davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1947-11-09

problems OF Sefs '""is'
Representative ordeal Of run
ming for reelection every other
year, answering stack OF mail
each day and trying to decide how
to vote on the major issues con-
fronting the country.
Second, it reviews most of the
important legislative battles of the
past decade.
The chapters dealing with the
daily routine of being member OF
Congress are the more interesting
and readable. When he takes up the
specific principles and bills that
occupied the attention of Congress
while he was a member. the pace OF
the book is slowed down by the
necessary detail required to explain
each issue.
These chapters, however, possess
a saving grace-frankness Since
the book is essentially an auto
biography, Mr.. Voorhis presents
each issue from his viewpoint. But
Mr.. Voorhis was a conscientious
legislator, and is refreshingly out
spoken in passing judgment or
his own decisions. A progressive
Democrat, he came into Office on
the high tide of the Roosevelt era
in 1886. Yet, he does not hesitate
to say wherein he thinks the New
Deal fell short of the goals it was
aiming for.
Mr.. Voorhis was only one of 6
number of Western progressives de-
feated last year in the upsurge ol
Republican strength.
Evening star., 1947-11-09

other quackS, In the necClc BOnLllS
and Tammen newspaper days in
Denver he followed the same course.
But, perhaps, his most fascinating
chapters have to do with his service
as chairman Of the Committee on
Public Information during the First
World War.
After long and close acquaintance,
he is able to place Woodrow Wilson
on a high pedestal, although he
accords Col House little comfort.
With something less than gentle
hand, he brushes much Of the luster
from Franklin D. Roosevelt. He
finds that Harry Truman was a
farm boy who fell among thieves
and apparently learned to accept it.
The book Is filled with SO many
hundreds of famous names and SO
many scores of historic episodes that
a tremendous canvas is filled.
The volume ends with probably
as fine an essay on the American
way of life and as bitter a denuncia-
ton of communism and fellow trav-
elers masquerading under the name
Of liberals as has appeared in some
time.
The book is Of large importance
as an intimate history of great
epochs and is written with the
clarity, incisiveness and distinction
Of Lord Macaulay.
Evening star., 1947-11-09

was, in short, an artist without sub
ject who was high -pressured by con-
tracts and syndicates into sharing
his misgivings with the public. In
Back Home" which is candid, di-
rect and sensible, he sets down his
early peacetime ineptitudes as a
cartoonist and political thinker. It's
a pertinent and disarming record of
one war-made celebrity's honest
attempt to get hs bearings.
Mauldin's prose which has the
clean bite of his drawings. is rela-
lively unillustrated here (at least in
comparison with up Front where
text was secondary because, he
says frankly, he didn't like his out
put at the time when he was wres-
Evening star., 1947-11-09

ting with personal problems and
"the STRINGS of a social conscience, y
any better than the newspaper edi-
tors, who at the rate of one day
dropped his cartoons, feeling robbed
because they had bought the kids
stuff for entertainment"
Instinctively If not Intellectually a
partisan of the "have-nots," Mauldin
found that bigoted Congressman,
red-baiters, "champagne-b bucket" lib
erals and bleeding heart landlords
riled him as much as the high-brass
he had so busily baited at the front.
But he admits that he forgot that
the cartoonist should use the needle
rather than the broadax. He's very
light on his feet. however, as he gives
the American Legion good going
over, calling it "a political machine
in the hands of comparatively few"
and waltzes around the "ersatz
democracy" of the OAR. He de-
describes ruefully his dalliance with
some extreme left-wing organiza-
tions whose letterheads f1eetingly
carried his name.
But for all his intense and sin
cere," if not weighty. convictions
about grand-scale idiocy in national
and international politics, Mauldin
insists that this is his swan song of
radicalism, that his tolerance grows
with his bank account, that little
kids are claiming more of his artis-
tic attention than big shots This,
if true. is much to be regretted. Mr..
Mauldin's great talent for debating
the windbag, the stuf1y and the
phony may set him apart from other
veterans but makes him all the more
powerful champion.
The Un-American Activities Com
mittee, for instance, has been ex-
tensively commented on, but who
among the scores of hostile wit
nesses, articulate men all. put it
more neatly than Mauldin, who
observed the preliminary hearings
in Hollywood with lip curled tight
There is something wonderful about
a chrome -fixtured swimming pool
with a copy of Marks 'Das Kapital'
lying on the tiled edge, being splat-
tered occasionally by drop of
scented water?"
Surely there must be more where
that came from,
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Austere, Demanding
Portrayal of Evil
By Great Novelist
THERESE

