New-York tribune., 1921-10-23

Published by Houg hton .Miifiin compamv' sns
Seven years ago Samuel Hopkins
Adams wrote '"Thc Clarion. a novel
OF the newspaper world as 1t exists in
miniature In small city. The book
was shot at certain evils of advertis-
ing as exemplfed in patent medicine
propaganda. This fall finds Adams in
the field with whole sbattery of guns
nring hroadside at publicity in gen
eral as exploited through q fictional
newspaper, "The Patriot" published. so
we are told, within few hundred feet
OF our desk. In Success" rrapeshot
OF criticism punctuates sheet after
sheet Of this imaginary paper, perfo-
rating editorials, news and advertising
columns. 1t would seem that the typi-
cal American daily journal is in n
parlous state, If Adams's conclusions
are to get by unrefuted.
The story of Enrol Banneker Is the
core OF this completely up-to date.
aggressive story. This young man, at
hrst appearing as station agent In
ramshackle speck Of a place in a Cali
fornia desert, has been touched by the
divine fire OF aspiration for things
transmontane. From the variegated
pages of a Sears-Roebuck catalogue he
graduates, propelled onward by his
own ambitious Imagination, to the
poems of Rossetti and the prose of
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy" and
Borrows sLavengro." And SO we dis
cover him, in Chapters i and 2, ready
to be awakened from his dreams by a
train wreck and the apparition of q love
ly young girl at his window, waif wet
from the rain and seeking refuge from
the disaster She happens to be New
Yorker, weA known in high society
sets, with marriage problems in g. mist
as dismal as the desert downpour.
Banneker houses her, chaperoned by
a mysterious Camilla Van Arsdale, un-
til she leaves him after g final hour
together in a freshet, in the tense mo-
ments of which they confess their love.
Great movie stuff Then Miss 10
Welland fees to New York. Banneker
waits a few weeks and then follows her
involuntary beckon. to fight way
through the barriers of the city and
make name for himself, metropolitan
if possible and convenient to Fate.
Picture g. Banneker, in his West
Side cubicle, studies the New York
newspapers. He energies from cubicle,
gets a try-out as reporter, fights
gang of thugs on an East Side dock,
comes within sight of his goal. Old
Dame Chance is ever at his elbow,
dropping good things at his toes. He
picks them up and sprints along until
he is at an editorial desk of "The Pa
triot," Park Roy paper on the edge
of bankruptcy. His contract with the
owner of "'The Patriot" is a peculiar
one; he is TO receive one cent a week
for each unit of circulation added.
Now comes Banncker's evil spirit of
financial gain. Slowly but inexorably
"The Patriot" becomes sycophant
sheet. Banneker writes sturdy edi-
torials in praise of civic virtues and
personal morality, but the news and
advertising pages of his paper squrm
mere and more with the crawling lines
of crooked information and fake ads.
He comes at length to an impasse,
ruin through money lost in wild specu-
lation or a defiance Of Marrineal, who
owns "The Patriot" and the conse-
quent loss of his position or big cut
in his income. Adams has broad space,
in his delineation of the cul-de-sac
cornering Banneker, to drive lance
thrusts into a score Of modern jour
nalistic evils. We admit the vigor of
his ruthless attack and the bite of his
satire, but we maintain that he is zoo
inclusive in his wholesale condemna-
ton. There are papers and papers.
10 Welland moves again into the
swirl Of the novel near its close, when
Banneker is meshed tight in his self
spun net. There is blur of taint in
Adams's narrative of their companion
ship during their last days in New
York. The clean atmosphere of their
return to Manzanita, Calf, to an oasis
of pure love in wild spaces, paints out
much of the blemsh.
After all, Success" is grim book,