Evening star., 1915-01-09

THE WAR OF 1914. BY Howard
Pitcher Dixie. illustrated by maps.
Washington: The Washington PUP
fishing Company.
~ ETwEEN the daily mass of war
- news and the average readers
need of an intelligent grasp OF
the war as a whole. there Is
long stretch of relatively un-
occupied space. To be sure, books on
the war are pouring from the press.
The most of these. however, are ad-
dressed to the student of history or
the trained reader, to those who are
able to seize complex situations and
to trace out the intricacies of modern
diplomacy, to those who are already in
possession of the main undercurrents
of aim and ideal that are actuating
the European powers. What the aver
age reader was.a-is a plain, unlum-
bered book to straighten out with a
few lines the complicated history of
the case, to define it's geography, to
translate its diplomacy into the plain
terms of common understanding. Mr..
Okie's little book meets this want.
Alert and capable. it presents a SIM
pie, properly emphasized view that, in
large movements, covers the causes of
the various powers toward it, and as
much as may be at the present time,
of it's conduct and its possible outcome.
This succinct and graphic. study fur
nishes an admirable outline for fur
ther pursuit of this subject. 1t is ex-
actly the right, starting point for ad-
ditional research, as 1t is primarily
simplification and an organization of
the great bulk of war material that
crowds daily upon the reader.
UNCLE SANS MODERN MIRACLES:
His Gigantic Tasks that benefit HUI
manity. BY William Atherton Du-
Puy, author of Uncle Sam: Wonder
Worker" Illustrated. New York:
Frederick A. Stokes Company.
AS in his earlier book, Uncle Sam:
Wonder Worker so in this one Mr..
DuPuy bends himself to the praise
worthy and patriotic task of present.
ing Uncle Sam to readers as friend
and benefactor to all the people, and
not as the patron saint of any par
ticular class or clique In support of
his claim this writer brings forward
some of the big and generally benefi-
cial things that the government mas
done and is doing. absorbed oy the
spectacular magnlticence of the Pam
anna canal acnIevement, readers are
likely to forget that while. so to speak,
Uncle Sam was digging the canal with
one hand, he was with the otner hand
putting through half a dozen or more
measures of equal Importance. To
name but few of the things that he
has done and that Mr. DuPuy presents
here, there is the conquest OF conta-
gion and the lesson of sanitation
taught to the world by this govern
ment. There is, too, the transforma-
ton of the desert, the rejuvenation of
farms, building of roads. carrying
world news and reports to the door OF
the wayside farm, binding the world
together by wireless currents of COM
munication, ferreting out the secrets
of the weather and making the dis
covery of immense industrial and hui
manitarian importance. teaching citi-
Zenship to the Filipinos, and offering
opportunities to the Porto Rican. These
are some of the prodigious undertake
ings of this government in it's capacity
of general benefactor. Mr.. DuPuy
writes vivIdly and graphically of each
of these modern miracles" ihis is
manner of book to captlyate boy read
ers. Grown folks, too, will find it an
entertaining source of information that
cannot otherwise be gathered up in a
compact and available form.
CALIFORNIA: An Intimate History. By
Gertrude Atherton. author of The
Californians," etc. Illustrated. New
York: Harper & Bros.
This history of California is "inti-
mate" in the sense that from it's mid
die course on to the end it is personal
both in name and a wealth of specific
circumstance. On the other hand,
when Mrs. Atherton writes of the geo
logical creation of the state the story
is truly epic, but not at all intimate
And, again, her account of the Spanish
occupation that SO permanently tlnged
southern California with mementoes of
mission fathers, Spanish grandees and
Mexican rulers, is highly romantic, but
certainly not intimate. With the gold
rush of 40, however, the narrative be-
comes current in character, personal
in quality, urgent in claim. immediate
IN appeal, neighborly in proximlty-as
intimate as ones bosom friend. From
this point on the brilliant story is a
roster of California names, a striking
panorama of California events. Moving
swiftly, il touches only the high points
of the struggle out of which this, the
most romantic of the commonwealth
in origin and development, is marching
toward splendid maturity. The story
is as brilliant and as exciting as
romance of the old buccaneers, and in
many essential features it is no diff
ferent from one of these. For, till well
toward its end, it swings with pendu-
lous regularity between accounts of
unmitigated rascality and as near ap-
proaches to pure political righteous
ness as a fallible world is likely to
make. Mrs. Atherton herself calls her
story "a paradoxical drama" because
of the many good men We have pro-
duced in California and what bad his
tory they have succeeded in making"
Readers will call it an absorbing and
picturesque account of truly romantic
development.
THE AMATEUR GARDEN. By George
w. Gable, author of "Gideons
Band etc. Illustrated New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. Washing
ton: Woodward & Lothrop.
A story teller BY nature and habit,
Mr.. Cable, as a mere matter of course,
approaches every subject on it's story
side. So, having planned and planted
and reaped beautiful and satisfying
garden out of a bare hole in the