The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-04-04
."NeW Masses .
quarterly Is
Real Advance
By EDWIN ROLFE

The appearance of the current
april 81 issue Of the New Masses
is without doubt an event for cele-
bration. For three months this
pulsating magazine, whose tradition
goes back q greater period Of time
than any other in the American
revolutionary movement, has been
appearing as q weekly; notable con-
tributions have marked almost every
issue, and some new channel Of
growth has been penetrated each
week.
The current issue is the first 40
page quarterly issue, containing, in
addition to the regular contents of
the magazine. a 12-page first act
of play, In New Kentucky" by
Samuel Ornitz, and an enlarged
book-feature section.
The play by Ornitz is the first we
have seen in print which attempts
to link in dramatic form the cen
tury-old traditions of the Kentucky
hill-foik with the newer and re-
vitalized tradition that these people
are forging in industrial struggles
today. This play is direct result
Of Ornitz's visit to the striking Ken
lucky coal fields several years ago.
It's first act dramatizss the awaken
ing to class consciousness Of the
starving and underpaid miners in
Coal Greek. The few kindling
scenes of the plays first act move
grippingly and all too swiftly for
the reader, who feels somehow be-
trayed when he has TO discard the
play after the exciting first act. It
is the continued next month" feel
ing one gets, which is a good indi-
cation Of the merit of In New
Kentucky"
What impresses one most in the
rest of this first quarterly New
Masses, is the enlarged book sup
plement, in which appear such ex-
celiently written and provocative
essays as D. S. Mirsky's Joyce and
Irish Literature" Joshua Kunitzs
The Many Sided Epic of the So
viets,' Earl Browder's Notes on a
Review" and the first part of Gran
vile Hicks Revolution and the
Novel"
Other reviews in the book sup
plement, while not unusual in quail
ity, add to the cumulative value of
the New Masses. These reviews
Robert Simmons Kingdom of the
Blind" Louis M. Hackers Rebels
and Robbers" Oakley Johnson's "a
Five-Inch Shelf of Booklets" Gene
We've Taggard S Poet Among
Imagists" and Ben Fields Farmers
and Takers attain the New Mass
es' ever improving standard for
comprehensiYeness Of discussion and
working class clarity of approach.
There are two outstanding con-
tributions to this issue. The first
is Michael Colds scorching bit of
invective. "A Night in the Million
Dollar Slums." 1t is a review of
the current ziegfeld Follies, written
only as Michael Gold could write it,,
with all the biting sarcasm and
burning contempt of one who has
traced first-hand the gutter origin
of this lavish" bourgeois spectacle,
and who sees in it, behind the per-
fumed bevy of beauties who clut-
ter the stage, the elimination of all
that is degenerate and coarse and
vulgar in capitalism and capitalist
culture. Let lis hope that other
aspects Of present-day society stir
him as strongly to this kind Of
writing. 1t is sorely needed.
The other piece which needs COM
ment is Joseph North's Taxi
Strike" Here, despite--or possibly
because of-the authors wel-in-
tegrated artistic approach to his re-
portage, he permits himself to as
sumo several unconscious attitudes
which damage the purpose of the
piece in the eyes of those whom it
should attract most. I refer to the
taxi drivers
The faults Of this piece are,
briefly, that it implies a certain
separation between the working class
Of New York as a whole and the
taxi drivers as a group in it, by at
tributing solely to them the SUM
derivation, the illiterate and semi
gangster speech which, as q mat
ter Of fact, does not at all mark