Evening star., 1946-03-10

IlSlOIy HluSU De taken as meanl
own actions. Mr.. White was an extr
relation to the world about him. C
story of his times. You could, ind
call it THE Times and Life of Wi
precedence because that is what w
The book is, in its bulk and body
which MIR. White spent his more t
Whites determined effort to find tn,
issues through which he lived and tt
He had curious place in Amer
his youth on and yet he never held
a country newspaper to serve him,
consulted respectfully by the great
beloved American species, a Persol
manufacture is an established ind,
heroineS and their number has mul
Mr.. Whites time. He bounced int
the Matter With Kansas" editorial
because the Republican party made
political capital of the piece, but.
since he refused political career,
he could have bounced back into
obScurity if he had not the genuine
quality.
A Member of The Ruling Class"
He makes it plain in his book
that he realized that he did have it,
and that, though untutored by pub
lie relations counsel, he played the
changes. He dramatized his braSh-
ness and Midwesternness-a least in
his youth he did. He is apologetic
about it. The world knows how he
changed from a young reactionaryI
to a middle-aged liberal, but no
hostile commentator has been more
severe on his early bigotry than he
is himself. He was young small
town Snob, he says, and it did not
occur to him to doubt that the uni
verse had been arranged expressly
so that he might enjoy the salts
faction of being a member of "the
ruling class"
His story is indeed a rarely perfect
example of American progress. I
suppose every reviewer will say that,
but there is nothing more pertinent
to say. He began with success wor
ship. From his father he inherited
allegiance to the Democratic party,
but he abandoned that because, he
admits, success in Kansas lay with
the Republicans. He had the typical
urge of his time, too, to be his own
boss" So he gave up promising
career as a reporter to become an
owner. He had something like de-
teStation for the beings who were
not members of "the ruling class.
AS far as was possible, he says, he
did not admit that such beings ex-
listed. Except for literature, he had
no awareness Of the arts and in lit
erature he bowed down to James
Whitcomb Riley. He revelled in the
pleasures of the village ariStocrat-I
wearing loud clothes, serenading the
eligible girls, doing the expected
thing, being, as he says, a local
Ward McAllister. He was the COM
plete American provincial.
He Went With the Current.
And by the time he was so, he was
a cosmopolitan in attitude, an inter
nationalist and liberal in politics |
and man of broad learning. Amer
ica itself has come the identical road.
But, in tracing this progress in
his book, he is, as I said, the ex-
and rather disappointingly
so. He writes what he did a great |
deal more than he writes what he
thought. The reader, therefore,
must grope for his motivation. He
says himself that he went with the
current. Describing his turn to lib
eralism under Theodore Roosevelt, |
he observes, "1f I was a young |
cocksure reactionary in the '90s, it !
was because my kind and class were
that, and I fear sadly that I must |
confess that unconsciously I took
the protective intellectual, political
and social color of my time in the
first decade" Beyond this, he says
only that he had love of justice
and a sympathy with the under
dog" when he finally realized that
there were underdogs about in hu-
man form.
Writing what he did rather than
what he thought, and being con-
stantly concerned with politics, he
has made his book largely a history
of political issues, local and national
The reader, trying to get behind this
factual matter, comes to the conclu-
sion that his swing to idealism prob
ably derived not from innate love of
betterment here below, but because,
he had succeeded. He
had satisfied his first instinct for
success. Before he was 3d. Mark
Hanna had called him his spiritual
son." What more could a reaction
ary young editor seek? The new
worlds to conquer lay in the oppo-
site direction.
The reader also will conclude
from Mr.. Whites own report of
himself that not principles so much
as men swayed him. He worshiped
Theodore Roosevelt and, though he
describes inconsistencies and self
ishness in his hero, he does not
directly criticize him. He writes of
the Bull Moose Convention of 1912,
indeed, as the high spot in his
spiritual life. His allegiance to
Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, |
was on the basis of principle alone
He did not like Mr.. Wilson per-
sonally. Consequently his account
of his espousal of the Wilson plat
forms is unhappy, almost comically
so. 1t is significant, of course, that |
both of these leaders caught him in
when the emotions and
need of fulfllment are strongest. |
Moreover, Wilson failed. White, |
even in his idealism, adored success.
His Own Truth.
1t was an old man, however, who
wrote the autobiography and,
though the old man declined to be
personally analytical he wrote with
some detachment. He obviously had
come to doubt a mans capacity for
being truthful with himself. And,
as always, seeking new worlds to
conquer, he determined to write his
own truth, whether or no. So, after
a long report of his life as non
Office holding political worker, he
admits that politics is not the rem
edy for human wrongs That uoi+c