Evening star., 1938-05-08

of the book, is done with the insight
of the man who never so far browns
in love that he cannot analyze every
gesture of the object of his affections
And these passages are the most en-
crossing in the book.
Never is CoStals free of the fear
that he may become entangled in an
affair that will result in ties and re-
sponsibilities. Quite properly he fears
this. For Costals. who cannot bear
that a woman should share with him
the qualification of having a child
any further than the necessity of CIV
ing him birth. is no man to cope with
anything so mature-V. K C.
THE MEN I KILLED. BY Brig. Gen.
Frank Percy Crozler. Garden City:
Doubleday Doran.
THIS is strange, hysterical book
by British officer who plainly
has decided against the famous re-
ticence of his class. The general OBJ
viously feels that war is a bad idea,
and is determined to do his bit to
show it up. But his feelings are
good deal stronger than his literary
skill. One gathers that he is a man
of deeds rather than of words. His
book is disconnected, repetitious and
somewhat windy.
1t purports to be an account of
what the general himself has seen in
various wars, and, with horror. he
VI tN =, fhot
soldiers kill. Somehow it seems only
now to have occurred to him. Soldiers
kill he writes at any rate with great
emotion. and they not only xiii the
enemy. but one another, too: for he
says, it is the duty of officers to kill
their own men if it is necessary to do
so to check cowardly retreat, This
most painful duty the general has per-
formed himself. He has seen still
other officers perform it. And he has
had men shot by order of courts
martial And now he tells about it, in
bitterness so great that it swamps his
narrative.
The book is queer document. AS
an attack upon war it is almost in
a class by itself. 1t has nothing in
common with the rationalizing litera-
ture of the pacifsts. 1t is soldiers
word for the matter But-hoW in
effective! 1t is too bad that COM
mittee of peace workers did not get
the script for rewriting One feels
that, properly handled it might have
made a real argument.
TOM WATSON: AGRAR1AN REBEL.
BY c. Vann Woodward. New York:
The Macmillan Co.
TOM WATSON of Georgia was
either a savior or a demagogue.
He was a political boss, yet he was a
crusader. He was on every side Of
every important political question for
| 40 years He was raised to high office
himself and the candidates who won
his support coasted easily into office
or he was hooted down and shamed
| unmercifully But he always came
back, and he died in the United States
Senate.
Tom Watson thus was complete
paradox. The son of slave-owning,
if not wealthy. Georgia family, he had
more than the usual amount OF edu-
cation for the time. He became a
lawyer. which meant that he went
into politics. Georgia was ruled by
old-line Democrats who were busy
enticing industry to the State. Busi-
ness ruled Tom Watson appeared as
a fiery young advocate of farmers
rights. He began campaign Of har-
assment.
The rural section where he lived
sent him to Congress in 1890. He
bolted the Democratic party and be-
came Populist. He was brave,
honest, intelligent" warrior for the
most progressive legislation. He fought
for rural free delivery. control of the
employment of strikebreakers Gov
ernment ownership of railroads, a
decent chance for the Southern Negro,
popular election of Senators.
Such liberal ideas and his party
| irregularity cost Watson his seat in
the House and he returned to Georgia.
He became an author and pamphle-
teer; and this was the beginning of
his downfall. He edited magazine
| and a newspaper and filled both with
his special brand of vituperation and
vilification. He was happily entangled
in State politics. Personalities began
to overshadow principles. He made
Governor because he wanted to un-
make one he had made two years
earlier-and all usually for some
trivial personal reason. He was back
in the Democratic party and he was
rich man. The poor, downtrodden
farmers whose cause he had first
espoused believed he was still their
champion. although he had long since
deserted their cause and had became
q picayunish, intolerant old man.
He lived under the shadow of self
imagined Menaces. He turned vio-
lently anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish;
he defended lynching; he wanted to
disfranchise the Negro officially in the
States constitution.
He stayed on in Georgia keeping
his followers happily supplied with
pap for their prejudices and occa-
sionally running for the presidency
on the Populist platform and dis
pensing his political favors as he saw
fit. This biography covers all these
phases Of Watsons life, but it is much
more than a mere account of q politi-
clan who bent with every wind. 1t is
the story of the tragedy of a section
and a social order WatSon'S early
idealism could not prosper in the
barren Georgia of the post-Civil War
era. He was nodded by the hatreds
of farmers for industrialists, of poor
whites for Negroes. He intensified
these class and racial feelings, but