BOOKS IN BRIEF
Oneal, James
BOOKS IN BRIEF By JAMES ONEAL ONE of the most provocative books we have re.ad in years is by an anonymous author, Max Nomad, whose Rebels and Renegades (New York: Macmillan, S3) sketches...
...v Some people won't work...
...Blight Why upon the first sweet days of spring...
...Ls It because he also hai become a renegade or has he merely turned sour and decided to translate his cynicism into royalties...
...The depression will help rather than hinder the development of the child...
...Prohibition Is a noble experiment No one is starving la this country...
...When occasionally you do win, the sweets of victory because of their very rarity are the more delightful...
...Keen and informing as some of his thrusts are, the net impression left upon the reader Is that the masses who have organised against capitalism in one form or another are a herd of boobs led by adventurers and crooks...
...Throughout the book there ls also a weary repetition of the word "Jobs" to explain trends, actions and motives...
...One sight which depressed us terribly over this week-end was the spectacle as viewed from the window of a car which was taking us up the Harlem River of the Columbia crew getting a terrible licking from none other than the once lowly Pennsylvania eight...
...We are not even attractive enough to have tenyear-old boys give us presents...
...has lived 140 years can't be wrong...
...Gosh what a book to issue into forty-two million homes some morning before the News, the Mirror, the Graphic and the local Sentinels, Blades and Clarions appear . . . Then the New Day would not be far behind . . . Remember these two books . . . Laldler's "The Road Ahead," published by Crowell, and Charles Cross' "Picture of America," Issued by Simon and Schuster . . . These two give you all there is to know about it . . . And the Read book store can furnish either or both to you immediately...
...Send what you can, comrades, to the relief committee...
...It must be that we are perennial under-dogger...
...Beneath both are the masses who are cattle, mere stakes in a game played by men who are charlatans or even something worse...
...There was a piece in The Nation recently describing the pathetic conditions in the Southern Illinois fields and now comes an official appeal from the Illinois Miners' Relief Committee at 610 Illinois Mine Workers Building, Springfield, 111...
...Age creeps upon us and fame and fortune remain eluslvely remote...
...Bang the Kaiser...
...And of weaknesses we have plenty...
...The same may be said of the "left wing revolutionary" who turns sour, who retires flipm the struggle and from his cloister finds a simple formula to explain everything...
...The publishers' jacket states that he has been an observer of or participant in "the extreme left wing revolutionary movements" abroad and has been "in turn, typesetter, linotype operator, translator, metal worker, smuggler, teacher of languages, journalist and editor...
...What matters then That now soft winds or raring thuds Are daggers in the heart, And April rain ttrlket bitter in the facet < EARL LAWSON SYDNOR...
...The book reveals extensive knowledge of the revolutionary movement and despite its cynicism Its style is vivid and holds the attention of the reader to the end...
...Heigh-ho, It's now twenty-three years since we strode proudly forth from Columbia's more or leas Ivied halls with a swell diploma signed by none other than our idol Nicholas Murray Butler and a firm determination to set fire to the Hudson River...
...This Is a country of rugged Individualism...
...For tbe moment we are finding a blessed relief from matters political in treating our first sunbum...
...Before any phase of the revolutionary movement produced "jobs" there were contests in the rank and file and among leaders who represented trends of thought and this has continued into the modern period...
...A war to end war...
...We'd better quit before this thing grows on us...
...Read 'Em and Weep" lit is certain that the slogans listed below will furnish delightful entertainment for the far-sighted individuals who did not "throw their votes away" in the elections of past years...
...In Comrade Laldler's book we have a much needed propaganda method for bringing the Socialist program and Ideal nearer to the plastic consciousness of the American boy and girl...
...It was too darned cold to go swimming over the week-end...
...One is Dr...
...Save with safety...
...Now while I am not in sympathy with the policies of the present officialdom of the Illinois miners, far from it, the fact that fifty thousand of the finest proletariat this country knows, men of the pits, true mudsillmen are now engaged in a bitter struggle to maintain their present wages and working conditions, is enough to make me second the appeal for funds with an my heart...
