Evening Star Newspaper, March 27, 1937, Page 21

WAR PERSONALITIES SHOWN Famous Correspondent Says Struggle Was Prolonged When High Command in France Suffered From Politics. Moving Story of Clemenceau—Books. By Mary-Carter Roberts. | DUSK OF EMPIRE. By Wythe Wil- | llams. New York: Charles Scrib- | ner's Sons. | ARDLY a week passes now | without a volume of memoirs ; coming from the pen of & veteran foreign mrrespond-’ | | H ent. Naturally, they cover pretty much the same ground. Naturally, too, they all contain records of events which the author was unable to re- port at the time of the happening. It 4 interesting, when one is reading the whole procession, to note what | different things have remained in the minds of different men as desirable to | be told—now that telling is possible. ‘ Wythe Williams has been a foreign | eorrespondent, for the past 25 years, | in which time he has written for the | New York Times, the New York World, the Northcliffe press, the Philadelphia Public Ledger and nu- merous magazines, At the end of this very conspicuous record of service he has several memories which, | plainly, he feels need to be put berorei the public. One gancerns the choice of the French general who succeeded Gen. Joffre in 1916, when the hero of the Marne was relegated to the hon- orable obscurity of his marshalship. | v.1t Byt how his mind turns to Another concerns the part plaved bY | Glemenceau when he writes of human Col. House in the negotiations leading | greatnesst Clearly “the terrible old up to the Versailles treaty. And still | man” made a profound impression on another relates to the war leadership | pin 14 the chapters descriptive of of Clemenceau. Mr. Williams’ nOOk‘lhovTu:cr‘s epic rfig;s and savage MAXINE DAVIS, Author of “They Shall Not Want” (Macmillan). fied admiration for President Roose- covers much more ground than is in- dicated by these three episodes, but when he writes of Gen. Nivelle, of Col. House and the Tiger, he writes kills are unquestionably written out of an emotion that still lives. The reviewer has seldom read a more stirring piece than the brief chapter | THE EVEN as a work of romance, certain virtues. It has “distinction and clarity and have been made known to the reading public for some time now by a well- | known author, and they add, as those selves, to the number of seven. LIGHT WOMAN. By Zona Gale. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co. THERE is very little of the Zona Gale who was once & writer of distinction in this work, and a great deal of the commercially successful magazine writer whom she has be- come. It is, in other words, a totally uninspired piece. It is a tepid little love story about tepid little people— an upstate New York family whose son is so revolutionary as to love an actress. It can be recommended to invalids whose physicians have ordered {an them complete quiet. q | ENCORE FOR LOVE. By Katherine Dunlap. New York: Willlam Mor- row & Co. ']‘HIS novel by a Washingtonian is a placid little love story of the woman's magazine type. It tells of a group of modern people living in t e quaint atmosphere of an old French chateau and finding each his | life partner in a wholly unexception- able manner. It can be recommended | to invalids whose physicians have | ordered for them complete quiet. | AS I LIVE AND BREATHE. By Wil- | lie Snow Ethridge. Frederick A. ING_STAR, beauty and symmetry and tenderness | and truth and urbanity.” These virtues | who wish to count will see for them- | with personal warmth and in the manner of a champlon of truth. The i clihp e s OL‘”A“r’m;h"‘“"';“’:‘)‘;‘ had answered all objections to his m‘;“‘,:“'f"y S BEEALE ‘rrgxmn merely with the snarled “I As to the appointment of Gen. | N : Nivelle to succeed Gen. Joffre in 1916, | yEed the “most powerful man in Mr. Willams makes no less sensa- | of $ORE S B h‘m°~_ “’"“tm“—’;‘" tional a charge than that comphra-!fl;v:d 1(n]ePa:xincwh::vi;:m:}:rm:ng M:o’:fm”:;“%hf::‘r lf};:"n:‘opr‘:m:‘}:;‘: n:! were within 10 miles of the city— et might Have; endsd; helgays) | 07, De: on Mearing ot ipeace, came=" g not to a balcony or the top of a in April, 1917, if Gen. Neville's bril- | fiight of oratorical steps or & banquet liantly conveived offensive had been : carried out. Political enemies of the | {25le But o the street, accompanied general, however, interfered to call [ O%Y DY 0is a8 guotie the drive off on the very day on which the German command, thinking its armies beaten, had given the order to fall back: “The result was a prolonga- tion of the war, and America’s subse- | quent entry. It is not a charge loosely made, but one to which a goodly number of pages are given, the proof being that Gen. Neville, after his court-martial and removal, sent for Mr. Willlams and placed before him ‘‘every phase of the battle of 1917 with the aid of large-scale maps bearing the official “He was sublimely alone seal of the Grand Quartier Genernl_‘ Clemenceau, alone, without even an Also the original text, as well as offictal | agent de police, without a single se- coples of telegrams and letters that | cret service operative, had trudged had passed between