Evening star., 1940-08-18
The Bridge

oy EfuCoL EOOtCs 'CW VI ~
Macmillan.
The veteran novelist has here
contributed his autobiography TO
the stream Of autobiographies which
is pouring of the presses today. II
Is a typical document. Mr.. Poole
belonged to the prewar liberal group
associated with undertaking and so
cial reform. He accepted the views
of this group, as he tells here, on
practically every point OF his pro-
gram, and the result of his accept
ance today is a tale according to
well-defined pattern. For others OF
his period have written their life
histories before him. and reader
who has gone through half dozen
such volumes easily comes to recog-
nize the stamp.
Indeed, 1t is only in the circum-
stances of birth and youthful en-
vironment, and sometimes in auc-
torial reactions to the present po-
ntical scene, that these memoirs Of
the prewar liberals differ to any ex-
tent which can be called noticeable.
In Mr.. Pooles case, this early his
tory takes us first to a well-to-do
home in an exclusive Chicago resi-
Dental section, and then to Prince
ton University. We have, conse-
quently, some opening pictures OF
life in q conservative bourgeois
family in the late Victorian period,
and these are bright and colorful.
After leaving college, however, the
author went to the University Set
tlement in Greenwich Village to see
how the other half lived. And from
that time on, he was a confirmed
follower of causes.
He wrote against Slum conditions
and labor's wrongs. He made trip
to Russia after the 1905 uprising
and there found fine and noble
peasantry suffering appalling wrongs
from an unrelievedly wicked land
owning caste. He saw, apparently
without moat or beam. that the
world was clear black and white,
good and bad, exploiter and exploit
ed. He burned for the cause OF the
humble everywhere. There is, in
his expressions of pity for the un-
derdog, that sort of luxuriousness
OF emotion which one often finds in
the person who, himself free and
privileged, takes up as profession
the championing of the oppressed
and underprivileged. He deals
much in exclamations. His capac-
ity for being shocked at injustice
was. apparently, indefinitely elastic.
Following this young exuberance,
Mr.. Poole wrote some highly profit
able novels and plays, using to a
considerable extent the ideas which
he had acquired in his reform days.
Then came the World War, and he
wrote of wartime Germany for the
Saturday Evening Post. And then
came the Russian revolution, and
trip to that country, with conse-
quent disillusion. Then followed
more novels and the building of
charming homes for his family from
which to write further on the theme
Of social injustice and inequality.
The photographs of the homes, in
cidentally, are included in the pres
ent work.
Mr.. Pools ends his narrative by
recording his fear that President
Roosevelt is tending toward dicta-
torship. He assures us, however,
that such dictatorship as has already
been introduced in our country is
mild compared to that employed in
Europe. He Travelled abroad during
the '20s and saw conditions himself
On the whole, the work is little
more than the life of a successful
man of letters. In spite of its con-
slant harping on the theme of social
justice, it is trite and shallow in its
treatment of the problems arising
from that theme. NC. r.