THERESE
BY Francois Mauriac. Henry
Holt; $3.)
Francois Mauriac, the greatest of
living French novelists, was intro
duced to the American public last
year through Woman of the
Pharisees," a story of good
woman who virtuously ruined other
lives. In "Therese," the second of
his novels to be published in English,
he has attempted the more difficult
portrayal of an "evil" woman, who
in terror and loneliness attempts to
cure her diseased soul.
The novel is divided into four
parts, separated by comments from
M. Mauriac, whose lofty conception
of literary work is that 'it should
mark a step forward in a spiritual
pilgrimage" The progress of T'herese
from submission to rebellion against
her own malevolence may parallel
spiritual crises in Mauriac's life. At
the most hopeless moment of Their
ese's struggle, it is given her to rec
ognize her baneful power and to re-
alize that what she has called a
search for love has been in reality
succession of attempts to assuage
demon" within herself.
Therese first appears as a young
wife acquitted of charge of at
tempting to poison her husband
Journeying back home she recalls
herself as a spirited, intelligent girl
whose marriage with a loutish pro-
vincial had brought her to narrow,
sitting family life which became
intolerable to her Freed by him.
she goes to Paris. There she turns
from lover who seeks to use her
destructive mania for murder he
cannot commit himself to q psychi-
artist who cynically sets her mind
right but cannot treat her soul
sickness.
! She is indeed a fatal woman in
the fullest sense of the term, cor
rupting the lives Of those around
her. Her chance at redemption
comes when she renounces the love
of her daughters suitor, who like
the other young men before him
has yielded to her malignant charm
With a single gesture, she exerts
her will against her hostile fate.
| Obviously this is austere and de.
manding fare. M. Mauriac's pene.
tration and subtlety make Therese
pitiful as well as tragic figure
in a great drama of the soul
Therese has committed many sins
Mauriac affirms, but resignation tt
evil cannot be charged against her
She becomes a symbol if not Of
regeneration at least of resistance.
M. MEG.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Teaching School
In New York
AND THOU SHALT

AND IHOU SHALL
TEACH THEM
BY Paul Eldridge. (Sheriddn
House; S2.75.)
Mr.. Eldridge, who is widely known
as an author of novels and short
stories and wrote In collaboration,
MY First Two Thousand Years"
gives here his impressions of many
years as a high school teacher in
New York.
Although this book is described as
a novel, it really is collection of
episodes about students and teach
ers, with occasional reflective para
graphs between incidents.
The author assures us that the
anecdotes are not fictitious, though
the characters are. Many of the
little happenings, indeed, seem just
the sort of things that happen con-
stantly in a big city high school.
Others are less plausible, and appear
dragged in to prove point, though
no doubt they occurred in one form
or another. Altogether, they give
an illuminating picture of the peda-
gogical, racial, ethical, sexual and
vocational problems that confront
teachers and pupils alike. The
narrator, a dean of boys, always is
tolerant and understanding.
&C. B. j,
Evening star., 1947-11-09
THE SUNDAY STAR, Washington, D. c.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER g. le1.
Elizabeth Taylor Writes Of Vague Folk
With q Kind of Dewy Precision
A VIEW OF THE HARBOR

y,
Elizabeth mildly daft presumably their
budding eccenc will after under
with
writes these
with kind stock In trade
She prefers crmbng Yet
lively is her wit touch that it only when have
from that realize that what
she is writing about futihty
freshness insight which made AT Mrs
Lppincos reading pleasure
longest ambitious
which
ment of people small English seaside town The
Intellectual
oddly disturbing children and olsters They track through each
others personalities
central figure
dente artist dsbbes disastrousy
and being exploited Foye spoiled
Edwadan relic would charming
Beth Cazabon able
that Tory hsr friend having affair with her husband
OF small Incidents Mrs Taylor absorbing
The chickering's OF
with
of
interrupted an out
adolescent
"A View of the Habor muted little uncanny
all its
Elizabeth Taylor
original and engaging noVelsts writing today M.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
FnreHs World
Is Still Crowded
With MoIcontents

