Evening star., 1935-04-21

ling. BY Donald Barr Chidsey.
New Haven: Yale University
Press.
VEN those who were not born
at the time know that Roscoe
Conkling died from the great
- blizzard of March, 1888. He
was so foolish as to 60 to his
office on that Monday, March IL, s
or 10 hours after the fine. cutting
snow had started, and found that
there was little to do when he got
there, for very few other people were
around. Early in the afternoon he
had an opportunity to hire hack
for $50 to take him home. but in
dignantly refused. He would walk.
He started up Broadway about S
o'clock. He reached the New York
Club. at Broadway and Twenty fifth
street, and fell full length on the
floor. He died month later of COM
plications caused by exposure and
exhaustion. Mr.. Chidsey's descrip-
tion of this terrific blizzard and the
paralysis of all everyday life which
1t caused. probably compiled from
newspapers of the time, is dramatic
close to his book.
The career of Roscoe Conkling
gives him opportunity for a large
volume, handsomely printed and
bound, and published by the Yale
University Press on the Calvin Chaplin
Memorial Publication Fund. Roscoe
Conkling began as an obscure lawyer
in Albany, N. Y. He must have
had from the beginning either the
bacillus or the gland of success. Both
as lawyer and as politician he ex-
perienced little of failure. Without
the accepted qualities of the political
boss, he was yet successful one.
He was naughty and aloof, never
slapped. backs nor kissed babies
Though many were named after
him), could endure a crowd only
when it was in front of and below
him, never if he was a part of it;
hated publicity and preferred to ac-
complish his results behind closed
doors. His first political appoint
ment was as district attorney Of
Oneida County, N. Y, before he was
81. He was elected as Congress-
man, then as Senator, was reelected,
then defeated. was boss of New York,
was opposed to civil service reform,
as bosses usually are; was considered
for the presidency, but, like a greater
man, Daniel Webster, failed to at
tain it.
A biography of Roscoe Conkling
must include much of the history
of the post-Civil War era, and Mr..
Chidsey has brought abundant in
formation and spirited style to
his treatment of the period. Conk-
ling's likes and dislikes and political
feudS give interesting opportunity for
the drawing of portraits of other
great figures in the years of mis-
managed reconstruction. He was a
friend, personal as we'll as political,
of the "gall-bitter" Thaddeus Stevens;
had an implacable feud with Blaine,
defended Grant, who had helped to
make him powerful; was never
friendly to Garfield, was at first
friendly with Arthur. but later broke
with him. This biography should
be shelved. and on a level with the
leading biographies of the other
prominent figures of the period.
WINTER IN TAOS. By Mabel Dodge
Luhan. New York: Harcourt,
Brace & Co.
EIGHTEEN years ago Mabel Dodge,
then the wife of Maurice Sterne,
her third husband, chose Taos as her
dwelling place and has never since
cared to go far from it. In her RAM
bling adobe house there she enter
tains people from all over the world
but because she can never enjoy
them in crowds, her dining table
seats only eight. In Taos she was
the intimate friend of D. H. Lawrence,
about whom she has written book
and whom she always speaks of as
Lorenzo. Another divorce followed
her going to Taos, after which she
married Taos Pueblo Indian, An
tonic Luhan, to whom she is extraor-
dinarily devoted. if we may Judge
from her references to him in this
book. He is part of the spirit of
Taos. So dear is Taos to her in its
every aspect and so delightfully."- does
she write about it that almost she
might persuade her readers to move
there and put up small houses out
side the village on the edge of the
desert, near her large one. OF course
she would not like that at ALL And
her descriptions of the old-fashioned
garden variety of cold which one
catches in Taos Winters, accompanied
by "aches all over one, stiff neck
coughs and STIFFNESS" and of Sum-
n1er droughtS. when the water in the
irrigation ditch is rationed and finally
flows only one day week and farmers
quarrel or kill for water, would be
deterrent influences.
Why do not more people who live
In enchanting places, which they
love, write about them intimately and
reflectively, as Mabel Luhan does
about Taos-inStead of writing dull
novels for example? She writes about
Taos in all four seasons. beginning
and ending with Winter. Parts of the
day-to-day story are the farming,
the household tasks, the servants. the
animals, fishing and hunting excur-
sionS-and always the views from the
windows of her long house on sew
eral levels. We learn to know well not
only Tony, a rather remarkable man.
but Max, who makes the fires and
sweeps the garden walks; Beatrice,
who fills the storeroom shelves with
preserves and jellies; the pigeons,
which circle about the courtyard, the
ponies which browse over both the dry
and the snowy desert, the kitten
which forced itself on the family
and died in the heat of one Summer,
the big boar that ran amuck, and all
the dogs. with their tragedies from
porcupines and neighbors' guns. We
see vividly the whole struggling house,
especially the big living room filled
with bibelots from everywhere. the
dinning room so cool in Summer. and
the chatelaine's own room with It's
view through the big easement win
dow across the desert to the wall OF
the Sacred Mountain-the room to
which she retires when she doesn't feel
equal to coping" Writing which
conveys such pictures and such q
feeling of sharing as Mrs. Lunan's is