Books in Review
RORTY, JAMES
Books in Review Pressure Boys and Planning By JAMES RORTY DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSORS: Special IntereeU and the Pubti* Wel/ara, By Stuart Chaee. No. 4 in the series of guide Knee to America's future...
...The trouble it thst the only wsy these special interests have found to protect themselves is to impose a planned scarcity on everybody...
...Writers who have occasion to put dialect Into tho mouths of their characters (and almost every suthor uses at Issst s "smidgen") will find this book s wise investment It occurs to me thst readers, particularly those interested in regional fiction and in that wider movement which sims at ths rediscovery of sn indigneous America, may alio find it so...
...2.50...
...Th* scholar snd that most useful person, the layman, can spend hours gsttlng the savor of phrases like "reckon," "shirUail kin," "Jonoteenth" (Juno 10, Emancipation Day among the Negro** in Texas), "unbeknownst," and "ride-snd-tie" (tho last sn interesting glimpse into customs of rural America...
...And a meager assortment aa* maids Bat here ia the nadir of want, ' The depth ef despair snd ef me, A tragedy such aa must daunt Almoet all but the hardiest few...
...for instance, I waa not sble to find "forty-leven," haywire," or "hoosegow...
...He hss noticed that ether people don't like to die either...
...in the opinion of this reviewer, Ayres' "technological continuum" as a measure of not only economic but human value has received altogether too much uncritical acclaim...
...Monopolies are good or bsd, concludes Chase, depending upon whether they keep the machines running or slow them down...
...It will start when the discontented nations get together and upset the balance of power...
...But how would we feel about those free elections if a large part of Western Europe goes Communist—or if those free elections set up a Fascist bloc flanking our own Panama Canal...
...He borrows this too-simple criterion from C. E, Ayres, whom he quotes as follows: "For every individual and for the community the criterion of value i* the continuation of the life processes —keeping the machines running...
...I would hate to think this, however, because I regard the Consumer Counsel of the UAW-CIO as one of the ablest and most useful people in Washington—useful sliks to labor and to the country, as a whole...
...s ? We all beliefe in freedom...
...We talk about free elections in every country...
...Ramus finds no kindness nor magnaminity in those* last days of the world, none of the epics of courage with which our paper* are filled today, and which have always been recorded through the centuries...
...And maybe The Twentieth Century Fund ought tn publish it...
...R/chord Armour ftrenfe of1 &W «i^er*>...MWTCtf GREECE.' if there I* ¦ World War III the 006 your email boy may have to fight—odds are it will start like the two before it...
...Hs loves life, ho loves the sun, he loves-the play of wind on water...
...Industrialisation for militarist and expansionist purposes, as openly announced by the Peron clique in Argentina, i* neither bourgeois capitalist nor a feudal agricultural, but a purely fascist economy...
...During this period the going hast boon getting tougher and tougher, and Chase has played ltis role with s kind of sceouBtant'* tough-minded fidelity for which political radicals hsve given him, on the whole, too little credit...
...It must grapple with the hard facts of the news as the news happens...
...The Mysterious "We" I y ALICE IMl PA -SOWS THE END OF ALL MEN...
...Should the little Balkan countries be free to perpetuate their economic chaos with trade and immigration barriers every few hundred miles...
...This time the principal revelstion be hring* down from the ¦mountain— snd s »*lid and serviceable enthusissm it is in the opinion of this reviewer—is Ksrl Polanyi'* The Oreat Tram formation, which was published lsst yesr by Fsrrsr snd Rhinsharb...
...Weil also says nothing about the fact that the present militarist dictators announced that they are in favor of a certain measure of industrialization—sui generis...
...Ours is a government by and for pressure groups...
...Chase, . who once wrote a good book about noil conservation, should have remembered that...
...So he writes a book about the earth falling into the sun, and about how it gets hotter every day, and about how the terrible word comes, and first people try to laugh it off, and then they don't like it, snd some hate to lesve their money snd some hate to leave themselves, snd the militis is called out and the poor swarm out of the slums, and riot and burn snd drink themselves Into insensibility, and the guards srs posted, snd people drink snd copulate and die and even the lake is no longer cool, and women wade out into the hot water* and throw their babes to drown...
...DOWN AND OUT Now that Mrs...
...A Hitler has to line up his Germany-Italy-Japan combination before he can start making world-war-size trouble...
...4 in the series of guide Knee to America's future a* reported to the Twentieth Century Fund...
