Evening Star Newspaper, May 29, 1937, Page 12

CRITICISM USED TO BE NEWS Burton Rascoe’s Autobiography Covers the Golden Age of Book Reviewing—O’Brien’s “Best Short Stories of 1937” Is Out—"Capt. Kidd” Goes to Press Again. By Mary-Carter Roberts. BEFORE 1 FORGET. By Burton Rascoe. Garden City; Doubleday Doran & Co. R. BURTON RASCOE of Ken- tucky and Oklahoma writes here his autoblography. Mr. Rascoe is, of course, well known. He is a literary critic who made a reputation in the heyday of American criticism—the late teens and early twenties, those good years when criticism was still alive in America, and had not, as it has today, sunk to the level of polite approbation, stage managing and back-patting. Mr. Rascoe, indeed, although still one of the younger men of letters, comes to us a veteran scarred with the battles of many books and shining with the glory of one who took part in the wars of the literary Titans—at least of such Titans as our age has yet produced. For in the days of his early career criticism was a war and the fleld of criticism was a battle place on which blows were delivered—or, if you please, reviews were written—with all the heat and fury of crusaders en- gaged in saving something. The critics then, not only those of the literary magazines, but those of the daily papers, girded on their armour when- ever they produced a column. The issues were many, but the great divi- sion was art against Puritanism, and the Nation was lined up, pretty solidly, as pro or anti Mencken, How amaz- ing it is today to consider that litera- ture (not a particular book) was once news in America, and that battles— crudely sincere and passionate—were fought out over an artistic matter in the columns of newspapers! But there it is. Mr. Rascoe was through it and he has made an account of it part of his book here—before, as he says, he forgets. His book, of course, covers more than that. It covers the period cov- ered by so many recent autobiogra- phies of newspaper men after it gets to the years of its author’s maturity— the late teens and twenties, but it dif- fers from most of the others in that Mr. Rascoe did not (1) cover the World War, or (2) become a disillu- sioned ex-patriot in Paris. The book indeed seems well in accord with its title; it is apparently the effort of a man in middle years to write down the bright glamour of boyhood and youth while it is still a living part of his memories. ‘The boyhood part of it is unremark- able but pleasantly entertaining. How the Rascoe family lived in Fulton, Ky, and later in Shawnee, Okla, what these towns were, how young Burton went to school and fell in love with various girls and teachers, how he discovered his taste in litera- ture—all the routine passages of the current fashion in autobiography are here, told either with equally routine humor or by means of excerpts from the schoolboy diary. Similarly, when he writes of his university days, Mr. Roscoe follows pretty much the orthodox formula. “The educational process,” he says, ®as I had seen it at that beautiful and wealthy university (Chicago), in ®so far as it was represented by the College of Liberal Arts, was largely a wasteful farce. * * *” And elsewhere: “What I had been able to learn in the class room had been very little; what I had been able to learn out- slde, in the Harper Library, Crerar Library and the Chicago Public Li- brary under my own direction and of my own volition had really consti- tuted whatever progress I had made in my education during two years as & registered student.” This would seem to have been the typical attitude of intellectual young men and women toward formal education as it existed | at that time. At this point he left school and went as a reporter to the Chicago Tribune, where, after a while, he became literary editor and entered on that stormy period of defending young genius and fighting taboos which, to date, is the most interesting time in American letters of the oentury. He adopted news-writing tactics in his work as critic, big headlines, catchy phrases, pugnacity, Today, &s one reads his work, one sees that tendency still in him. He is the in- curable enthusiast still, but two things work against him now—the fact that his enthusiasm has become something of & habit with him and the circum- stance that we are in a slick age, literarily speaking. The crusading critic in the teens and twenties had something to go on. There was a real issue then, between new genius and old tradition. There were figures on both sides of sufficient size to make the fight worth fighting. Today, we have a vast generation of clever | mediocrities. The boys and girls who | were growing up when Mr. Rascoe first blasted his guns at smugness *with new hand-lettered engraved streamers across the pages, new type faces, line drawings and caricatures,” developed in an atmosphere of literary oonversation and litertary interest— thanks to such critics as himself, of course. And it has only been natural that an unparalieled number of these youngsters should, themselves, turn their hands to writing, after having heard books discussed as the daily news all through their impressionable years. And so they have. _ But literary interest does not mean lterary genius, and it is undeniable that the giants have gone. That fine flair for battle which young Burton Rascoe carried into criticism years ago #eems somehow pathetically pointless today; his enthusiastic discoveries from month to month are saddening . figures to place beside the Cabell, Dreiser, Anderson, Lewis and Fitz- gerald, whom he championed 15 years @ago, But that does not mean that his story of his youthful war on “big- wig critics” and “militant upholders of the genteel tradition in literature” is not an exciting record, as he tells it in his present book.’ It is that. To read it is to get & certain heart- sickness—that is, if you happen to care very much and very intensely about the living beauty of written words. For all that is past. It is & good thing that he has put it down— before he forgot. % This part of the book is one of the best works of lterary reminiscence on that particular day yet produced. It is not merely an account of names, 88 are 80 many works of its kind. - It is alive and human. It is full of - the author’s personal hopes and pains, but without that too great intimacy which disfigures. It ends, appro- priately, when the author left the Tribune (he was fired), concluding on & note which makes one feel that, Whatever his subsequent declaration, be knew better than any one that the great days were over. There have Been bigger jobs since then, and more A % DORIS MUDIE (J. PENN), Who, with Elizabeth Hill, wrote “For Readers Only.” (E. P. Dutton.) money. But one doubts very much if there has ever been as much fun. But then, no one has his twenties twice—no one—nothing, not even a century. Burton Rascoe, if he was predestined to be a critic, can at least thank his parents. He was born in the proper time. THE BEST SHORT STORIES 1937 AND THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY. Edited by Edward J. O'Brien. Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin Co. THIS edition of Mr. O'Brien's labor of love seems to the reviewer to strike a higher level than has been its achievement in some years. As a general thing, the volume is pretty funny. It is funny in its selections, and it is even funnier in the criticisms | which Mr. O'Brien offers of each of his selections—solemn little para- graphs which read like the. marking of high school themes, comments on “plot treatment,” “psychological in- sight” and all the rest of it. But this year, while the paragraphs re- mmain much the same, the actual stories are pretty good, taken all in all. ‘The authors represented are Robert Buchner, Roger Burlingame, Morley Callaghan, Charles Cooke, William Faulkner, S. S. Field, Martha Foley, Elma Godchaux, Albert Halper, Ernest Hemingway, Edward Harris Heth, Paul Horgan, Manuel Komroff, David E. Krantz, Harry Harrison Kroll, R. H. Linn, Ursula MacDougall, Allen Mc- Ginnis, William March, Edita Morris, L V. Morris, Katherine Anne Porter, Ellis St. Joseph, William Saroyan, Jesse Stuart, Benedict Thielen, Lovell Thompson, Wilson Wright and Leane Zugsmith. The magazines from which stories have been selected are Atlantic Monthly, Story, New Yorker, Scrib- ner’s, Southern Review, Virginia Quar- terly Review, Esquire, American Mer- cury, Harper's Bazaar, American Prefaces, New Stories and Harper's Magazine. Eight of the selections are from Story, four from the Southern Review, three each from Scribner's and At- lantic Monthly and two each from Esquire, American Mercury and New Stories. The rest of the periodicals represented have one each. As a good story is an individual thing, it is impossible to criticize a volume, unless one has the thread of common authorship or subject mat- ter to hold to. The nearest the re- viewer can come to particularizing her approval of this collection is to say that there is & solidity in most of the pieces in it. This solidity, to be sure, rests chiefly on accomplished craftsmanship; the thinking behind most of the stories remains perfectly conventional. But there is a refresh- ing absence of those fragmentary bits which, for some years past, under the mantle of impressionism, have gotten themselves accepted as mysteriously significant through very incoherence. The stories in the present volume at least begin somewhere and end somewhere, and that is a concession to the normal reader’s expectations which ought to be gratefully received. The Odyssey has a beginning and ending, it may be mentioned. So does “The Jumping Frog.” Out of the 29 selections the re- viewed would rate 9 as very good— “The Voyage Out,” by Morley Cal- laghan; “Enter Daisy; To Her, Alex- andra,” by Charles Cooke; “Good-bye to Cap'm John,” by S. S. Field; “The Surgeon and’the Nun,” by Paul Hor- gan; “The Intrigue of Mr. S. Yama- moto,” by R. H. Linn; “The Old Order,” by Katherine Anne Porter; “A Passen- ger to Bali,” by Ellis St. Joseph; “The Crusader,” by William Saroyan,” and “Arrival on a Holiday,” by Wilson ‘Wright. The last would perhaps be her choice, though it is hard to find any basis for preference except pure personal entertainment in a group so variously assorted. CAPT. KIDD AND HIS SKELETON ISLAND. By Harold T. Wilkins. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp. 