Evening Star Newspaper, May 15, 1937, Page 19

THE EVE G STAR, WASHINGTO SATURDAY, MAY 15 1937. W LIBERALS PICTURED IN BOOKS Work Shows Pathway by Which Leading Family Arrived at Place of Leadership — Writer Gives Critical Estimate of Present By Mary-Carter Roberts. THE AMBERLEY PAPERS. By Bert- rand and Patricla Russell. New York: W. W, Nortoy, Co. HIS is a two-volune work, made up of selections from the let- ters and journak of Bertrand Russell's parents. The ma- terial has been chosen for the pur- pose of showing the mth by which Lord and Lady Ambedey arrived at their position as champions of liberal- ism. It begins with papers written in early childhood and erds with letters dated only shortly befere death. The period covered is, of course, one in which liberalism was a conspicuous Issue, not only in politics, but in relig- fon and in the intellettual world. As Lord and Lady Ambaley were inde- fatigably active in thek efforts toward furthering any cause vhich seemed to them to include the gemm of emancipa- tion, their papers contain an excellent panorama of the issues which animat- ed their day—freedan of women, anti-slavery, tempetance, peace, trade unionism, social reform as em- bodied in various bills and as outlined by various leaders, virious forms of dissenting religion, scintific advances and yet others. In th¢ freedom which their own wealth and etablished posi- tion in a conservatie society gave them, these two peopk were able to look on the world as a patient suffer- ing from a multitude >f diseases, and they turned all the jowers of their minds to diagnosing tle ills and med- itating cures. This, substantially, ¥ what the book shows. Its material Is divided into chapters, at first accoding to periods of development—as yoith, schooldays, courtship—and later acording to the years. As both Lord ard Lady Amber- ley died young, in thei: early 30s, the actual time covered by this record is not long. But there is a detailed comprehensiveness in t and it must stand as one of the exellent pictures of nineteenth century Intellectualism. More than this the work contains a tull and living picture «f relationships in the two families. Nost of the let- ters are to or from rdatives and in their accumulating liies, the reader will see appearing tle life of the English noble family ofthe period—its movements from city to country, its excitements over elecions, its con- cern for “good” marrages, property, sucoess, the placing d younger sons and all the rest of it. Lady Amberle: it should be said, was)f the Stanleys, a family not less proninent than her husband’s, and simila in interests. Against this crowed background the two young people siow themselves, by their own written vords, unflinch- ingly conscientious in their efforts to better the world, but semewhat heavily laden by the weight of the responsibil- ity. They present a social paradox that is by no means nev in human his- tory. They were, by virue of their own economic and social pivileges, able to aevote themselves selfssly to righting the wrongs out of wlich, in part at least, their own favoed position de- rived. Clear-minded as they were, they must have preceied the basic in- consistency of their god works. It is obvious, at any rate,that they were never so happy as vhen they found time to escape briefly rom society and politics, and read tgether in their oountry home the moe congenial sub- Jects of philosophy @d religion. A host of contemprary eminences fills the book's pages—to name a few, Carlyle, Browning, 3urne-Jones, Sir Richard Burton, the Prince of Wales, Gladstone, Lord Grey Emerson, Low- ell, Longfellow, and,of course, Lord | Amberly’s father, Lod John Russell, who was briefly prire minister. Of some of these thereare clear word pictures; the most anusing perhaps is that given by Lady Anberley, when a | child, of Thomas Caxyle. | “He talked a greatdeal in the eve- ning,” she wrote n her journal, “abused Mill's book @ Liberty & said | we did not want librty & it was all | nonsense, he talkd too of the| wretched state of fotch land from | which hc had just ome, & said the | Bcotch would be qite right to rise up and drive all tie Irish into the | sea & he talked abut running peo- | ple through with ared hot poker and then laughed very nuch at the idea. He held forth till 1 all of us listening to him. The next norning at break- fast we asked himwhat it meant to perfect the theoryof defective verbs, & phrase he usesvery often in his French Revolution he explained it to us & said it was ofas little importance to fight about the constitution as to settle the theory o defective verbs . . . ““. « At luncheor he said he thought all novels stupid & he did not know any good ones witten by women, he abused every onein turn which was | mentioned—& hesaid it was such a pity that