Evening star., 1935-02-17
VIEWS AND REVIEWS
PERSONAL HISTORY. BY Vincent
Sheean. New York: Doubleday,
Doran g. Co.

Doran g. Co.
A MOTHER testament Of disil-
n lusioned youth, not like, but
~ related to, Vera Brittains
4 4 Testament of Youth" and
Storm Jameson's mo Time
Like the Present" Though he calls
his book Personal History" Mr..
Sheean's autobiography is much less
purely personal than either of these
others. 1t takes him all over the
world wherever an enterprising young
newspaper correspondent Of "a may
go, especially where any crises are
likely to occur. He has always had
Unsuitable curiosity about what goes
on in this jumbled world and has
tried to find meanings, when per-
haps the only meaning was insanity.
When the armiStice came after the
World War he was in the University
of Chicago, that mountain range of
twentieth century Gothic near the
shores Of Lake Michigan" and all
it meant to him was that he went
out of uniform in the r. o. T. c.
and back into civilian clothes, and
was sorry the war had ended before
he could get over to France and
have part in what was going on.
Curiosity again! Since then he has
revalued the war and knows more
of its horror and degradation"
Mr.. Sheean says that when he left
the university, at 81, few Hottentots
or South Sea Islanders could be less
prepared for life in the great world
than I was" Yet he was already
keenly critical and had applied his
criticism to the social system Of the
undergraduate world, including fra
ternities, the Jewish problem, teach
ing methods, college athletics, CO.
education, and the way in which he
wasted his own time After college
he went directly into journalism and
Immediately became ''the familiar
friend Of murderesses, the apologist
Of divorces, professional observer
at the peep-show of misery" In 1922
he left New York for Paris and
since then his wanderings have been
continuous. He says: Il fell into
political journalism as water
spaniel falls into a river" He has
known well and interpreted with
equal acumen political leaders and
followers, worried industrialists and
sullen workers, tra-conservatives,
communists, nationalists of many
varieties, Zionists He has been in
Mussolini's Italy, in Primo de Rivera's
Spain, in Stains Russia, in the
Rhineland, at Lausanne, at Geneva,
where he observed some of the fulfill
ties of the League of Nations and
some of the peccadillos of the ma
tional leaders. His story of his ex-
periences inevitably suggests COM
parison with the two books of Bruce
Lockhart, British Agent" and Re
treat From Glory" but Mr.. Sheean
makes an impression Of greater sin
cerity and at the same time greater
objectivity and a more philosophical
outlook than Bruce Lockhart, while
he can in no way compete with
Lockhart's egotism and love of spec
tacular effect.
Mr.. Sheean's comments on people
of prominence all over the world are
shrewd and often caustic OF Ram
say Macdonald at the Assembly Of
the League of Nations in 1924 he
says: "Mr. Macdonald, seduced and
intoxicated by the footlights, was
already beginning to play his his
tortc role; even then there could
be seen the beginnings of the aston
lshing personal vanity and intellectual
confusion that were to make him, in
later years, the delight of the cam
eramen and the sorrow of philoso-
pliers" interviewing Clemenceau
about the death of Sarah Bernhardt
for the benefit of American admirers,
Mr.. Sheean found him brusque, i'm
patient, reluctant to be disturbed at
lunch time. "She was my old friend:
I liked and admired her; she is dead;
I'm sorry" was Clemenceau's con-
cession to American journalism.
Nine. Sun Yat-sen, whom he met
through an interview, became his
friend. In came a small, shy
Chinese lady in black silk dress.
wondered who on earth she
could be. Did Nine. Sun Yat-sen
have a daughter Of whom I had
never heard? 1t did not occur to me
that this exquisite apparition, so
fragile and timorous, could be the
lady herself, the most celebrated
woman revolutionary in the world"
The name which has the most nu-
merous entries in Mr.. Sheean's index
is that of Rayna Prohme. "the widest
bolshevik in town" assistant of
Borodin, whom he met in Hankow.
Between them grew q rapid and deep
friendship, which was not, Mr..
Sheean says, ended by Raynas death
in Moscow in 1927, for during the
succeeding two years he continued
to hold conversations with "a force,
a state Of mind, an impulse of
reason to which I could give
the name of Rayna Prohme" This
force finally convinced him that her
view Of the revolutionary struggle
going on In the world was the "only
comprehensive view, the nearest thing
to long view that I was likely to
know" even though he should take
no part in the conflict.
I SPEAK FOR THE SILENT pRIS-
ONERS OF THE SOVIETS. BY
Vladimir ". Tchernavin Trans
lated by Nicholas M. Oushakoff.
Boston: Hale, Cushman 81 Flint.
FOLLOWING the dramatic story of
his wife, published a short time
ago, in which she described the es-
cape Of herself, her husband and her
son from Soviet Russia C"Escape From
the Soviets"), Vladimir Tchernavin
tells of the horrors from which they
escaped The tale of these horrors
makes one wonder whether Jonathan
Swift was not supremely sane instead
of insane when he represented the
possibilities of human brutality in
his Voyage to the Houyhnhnms, In
which Gulliver found horses more
humane than men. Prof Tchernavin
was research scientist in ichthyology
and gave his abilities and services to
the Soviet government in the develop
ment of the fisheries. He was at
Murmansk when he was arrested BY
the G. p. U. on the general and
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