Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-10-13

tense Of rugged individualism
ram Of a book. need no
warning that the road is up
hill all the way. Miss Rands
passionate. voluminous in
volved paen in praise Of the
profit system and cut-throat
competition is delivered at
the piercing. relentless pitch
of o shrek. Her prose is
ladled from q bottomless vat
Of molten lead.
Consuming Message
The use of charm and
humor she Spurns. Simple
humanity she has no time
for. The nuances Of char
acter interest her not at all.
1t is her message-against
the income tax. against char
ity, mysticism, Government
control Of business. and for
eign aid-that consumes her,
and for l.l67 closely written
pages. she pourS it on. To
give you an idea of the flavor,
one Of her three heroes, q
robber-baron who has gone
underground, as q playboy
holds q group at q wedding
reception spellbound with q
three-page discourse on the
glories Of unbridled business.
Unless and until you dis
cover that money is the root
Of all good. you ask for your
own destruction" he winds
up. not even breathing hard.
All the characters talk this
way. Miss Rand's heroine is
a superwoman named Dagny
Taggart. who runs q railroad,
and who is such an abrasively
competent. beautiful and i'm
FASHIONED a creature that she
makes the AmazonS seem like
Floradora girls. Dagny is the
granddaughter of Nat Tag
CART, who envied only one
mantle one who said, The
public be damned" He
wished he had said that.
Another thing Miss Rand
Is against is the Puritan mo-
rality which breaches the war
OF body and soul. Dagny Suf-
fers from no such sniveling
scruples and has affairs with
three geniuSes, one copper
mine owner. one metal tycoon
and one inventor of q motor
that could revolutionize the
world.
Key Symbol
The dollar sign, reverently
traced against the sky. is
the key symbol of this
swollen epic. And the sum-
nation Of the philosophy is
the last line of a 6O-page
climactic reStatement (al-
though by no means for the
last time) Of what they live
by: Il swear-by my life and
my love of it-that I will
never live for the sake Of
another man. nor ask another
man to live for mine"
Miss Rand presents her
soggy thunderbolt with
enormous technical ingenu-
ity. Her plot is as intricate
and interlocking as Dagny
Taggartt's coast to coast
railroad. There is a scene of
a railroad wreck in a tunnel
that is a laundering success.
The time is a period not so
far In the future when there
is a calendar hanging in the
sky Of New York. The hooters
and moochers. government
planners. that is. have, de-
spoiled the country Of its
wealth by stripping it for the
benefit Of whining have-nots
overseas. Now they are about
TO close in on the great en-
emies, the industrialists and
scientists. Their most mon
strous brainchild: The Uni
flcation Plan, which would
make products equally avail
able to all and chain every
man to his job.
In Utopia
As these things progress,
the big right-thinking indus
trialists have been disappear
ing mysteriously one by one,
and one busy night Dagny
pierces the ray screen which
hides their hideout and finds
herself in a Utopia Of strik-
ing tycoons where the jingle
Of the cash register is heard
once more. more beautiful
than the nightingale song.
Miss Rand is all for the
survival Of the flttest, dog
eat-dog. sGuUe qui peut and
other suchS bracing philoso-
phies in which there are. to
be sure, some merit, although
there must be a less battering
way Of indorsing them. But
a reader, immobilized by the
weight Of her book and her
displeasures. may upon nm