the High Com- down from his tiny flat in the Rue a typical French intellectual's dis- regard of evolving fashions. They | clung together, swayed by the crowd. A fragile, little old lady, gray of hair and face; an old man, sturdy, heavy body on short legs. His swarthy face, his Mongolian eyes and moustache were shadowed by & slouch hat. He seemed indifferent to the tears streaming down his cheeks, though his gray gloves now and then twitched his hat lower over his eyes * * *, . mands of the French and British | Franklin, called for his sister, sallied | armies and between the Governments | forth to participate just like anybody of France and England—signed with | in the great rejoicing * * *. such names as Haig, Lloyd George| “His incognito, of course, could not and other leaders.” last. Eyes turned—stared—glistened; Gen. Nevelle stipulated that the | rattling antique French oaths roared source of the information should not | forth — ‘Clemenceau!’ — ‘Thunder of be revealed during his life. It is only | God, but it is the Tiger!'—But—here now, says Mr. Willlams, that he tells | iS the sacre Old One himself!!{'— the complete story, although he raised | Then a roar, a long roar of love and the issue hefore. { Joy: “Vive Clemenceau!’” ITTLE by little, of course, the world | joan 50 en—until the cld man tot- learns what hands moved the)gng when they came to him there to puppets which, at the time, were fond- | called “Armistice Night With Clemen- | ceau,” which tells how the man who | wage war” as long as war had to be | couple, slightly shabby, dressed with | | Stokes Co. 'HIS is a light, p'easant book, non- fiction in fact, but fiction in quality, since its author so evidently | followed the plan of making a story | out of whatever she happened to do. She is the wife of & newspaper man, Mark Ethridge, general manager of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times; the mother of three small children, a Southern girl and clearly & good scout. Her book is the record of her experiences homemaking in a Georgia town, homemaking by virtue of a sense of humor. It is not pro- found, but it does not attempt to be. It is amusing, at times sharp and | always very feminine. It tells of struggles with babies, with Negro servants, with local society and with the husband. Women ought to revel in it. That is exactly the kind of book that it is. MEMOIRS OF A SPANISH PRIN- CESS. By H. R. H. the Infanta Eulalia. New York: W. W. Nor- ton & Co. N THIS book one encounters a state of mind which the world from the beginning of history has encouraged and yet which is seldom set down by any of those who hold | it. That is the state of mind of the | individual who believes him or her- self divinely appointed to a ruling position. | The Infanta Eulalia's book gets its chief interest from this circumstance, as far as the reviewer is concerned, | although the remembered anecdotes | of the private lives of Europe's late | | THE SUPREME COURT ISSUE AND WASHINGTON, Hopkins University Press). NON-FICTION. “Y WHO SHOULD COMMAND ALL."” By Alice Jaynes Tayler. New Ha- The Framamat Publishing Co. Hitherto unpublished letters of John James Audubon, bearing out the au- thor's contention that the great na- turalist was the Lost Dauphin. SKETCHES FROM OUR CONSTI- TUTIONAL HISTORY. By J. A. Van Osdol. Boston: The Chris topher Publishing Co. The Constitution and its makers, by a former president of the Indiana State Bar Association. THE CONSTITUTION. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc. Comments on both sides by dis- tinguished men-—Congressmen, jour- nalists, cabinet members, Governora. RIGHTS OF AMERICANS. By Wil- liam H. Murray. Boston: The Meador Publishing Co. A study of the meaning of the Con- stitution. AMERICAN POINTS OF VIEW. Ed- ited by Willlam H. Cordell and Kathryn Coe Cordell. Garden City: Doubleday Doran & Co. Articles of opinion and essays which appeared in magazines during 1936. CRIME, CROOKS AND COPS. By August Vollmer and Alfred E. Parker. New York: Funk & Wag- nalls. Details of & number of the great criminal cases of our times. PRISON LIFE IS DIFFERENT. By James A. Johnston. Boston: Houghton Miffin Co. The warden of Alcatraz Prison teils the story of his grim institution and | of some of its inmates. MARSHAL NEY. A DUAL LIFE. By Le Gette Blythe. New York Stackpole Sons. The complete body of evidence on the theory that Marshal Ney was not executed in France, as reported, but was permitted to escape to America, | rulers, with which she fills her pages, may have for many the fascination of | | gossip. | She is the daughter of a Queen of | red nto a nearby hotel to escape, | Spain, Isabella II, and aunt of Alfonso | FIVE-MINUTE BIOGRAPHIES. By XIII. Her life has been largely spent | ly thought to be working spontane- ously, and this depressing story of a | tell him that the crowds were drag- | in courts. Her friends, as well as her | ging the captured German cannon |family, have been people who held | from their bases, and asked him to | her viewpoint on the divinity of kingly | great and brilliant officer being broken | give the order to stop it, he re- to gratify politicians is only one of & | plied, “The war is won. The can- number of like revelations which in|non? Give them to the children to recent years have surprised and dis- | play with.” gusted the people. But impressive be-i ‘What a story! And it loses nothing yond the personal tragedy is the fact|in the telling. But Mr. Williams sees that Gen. Nivelle's offensive Was 5uc- | ny Clemenceau about today, but only ceeding when it was recalled, and that, | politicians, nor of the whole crop if it had not been recalled, it would | of post-war eminences can he glve have ended the war with a military | statesmanly rank to any save two— victory—still in the European stage.