Evening star., 1926-11-09
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
/. C.. M.


tano's.
Not strictly. an autobiography
Rather is it the biography OF tr'ne
and a system from the definite emef
Rence point of this writer, memoer Oh
the one, victim of the other. Inc
Puritan forefathers with the plan OIL
education created and fostered ny
them stand pilloried here on the pup
lie highway of this mans free avoWai
and accusation. The keynote OF sucn
wide open disclosure Is protest steepeo
in wormwood. Indeed. reading, one
envisages the writer as a thlnheo
out Puritan. disease sucked INTO 1ns
blood. glands secreting vitriol. gan
working overtime. Still there Is ABOUT
the whole so clear a sincerity, 30
flaming a sense OF individual INJURY
so fearless a stand against a bulwark
OF Americani such a f1ercely frank
beating of fists against a mountain
wall Of impregnability. that the book
becomes a performance of plain au-
dacity Nevertheless, 1t draws ana
holds attention. not wholly by virtue
Of it's daring and impetuous attack,
but by it's sense of tribal history as
well, by it's keen psychology. by Its
true record Of special achievement
and equally special failure on the part
of the tribe.
Meet a hneal descendant of John
Alden. Puritan. whose succeeding gen.
erations have stretched a line of mi
grafton from New England to Kansas,
where the early years of this writer
were passed. Let's let the man him.
self talk. Choosing almost at random.
watch the grains of truth that fall
from these volumes Of personal self
pity and general appraisal:
Education was the grindstone on
which Alden smartness was to be
sharpened into deadliness Education
is the one thing that the Mayfiower
descendants have promoted. They
would sell their shoes any time to fur
ther its lofty purposes. They built
colleges in string through the
wilderness before they built roads.
Their first dollar went to found uni
versity and their second dollar to put
roof over their own heads. How
comes 1t that a tribe who had no
other generous quality was the giver
of American enlightenment? Because
they were born teachers, militant
teachers, the kind that orders other
peoples lives. Their education was
not really education, but tribal propa-
ganda. The Pilgrims were teachers
iuStCdu vi SOIUICIS, DcCduhC lIlC Ihu
whom a soldier takes the bayOnet to
Is himself armed with a bayOnet. but
a teacher uses a snob club on helpless
intimidated mentalities. The man who
INDUCES in education satisfies an ap-
petite-the appetite to ram his tyranny
down his fellow citizens throat. Be
cause the Pilgrims had stOmachs they
robbed the red mans corn cribs, and
it was theft. The Pilgrims had land
lust: they killed the Indians for their
acres, and that was murder. The Pill
grims had opinions: they rammed
them down the throats Of their vic
Tins, and that was education" Nio-
lent, untrue, nonsensical? On the
Still. there are the
grains Of fact tumbling out with this
flow Of exaggeratiOn.
Our neighbors in Nebraska
or Kansas-"were largely Bohemians.
But we Bradleys were the Americans;
our living story writ large across
continent Little did we. dream that
the new alienism OF the Bohemians
was destined to tread down our old
Bostonism on those prairies. Now the
buffalo are extinct, Boston is forgot
ten and the Bohemians are the Ameri-
cans Of Nebraska"
81 am descended from that pure
asinine stock, the Puritans. Their
song has always been the Hebrew
psalm and their psychology that of
the Children Of Israel wandering in
the wilderness. Later they were al
ways losing Zion to an alien invader
and finding new frontiers i'm their
DiaspOra and always banker
ing for the mystical homeland Now
as 1 look back upon my forebears and
see their souls stained with the land
lust of the Old Testament I realize
that generations of reading and be-
liSveing the Book have made the
Roundhead ra seals fancy themselves
Gods true chosen people"
Our Purita nism is a remembering
backward, instead of a thinking or
moving forward. In this new world
boasting that we are pioneers, all our
Puritan pioneering was really a re.
treat. DO you see and hear us = =
depending everlastingly upon a claim
to ancestry-Pilgrim Fathers, Found
ing Fathers, Direct Descendants,
First Settlers. Sons and Daughters of
the Revolution-all ancestry? We
were. And as for this country which
we mourn as our violated Zion?
These United States were peopled and
built up by the aliens we despise
the men and women who, having no
ancestry to lean upon. set to work to
found their own tradition, flower their
own family tree and create a new
nation. Puritanism is peering back
ward into the tribal childhood to find
victory, peace, righteousness"
Bear in mind that not all of this
book is given over to diatribe. nor
that even a large part Of 1t is. The
body of the story has to do with the
daily life out in the prairie country
OF this family of Puritan strain
Here are multitudinous and vivid
pictures of the details of that life
Of its skimped existence of it's penny
thrift, of its reticencies and reserves.
OF the autocratic rule Of the head of
the house, of the Ill feelings existing
between the father and his sons. of
the restless desire of these sons to
be away on their own. A very full
picture Of this life is given. But here
and there shot through 1t are these
violent lightnings and thunders
against the Puritan nature so re-
pressive. not only to the family
itself. but to the community as we'll,
so in contrast to the receptive and
welcoming attitude Of the allen"
Bohemian. Swede German. come to
the new land to make 1t their own:
as they actually are doing, in the
judgment of this Puritan observer.
after grandfathers funeral the
neighbors discussed how odd the
whole affair was and what a queer
set the Bradley family seemed to
be-'so self-centered, secretive and
queer" ut looked as if they didn't
want the neighbors to come to the
old gentleman's funeral Death is
the time when human sympathy
shows itself" when this came to
my ears I realized for the first time
that we were queer family, we
lacked the knack Of trailing with
the tribe. we were born to be rene.
gade. We Aldens have lived in Amer
lea. 800 years and yet have not be-
come America niZed. After living in