Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-03-12

This frankly malicious volume, for
the most part, consists of sketches
of wartime Washington personages.
1t more or less does for the political
big-wigs what volume called Let
En- Eat Caviar" once did for the
social. The author is alleged to be
a prominent Washington broad
caster who apparently does not
want to die young or, anyway, lose
his job. Hence his namelessness.
Some of its sketches are no more
than paragraph in length. Some
run to a chapter. For nine pages,
the anonymous Man takes Vice
President Wallace to pieces and
rolls the fragments through the
dust. For eight more, he anatom-
ICES Harry Hopkins as a pinchbeck
Col House. Consistently, he re-
fers to a well-known political set
up as "the New Voodoodeal." Sec
rotary of the Treasury Morgenthau
he writes off as "just junior" There
is no direct portrayal of President
Roosevelt in the volume, but one
finds him characterized by such
phrases as "the author of the four
freedoms, who will run in 1914 IL
his cigarettes hold out" and the
Chief" who has to have his
homage" every day. AS for Mrs.
Roosevelt. it is limited that the de-
parture of the Hopkins family from
the White House had something to
do with her dislike of the de luxe
roomers' poodles.
But the work is not all sharp
shooting. The anonymous Man has
good words for Secretary Hull-very
good words, in fact-and for Secre-
tary Stimson. He pokes good-na-
tured fun at Secretary Knox, but
comedies he has done remark
ably we'll" Also, he thinks well
of Messrs. Knudsen, Stettinius,
Crowley and Douglas, all of whom,
he opines, have been scurvily used
by the prima donna antics of the
President. He is moderately nice
about Representative Glare Luce.
And he thinks Jesse Jones deserves
a lot.
There are chapters on the Su-
preme Court, the Office of War
Information and the Pentagon
Building, and there are the usual
funny stories about cockeyed pro-
cedures in priorities and supplies.
1t is all bright and to the point.
The reviewer may be revealing her
misanthropic side, but she admits
that, even allowing for the malice,
she finds more realism in such a
work than in dozen molly given
over to proclaiming a brave new
world to be had via more politics
and higher taxes.
Strange Fruit
By Lillian Smith. (Reynal G.
Hitchcock
While this novel of race conflict
in the South in many ways con-
forms to the prevailing pattern of
such fiction. it is essentially a much
more serious piece of work than the
usual trade piece on the subject. It
goes beyond the injustices which
are surface manifestations of pro-
found old social malaise and strives
to present the whole trouble, from
root to top. And it is satisfied with
doing that-it offers no solutions. It
seems to say, indeed, that there is
no solution, So in it's, purpose it
must rank as wise and earnest
book. Its technique, on the other
hand, is very much that of the, trade
article. 'd-~'.'
The scene is small Georgia city
IN the 1905. A well-educated Negro
girl has become the mistress Of a
white boy for whom she has cher
ished a lifelong hero worship. In
spite of her college training her life
is on the common level of her peo-
pie in the South-she works as a
nursemaid in a white home. Her
lover, weakling, yielding to family
pressure to reform" casts her off
in an insulting manner. Her brother,
also we'll educated, avenges the in
suit with fatal shot, then fees
while an innocent Negro is slain
by the white mob with the local rich
man risking his life in a single
handed attempt at rescue.
The plot has probably been used
couple of dozen times. But Lillian
Smith, in using it, has brought in
many subtle factors. She dwells, for
instance, on the genuine puzzle
ment of the enlightened white people
as to what they can do to attain
decent race relations, and she shows
the attitude of the enlightened
Negroes to be composed not just OF
resentment, but of resentment tenn
pered by equal puzzlement. 1t is, to
her mind, obviously not the free
choice of the living generations of
either race to do better or to make
changes, for both lie pinned down
under the weight of the past,
whether they want it or not. She
shows her whites and her Negroes
alike living in an atmosphere of
despair, for neither knows what
move to make to break the stran-
Cling bond of tradition. 1t is one of
the most thoughtful books which
the reviewer has read on the race