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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 1939)
Sandburg’s 'War Years’ Is Finished Thirteen Years of Research, Writing Represented by Manuscript # _ After thirteen years of research, Carl Sandburg' has just delivered the complete manuscript of his “Abraham Lincoln: The War Years” to his publishers. This completes Sandburg’s life of Lincoln, the first two volumes of which, “Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years,” were published in 1926 and immediately assumed their place as an authoritative and classic biography of wide popular appeal. “The Prairie Years” has •* appeared in various editions and selections from it are in many school readers. The publishers esti mate that over $11,000,000 has been spent by the American public for copies of “The Prairie Years.” “The War Years” is at least five times as long as “The Prairie Tears.” The manuscript comprises some 3800 pages, and the three vol umes in which its publication is contemplated will contain some 800 pages each, together with pro fuse illustrations and a full index. It is hoped that production of the work will be completed in time for publication next autumn. It is not too much to say that, following the publication of “The War Years,” the reader need not ^ look elsewhere for any significant piece of authentic and now known Lincolniana except for verification. In addition to this chronicle, the work contains hundreds of bio graphical and critical sketches of the figures of the period. Many chapters, such as the one on the assassination of Lincoln, exemplify great reporting of an historical fact and prose writing of excep tional distinction and power. Zeiss Cameras, Agfa Film DOTSON’S MORRIS OPTICAL COMPANY OPTOMETRISTS— —OPTICIANS We offer you capable, convenient optical service It’s Better Service Now Recently this shop cause of the better quality and greater efficiency of work that the present Dwner can perform. STUDENT SHINE SHOP jf] Near the Mayflower ^ The Emerald Reader’s Page Editor: GLENN HASSELROOTH Contributors: Paul Deutschmann Joan Jenness Beginning: The Poet and The Playwright/ the Story Back in 1923 a verse play called “White Desert" was one of the biggest flops of the season. It was an honest, strong-meated piece of fare, filled with a deep insight into human frailties and strengths, but the customers did not like it. Scenting pungently of Edith Wharton and the age of Ethan Frame, it told of the trials of a North Dakota farmer whose jealousy drove him to accuse his wife of infidelity, of her reaction, as she was driven into the arms of a lover and finally murdered by the husband who finds that his fears have materialized America's Best Known Writer of Verse Plays Was Once a Newspaper Man; Before That, a Schoolmaster By GLENN HASSELROOTH because of his own distrust. The play was reasonably well motivated; it could not have been called melodramatic, but New Yorkres failed to be more than vaguely interested. They found nothing cheap or humorous about the tale of North Dakota marital troubles, but its tragic conse quences failed to exalt them as the playwright had hoped. The dramatist who wrote “White Desert" was Maxwell Anderson, erstwhile school teacher and ex newspaperman, who was trying to get theater goers interested in; plays written in verse. He was not a success yet, but he had come a long way from his days as the son of a humble Pennsylvania parson. Married in 1911 Anderson was born at Atlantic, Pennsylvania, on December 15, 1888. Before he hardly knew how to walk, his father had whisked him and his family westward. The Anderson family weathered vari ous pastorates in Ohio, Iowa, and finally North Dakota, where the young Maxwell, at the age of 19, entered the state university. He got |hi|S bachelor’s degree there and married Margaret Haskett in the same year, 1911. He received his master’s at Leland Stanford in 1914, soon was a member of the English faculty there, and later at Whittier college. But this was not wnat ne want ed. He wanted to write- -plays—• in verse. Until he would he able to get a firm foothold in the writ ing game, he would have to make a ltitle money; for a wife and children do have to eat. They could eat on the professor’s salary, but there was not too much extra time for Anderson to spend writing, so they headed back to North Dakota. The potential playwright had to keep up some kind of regular writ ing, even if it were gruelling journ alism, so be obtained work on the staff of the Grand Forks Herald. Worked on Chronicle But not for long. Soon he was back in California, where he worked successively on the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Call Bulletin. He made : more money writing editorials than he had teaching. Soon he began to contribute articles and poems to various magazine. The editors of the New Republic took notice, and it was not long before he was writing on the magazine's staff. With George O’Neil, Padraic Colum, Genevieve Taggard, Frank Hill, and others he helped found