every ole wrote now it was no longer a distnction, he thought women had bet¢r not meddle with those things by be quiet darning stockings, a very different idea from Mrs. Mills in he¢ Enfranchisement of ‘Women; he talied of her & said she | was a silly wonan, at least not so clever, but tht Mill admired her because she wis kind to him. He thinks that talling is the great fault of the age & tht people had far bet- ter not talk. “. . Talkingof the Rifle Corps he approved of itfor a wonder & said it was an excellat thing to bring every one under digipline & much better to send themp cat-o™-nine tails & a drill sergeant jhan Maurice’s Lectures and Ruskin's drawing, it would do them more god. We did not agree... “I enjoyedhis visit here very much & I always Ke to listen to him one salways learns something—.” The visit vhich the couple made to America in 867 is to some extent a condensationof their entire range of preoccupatiols—they wanted to know what was wong in our country and ‘what we wee doing to make it right. ‘They traveld fairly widely and were brilliantly etertained, but this was their true inerest—what was there to reform, an¢ how were we going about it? The book mn make the reader sad, respectful oramused. It will depend on how he reacts to sanguine cru- saders for ferfection. It of course furnishes a ‘'ery comple': ground for understandig Bertrand Russell, who has so earnstly carried on the task which his eually earnest young par- ents began. 1 SEARCH DR TRUTH IN RUSSIA. By Sir Witer Citrine. New York: E. P. Duton & Co. 'HE chiefpoint of interest in this book is|its author; he is the general secréary of the English Trade Union Congess, & national organiza- tion which pmbraces practically all British trad unions and has a mem- bership of 4000,000 workers He went e Russia, terefore, not with a politi- Russian Affairs. cal partisan's interest in the Com- munist state, but with the practical object of finding out what communism has done for bettering working and living conditions among all kinds of ‘workers. In substance, he reports that the Russians, under their new government, have planned well and executed badly. He finds that their aspirations for the workers are excellent, but that most of them remain, even today, in the state of being aspirations, and that those which have been carried out have, quite often, been bungled. Particularly in illustration of this he refers to the so-called “model” tene- ments built for working class families. They are constructed from cheap materials, he says, so that even those ‘which have been up only a few years are in a state of marked deterioration. More than this, he finds that these buildings are badly planned for family living and hardly maintained at all. ‘There are, of course, some exceptions. He notes and names these duly. He also found in working conditions that the promises of the workers’ state have not yet been fulfilled. The work day is long, the speed-up system is carried out in the government factories to a degree that shocked him, there is a deliberately fostered system of spying among the workers, and wages are so low that only the fact that mothers as well as fathers contribute to family support makes it possible for the ordinary working class to keep alive. The top weekly wages which he found, indeed, for a factory worker, was only 27 shillings. As against these facts, however, there are plans and ideals which he found admirable. He could only express his hope that time would bring them to fulfillment. At present, he agrees with most authorities that the people are better off than they were under the Czar, but worse off than the work- ers in any other Western country. The book is almost devoid of gen- eralities. It is written in diary form and simply relates how the author visited this or that factory, creche, tenement, park and so on, and lists the conditions found in each. At the end of the journal, however, Sir Walter permits himself to comment a little. He clearly would like to be enthusiastic but he has the English | democrat’s love of freedom too deeply the suppression of criticism, the spy- ing, the great inequality, the demand for utter conformity. He hopes, how- ever, that these evils are only a phase. His criticism is at all times generous, and the most sensitive Communist ought not to find fault with the pure | objectivity of his book. | ANGELS IN UNDRESS. Benney. New York: House. ONCE in a while one does really get a book which falls outside recog- | nizable types. The present one does {that. It is, to be sure, an autobi- ‘ography. but it is an autobiography | with a difference. Its writer is a prose iamst and a poet who knows how to |use prose as his medium. His life | story therefore shines with a light. {But as it is a terrible story, quite | apart from any