato aspic, tomatoes stuffed, to- matoes in slmost inumerable forms. Studies in preservation also . have been a distinet aid in boosting con- sumption of the tomato. Nowadays thousands of farm housewives not only grow & supply for use fresh in season, but also grow a surplus so that the canning schedule includes plenty of tomatoes for out-of-season use. Also the commercial cannéties tomatoes at a rate of ap- proximately one and one-third million tons annually, so that the grocery muugrm." One volume. mflnF. A bachelor, he lives m:wry-m-nl‘hunnhmn. = ! . shelves as well as country and town