Evening star., 1928-12-30
BY IDA GILBERT MYERS.

BY IDA GILBERT MYERS.
JACOB H. SCHIFF; His Life and Let
terS. Two volumes BY Cyrus Ad-
Ter. New York: Doubleday, Doran
e. Co.
~ ANKER, financier, philanthro-
- pist, great citizen, friendly man
- DR.. Adler's record Of Mr..
Schiff feels like autobiography
but it is not. It is better than that.
Near but not self-conscious as this
form of disclosure is bound to be.
Nor is it biography. Better than that
more intimate and warmer. The
two volumes are made up OF body
of correspondence representing about
every aspect of Jacob Schiff's active
partaking in the vital public affairs
of the immediate past. The part or
DIR. Adler here is to provide a BACK
ground and to connect the letters by a
narration of the events leading up TO
them and producing them.
Ones first general reaction to this
study is that of pure amazement at one
mans power to achieve in SO wide a
range of public concerns and to re-
spond to so great a variety OF per-
sonal demands. Industry that never
let go it's hold, application that never
relaxed. Mentality organized, to the
highest efficiency and perfectly CO.
ordinated with essential external con-
ditions-all this stands to the account
of this man of achievement IN so many
fields
The bulk of correspondence. SEEM
ingly so diverse in its parts, sums
primarily to a survey of modern busi-
ness history. Generally speaking. it
marks the alliance between industry
and money by way of the banker and
the financier. 1t sketches the origin
of this union in the destructive COM
petition of innumerable small indus
tries in the demand for combinations
constructively favorable to production
and distribution. Such combinations
began, but evil as well as good arose
from them. The agitated period OF
the trust" came next Then, and
now, the inevitable combination in
industry is going on. its vicious con-
comitant of human nature being
curbed by governmental regulation
and supervision. Such, in the rough,
is the industrial period covered by
these letters and this survey of one
mans life. Within it great banking
houses have risen. expanding their
service to both national and interna-
4 ional measure. Within it gigantic
n ans of industrial development, do
rix site and foreign, have received sub
sta\1tial support from these houses.
and have partaken of the practical
visic\l of great financiers. BY way
of tlA ,se letters one catches glimpses
of n stupendous pageant of industrial
nroqre. IS, and gathers swift views as
we'll of many man of vision. dream
ers all who built their dreams into a
vast network of roads and plants and
enterprise y, parts of the huge drama
of production that is now in the
But not aI,ne do builders and finan-
ciers meet in this correspondence.
Here are phiAnthropists working In a
thousand wayS of human amelioration.
Here are scientists, men of letters.
statesmen, all working men. Presi-
dents and professors, judges, legisla-
tors. politicians and just men mingie
here with builder and banker by way
of association with this wise and deep
ly friendly man.
comes an event. This one is an event.
A record of things accomplished as IL
is, the book is not one Vor old men. lt
is the young mans book. so, Wnat
are YOU going to do about this? Young
men do not read. They run instead
To bring the personality and lnSpira-
tion of Jacob Schiff. and his kind, to
the young men coming along the road
of life is the pressing pointSnow. How
can you do this?
BONNET AND SHAWL. By Philip
Guedalla, author of 'Supens and
Supermen," etc. New York: q. +.
Putnam's Sons.
THE wife of the great man excites
l. curiosity as keen and lasting as
that which the famous spouse hlmSeit
is able to command. And these, these
consorts of genius, are as rule gatR-
cred I'D like this: "She' has been the
making of him." or "She has been a
terrible handicap"
For our entertainment-for his own,
too. it is clear-Philip Guedalla brings
over out of the last century on the
point of his own sharp pen one ana
another of these wives of the great.
Jane Welsh Carlyle leads off. A study
in wives could not secure even a start
without Jane Carlyle. And here, be-
sides. are Catherine Gladstone and
stpn and another and another.
The book is joy of gossip. That Is,
it looks like gossip, since it deals with
personal, and private, views
of famous folk, such as the average OF
us like to see in full disclosure. One
sets out in fine feather with GuedallaA
He's not one to gloss things over, you
know, in difference to anybody'S great
ness, or littleness. So, the reader walks
right into the house and all over 1t.
Into Gladstone's house and Carlyls'S.
Into all of them without hindrance.
The writer is fully trustworthy. SO there
is no fear of reticence on his part
And the reader sees to the full limit
the frivolous helpmeet OF Gladstone,
the lady with the ragbag mind. And
there is no bones at all made OF the
fact that young Disraeli chose an old
woman for his wife. And so the stories
run, no skimping about any of them.
Here they are, all of them, set out with
their frailties upon them. Then-the
For, by an aoroit placing OF
the other and larger truth beside the
thin outside opinion of them, each OF
these women is pictured in her true
relation to the man beside her. And In
this portrayal she stands. not at all as
she is assumed to be, but as she really
is, in the role of companion and helper.
Apparently this book is an hour OF play
time for Philip Guedalla. 1t is In 1actS,
however. little gem of human under
and appreciations.
X X X X
STONE DESERT. BY Hugo Vast, au-
thor of BLACK Valley" Translated
from the Spanish by Louis Imbert
and Jacques LIE Clercq New York:
Longmans, Green & Co.
DESERT" is a prize novel,
- winning the award of the Argen-
tins national prize for literature. Like
it's predecessor, BLACK Valley" 1t is
story ,of South America In its everyday