'HIS is a work of much research, devoted to the proposition that Capt. Kidd, the pirate, was not the guilty monster which popular legend has made him. The idea is not a new one, of course; the suspicion that Kidd was in the employment of substantial gentlemen on both sides of the Atlan- tic and that he did no more than carry out their orders, has been put forward before this, with enough evi- dence adduced to raise a doubt at least of his unique culpability. However, in the present work, between the covers of a single volume, there is to be found a great body of documents, some of which are printed for the first time, which not only amplifies this ugly old suspicion, but strengthens it. According to the author’s researches, Capt. Kidd was railroaded to the gib- het because the Great Mogul of India had threatened to drive the British East India Co. out of his realm unless England put a stop to the piracy which was seriously interfering with his own trade. Capt. Kidd was seized upon for a scapegoat, says Mr. Wilkins, partly because he was convenient and partly because it was feared that he would reveal the fact that his voyage 'was backed by gentlemen whose names could not well be associated with rob- bery on the high seas. While this is an interesting notion, the average reader will, however, find 1t pale beside the announcement which the author makes of his own discovery, in the course of his researches, of Kidd's private chart to the famous “Skeleton Island” where he is sup- posed to have hidden his loot. This la) chart, he says, was found in a secret compartment of an old chest, well at- tested to as having been Kidd's, and for years in private hands, but iately was sold to a private museum. Ac- cording to the document, the island will be somewhere in the North Pacific (beyond this Mr. Wilkins refuses to locate it), and in a spot that has never been assoclated with the Kidd treasure in any past hunt. Of that treasure, the records seem to indicate that no more han £10,000 has been found. The re- mainder, by the same records, would be between £90,000 and £100,000. Mr. Wilkins hints that an expedition may shortly set out to test the accuracy of the charts so long concealed. If that is so, and if the hunters find their quarry—why, this is one of the most sensational books in some years. If not, it is an intricate piece of research, somewhat confusingly set down. DEATH WITHOUT BATTLE. By Ludwig Renn. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. THxs is a novel of Hitler's Germany, written by one who views the Hitler regime with profound dislike. It is a record of recent public events held together by a very slight plot— the rise of Hitler to the chancellorship, the horrors of the labor and concen- tration camps, the burning of the Reichstag Building, the sterilization campaign and so on. The author gives us, presumably for the sake of argu- ment, a group of honest men who have enlisted in the Hitler party, and shows us how their attempts to bring about just measures animated by considera- tion of public welfare are thwarted, in his opinion, by a clique—or gang— of careerists of the most brutal and degraded types. He also takes up the Communist opposition to Fascism, and | the shocking means used to suppress it. The book is negligible from the standpoint of literature, being sketchy and exclamatory in style and discon- nected in development. MRS. COPELAND'S GUEST BOOK. By Frances S. Copeland. Philadel- phia: David McKay Co. 'HIS is a book of hints on entertain- ing, designed for the aid and com- fort of hostesses. It is not a book of etiquette, nor a book of games, but a brief compilation of suggestions as to how the work of entertaining may be lightened. The author is the wife of Senator Copeland of New York, and her many years of experience as a hostess have been acquired largely in Washington. She says, however, that | her book is for hostesses everywhere, since entertaining everywhere is fun- damentally the same. The volume is simply written and ought to be of value to women who have entertain- ing for a constant occupation. HART CRANE. By Philip Horton. New York: W. Norton Co. THIS is the biography of the poet, Hart Crane, whose work provoked disagreements among critics and whose life, while he yet lived, was something of legend. The present book is about equally concerned with life and work and is a critical biog- raphy. It gathers together for the first time the facts about the poet and presents them in simple form. They seem to indicate an old proverb—that no man is strange if we truly know him, Crane in his life was & man of con- siderable eccentricity, and, as he combined eccentricity with artistic preoccupation, his deviations from the ordinary were very predictably exaggerated. He became, while he lived, a man who could hardly do anything without calling down upon himself the verdict of strangeness. And, after he ceased to live, the fact that he committed suicide and that, in a spectacular manner, perpetuated the legend of his personal peculiarity. According to Mr. Horton, he was fundamentally a normal person, ex- cept that he had a highly sensitive and complicated nervous perception. His parents disagreed, secured a di- vorce, planned to remarry and then broke off again in circumstances of great unpleasantness; he lived in an atmosphere of domestic tension all during his most sensitive years. To this fact, and to his nervous sensi- bility Mr. Horton lays most of his subsequent eccentricity. As to the critical part of the biog- raphy, the reviewer, with confessedly no more than a slight acquaintance with Crane's work, can only report that the biographer