The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
A Page of Features Americana Books Chatter The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Hicking Over fne Traces »|*HE other day I was thrilled by the art show of Local 22 of the * I.L.G.W.U. up on East...
...Little, Br9wn A Co...
...159 pages, 74 maps...
...The ballot was only one means of attaining experience...
...Canada is not so well known in the United States...
...He became a good craftsman, had no special complaint against his Job as a job...
...e * » Aegler's War Record . , THE editor of the Minnesota Teamster should know, and he says that Westbrook Pegler is an asset to the trade union movement...
...and thee _what have you...
...In this morning's Time» Howard Devree describes Abraham bsvin as a "minor sensation...
...A beggar might be rich...
...onspicuous by its absence ia the 1939 column is that fatal 22nd day of August when Stalin and Hitler got together and preceeded to "seal their friendnhip with blood...
...More often it breaks out in the form of little personal ambitions...
...THERE ARE RUMORS IN MEXICAN CIRCLES that Vieente Lombardo Tokriano will represent h» country as AraPasaador to the Soviet Union Toledano...
...The last-named novel, published in 1U40, was, in addition to being a volume of reminiscences, an anti-war novel based on a kind of simple isolationism which attempted to equate the notions of-George Washington with the attitudes of a Jewish immigrant, who had escaped from the European fire only to land in the American frying-pan...
...But tie it in with fascist propaganda that the New Deal is the Jew Deal...
...It is in short a condensed, visualized but perfectly sufficient encyclopedia of the war, in ?6?/ pages, for those who wish to understand the progress of the wsr'end the importance" of the territorial changes •omg en...
...Why should they...
...That such propaganda is being carried on briskly in this land is everybody's secret...
...Bet what difference does it make, if the effect is the same...
...While there is a solid fund of long-standin...
...never more true than ia war time...
...True, in the early chapters there is the haunting feeling of having read all thus before...
...LBERT HALPER'S work to date has followed two main channels: the vast, sluggish stream of life through mercantile and industrial establishments (The Foundry...
...The man has moved from one craft to another...
...Clouds, skies, trees, figures, draperies, costumes are Woven into"-a rhvthmic web...
...Mr.-Halper's achievement is therefore all the more creditable...
...PARTY-LINE EDITOR OF THE HOUR ami co-autho' oi the best-selliiiir Sabotage, is being sued for libel by Nitika Grigoriev, a Ukrainian nationalist...
...He is a professional painter...
...The man is sixty-two years old...
...IS IT TRUE THAT THE NAVY "E" AWARDS handed ont te workers ir outstanding war plant- are r,ot being worn by unionists because the pins a'-e not u-.ion-raadc4 ASTORIA'S HORACE GREELEY HIGH SCHOOL was visited by swastika carvers who emsele<i the Nazi symbol on the statue of the Go West apostle...
...At the same time, he is said to have insisted on having a representative on the paper to see that things were handled nwvoerly...
...Now don't anyone, rise in meeting to tell me that I am side...
...He has worked for nearly forty years "by knee pants...
...He refuses to be tied by the limits of his trade...
...asked Mr...
...r Roosevelt, built suspicion of the motive of the leaders of our government and of labor unions...
...Fighting now for ? greater war effort...
...It is ? historian's and candid observer's hook...
...Emerson saw the whole thing in terms that went way beyond voting and politics and constitutions and lists of rights...
...He saw men as beings free to develop, at liberty to venture into a complex world and select their experience...
...The new geographical mobility was another...
...in Washington, according to thai unbiased pillar qf tae Washington press, and the man i* a Jew...
...Mill ud Smelter Union elections...
...The maps include the world as it was before the fateful shot of Sarajevo in 1914, the world after the peace treaties in 1919, Hitler's conquests tn Europe by teiTor but without violence of the Sudetenland, all of the...
...So if you're an ? via reader, watch out for the seats of your trouser...