The Measure. Back in newspaper work once more, he wrote editor ials for the New York Globe and later the Morning World. It was during his days on this last-mentioned paper that Ander son wrote “White Desert.” He was J not badly discouraged and embit | tered because of its failure, at least i not far enough to make him give j up. He returned to his “grind” on ■tnmmmCTrarSimrarSirainllnllnirafnirararararnirrnfrilIrdrr M Ci| CU LJ UJ LJ lil lil LJ LJ HI UJ H.I HJI HJIHJL=Jk. IU UJ UJ ua t We All Know that ... I'ICUtmDUDilEdIDUl TIIE EYES are one of the most import ant organs of our body, but do we ail take the greatest possible pre caution with them. . . . Very few people do. Those people who go to school are the ones who suffer the most with thair eves \\ hv 3 ml Ir3 fol 173 Ful Ir3 fnl Fiil frO HU fn3170173 In] In3 fr3 f? for Comfort and "° in 10 s,“' Dr‘ Made at once and see <—' i f y o u don't n c e d glasses. COMPETENT SERVICE Dr. Ella C. Meade OPTOMETRIST ii West 8th Phone 'PJU the World, much wiser, much surer of dramatic technique: Much of what he knew he had learned from the leading man of “White Des ert," that versatile actor-director playwright, George Abbott, who had a fine knowledge of thorough theater-craft. ‘The Terror’ Flopped Conversations on the merits and faults of “White Desert" brought about collaboration of a play, I “Feud,” later called “The Terror” when produced by John Golden. It failed to add even the tiniest sparkle to the bright lights of Broadway. Anderson stayed on with tha World. There he became interested in the World war experiences of his co-worker, Laurence Stallings, who was anxious to write of his adventures. Stallings, having lost a leg in the war, was tired of all the pretty and phoney patriotism that had been so fashionable since the Armistice. The two decided to com bine the true facts into a play. What Price Hit? When "What Price Glory?” pro duced by Arthur Hopkins in the Plymouth theater, opened in New York the evening of September 3, 1024, the rumble of its gams echoed far beyond the stately palisades of the Hudson. Reverberations were heard far and wide, not only be cause it brought the stench of the trenches right to the very noses of the staid Manhattan crowds, but because it broke down the re strictions with which all the Puri tanical nice-nellies had literally bound and gagged the American theater. The cynical, wisecracking Cap tain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt not only called spades spades but hit the war-makers and each other over the head with them. But the playgoers lived through it, just as their British friends had lived through the immortal “bloody” that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had ex | pressed in Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” I and just as the same Americans a | decade later were going to endure the cursing and lechery of “To bacco Road.” Not only the relig ious groups attacked the profane idiom in which the men of the army [spoke, tan t the American Legion complained that it was a slander to the life of the American soldier. War the Villain But Anderson and Stalling:; were not worried. Their play had become one of the outstanding hits | of the twenties, they had unmasked many of the frauds and fallacies of the life "over there,’’ they had made memorable characters out of toughened blasphemers, who, in spite of their oaths and unadmir able traits, betrayed through their rough veneer qualities that were fundamentally generous, noble, and tender. 1 he playwrights had shown up war as the real villain of the piece. Its outstanding good points were two: 1) the revelation of the war business; and 2i the breakdown of the unwritten rules for stage dialogue. In the words of Stark Young, ‘“What Price Glory?’ had established new standards of truth in what had been a quibbling thea ter." Most important of all, Ander son was no longer a journalist, but a playwright. The Anderson-Stallings team v/as to continue for two more plays. “First Flight,” their second, was an amusing but superficial character study of the brash young redhead, Andrew Jackson, who courted with timidity but fought his duels with audacious enthus iasm. It had a great deal of "local i color." and lasted as long as it did [ only because New Yorker ■; thought | its broad humor and backwoods dialogue were "quaint." (Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of articles on Maxwell 1 Anderson which will be published ; on the Reader's page. The second i ’••.ill appem nt yatmslcy Oz—in Technicolor Finished in Hollywood and now awaiting general release is the filmization of an old childhood classic, ‘‘The Wizard of Oz.” Done in vivid technicolor fashion, the picture will star such favorites as (left to right) Jack Haley as the Tin Woodman, Hay Bolger as the Scare crow, Judy Garland as Dorothy, and Bert Lnhr as the Cowardly Lion. Tree of Liberty’ Proves Vigorous Historical Novel By PAUL DEUTSCHMANN For those who appreciate their history but shudder at the thought of dusty and pedagogical