New-York tribune., 1919-06-28
By Haywood Broun

SAINTS PROGRESS BY John Gals
worthy. Published by Scribners
THE BORN FOOL. BY John Walter Byrd.
Published by Doran.
John Galsworthy is, to our mind. a
more finished artist that H. G. Wells.
but we doubt if he will ever move
people as far or as profoundly. To an
astonishing degree Galsworthy has the
gift of impartiality. The rarity Of this
quality is not generally appreciated.
City editors tell reporters to go out
and write an impartial story about
some highly controversial subject like
prize fight or political meeting
with seeming confidence that nothing
more than the will to be fair is neces-
sary. And yet probably not more than
two or three truly impartial stories
are printed in the entire press of
New York in any one year. 1t is not
for want of effort either, because, with
a few exceptions, newspapers try to
be fair in their news columns With
all that. anybody who is at all skilful
in looking between the lines can tell
the personal politics of the reporter
at the mass meeting, just what horses
the racing editor has backed on any
given day and the college affiliations
of the man who covered the big foot
ball match.
Galsworthy would be an exceptional
reporter of horse racing or politics or
anything else, because no one could
identity his own preference But he
IS not cold or an aloof neutral. It
is not so much that he takes no side,
but that he takes both. He never fol-
lows the practice of Wells in selecting
some heretical character as sparrinr
partner and then knocking him out in
every chapter of 6O0-page novel.
Galsworthy argues for all his people
IN any book, no matter how divergent
their views. This is one of the marked
characteristics in Saints Progress"
1t is true that some reviewers have
held Edward Pierson, the clergyman
who refuses to accept new tendencies
IN modern life, to be thoroughly un-
sympathetic figure, but he was not so
to US. Nor did we think that Galsworthy
went out of his way to prove him
wrong He merely showed that he did
not succeed, but there was at least
room for opinion that it was his oppo-
nents who were actually wrong. Of
course, from such an impartial man as
Gaisworthy no one looks for heroes
and herolne3 in the old sense. Moth
ing is done either for good or ill which
IS not motivated, and in this motivation
me sharpness of the dividing line be-
tween right and wrong is often
blurred.
Before anything else Galsworthy, in
MS novels at any rate, is a story teller.
one OF the great story tellers, we think
and Saints Progress" is among his
pest. But he never reconciles us to life
as Wells does. Galsworthy is content to
set 1T down as he sees it, and often he
gives 1T no engaging character, but
there his work stops. He is not minded
to say how it may be tidied up. He
never flies into a passion for q better
world like Wells with the explanation
that all the troubles of mankind NAV
be swept away by introducing the study
OF biology into the grammar schools.
Since We are of the opinion that the
only people who ever succeed in shak-
ing the world are fanatics we find Wells
the more engrossing and stimulating of
me two writing men, even though he
news rougher than his rival for the
most part. There are times when the
lhese are the times when we feel like
shouting. at him, "Man, man, don't be so
damn fair. Pick side; take off your
coat; and get in it,"
Few novelists more recent than
Hardy have shown so keen a perception
OF the influence of mans external cir
cumstances upon character as does
John Waiter Byrd in "The Born Fool"
Sun and wind and green things and
grimy ones are prime factors in this
tale OF the development of a young
civil engineer, who marries out of his
social and mental station in bleak
mn! mlii town in Northern England. Byrd