The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1920-12-05
The Dread winners" Deluslon.

The ''Bread Winners" DsIuslon.
In commenting on SINcLAIR LEwIs's
much discussed novel, Main Street."
we find WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE of
Kansas saying:
at ranks with "A Hazard of New
! Fortunes Tho Scarlet Letter and
The Bread Winners the great nov
els OF American life"
Every year or two, when talk about
the great American novel bubbles to
the top of the literary kettle, some
body names couple of classics and
then throws in "The Bread Winners"
Sometimes We suspect that the critic
has not read that noted book. In the
case of Mr.. WHITE we suspect that he
has not read 1t since 1t first appeared
in the Century, and that was In 1888,
when Mr.. WHITE was 10 years old.
There are some good things to be
said of ",The Bread Winners" 1t was,
as WILLIAM Roscoe THAYER says In
his Life of John Hay" "the first
important polemic in American fiction
in defence of Property" It had, as
Mr.. THAYER says in accounting for Its
remarkable success, cleverness, time
Illness and mystery as to authorship
But the timeliness is past; no cham
pion Of capital to-day is as relentless
as "The Bread Winners" The au-
thorship, long suspected, ceased to be
mystery after Mr.. HAYS death. And
the cleverness, in this day of the SUI
perclever. is faded.
The reader who picks up "The
Bread Winners" to-day finds that 1t
has lost most of its virtues and kept
most of its faults. Soon after it was
published Professor BRANDER MAT
THEws found in 1t "rankness and cru
dity" and ''many signs of inexperience
as novelist" After nearly forty
years these flaws stick out more prom
inently than ever. The characters
creak, the love story walks around on
stills. That which gave life to "The
Bread Winners" ut the time Of its
publication was not in the novel itself
but in the backs Of the readers heads.
The rich and aristocratic Captain
Farnham was saying and doing things
about labor which his readers wished
they could say and do.
There can be no great American
novel, or great novel, which depends
entirely upon the newness Of its
theme. It's background win not atone
for the faults Of the writer. The style
Of "The Bread Winners" was n CEN
fury behind the thought of It:
"1f he had crly known how much
softer and warmer her heart was he
would have covered her hand with a
thousand kisses. But he bowed and
took his leave"
HAROLD BELL WRIGHT can do, and
does, better than that.
AS the principal female character,
Alice Belding, was unable to express
herself by act or word, HAY had to
do most Of the explaining for her:
Nobody dreamed that he loved
her, and she would die, she resolved
deliberately, before she would let
anybody know that she loved him.
For do love him with my whole
heart she said to herself. with
speechless energy, which sent the
blood-up to her temples and left her.
in another instant, as pale as a lily"
And the minor charactersi Come,
my beauty" said the villain Ofitt TO
Maud. "She was about to assent-to
seal her doom-when she suddenly
remembered that all her best clothes
were In her mothers closet" So Of
lit descended the ladder, grinding out
curses between his set teeth" Can
WILLIAM ALIEN WHITE read bits like
these, written in all seriousness. and
still class the book which contains
them among the first three great nov
els Of American life2
We think there was one American
man Of letters who knew Just how
good and how bad 1.-THE Brend Win
ners" was. and that was JOHN HAY.