considers his sub- ject worthy a lasting place in Ameri- can letters, although he admits that time will have to make the ultimate decision. The picture which he paints of the poet is of a lonely man who was incapable of creating under- standing in his fellows, and this has been the impression which the re- viewer has gathered from such of his poetry as she has read. It seems poetry written for the writer and in- capable of reaching readers except by their deliberate intellectual effort. ‘There is a solidity in it and an exalta- tion, but no warmth. The sad history told here would seem to bear out this impression. Whateve? else is to be concluded from it, it is inescapable that Crane was a sincere artist who had a tragic life. JOHN TOM ALLIGATOR AND OTHER STORIES. By Robert E. 8. Chambers. New York: E. P. Dutton. 'HIS is a collection of short stories, exotic in setting and conven- tional in plot. They range from tales of the Seminole Indians in the Flor- ida swamps to new adventures of Francois Villon. They are quite read- able; for the most part they open well, then they dwindle into the neat- ness of the predictable. There seems the author, should not be highly suc- cessful as a contributor to popular magazines—on the basis of this vol- ume at least. CALL IT FREEDOM. By Marian Sims. Philadelphia. J. B. Lip- pincott Co. THIS is a novel on the woman's magazine pattern and quite ade- quate if you read that sort of thing at all. It tells how Martha divorced Ralph and came back to her home town “to take up her life again,” as ladies’ magazine writers phrase these things. Taking up her life meant living in very comfortable circum- stances, surrounded by old friends who admired her very much, but Mrs. Sims assures us that Martha suf- fered tremendously just the same. ‘The book is an account of her suf- fering—she suffered because men ad- mired her, because men didn’t admire her, because women were kind to her, because women weren't kind to her, because the sun shone and the wind blew. She suffered. By and by she made & stupendous secrifide— A to be no reason why Mr. Chambers, | STAR, WASHINGTON, BURTON RASCOE, Whose autobiography, “Before I Forget,” was published this week. (Doubleday, Doran.) Health. HUMAN CONFLICT. By Trigant Burrow, M. D, Ph. D. New York: ‘The Macmillan Co. A highly interesting study of the “common denominator” in mental disease, the underlying factor which, in the majority of cases, brings insan- ity about. As this author sees it, it is the conflict between man’'s mind and his environment. A serious work that ought not to be undertaken for vaca- tion reading. Places. NEW MEXICO'S OWN CHRONICLE. By Maurice Garland Fulton and Paul Horgan. Dallas: Banks, Up- shaw & Co. The history of America’s current land of the lotus, beginning with pre- discovery days and coming to the present. New Mexico o date, in other words, Psychic. BEYOND NORMAL COGNITION. By John F. Thomas, Ph. D. With a foreword by Prof. Willlam Mac- Dougall. Boston: Bruce Hum- phries. mediums, based on the question of whether superhuman information may or may not be received. Not & popu- larly written thing, but a real case study. Religion. THE RELIGIOUS AIM AND HUMAN PERPLEXITY. By Dobbs Fred- erick Ehlman. Boston: The Strat- ford Co. How application of religion may save the individual from being overwhelmed by the perplexities of current living. Your Manners, BEHAVE YOURSELF! By Betty Al- len and Mitchell Pirie Briggs. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Etiquette for young moderns. How to keep from being sorry that you went to the party—and the like. Casual Novels. KEY NEXT DOOR. By Mathilde A study of record from spiritualist | Brief Reviews of Books Eiker. Garden City: Doran & Co. A modern triangle. Two women and a man. Solved, for a miracle, by | eliminating one point. ELEVENTH HOUR. By Robert Clive. New York: W, W. Norton Co. Berlin in the days before Hitler's coming to power, and a famous cor- respondent in love with the wife of a German official. Autobiography. DAUGHTER OF THE EAGLE. By Nexhmie Zaimi. New York: Wash- burn. ‘The life story of a young Albanian girl who grew up in the days of her country’s new independence and wit- nessed the conflict of the old ideas with the modern. She is now a stu- dent at Wellesley College. Mysteries. FILE ON RUFUS RAY. By Helen Reilly. New York: Willlam Mor- row & Co. ‘The second of this publisher's “crime files"—detective stories put out in the form of police records, even to being bound in looseleaf covers. As- tonishingly realistic, gotten up with | newspaper stories reproduced in news- | print, actual fingerprints, photographs Doubleday, The first of the series was “File on Bolitho Blaine.” | ber it. THE RADIO STUDIO MURDERS. By Carolyn Wells. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. The veteran writer sets up a crime solves Good thriller. Juveniles. Brown Gemmill. Illustrated by Marguerite De Angeli. Philadel- phia: John C. Winston Co. Charming story of a little girl who wanted a kitty and was told that she could not have it. Pleasant illustra- tions in black and white and color, she did not steal another woman's husband when she might have done so. With this halo of feminine mar- wondering bitterly if being a mother to her son will be “enough.” As has been said, the book is perfectly ade- quate for what it is. Faith Baldwin, for example, admires Mrs. Sims very much. THE SUNPAPERS OF BALTIMORE. By Gerald W. Johnson, Frank R. Kent, H. L. Mencken and Hamil- Knopf, 'HIS is a history of the Baltimore their staffs and published on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Sun. It is primarily the story of the Sun and the Evening Sun, but because these papers have been such vital fac- tors in their city it 48 also the story of Baltimore in the last 100 years. The fact that the Sunpapers have four such gifted writers to pen their history is itself a tribute to them. Mr. Johnson of the editorial staff of the Evening Sun writes brilliantly of the early days, ending his section with the death of A. S. Abell, the founder, in 1888. Mr. Kent, political writer for the Sun, describes some of its earlier political battles. Mr. Mencken writes of the 1900-1920 period and Mr. Owens, editor of the Evening Sun, of the present papers. Mr. Mencken served as general editor, and throughout the book the influence of this literary enlivener is apparent. The Sun was begun on May 17, 1837, by Arunah 8. Abell, one of the found- ers of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, who had been associated with the founder of the New York Sun. It was designed as a paper which would give first place to local news, which had been deplorably neglected by the six other dailies in Baltimore. This was only the first of many innovations which attracted notice and respect for the Sun. In its first years the paper carefully avoided controversial issues, a fact hard to remember in light of its later vigorous editorial fights. But this policy allowed it to survive when Maryland was caught between the North and the South in the Civil War. After the war came & bolder attitude and the first big political fight—to protect the Maryland judiciary from machine politiclans. Ever since that time the Sun has been in the thick of political wars. Never given to party regularity, it has been more often on the side of the Democrats. It bolted when Bryan was nominated, and at one time Maryland was found with an almost complete slate of Republican officers elected with the help of the State’s leading “Democratic” paper. ‘The Evening Sun, founded in 1910, became one of the most daring of American papers, and its campaigns against prohibition, alien-baiting, Ku Kluxism and all forms of political hypocrisy won it great fame among liberals. But the authors of this vol- ume insist the Sunpapers are essen- tially conservative. In view of their record—including 1936, when they could support neither Roosevelt mnor Landon—one prefers to think of them a8 independent. This is a tribute to their courage, which even they can admit is justified on the basis of their | first 100 years. The Authors A tyrdom around her head, she exits, | ton Owens. New York: Alfred A. | Sunpapers written by four from | Wyck ‘of this wolume heve not confined themselves to ceremonial | praise for this centennial. The papers have had their power and influence have waned as well as waxed. The authors make no effort to disguise this fact. What is important is that they have always been papers of unquestioned integrity and, more often than not, of power as well. It is a record the Sunpapers and their readers may be proud of. And this is a book which does it full Justice—E. T. FOR READERS ONLY. By J. Penn. New York: E. P, Dutton & Co,, Inc. ERE is a provocative, strange and original book which will leave the reader with a healthy sized ques- tion mark in his mind. The reviewer is going to make no attempt to an- swer the question: It is a job for news sleuths. “J. Penn"—the reader will even be puzzled to determine the sex of the author, who turns out to be two women—went into the reading room of the British Museum “to pay homage to the great minds who have sat in here, worked.” The authors wanted to ab- sorb the atmosphere which had in- cubated geniuses and to capture some- thing of it for others. Becoming utterly absorbed, they stayed there for 10 years and found that, instead of becoming cloistered, they actually had entered the world and found themselves rubbing shoul- .ders with humanity, studying the faces of fellow readers instead of books, being shaken into a recogni- tion of realities. There they met a wealthy Ameri- can with a startling idea for a li- brary and reading of tomorrow—a ‘Temple of Reading, a Hive of Learn- ing, with books on imperishable films and visual projectors. Each desk would have a coin-in-the-slot cam- era for copying extracts and other as- tonishing features. The trio find a ‘community of interest; the American pleads with the authors to join forces; on the spur of the moment the agree- ment is made, and the American rushes out into the rain, not even leaving behind his name or address. Then comes the final paragraph by “J. Penn": “(A few days later.) It is all right. Iam not mad. Ihave seen him again, I am sailing for the States on the 13th of this month.” Whatever the fate of the Temple of Reading, there has been left a de- lightful history of the British Mu- seum'’s reading room and its occupants, past and present, vividly and most en- tertainingly told. —~J. E. Best Seller. For the first time in more months than the reviewer can remember, Dale Carnegie’s success recipe, “How to Win Friends-and Influence People,” is oft the best-seller list as represented by four leading Washington book sellers. It disappeared with & peculiar gudden- ness. Up to last week it led the non- fiction side of every list. The present week it was on one list only, and at the bottom of it. On two lists, curi- ously enough, it was replaced by Van Brooks’ “The Flowering of New from police laboratories and the like. | Perhaps you remem- | |in a broadcasting station and then | it with customary neatness. ' JOAN WANTED A KITTY. By Jane| vicissitudes. Therr | dreamed and | D. C., SATURDAY WOMAN IS FARM AUTHORITY Genevieve Forbes Herrick Writes About Mary Meek Atkeson in Current Country Gentleman--Mr. Mencken Prepares a New Constitution for the United States. By M.