Evening star., 1935-01-27

qualities. The reasons suggested for
the preponderance Of paternity over
maternity in Shakespeare'S plays are
interesting.
THE AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC
GAME. BY Drew Pearson and
Constantine Brown. Garden
City: Doubleday, Doran g. Co.
CECRET diplomacy has not much
- chance when two such open-eyed
and suspicious journalists as Drew
Pearson. one of the authors of Wash
ington Merry-go-round," and Con-
stantine Brown, writer on foreign af-
fairs for The Washington Star, are
proWling about departments OF state
and foreign affairs or the halls OF dis
armament conferences. They dis
cover what the public is not meant to
know, and then they tell it-moSt
reprehensible, also most interesting.
The big underlying discovery they have
made, which will be a surprise to no
one, is that the world is certainly
headed directly into another war. 1t
may come Immediately, 1t may not
come for five years, but it will surely
come, and it will be caused, they say,
by the leaders of the nations who
have instilled into the minds OF their
peoples fear. distrust, suspicion,
hate" War may start in any one OF
a number of ways-in the struggle over
the Saar, in the invasion OF the Rus
sian Ukraine, in campaigns OF terror
ism and ASA sassination, such as have
already cost the lives Of Duca OF Ru-
mania, Dollfuss of Austria, Alexandria
of Yugoslavia and Barthou Of France,
all, significantly, defenders OF the
Versailles treaty and promoters OF
friendship with France" When war
does come in Europe, the authors be-
lieve, the repercussions in the Far
East will be so violent that war will
follow there also. 1T is an axiom OF
japanese policy that when Europe is
absorbed with its own pain, Japan
runs berserk in the Orient"
THE American Diplomatic Game" Is
full of bits of gossip of the type usu-
ally called "backstairs," which would
also suggest the small town rather
than a National Capital, if one did
not know the Capital we'll. Petty and
unrelated as. some Of these may at first
seem, it takes little thought to dis
cover that in their revelation of emo
tions, prejudices and conflicting points
Of view there might easily be inter-
national significance. The story OF
Ambassador Claudel's leaving the tunic
of his uniform in his limousine when
he went to a White House diplomatic
reception and being obliged to wait in
the cloak room while messenger was
sent to find his chauffeur, is an anus
ing anecdote Of an absentminded poet,
but it becomes, at least in the inter-
pretation of Messrs. Pearson and
Brown, an illustration of "Mr. HooVer's
antipathy toward the French" when
1t is recorded that he bluntly and In
no very courteous terms refused to
delay the beginning of the reception
a moment in order that the French
Ambassador might be in his place near
the head of the line. 1t was this same
antipathy, the authors say, which
prompted his specific instruction to
Secretary Stimson that no word OF his
moratorium proposal was to be given
Ambassador Claudel before it was
given to other diplomatic representa-
tives," although 1.-The British had been
in on the moratorium discussions for
a month" The dislike which existed
between Mr.. Hoover and Mr.. Kellogg,
even in the days of the Coolidge cabi-
net, and which became acute over the
question Of using the Kellogg pact as
partisan issue, Is described, and
with 1t the plot Of Drew Pearson which
trapped the two men into a position
of opposition. The plot could not have
endeared that particular journalist to
the Hoover administration.
We are told in 1.-THE American Dip
lomatic Game" that after President
Roosevelt,s message to the London
Economic Conference, which so dis
turbed foreign statesmen, he remarked
of it: "The more I looked at it, the
better I liked it. And knew that II
took 1t back to Washington those
timorous souls In the cabinet would
want to take out q word here and
soften a word there until there
wouldn't be anything left Of it. So I
sent it Immediately" OF President
Roosevelt's foreign policy, the authors
say: Gradually during the first year
Of Mr.. Roosevelt's administration it
began to dawn upon the chanceries OF
Europe that without any blare Of
trumpets he had adopted as his three
chief foreign policies the building Of
giant Navy, an attitude Of almost Bit
ter coldness toward Japan. and-with
the exception of Latin America-a po-
sition of complete isolation in regard
to the rest of the world"
X X
THE OUTCAST. BY Luigi Pirandello.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
IF PIRANDELLO'S reputation had
= rested entirely on this novel. his
first, he would not have taken the
Nobel Prize In literature for 1884. Yet