New-York tribune., 1920-11-03
Books u.yv.sS sS s,...

Much shrewd comment on the ten
dency by which the words radical"
and conservative" become labels is
contained in Alice Duer Millers short
novel called The Beauty and the Boil
shevst. 1t is Mrs. M.ller's idea that
the man who uses such convenient catch
words as dangerous agitator,"" Bolshc-
visit" and "unAmerican propaganda"
generally has only the vaguest idea of
what he is talking about. His mind is
functioning in much the same manner
as that Of his bitterest foe, who talks
OF vested interests" predatory wealth"
and "Wal Street"
All this is expressed in r pleasant
little story about the editor Of The New
York Daily Liberty, who falls in love
with the daughter Of William Cord, a
malefactor of great wealth We would
like to hope and believe that Mrs. Nil
ler's argument that nothing is to be
gained by merely sticking your tongue
out at an adversary and shouting Dol
shevist' or Capitalist" gains in effec-
tiveness from being sugar-coated with
pleasant fiction. We doubt it. Many will
hex OFT the sugar and bolt the pill.
An even better piece of fiction, which
makes the same plea for facts and
plain words in argument rather than
emotional ones, is Rose Macaulay's
Potterism, which seems to US to be one
OF the best novels of the season. The
book is dedicated to "The unsentinental
precisians in thought, who have, on this
confused, inaccurate and emotional
planet, no tit habitation."
We had won the war" says Gideon,
the most precise of Miss Macaulay's
unsentlmentalists. "But what was that
going to mean? What were we going
to get out of it? What did we want the
new world to be? What did we want
this country to be: Every one shouted
dlfferent answer. The December cleo
tions seemed to give one answer. But
l don't think it was true one. The
public didn't really want the England
Of John Bull and Pemberton Billings:
they showed that later. A. good many
people, of course, wanted and want
revolution and the International. 7
don't and never did. l hate red faggery
and all other flaggery The sentimental
ism OF Bob Smillie is as bad az the SEN
tlmentalsm of the Pinkerton press; as
untruthful, as greedy, as muddle-headed
Smlllle's lot are out to get, and the Pot
terites out to keep. The underdog is
more excusable in its aims, but its
methods aren't any more attractive"
1t is Gideon again who makes the fol-
lowing interesting comment on one
school of poetry which was popular
after the war:
Every one knows that school of poe
try by heart now; of course, it was par
ticularly fashionable Immediately after
the war. Johnny Potter did it much
like other men. Any one can do it. One
takes some dirty, horrible incident or
sight of the battlefront, and describes
It in loathsome detail, and then. by way
OF contrast, describes some fat and IN
credibly bloodthirsty woman or middle
aged clubman at home, gloating over the
glorious war. always thought it
great bore, and sentimental at that.
He's never even met any of the
oloodthirsty noncombatants he writes
about; he just takes them over second
hand from other people. And it's mostly
tosh. know it's entirely against popu-
lar convention to say so, but some of
the most bloodthirsty militarists I used
to meet during the war were among
the fighting men. Or rather, not for