...Politicians in power placate these special interests with evasion, compromise, sn outright surrender at the expense of Uncle Sam...
...I think that is crazy...
...They nodded their heads...
...Oh it happens at times here in town, Aad it's tragic indeed, is it not, That we hear ef a family down To its Isst, or Ha next to last, yacht, Or reduced from the way things once • were Te a skeleton stag ef aide*: A butler...
...Today, dressed up as "Free Enterprise" and the "American system," the market conceals a chsotic labyrinth of monopolistic pries manipulation, sabotage of production and new invention, cartel-maintained scarcities, tariffs and other miscellaneous subsidies—the net effect of which is to slow production-consumption down to the danger point...
...a chauffeur...
...If democratic government is not powerful enough and is not permitted to act fsst enough to avert a breakdown, then the' man on horseback rides in...
...Weil served the dictatorial Argentine government of General Justo (1932-1934) in the capacity of economic adviser to the then Minister of Finance Federico Pinedo...
...Germany, ss Chase notes, was a democracy once...
...Being sn honest book, it would also describe in detail, as the present book does not, the amount of featherbedding and obstruction of technological sdvsnce for which labor Is responsible—snd that is s good desl...
...ds Rougemont thinks this is a good time to introduce Ramus to America...
...What about aMsdias Ncs these...
...He approves Bunge's proposition of a customs union of the southern South Americsn republics, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and later the other neighboring republics...
...Not sn involved, heavy book that gets sll mixed up in personalities snd plots snd emotions snd what not, so thst people srs apt to <hink of its contents instead of its beautiful modern style, but a simple, elemental book, all style, all symbolism, sll love of life, all words plodding along, plodding along, as a horse sets one foot after another...
...Bat," yoamsyse thinking, ••what Is al this 'balance ef power' talk...
...For Greece is tragic evidence that we still have a lot of thinking to do before we can make a world organization really work — really mean world peace...
...Most of us Want some tort of world court...
...Weil knows and refers to Bunge's book La Nueva Argentina, published in 1940, which lately came into prominence as the bible of the present military-fascist rulers of Argentina...
...Ramus, the author of thirty books, has been tremendously prsised by among others—Paul Clsudel, Thomas Msnn, Romsin Rolland, Jacques Man tsnn...
...According to Mr, Ramus, who seems to have read history, if at sll, with a jaundiced eye, only evil impulses come out of men as the burning earth whirls into the burning sun, except for certain mysterious creat**ss called "Wj,"_ This mysterious few climb Up Into the mountain* and cross a wide valley and a smaller vsllcy and come to a church...
...And another consequence is that the standard of living of the agricultural laborers and of th* masses not employed ia war industries decreases...
...And their new eyes ssw a place very like the old earth that had fallen into the sun...
...And the church bell tolls snd the poor folk roundabout Obey the bell snd come to the church and kneel down to pray...
...So it'* all right to let tool beget tool, any kind of tool, and let it make what it was designed to make, and quite possible and proper for man to adapt himself indefinitely to the result ihg expansion of scale and acceleration of pace...
...RAMUZ has a notable stylo...
...The present book, which is the fourth and easily the best of ths aeries he has been doing with the help of the Twentieth Century Fund economists and researchers, aboundantly supports this judgment...
...It wss necessary to ask them sgain: 'Come you?' and again: "Are you coming?' Then they triad once mors, and they saw that they could, they saw thst they had lesrned anew how to walk...
...westillh*»ealotofthtakl»gtooo.Wecaiit foatpss* tats nesting mm tht sai af the Th* seat k wa...
...Finance Minister Pinedo reciprocated during his incumbency by consolidating the great economic privileges of the Argentine cattle breeders, i the most reactionary wing of the reactionary landowners...
...At this point Big Government has to step in and somehow get the machines going sgain, with whatever jtrong-arming of special-interest groups that entails...
...they released to ass, they releerned to sea, they returned to hear...
...It would mention the Reuther brothers and acknowledge regretfully thst there are only three of them and only one Don Montgomery, whsress there is more than one Bill Hutchinson...
...It i* not safe for man to "assert hi* mastery over nature...
...FELIX WEIL'S book is very w#H documented, very learned, full of impressive figures, tables and comparative statistics...
...747 pagss...
...And the ball tolls and the last day ends and in their new bodies they stand forth...
...Republicans and Democrats alike declare that they realize we must assume great responsibilities to make world peace workable...
...297 pa...