tomes, Elizabeth Page, in “The Tree of Liberty," has written a book that will be applauded. She has taken the turbulent revolutionary period, peopled it with some characters of her imagination, associated them with the actual leaders of those days, and fused the whole into an exciting and interest ing novel. The story traces the life of Matt Ploward, a Virginia frontiersman planter ana statesman. Me is an intimate of Jefferson, a political opponent of Hamilton, a member of Washington's staff, and closely connected with almost every im portant political event of the pe riod from 1770-1810. Miss Page presents a panorama of the times with her accounts of the Howard family, their personal and political fortunes and misfortunes, and their associations with other in dividuals. Theme of the book is the con flict between freedom and privi lege, personalized in Matt and his wife Jane. Though at times tedious through continuous repetition, the conflict is a stirring one, and in view of the present turbulent times, an appropriate one. Today, when the policies of the fathers of America, the fundamen tal principles of democracy, and a strange new creed of “American ism” are being discussed with vig or and violence, it is interesting to rediscover what men like Jeffer son, Washington, Hamilton, and others thought. Miss Page’s book, while it lays no claim to being a purely historical work, contains many excerpts from the speeches, letters, and writings of these char acters. She has done a wonderful job of setting her story in a realis tic background -a task which doubtless required many hours of careful research. To the reader of quickly-con sumed mystery novels, it might be said that the book is long and deep - definitely not something to be read in an evening. “Tree of Lib erty” is an important book, one which takes careful reading and thoughtful consideration for full appreciation. The book will be greeted enthu siastically by those who already Guaranteed Finishing LOT,SON’S PHOTO SHOT Chili 10c Best iii town! Sandwiches, 5c and 10c Drinks 1 BLUE BELL SANDWICH SHOP ! 1 966 Oak |] Between 9th and 10th §d CAR SERVICE | 1 I 1 I 0 $ I I |H 1012 Oak St. • Motor Tunc Up • Valve Service 6 Brake Service • Battery Recharging • Electrical Service Clark Battery & Electric Co. Phone 80 Oregon Paid Compliment By Villard The University of Oregon has been paid a handsome compli ment by Oswald Garrison Vil lard in his autobiography, “Fighting Years,” published last week. Speaking of a visit on the I University of Washington cam pus, the liberal editor is re minded of several gifts his fa ther, Henry Villard, made in the early days of the institution. . . curiously enough,” he writes, “the university has long since forogtten this whereas the University of Oregon always re members with every evidence of gratitude my father’s similarly generous gifts to what has now become a great university at Eugene . . Villard’s biography will be re viewed in next week’s Reader’s page. enjoy history; ttiose who hesitate before taking up chronologies will find it an interesting substitute; those who dislike the past will leave it alone. Clifford Odets’ Problems Of Play Composition Told In Discussion of Drama Material for 'Till the Day I Die' Given Playwright by Friend Who Had Smuggled Letter, Information Out of Germany Ity JOAN JEWESS Material for the play "Till the Day I Die” was given to Clifford Odets by a friend of his. who received the information in a letter which was smuggled out of Germany. Although the plot of the play is con fined to Germany and to German opinions the author does not lose his Bronx technique of writing the action could easily have been pictured in New York. The majority of plays and novels written on this subject deal with the persecution of the Jews, but Odets ignores this phase of the present German regime and cen ters his violent protest on the Hit ler Brown shirt activities against communists. The two main char acters, Carl and Ernest Tauzig, are shown as two brothers who are fighting together for the good of the Communistic party in which they believe but they prove to De two entirely different personali ties—one is selfish and bitter and the other is kind and forgiving. Odets presents Tillie as the girl who leads the two brothers out into the light by announcing that she and Carl are about to be the parents of a child born out of wed lock. The author tries to put her upon a pedestal and have the read ers feel sorry for her, but I think the days of quiet, hushed scenes are over. The people of today en joy the bloody gruesome facts. "Golden Boy” has the most forceful characters of all Odets’s plays, I believe, because it shows a young Italian boy, who is forced to make a decision between being a celebrated violinist some day or being a prize fighter of renown. Joe Bonaparte, the fighter, is used to life in the Bronx and he yearns for gaiety and money. So he eager ly accepts Promotor Tom Moody's offer to make him a “big-money" fighter in spite of the fact that his father has hopes of some day