Evening star., 1936-10-24

his "reminiscences Of eminent men
with whom he was associated in the
course of his law practice. The seven
are Severn Teackle Wallis. I. Nevett
Steele, Judge William A. Fisher, Ber-
nard Carter, Col. Charles Marshall,
John P. Poe and John K. Cowen. In
another chapter, called "A Plantation
Retrospect" which was originally pub
lished in the Virginia Quarterly Re-
view, october. 1881, Mr.. Bruce at
tempts to evaluate from the point Of
social merits, the good and bad Of
plantation existence. But whether the
work be dealing with biography or
sociology, it preserves high reliability
and uses style Of polished informality
which commends it greatly. Mr..
Bruce's other published books are.
Benjamin Franklin Self-Revealed,"
Life Of John Randolph" and Below
the James"
AMERICAN TESTAMENT. BY Jo-
seph Freeman. New York: Far
rar and Rinehart.
THIS book, like the one reviewed
above, is a description of a way
of life in this country. Unlike Sena-
tor Bruce's work, it is long. 1t is q
volume of more than 600 pages. It
is written with anger and prejudice,
although one feels that the latter
characteristic comes more from the
authors shortness of vision than from
his lack of sincerity. It differs in
as many ways from Recollection"
as one book can from another. And
yet it aims at the same end-to pre-
sent a picture of one manner of life
in America.
The author is q young Russian
born Jew. His early childhood was
spent in ghettos, in the shadow Of
race hatreds and the fear and men,
ory of pogroms. He came to New
York City during the Russo-Japanese
War, still young child, and entered
on life in another ghetto, Williams
burg. Surrounded by emigrants of
backgrounds similar to his own, he
had an initiation into American life
that was deeply qualified by Euro
pean values.
He found the same hatreds persist
ing here, the same spirit of rebel
lion against established orders. His
people lived at first in poverty and
the blame for their distress was
promptly put on the "bosses," or
"bourgeoisie' or "bloated capitalists"
In the teeming slum which was his
American home fortunes were made
by the energetic and unscrupulous,
Just as fortunes are made by the
energetic and INSCRIPTIONS anywhere.
Among those who failed to get rich,
to put it brutally, there was diScon-
tent with the system. The young
identified this discomfort with an
ideal" Such was the nature of
their ideal that, when the Russian
revolution took place. they hailed 1t
as apocalypse.
Mr.. Freeman's narrative tells how,
after the war, he went to Europe as
newspaper man, after carrying his
ideals" unhappily about Columbia
University. He was never one OF the
workers" so far as one can gather,
but like many writers, he made fair
living out of turning workers into
copy. He demonstrates, from his
experiences, that all papers
except the radical press are corrupt
and publish biased news. He finally
went to Russia, where he got job
translating. 1t was a white-collar job
.bourgeois?-but he still burned for
the working classes. He now sees COM
as the great issue before the
world. That is his book.
It is interesting in that it includes
on most Of the nostrums
which filled the '20s-from the point
of view of man who took them with
profound seriousness, swallowed them
without q vestige of humor, and
seemed to be unlimited in capacity if
only q doctrine were presented to him
with tag that identified it with re-
bellion. He found nothing comic in
Freud. He wrote seriously for the
masses. He admired Floyd Dill. That
would seem to epitomize him.
There must always be q question
appertaining to the person who makes
q cause, or q series Of causes, his work,
while living from the purses OF those
whom he processes to despise. The
question need not be one Of sincerity;
more often it will be one Of personal
strength. The rebel who acts his re-
bellion and takes the consequences is
heroic; even though his thinking may
have been fallacious, he Is hero.
But the one who merely talks, while
clinging to the system which he hates,
Is not even good herring.
It comes down to this-that the
basis of any idealism, except in cases
Of historical rareness, Is material dis
content. It is not written with great
repetitiousness on the records that
any writer who has amassed COM
petence from uncovering the evils Of
the profit system, refuses his own
profits, or turned them into the fight.
On the contrary, he. with great regu-
larity, buys farm In Connecticut or
Pennsylvania and goes in for collect
ing early American antiques. His
children will 60 to private schools and
his wife will start to look up her coat
Of arms. If his income falls on bit,
he will hastily write another flaming
book on the sorrows Of the poor. Or
he may keep his hand In by rushing
about to cover strikes, from the poor
mans point of view. Are we, then, to
take these ideslists seriously?
Mr.. Freeman, of course, did not buy
q farm. He does not record that he
earned money enough. So he went to
Russia and got q white-collar Job. as
recorded. He copies Mr.. Vincent
Sheean good bit in his Russian remi-
niscences. and It may Re that he hopes