manner of telling, that light becomes a beacon of terror, a nightmarish flashing, throwing shad- ows which are sinister and repellent. It is the story, in brief, of the life of an English lad whose mother was a prostitute, whose home was the un- derworld of London, whose mentors were criminals, whose ambition it was to become a “wide” man, by By Mark Random which he understood one whose wits | were superior to work, and whose fate was finally prison. It is all this and it is a piece of splendid writing. The question has already been raised as to how a man with so little education could write as this Mark Benney writes. It has not been answered satisfac- torily, in the reviewer's opinion, but the authenticity of the volume has been abundantly vouched for. It is no literary hoax. On the contrary, it would seem to be a literary miracle. ‘The book offers no apologies. It | tells of the only life which the child Mark Benney knew. He had no stand- ards of comparison in his boyhood; therefore he makes no subsequent ex- cuses. He had a normal boy's love of adventure, he admired his pretty, gay young mother and found the fev- erish existence that surrounded her no more shocking than any child finds the home of its parents. He grew naturally into crime; it was not want that drove him, although he did have some lean days. Instead, he even de- scribes stealing for the love of it. His book, therefore, is without the | self-pity which characterizes so many crime confessionals; yet neither is it swaggering. It is a record of a sordid existence, as seen by one who had ne knowledge of sordidness, by one who found beauty in his surroundings, even as do the rest of us. Coming, later in life, to understand that the | basic material of those surroundings was hideous, he has had the rare dis- crimination to write a book of hideous beauty, of repellent fascination, a book that is like a serpent with a gleaming skin—a book such as only a very rare talent could have produced. It is not recommended, however, for general reading. The lover of inspired writing will give it its proper value. Other readers, it is to be feared, will find it either unwholesomely sensa- tional or unbearably shocking. PIONEERING IN AGRICULTURE. By Thomas Clark Atkeson and Mary Meek Atkeson. New York: Orange Judd Publishing Co. TH’IS simply written work by Wash- ington authors is one which ought to be read with great interest today. Agricultural problems are not the least of the current news, and farmers and their spectacular plight are to some de- gree holding the political stage. We think of their present ill condition as something altogether new. We read of their disasters in the drought and dust stricken regions and conclude hastily that these are representative of all agricultural districts. This his- tory of agriculture in America over a hundred years will go far to correct such an impression. There are farm districts in the United States which have been culti- vated since long before the dust bowl was ploughed, and which are good producing lands today. Thomas Clark Atkeson, writing in collaboration .with his daughter, tells of such districts here. He has a right to speak with authority too. He was the first dean of agriculture in West Virginia Uni- versity, where he developed such new projects as an extension course, a home reading course, a student grange and rural betterment schools. He was master of the West Virginia State Grange for 25 years, and has held im- portant offices in the national grange. b | ingrained in him. He cannot stomach | | incomparably when he lets himself go. | He has been the national grange legis- lative representative in Washington and was particularly active in bring- ing about post-war legislation for the benefit of farmers. His story of his experience as a practical farmer on a Great Kanawha Valley farm and of his work in the above named capacities is & record of sound conservative land cultivation in America, and of the pro- gressive movements which have been undertaken to preserve our land re- sources and better farm conditions generally. The book is not for the technical reader alone, however. It is written with great humanness. Mary Meek Atkeson is herself one of the foremost woman writers on farm subjects to- day; she is a contributor to the Coun- try Gentleman and author of the standard work, “Woman on the Farm.” In collaborating in the telling of her father’s story she has used both her knowledge of the subject and her skill as a writer. The book can be read for its narrative of pioneer conditions alone. The story of agricultural de- velopment is the theme around which & whole era of American life is very MAUD AND DELOS LOVELACE, Authors of “Gentlemen From England.” STOYAN CHRISTOWE, Author of “Mara” (Thomas Y. Crowell Co.). (Macmillan.) SIR WALTER CITRINE, Author of “I Search for Truth in Russia” (E. P. Dutton & Co.). CHANGES AMONG MAGAZINES Clown Revives Spirit of Ancient Publication, and One Other of Latest Vintage Shows Improvement—Touching Story of Former King and Another of Coronation. By M.