Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-05-05
BY WILLIAM c. OWEN

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he has been able to command and hold,
with the power of actual life far
y larger audience. 1t is with this, most
striking work, that l wish more par
ticularly to deal If you have not read
/ It let me urge you to do So If you
have read it, perhaps the details of
the authors life already given may
tempt you to give it what a really able
book deserves a second reading.
The Koerner Family
The tragedy of 1.-The Turn of the
I Balance" is the downfall of the Koer-
ner family, old Koerner, who has
/ worked faithfully for one railroad
thirty-seven years, being finally run
over and seriously injured by one of
1 its engines. With the naivete of an
old-fashioned German he takes it for
/ granted that the company will do the
right thing by him. He quickly dis
covers that the company proposes to
act as railroad companies invariably
act in such circumstances. Obviously
we are launched at once on a consid-
Grafton of the entire labor question,
and dragged into litigation that brings
our legal system under the microscope.
! The laws delay, with the poverty that
| follows in its wake, involves the whole
family in ruin; the daughter, charm
| ingly human figure. becoming a prosti-
| tue, and the son, who served his coun-
try with much credit in the Philip
pines, turning thief and being executed
ultimately for murder.
The uplift of the work is found in the
development of the character of Eliza
beth Ward, who, starting as a society
| daWdler, becomes a foreeful personal
| ity, strengthened and purified by con-
tact with the tragedy of actual life
With her, more fortunately situated
from the first, the turn of the balance
is upward, but for the Koerners 1t is
extinction.
Convicts, women of the half world,
court officials and jailers throng the
canvas, in the foreground of which
stand Elizabeth's rival admirers, the
prosecuting attorney, an up-to-date ia
vert from the pages of Victor Hugo,
and the lawyer who with logged but
futile courage endeavors to save the
Koerners. Perhaps Marriott, who is
largely a philosophical Hamlet, forced
to participate in the sordid fight while
keenly conscious of its mockery, is the
real hero of the book. But the evolu-
ton of Elizabeth is most striking. To
her worldly and mentally fossilized
mother the doddering Parson Modder-
well and host of fashionable nincom-
pcops act as admirable foils.
The Ward family also has its own
tragedy in the shape of dissipated
rich mans son, who embezzles from the
bank in which he has been placed to
keep him out of further mischief. Here,
however, true to life, money saves the
day.
I shall endeavor to sketch, in barest
outline, the evolution of Elizabeth, en-
plOying quotations.
Out of sympathy for Gusta Koerner,
| her maid, Elizabeth visits the hospital
in which Koerner is a patient. It is
her first experience of the actual world.
! elizabeth came forward, her gloved
| hands folded before her, and stood care
fully away from the bed so that even
her skirts should not touch it," Let us
not be too hard on Elizabeth. She will
| grow.
The troubles of the Koerners and her
own fathers concern over his hayward
son, with whom Elizabeth argues vain
/ ly make their impression, and she tells
| Marriott on returning from the golf
links that she intends to make another
| European trip I'm going to run away:
I'm going to forget for whole sum-
mer. I'm going to have a good time.
| When come back in the fall I'm GO
ing to the charity bureau and do some
work am tired and sick of this-this-
sola-pillow existence" "She thumped a
silken pillow that lay on a long wicker
divan beside her; thumped it viciously
and with a hatred"
On her return from Europe Elizabeth
adheres to her humanitarian purpose,
and for a time she tortures her family
by debating the question of residence in
a social settlement. Her people are
enormously relieved when she decides
on "a way so respectable as joining the
Organized Charities" In the scenes
that ensue we are introduced to the
pompous lady president; the young
clergyman, with pale, ascetic face, and
high clerical waistcoat against which
a cross of gold was suspended by a
cord: we are carried through meetings
| that exhaust themselves in feminine
chatter over tweedledum and tweedle-
dee; a bazaar and charity ball are
held, and finally, being honored with
appointment on committee, Eliza
beth found an opportunity of seeing
some of the poor for whom she was
working" The icy, inquisitorial meth
DDS of the other members of the visit
| ing committee arouse her moral indig-
nation and she rushes after one victim
and relieves her from her private purse.
For this she is promptly and sternly re-
bulxed.
There comes the moment when. in
conversation with her admirer Fades,
the public prosecutor ar a staunch up
holder of all the respecta bilities. Eliza
beth denounees the whole thing as
ridiculous" vastly to his amazement,
and quotes for his edification:
The organized charity, scrimped and iced.
In the name Of cautious, statistical Christ.
To Forget the Poor
In subsequent interview with Mar
riott she describes charities as organ
lied not to help the poor, but to help
the rich to forget the poor" ''The or
ganized charities is an institution for
the benefit of the unworthy rich" she
exclaims. But by this time Archie
| Koerner has killed the detective who
had ruined his life, and his sister, Gus
ia, had been seduced by Elizabeth's
spendthrift brother. So the expert
| ecnces of actual life have deepened.
Later Gusta is imprisoned and Eliza
beth announces her intention of visiting
the Jail Her father objects and her
mother vehemently. urges his objection;
papa takes merely the conventional
view" says Elizabeth, land the con-
ventional view is taken without
thought" We have passed long since
the stage at which Elizabeth drew back
her dress lest it touch the hospital bed.
on visiting Gusta in the common
prison Elizabeth instantaneously notes
a. change. elizabeth felt something
that she recoiled from and her attitude
stiffened imperceptibly. But not inn
perceptibly to Gusta, who was wo-
man, too, and had an instant sense of
the woman in Elizabeth shrinking from
what the woman in her no longer had
to protect itself with. and she felt the
woman's rush of anger and rebellion in
such a relation"
A long and narrowing interview fol-
lows "and then Elizabeth did what a
while before would have been impos-
sible-she kissed the girls cheek. And
i l., IT,.