|Briand and Streseman. They might Had the unfortunate general had “'lghhsv She does not take up this | | issue directly, but it is plain from a | | thousand turns of phrase that she considers kingship the greatest re- | | sponsibility which human life offers, | & position calling for the greatest de- gree of strength and virtue, and one which therefore deserves privilege as its compensation. i For the most part, her direct nar- rative follows her visiting in pre-war friends instead of enemies at court (he was too much of a gentleman for this, | says Mr. Willlams), America would | never have been involved in the late conflict—or so the present work de- clares. For this reason, as well as for the sake of clearing a reputation, the chapters relating the machinations be- | hind the Nivelle offensive are included in the work. For Mr. Williams’ theme is that America, by having taken part in the World War, has come %0 a po- | sition im which world leadership is within her grasp. The “dusk of em- pire” of which he writes is the dusk of European ascendancy. It now lies be- fore us to decide what part we will play. The same choice, he says, was before us at Versailles, but then, through President Wilson's tactless- ness (in this author’s opinion), we let the opportunity go by. It is in this connection that he takes up the case of Col. House, whose knowledge of European diplomatic practices far exceeded President Wil- son’s, and whose advice, he says, if it bad been followed, would have made unlikely the break with the Senate which subsequently prevented the rat- ification of the treaty “As Wilson's closest a er,” Mr Williams, “the colonel expected naturally to be chosen a member of the peace delegation. Also he had reason to feel that he should be its chief. For his principal aids, how- ever, House wanted Willlam' Howard Taft and Elihu Root. * = * Then the delegation would have an all-Ameri- can complexion, regardless of party, and with Republicans having as much to say as the Democrats. This view was cabled to Wilson in strong terms, but went unheeded. * * *” As a result of the President’s deter- mination % act on his own convic- tions—in trifles, unfortunately, as well 8s in great issues—America lost the prestige which her part in the war had won her, and took an ambiguous place among the nations. This is the contention of the present book. The time has now come, however, says the author, when European politics once more will force us to act. There is a peculiar fitness in quoting on this par- ticular day his diagnosis of what con- fronts us, as he sees it: “Perhaps the optimists are correct,” he remarks, and he means by optimists those who hope for peace, “but all the rigns point the other way. Today the clearest observers in both Europe and the United States believe that the danger period will begin about Easter, 1937. From then on during the sum- mer the spark leading to explosion may be ignited any hour.” JROM his quarter of a century of observation of world affairs, concludes that little men can easily start wars, but that real men are need- | them on. He sees nobody of noticeable dimensions anywhere loday, although he confesses a quali- 4N have made peace, he says, if life had | Europe, her friendship with the for- been spared to them. | mer Kaiser being one of the most in- Mr. Willisms is above all things a | teresting bits of the record. She | reporter, and while his book contains a | €XPresses, obviously, a state of mind | ! ticular, he | goodly amount of comment and pur-{ ports to be a summing up of world | conditions, its best bits are those | which follow repertorial formula. As has been indicated, he sees war as almost inevitable, and in this he agrees | with all experienced correspondents | to date. America, this time, he says. ought to have her eyes open and | chose deliberately, rather than ac- cording to the blandishments of for- eign propaganda. In other words, America ought to have profited by experience. But if war comes what . nation in the world can say that it has | profited by experience? Mr. Williams offers no answer to this question. In- | stead he prophecies that war will start in Czechoslovakia. That was Serbia, was it not, back in 1914? which has little popularity at the moment, but she writes courageously and her book is worth reading. THEY SHALL Maxine Davis, Macmillan Co. },IERE is the story of relief—relief at home and abroad. The re- | viewer does not find it a particularly | enlivening narrative, but is quite