Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-01-06
VIEWS AND REVIEWS
HEAVENS MY DESTINATION. BY
Thornton Wilder. New York:
Harper & Brothers.

Il tribute to making new book
by him literary event. Those
| who have read the enigmatic and
! symbolic Peruvian romance, THE
Bridge of San Luis Rey," and the
Greek-patterned tale of The Woman
of Andres" will anticipate in "Heav-
ems My Destination" similar delicacy
| of style and far-away setting. They
will at first be disappointed, until they
have caught the spirit Of this differ
ent type of fiction, different yet like
the other tales in screening beneath
| the surface story profound allegory.
The title page bears, in explanation
of the title. the "doggerel verse which
children of the Middle West were &C
cuStomed to write in their school,
books" as follows:
George Brush is my name;
Americas my nation:
Ludington'S my dWelling place,
And Heavens my destination"
George Brush is a text book sales
man in the rural Middle West. He
is more than that. He is a primitive
Baptist an ardent Soul-saver, being
aware that he lives in a wicked world,
which, however, he does not at all
understand. He is a pacifist, de-
voice of Gandhi even to the extent of
a vow of voluntary poverty, a total
abStainer who also frowns on tobacco,
firm believer in the American home.
That puffy-faced Margie Mccoy, with
! the fine head of orange, brown and
black hair" thinks hes nuts" and
that the cashier and president of the
bank in Armina, Okla, where he goes
! to draw out his savings of which he
is ashamed and to refuse interest,
| think he is almost a criminal, matter
| to him not at all. II didn't put my
self through college for four years
and go through a difficult religious
| conversion in order to have ideas like
other peoples" he says.
! George Brush acquires q criminal
record soon enough. quite innocently,
but it Dies not prevent his further
pursuit Of souls. His revivalistic eff
forts are not carried on in churches,
I but in Shoddy hotels and boarding
houses, corner general stores, jails,
bawdy houses, on the street. Good
ness is his single-minded aim, but he
knows and cares nothing about COM
| mon sense. He insists, for the good
of his own soul, on marrying the
woman he has seduced, though she
| has no desire to be made into IAN
| honest woman" This experience is
responsible for the loss of his faith.
But he does not lose his frankness and
| tells the Rev. DR.. Bowie that one
/ thing which shows that there Is no
| God is that he allows such foolish
people to be ministers" George Brush
is not an imitation of any other char
acter in fiction, but at every stage in
| his years journeyings he reminds us
OF the seventeenth century Don
I Quixote, with his crusade against
materialism, his watching of his
armor over night, his reScuing OF dis
| tressed damsels, his battles with wind
| mills, Wineskins and flocks of sheep.
Don QuiXote and George Brush are
both either crazy or too Realistically
sane for the world in which they
have to live.
THE BRITISH ATTACK ON UNEM-
PLOYMENT. BY A. c. c. HILL
jr.. and 1sador Lubin. Washing
ton. D, c.: The Brookings Insti-
tuition.
DR. EDWIN G. NOURSE. director
of the Institute of Economics, un-
der the auspices of which this volume
is published, states in the preface that
the manuscript was prepared before
DR. Lubin became United States COM
missioner of labor statistics and DR..
Hill assumed a connection with the
National Recovery Administration.
Both authors have studied their prob
lem at first hand in Great Britain.
Their book is one of the most timely
of the many timely works published
during the past year by the Bookings
Institution and should be Of great
assistance to all those struggling with
the problem Of unemployment in this
country. Policies of unemployment
relief, formulated in a period when a
fourth of our working population has
been unemployed, have unavoidably
taken the form of emergency meas
ures. More and more, however, the
conclusion that no temporary plan will
suffice is gaining ground" Unless our
country is inclined to accept the
cynical advice of the British pub
hcist. Sir Ernest Benn. to keep away
from England in studying unemploy-
ment, advice which the authors of
this book do not indorse, it may learn
much of both positive and negative
value from Great Britain's varied ex-
periences.
In describing and assessing the at
tacks on many fronts made by Great
Britain on unemployment, the au-
thors divide their subject into four
parts, dealing, respectively, with back
ground, Britain's efforts to find work
for her unemployed, her methods of
providing the means of subsistence
and evaluation of those methods
When the British worker Is deprived
of his wages because of illness, health
insurance provides him with the
means for maintenance and medical
attention: when he becomes incapable
of work because of industrial accident
or disease, workmen's compensation
assures him of minimum income;
when he becomes too old to work, he
receives pension, and when he is
unemployed, he is aided by a compli-
Gated tangle of services popularity,
though frequently without justifica-
ton. called the dole system" British
methods of providing for the unem-
ployed include many co-ordinated de-
vices, among them contributory I'M
employment insurance, non-contribu-
tory relief to insured members, poor
relief, employment exchanges, relief
works, machinery for retraining the
unemployed, moving them from one