The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-06-06

|, tory, ,chemistary, Nietzche, Carlyle liar ris, evolution, the Woolworth tower, Sam Gompers, Ashtoreth, the hypocrisy of na- ture and Mayor Hylans theory of buses vanitas. vanitatum, all is Hey rub-a-duo- dub!
 | Then he bethought himself of book of the mystery and terror of life,' sort | of Apologia pro vita swat Whatever may be said of life, the book does not l inspire mystery, terror or wonder. It IS good, solid, ponderous, bourgeois, skep- ticism. with tremendous piece of satiric buffoonery at the end called "The Court | of Progress, which is worth all the rest | of the iterations of the obvious that pre- cede it.''
 | In exclaiming Hey Hub-a-Dub-Dub
 MT. Dreser isn't unlike the most of us
 who imagining that we have found life a great hardship. disappointment, bad
 luck, unrequited love, hard knocks, and altogether an uphill business make the | same exclamation or worse.
 l But "the books the thing to para
 phrase "Mr." Hamlet, and we are told on
  that the "Essays' contained in Hey
 Rub-a-Dub-Dub" are the mature expres- sions of Mr. Dreiser's beliefs and theories Uut it would seem after perusing the book, of these there are few.
 | The author of Sister Carrie and
 Jennie Berhardt" and ''The Genius"
 seems to have no beliefs and theories,
 but is what might be properly termed an "inarticulate Walt Whitman"
 1 One of his critics has said of him: ' Perhaps MT. Dreiser is a. Balzac who cannot visualize; potentially, he is a
 mystic realist, romantic, an ironist but only-potentially. He has hewed
 many trails but prefers to climb up the trees and study the landscape before fin ishing them. And, after all, why not? Are not horizons the end of every mans desire?'
 The most exotic and original of writers, l H. L. Mencken, whose "Prejudices' and
 other books are inimitable and delightful, says in speaking of MT. Dreiser and Hey -Rub-a -Dub-Dub," among other things:
 Tt is easy enough to understand the impulse which prompted Dreser to write
 Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub," his new book, of jessays and fulminations all compact. There come times in every sentient mans life when he must simply unliod his ideas, or bust like a star-shell in the highroad. If he is at that end of the scale which touches the rising ladder of the Simulate he becomes a socialist on
 soap-box or joins the Salvation Army; Tiff he is literate and has soul he writes ! a book. Hence the great. whirring, in fernal machines which chew up the for
 ests of Canada, now and then saltins
 the dose with the leg or arm of Ca
 muck. Hence the huge ink industry, con-
 suming 100000 tons of bone-black year.
 Hence democracy. bolshevism. the moral order of the world. Hence sorrow. Hence | literature.
 Tn every line of Hey Rub-a- -Dub-Dub''
 there is evidence of the authors antece- l dent agony. One pictures him sitting up
 all night in his sinister studio down in
 Tenth street, wrestling horribly with the insoluble, trying his darndest to pene- Itrate the unknowable. One o'clock
 strikes, and the fire sputters Ghosts stalk l in the room, flaming the yellow candle l light with their abominable breath-the
 spooks of all the men who have died for ideas since the world began-Socrates. Savonarola. Brune (not Guido. but Bior- dano), Ravaillac. Sir Roger Easement, John Alexander Dowie, Dr. Crippen. Two o'clock What, then, is the truth about
 marriage? Is it. as Grover Cleveland 1 said, a grand sweet song. or is it, as the gals in the village say. hideous mockery and masquerade, invented py capitalism to enslave the soul of woman- a legalized Schweinerci worse than poli- I tics, almost as bad as the moving pie tunes? Three o'clock" was Marx right | or wrong, a seer or mere nose pullerf 1 Was his name. in fact. actually Marx,
 or was it Marcus? From what ghetto did he escape, and cherishing what ! grudge against mankind? Aha. the Hume ker complex; cherchez le juif. q coa-
 fess at once; my great-grandpa, Moritz'
 was rector of the oheb Shalon Schul m
 Grodno). Three o'clock.
 Back to Pontius Pilate. Quod est veritas? Try to define it. Look into lit. Break it into it's component parts.
 What remains is a pale gray vapor, an impalpable emanation, the shadow of a shadow. Think of the brains that have gone to wreck struggling with the problem-cerebrums as large as cauli-
 flowers. cerebellums as perfect az pomegranates- Think of the men jailed,
 clubbed. hanged. burned at the stake t-not for embracing error, but for em- 'bracing the wrong error. Think of the