...Th* John Day Co...
...In the excellent chapter on the Future of Argentine Industry he enumerates all objections the spokesmen of the large landowners (the latifundjsts) put forward against industrialisation and refutes them with facts and arguments...
...Our own hour of trial snd testing will come soon, when German v collapses snd we are hit by the terrific smack of s 60 percent cutback in war roders...
...There is one other possibility, of course, which is that Don is all wet...
...It will undoubtedly win the general admiration of learned university professors...
...Republicans and Democrats alike accept Dumbarton Oaks as an imperfect first step towards the world of peace we all want—because "you have to have something before you can improve it...
...Hs know* just as* to sot words down one after smother, one sfter another, like a plodding horse, and to describe things everyone has soon with images that no one ha* ssaa and no one has ever thought up before him...
...Just ss the Germsn Nazi regime is not a simple revival of the former feudal conservative regime under the Kaiser, so th* present fascist regime of Argentina is not the'eontinuation or strengthening of the old conservative regime of the landowners...
...Man is a terrestrial animal...
...Weil pays high tribute to this Pinedo, calling him the "ablest and...
...This is the reason why Argentina presents the apparent anomaly of being a country with agricultural economy, with the largest part of the population living in cities...
...Thomat V. Crowell Company...
...An Introduction by Denis do Rougemont tells us that although Ramus "is undoubtedly the greatest living Swiss writer, ho is not to be considered as representative of bis country or of its well-known traditions...
...The matrix of his civilization is the earth: what it gives him and whst he returns to it...
...most daring statesmen Argentina ever had...
...Bp Felix WtiL New York, 1944...
...Hs loves life snd hs doesn't want to die...
...Rather, he must find the humble placs permitted to him and hi* machine* in the larger ecology of all life...
...Chase deals only in secular tablets to which he attaches the proper credit lines—but it does bring into sharp focus the crucial problem Briefly, this problem is how to emerge from the war into the kind of msnaged, consumer-oriented economy of full production and full employment, without which we Stand to lose both our economic shirts and our political freedom...
...But who it to make the international law the world court it to enforce, and what principles will that law embody...
...English As She Is Spoke By EDWAUD HESS AMERICAN DIALECT DICTIONARY...
...They have one thing in common: a frantic desire to escape from the ravages of the Free Market, which was a headache to almost everybody even when it was really free, as Adam Smith was honeet enough to confess...
...elected by the "Radical Party" (mild liberals) was overthrown by a military eoua and replaced by an old-fashioned reactionary dictatorship, ruling in the interest of the big landowners...
...This raises two interesting questions: First, how does Chase, who is certainly not anti-labor, come to write an anti-labor book...
...Weil's book...
...Here, to thi% reviewer's mind, is the riddle of Dr...
...Weil aolves the Argentine riddle by proving irrefutably that the country's problem can and must be solved by industrialisation...
...Such a limitation may have been necessary to hold sn already large book down to manageable sise...
...And understanding people's speech is a big step toward uadprstsnd-ing the people...
...Pinedo had been a member of the Argentine Socialist Party...
...As Chase writes: "They (the Pressure Boys) think they can kick their way through the delicate veins, nerves, arteries, tendons of an interdependent economy and get theirs...
...AS sklnd of Mom to his American middle-clsss audience, Stuart Chase has been shepherding for nearly a quarter of a century an increasing flock through the wilderness of what he calls our "high energy society...
...The proof appears obvious by the fact that several former leaders of the Conservative party such as the former conservative deputy Aguirre Camera and Senator Santamarina were jailed under the "amalgam" accusation of distributing "communist'' pamphlets...
...I wonder...
...Thus fsr the pressure boys have prevented us—meaning "We th* People"—from preparing for this ¦mack...
...It least this is the impression one gathers from the fact that he says nothing about the growth of the native fascist movement and the transformation of the militarist rule from a tool of the big landowners into a separate caste shaping Argentina's economy in its own interest...
...In the interest of his father's million-dollar grain business in Germany, at that time one of the largest in the world, he had been back and forth nineteen times between these two cities at the age of 29...
...He wsnts to use all those things, this beautiful modern style, this noticing of things, this love of life, in s book...
...possibly these terms sre excluded by a very strict definition of dialect...
...For thst we'll hsvs to wait for books 6 or 6 of this series, assuming the Pressure Boys allow us thst much breothing spsce,, which I personslly doubt, r Tl *a« HE foregoing review wss slready written when the reviewer was startled by receiving s release from Leber Free* Ateociatee consisting of a review of Chase'* book reportedly written by Donald Montgomery, Consumer Counsel of the UAW-CIO...