...The convention is over, Gott sei Dank, we have our candidates, two of the finest who ever trod American soil and now the thing to do is to go ahead sad pile up for them the biggest vote ever cast for the Socialist party In the thirty-two years of its crowded existence...
...Ovn Across the way from where he spoke, a lot of highpowered go-getters, disguised as Professors, have been spending all their time and energy showing the lads the tricks of respectable peddling, otherwise called business...
...The warmth of April comet a little late— And though spring wears her usual flowering coat The finger marks of winter bruise her throat., ¦ Wll.MA ETHEL CRITTENDEN...
...Drifting Along •jajOW is the tun* for every good Socialist and \y true to forgive, forget and-forge ahead...
...Don't sell America abort Don't throw your vote away...
...He kept us out of war...
...We are going to get a traffic cop to keep them in line after this and if anyone steps out for lunch or whatever, our rule will be that he or she doesn't get paid...
...BOOKS IN BRIEF By JAMES ONEAL ONE of the most provocative books we have re.ad in years is by an anonymous author, Max Nomad, whose Rebels and Renegades (New York: Macmillan, S3) sketches the careers of Errico Malateata, Aristide Briand, Philip Scheidemann, J. Ramsay MacDonald, Leon Trotsky, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Pilsudski, and William Z. Poster...
...Here's the Chaplain of Columbia University telling the boys in the very shadow of the Columbia School of Business not to set their hearts on making a lot of money...
...The free-born AmerH*b people "can always choose between boll and ¦fbuncle, but In either case they get It la the neck...
...Prosperity is Just around the corner...
...Harry Laldler's "The Road Ahead," published by Crowell of New York...
...Why didn't we get to know Billy Block ? As one of our comrades said, the gift to our charming Mayor on the part of Paul Block at the cute suggestion of his boy Billy was one of the finest examples of Block-aid this city has yet seen...
...And that's a good one, too...
...This is the worthiest of causes...
...That "jobs" do have an Influence no one will deny but to Interpret great mass movement in terms of this factor may be good cynicism but It Is grotesque history...
...In fact, we feel like asking whether be has not found a "Job" more satisfying than in the days when he was a participant in the struggle...
...At Milwaukee I ran into my old and always young and dear comrade Adolph Germer and that reminds me that I find on my desk on my return a pitiful plea for relief from the once powerful Illinois Mine Workers Union In whose upbuilding Germer played so important a part...
...And a bath of any sort was what we badly needed after riding back from Milwaukee in a day coach, most of the way...
...We admit that it ls one of our weaknesses...
...Judging by my contributor's box these days, the depression hasn't affeoted the poetry mill . . . Anl during these dog days what a relief to an overworked propagandist...
...An organization (Tammany) that...
...The Comforter When blind motet Find sweet lodging m my bontt, And dust it my eternal pillow What mailers then That vie have heard the wind Create itself of nothing And lote tit laughter m the hilit, Return that laughter in low murmuringsf *> What mutters then that we have kept green rendetvout In spring and loved itt festivals of rain, That we have watched long clouds Lean hard againtt the tky Like qreyhounds on the turn, What mattert then...
...Workers are buying silk shirts and fur coats...
...The old Anarchism approached political action with something like this view and it runs like a red thread through this book, possibly providing a clue to the author's own philosophy...
...Everybody who wants a Job ran get one...
...It is like being a Socialist...
...Buying gopd stocks Is simply a partnership in America...
...This list may also be used as a memory test...
...A chicken la every pot Two can in every garage...
...The awful guff they hand these sweet young graduates, these June days...
...As Oscar Amerlnger said at the convention, there m* two things that grow on the body politic in America...
...These men are threatened with a 36 per cent wage cut and they say, "Our only recourse is In the pennies and nickles of the American workers and their friends...
...Gradually we are getting over it...
...g, a. d> WHt...