aware that the importance of the problem to the taxpayers is consider- able. It may be, therefore, that this | book has information of much value ' to the long-suffering general public. Miss Davis made a study of relief as it is administered in the city of Chicago. Then she made studles of NOT WANT. By, New York: The | the English and Swedish methods of | caring for those who, for some reason | SMIRE. By Branch Cabell. Garden City: Doubleday Doran & Co. | IT HARDLY seems necessary to re- view a book by James Branch | Cabell. Those who read his W()rk—f‘ why, they will read it. And there | is a disheartening lack of humor in | the idea of explaining it to those who will not understand. Mr. Cabell, even as other writers, even as Mr. War- wick Deeping or Mrs. Fanny Heaslip Lea, finds his own public. It is a reviewer's peculiar problem that his public will by preference do its own interpreting. Suffice present w to say, then, that the is the third of the series of which “Smirt” and “Smith” are the first two. Coming closer to the | matter, one may add that it is, in Mr. Cabell's own words, “an acceptance | in the third person.” And that, on{ the basis of the text, seems to mean an acceptance of a writer'’s fate, as Mr. Cabell himself has experienced it. | And that, in general, is the fate of a man who comes to live in the world of common sense after having created worlds of his own that were | thoritatively and dispassionately by finally authorized by Congress in 1887. | beyond common sense. It is, in par- the progress of Smire—who | or other, do not care for themselves. | And then she drew up her own plan of what America should do, in the lght | of her conclusion that relief cannot be ended and must be treated as a permanent problem. Her solution has considerable same- ness, as it embodies such well-discussed points as unemployment insurance, public works and direct relief, but as the larger part of her work is of a factual nature, that circumstance de- tracts little from the whole. The book can be regarded as a study worthy of respect. A CONTINENT LOST—A CIVILIZA- } TION WON: Indian Land Tenure | in America. By J. P. Kinney. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UniveYsity Press. UNKNOWN number of Indians once owned &ll the land which is | the United States; now 300,000 recog- nized Indians own a scant 50,000,000 acres. How this gigantic land trans- | fer came about is a theory all Ameri- | cans should know and it is told au- Mr. Kinney in this book. The author, during his 27 years in where he lived for many years in South Carolina as Peter Stuart Ney. Not proved or disproved, but with the weight on the side of the escape. J. P. KINNEY, Author of “A Continent Lost—a Civilization Won” (The John D. C, SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1937. ¥ B—9 Dale Carnegie. New York: Green- berg. ‘The bright-eyed Mr. Carnegie tells how famous and succesful people got that way. MATHEMATICS FOR THE MIL- LION. By Lancelot Hogben. New York: W. W. Norton Co.. The theme is that anybody can under= stand mathematics. Interesting if true. THE WEST IN AMERICAN HIS- TORY. By Dan Elbert Clark. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. The story of the fur traders, the gold miners, the railroad builders, the land seekers and the rest of it. Com- prehensively told. FRIDAY - TO - MONDAY GARDEN- ING. By Margaret Goldsmith, New York: Whittlesey House. The week end gardeners’ garden— and how to make it grow. THE BEHAVIOR OF HEALTH. By N. A. Ferri. Boston: Bruce Hum- phries. How to overcome handicaps by gain- ing good health. By a Chicago phy- sician, ¥ FICTION. MORTGAGE YOUR HEART. By Sophus Keith Winther. New York: The Macmillan Co. The usual sturdy Danish farmers having the problems usual to immi- grants on the usual farm in Nebraska. Quite worthy. THE LOVE WATCH. By Michael Copeland. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. Man with heartache meets girl With | .o yor servant when you take her heartache aboard ship. They fall in love. ARMADA OF THE AIR. By Norman S. Bentley. New York: Lothrop Lee & Shepard. A picture of England in the next war—1946, according to this writer. CAP AND BELLS. By Selina B. Avery. Aurora: Burney Brothers. Story of England in the days of | court jesters. MYSTERY. DEATH AT EIGHT BELLS. Frederick Arnold Kummer. New York: Lothrop Lee & Shepard. Murder on & yacht. Jacket design by C. W. Anderson for “Mortgage Your Heart.” By Sophus Keith Winter (Macmillan). son, when the first tribes were sent to new territories west of the Missis- sippl. The wisdom of the move is generally admitted, the Indian and white civilizations having been shown incompatible in the early years of the development of the country. An his- toric sidelight of this controversy and one often recalled nowadays was Jack- son's famous remark when the Su- preme Court ruled against States’ con- trol of Indian affairs within their boundaries: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him en- force it.” Mr. Kinney has no docu- mentary proof that Jackson ever made such a remark, but he lists it as a generally accepted story. This is but one sliight indication