The Washington times., 1932-02-16


17--11s offensive books One publisher
GILBERT sELDEs exists to whom scandal is too
ismelng no rumor too gross to be kept out OF print
the living and the dead suffer alike and what he does
not do with biography he does with fiction trading
on the unrghteous scandal attached to great
do not consider this important because such scaven-
gers must exist at all times, and department of
human activity is safe from dirty hands. That pub
fishers make business of mean pornography is not
news; but that publishers who respectable should
lower their coors to sign of actual degen
Grafton
Tribute of Silence
have just received novel issued by young house
(Which has so far been decent if Distinguished every
page OF winch is an OffenSe of peculiarly mean kind
It's principal characters all well known what they
DO is all rumor of the nasest kind Protected by their
rights writers of fiction the authors of this book
would not be vulnerable legal action even if the men
they attack could risk the scandal 1t to that
nothing can be done in such except keep silent:
certainly shall not mention the of this book give
any further clue But think that all the publishers who
have been worried to discover why their profits dis
appearing ought to discipline the unru members of their
profession.
"Time Stood Still
Not only by way of contrast with dull and cheap books
but its merits, "Time Stood Still" recommends
itself beautiful and profoundly interesting book It
is the story of four years spent in British nternment
camps by Paul CohenPorthei the German painter who
repaid evil with good when he wrote England the
Unknown ISLE" penetrating study of the heart of
failing empire. Time Stood Still" is dis
tingushed. sa -
The first sensation Mr. Cohen-Porthem gives in his
a
individual, German in nationality, international in his
interests He deliberately went to England because his
friends there and when he had to register
alien enemy he quite truthfuly said that mis- home n
Paris. His English friends and of position
and Importance treated him decenty and handsomely.
Then the Lusitana SUNK and Mr. Asquith announced
that "for their safety all alien enemies would be
segregated .-.~~
A New Thing
l do not know whether Cohen-Porthem is historically
correct in giving the impression that this sort of segre
cation thing with only the concentration
camps of Cuba and South Africa forerunners Ger
tainy neither he his English friends dreamed that
several thousand men would be separated from their
wives and children and sent away to spend three or
four years doing absolutely nothing That is what hap
pened to them In all the mseries and discomforts of
a prison camp nothing broke him down so much as
enforced ideness and the nescapabe company of others
You could not be alone and there was nothing to do
Barbed-Wire Sickness
Being artist, Cohen-Portheim was lucky He could
draw, he could paint and eventually he produced some
plays The psychology of the barbedwire enclosure is
made terribly clear in his account of the stage produc
tions. He by this time in the gentemen's camp
that is one in which with money were allowed to
buy certain comforts but the moment he announced
play everybody assumed that he doing it only to
make money for himself Profiteering went on inside
the barbed wire proftaby in the streets of Lon
don, and human psychology did not change.