-C. R. EMINDING one equally of lost, lost youth and chances of re- finding it, 8t. Nicholas is here with a brand-new circus cover —a clown of the old-fashioned kind, covered with red paint and wearing a baggy suit. Nostalgia results—nostal- gla for the taste of pink lemonade. And a ride on the back of the elephant. THE second issue of the co-opera- tive magazine, the Yellow Book, is to hand and the reviewer must give praise to the editors for their sports- manship. She was pretty hard on the first issue—it was arty and clearly a case of performance outrun by desire. It might have been expected that its sponsors would shield their child from possible repetition of these hard words by refraining from sending more num- bers, but they have not done so. They seem to be willing to cover their bets. They send their second issue and that amounts to daring reviewers to do their worst, Well, the worst will not be so bad this time. This second issue is much naturally built. From the point of view of American tradition, too, the book has a special interest in these particular times, I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLE- | SALE. By Jerome Weidman. New York: Simon & Schuster. TO ANY ONE who has read Mr. ‘Weidman's short stories, his pres- ent work—his first novel—will be wearyingly familiar, and this despite | the fact that it comes out bearing on | its jacket a wild blurb from that happy- | tempered young man, Burton Rascoe. Mr. Rascoe, be it sald, having reviewed books for only a decade or so, still possesses & wellspring of pure en- | thusiasm which enables him to blurb And in the case of this book he does let himself go. novel with “shivers of pure esthetic delight” and finished it with “an in- | nature; it is not only concerned with | What verve | politics, but with race, population, | natural resources, exports and im- | voluntary” exclamation. he has, to be sure! What wide-eyed | rapture! Then, having gone so far with | revelations of his critical ecstasy, Mr. | Rascoe tells us what his throbbing “exclamation” was. “Great J. Pier- | pont Popocatepetl!” He confesses that | these were the syllables wrung from | him by the emotional purge of Mr. | Weidman's work of art. “Great J.| Pierpont Popocatepetl! What a writer!” And then he innocenily glanced at the clock and accidentally noticed that it was 4 in the morning. 8o spellbound had his discoverer's frenzy held him. Well, if you don't believe, take a look at the back jacket. It's all there, over Mr. Rascoe’s name. This, no doubt, is literary criticism. Now surely, when a book is intro- duced with such flagrant gushing, & reviewer may be pardoned for feeling a certain hostility toward it. Un- happily, with the present writer, in- stinctive hostility works on the con- science to produce a more lenient no- tice than ordinarily would be accorded. No, it is not fair to blame the book for its publisher’'s method of advertis- ing. It is not fair to blame the novelist because a critic has made of himself a sideshow barker. Let us see, then, what with the utmost charity, may be said for “I Can Get It For You Wholesale.” It is nothing in the world but a portrait, and the portrait is complete by the end of the first chapter. After that it is all repetition and, as Mr. Weidman writes with extreme monot- ony, both as to his thought and to his style, the repetition lacks somewhat in interest for its own sake. The portrait, however, is a good one. It is the portrait of a modern manner of human rat, a cheap, coarse, dishonest man, who makes a fortune in the New York garment trade very quickly. He is not pleasant certainly; he is not even in- teresting. He is loathesome, much as the animal mentioned above is loath- some; that is to say, having recognized a rat as a rat, one does not particularly care to investigate its individual char- acteristics. One’s reaction is to kill it or forget it—and to do one or the other quickly. So a full-length novel devoted to demonstrating a rat's rattiness, and to no other thing, to announcing triumphantly and without the slightest variation of tone on page after page that this animal is—look you—a veritable rat, as you yourself had seen on first glance, falls, there- fore, in this reviewer's estimation at legst, something short of artistic sublimity. At any rate, finishing it, she cried out no great j. pierpont popocatepetls. She did look at the clock, however, and noted that she had been three hours reading the thing, and admired her conscience. For a perfectly adequate review of it could have