of his accuracy. After the Indians were removed to | their new territories, human nature | being what it was and is, all was not even then right. Then there arose the movement for allotment of land to in- :' dividual Indians. The question had been agitated for years before it was | That was the beginning of one of the | most heated of the legal controversies at one time was an omnipotent deity | the Indian Bureau, has gathered an| g rounding the Indian problem in and at yet another a minor but still | an authentic god—through the world | of history, as it exists in his imagina- | tion r, one understands, as he pre- | ferred to arrange it. He makes the | progress as & reminjscence and en- counters himself—in a.number of forms—on the road. When he comes at last to the end of his journey, he enters, by Charon’s ferry (operating in the reverse of its customary di- ! rection), into the condition of being a famous author with a domiclle in the State of Virginia. Or, that is to say, he accepts the world of common sense. Now there is no point in writing all this, for the reason which was properly given in the first paragraph above. There may be some point, how- | ever, in mentioning that “Smire” has, amazing amount of information on | Indian affairs and particularly—as shown in this volume—on how the | white man conquered the Indian | lands. He traces this story from the arrival of the first New World settlers | to the latest land acts under the pres- ent administration. The book fs! thoroughly documented and obviously | the author pays the most meticulous | attention to accuracy. It is supple- mented with maps, charts, bibliog- raphies, appendix and index. A more scholarly work on the subject could | not be imagined. | The inception of the “modern In- dian” movement might be said to be in the issue of removal of the In-| dians from the white man's territory, a movement which reached its crisis in the administration of Andrew Jack- America. The lands later were leased or sold, corruption entered the picture, | officials charged the Indians were“ becoming indolent and profligate. Numerous laws were enacted to im- prove upon the situation, but with varying success. The problem has not yet been settled | Of course, there is no possible way to know whether the Indian has been | justly compensated for the land taken ‘ over the years. But this volume does answer—not in any sense by pleading, | but merely by placing the irrefutable | facts before the reader—the charge | that the land was stolen from the Redmen. From the beginning there | were compensations for the Indians. | Whether the compensations were just | is a question Mr. Kinney does not attempt to answer, and it would be ] unfair to attempt to read an answer into his story. There were rewards from the times the earliest colonists traded with the Indians to retreat farther back into the forests, to the | 1933-36 period, when the Federal Gov~ ernment spent $75,000,000 for the benefit of the Indians, in addition to | the regular annual appropriations (ori administration, which amounted wi over $66,000,000. I There has been much written of a completely emotional nature on the | Indian question, but Mr. Klnney's; book is not of that quality. It is a scholarly work by an author who has conducted his research in the clear | atmosphere of personal knowledge of | his subject. The happy result is an| authoritative reference book for the | | critical student of history and an in- | teresting story for the general reader. | The book is replete with evidence of | an understanding sympathy with the | Indian and, at the same time, is singu- | larly free from the sentimentalism | that has too often obscured the| foundations upon which must be built | any permanent structure of Indian ac- | complishment. —E. T. MEN OF MATHEMATICS. By Eric T. Bell. New York: 8imon & Schuster. HIS is the epic of man's loftiest adventures in the far, strange fields of thought. Dr. Eric T. Bell of the California Institute of Technology has told—and for the first time—one of the most glamorous stories in human history. The book may have some such stand- ing in the future as Sir Thomas Mal- lory’s “Mort’ d’Arthur”—a comparison made advisedly. Folk epics vary with times and peoples. The ideals of the | group are reflected in the national | heroes. In' the past these have been, | for the most part, warriors. There is some reason t» hope that this will not always be the case, thal men who N MAGAZINE GOES CAT-MINDED Current Publications’ Are Provided With New Ideas Marked by Various Personality Touches—Stories of Amazing Flow of Money in Metropolis. By M.