The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-23

THE Beaten PATH" by Richard Law
renee Maxim. Is a powerfully written plea
for conventionality, though the author evil
IDENTIFY fatters himself that he is going be-
low the surface and pleading for the reali-
ties Of life The hero. heir to great wealth,
to which an unworthy uncle has succeeded
on his fathers death, becomes his uncle's
private secretary. He is moved by the wish
to clear his family name and assert his
birthright. His talents and abilities soon
make him indispensable to his employer.
and at the same time a leader of men. In
the apparent clash between humanity and
gold, typified on the one hand by the sloth-
full, sensual uncle, who leaves his great
iron mills in the care of underlings while
he idies his time away, and tinaiiy turns
them over TO a trust, and on the other by
the horde OF workmen and their families
toiling for a plItance and submitting to
the death Of their children by mill ''acci-
dents as to the DEGREES of fate, he takes
the side OF humanity. But he falls in love
with his employers wife. Worse than that,
he knows that she, who had married To
aid her family. is in love with him He
erson millions Tor her sake, realizing that
she can never be happy as Leversons wife,
and that he is booming the thousands of
wOrkmen in the LeverSon factories to hope
less misery. The seduction of a mill hands
daughter comes to light, Leversons wife
leaves MIN, tnere Is tender passage De-
tween her and the hero in which each con-
fesses love for the other, and then she
turns back to the beaten path and her
unworthy husband, and the hero never sees
her face again and never loves another
woman. The death of the lay preacher.
Meyer, at the hands of mob OF his fellow
workmen, bent on destroying the mill in
which they have earned their daily bread,
Is touchingly related. The plain but incor-
ruptible man of the world kissed the lips
of the dying preacher and 1.-The light went
out" But the hero can never love an
other. the heroine is doomed to care for
an unloved and unworthy husband stricken
blind by the revenge OF one he had wronged.
the mob OF workmen have wrecked the mills
and killed the lay preacher and are
hungry and without hope. No one has fol-
lowed the beaten path but one woman,
whose reward is endless sorrow, for she
knows that her heart is dead.
The author lays the scene of the story in
Henderson county," Pennsylvania, placing
the influence and activity of the characters
at Harrisburg and other real places. The
Republican party is made to stand for some
of the worst features of corporate greed
and oppression, and the hero, cham
pion OF the people. casts his lot with the
Democrats. A very unworthy politician
becomes United States senator from Penn
syIvania. The book bears many indications
of having been written under the influence
of feelings which grew out OF the Home
stead strike and the panic of 1893. IL is
readable, but at times hysterical and Of
fers as a solution of the difficulties met
with in following the beaten path only the
assurance that .'he that overcometh (hm-
self and his desire) shall inherit" and the
exhortation to follow with bleeding feet
along the beaten path of human suffering"
bearing what He himself has borne" The
Macmillan Company, New York.