Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-10

EDeSet
| culties as wsllias somewhat facilitated by
the love affair that runs through the story:
Through thescourse Of the tale the hgure OF
the Specialist Is dominant, and whether In
| his busy Consultation room in private con-
ference over the momentous issues with his
patient or In his more personal relations
with the group of people the novelist brings
| under his care or again in debate with his
more cautious colleague, who recommends
| against the daring attempt at saving life,
ne controls the course OF events ah NJ, aoos
to the happiness of the lives about him.
III; MAST; His Period and His Pictures By Al
bert Bfgelow Paine. New YORK: The Mac
milan Company. Washington: Brentanos.
| The story of Thomas Mast is the story OF
one of the greatest reform movements ever
felt In this country the story of bitter
and desperate fight by corrupt gang for
| the preservation first of their opportunities
for picking the pocket of the public and
next of their liberties. Mr.. Paine has told
| this story dramatically and thoroughly. lie
| has sketched the life of the great cartoon
| list from many points of view, and mas
| shown the man, the artist, the friend, the
| citizen and finally the officehOlder going to
his death in the pestilential southland The
| story of how he came to write the work Is
| especially interesting and is worth retell-
ing here in part. He first notes how nearly
| forty years ago a boy of five came across
| a big double-page picture In Harpers
| Weekly showing scenes in Santa Claus
| workshop. 1t made deep and lasting
| impression upon his mind, so deep and
especially so lasting, indeed. that what fol-
| lowed was wholly natural. Mr.. Paine con-
ciudes his explanation thus:
| AT the PLAYERS Club of New York. in
| the corner next the dining room, the old
| cartoonist, whose years were so nearly
ended, and the writer, who had once been
a boy on the prairies of the middle west,
| sat discussing an unwritten book whose
Mast
II was brought up on your pictures
the writer said. I would undertake the
work gladly, if you think l qualified
| 1--WE considered the possible qualifications
OF one whose early point Of view and poll
| tics had been shaped by those pictures.
Presently Mast said, thoughtfully:.
IF we do this thing l should like to put
in some of my Santa Claus pictures.
/ "Your Santa Claus pictures! / didn't
know And then, all at once, 1 did
| know, for the years rolled backward and
there rose before me the old farm house,
boy lying fiat before it, porting over the
pages of HarperS Weekly. Do you mean
to say that away back in the sixties you
did double-page in a Christmas Harpers,
entitled Santa Claus and His Works?"
asked, and that it showed Santa in his
shop and on the top.of his ice palace with
a spy glass;?
why, yes he said of course did
''Then l told him what that picture
meant to me. And l will do the book L
said, if you will let me. 1t shall be the
story of your work by one who was
brought up on it. and, that the reader may
better understand, 1 will introduce it with
that farm boy porting over the Christmas
Harper, before the open fire."
The firm hold that Nast's picture took
upon that boys imagination and the inf1u-
ence it exerted upon his future develop
ment was an example of the grasp his
pictures had upon the minds of grown
men during the stress of the great fight.
The ring of sincerity and truth and cour-
age could not be mistaken.
Mr. Paine has fulfilled his trust to the
dead man. faithfully and well. His story
is admirably written and is interesting in
every page. The illustrations from NaSts
greatest works are profuse and valuable.
1t is book of many thousand.
THE STRATEGY OF GREAT RAILROADS. By
bank Il S,s VIII %aps New nSrk
Ballantyne Sons.
| The average reader of newspapers Is
aware that combinations exist in the rail-
road world, uniting certain transportation
lines into groups dominated by this or that
cspitalistic interest. But 1t is the excep-
| tional reader, In other words the profess
sional railroader. who knows intimately all
the twists and turns of the railroad situa-
tion knows the bearings of this part upon
that. or the relation of this trunk line to
| tie Otner, or the POLITICAL OK
listing between one great group and an
| other. Railroad politics. indeed, or rail-
road strategy" as Mr.. Spearman suggests
| in his title. has become subject for the
| specialist. Mr.. Spearman is in way of
| being such a specialist, not as technical
| expert. or railroader of actual experience,
but as a student who has observed the
| American railroad in every possible aspect,
chiefly from the point of view of the writer.
He may be styled, without prejudice to him
or to any others. the railroad novelist FAR
excellence of the period. But in this work
he shows that while he has been drawing
inspiration from the car smoke for the pro-
duction of some remarkably interesting and
Instructive novels and short stories about
railroads and railroad men. he has acqulr ed
some very substantial facts relating to the
lines and groups, and these facts he sets
forth now. to the end that the otherwise
occupied man may get to know the differ
ence between the Hartman system and the
Vanderbilt roads the Gould lines and the
Hill system. He omits the roads of the
southeast which form one large and sew
eral small groups, and thus his work is rot
complete. But so far as 1t goes it is a valu-
able disclosure of the way in which systems
are assembled and managed while in one of
the concluding chapters he tells how the
Chicago and Alton road was rebuilt, to illus
trate the regenerative process through
which virtually all of the older lines have
been passing. 1t is book to arouse and
hold the interest of the reader keenly
as one of Mr.. Spearman's delightful fictions
of the rail. Its maps especially instruc-
tive.
THE YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS. BY Jessie
Il. Rittenhouse. Illustra ted with portraits. Bos-
ton: Little. Brown & Co.
The scheme of this work is to present
critical analyses of the men and women
who born within the last half century, have
written notable verse, but whose place is
still in the making" Naturally the chief
task of such work is selective exclusive
and discriminatory. For as the author
notes, Mr.. Stedmans American Anthology
represents over 500 American poets, the
greater number of whom are still singing.
One rigid barrier was that of years. 1t ex-
cluded number of the elder poets without
whose names a list of American writer's in
this medium is incomplete. The author
has chosen eighteen men and women as
standing most clearly in the category ss-
tablished by her, These are Richard Hovey
the only one rot living today-Lizette
Woodwork Reese, Bliss Carman, Louise
Imogen Quincy, George E. Santayana.
Josephine Preston Peabody, Charles G. d.
Roberts, Edith M. Thomas, Madison