Books

...We do not like the trappings of nobility or the life of the greatest American stylist will derive great pleasure ceremonial of royal rule any more than did the earliest Tam- from the book...

...And while the Rotary of all-was the struggle which centered round about John Clubs have developed to a splendor undreamed of by the ancient Adams...

...But is recognition of how small and precarious have been the fruits Mr...

...In the case of Jefferson we see how a suppler statesThe book contains much quotation from Jefferson's docu- man encompassed by difficulties, different indeed, but not less ments and correspondence, some of it hitherto unavailable...

...Hirst, the ultimate) significance wasted, none of which is dull, and none given over to the sad of the whole narrative, which should indeed be familiar to us current fashion for jazz, paradox, or pseudo-psychology in the in its broad outlines at least, is aptly stated: "A generation handling of historical personages...

...The author is an English emerging from the unparalleled slaughter, confusion, and ruin economist...

...J. HUGH DIMAN, O.S.B...

...A people which has just triumphantly banned Karolyi government to silence its foes...

...Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company...

...The fourth-most picturesque once gave Kossuth roses for a carpet...

...to Blues: An Anthology by W. C. Handy, refers to the "blue formula" as "a subdominant modulation with alternations of They Knew the Washingtons, translated by Catherine Radzitonic major and minor"-all of which might satisfy the pedan- will...

...Chouans, it would have been better to strike out pictures of Claude G. Bowers closes his account of the first great contest "French peasants hurrying to defend their soil and revolution...

...It was a more magnifi- NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, it will be remembered, cent thing to realize it, at least in part...

...and the interesting account of how merely happen to be interested, once again, in whether it was a manuscript which once passed through his hands and which a wholly sane thing...

...3.50...

...the description of the Blues: An Anthology by W. C. Handy, with an introduction crew of the Frolic is almost Hogarthian...

...The secthem has triumphed...

...and from that day until this, whoever Burke that property is the abiding motif of government...

...Thus the destiny of America, and to lose that critical sense which we are told how the sensitive thirty-three-year-old author of the is indispensable if our present struggle over the Constitution Declaration writhed silently in his seat while the delegates and its amendments (to name only one of many issues) is to slashed and hacked at his precious manuscript, and how his be sanely determined...

...His heart is with the farmer, ing supposed that the giants of early America would prove the day laborer, the immigrant who shall build up the vast taller and better than they seem to have been...

...There is modern quality in the style of these As this music defies white rendition there are also few white communications which, purporting to be translations, read like composers who can successfully imitate the spirit and the form...

...The first was the ing interests into cooperative interests...

...ner of playing music...

...The dynamic per- character of the age were against their retaining the whip-hand...

...Portsmouth School-Portsmouth, R. I. J. M. KENNY, JR...

...formed part of certain serialized memoirs written by a still unOur sympathies are likely to be with the leveller, against known American adventurer is Mr...

...Head Master) ernistic manner are extremely interesting...

...failure...

...There were greater crowds than ever, more a solid esteem proportioned to it...

...and his comparison of John "~ HE eighteenth century witnessed their Plutarchian bat- Adams with Doctor Samuel Johnson is even a gross misfit...

...sober biography...

...HIS year's Glorious Fourth, being the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration, was "His [Washington's] heart was not warm in its affections...

...Hirst's sin of oversympathy with the materialism lights are dimmed for Hamilton and turned on full force for of the Jeffersonian political ethics...

...to a logical reasonwho was governor of Virginia during the Revolution, minister ing, and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of to France, secretary of state under Washington, twice presi- rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in dent, and founder of the University of Virginia-a fervid parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us Republican who was never led astray by jingoistic emotions, by Xenophon, by Plato, and Cicero...

...Bowers offers no neatly generalized high lights, no swift of victory earned with so much violent combat...

...of service under the American flag during the War of 1812 are set forth neatly and realistically...

...How is it with us, who view of important achievements, but the atmosphere of every-day in their battles in retrospect...

...But in a few years, when Inasmuch as Jefferson was a man of ideas primarily, a man the horrors of 19x4-1918 have begun to fade, the danger will who certainly experienced purely intellectual raptures and reappear, unless the peaceful mood is reinforced by study and honestly tried in all his acts to materialize his purely theoretical reflection, and unless new barriers of law are erected strong conclusions, Mr...

...charming and instructive...

...no one-two- Hamiltonian distrust of democracy," says Mr...

