Evening star., 1936-04-11
Bv Mary Garter Roberts.

ROOTS OF AMERICA. BY Charles
Morrow Wilson. New York: Funk
g. Wagnalls Co.
r ERE-at laSt!-is book by a
IL writer who has gone forth to
look at America in depression
Il i which one can read with
patience and then respect and recon-
mend.
1t is reporting, pure and undefiled.
1t Is not editorial. The author has
had no case to make for Roosevelt,
for the Liberty League or, like SO many
OF his predecessors at this kind of
book, for a timidly proffered and
highly denatured Karl Marx. But
he has made case, just the same.
It is a case for submerged and in
articulate America, for the kind of
American who is comparable to the
Englishmen of whom Chesterton was
writing when he remarked that they
had not spoken yet.
This Is rural America, not even the
America of the small town, but the
America of the farm, the ranch. the
plantation. 1t is an America which,
when it can, pays its bills and minds
It's business and which, when cash
money" is scarce, takes up its belt
and hangs on, saying as little as pos
sible. 1t is an established America;
its people have been Americans so
long that they have lost the idea OF
moving on. 1t has its definite stand
ards of what you can do and what
you can't, and foremost among these
canons is the one which ordains that
your troubles are something about
which you do not talk.
It is an America, indeed, which on
general principles despiSes talk. Yet
so ingrained are its behavior habits
1t describes itself eloquently in every
casual word which it utters and every
casual act which it performs. 1t is
q treasure trove for any writer who
will do as Mr.. Wilson has done and
simply report. But it will inevitably
throw up smoke screen if it suspects
investigation Mr.. Wilson has known
how to approach it. He has caught
its color. He has reproduced its
humor. its reticences, its salt and
its God. His book is valuable and
heartening document of our troubled
times.
He calls it ''travelogue of Amer
lean personalities The travels from
which its stuff was gathered took
him from New England to the South
west, and the personalities include
farmers, ranchers, plantation owners,
storekeepers, horse traders, hotel own
ers, newpaper editors, politicians and
peddlers. His talk with them did not
center on the questions that have so
occupied his predecessors at travelogue
writing-what is your opinion of the
New Deal-how have you got through
the depression-do you think we will
have a revolution next week or will
1t be the week after?
Instead, he has plunged for much
deeper topics; he has tried. seemingly,
to get statements, direct or indirect,
of basic PHILOSOPHERS. He has asked,
rather, what is your opinion OF life.
how have you got through your par
ticular piece Of life-do you think that
the changing times have changed
mems essential ideas?
His answers, significantly, are found
In the implications Of his chance
acquaintance talk, rather than in
their direct statements. And the sum
of them is an unshakable conserv-
atism toward spiritual change, COM
bined with a liberal desire for ply
sical improvement.
1t is an intelligent compilation. It
Is done informally, easily. But it has
obviously been formed out of a deep
probing after our grounding. Truly it
sets forth what its title says-the roots
Of America.
BONES OF CONTENTION. BY Frank
O'Connor. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
THIS is book Of distinctly superior
short stories. They are by an
Irishman and they deal with Irish
people. They are not concerned with
native backgrounds, however, or with
Ireland itself. Instead. they deal
pretty exclusively with that phenom-
enon of the practically fabulous island
which is known as Irish wit"
Done by practiced hands, this can
be irresistible, and Mr. O'Connor has
a practiced hand. So persuasive are
his tales, indeed, that one entirely
overlooks the fact that some of them
are very slight-overlooks it, that is,
until one comes on a story of the pro-
founder variety And then one realizes
that he can not only write, but think
as well.
They are stories of simple people,
humorous for the most part. 1t
would be difficult to improve on them.
In day when short-story writing
seems to have gone almost exclusively
into jejeune attempts at irony over
social conditions and stock situations
based on the doctrines of Freud, these
subtle, polished reflections of a subtle
people cannot be too highly welcomed.
VIVE LIE ROY. BY Ford MADDOX Ford.
Philadelphia: j. B. Lippincott Co.
WHEN SO urbane writer as Mr..
I'' Ford MADDOX Ford turns his pen to
producing mystery the reader may
justifiably expect something amusing.
He will not be disappointed in the
present book. "Vlve LIE Roy" is moth
ing more than that, but it is that. 1t
Is quite smoothly and agreeably anus
ing.
It Is a fantastic tale (almost Of
Chestertonian fantasticness) based on
the imagined return to power in
France of the royal family. The Duke
Of Orleans has been proclaimed king
Or prince president" But, for story
purposes, he is assassinated, and there
upon young American, who is on
Communist mission in Paris, and who
resembles the dead ruler, Is drafted
into service. His name is Walter
Leroy. Hence the title, with a slight
change in capital letters.
improbable adventure follows i'm
probable adventure, but Mr. Ford does
not lose his cool delightful unreason-
~hIereSe n, the chase And So ho hoe