...In his imaginative epilogue, Chase has a Wellsian "social scientist" ascend unto a high place at Sun Valley and discourse the sweet reasonsbleness of a mixed ¦ economy to a group of experts sssembled to desl with the crisis of 1050...
...The author has lived in ths throe principal dialect regions of the country, but the New Englander or th* native of New York State will, for obvious reasons* be particularly struck by th* wealth of Southern terms...
...Psris eventually discovered this racist snd "for a while everybody [around 1926] wss passionately for or against Ramuz...
...Right now they hope, most of them, if they bite hard enough in the clinches and knock over enough Congressmen, that they ran claw their way up to a nice little shelf, safe from the ravages of the postwar depression...
...Because then, sfter sll, they had not been deceived f Because they hsd nst, then, done wrong in being attached to the earth, they were right in loving, ia spite of all...
...The purely Swiss ideas of cooperation of languages, races and religions in the frame of...
...Their eye*, their OaTS ware changed...
...Pinedo, who had split the Socialist Party to form a kind of right wing "Independent" Socialist Party, supported th* Conservatives against th* Coalition of the Radical* and Socialists...
...The industrialisation proposed by th* present Argentine rulers under the leadership of Colonel Peron, Vice President and Minister of War, and in fact th* power behind th* throne, Is industrialisation for war purpose...
...The book ia a source of abundant factual information and would be an excellent reference book were it not for the regrettable fact that it has no alphabetical index...
...informed...
...Professor Wentworth's dictionary is an important contribution to ths study of ths "American language" (to sdopt Mencken's phrase* and therefore to the comprehension of American culture...
...the latest if you call 1925 lata...
...at that instant they dared no more, they stopped in their tracks, they stood motionless: they than saw that now they no longer knew how to walk...
...By C. F. Ramux...
...I thought we all agreed at Immbartun Oaks to keep peace with aa ssSMSsalaasI orswuiirhmt" Sum we did...
...This other book would describe whst labor is doing to serve the country as s whole, as symbolized by that dubious politicsl entity, the Consumer...
...I The uninitiated reader should remember that the word dialect is hers used In ths strict sense, which comprises localisms, provincialisms, snd rsgionallams, but which excludes slang, the distortions of children'* talk, the speech of th* foreign-born, and the lingo of the stage comedian...
...Man the Mechanic's, or God's...
...For example, we "citified" people of the North need no longer be puszled by the talk of Jesss Stuart's and Msrjorie Kinnan Rowling's characters...
...At that time h* was very close to the Communists...
...For this Pinedo wa* rewarded by a post in the reactionary Cabinet...
...It is not and doe* net pretend to be a new and inspired contribution to economic theory...
...By Harold Wsntwortk...
...But in the meantime, watch Greece, where on the very heels of Dumbarton Oaks liberators snd liberated began killing one another...
...In fact, if that weekly newsmagazine continues to increase its use of "iffy," "bumbling," "persnickety," "foofooraw," and similar terms, the cloistered reader may well need (his dictionary in order to understand the new* columns...
...A* American* look *rt the world scene in their fourth winter at war they are unhappy and uneasy...
...But should B world organization guarantee the right of every nation to make all its own laws, regardless of how those laws may affect the social and economic life of its neighbors...
...Such industries do not improve the standard of living of th* great masses, because in spit* of the higher wages paid to work-rs in war industries, the red) value of new wage* does not increase if no consumer goods are produced...
...for TIMsJ's own future is unalterably linked to s U. S. citizenry deeply concerned about public affairs - to a nation insistent upon seeking th* truth and learning from recorded experience...
...It wss, however, opposed effectively by the political and military power of the great landowners who preferred to maintain In Argentina an slmost pre-agrarian economy of large, Uninhabited spaces for cattle breeding...
...We, the People" and other symbols of a unity which we save not thus fsr schieved, even in war time, except perhaps for s few months sfter Pearl Harbor...
...Due to th* scarcity of such goods their prices increase in such proportion that the higher wages of th* minority of better paid workers are fully absorbed...
...The problem is made staggeringly difficult by the fact that we are technologically the most mature, hence most vulnerable, nation in the world and politically one of i the most immature...
...They know the old great power chess game is not what their sons are dying for...
...In the meantime he grew older and wiser...