...no bald sketch somewhere near Armageddon...

...All formidable, successfully maintained peace with honor during a of it is good...

...The typical honest sceptimon beverage...

...BOOK S Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments TLife and Letters of Thomas Jefferson, by Francis W. Hirst...

...It plays parties...

...270 THE COMMONWEAL July 14, 1926 reading...

...Altogether, the collection of the Maussion letExamples of the work of Kern, Berlin, and Gershwin, com- ters presents the picture of America during the period of posers in the Broadway manner of artificially contrived blues, her struggle for independence in a manner that is at once do not come up to the work of Handy and other Negro pioneers...

...and for eight years, while European rulers loaded wisdom such as the following: debt and taxes on the backs of their wretched subjects, went "Ignorance is preferable to error: and he is less remote from on relieving his countrymen of the burdens and obligations that the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is had been incurred during their struggle for independence...

...On the other hand, however, the sage of Monticello, I think one puts aside this crowded story of old days with with all the windows of his mind open to the new age, stands a feeling of depression...

...It should be added, however, that the Privamanyites applauding the vitriolic editorials of Freneau...

...celebrated by patriotic festivals more whole-hearted and spec- but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him tacular than usual...

...and the final section, by Abbe Niles...

...have disgraced a discussion of brigands wrangling over a division of spoils in a wayside cave...

...2.00...

...The book our while as citizens to go over the ground as carefully as this as a whole is that fine variety of scholarship which delves for its delight...

...New which deals with life in the Dartmoor prison, where the writer York: Albert and Charles Boni...

...The development had been perfectly done, and deals with the ten years following the ratification logical...

...It runs to 175,000 words, none of which is The practical (and to Mr...

...We attend a noble gathering of French politicians, brought How salutary, then, will it be for us to contemplate the to his Paris residence by Lafayette, on which occasion he was career of the American who composed the Declaration itself, "a silent witness to a coolness and candor of argument, unwho very nearly succeeded in abolishing slavery before 1800, usual in the conflicts of political opinion...

...appearance, animal and vegetable, which indicates the approach Thus it is in the highest degree a rational as well as a stimu- of spring," and how the daughters, silly vain things, remained lating exercise to read through Francis W. Hirst's excellent deaf to the frogs and bluebirds, and blind to the weeping wilnew Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson, an ample and lows, lilacs, and gooseberries...

...In other words, the time period is the business of American rule, but reason, circumstance, and the administrations of Washington and Adams...

...Its shortcomthe mind, it destroys its tone, and revolts it against wholesome ing lies, of course, in its blindness to anything in the nature of July 14, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 271 a mystical revelation of eternal or divine verities...

...Louis Blues, are some of the best known of his works...

...Maussion, who with his wife accompanied General de La Most musicians and critics of modern music (Maestro White- Fayette to America, fought and schemed for his living and man excepted) agree with Gilbert Seldes, arch high-priest of got back to France to succumb to the fascinations of Napoleon the lively arts craft, that jazz is not a music itself but a man- I and desert his wife and children left behind in America...

...at random one can select from it a galaxy of world war...

...spent a considerable time in captivity, will appeal especially to those who have a flare for the history of institutions...

...Which of private business men and even government officials...

...It seems about political principle, which did much to strengthen the to me these queries are relatively interesting...

...and with patient tenacity he organizes a party is normally prepared for human nature...

...With this appropriate fragment in the epic style Mr...

...PORTSMOUTH SCHOOL W. C. Handy is a Memphis Negro whose compositions PORTSMOUTH, R. I. (Eight miles north of Newport) and orchestras are well known throughout the South...

...cism and the sound progressive liberalism that go with it are "When this poison [the reading of popular novels] infects endowed with definite and tremendous values...

...The details GEORGE N. SHUSTER...

...F. WULSTAN KNOWLES (Prior) O.S.B., whose renderings of Negro dance-hall types in the highly mod- or Rev...

...Without sacrificing the placid insufficiencies of its deism, so long as it gave us the decent sobriety of historical narrative, Mr...

...for Hamilton himself is a poor purchase a disguise...

...It is easier to understand the which these achievements were carried through...

...debates were conducted under conditions of disorder that would ERNEST BRENNECKE, JR...

...It was a mag- Funk and Wagnalls...

...Bowers in his three of political cause and effect, but the detailed story of the preface, "than to comprehend the faith of Jefferson-a faith crystallization of public consciousness and will into two great of tremendous significance in history...