-C. R. EOPLE who lovg cats should get the April Coronet. It seems to have gone cat-minded. That is, it seems to have gone cat- minded in the pictorial sense. It has one delightful series of drawings called “Thirteen Cats by Five Wom- en,” in which are shown “the elfin cats of Wanda Gag, the sensuous silken cats of Eula Long, Agnes Tait’s inscrutable creatures with well-deep eyes, Peggy Bacon's unprincipled sneak thief, Mabel Dwight's mysteri- ous might prowler.” These are all good cats—or that is to say, they are all good cat pictures, for the wise | know that there are no bad cats, and the unwise may never learn this. But these are good cat pictures. | Then Coronet also has, on page 85, | a8 photograph of a baby cat laugh- ing—something they do quite often when they are young, by the way— and this is also a good cat picture. | 1t is by Hegyei-Schulz of Long Island City. And finally, on page 143, it has a cat cartoon called “Hors D’Oeuvers.” It is witty, but the pussy has a quite impossible tail. Granted though that the pictures are | all right—for & cartoon is a cartoon— the reviewer finds it impossible to accept the text—the text, that is, which goes with the “Thirteen Cats.” For it raises that threadbare, and quite pointless comparison—cat vs. dog, which is just like saying heliotrope va. coal scuttle, or, if you wish a com- plete explanation, there is no ground for comparing the two animals at all. Save that both are quagrupeds, of course. Or carnivors. Or more or less domestic. The number of feet, the diet, the habits, however, touch nowhere on the catty soul, And that is the essence of the cat. Says Coronet: “Dogs, in their word- less speech with their masters, are forever saying, ‘Thank you'; cats never. With virtually all dogs, with almost all men, friendship is an attainable goal if earnestly desired. But with most cats, as with some women, friendship is impossible— there can be only love or hate.” Now the reviewer submits that this is very stupid. Cats are the perfect friends. Of course, they do not fawn | and grovel and sgy “thank you.” But do you want your friends to do that? Can you feel friendly toward some one who invariably agrees with you? | On the contrary, such a person geper- ally arouses the slumbering instinct toward homicide in even the gentlest | breast. But the cat is quiet, gently demon- strative (if she likes you, and only if she does, so that there is no trou- bling over her sincerity), the cat is self-sufficient g0 that you do not be- in, and the cat is dignified. What more do you want in a friend? Com- munfon? Be informed then that if the cat is not much of a talker she is one of the most satisfactory listeners in the world. She listens as a well- bred person listens, attentively, mak- ing her own conclusions. She does not yearn at you, or sprawl on you, | or lick you. Again, what do you want in a friend? The reviewer maintains that there is no possible comparison. The re- ZONA GALE, Author of “Light Woman and Birth” (D. Appleton-Century Co.). viewer likes dogs, without seeing the slightest necessity to cease liking cats. ‘Why these beasts should be ruled mutually exclusive is a mystery. Dogs have thelr virtues; they are slavish virtues, but virtues still. Cats must needs be regarded as equals. There are, of course, people who cannot bear an equal. But does this reflect on the cat? On the distinct contrary, must surely be the answer, THE new Liberty, in its “To the Ladies” department, reports a new kind of contest for mothers. After what we have been having in this country it sounds like a distinct rellef. It is a beauty contest, and the en- trants must have at least four chil- dren. The motive back of it, says Princess Kropotkin, who runs the department, is subtly to encourage women to have large families so that there may result large armies. But that seems just a little too elaborate. One perfers to think it is the old French gallantry taking a bright new manifestation. 'HE reviewer 1s a bit amused at a slip caught in that travel bureau publication called “So You're Going.” The slip occurs in the title of a pic- ture of two old inns in Stony Strat- ford, England. The inns were called the Cock Inn and the Bull Inn, and the title has it that, because in them “so many tall tales originated during the Napoleonic wars * * * a big yarn came to be called a ‘cock and bull’ story.” Yes? But the Napoleonic wars be- gan about 1798 and ended in 1815. How, then, explain the final line of “This Day Published “THE POWER OF SYMPATHY, OR THE TRIUMPH OF NATURE “The First American Novel. “There are today only about 13 coples of this book known,” continues the bulletin. “One reason for this is that the book was voluntarily sup- pressed. Part of the book paralleled the details of a recent scandal in the Apthorp family, and when the author, a neighbor of the Apthorps, realized the distress the book caused he con= sented to have the general sale of the novel stopped and the unsold copies destroyed. “This author of the first novel was unidentified until 1894, for the book was issued anonymously. A mem- ber of the family finally revealed that William Hill Brown (1765-1793) was the real author.” One gathers that Mr. Brown was 24 when his first book appeared. Young novelists today are hardly so self- effacing. Imagine any of our bright young men voluntarily suppressing— well, anything! NOTE on recovery (it may be) is contained in an article (not dis- mayingly profound) in the April Cos- mopolitan. The author 1is Lucius Beebe, and he is writing about what one finds today in the cafes of New York. “Never before, probably,” he reports, “has New York been snowed under by such a blizzard of money