been done after a 15-min- ute examination. Let Mr. Rascoe choke on that. Now this does not mean that the reviewer would look adversely on any work in which the characters were scoundrelly—if there be any so simple &5 to suppose that she might. Subject ‘ matter is no material for criticism— does that need to be stated? It is quite possible that Mr. Weidman might make a real novel about his ghastly little beast if he were to learn to use a style that is not cheaply facile, an | irony that is a trifle more delicate than the fall of a granite mounment and would take time to endow his work with some depth and variety. As it is, he has produced only a portrait, as| has been said. It is good, and in less than 400 pages it is repeated 5,000 times. FLOOD LIGHT ON EUROPE. By Felix ~ Witmer New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 'HIS book, subtitled “A Guide to the Next War,” is one of those surveys of conditions in Europe which He writes—nay, he | have come out in great numbers in | publishes—that he reacted to this|the past year. ‘It is, however, mnre! detailed than most works of a similar ports. Also it offers the reader the additional enlightenment of an out- line of the history of each country under discussion. It combines, there- fore, somewhat the features of an atlas, a history text and a political manual. It is largely factual; it deals but little in the drawing of conclu- sions. The author seems to feel that his title—or his subtitle—is signifi- cant enough of those. That there should be more than a dozen nations and several dozen racial groups cher- ishing divergent aims in a restricted territory is in {tself, apparently, to his mind, indicative of what is to come. He is occupied simply in show- ing what these divergent aims are and by what steps they have come to be important to the governments which hold them. The book is im- mensely informative, but unfortun- ately dry in style. An exception to this latter condition which should be mentioned, however, is the section on Spain. That is richly interesting. GENTLEMEN FROM ENGLAND. By Maud and Delos Lovelace. New York: The Macmillan Co. THIS is & pleasant little novel about the life lived by the members of an English colony which settled in Northern Minnesota shortly after the Civil War. The “gentlemen from England” have been badly persuaded to buy estates there by a sharp Yankee land agent. They pay five pounds the acre, when the true price is one. But, having arrived, they decide to make the best of it. They build in English style, they ride to the hounds, they give hunt balls and in every way they can maintain the traditions of their class. One, Richard Chalmers, hero of the tale, becomes involved in love affairs and scandals. Event- ually the air clears, however, and Richard finds himself. That is all, but it makes unexceptionally pleas- ant reading. MARA. By Stoyan Christowe. York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. ARA is a story of the Macedonian revolt against Turkey. In effect, it portrays two themes, the passion for life and fecundity as exemplified by Mara, the mother, and the passion for freedom as exemplified by Paul, the son; and the futility of both. Told in a quiet, unhurried manner, with here and there a conscious at- tempt at stylistic effect, the story car- ries one along to the inevitable end in spite of a halting plot at times. Mara 18 the peasant widow of a Macedonian rebel and hero. In spite of her attempts to raise her son Paul, with a love of the soil and of propa- gation and. with no knowledge of revolt, Paul early becomes implicated in the Macedonian revolution. Neither home, nor mother, nor wife can keep him out of the revolutionary plots and counterplots. With a group of young rebels known as the “Boatmen,” he engages in a conspiracy to blow up two of the principal banks and many New |of the business houses, a steamship | and a railroad train in Salonika. The | “Boatmen” are successful in their | wholesale destruction, but at what ex- pense! Every one dies either at his own hands or by execution. More- over, the outrages are followed by re- prisals at the hands of the Turks. Whole villages are wiped out, in- cluding the home of Paul's mother | and wife. And Mara, who worshiped | | every grain that grew, who debased | herself to seek a charm to ensure the | fecundity of Paul's wife and glorified in the knowledge that she was with | child, was witness to the burning of | | her fields and the destruction of her daughter-in-law before she, herself, met death. ‘There are parts of this book that are especially noteworthy, bits of de- scription that are particularly vivid. | Among them is the chapter on the | drouth, the making of a “doodoole,” | | which sounds much like the rain| dance of the Hopi Indians, and the | | following, tragic hail storm R.R. T. MIRABEAU. By Pierre Nezelof.