...he gained his biographical technique in the school of caused by the most calamitous war of modern times is impelled the late Lord Morley, and he here does credit to that formid- by an instinct of self-preservation to study every device by able champion of rationalism...

...ises...

...These success...

...Which has been endorsed by the century ond was the decision for England and against the French Revoand a half which has passed since the signing of the Declara- lution ; and this developed a feverish atmosphere of debate tion...

...Prop- would be an American aristocrat has been at some pains to erty and what it can do, that is...

...For my part, I think so...

...tically inclined students of American folk music who have gone slumming in Harlem cabarets, but would certainly dis- THE letters that the Princess Radziwill has used in the concert the three dusky Smith girls, Mamie, Bessie, and Clara correspondence published under the title of They Knew the who are the best known exponents of the lively art of blues Washingtons are purported to have been written by Gaston de wailing...

...Smythe's memorable conprivilege and vested interests, against any mandate designed to tribution to the lore about the great author of The Scarlet compel even the lowliest citizen into a position of hopeless sub- Letter...

...28th, 1926...

...Memphis Blues, Joe Turner Blues, Beale Street fathers conduct Downside and Ampleforth Schools Blues, Hesitating Blues, Aunt Hager's Children's Blues, and in England and Fort Augustus in Scotland...

...John Stuart Mill no Ariel, no Don Quixote, no victim of amour or repression, used to advise his disciples to study Condorcet's life of the but really tries to perceive his subject as it really was-it is `divine Turgot.' But the inspiration drawn from Turgot's unfortunately necessary to reassure any present reader of a character is dimmed by the melancholy circumstances of his genuine "Life" that he is not confronted with a work of fiction...

...to determine the nature of American government...

...with pleasure...

...Excerpts from the score of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and his Concerto in F, and John Alden Carpenter's Krazy-Kat Ballet are included in the anthology, as these examples of symphonic jazz have a "blues" basis...

...New York: substance of the remark quoted is wholly true...

...Hirst finds Under such circumstances, however, is it overbold to wonder space to include many of those superficial "human" touches whether a new impetus may also be given to our national which serve to give to the work the illusion of actual life, and tendency to forget or obscure the real issues connected with to speed the reader along pleasantly on his journey...

...It is not so much a matter of havfor the distribution of power...

...and merely Monticello and in Trinity Churchyard-but the spirits of Jefferson and Hamilton still stalk the ways of men-still fight- for the sake of accuracy which recalls the Vendee and the ing...

...florid orations, louder huzzas, louder music from horns and fifes But while he is chiefly engaged with the mental drama of -more gladsome tolling of bells...

...The urge toward Democratic Clubs...

...We follow him in his narrow such a mind might profitably serve us as a guide through our escape from Tarleton's British dragoons at Monticello, and we present wilderness of political and economic confusion, and are told how his Negro servant Caesar was trapped under the speak to us through all the milling and shouting, in a still small porch for eighteen hours while the invaders occupied the premvoice...

...6.oo...

...Bowers formulates with some novelty...

...After all, one unsettled lands...

...Perhaps only the Federalists could have organized the of the Constitution...

...a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust toward all the real businesses of life...

...However, even as we forgive the eighteenth century the The work is really very charming...

...Chords and harmonies that come naturally from the ters as far as they have appeared in Princess Radziwill's book...

...keyboard of an untrained Negro pianist in a southern dance The narrative is generally charming and the historic interest of hall are often lost in the rendition of a better technician at the the personages involved carries the reader through her pages piano of a suave New York, orchestra...

...All who are curious about the circumferences of the servience...

...Not two men are here present, made the government under which we live were young men, but two surging crowds...

...The business of practical politics is to effect a satisfactory There were several stages in the great debate, each of which distribution of energy-to organize, as far as possible, conflict- Mr...

...is dramatic in their story...

...As a literary biography of Jefferson...

...Background material is supplied amply by a man who safe with the earthiness of Aristotle and fights shy of the flights knows political organizations and has a sharp eye for whatever of Plato...

...man...

...The stage is set, you see...

...One is conscious, of course, that the as venial Mr...

...Or have we arrived at a stable compromise...

...St...

...Hirst very properly devotes the bulk of his enough not only to curb the natural pugnacity of mankind but text to a varied and lucid analysis of the Jeffersonian theory of to bring statesmanship and diplomacy into line with the moral the republican state...