...Inside and Out By ROBERT TREVOR PXCITING AND IMPORTANT NEWS from North AfjWvrwssdja 4>* any small contributions to the total of man's .new* knaalas^l trtfich this department can make...
...IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE WAY ANTI-SEMITISM snowballs, * here's a good example...
...Our Neighbor and Ally: Canada By ELIAS L. TARTAK CANADA TODAY AHB TOMORROW...
...He needed an alteration in himself rather than in his post office address...
...There is, however, one refuge for the truth, even in war time, and that is the map...
...Modern technology, he would say if he were here today, can be goad onlyc so far as it famishes more avenues for the individual human to live end breathe and turn and find his necessary ex-pˆ ri...
...So »ow the transformation is complete...
...The Washington Tmes-HermUL, still a fairly "respectable" paper...
...This man is not—cannot be—one of »he greatest painters, but this quality of vitality he has in common with the greatest...
...is because of this that I was thrilled when I walked into that art gallery on East 57th Street...
...This column has also gone to some lengths to point ont the dangers against American security which the Spanish consular and diplomatic representatives hold...
...the French-Canadians did'not like it...
...This is major...
...however, this lack of infoi'iaalteii becomes seiieus...
...greater than all, was the chance to select . a trade, a profession—to change a trade or a profession...
...Okay, that's the opinion of the Timts-Hrraki...
...Fine company for a "peepul's war...
...Victor Yakhontoff and Congressman John Coffee...
...W. H. Chamberlin, In giving us a general and carefully drawn portrait of Canada, its people and problems, its cultural background, has deserved weil of both trie American reader arid of Canada...
...the electorate won't get any funny ideas about influencing legislstieti...
...Almost one-third of her population is solidly French...
...It is much the same in this war, as the reader would know from the recent plebiscite on compulsory service overseas...
...By Albert Halper...
...The second took him to California...
...And now to other muttons...
...Emerson saw us in the early days of the technological revolution escaping from the old caste system...
...in the temperate restraint of his judgments on controversial problems...
...The propaganda is a positive danger and has been pointed out as such by many an American newspaper, public man and war correspondent...
...His ideal was the man who might be first a printer, then a trader, then explorer, writer teacher—falling always, as he said, "like the proverbial cat," on his feet...
...Now that we have rolled on to another stage in mechanization, the dictators want to trap us in ? new one far worse than the old...
...We are inclined to thfee Canada for granted as a vast and thinly populated country, the paradise of the tourist and fisherman...
...Chicago, with its massive industrial development, its miles of stinking stockyards, and its seasonal influx of farm people and Westerners, is, I think, more overwhelming to the young writer than a cosinopolis like New York...
...Al, the little elevator boy who finds his dream girl but winds up with a venereal disease, Miss Boyle, the lusty saleswoman, John Narhigian...
...The painted quadrangle hitF you in the eye...
...In an eminently temperate and thoughtful manner, it deals with Canada's major problems—racial, political and social—in that country's yesterday, today and probable tomorrow...
...402 pp...
...1.50...
...In a democratic dominion, this presents a problem which lias exerciser—and, at times, strained— all the tact and patience of people and leaders oil both sides...
...Hence, trouble over conscription in 1918...
...To him America meant an infinity of possibilities for each individual...
...Canada is solid, individualistic, but somewhat rural and provincial, i.e., healthy in an unhurried way...
...There is compulsory service for Canadian- defense, and there is a large volunteer Canadian force overseas...
...At the same time, I haw* held with increasing conviction that a diplomatic break between this country and Franco Spain would be stupid and defeat our ends...
...The situation was realty very depressing until John Hammond, a friend of the Nes?re, offered to stake The People's World in order to keep it going...
...U7HAT USED TO be called "the Stalin school of feisificatte*" W holds classes every day in the Da He Werker offices...
...It is Jack's idea that Pegler is too crude to last "It will be the...
...Maps Don't Lie By STEPHEN HAFT THE WAR IS MAPS...
...ADAM CLAYTON POWELL'S NEWSPAPER, was in financial difficulties some time ago...
