The Washington times., 1934-02-03
True To
Type
Midwest on 1854
More Varied
Than East
By GILBERT SELDES


East Chicago is more friendly
to Sinclair Lewis. Speaking Of
him, Lola Pergament says, "the
great artist lives comfortably in
the awareness that his works
are slowly imbedding themselves
In the consciousness of intelh-
gent people and that his ideas
will coincide better with later
generations because he has
keener perceptions and better
perspective. He is the future
sizing up the past, inhabiting
the present" Yet for a writer
4 who will be known in 1854 Miss
Pergament nominates Marcel
Proust. Eager for more and
better masterpieces" Neal
Dunno casts the first vote for
"Anthony Adverse" "The Mag
nificent Obsession' and Erie
Water"-three novels not men,
toned by Eastern voters.
James Novak sidesteps fiction
and votes for Pitkin's Life Be-
gins at Forty"-I ought to warn
him that by 1854 the conditions
Of life may be so changed that
the very title will occasion no
surprise. Gerard o. Dion is
more interested in other things
and his book selections are the
poems of Edgar Guest, Ebert
Hubbard's Notebooks and his
tory Of the World War; he
thinks that fast jazz will give
place to the waltz (Which Byron
thought inmoraD and that mo-
tor cars will disappear from the
streets because they are being
built so rapidly now that the
manufacturers will have to put
wings on them.
{ Mechanics AID Peace
The East is more literary than
the West. My original question
was not limited to books: l
wondered what ideas, habits,
customs, as well as what works
Of art would persist through the
great reconstruction Of society
which must go on during the
next generation. Would we still
save against old age, or buy on
installments, or go to the inca
ter. or read publicity about
movie stars divorces, or what?
The East made predictions about
art and letters. The Middle
west is concerned with other
things as well.
Richard Sweetman thinks it
is a reasonable conjecture that
advanced mechanics and SCI
ence will raise our conception OF
home life to a plane where we
shall acknowledge as neceSSarles
such items as electric refrigera.
tion and air-conditioned homes.
Eugenics will begin to take root'
but birth control Will stu oe
4 ignored. Populations will ex-
pand rurally owing to new high
speed transportation, Congress
will again become ":the true
power of legislation" the white
races WILL DeCO11S uAAAVOA AAA VA
and peace pacts.
Five-year Books
Mildred L. Richardson says
fatty that Eve have no writings
which can survive more than
i've years at the most, to say
nothing of twenty. Art, rather
than being inspired has lost all
inspiration and turned to the
ridiculous. To music then we
must look for survival. Strangely
enough it must be jazz. 1t Is
representative of an age never
to be forgotten; an era OF violent
emotions, dissipation, heartr
break fortunes have been
made and lost, financial empires
rose and fell. Modern music,
coarse and unfeeling as it may
seem, embodies all of this"
Miss Richardson is not alone
in this prediction. Almost all
"a those who have moved out
side the realm Of books have
said a word for music and a
lind word for jazz. An OLD
iazz-lover myself, I am pleased.
h pleases me to remember the
Indignation of a few elderly
Tnen when Paul Whiteman gave
his historic concert of jazz
music (and introduced the
aR,hapsody in Blue~ about ten
years ago. Jazz was, in fact,
INV racket at the time: I lived
largely by writing about it.
NOW, when I begin to wonder
whether jazz has the capacity
to develop and grow and change
and mature, my bread is re-
turned from the water a little
Soggy.
Free Imagination
It is hard for us to conceive
n word in which the things we
i've BY will have disappeared.
The great merit Of a book like
Bellamy's Looking Backward"
n that it eliminates half of our
habits Of mind in it's picture OF
the future, yet makes the future
quite bearable. Mr.. Wells,
writing of the shape of things
TO come, ends with an autoc-
racy, benevolent as a bishop,
of those who control the air
indicating that Mr.. Wells is still
under the sway of our present
system of rulerShip or is pecu-
iiarly hard-headed about the
Stllre, Most of us are senti-
mental.
M