THE LIFE ADVENTUROUS
BY James T. Farrell. Vanguard;
So
This new collection of Mr. Farrell's
short stories has a fairly wide range
of themes, though most of the char
acters have certain spiritual kin
ship: They are. alike, thwarted or
cropping or uncertain Of whether they
should be doing what they are doing.
Yet most of these people are IA
miliar; you've met them somewhere.
Perhaps Illustration and bewilder-
ment are more common attributes
than assurance and complacence.
Some of the stories are sketches
rather than narratives that move
and develop. Sometimes Mr.. Farrell
merely shows you the character-al-
ways quite clearly-and leaves him
to go his way, his doubts and re-
grets still gnawing at him. Others,
like the title story, THE Life Adven-
turous,' flow swiftly into dramatic
climax. THE Life Adventurous" tells
what happens to a youthful, cock
sure rebel against society, who has
turned crook rather than work, and
a disgraced college professor who,
dazed by his troubles, becomes an
accomplice in crime.
Hell-Raising Youth.
Saturday Night" one Of the
longer stories, is one of the most ef-
fective. 1t describes the adventures
of a group of hell-raising youths who
set out one night in Chicago in big
car with plenty of liquor. The tragic
ending is not unexpected, even to the
boys who survive. These are the ir-
responsible post -adolescents Mr.
Farrell wrote of so perceptively in
the Studs Lonigan trilogy and else
where
The Dialectic" is satire on the
later years of two college radicals.
There are several stories about Will
lie Collins, chief dispatcher for a
truck delivery service-a fellow who
thinks in the platitudes OF his day
and looks down on more intelligent
men who happen to work under him.
Perhaps the best of the more static
stories is THE Philosopher" por-
trait of a university dean of philoso-
ply who, after 80 years on the cam
pus, has had to resign to retain his
integrity. He has been forced out,
he feels, by the interference of the
new boy wonder" president of the
university. The account of the old
professors last days on his beloved
campus is memorable. &C. B. j.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Our Wartime Secret
Mission to Nozis'
Atom Bomb Plant
BY Samuel A. Goudsmit. fSchu-
man., $500
Reviewed by
T. r. HENRY.

"Alsos" is the Greek word for
groves Maj. Gen. L. R. Groves
headed the Army's Manhattan Prof.
ect which developed the atomic
bomb. DR.. Goudsmit, of the faculty
of the University of Michigan, was
the technical head of an investigat-
ing team which went to Europe late
in the war to investigate what prog
ress the Germans were making In
the same direction. "Alsos" was
this missions S code name.
DR.. Goudsmit was a well-known
physicist, born and educated in Hol-
land, with wide acquaintance
among Central European scientists.
He never had been involved in
uranium researches and knew moth
ing of the progress the Manhattan
Project was making toward an
atomic explosive. This was one rea-
son, he believes, that he was chosen
to head the mission. He could not
reveal any secrets.
Stirring Human Document.
This book is the story OF his quest.
Altogether it is one of the most
interesting stories to come out of the
war. 1t is an amplification Of lee
lures which the author has been
giving before physical society meet
ings for the past year which have
rated high for pure entertainment
value. The book is better than the
lectures. 1t becomes a stirring hu-
man document of personal adven-
ture-such as the incident of his re-
turn to his boyhood home in The
Hague from which his aged parents
had been taken to their death in a
Nazi gas chamber.
AS now is well known, the mission
found essentially nothing. Ger
many had made no progress toward
an atomic bomb. They appear COM
pletely to have missed the potential
tiles of uranium as an explosive and
were conducting some nonbrllllant
experiments toward its utilization
for power. DR.. Goudsmit and his
colleagues were able to assure the
men working at Los Alamos that
they were not engaged in a dead
heat race with the enemy. In fact,
it now appears, the japanese were
considerably in advance of the Nazis
their scientists having created the
essential synthetic element neptu-
MUM as early as 1912.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Emotional Fiction
ELIZA

EL1LA
BY Patricia Campbell. (Superior
Publishing Co., 49,
In novel of Washington Terri
tory in the days of the Yellow Peril,
Patricia Campbell has her heroine
run a strictly fiction gamut of emo
tions. Eliza, a self-made young
spinster, sacrifices the comfort of
Philadelphia to proceed primly to
Puget Sound to marry a big lumber
jack with a red beard and purple
eyes.
BY alternating awfully romantic
love scenes with just plain scenes
between the lovers concerning the
rights of the Indians and Chinese,
Mrs. Campbell has stacked up, club
sandwich style, q book some people
might like to read on a very rainy
day. C. B.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Delightful Living
HowoHiion Village
IN A HAWAIIAN VALLEY
BY Kathleen Dickinson Mellen
Hastings House; $500
Reviewed bV
JANICE DOHERTY.