hearing him acclaimed one of the world's greatest violinists. Odets shows Joe as a simple ambitious boy with big ideas. He falls in love with Lorna Moon, Tom’s common law wife, thhus bringing about a suicidal ending for both Joe and' Lorna. Joe realizes that his poor broken hands could never again wield the bow of his violin with deftness and that his father’s broken heart could never be mended. So in a fit of madness he drives his Dusenberg over the cliff. Odets’ treatment of the characters’ actions and realis tic attitudes is very commendable, but the plot is a little worn. In 1936 “Paradise Lost” gained fan e cn Broadway. It is the story of a Jewish family and it deals with their financial situations, po litical beliefs, variety of confusion and their ultimate personal rela ,Shorthand-Typewriting Complete Business Course Ini versify Business College Edward L. Ryan, B.S., LL.B. Manager I.O.O.F. Building Eugene FRESHESTf Thing in Town • K O R N > s Double Milk Bread 400 14th East Phone 71 tionships. Seven people living in a three-roomed tenement house flat can present quite a scene of con fusion and strife, Clare rules the roost while Leo, her husband, works hard in his clothing store, but much harder on his schemes I for winning money on the sweep stakes, horse races, or any gam bling adventure. Their son Ben is the Adonis type with only high school and college track records and trophy cups to show. His wife, Libby, can face depres sion no longer, so she has an af fair with Kewpie, a crooked gam bler, and gains a few luxuries which satisfies her greedy taste. Julie is the youngest son and he faces death at anytime as he suf fers from sleeping sickness, but he amuses himself by thinking over each one of his family’s problems and knowing that soon God will lake him out of all this earthly misery. As a whole I thought that all of Clifford Odets’ plays were forceful and entertaining. His style of writ- j ing is simple and fast moving with little delay or loss of thought be tween scenes. His themes are real istic and appropos to the time. All of Odets plays have a kosher twang, and the characters’ craving for money tends to make one be lieve that the humanness of the plays might be too realistic to be subtle. Each character is a living individual with well defined ideas on life. No two characters ever think or act alike: There is a sense of duty to their religion on the part of the Jewish players, but the oth ers are cold and true to life with the attitude that only the fittest survive. (The End) Criticism of E.M. Forster In New Book Rose Macauley Gives Analysis Of Novelist's Life and Work Rose Macauley's new book, “The Writings of E. M. Forster,” is a critical study of the life and work of the celebrated English novelist who has not written a novel since “A Passage to India” appeared in 1924. Like so many others, Kis.s Macauley wonders if E. M. Fors ter will write another novel. “If it should be another novel of the contemporary scene, it would be exciting. He might catch its flickering aspect before the next great cataclysm. I do not know if there is anyone else now writing who has just the right mirror to catch all these shifting reflections, public events and passions impact ing on private, private distorted by public . . . Never has such stabil izing imagination as his been more needed to focus and interpret the human scene.” In her concluding chapter, Miss Macauley revives the old-fashioned word, doxies. It has a welcome sound to ears suffering from the percussions of the new-fangled word ideologies. E. M. Foster’s dox ies are summed up us follows by Miss Macauley: “From certain root beliefs in Morgan Forster, his political and public views and sympathies natur ally grow. He believes, for exam ple, in the permanent value and importance of human beings, and perhaps of their relationships with one another; he believes in cul tures, that can understand and re ceive beauty; and he believes in freedom, intellectual, social, and personal.” gwiiiiiimiiui.... | Your hair in a | pleasing- 5 J Coiffure 1 i ” a Modern equip 1 ment and per | sonal attention “ ixi my icoiucik-c | GRACE HALL j Beauty Shop Phone 3671-W 608 E. 13th =? = diiiimtiJiuiiiniiimiiiiiMiiiii.'iiimiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiuiiiniiiiiiiiiiniiinimniiitiiimirttmtiiiu t For a great time tonight . . . $ ! AWS "World's r* ■ n Fair I Carnival Come jon it lie l'mi tonight ill tin* I•>loo . . . See Smokey Whit field pick the campus’ best dancer . . . try your skill at sideshows just for fun and for the thrill of winning beautiful prizes . . . dance to Fred Beards ley’s orchestra . . . come in campus clothes ... no dates necessary. ♦ Dog Popularity Contest + Jitterbug Jamboree ♦ Games ♦ Dancing 4^ No Dates You fraternity men! Surround youself with «ra 1 s and come boost your dog on to victory. There’s a silver plated, engraved collar wait ing for the most popular “campus canine” . . We’ll be seein’ ya ! Ill . . . McArthur Court ttto 12 p.m. ix mtui ix * i. ti mini i i.x txj xxx«I.Afc*x-xx.» xxxxxj