...Over and over again It appears and even Trotsky Is not spared...
...It is rich food for a professor of economics and sturdy fare for the humblest of the subway strap hangers...
...It may be in the dead of night you will remember The seal you set upon a man's black fate, But whether you do or not, be certain that we will remember— Who bide our time in blood and tears and wait and wail and wail MAX PRESS...
...Otherwise we should never take any stock in Columbia athletics...
...The thesis of "Nomad" Is a two-edged sword...
...It Is artistically decorated by Mary Pugh's excellent wood cuts, and throughout the entire work one senses the restraint and child-angle employed by the author to make hts effort seem effortless In its simplicity...
...The apostate in any movement for human liberation certainly makes an interesting study but all of them are not cast in the same mould...
...However much one may disagree with Anarchism and Communism, we cannot follow "Nomad" in his occasionally flippant references to Malateata and Trotsky although It must be admitted that he deals with them less roughly than with the renegades...
...Thfe Chatterbox rip here are two books for you folks that stufe X have tbe price to buy or the shoe leather to walk and borrow as a sort of antidote for conventionltis, or whatever that disease Is that makes otherwise sane people fume and fuss and pother about everything else but the vital questions and principles before them...
...To Governor Rolph of California The men who pull the puppet strings gave their commands, And in the game of puppets well you played your pert, But Death sank never as low as dishonor— And a lie grows black even in a laden heart...
...For there was once a time when Sunday morning was utterly ruined for ua if the papers carried news of a Columbia defeat, and nowadays we can choke down our fish-cakes without many tears when the same monotonous word arrives...
...To be sure, some deserters deserve either one or both of these classifications but when the author maintains this cynical attitude towards even Malateata and Trotsky our patience is exhausted...
...As we are no snow-bird, we Just took a sun-bath and let it go at that...
...The full dinner pall...
...Everything we have said in a million stump speeches, everything we have seen and felt and left unsaid, the full sum of bitterness and hope, outrage and ideal la made here, and leaves us pretty certain at the end of the photographs and citations that Socialism ls the only way out...
...The other is "A Picture of America," by Charles Cross,* and Issued under the Imprint of Simon and Schuster, also of this city...
...One is a Republican boll, the other Is 'lie Democratic carbuncle...
...We pledge that there will be no wage reductions...
...The book Is such a curious mixture of keen analysis and sardonic interpretation of the motives of the men he studies that the question immediately occurs, Why does the author conceal his real name...
...And when it came to the altruistic Broker Slsto, what better assisto would a Mayor want than a nice mess of Cosden oil stock...
...When April stretches up to feel the sun, And in the meadow birdlings learn to wing And on the beach the quick sandpipers run, Must suddenly the world grow full of want And in the park where laughter should be heard, Men sit in silence, hungry-eyed and gaunt— Or beg along the street with shamefaced wordf They have forgotten to be young and glad— Their empty bodies ache beneath the wight Of wasted hope that any may have had...
...The diggers are just fading out from sheer starvation...
...Those who are still guided by them may exercise the inalienable right to bray like donkeys or bellow like bull elephants after the counting of the ballots in the Presidential election.] Buy now...
...All of you with children growing into the estate selves as their parents to keep this effective chunk selves as their parentsto keep this effective chunk of literary chocolate in reach, of their growing appetites for knowledge, The child Is father of the Socialist movement...
...A great many of the comrades suspect us of delayed infantilism because of our interest In Columbia athletics...
...An unusually long line of creditors was at our door upon our return from the convention, almost enough to make what our jolly friends, the English, call a "queue...
...This "Picture of America" ls a tabloid composite compilation of pictorial opposltes with brilliant arrangement of comment, news sad figures on the real American scene...
...Watt, no flames are visible along that noble stream from where we are sitting and yesterday one of our handsomest back molars fell out...
...He •man I* te Mtnaa t»hr» won Hialr way to leadership and to taose who desired leadership...
Vol. 13 • June 1932 • No. 23