...a politics...
...But the discovery that Argentina needs industrialisation to become a modern and progressive country, to increase its population and to improve the standard of living of Ha inhabitants hss been made by hundreds if not thousands of writers snd journalists, snd this conviction hss been shared by hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of urban workers snd members of the growing middle classes...
...Whose world do we think this is, anyway...
...So in sdvertisementi like this Tims is seeking to encourage reading, questioning, argument and straight, hard thinking...
...ChaSK groups the Pressure Boys into three main categories: Big Business, Big I alio,, and Big Agriculture...
...One of Chase's most useful services ss s inwnalist hss been his advocacy and popularization of more recondite writers...
...And this thinking must be more than large, soft, unanchored generalities...
...Nshe warM nrsasiiarlns we al want Is to seemed whtre the Lssgas af Nsliaas faamt...
...New York...
...But he does not mention that Bunge in his book also preaches the suppression of all democratic institutions and the establishment of totalitarian regime patterned on European fascist models...
...Thst is whst we have in fact been doing throughout the ages, and that i* what we must continue to do better—if we are to exceed the achievements of the past...
...Maybe the trouble is that Don expected Chase to write a book on quite another subject and is really damning him out, not for writing the book he did write, but for failing to write the book which he admittedly did not write...
...Hero era 15,000 defined entries with pronunciations, illustrated by a total of 60,000 quotations, so that the reader sees each word and torn of phrass repeatedly need in sentences taken from reports in the field and Other authenticated documents...
...Certainly this dictionary will find Ra place on the shelves of public libraries and in the writer's study...
...For some time Dr...
...4.00...
...much attention is given to place and personal names...
...federation, of Protestant education and civism, play no part in his work.' No, "Ramus is a racist, meaning that his aim is to express the non-Intellectusl snd permanent realities of his Lstln, Vsudisn and Savoyard race...
...Contrariwise, if we feel that world organization should curb the nationalism of others, will we let the world organization interfere with th* frank nationalism of our own tariff and immigration laws...
...It is refreshing to find this material documented from (ho radio broadcasts of Kay Ky»er or the pages of Time...
...Come, let as then solemnly mourn This sad, oh so sad, situation: The Vanderbilt family shorn Of aU aave a Grand CentrsJ Station...
...The Argentine Muddle By STEPHEN NAfT ARGENTINE RIDDLE...
...I.ai king this unity, France collapsed under the German attack...
...only...
...W* aU want a world ia which law win lake the place of force...
...Montgomery's review is entitled "The Worst Anti-Labor Book in Years...
...This it not meant to be funny because his father was one of the most prominent citizens of Frankfurt, and Felix had a commutation ticket be -tween Frankfurt and Buenos Aires...
...We al beliete st Democracy...
...Maybe Don ought to write thst book...
...Ho has noticed lota of things...
...Thst there are omissions goes without saying...
...Weil, whom this reviewer met msny times in Buenos Aires about 18 years ago, is a native of Argentina from Frankfurt am Main...
...There are longer articles on subjects like "Folk Etymology" and "Eye Dialect...
...And they said: " 'But we're home.'" Mr...
...ENGLI8H as she is spoke," rather than English as it ought to be spoken and written, has bain rlsiming sn increasing share of the attention of American scholars, aware thst we get s dearer view of culture and linguistic processes by studying language in sll its lange rather than in just ths one srsa of well-bred, formal written ussgs...
...Translated by Allan Roe* MaeDougmL Pantheon...
...In Polsnyi's view, Big Business, Big Labor snd Big Agriculturs sre not to bo blsmsd for protecting them-•eives against the catastrophic irresponsibility of the market...
...Second, how does s reviewer who is certainly not anti-labor come to review the book favorably...
...Bat what aext...
...13.60...
...Msny of his books hsve been popular, but Chase is a good desl mora than a mere popularizer...
...Now Weil site above the battle...
...Vanderbilt has sold her Fifth Avenue home, the only considerable Vanderbilt structure m New York will bo Grand Central Station.—-News Hem...
...Th* pot it b**B**> TIMI believes America's greatest need, now snd in the coming years, it for the sovereign people to make up their minds and speak them out To *h> so, citizens mutt keep themselves...
...In 1930 the regime ef President Irigoyen...
...X&t pages...
...It's nice work for the experts if they could only get it . . . but Chase does not specify how that is to be arranged...
...tWO cooka...
Vol. 28 • February 1945 • No. 8
