Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN America on the Eve a N ail-day train journey in these day* of wartime travel congestion, when railway meaU are apt to be the worst in the world,...
...Well, God damn it, George," th* Arst man said, "you tell me...
...What sbout Dsksr...
...In this time of international cartels, old concepts of states' rights must be overhauled...
...the Ar»t msn ssid...
...Railway publicity gets its due in a passage like the following: "The railroads had grown very friendly in recent years...
...After all, the Japanese had Mongoloid eyes, and those eyes couldn't focus a* ouis did, and therefore the Japsnese couldn't fly...
...Occasionally the author uaea the device of repetition to the point where it becomes a little irritating, aa in the case of the "Rahally," of the profane, dipsomaniac and cynical Mrs...
...Arid if this situation casta any reflection at all upon President Roosevelt, it is a creditable one...
...This choice of lime and netting gives th* novel quslities of dignity snd tragedy that set it spsrt, it seems to me, from Sinclair Lewis' hilsrious sstire* on the Rotsrisn* of the carefree tweatie* or Marquand'i own deft depictiona of such human antiques ss uppercrust Bostoninn gentlemen of weslth snd family...
...That minor horror of American life, radio commercial advertising, comes in for some amusing psrody...
...You tell me how they csn do it...
...Our aocial grouping* and interests hav* changed so basically that going back even to the best early conceptions is not enough...
...Too long we have looked upon our high court aa a Jehovah, act up there in a marble palace to guard and protect legislators and people...
...For S* l.itU* Timr i* the story of the year or two before Pearl Harbor and centers around an American lather, hijMmfl* sn aviator of .the last war, who sees his olksfniasJilsMrked out for th* sums destiny and feels that the boy may hav* "so little time" to savor life...
...One description of an argument at a cocktail party in the novel brought me up with a stsrt...
...If Justices Frankfurter, Jackson and Reed may be correctly desciibed ss f«»>ming the renter group, it i* because'they differ from their colleagues to the left about the particular path which should be followed on the road forwaid...
...Justices Frankfurter sad Roberts chsrged their colleagues with s "tendency to disregsrd precedents.*' Evidently, editors expected their readers to be ss much srsrriAed as if murder had b*ea committed in the spotless msrble halls of our highest tribunal That the editors themselves hsve been mf...
...The novel has a few weak points...
...We have had too much of this sort of thing...
...In a linear fashion, they go bark to earlier ideas and decisions...
...And this was true in more ways than one, geographically and industrially as well as psychologically...
...There ia an excellent recapture of the m.e, I of completely discounting Jspan which prevailed or the eve of Pearl Harbor...
...What about Dakar...
...IN fie impartiality of trie picture lies much of its atrength and permsnenee...
...He did not test them for uniformity of opinion...
...I was impressed by the enduring qualities at depth ami pathos In the work...
...How msny ships could bring a hundred thousand men over here...
...But on balance it's s grand book, whether you read it to get some irresistible laughs at the author'* ahrewd dissection of the weaknesses and follies and eccentricities of the American scene or to sense again the mental fog and confusion and hot futility of the period which is under description...
...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN America on the Eve a N ail-day train journey in these day* of wartime travel congestion, when railway meaU are apt to be the worst in the world, ia not r sybaritic luxury...
...I'm telling you sbout Dsksr...
...In the Arst place, anything « good which knocks out of people's heads a gaping reverence for precedent and dignity...
...The central figure is both a sympathetic personality and a convincing human being...
...Men honestly applying their minds to an inS,1 iI — wu, ..-tL nf rattM involving such considerations will inevitably come up with different solutions...
...Newcombe...
...What are you telling me...
...The New leader, on the contrary, views this liaajy scene with satisfaction...
...George, I csn't tell you...
...He did what every other President has done...
...it would hsve been improved by the pruning of perhsps a hundred pages...
...Why strain yourself at the wheel of a motor car and risk the horrors of the highway when the railroads would take you there...
...Mf book on this trip w*s John Msrqusnd'* So LHtlr Tim...
...The author ran hit off with equal marksmanship an America Firat cliche about the bopeleasness of our trying to aettle the "ageold feuds nf Europe" and another familiar line of tho time, about how we were foredoomed to fall like France...
...If some of them think for themselves and are willing to stand up and fight for their views, that is all to the good If Justices Roberta and Stone form the right wing, it is merely in the sense they rely chiefly on precedents...
...Recognising the Suprem* Canst ss made up of less than supermen will do something to free our limbs for the active dsys ahead...
