The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-06
1fnnassas.

. Mnnansaa.
 Mir. Upton Sinclair has written a very catching account of the events and people of tho period just before and at the beginning of the Civil War, Mir. Sinclair even surpasses Mir. | Churchill in making his hero ubiqui- | tous. He is everywhere at all times. And furthermore Mir. Sin ] clairs hero comes near being all |, things to all men, He changes his convictions with utmost readiness. When 'Dolph gives him knife with
 which to kill Ian abbleitionist" he takes 1t with that end in view. When he sees his first abbleitinist, Levi Coffin. of Cincinnati he at once adopts his belief. When he first leaves Frederick Douglass he is at once won to e slaves way of receiving slavery. When Lovejoy sends him a telegram Come" he "obeyed the signal as if he had been an automaton." So though the four hundred pages of this very readable volume Allan moves like ''an automaton" at every man s beck and call
 The story of a traitor Is never very heart winnig reading. When Allan. most easily won turn-coat. returns South he comes with eyes more op- ened than any foreigner to see only the vices of slavery and the vices of his kith and kin. He finds no vir- tue in life which when 1t surround cd him he found perfect. He Is cold blooded and calculating and his first demand of his uncle when his father Is brought home dead Is his patrimony. Even a half of the kingdom-and at once.
 Mir. Sinclair paints his fiction char acters with glowing and crude colors. never were eyes so black as those of 'Dolph and Ralph and Ethel, never were mortals so big and stately. In all the firing and flight at Manassas Allan saw nothing So wild" as his cousin 'Dolph wounded In the battle yet singing lustily whether drunk with battle or whiskey'' he could not tell.
 But to go back to the people who made history before the opening of the war Mir. Sinclair gives very vivid pictures of the men of those string times. He is very much more fortunate in his descriptions of real personages than of those his fancy creates. into these last he has been able to put no semblance of life.
 This would argue that MT. Sinclair ] would prove the better historian than | romancer. Yet even romantic history will not admit of as much prejudice as Mir. Sinclair puts into his pages. We have MrJefferson Davis. a neigh bor of the Montagues near Woodviile Ciss.: "A prim little gentleman, with | spare figure and face very precise 1 and stately in his manners. grave and | reticent, and when excited both elo. quent and imperative." Also we have Colonel Davis of the Mexican War, the hero of the South.
 Also we have good pen pictures oi General Taylor, General Scott, General l Quitman and other heroes of that war | MT. Sinclair gives a good description of Southern barbecue and of William | Lowndes Yanceys speech thereat l Then slowly, very quietly and dis. | tinctively, he began, and men sa, | focused suddenly-the voice, oh, what
 a voice! Clear and vibrant and mellow
 1t seized you like the note of a violin 1t penetrated to hidden depths of youl
 soul, 1t sent tremblings down to youi very finger ends. This quiet man
 standing there without a gesture, or q
 motion, he took hold of your very self | and where he chose to go. you went with him." Mir. Sinclair quotes freely from odl newspaper files and records of
 that day. The frequent quoting and
 verifying gives his romance too muct | of a patchwork appearance. Like tho
 old time medly quilts meant to use uI every piece of material in the house. 1 MT. Sinclair's hero was on the spot when Levi Coffin snatched negro
 servant from her master He was
 present when John Brown tried tc
 persuade Frederick Douglas to join his
 raid. He was on the spot when Browr
 was captured. He was present at the
 heated sessions of Congress. He was
 right there when Lincoln was nomi-
 mated by two votes.
 No event of the times is left un men.
 toned by MT. Sinclair for his worl of research has been most marvellous Of South Carolina's ordinance of seces.
 sion he writes; That night Paul Ham.
 iiton Hayne, the Charleston poet, wal
 visited by the muse. and composed g
 Song of Deliverance.
 "In spite of such things, in the North
 men went on praying for the 'compro-
 mise" writes Mir. Sinclair. If his re.
 search had gone farther back he would
 have learned and related how the earl fest streak of secession, the most wig
 orous declarations of States rights had come, not only once. but many times
 from Northern Congressman and Scna- | tors.
 The very advertisements of Slaves
 Lost. Strayed or Stolen had their coun-
 terparts in the papers of the North
 where slavery lasted only so long as
 1t paid.
 With his usual ubiquitousness Allan
 was in Montgomery when it was the | Cradle of the Confectionery"
 The streets of Montgomery were
 filled as they never had been in their
 history before. and tingling with ex-
 citement--one drew 1t in with the very
 air he breathed. After breakfast AL
 Ian strolled up to the Capitol. white
 marble building in the usual Graeco- American style. standing upon eleva- ton and towering high above all the
 city. Here, also. were military en- ! campments and the blare of military