Evening star., 1923-01-23
!. NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM

FROM HARRISON TO HARDING.
Arthur Wallace Dunn. g. p. Put
+ MANS Sons.
He said II we would begin back
with him thirty years ago. or there
about, he would show US American
politics and personalities as these had
come under his own eyes from that
back-lying date on up to the retire.
ment of Woodrow Wilson.
y x u ...
Arthur Wallace Dunn, veteran
newspaper man of experience and
dence of good faith, these two VOL
umes of personal narrative based on
years of observation that centered on
the Capitol and the White House in
their full political implications.
X X X X
And we said we were just as much
obliged. but that, If it were all the
same to him, we would rather-taking
him for waywise companion and
guide-begin with the end of his
story, with Woodrow Wilson. That is
the way we read history-backward
1t has an advantage over the con-
Adam and Noah and coming on to-
ward ourselves from that remote and
alien outset. By our plan-a most
unScholarly one, We concede-we get
the amazing spur of a personal par
taking in events. We test them with
our own senses and perceptions. We
move out into them on individual
tours Of inspection, gaining critical
acumen and sounder judgment by
way of these familiar things. These
powers, sharpened upon the present.
seize the past, step by step, with
ease and understanding. This plan
excites the greater interest and, aft
er ALL interest is the basic wherewith
of any search after knowledge. Presi-
dent Harrison, only thirty three years
away, is still too distant, and we
choose rather to work back toward
between him and us.
And, so, we begin with Woodrow
Wilson, going back over the war. the
armistice, the peace conference. the
league of nations and the recoil of
the people from the sinister poten-
tialities of that pact.
We have seen this President, have
heard him, have read him. But Mr..
Dunn helps us to know him better.
The newspaperman has many sur
prising ways of approach. many diff
ferent contact points. the best of
modern equipment for opening up OBJ
scurer and subtler relationships. So.
here, we draw off clearer views of
Mr.. Wilson-the aloof intellect. the
idealism that projected the dream and
denied the reality. the self -sufficiency
that took the government to itself,
and tried to take the world. closing
sonal intrusion. For any likeness to
this peculiar self-containment, the
author points US back to the begin
ming of the story where benjamin
Harrison. another Atlas. shouldered
his administration in challenge to any
right of interference.
x X X
Then Mr.. Dunn reminds us that
Woodrow Wilson was a minority
President. elected by Theodore
Roosevelt. the great insurgent, when
he divided the republican vote by
splitting the republican party. And
we move back a step to Mr.. Taft still
step to Theodore Roosevelt, the big
gest political boss on earth--save one.
And, once more. the author points
back. out from these nearby men and
events, to the Harrison administra-
ton, where the seeding of insurgency
first found scanty groundhold, a
mere weed, then. of vagrant and neg
ligible sproutings. This is the same
weed that Powered so nightly in
Roosevelt. the same that in Congress.
Al ~ l..
Borahs and La Follettes and things.
Tt was in the Harrison administra-
ton, also that Thomas Reed won the
big fight which, before him, Henry
Clay had started and which, behind
him. Joseph Cannon held to the full
fruitage of that victory. This was
through the power and prestige Of
the speaker of the House of Repre-
sentatives. Again, insurgency. only
a handful of years ago, smashed the
highly developed machine. Organ
iZation, efficiency, getting things done.
for time at least, went by the
board-but We're goin' 10 have our
rights. The governments no busi-
ness, that is, no proper sort of busi-
ness. The governments the way you
feel and you always do feel that the
other fellows are having too much
much too much-to say about how
things are to go. Time to smash the
machine.
x r
From these few pickings, il is clear
that no accident set the starting place
of Mr.. Dunn's story. The Harrison
administration was the matrix of
much that, today. Is out performing
In the open. At that point many
nebulous things began to assume
vague shapes, to take on certain di-
rections, to behave under the control
Of some sort of purpose. Through
this thirtyyear distance six Presi-
dents and eight administrations book
themselves as history. Across it
spreads the common pattern of do
mestic problem and foreign policy.
Personalities, innumerable, animate
the changing scenes. And the whole
of this, out of personal observa ton.
out of an acquaintance that is always
adequate and often intimate. Mr..
Dunn delivers over to the reader
alive. That is the first appeal of the
book-that dt is full of life, turned upon
the special interests that this poIiti-
cal study embraces. 1t is a book of
large experience, and fair opinions.
and seasoned judgments-these to-
gether compensating, to a degree. for
the lack of perspective which, Of ne
cessity, marks any current study of
events. 1t belongs. distinctly, with
those books-best possible adjuncts
of formal history-that set blood to
circulating through the dry tissues of
such studies. 1t reminds one, all over