...The maps do not lie...
...and what cats you ok> about it...
...A human being asserted himself, perfected himself...
...I an willing to say this frankly, without resorting to the ill-tempered and confused rationalisation which Samuel Grafton fed to his readers in Wednesday's New York Post...
...On the jacket Mr...
...Here again are the people to whom things happen, "the little people...
...Perhaps, the large admixture of Scottish elements "m her business and political leadership helps Canada to navigate her ship among so many twists and rapids along the political current...
...t; ? D EID ROBINSON, who is being backed by Mike Quill and «4f the boys, is not doing so well at all in hie union elections...
...Nye obviously thinks that straw polls should be designed to reflect his political opinions alone That way...
...This man is a member in good standing of Local 19 of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America...
...WALTER ? LEWIS *WARNS*ML...
...Then he would sit down at his drawing-board, and then, in his own woids, he "wasn't tired any more...
...He dominates much of the life of Washington behind the scenes, polling the strimrs like a master of marienettea...
...There is plenty of Wild West and barren North in Canada...
...You see how, Mike, you see how...
...Some maps show the technique of the blitzkrieg, the city plan and bombing of London, the resources of the belligerents...
...But all the critics agree that this man has what it takes...
...I tried, in my awkward way, to find out \yhat this man stems from...
...Helper says of Th< Little Peeple: "These are the people who . . . never learned to fake their tragedies or their comedies, either...
...This 62-year-old man says: "I am not tired any more...
...This necessity for patience and steady labor in building up a young and widely spaced country may account for the fact that Canada has produced a number of fine humorists, of whom Stephen Lcacock is the most delightful exponent of his contemporaries' absurdities...
...Twice he broke away...
...Sometimes it takes on great organizational shapes, the Old Ironsides of Cromwell or a modern trade union...
...is unconscious of imitating any other painter...
...and ia considerably behind in the current polling of the Mine...
...Now mark this as a coincidence if you wilt, but the very next issue of People's World listed as publisher Marx Yergan...
...Levin left his shop, and he says shyly: "I now make just about as much by painting as I used to get in my pay envelope...
...They mention Cezanne, Chegall...
...Halper in a youthful story...
...At night he would help with the kitchen work-tired as he was...
...was anti-Semitic and had ties with Naai groups...
...sense of fairness of Americans that will chase Pegler into oblivion Fanat.ctem often makes a splurge on the American scent, but It doesn't last long...
...In the whole volume, there is not a trace of the heated propagandist or friendly advertiser...
...England won, but Canada has ever since remained twofold in population and culture: French-Canadian and English-Canadian...
...Not that he loves the bad boy of the Scrrpp*-Howard chain...
...wants * te investigate the straw pollers...
...Helper's translation is real enough, too...
...He and his wife both worked...
...This one, at the Galerie St...
...Here taey could move...
...There is a sense of continental perspective about his book: the wide spaces of a . whole continent...
...Pnvwdl is supposed to have objected to this on the grounds that the paper was luily staffed...
...haM<l*i.~ with their language, press, schools and religion...
...The old saying that figures do not lie, but liars figure, is nowhere and...
...The course of events has shown how wrong liberal opinion w*s iw agitating towards this end...
...Latest bit of homework is a list of the highlights of Soviet history for "the first 25 years" printed last week...
...They can quote the Times-Hci aid's chapter and verse and then draw their own conclusions...
...The one sensitive to the greatest number of experiences was the best man, the most human...
...Instinctively, Levin had secured certain simplifications and distortions of form and juxtapositions of shapes and eaters that were enormously impressive...
...rest of Csechoslovakia, and Austria, apd then the gradual conquests of the Axis powers in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania...
...t t ? ALBERT KAHN...
...To him a person stuck in one place was sensitive only over a very limited surface...
...where the land is more fertile and climate more hospitable...
...Just one of these patient people running a machine, paying union dues and expecting in due course to die...
