Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-11-03
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
]. G. N.

SORRY, BUT YOU'RE WRONG
ABOUT TT. Albert Edward wiggam.
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-MerTill Co.
The smiling urbanity Of the challenge
Is not TO be resisted. Besides. this
mild-mannered man WIN be easy 10
refiite, Not ike those familiar argufiers
who win out by noise where they would
certainly lose through their brand OF
logic. No, It win not be hard TO con-
vince him that he Is the wrong one.
For are not we-am not always
right7
Among the many items cited against
us--all aRe-old in service-let US take
one out for a bit of intimate handling.
Every one has q right TO his own opin-
ion" To be sure he has. Not at all,
says Mr.. wiggam. Then, rather clever
ly, one must admit, he leads to an ex-
animation Of opinion" What are
opinions, anyway? Where do we get
them7 What are mine and whence de-
rived? Yours, too? Mine, finland
I'm my only resource at this point-are
rooted in ignorance, lack Of adequate
knowledge, prejudice, worn-out notions,
no idea Of the intrinsic value Of facts.
no sense at all of the vital relationships
existing among groups Of facts. No,
my opinions rise, IL seems 70 me, from
q motley of emotions, feelings, likes
and dislikes, indifference, jealousy often,
and as frequently envy. blind alteration
and senseless devotion. AS occasion
comes along, these make me the fiery
champion or the mad opponent. Either
or both based upon nothing but the easy
acceptances Of life, the terrible inertia
Of sluggard minds.
This man, this Albert Wiggan, It
fgaY1 de- antA TT a-ff rtI
at that, hunting for nothing on the
whole green earth, but truth. Truth.
done up in budgets of organic power
and potency. No fact unrelated. each a
part Of some larger whole. q unit func-
tioning as the essence of growth and
development This experiment merely
applies the scientific spirit and method
to some Of the slogans and guides that
have been doing duty since Eden set
up its rather forlorn experiment in
housekeeping.
Again. "One man is as good as an
other" Good for what2" asks Mr..
Wiggam. And here again we are pressed
to hunt out the content Of that word
good" applied to this or that In. coll
lective business Of human association.
Suppose you, on your own account, take
up these errancieS submitted by the
author. All Of them are familiar. You
will get a real stir out of proving the
man wrong-if you do. More exciting.
this book, than the majority Of scientific
disclosures. Simple. straight, convinc-
ing. He's right. We're wrong. "Sorryl"
y y
JACOBIN AND JUNTO: Or, Familiar
Politics as Viewed in the Diary of
DR.. Nathaniel Ames: 1758-1822. BY
Charles Warren. Cambridge: Har-
ward University Press.
Sorry, but you're wrong about I'll"
Wrong about the deep-seated belief, of
textbook origin, that the American
Revolution was approached in a spirit
OF lofty protest against the oppression
Of England. That the War of indie
pendence was pursued in an ardor of
self -immolative patriotism. That its
political sequence, new form of gov
eminent, was the spontaneous outcome
OF high minds working in pure har-
mony or in voluntary accommodations
to meet the great issue.
Charles Warren of Washington, stu
dent and writer of scientific mind and
habit, has been browsing among the
archives up New England way. The
trophy Of his adventure is a diary-the
ago. The diary of Nathaniel AmeS,
innkeeper of De6ham Mass, physician,
local politician, shrewd Yankee, free
Speecher-quite the Yankee stripe of
man as the Yankee has come down to
us. Brother. Of the brilliant Fisher
AmerS, friend of Hamilton, confidant Of
Washington. That fine aristocrat of
Federalist pattern, distrustful of the
people, secure in the theory that 1t
takes wisdom to run a government and
that with the demos there is no wis.,
dom Nom N0fh0TtAI If the
posite stripe. He believed in the people.
He rested secure In the conviction that
all political sagacity did not lie with
the elect alone, that all good govern
ment was not sourced in the power of
money or of intellect. In a word, it was
not sourced in the aristocracy and GER
tainly not in any vision Of reproducing
Old England here in the New World.
Here is the diary Of DR.. Ames, fresh
from the hand Of the man who lived
in the midst of that political period so
long ago. The man who lived partak-
ingly of those troubled days. And they
we're troubled in exactly the ways that,
today, demonstrate the perennial I'M
fairness of the political mind, the I'M
reason of party policies and the bigotry
of political campaigns. A more vivid
demonstration Of this fact you will
not find than in the free speech Of DR..
EAlIIGo, Gd4hAik ~ ALAAoCAA NY why VI
these daily recordings. Along toward
two centuries ago, at that.
Just about this time Napoleon was
playing the very devil with kings and
queens and monarchieS in general over
in Europe. And the Jacobin mobs over
there were no more radical, no more
demanding, than were the Jacobins of
this new country, crying down royalties
and all their ways. These were the
Bolsheviks, the Reds, of that day. And
among them, taking notes, was DR..
Nathaniel Ames Of Dedham, Mass.
And over there was no more anxious
a budding Of the aristocracy, in fear
not only of thrones. but of life as we'll,
than there was just such a scurrying
together over here Of the Federalists in
CLIQUE and clan and camera, In faction
and junt set against Entertainments of
the people upon the sacred powers of
Government and public control.
And Fisher Ames was among the
most fiery and ardent Of Federalists
However, this Is not q study of family
affairs. It is, instead. q warm, first
hand record of political activity, of po-
IiticaI intrigue at the very send-of Of
the new Government. Radical against
conservative, bolsheVik against regular,
the poor against the rich, class warfare
in the great and new and specifically in
the free country on this side.
I can think Of nothing more useful
as direct commentary on the agitations
of the present than this book OF moth
ing more interesting as an outlook upon
human nature. progressing CD steadily
(?) toward human perfection. Certain
" no more absorbing political study
than this one, so wisely brought out by
Mr. Warren. is at hand A political