The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1938-07-22
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON

BY LEMOEL r. FANlON
NEW YORK-Several years be-
~ fore Roman ROLAND finished
"Jean Christophe," Leo Tolstoi
called him the warden of the con-
science of Europe.
holland In his quarter
Comes Home century exile in
tn Die Switzerland, he
has m n d
"above the battle" warning of war,
decrying hatred, pleading for peace
,and understanding. His has been a
voice crying in the wilderness. His
exile ended, he returns to France,
san old man, broken and despair
ing" as the news dispatches report.
The world seems to have little heed
ed his imprisoned appeals. He
wants to die in Clancy, the viii
lage where he was born.
The greatest novel Of CEN
fury, possibly of many CEN
turtles, "Jean Christophe" has
been called by great critics
and multitudes Of lesser lights.
1t was published in 1913. This
writer has found few young per-
sons, even those majoring in
literature, who have read it.
He has found others who have new
er heard of Roman ROLAND, the
Nobel peace prize winner exiled
from his country, while Carl Won
Ossietsky, German Nobel peace
prize winner, was impoverished,
Jailed and harried to his death in
the same "years between. There
is in this age swift obsolescence in
the spiritual heritage as well as in
machines.
But another, even greater teach
er, looking sadly down on the multi
tude from hill in
Teachings Jerusalem, was
Will Be also unheeded:
Remembered ''How often would
have gathered
thy children together, even as hen
gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and We would not!" But
neither He nor His teaching was al
together forgotten. There will also
be those who will remember Ro-
main ROLAND.
When he was exiled from
France, vast sums of money
were offered him if he would go
to America, to write and lecture:
Publicity, or any form of self-ex-
ploitation, is to him profoundly
distasteful. He withdrew to a Sc
cluded villa near Zurich, Switz-
erland.
There is one definite attitude in
all these postwar writings. He had
no faith in "move-
He knelU ments." in "idolo-
Righteous gies," right or left.
Can Be Cruel He repulsed Henri
Barbusse, his
clarte group and the various united
fronts" as he did the emissaries of
bloody reaction from the right. He
knew that the righteous can be as
cruel as the wicked, once they find
reliance on force.
Like the great German Fitch
tie, whom he esteemed, he be-
ieved only in the elmer Light
never in organization or force.
But he was not a political ag-
nostic." He fought, and suf-
fered, to arouse the world con-
science, as the dying Tolstoi
had enj0ined him.
He is a tall, spare, pallid old man,
with thinning hair and sad, deep
set eyes as he returns to France at
the age of seventy-two. Educated
in music, at the Ecole Normale, he
became a devotee of Wagner,
whose genius inspirited his life
then of Tolstoi and Shakespeare. He
has written many times in the last
few years that he sees little hope
that the world will escape last
devastating war.
TT WAS reported that Sir John
u Reith, director general of the
British Broadcasting corporation,
was badly licked in that interna-
-. tional Ar b &c
Str John grooming contest
Beaten in while back. Virtu-
Radio DueI ally all observers
gave the decision
to Italy. If so, it probably was the
only time he ever lost contest.
The tall, bald, grim Scotsman
is upped to the job Of running
the Imperial Always, as civil
6 arm of rearmament, with a
s;xaahIa hika in salary II is