Evening star., 1937-05-22

pictures OF the group Of pleasure loving
people who are, in some quarters.
held responsible for the abdication-
Edwards personal associates There
Is certain regret in the article. With
out these gay young people says Miss
Maxwell, the new Kings court is
going to be a far duller place.
COSMOPOLITAN'S other story Of
Edward is by I. A. r. Wylia 1t
lmaglnes King who has abdicated
returning to his native land on coro-
nation day dressed in disguise. He
Wanders about among the crowds and
thinks his thoughts. According to
the story, they are pretty orthodox
thoughts. One cannot but wonder
how long 1t will be before "the greatest
news story since the CrucifXion" Is
shifted to the inside pages.
WHEN the last issue of Globe was
reviewed in these columns the
reviewer found it necessary to be harsh
over piece by Ezra Pound, as irri-
tating poSeur and as bad a prose
writer as has ever been, although
sometimes he has done a good verse.
(The rest of Globe was pretty good
Now comes new issue, and Pound
is still writing in It, and truth compels
one to remark that his piece is about
as sensible a thing as one has read
IN long time. But then, it happens
to be in agreement with one of the
reviewers pet hates; he is writing
about newspaper men who write books
about being newspaper men. and in the
course of these works go off the deep
end interpreting everything. He does
not like them either
Running through the count (see
back book pages of The Starr. he ticks
off Negley Farson, George Slocombe.
Webb Miller, Vincent Sheean, John
Whitaker, George Seldes and John
Gunther-among others. 1T struck
me as odd" he remarks, that all
the authors are reyerting to Jour-
nalism, while all the newspaper men
are writing books" And further.
90 Newspaper men have no busi-
ness to be Red or White, to express
opinions on whether it is better to
have a Jewish prime minister or an
antl-Semitic dictator, on whether the
fate of democracy is somehow in
volved in the Spanish fighting, on
whether Russia is in the advance
guard Of civilization, on whether faS-
cism is the latest sort of devil without
which men don't seem able to live, on
whether better O" brighter atrocities
are committed in the name of liberty
or in the name of order, and all the
rest Of the tripe that is nowadays put
forward in the place of the old-fash-
ioned, straightforward reporting OF
good, downright, concrete facts re-
corded, without any particular slant
or propagandit purpose But, hs
says, nobody was convinced when he,
explained all this, for he explained 1t
to a group Of these same journalists
turned author.
If there is anything written these
days that does not have some kind Of
particular slant or propagandist pur-
pose" 1t is precious rare. 1t even
gets into fiction only last week there
was a novel-a novel, if you please
devoted to selling the cooperative idea
to the public via love affair. This
tendency makes criticism very trying
Job. 1t makes a critic a crusader, too
against propaganda. And that is as
dire as any other kind Of crusa6ing, os
course 1t seems a kind of universal
sickness, every one determined to
infect every one else with an idea. Oh,
for a good antiseptic-or, for really
good idea