| Translated from the French by | Warre B. Wells. New York: Live- | right Publishing Corp. ZFS'I'F'ULLY. the biographer takes | his reader with Mirabeau on a | personally conducted tour of the boudoirs and bastilles of France. Sor- rowfully, he leads the way through tribulations. Somewhat reluctantly, | he heaves himself up to the revolu- tlonary level. It is, you sense, not so much Mirabeau for Mirabeau as Mirabeau for Nezelof who goes through these pages. Nezelof makes the most of the strange contrast Mirabeau presented— the wild youth whose multitudinous | and scandalous love affairs were in- terrupted only by prison and the statesman who became the balance wheel of the early French Revolution. He shows us the Mirabeau who staved off the Terror and established the foundations of a constitutional mon- archy which crumbled only because he died. Three-quarters of the volume breathe little but the Casanova atmosphere and it is only the final pages of the work in which the reader who expects to find background for the French Revolution will encounter that which he seeks. Nevertheless, the book is worth reading from the standpoint of serious biography and ‘history. J.S.E. Y’HERE THE WEAK GROW STRONG. By Eugene Armfield. New York: Covici, Friede. A'NY ONE who has lived in & small town in the South will find many things to set off sparks of recognition in this novel. It is a careful and detailed picture of a North Carolina town in 1912. The locality and the time play an important part and lend notes of authenticity. The town is the hero and a multitude of characters seem incidental to the larger picture. Mr. Armfield’s style is impression- istic, something of a novelty in full- length fiction and not without its drawbacks. Emphasis is & constantly shifting element, turning from person to person and event to event in the minute span of a paragraph or even a sentence. This makes for confusion and lack of point when the book is considered as a whole. There are a few, a precious few, persons whom one remembers when they are reintroduced and there are a good many moving scenes, but the maze of fact, fiction, description and narration remains al- ‘ways the maze. Mr. Armfield likes to use words which were banned before the legal admission to this country of James Joyce's Ulysses, and, while apparently he has every legal right to use them, | When, however, they have praised in | brary, for example. they detract from his book. —E.T. + better than the first. The improve- ment is really startling. The Yellow | Book is still definitely in the “little | magazine” class, but coming up. There is, in particular, one series of short stories in it which seem excellent— they are, however, by the editor, Jo- seph Baker, and not from contribu- tors. Mr. Baker writes well. His stor- ies have a faint taste of stereotyping, but only a faint one. Their movement is first rate. They practically read themselves. The co-operative feature of the mag- azine lies in this—that contributors help bear the production costs and then, if there are any profits, they share in them. If the little paper keeps on improving at its present rate, it will look as if these co-operators have something and no mistake about it. LAST week the reviewer mentioned | that the Nation, through the pen of Mr. Dwight Macdonald, was hold- ing up to criticism the Luce publica- tions—or, specifically, Time, Fortune and Life. Time was considered first, this week comes Fortune. Mr. Mac- donald’s article is pretty predictable. When he finds that Fortune's editors have been in agreement with him, then he says they have done well. their pages some one whom he dis- likes they are wicked old reactionaries. They have both pleased and dis- pleased him in times past, and so, now, attempting to sum Fortune up, he is frankly puzzled and concludes that the magazine has no policy. He seems to find this reprehensible. “In the class war,” he remarks, as if in exas- peration, “its forces have deployed with magnificent impartiality on both sides of the barricades.” Well, but what is the matter with impartiality? Just when, in America, did an open mind become contemptible? Some one ought to record that date for history. It could be put alongside the burning of the Alexandrian li- ONE of the most touching stories about former King Edward which has yet been published is contained in an article in the current Liberty. The article itself is tripe; it is a sup- posed compilation of Edward's rules for a happy marriage—if. you please. But the little episode with which it gets under way is worth repeating. “While T was in London,” says the author, Helen Worden, “some people very much in English society gave a dinner party and invited Mrs. Simp- son without the King. Half an hour late she came rushing apologetically in. