Evening star., 1937-04-24
ideas ON DOMINANT WOMEN
Magazine Writer Contributes Sensible Comments on This Present
Subject of Debate-Story of Kiping's Anger-Agan
the Share Cropper's Plight.

instance while the old, old woman Of
the tribe was telling her fortune the
young, young children were taking
her rear tire quietly of its rack.
But then all Of us do not have Just
the same experiences.
Anyway Mr.. Bercovici tells in this
Harper's story how he went to the
land in trailer and travelled 10000,
miles, keeping his family Of four and
the trailer, too, on less than 81 a day.
This story, like the Folding Bedouins"
book, marks new mark in trailer
literature. 1t Is the first account of
the new mode Of travel to be written
by writer who also is what is known
as man Of letters.
Well, some way or other, Mr. Ber-
covici, man Of letters or not, does not
seem to be quite as much at home
among the truck drivers, hitch mixers,
tourist campers and other quaint folk
figures Of the American highways (or
folkWays?) as he is with his native
Rumanians and their colorful cZardas.
Not quite He tells us how he listened
to three chauf1eurs talking in gaso-
line station lunch room outside Rich
mond, and was impressed with the
rich, American quality of their talk.
That is grand, of course. What if
they had talked Senegambian?
Mark Twain" he says, land Rabe-
lais and Homer and all the fraternity
OF robust tellers Of stories would have
given their right ears for the privilege
Of hearing them with their left"
Not a bit Of it, Mr.. Bercovici. AS
an American, the reviewer declines
to speak for Rabelais or Homer, but
Mark Twain would have been right
in there with the boys, going them one
better. If you can forget, sometimes,
that you are a man of letters, it
doesn't hurt your style particle.
Anyway, it never hurt Marks.
Mr.. Bercovici is writing in INSTALL
ments, and this is only the first. Per-
haps in the second he will run into
some gypsies, and then we will see
what happens to his rear tire.
DAVID L. COIN, Mississippian,
wrote last year an intelligent and
sympathetic book on the Negroes of
the Delta country, people whom he
has known most of his life. He called
1t God Shakes Creation" which, he
said, was a phrase he picked up from
a Negro preacher who was diScoursing
on the providence Of God in ordain-
ing the seasons. 1t was q mighty
speech and its climax was when the
minister came to the waking time Of
the year. Then he said, In the
Spring, God shakes creation"
In the May Atlantic Monthly Mr..
Cohn writes again Of the Delta peo-
pie, dealing particularly with the
share croppers, Of whose problems so
much has been heard lately. Mr..
Cohn, from the vantage point OF long
acquaintance with these people, con-
siders the New Deal proclamation
that something must be done for them.
He then sums up:
Share cropping has continued for
70 years because no one has found
better system to take its place. No
sudden change could safely take place
within a capitalist democracy. Pro-
viding land ownership for millions OF
landless and unp-epared people Is a
vast and enormously complex prob
lem
ut must be remembered that the
Negro was ruthlessly delivered in
1852 into a freedom for which he was
not prepared. And once the Gov
ernment had achieved the ideal of his
freedom he was abandoned and for
gotten. 1t must also be remembered
that the growth Of large plantations
and farm tenancy is not an isolated
phenomenon. In industry the con-
troll Of the instruments Of production
and Of distribution has tended ever
since the close Of the Civil War to be
concentrated in fewer and fewer
hands
1T will not be enough for the Cow
ernment to buy land for them Cthe
share croppers) and regard the prob
lem as solved. Not only must they
have land, but they must have un-
remitting supervision for many years
. They must, in short, be recast
and re-created. That is a problem
for the years"
He does not say so. but 1t would
sound also like an addition to the
alphabet of bureaus. That would
seem to be what happens to most Of
these problems in practical applica-
ton
The article is excellently impartial.
1t sounds like sense and not senti-
mentality.