Evening star., 1936-08-01

MARY RANDOLPH,
Whose presidents and First
Ladies" has Just been pub
liShed.
because young Alan Stewart, descended
from generations of Scottish lairds. is
more intriguing 10 the school girl
menality than would be 10 Doakes
descended from nobody but doing pre-
ciSely the same things And 10
Doakes would do them. too. Young
Alan is perfect Doakes in kits.
But Mrs. Boilesu is clever as sin.
She writes al the time as II she were
writing an important book. and You
get 10 believe her. II would be rather
an exquisite joke If she overdid her
self. and fooled Hollywood. made them
believe that her book Was literature.
and so lost her movie contract: one
cannot help but snicker a little at the
idea. But Hollywood is hard to fool
in a matter Of scenting the obvious.
She will get her contract, if she hasn't
gotten it already. 1t ought to make
q millon-dollar picture, too.
THINGS I'VE BEEN THINKING
ABOUT BY Henry Ford. New
York: Fleming H. Reven Co.
THAT strange man, Henry Ford,
who is so romantic as to believe
in common sense and individualism,
and so practical as to force his beliefs
into being-writes here short state
ment of what he thinks of our times
His philosophical observations run
very close to those of the poet Robert
Frost, who, in his latest volume, called
for "one-man revolution" His
ideas on economics (he says he is no
economiSO coincide with those Of
Lewis Douglas, Charles A. Beard and
others, who believe that security is
to be found in greater productivity
and lower costs, rather than by de-
stroying goods and hoisting prices.
Says Mr.. Ford, "they (the Govern
men) can't take a productive plant
apart-that would only reduce it to
old iron. The pieces wouldn't be
worth much. They can't take over
the plant-they don't know enough
Government operation has made a
reputation for failure wherever tried
It sounds nice when young
theorists discuss it, but running a
factory is another thing"
1t would seem that Mr.. Ford, who
wants no political Office and obviously
despises all political nostrums, might
be heard with some respect on the
subject of operating a factory. He
certainly has been successful 1t also
seems that his ideas as to the pur-
poses back of factory operation might
be received without great hostility.
He has too far-reading a mind not
to have thought about them pretty
deeply. He concludes that we have
never had overproduction in Amer
ica, but only under distribution. The
trouble is in the money and finance
system, he opines.
When" he says. "a method is
found to make money do its job prop
erly, that method will be adopted, and
whether that method is called social
istic or capitalistic won't make any
difference.
That from a great capitalist. But
capitalists have always been prac-
tical. That is why they are capital
lists.
THEY FOUND ATLANTIS. BY Den
mis- Wheatley. Philadelphia: j. B.
Lippincott Co.
T Asst year mad 1rishman-for
are they not all mad?-named
O'Neill wrote novel called Land
Under England" 1t was so good
that it must stand for the present at
least as a challenge to all would-be
writer's of works of this kind-the
Jules Verne-Edgar Allen Poe tale Of
fantastic adventure in worlds beyond
this world.
We now have Mr.. Dennis Wheat
ley shooting at the O'Neill mark with
a work that has already gone into
the best-selling class in England. He
uses an engaging missile. 1t will not
displace the earlier work, but 1t is a
grand thriller just the same. It is
one of those stories which has to be
read in a sitting, and that Is meant
literally. Such good, old-fashioned
eagerness to know what was going
to happen next has not afflicted the
reviewer for long time. Done with
out literary pretentiousness Of any
kind, set down honestly for what it
is-a r-raiser-this book ought to
gather in an American public that
will match its English record.
1t is the story of group of people
marooned-as it were-on the bot
tom of the sea, miles down. They
find Atlantis. Their adventures on
the tabled sunken island, however,
are only a small part Of the excite
ment; the book is two-thirds done
before the characters reach the At
lantean shore. Much villainy pre-
cedes the discovery Of the submarine
paradise and it is not the less abb
sorbing because 1t happens to be a
shade nearer plausible. There are
gangsters in it and beautiful heir
ess, a prince, a pretty secretary and
a crooner.
The manner in which the Allan
teams have survived on the ocean
floor since the cataclysm which sunk
their island must be left to the
reader. 1t would not be fair to tell
it here. Mr.. Wheatley is ingenious
about it, however; that can be said.
He will delight the unregenerate, too,
in his ideal of a perfect world, as the
submarine people have achieved 1t.
Unlike Mr.. H. G. Wells, when that
earnest soul writes of other worldly
civilizations, he has not imagined a
nation of industrious supermen. On
the contrary, the Atlanteans care
only for making love.
However, the story concerns the
wanderers from earth, rather than
the fabulous creatures Of the deep.
!