Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1950-09-22
The Mon Who Lived
Backward
By Malcolm Ross, Farrar,
Straus & Co., 461 PIP. $3.50.

The greatest adventure in life
is the unknown that the future
holds for US. Aside from eco
nomic security, or insecurity, as
the case may be, no one knows
what lies beyond the next bend
of time. Even in the field OF
economic security, the posses
sion of great wealth, uncertainty
is the rule rather than the ex-
ception. Too many great men,
fabulously wealthy men, have
suddenly found themselves pau
pers as a result of great social
and political upheavals to dis
prove this point.
II is rather intriguing, there
fore, to read a novel such as this
wherein the main character ac-
tually lives backwards. Such is
the story of Mark Selby who
was born in 1910 and died a few
hours after the tragic assassina-
ton of Pesident Lincoln in 1865.
In every other sense, however,
Mark Selby was a normal human
being. He grew from childhood
to a ripe old age, the same as
anyone else. The difference be-
ing that each day he awoke to
yesterday. Each day he knew
what would happen to others the
following day. However, he did
not know what his own future
held in store for him. So, in a
strange and fascinating fashion,
he went through life knowing
what lay in store for others, but
never knowing when and how
his own end would come.
Through the pages of this long
but interesting novel, Mark Sci
by has occasion to meet the great
and the near great. He meets
Woodrow Wilson, for example.
a dozen years before Wilson be-
came president. His association
with a brilliant, but alcoholic
newspaper reporter, S tephe r
Carr, is certainly bizarre. Fol
Stephen Carr comes into Selby'S
life when he is dead. Yet the fol
lowing day he is alive, although
already deathly ill. And SO il
goes with Selby knowing right
along how many days his FRIEND
Carr has to live.
To me, naturally enough, the
most interesting part Of the
novel deals with the great steel
strike in Homestead, Pa. Here
we find Selby, already wealthy
through stock market specula-
ton, consorting With Henry
Frick, Charlie Schwab and the
rest of the great steel moguls OF
the fabulous nineties. He tells a
fascinating story about how
these men of great wealth con-
spired to use Pinkerton's thugs
and when that wasn't enough,
the state militia to smash the
strike.
Selby takes us among the strik-
ing steel workers. Tells us what
these men were struggling for
higher wages, human dignity
their union. How familiar these
sound even today! 1.-THE days
coming when workers will speak
out in their lodges, knowing thai
none but Brothers applaud OF
oppose Them" Selby quotes Ton
Crawford, the strike leader. INC
spies. No blacklist" Crawford
Numbered to his listening ano
tense audience on the eve Of
their bloody battle with the
Pinkertons.
And when the strike was prac'
tically lost, with the state militia
protecting t h e scabs"
strikers began talking about 60
ing back to work on Frick'!
terms, Selby quotes another
striker thus:
-. I'd ruther die wi my
teeth in the throat of those sulk
ing bastards down there thar
live under their spyin' n craw
back to work on my belly as ;
stinkin' scab."
And so the story goes unit
Mark Selby, already an old man
makes a frantic attempt to reach
President Lincoln to warn hin
of Booths attempt on his life
Ironically he reaches the Fore
theatre two hours after the fata
shots were fired. He himself /
killed by the guards who wer'
guarding the MORALLY wounded
President.
True there r any number o
Inconsistencies in the novel. Blu
than the entire novel is incon
sistant with life itself. Neverthe
Iass II iS well worth the time O