as is now drifting through its streets, piling up in its night clubs and in the ateliers of its court jewelers, furriers, cou= touriers and luxury tradesmen. Mink coats at forty thousand dollars have become & commonplace. (Somehow or other, one doubts if they are really quite common.) There is & rare per~ fume on the market priced—and sell- ing—at five hundred dollars for an ounce flask. There is & positive shortage of matched sables and chin- chilla; diamond boutonniers for men are being passed over the counter at ten thousand dollars & copy; waiter captains are playing the market again, and it's possible for two to dine at the Colony and have very little change out of a half century bank note.” And 50 on. Happy days are here again? are they? or 'HE COSMOPOLITAN for April also contains what the reviewer rates as the prize blurb yet blurbed. It comes from no less expensive a pen than that of Mr. Rupert Hughes (s writer) and it is devoted to extolling the genius of Mr. O. O. Mclntyre (a- columnist) as a creative artist. Says Mr. Hughes, in boyish enthusiasm: “He’s been writing his columns since 1812—merely for a little over 24 years.: Why. he hasn't reached his nine-thou= sand.. column yet. But he will! He will go on like the brook, forever. And, “Tristram Shandy” which makes use | like the dammed brook, he will gurgle of the expression and was written in | the middle eighteenth century? Some- body is wrong somewhere. A BULLETIN issued by the Colum- bia University Press has this ac- count of the first American novel: “On January 22, 1789, there ap- peared in the Independent Chronicle of Boston an advertisement beginning away with no hint of fatigue, no lack of cool, fresh, sunlit eagerness, reflect= ing and taking on the images and col= ors of everything between sky and soil within the reach of his traveling mire ror.” And then, having written that, Mr, Rupert Hughes very handsomely signed it. As has been noted, its sube fect is O. O. McIntyre ( a columnist), have sought the Holy Grail in the mystic mountains of the mind will take the place of the armored knights who sought it in the material world where it never could be found. Dr. Bell has gathered together the | life stories of the high adventurers of mathematics who rode their white steeds of thought beyond the farthest stars, into the weird never-never lands of hyperdimensional space and time, to the ultimate gates of the infinite. They fought cosmos-shaking battles with the dragons of prejudice to rescue the captured maidens of truth. To this book the future must turn for the authentic life stories of its knights in armor—and Dr. Bell has done as good a job as Mallory did. They constituted a veritable round table—this little company of mathe- maticians through the ages. There were Arthur, Launcelot, Garwain, Mordred and Galahad among them. There were sneaks and double-dealers. There were some of the finest char- acters the world has known. This may sound like absurd praise for any book. The present reviewer, | however, was unable to lay down the | 700-page volume after opening it. It took all night to read it, even with skipping a lot of the mathematics. Then he reread it, mathematics and all. Then he reread some chapters a third and fourth time. That really is the way to read one of the solidest, most original, most inspiring books of the decade. Henri Poincare, one of Dr. Bell's glamorous round table, once wrote books on mathematics which were best-sellers. Paris shop girls read them instead of the latest novels. It is no exaggeration to say that the Cali- fornia professor—his competence as a mathematician in his own right, by the way, is attested by the fact that he is a fellow of the National Acad- emy of Sciences—has duplicated this almost unbelievable feat. “Men of Mathematics” belongs with such books of the past decade as “The Story of Philosophy,” “Green Laurels,” and the like. In this reviewer's esti= mation it is by far the best of them. Almost without exception, the great mathematicians were interesting men as human beings—quite apart from the remote, weird lands of thought in which they adventured. There used to be an old hymn sung at funerals which began: “More homelike seems that vast un- known Since they have gone before.” With quite a different meaning the verse might be applied here. More homelike seem the fathomless depths of space and time since the minds of men like Lobatchewsky, Riemann, Poincare and Cantor have journeyed through them. There is now well under way the movement to write history with the emphasis laid on the really essential events—almost invariably events which happened in some man's mind. In this movement Dr. Bell's book is & landmark. Hardly any one has done 50 well in the past and it may be a long time before anybody will do better. =T. R. H. NONE SHALL LOOK BACK. By Caroline Gordon. New York: Charles fcribner’s Sons. MAJ. ANDERSON, one of Gen. Bed- ford Forrest’s officers, is speak- ing: “We will have to dree our own weird here in the West. No help will come from Virginia. They will not even give us moral support. Gen. Forrest is not a ‘West P'inter.”” Thus what was happening on the