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I know I am late, but I am going to ask a great favor. The King is outside. May I bring him to the party?” “The hostess was distressed. She explained that British nobility couldn’t ask their King to dine informally. It would set a precedent which might ruin them. “Mrs. Simpson said nothing more. Long after the dinner, when the guests were leaving, they saw a car parked outside the house. The King was in it. He had been waiting there all evening for Mrs. Simpson.” That is an extremely pretty story— it true. 'HE coronation of George VI is the subject of a witty article by that not always witty writer, Rebecca West, in the current issue of Stage. Miss West is pessimistic. She says that she will not be in London to look at the King or at the Queen efiher; she is going to the Balkans and look at the Easter services in the orthodox churches there. She does not wish to see the coronation. “It is going to be,” says she, “the rummest occasion on record. London is going to be the strangest place in the world for the first few weeks in this May . ... " . And the reason for that, she says, is that practically all the Londoners | and England, has forced a balancing houses to visitors and rushed off to the country or to lands across the sea. But not, she says, because the English are disloyal to their new sovereign. On the contrary. “Our hearts are all turned to King George and Queen Elizabeth,” she de- clares, “but somehow simultaneously the backs of many of us are turned to them. . ... This is not s in- consistent as it seems. The English are tired. Very easily one can have an excess of Drama. Also it is dif- ficult to take an interest in pageantry where there is, black across the sky; the threat of war. Also we know that we are going to be poor again pretty soon; this little boom will not quite compensate for the effects of the de- fense loan.” And so, she writes, the English themselves will have gone away be- fore the great day, and, if we are to believe her, the city which witnessed the great event was populated chiefly by Americans and Colonials. She gives a very quaint notion of how, in her imagination, the coronation crowd probably would conduct itself. “They must leave their houses at | 3, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning; but | the coronation procession will not i pass until between 2 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon ....My firm con- viction is that when their Majesties emerge from Westminster Abbey they will drive past row upon row of sound- | Iy sleeping subjects. | “The cool of the evening will no doubt waken them. They will come to with a start, and in view of the time and money and energy they have spent getting seats for the coronation, | they will never confess what happened | to them, but will avow The Procession Was Fine. Nor will the embarrassed THE WORLD. THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD AFFAIRS IN 1936. By Whitney H. Shepardson in collaboration with William O. Scroggs. New York: | Harper & Bros. | A SURVEY of world affairs in the past year in relation to our own participation and situation. Authori- tative. GENEVA VERSUS PEACE. By Comte de Saint-Aulaire. Translated from the French by Francis Jackson. New York: Sheed & Ward. A work devoted to the proposition that the League of Nations, being a | diplomatic alliance between France | alliance between Germany and Italy and hence is endangering European peace. By a former Ambassador of France to England. OURSELVES. | SOCTAL SECURITY. By Maxwell S. ! Stewart. New York: W.W. Nor- ton Co. | What the new pension system has to offer American citizens and how it compares with similar systems ia other | countries. | THE COURT DISPOSES. By Isidor | Feinstein. New ' York: Covici | Friede. How the bad old court aids the op- - pressors of the American worker. By an associate editor of the New York Post | MEN WANTED. By Frances Maule. | New York: Funk & Wagnalls | Advice to those looking for work as to how to get the new jobs now opening up. Comprehensive. BIOGRAPHY. THOMAS GREEN CLEMSON. By Alester G. Holmes and George R. Sherrill. Richmond: Garrett & Massie. | The life of the first superintendent of agricultural affairs of the United States, who was also a farmer in Prince Georges County, Md. An in-| teresting document. HISTORY. STORY OF KING COTTON. By Harris Dickson. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. The history of cotton, with a survey of the problems now confronting cot- ton raisers, as the mechanical picker, the boll weevil, the share cropping system and Government intervention. | Interesting. PLACES. A RICHMOND ALBUM. By Earle Lutz. Richmond: Garrett & | Massie. The most vivid happenings in the | city’s history, briefly told and illus- trated with old prints. THE ARTS. | THE NEGRO GENIUS. By Benjamin Brawley. New York: Dodd Mead & Co. A comprehensive and interesting outline of the work done by Negro artists in America. By a professor of English at How'nrd University. WATER COLOR PAINTING OF TO- DAY. By Adrian Bury. New York: Studio Publications, Inc. A survey of contemporary water | color painting and painters. Profusely | illustrated. NOVELS. BRAVE YEARS. By William Heyliger. New York: D. Appleton-Century | A love story based on advocacy of | the co-operative movement. If you can find any connection between the two. The most entertaining, most dynamic story ever | written about the city where money meets power! WASHINGTONI CALLING! A Novel by MARQUIS W. CHILDS author of “Sweden: The Middle Way™ bave done as she is doing—let their N Royalties ever mention it. But there I am probably wrong. Little Princess Elizabeth, that entraneing mixture of Shirley Temple and James Cagney, Wwill, I feel, constantly allude to it at unseasonable moments.” And so Miss West ripples on . . . FROM the Conning Tower, New York Herald Tribune, and called Connecticut Spring song: “Lost—White swan, orange bill, very tame, cannot fly. Last seen Thursday evening on Still River by cement bridge in Brookfield. Reward. Robert Peschko. Telephone 619-4. Danbury News-Times. “White swan, orange bill, Floated on River 8till; Very tame, cannot fly; Never even said ‘goodby’; Robert Peschko thinks it went By the Brookfield bridge (cement); Last seen Thursday—then no more; Reward. Tel. 619-4.” Rather nice, isn't it? JOHNSTON D. KERKOFF, in the New York Evening Journal, offers us the following item “The earth is degenerating in these latter days. There are signs that the world is coming speedily to an end. Bribery and corruption abound. The children no longer obey their parents. Every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is speedily approaching” And this, says Mr. Kerkoff, “is not a viewer-with-alarm wnting in 1937. It is a quotation from an Assyrian tablet dated 2800 B, C.” ND J. E. Doyle asks in the New York American: “Remember the time when we were taught to STAND UP for our rights?” Brief Reviews of Books BRIDE TO BE. By Vida Hurst. New York: M. S. Mill Co. ve. MYSTERIES. IN LOVE WITH A T-MAN. By Rob Eden. New York: M. 5. Mill Co. Treasury man gets the counterfeit ers and the girl. | MURDER HALF-BAKED. By George Baghy. Murder at New York: Covici Friede, Coney Island. JUVENILES. IGLOO STORIES. By Clarence Hawkes. Boston: Christopher Publishing House. Tales of the Far North. Interesting. Huge Map Sought. THE Soil Conservation Service is turning to aviation to complete the greatest erosion map ever devele oped. It will cover 362,000 square miles—more than 12 per cent of the area of the United States—and will provide basic maps for use in erosione control programs. Contracts for aerial surveying have been let to 14 aviation companies, H. H. Bennett, chief of the service, announced. Work is now going for= ward in 44 States and aerial surveys of all but 1 of the 156 erosion-cone trol projects of the service already have been completed. BEST SELLERS OF THE WEEK ENDING MAY 8 FICTION., THE YEARS. Woolf. court Brace. THE OUTWARD ROOM. Brand. Simon and Schuster. THEATRE. Maugham. Double- day Doran. OF MICE AND MEN. Stein- beck. Covici Priede WE ARE NOT ALONE. Hilton. Little Brown. BUCKSKIN BREECHES. Stong. Farrar and Rinehart. NON-FICTION. CORONATION COMMENTARY. Dennis. Dodd Mead HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. Car- negie. Simon and Schuster. PRESENT INDICATIVE. Cow- ard. Doubleday Doran. THE WOODROW WILSONS. McAdoo. Macmillan SOMETHING OF MYSELF. Kipling. Doubleday Doran. ANGELS IN UNDRESS. Ben- ney. Random House. Har- ————————— Stuart Chase says- “This book is a unique and vald able document on the most inter-, esting social experiment in the United States. It is short, packed with information and can be read in a couple of hours... After, A FOREIGNER LOOKS AT THE T.V.A. By Odette Keun burning up the Utilities, Mndame' Keun burns up the capitalists of| the Northeast who have sucked dry the South and West. Then she burns up the farmers of the South as a shiftless, ignorant.l barbarous breed ... Indeed, by; the time she gets through, the whole Republic is in flames. But the book is indited to ‘America,! with whom I have fallen in love’ and...one believes her.”—From a review in The Nation. “A SUPERB PIECE of journalism. She startles the American reader| out of his complacent lethargy, with her blend of white-hot writ-| ing, dramatic use of statistics, and simple summary.” —Wise, consin State Journal. Illustrated, with photographs. At All Bookstores. $1.25 LONGMANS, GREIN & COMPANY W4 Fitth Ave., N.Y. 215 Victeria St., Toreate e e \