...Abraham Levin Mokes It 4r*HIS struggle of humans to get out of their shells is the greatest , thing about life...
...ame of -war...
...who is president of the CTAI«, · Latin American confederation of trade union groups, has been traveling about organizing "Workers Unity Congresses...
...About five years ago lie got the idea of painting...
...The Chute), and the well-remembered course of his boyhood and eariy family life in Chicago (On the Shore, Sons of the Fathers...
...THE more enthusiastic a report is about victories and "smashing defeats" of the enemy, the more is it necessary to check up on the statements, official and unofficial alike, of both sides...
...The map does not He...
...South America and the War...
...e° ? * AN INTERSTATE PRESS NOTE: New York papers «toteline *· their stories from Australia "United Nations Headquarters" while the sc-calied opposition uses "General MecArtlmr'* Heni)quarters"—which is the way they come in on the AP wire...
...A SPANISH BOOKSTORE in Harlem which sells ihe Fakuigist mr.gazine Clannada openly is guarded by a fierce police org...
...His production of paintings will never be important in relation to the whole art world of America...
...This quotation from William Henry Chamberrrn's recent book sums up the paradox, not unusual in the relations between two neighbor-countries, one of which is by far the richer and more powerful of the two...
...hcrr is the most powerfvl...
...ft had appealed to Marshall Field for a subsidy but he waen't interested in adding a Harlem edition to PM...
...But now and then a fellow breaks through, kicks over, comes out...
...This makes the problem of transportation and overhead expense peculiarly complicated for both the Canadian farmer and industrialist...
...Text by Franeis Brovcn, Maps by Emil HerlnL Oxford University Press...
...Halper's picture of Chicago will never make a starring vehicle-for Alice Faye, but people will turn to it for an increased understanding of how those human beings who comprise the swarming mass "got along" in a sad civilization...
...After the war," writes Jack Keefe in the November 5th number of The Teamster, "Pegler can say: 'In the war I took cracks at Mrs...
...I am perfectly happy...
...Emily Genauer, in the'World-Telegram, says: "We found no ordinary primitive, struggling naively and painstakingly to imitate nature...
...friendship and instinctive mutual understanding between the two countries, there is, on our side of the border, lees general knowledge of Canadian fundamentals...
...Withont losing a single thread (well, almost) he follows through an arbitrary period in the lives of about a dozen employees of Richard T. Sutton & Co...
...Ever sbtee the capitulation, this column has yelledf loud «ad earnestly whenever the opportunity arose for a break of relations between Vichy and these United States...
...An Atlas of the Xeiv York Times...
...Change in the Communist line after the invasion of the Soviet Union brought him back to the Pan-American lovers' lane...
...It is pleasant to report that in his latest work Mr...
...If politically Canade is a British dominion, economically she is a dominion of America...
...Their tragedies and comedies are real enough...
...I must mention that the treatment of the minor Negro figures is superb...
...8.00...
...Canada Today and Tomorrow" has a rrruch wider scope...
...Halper's tendency towards the maudlin, the glib, and the facile denouement is under better control here than it has ever been before...
...But this cud-chewing is characteristic of most Chicago writers, as is the tendency towards crudity and oversimplification of both plot and emotional development...
...Hence, the greet and voluntary contribution of Canada in the first World War was, in soldiers, predominantly English-Canadian...
...An excellent history of the World War in all its stages, visualised in 74 maps and explanatory text is presented in this book...
...We have a very interesting neighbor to the North—democratic sound, quietly progressive, proud of its independence and freedom...
...Bp William Henry Chamberiin...
...But what comes out on the canvas is instinct with life, color, movement...
...If Ralph Waldo Emerson were here, it would be major to him...
...They are America with a dash of old England and sturdy Scotland—or rice rerea...
...Nothing radical happens in Canada...
...A king might be poor and limited...
...American neutrality" 1939, etc...
...Etienne, 4? West 57th Street, is his «eeond...
...fT HAPPENS to us sometimes too...