...writing novels of the calibre of BmbkxU But whan 1 was not exploding in laughter, to Hn*' amaiemtnt and curiosity of my 'ellow-paaaengers, at the pictures, at once mordant spd devaiUtingl;«jjig3r*r, of the know-it-all fttgmm ij|Wi)aiident who fllflly gets his specific pr*aVjhsnj wjMsfc of the patented poet of democracy who declaim* Ids efforts before select socialite groups, of th* child who i* s product of progressive *dnr*ti**l, of th* Investment counsellor who . looks n* aoieinn and wis* a* an owl, and usually induce* his i hen I a t> late money...
...I am telling you...
...the Arst men ssid, "you tell me...
...I found ft both the most enjoyable and the moat significant American novel I have read for many years...
...The very worst of them ha«a resulted from s limping lag...
...Msrqusnd ha* caught thi* mood so lflftjjB« reflected it so faithfully that socisl historians oTflfty and s hundred year* from now will be well advised to refer to "So Little Time" for vivid suthentic snapshot* of how American* were acting snd thinking and talking, how the reactiona of certain social groups varied during thia "on the eve" period...
...God damn it," the other man said...
...There are some bita of delicious comedy that have nothing to do with the war or the American attitude toward participation...
...Just^ni Blsck nnd Murphy, sacmod Justics Frankfurter of «* wholly grstuitoqs assertion...
...For I recall 'wearing virtually the same clash of idess, backed up by the same flow of profane language, at the bar of the National Press Club in Washington in the spring of n»t I I would like to try out this passage on the resder* of th* column and *ee if it stirs similsr memories: "They can't come over here," one man said...
...As the author says: t, "It made no sense, because America was not like * France...
...I'm listening...
...th* second msn ssid, "I am telling Tfou...
...All right...
...The fewer halee* we have about, th* better chance there is for a fair consideration of valuea...
...Or we have thought of it as a fort of substitute for king or houae of lords, a check upon the unschooled impetuosity of the ma...
...the second man said...
...A facade of unanimity could cloak nothing but dishonest pretense The frank and open admission of difference may—probably does— indicate free and freah attack...
...It seems s little long for its artistic requirements...
...What's -toJuan.themXcouMhe hig .bulge of Brazil...
...Unquote...
...What about Dakar " , "God damn it...
...What about Brazil...
...The railroads were your home on wheels, and how you could sleep and rest and relax on the railroada...
...feeing from unseemly jitters, tKey hsve sufficiently proved by their comment...
...That'a the leaat we can do for England...
...Roosevelt...
...AnJ hadn't sn American Admiral said thst the \nieriean Aeet could meet the Jspanese fleet after breakfast, and it would be over in time for lunch...
...It's a matter of logistics...
...Even the concepts at the civil liberties must be re-interpreted in a world of airplane, moving-picture, and radio...
...Don't shut your eyes to facts...
...That was the new word of the day—'relax...
...It was a curiously blended mood of turbulent argumentation, of fatalism, of hoping for the best and anticipating the worst...
...Justice, Too, Must March INURING th* past two months th* Suprem* Court has been making front nags' headline...
...and the gilded writer of hymna to democracy ia not without his counterpart in actual existence...
...But Walter Newrombe does say and do things that inevitably call to mind not one, but several distinguished pi sit it K.ners of his craft...
...The aocial satire is magnificent, as good as anything that one can find in tfMMffTf *>wH earlier pictures of the Boston Brahmin HassT^V u" '''"»'«" *>'''» H M '•'-""<"- Ktq., ta goaniTsWnnjrthing one could And in Sinclair Lewia when hn,era...
...He appointed the sort *f men whom he approved, who were liberal...
...There nre stroke* of msgniAcent sardonic humor, as when s woman who, with her huaband, belongs to the gilded set thst slways>sted the New Desl, snnounces s chsnge of hesrt in the 1040 election for the following reason: "We're voting for Mr...
...But, aa I discovered during what would normally have been a tedioua trek across Tenneaaee, auch a journey is by no mean* waated time and energy if you have the right book along...
...Just how in hell, George," the Ant man aaid, "csn they get to any bulge in thia hemisphere across the Atlantic Ocesn...
...It proves) that he did not "pack" the court...
...God dsmn It," the second msn ssid, "if you close your ears to reason...
...Our troubles during the past century fcasra not coass from impetuous speed...
...the other man ssid...
...The author aftirma in his introduction that he ha* never known a foreign correspondent like Walter Newcombe and that all the characters are strictly Actional...
...If Juatices Black, Douglas and Murphy ar* the left wing, it is in the aense that they tend to rrost the horizontal lines and bring into the court considerations originating in hot turmoil of the rapidly advancing outside world...
...Roosevelt becsuse England] ' wsnta us to have Mr...
...THK mood of American society during the period 1 between the fn)l of Frsnce snd PsnH a|arb..i has been caught with remarkable skill snd facility...
...When justice* fall out, legislators and common folk* may get the idea that they had better use their own brain...
Vol. 27 • February 1944 • No. 8
