Evening star., 1947-11-02
POSTSCRIPT TO YESTERDAY
FBy Lloyd Morris. fRandon,
House; So
Reviewed by
MARY McGRORY.

AS the social historian OF the
last half-century, it is Lloyd Nor
ris' melancholy duty to report the
|infiltration of disenchantment. That
his chart of the change in the
moral weather Of America from fair
to overcast is neither dreary nor
pessimistic is due in equal measure
to his sparkling prose and his
heartening conclusion that the very
mood of doubt which has enveloped
the people Is challenge for the
future.
During the years between 1896
and ~1946, Mr.. Morris believes,
Americans began to wonder what
the profit system really prof
tied man. They worshiped
Mammon, idolized the millionaire
and yet in the midst Of material
plenty found themselves spiritually
bankrupt. Recurring reminders OF
the alliance between big business
and boss politics, which underscored
the disparity between democratic
ideals and democratic practices, led
them to ask If the Government
was not indeed of and for the
privileged few. 1t was, in short, an
era of disillusionment in the ac-
cepted order of things. Even the
wonderland America had become
in those years "a paradise for
women restive, forsaking
their corporate cultural quest for
the crusade of social justice.
Glowing Portraits.
Mr.. Morris sets the stage for the
entrance of scepticism in his divert
ing chapters on the sumptuous,
leisurely, stultifying social life OF
the turn of the century, document
ing with delicate malice the inter-
minable dinners and rococo balls,
where, as Henry James glumly
noted, the chasm between the sexes
was so wide. He creates a series
of glowing portraits Of women, PAM
pered as they had never been in
the history of the world, who ex-
pressed the increasing ferment.
Jane Adams, "the maiden aunt OF
the Nation; 1sadora Duncan, apos-
tie of freedom and puritan at
heart; Mother Jones, the indomi-
table old lady labor leader.
With quiet irony, he points out
the passion for personal power and
efficiency OF organization, which
animated both the tycoon Of in
dustry and the gangster; the loath-
ing Of dullness which made Mrs.
Stuyvesant Fish and Texas Guinan
sisters under the skin. But these
pictures and others, equally witty
and incisive of the lords Of the
press, the cult leaders, the muck
rakers and others who reflected
their age are by no means Mr..
Morris most ambitious. He goes on
to evaluate the writer's and drama
fists In q profound series OF essays
which treat their work as social
criticism. His presentation of Eu-
gene O'Neill, who diagnosed the
sickness Of the age" as the dis
orientation of the individual de-
prived OF God, is especially fine,
matched in depth and perception
only by his remarkable rendering
In a section devoted to "the feast
Of reason and the flow Of soul'
of the philosophers Of the Adamses,
the Jameses, Holmes, Brandeis and
Veblen. who watched sadly their
countrymen's progress toward big
ger nd-betterism.
In a sequel to the present vol
ume, Mr.. Morris proposes to dis
cuss the external aspects Of life
in the same period. Here he is
concerned only with the mind and
heart Of America, the variations in
its intellectual and spiritual climate.
Hitherto known chiefly for his
bellies lettres - his biography OF
Hawthorne and his mellow memoir,
Threshold in the Sun"-Mr. Nor
ris proves himself here a bril-
liant critic Of life itself. A sea-
son that has had more than its
share Of backward glances has
brought none more judicious or ur-
bane than Postscript to Yester-
day"