...up on East 57th Street...
...Thi^ is not to say that Cissy Patterson's paper ia in cahoots with the native fascists, although some have said it...
...Chamberlin is tactful and fair in presenting both viewpoints so haxd to reconcile: to be a Canadian statesman requires iron nerves, patience and a strong sense of humor...
...He uses no »edels, paints the country without leaving town and does a stillose with nothing before him...
...for it facilitates the anti-British and—as its byproduct—anti-Canadian propaganda in this country...
...This is what the war is about...
...The first trip was to Brazil...
...But to me the fact that such a man exists, that he could do what he has done, has nothing minor about it...
...The answer to the charges they will make is this: Let the F.I.I, keep its eye an the Spaniel: consulates and stop settling the foreign poliey of the United States...
...So when we read that the "victorious armies have occupied new prepared positions according to -plan," and these "new -prepared positions" appear on" the map fifty ndles to the rear of the previous positions, we fully -understand the significance of such war bulletins...
...A gaod maker of knee pants is infinitely preferable to a dauber of bad pictures...
...Last year be had a one-man show...
...else- heard ? good many "boners" about Canada, about her relation or "subjection" to England, even about the "lords and aristocracy business," in ??????—of ? «? countries...
...If I was bom in a raw slangy town, if I happened to sec raw slangy things, why shouldn't my stuff be raw and slangy...
...Seven or eight months ago, Ar...
...It is also widely echoed in certain "leftist" circles...
...AH political systems, machines and accumulations of property are useful only so far as they make this thing possible...
...Ralph Waldo was the man who had the deepest look into what democracy nfeans...
...Stepping the war...
...The peasants had been stuck to the same clods for centuries...
...THE PEOPLE'S WORLD...
...Seid, who used to be big-wig in the American Peace Mebilizatira, ia having a little trouble with opposition candidate John Drisccll...
...The result is: in times of peace— an "entente without cordiality...
...It is not only Hitler who in his recent speech said that England sends Canadians and Australians to do her fighting...
...It leads to crime, to inventions, to explorations, to religions, to wars, to arts...
...Writes Michael Straight in the issue of The »«· Rrpvblic just out: "It is hard to see how we shall win major victories before next September...
...s ' "THE Unitedi States is familiar to Canadians...
...The exposure of anti-Brrtish and anti-Canadian mendacities is only a casntri by-product of the solid information supplied by the book...
...Although it crops up badly now and again, Mr...
...The Canadians rather do things than advertise their future deed...
...It occurred to me afterward that I should have mentioned R5ph Waldo Emersen...
...Harper & Bros...
...OLD DEBBIL OF NORTH DA...
...In 1903, at the age of twenty-three, he came from Lithuania...
...be case came up for trial this week...
...All this was, in peace-time, merely good-natured neighborly care'.eesneaa...
...It is a vast country, but its population is concentrated on a long and narrow-ribbon along the country's southern border, i.e...
...if we care to look at the map...
...The Unglamorous People By HARVEY 5WADOS THE LITTLE PEOPLE...
...The French-Canadian is just French-Canndian—first and last...
...Canada's major problem is an inheritance from her historical past, from the great conflict between England and France in the 18th century...
...The Canadian must be level-beaded, realistic and a good compromiser...
...Kahn claimed that Grigorie...
...Halper has returned to the technique he developed in The Foundry and The Chute: and...
...It is pleasant to record that the Amalgamated has produced one artist...
...so we know how it feels—but * yon can't help tittering when a newspaperman gets caught with fiis deadfine down...
...Outside of Catholic Quebec, the Canadian schools are very geod: the reviewer is an atumnes of "old McGill...
...The article goes to prove that Frankfurter is "the most powerful single individual in the United States...
...2.50...
...m * * THE geopolitical an-d economic problems of ¦ Canada arc handled by Chamberlin with the same lucidity and sense of Canada's peculiar background...
...The Canadian is—as a rule—cool and there is nothing wrong with his sense of humor...