Here are the people of Hawaii you
probably didn't meet on your stay.
Life today in an almost unbeliev-
able village near Honolulu is anus
ingly described by Kathleen Dick
enson Mellen in series of character
sketches Of the real Polynesian Ha-
waiian and his delightful way of
living.
You'll enjoy the stories of their
gay local politics, the pidgin English
and the musical Hawaiian words,
bound attractively in an Island pat
tern. You probably have never met
people who looked like Madge Ten
nent's illustrations either, but in a
village like Malu-H -Honua there are
sure to be some.
Evening star., 1947-11-09

The title is
we'll chosen be-
c a use J erry
Voorhis con-
fesses his tribu-
lations and set
b a ks a ! on g
with his sue
cesses in push
ing economic re-
forms and other
legislation.
His book does
two things:
First, 1t gives
a detailed pic
ture of the daily
=,
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Reviewing he New Books
Early Chinese Liberal Provides Subject
For Brilliant Biography by Lin Yutonq
THE GAY GENIUS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
By Lin Yutang. John Day Co.; s375J
Reviewed by CARTER BROOKE JONES

THE GAY GENIUS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SU TUNGPO
BY Lin Yutang (John Day Co.. s375J
by CARTER BROOKE JONES.
philosopher books have found American
biography He has written the story OF
painter engineer
lived in the 18th century.
writing Tungpos life Yutang has recreated whole
Chinese history podigous research through the msts
author gathered the people lived
that what might have been
scholarly transmitted by Lin Yutangs
alchemy fascinating narrative.
Lin Yutang writes beautifully in English and has made
adaptation material spared the literal ansla-
tions quoted and records which would have given
confused probably picture the subject and his times
Development this might be called
biography though the Chinese atmosphere been lost IN
ing the story clearer to Occidental understanding.
socialisc police
Fascist Musson Hitler will find the chapter
Socialism instructive Tungpo
his brother arrived the Chinese capital in 1869 during the reign
Shenung the divine Emperor about start the OF his
Prime Minister Wang Anshih series OF governmental experiments
control OF that prices would not be
farmers allowed loans the security of their
paid in lieu compulsory military service
Lin Yutang observes Like all other coecvst systems Wang
people alone
them the had exactly what
did what they Like all other colectvc
this found impossible without
he
ands unemployment widespread and the jai full OF
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Reviewed by
ROBERT K. WALSH.

Reviewed by
ROBERT K. WALSH.
Vincent McHugh obviously drove
himself hard as writer to make
this story move leisurely. His first
person blurb for the dust cover
suggests that readers set gentle
pace to catch the feeling of time,
place and people. Not many are like
ly to go through the book at one
sitting but some may put 1t down
prematurely and permanently. They
may become bored too early by
trivia, annoyed by style manner
isns or affronted by adolescent
''frankness."
+ These flaws are doubly unfortu-
nate because they are unnecessary
and because they mar an otherwise
workmanlike mixture of fiction,
autobiography and symbolism cen
tering on the wartime merchant
marine.
Mr.. McHugh is no beginner as
an author. He has grown in crafts
manship with four previous novels
and book of verse. If he still lacks
full maturity in literary stature it is
because he has yet to go deeper than
surface sophistication and to break
such habits as straining for word
effects or pin-point realism at the
cost of clarity and top-standard
creative production.
First hand Experience.
THE Victory" is the account of a
Victory ship, the triumph of her Of
fcers and men and the success of
the narrators personal mission to
find man believed lost on Pacific
island that had been tortured but
never really conquered by the Japs.
Mr.. McHugh stayed well within the
field of first-hand experience, for in
1914 he journeyed to the Central Pa
cific as a correspondent for the War
Shipping Administration.
The lasting quality of "The Vic
tory" will depend on response to the
mood and meaning" rather than
the characters or action presented
by the author. A second reading
might bring out more but it's very
long voyage
Evening star., 1947-11-09

THE SHORT NOVELS OF Tolls
TOY, edited by Philip Rahv. (Dial)
Eight novels-Two Hussars, Family
Happiness, The Cossacks, Hardji
Murad, The Death of Ivan IIych,
The Devil, Master and Man and
Polikusha.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Pictures of Lee
Reflect Terrible
Strain of War
THE FACE OF ROBERT E. LEE
BY Roy Meredith. (Scribner's; IS.
Reviewed by
BOB PRICE.

