New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-27
BOOKS AND AUTHORS-REVIEWS AND COMMENT
SEPTEMBER MAGAZINES
Leading Features and Current Topics
Fiction and Verse.


worthy. "Scribner's" publishes, first OF
all, a sincere, glowing tribute to ths
memory of the late Francis Hopknsor
Smith by his lifelong friend, Thomas
Nelson Page. The article refers at some
length to Smiths work as engineer
painter, novelist and lecturer. but it Is
mainly devoted to the mans excep
tional personality, to his undlmmef
charm-he never advanced beyond ma
turity in spirit--anG to his rare gifts
as a companion and raconteur. The
department of the Field of Art in thi:
number is devoted to an appreciation
Of the late John White Alexander
N. A., as man and artist, by Edward
Robinson, T. II. Blashfeld, Kenyon Cox
Howard Russell Butler and Harry W
Watrous.
OF wider interest still are John Hay:
letters to and entries in his diary con
corning Theodore Roosevelt which Mr.
Thayer publishes in the September
"Harper's." This is a valuable bit Of
portraiture and a record Of a Ions
friendship that ended with the oldel
mans death. Withal, Hays sense o.
humor crops up in a note written b.
him in June, 1900, to Henry White il
London:
Teddy has been here; have you
heard of it? II was more fun than
goat. He came down with a SOM
bre resolution thrown on his siren
uous brow to let Mckinley and
Hanna know once for all that he
would not be Vice-President, and
found to his stupefaction that no
body in Washington except Platt
had ever dreamed of such thing.
He did not even have a chance TO
launch his nOlO episcOpari at the
Major. That statesman said he did
not want him on the ticket-that
he would be far more valuable in
New York-and Root said, with his
frank and murderous smile, "Of
course not-you're not fit for it,"
And so he went back quite eased
in his mind, but considerably
bruised in his amour pr0pre.
Count Sergius Witte is the subject
Of an informing study in the Septem
Der Century" by his Danish friend
Josef Melnik, who admits by inference
that the rumor of the Russian states
mans assassination on account of hi:
opposition to the war may not be with
out foundation. White, of Dutch an
cestry on his fathers side, was, Mr.
Melnik asserts, the greatest Russian
since Peter the Great, and one of the
greatest statesmen of his period. He
suggests, further, that this is not the
time to make certain revelations con,
corning the diplomacy that led to the
war, but touches upon Whites distrust
of England and his advocacy of &
Russo Franco German Continenta
union. IL is what he achieved at home
for the advancement of his people thai
entities him to lasting fame. He in
troduced the gold standard in Russia
concluded the peace of Portsmouth
built the great Siberian Railway, wor
for his fatherland a constitution anC
freedom of conscience-it is true they
are at present being violated, but they
can never be removed from Russia:
political organism-establish indus
try and protected education. And "rea
Russians" twice attempted his life.
There remains to be mentioned
Gamaliel Bradford's William II. Sew.
ard" bit of portraiture of rare virtu.
osity, in "The Atlantic"
THE WAR.
The. war we still have abundantly
with us in the periodicals. Simeon
Strunsky contributes TO the Atlantic
some "War Notes from a Newspaper
Desk" in his best manner. He notes
the change of the tenor of the news
the shifting of the interest since Au'
gust of last year:
All names are now shadows, for
the romance of great leaders, the
magic of personal combat, has long
vanished out of this war, which has
resolved itself into a slow grind
ing of anonymous masses against
each other. For that matter, We
have even given up thinking of
masses and nations. The hearts of
half the world, the minds of the
rest of humanity are fixed upon
one thing-shells. Neither strategy,
nor tactics, nor fanaticism, nor
courage, nor hate, enter into the
dispatches, the special correspond
ence, the war experts specula-
tions, the editorials, the forecasts
of chancellors and prime minis
tiers, but shrapnei only and high
explosive, barbed wire and incen-
diary bombs. These are the pro-
tagonists, who have seized not
merely the centre of the stage, but
the entire proscenium, ousting men,
issues, passions, ideals, principles.
After thousands of years Of specu-
lation regarding the nature and
purpose of the state, we know to-
day. The state exists for the pro-
duction Of shells, government is
for the regulation of shells. Not
progress, not happiness, not virtue,
not efficiency, is the purpose of So
ciety, but shells, and if not shells
then shrapnel. Civilization has
reached the point where We have
a Minister of Munitions.
Civilization moves on, Mr.. Strunsky
concludes, so we may have ere long
even a higher specialization, a Min
lister of High Explosives, a LORD
Chancellor of Shrapnel, Secretaries OF
State for Lyddite, for Melinite, fol
Shimose Powder, with Under Secre'
taries for Picric Acid, for Hydro
chloric Acid, and-who knows? if the
war goes on, if the Will to Conquer
persists Minister of Dumdum Bull
lets and Arsenic"
Mildred Aldrich's Adventures in the
Little House on the Marine" come TO ar
end in this number Of the Atlantic
with the stemming of the invasion
The welcome announcement of the early
publication in bookform of these in
teresting letters has already been made
in these columns.-There are other
papers on different phases Of the wal
here, by A. Lawrence Lowell, on d
league to enforce peace, by Sidney
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