...It is full of meanings that rise halpitatiiig from the subconscious and demand existence in the . Ught of dav...
...He tears, off the tag with which society has marked him...
...Two to one: English Canada's "yes" against French Canada's "no...
...Hizaonei, the Mayor, has been aroused (wowt and it is said that Herland« has the Investigation in his hands...
...What is more surprising—this stupid drivel is smugly and self-righteously repeated by some of our own good liberals who have never taken the trouble to read a single competent book on Canada or Australia...
...It «eems' very petty to eontmwr the endless task of sticking pins into exposed quarters Of other people'* anatomies—even though they welt deserve it But before we go back to the old treadmill here are a couple of things that mast be said...
...There is a wide and growing cooperative movement in Canada's agricultural West...
...Most people are timid, limited, weak...
...If you went to this local or any other of the needle trades unions, you could find faces that look like his—kind, gentle, infinitely sensitive...
...IT would be an injustice to W. H. Chamberlin's * book to take it as primarily an effort to dispel the current silly lies about -Canada and Enghmd...
...The man had no teacher...
...But, he says, "I always looked for something to satisfy myself...
...What gave me the kick was the fact that about forty dressmakers prove that they are more than craftsmen...
...She is always a doten or more ytars behind the United States, but she gets there...
...The iron tenacity and push of her volunteer soldiers has been attested by experts, by German generals...
...Everything is sharp, clear, definite...
...Before this war...
...haberdashers...
...Napoleon is reported to have said that "never are more lies spread than during a war., before a war and after the war...
...This is what gave "Pins and Needles" its meaning, and it...
...With Vichy out of the way, the do-it-now liberals will un-doubtly concentrate their efforts on the Franco regime They wiH •se the activities of the Falanee here, and in Latin-American and the Spanish consular policy as battering rams...
...The old times of fixed classes, orders, crafts— they were a hell from which this country provided an escape...
...The loyalty pull of English-speaking Canada goes, in a crisis, to England...
...the harried shipping clerk, and most of all Oscar the hatter (a noble figure)—ell these and more are handled with insight and compassion...
...She has to compromise with her large French minority, she has to watch her best customer and—in case of danger— powerful protector, the United States...
...He is reluctant to commit himself to overseas wars...
...1942, .Vew Yprk...
...Hp is proposing a resolution tn tliis effect because he feels that the mechanism i* "uiiscienttflc" end that if is used by that horrible New Deal in order to justify its legislation...
...Chamberlin is almost Canadian tn his balance, in his "on the other hand...
...The principal of the school was very wroth about public interest in this bit of nasty vandalism and claims that it's the school's business alone Nevertheless...
...announces an article on Justice Frankfurter called "The Richelieu of the New Deal...
...But change of location on the map had . no magic...
...Their dreams die in them...
...These people do not make history like the glamor boys of the historical romances, but they do make history in a more subtle and pervasive way...
...If Abraham Levin were a bad painter, there would be no gain...
...A Jew—so the Jew* really run this country...
...And if you'll cheek the items carefuHy yoaTIl discover that what has been left out fills moat of the good books on Soviet history...
...America is far from perfect, but m' America ? 1942 a Jewish clothing worker could do this...
...despite its unfortunate title, The Little People is certainly his most successful novel...
...Native fascist groups can say: "See...
...in war-time— less entente and even less cordiality...
...I discovered nothing at all...
...A MERICAN-SOVIET FRIENDSHIP RALLIES air blossoming \T «U over the country The latest, in Seattle, featured among rts'speakcrs the Czarist Genera...
...pushed our of City College (allegedly for Coeaanmaiat activities and since active or many Party fronts...
...Critics naturally make comparisons...
...Nye...
...Toleelano was once premincnt in the anti-war and anti-Yankee movement throughout Latin America...
...Why don't people write about him now—when we are digging up every old fellow who had anything to do with plotting out the idea of what freedom means...
Vol. 25 • November 1942 • No. 46
