The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-18
A Textbook for Bill Thompson
A PRESIDENT is BORN. By Fannie
Hurst. Harpers & Bros. $3.50.

A PRESIDENT is BORN. By Fannie
Hurst. Harpers & Bros. $3.50.
THIS sophisticated age needs more
plausible stuff than the cherry
tree stories about George Washing
ton. Our textbooks need revision.
"A President Is Born" is just a
sophisticated Qualification of a future
president. We heartily recommend
it to the representative of the mayor
of Chicago who is in New York look
ing for textbooks devoid of British
propaganda.
1t has the virtue of being fiction
written not as history. 1t has love
interest. Every movie producer
knows the value of ''love interest"
1t has gobs of sentimentality. 1t is
somewhat liberal. Broad minded
too-like Bill Thompson was during
the war. In fact, this may be just
the very book.
Damn clever these writers Of best
sellers. Fannie Hurst tells the story
of only the childhood and youth of
future president. By means of foot
notes from a supposed diary, she tells
of the wisdom and later life of the
president, cleverly throwing the novel
into the future. Sometimes her clev-
erness is just bit too clever. As for
instance, when she writes a complete
chapter in one sentence by simply
saying, "And so they were married"
AS unusual figure as the presi-
dent of the United States must needs
be born under unusual circumstances.
The book opens with family gath
cred at a Thanksgiving dinner (note
the date) where an announcement is
made to an already large family that
mother, at the age of SO is again with
child.
That's Davey when he is born. The
book gives US the moulding of the
character of this future president UNI
til the momentous occasion when at
eighteen, inspired by his virginia. love
for a girl, he goes out into the world
on his career. In land where it is
known in every school that anybody
can become president" Especially in
Ohio) his first step is job with a
wholesale grocery in Springfield and
night course in law school. (That's
ambition.)
Look over this presidential timber
while it is only sapling: "For the
first ten years Of his boyhood, with
consistency that never failed to
raise the family-laugh, David stood by
selection that was neither preco-
cious nor unique: i want to be a po-
liceman'" respect for law
Under the tutelage of liberal law
yer brother, he reads everything: al
MANAGES, congressional reports, the
Iclassics, The Nation---but wait-even
about Gene Debs and Soviet Russia.
Broad minded that's him all over.)
Yet not too broad-mindcd. He ac-
cepts his uncle's theories that war is
a crime. "But you can't change hu-
man naturew When the war is on
one must be ready. practical, real
istic.)
Forever to his playmates, to his
elders, he is reciting facts crammed
nto his little head from encyclopedias,
dictionaries, government reports. "He
can tell you the distance of star
or recite the Fourteen Points, or all
of d sudden, tell you something out
of Greek literature. He's got one Of
these curious combinations Of con-
servatism and Imagination. -" Damn
curious | call it!
Now, just to be fair, compare this
picture of an Ohio presidential sapling
with the full grown presidential oak