western front in the Civil War. The general looked down upon “those fellers who fought by note . . . he could usually beat ’em before they pitched the tune.” He beat them at Fort Donelson, when they surrendered after they had won, by taking his men out of the trap. He went on to fierce fighting at Chickamauga and to a last dramatic stand at Murfreesboro. The general went his lone way, har- boring only sllent contempt for his superiors, who “played by note,” and inspiring confidence and trust in the rough-hewn youths who fought at his side. It was hard fighting and irreg- ular, according to the Tidewater standards, but Gen. Forrest was & hard, irregular man. He is the real hero of this novel and he dominates it because he is the personification of the battles which swept the rocky hills and mountains. It is startling to come upon such description as one finds in chapter after chapter. The writing is vigorous and realistic. It is no easy thing to carry & non-military-minded reader through the most intricate mazes of a disorderly conflict and have him moved and satisfled, but this is ex- actly what Miss Gordon accomplishes by the brilliance and power of her writing. She describes the glint in the eye of a lone man dying under & bush and the sweep of an entire regi- ment marching down a broad valley, writing with equal strength and assur- ance. These superb battle scenes would hardly have made a novel in them- selves, although one wishes they had in this case. The story in “None Shall | Look Back” adds nothing to its | stature; it even detracts from it, be- cause it is & conventional tale, told before and better. There is a young Confederate hero, one of Forrest's scouts, and there are his family and friends. They lead the conventional Southern plantation life of the ante- bellum days; the Yankees come; the | Negroes are a problem; reconstruction appears ahead. But, fortunately, this part of the book is minimized. Any author who dares publish a Civil War novel now invites dangerous and inevitable comparisons. The story in “None Shall Look Back” would suffer; the battle scenes would not. —E. T. PUBLIC LIBRARY ART IN MODERN TIMES. In connection with the biennial ex- hibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art the division of fine arts of the Public Library has prepared the fol- lowing book list. In addition to books on contemporary art, an extensive col- lection of color reproductions of paint- ings by modern American and Euro=~ pean artists is avallable. These books and pictures may be borrowed at the Central Library at Eighth and K streets, Prize Winners. EDWARD HOPPER, by G. P. DuBois. 1931. WI10.H77d. EDWARD HOPPER, Retrospective Ex- hibition, November 1-December 7, 1933. New York Museum of Mod- ern Art. 1933. W10.H77n. (Ed- ward Hopper, by A. H. Barr, jr., p. 9-15.) GUY PENE DUBOIS, by Royal Cortis- soz. 1931. W10.D85¢c. American Art. {does one of Forrest's men explain ART IN AMERICA IN MODERN ! - TIMES, edited by Holger Cahiil and A. H. Barr, jr. 1934, W83.C2, NEW HORIZONS IN AMERICAN ART, with an introduction by Hol~ ger Cahill. 1936. W83.N42n. MODERN AMERICAN PAINTERS, by 8. M. Kootz. 1930. WP10.K42, ART IN AMERICA, by Suzanne La- Follette. 1929. W83.L13, General Works. PRIMER OF MODERN ART, by Shel« don Cheney. 1924. W157.C42. MODERN ART, by Thomas Craven, 1934. W157.C85. CUBISM AND ABSTRACT ART. New ‘York. Museum of Modern Art. 1936, ‘W157.N42. SIGNIFICANT MODERNS AND THEIR PICTURES, by C J. Bul- liet. 1936. WP.B88. EXPRESSIONISM IN ART, by Shel- don Cheney. 1934, WP.C426. MODERN MOVEMENT IN PAINT- ING, by T. W. Earp. 1936. WP.Ea2. AFTER PICASSO, by J. T. Soby. 1935. WP.So02. MODERN PAINTERS AND SCULP- TORS AS ILLUSTRATORS. New York. Museum of Modern Art. 1936. ‘WSB.N43. Biographies. PAUL GAUGUIN'S INTIMATE JOURNAL, translated by Van Wyck Brooks. 1936. W10.G234a. PORTRAIT OF AN ERA, by F. D. Downey. 1936. W10.G355d. LETTERS TO AN ARTIST, by Vin- cent Van Gogh. 19368, W10.G559a4. HEADS AND TALES, by Malvina Hoff- man. 1936. W10.H673. OIL PAINT AND GREASE PAINT, by Dame Laura Knight. 1936. W10 K74, RECOLLECTIONS OF A PICTURE DEALER, by Ambroise Vollard. 1936. W10.v88. American Artists’ Series. GEORGE BELLOWS, by G. W. Eg- gers. 1931. W10.B42e. ALEXANDER BROOK, by E. A, Jewell. 1931. W10.B79j. MARY CASSATT, by Forbes Watson, 1932. W10.C267w. GLENN O. COLEMAN, by C. A. Glass= gold. 1932. W10.C673g. ARTHUR B. DAVIES, by Royal Cor- tissoz. 19831. W10.D29c. CHARLES DEMUTH, by William Murrell. 1931. W10.D39m. WILLIAM GLACKENS, by G. P. Du- Bois. 1931. W10.G452d. BEST SELLERS FOR WEEK ENDING, MARCH 27. Fiction. Theatre. Maugham. Double- day-Doran. The Late George Apley. Mar- quand. Little, Brown & Co. Paradise. Forbes. Harcourt, Brace & Co. Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck. Covici Priede. Sea of Grass. Richter. Knopf. Gone With the Wind. Mitchell. Macmillan. Non-Fiction. How to Win Friends and In- fluence People. Carnegie. Simon & Schuster. The Hundred Years. Guedalla. Doubleday-Doran. Bomething of Myself. Kipling. Doubleday-Doran. ‘The Nile. Ludwig. Viking Press. American Doctor's Odyssey. Heiser. Norton. I Visit the Soviets. Delafleld. Harpers.