-C. R. WO Wazhington women are the subjecc of the first paragraph of these columns this week. ‘They are Mary Meek Atkeson, whose book “Ploneering in Agricul- ture” was reviewed on this page May 15, and Genevieve Forbes Herrick, well-known newspaper woman. Mrs. Herrick in her department in the Country Gentleman, “Women in the News,” {8 commenting on Miss Atke- son’s work in agriculture. She says: “When she was a student at the University of West Virginia, she wanted to take some classes under her famous father, who was dean of the School of Agriculture. But she was the only girl in the class. And when it neared the time for her to get her degree, she thought it would seem so curious for a girl to have a degree in agriculture that she switched over to liberal arts and got an A. B, and then an M. A. in English. She taught English at the university for a while, then went on to Ohio State University to receive a doctor's degree in English mn 1919, “But the love of the land was in her blood. She mixed it with ink, and wrote her first play, on an agricultural theme, sold it to the Country Gentle- man, and thereupon abandoned teach- ing for writing. “Today there are girls enrolled in the agricultural schools the country over. But Miss Atkeson, without real- izing her independence any more than most true pioneers do, was indeed a pioneer. | has chased along after her point of | view, rather than her early interests having to change to conform to new yardsticks . . . “Miss Atkeson is one of the few women listed in Rus, the Agricultural Who's Who; and, if I mistake not, the only woman writer in the book. She is one of the most distinguised mem- bers of Alpha Xi Delta college soror- ity. She does quite a bit of lecturing. And loves to travel.” The book of Miss Atkeson's which was reviewed here last week was her father’s life story. He was an emi- nent pioneer in scientific agriculture | in this country, and his history makes very enlightening reading in these particular times. ican pretty Mercury, announces unmistakable terms that he pect of a dictatorship before us. He | does not use the horrid word. He proceeds with ironical obliquity. But | his fears are unmistakable. | What he really does is to write | 8 new Constitution for these United | States, in which he deferentially in- | corporates what he takes to be the ment. Here are some of the items of the new document of our rather | dubious liberties: “Before he enters on the execution of his office the President shall take | the following oath or affirmation: ‘I do solemnly swear that I will (in so far as I deem it feasible and conven- ient) faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will (to the best of my recollection and in the light of experiment and yecond thought) carry out the pledges made by me to the electors during my campaign for election (or such of them as I may select).’ “The President shall have the power: ® * * To repeal or amend, in his discretion, any so-called natural law, including Gresham's law, the law of diminishing returns and the law of gravitation. “The duties of each (of the cabinet members) shall be to make speeche: the public funds under the direction of the President in such manner as to guarantee office.” Getting around to the duties of Congress under the new charter, Mr. Mencken outlines what he considers to be the current state of affairs as follows: “All legislation shall be by bill Every bill shall be prepared under the direction of the President, and trans- mitted to the two houses at his order. * * ¢ No member shall propose any amendment to a bill without permis- sion in writing from the President or one of his authorized agents. * * * In case any member shall doubt the wisdom of a bill he may apply to the President or to any authorized agent of the President for light upon it and thereafter he shall be counted as voting aye. In all cases a majority of the members shall be counted as voting aye.” And, as might be expected, on the lively question of the Supreme Court, Mr. Mencken is particularly engaging. He says: “* * * The judges of the Supreme Court and of all inferior courts shall be appointed by the President, and shall hold their offices until he deter- mines by proclamation that they have become senile.” He adds modestly that he is aware that his draft of a new Constitution is incomplete, and requests that “readers, whether legal or lay, who detect defects will notify them to me,” when; he promises, “I shall be glad to embody rectification in a later text. * ¢ * Suggestions for the new Con- stitution’s improvement may be sent to me in care of the editor of the Mercury.” Somebody ought to get