The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-05-27
CHARLES COHAN'S
NEW BUTTE NOVEL
ssBORN OF THE CRUCIBLE,, is
TITLE OF ONE OF THE BEST
LABOR YARNS
Is Story of Young Man Who Begins
Life in the Butte Mines, Becomes
Labor Leader, Fights Out His
Problems With UItra-Radicalism
and Becomes an Operator.

Charles c.. Cohan, associate editor
of the Butte Daily Miner, is the au-
thor of "Born of the Crucible," a
novel which has just been published,
and which a prominent editor char
acterizes as the best labor story that
has beer written since Charles
Reade's time, adding that he consid-
cred the heart interest running
through the book to be a most en-
gaging story of love and adventure.
Likewise a prominent eastern crit
ic, writing of the book, said in effect
that not only was it a a of at
tention-compelling kind, but that he
believed it could be a considerable
factor in bringing about a better I'M
derstanding between employee and
employer.
"Born of the Crucible" tells the
story of a young man, Daniel Brad
shaw, who, possessed of a good edu-
cation, starts out to face the world
on his own account imbued more with
the desire for adventurous occupation
than with the object of settling down
to some prosaic endeavor.
He experiences plenty of buffeting
about and finally, on arriving in
Butte, seeks work in a mine.
He studies the labor movement as
an active participant in it and ONE
in time to be a labor leader of prom
inence.
How he comes face to face with
ultra-radicalism, how he judges it
and what course he elects to pursue
regarding it, are most entertainingly
detailed.
Eventually the turn of fate makes
him an employer, giving him ample
chance to view the labor question
from the employing side just as he al
ready has had opportunity to see and
study it from the side of the employee.
Adventure and romance, naturally,
enter largely into the story.
Describing Butte, the book says:
"The big-town features of the cop
per metropolis, it's air of ceaseless
prosperity, it's heterogeneous popula-
ton, so interviewer in communal in
terests and yet sharply defined in ma
tionalities and factions claimed Dams
close attention.
" . = . To describe the city
would involve the tremendous task
of picturing a physical entity COM
bined with startling, albeit very hui
man emotions of every shade. One
may list all the co1ors in a Persian
rug and yet that never would convey
the appearance of the rug. Dan
thought about all this and finally he
came to the conclusion hat he had
arrived in a modern, western Bagdad
"a place of emphatic contrasts, of
ever changing, Kaleidoscope and
phantasmagoric thought and action
and purpose = a conglomeration of
ideals and ideas (and lack of them,
too), of many widely different coun-
tries and peoples"
Some interesting excerpts from
"Born of the Crucible'' are rs fol-
lows:
"Ye kin be kind to a man an he'll
luv ye, but ye kin be so kind to a
crowd that it'll suspect ye."
"And what it is that makes a man
strong mentally and physically
for a brief period lose entire grip on
himself when trying in stress of alb
normal mental processes to return to
a more rational and logical reasoning
by an illogical method, is something !,
that is obscured in the inner %recesses |
of man-nature. That is to say that
in trying to steady himself that night Z
Dan Bradshaw for the first and last /.
blule III Ills lllS, uldHh W lSdlloi ga
I
For crowd-psychology is a re- |
thing-its anger is gossa- l
mer and chrome steel-it melts at a 1
fiery word or resists a white-hot fur z
mace, and as for the heart of tit is L
kind and enthusiastic to the point of L
.effusiveness, while it is merciless as
inquisition." il
ST think, John, that the great f
trouble with most of those %ultra-so- t
'soap-boxers' is that they
have not thought of applying their il
own theory and process of evolution t.
to themselves before tackling any t
thing else" o
"The fight of these two men in the a
tr~ee-shaded, brush-guarded, flat
bottomed gully was one of definite f
purpose. No desire here to score "
technical points by reason of boxing "
art, but to land Earring, hurtful, 2
crushing b1ows-to punish, disable" il
--O- o
The It. G. Power Company, Helena, T
will he in the market. after YOUR crop :;