Evening star., 1932-01-02
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BookIopsy

With her habitusl urbanity and phi
losophic balance Of thought, Agnes
Repplier has in her latest volume OF es-
| says discussed Times and Tendencies. "
The "Times" are the early 1930s and
the book should be read 10 discover
what are the Tendencies" which Miss
Repplier considers menacing, serious OF
merely ironically amusing. There are q
dozen of the essays, which begin with
Town and Suburb" and end with "A
Vocabulary" Refusing to pass Judg-
ment on the relative merits Of city or
country as place of residence, Miss Rep
plier says: Generally speaking, and
leaving out of consideration the very
poor, to whom no choice in life is given,
men and women who live in cities or in
suburbs do so because they want to
Men and women who live in small
towns do so because of their avocations,
or for other practical reasons. They
are right in affirming that they like it
once said to a New York taxi driver:
I want to go to Brooklyn To which
he made answer: You mean you have
to- SO with the small-town dWellers.
They may or may not want to- but the
have to- Is sure" In "a Vocabulary
Miss Repplier deplores the. poverty OF
the vocabulary and the slovenllness OF
pronunciation of the average and under
average American, and quotes H. g.
Wells to the effect that America mas
partly lost the gift Of rational speech.
Illustrative of this loss are such express
sions as "Whaja got?" Wherya goin'?'
"Waja say?" "Hadjer lunch?" Don
leggo of til" sail can say" Ma less'n
SO cents" ct yusta know i'm" Wanna
gwout?" Reasonably, she asks: II
some Americans can speak superlatlVely
well, why cannot more Americans speak
pleasingly?"
peace and the Pacifist" is one Of the
best balanced of the essays in ..l1mes
and Tendencies" Miss Repplier is
neither militarist nor pacifist: neither
an adherent of super preparedness nor
of peace at any price. She points out
| the irony of scrapping "a few middle
aged ships which might have been per-
mitted to live out their lives in tran
quillity," while "airplane bombs which
can precipitate upon doomed city two
| tons of T. N. T. and phosphorus bombs
carrying their acid fire make cruisers
and so-called destroyers seem like Old
| fashioned and genial things" The es-
say "Cure-Alls" is not entirely about
medicines and other therapeutic agen-
| cies. The cure-alls Of propagandists are
gently satirized. "Reformatory measures
are hailed as cure-alls by people who
have a happy confidence In the per-
| fectibility of human nature, and no dis
couraging acquaintance with history 70
dim it, OF course, prohibition has q
paragraph, but short one, and MISS
Repplier appears to be, as many others
ere, bored with the whole subject so
much has been written on the subject
that the public has ceased to read any
Of It,"
We as Americans are tactfully ad-
! monished not to be too egotlstical, toe
| superior in our satisfaction with oul
| own country, in the two essays What
| Is Moral Support?" and "Condescen.
{ sion in Americans" In the first we are
! told that what we mean when speak
of the moral support" OF the United
States as being given or withheld Il
| the power of our wealth. This point Is
made by a comparison with lta!y
Suppose Italy were to threaten the
| United States with the w1thdraWai OF
/ her moral support. How drol the ldee
would be! Yet Italy is country clVl-
| llZeQ 10 the core. tiClC 40 49,
reason why Rome and Washington should
respect each other and be as morally
| helpful to each other as they know
how to be: but there is no reason or
earth why the moral support OF one
should be of more value than the
moral support of the other, unless we
translate morality into terms of strength
and wealth." In the second essay we
are urged not to allow our AmerlcanlSm
to take the form of scorn OF the quail
tiles Of all other nations, or, what is
almost worse, condescension toward
them. "It is as demoralizing for q
nation to feel itself an ethical exhibit
as It Is dernoralizing for young woman
to win a beauty prize in an Atlantic
City contest"
The years and the decades pass SO
quickly that yesterday is soon today
and today is soon tomorrow. We. are
scarcely out of the 1920s but book
has already been written about them,
"Onlv Yesterday. An Informal His
torv of the 1920s," by Frederick Lewis
Allen. AS we review with the author
the events of those recent 10 years we
feel that the decade must go down
to history as a wild, disorganlzeo
period. ending in black disaster. Inc
book ends with october "a, 1879, "neh
the stock market crashed. Our famll-
iarity with the events related does not
prevent us from maryeling that some
of them could have happened IN q
supposedly sane world. AUTOMOBILES,
radios, diamond rings, sets OF furniture,
houses, almost the world, could oe
bought with q small deposit and a not
fn
calls attention to the fact that in jan
nary. 1928, "the President had actually
taken the altogether unprecedented
step of publicly stating that he did not
consider brokers' loans too high, thus
apparently giving White House sponsor
shin to the very imitation which was
Worrying the sober minds of the finan-
cial community" The oil scandal OF
the Harding regime is told in connected
narrative by Mr. Allen, with compari-
sons with some of the scandals OF the
Grant administration. The younger
generation, with its independence and
frankness, laudably honest or out
raaeous, according to circumstances
and opinion, is given considerable
space. Styles are analyzed, with illus
trations from Vogue" and an attempt
Is made to show some significance, some
beneficial evolution, in their changes.
Though so recent, the 1920's seem, as
we read, to belong very definitely to
the past.
n X
"The Unknown War" by Winston
Churchill, which tells Of the World
war on the Eastern front, where Rus
sia fought Germany and Austria in
Galicia and East Prussia: Gen. PERISH
ing's My Experiences in the World
War; the Memoirs of Prince Won
Bulow," which has much to say about
the origins of the war; king Albert
in the Great War" by Lieut.. Gen.
Galet, now chief of the Belgian general
staff, and Newton D. Baker" by
Frederick Palmer, who narrates the
career of Americas Secretary of War
during the world conflict, are all books
which might be suggested as gifts for
men or women still interested in going
over the story of the World War and