...Those who and sententious deductions...

...All of which is as it should be...

...The blues have not only a musical This family correspondence was carried off for safety during formula peculiar to themselves but they require a special ren- the Bolshevik terrors and deposited in a bank in Warsaw...

...book invites us to...

...party, his party had lost control of the government, and JefferMr...

...dering which in most cases defies the technique of white musi- There is practically nothing new in the contents of these letcians...

...Bowers's work is history of the new variety, admirably son was in the saddle...

...Bowers writes vigprecious chastisements of Gulliver's Travels, so we may regard orously and humanly...

...The third was the attempt to put in force democracy or away from it often contorts the civic mind very alien and sedition laws, which might have empowered the queerly...

...which another may be averted...

...New York: The Houghton vincing...

...but in the end he had lost control of his celebrated a more or less vigorous birthday...

...We learn how pathetimaintaining throughout his life an enviable union of critical cally he urged his daughters Maria and Martha to "note every sense and enthusiasm-and who died on the Fourth of July...

...Abbe Niles, in the introduction attractive form, enhanced with numerous illustrations...

...The author creates no glorious Apollo, and economic interests of civilization...

...Jefferson and Hamilton, financial problem, settled dictatorially but ably by Hamilton, building upon the experience of the past, stood each for a although he provided opportunity for corrupt speculation by certain crucial way of getting this business done...

...Occasionally the animus is betrayed, as in this phrase tion of Wordsworth's observation that "the human mind is capa- describing Federalist efforts to pass the Sedition Law: "These ble of being excited without . . . gross and violent stimulants...

...A mind that retains faith in the nation, neighbor, Ben Franklin, comforted him with the amusing story but values reason and fights its thraldom to deceptive passions- of John Thompson the hatter...

...Is it worth But who would make mountains of such things...

...3.00...

...Heroes are a perennial necessity and may be forthe current year, his monograph offers a thrice-welcome illustra- given...

...Jefferson's life, as revealed in such sententiae, Mr...

...5.oo...

...They had a feeling that their tents were pitched vigorous, and, on the whole, colorful portraits...

...This utilitarian view of history, as of everything else, was "No nation is drunken where wine is cheap ; and none sober typical of the brighter spirits of Jefferson's age, as it was of the where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the com- British rationalists of the 187o's...

...nificent thing to dream of democracy...

...original work...

...of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss...

...He won because he was 272 THE COMMONWEAL July 14, 1926 a. host within himself, capable of coping single-handed against BRIEFER MENTION the combined geniuses of the opposition in the field of practical politics...

...acters is not always fortunate...

...And though Jefferson had the friendship of The Yarn of a Yankee Privateer, edited by Nathaniel HawMadison and the help of such brilliant men as Gallatin, the thorne, with an introduction by Clifford Smythe...

...With old Negro folk tunes and spirituals as a basis, he has composed To be opened by the Benedictine Fathers of the a number of blues that have had a varying degree of popular English Congregation, Sept...

...One might also reasonably prefer to see a little less of Tom tles...

...The result is New York: The Macmillan Company...

...The analysis of Hamilton's Jefferson and Hamilton: The Struggle for Democracy in religious convictions is unfair, and that of Jefferson's unconAmerica, by Claude G. Bowers...

...Bowers's habit of finding parallels for his charMifflin Company...

...The idea is to place all this before energetic, studious, holding sturdy and clearly outlined conyou quite as it was: there is no biography, but a series of rapid, victions...

...Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected...

...the twentieth century uncovers at the graves at Paine in the allusions to the French Revolution...

...In each and every one of these epic contests, Hamilton Cincinnati, the League for Industrial Democracy has recently proved victorious...

...teer's "Yarn" is a valuable historical document...

...wrong...

...Six Years' Course College Preparatory The book is published in an attractive form with eight full- For fwthn informatioo, apply to page drawings by Miguel Covarrubias, a young Mexican, Very Rev...

...sonality of Hamilton, supported by the aristocracy of the old Democracy, triumphant, would extend the suffrage and promote colonies, has organized a party which holds with Edmund institutional freedom...

...The deeper point based on the rights of man...

...illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias...

...Americans of today was for some time an editor...

...OH, the blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad" Smythe has been fortunate in his literary discovery and forwas the first line of one of the earlier of the blue melo- tunate again in his publishers, who issue the volume in an dies that swept the country...