quite a bit of fun out of that. ONE of the surest signs, to this re- viewer's way of thinking, at least, that the psychological aspects of the depression are on the wane, is the magazine articles now appearing in increasing numbers in which writers spoof our former terrors. Such an article appears in this month’s Scrib- ner’s. It is, in fact, the leading arti- cle. 1Its author is Henry F. Pringle and its title is, with significant light- ness, “It Was & Nice Depression.” Listing some of the benefits of the debacle, Mr, Pringle puts down these: “* ¢ ¢ In so many ways the world was & better place. The cheats and the fourflushers and the bounders were driven into storm cellars from which, too soon, they are now begin- ning to emerge. (Some of them went on relief, Mr. Pringle, at everybody's expense.) The financial gigolos called customers’ men did not prey upon stout and foolish ladies, to cite merely one boon, for the ladies no longer had money to attract them. In business the occupants of high places were more humble. Socially, there was no need for show, for keep- ing up with the neighbors. And the fact that most of us were suffering the same woes and annoyance brought about a certain democracy that in the late 20s had become well ‘n!lh extinet.” Then, geiting avound 0 the inevi- Y And it is public opinion that | h/IR MENCKEN, in the June Amer- | ! considers that we have the near pros- | President’s true philosophy of govern- | whenever so instructed and to expend | his continuance in | MARY MEEK ATKESON, Whose book “Pioneering in Agriculture” was reviewed in these columns May 15. table political observes: “Herbert Hoover became President, after a campaign in which intoler- ance and religious hatred reac] new depths. Mr. Hoover * * ® desired earnestly to cure the ills of the body politic. But he could not | do so as long as prosperity lasted When it ended other complexities overwhelmed him, and it was too late. | “My point, of course, is that prog- ress in government ends when a boom begins.” [ Hard-headed, ordinary middle- class folk, who never were terribly disturbed by the importunities of cus- tomers’ men or by struggles to keep | up with neighbors, may perhaps puz- | | zle a bit right here over which is bet- | | ter—to have a reform administration | busily reforming machinery which permits booms or to have a nice homey little boom itseif that brings in 6 per cent once more? It is, of course, very lovely to know that Congress has got- ten high-minded. But 6 per cent would seem to be 6 per cent. Which would you choose? Well, which? angle, Mr. Pringle ed | | HIERE is a neat item from the June | c oronet. It is called “The | Atheist.” “An atheist died and at the gates of Heaven he shouted, ‘It's a lie!" | “‘You do not believe in Me or an | Afterlife? asked God “‘No!” cried the atheist. ‘I believe | THE WAR BETWEEN THE HE Memorial day holiday dawns upon a United States in a pe- riod of transition as important | wed the years of the Civil War, but today's problems, though eco- nomic and social as those of the capable of solution without blood- shed, however blundering. Much has | been written on the *“war between ers and its effects on the Nation oints of view and interpretations | have changed with the passing years. short list of recent books on the war and some of the men who helped | make history in those eventful years, ‘There are many more volumes on the war in the library. Ask at the | information desk for personal mem- books about Grant, Lee, etc. Civil War. AMERICA'S TRAGEDY, by J. T. “His interpretations are fresh and vital. He has made a real contribu- | ition to a complex period in American THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT, 1850-1865, by A. C. Cole. 1934. F8339.C63. the people during this period and the | life of the lian population during the war years.” sonality and Generalship, by J. F. C. Fuller. 1933. F834.F955. “A satisfactory introduction to a implications of the war.”—Sean O’Faolain. A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION, by J. B. McMaster. 1927. F834. M226h. view of the average citizenship and its impulsions, North and South, in a great crisis."—S. L. Cook. FROM THE COMPROMISE OF | 1850 TO THE END OF THE ROOSEVELT ADMINISTR A- 1929, The most comprehensive history of | the Civil War, its beginnings and its STATES. T as those which preceded and | earlier period, are, it is to be hoped, | the States.” about its causes, its lead- Today the Public Library presents a with a few works of fiction. ofrs, accounts of the campaigns, Adams. 1934. F834.Ad169. history.”—Avery Craven. “Prof. Cole shows the daily life of GRANT AND LEE, A Study in Per- closer study of the conduct and larger THE UNITED STATES DURING | “A remarkably deep and interesting HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TION, by J. F. Rhodes. 9 v. 1895- aftermath. Leaders. JAMES LONGSTREET, Lee'’s War Horse. By H. J. Eckenrode. 1936. E.L8665e. “A careful, earnest, honest attempt to deal fairly with Longstreet, and to tell his story fully and without ani- mus.”—C. W. Thompson. R. E. LEE, a Biography. By D. 8. Freeman. 4 v., 1934-1935. ELS51f. “Lives of Lee are plentiful and in- creasing yearly, but none of them are like this. Its exceptional quality is not in the grace of style (though it has that), nor in any creation of a ‘new’ Lee. It lles in the fact that after reading it there is nothing more to be said about Lee."