BY Roy Meredith. (Scribner's; $5.J
Reviewed by
BOB PRICE.
It's difficult in these days to realize
that there was time when men
could attain greatness while people
who acclaimed them had no idea
what they looked like. Yet we do
not have to go very far into the
past to find that time.
Take Lee. The earliest authentic
portrayal Is portrait, painted when
he was 81. The Civil War was well
along before the South had any
more accurate perturbation of its
leader than copies of Mexican war
daguerreotypes. Thus it is remark
able that Meredith has compiled a
record as voluminous as this
Meredith has enhanced the pic
lures with commentary that
should attract students of photog-
raphy as we'll as admirers of Lee or
Civil War enthusiasts. The way he
traces the derivation of some of the
portrayals is particularly absorbing
Beyond this, the book is a fasci-
mating study of the changes wrought
in a man by the stress and strain of
war
Evening star., 1947-11-09

people who could not repay their
government loans. Su Tungpo, then
a minor official, saw the futility of
the experiments long before the
Emperor abandoned them. Years
later Su wrote, begging the return
Of confscated properties and add
ing: Since the establishment of the
trade bureaus and government
stores, all means of livelihood of the
people have been taken over by the
government"
But Su Tungpo was too outspoken
for his own welfare. Twice he was
tried and sent into exile, though
the scholars at court had hard
time making out case against him
by reading reasonable satire into
some of his poetry. He didn't much
care. He accepted office, but he
never craved it. He had a keen,
prankish humor He liked to sit
with scholars and sip wine. He liked
as well to wander among artisans,
peasants and beggars, listening to
their stories. He tried to help them;
he never hesitated to protest to the
Emperor against oppression and i'm
poverishment.
Lin Yutang calls Su "a poet,
painter and friend of the people, "
who felt strongly, thought clearly,
wrote beautifully and acted with
high courage, never swerved by his
own interests or the changing fash
ions of opinions" Even today, says
the author, the mention of Su Tung-
20 always elicits q warm, admiring
smile in China.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
APriestIy Exercise
j JENNI VILIlCIGO
BY J. B. Priestley. (Harper

JENNY VILLIERS
BY ]. B. Priestley. (Harper;'
$2.50.)
The heroine of this five-finger ex-
ercise of a novel is ectoplasmic, but
nonetheless persuasive when she
appears in vision to a tired play
wright in the green room of an old
provincial theater. The ghost Of
Jenny Villiers, 10Th century roper
tory player charms Martin Cheveril
into renewing his faith in the i'm
mortality of the theater. The
lighting effects in this little drama
of a middle-aged mans revitaliza-
ton are nicely done, but its theme
seems too slight and unreal to merit
even the lesser efforts of so solid
and prolific novelist as Mr.. Priest
ley. M. Meg.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Well, What IS Wrong With America?
REMEMBER TO REMEMBER


BY Henry Miller. (NeU Directions; s375J
Miller describes this volume of the previously published
Nightmare"
considerable reflections
and in elsewhere.
himself obscueyhe writes
what at
Evening star., 1947-11-09
Bill MouIdin Writes Prose Which Has
The Clean Bite of His DRAWINGS
BACK HOME
William Sloane Associates: $500
Reviewed by MARY McGRORY.

Cartoonst Bill Maud whose only rival spokesman for the l
himself end rch famous out OF
prize he
typical Veteran often unemployed and almost
23 rookie civilian having his
liking lot of what he He
Evening star., 1947-11-09
A Congressman
Looks at Life
On nCopitoI Hill
CONFESSIONS OF A
CONGRESSMAN
BY Jerry Voorhis. Doubleday &
Co
Reviewed by
j. A, OLEARY.

This is the story of a serious
minded, hardworking young liberal
who spent 10 eventful years in the
House, starting in 1887.
Evening star., 1947-11-09

Beginning with ancestral background and Missouri
childhood Mr. Cree has written OF the best IN
circumstance that he knew and addresses
that
the the Kanjammer Kids Foxy Grandpa and
finally the weekly Independent of Kansas
unmasking political and medical and
Evening star., 1947-11-09

Wars, IaSt1ng perhaps century OF
two, art will become less and less
important"
What does he find wrong with
America? he asks Everything, y
he answers. And he satirizes much
that goes on in sort of neo-
Mencken style. &C. B. j.
Evening star., 1947-11-09
George CreeI, Intimate of Presidents,
Recalls a Hectic Varied Public Life
Reviewed by HOMER JOSEPH DODGE
REBEL AT LARGE

Recolections of Fifty Crowded Years
BY George Creel. (G. P. Putnan,'s Sons; $3.75.)
Evening star., 1947-11-09

MorMcHugh's
War Novel
THE VICTORY

he VIZ IOHI
BY Vincent McHugh. (Random
House; $780,