The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-29

In those days had no inside in
formation, but can understand now
Mr.. Chambers was one of the vic
tins of what was known as "the
Collier set" Robbie Collier was a
fashionable young millionaire with a
taste for literature and politics in be-
tween his drinking bouts. Young
writer's and illustrators would appear
on the scene, and the generous Rob-
bic would invite them to dinner and
give them a contract with his mag
azine and a card to his country club;
they would spend their afternoons
slipping cocktails in the Hoffman
House bar, and in a year or two
would know nothing to write about
but sports, motor-cars, women's dress
and fashionable foundations. I could
name a dozen men to whom this hap
pened; some of them died at fifty of
congested hvers, and others are liv-
ing on in a fashion l am too chart
table to describe.
Then came Winston Churchill, and
the Notifications of his books in the
department stores out-towered both
Mr.. Chambers and Mrs. Ward. Mr..
Churchill was an American gentle
man of the old school; he wrote about
America, and not about the Long
Island smart set, and that was to the
good. If his novels were big and
rather crude, that seemed all right,
hn n
and crude country. He started with
the beginning of our history, and
brought us forward to the present
day, one novel every two years, as
regular as an astronomical event. Mr..
Churchill talked about democracy"
and no doubt really thought he meant
it; but he revealed that there was a
propertied class in America, and this
class governed, and somehow it al
ways happened that Mr.. Churchill's
heroes and heroines belonged to that
class. In one case, "The Crossing"
if I remember the theme required
that the young hero be a pioneer, but
somewhere in the story it was deity
conveyed to us that his ancestors had
been real ladies and gentlemen, and
so it became all right for him to
marry the genteel and lovely heroine
at the end.
We didn't have intelligence tests
in those days, and lacked the con-
venient phrase, mental ages"
Among my papers I find a review
for socialist paper, discussing Mr..
Churchill's novel for the year 1910,
and I find myself complaining of the
intellectual and spiritual immatu-
rity" Of his work. He had got down
to modern times by then, and his
characters were riding in motor-cars
and playing bridge and getting di-
vorccd. 1t was this last custom
which troubled Mr.. Churchill, and his
novel. "a Modern Chronicle" was a
tract on the new practice. I am 60
ing to quote my review because I can
find no better way to tell you about
Mr.. Churchill's novels, and at the
same time exhibit to you what passed
for thinking among those Episcopal
church circles in which both Mr..
Churchill and myself were brought
up.
when you wish to write novel
dealing with divorce you have al
ways one situation: man or woman
has in some way been led into an
unworthy marriage, and later on in
life the man or woman discovers the
true soul-mate; and then what is to
be done? The old solution was to have
hem renounce and suffer many
agonies until the concluding chapter,
when the novelist mercifully disposed
Of the superfluous member of the
5rio, leaving the hero and the heroine
70 live happy ever after. That is the
solution of Jane Eyre; and remem-
Der how it thrilled me when I was a
BOY as old as the American people
are row. I rather took it for granted
that this would be Mr.. Churchill's
solution. AS went on, however,
greatly to my surprise / discovered
that the hero and the heroine were