—C. W. T. THE GENERALSHIP OF ULYSSES S. GRANT. By J. F. C. Fuller. 1929. E.G7657fu. “There is hardly a book written on this period which is so clear in its presentation of facts and so unpreju- diced in its point of view.”—S. L. Cook. SHERMAN, soldier, realist, American. By B. H. Liddell Hart. 1929. E.Sh54L. “As s military study Capt. Hart's ‘Sherman’ can be placed of | liter the universe never began and can never end and that there is no com- preheasion of it anywhere. I believe Death ends both the consciousness of existence and of having existed.’ “God was silent for a while. Then He spoke slowly. “To believe in a uni- verse 50 terrifying takes great cour- age. To believe in a universe so incredible takes great faith. Enter into Heaven.'” WASH.INGTON, according to Coro- net, has among its buildings two which, with all the pother current about improved housing, ought to get keenly interested attention from all prospective builders. These are dwell ings, says the magazine—homes, that is, and one of them was built in 1773 and one in 1921. They are of a material which is “fireproof and prac- tically air-conditioned without extra cost.” This wonderful material also “helps the family budget by reducing the repair costs if not actually elim- inating them.” It costs only twes five percent as much as brick, “less than fifty percent of the cost of con- cTete, and from twenty-five to thirty percent less than the cost of a good frame.” And what is this wonderful build- ing stuff> Why, earth, says Coroner. What we walk on. You dig it up and make a house of it. It is a good house and lasts practically forever. For building purposes, you call it “rammed earth,” to be sure. But rammed or not, it is earth, and nothe | ing else. Does it sound too fantastic? Coro- net says of the two Washington homes aforementioned “Two such houses already flank t city of Washington, one at t extreme eastern boundary, the other at the west. The first, called F Top House, was built in 1773. It v withstood the storms of we nigh two centuries. The original walls turned to stone and deflied the lishing touch of a house-wrecker T repeated failures, contract It was then decided restore the house. The front of the house, with its twenty-seven inca is twenty degrees warmer in than the modern addition, which is not of rammed earth. In | the summer time, the old part of the structure is as cool as an air-condi= tioned house, while the new rooms throw off a sweltering heat. “The modern example of this ancient architecture was erected in 1921 by Dr. Humphrey in the western suburbs of the Capital near Cabin John.” ‘The article goes on to give instruc- tions as to how to proceed, if you want an earthen home. It all seems very | strange, but somehow one likes the sound of houses built so essentially. The Public Library Henderson's ‘Stonewall Jackson.'"— H. S. Commager. SHERIDAN, military narrative. Joseph Hergesheimer, E.Sh53h. “A distinctly military the great cavalry leader.” BELFORD FORREST AND HIS CRITTER COMPANY. By A. N. Lytle. 1931. EF77L. “The author succeeds in convincing his reader of his contention that he is dealing with a military genius of ma- jor importance, not with & mere raider."—Avery Craven. STONEWALL . JACKSON, the Good Soldier. A narrative by Allen Tate. 1928. E.J124t. “This is a military life of the great Confederate general, but the back- ground of his boyhood and the hard life of the barren frontier is carefully drawn.” JEB STUART. By J. W. Thomason, jr. 1930. E.St937t. “He tells, in unforgettable language, the story of the Confederate Cavalry’s part in the fighting done by the Army of Northern Virginia.” “As the Tales Are Told.” MARCHING ON. By James Boyd “The book is extraordinary for the By 1931. arrative of | number of clear and burning pictures that remain in the mind after read- ing.” GOD'S ANGRY MAN. By Leonard Ehrlich. “The whole abolition movement here comes to life, and the entire Brown clan . .. all the instruments of John Brown's iron will, who endured with him untold sufferings.” LONG REMEMBER. By MacKinlay Kantor. “There is no book ever writter which creates so well as this the look and smell of battle, the gathering of two armies, the clash, and the sullen separation.” | THE BAND PLAYS DIXIE. By More ris Markey. “Its distinction rests upon the hone esty of its Civil War background.” GONE WITH THE WIND, By Mare garet Mitchell. “For sheer story value this is one of the finest Civil War epics of all time.” | THE WAVE. By Evelyn Scott. “There can be no doubt that *The Wave' is an outstanding achievement in recent American letters.” SO RED THE ROSE. By Stark Young. “The author has not merely dug up a dead civilization; he has also lured back its soul.” BEST SELLERS FOR THE WEEK ENDING MAY 22 FICTION. THE YEARS. Woolf, HMarcourt Brace. THE OUTWARD ROOM. Brand. Simon and Schuster. GENTLEMEN FROM ENGLAND. Lovelace. Macmillan. THE WIND FROM THE MOUN- TAINS. Gulbranssen. Putnam's. BUGLES BLOW NO MORE. Dowdey. Little Brown. WASHINGTON CALLING. Childs. Morrow. NON-FICTION. CORONATION COMMENTARY. Dennis. Dodd Mead. THE FLOWERING OF NEW ENGLAND. Brooks. Dutton. PRESENT INDICATIVE. Coward. Doubleday Doran, RETURN TO RELIGION. Link. Macmillan. KING EDWARD VIII. Bolitho. Lippincott. SOMETHING OF MYSELF. Kipling. Doubleday Doran.